God will wipe away every tear from their eyes . . . . There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. -Revelation 21:4
I had just finished preaching on the heartaches of life, when a couple approached me at the front of the church. The woman told me about the burden they bore as a family. Their young son had severe physical problems, and the strain of the constant care of this needy little guy, coupled with the heartache of knowing they couldn't improve his situation, sometimes felt unbearable.
As the couple shared, with tears in their eyes, their little daughter stood with them-listening and watching. Seeing the obvious hurt etched by tears on her mother's face, the girl reached up and gently wiped the tears from her mother's cheek. It was a simple gesture of love and compassion, and a profound display of concern from one so young.
Our tears often blur our sight and prevent us from seeing clearly. In those moments, it can be an encouragement to have a friend who cares enough to love us in our pain and walk with us in our struggles.
Even though friends can be a help, only Christ can reach beyond our tears and touch the deep hurts of our hearts. His comfort can carry us through the struggles of our lives until that day when God Himself wipes away every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:4). -Bill Crowder
He knows where the hurt is the deepest,
The tears of the night and the day,
And whispering softly, "I love you,"
He brushes the teardrops away. -Anon.
The God who washed away our sins will also wipe away our tears.
Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. -Exodus 18:24
In 1959, when Lee Kuan Yew assumed the position of Prime Minister of Singapore, his leadership began a long process of national transformation. Initially, disagreements between ethnic groups and a weak economic base made the future of this tiny nation uncertain. By 1990, when Lee stepped down from his position, Singapore had become a model country for ethnic harmony and a thriving economy. After serving as Senior Minister, Lee became Minister Mentor in 2004. Since then he has been an invaluable resource to Singapore's cabinet and to other leaders around the world.
Insights from the older generation can greatly benefit the younger generation. Although Moses had been used by God to perform miracles and deliver Israel out of bondage in Egypt, he still listened to the advice of his father-in-law Jethro (Ex. 18:24). Jethro had watched his son-in-law care for the concerns of the people and observed: "Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you" (v.18). Moses followed Jethro's advice to select, train, and delegate others to share the workload (vv.22-24).
Whom has God placed in your life to advise you as a "minister mentor"? -Dennis Fisher
Following Through
What are your weakest character traits?
Do you know a fellow believer who is strong in these areas?
Could that person become your spiritual mentor?
Those who are mature in the faith can help others to mature in their faith.
you must use the same devotional that I do :)
I get it from the Gospel Highway on the Internet.....and enjoy it and the gospel music, too.
Here in Longton we don't have good radio reception and the only station I know of to get Christian music is out
of Tulsa and just to far to get it on my radio........So I am very happy for the Internet.
AOYP
the best Christian radio station I know is KJIL/KHYM out of Meade but it is also too far away for the radio. It streams onto the internet but dial up doesn't work well for music :'(
Dare To Be Different
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:12-21
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. -2 Corinthians 5:20
Since my dad was a pastor, I got stuck with the label known to every pastor's kid: PK. But, much to the congregation's disappointment, the title didn't stop me from being my mischievous little self. I can't count the times I heard, "Little Joe, you're the pastor's son. You should be an example." But I didn't want to be an example! I was only 5 and wanted to have fun with my friends!
Let's face it, being an example is often about being different. But most of us don't want to be different. We want people to like us, and the safest way to do that is to blend in. But following Christ has never been about blending in. Following Him means to be like Him, to respond to life and relate to people as He did. It's a little risky and uncomfortable to be different. But that's what being an "ambassador for Christ" (2 Cor. 5:20) is all about-bringing the wonderful difference of your King to bear on the territory you've been assigned: your home, your office, your friendships. Representing the King is not just our calling; it's a great honor.
In retrospect, I can see how my antics as a PK reflected poorly on my dad. It's motivating to remember that our non-Jesus attitudes and actions also reflect poorly on our King.
Make a difference by daring to be different!
-Joe Stowell
Show me the way, Lord, let my light shine
As an example of good to mankind;
Help them to see the patterns of Thee,
Shining in beauty, lived out in me. -Neuer
Dare to be different-for the Father's sake.
Best In Show?
READ: Matthew 23:1-12
Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. -1 Samuel 16:7
Dog shows on TV can be entertaining. The dog owners are impeccably dressed and trot along with their pedigreed pooches as they show off their unique canine beauty. The dogs have been trained to stand confidently with chins lifted high, their shiny coats carefully brushed and styled. To me, they all look like winners.
But I wonder sometimes, when their audience is gone, what are these dogs really like? Do they ever relax and let their sleek fur get so matted they're mistaken for mutts? Does their doggie breath start smelling foul?
More important, what are we really like when nobody's watching? In Matthew 23:2-7, Jesus rebuked those who were interested in how they looked in public rather than how they were seen by God. He wants us to be obedient, faithful, and committed to Him-even when nobody else sees. The Pharisees focused on the way they were perceived by other people. God's focus is on what we're like inside. His desire is for us to look like His Son.
We're not in a competition with other Christians. God will never ask us to compete for "best in show." He measures us by the perfect standard of His Son (Eph. 4:13). And in love, He provides the righteousness we need so that we can be blameless before Him (Col. 1:21-23). -Cindy Hess Kasper
Just live your life before your Lord,
It matters not what others do-
Your actions will be weighed by Him
Who metes out judgment just and true. -Roe
Living for God's approval is better than living for man's applause.
Fighting a Spiritual Battle by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 17:1-15
Prayer is essential to the Christian life. God commands us to pray (Luke 11:2;18:1; I Thess. 5:17), and He uses people of prayer. What are the elements of an effective prayer life? First, we need God's ear--"hear me." David was praying for "a just cause"; he was concerned about God's will. But God won't hear us if we harbor deliberate sin in our lives, if we pray with "deceitful lips." He loves us too much to pamper us in our sins. To get God's ear, we must pray honestly, fervently and submissively. We must prepare our hearts for prayer.
Second, we need God's eye--"examine me." David could have killed Saul on two occasions, but by faith he left his vindication with the Lord. God knew David's heart. He probes our hearts when we pray. Often we are like Jacob; we pray and then meddle and scheme. We must not pray and then gossip. God's Word and prayer go together. If we live by the Word of God, it keeps us in the will of God.
Third, we need God's hand--"deliver me." The word save (vv. 7,13) means "deliver." Notice that David's response is one of submission, and God's response is one of service. King David asks the King of kings for help, and He responds to David's faith. His enemies think they have David, but God's power goes to work for him.
Finally, we need God's face--"satisfy me." If our praying doesn't make us more like our Lord, our praying is in vain (Josh. 24:15). God's goal is that we be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). But we don't have to wait for the resurrection; we can be changed daily through God's Word and through prayer.
The purpose of prayer is to accomplish the will of God, for us to become like Jesus.
God uses your prayers to accomplish His will, both in your life and in the lives of others. To be effective, your prayers need God's help. Make your prayer time an alignment to His Word and His will.
February 2
The heart of the issue
For reading & meditation: Job 21:11-16
"Yet they say ' 'Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?' ' But their prosperity is not in their own hands '" (vv. 14-16)
We come now to the heart of the issue with which the psalmist is struggling in Psalm 73: "Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning" (Psa.73:13-14). Permit me to paraphrase what I think he is saying: "Here I am, living a godly life, keeping my heart and hands clean, avoiding sin, meditating on the things of God and devoting myself to a life pleasing to God, yet despite this I am facing all kinds of troubles. What's the advantage in serving God if He doesn't protect me?" The problem, then, is not so much the prosperity of the wicked as the fact that he himself is passing through a period of great trial while they are getting off scot-free. We begin now to see the roots of the envy to which the psalmist referred earlier: "For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked" (v.3). Envy is born out of two things: ignorance and a wrong comparison. Take, first, a wrong comparison. "Almost all our problems," said Dr W.E. Sangster, "begin in a wrong comparison." How true this is. We compare our looks, our height, our income, our homes, our training and our abilities with those of others and soon we lose sight of our own individuality and specialness. To compare ourselves with Christ is a healthy spiritual discipline, but to indulge in comparison with those we think are more prosperous and fortunate than we are is the direct road to envy.
Prayer:
O God, save me, I pray, from the habit of wrongly comparing myself with others. Help me to satisfy the impulse I have for making comparisons only in a way that will yield spiritual gain - by comparing myself only with You. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 37:1-40; Proverbs 3:31
1. What is envy?
2. What is the result of envy?
God bless
It Looks Bad
READ: Psalm 12
I will set him in the safety for which he yearns. -Psalm 12:5
King David looked out at the world and was troubled. He didn't need the Internet to paint a bleak picture of society or The New York Times to remind him of crime and suffering. Even without a cable news show to give him all the bad news, he saw the evil.
He looked around and saw that "the godly man ceases." He noticed that "the faithful disappear." In his world, everyone spoke "idly" to his neighbor "with flattering lips and a double heart" (Ps. 12:1-2).
This description may sound like the theme of a TV show, but it was life, circa 1,000 BC. While we may view society's evils as much worse than anything before, David reminds us that evil is not a 21st-century innovation.
But David's words also give us hope. Notice his reaction to the bad news he bore. In verse 1, he turned to God and cried, "Help!" Then he implored God with specific needs. The response he got was positive. God promised that because He rules righteously, He would provide protection and safety (vv.5-7).
When you are discouraged by all the bad news, cry out for God's help. Then bask in the confidence of His assurance. Three thousand years after David, God is still, and always will be, in control. -Dave Branon
When through life's darkened maze I go
And troubles overwhelm my soul,
Oh, grant me, Lord, the faith to know
That You are always in control. -D. De Haan
We have nothing to fear, because God is in control.
A Song of Deliverance by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:1-6
Psalm 18 celebrates David's victory over his enemies. Notice the inscription at the beginning. This is the song David sang "on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul." David did not classify Saul as one of his enemies. Isn't that interesting? David was an enemy to Saul, but Saul was not an enemy to him.
We may not be able to prevent other people from being our enemies, but we can prevent ourselves from being enemies toward others. Our job is not to create problems and make enemies. Our job is to pray, to live for the Lord and to represent Him in all we do.
The Lord delivered David from all his enemies. The Hebrew language contains 23 different words for deliverance. The Jewish people knew something about deliverance. Throughout their history God had delivered them.
Who delivered David? God did. When did He do it? When David called upon Him. "I will love You, O Lord, my strength" (v. 1). As we look at verses 1-6, we find nine different titles for God: my God, my Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer, my Strength, my Shield, the Horn of my Salvation, my Stronghold, the Lord. Don't let that little word my upset you. You must lay hold of God personally and say, "He is my God. He is my Deliverer. He is my Salvation." Who delivers you? The Lord. When will He deliver you? When you call upon Him. "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies" (v. 3).
David learned how to trust God for deliverance. Although his circumstances were often difficult, God was his Stronghold, and David called on Him for help. Do you need deliverance? Is God your Deliverer? If so, you may call on Him for help.
February 3
Don't forget the parenthesis
For reading & meditation: Isaiah 11:1-9
"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes '" (v.3)
Yesterday we said that envy is born out of two things: ignorance and making wrong comparisons. Having seen how a wrong comparison can produce envy, we focus now on ignorance. How can ignorance give rise to envy? Far too often our judgments of people are based only on what we see, and we fail to take into account other things that may be going on in their lives. Years ago, A.C. Gardiner wrote a little essay on Lord Simon and spoke at length of his many successes. In one place he described him as "prancing down a rose-strewn path to a shining goal". Gardiner thought that success, in the measure Lord Simon had experienced it, was free of all sorrow. Then he remembered some of the bitter disappointments that Lord Simon had faced and so he added in parenthesis: "I speak here only of his public career." Many of us forget the parenthesis. We see simply the surface of our neighbours' lives and know nothing of their secret sorrows. If we saw beneath the surface of those lives we tend to envy - the hidden hurts, the emptiness, the heartaches, the guilt and the fears - then I doubt whether the emotion of envy would ever rise within us. But even if there were no secret sorrows we would still have no reason to envy others. God is the rightful Lord of all life: "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves" (Psa. 100:3, NKJ). Let us keep our eyes fixed only on Christ and resist all other attempts at comparison. Practise comparing yourself with Him, and only good will come out of it.
Prayer:
Blessed Lord Jesus, I see how easily the spirit of envy can filch away my peace and happiness. Uproot this rank weed in my heart and teach me to compare myself with none other but You. For Your own dear Name's sake. Amen.
For further study:
1 Corinthians 2:13; Psalms 89:6
1. What is it not wise to do?
2. What is the right way to make comparisons?
Becoming the "Filth of the World"
We have been made as the filth of the world . . . -1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or "filth of the world." "Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration-being "separated to the gospel of God . . ." ( Romans 1:1 ).
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you . . ." (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, "I won't submit; I won't bow or bend." And you don't have to- you can be saved by the "skin of your teeth" if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is "separated to the gospel . . . ." Or you can say, "I don't care if I am treated like 'the filth of the world' as long as the gospel is proclaimed." A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but "to reveal His Son in me. . ." ( Galatians 1:16 ).
Unlocking The Gate
READ: Numbers 5:5-8
When a man or woman commits any sin . . . against the Lord, . . . then he shall confess the sin which he has committed. -Numbers 5:6-7
When a man or woman commits any sin . . . against the Lord, . . . then he shall confess the sin which he has committed. -Numbers 5:6-7
Researchers at the University of Toronto reported in 2006 that people who are suffering from a guilty conscience experience "a powerful urge to wash themselves." To study this effect, the researchers asked volunteers to recall past sins. They were then given an opportunity to wash their hands as a symbol of cleansing their conscience. Those who had recalled their sins washed their hands at "twice the rate of study subjects who had not imagined past transgressions."
The Bible proposes the only effective way of dealing with sin-confession. In the Old Testament, one of the ways the Israelites were supposed to cleanse themselves and maintain purity before God and in their community was by confessing their sins (Num. 5:5-8). To confess means "to speak the same; to agree with; to admit the truth." When the people confessed to God, they were not telling Him anything He did not already know. But their confession was a demonstration of a change of heart. Refusing to confess their sins allowed sin to take deeper root within their lives and community.
Admitting our sin unlocks the gate so that we can have forgiveness, joy, and peace. If we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive (1 John 1:9). -Marvin Williams
If we would know God's power to heal
And cleanse us from within,
We must acknowledge when we're wrong-
Confessing it as sin. -Fasick
Confession is agreeing with God about our sin.
Not All Storms Are Bad by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:7-15
These verses present one of the greatest descriptions of a storm found in the Bible. It is a graphic picture of the way God works when He comes to the aid of His children. David was saying in these verses that God the Creator, God the Deliverer, used everything in nature to come to his aid. The earth shook, down to its foundations. Smoke came up, and fire came out. Coals were kindled. The heavens bowed down. The wind began to blow, for God was coming on the wings of the wind. We see darkness, dark waters, thick clouds, even hailstones and coals of fire. Thunder, lightning--the very breath of God was blowing across the fields.
When the child of God is in His will, all of nature works for him. When the child of God is out of His will, everything works against him. Remember Jonah? He ran away from God in disobedience, and what happened? A storm appeared. The wind and waves were violent. That little boat went up and down on the ocean like a cork. Even the mariners were worried. Jonah disobeyed God, and everything in nature worked against him. David obeyed God, and everything in nature worked for him.
God can use the storms of life to fulfill His will. Is the wind blowing? He is flying on the wings of the wind. Are the clouds thick? He will bring showers of blessing out of them. Don't be afraid of the storm. Storms can come from the hand of God and be the means of blessing.
Daily Devotionals Feb. 5, 2008
The Atrocious Mathematics Of The Gospel
READ: Matthew 18:23-35
The master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. -Matthew 18:27
From childhood we are taught how to succeed in the world of ungrace. "You get what you pay for." "The early bird gets the worm." "No pain, no gain." I know these rules well because I live by them. I work for what I earn; I like to win; I insist on my rights. I want people to get what they deserve.
But Jesus' parables about grace teach a radically different concept. In Matthew 18, no one could accumulate a debt as huge as the servant did (vv.23-24). This underscores the point: The debt is unforgivable. Nevertheless, the master let the servant off scot-free.
The more I reflect on Jesus' parables proclaiming grace, the more tempted I am to apply the word atrocious to describe the mathematics of the gospel. I believe Jesus gave us these stories to call us to step completely outside our tit-for-tat world of ungrace and enter into God's realm of infinite grace.
If I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor's prison and got instead a clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance. Instead, I got a banquet spread for me. -Philip Yancey
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth and giveth and giveth again. -Flint
© Renewal 1969 Lillenas Publishing Company
Our sin is great-God's grace is greater.
Come Out of Confinement by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:16-19
For several years David had been forced to live in confined places while he fled from Saul. More than once he fled to a cave to save his life. Then God brought him out of the caves and out of confinement and into a large place. "He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me" (v. 19). David was a man after God's own heart, and God delighted in him, just as He delighted in our Lord Jesus. God said of Him, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17).
We often talk about our delighting in the Lord. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Ps. 37:4). That's important to do. But what about God's delighting in us? As parents and grandparents, we enjoy delighting in our children and grandchildren. In a similar way God wants to delight in us.
Because God delights in us, He delivers us. And He uses the difficult experiences of life to make us bigger. "He also brought me out into a broad place" (v. 19). Verse 36 of this chapter says, "You enlarged my path under me." When God puts us into a large place, He has to give us larger feet. But don't stop there. In Psalm 4:1 David said, "You have relieved me." God delivers us so that He can put us into a larger place, so that He can enable us to take giant steps of faith for His glory. David had gone through several years of confinement, difficulty, persecution and sorrow. But when it was over, he was a bigger man.
Let the trials of life make you a giant, not a midget. Let God put you into a large place, where you can take giant steps of faith for His glory.
Life's trials are not easy. But in God's will, each has a purpose. Often He uses them to enlarge you. Are you feeling confined? Be encouraged that God delights in delivering you from confinement. Difficult times build your faith, if you let Him use them for His glory.
February 5
Starting at the bottom
For reading & meditation: Lamentations 3:19-27
"' my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope." (vv.20-21)
Now we come to the turning point of the seventy-third psalm - the point where the psalmist takes the first step toward the resolution of his problem. We must not forget that the purpose of this psalm is to show us how the writer solved his problem, so that when we get into the same kind of difficulty we can apply the same solutions. Here, then, is his first step: "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me" (Psa. 73:15-16). We see in these words what it was that arrested his feelings of doubt and despair - the thought that if he were to speak out of his discouraged heart he would put a stumbling block in someone else's path. "If I did that," he thinks to himself, "I would be untrue to the generation of God's children. So, rather than discourage others with my doubts, I will not say anything at all." Some might regard it as strange that the first step the psalmist took on the road to recovery should be one with such a low motivation. Indeed, there are those who have said it was unworthy of him and that he should not have allowed himself to get into that condition. Similarly, when people in the Church today confess to having "unspiritual" feelings, I am sure you have heard judgmental advice-givers address them with words like: "You ought not to feel like that!" But the point is that they do feel like that, and reality demands that we begin right where they are and not where we would like them to be. Personally, I do not care how low a person's stand might be as long as he or she is standing and not slipping.
Prayer:
Gracious and loving Father, teach me how to handle myself in a crisis and help me not to be too proud to begin at the lowest level. Better to have my feet on the lowest rung of the ladder than to be struggling in the mire. Amen.
For further study:
Hebrews 4:1-16; Matthew 9:36; Mark 1:41; Luke 7:13;
1. Why can we come boldly to the Lord with our feelings?
2. What will we obtain?
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)
If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all -Philippians 2:17
Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer- to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, "I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don't want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, 'Well done.' "
It is one thing to follow God's way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a "doormat" under other people's feet. God's purpose may be to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased . . ." ( Philippians 4:12 ). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket-to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted- not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 6, 2008
Peripheral Vision
READ: Luke 9:51-62
Now it came to pass, when the time had come for [Jesus] to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. -Luke 9:51
Peripheral vision enables us to be aware of our surroundings while remaining focused on our destination. What we see from "the corner of our eye" can be useful, unless it distracts us from our goal.
During the weeks leading to Easter, as we think about the cross, we may be struck by our Lord's purposeful approach to the city where He knew crucifixion and resurrection awaited Him. "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). From that moment on, Jesus' eyes were on the cross. Every obstacle to accomplishing His Father's will became part of His peripheral vision.
When a man professed an interest in following Him, Jesus told him: "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (v.62). The issue was probably not the man's family (v.61) but his focus. We can't move ahead while looking at what we've left behind.
Neither cries of "Hosanna" nor shouts of hatred could deter Jesus from His goal "to give His life a ransom for many" and to pay the price to set us free (Matt. 20:28).
Where is our focus today? -David C. McCasland
Some people follow Jesus Christ,
Then obstacles get in their way;
But if they'll focus on the Lord,
They won't be led astray. -Sper
You don't need to know where you're going if you know the One who does.
How Clean Are Your Hands? by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:20-29
No matter how difficult our trials are, if we have clean hands, God will fill them with blessing. "The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me" (v. 20). "Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight" (v. 24). David's hands were clean. His enemies were lying about him--those people in Saul's court who wanted Saul's attention and affection. They lied about David. They said, "Saul, David said this," but he never said it. "David is doing this to you," but he never did that. David's hands were clean. When our hands are clean and we are keeping the ways of the Lord, God will work for us. He will give us what we need, protect us and see us through.
God responds to us as we respond to Him. "With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; with the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd [opposed]" (vv. 25,26). We decide how close God will be, how much affection He will be able to show us. "He delivered me because He delighted in me" (v. 19). The Lord delights in children with clean hands and a pure heart. Integrity is the key word. David was a man of integrity. Saul was a man of duplicity. He was double-minded, looking in two directions at once. But David kept his eyes on the Lord.
When our hands are clean, no matter how difficult life may be, God will see us through. He will take us through any trial and enable us to bring glory to His name when it's all over.
God rewards us according to our righteousness. Are you keeping the ways of the Lord? If so, you may depend on His protection and strength. When your hands are clean, He sees you through your difficult trials and circumstances.
February 6
Stop and think!
For reading & meditation: James 1:12-20
"' Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry '" (v.19)
Yesterday we saw that the first step the psalmist took, the step which helped to save him from spiritual disaster, was most surprising. In the midst of overwhelming temptation, he says to himself: "If I give expression to my doubts and speak out of my envious, discouraged heart, I will put a stumbling-block in someone else's path - hence I will not say anything at all" (paraphrase mine). Now as we said yesterday, many people may find it difficult to accept this as the first step on the road to recovery - but it worked, nevertheless. Listen to what one commentator says about this first step: "Our reaction to the discovery of what his first step was in his process of recovery will be a very good test of our spiritual understanding." What does he mean? He means that if we fail to see that the steps of faith are sometimes very ordinary, then we are not as spiritual as we imagine. It's all right to have your head in the clouds, but make sure your feet are firmly planted on the earth! Keep in mind, then, that the thing which stopped the spiritual slide of the psalmist was very simple and ordinary - he made a decision not to say what was on the tip of his tongue. He stopped to think. Rather than spread his unbelief, he determined to keep his mouth shut; rather than threaten someone else's spiritual understanding, he resolved not to act on impulse. It might not have been a particularly high spiritual motive, but it was the thing that prevented him from falling.
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering . . . -2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don't deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
"Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar" ( Psalm 118:27 ). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents-burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose-the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don't eliminate it, God does. You "bind the sacrifice . . . to the horns of the altar" and see to it that you don't wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 7, 2008
Calling Myself
READ: Psalm 26
Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity. -Psalm 26:1
As I was moving my laptop, cell phone, and assorted books and papers from one room to another, the "regular" phone rang. I hurriedly set down my stuff and rushed to answer the call before the answering machine kicked in. "Hello," I said. No reply. I said hello again when I heard rustling, but still no response. So I hung up and went back to my stuff on the floor. When I picked up my cell phone I realized that I had accidentally speed-dialed my home phone number!
I laughed at myself, but then wondered: How often are my prayers more like calling myself than calling on God?
For example, when I am falsely accused, I plead with God for vindication. I want my name cleared and the guilty person held accountable for the harm done to my reputation. But then I get impatient with God and try to vindicate myself. I may as well be praying to myself.
Vindication does not come from self-defensive arguments; it stems from integrity (Ps. 26:1). It requires that I allow God to examine my mind and heart (v.2) and that I walk in His truth (v.3). This, of course, requires patient waiting (25:21).
When we call on God, He will help us-but in His perfect time and in His perfect way. -Julie Ackerman Link
I prayed: the answer long deferred
Brought not the thing I sought;
He answered better than my plea,
Yes, better than my thought. -Anon.
The purpose of prayer is not to get what we want, but to become what God wants.
Delighting in God by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:20-27
God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us. He is the God of the individual believer through Jesus Christ, and He delights in us just as we delight in those we love. The highest and holiest experience we can have is the worshipful delight of the Lord.
This passage gives us insight into how we can delight in God and how He delights in us. First, how does one delight God? By one's character. David had integrity (v. 20). He was not free from sin, but his heart was devoted to God. Righteous means "obedient." David was obedient (vv. 21,22). He had the Word of God in his heart. God delights in us when we do what He wants us to do the way He wants us to do it (Matt. 3:17). What counts is that He delights in what we do, not what our neighbors think about us.
Second, how does God deal with those in whom He delights? He treats us the way we treat Him (vv. 25-27). We are as close to God as we want to be. David was wholly devoted to Him, so God was able to bless him. David was merciful to those who wronged him; God was merciful to him (v. 25). David was loyal; God was loyal to him (v. 25). David was pure, submissive and humble.
In contrast, Saul was devious. Shrewd means "to wrestle." God wrestles with us (as He did with Jacob) when we are perverse and devious. Parents often wrestle with their children when it comes to discipline. God wrestles with us to bring us where He wants us to be; then He can delight in us.
Third, how can we increase our delight in God and His delight in us? Believe that He wants you to be happy; happiness and holiness go together. Submit to and enjoy God's will, but not grudgingly. He will give us the best. When we delight in Him and He delights in us, life becomes delightful, and we bring glory to our Father's name.
Delighting in God is an expression of your personal relationship with Him. His delight in you is an expression of His love for you. Be the kind of person who delights God. Walk with integrity and obey His Word. He will bless you and use you to bring glory to Himself.
February 7
We do what we choose to do
For reading & meditation: Proverbs 18:15-21
"The tongue has the power of life and death '" (v.21)
We are seeing that the first step the psalmist took to save himself from falling was stopping himself from saying what was on the tip of his tongue. In other words, he took himself in hand. This is an extremely important issue. What a lot of heartache would be saved if Christians would take heed to this and learn to put a bridle on their tongues. Expressions which convey the idea that the Lord acts unjustly or unkindly, especially if they fall from the lips of men and women who have a long experience in the Christian life, are as dangerous as sparks in a timber factory. Despite his doubts, the psalmist recognised the importance of self-discipline, and that proved to be a saving virtue. People sometimes claim: "It is impossible for me to control what I say. It slips out before I realise what I've said." This is nonsense, of course, for what we say is the result of what we choose to say. Sometimes we may feel as though we have no control over what we say, but that is all it is a feeling. Dr Lawrence Crabb, a Christian psychologist, tells us: "The loss of felt choice does not mean the loss of real choice." When you give a person "a piece of your mind", as we say, there is always a moment, albeit a split second, when you can choose to speak out or stay quiet. We cannot hide behind the excuse that our tongue is not under our control. What we do is what we choose to do. The psalmist, though beset by many doubts and difficulties, chose to control his tongue - and so can you.
Prayer:
Father, help me see that the things I do and say are not the result of compulsion but of choice. I am free to obey or free to disobey. Help me to use my freedom in the right way. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
James 3:1-18; James 3:1-18; Luke 21:15;
1. What does James teach about the tongue?
2. What are we to ask God for?
Spiritual Dejection
We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened -Luke 24:21
Every fact that the disciples stated was right, but the conclusions they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that has even a hint of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If I am depressed or burdened, I am to blame, not God or anyone else. Dejection stems from one of two sources- I have either satisfied a lust or I have not had it satisfied. In either case, dejection is the result. Lust means "I must have it at once." Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Himself who gives the answer. What have I been hoping or trusting God would do? Is today "the third day" and He has still not done what I expected? Am I therefore justified in being dejected and in blaming God? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get ahold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected, because dejection is a sign of sickness. This is also true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.
We look for visions from heaven and for earth-shaking events to see God's power. Even the fact that we are dejected is proof that we do this. Yet we never realize that all the time God is at work in our everyday events and in the people around us. If we will only obey, and do the task that He has placed closest to us, we will see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes to us when we learn that it is in the everyday things of life that we realize the magnificent deity of Jesus Christ.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 8, 2008
The Secret Garden
READ: Proverbs 4:20-27
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. -Proverbs 4:23
The Secret Garden, a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, tells the story of Mary, a young girl who goes to live with her wealthy uncle Archibald on his estate in England. Mary gets to know Dickon, a working-class boy who loves nature. The two children discover a fenced-in garden that Mary's uncle has locked up because it reminds him of his deceased wife. The garden looks dead because of neglect, but Dickon assures Mary that, with proper tending, it will recover with new life. With the children's help, "the secret garden" eventually bursts forth with colorful, fragrant blooms.
All of us have a secret garden of the heart. How we tend it will determine what speech and behavior it produces. Proverbs wisely admonishes us: "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23). The word keep means "to watch or guard with fidelity." Guarding what we take into our hearts and monitoring our response will determine what takes root there. As we remove the thorns of resentment, weeds of lust, and roots of bitterness, we can replace them with the fruit of the Spirit: "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23).
Are you tending the garden of your heart? -Dennis Fisher
Think not alone of outward form;
Its beauty will depart;
But cultivate the Spirit's fruits
That grow within the heart. -D. De Haan
God wants you to water the seed He's planted in your heart.
Giving Us Hind's Feet by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:30-36
Life is 10 percent how you take it and 90 percent what you make it. Notice the repetition of the word make in verses 30-36: "It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect" (v. 32). I like verse 35: "You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great." Why does God permit difficulties to come to our lives? Sometimes He has to break us before He can make us. Sometimes He has to reveal to us what we're really like before He can make us into what He wants us to be.
David went through some difficulties. As a young man he was anointed by God as His chosen servant. He won great victories and was destined to be God's next king on the throne. And what happens to him? He becomes a fugitive. He's chased from place to place by a godless man. He's persecuted by people who lie about him. What in the world is God doing? God is making him. He is taking David's life and making him all he ought to be.
Verse 33 says, "He makes my feet like the feet of deer, and sets me on my high places." God wants to make our feet ready for His way and make us more like Jesus Christ. God wanted David to go higher. He wanted David to have feet like hind's feet that could bound over the mountains and rocks. He didn't want David to sit still, complain and pout as Elijah did later.
God gently deals with us (v. 35). It didn't look like gentleness at the time, but when David later reflected over all those years of persecution, he said, "I see the gentle hand of God in all of this." God wants you to go higher and farther. Let Him make you.
The path of your walk with God is lined with both trials and blessings. When the way becomes rough and difficult He promises sure footing to get over the obstacles. Are you traveling a rough path today? Perhaps God is using this time to make you more like Jesus Christ. Let His gentle hand make you.
February 8
Selective expression
For reading & meditation: John 2:13-17
"How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" (v.16)
We continue thinking about the psalmist's decision to take himself in hand and refrain from relaying his doubts to others. I feel it important at this point to say a further word about repression and expression. Christians, we said earlier, are never to pretend about anything. Whether we worry, covet, resent, hate, we are to acknowledge the reality of who we are at any given moment. Fully admitting to ourselves and to God that we are angry, worried or full of doubts, is not sin. It becomes sin when we constantly focus on it and allow it to drag us down into despair. But does this mean that in order to experience emotional health we must let everything out and tell everybody exactly how we feel? The clear answer to that question is "No", but it is an answer that must be qualified. For example, when seeking help from a counsellor or minister, it would be right to share exactly how you feel. The principle I suggest we adopt in relation to this is as follows: we may express our acknowledged emotions only when such expression is consistent with God's purposes. This is a critical point and it must be understood. The cure for repression is not to "let it all hang out" but to be selective, expressing only those emotions that are in harmony with God's will. We must freely admit to ourselves and to God what is happening to us, but then we must carefully and selectively consider whether it is right and in line with God's purposes to share what we feel with others.
Prayer:
Gracious and loving Father, help me to be honest with my feelings, yet willing to subordinate the expression of them in both timing and manner to Your perfect will. In Jesus' Name I ask it Amen.
For further study:
Luke 24:13-35; Galatians 6:2-5;
1. What did Jesus encourage as He walked with the disciples?
2. How did He bring perspective to them?
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God's point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God's purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." ( John 17:19 ). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul's prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23 ). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person's life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's work in us?
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 9, 2008
Life Beyond The Rituals
READ: Mark 1:16-20
They immediately left their nets and followed Him. -Mark 1:18
A royal dignitary was greeting residents at a nursing home, when he was surprised by the unresponsiveness of one woman who just sat there and stared at him. Finally, the dignitary asked, "Do you know who I am?"-to which the woman responded: "No. But that nurse over there helps us with those kinds of things."
Many people are confused about who Jesus is. But through His Word, God helps us know and enjoy the real Jesus. You will find Him wonderfully compelling. Tough fishermen, tax collectors, and zealots gave up everything to follow Him (Mark 1:18). Women felt safe with Him. Crowds stood in awe of His power and authority.
Jesus is not content to be just our "fire insurance," saving us from eternal punishment in hell. Rather, He wants us to know Him for who He really is, and He desires to connect with us on a deeper, more personal level.
If you are weary of a religion that is about rules and regulations, then welcome to life beyond the rituals. Welcome to a relationship in which you can find companionship, comfort, wisdom, and reality. Welcome to the wonderful privilege of getting to know Jesus and the joy of following Him.
Get to know Him-and you'll grow to love Him more and more each day. -Joe Stowell
Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed their blood?
But our Jesus died to have us
Reconciled in Him to God. -Newton
To know Jesus is to love Jesus.
Revealing What's Inside by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:37-45
We must remember that David's enemies were God's enemies and that he was fighting the Lord's battles. As Christians, we are taught to pray for our enemies and to do good to those who despitefully use us (Matt. 5:44). David did that. He prayed for Saul, and on at least two occasions, he could have killed him but didn't. David had the right attitude toward Saul, but Saul did not have the right attitude toward David. As we read verses 37-45, we need to remember that David was not carrying out a personal vendetta. When he talked about his enemies, he was talking about God's enemies. He was the instrument God used to accomplish His purposes against those who opposed Him.
We find an interesting point in verse 42: "Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind." David had grown spiritually (Ps. 19,36). When God enlarged him, his perspective changed. His enemies became as small as the dust. You see, circumstances reveal character. People say, "A man is made by a crisis." No, a crisis does not make a person. It reveals what that person is made of. When the crisis came, Saul and his crowd grew smaller and smaller as their true nature was revealed. But David grew bigger and bigger. He was also established (v. 36), while his enemies became like the dust that the wind blows away.
Are your circumstances making you smaller or bigger? Are they enabling you to overcome, or are they overcoming you? David rejoiced that God kind given him victory in spite of his enemies and circumstances. The victory is the Lord's. Let your circumstances make you bigger and greater for Him.
February 9
A mature response
For reading & meditation: Galatians 5:16-26
"But the fruit of the Spirit is ' self-control." (vv.22-23)
So important is the point we raised yesterday - the need for selective expression - that we will spend another day considering it. Listen to how the Amplified Bible translates Psalm 73:15: "Had I spoken thus and given expression to my feelings, I would have been untrue and have dealt treacherously against the generation of your children" (emphasis mine). Notice that although the psalmist experienced strong feelings of uncertainty, he refrained from expressing these emotions because they would have had a negative effect upon his brothers and sisters. He acknowledged his emotions, but he refused to express them because he knew they would hurt and hinder the family of God. Expression of our feelings with no thought of another's welfare amounts to sinful, selfish indulgence. We must allow ourselves to feel the full weight of our emotions but then subordinate their expression to the purposes of God. Only if it is Gods will for us to share those feelings with others must we do so. Thus the apostle could write stinging words of rebuke to the Corinthian church because his words were in harmony with God's purposes. We have to be on our guard here, because whenever we feel angry, and vent our anger on someone, it is so easy to justify our angry feelings by saying, "God wanted to use me to teach you a lesson."It more often than not, if we examine our hearts we will find that our goal was not the will of God but the desire to get those angry feelings out from inside us. Selective expression of feelings is a mature and spiritual response; indiscrimate expression is immature and unspiritual.
Prayer:
Gracious God and loving heavenly Father, forgive me for the times I have hurt others by the indiscriminate expression of my negative feelings. Help me understand and apply this principle of "selective expression" In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
1. What is to govern our sharing?
2. Why are we to be self-controlled?
Are You Exhausted Spiritually?
The everlasting God . . . neither faints nor is weary -Isaiah 40:28
Exhaustion means that our vital energies are completely worn out and spent. Spiritual exhaustion is never the result of sin, but of service. Whether or not you experience exhaustion will depend on where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter, "Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing with which to feed them ( John 21:17 ). The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people's souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely- to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.
Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God? If so, then renew and rekindle your desires and affections. Examine your reasons for service. Is your source based on your own understanding or is it grounded on the redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually look back to the foundation of your love and affection and remember where your Source of power lies. You have no right to complain, "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that He is your supply. "All my springs are in you" ( Psalm 87:7 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 10, 2008
Ending Escalation
READ: Matthew 5:38-48
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. -Matthew 5:39
The pastor of an inner-city church told his congregation: "Some people believe in 'an eye for an eye.' But in this neighborhood, it's two eyes for an eye. You can never even the score; you can only raise the stakes." The people nodded in solemn understanding of the reality they faced each day.
We've seen it happen on a school playground or in our own homes-a child bumps into another during a game. The one who was bumped pushes back, and the shoving quickly grows into a fight. It's the process of retaliation and escalation in which each act of revenge exceeds the one that provoked it.
In Matthew 5, Jesus tackled a number of key relational issues by raising the standard to the one that pleases God: "You have heard that it was said . . . . But I tell you . . ." (vv.38-39). His words about turning the other cheek, going the second mile, and giving to those who ask may sound as radical and unrealistic to us as they did to those who first heard them (vv.38-42). Are we willing to ponder and pray about His teaching? Are we ready to apply it when we are wronged at home, at work, or at school?
The cycle of escalation can be broken when a courageous, faith-filled person refuses to strike back. -David C. McCasland
Lord, help me not retaliate
When someone wants to pick a fight;
Instead, give me the strength and faith
To show Your love and do what's right. -Sper
To return good for good is natural; to return good for evil is supernatural.
David's Doxology by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 18:46-50
David closed this long psalm of triumph and victory with a doxology. "The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted" (v. 46). David had been a fugitive. He had been waiting for the day when he could ascend the throne. Now the day had come. How did he respond? He glorified God.
I suppose some of us would have said, "Well, my enemies are gone. Now I can do what I please. My battles are over. I've been put into a large place. Therefore, watch out everybody, here I come!" But David didn't have that attitude at all. He gave glory to God. He ended his song with a hymn of praise to the One who had delivered him. "Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the Gentiles, and sing praises to Your name" (v. 49). Here was David, a Jew, saying, "I want these Gentiles to know how great my God is." Are you concerned about letting the nations know how great God is? Are you burdened to tell the Gospel to other people? If the Lord has saved you and delivered you, then you should be telling others what He has done for you.
David closed his song of victory by blessing the Lord. "The Lord lives!" (v. 46). Isn't it good to know that we trust in the living God? Some people may worship a dead god, but we don't. We are the children of the living God. David said, "God is alive, and He is my rock and my salvation. I want Him to be exalted." And he concluded, "Great deliverance He gives to His king" (v. 50).
How do you respond after a victory? So often Christians fail to exalt the Lord. You trust in a living God, who protects you and delivers you. He deserves your worship and praise. Have you given God the glory for your victories?
February 10
Consider the consequences
For reading & meditation: Nehemiah 6:9-13
"But I said, 'Should a man like me run away? ' I will not go!'" v.11)
We continue meditating on the fact that the psalmist, though filled with doubts about the goodness of God, nevertheless refrained from expressing those doubts to others. He carefully considered what effect his action might have on the family of God. Nothing that we do in life is without consequences. Someone has put it like this: "Every effect has a cause and every cause produces an effect." Many of our difficulties in life arise from the fact that we forget the principle that consequences follow our actions. The devil often inveigles us into thinking that the situation we are in is an isolated event, and he gets us to believe that what we do, or are about to do or say, will have little or no effect upon others. He is exceedingly skilful at getting us to become preoccupied with the thing he puts before us. This one thing on which we focus then takes up our whole attention and we become oblivious of everything else, including the results that may follow our actions. Troubled though the psalmist was, in his heart he considered the consequences of his actions. And this is what Nehemiah did in the passage before us today. A false "friend" came to him and told him that he should not risk his life. The proposition undoubtedly appealed to him, but Nehemiah considered the consequences and stayed where he was. If he hadn't, the whole course of Israel's history would have been changed. Believe me, this one principle alone - of carefully considering consequences - would be the means of saving us from endless difficulties if we were to take it and consistently apply it.
Prayer:
Father, how grateful I am that Your inspired Word teaches me the when next I am tempted. May I obey Your Word and not just hear it. In Christ's Name I pray. Amen.
For further study:
Galatians 6:1-9; Hosea 8:7; Hosea 8:7; James 3:8-9;
1. What is the principle of sowing and reaping?
2. What are words like?
Is Your Ability to See God Blinded?
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things . . . -Isaiah 40:26
The people of God in Isaiah's time had blinded their minds' ability to see God by looking on the face of idols. But Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their power to think and to visualize correctly. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in nature and will realize that it is holy and sacred. We will see God reaching out to us in every wind that blows, every sunrise and sunset, every cloud in the sky, every flower that blooms, and every leaf that fades, if we will only begin to use our blinded thinking to visualize it.
The real test of spiritual focus is being able to bring your mind and thoughts under control. Is your mind focused on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Is it your work? Is it your idea of what a servant should be, or maybe your experience of salvation and sanctification? If so, then your ability to see God is blinded. You will be powerless when faced with difficulties and will be forced to endure in darkness. If your power to see has been blinded, don't look back on your own experiences, but look to God. It is God you need. Go beyond yourself and away from the faces of your idols and away from everything else that has been blinding your thinking. Wake up and accept the ridicule that Isaiah gave to his people, and deliberately turn your thoughts and your eyes to God.
One of the reasons for our sense of futility in prayer is that we have lost our power to visualize. We can no longer even imagine putting ourselves deliberately before God. It is actually more important to be broken bread and poured-out wine in the area of intercession than in our personal contact with others. The power of visualization is what God gives a saint so that he can go beyond himself and be firmly placed into relationships he never before experienced.
God bless
(I thought if you wanted to read more of this, or just what to see where I get the devotions, that I would give the web
address.
This is a great site for gospel music and just plain enjoyment) I will still continue to do the daily devotions AS long as God leads me to it and I can......but if you are like me, a little more can sometimes feel good
and I do love to share.
Hugs and God bless..........Aoyp, too. Judy
www.thegospelhiway.org
www.fellowship-katy.org
Daily Devotionals Feb. 11, 2008
The Wounds Of A Friend
READ: 2 Samuel 12:1-13
Faithful are the wounds of a friend. -Proverbs 27:6
Not everyone appreciates correction, but David did. He felt indebted to those who corrected him and realized how much he owed them. "Let the righteous strike me; it shall be a kindness. Let him rebuke me; it shall be as excellent oil; let my head not refuse it" (Ps. 141:5).
Correction is a kindness, David insists, a word that suggests an act of loyalty. Loyal friends will correct one another, even when it's painful and disruptive to relationships to do so. It's one of the ways we show love and help one another to grow stronger. As Proverbs 27:6 states: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend."
It takes grace to give godly correction; it takes greater grace to receive it. Unlike David, who accepted Nathan's correction (2 Sam. 12:13), we're inclined to refuse it. We resent the interference; we do not want to be found out. But if we accept the reproof, we will find that it does indeed become "excellent oil" on our heads, an anointing that makes our lives a sweet aroma wherever we go.
Growth in grace sometimes comes through the kind but unpleasant correction of a loyal friend. Do not refuse it, for "he who receives correction is prudent" (Prov. 15:5) and "wise" (9:8-9). -David H. Roper
When others give us compliments,
They are so easy to believe;
And though it's wise to take rebukes,
We find them harder to receive. -Sper
Correction from a loyal friend can help us change for the better
Seeing God by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 19:1-14
Psalm 19 is so familiar to us. The first six verses talk about the glory of God seen in creation. Verses 7-11 talk about the glory and grace of God revealed in the Word, and verses 12-14 talk about God speaking to our hearts. He is revealed in the skies, in the Scriptures and in our own hearts and souls.
Even though creation is in travail because of sin (Rom. 8:22), God's glory is revealed there. Someone has said that if the stars came out only once every thousand years, we'd stay up all night and look at them in awe and wonder.
David gives us two pictures of facing each day. The first is like a bridegroom coming out to meet his bride with wonderful hope and love and joy. The second is like a strong man running a race. David tells us to live a day at a time and to start each day with glory and grace and a goal to be reached.
Unfortunately, some people know only the God of creation. They admire the God of wisdom, power and providence, who made everything. But it's not enough to know only the Creator. We must know God as the Savior. This is why Psalm 19 talks about His revelation in the Word. The Bible is flawless. We can trust it, test it and taste it (vv. 9,10). We need to have this Word in our hearts, and then we can have God living in our hearts as our Savior.
This reminds me of the Wise Men who came to see Jesus. They saw the message up in the heavens. Then they followed the star, and that led them to the Scriptures. The priests told them from the prophetical books where the Messiah would be born. Then they went and worshiped Him.
God reveals His glory in several ways. It's easy to admire God the Creator. But have you trusted His Word? Have you tested and proved it in the furnaces of life? Have you tasted it to find out how sweet it really is? Don't worship only the God of creation or the God of revelation. Let Him be the God of salvation in your heart.
February 11
Say nothing unless it is helpful
For reading & meditation: Colossians 4:2-6
"Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt '" (v.6)
From what we have been seeing over the past few days, it is clear that although the psalmist was struggling with doubts about the goodness of God,he took a stand on something he knew to be right. He realised that if he were to speak as he was tempted to speak, the immediate consequence would be the hurt of God's people - so he chose to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. He was not sure about the goodness of God but he was sure it would not be right to be a stumbling-block to God's children - and he held on to that fact. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in one of his sermons: "When you are puzzled and perplexed the thing to do is to try and find something of which you are certain, and then take your stand on it. It may not be the central thing; that does not matter." Note the words: "it may not be the central thing". We can struggle in the midst of our doubts, waiting for some great revelation to hit us, and fail to apply the remedy that is immediately to hand. The psalmist saved himself from slipping by saying to himself: "My heart is full of uncertainties and I cannot say with conviction that God is good. But one thing I am certain of: it is wrong to hurt others because of my own doubts. Therefore I will say nothing." We should be careful about how we express our doubts to other Christians, especially those who are immature. This principle applies also to non-Christian friends, partners, or family members. If we can say nothing helpful we should say nothing at all. The psalmist determined to say nothing until he could say: "God is good to Israel." Then he was entitled to speak.
Prayer:
Gracious and loving God, I can do no better today than frame my prayer in the words of Your servant David: "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips." Help me, my Father. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Malachi 2:1-8; Isaiah 57:14; Romans 14:13; 1 John 2:10;
1. What had the words of the priests become?
2. What are we not to put in our brothers way?
Is Your Mind Stayed on God?
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You -Isaiah 26:3
Is your mind stayed on God or is it starved? Starvation of the mind, caused by neglect, is one of the chief sources of exhaustion and weakness in a servant's life. If you have never used your mind to place yourself before God, begin to do it now. There is no reason to wait for God to come to you. You must turn your thoughts and your eyes away from the face of idols and look to Him and be saved (see Isaiah 45:22 ).
Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. You should seek to be "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). This will be one of the greatest assets of your faith when a time of trial comes, because then your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. When you have thoughts and ideas that are worthy of credit to God, learn to compare and associate them with all that happens in nature-the rising and the setting of the sun, the shining of the moon and the stars, and the changing of the seasons. You will begin to see that your thoughts are from God as well, and your mind will no longer be at the mercy of your impulsive thinking, but will always be used in service to God.
"We have sinned with our fathers . . . [and] . . . did not remember . . ." ( Psalm 106:6-7 ). Then prod your memory and wake up immediately. Don't say to yourself, "But God is not talking to me right now." He ought to be. Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Encourage yourself to remember, and your affection for God will increase tenfold. Your mind will no longer be starved, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 12, 2008
Dwell With Understanding
READ: Ephesians 5:25-33
Husbands . . . dwell with [your wives] with understanding . . . that your prayers may not be hindered. -1 Peter 3:7
My wife, Marlene, and I have been married for some 30 years, and have learned to appreciate each other and enjoy each other's unique qualities. But even after all these years she still surprises me from time to time. Recently, she reacted to a news report in a way that was opposite to what I expected. I told her, "Wow, that shocks me. I never would have thought you would land there on this issue." Her response? "Your job is to figure me out, and my job is to keep you guessing!" The responsibility to understand your spouse is what keeps married life interesting and stretching.
This is an ancient challenge. Peter wrote: "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Peter 3:7). He saw it as a priority for the husband to become a student of his wife-to know and understand her. Without that commitment to understanding his spouse, a husband is not capable of doing what comes next-honoring her.
As a husband, if I am to love my wife as Christ loves the church (Eph. 5:25), it will begin with the intentional effort to grow in my understanding of her. -Bill Crowder
FOR FURTHER STUDY
For practical biblical advice on how to improve your marriage, check out Building Blocks To A Strong Marriage at www.discoveryseries.org/q0801
Marriage thrives in a climate of love and respect.
The Perfect Word by Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 19:7-14
The revelation of God in nature prepares us for His revelation in the Scriptures. Ultimately, Jesus Christ reveals Himself as Savior. This was the experience of the Magi (Matt. 2). the light of nature led them to the light of the Word, which led them to the Light of the World.
The Bible meets the needs of the human heart. No other book is like it. It is God's testimony. Its name is the Law of the Lord. The sun is to creation what the Law is to God's people, bringing light, warmth, life and growth.
The Bible's nature is perfect and pure. The Bible is called the fear of the Lord because we need a reverential, holy, awesome fear of God (v.9). We teach God's Word because it enlightens (v.8). We trust it because it is true and righteous (v.9). We treasure it because it is more desired than gold (v. 10). We may even "taste" the Word and test it.
The Bible satisfies every need. It converts the soul. It warns us. There is great reward in keeping the Law. It's a wonder that with God's revelation in nature and Scripture so many people are blind.
The Bible is the book of our heart. Every time we read a book, watch TV or listen to a speaker, something is being written on our hearts. Let God write His Word on your heart. The heart sees what it loves. When we love the Lord with our hearts, we see Him in creation and in the Scriptures.
If God is your Redeemer, He can be your Strength. Live acceptably in His sight, allowing the meditation of your heart to please Him. Then your life will be what He wants it to be.
God is more than the God of creation and the Scriptures; He is the God of redemption. If your heart is filled with Him and yielded to Him, you can have victory over sin. Don't simply worship the God of nature. Get into the Word of God and let God get into you.
February 12
When you fall - others fall
For reading & meditation: Romans 14:5-13
"For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone." (v.7)
It seems almost unbelievable that the thing which stopped the psalmist's feet from slipping and sliding was not the awareness of his relationship with God but the awareness of his relationship with his brothers and sisters. It might not have been the highest spiritual principle he could have held on to, but it saved him from disaster. It is this matter - our relationship with one another - that Paul is speaking about in today's passage. You will be familiar, I am sure, with the passages in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 where Paul enlarges on this subject and where, in a remarkable statement, he says: "I mean for the sake of his conscience, not yours, do not eat it. For why should another man's scruples apply to me, and my liberty of action be determined by his conscience?' (1 Cor. 10:29, Amplified Bible). He is saying, in other words, that you might see no need to refrain from eating meat offered to idols for your own sake, because your conscience is not offended, but what about your weaker brother for whom Christ also died? You see, "none of us lives to himself alone", so when next the devil tries to convince you that you are an isolated case and that what he is suggesting concerns you and you alone, quote this verse to him. We do not act in isolation; if you fall, you do not fall alone, the whole Church falls also. If nothing else can stop you from doing wrong, remember the people to whom you belong, remember you are part of a heavenly family, and that when you fall, others fall with you.
Prayer:
Father, drive deeply into my spirit this truth that I cannot act in isolation, for I am bound up with my redeemed brothers and sisters. Help me experience an ever-growing consciousness of this important fact. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
1 Corinthians 9:15-22; Acts 20:35; Acts 20:35; :;
1. What was Paul's approach to the weaker brethren?
2. What was Paul's word to the Thessalonians?
Are You Listening to God?
They said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die' ` -Exodus 20:19
We don't consciously and deliberately disobey God- we simply don't listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them- not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.
"You speak with us, . . . but let not God speak with us . . . ." We show how little love we have for God by preferring to listen to His servants rather than to Him. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we don't want God Himself to speak to us. Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us? It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey. But if it is simply one of God's servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative. We respond by saying, "Well, that's only your own idea, even though I don't deny that what you said is probably God's truth."
Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child? Once I finally do hear Him, the humiliation I have heaped on Him returns to me. My response then becomes, "Lord, why was I so insensitive and obstinate?" This is always the result once we hear God. But our real delight in finally hearing Him is tempered with the shame we feel for having taken so long to do so.
God bless
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Matthew 6:33 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Fresh
READ: Psalm 51:8-13
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation. -Psalm 51:12
What do you think of when you hear the word fresh? When the weather is nice, my husband and I enjoy going to the farmers market so we can buy produce that was picked that very morning. To me, fresh means just-harvested fruits and vegetables-not stale or spoiled, but crisp and full of exquisite flavor.
I need that kind of freshness in my relationship with God. I can have too many stale attitudes-impatience, criticism, and selfishness-and not enough "longsuffering, kindness, . . . gentleness," which are "the fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22-23).
As David repented of the sin in his life, he prayed, "Create in me a clean heart." Then he petitioned God: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation" (Ps. 51:10-12). Confession and repentance of our sin renews our fellowship with the Lord and allows us to joyously begin anew.
What better time than today to ask God to give you a newness of spirit, a freshness of faith, and a renewed appreciation of Him!
Lord, we want the fruit of our lives to always be "fresh and flourishing" (Ps. 92:14). Help us to experience Your love, compassion, and faithfulness that are "new every morning" (Lam. 3:22-23). Amen. -Cindy Hess Kasper
The Master is seeking a harvest
In lives He's redeemed by His blood;
He seeks for the fruit of the Spirit,
And works that will glorify God. -Lehman
To bear good fruit, clear out the weeds of sin.
What Are You Trusting? by Dr.Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 20:1-9
David wrote, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God" (v. 7). The big question is, What are you trusting today? Everybody trusts in or believes in something. Some people trust in their money or credit cards. Some trust in their strength or expertise or experience. Verses 1 and 2 say, "May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble; may the name of the God of Jacob defend you; may He send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion." The Christian trusts in the Lord, and he exemplifies this trust by praying.
When we are in trouble, what we do to solve our problems and turn our trouble into triumph is evidence of what or whom we're trusting. When the day of trouble arrives, some people reach for their checkbooks. They think money will solve their problems. Others reach for the telephone. They look to friends to solve their problems. While "some trust in chariots, and some in horses," Christians remember the name of the Lord (v. 7). Our faith is in Jesus Christ, and we should not be afraid to let people know about it. "We will rejoice in your salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners!" (v. 5). In other words, we do not hesitate to wave the banner of faith because He will not fail us.
God's name is good. "The name of the God of Jacob defend you" (v. 1). Take time to trust the Lord. Roll your burden on Him. Get your strength from Him. Wave your banner in the name of the Lord, and He will turn your burden into a blessing.
Where do you place your trust? Whereas wealth and others fail you, Jesus never fails. Take whatever burden you are carrying today and give it to the Lord. Trust Him, and He will work on your behalf.
February 13
Use everything you can
For reading & meditation: Zechariah 4:1-14
"Who despises the day of small things? '" (v.10)
Having followed the experience of the psalmist, who was saved from a spiritual fall by thinking of his brethren, we now ask ourselves: What does all this have to say to us? I think the answer to that question must be this: to stand is more important than to understand. We said a few days ago that the psalmist took his stand at a very low level on the scale of spiritual values. The principle he followed was this: "If I spread my doubts, I will harm my brethren." I am sure you and I could think of much higher spiritual principles with which to confront ourselves when tempted. What about the principle of reminding ourselves of the blessings of God in times past? Or actually talking to ourselves in the way the psalmist did in Psalm 42:5: "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God '" . The psalmist employed none of these, but the one he did employ, low as it was on the scale of spiritual values, worked. And that is the point - use everything you can to stop yourself from falling, however small or insignificant it might appear to be. We are involved in spiritual mountaineering, where sometimes the slopes are like glass. When your feet slip you must reach out and hold on to anything that will stop you in your slide even though it be only a small branch. Stop and steady yourself. Don't concern yourself about climbing, just concern yourself with stopping your slide. Once you have stopped sliding you can then plan how to climb again.
Prayer:
Father, I see that when I am in danger of slipping it is better to take advantage of the smallest foothold than to slide into the depths of despair. Help me grasp the full importance and value of this. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
1 Kings 17:12
1. What are some of the insignificant things God uses in his purposes?
2. How does Paul put it?
The Devotion of Hearing
Samuel answered, 'Speak, for Your servant hears' -1 Samuel 3:10
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, "You are My friends . . ." ( John 15:14 ). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord's this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don't even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41 ). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God's message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don't want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don't hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, "Speak, for Your servant hears." If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God's voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things- things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God's voice today?
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 14, 2008
The Best Companion
READ: 1 John 3:1-3
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! -1 John 3:1
Some people looking for love have found help in an unusual place-a taxicab in New York City. Taxicab driver Ahmed Ibrahim loves to set up blind dates for his single passengers. His matchmaking services have been featured on the Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC's Today show. He doesn't assist just anybody though; they have to be serious about looking to settle down with someone. Ahmed loves to help romance blossom, and he even hands out roses on Valentine's Day.
The best place to find love is not in another person but in a book, the Bible. The Bible tells of God's great love for us. This is expressed in what my friend called the best love note she had ever received. It's found in John 3:16.
For God so loVed the world,
That He gAve
His onLy
BegottEn
SoN
That whoever
Believes In Him
Should Not perish,
But have Everlasting life.
God loves us like no one else ever could. He showed that love when He sent His Son, Jesus, to be our Savior. He's also the best companion we'll ever have.
Open your Bible and learn more about Him.
-Anne Cetas
The more you read the Bible, the more you'll love its Author.
From Trouble to Thanksgiving by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 20:1-9
D. L. Moody did not want soloist Ira Sanky to sing the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" because he felt the Church was anything but a victorious army marching off to war. Yet the Bible pictures God's people as soldiers in His army. As soldiers, we must be familiar with Psalms 20 and 21. The first deals with prayer and winning the victory, and the second deals with praise and holding the victory. If we trust the Lord, we will move from trouble to thanksgiving.
Several factors lead us to triumph in battle. The first is prayer This is an essential element in fighting the battles of the Lord because it releases His power. There are no battles like those of the Christian life. We struggle against the enemies of the Lord: the world (I John 2:15), the flesh and the devil (Eph. 6). We must pray according to the will of God. The Word of God and prayer go together (Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17,18).
Next, we need to surrender. Before David and his army fought, they worshiped God. That affected his battle plan and his victory. David's "burnt offering" indicated total surrender to God. If we're not walking with the Lord today, we'll not be ready when the battle comes.
Another factor is unity. David and his army had one goal--God's victory. And they had one joy--to serve Him and do His will. The tribes of Israel were a picture of unity. They had one army assembled from 12 tribes.
The fourth factor is faith. Verse 6 says the Lord "saves" His anointed. The Hebrew word used here means He "has saved." That is, God already has given David the victory (I John 5:4). The Church today often trusts in all kinds of horses and chariots but not in the Lord.
The final factor is obedience. David and his army obeyed God's will. The day of trouble can become a day of triumph and thanksgiving if we have trust, which is expressed by prayer, surrender, unity, faith and obedience.
Although you cannot avoid battles, you can be ready for them and, with God's help, be victorious. Are you prepared to do battle? If not, trust the Lord to help you.
February 14
A critical position
For reading & meditation: 1 Peter 1:1-7
"These have come so that your faith ' may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour '" (v.7)
Today we examine the fact that although the psalmist's feet are no longer slipping and sliding, he continues to struggle inwardly with his problem. Listen to what he says: "But when I considered how to understand this, it was too great an effort for me and too painful" (Psa. 73:16, Amplified Bible). It is clear that although he has stopped himself from falling, he is still in great anguish of heart and mind; he is still perplexed over the issue of why the ungodly are prospering while he, a child of God, has to face all kinds of difficulties. He cannot bear the thought of scandalising the family of God, and yet his confusion continues. Have you ever been in this position in your spiritual life - saved from slipping and sliding but still harassed by a giant-sized spiritual problem? You know enough to stop you falling, but not enough to start you climbing. It is a strange position to be in but one, I must confess, in which I have found myself on many occasions. Perhaps you are there right now - your feet have stopped slipping, but strong emotions continue to rage inside you. This is a very critical position to be in - critical because the temptation at this point is to quieten the raging emotions within by settling for answers that are less than the real ones. I know many Christians who have been in this position, and because their goal has been to alleviate the pain in their heart rather than find the real solutions to their problem, they have grasped at superficial answers that do nothing more than provide temporary relief.
Prayer:
O Father, save me from settling for less than the best, even though it means struggling a little longer with some difficult and turbulent emotions. Help me be concerned with maturity, not just temporary relief. Amen.
For further study:
2 Peter 3:9; Job 13:1-16
1. What had the psalmist purposed?
2. What did Job declare?
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops -Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2 ). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."- pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood- darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at
all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart- a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 15, 2008
Growing Through Grief
READ: Psalm 119:65-80
It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes. -Psalm 119:71
A woman who lost her husband of 40 years to a sudden heart attack said that the resulting grief had caused her to value love more. When she heard couples arguing, she sometimes spoke to them, saying, "You don't have time for this." She noted that the wasted moments in all our lives become more precious when they cannot be repeated.
Grief changes our perspective on life. It is trite but true that how we deal with sorrow will make us either bitter or better. In a remarkable statement, the psalmist actually thanked God for a difficult experience: "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. . . . It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes" (Ps. 119:67,71).
We don't know the nature of the psalmist's affliction, but the positive outcome was a longing to obey the Lord and a hunger for His Word. Rarely can we use this truth to comfort those who hurt. Instead, it is the Lord's word to us from His compassionate heart and the touch from His healing hand.
When we grieve, it feels more like dying than growing. But as God wraps His loving arms around us, we have the assurance of His faithful care.
-David C. McCasland
I have been through the valley of weeping,
The valley of sorrow and pain;
But the God of all comfort was with me,
At hand to uphold and sustain. -Anon.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. -Psalm 116:15
What Do Kings Need? by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 21:1-7
Kings have everything. If you were a king, what would you rejoice in the most? In what did David rejoice? Psalm 21 tells us what it means to be a king--not just for a day but for a lifetime.
We are kings because we are God's children. Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests because He loves us and washed away our sins in His blood. Today, God wants us to reign in life. We are on the throne with the Lord Jesus. "The king shall have joy in Your strength, O Lord" (v. 1). David is rejoicing in the strength that God gave him--strength to walk and strength to war; strength to build and strength to battle; strength to carry the burdens of life. Are you rejoicing today as God's king because He gives you strength?
David continues, "And in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!" (v. 1). He rejoices in God's salvation. We need to do the same. One day Jesus told His disciples, "Don't rejoice because the demons are subject to you. Rejoice because your names are written down in heaven" (Luke 10:20).
David also rejoices in satisfaction. "You have given him his heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. For You meet him with the blessings of goodness" (vv. 2,3). If we look back, we will find goodness and mercy following us (23:6), and if we look ahead, God is meeting us with His goodness (v. 3). Don't be afraid of today, and don't be afraid of the future. God will meet you with His goodness.
In verse 7 David rejoices in stability: "For the king trusts in the Lord, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved." I like these blessings we can rejoice in--God's strength, salvation, satisfaction and stability. All of this is for God's glory. "His glory is great in Your salvation" (v. 5).
Many Christians fail to see themselves as kings. But God wants us to reign in life and has provided several blessings that enable us to live as kings. Are you enjoying the blessings of kingship? If not, claim His blessings and start living a life of victory.
February 15
Staying with the pain
For reading & meditation: Job 13:13-19
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him '" (v.15, NKJ)
We ended yesterday with the thought that the moments after we have been saved from slipping and sliding, but are left with our main problem still unresolved, are exceedingly critical. Why critical? Because, as we said, the desire to relieve the pain that is going on inside us can sometimes lead us to settle for answers that are less than the best. We feel better when we can make sense of the ways of God - even a little sense. When we are confronted by a spiritual problem that appears to have no immediate resolution and causes strong emotions to rage within us, there are, as far as I can see, just two options: either to live with the troublesome emotions, as Job did, and wait patiently for God to give a clear answer, in His time; or to replace the confusion with some form of understanding. The first option is often difficult, for it demands something which, especially when we are confused, we find hard to do - trust. The second is a lot easier, but potentially more dangerous, for unless we are careful, it can lead us into accepting solutions that are not solutions. The pressure to move confidently in the midst of ambiguity and uncertainty and come up with "clear" answers is a strong one. But we must be careful that we dont settle for an answer that, although it helps to reduce the level of confusion, is not a real solution. Better to stay with the pain of confusion and uncertainty than to grasp at answers that are not answers because they evade the real problem.
Prayer:
O Father, help me as I think through this issue. I sense there is something here that I need to learn, but I need Your love and wisdom and insight to support me as I learn it. Come close to me - particularly over these next few days. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Proverbs 3:1-6; Psalms 37:5; Psalms 37:5; Isaiah 26:4
1. What are we to do?
2. What are we not to do?
"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"
None of us lives to himself . . . -Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We "sit together in the heavenly places . . ." ( Ephesians 2:6 ). "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 12:26 ). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, "Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?" "Our sufficiency is from God . . ." and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5 ).
"You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone- to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say "thank you" to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him- ". . . lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" ( 1 Corinthians 9:27 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 16, 2008
It's A Fact
READ: Ephesians 4:1-6
[I pray] that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You. -John 17:21
In doing research for his epic story Roots, Alex Haley embarked on the freighter African Star, sailing from Monrovia, Liberia, to Jacksonville, Florida. He did so to better understand the travails of his ancestors, who were brought in chains to America.
Haley descended into the ship's hold, stripped himself of protective clothing, and tried to sleep on some thick, rough-hewn bracing. After the third miserable night, he gave up and returned to his cabin. But he could now write with some small degree of empathy of the sufferings of his forebears.
It's one thing to say we believe that Jesus Christ, the second Person of the holy Trinity, identifies Himself with us. It's quite another to feel the blessed experience of our identification with Him. But we need not resort to extreme measures to grasp the truth of that oneness, for Christ Himself has endured the most extreme of all measures to identify with us. He went to the cross to reconcile a sinful human race to Himself (Rom. 5:10-11).
Reading Scripture, praying, and partaking of the Lord's Supper can help us gain at least some awareness of our identification with our Lord and Savior. But regardless of how we feel, our unity with Him is a fact that we must grasp in faith.
- Vernon C. Grounds
With longing all my heart is filled
That like Him I may be,
As on the wondrous thought I dwell,
That Christ liveth in me. -Whittle
The just shall live by faith-not by feeling.
Dealing With Enemies by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 21:8-13
We don't like them or want them, but sometimes we can't help having enemies. A person is not only known by the friends he makes; sometimes he's better known by the enemies he makes. No, we can't help having enemies, but we can help how we deal with them. This is what David is talking about in this passage. How do you deal with your enemies? Paul said, "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (II Tim. 3:12). Some people are enemies of the cross of Christ. So if we take our stand at the cross, they will take their stand against us.
David gives us insight for dealing with life's enemies. First, let God's hand work. Keep your hands off. "Your hand will find all Your enemies; Your right hand will find those who hate You" (v. 8). Then, let God's anger burn instead of yours. "You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of Your anger" (v. 9). There is a righteous anger, a righteous indignation. Paul wrote, "Be angry, and do not sin" (Eph. 4:26). Our Lord was angry when He cleansed the temple on two occasions. Let God's anger blaze, not yours.
Second, let God shoot His arrows. "You will make ready Your arrows on Your string toward their [the enemies'] faces" (v. 12). God's hand will work for you. His anger will blaze for you. His arrows will be shot for you. And He will use all of this for His glory. "Be exalted, O Lord, in Your own strength! We will sing and praise Your power" (v. 13). We can't praise our power, our scheming or our vengeance. But we can praise God's glory and power. When we try to take care of our enemies in our way, we only make things worse. But when we turn the situation over to the Lord, He makes things better. Let God take care of your enemies today, because then He will be glorified, you will be satisfied, and Jesus Christ will have His way.
Are you facing an enemy today? Take your hands off the problem and let God deal with those involved. He will remedy the problem in the best possible way, and Jesus Christ will be glorified.
February 16
Why do I cry over nothing?
For reading & meditation: John 8:31-41
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (v.32)
You have probably sensed that the issue we have been dealing with is extremely important. In fact, I know of nothing of greater consequence for the Christian Church than the need to resolve the issue of why it is, when facing the tough questions of life, we settle for answers that are not answers. Let me illustrate what I mean. Many years ago a woman approached me at the end of a prayer meeting and said: "Why is it that I cry so much over nothing?" I replied that there could be a number of reasons and I recommended that if this situation continued she should seek the help of a Christian counsellor. My own feeling was that the problem arose from some unresolved conflicts in her life that needed identifying. Some time later I met the woman again and she said to me: "I still have the problem, but I know now why it happens to me - it is an attack of the devil." I felt deeply saddened by her conclusion for I sensed that she had settled for an answer that helped to reduce her confusion but was not a real solution. Yes, the devil does attack and harass, but in my opinion something else was going on inside her which needed attention. I gently suggested this to her, but she was adamant that the devil was responsible and that the problem would eventually go. I prayed much for that woman because I saw in her what I see in many parts of the Christian Church - a tendency to reach out and settle for "answers" that help reduce the confusion but do nothing to stimulate spiritual growth and understanding.
Prayer:
O God, I do not want to live my life amid illusions. 1 want to be real and I want to live really. Help me face the tough questions of life and not be content until I find the true answers - Your answers. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 51:1-6
1. What does God require in the inner parts?
2. What is the condition of the heart?
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead . . . -Ephesians 5:14
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, "Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard- just do what needs to be done!" That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, "Get up and get going," suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, "Arise from the dead . . . ." When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to "arise from the dead" and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we "get up and get going." God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, "Arise from the dead . . . ," we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand" (Matthew 12:13 ). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 17, 2008
Join The Choir
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READ: Psalm 89:1-8
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations. -Psalm 89:1
I'll never forget the first time I saw the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir in concert. Nearly 200 people who had been redeemed out of the bowels of Brooklyn-former crack addicts and prostitutes included-sang their hearts out to God. Their faces glistened with tears running down their cheeks as they sang about God's work of redemption and forgiveness in their lives.
As I watched them, I felt somewhat shortchanged. Since I was saved when I was 6, I didn't feel the same depth of gratefulness that they displayed as they sang about the dramatic rescue God had provided for them. I was saved from things like biting my sister-not exactly a significant testimony!
Then the Spirit reminded me that if He had not rescued me when I was young, who knows where my life would be today? What destructive paths would I have stumbled down if He had not been teaching me qualities like servanthood and self-control?
It became clear that I too am a great debtor to His grace. It's not only what we are saved "out of" but what we have been saved "from" that makes our hearts worthy of a spot in the chorus of the redeemed. Anyone who receives Jesus as Savior is welcome to join in the choir of praise: "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever" (Ps. 89:1). - Joe Stowell
He's been faithful, faithful to me;
Looking back, His love and mercy I see.
Though in my heart I've questioned, even failed to believe,
He's been faithful, faithful to me. -Cymbala
Praise flows freely from the choir of the redeemed.
What God Won't Do by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 22:1-11
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (v. 1).
Those are familiar words. Jesus spoke them from the cross (Matt. 27:46), but they were first spoken by David when he was going through a severe trial.
Jesus Christ was forsaken that we might not be forsaken. God the Father forsook His Son on the cross when He was made sin for us (II Cor. 5:21).
But David says in this psalm, "Our fathers trusted You, and You took care of them; now I'm trusting You, and nothing seems to happen" (vv. 4-6). We can envision David saying, "I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people" (v. 6). He did go through that. But our Lord went through it to an even greater degree. Can you imagine the Lord Jesus, who said, "I am the Good Shepherd," saying, "I am a worm"? But He became a worm for us so that we might become the children of God.
We cannot be forsaken because the Savior was forsaken in our place. We can't be forsaken because of His promise to never leave or forsake us (Heb. 13:5). We cannot be forsaken because of His abiding and eternal presence with us (Matt. 28:20). We cannot be forsaken because of His purpose to work all things together for good to those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). And what is His purpose? That we might be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). David became a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he had to suffer to do it. In spite of your circumstances and feelings, remember: God will not forsake you.
When you go through trials, your circumstances and feelings can deceive you into thinking God has forsaken you. But the Bible promises us that He will never forsake you. Next time you feel forsaken, remember that God is always true to His Word and will accomplish His purpose of conforming you to the image of His Son.
February 17
The curse of modern Christianity
For reading & meditation: Ephesians 4:25-32
"' and do not give the devil a foothold." (v.27)
There is a price to pay for our desire to grab at easy answers and that price is "trivialisation". Trivialisation is the acceptance of explanations that ignore the difficult questions of life in order to experience relief from confusion. I have no hesitation in saying that this is a curse of the modern Church. One way trivialisation reveals itself is in the acceptance, by so many, of the view that the major cause of Christians' problems is demonic activity. Demonic activity can be a cause of problems (especially in those who have dabbled in the occult) but it is not the chief cause. The New Testament teaches us the importance of spiritual warfare, but it has much more to say about the influence of our carnal nature on the rise and development of problems. In the early days of my ministry, when people came to me with problems I would frequently engage in the practice of rebuking the devil, and those prayers often brought great relief. But the mistake I made was not to sit down with the people who came to me and deal with the beneath-the-surface problems which had given Satan a foothold in their lives. By making it appear that Satan was the only problem I trivialised the issue. It's a lot easier (and less confusing) to sit down with a person and "take authority" over Satan than it is to think through together the tough and perplexing issues that lie beneath the surface, and then work towards giving some Biblical perspectives. But that is demanded of us if we are to help each other towards maturity.
Prayer:
O Father, forgive us for the ways in which we trivialise Your truth in order to avoid facing the tough issues. It feels good to replace confusion with certainty, but help us to be sure that the certainty is Your certainty. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Ephesians 4:25-32; Ephesians 4:25-32; Ephesians 4:25-32; Hebrews 5:14
1. What are we to add to our faith?
2. What was Paul's admonition to the Corinthians?
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat -1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive- only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God's creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things-things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
God bless
Daily Devotionals FEb. 18, 2008
Lincoln's Testimony
READ: Luke 24:13-27
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and
to enter into His glory? -Luke 24:26
Abraham Lincoln was a backwoodsman who rose from humble beginnings to the heights of political power. During the dark days of the US Civil War, he served as a compassionate and resolute president. Depression and mental pain were his frequent companions. Yet the terrible emotional suffering he endured drove him to receive Jesus Christ by faith.
Lincoln told a crowd in his hometown in Illinois: "When I left Springfield, I asked the people to pray for me; I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. I do love Jesus." Life's most painful tragedies can bring us to a deeper understanding of the Savior.
When two men walked the road to Emmaus, they were dumbfounded by the senseless murder of Jesus of Nazareth. Then a stranger joined them and gave scriptural insight about the suffering Messiah (Luke 24:26-27). The stranger was Jesus Himself, and His ministry to them brought comfort.
Heartache has a way of pointing us to the Lord Jesus, who has shared in our sufferings and can bring meaning to seemingly senseless pain. - Dennis Fisher
Though tragedy, heartache, and sorrow abound
And many a hardship in life will be found,
Just put all your trust in the Savior of light,
For He can bring hope in the darkest of night. -D. De Haan
Suffering can teach us what we can't learn in any other way.
The Devil's Zoo by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 22:12-21
Are you an animal lover? I must confess that, apart from a certain sympathy with cats and a liking for friendly dogs, I don't really care much for animals. My wife enjoys going to the zoo, and I dutifully go along, but I would much rather be in the library.
Do you know that God uses animals to teach us about sin? Today's passage talks about the Devil's entire zoo. "Many bulls have surrounded Me; strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me" (v. 12). Our Lord was on the cross, and people were acting like animals. That's what is wrong with the world. When we leave God out of our lives, we descend to the level of animals. Here was Jesus on the cross, and the bulls had surrounded Him. Then the lions showed up. "They gape at Me with their mouths, as a raging and roaring lion" (v. 13). "Dogs have surrounded Me" (v. 16). "Save Me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen!" (v. 21). That is quite a zoo! When men put Jesus on the cross, they acted like animals. And He replied, "I am a worm" (Ps. 22 6). Can you imagine bulls and lions and dogs and oxen chasing a worm? Oh, how our Lord humbled Himself for us!
Don't act like a wild animal. You were made in the image of God. Let the Holy Spirit turn you into one of His gentle sheep. The Lord, our Shepherd, is glorified and honored when we don't act like vicious animals but rather like the children of God.
God made you in His image and has placed His Holy Spirit within you. You were made to glorify Him. Are you harboring sin in any area of your life? Keep clean of sin so God can work in you and through you.
February 18
The first thing to do
For reading & meditation: Psalms 42:1-11
"These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude ' to the house of God '" (v.4)
Over the past few days we have seen how the psalmist was caught in the hiatus between the moment when he stopped himself from sliding and the moment when he started to climb again. This, we said, is a very critical time - critical because it makes us inclined to accept easy answers. The perplexity did not end when the psalmist stopped himself from slipping. His thoughts still went around in circles and he continued to have great anguish of heart and mind. How, then, were his thoughts concerning the prosperity of the ungodly resolved? Not by grabbing at superficial answers, but by going into the sanctuary of God, where he could begin to see the whole situation from God's point of view. Listen to how he puts it: "When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny"(Psa. 73:16-17). The word "sanctuary" here literally means the physical house of God. Some translations use the phrase, "till I entered the secret of God", but that is incorrect. Read Psalm 74 and read Psalm 76 and you will find that they both refer to the material building where God was worshipped. Had the psalmist, I wonder, like so many of us when we are filled with doubt and uncertainty, stayed away from the sanctuary of God? How strange that the last thing we want to do when our hearts are filled with doubts and misunderstandings is meet with our fellow believers in the house of God. Yet that is the very first thing we ought to do.
Prayer:
Gracious Father, I am so grateful that You have ordained that Your people meet together. Help me understand more clearly than ever the value and benefits that flow from being with Your people. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 42:1-11; Psalms 42:1-11; Mark 1:21; Luke 4:16
1. What are we not to do?
2. What was Jesus' custom?
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going -Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, "Well, it's all over and ruined now; what's the point in trying anymore." If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, "Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can't change that. But get up, and let's go on to the next thing." In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing- they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, "Get up, and do the next thing." If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 19, 2008
Our Daily Bread
Courage: Live It
READ: 2 Timothy 1:6-12
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power. -2 Timothy 1:7
Courage is one thing you need if you want to get God's work done. That's what I said when I spoke in a church service in Jamaica. I told the people that according to 2 Timothy 1:7, God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power.
A couple of days later, I stood 35 feet above the water on the edge of the Caribbean Sea. Should I jump off the precipice into the waters below? The teenagers who were with me said, "Yes!" Most of them had already done so. One told me, "Mr. Branon, if you don't jump, you can't preach about courage again." I knew that sometimes the courageous thing is not to go along with the crowd. But this time, I jumped.
Courage makes a good theory, but sometimes we need help to practice it. We have many opportunities to step out of our comfort zone to serve God. When we don't have courage, we need to be reminded of God's promise in 2 Timothy, and we need others' encouragement to take the leap.
Perhaps you need someone to tell you: Volunteer for that job at church-they need you. Have lunch with your co-worker to discuss matters of faith. Or join that small group.
Be courageous for Jesus. Sometimes it takes just that first step of courage to serve our majestic God. - Dave Branon
Lord, give me the courage to rise above fear,
Even of danger, because You are near;
I would be faithful to face any foe
While I am walking with You here below. -Hess
Courage will follow when faith takes the lead.
Resurrection Ground by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 22:22-31
The last half of Psalm 22 is an expression of praise. In verse 22 we see a change: The psalmist goes from prayer to praise, from suffering to glory. "I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise You."
In this passage we find the Lord singing in the midst of the congregation. Have you ever thought of Jesus singing? We think of Him preaching and doing miracles and teaching and counseling, but singing? "My praise shall be of You in the great congregation" (v. 25). The meek shall praise the Lord (v. 26). All this praise is starting to spread. Praising the Lord is contagious, and if Christians praise him, other people will praise Him, too.
We also find fellowship with other believers. "I will declare Your name to My brethren" (v. 22). And we find a witness to the whole world. "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord" (v. 27). I hope you're not living between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. That's a miserable place to live. I hope you're living from Easter Sunday on. How can you tell if you're on Resurrection ground? Are you worshiping and praising the Lord? Are you fellowshipping with God's people? Are you witnessing to others? Are you serving others? "A posterity shall serve Him" (v. 30). We are on Resurrection ground. Let's live like it.
Praise is a natural expression for the believer, especially when considering the implications of our Lord's Resurrection. Are you praising and worshiping our Lord for the redemption He has provided you? Do you fellowship with other believers? Are you reaching out to others who don't know the Lord? Take time to praise God for His great salvation.
February 19
A redeeming, healing fellowship
For reading & meditation: Hebrews 10:19-25
"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another '" (v.25)
Yesterday we ended with the thought that the very first thing we ought to do when seeking to break out of the vicious circle of doubt is to go to the house of God. The psalmist has been prevented from falling by considering the consequences of his actions upon his brethren, so now his next step is to go and meet with them in the sanctuary. Whether it be in a cathedral or a cottage, how wonderful it is to join with Christian brothers and sisters. It is not so much the place that is important as the redeeming and healing fellowship we find there. Oftentimes people find release just by sitting down among their brothers and sisters and feeling the healing power of their warmth and love. One famous preacher said: "The house of God has delivered me from 'the mumps and measles of the soul' a thousand times and more - merely by entering its doors." What is it about being among our fellow believers that is so helpful and encouraging? One thing is the very fact that our fellow believers are there. You see, in our private misery and perplexity we could easily run away with the idea that there is nothing very much in the Christian faith after all, and that it is not worth our going on. But when we enter into the Lord's house and see our fellow believers coming together, often our doubts disappear. We say to ourselves, albeit unconsciously: "Here are people who think the Christian life is worth continuing with. My uncertainties must be wrong - there must be something in it after all."
Prayer:
O Father, help me see the power that flows towards me through Christian fellowship. Just as I am encouraged by it, help me to encourage others. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.
For further study:
Acts 12:12-17; Acts 12:12-17; Psalms 84:10
1.What was the pattern of the early Church?
2. How did the psalmist view God's house?
February 19, 2008
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine . . . -Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us- He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue- a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery- washing fishermen's feet. He then says to them, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14 ). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer's body has become "the temple of the Holy Spirit"
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 20, 2008
Threats And Warnings
READ: Deuteronomy 4:32-40
Keep His statutes and His commandments . . . that it may go well with you and with your children after you. -Deuteronomy 4:40
"God never threatens; the devil never warns," declared Oswald Chambers. We sometimes use the words threat and warning interchangeably, but Chambers saw a principle that suggests a distinction. Threats are used to get people to do what is in our best interest. Warnings are issued to get people to do what is in their best interest. In other words, threats seek to preserve power, whereas warnings serve to protect people from danger.
Satan wants us to think of God's loving warnings as mean-spirited threats, but he is wrong. According to Chambers, "A warning is a great arresting statement of God's, inspired by His love and patience." The evidence of this is found in the many commands that are coupled with phrases like "that it may go well with you" (Deut. 4:40; 12:28).
In loving relationships, people warn one another of the inevitable consequences of foolish behavior. In unhealthy relationships, people threaten one another with punishment if they fail to live up to unreasonable demands.
As we interact with others, it's good to consider the nature of our counsel and commands. Do we use ultimatums to preserve our own well-being? Or do we lovingly warn others to keep them from harm? - Julie Ackerman Link
FOR FURTHER STUDY
How can we take comfort from the love of God if we don't feel loved? Read How Has God Loved Us? on the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/q0102
Warnings are an expression of love; threats are an expression of control.
Expect Changes by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 23:1-6
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" (v. 1). That must be one of the most familiar quotations from the Old Testament. Everybody has some kind of shepherd. Jeremiah said, "It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps" (Jer. 10:23). We are like lost sheep, not able to guide our own lives. We need a shepherd. Who is your shepherd?
When the Lord is your Shepherd, what will happen in your life? First, you will live a day at a time. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (v. 6). Psalm 23 talks about all the days of our lives, and they are lived one day at a time when the Lord is our Shepherd. Someone has said that the average person is being crucified between two thieves--the regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow. Consequently, he can't enjoy today.
Second, when the Lord is your Shepherd, you listen for His voice. In John 10:27 the Lord Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice." The Shepherd does not drive his sheep from behind. Rather, He calls them from ahead. How do we listen to the Lord's voice? Through the Word of God.
Third, when the Lord is your Shepherd, you must expect changes. You may have green pastures and still waters. Then you go through the valley of the shadow of death. You have a table in the presence of your enemies. Then you live in the house of the Lord (heaven) forever. You will experience changes in life. Expect them; don't be afraid of them.
When you follow the Shepherd, the future is your friend, because the Lord is going before you. Live one day at a time, following the Shepherd, and you won't have to be afraid.
Some people fail to adapt to life's inevitable changes. As a believer, you need never fear the future. Trust the Shepherd, who goes before you, and listen to His Word. Commit this day to the Lord and thank Him for His guidance.
February 20
Others have suffered too
For reading & meditation: 2 Peter 2:4-10
"' the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials '" (v.9)
We continue developing the thought that meeting together with our brothers and sisters can bring about a radical change in our perspective. Tell me, have you ever gone to church feeling a little disconsolate or depressed and found, as you have looked round and seen people who have gone through much greater struggles than you, that your heart has been strangely lifted and your burdens have seemed lighter? You see a widow, perhaps, who has been left with several children, and as you watch her singing praises to God you see your problem in a different light. You notice a man whom you know has gone through the most horrifying experiences, but he is still there worshipping and magnifying God. This again works to change your perspective. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear." One of the things the devil delights to do is to persuade us that the trial we are going through is unique. When you come in contact with others in the family of God you begin to see that is just not true. You rub shoulders with people you know suffered extremely painful experiences - experiences more distressing than you have ever faced. Yet they still continue to sing God's praises. You see, in the church we have an opportunity to evaluate 1 Corinthians 10:13 in a clear light. The truth is seen in its highest form. Others have gone through what we have gone through, and the knowledge of this helps us in our suffering.
Prayer:
Father, the more I dwell on the benefits of Christian fellowship, the more I see how wise and considerate are Your purposes. Help me not to neglect this most marvellous and helpful means of grace. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 10:1-7; 1 Kings 19:10; 2 Timothy 4:16
1. What did Elijah think?
2. What did God say to him?
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here -John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God's blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: "Don't sit or stand there, just go!"
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, "Come aside by yourselves . . ." then that is meditation before Him to seek His will ( Mark 6:31 ). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don't sit and daydream about that person all the time- you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 21, 2008
Between The Eternities
READ: Hebrews 11:8-16
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them. -Hebrews 11:13
In the television western Broken Trail, cowboy Prentice Ritter must provide words of comfort at the funeral of a friend. Uncomfortable in the situation, he quietly says, "We are all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house, birth till death, we travel between the eternities."
In a sense, he was right. We are travelers-pilgrims-in a world that offers no lasting peace or rest. And while there is only one eternity, we travel between eternity past and eternity future, waiting for promises of a home and a hope that will last forever-promises yet to be fulfilled.
In those times of struggle and despair when our pilgrimage of life is difficult, it is helpful to remember that though we are pilgrims who travel between the eternities, we have a Savior who is the Lord and Master of eternity. He has offered us the promise of life with Him forever and has secured that promise with His own sacrifice. This was the promise spoken of by the writer of Hebrews 11:13.
We are locked into the moments and hours and days of life, but we look ahead by faith in Christ. One day, we will experience the promises of eternity when faith will become sight as we see Him. That hope is what lifts us beyond life between the eternities to a joy that is eternal.
- Bill Crowder
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand. -Williams
For time and eternity, Jesus is all we need.
The Shepherd Provides by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 23:1-6
Psalm 23 depicts Jesus Christ as the Great Shepherd living for His sheep. It also gives us two assurances. First, Jesus shepherds us throughout each day. Dr. Harry Ironside used to say that goodness and mercy are the two sheepdogs that help keep the sheep where they belong. We live our lives one day at a time, because God built the universe to run one day at a time. There must be a time for labor and a time for rest. When we try to live two or three days at a time, we cannot enjoy today. Eventually, this catches up with us physically, emotionally and spiritually. We need to remember that "as thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deut. 33:25).
As His sheep, we can begin each day with confidence. John 10 tells us that Jesus goes before His sheep. We cannot walk into any experience where Jesus has not first been. Though we may not know or understand what is taking place around us, we will fear no evil because we are close to the Shepherd. His rod takes care of the enemies; His staff takes care of the sheep (discipline and guidance). We can stay close to the Shepherd through His Word.
Our second assurance is that Jesus shepherds us all the days of our lives. This psalm is a summary of the Christian life. Verses 1 and 2 speak of childhood. Children need protection and provision. God loves and watches over them. Verse 3 speaks of youth. Teenagers need direction and discipline. The Great Shepherd finds these wandering youth and brings them back. Verses 4 and 5 talk about the middle years. These are not easy years, when the children are growing up and there are bills to pay. Verse 6 speaks of the mature years.
We don't understand why some things happen. But one day we'll realize that everything is under God's goodness and mercy. Then we'll look ahead and see His house.
What are your needs today? Stay close to the Shepherd by reading the Word. Resolve to follow His leading.
February 21
History is His-story
For reading & meditation: Ephesians 2:14-22
"In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord." (v.21)
There can be little doubt that meeting together with other members of God's family is a powerful way of bringing about a changed perspective. Another thing that happens when we go to church or meet together in Christian fellowship is that we are reminded that the very existence of the Church in today's world is proof positive that God is on the throne. Voltaire, the French infidel, said: "It required eleven men to build the Church; I will prove that it needs only one man to knock it down." He was wrong on two counts: first, it was not eleven men who built the Church, it was one man, the Man, Christ Jesus, and second, no one can ever knock it down, for its omnipotent Founder declared: "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (Matt. 16:18). The mere existence of the Church is, I submit, decisive proof that the living Christ is in the midst of it. Voltaire is dust; Christ lives on. Think of the tempests the Church has weathered through the centuries. Think also of the persecutions through which it has victoriously come, and try, if you can, to account for this extraordinary phenomenon apart from the fact that its Founder and Protector is Jesus Christ. The next time you meet together with your fellow Christians, reflect on the fact that, although every generation has produced people who have predicted the downfall of the Christian Church - it is still here. The realisation of this is yet another thing, I suggest, that helps to put our doubts into the right perspective.
Prayer:
O Father, how can I thank You enough for the times my own perspective has been changed after meeting together with Your people. I have greater insight now why You commanded us not to neglect assembling together. And I am grateful. Amen.
For further study:
1 Corinthians 3:9-17; Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 1:22
1. What do we know about the foundation of the Church?
2. What does Paul declare to the Ephesians?
February 21, 2008
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me -Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things- things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? "She has done a good work for Me."
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. ". . . but perfect love casts out fear . . ." once we are surrendered to God ( 1 John 4:18 ). We should quit asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 22, 2008
Carried In His Strong Arms
READ: Isaiah 46:1-11
I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. -Isaiah 46:4
Missionary couple Ray and Sophie de le Haye served heroically in West Africa for more than 40 years. As she grew older, Sophie suffered from the loss of all motor control of her body. That once-strong servant of Christ, who had carried on a ministry of unimaginable stress, was suddenly reduced to helplessness, unable to button her clothes or lift a cup of water to her lips. But she refused to become bitter or self-pitying. In her moments of utter weakness, she would quietly remind herself, "For this you have Jesus."
Many centuries ago our heavenly Father gave a reassuring message to a burdened prophet of Israel-a message that we need today: "Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, . . . who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb: Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you" (Isa. 46:3-4).
What an encouraging picture of divine grace! It calls to mind the Good Shepherd bearing a helpless lamb. Whether young or old, we can learn to let God carry us. Weak and burdened, we can lean on His everlasting arms and remind ourselves, "For this I have Jesus." - Vernon C. Grounds
The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine forever. -Baker
You can rest in the arms of Jesus-He'll never let you down.
No Bragging Rights by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 24:1-10
It can make a real difference in your life if you'll remember Psalm 24:1: "The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein." Because the earth is the Lord's, we can turn it over to Him. What difference will that make?
First, it will remind us that we are stewards and not owners. No matter what we have, we are only stewards of it. God owns everything. He doesn't own just the cattle on a thousand hills; He owns the Cadillacs in a thousand garages! God owns what you possess, and if He doesn't want you to have it, you'd better get rid of it. That brings humility, not pride. You can't brag about what you have if God gave it to you. John the Baptist said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven" (John 3:27).
Second, it makes us victors and not victims. The world doesn't belong to the Devil. God has given him a certain amount of authority and freedom, but the earth is the Lord's. Jesus, not Satan, is on the throne of heaven.
Third, it causes us to praise and not to complain. I like the repetition at the end of this psalm: "Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!" (v. 7). "Lift up your heads, O you gates! And lift them up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in" (v. 9). Nothing will lift up one's head like realizing that God is in control. He's the King of glory. Wherever He rules, there will be grace and glory. If you want that kind of blessing, just remember that the earth and all its fullness is the Lord's. It doesn't belong to you; it belongs to Him, and He is in control.
Good stewardship is one of the great responsibilities of the Christian. You need to maintain a humble attitude toward what God has given you. Make sure you submit to His control. His generosity and grace are great blessings that make you a victor.
February 22
Life's greatest science
For reading & meditation: Ephesians 3:14-21
"' that you ' may be able to comprehend with all the saints '" (vv.17-18, NKJ)
We are seeing that once we enter the sanctuary of God our perspective changes. This can happen to us when we are alone, of course, but the chances are it will happen more swiftly in the act of corporate worship. It is a command of God that we meet together, not only that we might come to know each other better, but that we might also come to know Him better. And here's the interesting thing - the more effectively we relate to one another, the more effectively we relate to Him. We come to know God better through the act of corporate worship than when we worship on our own. That is not to say that the shut-ins, or those who for various reasons are unable to meet together in worship, cannot know God intimately, but something special flows out of the act of corporate worship. Listen to how C.S. Lewis put it: "God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply men who are individually good but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body. Consequently the only real adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science - the laboratory outfit." Christians who neglect attendance at the church, or choose to deprive themselves of fellowship with other Christians, miss out on life's greatest science - learning about God.
Prayer:
My Father and my God, I am so thankful that, although I can know You when I am alone, I can know You even better through the fellowship of the Church. Help me to learn about You in every way I can. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
Ephesians 2:1-19; Romans 8:15; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Galatians 4:5
1. How does Paul describe the Church?
2. What does it mean to be adopted?
February 22, 2008
The Discipline of Spiritual Perseverance
READ:
Be still, and know that I am God . . . -Psalm 46:10
Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for- love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men- will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.
If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere . . ." ( Revelation 3:10 ).
Continue to persevere spiritually.
God bless
Please forgive me........I haven't recieved my daily devotional today and as soon as I do I will post it.
But, in the meantime here is something to ponder. ( I assume they have computer problems, too...LOL)
Are you a Prayer Warrior?
A prayer warrior is a person dedicated to pray faithfully.
James 5:16 says... The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Is this you?
Colossians 4:2
Devote yourselves to prayer , being watchful and thankful
Matthew 21:22
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
Philippians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Luke 6:28
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
God Is Good
READ: Genesis 3:1-7
Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He teaches sinners in the way. -Psalm 25:8
The phrase "God is good, all the time; all the time, God is good" is repeated by many Christians almost like a mantra. I often wonder if they really believe it or even think about what they're saying. I sometimes doubt God's goodness-especially when it feels as though God isn't hearing or answering my prayers. I assume that if others were more honest, they'd admit they feel the same way.
The serpent planted a doubt in Eve's mind about whether God had been good to her and had her best interest at heart. He said, "God knows that in the day you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5). Satan tried to convince her to believe that God was holding out on her and not giving her something really good-more knowledge.
Do you feel as though God isn't answering your prayers? Are you tempted to doubt His goodness? When I feel this way, I have to remind myself that my circumstances aren't the barometer of God's love and goodness-the cross is. He has shown how good He is by giving His only Son Jesus to die for our sin. We can't rely on our feelings. But day by day as we choose to trust Him more, we learn to believe with confidence that God is good-all the time. - Anne Cetas
When you are tempted to deny
God's goodness, love, and grace,
Look to the cross of Calvary,
Where Jesus took your place. -Sper
Circumstances aren't the barometer of God's love and goodness-the cross is.
Follow Your Leader by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 25:8-15
I have little sense of direction. Fortunately, my wife has built-in radar. If she didn't travel with me, I'm afraid I often would be lost. David talks about the guidance of God in these verses. So much has been said about God's guidance. Does He still guide us? Does He have a specific plan for each of our lives? How does He guide us? David gives us some simple advice on receiving God's guidance.
We must start with meekness. "The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way" (v. 9). Meekness means that we are not telling God what to do; we are not counseling Him. Who could possibly be His counselor? The meek person receives the Word of God and is submissive to His will. "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies" (v. 10). God does not reveal His will to those who are curious. He reveals His will to those who are obedient.
God guides those who are concerned about His glory. "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great" (v. 11). Surely goodness and mercy follow us, but they won't unless we are walking in the will of God for His glory, for His name's sake. "He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake" (Ps. 23:3). That leads us to the fear of the Lord. "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses" (v. 12). "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Ps. 111:10). Finally, we must be alert to God's guidance. "My eyes are ever toward the Lord" (v. 15). We must watch and pray. We must keep our eyes open if we want our Shepherd to lead us.
God desires to lead His sheep and use them for His glory. Is your life characterized by meekness, obedience, a desire for God's glory and the fear of the Lord? As you remain alert to His leading, you may be assured of His guidance in the decisions and steps of your life.
Copyright© 1992, used with permission, all rights reserved.
February 24
Missing from the meeting!
For reading & meditation: John 20:24-31
"Now Thomas ' was not with the disciples when Jesus came." (v.24)
We said a couple of days ago that those who choose to deprive themselves of fellowship with other Christians miss out on life's greatest science - learning about God. I heard one preacher say: "People who neglect attendance at the house of God are fools because on some favoured occasion something special and powerful will happen - and they will not be there." The passage we have read today tells us of that glorious post- resurrection appearance of our Lord to His disciples. The disciples thought He was dead, and although there were rumours of His resurrection, they were not convinced. Suddenly, He appeared to them - they saw Him, heard Him, and felt the impact of His mighty presence. But here is the heart-rending tragedy of it: "Thomas ' was not with the disciples when Jesus came." Why was Thomas missing from that meeting? Many preachers have speculated on the reasons for his absence, and they vary from Thomas not expecting Jesus to be there, to being afraid for his life. My own view, for what it is worth, is that there was something wrong with Thomas himself. The root cause of his defection, so I believe, was his own doubting and denying heart. My experience in the ministry has taught me that those who profess to be Christians and yet deliberately absent themselves from fellowship with their brothers and sisters, are the ones who are usually most in need of this fellowship.
Prayer:
Gracious and loving heavenly Father, help me realise that the very time I need to be among my brothers and sisters is when I am at my lowest spiritually. Burn this truth into my consciousness so that it will never leave me. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Matthew 25:13; Proverbs 15:5
1. What is the message of the parable of the virgins?
2. How are 5 of them described?
February 24, 2008
The Delight of Sacrifice
I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls . . . -2 Corinthians 12:15
Once "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit," we deliberately begin to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests and purposes in others' lives (Romans 5:5 ). And Jesus has an interest in every individual person. We have no right in Christian service to be guided by our own interests and desires. In fact, this is one of the greatest tests of our relationship with Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, Jesus (see John 15:13 ). I don't throw my life away, but I willingly and deliberately lay it down for Him and His interests in other people. And I do this for no cause or purpose of my own. Paul spent his life for only one purpose- that he might win people to Jesus Christ. Paul always attracted people to his Lord, but never to himself. He said, "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" ( 1 Corinthians 9:22 ).
When someone thinks that to develop a holy life he must always be alone with God, he is no longer of any use to others. This is like putting himself on a pedestal and isolating himself from the rest of society. Paul was a holy person, but wherever he went Jesus Christ was always allowed to help Himself to his life. Many of us are interested only in our own goals, and Jesus cannot help Himself to our lives. But if we are totally surrendered to Him, we have no goals of our own to serve. Paul said that he knew how to be a "doormat" without resenting it, because the motivation of his life was devotion to Jesus. We tend to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which allow us more spiritual freedom than total surrender to Him would allow. Freedom was not Paul's motive at all. In fact, he stated, "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren . . ." ( Romans 9:3 ). Had Paul lost his ability to reason? Not at all! For someone who is in love, this is not an overstatement. And Paul was in love with Jesus Christ.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 25, 2008
February 25, 2008
The Kindness Of Strangers
READ: Philippians 2:1-8
Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. -Hebrews 13:2
While I was taking a flight to Surabaya, Indonesia, for a Bible conference, the flight attendants brought meal service. I had just eaten in the Singapore airport, so I declined, asking only for a soft drink. The Indonesian man next to me, a stranger, was visibly concerned.
The man asked if I felt okay, and I assured him I was fine. He then asked if perhaps the meal didn't appeal to me. I responded that I just wasn't hungry. He then surprised me by offering his own meal to me, thinking that if I tried it I might actually enjoy it. It was done in such a gentle and genuine way that it was obviously an expression of his concern for my welfare.
In a self-centered world where we are conditioned to look out for our own interests above and beyond all else, such kindness was unexpected. The man's simple gesture showed a different kind of heart and a different set of values. As followers of Christ, we are called to model a similar counter-cultural attitude toward life (Phil. 2:1-8).
In Hebrews 13:2 we read, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels." What better way to represent Christ than with kindness-even to strangers. - Bill Crowder
Try to bring God's love and kindness
Into someone's life today;
Even just the gift of caring
Will the Savior's love display. -Hess
Kindness is one gift anyone can give.
I Want Out! by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 25:16-22
The troubles of my heart have enlarged; bring me out of my distresses!" (v. 17). Have you ever prayed like that? David did. What kind of answer did God give him? Ultimately, David was brought out of his distresses and put on the throne, and his enemies were defeated. But he had to go through some difficult years before God finally brought him to that place of glory and victory.
If you have ever prayed this way, stop and ask yourself, Is this the most important prayer I can pray? Our first inclination in times of difficulty is to pray, "Bring me out!" But we should be praying, "Build me up." God enlarges us by enlarging our troubles. And when He sees that we are growing, He is able to give us larger places of service and ministry. It's sort of a weaning process. When a child is being weaned from his mother, he's fretful and unhappy. He thinks, Mother doesn't love me anymore. But why is she weaning him? Because she wants him to grow up and mature. He cannot go through life depending on his mother. That's what David discovered.
When we are in times of difficulty and distress, the important thing is not that we get out of it but what we get out of it. "Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work" (James 1:2-4). If you find yourself going through a time of trouble today, if the troubles of your heart are enlarged, remember that God wants to enlarge you and give you a larger place of ministry.
Growth is often a painful process. It is through difficulty and distress that God enlarges us. Are your troubles enlarged? It is important that you not waste your trials by simply enduring them or wanting to be delivered from them. Allow trials to have their "perfect work" of enlarging you for a greater ministry.
February 25
Natural versus spiritual thinking
For reading & meditation: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God '" (v.14)
We have been seeing that by going "into the sanctuary" - the place where God had made provision to meet with His people - the psalmist has put himself in a position where his perspectives can be changed. This section of the psalm is probably the most vital part, for it is here that his thinking begins to change from natural thinking to spiritual thinking. He had been thinking like a natural man, considering life from just one perspective, but in the sanctuary he begins to see life from God's point of view. What is the difference between natural thinking and spiritual thinking? Natural thinking is on the level of the earth - the level of man; spiritual thinking is on a higher level altogether - the level of God. It is surprising that so many Christians think naturally about their problems rather than spiritually. The psalmist was a good and godly man but under the pressure of circumstances he had reverted to thinking naturally about his problem. We will never learn to live effectively until we understand that the whole of life is spiritual, not just parts of it. In the chapter before us today the apostle asks, in effect, why it was that none of the rulers of this world recognised the Lord Jesus Christ when He was here. It was because they looked at Him from a natural perspective - they saw only a carpenter. Without the Holy Spirit operating upon their minds, they just could not understand. Ultimately, the problems and difficulties of life are all spiritual; so the sooner we learn to think spiritually, the better we will be.
Prayer:
Gracious and loving heavenly Father, I realise that if I am to become a spiritual thinker I must allow You to think in me. I have given You my heart, help me now to give You my mind. Think in me, dear Lord. Amen.
For further study:
Isaiah 55:1-13; Romans 12:2; Jeremiah 29:11
1. What did God declare to Israel?
2. How can we be transformed?
February 25, 2008
The Destitution of Service
. . . though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved -2 Corinthians 12:15
Natural human love expects something in return. But Paul is saying, "It doesn't really matter to me whether you love me or not. I am willing to be completely destitute anyway; willing to be poverty-stricken, not just for your sakes, but also that I may be able to get you to God." "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 8:9 ). And Paul's idea of service was the same as our Lord's. He did not care how high the cost was to himself- he would gladly pay it. It was a joyful thing to Paul.
The institutional church's idea of a servant of God is not at all like Jesus Christ's idea. His idea is that we serve Him by being the servants of others. Jesus Christ actually "out-socialized" the socialists. He said that in His kingdom the greatest one would be the servant of all (see Matthew 23:11 ). The real test of a saint is not one's willingness to preach the gospel, but one's willingness to do something like washing the disciples' feet- that is, being willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God. It was Paul's delight to spend his life for God's interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. But before we will serve, we stop to ponder our personal and financial concerns- "What if God wants me to go over there? And what about my salary? What is the climate like there? Who will take care of me? A person must consider all these things." All that is an indication that we have reservations about serving God. But the apostle Paul had no conditions or reservations. Paul focused his life on Jesus Christ's idea of a New Testament saint; that is, not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 26, 2008
Making Restitution
READ: Luke 19:1-9
He shall make restitution for his trespass in full. -Numbers 5:7
During the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, managing editor James Murray received thousands of definitions from Dr. William Chester Minor. They were always sent in by mail and never brought in personally. Murray was curious about this brilliant man, so he went to visit him. He was shocked to find that Minor was incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Years earlier, while in a delusional state, Minor had shot an innocent man whom he thought had been tormenting him. Later he was filled with remorse and began sending money to support the widow and her family. Minor was imprisoned for the rest of his life but he found practical ways of easing the pain of his victims and contributing to society through his work on the dictionary.
When the dishonest tax collector Zacchaeus heard Jesus' message of grace, he chose to return more than what he had extorted from others. "Look, Lord, . . . if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold" (Luke 19:8). The gospel of grace stirred Zacchaeus to help those he had harmed.
Have you wronged someone? What steps will you take to help make things right? - Dennis Fisher
Forgive me, Lord, for all my sins,
The many wrongs that I have done;
And show me how to make things right
Before the setting of the sun. -Bosch
Making restitution reveals genuine repentance.
The Guidance of God by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 25:1-22
In Psalm 25 David points out that we can experience God's guidance if we meet certain spiritual conditions. The first is confidence. We give evidence of our confidence in God through worship. We need to pray so that we might have our hearts right with Him. Waiting is another evidence (vv. 3, 5, 21). Every time I've rushed ahead, I've gotten into trouble. In verses 4 and 5 David talks about his willingness to follow. God won't show us His will unless we're willing to do it. Another evidence of our confidence is the witness of the Word (v. 5). When we have big decisions to make, we must spend time in the Scriptures.
Penitence also is a condition for receiving God's guidance. David is sorry for his sins. He wants God to remember His tender mercies, not David's transgressions. When God remembers someone, He goes to work for that person. He never forgets His children. David asks God for mercy (vv. 10,16) because he is concerned about his past sins, and he doesn't want those sins to get him off target.
Obedience is another condition. We are all sinners. We don't have to be perfect for God to guide us, just obedient. The word humble means "yielded to God." If we obey what God already has told us, then He will show us the next step. His guidance is not a spotlight; it's a lamp that illumines each step.
We also must exhibit reverence. God will guide us in our choices if we fear Him. The word secret (v. 14) means "friendship." Godly fear doesn't mean we are slaves; it means we have loving reverence and respect for a gracious and kind God.
Finally, we must show perseverance. It's not always easy to know and do the will of God. Sometimes when we're seeking the Lord, circumstances get worse, and we become lonely. David was lonely and afflicted, but he remembered that God was with him. Because of that, he maintained his integrity and obedience.
Do you need God's guidance today? Make verses 1-5 your prayer for His guidance in your life. Place your confidence in Him and yield to Him in spite of circumstances. You will please God and help accomplish His purposes in your life and in the lives of others.
February 26
Come up on this level too
For reading & meditation: Micah 4:6-13
"But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord" (v.12)
Yesterday we ended with the statement: "Ultimately, the problems and difficulties of life are all spiritual." What exactly does this mean? Reflect again on the psalmist's problem. He says to himself: "Why does God allow the ungodly to prosper and the godly to go through great trials and tribulations?" He has trouble as he tries to understand God's ways. Now there is really only one answer to this problem, and it is found in Isaiah 55:8: " 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord." Whatever we might think about the ways of God, these words give us the ultimate answer - the Almighty acts in ways that are above and beyond our comprehension. It is as if God is saying: "When you look at My ways you must not approach them on a natural level, because if you do you will be baffled and overwhelmed. I act on a higher level than the natural, and if you want to understand Me, then you must come up on this level too." How often, however, we persist in thinking naturally about life's situations - even those of us who have been in the Christian life for many years. The difference between natural thinking and spiritual thinking is the difference between heaven and earth. The very first thing we must do when we are baffled by some circumstance in our lives, is say to ourselves: "Am I approaching this on a natural level or a spiritual level? Have I reverted unconsciously to my natural way of thinking about these things." The more we learn to think spiritually about life's problems, the less perplexed we will be.
Prayer:
Father, I need to adopt and practise many spiritual methods, but none is as important as that which aligns me to Your thoughts and purposes. Help me come up higher - to Your level of thinking. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Romans 8:1-6; Proverbs 12:5; Philippians 4:8;
1. What does a mind controlled by the Spirit bring?
2. What things are we to think about?
Our Misgivings About Jesus
The woman said to Him, 'Sir, You have nothing to draw [water] with, and the well is deep' -John 4:11
Have you ever said to yourself, "I am impressed with the wonderful truths of God's Word, but He can't really expect me to live up to that and work all those details into my life!" When it comes to confronting Jesus Christ on the basis of His qualities and abilities, our attitudes reflect religious superiority. We think His ideals are lofty and they impress us, but we believe He is not in touch with reality- that what He says cannot actually be done. Each of us thinks this about Jesus in one area of our life or another. These doubts or misgivings about Jesus begin as we consider questions that divert our focus away from God. While we talk of our dealings with Him, others ask us, "Where are you going to get enough money to live? How will you live and who will take care of you?" Or our misgivings begin within ourselves when we tell Jesus that our circumstances are just a little too difficult for Him. We say, "It's easy to say, 'Trust in the Lord,' but a person has to live; and besides, Jesus has nothing with which to draw water- no means to be able to give us these things." And beware of exhibiting religious deceit by saying, "Oh, I have no misgivings about Jesus, only misgivings about myself." If we are honest, we will admit that we never have misgivings or doubts about ourselves, because we know exactly what we are capable or incapable of doing. But we do have misgivings about Jesus. And our pride is hurt even at the thought that He can do what we can't.
My misgivings arise from the fact that I search within to find how He will do what He says. My doubts spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, I should bring them into the light and confess them openly- "Lord, I have had misgivings about You. I have not believed in Your abilities, but only my own. And I have not believed in Your almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it."
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 27, 2008
Buy Without Money
READ: Isaiah 55:1-5
Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live. -Isaiah 55:3
A story was told of a wealthy man who felt his son needed to learn gratefulness. So he sent him to stay with a poor farmer's family. After one month, the son returned. The father asked, "Now don't you appreciate what we have?" The boy thought for a moment and said, "The family I stayed with is better off. With what they've planted, they enjoy meals together. And they always seem to have time for one another."
This story reminds us that money can't buy everything. Even though our bodies can live on what money can buy, money can't keep our souls from withering away. In Isaiah 55, we read: "Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat" (v.1).
Is it possible to buy what truly satisfies without money? Yes, the prophet Isaiah is pointing to the grace of God. This gift is so invaluable that no price tag is adequate. And the one who offers it-Jesus Christ-has paid the full price with His death. When we acknowledge our thirst for God, ask forgiveness for our sins, and accept the finished work of Christ on the cross, we will find spiritual food that satisfies and our soul will live forever!
He's calling, "Come to Me" (Isa. 55:3). - Albert Lee
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him. -Bonar
Only Jesus, the Living Water, satisfies the thirsty soul.
On the Level by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 26:1-12
Integrity means that your life is whole, that your heart is not divided. Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters" (Matt. 6:24). That's integrity. Duplicity means trying to serve two masters. Our Lord also said that nobody can look in two directions at the same time. If your eye is single, then your body is full of light. But if your eye is double, watch out. The darkness is coming in (Matt. 6:22,23). If you look at the darkness and the light simultaneously, the darkness crowds out the light.
In Psalm 25:21 David prayed: "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You"; and in verse one of today's passage, "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity." When we do business with or are ministering to someone, we want that person to have integrity.
When we have integrity, David tells us, we don't have to be afraid of sliding. "I have walked in my integrity. I have also trusted in the Lord; I shall not slip" (v. 1). He also says, "My foot stands in an even place" (v. 12). The word even means "a level place." David says, "I'm on the level because I have integrity. I have nothing in my heart against the Lord. I am not disobeying Him."
We also need not be afraid of testing. David writes, "Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my mind and my heart" (v. 2). He says, in other words, "Lord, I can go through the furnace. I can go through the X ray. Go ahead and test me. I'm not afraid." When your life is whole before God and others, when you're practicing integrity, when you have a good conscience, you don't have to be afraid of the battle or the furnace or the X ray or the testing. God will see you through.
When you walk with integrity, you walk on solid ground. Never try to serve two masters. Always keep your heart undivided before the Lord.
February 27
One view of things
For reading & meditation: Philippians 2:5-11
"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." (v.5, NKJ)
We continue meditating on the importance of learning to think spiritually. It is sometimes interesting to listen to Christians discussing together both earthly and heavenly issues. Take politics, for example. When involved in a discussion on this subject, many Christians seem to put their Christianity on one side and bring out all the prejudices and worldly arguments which they have been accustomed to use over the years. What does this say to us? It reveals the great need we have to break with the idea that life can be viewed on two levels - the natural and the spiritual. The Christian must learn to view everything from a spiritual viewpoint or otherwise he will fall prey to the same problems that the psalmist had. The great preacher C.H. Spurgeon once told a group of theological students that after they entered the ministry they should not be surprised to find that people who prayed like angels in a church prayer meeting could act like devils in a church business meeting. Unfortunately the history of the Church proves his statement to be true. How can this happen? It's because in a prayer meeting people think spiritually, but in a business meeting they revert to their natural thinking, with all its prejudices and worldly assumptions. They have a party spirit within them and as soon as any one bumps against them - out it comes. Our Lord, as our text for today shows so clearly, saw everything from a spiritual point of view. This is why, in the hour of overwhelming testing, He was able to say: "Not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).
Prayer:
My Father and my God, forgive me that so often my thinking is based on natural, rather than spiritual, perspectives. I think spiritually about some matters, but not all. Help me, dear Lord. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
James 1:1-8; Matthew 6:22; 1 Corinthians 2:16
1. What makes us unstable?
2. What happens when we are single-minded?
The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus
Where then do You get that living water? -John 4:11
"The well is deep"- and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! ( John 4:11 ). Think of the depths of human nature and human life; think of the depth of the "wells" in you. Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you have a deep "well" of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says to you, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1 ). Would your response be to shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even You can't draw up quietness and comfort out of it." Actually, that is correct. Jesus doesn't bring anything up from the wells of human nature- He brings them down from above. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering only what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and also by saying, "Of course, I cannot expect God to do this particular thing." The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do. We impoverish and weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. The impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from approaching Him as our Almighty God.
The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, "Of course, He can't do anything about this." We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, "It can't be done." You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 28, 2008
Identity Theft
READ: Matthew 5:21-26
Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. -Matthew 5:22
Several years ago while having lunch with a friend, a white man called me "boy." Shock gave way to anger and hurt. My friend even shed tears. Why? The term boy was an insulting label used of black men in the US during slavery, an attempt to steal their identity by demoting them to less than men. As that ugly word recklessly barreled its way through my soul, I wanted to respond with an equally unkind name. But some ancient words from our Master about murder and anger changed my mind.
As Jesus was teaching His followers, He quoted the sixth commandment-"You shall not murder"-and the penalty for breaking it (Matt. 5:21). Then He gave a fuller interpretation. Taking someone's life was not limited to physical murder; you could show contempt for someone through name-calling and be just as guilty. In Jewish culture, to call someone "Raca" or "Fool" (v.22) was the equivalent of calling someone empty-headed or an idiot. It was used to demean and demote another. What makes name-calling so damaging is that it insults the God who created that person in His image!
Jesus taught His followers that the weight of our neighbor's glory is a burden we carry daily. If we follow His teaching, we won't be guilty of identity theft. - Marvin Williams
Teach me to love, this is my prayer-
May the compassion of Thy heart I share;
Ready a cup of water to give,
May I unselfishly for others live. -Peterson
© 1968 John W. Peterson Music Company.
To insult the creature is to insult the Creator.
A Christian's Defense by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 26:1-12
Have you ever been blamed for something you didn't do? Leaders often are blamed falsely. The Israelites blamed Moses for lack of water, bitter water, enemies' attacks and lack of food. In this psalm, David is falsely accused, so he takes four steps to deal with his slanderers.
Step 1: An honest examination (vv. 1-3). Human nature does not want to admit it's wrong, but we need to examine ourselves. David walked in integrity. Integrity means "wholeness of character." He also walked in faith, without wavering. We find David open before God, walking in the light and letting God examine him. We would save ourselves a lot of trouble if we would let Him examine us. He wants to teach us what we are really like. If we are right before God, it makes no difference what people say.
Step 2: A holy separation (vv. 4,5). People accused David of being a hypocrite, even though he did not worship false gods. We must obey the biblical doctrine of holy separation (II Cor. 6:14-18).
Step 3: A happy celebration (vv. 6-8). David washed his hands in innocence. He was cleansed by water and blood. He was concerned about praising, loving and glorifying God. Just as Jesus sang before His crucifixion, David sang songs of praise around the altar, the place of sacrifice. Do we sing songs of praise when we have to make sacrifices?
Step 4: A humble determination? (vv. 9-12). David said, "As for me, I will walk in my integrity." When a person has integrity, he has a great defense, a great shield. Character is a marvelous shield against the accusations of men. A good conscience gives us courage in times of difficulty.
The Christian's defense is the grace of God, His Word and His truth. Because of this, we're able to walk. David's foot stood in an even place. He was not standing alone--he was in the congregation. Let's take the same steps David took the next time someone slanders us.
People can hurt you with false accusations, but you need not let slanderers defeat you. If you walk with integrity, your character will shield you. Keep yourself pure and avoid compromising situations. When someone slanders you, God's grace, His Word and His truth will protect you.
Lop-sided Christians
For reading & meditation: Philippians 4:2-9
"' if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." (v.8)
We continue to look at the dramatic change in the life of the psalmist when he entered into the sanctuary. It is important to realise that it was not merely the physical act of entering the sanctuary that brought about change. That was important, but something else happened that was even more important. Listen again to how he puts it: "[When] I entered the sanctuary ' then I understood their final destiny" (Psa. 73:17). The word to note is "understood". In the presence of God the psalmist was given clear understanding. This is an extremely important point and one which cannot be emphasised too strongly: what he found in the sanctuary was not merely a nice feeling but a new understanding. He was put right in his thinking. He did not merely forget his problem for a little while - he found a solution. The idea that many Christians have of the house of God or Christian fellowship is that it is a good place to go in order to forget one's troubles for a while. They are soothed by the music and the singing, or perhaps, in some churches, by the beauty of the architecture, and they come away saying, "What a lovely feeling I get whenever I go to church." There is nothing wrong with that as far as it goes, of course, but the real issue is this: has anything happened to their minds? The psalmist was not changed by the architecture of the Temple; he was changed when his thinking was put right: "Then I understood their final destiny." If the practice of our faith does nothing more than excite our emotions and fails to give us a better understanding of God and His ways, then we will be lop-sided Christians.
Prayer:
O Father, save me from becoming a lop-sided Christian. Give me not only joy to thrill my emotions but understanding to guide my intellect. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 48:1-9; Psalms 48:1-9; 1 Samuel 12:24;
1. What did the psalmist meditate on in the Temple?
2. What are we to consider?
'Do You Now Believe?'
:
'By this we believe . . . .' Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe?' -John 16:30-31
Now we believe. . . ." But Jesus asks, "Do you . . . ? Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you . . . will leave Me alone" ( John 16:31-32 ). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6 ). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.
We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to "walk in the light" of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to "walk in the light as He is in the light. . ." ( 1 John 1:7 ). When we do something out of a sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation-just obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.
God bless
Daily Devotionals Feb. 29, 2008
The Best Friend
READ: John 15:9-15
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. -John 15:13
It's an honor I cherish, and one I seek to live up to-but I don't always do it. It's the privilege of hearing my wife say, "You're my best friend," which she does often. As much as I love her, though, I occasionally do something that is not so "best friend-ish."
In reality, no matter how hard we try, we cannot live up to the high standard of being a friend who never lets others down. We all fail from time to time-forgetting to do what we should or simply allowing selfishness to build a barrier between us.
As believers, we take comfort in knowing that we are called a friend of God, and He is a true friend who will never falter. Michael Gungor's joyous song "Friend of God" captures the wonder of this relationship when it asks, "Who am I that You are mindful of me?"
Abraham was called "the friend of God," and that friendship was related to his faith (2 Chron. 20:7; James 2:23). Jesus explained how we can receive that designation as well. He said to His disciples, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:14). There is no better friend, for we know that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5).
Looking for the best friend ever? You can't do better than the Lord Himself. - Dave Branon
I've found a Friend, O such a Friend!
He loved me ere I knew Him;
He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus He bound me to Him. -Small
Jesus is the only faultless Friend you'll ever find.
I'm Not Scared by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 27:1-6
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (v. 1). Those are good questions. Why should we be afraid? What does God do to us and for us when we face an enemy? This psalm tells us that when we fear Him, we need not fear anyone else.
David talks about an enemy coming in. "When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell" (v. 2). Here we have a sudden coming of the enemy. But sometimes it's not a sudden invasion. In verse 3 we read, "Though an army should encamp against me." Here the enemy has settled in. I don't know which of these two is the more difficult. I think I'd prefer to have my enemies suddenly show up than to have them camped on my doorstep. You may have an enemy camped in your home or your office or your church. Somewhere in your life an enemy has probably settled.
But David says, "My heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me" (v. 3). This is not a sudden invasion or a settled battle. It's a sustained war, day after day. "Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident" (v. 3). We can be confident in the Lord, because He is our Light; we don't have to be afraid of the darkness. And because He is our Salvation, we don't have to be afraid of danger.
How can we have the protection the Lord offers? By abiding in Christ. Verse 4 tells us, "One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." Don't be afraid of your disabilities and your deficiencies. God is your Light, your Salvation and your Strength. He is all you need.
The grip of fear can debilitate one's heart, mind and will. But Christians have a Strength greater than any fear we can face. Are you struggling with fear? Whatever battle you may be fighting, rest confidently in God's protection. He is your Strength, and He will deliver you.
What Do You Want The Lord to Do for You?
'What do you want Me to do for you?' He said, 'Lord, that I may receive my sight' -Luke 18:41
Is there something in your life that not only disturbs you, but makes you a disturbance to others? If so, it is always something you cannot handle yourself. "Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more . . ." ( Luke 18:39 ). Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord Himself. Don't deify common sense. To sit calmly by, instead of creating a disturbance, serves only to deify our common sense. When Jesus asks what we want Him to do for us about the incredible problem that is confronting us, remember that He doesn't work in commonsense ways, but only in supernatural ways.
Look at how we limit the Lord by only remembering what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past. We say, "I always failed there, and I always will." Consequently, we don't ask for what we want. Instead, we think, "It is ridiculous to ask God to do this." If it is an impossibility, it is the very thing for which we have to ask. If it is not an impossible thing, it is not a real disturbance. And God will do what is absolutely impossible.
This man received his sight. But the most impossible thing for you is to be so closely identified with the Lord that there is literally nothing of your old life remaining. God will do it if you will ask Him. But you have to come to the point of believing Him to be almighty. We find faith by not only believing what Jesus says, but, even more, by trusting Jesus Himself. If we only look at what He says, we will never believe. Once we see Jesus, the impossible things He does in our lives become as natural as breathing. The agony we suffer is only the result of the deliberate shallowness of our own heart. We won't believe; we won' t let go by severing the line that secures the boat to the shore- we prefer to worry.
What is the 'Bad Eye' in Matthew 6:23?
John Piper
A verse in Matthew is somewhat difficult to understand. It seems to dangle in the Sermon on the Mount with little connection to what goes before and after: "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Matthew 6:22-23).
Before it: the familiar saying about not laying up treasures on earth: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21).
After it: the equally familiar saying about not serving God and money: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money" (Matthew 6:24).
Therefore, the sayings before and after Matthew 6:22-23 deal with treasure or money. In fact, the first would flow really well into the second if we simply left out the intervening verses 22-23. The gist would be "Treasure God in heaven, not money on earth . . . because you can't serve two masters, God and money." So why does Jesus link these two sayings about money and God with a saying about the good eye and the bad eye?
The key is found in Matthew 20:15. Jesus had just told the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Some of them had agreed to work from 6 am to 6 pm for a denarius. Some the master hired at 9 am. Others at noon. Finally some he hired at 5 pm. When the day was done at 6 pm he paid all the workers the same thing-a denarius. In other words, he was lavishly generous to those who worked only one hour, and he paid the agreed amount to those who worked twelve hours.
Those who worked all day "grumbled at the master of the house" (Matthew 20:11). They were angry that those who worked so little were paid so much. Then the master used a phrase about "the bad eye" which is just like the one back in Matthew 6:23. He said, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" (Matthew 20:15).
Unfortunately that last clause is a total paraphrase, not a translation. "Or do you begrudge my generosity" is a very loose paraphrase of "Or is your eye bad because I am good (ē ho ophthalmos sou ponēros estin hoti egō agathos eimi?)" The "bad eye" here parallels the "bad eye" in Matthew 6:23.
What does the bad eye refer to in Matthew 20:15? It refers to an eye that cannot see the beauty of grace. It cannot see the brightness of generosity. It cannot see unexpected blessing to others as a precious treasure. It is an eye that is blind to what is truly beautiful and bright and precious and God-like. It is a worldly eye. It sees money and material reward as more to be desired than a beautiful display of free, gracious, God-like generosity.
That is exactly what the bad eye means in chapter six of the Sermon on the Mount. And that meaning gives verses 22-23 a perfect fitness between a saying on true treasure (vv. 19-21) and the necessity of choosing between the mastery of God and the mastery of money (vv. 24).
So the flow of thought would go like this: Don't lay up treasures on earth, but lay up treasures in heaven. Show that your heart is fixed on the value that God is for you in Christ. Make sure that your eye is good not bad. That is, make sure that you see heavenly treasure as infinitely more precious than earthly material treasure. When your eye sees things this way, you are full of light. And if you don't see things this way, even the light you think you see (the glitz and flash and skin and muscle of this world) is all darkness. You are sleepwalking through life. You are serving money as a slave without even knowing it, because it has lulled you to sleep. Far better is to be swayed by the truth-the infinite value of God.
So if you are emotionally drawn more by material things than by Christ, pray that God would give you a good eye and awaken you from the blindness of "the bad eye."
Pastor John
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 1, 2008
Songbird In The Dark
READ: Luke 1:67-80
The Dayspring from on high has visited us. -Luke 1:78
Just before the sunrise, we often hear songbirds welcoming the dawn. Despite the darkness, we know that the radiant light of the sun will soon appear.
Fanny Crosby has been called "The Songbird in the Dark." Though blinded in infancy, she wrote hymns that inspirationally envision our future reunion with Christ. Early in her life, Fanny had a dream in which she saw the panorama of a glorious heaven, and many of her songs reflect that theme. By the time of her death, she had penned at least 8,000 hymns. Songs such as "Tell Me the Story of Jesus" and "To God Be the Glory" are still popular today.
When Zacharias praised God in anticipation of the Messiah, he also looked forward to a spiritual sunrise. Citing Malachi 4:2, he proclaimed: "The Dayspring [sunrise] from on high has visited us; to give light to those who sit in darkness" (Luke 1:78-79). That Messiah came to earth, died for our sins, rose again, ascended, and promised to return for us.
Do you feel surrounded by dark and confusing circumstances? You can still lift your praise to God for the bright future you will share with His Son. The words of Fanny Crosby's beloved hymn "Blessed Assurance" encourage us as we anticipate this glorious reunion with Christ. - Dennis Fisher
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. -Crosby
For the Christian, the dark sorrows of earth will one day be changed into the bright songs of heaven.
Believing or Seeing? by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 27:7-14
Have you ever fainted? The psalmist discovered a way to keep from fainting. "I would have lost heart [fainted], unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (v. 13). David felt somewhat forsaken. His enemies were attacking him, and the circumstances were unbearable.
We have to walk by faith just as David did. "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed." Jesus taught in Luke 18 that men ought always to pray and not to faint. When you pray, it's an evidence of faith. The world says that seeing is believing. If the world had written verse 13 of this passage, it would read: "I would have fainted unless I had seen, and then I believed." That was Martha's problem. Lazarus, her brother, had been dead and in the grave for four days. But Jesus said to her, "Didn't I tell you that if you would believe, you would see?" (John 11:40). Thomas said, "Seeing is believing," but Jesus says, "Believing is seeing" (see John 20:24-29).
The evidences of faith are rather obvious. First, we seek the Lord. "When You said, 'Seek My face,' my heart said to You, 'Your face, Lord, I will seek"' (v. 8). Do you want to build your faith and be able to walk by faith and war by faith? Then seek the Lord. Second, call on the Lord. "Teach me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies" (v. 11). That's prayer. Third, do the hardest thing of all--wait on the Lord. "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart" (v. 14). Believing is seeing. Trust the Lord today.
One of the most difficult aspects of the Christian life is waiting on God. It is especially difficult in the midst of trials. But that is when He builds your faith. Don't faint under your circumstances. Wait on the Lord, and He will strengthen you.
Seeing life whole
For reading & meditation: 1 Peter 3:13-22
"' Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have '" (v.15)
As Christians we ought never to forget that the message of the Bible is addressed primarily to the understanding; it enables us to understand life. Because of the Bible, we are able to give a reason for the hope that is within us. The psalmist found the truth of this. In the sanctuary he discovered an explanation for the way that he felt. He was not given a temporary lift that would stay with him for a few hours or a few days - he was given a solution that would stay with him for the rest of his life. It was this, in fact, that caused him to write the psalm we are focusing upon day by day. The words: "Then I understood their final destiny" (Psa. 73:17) suggest that previously he had not been thinking correctly. He had been seeing things from a partial and incomplete perspective, but now "in the sanctuary" he began to see the whole picture: "Then I understood". When? Then - when he came into the sanctuary. There is a line in one of Matthew Arnold's writings that goes like this: "Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole." What a delightful phrase this is. Nothing can be more wonderful than to see life steadily and to see it whole. Much of the inner turmoil we go through in life comes about because we do not see life as a whole. Prejudice has been defined as "seeing only what you want to see". People who are prejudiced say: "I have always seen it that way." That's their problem - their eyes are fixed on just one facet of an issue and they will not allow themselves to look at the other sides.
Prayer:
O Father, help me, for I don't want to be in bondage to prejudice or bigotry - I want to see life whole. We must work this issue out together over these next few days, for apart from You I can do nothing. Help me, Father. Amen.
For further study:
Ephesians 5:1-20; 2 Timothy 1:8
1. How are we to speak to ourselves?
2. What did Paul admonish Timothy?
The Piercing Question
Do you love Me? -John 21:17
Peter's response to this piercing question is considerably different from the bold defiance he exhibited only a few days before when he declared, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" ( Matthew 26:35 ; also see Matthew 26:33-34 ). Our natural individuality, or our natural self, boldly speaks out and declares its feelings. But the true love within our inner spiritual self can be discovered only by experiencing the hurt of this question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way any natural man loves a good person. Yet that is nothing but emotional love. It may reach deeply into our natural self, but it never penetrates to the spirit of a person. True love never simply declares itself. Jesus said, "Whoever confesses Me before men [that is, confesses his love by everything he does, not merely by his words], him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God" ( Luke 12:8 ).
Unless we are experiencing the hurt of facing every deception about ourselves, we have hindered the work of the Word of God in our lives. The Word of God inflicts hurt on us more than sin ever could, because sin dulls our senses. But this question of the Lord intensifies our sensitivities to the point that this hurt produced by Jesus is the most exquisite pain conceivable. It hurts not only on the natural level, but also on the deeper spiritual level. "For the Word of God is living and powerful . . . , piercing even to the division of soul and spirit . . ."- to the point that no deception can remain ( Hebrews 4:12). When the Lord asks us this question, it is impossible to think and respond properly, because when the Lord speaks directly to us, the pain is too intense. It causes such a tremendous hurt that any part of our life which may be out of line with His will can feel the pain. There is never any mistaking the pain of the Lord's Word by His children, but the moment that pain is felt is the very moment at which God reveals His truth to us.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 2, 2008
Wii And Mii
READ: Ephesians 4:25-5:1
Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. -Ephesians 4:25
Our grandsons introduced me to the amazing world of virtual bowling using the Nintendo Wii (pronounced we) video-game console. But before beginning, we had to create my look-alike character called Mii (me). From a selection of facial characteristics, they quickly created a person whose hair, nose, glasses, and mouth looked surprisingly like me. "Hey, Grandpa," they said. "It's you!" And so it was.
Much of our self-concept comes from others. The feedback of family and friends is vital in helping us discover our unique gifts. As followers of Christ, we are charged with making an honest, positive contribution to each other. We can apply the words of Paul to this critical process. "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. . . . Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers" (Eph. 4:25,29). - David C. McCasland
Between the extremes of hazardous flattery and destructive criticism, we should aim for beneficial reality in what we say to each other. In the "we" of Christian community, the "me" of personality is shaped. It's a great privilege and responsibility to help each other discover who we are in Christ.
Together, Lord, we seek Thy will;
We bow before Thee-yielded still;
We come today, as oft before,
And with each coming love Thee more. -Group
True community is not organized but exercised.
Checking Hands by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 28:1-9
When I was in grade school, each day the teacher would walk up and down the aisles and make us hold out our hands: first, with the palms up to make sure our hands were clean and then with the palms down to make sure our fingernails were clean. Of course, none of us liked this, because little kids would much rather have dirty hands.
Psalm 28 talks a great deal about hands. The psalmist lifted up his hands. The enemies were doing evil work with their hands. But God had His hand at work as well. "Give to them [the enemies] according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors; give to them according to the work of their hands" (v. 4). There are wicked people in this world, and they have dirty hands. Some people defile everything they touch. This grieves us, especially when they want to touch our lives and defile us.
What did David do? He saw his enemies' evil hands, and he lifted up his hands. "Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary" (v. 2). When an Old Testament Jew prayed, he didn't fold his hands. He lifted them up to God in praise and in expectancy that He was going to do something. When you see the evil hands of Satan's crowd doing their defiling work, don't put your hands on their hands. You'll be defiled. Instead, lift your holy hands to the Lord and trust Him to work. "Because they [the enemies] do not regard the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up" (v. 5).
God's hand is at work today, and the result of this is praise (v. 7). Do you need help today? Lift up your hands to the Lord in supplication and in expectation, and soon you will lift up your hands in jubilation and celebration.
Unfortunately, many people fail to keep their hands clean. Their evil hands sometimes do dirty work that hurts you. When that happens, you can trust God to take care of evil hands. Keep your hands clean. Look to God, lift your hands to Him and let His hand work for you.
"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 1:5-8 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Faith in Christ as our Savior is a new beginning. Our saving faith marks the point where we begin the rewarding and demanding climb of the Christian life. Today's scripture tells us to "add to your faith" and then goes on to describe the building blocks of Christian character.
What are these building blocks? Goodness ,knowledge,self-control,perseverance godliness, brotherly kindness , and love.
These character traits don't happen overnight. Indeed, as we walk with Christ, trusting him, we should continue to grow in these areas throughout our entire life. God's Word goes on to say that if we are increasing in these qualities, our knowledge of Jesus will be effective and productive.
Consider this
Time to look in a mirror. Which of these qualities is evident in your life? Are you growing in every area? Do you see evidence of your growth in the lives you are touching ?
Remember-we can't change all at once. It's a lifetime process. And we can't do it on our own. Our strength comes from Jesus.
Prayer
Lord, help me to grow in goodness ,knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness , brotherly kindness, and love. Make my life more effective and productive in ways that honor and please you. In Jesus' name
Have You Felt the Pain Inflicted by the Lord?
He said to him the third time, '. . . do you love Me?' -John 21:17
Have you ever felt the pain, inflicted by the Lord, at the very center of your being, deep down in the most sensitive area of your life? The devil never inflicts pain there, and neither can sin nor human emotions. Nothing can cut through to that part of our being but the Word of God. "Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' " Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. And then he began to see what Jesus' patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest bit of doubt left in Peter's mind; he could never be deceived again. And there was no need for an impassioned response; no need for immediate action or an emotional display. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he simply said, "Lord, You know all things . . . ." Peter began to see how very much he did love Jesus, and there was no need to say, "Look at this or that as proof of my love." Peter was beginning to discover within himself just how much he really did love the Lord. He discovered that his eyes were so fixed on Jesus Christ that he saw no one else in heaven above or on the earth below. But he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord were asked. The Lord's questions always reveal the true me to myself.
Oh, the wonder of the patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the perfect time. Rarely, but probably once in each of our lives, He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with His piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 3, 2008
An Impossible Challenge?
READ: Num. 14:1-5,26-27
Do all things without complaining and disputing. -Philippians 2:14
A pastor in Kansas City gave what seemed to be an impossible challenge to his congregation-to go 21 days without complaining (the amount of time some say it takes to develop a new habit). Special bracelets were distributed to participants as a reminder to live complaint-free lives. A movement was started, and millions of bracelets have been distributed all over the world.
The biblical principle "Do all things without complaining and disputing" (Phil. 2:14) is an important one. The ancient Israelites discovered this when, because of their constant complaining in the wilderness, they were judged by God and not allowed to enter the Promised Land (Num. 14).
How can we learn to develop a noncomplaining, positive attitude that will please the Lord?
· By disciplining our thoughts (Rom. 12:2). We need to meditate on Scripture and remember our blessings.
· By confessing our critical spirit and committing ourselves to obedience each time we fail (1 John 1:9).
· By enlisting God's help and the help of others. The Spirit will empower us as we depend on Him (John 14:26). - Anne Cetas
Because God helps us, doing all things without complaining is not an impossible challenge.
Lord, help me stop complaining
When things don't go my way;
Instead, give me a thankful heart
For all You do each day. -Sper
A complaining Christian is a contradiction in terms.
The Voice in the Storm by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 29:1-11
I don't know how my psychologist friends will analyze this, but for some reason I enjoy a rainy day. I especially enjoy it during a day off at home. I find it soothing to stand at the window and see the clouds and the rain and even hear the thunder.
Psalm 29 is a description of a storm. I suppose David was out in the fields or in a cave when this storm came. He saw the power of God in the turbulence. Before it started, he said, "Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" (vv. 1,2). He was concerned about God's glory. Perhaps he saw the clouds gathering. When you see clouds gathering and know that a storm is about to come into your life, do you think about the glory of God? David did. So often we don't. We think of escape rather than the glory of God.
In verses 3-9 David describes the storm. "The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders;...the voice of the Lord is powerful" (vv. 3,4). He saw the lightning and heard the thunder. A sequence here is rather interesting. "The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars,...the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;...the voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth" (vv. 5,8,9). God's voice can break and shake and make. David ends the psalm by acknowledging God's sovereignty. He is King forever. "The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood, and the Lord sits as King forever" (v. 10). God is sovereign today. Don't be afraid of the storm. Just look for His glory and His power.
God often speaks to you in the storm. The next time you find yourself in a storm, listen for His voice. Look for His glory and power and be reminded that He is in control.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
A refusal to correct is a refusal to love; love your children by disciplining them. Proverbs 13:24 MSG
Thoughts for Today
One of the most difficult issues for parents to work through is realizing late in the parenting process that they have failed as a parent. People who have tremendous guilt due to feelings of failure as a parent often give in to inappropriate behavior by their children. One mother who had a 21-year-old son living in her home admitted that she sometimes permitted her son to abuse her verbally and physically. She also allowed him to drink alcohol in the home even though this was against her values. Why did she allow this behavior? "He had a difficult time during my divorce, and I don't want to hurt him anymore!"
This mother had not been the best of mothers, but she had committed her life to Christ and was now involved in ministry. Nonetheless, instead of walking in the freedom of forgiveness that was hers through Christ, she allowed her past to haunt her. Guilt over the mistakes she had made as a parent ruled her current relationship with her son. In her mind, allowing him to do whatever he wanted was making up for her past mistakes. In fact, she needed to show her love by holding him accountable for his actions.
Consider this
Have you made some serious mistakes in parenting your child? Are you now allowing guilt to prevent you from holding him accountable for his actions? Meditate on today's scripture. The best way you can love your child is with kind but firm discipline and guiding him in ways that are pleasing to God.
PrayerFather, I know you've forgiven me for my past mistakes. Help me to forgive myself and move on. Help me to love my child enough to discipline him and hold him responsible for his actions. I pray that your will be done in his life. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
His Commission to Us
Feed My sheep -John 21:17
This is love in the making. The love of God is not created- it is His nature. When we receive the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit, He unites us with God so that His love is demonstrated in us. The goal of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not just to unite us with God, but to do it in such a way that we will be one with the Father in exactly the same way Jesus was. And what kind of oneness did Jesus Christ have with the Father? He had such a oneness with the Father that He was obedient when His Father sent Him down here to be poured out for us. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" ( John 20:21 ).
Peter now realizes that he does love Him, due to the revelation that came with the Lord's piercing question. The Lord's next point is- "Pour yourself out. Don't testify about how much you love Me and don't talk about the wonderful revelation you have had, just 'Feed My sheep.' " Jesus has some extraordinarily peculiar sheep: some that are unkempt and dirty, some that are awkward or pushy, and some that have gone astray! But it is impossible to exhaust God's love, and it is impossible to exhaust my love if it flows from the Spirit of God within me. The love of God pays no attention to my prejudices caused by my natural individuality. If I love my Lord, I have no business being guided by natural emotions- I have to feed His sheep. We will not be delivered or released from His commission to us. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by following your own natural human emotions, sympathies, or understandings. That will only serve to revile and abuse the true love of God.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 4, 2008
The Miracle Of Restraint
READ: Luke 4:1-13
We love Him because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19
In Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov refers to "the miracle of restraint"-God's choice to curb His own power. The more I get to know Jesus, the more that observation impresses me.
The miracles Satan suggested to Jesus (Luke 4:3,9-11), the signs the Pharisees demanded (Matt. 12:38; 16:1), the final proofs I yearn for offer no obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is His refusal to perform, to overwhelm. God's terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that He granted us the power to live as though He does not exist. Jesus must have known this as He faced the tempter in the desert, focusing His power on the energy of restraint.
I believe God insists on such restraint because no pyrotechnic displays of omnipotence will achieve the response He desires. Only love can summon a response of love. "I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself," Jesus said (John 12:32). He said this to show the kind of death He would die. God's nature is self-giving.
Why does God content Himself with the slow, mysterious way of making righteousness grow rather than avenging it? That's how love is. Love has its own power-the only power capable of conquering the human heart. - Philip Yancey
That leaden night on which He was betrayed,
The One by whom the universe was made
Reclined with friends, took bread and stretched a hand
Of love to him who His demise had planned. -Gustafson
Revenge restrained is a victory gained.
Never Be Moved? by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 30:1-12
Two words are repeated seven times in Psalm 30--"you have." David is praising God for what He had done for him. Are you doing that today? Perhaps you've seen the plaque that says, "Prayer changes things," and that's true. I've also seen a plaque that says, "Praise changes things," and that also is true. It's amazing how our whole attitude and whole outlook can be transformed by praising God.
In verse 6 David gives a testimony: "Now in my prosperity I said, 'I shall never be moved."' When we have prosperity without humility, it leads to adversity. Why? Because we start to be more concerned with things than we are with God. David said in his prosperity, "I shall never be moved." But then he found out that he could be moved. He found out that his prosperity did not guarantee security. So instead of saying "I shall" or "I shall not," he began saying "You have." He submitted his will to God's will. "You have" defeated the enemy. "For You have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me" (v. 1). "You have" given me victory. "You have" answered prayer. "You have healed me" (v. 2). "You have brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive" (v. 3).
God did some marvelous things for David. He defeated his enemy, answered his prayer, saved his life and established him (v. 7). And then He gave him joy. "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness" (v. 11). Do you want your life to be transformed today? Move from "I shall" to "You have" and, in humility, praise God for what He has done.
Submitting to God is an exercise in humility. Until you humble yourself before Him and concern yourself with the things of God, you will not become established. For God to work in your life, your will must be aligned with His. Are you submitted to Him? If not, humble yourself before Him and allow Him to transform your life.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Some mothers prepare their teenage daughters for premarital sexual activities by helping them with birth control plans. They may feel guilty asking their teenage daughter to abstain from sex outside of marriage, especially if they did not. Likewise, some father may allow their teen-age sons to drink alcohol-after all, they did when they were teens how can they say "no"?
No matter what mistakes we may have made, that is history. If we have received Jesus' forgiveness, the past is past. This is today-and God is calling us today to train our children in the way they should go. The way that is pleasing to him.
Consider this
Because you broke rules and made mistakes does not mean that your children should follow the same pattern. It is vital that you learn from your wrongdoing and receive Christ's forgiveness. Then God calls you to love your children enough to teach them the right way-God's way.
Remember, you don't have to do it alone. Ask God for the courage, the strength and the wisdom to train your children in the way they should go.
Prayer
Father, help me to guide and discipline my children so that they won't make the same mistakes that I did. Help me to train them in the way they should go. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Is This True of Me?
None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself . . . -Acts 20:24
It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because then you are not bothered by what He requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion, becomes your guide. You may be more prosperous and successful from the world's perspective, and will have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do His will. You will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.
What do I count in my life as "dear to myself"? If I have not been seized by Jesus Christ and have not surrendered myself to Him, I will consider the time I decide to give God and my own ideas of service as dear. I will also consider my own life as "dear to myself." But Paul said he considered his life dear so that he might fulfill the ministry he had received, and he refused to use his energy on anything else. This verse shows an almost noble annoyance by Paul at being asked to consider himself. He was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him. Our reasonable work is based on the following argument which we say to ourselves, "Remember how useful you are here, and think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude chooses our own judgment, instead of Jesus Christ, to be our guide as to where we should go and where we could be used the most. Never consider whether or not you are of use- but always consider that "you are not your own" ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). You are His.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 5, 2008
Urge To Jump
READ: Josh. 22:10-16,21-29
If you hear someone . . . saying, "Corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants," . . . then you shall inquire, search out, and ask diligently. -Deut. 13:12-14
In April 2006, a stuntman tried to jump from the top of the Empire State Building. At the last minute, authorities restrained him and charged him with reckless endangerment. After a judge had looked carefully at all the facts, he dismissed the charges, noting that the accused had taken steps to ensure the safety of others. With a parachute strapped to his back, Jeb Corliss had safely made 3,000 previous jumps, including leaps from the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the Eiffel Tower.
As extreme as Corliss' sport is, it is safer than the kind of leap that almost took place in Joshua 22. Israel had just engaged in a 7-year conquest of Canaan. Suddenly, an alarming rumor raised the possibility of civil war. Word spread that the families who settled east of the Jordan River had built an idolatrous altar (v.10).
A national catastrophe was averted that day, only because someone took time to investigate the facts and listen to both sides of the issue (vv.16-29). A terrible, costly misunderstanding was avoided. The wisdom of God was honored (v.31). Our loving Lord taught His people that the cost of listening is not nearly as great as the cost of jumping to wrong conclusions. - Mart De Haan
Lest judgment should be based on wrong conclusion,
Distinguish right from vain and carnal pleading;
The world is rife with error and confusion;
Rely alone on God the Spirit's leading. -Mollon
Jumping to wrong conclusions is one of the greatest of all dangers.
Whose Hands? by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 3l:1-8
Psalm 31 is one of David's exile psalms. He wrote it when Saul was chasing him through the rough hill country of Judah. David was going from cave to cave and from hill to hill.
During his exile, David discovered that God's hand was adequate for every need of every day. Have you noticed in the Psalms how often David talked about hands? As a shepherd he knew the importance of his hands. He had to carry the shepherd's crook, the staff. He also used a slingshot and later exchanged it for a sword. Occasionally he would exchange his sword for a harp. The hands that had been in battle produced beautiful music for the glory of God.
David also talked about the hand of the enemy. "And [You] have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy" (v. 8). "My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies" (v. 15). We do have enemies. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (I Pet. 5:8). Our enemies would like to destroy us, but God's hand protects us.
"Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth" (v. 5). This is the prayer of Jewish boys and girls in the Old Testament times. Whenever he went to bed, the little child would say, "Into Your hand I commit my spirit." When our Lord Jesus Christ gave His life for us on the cross, He said, "It is finished! Into Your hands I commend My spirit" (John 19:30; Luke 23:46). When you commit your life into God's hand, you don't have to worry about any other hand, because His hand protects you, provides for you and guides you.
It is good for us to depend on God's hand, the hand of provision, protection and guidance. What are your needs today? Have you asked God to provide for them ? Depend on the hand of God; you will find Him faithful.
Is He Really My Lord?
Oswald Chambers
. . . so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . . -Acts 20:24
Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced came from doing what the Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21 ). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it- to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant" ( Matthew 25:21 ). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal Savior. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 - "I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."
"Do you love Me?" Then, "Feed My sheep" ( John 21:17 ). He is not offering us a choice of how we can serve Him; He is asking for absolute loyalty to His commission, a faithfulness to what we discern when we are in the closest possible fellowship with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is not the same as the call- the need is the opportunity to exercise the call. The call is to be faithful to the ministry you received when you were in true fellowship with Him. This does not imply that there is a whole series of differing ministries marked out for you. It does mean that you must be sensitive to what God has called you to do, and this may sometimes require ignoring demands for service in other areas.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1 NLT
Thoughts for Today
This week we've been addressing the issue of allowing our own guilt to set the tone for guiding and disciplining our children. The most basic part of overcoming this tendency is to fully receive Christ's forgiveness and make him Lord of our lives. Then we need to accept the fact that he does not condemn us.
After asking the Lord to search your heart, be proactive with guilt. Today's scripture assures us that "now there is no condemnation" for those who have received Christ as Lord and Savior. Notice the word now. That means at this moment in time. Remember the truth of this verse. Jesus has set you free-let go of the past and move on, focusing on being the person-and the parent-God wants you to be now.
Consider this
There may be times when you experience a guilty feeling for no understandable reason. It may seem as if guilt is floating in the air surrounding you. That kind of guilt is not of God-refuse to listen to that voice. Stand on the promise of Romans 8:1 and practice speaking that truth to yourself.
Prayer
Father, I thank you that Jesus paid the price for my sin and that I am forgiven. Help me to put the past behind and walk in the freedom of that forgiveness. Help me to be the kind of person-and the kind of parent-you want me to be. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 6, 2008
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>From Nothing
READ: Genesis 1:1-13
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. -Genesis 1:1
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No light. No sky. No land. It's incomprehensible to
our finite thinking-the barren nothingness that existed before Genesis 1:1.
Then suddenly, through the work of the Almighty, God supplanted nothingness with
"the heavens and the earth." The divine hand reached through the void and produced
a place, a world, a universe. Through the magnificent convergence of the workings
of the Godhead-with the Son enacting the will of the Father as the Agent of creation,
and the Holy Spirit as the hovering Presence-nothing became something. History began
its long march toward today.
The first verse of Genesis provides us with sufficient concepts to contemplate for
a lifetime. That introductory statement speaks of enough glory, enough majesty,
enough awe to leave us speechless before God. Just as today we would have no life,
no breath, no existence without His sustaining action, neither would we have the
cosmos without His mighty act at the moment of creation.
In awe we wonder what went on before "the beginning." With breathless praise we
marvel at the words "God created the heavens and the earth." We read-and we stand
in adoration. "Nothing" has never been so fascinating! - Dave Branon
I sing the mighty power of God
That made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad
And built the lofty skies. -Watts
Nature is but a name for an effect whose cause is God.
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Hard-Hearted by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Numbers 35-36, Mark 10:1-31
Key Verse: Mark 10:5
More than ever, the prefix "step-" is a part of our vocabulary. Sometimes due to
death but more often due to divorce and remarriage, one may speak of a stepparent,
stepbrother, stepsister or stepchild. The prefix "ex-" has become a word that can
stand alone in a sentence. A former spouse is often referred to as one's "ex."
At first glance, the prevalent use of these terms is probably because of the high
divorce rate. That is one cause, but it is not really the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter is, in fact, the heart. Skip the debate over whether the
Bible allows for divorce. Instead, cut to the chase with the words of Jesus: Moses
permitted divorce "because your hearts were hard" (v. 5). Without the law of Moses,
a husband could impulsively divorce his wife, discarding her, as Warren Wiersbe
writes, "like an unwanted piece of furniture."
In reality, divorce does not solve the problem. It just removes the people a step
or two from the situation. But the hard heart-the heart of the problem, according
to Jesus-stays with the person.
The bottom line for Christians is that our hearts are not to be hard. Keep yours
teachable, open and responsive to God's Word and work. Too often the problems we
face remain and worsen because our hearts are hard.
Help me have a teachable spirit, a heart that is open and responsive to You, O God."
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Today's Scripture
Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them
to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the
counsel and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4 AMP
Thoughts for Today
If guilt from your past failures has driven you away from disciplining your children
and holding them responsible for their actions, perhaps the behavior of one or more
of them has gotten out of hand. No matter how bad the situation may appear, there
is always hope. If you haven't confessed your failures, do that now. Receive
forgiveness
through Christ and ask him to help you start making right choices. Then be encouraged
to take these steps:
* Have a talk with your child and apologize for your past mistakes as a parent.
* Tell your child you love him (or her) too much to permit his unacceptable behavior.
* Tell him you will always love him and pray for him.
* Tell him you are going to hold him responsible for his actions as God holds you
responsible.
Consider this
Your child's behavior probably won't change overnight, but you will have made a
start. Trust the Lord to help you and guide you along the way. Be consistent with
your child-both in your love and in your kind but firm discipline. When you make
a mistake, ask God's forgiveness and, if appropriate, apologize to your child.
But keep moving forward, trusting God for the results.
Prayer
Father, thank you for forgiving my failures. Help me to take this stand with my
child and to show my great love for him by training him in your ways and holding
him accountable. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Close But Not Too Close
by
Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want
to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling
issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of
a loved one's problem
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day
devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others,
please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written
permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending
e-mail to info@LivingFree.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taking the Next Step
:
. . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses -2 Corinthians
6:4
When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching
and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step
in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family
life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much
greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to
preach the gospel.
Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next
step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We
lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement,
but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really
testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance,
even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated
life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to
the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never
allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant
for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17
.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals March 7, 2008
A New Career
READ: Matthew 4:18-22
Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. -Matthew 4:22
For some guys, the annual fishing trip is the highlight of their calendar. They stay in cozy cabins and spend long days fishing just for the fun of it. You can be sure it wasn't that way for the disciples. They weren't on vacation when they met Jesus. Fishing was their career.
Our careers often demand much of our time and attention. But Jesus has an interesting way of interrupting our business-as-usual agenda. In fact, He invites us to join His business.
Notice the sequence of His statement to the fishermen: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19). We are tempted to think that we should make something of our lives and at the same time follow Jesus. Wrong! He calls us first to follow Him, and then He makes something of our lives. He leads us to prioritize so that we see the needs of people and their eternity as the goal of all our endeavors.
And while God may not require you to give up your career, following Him will guarantee that you will never see your career in the same way again. Where you "fish" is not important. But if you follow, you must fish.
What are you waiting for? Drop your nets, follow Him, and let Him make something of your life. - Joe Stowell
"Take up your cross," the Savior said,
"If you would My disciple be;
Take up your cross with willing heart
And humbly follow after Me." -Everest
Drop your nets and follow Jesus.
We Have Met the Enemy . . . By Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Deuteronomy 1-3, Mark 10:32-52
Key Verse: Mark 10:38
The old cartoon character Pogo rephrased the words of Admiral Perry: "We have met the enemy and he is us." The struggles and failures so many people experience have as their root nothing other than self. In today's reading, self-focus clashes with the kingdom agenda.
Jesus gave the agenda. "We are going up to Jerusalem," he announced (v. 33). He spoke of His upcoming betrayal, condemnation, mocking, death and resurrection.
Having heard this agenda, James and John made a request-to sit on either side of Jesus in His glory. The clashing of agendas occurred as they shifted focus from Christ's passion to their desired positions of honor.
Just as the request in the Numbers 32 reading (March 5) affected the nation as a whole, so this request affected the disciples as a group. The others became "indignant with James and John" (v. 41). Jesus had to call them together to calm them down.
Consider James 4:1. "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?"
Choose to focus on the kingdom agenda. Take the focus off yourself.
Try to see others before yourself. Perhaps today you will be able to put someone in front of you. Learn to live for others.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 1 Corinthians 3:6 NIV
Thoughts for Today
If your child or someone else you care about is struggling with a life-controlling problem, the goal should be to place that person in God's hands and allow Him to work with your loved one on His time frame. As much as we might want to, we cannot manipulate or demand that a person change, only Jesus can change a heart.
As helpers, we can do these three things to help struggling people:
Direct them to focus on Jesus.
Model honesty for them.
Hold them responsible for their own choices.
Consider this
Today's scripture makes it clear that we can plant seed we can water the seed but only God can give the increase. It is good to know that although we can create an environment for change by doing those things God has called us to do, it is ultimately He who makes the change in our loved one's life.
Prayer
Father, my loved one is struggling with a life-controlling problem. Teach me how to create an environment for change and help me trust you for your will in my loved one's life. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Source of Abundant Joy
Oswald Chambers
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us -Romans 8:37
Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.
Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let's apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against- tribulation, suffering, and persecution- are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. "We are more than conquerors through Him" "in all these things"; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4 ).
The undiminished radiance, which is the result of abundant joy, is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can change. And the experiences of life, whether they are everyday events or terrifying ones, are powerless to "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" ( Romans 8:39 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 8, 2008
A To-Do List
Our Daily Bread
READ: Galatians 5:16-26
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. -Galatians 5:22
What's on your to-do list today? Cleaning out an overstuffed closet? Calculating a financial report at work? Paying your monthly bills?
We all have things we need to get done today, whether we've written them down or not. They're important for us to accomplish.
While a to-do list is helpful, another type of list is even more valuable: a "to be" list. Albert Einstein said, "Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."
The apostle Paul encouraged the Galatian believers, and now tells us, to be concerned with our character. He said that if we're controlled by the Holy Spirit, God will produce in us the characteristics of "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (5:22-23).
As you look at those character traits, which are you needing most in your life? More patience with a co-worker or a child? A little more gentleness and kindness toward a neighbor? As you draw near to God, He will enable you to be the person He wants you to be.
Perhaps at the top of your to-do list today you could put: Spend time praying and reading God's Word. That would be a good start in helping with your "to be" list. - Anne Cetas
The hidden person of the heart
Must take priority
Because our inner character
Determines who we'll be. -Sper
It's not what you do but who you are that's most important.
The Peril of Prosperity By Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Deuteronomy 4-6, Mark 11:1-18
Key Verse: Deuteronomy 6:12
When things are going well, it is very easy to forget God. He knew that this temptation lay in the path before the people of Israel.
The way had been rough. For 40 years the people had endured the difficulties of being desert nomads, literally burying a generation (see Deut. 1:35). Only the young, along with Caleb and Joshua, were spared from the judgment of God. Now Moses was preparing them to move into the Promised Land.
God was giving them cities that they did not build, houses filled with good things, wells that were in place, and vineyards and olive groves that they did not plant.
With blessing, however, comes a peril. The peril of prosperity is that we sometimes forget God and His blessings. Instead, we rely on self, enjoying the ease. The words of Moses ring true for us today. He said, "When you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD" (6:11-12).
Solomon's prayer also is vital in this regard: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD?'" (Prov. 30:8-9).
Write out a list of God's blessings, and then add to it each day for a week. It will keep you from forgetting the goodness of God.
March 8
Rougher - but more secure
For reading & meditation: Deuteronomy 32:28-38
"If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!" (v.29)
We have been seeing that in the sanctuary the psalmist was reminded of the things he had forgotten, and thus his thinking was straightened out. There can be no real change in our personalities until there is a change in our thinking. Counselling that focuses only on changing behaviour and fails to emphasise the importance of changed thinking is partial and incomplete. We may experience some change when we change our behaviour, but we experience the greatest change, as our text for today suggests, when we change our thinking. In the sanctuary the psalmist's thinking was put right about the ungodly: "Then I understood their end" (Psa. 73:17, NKJ). The next verses indicate how his thinking was also put right about God Himself: "Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors" (Psa. 73:18-19). The psalmist's problem, you remember, was not so much that the ungodly prospered, as that God had arranged it that way. Had it happened by mere chance, he might not have had any difficulties, but the fact that the great Designer had planned it like this filled him with perplexity. Now, however, he sees that the divine hand had purposely placed these men in prosperous and eminent circumstances so that they could fulfil the Creator's purposes: "You" - note the You - "You place them on slippery ground." Note, too, the phrase "slippery ground": their position was dangerous. Therefore God did not set His loved ones in that place, but chose instead a rougher but more secure standing for their feet.
Prayer:
O God, I am grateful that You have set my feet in a secure place and not on slippery ground. Why I have been chosen to be a recipient of such grace and favour I do not know. Yet it is so. I am deeply, deeply thankful. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 16:1-11; 1 Samuel 2:9; Psalms 18:36; Ephesians 6:13-14;
1. Why are we able to stand firm?
2. What did Paul admonish the Ephesians?
The Surrendered Life
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.
If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 9, 2008
Wait On The Lord
READ: Psalm 27
Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord! -Psalm 27:14
In Cantonese, a Chinese dialect, the word for wait sounds like the word for class. Making a pun on this word, some senior folks in Hong Kong identify themselves as "third-class citizens," which also means "people of three waits." They wait for their children to return home from work late at night. They wait for the morning sun to dispel their sleepless nights. And with a sigh of resignation, they wait for death.
In the Bible, the word wait is more an attitude than an activity. To "wait on the Lord" is to trust Him. Psalm 27 is David's exuberant declaration of faith in God. He sees the Lord as his salvation (v.1). In times of danger, he knows for certain that God will hide him (v.5). He remembers that God has asked him to seek His face, so he asks God not to hide from him. For, like a child, he longs to see God's approving face (vv.8-10). In his darkest moments, David declares: "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (v.13).
Though no one knows how life will unfold, we can decide to trust God and to focus our mind on Him. For to those who wait on the Lord, the promise is given: Our heart will be strengthened (v.14). - Albert Lee
I know not what the future holds-
What in one hour may be;
But I can wait while it unfolds,
And trust implicitly. -Elliott
Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. -Isaiah 40:31
Three Levels by Dr. Warren Wiersbe
Read Psalm 32:8-11
Did you know there are three levels on which God can deal with you? You must decide whether you want Him to treat you as a thing, an animal or one of His own children. God had to treat David as a thing (a sponge), and His hand was heavy on him (vv. 3,4). David was rebelling. He was not acting like God's child. Instead of confessing his sin, he was covering it. But the Bible says, "He who covers his sins will not prosper" (Prov. 28:13). So God had to treat David like a thing. He put His hand on David and began to squeeze all the life out of him. David finally woke up and confessed his sin.
God also had to treat David like an animal. He warns us, "Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you" (v. 9). David had acted like a horse--impulsively, he rushed ahead and sinned. And then he became stubborn like a mule and would not confess his sin. So God dealt with him as He would an animal.
But God wants to deal with us as children. "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye [on you]" (v. 8). He doesn't want to control us with bits and bridles, although sometimes He has to do that. Sometimes He has to send us sickness or a handicap or an accident to break our wills. He says, "I'd much rather guide you with My eye on you. I'd much rather instruct you." You can instruct a horse or a mule to a certain extent--but not the way you can a child. Decide today: Is God going to treat you as a thing because you are rebelling or as an animal because you are stubborn? Or will you let Him guide you as His own child? Oh, how much He loves you! He wants to work in you and through you and for you to bring about His best in your life.
God loves you and wants to guide you as His child. The way you live decides whether or not He can. Rebellion and unconfessed sin in your life will change the way He works in you. Are you living as a child of God? Decide now on which level He will treat you.
March 9
He never leaves the helm
For reading & meditation: Psalms 76:1-12
"Surely your wrath against men brings you praise '" (v.10)
We touched yesterday on the truth that the reason why the ungodly are set in eminent places is because God arranges it. The psalmist goes on to say that not only does God raise up the ungodly, but He also brings them down: "You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed '" (Psa. 73:18-19). The hand that led them up to the top of the slope is the hand that also casts them down. Why does God act in this strange and mysterious manner? One reason is that God is able to demonstrate how unreliable and insecure are the ways of those who choose not to walk with Him. This explains why we so frequently read of some prominent godless person, such as a film star whom everyone is acclaiming, being suddenly removed from the face of the earth. The feet of such people were set in slippery places. Some reading these lines will remember how everyone stood in dread of Adolph Hitler. He had the whole world frightened, but now he is gone and almost forgotten. The psalmist's words "You cast them down ' how suddenly are they destroyed" are really an exclamation of godly wonder at the suddenness and completeness of the sinner's overthrow. God makes a spectacle of those who persist in rejecting His love and grace. They make a splash for the moment of their lives, but after that they are gone and soon forgotten. Keep that fact before you as you look out upon the world. It may sometimes seem as if God is not in control, but in actual fact His hand is ever upon the helm of human affairs.
Prayer:
Gracious and loving Father, my heart bows in silent wonder as I contemplate the awesomeness of Your ways. Open my eyes that I might see that You are at work all around me and that Your face is constantly set against evil. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
For further study:
Romans 1:18; Romans 3:19-20; 2 Timothy 2:1-19; 1 Peter 4:18;
1. What does the law expose?
2. How is God's wrath averted?
God bless
Today's Verse For Monday, March 10
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. Psalm 139:1-8 NIV |
March 10, 2008
Fast Feet
READ: Philippians 4:10-19
The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills. —Habakkuk 3:19While in Chile for a Bible conference, I was resting at the hotel when a rugby match came on the television. Though I don't fully understand rugby, I enjoy it and admire the courage it takes to play such a dangerous sport.
During the match, one of the French players was injured and had to be taken to the sidelines. As the trainers attended to him, the camera showed a closeup of his shoes. With a black marker the player had written the words: "Habakkuk 3:19" and "Jesus is the way." Those expressions of faith and hope were a strong testimony of that young athlete's priorities and values.
The verse cited on that rugby player's shoes is not just one of heavenly hope and persevering faith. It is one of practical value—especially to an athlete dependent on speed for success. It says, "The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills."
In all of life, we need the strength and supply of our God. He alone can give us "feet" that are swift and strong. He alone can equip us for all of the uncertainties of life, for He alone is our strength. With Paul, we can be assured: "My God shall supply all your need" (Phil. 4:19). — Bill Crowder
In You, O Lord, I take delight,
My every need You will supply;
I long to do what's true and right,
So, Lord, on You I will rely. —D. De Haan
We always have enough when God is our supply.
Today's Verse For Tuesday, March 11
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life--in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. Philippians 2:14-18 NIV
March 11, 2008
Agents Of Grace
READ: Luke 15:11-24
When he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck Jesus' most memorable story, The Prodigal Son, ends with a banquet scene, featuring as its hero a good-for-nothing who has soiled the family reputation. Those judged undesirable by everyone else—like the prodigal son—are infinitely desirable to God. When one of them turns to God, a party breaks out (Luke 15:22-24).
In the Old Testament, levitical laws guarded against contagion. Among the things that would contaminate a person were contact with certain animals, carcasses, or the sick. But Jesus reversed the process. Rather than becoming contaminated by what was unclean, He made the unclean whole.
I sense in Jesus a fulfillment, not an abolition, of the Old Testament laws. God had hallowed creation by separating the sacred from the profane, the clean from the unclean. Jesus did not cancel out this hallowing principle; rather He changed its source.
Because of God's great grace, we can be agents of His holiness, for He now dwells within us. We can seek, as Jesus did, for ways to be a source of holiness. The sick and the maimed are not hot spots of contamination but potential reservoirs of God's mercy. We are called to extend that mercy, to be conveyers of grace, not avoiders of contagion. Like Jesus, we can help make the "unclean" clean. — Philip Yancey
For Further Study
According to Philippians 2:14, how should we "do all things"? What is the result for us, and what does that mean for our world? (v.15).
No one is beyond the reach of God's grace.
God Bless
Prayer's Effects
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. -James 5:16
For many years, researchers have tried to determine if prayer has any effect on physical healing. An assistant professor at George Washington University School of Medicine says that "trying to scientifically determine prayer's effect on health is nearly impossible."
Even Christians who agree that God heals may differ widely on how, when, and why He does. We struggle to understand why the Lord restores some to health while others suffer and die.
James addressed the matter in a way that is worthy of careful study and attention. He discussed healing in the context of a fellowship of believers and said: "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16).
James' purpose was not to stir up controversy or to prove a scientific point. Instead, he focused on the privilege and power of prayer. While speaking of physical healing, he also included a call for restoration to spiritual health through repentance and confession (v.15).
Science tries to prove cause and effect. Faith directs us to call on the power of our loving God, whose ways we can rarely understand but can always trust. - David C. McCasland
My prayer is a simple one, Lord:
Whatever is best for me, do;
In sickness, in health I desire
What brings the most glory to You. -Fasick
Prayer is the soil in which hope and healing grow best.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 12, 2008
For Better Or Worse?
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. . . . Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church. -Ephesians 5:22,25
Within a chip shot of our house is a golf course. When I stand in my backyard, I see ponds waiting hungrily for my next errant shot. At times I can imagine sandtraps and trees joking about my bad days.
I mention the sport with mixed feelings. I like to golf occasionally, but living so close to the course reminds me of my failures in playing the game, which has its disadvantages.
A similar problem can occur in marriage. Sometimes a husband and wife can lose sight of the hopes and dreams they once shared. Then the very presence of the other becomes a source of irritation, a reminder of past failures and disappointments.
When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, he asked husbands and wives to turn their thoughts to their relationship with the Son of God (5:22-33). In Him we find undying love and forgiveness for our failures. In Him we find Someone who loves to forget the worst and bring out the best. He reminds us not of what we've lost but of what we have yet to find.
Forgive us, Father, for focusing on our flaws and failures rather than on the love of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us to rediscover our spouse in the light of our Lord's great love for us. - Mart De Haan
REFLECTING ON MARRIAGE
As a couple, recall the hopes and dreams you had when you were first married. Name some that have come true. Share with each other your hopes for the future.
Marriages may be made in heaven, but they have to be worked out on earth.
God bless
Today's Verse For Thursday, March 13
If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 1 Peter 4:14-17 NIV
Our Daily Bread
Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God. —Acts 5:4Ask the friends and families of six people buried in a collapsed subway tunnel about complete honesty. Their loved ones' rescue was delayed for hours when the contractor didn't report the disaster to the authorities immediately. Instead, the company sealed the site and confiscated cell phones. It wasn't an outright lie, but it was a cover-up. This dishonest act showed disregard for life.
In the book of Acts, God gave us a sobering example of how He views dishonesty (4:32–5:11). Some believers had sold their land and shared all the proceeds with the church. Ananias and Sapphira decided to do likewise. But the couple kept some money back despite declaring that they had given the whole amount. Expecting commendation, they were struck dead instead.
Was their punishment too harsh? After all, their "slight" lie wasn't life-threatening. "Whoever falsely boasts of giving is like clouds and wind without rain," warns Proverbs 25:14. The apostle Peter asked Ananias, "Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" (Acts 5:3), adding, "You have not lied to men, but to God" (v.4).
If we are completely honest with ourselves, can we say that we are completely honest before God — Albert Lee
Lord, by Your Spirit grant that we
In word and deed may honest be;
All falsehood we would cast aside—
From You, O Lord, we cannot hide. —D. De Haan
There are no degrees of honesty.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals March 12, 2008
Help Is on the Way
" 'Yes, I am coming soon.' " Revelation 22:20
My aging Chevy Tahoe has a nifty little feature the OnStar button. A few years ago General Motors started installing this blue button on many of their vehicles. If you need help, all you do is press it. If you're out of gas, if you're lost, or if you get a flat tire, just touch the blue button and a real live operator is there to talk to you about your problem. In fact, if you get in an accident and the airbags go off, it will automatically connect you to one of their operators to make sure that you get help. Amazing!
Perhaps you've heard the OnStar radio commercials. The ads are usually an audio clip from an actual call. It's usually something like, "Hello? I've just been in an accident and I'm in the middle of nowhere. It's dark out and I can't see anything, and I think there's a guy with an axe coming out of the woods." (Okay, I made up the axe part.) In response, the calm, comforting voice of the OnStar operator, says, "Don't worry, we have your location and help is on the way!" Then as an added measure of comfort, the operator asks, "Are you going to be alright?" and inevitably the frightened motorist will say, "Yes, I'll be fine."
The point is, in the midst of a scary, difficult experience, the promise of "help is on the way" goes a long way in bringing hope and reassurance. It's a great boost to know that someone is coming to your rescue.
Jesus often comforted His disciples with this exact promise. He knew that the temptation to give up in the midst of tough times would be strong, so He reminded them often, "I am coming back help is on its way" (see John 14:3,18,28).
But His promise is not just for the first-century disciples. Jesus' promise extends to us as well. In fact, it is featured in the concluding words of Scripture, as John penned the book of Revelation. Exiled to the island of Patmos, near the end of his life with the promise of Jesus' coming yet unfulfilled, John is nonetheless strengthened and reassured by these words: "Yes, I am coming soon" (Rev. 22:20). John's response, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is simple and profound: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
John knew what it was to experience sorrow. He felt firsthand the pain of persecution. No doubt receiving the incredible vision of a new heaven and a new earth highlighted how barren and difficult life on this planet could be by contrast. But the recorded words of Jesus throughout the book reinforce the truth: You're not alone! I know right where you are, and I'm coming back for you!
Life for us is fragile as well. Inevitably, we find ourselves emotionally and spiritually in the ditch, broken-down, frightened, and wondering if we're going to make it. It happens so fast. One phone call. One visit to the doctor. One broken relationship. But we are not without hope. Jesus promised, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Wherever you are and whatever you're facing today, your trust in the promise of Christ's return will bring you a deep sense of peace that defies understanding.
So, chin up help is on the way and heaven is next!
YOUR JOURNEY
What circumstances in your life have left you spiritually and emotionally in the ditch?
How do you usually respond when you find yourself in those circumstances?
How does it encourage and strengthen you to focus on the promise that Jesus is coming back one day?
God bless
Today's Verse For Saturday, March 15
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Psalm 139:1-10 NIV
March 15, 2008
READ: Luke 19:29-40
The Lord has need of him. —Luke 19:34As Jesus approached Jerusalem for the last time, He sent two disciples into the city to bring Him a donkey. He told them, "If anyone asks you, 'Why are you loosing it?' thus you shall say to him, 'Because the Lord has need of it'" (Luke 19:31).
As we approach our sunset years, we may ask ourselves, "Can I still be useful to God? Is there some service I can render that will fill my days with significance? Am I needed?"
Of course you are! God needs you just as He needed the donkey to carry Him through the streets of Jerusalem. He has always needed something or someone to get His work done. He still has useful work for you to do.
Perhaps your work will be one brief task, like the donkey's single act of service. Or it may be some activity that will fully occupy your years until your Master calls you home. It may be an opportunity to share your faith with someone, to intercede for him, or to love him through quiet acts of mercy, friendly visits, or to extend some small courtesy. There will always be something for you to do.
In the meantime, you and I must stand and wait, preparing ourselves through prayer, Bible reading, and quiet listening—ready for the moment that our Lord has need of us.
Will you be ready when He needs you? — David H. Roper
I'm available for God to use me,
Available, if God should choose me;
Should it be now or then, it doesn't matter when;
I want to see lost souls be born again. —Anthony
God has work for all His children, regardless of age or ability.
God Bless
Today's Verse For Sunday, March 16
'No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.' Luke 8:16-18 NIV
March 16, 2008
What Changed?
READ: Matthew 21:1-11
Behold, your King is coming to you. —Matthew 21:5Jesus put a damper on His own party. On Sunday, He entered Jerusalem as the triumphant king, welcomed into the city by throngs of worshipers shouting, "Hosanna!" and honoring Him by waving palm branches. The healer of the sick and the giver of great wisdom had come, and the masses adored Him.
What went wrong that week? What changed the "Hosannas" to "Crucify Him"? It started to go bad when Jesus told the people what they didn't want to hear. Look at what He did. He threw the money changers out of the temple area (Matt. 21:12). He taught that tax collectors and prostitutes could enter the kingdom of heaven before the religious (21:31). He told the people to pay taxes (22:21). Then He pronounced a series of woes against the religious leaders: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees" (23:13-31).
But this is Jesus. The righteous One. The only perfect Man. God in the flesh. He was not in town for a popularity contest. His task was to proclaim the truth and provide salvation. And it cost Him His life.
Think about Jesus' up-and-down week in Jerusalem. Then praise Him for His perfection and His love—love that took Him all the way to the cross. — Dave Branon
Jesus, Thou art my righteousness,
For all my sins were Thine;
Thy death hath bought of God my peace,
Thy life hath made Him mine. —Anon.
The nail-pierced hands of Jesus reveal the love-filled heart of God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals March 17, 2008
Inside Out
READ: Mark 7:9-23
Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, . . . blasphemy, pride, foolishness. -Mark 7:21-22
Shopping for a melon is a tough assignment. No matter how good it looks, it's hard to tell! So I tap it, thump it, and, if no one is looking, squeeze it-and then take it home, only to discover that it's bad on the inside.
When the Pharisees were irritated that Jesus' disciples did not wash their hands before eating-a violation of one of their traditions-Jesus immediately challenged them. "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition" (Mark 7:9). He even called them "hypocrites" and explained that what comes from the inside of a person is what "defiles" him, not the other way around.
If we're not careful, we can become absorbed with looking good on the outside and forget what really counts. In fact, when we get to the place where we are keeping all the "right" rules, we may become proud of ourselves and judgmental toward others. But harboring bitterness, clinging to critical attitudes, and thinking too highly of ourselves are the kind of defiling stuff that make us guilty of Jesus' charge of "hypocrite."
So don't miss the point. Remember, it's the things on the inside-your heart, your thoughts, your attitudes-that really matter. - Joe Stowell
What matters to Jesus is what's on the inside.
Listen, Learn, Live by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Deuteronomy 30-31, Mark 15:1-25
Key Verse: Deuteronomy 31:11
The attempts of children to answer questions about the Bible can be cute. Names and events get switched around and blended. In their innocence and youthfulness, their statements often bring a smile to one's face.
The expectation is that with growth, their childish mistakes will be replaced with Christian maturity and understanding. But that does not happen automatically. Growing older physically is no guarantee of maturing spiritually.
The emphasis in Deuteronomy 31:11 on reading aloud the Word of God is set in a time in which oral teaching was critical. Today there is easy access to the printed Word. While times have changed in that regard, the truth of verses 11-13 remains.
People need to listen to, learn and live the Word of God. We must live in accordance with the lessons learned from the Bible.
Moses also emphasized the need to pass God's Word to the next generation. Verse 13 says that "their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the LORD your God."
None of this is automatic. Each of us must listen to and learn the Word of God so we may live it. Then, we must pass His truth on to the next generation.
What are you doing to pass along God's truth to the next generation? Think hard about this and pray about what else you should be doing.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
We have everything we need to live a life that pleases God. It was all given to us by God's own power, when we learned that he had invited us to share in his wonderful goodness. 2 Peter 1:3 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Millions of people around the world suffer from clinical depression. If you or a loved one is struggling with depression, it is important for you to know that God cares about the pain that depression causes and that he brings hope.
It is common for people with depression to feel that God's promises of hope are for others but not for them. They may feel left out of life by God. But God's promises are true for everyone who has received Jesus.
Today's scripture tells us that we have everything we need to live a life that pleases God. The Greek word used here does not just mean staying alive as a biological creature, but rather a fulfilled spiritual life that changes our thoughts and actions in the direction of contentment and godliness. This includes a life filled with faith. This includes a life brimming with hope.
Consider this
God has provided everything we need to live a life that pleases him, to grow in a contentment and godliness. You might not feel the truth of that promise-but God's promises are true, no matter what we feel. Ask him to help you step beyond your feelings and believe that his promises are true for you.
Prayer
Father, I thank you for providing everything I need to live a life that pleases you. Actually, I'm feeling pretty worthless right now and don't really see the truth of this promise in my life. Help me to stop trusting my feelings, and to begin trusting you and your promises. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromUnderstanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and addresses these issues:
· Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
· Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
· Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
· Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
· Bible-based coping skills
· How to pray for healing and what to expect
· Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
This study is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling. For more on this topic, visit LivingFreeRadio.org.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Servant's Primary Goal
We make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him -2 Corinthians 5:9
We make it our aim. . . ." It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only "to be well pleasing to Him." It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the right goal. At least once a week examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you. Paul was like a musician who gives no thought to audience approval, if he can only catch a look of approval from his Conductor.
Any goal we have that diverts us even to the slightest degree from the central goal of being "approved to God" ( 2 Timothy 2:15 ) may result in our rejection from further service for Him. When you discern where the goal leads, you will understand why it is so necessary to keep "looking unto Jesus" ( Hebrews 12:2 ). Paul spoke of the importance of controlling his own body so that it would not take him in the wrong direction. He said, "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest . . . I myself should become disqualified" ( 1 Corinthians 9:27 ).
I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. My worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may sound?
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 18, 2008
So Others May Live
READ: Romans 9:1-5
I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh. -Romans 9:3
In the film The Guardian, the viewer is taken into the world of United States Coast Guard rescue swimmers. Eighteen weeks of intense training prepares these courageous men and women for the task of jumping from helicopters to rescue those in danger at sea. The challenges they face include hypothermia and death by drowning. Why would people risk so much for strangers? The answer is found in the rescue swimmer's motto, "So Others May Live."
In Foxe's Book of Martyrs, we read of a different kind of rescue that demanded extreme commitment and sacrifice. John Foxe records the stories of believers who suffered and died be-cause they proclaimed the love of Jesus. Knowing it could cost them their lives, these believers made the Savior known to a world in desperate need of Him.
The apostle Paul, himself a martyr for Christ, expressed his passion for the hearts of people this way, "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:3). Paul so longed for his fellow Jews to come to Christ that he was willing to sacrifice all, "so others may live."
May we likewise embrace this passion for the eternal souls of men and women. - Bill Crowder
Rescue the perishing, duty demands it-
Strength for thy labor the Lord will provide;
Back to the narrow way patiently win them,
Tell the poor wanderer a Savior has died. -Crosby
The cross reveals God's heart for the lost.
They Spoke Better Than They Knew By Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Deuteronomy 32-34, Mark 15:26-47
Key Verses: Mark 15:31-32
It's an odd thing that we can say one thing and mean another. Sometimes people speak better than they know.
In their mockery, the religious leaders spoke better than they knew when they challenged Jesus to save Himself from the cross (vv. 31-32). They said the right thing. If Jesus were to fulfill His messianic mission, He could not save Himself. His death was necessary for man's redemption.
But their words carried the wrong meaning. In their minds, Jesus was powerless to save. They knew He had healed others, but now since He was staying on the cross, they said that He could not save Himself.
These were the right words, but with the wrong meaning. Jesus is not powerless to save, nor is He unwilling. The nails did not hold Him fast to the cross. It was love-a love as hard as nails. Had He saved Himself from death, He could not have saved others from something more deadly than storms or illnesses. By His suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus taught us to "take up" the cross, not to come down from one.
Many people say the right words about Jesus but do not grasp the real meaning. Do you? Do you truly understand that Jesus had to stay on the cross?
If you have never received Jesus as your Savior, pray to do so now. If you have, thank Him for staying on that cross until His work on our behalf was finished.
Living Free - Mar. 18, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don't ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you.' Phil 4:8-9 CEV
Thoughts for Today
It is often easier to see the dark side rather than the hopeful side of things. Easier to despair about a situation than to face it with faith and hope. Easier to see other people's faults than their virtues. Easier to complain than to speak positive words. Easier to see our problems than our blessings. Easier to see our failures than our strengths. This tendency is usually accentuated in the lives of people struggling with depression. They tend to experience increased irritability and anger and a deep sense of worthlessness.
Today's scripture tells us to focus on the positive, the good. To always think about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. And the God of peace will be with us.
Consider this Have you been focusing on your problems? Begin to name all the blessings in your life. Write them down. Speak them aloud. Thank God for them.
Have you been dwelling on your failures and seeing yourself as worthless? Remember that you are precious to God. Jesus loved you enough to die for you. He has created you for a good purpose and given you the gifts and means to fulfill that purpose. You are important to him.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for being so negative. Help me to have a more positive perspective concerning situations, relationships and especially concerning myself. Help me to focus on what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. As I do this, I pray that you will fill me with your peace. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and addresses these issues:
· Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
· Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
· Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
· Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
· Bible-based coping skills
· How to pray for healing and what to expect
· Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
This study is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling. For more on this topic, visit LivingFreeRadio.org.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Will I Bring Myself Up to This Level?
:
. . . perfecting holiness in the fear of God -2 Corinthians 7:1
Therefore, having these promises. . . ." I claim God's promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God's perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit," or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19 ). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19 ). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not "confer with flesh and blood," but cleanse yourself from it at once ( Galatians 1:16 ). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.
I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5 ). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived-a level of perfect submission to His Father's will- where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?
Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 19, 2008
A Fragile Lamb
READ: 1 Cor. 11:23-26
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. -Isaiah 53:5
After the Easter eggs were located and the Easter baskets had been opened, Uncle Jay felt compelled to find out whether the white chocolate lamb was hollow or solid. Without thinking of the potential consequences, he squeezed the lamb. Suddenly Jay's whole body stiffened, as if he'd ingested some paralyzing poison. Finally his eyes moved to see if anyone had witnessed the deed. His thumb, however, remained stuck in the side of the lamb.
We waited for the reaction. A wail. A howl. A cry of anguish over the crushed chocolate candy. As the adults in the room scrambled for words that would soothe the sorrow of 3-year-old Jenna, she calmly spoke words that soothed us. "That's okay, Uncle Jay. The lamb would have been broken when I ate him anyway."
While we adults tried to make sacred memories out of Easter traditions, a 3-year-old made a sacred moment for us. She reminded us that Easter is about the perfect Lamb of God, broken so that we can be whole. Her youthful wisdom reminds me of the words we recall at communion: "This is My body which is broken for you." May we taste and see that the life He offers is sweeter than anything we concoct for ourselves. - Julie Ackerman Link
See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown? -Watts
Nothing speaks more clearly of God's love than the cross.
Step Into The River Is Wide by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Joshua 1-3, Mark 16
Key Verse: Joshua 1:9
Knowing and doing are two different things. One can know what to do and fail to do it because of fear. At times, obedience is incomplete due to fear.
The Israelites were concluding 40 years in the wilderness due to fear. What they saw as impossible kept them from doing what God had wanted. Now the nation was once again on the brink of entering the land.
A new leader stood before them. His frequent challenge was, "Be strong and courageous." That phrase is repeated four times in chapter 1 (vv. 6, 7, 9 and 18) and expressed in slightly different terms in other verses.
It was time to move out. They knew what they were to do and now they were to do it! Notice what happened next. The spies brought back an encouraging report and the people prepared to move out. Their first steps, though, were into a flooded river-where their sandals were to meet the mud, so to speak.
"Be strong and courageous" was put to the test when they stepped into that dangerous river. But they obeyed and God blessed (3:15-16).
There will be times in our life of obedience that our courage will be tested. Be ready to step into the river. God is faithful even when the river is wide.
"Today and every day, Lord, give me the courage to obey. I need the strength You give."
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel." Phil 4:6-7 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Worry seems like a very natural human trait. Strange because it never accomplishes anything except perhaps harming our health and robbing us of peace. But we still tend to worry. Webster defines worry as mental distress or agitation resulting from concern.
Today's scripture gives God's antidote for worry: prayer. "Pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God."
When we pray we need to truly offer up our prayers and requests to God-and leave them there. Too often we pray the words and hold on to the worry. As has been said, we need to let go-and let God. Trust him, knowing that he is able, that he is love, that his way is always best. When we do this, God will bless us with a peace so great and wonderful that no human can understand it. And his peace will control the way we think and feel. True peace even amidst the storm.
Consider this
Are you worried about something right now? Are you ready to give it to Jesus and to trust him with it?
Several years ago a popular song exhorted us "Don't worry be happy." But the Bible gives us the ultimate answer: Don't worry pray!
Prayer
Lord, I have been worried about this. In fact, I've been so worried that I am really stressed. And, of course, my worry isn't solving the problem. I commit this need to you and I trust you to work it out according to your plan. I know that's the best plan. Help me to truly let go and rest in your peace. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and addresses these issues:
· Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
· Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
· Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
· Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
· Bible-based coping skills
· How to pray for healing and what to expect
· Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
This study is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling. For more on this topic, visit LivingFreeRadio.org.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
." (Romans 4:3).Abraham's Life of Faith
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
In the Old Testament, a person's relationship with God was seen by the degree of separation in that person's life. This separation is exhibited in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and his family. When we think of separation today, we do not mean to be literally separated from those family members who do not have a personal relationship with God, but to be separated mentally and morally from their viewpoints. This is what Jesus Christ was referring to in Luke 14:26.
Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason-a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith-a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. "Abraham believed God. .
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 20, 2008
Who Holds The Cup?
READ: Matthew 26:36-46
Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me? -John 18:11
Are you being called to taste some bitter cup of pain or loss? Are you tempted to push it away? You may be wondering, Is God in this situation? If so, recall the dark and distressing experience of Jesus and His example on the night of His betrayal.
We must never forget that Jesus was the God-Man, with both divine and human natures. He therefore recoiled from the prospect of agonizing crucifixion and the ordeal of having the world's sin heaped on His sinless soul. And worst of all, He shuddered at the thought of being abandoned by His Father. So He pleaded, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me" (Matt. 26:39). Yet after that He said in trustful submission, "Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?" (John 18:11). He knew that the hand, which would for our redemption hold the cup to His lips, was not the hand of Judas or Caiaphas or Pilate. It was the hand of His loving Father intent on redeeming our lost human race.
Baffled by the mystery of such love, we take our stand on Calvary and believe that any cup we drink is held to our lips by the Father of fathomless love and wisdom. Our prayer is that of trustful submission because we believe that even life's most bitter cup is held in the Father's hand. - Vernon C. Grounds
Death and the curse were in our cup
O Christ, 'twas full for Thee!
But Thou hast drained the last dark drop-
Now blessings there for me. -Anon.
We learn the lesson of trust in the school of trial.
I Alone Am Left by Woodrow Kroll
1 Kings 19:10
So he said, "I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life."
I Alone Am Left
Upon returning from one of his globe-encircling voyages, Sir Francis Drake, the great explorer, anchored his ship in the little Thames River. A dangerous storm arose and it seemed that his ship would flounder. Someone standing near the old, weather-beaten seaman heard him say through gritted teeth, "Must I who have escaped the rage of the ocean be drowned in a ditch?"
Often a Christian who has withstood the assaults of Satan in severe trials and temptations falters because of a minor difficulty. Elijah found himself in such a position. He had confronted Ahab, king of Israel. He had stood up to 450 prophets of Baal. He had challenged the people of Israel to renew their commitment to the Lord. Then he was faced with the wrath of a vengeful woman, Jezebel. Not only did he flee, but he also began to feel sorry for himself. He concluded, "I alone am left; and they seek to take my life."
When we focus on the negative aspects of our situation, it's easy to slip into self-pity. Life is filled with many hardships and injustices. But as Elijah was about to learn, God's people are never left alone. God has promised not to keep us from the valleys, but to walk through them with us (Ps. 23:4). He has promised us not the absence of problems, but the guarantee of His presence (Heb. 13:5).
If you fall victim to self-pity, don't allow yourself to stay bogged down there. Whatever your circumstances, God is with you. The two of you together are sufficient for any situation.
You are never left alone when you are alone with God.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out." Ephesians 6:13-18 MSG
Thoughts for Today
All of us deal with strongholds at times in our lives. The stronghold might be depression or a substance addiction or a behavioral problem or an unhealthy relationship or any other life-controlling problem. The world tries to deal with these strongholds on their own, but as followers of Christ we have access to God's mighty weapons to knock down the strongholds. "We are human, but we don't wage war as humans do. We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments." 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 NLT
Today's scripture describes some of the weapons and armor God has provided. We need to stop trying to solve and overcome problems on our own. Throughout life we experience situations in which we are "up against far more than we can handle on our own." If we are to overcome, we need to take all the help God has provided
Consider this
Are you struggling with depression or some other life-controlling problem? Prayerfully meditate on today's scripture. You might even want to read it in several translations. Ask God to show you how to apply his weapons and armor to your circumstances.
Prayer
Father, you know my heart and the struggle I am experiencing. I thank you that you have provided the tools of warfare that I need in order to overcome. Teach me how to apply these tools to my life. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and addresses these issues:
· Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
· Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
· Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
· Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
· Bible-based coping skills
· How to pray for healing and what to expect
· Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
This study is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling. For more on this topic, visit LivingFreeRadio.org.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Friendship with God
READ:
Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ? -Genesis 18:17
The Delights of His Friendship. Genesis 18 brings out the delight of true friendship with God, as compared with simply feeling His presence occasionally in prayer. This friendship means being so intimately in touch with God that you never even need to ask Him to show you His will. It is evidence of a level of intimacy which confirms that you are nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God's will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately.
The Difficulties of His Friendship. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He stopped because he still was lacking the level of intimacy in his relationship with God, which would enable him boldly to continue on with the Lord in prayer until his desire was granted. Whenever we stop short of our true desire in prayer and say, "Well, I don't know, maybe this is not God's will," then we still have another level to go. It shows that we are not as intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as Jesus would have us to be- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." ( John 17:22 ). Think of the last thing you prayed about-were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? "For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" ( Matthew 6:8 ). The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" ( Psalm 37:4 ). We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 21, 2008
Remember Me
READ: Luke 23:39-43
Remember me when You come into Your kingdom. -Luke 23:42
Matthew Henshaw got his name into the Guinness Book of World Records in an unusual way. After swallowing a 15.9-inch sword, Henshaw attached a 40-pound sack of potatoes to the handle of the sword and held it for 5 seconds. (This is not recommended.)
Henshaw and others like him have gone to extraordinary lengths to have their names memorialized in the world's most famous record book. The longing for immortality compels people to do many things-some remarkable, and some bizarre.
The immortality Jesus offers has nothing to do with anything we do. In fact, after giving His disciples the authority to do truly remarkable things (Luke 10:17-19), Jesus said, "Do not rejoice . . . that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven" (v.20).
At Golgotha, an unnamed thief believed that message just in time (Luke 23:40-42). He understood that eternal life had nothing to do with what he had done-good or bad. It had to do with what Jesus was doing-giving His own life so that even the undeserving could be welcomed into heaven by God. The important thing is being remembered not by others, but by God. - Julie Ackerman Link
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood-
Sealed my pardon with His blood:
Hallelujah, what a Savior! -Bliss
Our lives matter because God loves us.
Blessed Quietness by Woodrow Kroll
1 Kings 19:11-12
Then He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord." And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
Blessed Quietness
Years ago when people had ice boxes instead of refrigerators, a man working in an ice plant lost a valuable watch in the sawdust in which the ice was stored. His fellow workmen searched with him, but were unable to find it. They left the plant for lunch and returned to find a young boy with the watch. When they inquired how he found it, the boy replied, "I just lay down in the sawdust and heard it ticking." With all the noisy machinery turned off and a person predisposed to listen, the watch wasn't hard to find at all.
As Elijah stood on Mount Horeb, he was treated to a spectacular display of God's power. A great wind reduced mighty boulders to pebbles. An earthquake shook the ground. Then the mountain was bathed in fire. Each of these was a manifestation of God's power, but they were not God. It was not until all the noise had stopped that Elijah found God Himself in a still, small voice.
Today it's hard to get away from the noise. The hubbub of the city, the noise of the factory, the cry of children, the blare of the radio or television all contribute to a cacophony. In the midst of these things, intimate communion with God is nearly impossible. That's why it's essential that we seek a quiet retreat where we can hear God's still, small voice.
Find a place today where you can shut out the noise of the world. Ask God to calm your mind and remove the clamor that so often fills it. Tune your heart to listen for His voice and discover His intimacy. Get alone. Be still. Stay quiet. Hear God.
Intimacy with God comes in whispers, not shouts.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you." Philippians 1:6 AMP
Thoughts for Today
When we first receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we begin a process. We are instantly forgiven of our sins and instantly become his child. But growing in the character and likeness of Jesus and in our witness for him is a lifetime process. We will hit bumps along the way. We will probably slide backwards at times. But if we continue trusting Jesus, he will continue developing the good work he began in us and will bring it to completion on the day he returns.
This promise is comforting in so many ways. First our growth is a process. It's perfectly ok that we haven't "arrived" yet. We don't need to condemn ourselves or to consider ourselves worthless if we haven't done enough or have done wrong. Jesus is always there with his love and forgiveness he won't leave us or give up on us.
Second, we don't have to overcome or grow in character by ourselves. Our heavenly Father began the work and will continue the work until Jesus comes-and then he will bring it to completion. He always finishes what he starts!
Consider this
Are you feeling down on yourself because of something you've done-or haven't done? Maybe you feel as though you are not good enough, that your situation is hopeless, that you are unloved. Jesus doesn't agree. He loves you. He died for you, and when you received him as Lord and Savior, he clothed you in his righteousness. Your worth is not based on what you do, but on what Jesus did for you. And he is not finished with you yet! He is molding you and preparing you to be what he has called you to be to do what he has called you to do.
Prayer
Father, thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for continuing the good work you began in me. Thank you for helping me realize that my life, my growth, is a process and that I don't have to do it alone. Thank you that I am special in your eyes. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and addresses these issues:
· Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
· Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
· Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
· Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
· Bible-based coping skills
· How to pray for healing and what to expect
· Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
This study is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling. For more on this topic, visit LivingFreeRadio.org.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Identified or Simply Interested?
:
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow Him"-but-"I have been identified with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
". . . it is no longer I who live . . . ." My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.
". . . and the life which I now live in the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see, "I live by faith in the Son of God . . . ." This faith was not Paul's own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8 ). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 22, 2008
A Virtuoso Ignored
READ: Romans 1:18-23
Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen. -Romans 1:20
A man wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap positioned himself against a wall beside a trash can at the L'Enfant Plaza station in Washington, DC. He pulled out a violin and began to play. In the next 43 minutes, as he performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by, ignoring him.
No one knew it, but the man playing outside the Metro was Joshua Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on a $3.5 million Stradivarius. But no crowd gathered for the virtuoso. "It was a strange feeling, that people were actually . . . ignoring me," said Bell.
God also knows what it feels like to be ignored. The apostle Paul said that God has sovereignly planted evidence of His existence in the very nature of man. And creation delivers an unmistakable message about His creativity, beauty, power, and character. Although God has revealed His majesty, many refuse to acknowledge and thank Him. But God will hold everyone responsible for ignoring who He is and what He has revealed: "They are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful" (Rom. 1:20-21).
Let us acknowledge and thank the Virtuoso of heaven, who has wonderfully revealed Himself to us. - Marvin Williams
The treasures of the crystal snows,
And all the wonders nature shows,
Speak of a mighty Maker's hand
That all in love and wisdom planned. -Bosch
All creation is an outstretched finger pointing toward God.
A Heart of Humility by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Joshua 10-12, Luke 1:39-56
Key Verse: Luke 1:43
Two remarkable women, one older and one younger, teach by example a lesson too easily lost. They teach in what they say and do the amazement every believer should have in sharing the blessings of God. But it is an amazement that can be felt only in a heart of humility.
Elizabeth was amazed to find herself in the presence of Mary, the mother of her Lord. Out of a heart of humility she said that she did not deserve to be there.
Mary, on the other hand, was amazed at the fact that God had chosen her to serve Him in this special way. Her feelings were clear-God owed her nothing. Yet she had received everything from Him. Out of a heart of humility she acknowledged His work in her life.
Humility is a natural result when one truly recognizes the awesomeness of God. These two saints felt honored by God and expressed a deep sense of respect for Him. Their relationship with God was not a casual one, as if He were a friendly neighbor. To them, knowing God was an honor.
Are you too casual about the things of God? Awe is easily lost when familiarity with the Almighty is taken for granted. Keep a heart of humility and be amazed like Mary and Elizabeth.
Humility can be hard to obtain and even more difficult to keep-especially when we think we are humble. Aim low! Stay humble.
March 22
Take and tell
For reading & meditation: John 20:10-18
"Go ' to my brothers and tell them '" (v.17)
Today, on this penultimate day of our meditations on Psalm 73, we face the important practical question: How do we go about the task of keeping close to God? Firstly, we do so by prayer. The person who keeps close to God is the one who is always talking to God. Many definitions of prayer have been given; I add another: prayer is co-operation with God. In prayer you align your desires, your will, your life to God. You and God become agreed on life desires, life purposes, life plans, and you work them out together. Secondly, we do it by constant study of the Scriptures. God's Word is alive with meaning, and when you read it something will happen to you, for "the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb.4:12, NKJ). Expect it to speak to you - and it will. Faith is expectancy: "According to your faith will it be done to you" (Matt. 9:29). Remember also to surrender to the truth that is revealed: "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know '" (John 7:17, NKJ). In a moral universe the key to knowledge is moral response. The moment we cease to obey, that moment the revelation ceases to reveal. We do it, thirdly, by sharing with others. Remember, nothing is ours if we do not share it. When we share, the things go deeper inside us. We must share what God is doing, both with our fellow Christians and with non-Christians also. The psalmist's last words are these: "I will tell of all your deeds." We take and we tell - we take and we tell; these, we must never forget, are the two heartbeats of the Christian experience.
Prayer:
Gracious Father, I don't want nearness to You to be an occasional experience - I want it to be a perpetual experience. Help me to pay the price, no matter what it costs. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
Jeremiah 20:1-9; Psalms 66:16; Isaiah 63:7;
1. What was God's Word like in Jeremiah's heart?
2. What did the psalmist say he would do?
The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us . . . ? -Luke 24:32
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart- a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart- unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don't allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the "mount of transfiguration," basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9 ). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 23, 2008
He is Risen!
We Believe
READ: Romans 8:11-18
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who . . . has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. -1 Peter 1:3
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina put New Orleans underwater. But an unlikely event gave the city a new lease on life just 17 months later. The New Orleans Saints, a perennially woeful football team, made a run at the Super Bowl championship. The whole region grasped the excitement. Signs saying "We Believe" reflected a new day.
Commenting on the phenomenon, producer Quint Davis said, "When the season is over, the miles of devastation are still going to be devastated." But he added, "If this can happen for New Orleans, this miracle, then anything can happen for New Orleans."
The Saints fell one game short, but the idea remained enticing. An "impossibility" had so captured the hearts of a people, they began thinking anything was possible.
In an infinitely more important way, this is what we have in Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead. Christ defeated death on mortality's own turf, declaring the power of God to give us new life and hope. Paul wrote, "He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom. 8:11).
No other event in human history is more significant. No other event is so full of immediate hope and ultimate victory for the saints in Christ Jesus. - Mart De Haan
Jesus Christ today is risen,
And o'er death triumphant reigns;
He has burst the grave's strong prison,
Leading sin herself in chains. -Luther
Christ's resurrection is the bud of promise-our resurrection is the flower of fulfillment!
Incomplete Obedience by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Joshua 13-15, Luke 1:57-80
Key Verse: Joshua 13:13
Great promises and great victories fill the pages of the Book of Joshua. Israel moved into the Promised Land and conquered it with God's help. Jericho fell, literally. Ai was ultimately defeated. The sun even stood still-all striking evidence that God was fighting for Israel (10:14).
Yet when the details of the conquest are examined beginning in Joshua 13:13, a sad fact needs to be noted. The Israelites did not drive out the people of Geshur and Maacah. The significance is not the names of the people but the fact that they were allowed to remain in the land. As you continue to read Joshua, you will find this phrase repeated: "did not drive them out completely."
The account of Joshua tells us about God's promises and Israel's victories. But it does not hide the fact that sometimes the fulfillment of the promises was limited by Israel's incomplete obedience. Lack of faith and incomplete obedience allowed some of the people to remain in the land.
God's instructions were clear. His promises were certain. The failure was not God's but the people's. They failed and ultimately bore the consequences.
Always strive for complete obedience; never stop short of it.
Whatever God gives you to do, do it completely. Unfinished tasks can be more troublesome than the effort of doing it the first time.
March 23
Reflections
For reading & meditation: Psalms 73:1-28
"But as for me, it is good to be near God '" (v.28)
A tinge of sadness is upon my spirit as I come to this last day of our meditations on Psalm 73. In all my years of writing, never can I remember being so personally blessed. The truth this psalm conveys has gripped my own heart and life in a most unusual way. Let's remind ourselves of what the psalmist has taught us. Life is filled with many painful and perplexing problems which at times cause us to cry out: "Lord, why don't You intervene?" Yet just as our feet are about to slide, something always comes to us - an idea or a thought, which, if we hold on to it, serves to halt our downward progress. We discover that when we act responsibly and do what is right, even though we do not feel like it, we put ourselves in the way of experiencing inward change. But it is not God's purpose to bring about only a little change - He desires to bring about a lot of change. How does He achieve this? He does it by bringing us into His presence and revealing to us His Word. There we discover that our greatest problems are not the ones that are outside us but the ones that are inside us - our perspectives are wrong. Real change comes about not when our feelings are soothed but when our thinking is changed. Changed thinking leads to changed desires. When our perspectives are controlled by the Word rather than by the world, then we will experience inner peace. The psalmist resolved to draw near to God and stay close to Him so that he could "see life steadily, and see it whole". Let's make that our resolution too.
Prayer:
O Father, I see that the secret of effective living is looking at life from Your point of view. I resolve by Your grace to give myself more and more to learning this secret. Help me, my Father. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
For further study:
Psalms 57:1-7; Psalms 57:1-7
1. What did the psalmist mean by "steadfast"?
2. Where is your heart fixed?
His Resurrection Destiny
By Oswald Chambers
"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" - Luke 24:26
Our Lord's Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself. Christ's resurrection destiny-His foreordained purpose-was to bring "many sons to glory" ( Hebrews 2:10 ).
The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life-a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life.
One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can "walk in newness of life" ( Romans 6:4)). Paul's determined purpose was to "know Him and the power of His resurrection" ( Philippians 3:10 ). Jesus prayed, ". . . as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him" ( John 17:2 .
The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 24, 2008
Just Jewelry?
READ: Matthew 27:22-26
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. -Galatians 6:14
Some Christians make it a habit to wear a cross. It may be on a necklace or a lapel pin. It may be worn thoughtlessly as a decoration or prayerfully to let people know of the wearer's personal faith.
In April 2006, a Methodist church in the city of Dudley, England, found out that it would have to pay a fee to put a cross on its new building. Yes, a fee was required because under British law the cross is an advertisement. It proclaims to the world, whether on a person or a building, that the blood-stained cross of Calvary is our only hope of forgiveness and salvation.
Our Bible reading today tells us of the cross-the instrument of execution used on our Savior (Matt. 27:22-26). The crowd in anger shouted, "Let Him be crucified!" The cross is a sign of His death, and must not be taken lightly. This should cause us to examine what the cross means to us. Is it a witness to our eternal hope in the saving death of Jesus on Calvary?
While wearing the cross may be a challenging mark of discipleship, far more challenging is our Lord's command that we "take up [our] cross daily" and learn what it means to follow in His footsteps (Luke 9:23). And that includes a willingness to practice costly discipleship. - Vernon C. Grounds
"Take up thy cross and follow Me,"
I hear the blessed Savior call;
How can I make a lesser sacrifice
When Jesus gave His all? -Ackley
Because Jesus bore the cross for us, we should be willing to take it up for Him.
No Turning Back by Woodrow Kroll
1 Kings 19:19-21
So he departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, "Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." And he said to him, "Go back again, for what have I done to you?" So Elisha turned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh, using the oxen's equipment, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah, and served him.
No Turning Back
On December 21, 1620, the Mayflower dropped anchor in Plymouth Bay. It had been a grueling voyage across the Atlantic, taking the small ship 66 days to make the perilous crossing. There had been disease, anxiety and even childbirth among the 102 courageous passengers. Furthermore, they arrived on the bleak New England shore during a hard winter that ultimately claimed the lives of half their number. But when spring came and the captain of the Mayflower offered free passage to anyone desiring to return, not a single person accepted. These folks had made a commitment and they were not turning back.
Elijah's call to Elisha brought the same response. As a farmer, Elisha had been plowing with 12 yoke of oxen. When Elijah threw his mantle on this hardworking plowboy, Elisha took the very means of his livelihood, a yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them to provide a farewell feast for his friends. In doing so, he cut the ties to his old life and demonstrated his commitment to the ministry ahead of him.
Christians need to take this same step of commitment. We cannot live effectively for Christ if one foot is in the faith and the other is in the world. We need to make a clean break with the past and live for the Lord.
If God has called you to a particular kind of service, commit yourself unreservedly to it. Let your past be the past. Put it behind you and move forward with God. There's no greater ingredient for success in serving God.
There's no room for turning around in Christ's service.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And he [Abram] believed in (trusted in, relied on, remained steadfast to) the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness (right standing with God). "Genesis 15:6 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Godly heroes portrayed in the Bible were people of faith, their foundation was faith in God. Abraham was a hero of faith, in fact, in Romans 4:16 he is called the father of all who believe.
Abraham trusted in, relied on and remained steadfast to the Lord. Because of Abraham's faith, God counted him as righteous. Abraham's faith was at the core of the way he lived his life. Because of his faith he obeyed God he taught and directed his family to walk in God's ways he looked forward, not back and he lived life with an eternal perspective. This week we will look in more depth at these characteristics and what we can learn from them.
We were saved by faith when we trusted Jesus. And God has called us to a life of faith. Indeed, in Hebrews 11:6 we learn that without faith it is impossible to please God. The lives of Abraham and other heroes of faith were built on a foundation of faith in God. We are in a better position to believe than those heroes, their salvation was based on what Christ would do. Our salvation is based on what he has already done.
Consider this
Is faith the foundation of your life? Are you trusting in, relying on and remaining steadfast to the Lord in every area of your life? Is there an area of your life that is being ruled by worry and fear instead of faith? Is there some part of your life in which you are doing your own thing instead of trusting God for his plan? Let us ask God to help us follow the example of Abraham and other heroes of faith. Let faith be at the core of our lives, inundating our thoughts, our attitudes and our actions.
Prayer
Father, thank you that I have been saved by faith. Help me live a life based on my faith in you. Teach me to trust, not worry. Teach me to obey you in faith, not choose my own way. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living and offering definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Learn more about this topic.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Decreasing for His Purpose
He must increase, but I must decrease -John 3:30
If you become a necessity to someone else's life, you are out of God's will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a "friend of the bridegroom" (John 3:29 ). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don't try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone's life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God's will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."
Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. ". . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" ( John 3:29-30 ). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness-at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.
Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 25, 2008
The Tomb Of Jesus
READ: Luke 24:1-12
He is not here, but is risen! -Luke 24:6
In his documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, Simcha Jacobovici claims archaeological evidence that disproves the resurrection of Christ. He says that the words "Jesus son of Joseph" found on a burial container near Jerusalem refer to Jesus of Nazareth. He also claims to have identified Jesus' DNA.
How valid are these conclusions? The Israel Antiquities Authority calls them "nonsense." Other secular and religious scholars agree. Jesus and Joseph were common names in first-century Judea. And Jacobovici needs DNA samples from Jesus to compare with the bones in the tomb. Obviously, that's impossible!
But there are strong arguments in favor of Jesus' resurrection. Most compelling is the fact that every disciple except John died a martyr's death. Central to their message was Jesus' resurrection (Acts 2:29-32). If Christ had not been raised from the dead, why did the disciples choose to die rather than deny it?
Assaults on our faith and on the Scriptures come and go. Don't be shaken by these baseless attacks. Two thousand years ago, the disciples were eyewitnesses to the real tomb of Jesus. The angels told them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!" (Luke 24:5-6). - Dennis Fisher
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o'er His foes;
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign. -Lowry
The resurrection is a fact of history that demands a response of faith.
Ready to Wait by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Joshua 19-21, Luke 2:25-52
Key Verse: Luke 2:29-30
Patience is not a widely practiced virtue anymore. Today is the time for fast food, microwaves and high-speed computers. Just drive through, download and move on to the next thing.
Yet sometimes God says, "Wait." To faithfully follow God, one must be willing to surrender to not only the will of God but also to the "wait" of God.
The Bible tells us that Simeon was a man whom God had instructed to wait, though we don't know for how long. He would not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ (v. 26). Simeon accepted the fact that the timing of his life and death were in God's hands. Once he saw Jesus, he then said, "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace" (v. 29).
In a similar way, Anna, an 84-year-old widow, was a faithful follower who never left the temple. Hers was a life of worship (v. 37).
Simeon and Anna demonstrated remarkable patience. He waited. She remained faithful. Their days, perhaps months and even years, were in God's hands.
Patient faithfulness is a virtue that needs to be demonstrated in the lives of God's followers today. Have you surrendered to the "wait" of God?
When do you want God to answer your prayers? Probably right now. So, pray this prayer for Him to answer now: "Lord, teach me to wait on You."
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." Hebrews 11:8 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Abraham left the comfort and security of Ur to obey the call of God. Without hesitation, he "obeyed and went." He is known for this immediate step of obedience.
Abraham's spiritual experience was marked by four difficult steps of obedience that showed the strength of his trust in God:
He left his country and family (Genesis 12:1).
He broke with his nephew Lot, offering Lot his choice of land (Genesis 13:1-18).
He changed his focus from Ishmael to Isaac for the center of God's promise (Genesis 17:17-18).
He was willing to offer up Isaac, his only son (Genesis 22:1-19).
Abraham did not choose the easy way in these situations-because of his faith in God, he chose God's way and obeyed him, even when obedience was difficult. His faith is an example for all of us. Paul uses Abraham as the central theme in Romans 4 concerning justification by faith and describes him as "the father of all who believe" (Romans 4:11). Abraham was God's friend (James 2:23).
Consider this
Are you willing to obey God even when it's not easy? When you don't understand? This kind of obedience takes a great deal of faith, faith in God's goodness, faith in his love for you, faith in his power, faith in his plan. It also takes devotion to God and a desire to please him. May we all work toward this kind of faith by meditating in God's Word, by spending time in prayer,listening as well as speaking,and by allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to us.
Growing in faith and obedience is a process that spans a lifetime. Looking at the entire process can be overwhelming. Try to focus on a decision or choice you are facing right now, today. Determine to choose God's way. When you sense his direction, don't hesitate. Step out in obedience, even if you don't understand the reason. Trust him. His plan is always the best one.
Prayer
Father, help me to follow in the example of Abraham and other heroes of faith. I know that in the past I've sometimes taken the easy way out or insisted on doing things my way instead of trusting and obeying you. Forgive me. Help me in this situation right now to be sensitive.and obedient.to your leading. Help me to obey without hesitation. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living and offering definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Learn more about this topic.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE MOST DELICATE MISSION ON EARTH-Oswald Chambers
"The friend of the Bridegroom." John 3:29
Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves, they ought simply to be magnets to draw to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing towards Him, it is not holiness of the right order, but an influence that will awaken inordinate affection and lead souls away into side-eddies. A beautiful saint may be a hindrance if he does not present Jesus Christ but only what Christ has done for him. He will leave the impression - "What a fine character that man is!" That is not being a true friend of the Bridegroom; I am increasing all the time, He is not.
In order to maintain this friendship and loyalty to the Bridegroom, we have to be more careful of our moral and vital relationship to Him than of any other thing, even of obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey, the only thing to do is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ, to see that nothing interferes with that. Only occasionally do we have to obey. When a crisis arises we have to find out what God's will is, but the greater part of the life is not conscious obedience but the maintenance of this relationship - the friend of the Bridegroom. Christian work may be a means of evading the soul's concentration on Jesus Christ. Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, we may become amateur providences, and may work against Him whilst we use His weapons.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 26, 2008
Honest Doubts
READ: Matthew 28
When they saw [Jesus], they worshiped Him; but some doubted. -Matthew 28:17
Our experience tells us that people do not return from the grave. At the heart of our desolation when death strikes is the awful certainty that in this life we will not see our loved ones again. We attend funerals to honor their memory and grieve our loss, but we do not expect to be greeted at the door by the person who has died.
In light of this, it should not seem surprising that Jesus' disciples were reluctant to believe that He had risen from the dead. Following the testimony of the women who had seen an angel, an empty tomb, and Jesus Himself (Matt. 28:1-10), "the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted" (vv.16-17).
Among those who were closest to the Lord and had heard His remarkable teaching and witnessed His powerful miracles, some doubted that Jesus was actually alive again. But the honest doubts of the disciples soon turned to joy and hope as they embraced the reality of their risen Lord.
What do we doubt about Jesus today? Does our experience tell us that our past mistakes, present struggles, or future prospects can't be changed? With fresh memories of Easter, let's trust that He can do all things. - David C. McCasland
Where Jesus reigns there is no fear,
No restless doubt, no hopeless tear,
No raging sea nor tempest dread,
But quietness and calm instead. -Anon.
One look to Calvary can dispel your doubts.
The Cure Is Contentment by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Joshua 22-24, Luke 3
Key Verse: Luke 3:14
Years ago the only clothes people owned were probably handmade. The same was true of their furniture and most everything they had. Then came the rise of manufacturing. More things were available, if you had the money to buy them. With the increase in goods came the increased desire to have.
The finishing touch, of sorts, was the catalog. It made more people aware of how much more there was to have. The catalog stoked the fires of materialism, a fire that rages in epic proportions today.
Manufacturing and marketing, however, are not the source of materialism. The source is the sinful human heart.
Ever notice what John the Baptist said to the soldiers who asked him, "And what should we do?" He replied, "Don't extort money . . . be content with your pay" (v. 14). John knew that soldiers used their position for personal gain. He also knew that the problem was one of the heart. The cure is contentment.
Watch carefully what you feed your heart. Feed it the trappings of materialism, and discontentment will grow. In contrast, Paul said, "Godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim. 6:6). Find true gain by feeding your heart godliness and contentment.
Ask yourself if you have these two qualities: godliness and contentment. Sometimes it is hard to admit they are missing in one's life, but that is the first step in developing them.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For I have known (chosen, acknowledged) him [as My own], so that he may teach and command his children and the sons of his house after him to keep the way of the Lord and to do what is just and righteous, so that the Lord may bring Abraham what He has promised him." Genesis 18:19 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Because of Abraham's strong faith, he taught and directed his children and their children to keep the way of the Lord. He instilled his faith in them. Much of what he taught was by example. He truly left a heritage of faith.
God wants us to instill our faith in our children so that it can pass from generation to generation. One of the most important ways to share your faith with your family is to live it. Let them see the love of the Heavenly Father flow through you to them and others. Let them see your walk of obedience. Let them see you walk by faith, not by sight. And those times that you fail, that you sin, that you make mistakes, let them see you repent and learn from your mistakes.
It is also important to accept responsibility for teaching your children from God's Word, reading from it in family devotions and turning to it in family situations. Sunday school and church are important for your children. Perhaps they even go to a Christian school. But all this should only supplement what they are learning at home.
Consider this
It is also important to pray with your children. During family devotions. During special times of need or choices. At family meals. And diligently and faithfully pray for them during your own private times of prayer. Be sure that they know you are praying for them.
Prayer
Father, help me leave my children and those who come after them a rich heritage of faith. Help me to teach them. Help me to live my faith before them. Help me to demonstrate your love to them. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living and offering definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Learn more about this topic.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
VISION BY PERSONAL PURITY-Oswald Chambers
"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." Matthew 5:8
Purity is not innocence, it is much more. Purity is the outcome of sustained spiritual sympathy with God. We have to grow in purity. The life with God may be right and the inner purity remain unsullied, and yet every now and again the bloom on the outside may be sullied. God does not shield us from this possibility, because in this way we realize the necessity of maintaining the vision by personal purity. If the spiritual bloom of our life with God is getting impaired in the tiniest degree, we must leave off everything and get it put right. Remember that vision depends on character - the pure in heart see God.
God makes us pure by His sovereign grace, but we have something to look after, this bodily life by which we come in contact with other people and with other points of view, it is these that are apt to sully. Not only must the inner sanctuary be kept right with God, but the outer courts as well are to be brought into perfect accord with the purity God gives us by His grace. The spiritual understanding is blurred immediately the outer court is sullied. If we are going to retain personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean there are some things we must scorn to do or to think, some legitimate things we must scorn to touch.
A practical way of keeping personal purity unsullied in relation to other people is to say to yourself - That man, that woman, perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend, that relative, perfect in Christ Jesus!
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 27, 2008
Create Your Own God
READ: Psalm 146
That they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. -John 17:3
I've built a bathroom. I've wired an addition to my house. I've finished an entire basement. I enjoy do-it-yourself projects-as long as there's a good hardware store nearby.
But some people take this do-it-yourself thing too far. They create their own God. A report in Newsweek magazine said a youth pastor asked his teens who they think God is. One said He was like his grandfather: "He's there, but I never see him." Another suggested He is "an evil being who wants to punish me all the time." The last teen concluded that everyone is right because that's what they really believe.
Do we decide who God is by taking a poll? Is He a being we can make up as we go along? This create-your-own-deity idea is increasingly popular today. And it is extremely dangerous. It robs us of knowing who our heavenly Father really is-as Scripture describes Him. He is, after all, the One "who made heaven and earth" (Ps. 146:6) and "the only true God" (John 17:3).
One historical confession of faith says: "God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and truth." Examine the Scriptures. Find out who God really is and establish a relationship through Jesus. Then trust and obey the one true God. - Dave Branon
The gods of this world are empty and vain,
They cannot give peace to one's heart;
The living and true One deserves all our love-
From Him may we never depart. -D. De Haan
The infinite God cannot be measured by finite man.
Feel the Power By Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Judges 1-3, Luke 4:1-30
Key Verse: Luke 4:14
There is nothing wrong with the desire to have the Holy Spirit's power in your life. Sadly, however, teaching on the subject too often strays from biblical truth. In the quest for Holy Spirit power, many people follow paths paved with emotion rather than doctrine.
There is an interesting sequence surrounding the temptation of Jesus. He was full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit (v. 1). Filling comes with surrender. Surrender allows the Spirit to lead. The Spirit-filled believer will be an obedient believer.
In a setting of temptation, He withstood the direct attempts of Satan to get Him to sin. The Spirit-filled believer also will resist temptation and live a righteous life.
After the temptation Jesus is described as returning to Galilee "in the power of the Spirit" (v. 14). It is not incidental that "power" is noted after surrender, obedience and resisting temptation.
There is no short circuit to Holy Spirit power. One must start with surrender and proceed with obedience. Righteousness also is required. A lack of spiritual power is not due to a shortage of emotion. More often it is a shortage of the Christlike life.
If you want Holy Spirit power, follow the example of Jesus. Do not start with emotion but with truth.
To know the power of the Spirit, begin where these verses begin. Ask God to help you follow these steps.
Living Free - Mar. 27, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Abraham had faith and obeyed God. He was told to go to the land that God had said would be his, and he left for a country he had never seen. Because Abraham had faith, he lived as a stranger in the promised land. He lived there in a tent, and so did Isaac and Jacob, who were later given the same promise. Abraham did this, because he was waiting for the eternal city that God had planned and built. "Hebrews 11:8-10 CEV
"No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. " Philippians 3:13-14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
God called Abraham to leave everything that was familiar to him and enter a world of the unknown. Abraham obeyed without hesitation. He set out leaving relatives and friends, leaving the security of his home, leaving his culture and religion and followed God. And he didn't look back. Abraham could have spent his days complaining or grieving over all he had left behind. He could have rebelled about being taken out of his comfort zone. But he didn't. Why? He believed God. He believed God's promises. And he set his eyes on "the eternal city that God had planned and built."
The apostle Paul knew God wasn't finished with him yet. He had made many mistakes in the past, but he forgot the past and looked forward to what lay ahead, pressing on to the eternal prize. He didn't look back.
Consider this
Is God calling you out of your comfort zone? Or maybe you have already stepped out of your comfort zone but really want to do an "about face."
In every situation we need to fix our eyes on Jesus. If we look back and dwell on what was, we can't be effective in the here and now. We need to focus on what God is calling us to do today and press on to what he has promised us for tomorrow.
Prayer
Father, help me to put the past behind and focus on what you want me to do today. Help me to be willing to step out of my comfort zone and not look back. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living and offering definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Learn more about this topic.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
VISION BY PERSONAL CHARACTER-Oswald Chambers
"Come up hither, and I will shew thee things." Revelation 4:1
An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, God will continually say - "Friend, go up higher." The golden rule in temptation is - Go higher. When you get higher up, you face other temptations and characteristics. Satan uses the strategy of elevation in temptation, and God does the same, but the effect is different. When the devil puts you into an elevated place, he makes you screw your idea of holiness beyond what flesh and blood could ever hear, it is a spiritual acrobatic performance, you are just poised and dare not move; but when God elevates you by His grace into the heavenly places, instead of finding a pinnacle to cling to, you find a great table-land where it is easy to move.
Compare this week in your spiritual history with the same week last year and see how God has called you up higher. We have all been brought to see from a higher standpoint. Never let God give you one point of truth which you do not instantly live up to. Always work it out, keep in the light of it.
Growth in grace is measured not by the fact that you have not gone back, but that you have an insight into where you are spiritually; you have heard God say "Come up higher," not to you personally, but to the insight of your character.
"Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" God has to hide from us what He does until by personal character we get to the place where He can reveal it.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 28, 2008
Nic At Nite
READ: John 3:1-21
I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. -John 12:46
According to the apostle John, Nicodemus "came to Jesus by night" (John 3:2). Was this Pharisee skulking under cover of darkness, embarrassed or ashamed that he, as one of the ruling class, was curious about Jesus?
Some have suggested that it was just cooler at night. Others have said that evening was a better time to ask Jesus questions because it was quieter and there were fewer distractions.
We really don't know the reason Nicodemus went to Jesus at night, but John seemed determined to make a point of that specific fact. Every time he mentioned Nicodemus, he identified him by saying something like: "You know who I'm talking about-the guy who came to Jesus by night" (see 7:50; 19:39).
Nicodemus, no doubt, was quite moral and lived according to Mosaic Law. People probably thought he was a pretty good person. Yet none of that mattered. He was in the dark about who Jesus really was, and he wanted to know the truth. So he was drawn from the darkness into the presence of "the light of the world" (John 8:12).
Jesus calls us "out of darkness" too (1 Peter 2:9) and promises that whoever believes in Him will not stay in the dark (John 12:46). - Cindy Hess Kasper
Our search for truth is hindered by
The darkness of the night,
Until the Bright and Morning Star
Reveals His brilliant light. -Sper
Faith in Christ is not a leap into the dark; it's a step into the Light.
Mighty Man? by Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Judges 4-6, Luke 4:31-44
Key Verse: Judges 6:12
The name Gideon strikes a few notes in our brain, such as "mighty man of valor" and "hero of the faith." Then the notes sound sour as we can then think, "Not like me." Gideon is seen as a great man, while we often feel like much less.
Yes, he is included in the list of heroes in Hebrews 11. Yes, he was a mighty man of valor. It was not always that way, though. He started out quite fearful.
When we first meet Gideon, he is threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites (6:11). He's hiding out. Then when the angel tells him that he is being sent to save Israel, his reply is not a mighty one. "How can I?" he asks (v. 15).
After a great deal of "coaxing" and encouragement from God, Gideon did finally lead the fight to drive out the Midianites. God patiently worked with His reluctant warrior.
God can meet us where we are and lead us to where He wants us to be. Our lack of self-confidence may seem insurmountable. Remember, though, that our God is the same as Gideon's. The One who saw a mighty man of valor in Gideon sees a choice servant in you. He has equipped you and challenges you to serve Him.
Don't think God works only through "super saints." He uses ordinary believers made extraordinary by being available, teachable and useable
Living Free - Mar. 28, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Every one of those people died. But they still had faith, even though they had not received what they had been promised. They were glad just to see these things from far away, and they agreed that they were only strangers and foreigners on this earth. "Hebrews 11:13 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Today's scripture is talking about heroes of faith-and, of course, one of those great heroes is Abraham. All these heroes placed their hope, their faith, in the promised Messiah and in eternity in heaven with God. They knew that earth was not their permanent home, that they were only passing through. That someday all the struggles in this world would be left behind and they would go home to be with the Lord.
Abraham was able to leave his home and many of his love ones to live in a strange land the rest of his life because he had a hope for the future. God had made him a wonderful promise-that his descendants would become a great nation and possess the land. But his hope was built on something even greater than the land of Canaan. According to Hebrews 11:10 he was "looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God."
Abraham and other heroes of faith had an eternal perspective on things. They were able to endure much here on earth because they knew this was just a short visit, an opportunity to do what God had called them to do. They trusted God that a perfect future lay ahead for all eternity.
Consider thisIt's easy for us to get bogged down in day-to-day struggles. To sometimes feel overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness. We need to ask God to help us develop an eternal perspective. As we do this, our priorities and outlook will change. We will be reminded that our stay here on earth is temporary and that, if we have received Jesus, we will spend eternity in heaven with him. And we will be even more determined to make our time here on earth count, to accomplish the purpose of our journey.
Prayer
Father, help me to develop an eternal perspective. Help me to place my hope in Jesus and in your promises of eternity. And help me to use my time on earth effectively, to accomplish the purpose of my journey. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromGodly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living and offering definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Learn more about this topic.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
ISN'T THERE SOME MISUNDERSTANDING?-Oswald Chambers
"Let us go into Judea. His disciples say unto Him . . . Goest Thou thither again?" John 11:7-8
I may not understand what Jesus Christ says, but it is dangerous to say that therefore He was mistaken in what He said. It is never right to think that my obedience to a word of God will bring dishonour to Jesus. The only thing that will bring dishonour is not obeying Him. To put my view of His honour in place of what He is plainly impelling me to do is never right, although it may arise from a real desire to prevent Him being put to open shame. I know when the proposition comes from God because of its quiet persistence: When I have to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate come in, I am bringing in an element that is not of God, and I come to the conclusion that the suggestion was not a right one. Many of us are loyal to our notions of Jesus Christ, but how many of us are loyal to Him? Loyalty to Jesus means I have to step out where I do not see anything (cf. Matt. 14:29); loyalty to my notions means that I clear the ground first by my intelligence. Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a Person where I see no way.
Are you debating whether to take a step in faith in Jesus or to wait until you can see how to do the thing yourself? Obey Him with glad reckless joy. When He says something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a conception of His honour which is not His honour. Are you loyal to Jesus or loyal to your notion of Him? Are you loyal to what He says, or are you trying to compromise with conceptions which never came from Him? "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."
God bless
Today's Verse For Saturday, March 29
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NIV
March 29, 2008
See All Evil
READ: Ephesians 5:1-17
It is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. —Ephesians 5:12While waiting at the doctor's office, I read an article about the importance of freedom of speech. The writer suggested that producing obscene movies and pornography is good because it helps us to see our own potential for evil. He believes that naively thinking we are innocent is worse than knowing about and watching evil.
This rationale for evil is disturbing, especially for those of us who follow Christ. God doesn't expect us to avoid all contact with wickedness. Jesus—God in the flesh—loves sinners. But in the book of Ephesians, Paul said: "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret" (5:11-12).
Our responsibility is to expose evil by living a life of "goodness, righteousness, and truth" (v.9), and by not taking part in "the unfruitful works of darkness" (v.11). Hendriksen's New Testament Commentary says that the conduct of believers as children of light exposes the deeds of those in darkness and reveals the vast contrast between the two.
It's not realistic or wise to hide in a "holy cocoon." But we don't need to see evil to understand our propensity to sin. Expose the darkness by living in the Light. — Anne Cetas
Lord, keep us from entanglements
That choke Your Spirit's work within,
So we can then reflect Your light
Into a world that's dark with sin. —Sper
Children of the light will not be comfortable in the dark.
Daily Devotionals March 30, 2008
The Richness Of Humility
READ: 1 Corinthians 3:1-10
Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. -1 Corinthians 3:7
She lived out spiritual humility, yet she had much on a human level to be proud of. As an author of over 70 books and a translator of many others into Afrikaans, Annalou Marais had much cause to brag-but she was more concerned about honoring Christ than advancing herself. She worked behind the scenes of the Bible conference, doing a servant's tasks with a smiling face and a joyful heart. It would have been natural for her to desire, and even deserve, the spotlight. Instead, she quietly served, joyfully weeping as God worked in people's hearts. It was an impressive humility, because it was completely genuine.
I have heard it said, "It is amazing what can be accomplished when we don't care who gets the credit." This is certainly true of Christian service. Paul told the church at Corinth, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase" (1 Cor. 3:6-7). Paul had learned that great lesson of the servant's heart, as Annalou has learned-it's entirely about God. What we do is accomplished by His power and grace, and all the glory must go to Him. - Bill Crowder
It was a lesson in humility watching Annalou, and one that reminded me of the richness of serving God.
God often uses lowly things
His purpose to fulfill,
Because it takes a humble heart
To carry out His will. -D. De Haan
Pride and grace cannot dwell in the same place.
In the Midst of the Whirlwind by Woodrow Kroll
2 Kings 2:1, 11
And it came to pass, when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
In the Midst of the Whirlwind
Eagles have an interesting flight pattern. Instead of fleeing the winds of stormy weather, they turn to face them. The same winds that blow others away are used by these magnificent birds to lift them higher.
A storm lifted Elijah into the presence of God. Traveling from Gilgal with his disciple Elisha, he was forewarned by the sons of the prophets in Bethel, and again in Jericho, that this was the day God would take him away. But instead of fleeing from this potentially frightening possibility, the prophet continued on, content to let God have His will. When they crossed over the Jordan River, a chariot of fire separated Elisha from his master, and a whirlwind lifted Elijah up and away. The roaring winds of a desert storm, which normally brought destruction, became for Elijah the vehicle by which God elevated him into heaven.
When life's whirlwinds blow through our lives, we have a choice. We can focus on our trials and troubles, or we can use the whirlwind to be lifted up before the Lord in prayer and praise. What others see as a deadly devastation can become that which draws us more completely into God's presence.
Don't run away from the storms of life. They may be God's method of bringing you closer to Him. Instead, spread your wings of prayer and praise. Consider the winds of strife as opportunities to be lifted closer to the Lord.
Don't let your trials blow you down; let them lift you up.
Every Knee Shall Bow
by Max Lucado
". . . whoever believes in him shall not perish . . ."
How could a loving God send sinners to hell? He doesn't. They volunteer.
Once there, they don't want to leave. The hearts of damned fools never soften; their minds never change. "Men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory" (Rev. 16:9 NKJV). Contrary to the idea that hell prompts remorse, it doesn't. It intensifies blasphemy.
Remember the rich man in torment? He could see heaven but didn't request a transfer. He wanted Lazarus to descend to him. Why not ask if he could join Lazarus? The rich man complained of thirst, not of injustice. He wanted water for the body, not water for the soul. Even the longing for God is a gift from God, and where there is no more of God's goodness, there is no longing for him. Though every knee shall bow before God and every tongue confess his preeminence (Rom. 14:11), the hard-hearted will do so stubbornly and without worship. There will be no atheists in hell (Phil. 2:10-11), but there will be no God-seekers either.
But still we wonder, is the punishment fair? Such a penalty seems inconsistent with a God of love-overkill. A sinner's rebellion doesn't warrant an eternity of suffering, does it? Isn't God overreacting?
Who are we to challenge God? Only he knows the full story, the number of invitations the stubborn-hearted have refused and the slander they've spewed.
Accuse God of unfairness? He has wrapped caution tape on hell's porch and posted a million and one red flags outside the entrance. To descend its stairs, you'd have to cover your ears, blindfold your eyes, and, most of all, ignore the epic sacrifice of history: Christ, in God's hell on humanity's cross, crying out to the blackened sky, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). The supreme surprise of hell is this: Christ went there so you won't have to.
From 3:16, The Numbers of Hope
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, Inc, 2007) Max Lucado
HOLINESS V. HARDNESS Towards GOD-Oswald Chambers
"And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor." Isaiah 59:16
The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer.
Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God - "I don't see how You are going to do it." This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God's throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people.
Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him so that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to God, or are we hard and dogmatic?
"But there is no one interceding properly" - then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to Him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.
God bless
Daily Devotionals March 31, 2008
Finding Jesus
READ: Revelation 3:14-22
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. -Rev. 3:20
If I asked the question, "Where's Waldo?" you might recall those popular children's picture books from the 1980s. That little guy in the red-and-white-striped shirt and hat loved to hide in the pages amid a busy blur of images that made it nearly impossible to find him.
Thankfully, finding Jesus is a lot easier than finding Waldo. Jesus doesn't play hide-and-seek. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (Rev. 3:20). You can find Him at the door of your heart-the core of your existence-waiting to come in. He doesn't just want to meet you at church, or to be kept at bay on the outer edges of your life. Rather, He longs to be in the center of your dreams, deliberations, and desires. He wants a real relationship with the real you.
And as wonderful as that is, I need to warn you that it may be a little unsettling. Your heart is no doubt harboring a few things that He will want to deal with. But there is nothing that is more valuable than intimacy with Him. Welcome Jesus in and He will clear out the clutter until the air is fragrant and fresh with the purity, power, and pleasure of His presence.
Who's knocking at your heart's door? It's Jesus! How wonderful is that! - Joe Stowell
Sweetest of all of life's blessings,
Communion with Christ above,
Assured of His constant presence,
His matchless, eternal love. -Anon.
Jesus is standing at the door of your heart-welcome Him in!
In His Steps by Woodrow Kroll
2 Kings 2:14
Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over.
In His Steps
Someone once said, "The footsteps that a boy usually wants to follow are those that his father hoped he had covered up." But not so with Elijah.
In the time that Elijah had spent with Elisha, he left behind footprints that he hoped his "spiritual son" would be able and willing to follow. Not the least of these was the miraculous way God demonstrated His power through his prophet. Just as the Lord had parted the water of the Jordan River when Elijah struck it with his mantle (v. 8), Elisha soon discovered that God would do the same for him as he walked in Elijah's footsteps.
Every Christian leaves behind footprints. As he walks through the good times as well as times of difficulty, and as he demonstrates God's power and presence in the various situations he encounters as a believer, a Christian leaves indelible impressions upon those who are watching.
If people were to follow in your footsteps, where would they be led? Would they find themselves at places of pleasure more often than at church? Would your footprints lead to questionable activities rather than to godly behavior? Would they discover more intimacy with God because they trod where you had stepped?
As you make your way through life, remember that others are coming behind you. Be sure your feet only take you where you want their feet to take them. Like it or not, you're leaving footprints behind that they will want to follow.
Watch where you step; those you love are close behind.
Living Free - Mar. 31, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Romans 12:15 NIV
Thoughts for Today
God's Word tells us to mourn with those who mourn.
Perhaps you sense God calling you to minister to people who have suffered the loss of a loved one by death. But how? So often we feel helpless and just don't know what to say. We might even avoid contact with the bereaved person because we are afraid we might say or do the wrong thing. This week we will look at just a few of the many teachings from God's Word about tangible things we can do to prepare ourselves to be God's hand extended to people in grief.
Before entering this area of ministry, we must recognize that authenticity is essential. We dare not play charades or project false images or unrealistic hopes to the newly bereaved person. We should do some reading, perhaps talk to a pastor, about the phases involved in the process of grieving not to put the grieving person into a mold, but to better understand some of the stages that most people experience.
Consider this
It is important to remember that ministering to a bereaved person involves listening more than helping. We cannot tell them what to do we cannot fix their problem. But we can be with them. Our presence is more important than words. God calls us to come alongside and mourn with them.
Prayer
Father, teach me to help those who have suffered the loss of a loved one. My tendency is to try and "fix" the problem when someone is hurting. Help me to remember that I can't fix this problem I can't speak the right words that will make everything better but I can be there. I can listen. I can pray. I can mourn with them. May the love and compassion of Jesus flow through me. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This group study helps identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This booklet also provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced loss. This guide also provides help for anyone ministering to those experiencing a "little death" in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
HEEDFULNESS V. HYPOCRISY IN OURSELVES Oswald Chambers
"If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him Life for them that sin not unto death." 1 John 5:16
If we are not heedful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other folks are failing, and we turn our discernment into the gibe of criticism instead of into intercession on their behalf. The revelation is made to us not through the acuteness of our minds, but by the direct penetration of the Spirit of God, and if we are not heedful of the source of the revelation, we will become criticizing centres and forget that God says - ". . . he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death." Take care lest you play the hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right before you worship God yourself.
One of the subtlest burdens God ever puts on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of these souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them, and as we intercede on His line, God says He will give us "life for them that sin not unto death." It is not that we bring God into touch with our minds, but that we rouse ourselves until God is able to convey His mind to us about the one for whom we intercede.
Is Jesus Christ seeing of the travail of His soul in us? He cannot unless we are so identified with Himself that we are roused up to get His view about the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so whole-heartedly that Jesus Christ will be abundantly satisfied with us as intercessors.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 1, 2008
In The Driver's Seat
READ: Matthew 5:13-16
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. -Matthew 5:16
I love the story of the stressed-out woman who was tailgating a man as they drove on a busy boulevard. When he slowed to a stop at a yellow light, the woman hit the horn, cussing and screaming in frustration and gesturing angrily. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a police officer who ordered her to exit the car with her hands up. He took her to the police station and placed her in a holding cell.
An hour later, the officer returned and said, "I'm sorry, Ma'am. This has been a big mistake. When I pulled up behind you, I noticed your 'What Would Jesus Do?' license plate holder and your 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker. I assumed the car was stolen!"
Satan doesn't care so much if you're a Christian as long as you don't act like one. If he can get you to live by his signals, he can damage and disarm you every time and dishonor the name of Christ in the process.
Instead, Jesus calls believers to be "salt" and to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
With Jesus in the driver's seat of our lives, we can show off the love and glory of God. - Joe Stowell
Called to be salt and light in this world,
Called to preserve and to shine,
Called to reflect the glory of God-
Oh, what a calling is mine! -Fitzhugh
Don't let Satan manage the details of your life.
Desperate Times by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:1
Now it came to pass, in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.
Desperate Times
Desperation can drive us to many extremes. Comedian Woody Allen characterized our times when he said, "We stand at a crossroads. Down one road is despondency and despair, and down the other is total annihilation. Let us pray that we choose the right road." This kind of desperation sometimes even plagues God's people and causes them to make poor choices.
Elimelech was facing desperate times, and he needed to make some difficult choices. He was struggling to feed his family. A wife and two growing boys needed nourishment, but a famine gripped the land. Famines were often God's way of bringing His people to the point of submission. They were not simply to punish Israel, but to get them to turn from their sins. Yet without clear guidance from God, Elimelech chose to run away. Instead of facing the Lord's judgment on the land and trusting God to provide, he moved his family to a pagan land and raised his children in a society that did not know the God of Israel. He even broke God's law by allowing his sons to marry pagan wives (Deut. 7:3-4). It is very tempting to look for the easy way out of our problems. But any choice that takes us away from God is, in the long run, the wrong way. Elimelech's choice ultimately brought death to himself and his two sons. No matter how desperate the situation, it is always better to face what God has allowed and trust Him than it is to run from our circumstances and go it alone.
If you are experiencing difficult times, make your choices based on clear direction from God. Don't allow a feeling of desperation to steer you in the wrong direction.
Desperate choices are seldom the best choices.
Living Free - Apr. 1, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." Psalm 23:4 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Christians wanting to minister to those who have suffered loss by death need to present themselves as authentic, caring individuals who have resolved the issues of dying so they can live in the here and now honestly with an eternal perspective. This requires coming to grips with one's own mortality so as to be confident of the path to immortality. To be able to honestly say, "I fear no evil" when confronting death.
Make it a habit to think about death and dying occasionally. It is important to have a workable theology of death and eternal life before trying to help someone who is confronting death in their family. We need to grasp the truth that we are visitors on this earth (Hebrews 11:13, 1 Peter 2:11) that Jesus has prepared a perfect place for us (Hebrews 11:16) that through Jesus death has been swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54-57) and that He has promised eternal life to those who follow Him (John 3:16, Romans 6:23).
Consider thisAs you grow in your understanding of these truths, and they become a part of who you are, God can use you more fully to minister to people who are facing death or who have lost a loved one. Not by preaching at them or giving them a reading list of scriptures. But by living out the peace and calm brought about by your understanding and perspective. And, if the Holy Spirit leads that way, by sharing your hope with them through words and through the scriptures.
Prayer
Lord, thank you that I don't have to fear death. Thank you that I am just a visitor on this earth and that someday I will be home with you. May the peace that you've given me somehow be used to help others who are dealing with the death of a loved one or facing death themselves. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This group study helps identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This booklet also provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced loss. This guide also provides help for anyone ministering to those experiencing a "little death" in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
HEARTINESS V. HEARTLESSNESS TOWARDS OTHERS-Oswald Chambers
"It is Christ . . . who also maketh intercession for us." "The Spirit . . . maketh intercession for the saints." Romans 8:34, 27
Do we need any more argument than this to become intercessors - that Christ "ever liveth to make intercession;" that the Holy Spirit "maketh intercession for the saints"? Are we living in such a vital relationship to our fellow men that we do the work of intercession as the Spirit-taught children of God? Begin with the circumstances we are in - our homes, our business, our country, the present crisis as it touches us and others - are these things crushing us? Are they badgering us out of the presence of God and leaving us no time for worship? Then let us call a halt, and get into such living relationship with God that our relationship to others may be maintained on the line of intercession whereby God works His marvels.
Beware of outstripping God by your very longing to do His will. We run ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, consequently we get so burdened with persons and with difficulties that we do not worship God, we do not intercede. If once the burden and the pressure come upon us and we are not in the worshipping attitude, it will produce not only hardness toward God but despair in our own souls. God continually introduces us to people for whom we have no affinity, and unless we are worshipping God, the most natural thing to do is to treat them heartlessly, to give them a text like the jab of a spear, or leave them with a rapped-out counsel of God and go. A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to Our Lord.
Are we in the direct line of the intercession of our Lord and of the Holy Spirit?
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 2, 2008
Michael Cardinal
READ: Matthew 6:25-34
Look at the birds of the air . . . . -Matthew 6:26
Twig by twig a cardinal constructed a bowl-shaped home in the bush outside my office window. Soon she laid an egg and kept it warm until it hatched. I named the little bird Michael. Although he was tiny, he had a huge appetite. His parents worked hard to keep him fed and safe. In a few months, Michael was ready to leave, and I was there to witness the amazing event.
When Michael left, so did mom and dad. The nest remained empty until the next spring. When mama cardinal returned, I was happy to see her but also sad. We had sold our house and I was concerned that the new owners might chop down the bush. But my concern soon turned to amazement. As I dismantled my office, mama cardinal dismantled her nest. By the time we left, so had the cardinal family. Mama cardinal's God-given instincts had told her to move.
This brought to mind another nature lesson. Using birds and lilies as examples, Jesus urged people not to worry. Since God takes care of birds, surely He will take care of His people (Matt. 6:26-30).
When concern for our own well-being leads to anxious thoughts, we can look at the birds and be assured of our value to God and of His care for us. - Julie Ackerman Link
I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me. -Martin
We need not fear the perils around us because the eye of the Lord is always upon us.
Transient or Tenant? by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:2-4
The name of the man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years.
Transient or Tenant?
Time has a way of slipping by quickly. Perhaps you've heard of the fellow who said, "You know, I'm 56. I'm middle-aged!" His wife brought him back to reality when she replied, "How many men do you know who are 112?"
Time slipped by for the family of Elimelech as well. Ruth 1:1 indicates that Elimelech moved his family to Moab with the intent to "sojourn" there. The word sojourn carries the idea of a temporary stay. Elimelech hadn't intended to remain in the land?only to visit a short time until the famine was over. But verse 4 reveals that before they knew it, they had been in the land for ten years. The sons who had gone there as young men had grown up, married local women and eventually passed away, as had their father (v. 5).
Sometimes we intend for situations to be only temporary. We think, Just as soon as the kids are through college, we'll start tithing again. Or perhaps you reason, As soon as I get through this busy period at work, I'll get back to having a daily quiet time. But days turn into weeks, weeks into months and before you know it, circumstances that were only going to be temporary have become a way of life.
Have you allowed something that was intended as transient to become a permanent fixture in your life? Have you been waiting for a more convenient time to do what you know you should be doing now? If time has slipped away for you, don't linger another day "in a distant land." If you're not where you should be, this is the day to do something about it.
Don't expect time to stand still just because you do.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Share each other's burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Sharing the burdens of a person who has a lost a loved one includes offering our presence and spiritual support. But it can also include much-needed acts of service. Cooking meals. Cleaning. Providing transportation. Caring for children. Errands. Whatever is needed. James makes it clear that words need to be supported by acts. We need to ask God to help us be sensitive to all the needs and to give us wisdom to help in any way we can.
Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything?
Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old
friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with
the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup! where does that get
you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? James 2:14-17 MSG
Consider this
In order to share the burdens with people recovering from the impact of death, it is vital to take care of yourself physically so that you will have the stamina required. You also need to encourage the survivors to take the necessary precautions to be strong through the bereavement period.
Regular exercise (at least a half-hour session of aerobic exercises three or four times a week) is important. Balanced and nutritious meals are needed three times a day and from eight to nine hours of sleep each 24 hours are essential.
Prayer
Father, as I reach out to help people who have lost a loved one, help me to truly share their burden-in prayer and spiritual support and also in practical acts of service. Help me to be sensitive to their needs and give me wisdom in responding. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromHandling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This group study helps identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This booklet also provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced loss. This guide also provides help for anyone ministering to those experiencing a "little death" in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE GLORY THAT EXCELS-Oswald Chambers
"The Lord . . . hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight." Acts 9:17
When Paul received his sight, he received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ - "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." No attraction was ever allowed to hold the mind and soul of Paul save the face of Jesus Christ.
We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of Jesus Christ.
The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of God. The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God's own heart.
Never allow anything to deflect you from insight into Jesus Christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you.
"Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside,
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Gazing on the Crucified."
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 3, 2008
Right Place
READ: Proverbs 16:1-9
A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. -Proverbs 16:9
They were in the right place, on the wrong day. Or so it would seem.
The Dayspring Chorale, a traveling high school singing group, arrived at a nursing home for a Thursday concert. However, the folks at the home were expecting them on Friday. But they said if the group could get set up fast, they could sing for 20 minutes. Then they'd have to stop for a memorial service for one of the residents.
The chorale hurriedly got ready and sang, and as they did, the son of the man who had died heard them. When they were done, he asked if they could sing at his dad's service. They gladly agreed and ministered hope and truth to all who attended. God used these young people in a special way-all because of a secretarial error. But was it a mistake?
We carefully make schedules so we can be where we think we should be. But we always need to keep in mind the words of Solomon, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" (Prov. 16:9).
Do we seek ministry in life's unplanned schedule changes? Do we turn detours into guided tours of what He wants to do through us? If we're doing God's will, we'll be in the right place. Then, wherever we are, we can point people to Him. - Dave Branon
Sometimes our plan does not unfold
The way we thought it would;
But God is always in control
To use it for our good. -Sper
Unexpected changes are opportunities in disguise.
Never Alone by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:3, 5
Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons.
Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; so the woman survived her two sons and her husband.
Never Alone
A man took his elderly mother out to the cemetery to decorate graves for Memorial Day. After placing a bouquet of flowers on her husband's grave, she wandered among the other gravestones marking the resting places of other family members who had gone to be with the Lord. Finally she stopped, looked her son in the eye and with a wistful smile asked, "What have I done to deserve all this overtime?"
Perhaps Naomi felt the same way. She had left Israel with a husband and two sons; now only she was left alone, and yet not alone. God had brought into her life two compassionate daughters-in-law, one of whom would follow her all the way back to Israel. Even though Naomi intensely felt the loss of her loved ones, God had not deserted her. He provided, even in a foreign land, those who would love and care for a forlorn widow.
God never really leaves us alone. When He removes those whom we expect to love and support us, He always provides another way for this need to be met. While you may experience the pain of separation, you never need to feel totally abandoned. Sometimes God grants you an unmistakable sense of His company. Other times He uses people around you to be the instruments of His love and comfort. In either case, His compassion never fails and His presence never falters.
Perhaps you have lost the one dearest to you. Maybe you have moved far away from family and friends. Let God fill your life with His presence in whatever way He chooses, and rejoice that He never forgets nor forsakes. Be assured that even though there may be an empty place in your home, there can be a fullness in your heart.
You may feel lonely, but you need never feel alone.
Living Free - Apr. 3, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance." Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 NLT
Thoughts for Today
As you prepare to minister to someone who has lost a loved one, you will find it helpful to have a basic understanding of the numerous stages of grief. Grief is a process. Although most people follow some similar patterns through this process, there is no set template or timetable. Most people start with a time of shock or denial and move from there into some kind of emotional release.
Shock and denial combine to form the initial stage. This numbing experience delays full comprehension of the intensity of the loss. As realization of the magnitude of the loss is acknowledged, emotional release is normal.
Emotional release comes as shock subsides and denial fades. The survivor begins to express grief feelings openly. At this stage, it is appropriate to encourage the survivor to express genuine feelings in keeping with the magnitude of the loss. The bereaved should be encouraged to realize this spontaneous emotional release is natural and normal.
Consider this
Today's scripture makes it clear that there is a time to weep and a time to mourn. Freedom to shed tears must be granted to the survivors as they process their grieving and learn how to forgive both self and others, including God. Repressed feelings of guilt, anger, fear and grief can have long-lasting harmful effects. As you seek to help, learn to be a good listener-not judging or condemning, but offering unconditional love.
Prayer
Father, thank you for helping us understand that a time to weep and a time to mourn are part of life and can be an important part of the healing process. Teach me to listen without passing any kind of judgment. To encourage the vital expression of emotions during the grieving process. To love unconditionally. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromHandling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This group study helps identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This booklet also provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced loss. This guide also provides help for anyone ministering to those experiencing a "little death" in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
IF THOU HADST KNOWN!
By Oswald Chambers
"If thou hadst known . . . in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." Luke 19:42
Jesus had entered into Jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of Pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a "whited sepulchre."
What is it that blinds me in this "my day"? Have I a strange god - not a disgusting monster, but a disposition that rules me? More than once God has brought me face to face with the strange god and I thought I should have to yield, but I did not do it. I got through the crisis by the skin of my teeth and I find myself in the possession of the strange god still; I am blind to the things which belong to my peace. It is an appalling thing that we can be in the place where the Spirit of God should be getting at us unhinderedly, and yet increase our condemnation in God's sight.
"If thou hadst known" - God goes direct to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind. These words imply culpable responsibility; God holds us responsible for what we do not see. "Now they are hid from thine eyes" - because the disposition has never been yielded. The unfathomable sadness of the "might have been!" God never opens doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut, doors which need never have been shut, imaginations which need never have been sullied. Never be afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the "might have been" into a wonderful culture for the future.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 4, 2008
What Should I Do?
READ: Proverbs 2:1-9
The Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. -Proverbs 2:6
My friend Krista is struggling with a decision: Should she keep her old car with its continual maintenance problems or buy a newer model? She wants to be a good steward of her finances, and she desires to make a wise decision. And most of all, she wants to honor God.
Financial decisions can be tough to make. Billy Graham even says, "If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life."
Here are a few ideas to consider about wisdom in money matters:
Do a checkup to be sure you're following God's priorities. Are you giving to Him and to others? (1 Cor. 16:2). Taking care of family needs? (1 Tim. 5:8). Not letting money control you? (Luke 16:13).
Research the topic. Consider all the options and the pros and cons of each one.
Ask God for wisdom. Pray, pray, and pray some more. He will direct you (Prov. 2:6).
Trust God and make the decision. Use the knowledge and wisdom you've gained, and commit your decision to Him.
Obedience to God nurtures a growing love-and-trust relationship with Him. What's most important is that we see each decision as an opportunity to draw closer to Him. - Anne Cetas
When you're facing a decision
And it seems a daunting task,
Trust the Lord for true discernment-
He'll give wisdom if you ask. -Hess
The closer we walk with God, the clearer we see His guidance.
Heading Home by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:6
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited His people by giving them bread.
Heading Home
A Christian man took his eyes off God and committed a crime. He was arrested and served a seven-year sentence in a penal institution. Through an encounter with a Barnabas-like pastor, however, this man was led to know the restorative power of the blood of Jesus Christ. On the flyleaf of his Bible he wrote, "The soul that comes to Jesus through failure, shame, or pain, by His wondrous love and mercy may soar as high again."
The famine that God sent on Israel had brought a great deal of pain. It had been the primary motivation for Elimelech and his family to migrate to Moab. But for those who remained in the land, this tribulation apparently accomplished its purpose. The people repented of their sins and turned to God. For His part, God graciously restored their food supply. As the reports of Israel's recovery reached Moab, Naomi's desire was turned back toward her homeland. Although God still had work to do in her heart, this decision was the first step in her restoration to Him.
When we have sinned and turned our backs on God, the Lord often sends chastening events into our lives. As our hearts are brought to the breaking point, we sometimes wonder if God will receive us back. Is it possible for someone who has dwelt in a distant land for many years to come home again? The answer is always yes. Even though our sins are like scarlet, they can be washed white as snow (Isa. 1:18).
Have you wandered away from God? Have you been away too long? Do you fear what His response will be if you return to Him? Take heart. Jesus said, "The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out" (John 6:37). Confess your sins, place them under the blood of Christ, and turn yourself toward home.
Repentant sinners always find God has the welcome mat out.
Living Free - Apr. 4, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]" John 16:33 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Physical death is not the only loss in life with which we must learn to cope. Other losses bring intense pain as well. Some are sudden; others are gradual. Either way, they demand our attention and bring pain into our lives. You have probably experienced at least one of these "little deaths" in your life. These difficult times might include divorce, miscarriage, post-abortion distress, job loss, moving, natural disaster and a host of other things.
In today's Scripture Jesus cautions us not be surprised when we have problems-"tribulation and trials and distress and frustration." That is part of life on this earth. He lived among us and faced much tribulation, but we can be encouraged because he overcame the world-and he will help us through every trial we might have to face. In him we can have "perfect peace and confidence"even amidst the storm.
Consider this
God might give you opportunity to minister to others who are going through a difficult time-suffering a "little death." This week we've discussed some principles for helping people who have suffered the death of a loved one. Many of those same principles can be adapted to help people struggling in other situations. As we learn to experience peace and confidence in Jesus through every situation, we will be more prepared to help others do the same.
Prayer
Father, thank you that no matter what is going on around us, because of Jesus we can experience peace and confidence. Teach me to trust you in every situation and to help others who are experiencing trials. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This group study helps identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This booklet also provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced loss. This guide also provides help for anyone ministering to those experiencing a "little death" in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THOSE BORDERS OF DISTRUST
By Oswald Chambers
"Behold, the hour cometh . . . that ye shall be scattered." John 16:32
Jesus is not rebuking the disciples, their faith was real, but it was disturbed; it was not at work in actual things. The disciples were scattered to their own interests, alive to interests that never were in Jesus Christ. After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities. We shall be scattered, not into work, but into inner desolations and made to know what internal death to God's blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is not that we choose it, but that God engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings. When once we get there, no matter where God places us or what the inner desolations are, we can praise God that all is well. That is faith being worked out in actualities.
". . . and shall leave Me alone." Have we left Jesus alone by the scattering of His providence? Because we do not see God in our circumstances? Darkness comes by the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do as He likes with us - prepared to be separated from conscious blessings? Until Jesus Christ is Lord, we all have ends of our own to serve; our faith is real, but it is not permanent yet. God is never in a hurry; if we wait, we shall see that God is pointing out that we have not been interested in Himself but only in His blessings. The sense of God's blessing is elemental.
"Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Spiritual grit is what we need.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 5, 2008
Words Of Life
READ: John 6:60-71
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. -John 6:68
In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman warns us of the danger of a world of information overload. He reminds us of a chilling futuristic vision-Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which describes a world thoroughly flooded with information. But that data is manipulated so that none of it has any significance.
A glance at the Internet or a magazine rack hints that we are living in just such a culture. We're drowning in a sea of information often marketed by the unscrupulous. We need discernment to choose wisely whom we will listen to.
In John 6, Jesus delivered His "I am the bread of life" message (v.35). It was a sermon so controversial that, at its conclusion, many of His followers went away and stopped following Him (v.66). They chose to stop listening to the voice of Christ. When Jesus challenged His disciples as to whether they would also walk away, Peter wisely responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (v.68).
In a world swamped with confusing and contradictory information, we can, like Peter, turn to Christ for wisdom. He cuts through the words of confusion with words of life. - Bill Crowder
There's so much wisdom to be learned,
So many ways for me to grow,
Lord, I would listen like a child,
And learn what You would have me know. -K. De Haan
If you want to be wise, listen to Jesus.
Thy Lovingkindness by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:8
And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me."
Thy Lovingkindness
The great American novelist Henry James, in saying good-bye to his nephew, Willie, said something the boy never forgot. As they parted, he put his hand on the young man's shoulders and remarked, "Willie, there are three things that are important in human life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind."
Naomi's daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, apparently had learned that lesson well. As she prepared to part from them, Naomi praised them both for their kindness. They had been kind to her sons, their husbands. And even after they were widowed and no longer had family obligations to their mother-in-law, they continued to show kindness to her. In the midst of a pagan land that practiced a cruel form of worship,even sacrificing little children,God had so moved on the hearts of these two women that their spirit of kindness set them apart from their fellow Moabites.
Kindness should be one of the distinguishing marks of a Christian as well. Frederick W. Faber observed, "Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power that seems to be beyond natural causes, as if they were some angel's song that had lost its way and come to earth. It seems as if they could almost do what in reality God alone can do,soften the hard and angry hearts of men. No one was ever corrected by a sarcasm,crushed, perhaps, if the sarcasm was clever enough, but drawn nearer to God, never." We must never forget that more people have been won to Christ through kindness than fiery sermons or learned arguments.
Who needs to feel the warmth of your kindness today? Do you know someone who has a special need that you can meet? Let your life be set apart by your deeds of kindness. Identify a need. Picture a face. And show your kindness to that person today.
Kindness is love in work clothes.
Week of April 4
He's Been There
by Max Lucado
". . . shall not perish but have eternal life . . ."
On a trip to China, I rode past Tiananmen Square in a bus full of Westerners. We tried to recollect the causes and consequences of the revolt. Our knowledge of history was embarrassing. One gave one date; another gave a different one. One person remembered a certain death toll; someone else disagreed. All this time our translator remained silent.
Finally one of us asked her, "Do you remember anything about the Tiananmen Square revolt?"
Her answer was solemn. "Yes, I was a part of it."
We quickly grew quiet as she gave firsthand recollections of the bloodshed and oppression. We listened, because she'd been there.
We who follow Christ do so for the same reason. He's been there . . .
He's been to Bethlehem, wearing barn rags and hearing sheep crunch. Suckling milk and shivering against the cold. All of divinity content to cocoon itself in an eight-pound body and to sleep on a cow's supper. Millions who face the chill of empty pockets or the fears of sudden change turn to Christ. Why?
Because he's been there.
He's been to Nazareth, where he made deadlines and paid bills; to Galilee, where he recruited direct reports and separated fighters; to Jerusalem, where he stared down critics and stood up against cynics.
We have our Nazareths as well-demands and due dates. Jesus wasn't the last to build a team; accusers didn't disappear with Jerusalem's temple. Why seek Jesus's help with your challenges? Because he's been there. To Nazareth, to Galilee, to Jerusalem.
But most of all, he's been to the grave. Not as a visitor, but as a corpse. Buried amidst the cadavers. Numbered among the dead. Heart silent and lungs vacant. Body wrapped and grave sealed. The cemetery. He's been buried there.
You haven't yet. But you will be. And since you will, don't you need someone who knows the way out?
From 3:16, The Numbers of Hope
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, Inc, 2007) Max Lucado
HIS AGONY AND OUR FELLOWSHIP
by Oswald Chambers
"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, tarry ye here, and watch with Me." Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin. We know nothing about Gethsemane in personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique; they are the gateway into Life for us.
It was not the death on the cross that Jesus feared in Gethsemane; He stated most emphatically that He came on purpose to die. In Gethsemane He feared lest He might not get through as Son of Man. He would get through as Son of God - Satan could not touch Him there; but Satan's onslaught was that He would get through as an isolated Figure only; and that would mean that He could be no Saviour. Read the record of the agony in the light of the temptation: "Then the devil leaveth Him for a season." In Gethsemane Satan came back and was again overthrown. Satan's final onslaught against our Lord as Son of Man is in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Saviour of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal all it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ is a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that Our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Every human being can get through into the presence of God now because of what the Son of Man went through.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 6, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Nest In The Greatness
READ: Genesis 2:1-15
The Lord God . . . put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. -Genesis 2:15
In his historical novel Chesapeake, James Michener tells the story of multiple generations living near a marsh. One character, Chris Pflaum, is introduced as a restless 13-year-old sitting in class waiting for summer break. But when the teacher reads a poem by Sidney Lanier, the boy's heart is stirred.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies.
When Chris grew up, this poem motivated him to work tirelessly to preserve the precious wetlands and the wildlife he loved.
The poem's words stir the heart because they use nature as a springboard of praise to the Creator. But, unfortunately, our living planet can be neglected and exploited. God's mandate to Adam has been passed on to all believers. "The Lord God . . . put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it" (Gen. 2:15). The words tend and keep mean "to cultivate as servants."
We are to care for and guard God's creation as responsible stewards. - Dennis Fisher
The natural world that God has made
Must not be used at whim;
We serve as stewards of His earth,
Responsible to Him. -D. De Haan
To mistreat God's creation is to offend the Creator.
So Right, Yet So Wrong by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:11
But Naomi said, "Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?"
So Right, Yet So Wrong
When Egypt first conquered a land called Nubia, a regiment of soldiers was sent across the desert with an Arab guide. The men suffered extreme thirst. Suddenly, they saw a lake in the distance. It seemed logical to head right for the lake. Although their guide assured them the lake was not real, the soldiers were convinced that it was. It had to be; they could see it. The soldiers decided to kill the guide and then set out to reach the lake. But to their dismay, the water turned out to be only a mirage. Every soldier perished.
What seems logical isn't necessarily right. Naomi presented a very logical argument. It was not possible for her to bear sons to replace Mahlon and Chilion; and even if she could, Orpah and Ruth would not want to wait until these boys were old enough to marry. The obvious conclusion was that her daughters-in-law should return to their Moabite families. That sounded reasonable, so Orpah did. As a result, though, she eventually perished without knowing the God of Israel. Ruth, on the other hand, rejected the logical argument and ultimately found herself drawn into the family of God.
God often doesn't follow the dictates of human logic. That doesn't mean He's illogical, but that His logic transcends ours. The way God does things is not always the way we do things (Isa. 55:8-9). While we are limited in knowledge and power, God is omniscient and omnipotent. While we are trapped in time and space, God is eternal and omnipresent. Our logic reflects our limitations; God's logic reflects His unlimited ability.
Take care when following human reasoning,it may seem right at the time, but "its end is the way of death" (Prov. 14:12). Always trust God's logic; it's the way of life. To know God's logic you must know His will, and to know God's will you must read His Word. That's where you must begin today.
Logic is only as good as its source.
'I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life'
Our world is filled with empty promises; anyone can claim anything. But only Jesus Christ delivered on His claim to be the divine Son of God. The disciples had left everything to follow Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed to be the anointed Son of God. They were excited and thrilled with the miracles they witnessed. They were impressed by His exercise of spiritual authority. His teaching encouraged them. And now Jesus was telling them of His death, and that one of them would betray Him.
Jesus knew the disciples were confused and discouraged. Therefore, He comforted them with these words, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me" (John 14:1).
If you feel that the frenzy of the world is consuming you, remember that you have a Savior who loves you and who will fight for you. Don't become worried and anxious. Jesus is near to you. He has promised never to leave you, no matter how dark life seems to be. Don't let sorrows and suffering take joy from you. Jesus has a place for you with your name written over it. "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2).
No matter how many times you see the hand of God working in your life or experience His provision, it is easy to lose sight of God's love and faithfulness. If you only focus on your current difficulty or discouragement, you may lose sight of His blessings and promises.
Don't become discouraged. Despondency says things are hopeless, and life is aimless. Jesus says there is hope beyond suffering and the grave. There is a way out of all difficulties. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He will never let you down. He will not forsake you.
The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble (Proverbs 19:23).
In a world gone mad with relativism and political correctness... What can we do to ignite spiritual renewal in our lives and in our churches? Read the passion Michael Youssef has for this subject in our free resource-"We Preach Christ." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
THE COLLISION OF GOD AND SIN
By Oswald Chambers
"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." 1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Jesus is the revelation of God's judgment on sin. Never tolerate the idea of martyrdom about the Cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross was a superb triumph in which the foundations of hell were shaken. There is nothing more certain in Time or Eternity than what Jesus Christ did on the Cross: He switched the whole of the human race back into a right relationship with God. He made Redemption the basis of human life, that is, He made a way for every son of man to get into communion with God.
The Cross did not happen to Jesus: He came on purpose for it. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." The whole meaning of the Incarnation is the Cross. Beware of separating God manifest in the flesh from the Son becoming sin. The Incarnation was for the purpose of Redemption. God became incarnate for the purpose of putting away sin; not for the purpose of Self-realization. The Cross is the centre of Time and of Eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man but the Cross of God, and the Cross of God can never be realized in human experience. The Cross is the exhibition of the nature of God, the gateway whereby any individual of the human race can enter into union with God. When we get to the Cross, we do not go through it; we abide in the life to which the Cross is the gateway.
The centre of salvation is the Cross of Jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost God so much. The Cross is the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened - but the crash is on the heart of God.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 7, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Why? Why? Oh, Why?
READ: Proverbs 3:1-12
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. -Hebrews 12:7
Why must I suffer disappointment, sorrow, and tribulation? What have I done that God should send me trials? Is He displeased with me? These questions are constantly asked by God's dear children.
Much of this fear and questioning is due to our misunderstanding of God's dealings with His own. He has His good reasons. And one of those reasons is for our spiritual discipline. We should be far more afraid of being left alone than of God's chastening, for He wastes no time on worthless objects that give no promise of fruitfulness.
On the shores of Lake Michigan are great barren sand dunes that have never felt the point of a plow. But in the rich lowlands beyond them, the farmer is constantly cultivating the soil. The farmer knows what he is doing, so he keeps on breaking up the soil. The deeper the plow works and the more the sharp harrow, the more precious the crop will be when harvest time comes.
God's plow goes deep, but it is only that in the end we may forget the plowing and rejoice in the blessing of bearing much fruit for Him. "No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:11). - M.R. De Haan
When blades of distress cut deep in the soul,
Breaking up ground that was untouched before,
The Lord is preparing soil to bear fruit
Fit for the harvest to feed many more. -Hess
All sunshine and no rain make a desert.
Super-glued by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:14
Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
Super-glued
A number of years ago a new glue, characterized by an unusually strong holding power, was introduced on the market and sold under a variety of names. Advertisements for this product showed such unusual feats as a car being lifted with a crane while attached only by means of this glue. On another occasion, a full-grown elephant was lifted into the air after having its harness glued to a hoist. The message came through clearly: this super glue bonds in an extraordinary way.
That's the way Ruth bonded to Naomi. Certainly her old life had a pull on Ruth's heart. She was not insensitive to her old customs, her familiar haunts or her Moabite family. But the glue that bound her spirit to Naomi was even stronger. It simply would not let go. She "clung" to her mother-in-law with the tenacity of a super glue. Ruth was committed to a whole new life, not just a change of jobs or a change of scenery. Turning back and separating herself from Naomi was not an option.
This same bonding takes place when we receive Christ as our Savior. The Bible says that there is One who "sticks closer than a brother" (Prov. 18:24). The apostle Paul asks, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Rom 8:35). He answers his question a few verses later: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38-39).
If you are feeling abandoned today, at loose ends with everything around you, rest in the assurance that Jesus sticks with you. Christ will cling to you with a tenacity that would put even a super glue to shame. He will never let you go.
When you're glued to Christ, you're glued for good.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Moses built an altar there and named it Yahweh-nissi (which means 'the LORD is my banner')." Exodus 17:15 NLT
Thoughts for Today
In Exodus 17 we learn that while at Rephidim, the Israelites were attacked by the Amalekites. Moses instructed Joshua to select men for battle and then went to the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand. As long as his hands were raised, the Israelites experienced victory, but when his hands were lowered, they suffered loss. Aaron and Hur helped Moses by holding his hands up when he tired. After the Israelites had defeated the Amalekites, Moses built an altar and called it Jehovah-nissiThe Lord is my Banner." The Israelites had won the battle with the Lord as their Banner.
And so we can win the battles we face in life if we will always remember that the Lord is our banner. Just as Moses did, we must persistently surrender all that we are to the Lord and recognize our dependence on him. When we want to represent a country, school, organization or cause, we adopt its flag/mission/standards as our banner representing our motivation, goals, standards, allegiance. As Christians, God is our banner, representing all that he is. Love, power, grace, compassion, light, protection and so much more. When we are willing to stay focused on him and to recognize him as our source, he will bring victory in our lives.
Consider this
Is God truly the banner that represents every area of your life? Are you living for him first and foremost? Or is he sometimes replaced by your devotion to other people or things, self relationships, ambition, doctrine, peace at any cost. This week we are going to reflect on some of the things that may replace God as our banner, and remind ourselves to refocus on Him.
Prayer
Lord, I thank you that you are my banner. Sometimes I choose not to walk under your banner I put my faith in myself or other people or things instead of you. I put my desires above yours. Please forgive me and help me stay under your banner. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Knowing God My Father: Applying the names of God to my personal life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This curriculum is designed to help people strengthen their relationship with their heavenly Father by applying His names to their personal life. Along with helping Christians know God better, it can serve as an evangelistic tool by giving a true picture of God to people who may have a distorted view of Him because of an absent or abusive earthly father who did not or does not provide for them. This group can also help men who want to be better fathers. Suggested uses include home bible studies, cell groups, Sunday school classes, support groups and personal enrichment.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
WHY ARE WE NOT TOLD PLAINLY? By Oswald Chambers
"He charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead." Mark 9:9
Say nothing until the Son of man is risen in you - until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you understand what the historic Christ taught. When you get to the right state on the inside, the word which Jesus has spoken is so plain that you are amazed you did not see it before. You could not understand it before, you were not in the place in disposition where it could be borne.
Our Lord does not hide these things; they are unbearable until we get into a fit condition of spiritual life. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." There must be communion with His risen life before a particular word can be borne by us. Do we know anything about the impartation of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His word is becoming interpretable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not His Spirit. An obstinate outlook will effectually hinder God from revealing anything to us. If we have made up our minds about a doctrine, the light of God will come no more to us on that line, we cannot get it. This obtuse stage will end immediately [when] His resurrection life has its way with us.
"Tell no man . . " - so many do tell what they saw on the mount of transfiguration. They have had the vision and they testify to it, but the life does not tally with it, the Son of man is not yet risen in them. I wonder when He is going to be formed in you and in me?
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 8, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world? All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin now.
Integrity-Is It Possible?
READ: Psalm 119:121-128
Give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies. -Psalm 119:125
Samuel DiPiazza, CEO of a major public accounting firm, co-authored a book on building trust in the business world. The book proposes a spirit of transparency, a culture of accountability, and a people of integrity. But in an interview in Singapore, he noted there is one thing the book cannot teach-integrity. "Either you have it or you don't," he said.
Is he right? In our world of shifting standards, can integrity be acquired by those who don't have it? The answer is found in our unchanging standard-God's Word, the Bible.
David the psalmist did not head a multinational corporation. But he did rule over a kingdom, and he was serious about doing what was right. He recognized how easy it is to slide down the slippery path of unethical behavior simply because it seems advantageous.
So David asked God, "Teach me Your statutes" (Ps. 119:124). "Give me understanding," he said, "that I may know Your testimonies" (v.125). David hated "every false way," and based his life on the principle that "all Your precepts concerning all things I consider to be right" (v.128).
No one is born with godly character. But by studying God's Word and listening to His Holy Spirit, we can learn to hate falsehood and love integrity. - C. P. Hia
For Further Study
How can faith flourish in a hostile work environment? Read Daniel: Spiritual Living In A Secular Culture on the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/q0724
The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out. -Macauley
Follow Me by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:15
And she said, "Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law."
Follow Me
Husbands are notorious for not asking directions. One wife said that her husband and she left a wedding to go to the reception. Not knowing how to find the reception hall, her husband chose to follow one of the other wedding guests rather than ask directions. After numerous twists and turns, the car ahead of them finally pulled into the driveway of their own home. As it turned out, these guests had not planned to attend the reception.
Where a person is going should influence whether or not we want to follow him. Naomi urged her daughter-in-law Ruth to follow the way Orpha, her sister-in-law, had taken. But Orpha was headed in the wrong direction. She was going back to her people and her gods. Orpha had been exposed to the God of Israel while she was a part of Elimelech's family, but when the final decision had to be made, she chose to return to her old way of life. Fortunately, Ruth chose not to accompany her.
Many people are seeking others to follow them, but they're headed in the wrong direction. When we cut through all their assurances and promises, we discover that what they're really offering is to lead us back to enslavement to the world. The apostle Paul urged the Corinthians, "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). The same applies to us today. Choose to follow only those who have chosen to follow Christ.
Be careful whom you allow to be your leader. Take time today to make sure you're following someone who honors the Lord. Anyone who is not headed in the same direction as Christ is not headed in a direction you want to go.
Before you follow, know where you're being led.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass." Psalm 37:5 AMP
Thoughts for Today
The Lord is our Banner. He wants us to stay under his banner-to trust in him and his plan for our lives, to depend on him and trust him as our source of strength, as our protection. But so often we either get in an "I can do it myself mode" or determine that "I want to do it my way." When we do this, we step out from under God's banner of love and protection. Just as the Israelites began to experience failure every time Moses' arms dropped, so we will struggle needlessly when we choose to step out from under his banner.
Being under God's banner does not mean we won't have problems-the Israelites still had to fight their battle. But it does mean that we don't have to face things alone-and that God will work all things together for good and bring ultimate victory.
Consider this
Is there some area in your life that you have determined you want to handle by yourself-and do it your way? Perhaps you don't think that God cares about r completely understands-your struggle. Or maybe you are determined to do it your way, even knowing that your way does not line up with God's plan.
The truth is God does care. He does understand. And his way, even if our desires conflict, is always the best way. Step back under his banner of love and protection Submit to his plan. Let him help you. You will be glad you did.
Prayer
Father, I thank you that you are my banner. Help me to walk under your banner and not succumb to self-will and pride, choosing my way over yours. Thank you for your love and protection and forgiveness. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromKnowing God My Father: Applying the names of God to my personal life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This curriculum is designed to help people strengthen their relationship with their heavenly Father by applying His names to their personal life. Along with helping Christians know God better, it can serve as an evangelistic tool by giving a true picture of God to people who may have a distorted view of Him because of an absent or abusive earthly father who did not or does not provide for them. This group can also help men who want to be better fathers. Suggested uses include home bible studies, cell groups, Sunday school classes, support groups, and personal enrichment.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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HIS RESURRECTION DESTINY
By Oswald Chambers
"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" Luke 24:26
Our Lord's Cross is the gateway into His life: His Resurrection means that He has power now to convey His life to me. When I am born again from above, I receive from the Risen Lord His very life.
Our Lord's Resurrection destiny is to bring "many sons unto glory." The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We are never in the relationship to God that the Son of God is in; but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When Our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life, to a life He did not live before He was incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before; and His resurrection means for us that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we shall have a body like unto His glorious body, but we can know now the efficacy of His resurrection and walk in newness of life. "I would know Him in the power of His resurrection."
"As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." "Holy Spirit" is the experimental name for Eternal Life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the Deity in proceeding power Who applies the Atonement to our experience. Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Ghost can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey Him.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 9, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Oyster Man
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:1-7
That the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. -2 Corinthians 4:7
In the days of John Wesley, lay preachers with limited education would sometimes conduct the church services. One man used Luke 19:21 as his text: "Lord, I feared Thee, because Thou art an austere man" (KJV). Not knowing the word austere, he thought the text spoke of "an oyster man."
He explained how a diver must grope in dark, freezing water to retrieve oysters. In his attempt, he cuts his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. After he obtains an oyster, he rises to the surface, clutching it "in his torn and bleeding hands." The preacher added, "Christ descended from the glory of heaven into . . . sinful human society, in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven. His torn and bleeding hands are a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest."
Afterward, 12 men received Christ. Later that night someone came to Wesley to complain about unschooled preachers who were too ignorant even to know the meaning of the texts they were preaching on. The Oxford-educated Wesley simply said, "Never mind. The Lord got a dozen oysters tonight."
Our best may not always measure up to the standards of others. But God takes our inadequacies and humble efforts and uses them for His glory. - Cindy Hess Kasper
The Master can use what you have to offer,
Though you may consider it small;
His work here on earth is done through His children,
So give Him your best, give your all. -Hess
Do what you can where you are with what you have.
Important Choices by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:16-17
But Ruth said: "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."
Important Choices
A sign on the door of a classroom in a junior high school in Kansas declares, "We are not born losers, we are born choosers." How very true. Each day we are faced with choices, some of which have the potential of changing our lives forever.
Ruth faced such choices. She had to choose whether to return to her people with her sister-in-law, Orpha, or to follow Naomi, her mother-in-law. She chose her mother-in-law. She had to choose whether to identify herself as a pagan Moabite or throw her lot in with the people of Israel. She chose the people of Israel. She had to choose to worship the idol Chemosh, which involved the sacrifice of children, or to put her trust in the living God, who gives life instead of taking it. She chose Jehovah. These were important choices, and she made them with a determination that changed her life.
Like Ruth, we are all born outside of God's family. But God graciously gives us the opportunity to make choices that can give us eternal life. Instead of continuing in Satan's kingdom of darkness, you can choose to change your allegiance to the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col. 1:13). You can choose to continue in the deeds of darkness or walk in the light (Eph. 5:7-10). You can choose to search for fulfillment in the world or place your trust in Jesus, who has promised to meet your every need (Phil. 4:19). Like Ruth's, these are crucial decisions and, when made with determination, can change your life.
What decisions have you made? Choose rightly. Choose life. Choose Jesus Christ as your Savior. This is the most important decision of your life.
You always choose best when you choose God.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"People may be pure in their own eyes, but the LORD examines their motives." Proverbs 16:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The Bible tells us that God is our Banner. Are we giving allegiance to him as our banner? Are we motivated in life by him and all he represents?
What is the driving force in your life? Your personal relationship with Christ? Or perhaps you are motivated by a desire for success. Success in business, career, accumulating wealth. Success in relationships, popularity, being influential. Or even success in ministry.
These kinds of successes can be good-as long as a desire for success is not what motivates us. God examines our motives. Our first desire should be to please God to grow in our personal relationship with him to discover his purpose for our journey and to desire that above all else.
Consider this
Think about your goals. Perhaps they are good, positive goals. But consider your motivation. Are you seeking to accomplish those goals so that you will feel good about yourself? So that others will honor and respect you? Or is your primary motivation to please God and accomplish what he is calling you to do?
Sometimes we start out with the right motives, but with success a subtle shift in motive begins to take place. We listen to the praise. We look at the numbers. And we want more. Our focus turns to the accomplishments, rather than the One who enables us to succeed.
It's good for all of us to have a reality check from time to time. Why are we doing what we are doing? If the banner flying over us has become success rather than Jehovah Nissi-God our Banner-we need to step back and regroup.
Prayer
Father, help me to focus my allegiance on you, my Banner, rather than on a banner of success. Forgive me for those times I've done the right thing for the wrong reasons. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Knowing God My Father: Applying the names of God to my personal life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This curriculum is designed to help people strengthen their relationship with their heavenly Father by applying His names to their personal life. Along with helping Christians know God better, it can serve as an evangelistic tool by giving a true picture of God to people who may have a distorted view of Him because of an absent or abusive earthly father who did not or does not provide for them. This group can also help men who want to be better fathers. Suggested uses include home bible studies, cell groups, Sunday school classes, support groups, and personal enrichment.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
HAVE I SEEN HIM?
By Oswald Chambers
"After that He appeared in another form unto two of them." Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many are partakers of God's grace who have never seen Jesus. When once you have seen Jesus, you can never be the same, other things do not appeal as they used to do.
Always distinguish between what you see Jesus to be, and what He has done for you. If you only know what He has done for you, you have not a big enough God; but if you have had a vision of Jesus as He is, experiences can come and go, you will endure "as seeing Him Who is invisible." The man blind from his birth did not know Who Jesus was until He appeared and revealed Himself to him. Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something; but we cannot dictate when He will come. Suddenly at any turn He may come. "Now I see Him!"
Jesus must appear to your friend as well as to you, no one can see Jesus with your eyes. Severance takes place where one and not the other has seen Jesus. You cannot bring your friend unless God brings him. Have you seen Jesus? Then you will want others to see Him too. "And they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them." You must tell, although they do not believe.
"O could I tell, ye surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can ye receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?"
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 10, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Challenge Of Forgiveness
READ: Genesis 45:1-15
If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. -Matthew 6:14
In the heat of an argument, my wife came up with an acute theological insight. We were discussing my shortcomings in a rather spirited way when she said, "I think it's pretty amazing that I forgive you for some of the dastardly things you've done!"
What struck me about her comment was its sharp perception into the nature of forgiveness. It is not a sweet platonic ideal to be dispersed in the world like air-freshener sprayed from a can. Forgiveness is achingly difficult, and long after you've forgiven, the wound lives on in memory. Forgiveness is an unnatural act, and my wife was protesting its blatant unfairness.
A story from Genesis captures much the same sentiment. The brothers that Joseph struggled to forgive were the very ones who had bullied him, had cooked up schemes to murder him, had sold him into slavery. Though he went on to triumph over adversity and though with all his heart he now wanted to forgive these brothers, he could not bring himself to that point-not yet.
I view Genesis 42-45 as Joseph's way of saying, "I think it's pretty amazing that I forgive you for the dastardly things you've done!" When grace finally broke through, the sound of Joseph's grief and love echoed through the palace. What was that wail? It was the sound of a man forgiving. - Philip Yancey
For Further Study
The heart of true forgiveness is so much richer than we realize. Read What Is True Forgiveness? at www.discoveryseries.org/hp071
We can stop forgiving others when Christ stops forgiving us.
Angry at God by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:20-21
So she said to them, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?"
Angry at God
A growing problem in the United States is "road rage." Between January 1, 1990, and September 1, 1996, the American Automobile Association counted at least 10,037 incidents of road rage resulting in 218 deaths. An additional 12,610 people were injured. This is a terrible price to pay for foolishly venting one's anger. Yet it's far more foolish when we become angry at God.
When Naomi returned to her homeland, it was obvious she was angry with God for the losses in her life. When her friends called her Naomi (which means "sweetness" or "pleasantness"), she in-structed them instead to call her Mara (which means "bitterness"), because "the Almighty has afflicted me." She lamented that she left Bethlehem with a husband and two sons, but returned "empty." She was angry at God because of what He had allowed.
In God's plan, however, Naomi was actually at the beginning of the most fulfilling time of her life. Soon Ruth would meet and marry Boaz and bear his child. That baby, Obed, would become the grandfather to Israel's greatest king, David, who would establish the lineage of the Messiah, Jesus. What God had allowed to be taken away from Naomi would be replaced with blessings beyond her wildest imagination.
When you experience the grief of losing a loved one,a husband, a wife, a child,it's easy to become bitter and lash out at God. You think it's all His fault. He allowed it to happen. Yet the God who loves you is also the God who sees the end from the beginning. He knows what He is doing. Trust Him. What has begun as a heartache for you will ultimately result in overwhelming blessings.
Sorrow is the garden in which God grows our blessings.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Repeat these basic essentials over and over to God's people. Warn them before God against pious nitpicking, which chips away at the faith. It just wears everyone out. Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won't be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple." 2 Timothy 2:14-15 MSG
Thoughts for Today
The Bible tells us that God is our Banner. God, not doctrine. And yet how often do we as Christians focus on doctrinal opinions and differences, instead of our Creator?
The basic doctrines of the Gospel cannot be compromised. But we tend to take it so much further and focus on the "dos and don'ts" presented in the Bible. In doing this we often become unbalanced in our teaching. We take isolated scriptures out of context and build entire doctrines on them. And then we wave these doctrines, instead of Jesus and his love, as our banner.
This kind of "nitpicking" brings division to the body of Christ. It often causes confusion for unbelievers and even builds a wall of aversion to their receiving the truths of the Gospel. In the words of today's scripture, it "chips away at the faith" and "just wears everyone out."
When Jesus walked on earth, the Pharisees and Sadducees carried their banner-waving rules and regulations so far that most of them failed to recognize Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah.
Consider this
When we focus more on our doctrinal differences than on the Living Word, we miss Jesus as well. We miss his direction for our lives. We miss his love. We miss his strength. And we can cause unbelievers to miss him altogether.
Let's focus on Jesus. Let's join together with other believers with the love of Jesus agreeing on the truths of the Gospel and agreeing to disagree on the rest and carry Jesus' banner of love and forgiveness to a lost world.
Prayer
Father, help me to join with other believers, no matter what their denomination, in forming a united body to carry the Gospel to people around the world. Help us to focus on you and the truth of salvation and refuse to let our differences divide us. In my personal walk with you, help me to grow in my understanding of the Scriptures and to concentrate on doing my best for you, work I won't be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Knowing God My Father: Applying the names of God to my personal life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This curriculum is designed to help people strengthen their relationship with their heavenly Father by applying His names to their personal life. Along with helping Christians know God better, it can serve as an evangelistic tool by giving a true picture of God to people who may have a distorted view of Him because of an absent or abusive earthly father who did not or does not provide for them. This group can also help men who want to be better fathers. Suggested uses include home bible studies, cell groups, Sunday school classes, support groups, and personal enrichment.
MORAL DECISION ABOUT SIN
By Oswald Chambers
"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Romans 6:6
Co-Crucifixion. Have I made this decision about sin - that it must be killed right out in me? It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but it is the great moment in my life when I do decide that just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world, so sin must die out in me, not be curbed or suppressed or counteracted, but crucified. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be earnestly convinced, and religiously convinced, but what we need to do is to come to the decision which Paul forces here.
Haul yourself up, take a time alone with God, make the moral decision and say - "Lord, identify me with Thy death until I know that sin is dead in me." Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
It was not a divine anticipation on the part of Paul, but a very radical and definite experience. Am I prepared to let the Spirit of God search me until I know what the disposition of sin is - the thing that lusts against the Spirit of God in me? Then if so, will I agree with God's verdict on that disposition of sin - that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? I cannot reckon myself "dead indeed unto sin" unless I have been through this radical issue of will before God.
Have I entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ until all that is left is the life of Christ in my flesh and blood? "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 11, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Listen To His Promptings
READ: Acts 16:6-10
After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. -Acts 16:7
On Friday, my day of rest as a pastor, the Holy Spirit prompted me to call a young single mother in our faith community to see if her car had been repaired. I had some reservations about making the call, but I obeyed.
Little did I know that my obedience would help save her life. She said later: "Friday at work I was planning on taking my life; but in a time of need, I believe God was there for me. He had Pastor Williams call me, and just by listening to his voice, I knew that God loved me."
The apostle Paul must have had reservations when the Holy Spirit prompted him and his team not to go into the provinces of Asia and Bithynia. Instead, they felt the Spirit's call to go into Macedonia to preach the good news. In each situation, they obeyed the Spirit's promptings. As a result, Paul and his team were instrumental in giving birth to a new faith community in Philippi (Acts 16:11-15).
As believers in Christ who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:22), our desire should be to please Him. May we not grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30) by ignoring His gentle promptings. When we obey Him, we might be used by God to lead someone to Christ, to disciple new believers-or even to help save somebody's life. - Marvin Williams
Holy Spirit, we would hear
Your inner promptings, soft and clear;
And help us know Your still, small voice
So we may make God's will our choice. -D. De Haan
Make the right choice: Obey the Spirit's voice.
Just in Time by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 1:22
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. Now they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
Just in Time
According to Business Week, time technicians at the National Institute of Standards & Technology recently switched to an atomic clock based on the vibrations of cesium atoms. It will take 300,000 years to gain or lose a single second. But NIST scientists are working on an even better model: a single mercury ion will be trapped in a vacuum by laser beams and cooled to its lowest possible energy level. The atom's oscillations will then be so stable that the new timepiece should be accurate to within one second in ten billion years.
Yet God's timing is even more accurate than that. He brought Naomi and Ruth back from Moab just as the barley harvest was beginning. This had a twofold significance. By God's good timing, they returned at a season when food would be available for a destitute widow and her daughter-in-law. The law of gleaning (Lev. 19:9; 23:22) allowed the poor to follow the harvesters and gather any stray stalks of grain. In fact, the corners of the field were to be left deliberately unharvested so the less fortunate would be provided for. But it was also perfect timing because, most likely, it was only during the harvest season that Boaz regularly visited his fields. This provided an occasion for Ruth and Boaz to meet and develop a relationship.
God's timing is never off. We may get in a hurry or lag behind, but God is the Master of time. His plans always take place in the "fullness of the time" (Gal. 4:4). Never a moment too soon or a second too late, but at the appropriate time He brings about His perfect will.
Trust your time to God. He is a billion times better than an atomic clock. At the right time, He will open the way for you.
God is never in a hurry because He is in control of time.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything and I do mean everything connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you." Ephesians 4:20-24 MSG
Thoughts for Today
If we are truly living under the banner of God, his character should be increasingly evident in our lives.
We live in a world that waves a banner of compromise. Compromise can be a good thing-but not when it comes to compromising our integrity, compromising our obedience to God, compromising our devotion to him.
All of us face choices every day. "Where do I draw the line on what television shows or movies I will watch?" "Do I respond in anger-or in love-to the person who has hurt me?" "Will I lie for my boss?" "Just how honest should I be with this client about what we can and cannot do for him?" "She will be angry if I admit I started that terrible gossip about her. Should I tell the truth and risk losing her as a friend?"
Each choice we make forms a building block in our character development. Will we choose the world's way or God's way? Will we live under the banner of compromise or under the banner of God?
Consider this
Are you compromising in some area of your life? Compromising your integrity or your commitment to God? Ask God to reveal these areas of compromise and to help you do the right thing-even if it's the difficult thing.
Even though doing what you know Is right in God's eyes might seem difficult right now, his way is always the best way. Sometimes growing in his character requires difficult decisions. The good news is that we don't have to be alone. As we fully commit to Jesus, he will be with us every step of the way-guiding us and enabling us to choose his way, to walk under his banner.
Prayer
Father, help me to live a "God-fashioned life." Renew me from the inside out, reproducing your character in me. I know this is a lifetime process, but help me continually move in that direction. Help me not to compromise, but to choose your way in every situation. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Knowing God My Father: Applying the names of God to my personal life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This curriculum is designed to help people strengthen their relationship with their heavenly Father by applying His names to their personal life. Along with helping Christians know God better, it can serve as an evangelistic tool by giving a true picture of God to people who may have a distorted view of Him because of an absent or abusive earthly father who did not or does not provide for them. This group can also help men who want to be better fathers. Suggested uses include home bible studies, cell groups, Sunday school classes, support groups, and personal enrichment.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
MORAL DIVINITY
By
Oswald Chambers
"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have been through crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a decided likeness to Him. The incoming of the Spirit of Jesus into me readjusts my personal life to God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him authority to impart the life of God to me, and my experimental life must be constructed on the basis of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus now, and it will show itself in holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the moral decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus invades every bit of my human nature. It takes omnipotence to live the life of the Son of God in mortal flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house, He invades everything. When once I decide that my "old man" (i.e., the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals. When I have made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to reckon actually that I am dead unto sin, because I find the life of Jesus there all the time. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of Jesus, and it is His holiness that is gifted to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new order spiritually.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 12, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
What Did He Say?
READ: Psalm 19:7-14
Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. -Jeremiah 15:16
Because our son Steve spent most of his teen years connected to a cell phone, it was a bit of a shock for us when we couldn't talk with him for long periods of time after he joined the US Navy. First at boot camp and later while he trained as a hospital corpsman, we endured long periods of time without any communication. So it was a treat whenever we finally did hear from him.
After one of us would get his call, the first question from the other was always, "What did he say?" We hung on every word to hear how he was doing, what he was thinking, and what the Navy was planning for him.
It's natural to respond like this to the words of those who are important to us. We eagerly anticipate hearing from them.
Are we like that with the Word of God? Are we eager to communicate with Him-to look carefully into His Book to ask, "What did He say?" Unlike the infrequent calls from a son in the military, God's words of encouragement and guidance are always available to us. We just have to listen.
The prophet Jeremiah prayed, "Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" (Jer. 15:16). Do you have that same longing to hear God speak to you through His Word? - Dave Branon
Thy Word is a lamp to my feet,
A light to my path alway
To guide and to save me from sin
And show me the heavenly way. -Anon.
We cannot know the heart of God unless we have a heart for God.
Real Riches by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:1
And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech; his name was Boaz.
Real Riches
John Jacob Astor, one of the world's richest men, was a passenger on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic. When the ship hit the iceberg and it turned out that there was a shortage of lifeboats, the multimillionaire gave up his chance for safety and went down with the ship. His body was eventually found dressed in a blue suit, with $2,500 in his pocket. But on that fateful night, as he faced eternity, it mattered little what he possessed.
God provided a rich relative for Ruth who had more than possessions; Boaz had honor as well. The word translated "wealth" in Ruth 2:1 is often translated "might" or "valor" in the Bible. It reflects Boaz's strength of character as much as his financial portfolio. He not only had land and houses, but he also was a man of spiritual valor, a mighty man of integrity, an upright man who had placed his trust in God.
God wants all His children to be rich?but not necessarily in material possessions. When the apostle Paul reached the end of his life, all he owned was an extra cloak and some books (2 Tim. 4:13). Barnabas sold his land and gave the money to the needy (Acts 4:34-37). But these men weren't really paupers. In their poverty, they had a richness of peace and joy that many who are wealthy only dream about.
What keeps you up at night? Worry over your stocks and bonds, or agonizing over the souls of those who are lost? What are you striving for? Material wealth that will one day be left behind, or a spiritual wealth that will last for eternity? Make the right choice and then set the right priorities.
If all you have is money, then you have nothing at all.
The Blacksmith's Shop
by Max Lucado
In the shop of a blacksmith, there are three types of tools. There are tools on the junk pile:
outdated, broken, dull, rusty.
They sit in the cobwebbed corner, useless to their master, oblivious to their calling.
There are tools on the anvil:
melted down, molten hot, moldable, changeable.
They lie on the anvil, being shaped by their master, accepting their calling.
There are tools of usefulness:
sharpened, primed, defined, mobile.
They lie ready in the blacksmith's tool chest, available to their master, fulfilling their calling.
Some people lie useless:
lives broken, talents wasting, fires quenched, dreams dashed.
They are tossed in with the scrap iron, in desperate need of repair, with no notion of purpose.
Others lie on the anvil:
hearts open, hungry to change, wounds healing, visions clearing.
They welcome the painful pounding of the blacksmith's hammer, longing to be rebuilt, begging to be called.
Others lie in their Master's hands:
well tuned, uncompromising, polished, productive.
They respond to their Master's forearm, demanding nothing, surrendering all.
We are all somewhere in the blacksmith's shop. We are either on the scrap pile, in the Master's hands on the anvil, or in the tool chest. (Some of us have been in all three.)
From the shelves to the workbench, from the water to the fire I'm sure that somewhere you will see yourself.
Paul spoke of becoming "an instrument for noble purposes." And what a becoming it is! The rubbish pile of broken tools, the anvil of recasting, the hands of the Master- it's a simultaneously joyful and painful voyage.
And for you who make the journey-who leave the heap and enter the fire, dare to be pounded on God's anvil, and doggedly seek to discover your own purpose-take courage, for you await the privilege of being called "God's chosen instruments."
From On the Anvil:
Stories On Being Shaped Into God's Image
This is a new edition of Max's first book.
It contains an updated forward, written by him, as well as thoughtful questions for each chapter.
© (Tyndale House, 1985, 2008) Max Lucado
MORAL DOMINION
by
Oswald Chambers
"Death hath no more dominion over Him . . . in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God." Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life was the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human plane, and it is the same life, not a copy of it, which is manifested in our mortal flesh when we are born of God. Eternal life is not a gift from God, eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was manifested in Jesus will be manifested in us by the sheer sovereign grace of God when once we have made the moral decision about sin.
"Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost" - not power as a gift from the Holy Ghost; the power is the Holy Ghost, not something which He imparts. The life that was in Jesus is made ours by means of His Cross when once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we will not decide definitely about sin. Immediately we do decide, the full life of God comes in. Jesus came to give us endless supplies of life: "that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." Eternal Life has nothing to do with Time, it is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here. The only source of Life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The weakest saint can experience the power of the Deity of the Son of God if once he is willing to "let go." Any strand of our own energy will blur the life of Jesus. We have to keep letting go, and slowly and surely the great full life of God will invade us in every part, and men will take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 13, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Cheering Each Other On
READ: Hebrews 10:19-25
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. -Hebrews 10:24
A mile from the finish line of the London Marathon, thousands of onlookers holding signs lined the route. When spectators spotted a family member or friend coming into view, they shouted the person's name, waved, and yelled encouragement: "Just a little farther! Keep going! You're almost there." After running 25 miles, many competitors were barely walking and ready to quit. It was amazing to watch exhausted runners brighten and pick up the pace when they saw someone they knew or heard their name called out.
Encouragement! We all need it, especially in our walk of faith. The book of Hebrews tells us to keep urging each other on. "Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, . . . but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching" (10:24-25).
The New Testament is filled with the certainty that Christ will return soon. "The Lord is at hand" (Phil. 4:5). "The coming of the Lord is at hand" (James 5:8). "Behold, I am coming quickly" (Rev. 22:12).
As we "see the Day approaching," let's keep cheering each other on in the faith. "Keep going! You're almost there! The finish line is in sight." - David C. McCasland
Help me, Lord, to reassure and strengthen
Others by the words I speak today;
I would always try to be affirming,
As our pathways cross along life's way. -Hess
Even if you have nothing else to give, you can give encouragement.
Finding Favor by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:2
So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, "Please let me go to the field, and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor." And she said to her, "Go, my daughter."
Finding Favor
Sometimes we try to buy people's favor, and even God's favor. We're like the little girl who won five dollars for her memory work in Sunday school. Later when the pastor's wife congratulated her, the girl proudly announced, "And I put it all in the morning's offering!" "My, how wonderful!" the pastor's wife exclaimed. "I'm sure God will be pleased." "Yes," the child replied, "now maybe He will let me do some of the things I want to do!" This little girl was looking for the wrong kind of favor in the wrong place.
Ruth was also looking for favor, but not the kind you buy with money or flattery. She wanted to come by her favor honestly. She trusted God to bring her to someone's field who would accept her as she was. Even though she wasn't an Israelite, she hoped someone would allow her to glean what was left in the fields. The favor she sought would be the result of the gleaner's grace, not Ruth's glory.
This is the kind of favor God offers. Nothing we possess or do can influence Him to look with favor on us. We cannot buy His favor or manipulate Him by our behavior. His favor comes because He loves us, even while we are yet sinners (Rom. 5:8). Through His Son, Jesus Christ, God has made it possible for our sins to be forgiven (Eph. 1:7). God's favor is given because of who He is, not because of who we are.
Have you found favor in God's sight? You can, right now, right where you are, by confessing that you are a sinner and asking Jesus Christ to be your Savior.
God's favor can be neither bought nor sold, but it can be enjoyed.
'I Am the Living Water'
I doubt whether there is any person who would not understand the importance of water for survival. In fact, next to air, water is the most important substance for life.
The Bible teaches that while Jesus is God incarnate, He also was human and experienced the same feelings and temptations that we encounter each day. However, He never succumbed to even one temptation.
In John 4:4-8, we read how the Savior became tired and stopped to rest beside the well of Jacob. While His disciples were buying food in a nearby town, a Samaritan woman arrived at the well to draw water. Jesus, being thirsty, asked her for a drink of the well's water. Immediately, she protested and reminded him that she was a Samaritan, and He was a Jew.
Jews believed the Samaritans were unclean. Another fact to consider is that this woman was at the well alone at high noon. More than likely, she also was considered unclean and came to the well at a time when no one else would see her.
We know her story. She had been married many times and was in need of a Savior, and Jesus met her need. He told her:
Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14).
Christ confronted the deepest need of this woman and offered her a chance to begin life anew. The more you drink from the world's water, the worse your thirst will become.
Are you restless and discontent? Just as He offered living water to the woman at the well, He offers it to you. When you drink of Him, you will thirst no more.
He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Revelation 7:17).
What do you do when you've been hurt real bad? In this month's free resource, Michael Youssef provides biblical insight for bringing happiness out of conflict and disappointment. Download your copy of "Allowing Sorrow to be the Back Door of Happiness."
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
WHAT TO DO UNDER THE CONDITIONS
By
Oswald Chambers
"Cast thy burden upon the Lord." Psalm 55:22
We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt, but there are burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off, He wants us to roll them back on Him. "Cast that He hath given thee upon the Lord." (R.V. marg.) If we undertake work for God and get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility will be overwhelmingly crushing; but if we roll back on God that which He has put upon us, He takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realization of Himself.
Many workers have gone out with high courage and fine impulses, but with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, and before long they are crushed. They do not know what to do with the burden, it produces weariness, and people say - "What an embittered end to such a beginning!"
"Roll thy burden upon the Lord" - you have been bearing it all; deliberately put one end on the shoulders of God. "The government shall be upon His shoulder." Commit to God "that He hath given thee"; not fling it off, but put it over on to Him and yourself with it, and the burden is lightened by the sense of companionship. Never disassociate yourself from the burden.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 14, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
When In Doubt
READ:
Matthew 11:1-6
Are you the Coming One, or do we look for another? -Matthew 11:3
John the Baptist was languishing in prison and questioning his faith. He may well have wondered: Is Jesus the Messiah? Is His word true? Have I believed and labored in vain for my Master? Is this dark place my final reward for answering God's call?
Perhaps countless questions make their way through your mind as well: Is Jesus really the Savior? Have my sins been forgiven? Can I trust the Bible? Will I be raised from the dead? Does heaven lie ahead? Is all that I believe a cruel illusion?
Most of us ask questions like these from time to time. I do-especially on those dark days when circumstances bring sorrow and bitter disappointment, when it seems there's no storybook ending to our lives.
These questionings are not failures of faith but tests of faith and can be answered in John the Baptist's way: We must take our doubts to Jesus. In His time and in His own wise way He will restore the confidence our hearts desire.
Jesus didn't abandon John to his doubt. He sent word of the miracles He performed and the hope He preached (Matt. 11:4-6). As George MacDonald said of God's faithfulness: "You might as well say that a mother would go away from her little child lying moaning in the dark." - David H. Roper
But in the dark my heart is strangely blest;
Yea, in the gloom my soul obtains its rest;
For, spite of night, I find that God on high
Is near the anguished soul, where'er it lie. -H. Frost
Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light.
Not by Chance by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:5-6
Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, "Whose young woman is this?" So the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered and said, "It is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab."
Not by Chance
Nothing happens by chance. Take, for example, the blue whale. Longer than three dump trucks, heavier than 110 Honda Civics and with a heart the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, this magnificent creature requires four tons of krill a day (that's three million calories) for its sustenance. Even a baby blue whale can put away 100 gallons of milk every 24 hours. When a blue whale surfaces, it takes in the largest breath of air of any living thing on the planet. Its spray shoots higher into the air than the height of a telephone pole. How did such a creature come into existence? Not by chance, you can be sure, but by a sovereign Creator's plan.
Neither did Boaz by chance come to his fields just in time to meet Ruth. He certainly didn't come with any intentions of finding a wife, but that was God's plan. Ruth, too, was simply doing what she needed to do for survival. In fact, until she spoke with Naomi, she wasn't even aware of Boaz's relationship with the family she had married into (2:19-20). But in God's plans nothing happens by chance.
Sometimes our circumstances seem to come about by chance. We think, If I had made this decision instead of that decision, my life would be different. Or, If I'd been here instead of there, this wouldn't have happened. While we cannot use this as an excuse for making poor decisions, we can have the confidence that nothing happens by chance. Take care of your responsibilities in a way that honors God, and He will work out His plan through you.
If you are struggling with the "what ifs" of life, put them aside. Be assured that God is working out His plan for you, and it won't be by chance.
Since God is in charge, nothing is by chance.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that. Proverbs 29:25 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Tammy Webb-Witholt, daughter of missionary parents and author of Living Free's curriculum Lessons Learned: Moving from Homosexuality to Holiness, was a people-pleaser: "By the time I went to boarding school at age seven, I was infected with a case of the please-like-me's.' Each year this desire intensified, and by the third grade I had a chronic need for approval. The kids I lived with were from other mission organizations and I was the clear outsider. They were determined to close me out of their tight-knit world. In response, I did everything in my power to earn their friendship. I even tried to buy their approval with the goodies I purchased with my weekly allowance. As the years passed, my methods of winning approval changed but my need stayed the same."
As a young adult, Tammy tried to fulfill her need for approval by embracing the culture of the gay world. Eventually she returned to her faith and to the church, but even then found herself trying to please people. "I had been a sincere follower of Christ for more than ten years when a friend helped me see how my fear of rejection had crippled my progress. When will this ever end? I thought. I had grown so much in my knowledge of God's power and grace. Good grief, I was even a credentialed minister! How could I have missed this issue that loomed so large in my life? In the months and years that followed, I addressed my responses to past events that had led to my need for approval. As I discovered my worth in Christ, I began to step out in total obedience to him, making my choices according to his will-not according to what other people thought."
Consider this
Where are you on the path toward learning to focus on pleasing Jesus rather than people?
This week we will be considering the importance of pleasing God, rather than men and perhaps discover more than ever before our worth in Christ.
Prayer
Father, I do want to please you but I know that in some areas of my life, I am still ruled by a need to please people. Please help me to recognize those areas more clearly and to move toward being completely motivated in all I do by a desire to please you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Lessons Learned: Moving from Homosexuality to Holiness by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum by Tammy Webb-Witholt deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. This study
· Shows that the goal is not only to move from homosexuality into heterosexuality. The goal of our lives as followers of Christ is to come into His holiness.
· Shows that our journey of faith in Christ, whatever the depth of our brokenness, sexual or otherwise, is not to merely stop being one thing in order to become another.
· Shows that the goal of each day is to grow toward Christ. God by the power of His Holy Spirit and the truth of His Holy Word transforms us into a new creation.
· Shows the holiness is used in the truest definition of the word holy meaning to be "set apart" for God.
Although this study is written primarily for people coming out of a homosexual lifestyle, it deals with biblical principles that can help each of us experience a deeper walk with Christ.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
INSPIRED INVINCIBILITY
By
Oswald Chambers
"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me." Matthew 11:29
"Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us into the place where we can have communion with Him, and we groan and say - "O Lord, let me be like other people!" Jesus is asking us to take one end of the yoke - "My yoke is easy, get alongside Me and we will pull together." Are you identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you will thank God for the pressure of His hand.
"To them that have no might He increaseth strength." God comes and takes us out of our sentimentality, and our complaining turns into a pæan of praise. The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and learn of Him.
"The joy of the Lord is your strength." Where do the saints get their joy from? If we did not know some saints, we would say - "Oh, he, or she, has nothing to bear." Lift the veil. The fact that the peace and the light and the joy of God are there is proof that the burden is there too. The burden God places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.
If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly. It is a positive crime to be weak in God's strength
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 15, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Alice Tax
READ: Mark 12:12-17,41-44
Having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. -1 Timothy 6:8
Author Calvin Trillin's wife, Alice, held a unique view of income tax. She believed that "after a certain level of income, the government would simply take everything." She thought there should be a limit on how much money people were allowed to keep for themselves. Writing in The New Yorker, Trillin said of his wife, "She believed in the principle of enoughness."
In Mark 12, Jesus avoided a carefully laid trap by telling His questioners to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (v.17). When Jesus watched people making their offerings to the temple treasury, He commended a woman who would have been considered foolish for her extravagance. "This poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood" (vv.43-44).
Jesus placed more importance on wholehearted love for God than on wholesale concern over material needs. His tranquil attitude toward money and possessions was based on trusting His Father to supply each day's needs. "Your Father knows the things you have need of" (Matt. 6:8).
Enoughness. What a concept! - David C. McCasland
He clothes the lilies, feeds the birds;
Would He to you, then, pay less heed?
Look up to Him with prayerful heart,
He will supply your every need. -Renfrow
Contentment is not getting what we want but being satisfied with what we have.
No Free Lunches by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:7
"And she said, 'Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.' So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house."
No Free Lunches
There's a delightful story about a king, many years ago, who called his wise men together and gave them this commission: "I want you to compile for me the wisdom of the ages and put it in book form so we can leave it to posterity." The men left the king and worked hard. Sometime later they returned with 12 volumes. The king looked at the imposing volumes and said, "It's too long and I fear people will not read it. Condense it!" Still later the wise men returned with only one volume. Again the king said, "Condense it." They then reduced the volume to a chapter, then to a page, then to a paragraph and finally to a sentence. When the king saw the sentence, elatedly he announced. "Gentlemen, this is truly the wisdom of the ages." The sentence simply said, "There are no free lunches."
Ruth recognized that sage truth as well. She did not wait for someone to come along with a handout; instead, she worked from "morning until now." She was diligent in her labors and made a very favorable impression on the other harvesters.
God expects those who bear the name of Christ to honor Him through their work. Paul taught that "if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). He also reminded the Christians at Thessalonica, "Nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you" (v. 8). A slacker is not only a disgrace to himself, but he brings shame upon the Lord as well.
Consider your job a blessing, not a burden. No matter how menial it might seem, see your work as an outlet to honor the Lord. Approach it every day with enthusiasm and dedication. After all, even the ability to work for a living is a gift from God (Eccl. 5:18-19).
Work can be worship when you do it for God.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
" All of you, slave and free both, were once held hostage in a sinful society. Then a huge sum was paid out for your ransom. So please don't, out of old habit, slip back into being or doing what everyone else tells you. Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side. " 1 Corinthians 7:23-24 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Christ paid the greatest price-his life-so that we might have freedom from slavery to sin. And yet when we slip back into making our choices to please people, we actually become a slave to their opinion. God wants us to seek godly counsel, to glean from others' wisdom, but he does not want us to be motivated by a need to be accepted by others.
Putting our trust in people will ultimately lead to disappointment. Even those who mean well will disappoint us at times. Others may outright reject us. Jesus understands. He suffered indignation, rejection and betrayal.
Even though people may reject us, we can be confident that Jesus never will. When we repented of our sin and received him as our savior, he clothed us in his righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). Nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:37-39). He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
Consider this
Are you a slave to other people's opinions-always seeking their approval, walking in fear of their rejection? Good news! Through the power and love of Jesus, you can be free of this bondage. You are precious in his sight. He will never leave you or reject you. Focus your efforts on pleasing him and returning his love. He has a good plan for your life. "Stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side."
Sometimes making the choices to do things God's way, rather than the world's way, might seem difficult even frightening. But we can take great comfort in knowing that his way is always the best way. And as we make the choice to please God, to do things his way, he will give us the strength and courage we need. We can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13).
Prayer
Father, I thank you that through Christ I have been set free-free to be the person you designed me to be, free from a fear of rejection. Teach me to walk in that freedom-to always put you first in my life, to make choices based on your plan for me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromLessons Learned: Moving from Homosexuality to Holiness by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum by Tammy Webb-Witholt deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. This study Shows that the goal is not only to move from homosexuality into heterosexuality. The goal of our lives as followers of Christ is to come into His holiness. Shows that our journey of faith in Christ, whatever the depth of our brokenness, sexual or otherwise, is not to merely stop being one thing in order to become another. Shows that the goal of each day is to grow toward Christ. God by the power of His Holy Spirit and the truth of His Holy Word transforms us into a new creation. Shows the holiness is used in the truest definition of the word holy meaning to be "set apart" for God. Although this study is written primarily for people coming out of a homosexual lifestyle, it deals with biblical principles that can help each of us experience a deeper walk with Christ.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE RELAPSE OF CONCENTRATION
By
Oswald Chambers
"But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days." 2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa was incomplete in his external obedience, he was right in the main but not entirely right. Beware of the thing of which you say - "Oh, that does not matter much." The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean that it matters a very great deal to God. Nothing is a light matter with a child of God. How much longer are some of us going to keep God trying to teach us one thing? He never loses patience. You say - "I know I am right with God"; but still the "high places" remain, there is something over which you have not obeyed. Are you protesting that your heart is right with God, and yet is there something in your life about which He has caused you to doubt? Whenever there is doubt, quit immediately, no matter what it is. Nothing is a mere detail.
Are there some things in connection with your bodily life, your intellectual life, upon which you are not concentrating at all? You are all right in the main but you are slipshod; there is a relapse on the line of concentration. You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating. You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely His, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to "clear the numberless ascensions" in about two minutes.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 16, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Defining Moment
READ: Genesis 50:15-21
You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good . . . to save many people alive. -Genesis 50:20
One year ago, people around the world were stunned by a shooting rampage that left 32 victims dead on the campus of Virginia Tech University. In the aftermath, the mother of one critically wounded student who survived said she did not want the ordeal to become the defining moment in her son's life. Instead, she hoped it could be "something positive, some great celebration of his life."
When the unthinkable happens, it may seem impossible to believe that anything can overcome the emotional scars. Yet, the life of Joseph offers a powerful illustration of God's transforming power (Gen. 37-50). The brothers who sold him into slavery were sure he would take revenge on them (50:15-17). But Joseph told them, "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive" (v.20).
When we place our desire for revenge in God's hands, we become participants in the remarkable process described by Paul: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12:21).
The defining moments of our lives are not determined by the evil done to us, but by our response through the grace and power of God. - David C. McCasland
When rough the path from day to day,
When sorrows fill our eyes with tears,
Our choice to find our hope in Christ
Can lift our soul and calm our fears. -D. De Haan
Let danger drive you to Jesus.
Bite by Bite by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:8
Then Boaz said to Ruth, "You will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close by my young women."
Bite by Bite
Nebraska, where I live, has a lot of cattle ranches, and every once in a while a cow wanders off and gets lost. If you were to ask a rancher how a cow gets lost, chances are he would reply, "Well, the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of green grass, and when it finishes, it looks ahead to the next tuft of green grass. After it finishes that one, it looks ahead and starts nibbling on the next one, and then it nibbles on some grass right next to a hole in the fence. When it sees another tuft of green grass on the other side of the fence, it nibbles on that one and then another one, and the next thing you know, the cow has nibbled itself lost."
Boaz knew how easy it was to drift into danger. His fear for Ruth was that she might wander into the field of some unscrupulous person who would take advantage of her. Therefore he admonished her, "Stay close by my young women." In other words, don't stray from the company of my female workers and you'll be safe.
Sin works on the same principle. Seldom does Satan open a big hole in the fence for us to dash through into sin. He always begins by tempting us with a little "tuft of sin," and that's followed by a bit bigger one, and another one, until we lift our heads and realize we have nibbled ourselves far from God. Bite by bite, we have wandered away until we're lost.
If you find yourself in that situation today, do two things. Stop right were you are and look around to see where God is. Then, take comfort. The One who loves you more than anything else in the world has come to "seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). Admit that you have wandered and confess that you have sinned, and He will help you find your way home again.
Be careful where you take the next bite.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
" I am not trying to please people. I want to please God. Do you think I am trying to please people? If I were doing that, I would not be a servant of Christ. " Galatians 1:10 CEV
Thoughts for Today
When we focus on trying to please people, we are not serving God. If we are truly his servants, our primary goal will be to please him.
When Jesus lived on earth, many who believed in him would not admit their faith. "Many people did believe in him, however, including some of the Jewish leaders. But they wouldn't admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue. For they loved human praise more than the praise of God." John 12:42-43 NLT Because these people were more concerned about people's opinions than God's, they did not live out their faith. Likewise, when we live as people pleasers, we are demonstrating the fact that we are more concerned about their approval than God's-and our walk with him is hindered.
Consider this
Who are you trying to please? Maybe most of your life is lived to please God, but there is still some situation-or some person-that sparks you to be a people-pleaser. God wants us to put him first in all things-we cannot please him by placing more importance on people's opinions than his.
Prayer
Father, I do want to please you. Forgive me for the times I let my desire to be accepted by a person outweigh my desire to please you. Thank you for your love and for accepting me unconditionally. Help me to be a better servant. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromLessons Learned: Moving from Homosexuality to Holiness by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum by Tammy Webb-Witholt deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. This study Shows that the goal is not only to move from homosexuality into heterosexuality. The goal of our lives as followers of Christ is to come into His holiness. Shows that our journey of faith in Christ, whatever the depth of our brokenness, sexual or otherwise, is not to merely stop being one thing in order to become another. Shows that the goal of each day is to grow toward Christ. God by the power of His Holy Spirit and the truth of His Holy Word transforms us into a new creation. Shows the holiness is used in the truest definition of the word holy meaning to be "set apart" for God.
Although this study is written primarily for people coming out of a homosexual lifestyle, it deals with biblical principles that can help each of us experience a deeper walk with Christ.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
CAN YOU COME DOWN?
By
Oswald Chambers
"While ye have light, believe in the light." John 12:36
We all have moments when we feel better than our best, and we say - "I feel fit for anything; if only I could be like this always!" We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for this workaday world when there is no high hour. We must bring our commonplace life up to the standard revealed in the high hour.
Never allow a feeling which was stirred in you in the high hour to evaporate. Don't put your mental feet on the mantelpiece and say - "What a marvellous state of mind to be in!" Act immediately, do something, if only because you would rather not do it. If in a prayer meeting God has shown you something to do, don't say - "I'll do it"; do it! Take yourself by the scruff of the neck and shake off your incarnate laziness. Laziness is always seen in cravings for the high hour; we talk about working up to a time on the mount. We have to learn to live in the grey day according to what we saw on the mount.
Don't cave in because you have been baffled once, get at it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by your own act. Never revise your decisions, but see that you make your decisions in the light of the high hour.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 17, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is May 1st.
Imperfect Gifts
READ: James 1:2-18
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights. -James 1:17
When I was a child, I wondered why I had to thank God for food I didn't want to eat. In my immature mind, gratitude was a response to receiving something I wanted-like a hamburger and French fries, not asparagus. So why did I have to be thankful for something I didn't want?
In the human realm, my thinking was logical. Not everything people give us is for our good. And of course not everything we want is good.
But the situation with God is different. As Christ reminded us, loving parents do not give their children a stone rather than bread, a snake instead of a fish. And God is far more loving than our earthly parents (Matt. 7:9-11).
This doesn't mean that God's children can expect a pain-free, stress-free life. James tells us not only that every good gift comes from our heavenly Father (1:17), but also that we are to "count it all joy" when we "fall into various trials." The testing of our "faith produces patience," and the work of patience makes us "perfect and complete, lacking nothing" (vv.2-4).
Even when we receive something that doesn't seem good, we can be grateful because we know there is more to it than we can see. What seems like an imperfect gift may be the means by which God perfects us. - Julie Ackerman Link
For Further Study
How can terrible things ever be good? Does our loving God "give" us pain? Read Why Would A Good God Allow Suffering? at www.discoveryseries.org/q0106
A trial may be God's good gift in disguise.
Divine Protection by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:9
"Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn."
Divine Protection
An Alpine mountain climbing team came to a perilous gap in the ice. The only way to get across was to step into the outstretched hands of the guide who had met them on the other side. The first climber hesitated a moment as he looked into the gloomy depths below, where he would certainly fall to his death if anything went wrong. Seeing his hesitancy, the guide said, "Don't worry. In all my years as a guide, my hands have never yet lost a man!"
With this same assurance, Ruth placed herself in Boaz's hands. God provided someone who would protect her. Boaz took steps to keep her morally safe by commanding the young men not to touch her. He also provided for her physical protection. Under the hot Mediterranean sun, the danger of heat stroke was a very real possibility. But his young men brought jars of water to the field, and Ruth was free to refresh herself whenever she wanted. In Boaz, Ruth found a safe haven from the dangers around her.
God offers the same to all His children. There is never a moment when we are excluded from His divine protection. That does not mean we can never be hurt. It doesn't mean we will never die. But God's divine protection extends to our ultimate safety,the protection of our souls. These can never be harmed. They are safe in the care of Jesus.
Rejoice in God's divine protection. Be confident that you are safe in His care, no matter how difficult your circumstances might be. God is the keeper of your soul.
Life can hurt us but it cannot ultimately harm us.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"God will bless you when others hate you and won't have anything to do with you. God will bless you when people insult you and say cruel things about you, all because you are a follower of the Son of Man." Luke 6:22 CEV
Thoughts for Today
People-pleasing is often motivated by a fear of rejection. Jesus talked about this rejection. When we are rejected because we have chosen to follow Jesus and do things his way, he promises to be with us and bless us.
It is natural to want to please people, but when doing so takes us out of the will of God and deters us from his plan for us, we must take a stand. We must choose to do things God's way. His way is always the best way and he promises his blessing.
Consider this
When you are feeling rejected by people, try some of these responses:
Meditate on scripture verses about God's unconditional love for you.
Pray that God will help you see the truth and respond in a way that will please him.
Read the Psalms. Memorize verses that explain who you are in Christ.
Meditate on Jeremiah 29:11. Remember that God has a purpose for your life and that the temptation to judge yourself by what other people say is just another one of the enemy's tactics to prevent you from discovering who you are in Christ.
Prayer
Father, help me to stand strong and overcome my fear of people's rejection. Their rejection can hurt, but more than anything I want to please you. Help me to make right choices-and thank you for your promise of blessing. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn fromLessons Learned: Moving from Homosexuality to Holiness by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum by Tammy Webb-Witholt deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. This study Shows that the goal is not only to move from homosexuality into heterosexuality. The goal of our lives as followers of Christ is to come into His holiness. Shows that our journey of faith in Christ, whatever the depth of our brokenness, sexual or otherwise, is not to merely stop being one thing in order to become another. Shows that the goal of each day is to grow toward Christ. God by the power of His Holy Spirit and the truth of His Holy Word transforms us into a new creation.Shows the holiness is used in the truest definition of the word holy meaning to be "set apart" for God. Although this study is written primarily for people coming out of a homosexual lifestyle, it deals with biblical principles that can help each of us experience a deeper walk with Christ.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
NECK OR NOTHING
By
Oswald Chambers
"Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him . . . and did cast himself into the sea." John 21:7
Have you ever had a crisis in which you deliberately and emphatically and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of will. You may come up to it many times externally, but it amounts to nothing. The real deep crisis of abandonment is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of external things may be an indication of being in total bondage.
Have you deliberately committed your will to Jesus Christ? It is a transaction of will, not of emotion; the emotion is simply the gilt-edge of the transaction. If you allow emotion first, you will never make the transaction. Do not ask God what the transaction is to be, but make it in regard to the thing you do see, either in the shallow or the profound place.
If you have heard Jesus Christ's voice on the billows, let your convictions go to the winds, let your consistency go to the winds, but maintain your relationship to Him.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 18, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is coming up May 1st.
Forgiven!
READ: Psalm 103:1-12
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. -Psalm 32:1
A little boy had just been tucked into bed by his mother, who was waiting to hear his prayers. But he had been naughty that day, and now it was bothering him. So he said, "Mama, I wish you'd go now and leave me alone. I want to pray by myself."
Sensing that something was wrong, she asked, "Bobby, is there anything you ought to tell me?" "No, Mommy," he replied. "You would just scold me, but God will forgive me and forget about it."
That little boy understood one of the greatest salvation benefits of all-the reality of sins forgiven. The Bible indicates that in Christ "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Col. 1:14). We who have received the Lord Jesus as Savior enjoy freedom from sin's eternal condemnation (Rom. 8:1), and we can also have daily forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9).
The apostle Paul said that salvation provides these added benefits: we are justified (Rom. 3:24), and we are at peace with God (5:1).
We should never get the idea that our sins are taken lightly by the Lord. But when we acknowledge our guilt with true repentance, God is ready to forgive because of what Jesus did on the cross. It's up to us to accept it. - Richard De Haan
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small:
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all. -Watts
When God forgives a sin, He never brings it up again.
A Good Report by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:10-11
So she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?" And Boaz answered and said to her, "It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before."
A Good Report
When Jim Wright, the former speaker of the House, resigned, he quoted Horace Greeley: "Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow; only one thing endures?character."
When Boaz justified his kindness toward Ruth, he did not say that he had heard of her great beauty or her brilliant intellect. No mention is ever made of these things. But what spoke volumes to Boaz was what he had heard about Ruth's character. He had heard about her relationship with Naomi and Ruth's willingness to leave her own family and country in order to take care of her widowed mother-in-law, even though she was a widow herself. It's not surprising that Boaz was impressed with Ruth. He knew that a woman with this kind of character was rare and precious.
God is not interested in our fame or fortune; He cares nothing for our popularity or wealth. What God cares about is our character. The trials that He allows to come into our lives, even the loss of loved ones, as Ruth experienced, are for the ultimate perfection of our character.
What do people hear about you? Do you try to impress others with your financial portfolio, your athletic abilities or your great intellect? These are all gifts from God, so where's the brag factor? What about your character? That's what God is looking for in us. Strive to be known for what you are, not what you do. Character counts.
Concentrate on your character; everything else will take care of itself.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1 NLT
Thoughts for Today
According to Merriam-Webster condemnation means the state of being declared reprehensible, wrong or evil, pronounced guilty. Conviction, on the other hand, means the act of convincing a person of error or of compelling the admission of a truth, the state of being convinced of error or compelled to admit the truth.
Condemnation puts us under a heavy weight of guilt with no apparent way out. Conviction reveals truth to us and motivates us to confess and turn from sin.
Christ does not condemn us for who we are or what we have done. He paid the price for our wrong doing by dying on the cross. When we turn from our sin and turn to him, he forgives and totally accepts us. Our righteousness is not based on what we've done, but on what Jesus has done for us.
Condemnation pushes us away from God. If you are feeling condemned by your heart or other people, it is not of God! Conversely, conviction leads us toward God-and hope. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and draws us to reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. (Read John 16:8.)
Consider this
Are you allowing other people's comments and attitudes toward you to put you under condemnation? Have you become a people-pleaser to avoid their rejection and criticism?
God may sometimes work through other people to guide you in his way-but those people will not condemn you and insist you do things their way. They will encourage you to seek God and do things his way.
Prayer
Father, I sometimes come under condemnation because of what other people have said. Thank you that condemnation and the hopelessness it brings does not come from you. Help me to recognize it for what it is and not allow myself to stay under that condemnation. Please help me to be sensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit when I fall into error and to be quick to turn from the wrongdoing. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Lessons Learned: Moving from Homosexuality to Holiness by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum by Tammy Webb-Witholt deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. This study Shows that the goal is not only to move from homosexuality into heterosexuality. The goal of our lives as followers of Christ is to come into His holiness. Shows that our journey of faith in Christ, whatever the depth of our brokenness, sexual or otherwise, is not to merely stop being one thing in order to become another. Shows that the goal of each day is to grow toward Christ. God by the power of His Holy Spirit and the truth of His Holy Word transforms us into a new creation. Shows the holiness is used in the truest definition of the word holy meaning to be "set apart" for God. Although this study is written primarily for people coming out of a homosexual lifestyle, it deals with biblical principles that can help each of us experience a deeper walk with Christ.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
READINESS
By
Oswald Chambers
"God called unto him and he said, Here am I" Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like men in a fog, we give no answer. Moses' reply revealed that he was somewhere. Readiness means a right relationship to God and a knowledge of where we are at present. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. The man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who carries off the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea of some great opportunity, something sensational, and when it comes we are quick to cry - "Here am I." Whenever Jesus Christ is in the ascendant, we are there, but we are not ready for an obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are ready to do the tiniest little thing or the great big thing, it makes no difference. We have no choice in what we want to do, whatever God's programme may be we are there, ready. When any duty presents itself we hear God's voice as Our Lord heard His Father's voice, and we are ready for it with all the alertness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us as His Father did with Him. He can put us where He likes, in pleasant duties or in mean duties, because the union is that of the Father and Himself. "That they may be one, even as We are one."
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready when God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the ready soul, it is ablaze with the presence of God.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 19, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is May 1st.
Pretend
READ: John 17:6-19
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child . . . but when I became a man, I put away childish things. -1 Corinthians 13:11
Our 4-year-old grandson loves to play pretend games with grand-ma. He comes over to our home once a week, and Ma-Ma (that's what he calls her) takes him to the supermarket, to the botanical gardens to feed fish and turtles, and to ride the underground train-all without leaving our home! He guards this game of pretend so jealously as something between Ma-Ma and him that one day when we rode the real train, he asked, "Why are there other people in our train?"
Pretending is normal for a young child. But some carry the habit of pretending into adulthood when they attend church. What they do in church has no bearing on what they do the rest of the week. On Sunday they praise God heartily, but on Monday they become different people. What they express in worship is not seen in their behavior.
Our Lord Jesus Christ knows that we can fall into this trap easily. That is why in His prayer to His Father, He said, "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15).
God has placed us here to make a difference in our world. As He protects us from falling for the wiles of the evil one, He wants us to live by the same consistent standards in every aspect of our lives-not just on Sunday. - C. P. Hia
Consistency! How much we need
To walk a measured pace,
To live the life of which we speak,
Until we see His face. -Anon.
Some people have heaven on their tongues but the world in their hearts.
Under His Wings by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:12
"The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge."
Under His Wings
Birds use their wings for many purposes other than flying. In times of danger, a mother bird's wings provide a feathered canopy of protection. When darkness falls and the temperature drops, it is under their mother's wings that young chicks find the warmth they need to make it through the frosty night. As the rain plummets to the earth, these same wings provide dry shelter. For those who are young and vulnerable, the wings of their mother promise the safety and security they need.
This is the safety and security Boaz alluded to as he assured Ruth that her kind and unselfish deeds would not go unrewarded. When she abandoned the security of her homeland to care for her mother-in-law, Naomi, Ruth may have wondered about her future. She had left everything that spelled safety, but she found something even greater?a refuge that exists only under the wings of the God of Israel. The word translated "refuge" means "to flee for protection." Under the shelter of God's wings, Ruth found the protection she needed.
God never abandons His own. In times of danger and distress, He spreads His wings of protection and comfort over us. Enveloped by His pinions, we do not need to fear the difficult circumstances of life. Personal storms may rage around us, but we are safe under the canopy of God's constant care. The psalmist assures us, "He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge" (Ps. 91:4).
If you are going through painful times, nestle yourself under His wings. Take comfort in the fact that God's protection is spread over you. Nothing can touch your life without His express permission. Nothing can threaten you without His express protection.
God's protection is more than a match for our problems.
On The Anvil
by Max Lucado
With a strong forearm, the apron-clad blacksmith puts his tongs into the fire, grasps the heated metal, and places it on the anvil. His keen eye examines the glowing piece. He sees what the tool is now and envisions what he wants it to be-sharper, flatter, wider, longer. With a clear picture in his mind, he begins to pound. His left hand still clutching the hot mass with the tongs, his right hand slams the two-pound sledge upon the moldable metal.
On the solid anvil, the smoldering iron is remolded.
The smith knows the type of instrument he wants. He knows the size. He knows the shape. He knows the strength.
Whang! Whang! The hammer slams. The shop rings with the noise, the air fills with smoke, and the softened metal responds.
But the response doesn't come easily. It doesn't come without discomfort. To melt down the old and recast it as new is a disrupting process. Yet the metal remains on the anvil, allowing the toolmaker to remove the scars, repair the cracks, refill the voids, and purge the impurities.
And with time, a change occurs: What was dull becomes sharpened, what was crooked becomes straight, what was weak becomes strong, and what was useless becomes valuable.
Then the blacksmith stops. He ceases his pounding and sets down his hammer. With a strong left arm, he lifts the tongs until the freshly molded metal is at eye level. In the still silence, he examines the smoking tool. The incandescent implement is rotated and examined for any mars or cracks.
There are none.
Now the smith enters the final stage of his task. He plunges the smoldering instrument into a nearby bucket of water. With a hiss and a rush of steam, the metal immediately begins to harden. The heat surrenders to the onslaught of cool water, and the pliable, soft mineral becomes an unbending useful tool.
"For a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
(I Peter 1:6-7)
From On the Anvil:
Stories On Being Shaped Into God's Image
This is a new edition of Max's first book.
It contains an updated forward, written by him, as well as thoughtful questions for each chapter.
© (Tyndale House, 1985, 2008) Max Lucado
IS IT NOT IN THE LEAST LIKELY?
By
Oswald Chambers
"For Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom." 1 Kings 2:28
Joab stood the big test, he remained absolutely loyal and true to David and did not turn after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom, but yet towards the end of his life he turned after the craven Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one man has gone back is exactly where any one may go back (see 1 Cor. 10:13). You have gone through the big crisis, now be alert over the least things; take into calculation the "retired sphere of the leasts."
We are apt to say - "It is not in the least likely that having been through the supreme crisis, I shall turn now to the things of the world." Do not forecast where the temptation will come, it is the least likely thing that is the peril. In the aftermath of a great spiritual transaction the "retired sphere of the leasts" begins to tell; it is not dominant, but remember it is there, and if you are not warned, it will trip you up. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials, now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be morbidly introspective, looking forward with dread, but keep alert; keep your memory bright before God. Unguarded strength is double weakness because that is where the "retired sphere of the leasts" saps. The Bible characters fell on their strong points, never on their weak ones.
"Kept by the power of God" - that is the only safety.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 20, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
The Enduring Word
READ: 1 Peter 1:17-25
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. -Mark 13:31
At Dublin Castle in Ireland is the Chester Beatty Library, named for an industrialist who gave generously to charity. The beautiful library includes a quaint coffee shop and a variety of exhibits.
The exhibit that grabbed my attention was the ancient manuscripts. I slowly walked through the area and viewed fragments of the New Testament Gospels dating back to the third century ad. The scrolls were among the oldest known biblical texts until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-20th century. God's Word, preserved through the years!
As I looked at those portions of inspired text, I was moved by the permanence of the Word of God. It is because of the enduring nature of God's Word that we can have confidence in the message it contains. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away" (Mark 13:31). Later, Jesus' disciple Peter would write, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever" (1 Peter 1:24-25).
God's Word, enduring through the ages, is still the most trusted guide for living. - Bill Crowder
The Bible stands, and it will forever
When the world has passed away;
By inspiration it has been given-
All its precepts I will obey. -Lillenas
Like a compass, the Bible always points you in the right direction.
More Than Enough by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:14
Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, "Come here, and eat of the bread, and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar." So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed parched grain to her; and she ate and was satisfied, and kept some back.
More Than Enough
In 1949, Mr. Jack Wurm was broke and out of a job. One day as he walked along a San Francisco beach, he came across a bottle with a piece of paper in it. The note was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. It read, "To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry Cohen. Share and share alike." In one fell swoop, Mr. Wurm was transformed from a penniless indigent to the possessor of over $6 million dollars in cash and Singer stock. Suddenly, he had more than enough.
Ruth experienced the same. As a destitute widow, she hoped to glean enough barley to provide a few morsels of food for herself and Naomi. Suddenly, because of the kindness of Boaz, she had enough to eat and even some to take home to her mother-in-law. She moved from bare necessities to an abundance she could never have dreamed of.
When we encounter Christ, the same is true for us. We come to him with nothing to offer. Isaiah says that "all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (Isa. 64:6). We are morally broken and spiritually bankrupt. However, in a moment of time, as we open our hearts to receive the Lord, we are forever changed. We are washed clean, and we are filled to overflowing with the eternal riches of Christ. We are changed from spiritual paupers to coheirs with Christ.
Don't count your wealth in terms of dollars and cents. As a child of the King, you have more than enough to be forever satisfied.
Only One who is Himself more than enough can truly satisfy.
Listen for His Voice
In the Middle East, the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep is special. Sheep know their shepherd's voice, and they follow him when he calls. If a stranger comes along, the sheep shrink back.
It is no surprise that during World War I, when a group of Turkish soldiers decided to steal a flock of sheep from a hillside near Jerusalem, they had to face the fact that the shepherd was the only one who could control the sheep. But even he knew he could not recapture his flock single handedly against all those soldiers.
He did the only thing he could; he put his hand to his mouth and gave his own particular call that he used each day to gather his sheep. When the sheep heard the familiar sound, they stopped, turned, and came back to their shepherd.
The same is true with us-the body of Christ. Those who are children of God will hear His voice through His Word. Jesus says in John 10:27-28, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand."
The way to know whether you are one of His sheep is in how you respond to His voice and His Word. Do you recognize the voice of Jesus? He knows you better than you know yourself.
Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me" (John 10:14). Jesus is the good shepherd who gave His life for you. However, He longs for you to draw even nearer to Him. Can you hear His voice? Do you know His special call to you? Be still, listen, and pray, and you will be blessed by the Savior's intimate care.
Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture (Psalm 100:3).
What do you do when you've been hurt real bad? In this month's free resource, Michael Youssef provides biblical insight for bringing happiness out of conflict and disappointment. Download your copy of "Allowing Sorrow to be the Back Door of Happiness."
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
CAN A SAINT SLANDER GOD?
By
Oswald Chambers
"For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen." 2 Corinthians 1:20
Jesus told the parable of the talents recorded in Matthew 25 as a warning that it is possible for us to misjudge our capacity. This parable has not to do with natural gifts, but with the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Ghost. We must not measure our spiritual capacity by education or by intellect; our capacity in spiritual things is measured by the promises of God. If we get less than God wants us to have, before long we will slander Him as the servant slandered his master: "You expect more than You give me power to do; You demand too much of me, I cannot stand true to You where I am placed." When it is a question of God's Almighty Spirit, never say "I can't." Never let the limitation of natural ability come in. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be manifested in us.
The servant justified himself in everything he did and condemned his lord on every point - "Your demand is out of all proportion to what you give." Have we been slandering God by daring to worry when He has said: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"? Worrying means exactly what this servant implied - "I know You mean to leave me in the lurch." The person who is lazy naturally is always captious - "I haven't had a decent chance," and the one who is lazy spiritually is captious with God. Lazy people always strike out on an independent line.
Never forget that our capacity in spiritual matters is measured by the promises of God. Is God able to fulfil His promises? Our answer depends on whether we have received the Holy Spirit.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 21, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is May 1st.
Return On Investment
READ: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit. -1 Corinthians 6:20
Long before the US professional baseball season begins each spring, team owners and managers are busy negotiating trades and contracts. They'll pay large sums of money to get the athlete who will help them win the championship. When the season starts, all eyes are on the newly acquired talent to see if he was worth the cost. The ultimate measure of the player's success is whether his contribution to the team is a good return on the investment.
In 1 Corinthians 6:20, Paul reminds us that we too have been "bought at a price." The context paints a compelling picture of Christ's great sacrifice. He liberated us from the cruel slavemaster of sin by buying us with the high price of His own life.
Getting a grip on God's great and loving investment in us should motivate us to gladly consider making His sacrifice rich in dividends. How is that return on His investment measured? By living to bring glory to Him! Our eyes, hands, feet, thoughts, dreams, and desires have been purchased to reflect the wondrous glory of God's will and wisdom. In other words, we are no longer our own.
Paul concluded, "Therefore glorify God in your body" (v.20). Living to reflect His glory is the return on investment that makes the Owner of our lives look good! - Joe Stowell
Redemption's price our Savior paid
When all our sins on Him were laid;
He took our guilt, He bore our shame
That we may glorify His name. -D. De Haan
Our choice to bring glory to God yields a great return on Christ's investment.
Abide With Me by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 2:22-23
And Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, and that people do not meet you in any other field." So she stayed close by the young women of Boaz, to glean until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest; and she dwelt with her mother-in-law.
Abide With Me
When travelers visit a foreign land, they are often issued a visa. A visa, in essence, is an agreement with that government that you will stay no longer than a set number of days or months. If that time expires, you must either renew your visa or leave the country. A visa is not for those who plan to live in a country; it's only for those who plan to visit.
Ruth did not have a visa. When she followed Naomi back to Israel, she had no intention of ever returning to Moab. The Bible says she "dwelt" with her mother-in-law. This verb implies establishing a permanent residence. She was not just there for a visit; she was there for good.
When we come to Christ, it should be with the idea of taking up permanent residence. We do not come to sample the weather and see if we like it. Having tried everything else, we don't "try Jesus." Instead, we come as those ready to surrender allegiance to all other "countries" and to make Jesus our permanent home. Jesus said, "Abide in Me, and I in you" (John 15:4). The consistency and permanency about our relationship set it apart from a mere visit. Furthermore, this commitment is reciprocated as Jesus promises to do the same for us. He abides in us, as we abide in Him. Only then can we bear much fruit for God's glory (v. 5).
Do you want to enjoy life to the fullest? Then walk consistently with Christ. Be regular in your prayer times and Bible reading. Be faithful to your local church. Let it be obvious that you're not a visitor, but have taken up residence in Christ.
Those who abide in Christ don't need a visa for heaven.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"After all, children don't provide for their parents. Rather, parents provide for their children. " 2 Corinthians 12:14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Millions of people in the United States, and an increasing number in non-Western countries, struggle with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. The majority of these people are girls in the teens or twenties, but people as young as children as young as six and individuals as old as 76 have been reported with eating disorders. Also, although this is often looked at as a female problem, researchers at Harvard University Medical School have new data that suggest that up to 25% of adults with eating disorders are male. www.anred.com/stats.html 4/9/2008
Certain dysfunctional behavioral patterns often characterize the families of people with eating disorders. This week we will be looking at five types of dysfunctional families (described in The Thin Disguise by Pam Vredevelt) that tend to foster these disorders. Perhaps you or someone you know has a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. Or perhaps you will identify some area of family relationships that you need to address in your family.
The first family we will look at is "The Upside Down Family." In this family, the child meets the emotional needs of the parents-primarily the mother-rather than the other way around. (Physical and financial needs may be adequately met in these families, but both parents often severely neglect emotional needs.) Often the father's love must be earned by the child's behavior. This situation teaches children that their own needs are not nearly as important as those of their parents. As these children learn to suppress and deny their needs, they eventually become so out of touch with their own needs that by the time they reach adolescence, they are no longer aware of what their needs are. At this point, their unmet needs are so tremendous that they begin to fall apart and demand that someone give them attention. The onset of an eating disorder often takes place at this time.
(Note: We are grateful to Pam Vredevelt for her keen insights.)
Consider this
Today's scripture is specifically addressing financial needs, but biblical teaching makes it clear that God has given parents the responsibility to provide for their children physically, financially, emotionally and spiritually. Our Heavenly Father is our ultimate example of a caring and nurturing parent.
Prayer
Father, please show me if I am failing to meet my child's needs in any way. Help me to be the kind of parent you want me to be. Help me to walk in obedience to your Word and to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA,LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
NOW DON'T HURT THE LORD!
By
Oswald Chambers
"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?" John 14:9
Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us - astounded at how un-simple we are. It is opinions of our own which make us stupid, when we are simple we are never stupid, we discern all the time. Philip expected the revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in the One Whom he knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be, it is now; we look for it presently, in some cataclysmic event. We have no reluctance in obeying Jesus, but it is probable that we are hurting Him by the questions we ask. "Lord, show us the Father." His answer comes straight back - "There He is, always here or nowhere." We look for God to manifest Himself to His children: God only manifests Himself in His children. Other people see the manifestation, the child of God does not. We want to be conscious of God; we cannot be conscious of our consciousness and remain sane. If we are asking God to give us experiences, or if conscious experience is in the road, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus because they are not the questions of a child.
"Let not your heart be troubled" - then am I hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe the character of Jesus, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to perturb my heart, any morbid questions to come in? I have to get to the implicit relationship that takes everything as it comes from Him. God never guides presently, but always now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the emancipation is immediate.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 22, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
Happy Earth Day
READ: Psalm 148
His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and heaven. -Psalm 148:13
You don't have to tour Resurrection Bay in Alaska to appreciate the natural marvels of our earth, but it helps. You don't have to snorkel the warm waters of Jamaica to be impressed with the hidden beauty of our planet's seas, but it helps. You don't have to view the Rockies, experience the Rock of Gibraltar, or gaze at Mount Fuji to realize how awe-inspiring are the vistas of our globe, but it helps.
Experiencing firsthand the majesty of the mountains and the glory of the oceans can leave us breathless as we ponder how spectacular our big blue marble really is.
Today is Earth Day, a commemoration of our global home and a reminder of our responsibility to be careful stewards of this orb. But celebrating the greatness of our unique home among the planets can take on a dangerous slant if we leave out one key element. Contemplating the grandeur of earth should remind us that we are merely "the people of His pasture" (Ps. 95:7), and we must worship "our Maker" (v.6). The creation was flung into space to point to God and His greatness, power, and majesty. He alone deserves our praise and worship (Ps. 148:5). Thank You, Lord, for such an awe-inspiring reminder to worship You! - Dave Branon
For Further Study
What does it mean to "have dominion" over the earth? (Gen. 1:26). Visit www.discoveryseries.org/q1108 on the Web and read Celebrating The Wonder Of Creation.
How foolish to worship the creation, when the Creator is so much greater.
Waiting for Instructions by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 3:4
"Then it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies; and you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down; and he will tell you what you should do."
Waiting for Instructions
A few years ago, a $100,000 mistake was made because someone failed to wait for complete instructions. As reported in Entrepreneur magazine, a dispatcher for a cement company was instructed to send a fleet of trucks to Portland. For some reason he failed to wait for the rest of the message. The result: eight trucks of cement went to Portland, Oregon, when their real destination was 3,000 miles away in Portland, Maine.
Naomi wisely cautioned Ruth to wait for instructions, complete instructions. Ruth was to approach Boaz after the festivities at the threshing floor. Uncovering his feet was not an improper flirtation. As a Middle Eastern custom, it was a way for a woman to ask that she be taken into the man's family as his wife. There was nothing improper here. Afterwards, Naomi prudently advised her, "Don't hurry. Don't try to second-guess what Boaz might have to say. Simply wait, 'and he will tell you what you should do.'"
God also promises to give us complete instructions. The psalmist said of the Lord, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye" (Ps. 32:8). The God who knows the beginning from the end, who holds the past, present and future in His hands, wants to communicate His total plan for our lives. But it seldom comes all at one time. Instead, God reveals a little bit, and then we wait. He reveals a little more, and again we wait. But through this process, we become aware of God's complete instructions for our lives.
Are you eager to know God's plan for your life? Don't rush ahead of Him. Be patient and wait for Him to reveal His instructions. Then go only so far as He reveals. When you no longer know what God would have you do next, stop and wait for Him to tell you more. Give Him time; God will make it all clear.
Waiting for God's instructions is time well spent.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or fret your children [do not be hard on them or harass them], lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated. [Do not break their spirit.]" Colossians 3:21 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Certain dysfunctional behavioral patterns often characterize the families of people with eating disorders. This week we are looking at five types of dysfunctional families (described in The Thin Disguise by Pam Vredevelt) that tend to foster these disorders. Perhaps you or someone you know has a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. Or perhaps you will identify some area of family relationships that you need to address in your family.
In healthy families, children are taught to excel, to capitalize on their strengths, to recognize their weaknesses and to recover and learn from their mistakes. In the dysfunctional "Perfectionistic Family," each member must be an overachiever, never falling short in anything-standards that are, of course, impossible to achieve. This family has a need to be regarded as all good and picture perfect. They put great emphasis on the family appearance. Focus is also often on body appearance. In perfectionistic families, children are told, "Just do the best you can." But when they do the best they can, it is not quite good enough.
(Note: We are grateful to Pam Vredevelt for her keen insights.)
Consider this
An expectation of perfectionism-in ourselves or in others-is totally unrealistic and can lead to discouragement and frustration. Today's scripture cautions parents not to be too hard on their children-" lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated." God wants us to teach our children, to discipline them in love, and to motivate them to good works-but not to place unrealistic expectations on them.
Prayer
Father, teach me to find the right balance in training my children in the way they should go. Help me to be wise and sensitive, helping them to understand how special they are and that you have a special purpose for their lives. Help me not to discourage or frustrate, but to encourage. I thank you for the patience and grace you extend me-help me to show my children your kind of patience and grace. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA,LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE LIGHT THAT FAILS
By
Oswald Chambers
"We all with open face beholding . . . the glory of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never know we are standing alone. "All men forsook me . . notwithstanding the Lord stood with me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). We must build our faith, not on the fading light, but on the light that never fails. When "big" men go we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, the one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking God sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time you preach see that you look God in the face about things first, then the glory will remain all through. A Christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the face of God and then goes forth to talk to people. The characteristic of the ministry of Christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. "Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him."
We are never called on to parade our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with God. The secret of the worker's life is that he keeps in tune with God all the time.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 23, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
Driven By Gratitude
.
READ: Acts 20:22-24
Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. -1 Corinthians 15:58
What's the greatest novel ever written? Many readers would vote for Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, which, depending on the edition, can run well over 1,000 pages. Even after his novel was finished, Tolstoy continued to write-often until he was on the brink of exhaustion, unable to sleep, and on the verge of a breakdown.
One day a friend asked him why he kept writing and driving himself to the edge of exhaustion. He reminded Tolstoy that he was a wealthy Russian count with servants at his beck and call, and that he had a secure future.
Tolstoy explained that he kept writing because he was the slave of an inner compulsion and had a consuming desire deep within his bones. He felt that he had to keep writing or else he would go mad.
The apostle Paul experienced a similar compulsion, except that his drive was God-motivated. As he explained to his friends in Corinth, "the love of Christ compels us" (2 Cor. 5:14). His was a burning passion, an emotional fire, a spiritual force that made him share the good news of Jesus and His death and resurrection.
Such dedicated zeal has characterized many of our Lord's followers throughout the years. May a spark of that fire burn in our own hearts. - Vernon C. Grounds
Fill Thou my life, O Lord my God,
In every part with praise,
That my whole being may proclaim
Thy being and Thy ways. -Bonar
The good news is too good to keep to yourself.
In the Dark by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 3:8
Now it happened at midnight that the man was startled, and turned himself; and there, a woman was lying at his feet.
In the Dark
Most crimes take place in the dark. In the dark of the night a thief slips into a home to steal. In dimly lit parking garages assailants lurk about for their next victims. In the blackness of alleys gang members hatch their plans.
Depraved men love the darkness because it hides their wicked deeds (John 3:19). And here was a perfect opportunity?a man alone with a woman in the dark. No one would have noticed; it was midnight and everyone was sound asleep. Nor probably would they have cared, had they taken note. Ruth was a foreigner and, worse yet, a Moabitess. Since the days of Moses when Moabites refused to allow passage through their land and even hired Balaam to curse the Israelites, no love existed between these two nations. Furthermore, Boaz was wealthy, and everyone knows that the rich take what they want. But Boaz was a man of honor and integrity?even in the dark.
God expects you and me to behave in the dark the same as we do in the light. It makes no difference if no one is watching. It doesn't even matter that our misdeeds will never be discovered. There is still One who knows and cares. The psalmist reminds us, "the darkness and the light are both alike to [God]" (Ps. 139:12). The darkness is not the time to take a chance; it's the time to show your character.
Make sure God can trust you in the dark. Ask Him to give you the consistency of character that is unaffected by your circumstances. Be as faithful to the Lord when your actions are hidden as when they're out in the open. Someday, you'll be glad you did.
What a person is in the dark is what a person truly is.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Beware that you don't look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father." Matthew 18:10 NLT
Thoughts for Today
This week we are looking at five types of dysfunctional families (described in The Thin Disguise by Pam Vredevelt) that tend to foster the development of eating disorders. Perhaps you or someone you know has a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. Or perhaps you will identify some area of family relationships that you need to address in your family.
A health level of protection is necessary for the nurturing and survival of any family. In a dysfunctional "Controlling Family" the control is carried to extremes and children are sometimes overprotected. They have different rules from those of their friends. They are smothered in an effort to control every possible danger or problem.
Parents in a controlling family often try to live their lives through their children. These parents have "unfinished business"-a major goal, need or expectation that was not fulfilled in their own pasts-and are trying to accomplish through their children what they had failed to do themselves.
Parents in controlling families often exert influence through guilt and shame. "You are so fortunate your mother and I are willing to _______."
Hostile control comes most often from the mother and may be in the form of overt or covert control. It can include yelling, screaming or hysteria over something as minor as leaving a wet towel on the floor. Yet there is little consistency in that the same infraction may cause no reaction whatsoever the following day.
These types of excessive control teach the child, "My feelings and thoughts or opinions don't count. It is wrong to have them."
(Note: We are grateful to Pam Vredevelt for her keen insights.)
Consider this.
In today's scripture, Jesus cautions us "not to look down on these little ones." Excessive control shows little respect for our children and is a form of looking down on them. Although God wants us to teach them and discipline them in love, to train them in the way they should go, he also wants us to recognize them as his special creation placed in our care. As parents, we need to teach them that their feelings and thoughts are important to God-and to us.
Prayer.
Father, help me to provide a healthy level of protection for my children, but not to demonstrate any kind of excessive or hostile control. Help me to teach them how special they are in your eyes-and to always demonstrate how important they are to me. Help me guide them in developing the special gifts and talents you have given them and encourage them to become the individuals you have designed them to be. In Jesus' name .
These thoughts were drawn from. Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA,LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE WORSHIP OF THE WORK
By
Oswald Chambers
"Labourers together with God." 1 Corinthians 3:9
Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on Him. A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God, and this will mean that all the other margins of life, mental, moral and spiritual, are free with the freedom of a child, a worshipping child, not a wayward child. A worker without this solemn dominant note of concentration on God is apt to get his work on his neck; there is no margin of body, mind or spirit free, consequently he becomes spent out and crushed. There is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that God's blessing cannot rest. But the other side is just as true - when once the concentration is on God, all the margins of life are free and under the dominance of God alone. There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your co-operation with Him. The freedom after sanctification is the freedom of a child, the things that used to keep the life pinned down are gone. But be careful to remember that you are freed for one thing only - to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.
We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 24, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
A Sailing Ship
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:1-10
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. -2 Corinthians 5:8
Dorothy, an elderly woman, was near death. She loved the Lord and longed to be with Him. The nurse told her family that Dorothy would probably hold on until she could see her daughter, who was on her way to say goodbye. The nurse said, "It's as if Dorothy has one foot here and the other in heaven. She wants to take that last step soon."
That reminds me of the following beautiful description of dying by Henry van Dyke:
"I am standing at the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud, just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. . . . And just at the moment when someone at my side says: 'There, she is gone!' there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: 'Here she comes!' And that is dying."
Even more comforting for the loved ones of a believer who dies are the words of the apostle Paul: "If our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). We can rejoice in our sorrow knowing our departed loved ones are now present with the Lord (v.8). - Anne Cetas
The death of people whom we love
Brings sorrow and deep pain;
But if our loved ones know the Lord,
Our loss becomes their gain. -Sper
Because Christ lives, death is not tragedy but triumph.
A Virtuous Woman by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 3:11
"And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman."
A Virtuous Woman
Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century philosopher and theologian, declared, "The virtue of a man ought to be measured, not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his everyday conduct."
The people of Bethlehem had noticed Ruth's daily conduct, and that earned her the reputation of being a virtuous woman. She lived during the period known as the Judges, an era of Israel's history when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judg. 17:6). It was a time of loose morals, and, as she approached Boaz in the dark of night, her good intentions might have been misunderstood. But Boaz knew her reputation for virtue, and he had seen her conduct as she gleaned among the reapers. Based on this information, he had no question about her motives and no qualms in agreeing to do all that she requested.
God wants His people to live virtuous lives no matter what the rest of society does. Peter admonished, "But also for this very reason [the corruption of the world], giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue" (2 Pet. 1:5). In the midst of a society that appears to enjoy wallowing in the pigsty of immorality, it is imperative that we live with virtue. Why? Because virtuous living keeps us in close fellowship with God. In addition, it sets us apart as a witness to the cleansing power of Jesus Christ. At a time when once again "every man is doing what is right in his own eyes," you and I need to be distinguished as people of virtue.
Make sure your daily conduct reflects faith and virtue. In every respect, deal honestly with those around you. Keep not only your actions but also your thoughts from impurity. By doing so, you'll build for yourself the best reputation of all?not of shrewdness or business acumen, but of virtue.
A life without virtue is a life without value.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Discipline your son while there is hope, but do not [indulge your angry resentments by undue chastisements and] set yourself to his ruin." Proverbs 19:18 AMP
Thoughts for Today
This week we are looking at five types of dysfunctional families (described in The Thin Disguise by Pam Vredevelt) that can lead to the development of eating disorders. Perhaps you or someone you know has a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. Or perhaps you will identify some potentially harmful characteristic that needs to be addressed in your family.
In the "Rageaholic Family" only the parents (one or both) are allowed to express feelings. The predominant feeling is rage or anger. Unfortunately, the children are taught to believe they are responsible for that anger. Mothers in rageaholic families may have anger and rage from the family of origin, and in some cases the daughter becomes an "emotional receptacle" for that rage. Although the mother is in actuality angry with herself and her parents, she pushes that anger onto her daughter.
Children in rageaholic families learn to repress their anger completely. This repressed anger can cause stress, bitterness and depression, leading to many types of inappropriate behavior.
(Note: We are grateful to Pam Vredevelt for her keen insights.)
Consider this
Although there are appropriate times to discipline our children-always in love-we are not to be controlled by anger. And sometimes anger vented on children does not even relate to their behavior-it comes from a parent struggling with rage or bitterness caused by something else altogether. Today's scripture makes it clear that angry resentments and undue chastisements can lead to our child's ruin.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for sometimes taking out my anger on my children. Help me to admit when I've been wrong and allow my children to see that they are not at fault for my unfair words and actions. Help me to be sensitive to my children's honest feelings and to allow them to feel safe in expressing them. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA,LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE WARNING AGAINST WANTONING
By Oswald Chambers
"Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you." Luke 10:20
As Christian workers, worldliness is not our snare, sin is not our snare, but spiritual wantoning is, viz.: taking the pattern and print of the religious age we live in, making eyes at spiritual success. Never court anything other than the approval of God, go "without the camp, bearing His reproach." Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have the commercial view - so many souls saved and sanctified, thank God, now it is all right. Our work begins where God's grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and that will be God's witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life hidden with Christ in God, he is apt to become an irritating dictator instead of an indwelling disciple. Many of us are dictators, we dictate to people and to meetings. Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced it with an "IF," never with an emphatic assertion - "You must." Discipleship carries an option with it.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 25, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
It's Not A Game
READ: Mark 8:31-38
Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. -Mark 8:34
My former neighbor often talked about "the game of life," and I can understand why he did. It's part of human nature to approach life as one big game made up of a lot of little games. Competing can be fun, exciting, and stimulating.
But life is a whole lot more than a game-especially for a follower of Jesus Christ. When a believer needs to own the biggest house, drive the largest SUV, get the promotion first, and win every argument, something's terribly wrong from God's point of view. It's not right to run over people's feelings, bend or break the rules, and gloat over victories.
To approach life as one big game that you always have to win is to live in hopeless delusion and fantasy. While material possessions, professional success, and personal victories are enjoyable, they last only for this life. Then they're all left behind.
Jesus instructed His disciples to deny themselves, identify with His cross, and follow Him in self-denial, and for some that even meant death (Mark 8:34-35). He made it clear to His disciples that artificial victories in "the game of life" don't count for much. What really counts is what's done for the Lord. - David C. Egner
If I have but Jesus, only Jesus-
Nothing else in all the world beside-
O then everything is mine in Jesus;
For my needs and more He will provide. -Olander
© 1950 Baptist Conference Press
Those who live for God are the real winners in life.
Do Not Go Empty-Handed by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 3:17
And she said, "These six ephahs of barley he gave me; for he said to me, 'Do not go empty-handed to your mother-in-law.'"
Do Not Go Empty-Handed
Recently the Barna Research Group announced its findings that the number of evangelicals in the United States is only about 6 percent (decreasing from 12 percent in 1992). An earlier study indicated that as many as 40 percent of Americans have no religious affiliation and another 31 percent are Christians in name only. That means that at least 71 percent of the U.S. population are living in spiritual poverty. It's obvious we have a vast mission field right in our own backyard. As we send and support missionaries overseas, are we overlooking those in spiritual need nearby?
Many people in Israel lived in physical poverty, and Boaz was known for his generosity. But in his concern for those elsewhere, he didn't overlook those in need in his own backyard. One of those was his own kinswoman, Naomi. As Ruth prepared to go home from her labors in the field, he gave her six ephahs (approximately five bushels) of barley to take home to her mother-in-law. Out of the compassion of his heart, he was burdened that the young Moabitess who gleaned in his fields not go home empty-handed.
Spiritually needy people are everywhere. The majority of Christians, however, are neither able nor called to leave their occupations and homes to serve on foreign mission fields. But that doesn't mean that our neighbors must go home empty-handed. All around us are people living well below the "spiritual poverty line." Next door, around the corner or in the apartment across the hall are men, women and children who need to know about the Savior. The fields are there, and they're ready for harvest.
Make sure your friends and neighbors don't go home empty-handed. Be alert to opportunities to pass on the Bread of Life. Prayerfully ask God to lead you to someone with whom you can share your spiritual bounty. And then be like Boaz: give away what your friends need most.
If you're content to go to heaven alone, you may not be going at all.
April 21
Ed Young Ministries Weekly Devotional
Multiple Choice - A-Maze-Ing
by Ed Young
"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness..." (2 Peter 1:5-6).
We face a multiplicity of choices in the maze of life. Whether big or small, highly impactful or uneventful, the decisions that we make form who we are. And inversely, how we are designed, how we are wired will effect how we make decisions.
Our decision making styles and abilities vary greatly - from choosing what we think is best in the moment to stewing over the choices for far too long. Some of us even try to put off making decisions as long as we possibly can.
Christ, though, showed a perfect balance of patience, trust, forgiveness, obedience and decisiveness in choosing his actions and behaviors. The choices he made reflected the way God wants each of us to make decisions today. But how do we do this? How can we reflect Christ in what we decide?
Every time a decision presents itself, we should ask ourselves the same questions that Christ asked himself - some of which are macro questions, others are micro questions. We have to ask ourselves if our decision follows the guidelines of God's written word, if our decision reflects God's love, and if our decision is on God's agenda. After answering these macro questions, we need to ask some micro questions - is the decision the best possible choice considering our past decisions, present conditions and future aspirations.
This week, run your decisions through the macro and micro funnels of the right questions. As you ask yourself these questions, your decisions will filter down to reflect a perfect balance of what God wants - a balance of the decision making styles that Christ reflected. And as you discover the answers that God has in store, you will be much better equipped to negotiate the maze of life.
For more information about making good decisions and other subjects, visit the Ed Young Ministries website: www.edyoung.org
(c) 2005 Ed Young Ministries
INSTANT IN SEASON
By
Oswald Chambers
Be instant in season, out of season." 2 Timothy 4:2
Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant "out of season." The season does not refer to time, but to us - 'Be instant in season, out of season," whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say - "Now I will always be like this for God." No, you will not, God will take care you are not. Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 26, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
Respect
READ: Esther 1:1-5,9-12
You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. -Psalm 8:5
In 1967, American vocalist Aretha Franklin topped the charts with her hit single "Respect." The song became an inspirational anthem for the civil rights movement and for others who demanded to be treated with respect.
Long before Aretha's hit record, Queen Vashti topped the Persian charts with her own version of "Respect." The book of Esther begins with King Ahasuerus hosting a great celebration. In addition to displaying his wealth and power, he also wanted to showcase his wife's beauty. So he commanded that Queen Vashti be brought before him and his guests.
If she obeyed, she would have allowed the king to degrade and dis-respect her. If she refused, she risked losing her life. She refused. What courage! Vashti didn't want to compromise her character by being reduced to a piece of property. Her desire for respect led to her banishment. We have no record that Vashti feared the Lord. But her courage shows that she understood the God-given dignity accorded to every human being.
God created us in His image and crowned us with glory and honor, having made us "a little lower than the angels" (Ps. 8:5). Out of love and reverence for Him, let us treat ourselves and others with honor, dignity, and respect. - Marvin Williams
Man's crowning glory lies in this:
God stamped on him His image rare;
No other creatures have that gift,
Nor living things with man compare. -D. De Haan
Even the most difficult people we know bear the image of God.
Sit Still by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 3:18
Then she said, "Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out; for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day."
Sit Still
American culture is built around the oft-quoted phrase, "Don't just stand there, do something!" As a result, our lives are filled with busyness. We rush from meeting to meeting. We chauffeur our children from hockey practice to tennis lessons to shopping at the mall. We pull in to the nearest fast-food drive-through, place a quick order, and then we're off again. It's no wonder we can identify with Blaise Pascal, who said, "All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly."
Naomi knew better. Her advice, sit still, stay quiet, was filled with the wisdom of experience. Ruth had come to Naomi and told her all that took place at the threshing floor. It was obvious to Naomi that God was at work. How things were going to turn out, however, she didn't know. But she did know that this was not the time to rush here and there to find the answer. Instead, it was the time to sit quietly and listen intently for the Lord's response. At the right time, God would bring everything to pass.
When much is at stake, do you have difficulty sitting still? If you will remember to wait patiently, you will see a number of positive things happen. In stillness you'll discover God in new and deeper ways (Ps. 46:10). You'll also be able to hear God when He speaks to you in a still, small voice (1 Kings 19:12). Furthermore, you'll have the wisdom and strength to act when the time is right (Isa. 30:15).
Sit still and let God work in your life. Trust Him to accomplish what is best for you in His own timing. Listen quietly and you will hear His answer.
While you rest, God will work.
Anvil Time
by Max Lucado
On God's anvil. Perhaps you've been there.
Melted down. Formless. Undone. Placed on the anvil for reshaping? (A few rough edges too many.) Discipline? (A good father disciplines.) Testing? (But why so hard?)
I know. I've been on it. It's rough. It's a spiritual slump, a famine. The fire goes out. Although the fire may flame for a moment, it soon disappears. We drift downward. Downward into the foggy valley of question, the misty lowland of discouragement. Motivation wanes. Desire is distant. Responsibilities are depressing.
Passion? It slips out the door.
Enthusiasm? Are you kidding?
Anvil time.
It can be caused by a death, a breakup, going broke, going prayerless. The light switch is flipped off and the room darkens. "All the thoughtful words of help and hope have all been nicely said. But I'm still hurting, wondering."
On the anvil.
Brought face to face with God out of the utter realization that we have nowhere else to go. Jesus in the garden. Peter with a tear-streaked face. David after Bathsheba. Elijah and the "still, small voice." Paul, blind in Damascus.
Pound, pound, pound.
I hope you're not on the anvil. (Unless you need to be, and if so, I hope you are.) Anvil time is not to be avoided; it's to be experienced. Although the tunnel is dark, it does go through the mountain. Anvil time reminds us of who we are and who God is. We shouldn't try to escape it. To escape it could be to escape God.
God sees our life from beginning to end. He may lead us through a storm at age thirty so we can endure a hurricane at age sixty. An instrument is useful only if it's in the right shape. A dull ax or bent screwdriver needs attention, and so do we. A good blacksmith keeps his tools in shape. So does God.
Should God place you on his anvil, be thankful. It means he thinks you're still worth reshaping.
From On the Anvil:
Stories On Being Shaped Into God's Image
This is a new edition of Max's first book.
It contains an updated forward, written by him, as well as thoughtful questions for each chapter.
© (Tyndale House, 1985, 2008) Max Lucado
THE SUPREME CLIMB
By
Oswald Chambers
"Take now thy son . . and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Genesis 22:2
Character determines how a man interprets God's will (cf. Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this tradition behind by the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditions that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs to be got rid of, e.g., that God removes a child because the mother loves him too much - a devil's lie! and a travesty of the true nature of God. If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of wrong traditions about God, he will do so; but if we keep true to God, God will take us through an ordeal which will bring us out into a better knowledge of Himself.
The great point of Abraham's faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter to what belief he went contrary. Abraham was not a devotee of his convictions, or he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you straight through every barrier into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself; but there is always this point of giving up convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did - "I will do anything, I will go to death with Thee." Abraham did not make any such declaration, he remained true to God, and God purified his faith.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 28, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is May 1st.
God's Refreshing Word
READ: Isaiah 55:8-11
My word . . . shall not return to Me void. -Isaiah 55:11
When I was a boy, our family would occasionally travel across Nevada. We loved the desert thunderstorms. Accompanied by lightning bolts and claps of thunder, huge sheets of rain would blanket the hot sand as far as the eye could see. The cooling water refreshed the earth-and us.
Water produces marvelous changes in arid regions. For example, the pincushion cactus is completely dormant during the dry season. But after the first summer rains, cactuses burst into bloom, displaying delicate petals of pink, gold, and white.
Likewise, in the Holy Land after a rainstorm, dry ground can seemingly sprout vegetation overnight. Isaiah used rain's renewal to illustrate God's refreshing Word: "As the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Isa. 55:10-11).
Scripture carries spiritual vitality. That's why it doesn't return void. Wherever it encounters an open heart, it brings refreshment, nourishment, and new life. - Dennis Fisher
God's Word is like refreshing rain
That waters crops and seed;
It brings new life to open hearts,
And meets us in our need. -Sper
The Bible is to a thirsty soul what water is to a barren land.
Nearsighted by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 4:5-6
Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance." And the near kinsman said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it."
Nearsighted
Myopia is an eye condition in which visual images come into focus in front of the retina, causing distant objects to be blurred. We commonly call this being nearsighted. We can see things close up but not far away.
People also can be nearsighted in their understanding of God's plan for their life. The relative who was closest to Naomi and Ruth turned down the opportunity to redeem Naomi's land and marry Ruth because he feared it might jeopardize his own inheritance. He could see clearly what he had; however, he failed to discern what might be in the future. He chose to protect his current possessions, and thus missed the opportunity to be the grandfather of a king and the ancestor of the Messiah. Consequently, he passed off the scene without even a mention of his name.
Many individuals today do the same. They pour everything they have into this life, all their time, talent, energy and money. Yet they fail to invest in eternity, as Jesus instructed us to do (Matt. 6:19-20). They clearly discern what they have, but they fail to see that there's something even more in store for them. They focus on the present and neglect the future. They give up all the wonders of heaven for the temporary security of earthly treasures. And when the winds of history pass, even their names are forgotten.
Don't suffer from spiritual myopia. As a good steward, take care of what God entrusts to you today. But don't let today's possessions blind you to eternity's possibilities. What lies ahead is worth far more than anything you hold in your hands today. The best is yet to come.
Don't let what is good rob you of what is best
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."Luke 15:20 NIV (Prodigal son returning)
"Then his father Isaac said to him, 'Come here, my son, and kiss me.' So he went to him and kissed him." Genesis 27:26-27 NIV (Isaac and Jacob)
"So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him." Exodus 18:7 NIV
"Jacob was half blind because of his age and could hardly see. So Joseph brought the boys close to him, and Jacob kissed and embraced them."Genesis 48:10 NLT (a grandfather's kiss)
Thoughts for Today
This week we have been looking at five types of dysfunctional families (described in The Thin Disguise by Pam Vredevelt) that can lead to the development of eating disorders. Perhaps you or someone you know has a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. Or perhaps you will identify some potentially harmful characteristic that needs to be addressed in your family.
Healthy families are warm and affectionate. Rules, as well as people, are flexible. In dysfunctional "Rigid Families" flexibility is a nonexistent concept, and affection is seldom expressed. The father especially tends to be obsessive about the standards in the family. There is no warmth, no emotion. Each family member should be able to take care of himself or herself. This emotional neglect leads the child to believe that emotions and longings are wrong.
(Note: We are grateful to Pam Vredevelt for her keen insights.)
Consider this
We serve a loving God who demonstrates his love for us in so many tangible ways. And so he wants us to show love through our words and actions. This is especially important in our family relationships. Our children need physical demonstrations and verbal expressions of our love. Nurturing-hugging, kissing or saying 'I love you'-is so important.
Today's scriptures are examples of family members showing their love for one another with embraces and kisses. Appropriate, healthy demonstrations of our love for each other can mean so much in our relationships and in the emotional and spiritual development of our children.
Prayer
Father, I thank you so much for my children. Thank you for demonstrating your fatherly love to me in so many ways. Help me to be warm and affectionate with my children. Help them to develop emotionally and spiritually in a way that is pleasing to you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA,LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
By
Oswald Chambers
"Seekest thou great things for thyself?" Jeremiah 45:5
Are you seeking great things for yourself? Not seeking to be a great one, but seeking great things from God for yourself. God wants you in a closer relationship to Himself than receiving His gifts, He wants you to get to know Him. A great thing is accidental, it comes and goes. God never gives us anything accidental. There is nothing easier than getting into a right relationship with God except when it is not God Whom you want but only what He gives.
If you have only come the length of asking God for things, you have never come to the first strand of abandonment, you have become a Christian from a standpoint of your own. "I did ask God for the Holy Spirit, but He did not give me the rest and the peace I expected." Instantly God puts His finger on the reason - you are not seeking the Lord at all, you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus says - "Ask, and it shall be given you." Ask God for what you want, and you cannot ask if you are not asking for a right thing. When you draw near to God, you cease from asking for things. "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him." Then why ask? That you may get to know Him.
Are you seeking great things for yourself? "O Lord, baptize me with the Holy Ghost." If God does not, it is because you are not abandoned enough to Him, there is something you will not do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores the present perfection for the ultimate perfection. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy just now; He is working out His ultimate perfection all the time - "that they may be one even as We are."
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 28, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is May 1st.
The Greatest Gift
READ: Job 2
They sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him. -Job 2:13
We rightly disparage Job's three friends for their insensitive response to his suffering. Yet when they came, they sat in silence beside Job for 7 days before speaking. As it turned out, those were the most eloquent moments they spent with him.
Instinctively, I shrink back from people who are in pain. Who can know whether they want to talk about their predicament or not? Do they want to be consoled, or cheered up? What good can my presence possibly do?
Tony Campolo tells of going to a funeral. By mistake he ended up in the wrong parlor. It held the body of an elderly man, and his widow was the only mourner present. She seemed so lonely that Campolo decided to stay for the funeral. He even drove with her to the cemetery.
At the conclusion of the graveside service, Campolo finally confessed that he had not known her husband. "I thought as much," said the widow. "But it doesn't really matter. You'll never, ever, know what this means to me."
Most often those who suffer remember the quiet, unassuming person. Someone who was there when needed, who listened, who didn't keep glancing at a watch, who hugged, touched, and cried. In short, someone who was available and came on the sufferer's terms, not their own. - Philip Yancey
In our shattered times, anguish relents
Not at mere idle words spoken in vain,
But rather from the silent eloquence
Bestowed by those rare souls who share our pain. -Evans
Often, the best comfort is just being there.
Twice Owned by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 4:9
And Boaz said to the elders and all the people, "You are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's, from the hand of Naomi."
Twice Owned
A father and son built a toy sailboat. Before launching it, the father tied a string to its stern to keep it from sailing too far. The boat performed beautifully, but before long a motorboat crossing the lake cut the string, and the sailboat drifted out of sight. The boat couldn't be found anywhere. A few weeks later the boy passed his favorite toy store and saw his lost sailboat in the window. He ran inside to claim it. The store owner replied, "You may have been its maker," he said, "but as its finder, it now belongs to me. You may buy it back for fifty dollars." The boy was stunned at the cost, but he set about earning the money.
Months later he walked into the store and handed the owner $50. As he left the store, he held the boat up to the sunlight. Its colors gleamed. He mused, "I once owned you, but I lost you. Now I've bought you back. That makes you twice mine.
The land that Naomi's husband owned had been lost, perhaps sold to provide food during the famine. According to Jewish law, the nearest relative to her was responsible to buy back that land if possible. Boaz agreed to be that redeemer after the nearest kinsman refused.
This is a picture of what Christ has done for us. As our Creator, He made us and owned us, but by our rebellion we sold ourselves into sin. It took Jesus' death, an unbelievable price, to buy us back. Thus, for those who receive Him as Savior, we are twice owned.
We do not belong to ourselves; we have been bought with a price. That price was the blood of Christ. Rejoice at the willingness of Jesus to buy us back. With gratitude, give your life to Him in worship and service.
To be twice bought is to be forever owned
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the LORD." Psalm 105:1-3 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Problems and strife and turmoil. Everywhere. Around the world. In our country. In our community. In our homes. In us.
Our focus is naturally drawn to all these negative things. We worry. We get angry. We get frustrated. And if we leave our focus there we lose hope.
And so we need to change our focus. To our loving heavenly Father, who loves us unconditionally and cares about everything that concerns us. To Jesus, who gave his life that we might have the hope of eternity with him.
God is greater than any problem or circumstance.
Consider this
Count Your Blessings, an old hymn by Johnson Oatman, Jr., calls us to "Count your many blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings. See what God hath done."
And that's exactly what we need to do. Every day. And even more when we are sad or depressed. We need to change our focus to thank the Lord and tell of his greatness. To let the whole world know what he has done. To sing praises to him. To worship him and rejoice.
When you do this, your circumstances might not change but you will.
Prayer
Lord, thank you so much for all that you have done in my life. Help me to focus on all those wonderful deeds and on your love and your greatness. And doing this, help me to rest in you even in these present circumstances. I thank you that your love never fails. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This Facilitator's Guide includes reproducible group member study sheets and an audio CD designed to help facilitators prepare for each session.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
WHAT YOU WILL GET
By
Oswald Chambers
"Thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest." Jeremiah 45:5
This is the unshakable secret of the Lord to those who trust Him - "I will give thee thy life." What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. "Thy life for a prey" means that wherever you may go, even if it is into hell, you will come out with your life, nothing can harm it. So many of us are caught up in the shows of things, not in the way of property and possessions, but of blessings. All these have to go; but there is something grander that never can go - the life that is "hid with Christ in God."
Are you prepared to let God take you into union with Himself, and pay no more attention to what you call the great things? Are you prepared to abandon entirely and let go? The test of abandonment is in refusing to say - "Well, what about this?" Beware of suppositions. Immediately you allow - What about this? - it means you have not abandoned, you do not really trust God. Immediately you do abandon, you think no more about what God is going to do. Abandon means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you abandon entirely to God, He says at once, "Thy life will I give thee for a prey." The reason people are tired of life is because God has not given them anything, they have not got their life as a prey. The way to get out of that state is to abandon to God. When you do get through to abandonment to God, you will be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; God has got you absolutely and has given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience or a refusal to be simple enough.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 29, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
May 1st.
The Lamb Is My Shepherd
READ: Psalm 23
The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them. -Revelation 7:17
The writers of the Old and New Testaments used many different metaphors for the Lord Jesus Christ. These word pictures vividly describe the marvelous aspects of Jesus' life and ministry.
While visiting a friend, hymnwriter Albert Simpson Reitz saw the following motto hanging on a wall: "The Lamb Is My Shepherd." How foolish, he thought. Then he realized that a smudge on his glasses had distorted the second word of the motto. Actually it read: "The Lord Is My Shepherd."
His mistake started him thinking. He remembered that the Scriptures present Jesus both as the Good Shepherd and as the Lamb of God. Reitz said to his friend, "I've just seen the glorious gospel of our Lord in a new light. I'm reminded that the apostle John on the island of Patmos saw a vision, assuring him that the resurrected 'Lamb who is in the midst of the throne' will guide His people even when they get to heaven. Misreading that motto on your wall has given me a rich blessing. It could actually read, 'The Lamb Is My Shepherd.'"
It's reassuring to know that our Shepherd will guide us safely through this life, and that He will continue to feed and lead us throughout eternity. - Henry G. Bosch
The Lord of hosts my Shepherd is-
O sweet these words to me;
And Thou, dear Lamb, will be my Guide
Throughout eternity. -Kendrie
The Lamb who died to save us is the Shepherd who lives to lead us.
The Path to Fruitfulness by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 4:12-13
"May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring which the Lord will give you from this young woman." So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.
The Path to Fruitfulness
Fruitfulness doesn't just happen by chance. Some time ago, an agricultural school in Iowa reported that the production of 100 bushels of corn from one acre of land, in addition to the many hours of a farmer's labor, required four million gallons of water, 6,800 pounds of oxygen, 5,200 pounds of carbon, 160 pounds of nitrogen, 125 pounds of potassium, 75 pounds of yellow sulfur and other elements too numerous to list. It takes a lot of elements working together to produce fruitfulness.
Ruth discovered the same truth. Her life in Moab had been empty. The years of marriage with Naomi's son had been barren. But when she committed herself to the God of Israel, her life began to bear fruit. By faith she left her homeland and God gave her a new home. In simple trust she went out to the harvest fields, hoping to find someone who would allow her to glean after his reapers, and she found favor in the eyes of Boaz. Seeking to follow God's leading, she married Boaz and bore a son through whom the Messiah came to redeem the world. From a life of barrenness, God brought her, through faith, to great fruitfulness.
Faithfully trusting the Lord is still the only pathway to true fruitfulness. Jesus promised, "He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit." The world offers other options, but none result in lasting fruit. Only as we place our faith in Christ for daily guidance will we bear fruit for eternity.
Begin each day with reading God's Word. As He reveals His mind to you, faithfully obey everything you understand and ask for more wisdom when you don't. That's the way to bear fruit that will last forever.
Fruitfulness is the natural by-product of faithfulness.
Spring Sharathon 2008 starts today on TheGospelHiway.org
This is the time we raise the funds necessary to keep the Gospel Hiway on the air and to expand the ministry. As you know KGHY in Beaumont is only dollars away from being on the air but we cannot do it without your support. We're asking you to be in prayer for Sharathon and for what God would have you to do to support The Gospel Hiway during Spring Sharathon 2008. GIve us a call today at 888-47-SHARE or visit the website, www.theGospelHiway.org
HEART PROBLEMS
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Do you remember the basketball great Pistol Pete Maravich? He was an incredible basketball player, setting records in college that still stand today. In his college career at LSU, he scored more points than any collegiate player in history with a scoring average of 44.2 points per game... and that was before there was a three point shot! AMAZING!
At the age of 40, Pistol Pete, a young, on-fire Christian, died suddenly during a pick-up basketball game with Dr. James Dobson and some other guys. The cause of death was a rare heart defect. Although he was seemingly in great shape, his heart was not. Pete died because his physical heart had a serious problem.
SPIRITUAL HEART PROBLEMS
When it comes to heart trouble, pastors see more of it than the most sought-after cardiologists. So many Christians are walking around with serious heart issues. To be sure, "The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart."
God does not see as man sees, "for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). What does He see when He looks at yours? Does He see a heart that is truly on-fire for and in love with Jesus... or one that is a little cool and lacks passion?
DEVELOPING A HEART FOR GOD
Focus on the Cross. "We love, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Keep your mind fixed on the sacrifice Jesus paid for you when He died on the cross. Read in the Gospels everyday. It is in the Gospels where you learn to fall in love with Jesus and develop a passion for Him. If you forget the price for your redemption, your heart will begin to cool (2 Pet. 1:9).
Be Honest with God. Honesty and openness with God brings intimacy with God. The more you and I pour our hearts out to Him, the more we draw near to Him and begin to truly see Him as "a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Prov. 18:24).
Invest in God's Kingdom. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6:21). Your heart will follow your treasure. If you want your heart on fire for the things of God, start investing by faith in the things of God. If you would begin to get serious about bringing the whole tithe into the storehouse and honoring God from your wealth, you would see God do amazing things in your life in response to that obedience. He promises to open the windows of heaven when you crown Him King of your finances.
Let me encourage you in your walk with the Lord Jesus to focus on your heart. Seek Jesus with all your heart. Death often comes suddenly, like it did for Pistol Pete. God tells us to be ready. The best way to be ready to meet the Lord is to make sure your heart is right and wholly devoted to Him. Does that describe your heart?
Love,
Jeff Schreve
Pastor
www.fromhisheart.org
jeff@fromhisheart.org
1-888-811-8203
From His Heart Ministries can be seen on LightSource.com. This is another opportunity to reach people throughout the world with the love of Christ. Tell your friends and check us out.
Jeff Schreve is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Texas. He and his wife Debbie have been married for over 20 years and are blessed with three wonderful girls. Jeff began From His Heart Ministries, a radio and television ministry, in January of 2005. This ministry is completely listener/viewer supported. It continues only through the faithful and generous gifts of people like you. Pastor Jeff takes no salary from this ministry. All gifts go to further the broadcast. Click here to become a ministry partner.
THE GRACIOUSNESS OF UNCERTAINTY
By Oswald Chambers
"It doth not yet appear what we shall be." 1 John 3:2
Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We imagine that we have to reach some end, but that is not the nature of spiritual life. The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently we do not make our nests anywhere. Common sense says - "Well, supposing I were in that condition . . ." We cannot suppose ourselves in any condition we have never been in. Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him. Jesus said, "Except ye become as little children." Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.
"Believe also in Me," said Jesus, not - "Believe certain things about Me." Leave the whole thing to Him, it is gloriously uncertain how He will come in, but He will come. Remain loyal to Him.
God bless
Daily Devotionals April 30, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
Tomorrow
A Personal Gospel
READ: Romans 10:13-17
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. -Mark 16:15
In John 3:16 we read, "For God so loved the world." But what about His love for individuals? The rest of the verse reveals the central purpose behind God's sacrifice of His Son: "That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Therefore, without exception, every person may interpret John 3:16 like this: "For God so loved me!"
A. B. Simpson, a great missionary of the past, often hugged a globe to his chest and wept over the world's lostness. Yet his global vision was marked by compassion for individuals. You and I also must feel the responsibility to take the gospel to our world-by sharing the good news with one person at a time.
Unfortunately, we often think of the Great Commission in terms of "foreign missions" only. "World missions" is perhaps a better term, for that includes our nearest neighbors, who are part of the world to which God has called us. And we are already there!
Like A. B. Simpson, embrace your smaller world through earnest prayer as you consider lost individuals in your family, neighborhood, and workplace. Then, as you seek to live and give the good news, expect God to open doors of opportunity. - Joanie Yoder
Jesus died to bring salvation
For the rich and for the poor;
Those of every tribe and nation-
He includes the ones next door. -Anon.
The light that shines farthest, shines brightest at home.
It is day two of Spring Sharathon 2008 on The Gospel Hiway!
We hope you have been in prayer for Sharathon and for what God would have you to do to support The Gospel Hiway. For current totals and to see our goals for Sharathon just visit the website, www.TheGospelHiway.Org Let us hear from you today, 1-888-47-SHARE!
Better Than Seven Sons by Woodrow Kroll
Ruth 4:14
Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a close relative; and may his name be famous in Israel! And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him."
Better Than Seven Sons
A popular magazine carries a section in which it offers its readers the opportunity to send pictures of their part of the country and tell why they think it's the best. Month after month, people send in beautiful photos from all over the United States, and invariably someone will comment about their particular area, "It can't get any better than this."
That's what the women of Bethlehem were saying to Naomi. To have a son was wonderful. It was the responsibility of a Jewish son to care for his mother when his father passed away. He was her security and companion in old age. But these women agreed; Ruth was better than seven sons. She had done all that any son would have done and more,she had borne Naomi a grandson, the assurance that she would be taken care of in her latter years. It couldn't get any better than this.
This is also what Christ has done for us. Through His blood He has cleansed us from our sins. The past is forgiven. Through His Word we have the wisdom to live day by day. And through His Spirit we have the power to be His witnesses wherever we are. Through His resurrection we have the assurance that we, too, shall be raised beyond the grave to spend eternity in heaven. Everything is taken care of,past, present and future.
Have you thanked Jesus yet today for meeting your every need? There is nothing that can be added to what He has done and will do for you. It just can't get any better than this.
Only a complete Savior can make us complete.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Come to worship him with thankful hearts and songs of praise." Psalm 95:2 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Thanksgiving is recognition of what God has done. Praise is linked to who God is.
As we thank God for specific blessings, we gain a better perspective of his character and then can more fully praise him for who he is.
Thanksgiving says, "Lord, I thank you for healing me of cancer." Praise says, "Lord, thank you because you are my Healer."
Thanksgiving says, "Lord, thank you for comforting me when I suffered that loss." Praise says, "Lord, thank you because you are my Comforter.
Thanksgiving says, "Lord, thank you for helping me pay that bill." Praise says, "Lord, thank you because you are my Provider."
And so, dwelling on our blessings and thanking God for what he has done help us grow in knowledge of who he is. As we praise him for who he is, our relationship with him and our trust in him are strengthened.
Consider this
What challenges or problems are you facing today?
The more you recognize God's blessings and thank him, the more you can grow in your understanding of his character. Along with this growth of understanding comes a strengthening of faith.
As you prepare to ask God to meet your need, first meditate on all he has done for you in the past. Thank him for each thing that comes to mind. Don't rush this time of thanksgiving. Let the thanksgiving naturally flow into praising him for who he is. You will find as you do this, that your faith will be strengthened. You will be more able to trust God and to believe that he will meet your present need.
Prayer
Lord, I do thank you for all you have done for me. Praise you for your faithfulness. You have always met my needs. Sometimes you met them in a different way and time than I had asked, but your way and your time have always proved to be the best way and time. Help me to trust you and your plan for this present need. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This Facilitator's Guide includes reproducible group member study sheets and an audio CD designed to help facilitators prepare for each session.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org
THE SPONTANEITY OF LOVE
By
Oswald Chambers
"Love suffereth long, and is kind . . ." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, i.e., it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in Paul's category of love. We cannot say - "Now I am going to think no evil; I am going to believe all things." The characteristic of love is spontaneity. We do not set the statements of Jesus in front of us as a standard; but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard with out knowing it, and on looking back we are amazed at the disinterestedness of a particular emotion, which is the evidence that the spontaneity of real love was there. In everything to do with the life of God in us, its nature is only discerned when it is past.
The springs of love are in God, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts naturally, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes naturally. In looking back we cannot tell why we did certain things, we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God manifests itself in this spontaneous way because the springs of love are in the Holy Ghost. (Romans 5:5.)
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 1, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The National Day of Prayer is
TODAY!
He's Waiting
READ: Psalm 34:1-15
I sought the Lord, and He heard me. -Psalm 34:4
Jane Welsh, secretary to Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), married him and devoted her life to him and his work. He loved her deeply but was so busy with his writing and speaking that he often neglected her. Some time into their marriage, she became ill and suddenly died.
In a new book by John Ortberg, I read that after the funeral Thomas went alone to Jane's room and looked at her diary. He found these words she had written about him: "Yesterday he spent an hour with me and it was like heaven. I love him so." On another day, she wrote, "I have listened all day to hear his steps in the hall, but now it is late. I guess he will not come today." He wept brokenly, realizing his neglect of her and her desire just to talk with him.
As I read that, I couldn't help but think, God loves me dearly and waits for me to fellowship with Him. How many days do I forget Him?
The Lord welcomes our worship, our prayer, our praise. He has told us in His Word to pray all the time (1 Thess. 5:17). As He did with the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3, Christ knocks on the door of our heart and patiently waits (v.20). He listens attentively for our call, our cry, our prayer. How often does He wait in vain?
- David C. Egner
We can know that God is watching,
Always present, everywhere,
And with hope and joy and patience
He is waiting for our prayer. -Roworth
Talk with God-He longs to hear from you.
Roosting Chickens by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 1:12
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the articles into the treasure house of his god.
Roosting Chickens
My father often said, "Just wait. The chickens will come home to roost." By that he meant sooner or later, every transgressor will experience the consequences of his behavior. Just as surely as a chicken finds its way back to the henhouse at night, the penalty of sin finally will come home to every sinner.
Daniel lived in a time when the chickens were coming home to roost. The northern kingdom, Israel, already had reaped the results of its transgressions and had been taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. God spared the southern kingdom, Judah, for more than 100 years after Israel's fall. But the leaders and people of Judah continued in their wicked ways, with King Manasseh (697-642 B.C.) being the most corrupt of all (2 Kings 23:26). Baal worship, divination and even human sacrifices were a part of daily life. God finally used the Babylonians to chastise His people by taking them into exile, first in 605 B.C. (when Daniel, among others, was taken), then again in 597 B.C. and finally in 586 B.C., when Jerusalem was destroyed.
God is gracious and merciful, but He is also holy and just. This requires Him to confront sin, which destroys the people He loves. Unless He can turn the hearts of His people from their wicked ways, they will not only harm themselves but also miss out on an intimate relationship with Him. This is more than God can tolerate.
If you are being chastised for sin, remember that it is because God loves you and wants to turn your heart back toward Him. Be grateful that God cares enough about you to want the very best for you, even if it means temporary pain. Remember, temporary pain can bring permanent blessing.
God's discipline is ultimately an act of love.
Today is the final day of Spring Sharathon 2008 on TheGospelHiway.org
This is the time we raise the funds necessary to keep the Gospel Hiway on the air and to expand the ministry. As you know KGHY in Beaumont is only dollars away from being on the air but we cannot do it without your support. We're asking you to be in prayer for Sharathon and for what God would have you to do to support The Gospel Hiway during Spring Sharathon 2008. GIve us a call today at 888-47-SHARE or visit the website, www.theGospelHiway.org
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name." Psalm 103:1 NLT
Thoughts for Today
When we think of praise and worship, we often think of a church service, but worship is not only a corporate activity. In its essence, it is personal and private. It is not a performance before men but devotion toward God.
In our private times with God, we should feel free to fully express our praise to him. The ways we show our adoration and praise may vary. The Bible encourages us to clap our hands (Psalm 47:1-2), lift our hands (Psalm 134:2), bow down and kneel (Psalm 95:6), praise him with dance (Psalm 149:3), and sing praises (Psalm 105:2).
No matter what posture or expression of praise we use, let us join the psalmist and praise him with all that we are with our whole heart.
Consider this
For many of us, our private times of prayer are rushed and focused on making requests. But, no matter whether our quiet time is a few minutes or an hour, it is vital that we truly separate ourselves from the activity of the day and focus on God. Not just telling him what we need, but also offering him our thanksgiving and our praises. Sometimes this might involve singing or raising our hands or kneeling. Sometimes we might just bow quietly before him and meditate on his goodness. But let us always praise him with our whole heart.
Prayer
Lord, I praise you for your goodness your faithfulness your love. I thank you that you care about everything that concerns me. I praise you for your gentleness, your forgiveness, your grace. I thank you for always giving me what I need and not what I deserve. May I honor you in all that I do. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This Facilitator's Guide includes reproducible group member study sheets and an audio CD designed to help facilitators prepare for each session.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
INSIGHT NOT EMOTION
By
Oswald Chambers
"I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing Him." 2 Corinthians 5:7 (MOFFATT)
For a time we are conscious of God's attentions, then, when God begins to use us in His enterprises, we take on a pathetic look and talk of the trials and the difficulties, and all the time God is trying to make us do our duty as obscure people. None of us would be obscure spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our duty when God has shut up heaven? Some of us always want to be illuminated saints with golden babes and the flush of inspiration, and to have the saints of God dealing with us all the time. A gilt-edged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike God. We are here as men and women, not as half-fledged angels, to do the work of the world, and to do it with an infinitely greater power to stand the turmoil because we have been born from above.
If we try to re-introduce the rare moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are making a fetish of the moments when God did come and speak, and insisting that He must do it again; whereas what God wants us to do is to "walk by faith." How many of us have laid ourselves by, as it were, and said - "I cannot do any more until God appears to me." He never will, and without any inspiration, without any sudden touch of God, we will have to get up. Then comes the surprise - "Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!" Never live for the rare moments, they are surprises. God will give us touches of inspiration when He sees we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never make our moments of inspiration our standard; our standard is our duty
God bless
I need to Beg your pardon, my computer is down (I am using the library's) and won't have it repaired till maybe
Saturday.
So for a time I won't be able to add to the daily devotionals.
If one of you want to jump in and share yours with the forum, please do.
If all goes well, I will be back as soon as Lazy Bear can get me going again.
Sorry for the delay.
God bless you all.
Judy
Daily Devotionals May 2, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"I will do right and praise you by learning to respect your perfect laws. " Psalm 119:7 CEV
Thoughts for Today
If we want to truly praise God with all that we are (Psalm 103:1), we are called to praise him with our actions. In the words of the psalmist, we will praise God by learning to respect his perfect laws.
We can praise him with our day-to-day living showing love for others with our actions, not just our words being quick to forgive trusting God and not walking in fear and worry refusing to succumb to the compromising ways of the world telling others what the Lord has done for us.
Picture this; you spend time in prayer, praising and worshipping God. Your quiet time finished, you head out the door. On the way to work a driver in a rush pulls out in front of you. You glare at the errant driver and mutter unkind words. During the morning at work, you find yourself listening intently to the latest office gossip. You meet a friend for lunch at a nearby restaurant. Getting your meal takes longer than expected and you blame it on the server, who is obviously new. Instead of encouraging the server, you show your impatience and leave a poor tip. And so on throughout the day. Obviously your attitude of praise displayed in your morning quiet time did not prevail in the day's activities.
Consider this
Do your actions throughout the day bring honor and praise to God?
We are all learning. Becoming more Christ-like is a lifetime process, and we will make many mistakes along the way. But ask God to help you become more aware of ways to praise him not only in your prayer times but in all your relationships and activities throughout each day.
Prayer
Father, teach me to have an attitude of praise, not only in my prayer time or at church, but throughout each day. Help me to praise you in my attitudes my relationships and my actions. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This Facilitator's Guide includes reproducible group member study sheets and an audio CD designed to help facilitators prepare for each session.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE PASSION OF PATIENCE
By
Oswald Chambers
"Though it tarry, wait for it." Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration. Moses endured, not because he had an ideal of right and duty, but because he had a vision of God. He "endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible." A man with the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue; he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it; things come with largeness and tonic to the life because everything is energized by God. If God gives you a time spiritually, as He gave His Son actually, of temptation in the wilderness, with no word from Himself at all, endure, and the power to endure is there because you see God.
"Though it tarry, wait for it." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. "What shall I render unto the Lord?" said the Psalmist. "I will take the cup of salvation." We are apt to look for satisfaction in ourselves - "Now I have got the thing; now I am entirely sanctified; now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect." If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing; if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of relaxation spiritually.
Spring Sharathon 2008 was a great success!
God bless you for our generous giving and support during Spring Sharathon 2008 on The Gospel Hiway. We are now only a few hundred dollars from being able to put KGHY-FM on the air, broadcasting the Good News of Jesus Christ to all of SE Texas and SW Louisiana! Praise God! updated totals are available by visiting www.theGospelHiway.org
Our Daily Bread-No Good Deed
READ: 1 Samuel 25:32-39
Blessed be the Lord, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach. -1 Samuel 25:39
Playwright and US Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) once said, "No good deed goes unpunished." Sadly, it sometimes seems as if this aphorism is true.
David, soon to be king of Israel, had an experience that corroborates this idea. While hiding from Saul, he and his men watched over the property of a rich landowner named Nabal. But later, when David asked a favor of Nabal, he was met with scorn. "Surely in vain I have protected all that this fellow has," said David. "He has repaid me evil for good" (1 Sam. 25:21).
Before David could carry out revenge, Nabal's wife intervened and kept David from acting rashly. Soon, God struck Nabal dead (v.38). Then David praised God for keeping him from evil and for returning "the wickedness of Nabal on his own head" (v.39).
Perhaps you've had an experience when kindness was repaid with ingratitude, a generous gift was treated as an entitlement, kind actions were interpreted as an attempt to control, or well-intended advice was received with scorn.
David's story reminds us that even when it seems as if we're being repaid with evil for doing good, we don't have to take matters into our own hands; we can trust God with the outcome.
- Julie Ackerman Link
This is my Father's world-
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet. -Babcock
© 1966 Singspiration, Inc
One day God will right every wrong.
Only the Best by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 1:3-4
Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king's descendants and some of the nobles, young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans.
Only the Best
Thomas Kempis, the German mystic and author of The Imitation of Christ, observed, "The devil does not tempt unbelievers and sinners who are already his own." Satan only wants what belongs to God, and he wants God's very best.
When King Nebuchadnezzar came to deport the first group of God's people, he was not willing to settle for just anyone. He instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring only those young men who were of noble birth, good-looking and intelligent. He didn't want the local shepherd boys; he wanted the cream of the crop. His desire was to take God's very best and turn them into his own servants.
The more determined a Christian is to be the very best God can make him or her, the more such a person should expect and prepare for Satan's subtle attacks. The moment we decide to get serious about having a daily quiet time, we can be sure that Satan will place as many obstacles in our path as possible. When we choose to follow God's call into lifetime Christian service, Satan will make certain that all the reasons why this should not be done will surface.
Are you determined to serve God? Then don't be surprised by Satan's attacks. Instead, take up the shield of faith, which is able to quench the Devil's "fiery darts" (Eph. 6:16). Rejoice that Satan considers you one of God's best, but trust God to take care of you when you become one of his targets.
Satan doesn't target the mediocre; he wants the best.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals May 3, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
.
China's Billy Graham
READ: Philippians 3:1-11
What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. -Philippians 3:7
In 1927, John Sung boarded a ship from the US bound for Shanghai. He had been in the States for more than 7 years, earning three degrees in that time, including a Ph.D.
As the ship neared its destination, Sung threw all his diplomas, medals, and fraternity keys overboard, keeping only his doctorate diploma to show his father. He had received Jesus Christ and was determined that for the rest of his life he would live only for what counted for eternity.
Many older Christians still living in East and Southeast Asia came to know Christ through the ministry of John Sung, who has been called China's Billy Graham for his evangelistic work. His actions demonstrate what Paul wrote in Philippians 3:7, "What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ."
Not everyone can do what John Sung did. But, like Paul, we all should regard the things of this life "as rubbish" (v.8), and live our lives so that they will count for eternity.
There are people within your sphere of influence whose lives you can impact for God. He has placed them there for you to point them to Jesus.
Think of someone you can speak to about Jesus Christ and what He has done for you.
- C. P. Hia
Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways,
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise. -James
Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last.
Changed Names by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 1:6?7
Now from among those of the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. To them the chief of the eunuchs gave names: he gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abed-Nego.
Changed Names
Some people assume new names to disguise their identity. For example, Samuel Langhorne Clemens took the pen name of Mark Twain. Mary Ann Evans took the masculine pen name of George Eliot. Other people change their names when they move to a new country to make them more pronounceable. For example, de Revoire became Revere, and Yitzchak became Hitchcock. Yet others feel a different name will make them more memorable. Thus, Erich Weiss became Harry Houdini, and Betty Joan Perske is better known as Lauren Bacall.
Ashpenaz, the chief of the eunuchs, also desired to change the names of the young men taken from Jerusalem. After all, it just wouldn't do to have people serving in Nebuchadnezzar's court with names like Daniel ("God is my judge"), Hananiah ("Jehovah was favored"), Mishael ("who is like God") and Azariah ("strengthened by Jehovah"). These names honored the God of Israel, so Ashpenaz changed them to reflect Babylonian gods. Daniel became Belteshazzar ("Bel protect his life"), Hananiah was called Shadrach ("command of Akur"), Azariah became Abed-Nego ("servant of Nebo"), and Mishael was renamed Meshach (a possible corruption of the name Maraduk, another Babylonian deity).
Society today is also good at changing the name of things that honor God. Having standards is now called intolerance. Taking a stand for what you believe is understood as fanaticism. The change works the other way as well. Adultery is called an affair. Drunkenness is now alcoholism. But don't be taken in by a change in names. God's principles haven't changed.
Guide your life by God's Word, and you will be pleasing to the Lord no matter what the world calls it. After all, what's in a name? Not much if God isn't in it.
Changing the name doesn't change the truth.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 4, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Ascension
READ: Acts 1:1-11
I go to prepare a place for you. . . . I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. -John 14:2-3
The repeated appearances of Jesus after His death and resurrection brought His followers so much joy that they must have wanted the visits to continue indefinitely. But on the 40th day after His resurrection, having given His disciples final instructions, Jesus slowly ascended and a cloud hid Him from view.
Jesus could have vanished instantly, as He had done previously (Luke 24:31). But He chose to ascend visibly to impress on His followers that this was the end of His visits. His bodily presence would soon be replaced by "another Helper," the Holy Spirit promised in John 14:16. Jesus' ascension marked the dawn of a new era.
In His glorified human body, the Lord Jesus ascended, entered heaven, sat down at the right hand of God, sent the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-18; Acts 2:33), and now intercedes for us (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25). He permeates the whole universe with His spiritual presence and power (Col. 1:15-23; Eph. 4:10).
An ancient writing says that Jesus ascended bodily into heaven "our entrance to secure, and our abode to prepare." That's true. But it's also true that as God, He is always spiritually present with us and will be "to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20). What a wonderful Savior we have!
- Herbert Vander Lugt
The Lord ascended bodily
From earth to heaven's throne;
Now He is there to intercede
For those who are His own. -Sper
Jesus went away so the Holy Spirit could come to stay.
Committed to Purity by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 1:8
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
Committed to Purity
Some hunters are totally sold out to hunting. They suffer all kinds of discomfort in order to enjoy their hobby. Many sports fans are totally absorbed by games, whether baseball, football or soccer or anything else. Whatever else might be taking place, they're in the stands or in front of the TV rooting for their favorite team. Likewise, some businessmen can think of nothing but their business. Everything takes second place to being successful in their chosen profession.
But Daniel was sold out in a different way. He was totally committed to maintaining his purity. The drink and rich foods of Babylon in all probability were very tasty, but, prepared by pagan cooks, they surely would not have met the strict Jewish dietary laws. To have eaten these delicacies would have caused Daniel and his friends ritual impurity. And in Daniel's heart, the culinary pleasures he might have enjoyed were not worth the price of moral pollution.
Today we live in a time of gross immorality. We live in a sea of sensual indulgence. Sex appeal is used to promote everything from cars to shoes. Images that would have made our grandparents blush are brazenly displayed on billboards. Standards that once protected society from its own carnal appetites have been long abandoned. Therefore, it's more important than ever that those who follow Christ commit themselves to maintaining their purity, as Daniel did.
Resolve in your own heart, even before you face temptation, that you will make purity your highest priority. Expect to be tempted, but determine that, with God's help, you will stay undefiled and never waver. The short-lived pleasures of immorality are not worth the price.
When purity is not a priority it is a casualty.
May 2
Thump-Thud, Thump-Thud
by Max Lucado
When a potter bakes a pot, he checks its solidity by pulling it out of the oven and thumping it. If it "sings," it's ready. If it "thuds," it's placed back in the oven.
The character of a person is also checked by thumping.
Been thumped lately?
Late-night phone calls. Grouchy teacher. Grumpy moms. Burnt meals. Flat tires. You've-got-to-be-kidding deadlines. Those are thumps. Thumps are those irritating inconveniences that trigger the worst in us. They catch us off guard. Flat-footed. They aren't big enough to be crises, but if you get enough of them, watch out! Traffic jams. Long lines. Empty mailboxes. Dirty clothes on the floor. Even as I write this, I'm being thumped. Because of interruptions, it has taken me almost two hours to write these two paragraphs. Thump. Thump. Thump.
How do I respond? Do I sing, or do I thud?
Jesus said that out of the nature of the heart a man speaks (Luke 6:45). There's nothing like a good thump to reveal the nature of a heart. The true character of a person is seen not in momentary heroics but in the thump-packed humdrum of day-to-day living.
If you have a tendency to thud more than you sing, take heart.
There is hope for us "thudders":
Begin by thanking God for thumps. I don't mean a half-hearted thank-you. I mean a rejoicing, jumping-for-joy thank-you from the bottom of your heart (James 1:2). Chances are that God is doing the thumping. And he's doing it for your own good. So every thump is a reminder that God is molding you (Hebrews 12:5-8).
Learn from each thump. Face up to the fact that you are not "thump-proof." You are going to be tested from now on. You might as well learn from the thumps-you can't avoid them. Look upon each inconvenience as an opportunity to develop patience and persistence. Each thump will help you or hurt you, depending on how you use it.
Be aware of "thump-slump" times. Know your pressure periods. For me, Mondays are infamous for causing thump-slumps. Fridays can be just as bad. For all of us, there are times during the week when we can anticipate an unusual amount of thumping. The best way to handle thump-slump times? Head on. Bolster yourself with extra prayer, and don't give up.
Remember no thump is disastrous. All thumps work for good if we are loving and obeying God.
From On the Anvil:
Stories On Being Shaped Into God's Image
This is a new edition of Max's first book.
It contains an updated forward, written by him, as well as thoughtful questions for each chapter.
© (Tyndale House, 1985, 2008) Max Lucado
VICARIOUS INTERCESSION
By
Oswald Chambers
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Hebrews 10:19
Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask. Our approach to God is due entirely to the vicarious identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effectual hindrance to intercession, because it is based on sympathy with that in ourselves and in others that we do not think needs atoning for. We have the notion that there are certain right and virtuous things in us which do not need to be based on the Atonement, and just in the domain of "stodge" that is produced by this idea we cannot intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests in others, we get petulant with God; we are always ready with our own ideas, and intercession becomes the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means the radical alteration of all our sympathies. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to God? Sulky or spiritual? Determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 5, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Debt Of Leadership
READ: Psalm 86
Save Your servant who trusts in You! -Psalm 86:2
Examine the words of Psalm 86, and you might forget that you are reading the musings of a good leader. King David prayed, "O Lord, hear me; for I am poor and needy" (v.1). Then the king of Israel refers to himself as a "servant" and pleads for mercy. Think of it! This was the man God had chosen to lead His people, pleading for God's help. Wow!
As we think about the role of leaders-whether centuries ago or today-it's vital that we review what leadership means. According to businessman and author Max De Pree, whose leadership moved his company near the top of the Fortune 500: "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader." Those two words, servant and debtor, describe David's view of himself as he asked God for help during his time of leadership.
All of us who are in a leadership position-whether leading a family, a church, a classroom, or a business-need the humble words of Psalm 86 as our guide. The "poor and needy" (v.1) servant-leader who trusts God is the one who, in the end, can say as David did, "You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me" (v.17).
- Dave Branon
Controlling other people's lives
Is not a godly leader's trait;
But serving other people's needs
Is what the Lord considers great. -Sper
The only leaders qualified to lead are those who have learned to serve.
Honoring God by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 1:14?15
So he consented with them in this matter, and tested them ten days. And at the end of ten days their countenance appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies.
Honoring God
Eric Liddell, a young Scottish ministerial student, was the best sprinter in the British Empire. He was favored to win the 100-meter race in the 1924 Paris Olympics. A few weeks before the Games, however, he learned that the preliminary 100-meter races were scheduled for a Sunday afternoon. Liddel considered participating in Sunday sports dishonoring to the Lord. His friends then began to notice during the weeks prior to the Olympics that he excused himself after dinner each evening and would return home hours later, exhausted.
A few weeks later the whole world discovered his secret. He had spent those evening hours practicing for another event that was scheduled for a weekday but which required a different type of speed and endurance. On the closing day of the Olympics, he stood on the winner's platform and received the Gold Medal as the 400-meter champion. By putting God's honor first, Liddel himself received honor.
Daniel was faced with a similar choice. To him and his friends, partaking of the king's refreshments would be shameful before the Lord. Bravely they chose to honor God. When they did so, God honored them. After ten days of eating only vegetables, they were in better condition than those who had eaten of the king's food.
The pressure to compromise is tremendous. Many people tell us that unless we choose to follow the world's standards, we'll never get ahead. If we don't drink socially, we'll never rub elbows with the influential people who can make our business a success. If we aren't willing to engage in premarital sex, we'll never meet a potential marriage partner.
Obviously, Satan skews such thinking. If we choose to honor God with our lives, He will honor us by meeting our needs. Put God's honor first, and your honor will never suffer.
Honor God and He will never dishonor you.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him." Romans 12:1 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Through the years before Jesus died on the cross, God called the Israelites to offer animals as sacrifices for their sin. These sacrifices were offered repeatedly at regular time intervals. Then Jesus came and gave his own life on the cross to pay the ultimate everlasting sacrifice for our sins. (Hebrews 9:11-14)
We no longer have to offer sin sacrifices. When we accept Jesus as our Savior and make him Lord of our lives, our sins are forgiven and Jesus clothes us in his righteousness. But he does call us to be a living sacrifice by surrendering our lives to him. He wants us to turn control over to his care. He views our total submission as worship.
Consider this
Most of us like to feel in control. The thought of turning control over to someone else, even God, might seen frightening-or just unappealing. What we need to remember is that God is a merciful and compassionate God. He wants what is best for us-and only he knows what that really is. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. We aren't. How much better to submit to his control, to trust his plan, than to stick to our "I can do it myself" attitude.
Are you struggling with a temptation , a problem , a challenge right now? Are you willing to turn it over to God, submitting completely to his plan?
Prayer
Father, I thank you for Jesus. I thank you that through him my sins are forgiven. I have committed my life to you and claim to make you Lord but so many times I try to take control again. I know this shows a lack of trust in you. Please forgive me. May my body-all that I am--be a living sacrifice to you.
These thoughts were drawn from Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
JUDGMENT ON THE ABYSS OF LOVE
By Oswald Chambers
"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God." 1 Peter 4:17
The Christian worker must never forget that salvation is God's thought, not man's; therefore it is an unfathomable abyss. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is only a gateway by which salvation comes into our conscious life. Never preach the experience; preach the great thought of God behind. When we preach we are not proclaiming how man can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out, it is the sign of God's love. Never sympathize with a soul who finds it difficult to get to God, God is not to blame. It is not for us to find out the reason why it is difficult, but so to present the truth of God that the Spirit of God will show what is wrong. The great sterling test in preaching is that it brings everyone to judgment. The Spirit of God locates each one to himself.
If Jesus ever gave us a command He could not enable us to fulfil, He would be a liar; and if we make our inability a barrier to obedience, it means we are telling God there is something He has not taken into account. Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of God. Complete weakness and dependence will always be the occasion for the Spirit of God to manifest His power
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 6, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Our Daily Bread
Anti-Aging Power
READ: Isaiah 40:25-41:1
Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. -Isaiah 40:31
Americans spend more than $20 billion annually on various anti-aging products that claim to cure baldness, remove wrinkles, build muscle, and renew the powers of youth. Can those products deliver what they promise? Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston University School of Medicine says there is "absolutely no scientific proof that any commercially available product will stop or reverse aging."
But there is a promise of spiritual vitality that defies the ravages of time. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isa. 40:30-31).
Isaiah used the eagle as a symbol of freedom and endurance, held aloft by a source of power outside itself. As we put our hope and trust in the Lord, we are carried along by His strength and not our own. The psalmist said it is the Lord who nourishes us so that our "youth is renewed like the eagle's" (Ps. 103:5).
Are we taking advantage of God's anti-aging power? It's promised to all who put their trust in Him for strength of heart, vigor of spirit, and energy of soul.
- David C. McCasland
The ravages of time cannot be stopped;
Yes, outwardly we perish every day;
But inner strength of heart can be renewed
By trusting in the Lord to light our way. -Sper
Growing old is a blessing when you're growing closer to God.
No Man on Earth by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 2:8-10
The king answered and said, "I know for certain that you would gain time, because you see that my decision is firm: if you do not make known the dream to me, there is only one decree for you! For you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the time has changed. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can give me its interpretation." The Chaldeans answered the king, and said, "There is not a man on earth who can tell the king's matter; therefore no king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean."
No Man on Earth
In the realm of fairy tales, straw is spun into gold, frogs turn into Prince Charmings, and pumpkins become royal coaches with mice for footmen. But these things are not possible in our world. Human beings in the real world have limitations.
Such limitations caused problems for the wise men of Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed a disturbing dream. Immediately he issued a call for his magicians, astrologers, sorcerers and Chaldeans. Not trusting these advisers to give him a true answer, however, he demanded they first tell him the dream and then interpret it. If they didn't, he said, they would be cut in pieces and their houses would be made an ash heap (2:5). Of course, their response was, "No ruler has ever asked such a thing!" This was an impossible request.
Often in our world we encounter things that are simply impossible. No man on earth can do them. Fortunately, as believers in Christ, our resources extend beyond earthly man; we have a Heavenly Father. God can do what no man can do. He said of Himself, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?" (Jer. 32:27).
Are you facing an impossible task today? Is there trouble in your life that is greater than any person on earth can resolve? Then look to God. He can do what others cannot. He'll do it for you.
God can do anything but fail.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
It's so easy to become molded to the world's thinking. Television programs subtly-and more and more often not so subtly-dishonor God. They present sinful behavior and lifestyles as normal-over and over again through the months and the years. Without realizing it, we can gradually begin accepting the sinful behavior as "normal."
Other influences-friends, employers, books, movies, etc.-can shape our thinking as well. One real danger has been introduced in the form of books and movies that claim to be Christian and use "Christian-ese" words, but in fact teach things that are totally unscriptural. Usually good teaching is mixed in with the deceptive teaching, drawing many Christians into accepting the whole. Jesus warned us to be careful-that even the elect could be deceived. Mark 13:21-23
Consider this
How can we avoid being drawn into the pull of the world's influences? By letting God transform us into a new person by changing the way we think. We will continue to change our mind, will, intellect and emotions as we obey God's Word. He transforms our minds as we pray, study his Word and make godly choices.
We need to measure every influence in the light of God's Word-and reject those that don't line up. Quit watching the television program. Don't read the book. Choose what is right over what is easy or popular. Be willing to take a stand.
Prayer
Lord, open my eyes to the wrong influences in my life. Transform me into a new person by changing the way I think. Give me a deeper understanding of your Word and help me live in obedience to your will, making right choices even when they are difficult ones. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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LIBERTY ON THE ABYSS OF THE GOSPEL
By Oswald Chambers
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Galatians 5:1
A spiritually minded man will never come to you with the demand - "Believe this and that;" but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One Whom the Bible reveals (cf. John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty of conscience, not liberty of view. If we are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty - the liberty of realizing the dominance of Jesus Christ.
Always keep your life measured by the standards of Jesus. Bow your neck to His yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever; and be careful to see that you never bind a yoke on others that is not placed by Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one liberty, the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don't get impatient, remember how God dealt with you - with patience and with gentleness; but never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples," not "make converts to your opinions."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 7, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Do Unto Others
READ: Matthew 7:7-12
Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. -Matthew 7:12
In May 2006, a man set out from base camp to make his third attempt on Mount Everest. He actually reached the summit, but on his way down he ran out of oxygen. As he lay on the side of the mountain dying, 40 climbers passed him by.
Some say that at such oxygen-deprived altitudes, rescues are too perilous. But others say that climbers are too eager to reach the top and too selfish to help those in trouble.
I wonder what would have happened if someone who passed that stricken climber had said, "I will treat him the way I want to be treated."
In Matthew 7:12, the golden rule, Jesus gave His disciples the secret to fulfilling the entire Old Testament relational regulations-love others and live for their benefit. He said this in the larger context of all the radical principles that He had taught up to this point in His sermon (5:17-7:11).
As difficult as it is to live for the benefit of others, Jesus knew His followers could consistently live out this ethic as they drew strength from a righteousness that went beyond duty and outward conformity to rules (5:20). It is a righteousness that can come only from God Himself.
If we are Jesus-followers, let's walk in His steps-loving others and living for their benefit.
- Marvin Williams
Love is an attitude, love is a prayer
For someone in sorrow, a heart in despair;
Love is good will for the gain of another,
Love suffers long with the fault of a brother. -Anon.
Love is the debt we owe one another.
God With Us by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 2:11
"It is a difficult thing that the king requires, and there is no other who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh."
God With Us
A farmer was plowing his field when he noticed a very large anthill out in the middle of the field. It was evident that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ants had worked long and hard to build this magnificent edifice. Now, in a short time, his plow would destroy it, along with many of the ants that lived there. I wonder, he thought, how I might communicate with them. I could write them a letter, but they couldn't read it. I could stand near their home and urge them to flee from destruction. But they wouldn't understand me. Then he realized there was really only one solution, he would have to become an ant and dwell among them.
The gods the Babylonians worshiped were deities who kept themselves apart from their worshipers. At best, they communicated only through the priests and priestesses who served them in the temples. It took the true God to devise a meaningful way to communicate with His people. John 1:14 tells us, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
Christians have the privilege of communicating with a God who is not way off in some distant place. Instead, He is as near as our next breath (Acts 17:28). We don't have to go to a special place to speak with Him; He dwells in us and delights to fellowship with us. By becoming one of us and dying for our sins, He has made it possible for us to carry every burden to Him and leave it there.
Rejoice that God wrapped Himself in human flesh and dwelt among us. Give thanks that He is only a prayer away. Whatever question or concern you may have, come to Him. His Word and His Spirit are always available to help you find the answer.
God is so near that the faintest prayer can reach Him.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil!" Proverbs 3:5-7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
In order to fully submit our lives to God, we have to trust Him from the bottom of our heart. Trust his unconditional love. Trust that his way really is the best way. Trust that he is able. Trust that listening to him and obeying him will keep us on track.
How do we build that kind of trust? By getting to know him better. Through prayer. Through studying and meditating on the Bible. By being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. And by experience-looking back and remembering how he has loved us and helped us in the past. How his way has always proved to be the right way.
Consider this
How do you make choices? By trying to figure things out on your own? By following your intellect, emotions and reasoning? Today's scripture cautions not to assume that you know it all.
Or are you listening for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go. Are you submitting to his plan above all else? Is he truly at the center of your life?
Prayer
Father, please forgive me for all the times I've attempted to figure things out on my own instead of relying on you. I do trust you but help me to trust you more. Teach me to hear your voice in everything I do and everywhere I go. Help me to always seek your will, your plan, above my own desires. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
BUILDING FOR ETERNITY
By
Oswald Chambers
"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" Luke 14:28
Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary - the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say - "This man began to build, and was not able to finish."
The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . he cannot be My disciple." Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 8, 2008
A time for revival! All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and it has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Moody Artwork
READ: 1 Peter 3:8-12
Be tenderhearted, be courteous. -1 Peter 3:8
British and American computer scientists have created artwork that changes according to how the viewer feels. The computer program analyzes the position and shape of the mouth, the angle of the brows, the openness of the eyes, and five other facial features to determine the viewer's emotional state. The artwork then alters, based on the viewer's mood. If joy is seen on the face, the artwork will show up in bright colors. If there's a scowl, the image will become dark and somber.
Our moods can also affect the people around us-our family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. Our life touches people, whether for good or bad. Each person is responsible for his or her own reaction to us, of course. Yet the way we behave makes a difference in others' lives.
The apostle Peter encouraged us to have compassion for others, to love, to be tenderhearted and courteous, and not to return evil for evil but rather blessing (1 Peter 3:8-9). Following his instructions may be difficult for us on a day when we feel cranky. By depending on the Holy Spirit, we can have a positive impact on everyone we meet-even if all we do is smile or listen.
Let's paint our world in bright colors today.
- Anne Cetas
My life will touch a dozen lives
Before this day is done,
Leave countless marks for good or ill
Before the setting sun. -Anon.
A heart touched by grace brings joy to the face.
Speaking Without Anger by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 2:12?14
For this reason the king was angry and very furious, and gave a command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree went out, and they began killing the wise men; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them. Then with counsel and wisdom Daniel answered Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon.
Speaking Without Anger
Anger has become a major problem in our society, especially when associated with driving. Between 1990 and 1997, 250,000 people were killed in traffic accidents. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that two-thirds of these road fatalities were caused by drivers who were angry. They not only lost their temper, but they lost their lives as well.
When Daniel was confronted with the king's edict, it could have given way to anger. The king's demands were unreasonable. Who ever heard of telling the dream as well as giving the interpretation? Furthermore, it was unfair. Why destroy all the wise men when not everyone had been given the opportunity to redeem himself? But Daniel knew better than to give way to such futile passions. Instead, he answered with "counsel and wisdom."
To his credit, Daniel first sought information. He checked out the facts to find out what lay behind this seemingly unreasonable edict. Then he spoke with wisdom. Daniel took the time to understand the situation and then offered a practical solution that would both meet the king's need and save the lives of many innocent people.
Anger can be terribly devastating, especially for Christians. Not only do they suffer the same consequences unbelievers do when they lose their temper, but they also tarnish their testimony before a watching world.
If you struggle with anger, learn to seek counsel and then speak with wisdom. Get the facts straight. Give yourself time to think about the consequences of your anger. And then, rather than waste your energy on a fit of rage and bring shame to the Lord, ask God to show you how you can resolve the situation for His glory.
Anger isn't always wrong, but it's seldom profitable.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"This is my command-be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We have all experienced fear and discouragement at times. In today's scripture God is speaking to Joshua, telling him to be strong and courageous. "Do not be afraid or discouraged." How is this possible? Joshua was faced with the tremendous responsibility of leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, conquering the land and setting up residence. There would be times of defeat, great challenges, biting criticism, and immense frustration. And yet God told him not to fear or be discouraged "because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."
What a wonderful promise! As we submit to God, making Jesus Lord of our life, we too can be assured that he will be with us wherever we go. He will protect us, comfort us, defend us, teach us, guide us and love us unconditionally. No matter how bleak things might look, or what challenges or sorrows we face, we can know that our heavenly Father is with us-and that as we trust him and walk in obedience, he will work all things together for good. (Romans 8:28)
Consider this
Are you feeling afraid or discouraged right now? Perhaps you don't feel as though God is with you. The good news is that feelings can lie-but God's promises are always true.
No matter what your circumstances, you can be strong and courageous-not on your own but because the Lord is with you.
Prayer
Father, thank you that I can always count on you. Even though I don't always sense your presence, help me to remember from your Word that you are always with me. Help me to focus on you, not on the circumstances. Help me to be strong and courageous. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE PATIENCE OF FAITH
By
Oswald Chambers
"Because thou hast kept the word of My patience." Revelation 3:10
Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says - "I cannot stand any more." God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God's hands. For what have you need of patience just now? Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith. "Though He slay me, yet will I wait for Him."
Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot understand what He is doing, but you know Him. Shipwreck occurs where there is not that mental poise which comes from being established on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God.
God has ventured all in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in Him. There are spots where that faith has not worked in us as yet, places untouched by the life of God. There were none of those spots in Jesus Christ's life, and there are to be none in ours. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee." The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes one great romance, a glorious opportunity for seeing marvellous things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 9, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Horsepower
READ: Jeremiah 6:16-21
Ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. -Jeremiah 6:16
On a cold winter day in Michigan, a woman in labor was being rushed to the hospital when the unthinkable happened. The ambulance slid off an icy road into a ditch. A passing four-wheel drive truck stopped and tried to haul the emergency vehicle out but couldn't get a grip.
That's when help arrived. An Amish man driving a two-horse team stopped to offer help. He told the ambulance service that the horses' shoes had been sharpened so they would bite into the ice. Once he hooked up the horses to the ambulance, they walked it right out of the ditch.
By today's standards, this young mother received help from a source of strength that was old-fashioned and outmoded. But on that day, old ways helped to ensure the safe arrival of new life into the world.
Most of us wouldn't want to return to the old-fashioned ways. But more than 2,500 years ago, Jeremiah reminded us that there is nothing more relevant than the truth of the past. Even though he was regarded as a relic of his time, he urged his neighbors to walk in the old paths of truth so that they would find peace and rest for their souls (Jer. 6:16). Today, we can still find rest and peace in Jesus, our eternal source of truth (Matt. 11:28).
- Mart De Haan
Upon Thy Word I rest, so strong, so sure;
So full of comfort blest, so sweet, so pure,
Thy Word that changest not, that faileth never!
My King, I rest upon Thy Word forever. -Havergal
The old truth of God's Word is ever new.
He Removes Kings by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 2:20-21
Daniel answered and said: "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding."
He Removes Kings
Robert Ingersoll, a 19th-century American politician and atheist, said, "The universe is all the God there is." Ingersoll lectured widely about his belief that God did not exist. Yet Ingersoll is gone and God is still here. Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher and social critic, proclaimed, "My own view on religion is that it is a disease born of fear and is a source of untold misery to the human race." Russell has stepped into eternity and is no doubt rethinking his view.
Daniel realized that even powerful dictators like King Nebuchadnezzar are no match for the omnipotent, omniscient God of the universe. Though they swagger in their own self-importance, the time comes when God removes them and raises up others to take their place. As the seasons of nature come and go, so even the most authoritarian leaders pass from the scene. Though they may seem to hold the power of life or death over millions, they themselves are subject to the desires of Him who holds their lives in His hand.
The pages of history are filled with individuals who have either denied or defied the God of heaven and earth. Yet without exception, they have been confronted with the realization that they were only mortal and posed no real threat to God. While they confidently basked in the power of their independence, God retained the ability to lift them up or cast them down.
Do not fear those who mock God. They have no more power than what God will allow. When you hear someone railing on God, remember that it is only divine grace that keeps that person from destruction. If God were not so good, atheists would have no opportunity to talk.
Man's decisions seem final until God decides otherwise.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?" Jeremiah 32:27 NIV
Thoughts for Today
When we are facing difficult times, sometimes we begin to feel as though our situation is hopeless. If friends and family try to encourage us, we might respond with, "But you don't understand."
Our loved ones might or might not understand. But the Lord always understands. He always cares. And he assures us that nothing is too hard for him.
Even when we've prayed about a problem, we tend to continue trying to figure things out. Somewhere in our minds we seem to think that God needs our help. If we can't see any possible solution, we despair. We lose all hope. But when we do this, we are making God so small. He is the LORD, the God of all mankind. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is too hard for him.
Consider this
What challenges are you facing? An illness? A rebellious child? Marriage problems? Financial challenges? Whatever it is, remember that God is bigger.
As you turn your problem over to God, remember that his answer might not be what you are expecting. And his timing might seem ever so slow. But he will be with you throughout the process. And his plan and his time are always the best plan and the best time. No matter how things appear right now, he will work all things together for good. He loves you and nothing is too hard for him.
PrayerFather, thank you for your promise that nothing is too hard for you. Thank you for your faithfulness your understanding your loveyour grace. Thank you for the plan you have for me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as
Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
GRASP WITHOUT REACH
By
Oswald Chambers
"Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." Proverbs 29:18 (R.V.)
There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A man's conception of Deity may be used to justify his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of justice and of mercy, therefore everything would be all right. I may have a right conception of God, and that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive.
Ideals may lull to ruin. Take stock of yourself spiritually and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision.
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?"
"Where there is no vision. . . ." When once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless, we cast off certain restraints, we cast off praying, we cast off the vision of God in little things, and begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating what we have out of our own hand, doing things on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on the downward path, we have lost the vision. Is our attitude to-day an attitude that springs from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done? Is there a freshness and vigour in our spiritual out look?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals May 10, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Power Of Pentecost
READ: Acts 2:1-17
You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me. -Acts 1:8
A pastor I know and love is discouraged. Although he is diligent in prayer and works hard, his church remains small while a new congregation nearby is rapidly developing into a megachurch. Yet when I think of the alcoholics, drug addicts, and sexually immoral people he has led to the Savior and a new way of life, I see him as one who witnesses in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because of what happened on the Day of Pentecost (described in Acts 2), we tend to associate the Holy Spirit's presence and power with amazing phenomena and large numbers. We forget that a little later the same people filled with the same Holy Spirit were rejected, flogged, imprisoned, even executed. But through it all they were powerful witnesses!
The Holy Spirit's presence and power can be evidenced in a dynamic preacher who attracts great audiences. But it is seen as well in the volunteer who carries on a one-on-one prison ministry, in the person who witnesses to a co-worker or a neighbor, and in the Sunday school teacher who faithfully teaches week after week.
The power of Pentecost is not especially reserved for the highly gifted. Rather, it is available to all believers in Christ who want to serve Him.
- Herbert Vander Lugt
God's guidance and help that we need day to day
Are given to all who believe;
The Spirit has come and He is the source
Of power that we can receive. -Branon
The power of God's Spirit gives power to our witness.
Mysteries Revealed by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 2:28
"But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these."
Mysteries Revealed
Many people love a good mystery story. With avid interest they follow the twists and turns of plots woven by such master mystery writers as Agatha Christie or Mary Higgins Clark. Yet there comes a point when the mystery needs to be revealed. Who really did it? Was it the butler? Perhaps the jilted lover? Maybe the upstairs maid? Unless the mystery is revealed, the whole point of the story is lost.
God never leaves a mystery unresolved either. As Daniel was faced with the need to unravel the strange and disturbing dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, God supplied the answers. What could not be known by any other means, God revealed to Daniel at the appropriate time. Nothing is hidden from God's sight; no answers are beyond His understanding. When the need to know is there, God always provides the information.
Life is filled with mysteries. We ask ourselves, Why did this young missionary die in a car accident? On the surface, it appears to be a mystery. Why did I develop cancer while an ungodly neighbor lives a long and healthy life? The answer doesn't seem obvious. Why was my child born with birth defects while my friend's child is healthy? There are no easy explanations.
If you are struggling with a mystery, if you have more questions than answers, wait patiently. It's hard, but you must believe that God will not keep the answer hidden forever. A day will come, perhaps on earth or maybe in heaven, when you will understand. Some day all the mysteries that plague us, all the plaintive wails of "Why?" will be answered. Until then, trust the Divine Writer. At just the right time, He'll reveal the secret.
God is a God of revelation, not a God of secrets.
They Don't Know What They Are Doing
by Max Lucado
Anger. It's a peculiar yet predictable emotion. It begins as a drop of water. An irritant. A frustration. Nothing big, just an aggravation. Someone gets your parking place. Someone pulls in front of you on the freeway. A waitress is slow and you are in a hurry. The toast burns. Drops of water. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Yet, get enough of these seemingly innocent drops of anger and before long you've got a bucket full of rage. Walking revenge. Blind bitterness. Unharnessed hatred. We trust no one and bare our teeth at anyone who gets near. We become walking time bombs that, given just the right tension and fear, could explode.
Yet, what do we do? We can't deny that our anger exists. How do we harness it? A good option is found in Luke 23:34. Here, Jesus speaks about the mob that killed him. "'Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'"
Look carefully. It's as if Jesus considered this bloodthirsty, death-hungry crowd not as murderers, but as victims. It's as if he saw in their faces not hatred but confusion. It's as if he regarded them not as a militant mob but, as he put it, as "sheep without a shepherd."
"They don't know what they are doing."
And when you think about it, they didn't. They hadn't the faintest idea what they were doing. They were a stir-crazy mob, mad at something they couldn't see so they took it out on, of all people, God. But they didn't know what they were doing.
And for the most part, neither do we. We are still, as much as we hate to admit it, shepherdless sheep. All we know is that we were born out of one eternity and are frighteningly close to another. We play tag with the fuzzy realities of death and pain. We can't answer our own questions about love and hurt. We can't solve the riddle of aging. We don't know how to heal our own bodies or get along with our own mates. We can't keep ourselves out of war. We can't even keep ourselves fed.
Paul spoke for humanity when he confessed, "I do not know what I am doing." (Romans 7:15, author's paraphrase.)
Now, I know that doesn't justify anything. That doesn't justify hit-and-run drivers or kiddie-porn peddlers or heroin dealers. But it does help explain why they do the miserable things they do.
My point is this: Uncontrolled anger won't better our world, but sympathetic understanding will. Once we see the world and ourselves for what we are, we can help. Once we understand ourselves we begin to operate not from a posture of anger but of compassion and concern. We look at the world not with bitter frowns but with extended hands. We realize that the lights are out and a lot of people are stumbling in the darkness. So we light candles.
From No Wonder They Call Him the Savior
TAKE THE INITIATIVE
By
Oswald Chambers
"Add to your faith virtue. . ." ("Furnish your faith with resolution.") (MOFFATT.) 2 Peter 1:5
"Add" means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, God does that; but God will not give us good habits, He will not give us character, He will not make us walk aright. We have to do all that ourselves, we have to work out the salvation God has worked in. "Add" means to get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages it is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning, to instruct yourself in the way you have to go.
Beware of the tendency of asking the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative, stop hesitating, and take the first step. Be resolute when God speaks, act in faith immediately on what He says, and never revise your decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do a thing, you endanger your standing in grace. Take the initiative, take it yourself, take the step with your will now, make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you - "I will write that letter"; "I will pay that debt." Make the thing inevitable.
We have to get into the habit of hearkening to God about everything, to form the habit of finding out what God says. If when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we know that the habit has been formed. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 11, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Best Mum
READ: Prov. 31:10-12,28-31
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. -Proverbs 31:28
On Mother's Day, 2007, British national television ran an intriguing story. Peggy Bush's daughter had died, so Peggy absorbed the responsibility of caring for her daughter's three children while her son-in-law worked. Then, tragically, her son-in-law also died. With both parents gone, Peggy took her three grandchildren in and raised them as if they were her own.
In a world where wrong is glamorized and the lurid is presented as appealing, we seldom hear of the good things that happen. Yet this woman's love and sacrifice were recognized, acknowledged, and honored as the nation took note of her as Britain's "Best Mum" for 2007.
Today is Mother's Day in the US. Most of the efforts, sacrifices, and expressions of love our mothers have given us will not be the lead story on the news. Their recognition will be more personal. But what matters is not the scope of the appreciation but its genuineness.
On this special day, may we thank God for the mothers who have molded our hearts. As we honor them, we fulfill the truth of Proverbs 31:28, "Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her."
- Bill Crowder
A Christian mother's love contains
A gospel all its own,
Because the King of love has found
Her heart an ample throne. -Crawford
Nothing touches a child like a mother's love.
The Forever Kingdom by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 2:44
"And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."
The Forever Kingdom
Three huge gates lead into the Cathedral of Milan in Italy. Over one gate is an inscription in marble under a beautiful floral bouquet that says, "The things that please us are temporary." Over another gate is a cross with the inscription, "The things that disturb us are temporary." Over the central gate, however, is a large inscription that says, "The things that are important are eternal."
As Daniel shared with Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation of the king's dream, he revealed that God had shown him that many kingdoms would rise and fall. As mighty and magnificent as Babylon was under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, it would someday be replaced by an even more magnificent kingdom. Yet even this kingdom would come to an end, and others would rise after it. Finally, however, God would set up His kingdom, which would last forever.
It's so easy to get caught up in things that are here today but gone tomorrow. They look so solid and permanent, yet they are temporary and inconsequential. Thus, we find ourselves chasing changing fads and grasping at straws as they are blown about by the wind. Only when we fix our hearts and minds on the things of God do we find true stability. God's kingdom will never end.
Don't waste your time on things that are only temporary. Neither your pleasures nor your problems will last forever. Count on it. Fix your mind on things that are above and invest in things that are eternal. When you look to God and His kingdom, you look to what really matters.
Don't let a fascination with the temporal diminish your focus on the eternal.
Week of May 5
God's Grace Was in the Beginning
Grace has been defined as the second chance we did not expect.
Picture this: We hang our heads in shame because we know we blew it. We missed our opportunity to be the best. So, here we are, stuck with being second best, a far cry from what God intended for us. Yet it is with uncontrolled delight that we see God coming down the street to dry our tears and to encourage us to get back out there. He still believes in us.
What a feeling that must have been for Adam and Eve, the first people to experience the inexplicable grace God has for mankind! There they were, planted in the middle of paradise with the most perfect communion with God. They only had one rule-yet they found a way to break it.
But God is not interested in excommunicating us. Instead of getting upset and declaring the end of the world and starting over, He pursued the hearts of Adam and Eve. In the midst of their sin, God sought their hearts. And He has continued His pursuit ever since.
Many times when we sin, we wonder how God could ever love us again. However, it is the grace of God that gives us a chance to repent and to find new life. God's grace is not a pardon; rather, it is a measure of forgiveness that gives life to the broken.
As we grow in our relationship with God, oftentimes we are surprised by His love for us. But even more surprising is the amount to which He pours out His grace in our lives. When we sin, God does not cast us aside. Instead, the compassionate heart of God meets us where we are and goes to great lengths to mend our hearts and to restore our relationships with Him.
Prayer: Lord, show me Your grace today in my life.
God raised us up with Christ... in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace (Ephesians 2:6-7).
What do you do when you've been hurt real bad? In this month's free resource, Michael Youssef provides biblical insight for bringing happiness out of conflict and disappointment. Download your copy of "Allowing Sorrow to be the Back Door of Happiness."
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
YOU WON'T REACH IT ON TIPTOE
By
Oswald Chambers
"Add to your brotherliness . . . love." 2 Peter 1:7
Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that that preference be for Himself (cf. Luke 14:26). When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ is easily first; then we must practise the working out of these things mentioned by Peter.
The first thing God does is to knock pretence and the pious pose right out of me. The Holy Spirit reveals that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now, He says to me, show the same love to others - "Love as I have loved you." "I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." You won't reach it on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired.
"The Lord suffereth long. . . ." Let me look within and see His dealings with me. The knowledge that God has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin and meanness and selfishness and wrong, will send me forth into the world to love in the same way. God's love to me is inexhaustible, and I must love others from the bedrock of God's love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment I get huffed. I get huffed because I have a peculiar person to live with. Just think how disagreeable I have been to God! Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out all the time? Neither natural love nor Divine love will remain unless it is cultivated. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 11, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
A Child's Wonder
READ: Psalm 78:1-8
That they may arise and declare [God's law] to their children, that they may set their hope in God. -Psalm 78:6-7
In 19th-century Scotland, a young mother observed her 3-year-old son's inquisitive nature. It seemed he was curious about everything that moved or made a noise. James Clerk Maxwell would carry his boyhood wonder with him into a remarkable career in science. He went on to do groundbreaking work in electricity and magnetism. Years later, Albert Einstein would say of Maxwell's work that it was "the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton."
From early childhood, religion touched all aspects of Maxwell's life. As a committed Christian, he prayed: "Teach us to study the works of Thy hands . . . and strengthen our reason for Thy service." The boyhood cultivation of Maxwell's spiritual life and curiosity resulted in a lifetime of using science in service to the Creator.
The community of faith has always had the responsibility to nurture the talent of the younger generation and to orient their lives to the Lord, "that they may arise and declare [God's law] to their children, that they may set their hope in God" (Ps. 78:6-7).
Finding ways to encourage children's love for learning while establishing them in the faith is an important investment in the future.
- Dennis Fisher
Our children are a gift from God
On loan from heaven above,
To train and nourish in the Lord,
And show to them His love. -Sper
We shape tomorrow's world by what we teach our children today.
The Consequence of Obedience by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 3:17-18
"If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up."
The Consequence of Obedience
A recently licensed pilot was flying his private plane on a cloudy day. He was not very experienced yet in instrument landing. When the control tower began to bring him in for a landing, he started thinking about all the hills, towers and buildings in that area. Suddenly he began to panic. How would he be able to miss these things if he couldn't see them? In a calm but stern voice the air traffic controller said, "You just obey instructions; we'll take care of the obstructions."
This was the testimony of Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego. They trusted their God to take care of the obstructions. The three obviously would not have chosen to be burned up in a fiery furnace, who would? But they knew that could be the consequence of their absolute obedience to God. The commandments given to Moses centuries before on Mount Sinai clearly forbade the Jews from worshiping an idol. Their instructions were clear. Their responsibility was obedience; God's responsibility was to take care of the consequences in whatever way He deemed best.
Christians have an equally clear set of instructions. Not only do we have the books of the Old Testament that Daniel's friends would have been familiar with, but we also have the New Testament. Our responsibility is to obey what we know God's Word says and let God deal with the outcome.
Commit your way to the Lord. Be obedient to the clear instructions of God's Word, and let Him deal with any difficulties that might arise. Trust the omnipotent, omniscient God of the universe. Only He can guide you through the obstacles that result from obedience. It's good to know He will.
Obedience is our responsibility; handling the consequences is God's.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Jesus answered, 'Don't you know that in the beginning the Creator made a man and a woman? That's why a man leaves his father and mother and gets married. He becomes like one person with his wife. Then they are no longer two people, but one. And no one should separate a couple that God has joined together.'" Matthew 19:4-6 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Many people fear commitment, but can a relationship survive without it?
Marriage is a commitment. A commitment to each other. To love each other no matter what. To be there for each other no matter what.
Some people equate this kind of commitment with a loss of freedom, but a marriage commitment based on God's principles can actually be a step into freedom. Freedom in knowing that you and your spouse are there for each other from now on. Freedom in knowing that you are entering into a process of building your lives together.
Some worry about losing their identity. In truth, our real identity is in Christ. When we commit our life to him, we become his child and heir to all that God has. And we become free to grow and to use our God-given gifts. Commitment to a marriage partner further expands our horizons as we encourage and support each other to develop and use our gifts. To discover God's purpose for our lives and to accomplish that purpose-together.
Consider this
Many people today see commitment as a bad thing, something to be avoided at all cost. But a meaningful relationship can be formed only when both parties are willing to commit to it. And by giving their best, they can both find new freedom in that relationship.
Prayer Father, I thank you for my spouse. Help us to remain fully committed to our relationship no matter what-a commitment to base our marriage on your principles and a commitment to each other. Help us to demonstrate your love forgiveness and grace to each other. And as we do all this, help us to experience the freedom to discover your purpose for our lives and to accomplish that purpose-together. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
MAKE a HABIT of HAVING no HABITS
By
Oswald Chambers
"For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful." 2 Peter 1:8 (R.V.)
When we begin to form a habit we are conscious of it. There are times when we are conscious of becoming virtuous and patient and godly, but it is only a stage; if we stop there we shall get the strut of the spiritual prig. The right thing to do with habits is to lose them in the life of the Lord, until every habit is so practised that there is no conscious habit at all. Our spiritual life continually resolves into introspection because there are some qualities we have not added as yet. Ultimately the relationship is to be a completely simple one.
Your god may be your little Christian habit, the habit of prayer at stated times, or the habit of Bible reading. Watch how your Father will upset those times if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes - I can't do that just now, I am praying; it is my hour with God. No, it is your hour with your habit. There is a quality that is lacking in you. Recognize the defect and then look for the opportunity of exercising yourself along the line of the quality to be added.
Love means that there is no habit visible, you have come to the place where the habit is lost, and by practice you do the thing unconsciously. If you are consciously holy, there are certain things you imagine you cannot do, certain relationships in which you are far from simple; that means there is something to be added. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there anywhere where you are not at home with God? Let God press through in that particular circumstance until you gain Him, and life becomes the simple life of a child.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 13, 2008
Reframing The Picture
READ: Deuteronomy 32:7-12
As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, . . . so the Lord alone led [Jacob]. -Deuteronomy 32:11-12
For 3 months I had a ringside seat- or should I say a bird's-eye view- of God's amazing handiwork. Ninety feet above the floor of Norfolk Botanical Garden, workers installed a webcam focused on the nest of a family of bald eagles, and online viewers were allowed to watch.
When the eggs hatched, Mama and Papa Eagle were attentive to their offspring, taking turns hunting for food and guarding the nest. But one day when the eaglets still looked like fuzzballs with beaks, both parents disappeared. I worried that harm had come to them.
My concern was unfounded. The webcam operator enlarged the camera angle, and there was Mama Eagle perched on a nearby branch.
As I pondered this "reframed" picture, I thought of times when I have feared that God had abandoned me. The view in the forest heights of Virginia reminded me that my vision is limited. I see only a small part of the entire scene.
Moses used eagle imagery to describe God. As eagles carry their young, God carries His people (Deut. 32:11-12). Despite how it may seem, the Lord "is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:27). This is true even when we feel abandoned.
- Julie Ackerman Link
Under His wings I am safely abiding;
Though the night deepens and tempests are wild,
Still I can trust Him-I know He will keep me;
He has redeemed me and I am His child. -Cushing
Because the Lord is watching over us, we don't have to fear the dangers around us.
When Three Become Four by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 3:24-25
Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, "Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" They answered and said to the king, "True, O king." "Look!" he answered, "I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."
When Three Become Four
In his book Healing for Damaged Emotions, David Seamands wrote, "The day before the [open heart] surgery, a nurse came into my room to visit. She took hold of my hand, and told me to feel it. 'Now,' she said, 'during the surgery tomorrow you will be disconnected from your heart and you will be kept alive only by virtue of certain machines. When the operation is over, you will waken in a special recovery room. But you will be immobile for as long as six hours. You may be unable to move, speak, or to even open your eyes, but you will be conscious. During this time I will be at your side, holding your hand exactly as I am doing now. Although you may feel absolutely helpless, when you feel my hand, you will know that I will not leave you.' It happened exactly as the nurse told me, but I could feel the nurse's hand in mine for hours. And that made the difference!"
As Daniel's friends went through the fiery furnace, they were not alone. When King Nebuchadnezzar looked into the flames, he saw not three but four men walking about. The fourth man in the fire was the Son of God. What these men lost in the adversity of the fiery furnace were the things that had bound them. What they gained was the certain comfort of God's company. The presence of Christ made the difference.
If you are going through a time of fiery testing, let Christ's presence bring you comfort and peace. He will hold your hand. He will walk with you. And when it's over, you will come out stronger and freer than when you went in. Don't fear the fiery furnace; trust God.
Walk with God and you'll never walk alone.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. What matters is not your outer appearance-the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes-but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them." 1 Peter 3:1,3-4,7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Some couples choose to live together without making a marriage commitment. The relationship often ends in heartache for one, if not both of them. In fact, the likelihood of divorce within the first ten years of marriage is almost twice as high for those who cohabitated before marriage as for those who did not.
Commitment in marriage means more than satisfaction of sexual needs, companionship or a trial run. It is a special union instituted by God. Without the benefit of marital boundaries, there is confusion in a relationship and so often that confusion ultimately leads to pain for the couple, as well as for any children who may be involved.
Consider this
When a married couple commit themselves to each other in love, respect and honor, a miracle of relationship can develop. Even though struggles are a part of marital growth, couples and children can mature from the disappointments.
Cohabitation, by its very nature, is a "what's in it for me" type of relationship. In a godly marriage, both partners enter the union wanting to give rather than trying to get. There is freedom in this kind of relationship that can never be found outside of marriage.
Prayer
Father, thank you for all the Bible teaches us about relationships. As I study the Scriptures, help me to grow in my understanding and apply your principles more and more to my life-and my relationships. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The HABIT of a GOOD CONSCIENCE
By
Oswald Chambers
"A conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men." Acts 24:16
God's commands are given to the life of His Son in us, consequently to the human nature in which His Son has been formed, His commands are difficult, but immediately we obey they become divinely easy.
Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the highest that I know, and tells me what the highest I know demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either towards God or towards what it regards as the highest, and therefore conscience records differently in different people. If I am in the habit of steadily facing myself with God, my conscience will always introduce God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The point is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I walk without offence. I should be living in such perfect sympathy with God's Son, that in every circumstance the spirit of my mind is renewed, and I "make out" at once "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
God always educates us down to the scruple. Is my ear so keen to hear the tiniest whisper of the Spirit that I know what I should do? "Grieve not the Holy Spirit." He does not come with a voice like thunder; His voice is so gentle that it is easy to ignore it. The one thing that keeps the conscience sensitive to Him is the continual habit of being open to God on the inside. When there is any debate, quit. "Why shouldn't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There is no debate possible when conscience speaks. At your peril, you allow one thing to obscure your inner communion with God. Drop it, whatever it is, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 14, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
True Trust
READ: John 9:1-11
Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. -John 9:3
If you didn't know him, you might think Nick Vujicic has everything going for him. Nick has never had a sore arm. He's never had knee problems. He's never smashed his finger in a door, stubbed his toe, or banged his shin against a table leg.
But that's because Nick doesn't have a shin. Or a toe. Or a finger. Or a knee. Or an arm. Nick was born with no arms and no legs. Before you begin to feel sorry for Nick, read his words. "God won't let anything happen to us in our life unless He has a good purpose for it all. I completely gave my life to Christ at the age of 15 after reading John 9. Jesus said that the reason the man was born blind was 'so that the works of God may be revealed through him.' . . . I now see that glory revealed as He is using me just the way I am and in ways others can't be used." Nick travels the world to spread the gospel and love of Jesus.
Nick says, "If I can trust in God with my circumstances, then you can trust in God with your circumstances. . . . The greatest joy of all is having Jesus Christ in my life and living the godly purpose He has for me."
Can we say that? Can we look beyond our limitations and have the same trust in God that transformed a man with no arms or legs into a missionary for Jesus?
- Dave Branon
Lord, shape my life as only You can,
Guiding each day by Your loving plan;
Take what You need and give what You will;
My life is Yours to use and to fill. -Branon
Trusting God turns problems into opportunities.
God's Protection by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 3:27
And the satraps, administrators, governors, and the king's counselors gathered together, and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.
God's Protection
No one could say that George Smith didn't have courage. A daring test pilot in the 1950s, back when the sound barrier was first being broken, he could face anything, until he had to bail out of a jet going 805 miles per hour. Though he survived, he was so fearful he thought he might never fly again. Then, during his hospital stay, a nurse gave him an antidote to fear. He took her words to heart when she said, "Courage is knowing the worst, and discovering that, in God's world, the very worst can't really hurt you."
Daniel's three friends experienced the worst that King Nebuchadnezzar could dish out to them. He not only cast them into a fiery furnace but also had the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. The flames were so deadly that the king's men who cast the three Jewish teens into the fire were themselves consumed by the heat. But when it was all over, God so protected Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego that they emerged from the flames without the smell of smoke on their clothes and without a singed hair on their bodies.
Nothing can happen to a Christian without first passing through the hands of an all-powerful God. Furthermore, He is committed to the protection of those He loves. The psalmist declared, "Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling" (Ps. 46:2?3).
The fiery furnace of affliction can bring you pain and heartache, but it can't cause you eternal harm. God is your protector. You are the apple of His eye (Zech. 2:8), and under His wings you will find safety forever (Ps. 17:8; 57:1). Replace your fears with faith. Enjoy God's protection in your hottest furnace of affliction.
What God protects, nothing harms.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church." Ephesians 4:15 NLT
Thoughts for Today
A commitment to effective communication is vital for a healthy marriage relationship. The Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. Learning how to express ourselves with "I"-messages rather than "you"-messages is a positive approach to communication when settling differences.
You-messages come across as being judgmental. "You don't care." "You are a problem." "Can't you?" "You are so " This type of message may cause your spouse to feel put down, rejected or unimportant. And he or she will probably respond defensively.
An I-message tells how you feel rather than pointing an accusing finger at your spouse. "I feel very angry because " "I feel rejected because " "I feel hurt because " this type of message helps to communicate your feelings without strengthening the defenses of your spouse.
Consider this
I-messages deal with facts rather than evaluation. They communicate honesty and openness and do not attack your spouse's self-esteem. Using I-messages can help you and your spouse settle differences in a more positive way and open the doors of communication in your marriage.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for the times I have spoken carelessly or unkindly to my spouse. Help me to be more honest, open and sensitive. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE HABIT OF ENJOYING THE DISAGREEABLE
Oswald Chambers
"That life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Corinthians 4:10
We have to form habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life. Do I manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God, or the essential irritation of "myself" apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy the disagreeable is the keen enthusiasm of letting the life of the Son of God manifest itself in me. No matter how disagreeable a thing may be, say - "Lord, I am delighted to obey Thee in this matter," and instantly the Son of God will press to the front, and there will be manifested in my human life that which glorifies Jesus.
There must be no debate. The moment you obey the light, the Son of God presses through you in that particular; but if you debate you grieve the Spirit of God. You must keep yourself fit to let the life of the Son of God be manifested, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means of manifesting how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure the Son of God is. The thing that ought to make the heart beat is a new way of manifesting the Son of God. It is one thing to choose the disagreeable, and another thing to go into the disagreeable by God's engineering. If God puts you there, He is amply sufficient.
Keep your soul fit to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on memories; let the word of God be always living and active in you.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 15, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Surprise Me!
READ: Ephesians 3:14-21
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. -Isaiah 55:8
When our family went out for an ice cream cone, my dad would ask my mother what flavor she'd like. Often she would reply, "Surprise me!" She told me she was rarely disappointed in his choice.
Do you like surprises? Would you ever dare say, "Surprise me!" to God? A lot of us are a little scared to do that. Yes, we have faith that God is good and that He loves us. Yet we're afraid we won't like what He chooses for us.
Throughout the Bible we read that God delights in doing the unexpected. Sometimes it's folding back the waters for His people to cross a sea on dry ground (Ex. 14:21-22). Or forgiving and embracing those who repent of their sin (Ps. 130:1-4). Jesus' time on earth was filled with amazing events that pointed people to His Father-He turned water into wine, calmed storms, healed the sick, and raised the dead.
What kind of God do we serve? One who is not confined by our finite imagination (Eph. 3:20). God's thoughts and ways are not like ours (Isa. 55:8), and He wants to bless us with far more than a special flavor of ice cream. He delights in His children who trust Him and are willing to say, "Surprise me, Lord!"
- Cindy Hess Kasper
O Lord, give me the grace to be
Content with what You give to me.
No! More than that, let me rejoice
In all You send me-it's Your choice! -Anon.
Those who let God provide will always be satisfied.
Heaven Rules by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 4:26
And inasmuch as they gave the command to leave the stump and roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be assured to you, after you come to know that Heaven rules.
Heaven Rules
One night an admiral on a U.S. Navy battleship ordered a certain course. The navigation officer, seeing a light in the distance, reported that the battleship seemed to be on a collision course with another ship. The admiral immediately ordered his radio officer to send a message to the oncoming ship demanding that it change its course ten degrees to the south. The reply came simply, "No. You change your course ten degrees to the south." After two more unsuccessful exchanges, the admiral, now quite furious, came thundering into the radio control room, grabbed the microphone and bellowed into it, "Change your course. I am a battleship!" After a brief moment of silence, the even-tempered reply came back, "Change your course. I am a lighthouse!"
Nebuchadnezzar was confident that he was the most powerful and important ruler alive. Dozens of lesser kings had challenged his authority, only to be conquered and brought into submission. Therefore, it disturbed him when he was given the vision of a great tree that was chopped down. The prophet Daniel revealed to this mighty despot that great as he was, heaven was greater still. And only after the proud ruler was willing to acknowledge the priority of God would his kingdom be restored to him.
No matter how important and powerful we might be, even as mighty as Nebuchadnezzar himself, we can no more challenge God than a ship can oppose a lighthouse. When God speaks, our best recourse is to submit and obey.
Are you struggling with God? Is there an area of your life that is cause for conflict? Don't crash your life into the rocks beneath the lighthouse. Let heaven rule. Surrender yourself to God and let Him have His way. It will not only preserve your life but will bring meaning to it as well.
To live your life with confidence, let heaven rule.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!" Song of Solomon 2:15 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Some marriages with no major problems get into trouble because of an accumulation of little things. The Bible says that it is the little foxes that ruin the vineyard.
Make a commitment not to ignore the little foxes in your marriage: being thoughtless or preoccupied, forgetting special days like anniversaries and birthdays, criticizing, taking your spouse for granted The little foxes might seem unimportant, but they can eventually knock a marriage and family relationship off its feet.
Consider this
Go on a fox hunt!
Are you letting any foxes loose in your marriage? Are you spending time with your spouse or has "busy-ness" taken over? Do you really listen to her or him talk? Do you continue that little habit that irritates your spouse? With God's help, identify the little things before they become big things.
And then stay on the alert. Do an occasional fox hunt to be sure pesky little habits aren't creeping up on you. And replace the destructive little foxes with acts of love. Plan a surprise dinner for two. Buy a sentimental gift. Join your spouse in one of his or her favorite activities-even if it's not your thing. These little acts of thoughtfulness can help a marriage thrive.
Prayer
Father, help me become more aware of the "little foxes" that I bring to the marriage and help me replace them with acts of love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The HABIT of RISING to the OCCASION
By
Oswald Chambers
"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling . . ." Ephesians 1:18
Remember what you are saved for - that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize your election as a child of God; rise to the occasion every time.
You cannot do anything for your salvation, but you must do something to manifest it, you must work out what God has worked in. Are you working it out with your tongue, and your brain and your nerves? If you are still the same miserable crosspatch, set on your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.
God is the Master Engineer, He allows the difficulties to come in order to see if you can vault over them properly - "By my God have I leaped over a wall." God will never shield you from any of the requirements of a son or daughter of His. Peter says - "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you." Rise to the occasion; do the thing. It does not matter how it hurts as long as it gives God the chance to manifest Him self in your mortal flesh.
May God not find the whine in us any more, but may He find us full of spiritual pluck and athleticism, ready to face anything He brings. We have to exercise ourselves in order that the Son of God may be manifested in our mortal flesh. God never has museums. The only aim of the life is that the Son of God may be manifested, and all dictation to God vanishes. Our Lord never dictated to His Father, and we are not here to dictate to God; we are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. When we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured out wine to feed and nourish others.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 16, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Dragon Skin
READ: Ephesians 4:17-24
Put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. -Ephesians 4:24
In the fifth Chronicle of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Edmund, Lucy, and their spoiled cousin Eustace are summoned to help on a quest in the Eastern Sea. Along the way, Eustace is tempted by enchanted treasure and turned into a dragon. The desperate dragon accepts the help of the great lion Aslan, king of Narnia. But Eustace can only be freed by allowing Aslan's claws to painfully tear off the dragon's flesh. Grateful for his deliverance, Eustace chooses to become a better boy.
Receiving God's gift of salvation through Christ is a one-time event, but to become like Him often requires suffering and struggle. It involves putting off old sinful habits and replacing them with new godly ones. Paul wrote, "Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt . . . [and] put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness" (Eph. 4:22-24).
What is troubling you today? God may be using the kind rebuke of a friend or a painful trial to prompt you to get rid of a sinful habit and to replace it with godly character (Rom. 8:29; 1 Peter 4:1-2).
The process of becoming like Christ is sometimes painful, but it's always worth it.
- Dennis Fisher
To be like Jesus is our goal,
Though it doesn't happen fast;
We trust the Spirit as our Guide
Till we're glorified at last. -Branon
The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment; the growth of a saint is the work of a lifetime.
Long-suffering Grace by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 4:29?31
At the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon. The king spoke, saying, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?" While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven: "King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you!"
Long-suffering Grace
Someone once said, "To become long-suffering, one has to be long-bothered." This was certainly true of God's relationship with King Nebuchadnezzar.
Even after the king had been warned in a night vision about his pride, he apparently failed to change his ways. In spite of knowing what was going to befall him, Nebuchadnezzar continued to indulge his arrogant spirit. In his conceit, he refused to acknowledge that all he had accomplished was by the expressed aid of the Lord. Yet God, with long-suffering grace, allowed him 12 more months before bringing down judgment on him.
God does not sit in heaven and glee-fully look for opportunities to bring about affliction. His desire is for all men to come to repentance. Peter wrote, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9). Accordingly, He both warns and waits, seeking to bring about change through the conviction of His Spirit rather than the heavy hand of judgment. Only as a last resort does He apply the consequences of sin to those who commit it.
Christians also should be willing to show grace over an extended period of time. Rather than quickly doling out condemnation, we ought to offer ample opportunity for grace. While judgment ultimately must be meted out, give plenty of time for a change of heart.
If you are dealing with a rebel in your life, do so with long-suffering grace. Make sure that you show others the kind of grace that God has demonstrated to you. That's the way to be like God.
Grace shines brightest when it suffers longest.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart." Colossians 4:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
One of the most important commitments married couples can make is to set aside time each day for family prayer. Prayer is the very fabric that will hold your marriage and family in the loving hands of God.
Although prayer is not limited to certain places, having a special place for family prayer, a family altar, can leave a lasting impression on family members. Consider designating a certain room or piece of furniture as a place where the family assembles to pray at a specific time every day.
Consider this
You can find many reasons not to make this commitment: over-booked schedules, television, fatigue and all kinds of distractions. But if you will make this commitment to prayer a priority, you will see a difference in your marriage and, if you have children, in all your family relationships. It is an expression of your total dependence of God. It is an expression of caring for each other. It opens the door to real communication. And, most importantly, it honors God.
Seriously consider agreeing as a couple to make family worship a part of your life. Structure your prayer time in a way that best fits your family's lifestyle. And then do it. You'll be glad you did.
Prayer
Father, we've been neglecting this area of our family life. Please forgive us. Our schedules are all so busy, but I know we really need to put first things first. I pray that each member of our family will join together in a commitment to prayer. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE HABIT OF WEALTH
by
Oswald Chambers
"Partakers of the divine nature." 2 Peter 1:4
We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises; then we have to "manipulate" the Divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the first habit to form is the habit of realizing the provision God has made. "Oh, I can't afford it," we say - one of the worst lies is tucked up in that phrase. It is ungovernably bad taste to talk about money in the natural domain, and so it is spiritually, and yet we talk as if our Heavenly Father had cut us off with a shilling! We think it a sign of real modesty to say at the end of a day - "Oh, well, I have just got through, but it has been a severe tussle." And all the Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will tax the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will obey Him. What does it matter if external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish God's riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them.
When God is beginning to be satisfied with us He will impoverish everything in the nature of fictitious wealth, until we learn that all our fresh springs are in Him. If the majesty and grace and power of God are not being manifested in us (not to our consciousness), God holds us responsible. "God is able to make all grace abound," then learn to lavish the grace of God on others. Be stamped with God's nature, and His blessing will come through you all the time.
God bless
May 17, 2008
An Unrestrained Hand by Woodrow Kroll ',
Daniel 4:35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, "What have You done?"
An Unrestrained Hand
In 1812 Napoleon proposed to invade Russia and bring its people under his control. When the plans were laid out, someone ventured to say, "Man proposes, but God disposes." On hearing that remark, Napoleon replied, "I propose, and I dispose." His pride, however, proved fatal. Using one of His tiniest, most fragile creations, the snowflake, God brought the proud general to his knees. Bogged down in heavy snow, Napoleon ordered a retreat. His army of 600,000 men was decimated, with fewer than a 100,000 making it back home again. Ultimately, this disaster weakened his armies and brought about his final defeat in 1813. Napoleon learned what King Nebuchadnezzar also had learned. When God wills it, no one can stop it. After recovering from his seven years of madness, a much humbler king of Babylon declared, "No one can restrain His hand." Even though they led mighty armies and conquered many lands, both of these proud men discovered that God does what He desires and no one says to Him, "What have You done?" It's a great comfort to those who love the Lord to know that He can be neither intimidated nor defeated. If they are from the Lord, whatever plans we have will unfold no matter who opposes them. Jesus said, "See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it" (Rev. 3:8). Conversely, if your plans are not from the Lord, they ultimately will fail no matter who proposes them. Prayerfully place your plans and desires into God's hands. Be assured that if they are His will, He will bring them about. Nothing can stop God's will.
No matter what man proposes, it's God who disposes.
He Understands
by Max Lucado
Cries of loneliness. Tune out the traffic and turn down the TV. The cry is there. You can hear their cries. You can hear them in the convalescent home among the sighs and the shuffling feet. You can hear them in the prisons among the moans of shame and the calls for mercy. You can hear them if you walk the manicured streets of suburban America, among the aborted ambitions and aging homecoming queens. Listen for it in the halls of our high schools where peer pressure weeds out the "have-nots" from the "haves."
Many of you have been spared this cruel cry. Oh, you have been homesick or upset a time or two. But despair? Far from it. Suicide? Of course not. Be thankful that it hasn't knocked on your door. Pray that it never will. If you have yet to fight this battle, you are welcome to read on if you wish, but I'm really writing to someone else.
I am writing to those who know this cry firsthand. I'm writing to those of you whose days are bookended with broken hearts and long evenings. I'm writing to those of you who can find a lonely person simply by looking in the mirror.
For you, loneliness is a way of life. The sleepless nights. The lonely bed. The distrust. The fear of tomorrow. The unending hurt.
When did it begin? In your childhood? At the divorce? At retirement? At the cemetery? When the kids left home?
Maybe you have fooled everyone. No one knows that you are lonely. On the outside you are packaged perfectly. Your smile is quick. Your job is stable. Your clothes are sharp. Your waist is thin. Your calendar is full. Your walk brisk. Your talk impressive. But when you look in the mirror, you fool no one. When you are alone, the duplicity ceases and the pain surfaces.
Or maybe you don't try to hide it. Maybe you have always been outside the circle looking in, and everyone knows it. Your conversation is a bit awkward. Your companionship is seldom requested. Your clothes are dull. Your looks are common. Ziggy is your hero and Charlie Brown is your mentor.
Am I striking a chord? If I am, if you have nodded or sighed in understanding, I have an important message for you.
The most gut-wrenching cry of loneliness in history came not from a prisoner or a widow or a patient. It came from a hill, from a cross, from a Messiah.
"My God, my God," he screamed, "why did you abandon me!" (Matthew 27:46)
Never have words carried so much hurt. Never has one being been so lonely.
Out of the silent sky come the words screamed by all who walk in the desert of loneliness. "Why? Why did you abandon me?"
I keep thinking of all the people who cast despairing eyes toward the dark heavens and cry "Why?"
And I imagine him. I imagine him listening. I picture his eyes misting and a pierced hand brushing away a tear. And although he may offer no answer, although he may solve no dilemma, although the question may freeze painfully in midair, he who also was once alone, understands.
From No Wonder They Call Him the Savior
© (W Publishing Group, 1986, 2004) Max Lucado
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 18, 2008
God's Strong Hands
Our Daily Bread
READ: Genesis 32:22-30
Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. -Genesis 32:24
In Genesis, it seems that almost every person and family mentioned is dysfunctional. The text is filled with accounts of jealousy, anger, violence, and deception that leave a trail of damaged relationships. Even Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-lauded as heroes of faith in Hebrews 11-display flawed character and spiritual lapses. But God never leaves them that way.
Jacob defrauded his older twin Esau, who swore to kill him (Gen. 27:41). Then, before the estranged brothers would face each other after 20 years, Jacob wrestled with God. When asked his name, the conniving younger brother finally admitted who he was: Jacob-the deceiver (Gen. 32:24-27). That marked a spiritual turning point.
Noted preacher Carlyle Marney said that because God doesn't give up on us, we should not give up on ourselves. "The last person on earth you will forgive a weakness is yourself," Dr. Marney wrote. "Only in the gospel can men go on loving themselves. Wait on God! See what His strong hands will fashion out of your defection."
When we have turned back, God can turn us around. When we have destroyed, God can rebuild. "Christ in the strong hands of God conquering my defection. This is the gospel."
- David C. McCasland
Though weak and helpless in life's fray
God's mighty power shall be our stay;
Without, within, He'll set us free-
His strength will give us victory. -D. De Haan
There is victory in surrender when we are conquered by Christ
The Fear of God by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 5:5-6
In the same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other.
The Fear of God
Man is plagued with many fears, some of them odd. Mysophobia is fear of dirt. Hydrophobia is fear of water. Nyctophobia is fear of darkness. Acrophobia is fear of high places. Xenophobia is fear of strangers. Claustrophobia is fear of confined places. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13. Unfortunately, many people who have learned to fear things that they probably shouldn't have never learned to fear God. Belshazzar was one of those people. Whatever other fears he may have had, a fear of the God of Israel was not one of them. In the midst of a great feast, the king, a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, ordered the gold and silver vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem to be put on display. With utter disregard for the sacred nature of these utensils, and with no concern for God, Belshazzar profaned them by using them in his drunken revelry. It was not until a hand appeared and wrote on the palace wall of God's judgment that this arrogant king began to fear. But by then it was too late. His fate was sealed. Many people today treat God flippantly. They use His name in vain. They trample His standards of righteousness underfoot. They flout their sin in His face. They treat God's people with disdain and contempt. Yet they show no fear. Only when it's too late for many of them will they realize what fools they've been. Be assured that one day everyone will fear God. The best course of action is to bow before Him in fear as Savior now so you don't have to bow before Him in fear as Judge later. The choice is yours.
Choose wisely. Fear God now and you won't have to fear God later.
Michael Youssef
God's Grace Is Sufficient
How often do we feel like we have run out of steam? We feel like we cannot make it over the next hill, whose shadow looms large over us, the weary travelers. Even as we trudge in the direction of the hill-which we know we must climb-we begin to wonder if the weight of the burden we are bearing is too much.
Will we make it?
If there are two things God makes clear in His Word, they are the facts that we cannot make it on our own and that He will help us if we call out to Him. Countless times in Scripture, we read of men and women who felt as though they had reached the end. They could not go on unless God gave them hope and strength and courage. And when they called upon the Lord, He heard and answered their prayers.
While God does not promise us a life free from pain and suffering, He does promise to be our strength in our moments of greatest weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). The apostle Paul suffered many afflictions while spreading the Gospel around the world. He was tortured, jailed, shipwrecked, and diseased. Yet he persevered-not because Paul was determined to get the Gospel out, but because God gave Paul the grace to do so.
Paul writes, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9). As we face hardships in life, we must remember that God is not a casual observer. He is an active participant-walking with us every step of the way. He catches us when we stumble, and He cheers us on as we pursue Him. He is the One who gives us the grace to walk through life's darkest hours.
Prayer: Lord, help me to remember that Your grace is sufficient for my struggles in life.
God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things you will abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Everybody wants to have good friends... but what kind of a friend are you? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Building on the Right Foundation." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
CAREFUL UNREASONABLENESS
By Oswald Chambers
"Behold the fowls of the air." . . . "Consider the lilies of the field." Matthew 6:26, 28
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon - all these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar God's designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on God. "Do not bother about being of use to others; believe on Me" - pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on Him we will grow spiritually as the lilies.
The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us.
If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals May 19, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
A Question Of Motive
READ: Hebrews 4:11-16
The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword . . . and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. -Hebrews 4:12
My wife and I were stopped at a railroad crossing to allow a train to pass. As we waited in the line of cars, the driver next to us suddenly darted through a nearby parking lot and headed in the direction of the next available railroad crossing.
I turned to Marlene and said, with some righteous indignation, "Look at that guy. He's trying to get around the train instead of waiting like the rest of us." As soon as I said those words, the man, camera in hand, hopped from his car to take pictures of the oncoming train. I had judged his motives, and I was dead wrong.
Although we can observe behavior and outward appearance, only God can see what's in the heart. That is one reason we all need the Word of God so desperately. Hebrews 4:12 says, "The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
When we find ourselves ready to judge another person's motives, let's pause and remember-only God can see the heart, and only His Word can expose its motives. Our responsibility is to let the Lord and His Word convict us about our own hearts.
- Bill Crowder
The Bible is a lamp from God,
A sword of truth and light;
It searches heart and soul and mind,
And helps us know what's right. -Bosch
People will be judged by the way God sees them not by the way we see them.
A Humble Heart by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 5:22-23
"But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified."
A Humble Heart
Popular culture has lost its grasp on humility. When asked about the sin of pride, rap singer Queen Latifah replied, "Pride is a sin? I wasn't aware of that." Actress Kirstie Alley added, "I don't think pride is a sin. . . . I think some idiot made that up." And rapper Ice-T responded, "Pride is mandatory. That's one of the problems of the inner city. Kids don't have enough pride." Somewhere along the line these people have neglected reading the Bible. God clearly says that pride is sin.
Belshazzar, the last of Nebuchadnezzar's line to rule Babylon, also fell victim to pride. He surely had heard of his grandfather's experiences, but apparently they made no impression on him. Even though the Medes and the Persians were advancing on his kingdom, he was so confident of his defenses that he spent the evening in revelry rather than preparation. In his arrogance, he gave praise to the gods of materialism and failed to glorify the one true God, who could have saved his life. In thinking that he had it all, he lost everything.
Much of modern society is headed in the same direction. People take great pride in the advancements they've made in medicine, communications and other forms of technology. Yet they've failed to acknowledge that their achievements have been only by the grace of God.
The Bible's advice is still the best. Humble yourself before God. Lift up your accomplishments and confess that they are all gifts from the Lord, who is the giver of all good things (James 1:17). Give thanks to Him who holds your very breath in His hands. Set aside pride and grab hold of God.
All we have we owe to God.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Jesus told him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.'" John 14:6 NLT
Thoughts for Today
In today's world, unity and tolerance have become goals within themselves. Peace at any cost. All ways lead to God. Live and let live. Such "tolerant" attitudes actually lead to intolerance of anyone who claims to have the answer.
Jesus made it clear that he is the only way to God, the only way to real peace. Indeed, in Isaiah 9:6 he is called the Prince of Peace. Although God calls us to love all people, for us to seek unity and peace by agreeing that other faiths can lead to God is to deny our own faith-and to deny Jesus.
Consider this
As Christians, we are not expressing Christ-like love when we are willing to accept the beliefs of those who deny Christ or live sinful lifestyles as ok-all for the sake of unity and peace. We need to express Jesus' love by loving people where they are, by building relationships with them and as the Holy Spirit leads by sharing the truths of the Gospel with them. Jesus is the only answer.
Prayer
Father, help me never to deny my faith by accepting-for the sake of unity and peace-unscriptural beliefs held by others. Help me to love others, no matter what their faith. Help me to love them enough to build relationships with them and, as the Holy Spirit leads, to share the truth of the Gospel with them. Jesus is the only way. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation by Donna Saunders, Ph.D. and Jean Leak, MS, RN. This 9-week study pursues the subject of race reconciliation. It shows that the foundational truth for the entire process is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
"OUT OF THE WRECK I RISE"
Oswald Chambers
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Romans 8:35
God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says - "I will be with him in trouble." It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man's life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are "more than conquerors in all these things." Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there.
"Shall tribulation . . . ?" Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may - exhausting, galling, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you.
"Shall anguish . . . ?" - can God's love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?
"Shall famine . . . ?" - can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved?
Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are all against God's character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it - the love of God in Christ Jesus. "Out of the wreck I rise" every time.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 20, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Productive Pain
READ: Romans 8:18-30
All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. -Romans 8:28
I'll never forget when our youngest child Matthew fell and broke his wrist. It was grotesque! His arm took a sharp left turn at his wrist and then turned again to resume its normal journey to his hand.
We rushed him to the hospital where the doctor began to set his wrist. I watched as the physician pulled and twisted Matthew's arm. I wanted to jump up and pull him away from my son! But I simply sat and watched, knowing that the agony was necessary to make Matt whole again.
If we trust earthly doctors to do that for our children, how much more we should be willing to trust God, the Great Physician, to reset our broken lives "to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29). One of God's purposes in pain is to brand the image of Jesus in our hearts. Can we weep with those who weep? God may need to stain our cheeks with our own tears so that we can genuinely empathize with others as Jesus did. Are we self-sufficient? God may need to strip away our security to conform us to the God-sufficiency that Christ displayed. Are we faithless? It may require a tragedy to teach us to trust the Father as Jesus did.
Next time you feel broken, don't panic-praise Him! God is at work!
- Joe Stowell
Life's fractures can be mended
By faith in Christ the Lord-
At first the pain but then the gain
And usefulness restored. -Hess
God's purpose in pain is to brand His image in our hearts.
In God's Scales by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 5:24-28
"Then the fingers of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written. And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of each word. Mene: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; Tekel: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; Peres: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."
In God's Scales
Some government officials claim that something has gone seriously wrong with the American judicial system. A few years ago the Heritage Foundation conducted a study that revealed that the average sentence for murder is only 15 years and the murderer is usually out in 1.8 years. A rapist gets an average of 8 years, but he's out in 60 days. Burglars will likely serve only 4.8 days, and within three years 60 percent of them are arrested for another crime. Furthermore, an Arrand Corporation study confirmed that the average inmate has committed 187 crimes before he is ever sentenced.
God's justice, however, suffers no such flaws. His scales are both accurate and just. In the midst of the king's drunken revelry, Belshazzar discovered that God had been very much aware of his sins all along and that the time of restitution had arrived. The fingers of the hand that spelled out his doom left nothing in question. His kingdom had run its course, his soul was found wanting, and the instruments of God's judgment (the Medes and the Persians) were at the door.
Christians can be thankful that even though human justice often fails, God's justice never does. It is complete; no detail is overlooked. Furthermore, it is totally equitable. Those who are wealthy cannot buy their way out of judgment, those who are eloquent cannot talk their way out, and those who are powerful cannot force their way out. In God's courtroom, no one has an unfair advantage.
If you are suffering under an injustice, just hang on. Appeal your case to God. The One who judges both heaven and earth will execute justice for you as well. Trust Him to do what is right in His own time.
God's justice has no loopholes.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News." Philippians 1:27 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Where there is unity, there is much strength-even if people are unified for the wrong reason.
After the flood in Genesis 6-8, the world was one in language, in aspiration, in geographical location and in action. The people decided to build a great city with a tower that would go to the heavens (Genesis 11:1-8). Why? Not to honor God, but to make a name for themselves and to prevent being scattered over the face of the whole earth. Knowing that nothing would be impossible for them to do because of their oneness, God confused the language of the people and scattered them all over the earth.
Unity of itself is not necessarily good. Oneness in Christ honors our Savior. These people were united, but their purpose was prideful and offensive to the holiness of God. They were seeking equality with God and divine acceptance through human effort.
Consider this
If we unite to seek power or success, focusing on solely human effort and human rewards, we displease God-and are destined to ultimately fail. Especially in the church, we must be focused on Christ, not on the organization. We must be focused on honoring God, not ourselves. We must always recognize our total dependence on him.
Let us stand "together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News."
Prayer
Father, forgive me for the times that I've united with others to accomplish something and focused on selfish ambition and desires rather than on honoring you and accomplishing your will. Help me to always focus on you more than any organization or ambition. Help me to honor you in all I do. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation by Donna Saunders, Ph.D. and Jean Leak, MS, RN. This 9-week study pursues the subject of race reconciliation. It shows that the foundational truth for the entire process is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE REALM OF THE REAL
By
Oswald Chambers
"In your patience possess ye your souls." Luke 21:19
When a man is born again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of Christ. "Acquire your soul with patience." Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the Christian life instead of going on to construct a soul in accordance with the new life God has put within. We fail because we are ignorant of the way we are made, we put things down to the devil instead of our own undisciplined natures. Think what we can be when we are roused!
There are certain things we must not pray about - moods, for instance. Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral. It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition, never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we won't. The Christian life is one of incarnate spiritual pluck.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 21, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Spelling Bee
READ: Psalm 119:9-16
Your Word I have hidden in my heart. -Psalm 119:11
My wife and I stayed up late to watch a TV program we found exciting-the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It was fascinating to watch middle-school children as they recited the correct spelling for some of the most difficult words imaginable.
Anticipation grew as one contestant after another was disqualified. Finally, only 13-year-old Katharine Close remained. One word stood between her and the world championship. With little hesitation, Katharine correctly spelled the word ursprache.
Obviously, Katharine can spell! But it's possible to know how to spell a word, yet not understand its meaning.
As believers in Jesus Christ, it's vital for us to know God's Word, the Bible. Our goal is not to accumulate knowledge but to internalize His Word so that we can be equipped in our walk of faith.
When we know God's Word, it keeps our spiritual walk from slipping (Ps. 37:31). It satisfies the hunger of our souls (Jer. 15:16). And it is a key weapon in facing temptations and trials (Matt. 4:1-11; Eph. 6:10-18).
Let's make it our aim to know the Word. Then, when facing life's challenges, we can be ready for any situation (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
My hunger for the truth He satisfies;
Upon the Word, the Living Bread, I feed:
No parching thirst I know, because His grace,
A pool of endless depth, supplies my need. -Sanders
To the wise, God's Word is sufficient.
An Honest Politician by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 6:3-5
Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, "We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God."
An Honest Politician
It's been suggested that to put honest and politician together creates an oxymoron (two words that contradict each other), and sometimes it does seem that way. A few years ago a cartoon from The Wall Street Journal showed a young, freshman congressman saying to an older member, "Hi! I'm a freshman, when do I get corrupted?"
But not all politicians live so fast and loose. Daniel held a high political position. He had been personal advisor to at least three kings (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and Darius). And certainly he must have had his share of opportunities for financial kickbacks, sexual improprieties and palace intrigues. But even those who hated him confessed that they could "find no charge or fault." He not only professed to walk according to the moral standards of his God, but he practiced them faithfully as well.
Today we stand in great need of men and women who are willing to serve in public office with Christian integrity. Likely someone in politics is subject to greater-than-average temptations. Yet as Daniel demonstrated, God is able to give the moral strength to fulfill such a position honestly and uprightly.
As you exercise your duty in the voting booth, consider the moral character of those you vote for in addition to other qualifications. And search your own heart. Are there skeletons from your past that need to be confessed and removed? Let God make an "honest politician" out of you.
We must never allow honesty and politics to be strange bedfellows.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
" Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose." Philippians 2:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
In today's scripture Paul exhorts believers to agree with one another, to love each other and to work together with one mind and purpose.
Jesus' last instructions moments before he ascended to heaven leave no doubt what the church is to be doing: "And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere-in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 NLT If we are to be effective witnesses, we need to work together with one mind and purpose. Our witness can be hurt-and even destroyed-if we are involved in pride, bickering, gossip and other habits that can only lead to strife and division. We need to set aside personality conflicts, social differences, cliquishness and anything else that divides us and keeps us from accomplishing God's purpose for us.
Consider this
The lesson of the Tower of Babel (yesterday's devotion) teaches how pride can lead to division and ultimate failure. Think of an area in your life in which you are experiencing division with a sister or brother in Christ. Acknowledge specifically an incident or situation where you have failed in the area of relationship. Prayerfully examine how pride might be playing a role in the division.
If you become aware of a situation like this, confess your sin to God. And then seek out the brother or sister and ask forgiveness. Ask God to help you both to move ahead in reconciliation and unity.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for sometimes allowing pride or other wrong attitudes to lead to division with my brothers and sisters in Christ. Help me to do my part in walking in unity so that we all might be more effective witnesses for Jesus and accomplish what you have called us to do. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation by Donna Saunders, Ph.D. and Jean Leak, MS, RN. This 9-week study pursues the subject of race reconciliation. It shows that the foundational truth for the entire process is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
DIVINE REASONINGS OF FAITH
By
Oswald Chambers
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33
Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritually-minded of us - "But I must live; I must make so much money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly related to God first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things.
"Take no thought for your life. . . ." Our Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so anxious over the means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed - that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship to God the dominating concentration of his life, and to be carefully careless about every thing else in comparison to that. Jesus is saying - "Don't make the ruling factor of your life what you shall eat and what you shall drink, but be concentrated absolutely on God." Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to God first, and everything else second.
It is one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals May 22, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
The Next Generation
READ:
2 Timothy 2:1-13
The things that you have heard from me . . . , commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. -2 Timothy 2:2
A man who played double-bass in the Mexico City Philharmonic told me that the finest instruments are made of wood that has been allowed to age naturally to remove the moisture. "You must age the wood for 80 years, then play the instrument for 80 years before it reaches its best sound," said Luis Antonio Rojas. "A craftsman must use wood cut and aged by someone else, and he will never see any instrument reach its peak during his own lifetime."
Many important things in life are "next generation" matters-teaching, training, and parenting are among them. The apostle Paul invested himself in people whose spiritual influence would continue long after he was gone. He wrote to Timothy: "The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). Paul, Timothy, "faithful men," and "others" represent four spiritual generations built on the enduring foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Are we living only for today and the short term, or are we giving ourselves to others who will continue the faith after our race is run? Living for Christ and making disciples are all about the next generation.
- David C. McCasland
Day by day perform your mission,
With Christ's help keep at your tasks;
Be encouraged by His presence-
Faithfulness is all He asks. -Bosch
We influence future generations by living for Christ today.
Practiced Prayer by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 6:10
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.
Practiced Prayer
During the Revolutionary War, a soldier who had crawled into the brush was caught and accused of communicating with the enemy. His plea was that he had only gone in there to pray. The gruff commanding officer said, "Soldier, are you in the habit of spending hours in private prayer?" "Yes, sir," the private replied. "Then get down on your knees and pray now!" thundered the officer. Expecting soon to meet his Savior, the soldier prayed a simple yet inspired prayer. When he finished, however, the officer said, "You may go. I believe your story. If you had not been often at drill, you couldn't have done so well at review!"
Daniel was facing a similar crisis. His enemies had convinced King Darius to sign a decree making it a crime to pray to anyone but him for a period of 30 days. But Daniel also was no beginner at prayer. Long before he found himself in this major predicament, he had been in the habit of praying three times a day with his windows open toward Jerusalem. When this decree put his life in danger, it was only natural he would turn to prayer. Prayer got him into trouble, but prayer also would get him out.
For many people, prayer is something to do only during a critical situation. If you're in trouble, you pray; otherwise you leave God alone. But this is foolish. Only the person who has developed an aptitude for prayer during the mundane times of life is able to pray effectively in a crisis. It takes a lot of practice to perform well under pressure, even in prayer.
Don't wait until trouble comes before you pray. Make it a daily habit. Let your voice be so familiar to God that He won't have to ask, "Who's there?"
Prayer is for every day, not just for special occasions.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well." Romans 12:4-6 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Romans 12 teaches that various members of the body of Christ have special functions and gifts. This applies to us as individuals within the local church. Additionally, all Christian churches and ministries are a part of the Body of Christ. God has a function or purpose for each ministry and draws the people with the appropriate gifts to each one.
Picture the world as a gigantic mosaic with God as the Master Artist. Each piece of the mosaic has its own characteristics, designed especially for the spot God has called it to fill. As each ministry focuses on its calling and is guided by the Holy Spirit, God's plan will be accomplished.
In order for all of us together to accomplish God's plan most effectively, we need to work in unity-setting aside all jealousy and competition and remembering that we belong to each other. We need to respect each other's differences in doctrine, as long as all agree on the basic truths of the Gospel. We need to pray for each other and help each other.
Consider this
Always remember that your church or ministry is part of the entire Body of Christ, but God has a special plan just for you. You are one part of the Body. The part you play is not any less important-or more important-than any other part. As ministries in each community, in each country, and around the world work together and support each other, each one doing its own part, so much more can be done. Christ-centered unity will withstand the test of time and have the approval of God.
Prayer
Father, I pray that churches and ministries around the world will focus on you and will join more fully together in unity of purpose. Help us all to remember that we are one part of the Body of Christ and that we all belong together. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation by Donna Saunders, Ph.D. and Jean Leak, MS, RN. This 9-week study pursues the subject of race reconciliation. It shows that the foundational truth for the entire process is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
NOW THIS EXPLAINS IT
By
Oswald Chambers
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." John 17:21
If you are going through a solitary way, read John 17, it will explain exactly why you are where you are - Jesus has prayed that you may be one with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or have you some other end for your life? Since you became a disciple you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
The purpose of God is not to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God, and this is revealed in John 17. There is one prayer God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus - "that they may be one, even as We are One." Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?
God is not concerned about our plans; He does not say - Do you want to go through this bereavement; this upset? He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women; or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon our own way. The things that happen either make us fiends, or they make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship we are in to God. If we say - "Thy will be done," we get the consolation of John 17, the consolation of knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom. When we understand what God is after we will not get mean and cynical. Jesus has prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far off it, and yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him, because Jesus has prayed that we may be.
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God bless
Judy, what a great positive and uplifting way to start the day by reading your daily "Devotional for the Day". Myrna and I got to meet and have dinner with Bonnie and Bob Tuesday night, what a pleasure, they are really neat and pleasant people and both are very positive thinking people.
Frank Winn
Daily Devotionals May 23, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Heart Disease
READ: Zechariah 7:8-14
Do not harden your hearts. -Psalm 95:8
Pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars selling drugs that prevent hardening of the arteries, a condition that can lead to heart attacks, which kill thousands of people every year.
A more serious condition than hardening of the arteries, however, is hardening of the heart, and it cannot be prevented by any wonder drug. The prophet Zechariah warned the Israelites about it. They had hardened their hearts and refused to listen to the words of the Lord. Symptoms of this deadly condition were their refusal to execute true justice and their failure to show mercy and compassion (Zech. 7:9). As a result, the Lord became angry and stopped listening to them (v.13).
While it's important to keep plaque from forming in our arteries, it's even more important to keep our hearts from becoming callous to people who are important to God: widows, orphans, aliens, and the poor (v.10).
It's crucial to follow our doctor's orders to keep our arteries from hardening. But it's even more crucial to obey God to keep our hearts from becoming hardened to the needs of others.
Ask God to bring to mind a person who needs the help of someone with a soft heart.
- Julie Ackerman Link
If I can right a human wrong,
If I can help to make one strong,
If I can cheer with smile or song,
Lord, show me how. -Kleiser
To love Christ is to have a heart for others.
In the Eye of the Storm by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 6:21-23
Then Daniel said to the king, "O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you." Then the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in his God.
In the Eye of the Storm
Hurricanes are whirling storms that can measure several hundred miles in diameter. Their devastating winds begin to be clocked at 74 miles per hour and may exceed 150 miles per hour. Yet in the center of these storms is a space about 20 miles in diameter where everything is perfectly calm. Surrounded by roaring winds and heavy rains, the eye of the storm is a site of serenity and tranquility.
Daniel occupied such a spot. While confined in a den of lions, he was surrounded by a pride of hungry felines that would have liked nothing better than a good Kosher meal. Yet through the intervention of God's angels, Daniel had nothing to worry about. In the midst of a terrifying situation, he experienced God's perfect peace and calm.
The storms of life are bound to hit all of us at some point. The strong winds of adversity and the heavy rains of affliction show no respect for a person's age or circumstances. Yet in the midst of these trials, God offers to those who have placed their trust in His Son, Jesus Christ, a place of perfect peace and safety. Isaiah testifies, "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You" (Isa. 26:3).
If you feel like a hurricane is blowing through your life, a hurricane of debt, depression, disease or deprivation, look to God, who is able to keep you in its eye. Cast your cares upon Him, and He will provide a place of rest for your soul.
When you're in a storm, stay close to the eye.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love." Ephesians 4:11-13, 16 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The Church of Jesus Christ is God's antidote to the Tower of Babel because its unity is based in the person of Christ, not in the organization of man, or is it?
Today's scripture describes in some detail God's plan for the church. To get all the detail, read the entire fourth chapter of Ephesians. God calls for Christ-centered unity, not man-centered. Think about your church, and churches throughout the nation. Where is our focus?
Sometimes good intentions go awry and the focus shifts from Jesus to an over-emphasis on things like attendance and giving numbers , the style of music, using the latest programs, providing cutting edge props for the message ,using all the latest electronic techniques. Sometimes the ministry neglects reaching outside the church to touch the lost and hurting and focuses only on blessing.and entertaining the congregation.
Consider this
Consider your own church or ministry. Is it based in the person of Christ or in the organization of man? And consider your own life. Is Jesus your first consideration in all you do? Is he the greatest influence in your life, or has the world's influence become more important?
Prayer
Father, help us to stay focused on Jesus in all we do-both in the church and in our personal lives. Forgive me for drifting at times into the world's influence and neglecting yours. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation by Donna Saunders, Ph.D. and Jean Leak, MS, RN. This 9-week study pursues the subject of race reconciliation. It shows that the foundational truth for the entire process is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
CAREFUL INFIDELITY
By
Oswald Chambers
"Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on." Matthew 6:25
Jesus sums up common-sense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will press through and say - Now where does God come in in this relationship, in this mapped out holiday, in these new books? He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
"Take no thought . . ." don't take the pressure of forethought upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never any thing else that worries us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always. I will not trust where I cannot see, that is where infidelity begins. The only cure for infidelity is obedience to the Spirit.
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.
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God bless
Quote from: frawin on May 22, 2008, 08:10:36 AM
Judy, what a great positive and uplifting way to start the day by reading your daily "Devotional for the Day". Myrna and I got to meet and have dinner with Bonnie and Bob Tuesday night, what a pleasure, they are really neat and pleasant people and both are very positive thinking people.
Frank Winn
Thank you Frank,
There have been times when I wonder if I have I am helping anyone. Then I remember if I can just help one person find there way to peace and Grace than that is ok; plus it lets me be faithful in my reading................it is good for us.!!!
I had lunch with Bob and Bonnie yesterday and I always enjoy being with them. We play catch up and then they run and run and run.
I hope I can see them again, before they head off to Illinois.............they are super nice people.
Maybe some day you and I can meet.
Have a great day.
Judy
Judy, if you ever get to Bartlesville, call us we would like to meet you.
Frank
Daily Devotionals May 24, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Getting What You Want
READ: Luke 12:15,22-34
One's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. -Luke 12:15
There's a popular idea floating around about how to get whatever you want. It's called "the law of attraction." Just think and feel what you want to attract, and "the law will use people, circumstances, and events to magnetize what you want to you, and magnetize you to it." This positive-thinking philosophy teaches that the "energy" of your dominant thoughts "attracts" your circumstances.
You won't find that idea anywhere in the Bible! As believers, we have good reason to be positive in our thinking, but it's because our heavenly Father understands our needs and meets them. Because He cares for us, we don't have to be anxious (Luke 12:29-30). Life doesn't consist "in the abundance of the things [we possess]" (v.15), so we make it our aim instead to be "rich toward God" (v.21). We do that by seeking His kingdom and purpose (v.31) and by laying up treasures in heaven, not for ourselves in this life.
Jesus said, "Take heed and beware of covetousness" (v.15) because one day, like the rich fool in the parable in Luke 12, we will leave it all behind. That's when we'll have more than we ever dreamed of. In the meantime, God promises to care for our needs-no matter what the circumstances. And that's no secret.
- Anne Cetas
I know not by what methods rare
The Lord provides for me;
I only know that all my needs
He meets so graciously. -Adams
God has promised to supply all our needs, not all our wants.
You Can Depend on It by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 7:1?3
"In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts. Daniel spoke, saying, "I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other."
You Can Depend on It
The following statements are taken from official documents, newspapers and magazines widely read during their day. Listen to what the "authorities" had to say:
"Anyone traveling at the speed of thirty miles per hour would surely suffocate" (1840).
"Electric lights are unworthy of serious attention" (1878).
"No possible combination can be united into a practical machine by which men shall fly" (1901).
"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is basically impossible" (1926).
"To harness the energy locked up in matter is impossible" (1930).
It's obvious that the accuracy of all these "prophecies" left something to be desired. They were all based on human wisdom, and every one of them turned out to be false.
Yet the prophecies Daniel shared were quite different. As he foresaw the rise of these four great beasts, which represent four earthly kingdoms, he was not drawing from his own knowledge and wisdom. Instead, he was relating a vision that was given to him directly from God.
While people may disagree as to which kingdoms these beasts represent, the rock-solid assurance we have is that God is still in control. After describing these frightening apparitions, Daniel proceeded to describe a scene in heaven in which "the court shall be seated, and they shall take away his [the fourth and last beast's] dominion" (v. 26).
If you are frightened by the future, take confidence in this: God is still on His throne and He always will be. The courts of heaven are in session and they will rule in our favor (v. 27). That's something you can bank on.
Fear God and you don't need to fear the future.
Who is Your Enemy?
When George Whitefield arrived in Boston, one of that city's prominent ministers told him, "I am very sorry to see you come to Boston, Mr. Whitefield." The great evangelist replied, "So is the devil, sir."
There is a real enemy at work in our world. He is the same enemy that has been at work throughout the ages. He has sought to bring sorrow, heartache, and havoc to the hearts and minds of God's greatest saints, but he has not succeeded. Though many have faced extreme difficulty and stress-sometimes to the point of death-all have gained eternal victory because of the life and death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In his victorious hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Martin Luther reminds us that though we face a powerful enemy, we will not taste defeat.
And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him.
His rage we can endure;
For lo, his doom is sure.
One little word shall fell him
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also.
The body they may kill;
God's truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever.
The first step to defeating your enemy is to know your enemy. Know the truth about him. Also know the truth about his fate: He is a defeated foe!
Your enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.
1 Peter 5:8-9
Everybody wants to have good friends... but what kind of a friend are you? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Building on the Right Foundation." Download it today.
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By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
THE DELIGHT OF DESPAIR
By
Oswald Chambers
"And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." Revelation 1:17
It may be that like the apostle John you know Jesus Christ intimately, when suddenly He appears with no familiar characteristic at all, and the only thing you can do is to fall at His feet as dead. There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awfulness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair; if you are ever to be raised up, it must be by the hand of God.
"He laid His right hand upon me." In the midst of the awfulness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms," full of sustaining and comfort and strength. When once His touch comes, nothing at all can cast you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, and to say - "Fear not." His tenderness is ineffably sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Watch some of the things that strike despair. There is despair in which there is no delight, no horizon, no hope of anything brighter; but the delight of despair comes when I know that "in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." I delight to know that there is that in me which must fall prostrate before God when He manifests Himself, and if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I get to the limit of the possible.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 25, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Building Bridges
READ: Acts 9:17-27
Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. -Acts 9:27
A new believer recently attended our worship service. He had long, multicolored, spiked hair. He dressed in dark clothes and had multiple piercings and tattoos. Some gaped; others just gave him that "It's good to see you in church, but please don't sit next to me" smile. Yet there were some during the greeting time who went out of their way to welcome and accept him. They were bridge builders.
Barnabas was that bridge builder for Saul (also called Paul). When Saul arrived in Jerusalem 3 years after his conversion, many disciples were afraid of him and doubted his transformation (Acts 9:26). He didn't receive a warm welcome from the Jerusalem church greeters for good reason. Saul had a terrible reputation for persecuting Christians! But Barnabas, a Jewish convert, believed God's work of grace in Saul's life and became a bridge between him and the apostles (v.27).
Saul needed someone to come alongside him to encourage and teach him, and to introduce him to other believers. Barnabas was that bridge. As a result, Saul was brought into deeper fellowship with the disciples in Jerusalem and was able to preach the gospel there freely and boldly.
New believers need a Barnabas in their lives. We are to be a bridge in the lives of others.
- Kevin M. Williams
Oh, I would be to others
A cheering ray of light,
Inspiring them with courage
To climb some newfound height! -Bosch
Be a bridge of encouragement to someone today.
An Awesome God by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 7:9-10
I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire; a fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.
An Awesome God
Many things in creation are said to be awesome. The Grand Canyon could be described as awesome. The Pacific Ocean can instill a sense of awe. The sweeping mountain ranges of the Alps or the Himalayans or the Rockies inspire awe. But nothing is more awesome than God.
As Daniel turned from a vision of four frightening creatures, representing four powerful earthly empires, he saw a sight that put all these others things in their place. To counterbalance the awesomeness of these man-made kingdoms, he beheld the Ancient of Days, arrayed in garments of white, seated on a throne of fire and surrounded by innumerable worshipers. Suddenly, everything else became insignificant.
It's easy to become overwhelmed by earthly things. They may be awesome in beauty or size. They also may seem awesome in the sense of being threatening. Sometimes our problems are awesome. There are even days when the little tasks of life loom as awesome. At those times we need to step back and get a perspective on what real awesomeness is. We need a fresh view of God.
If you are feeling overawed by earthly things, take time out to worship God. Don't come to Him with your typical inventory of things you want or need. Leave behind your list of prayer requests for others. Instead, come before Him to seek His face alone. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you as He really is, and be prepared to be awed.
God is not just filled with some awe; He is awesome.
He Understands
by Max Lucado
I know I'd read that passage a hundred times. But I'd never seen it. Maybe I'd passed over it in the excitement of the resurrection.
But I won't miss it again. It's highlighted in yellow and underlined in red. You might want to do the same. Look in Mark, chapter 16. Read the first five verses about the women's surprise when they find the stone moved to the side. Then feast on that beautiful phrase spoken by the angel, "He is not here, he is risen," but don't pause for too long. Go a bit further. Get your pencil ready and enjoy this jewel in the seventh verse (here it comes). The verse reads like this: "But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
Did you see it? Read it again. (This time I italicized the words.)
"But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee."
Now tell me if that's not a hidden treasure.
What a line. It's as if all of heaven had watched Peter fall-and it's as if all of heaven wanted to help him back up again. "Be sure and tell Peter that he's not left out. Tell him that one failure doesn't make a flop."
Whew!
No wonder they call it the gospel of the second chance.
Not many second chances exist in the world today. Just ask the kid who didn't make the little league team or the fellow who got the pink slip or the mother of three who got dumped for a "pretty little thing."
Not many second chances. Nowadays it's more like, "It's now or never." "Around here we don't tolerate incompetence." "Not much room at the top." "Three strikes and you're out." "It's a dog-eat-dog world!"
Jesus has a simple answer to our masochistic mania. "It's a dog-eat-dog world?" he would say. "Then don't live with the dogs." That makes sense doesn't it? Why let a bunch of other failures tell you how much of a failure you are?
Sure you can have a second chance.
Just ask Peter. The message came loud and clear from the celestial Throne Room through the divine courier. "Be sure and tell Peter that he gets to bat again."
It's not every day that you get a second chance. Peter must have known that. The next time he saw Jesus, he got so excited that he barely got his britches on before he jumped into the cold water of the Sea of Galilee. It was also enough, so they say, to cause this backwoods Galilean to carry the gospel of the second chance all the way to Rome where they killed him. If you've ever wondered what would cause a man to be willing to be crucified upside down, maybe now you know.
It's not every day that you find someone who will give you a second chance-much less someone who will give you a second chance every day.
But in Jesus, Peter found both.
From No Wonder They Call Him the Savior
© (W Publishing Group, 1986, 2004) Max Lucado
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THE TEST OF SELF-INTEREST
By
Oswald Chambers
"If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." Genesis 13:9
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and luxurious prospects will open up before you, and these things are yours by right; but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God choose for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the right and proper thing to consider if you were not living a life of faith; but if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and leave God to choose for you. This is the discipline by means of which the natural is transformed into the spiritual by obedience to the voice of God.
Whenever right is made the guidance in the life, it will blunt the spiritual insight. The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. It would seem the wisest thing in the world for Abraham to choose, it was his right, and the people around would consider him a fool for not choosing. Many of us do not go on spiritually because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on God to choose for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eye on God. "Walk before Me."
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 26, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Gone The Sun
READ: Isaiah 60:17-22
Your sun shall no longer go down , . . . for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. -Isaiah 60:20
In 1862, during the US Civil War, General Daniel Butterfield wanted a new melody for "lights out." And so, without any musical training, he composed one in his head.
Years later, the general wrote, "I called in someone who could write music, and practiced a change in the call of 'Taps' until I had it suit my ear, and then . . . got it to my taste without being able to write music or knowing the technical name of any note, but, simply by ear, arranged it." General Butterfield gave the music to the brigade bugler, and the rest is history.
While there are no official lyrics to the hauntingly familiar strains of "Taps," here is a commonly accepted version of one verse:
Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
What a comforting lyric as faithful members of the military are laid to rest! And what hope in the acknowledgment that God is near, even-especially-in death!
At a time when death and evil reigned, the prophet Isaiah anticipated a day when death itself would die. "Your sun shall no longer go down," he wrote to Israel, "for the Lord will be Your everlasting light" (60:20).
For those who follow Jesus, the strains of "Taps" are not a funeral dirge but a song of hope. "The days of your mourning shall be ended" (v.20). All is well. God is nigh.
- Tim Gustafson
Sunset in one land is sunrise in another.
The Book of Books by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 9:1-2
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans?in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord, given through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
The Book of Books
John Wanamaker, an outstanding American businessman of the 19th century, put together one of the most successful careers of his time. When asked what he considered the best investment he ever made, he replied, "I have made large purchases of property in my lifetime involving millions of dollars. But when I was only 11 years old, I made my biggest purchase of all. From my teacher in a little mission Sunday school, I bought a small, red leather Bible. It cost me $2.75. I paid in small installments from my own money that I had earned." John Wanamaker knew the value of the Bible and he lived by it.
Daniel also knew the value of God's Word. While he was studying the "books" (among which was the Book of Jeremiah), he realized God had set a limit on Israel's captivity. While some assumed the Jewish people would never return to their homeland, Daniel discovered in Jeremiah that God had ordained a period of 70 years for the fulfillment of Israel's chastisement. What a joy and encouragement this must have been for the elderly prophet. God had not forsaken His people; Israel would flourish again as a nation.
Much of the Bible has similar solace for God's people. It offers words of comfort (John 14:1-3), joy (1 John 1:4), encouragement (Isa. 41:10) and instruction (Matt. 28:19-20). When we fail to make the Scriptures a daily part of our lives, we miss the greatest resource for living we have been given.
Are you wondering what to do with your life? Are you afraid and uncertain about the future? Are you troubled by guilt and regrets? The Bible has just what you need, answers. Purchasing a Bible is the best investment you'll ever make. Reading it is the best use of your time.
There are many books, but only one can change your life.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:13-14 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Abuse takes many forms, but it is always devastating. In the United States alone, three to four million women are battered each year by their husbands or partners. And children are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect. While three million reports of child abuse are made every year just in the United States, experts estimate that the actual number of incidents of abuse and neglect is three times greater than reported. While these are US figures, the problems exist around the world.
Abuse, whether physical or verbal, erodes confidence and self-esteem. We begin believing what we are told about ourselves; we think that anyone treated so violently and abusively must deserve it. These beliefs are often accepted early in life and become part of the initial screen through which all information is processed. Even if abuse occurs when we are older, the intensity of the experience makes it a formidable opponent to positive self-image.
Consider this
How do you see yourself? Is your self-image based on other people's words and actions toward you? Or is it based on the truth of God's Word? God knew you before you were even born. He created you and His works are wonderful.
This week we will be considering more about who we are in Christ. As we learn to let Jesus help us take our eyes off ourselves and begin the process of putting our eyes on him, he is able to heal us.
Prayer
Father, thank you for this reminder that you formed me and made me-and that your works are wonderful. I must admit, though, sometimes I don't feel as though I'm wonderful at all. In fact, sometimes I feel as though I don't deserve anything good. Help me to really grasp what Jesus did for me. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner, D.S.W. This study helps to minister to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships and is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
· Ministers to families from abusive relationships
· Ministers to victims of family violence
· Deals with wounded emotions
· Deals with control and intimacy issues
· Presents a strong message of Christ as healer of abusive relationships
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THINK AS JESUS TAUGHT
By Oswald Chambers
"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thessalonians 5:17
We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life. Beware of anything that stops ejaculatory prayer. "Pray without ceasing," keep the childlike habit of ejaculatory prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered. Have we by the Spirit the unspeakable certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when God does not seem to have answered prayer? "Every one that asketh receiveth." We say - "But . . . , but . . ." God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not always follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth while for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 27, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Can We Really Hear From God?
READ: 1 Kings 19:9-12
Be still, and know that I am God. -Psalm 46:10
A friend of mine who leads spiritual retreats once told me that not one person who has followed his regimen of a silent retreat has failed to hear from God. Intrigued and a bit skeptical, I signed up for a 5-day retreat. We had much free time and just a few requirements, such as the assignment to spend 2 hours praying each day.
I doubt I had devoted more than 30 minutes to prayer at any one session in my life. The first day I wandered to a meadow and sat against a tree. How long will I stay awake? I wondered. To my great fortune, a herd of 147 elk wandered into the very field where I was sitting. To watch 147 elk in their natural habitat is enthralling and, eventually, boring. Yet after a while the very placidity of the scene began to affect me. Over the next few days I said many words to God. I was turning 50, and I asked for guidance on how I should prepare my soul for the rest of life. Many things came to mind while sitting in a field for hours at a time. I had to agree that I had indeed heard from God.
When Elijah stood before the Lord on Mount Horeb, he didn't meet Him in the wind, earthquake, or fire. Rather, God spoke in a "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:11-12).
I'm more convinced than ever that God finds ways to communicate to those who truly seek Him-especially when we lower the volume of the surrounding static.
- Philip Yancey
Speak, Lord, in the stillness, while I wait on Thee;
Hushed my heart to listen, in expectancy. -Grimes
© 1951 Singspiration, Inc.
God speaks to those who are quiet before Him.
Corporate Guilt by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 9:4-5
And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments."
Corporate Guilt
American culture places a great deal of emphasis on the individual. Our heritage admires the hardy pioneer who single-handedly carved his farmstead from the wilderness. We have a sense of awe toward the lone gunman of the Wild West who tamed a lawless town. We take as our role model the rugged individualist who made it on his own in the business world. Therefore, we seldom stop to think that God holds us accountable not only for those things we do as individuals, but for the actions of others as well.
Daniel, however, understood very well this concept of corporate guilt. When he went before the Lord in prayer, it was not just a personal and individual matter; it was a group confession. He prayed, "We have done wickedly," "We have rebelled," "We have departed from Your precepts and Your judgments." Daniel personally had been very scrupulous to uphold God's standards. But he accepted his part in the corporate guilt of his people. He confessed national sin as if it were his own.
We may feel that it's unfair of God to hold us responsible for the sins of others. We aren't the ones having abortions, spreading pornography or dealing in drugs. Yet we are part of a group of people that is doing all these things, and much more. As a member of a society, we are responsible for the actions of our society and, in a sense, participate in its sin as well as share in its guilt.
As you pray today, confess your personal sins to God, but do more. See yourself as one who is responsible to confess the sins of your family, your church and your nation. Recognize that you are not only an individual but part of a corporate body.
Sin is everybody's responsibility.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation." Romans 5:8-9 NLT
Thoughts for Today
How do you see yourself?
We need to look at self-worth because we do not want to respond defensively to others and hurt them as we may have been hurt and because God does not want us to walk around feeling we are worthless and of no value. After all, he stretched out his arms and died for us, so he has already demonstrated how valuable we are to him.
If we base our self-worth on anything other than what God says about us, we will never feel good enough to please him because we are not. But Jesus is! And in him, so are we. Instead of focusing on ourselves and our failures and hurts, we need to focus on God's love for us his promises to us and who we are in Christ Jesus.
Consider this
Jesus loved you enough even before you knew him to die on the cross for your sins. You are precious to him.
If you have asked Jesus to forgive your sins and have made him Lord of your life, you are clothed in his righteousness. God looks at you and sees you cleansed and forgiven. You are special and he has a good plan for your life.
If you have not yet received Jesus, you can come to him right now. No matter what you have done. No matter what you think about yourself-or what anyone else thinks about you. God's love is more than enough. The power of the cross is more than enough. Say "yes" to Jesus and let him envelope you in his love and forgiveness.
Prayer
Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for forgiving me-and not condemning me. Help me to stop looking at my own failures and hurts and focus on your love for me and on who I am in Jesus. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner, D.S.W. This study helps to minister to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships and is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
· Ministers to families from abusive relationships
· Ministers to victims of family violence
· Deals with wounded emotions
· Deals with control and intimacy issues
· Presents a strong message of Christ as healer of abusive relationships
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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THE LIFE THAT LIVES
By
Oswald Chambers
"Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Luke 24:49
The disciples had to tarry until the day of Pentecost not for their own preparation only; they had to wait until the Lord was glorified historically. As soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." The parenthesis in John 7:39 ("For the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified") does not apply to us; the Holy Ghost has been given, the Lord is glorified; the waiting depends not on God's providence, but on our fitness.
The Holy Spirit's influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Immediately Our Lord was glorified in Ascension, the Holy Spirit came into this world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revelation that He is here. The reception of the Holy Spirit is the maintained attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive quickening life from the ascended Lord.
It is not the baptism of the Holy Ghost which changes men, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into men's lives by the Holy Ghost that changes them. We too often divorce what the New Testament never divorces. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ: it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost does not make you think of Time or Eternity, it is one amazing glorious NOW. "This is life eternal that they might know Thee." Begin to know Him now, and finish never.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 28, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Are We Listening?
READ: Psalm 119:41-48
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. -James 1:22
A fascinating film made in 1950, The Next Voice You Hear, tells a story of a family with a typical amount of trials and tensions. Then, one night, the voice of God speaks on the radio. But not just their radio-God's voice is heard throughout the world on every radio, saying the same thing at the same time.
At first people react with disbelief, then fear. After several days of hearing "The Voice," however, people's attitudes, actions, and priorities begin to change. The impact of what God is saying directly affects how they live their lives.
I have heard people say, "If only God would talk to me! If He would just tell me what to do, I would do it." The simple fact is that God has already spoken to us through His Word, the Bible. Do we listen to Him as He speaks?
The psalmist desired to obey God's Word "continually, forever and ever" (119:44). And James warned about ignoring it when he said, "Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22).
How would you respond if God began to speak to you on your radio? We can be thankful that God does speak to us-not on the radio but in the Scriptures. May we be wise enough to listen and obey.
- Bill Crowder
Instill within my heart, dear Lord,
A deep desire to know Your Word;
I want to learn to hear Your voice
So that Your will becomes my choice. -D. De Haan
In God's works we see His hand; in His Word we hear His heart.
Humble Prayer by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 10:12
Then he said to me, "Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words."
Humble Prayer
A young seminary graduate stepped up to the pulpit, very self-confident and immaculately dressed. He began to deliver his first sermon in his first church. There was a problem, however. The words simply would not come out. Finally, he burst into tears and left the platform obviously humbled. Two elderly women were sitting in the front row. One remarked to the other, "If he'd come in like he went out, he would have gone out like he came in."
What's true of preaching is also true of praying. When the messenger from God arrived to speak with Daniel, he assured the prophet that God had responded to his prayers because Daniel had set his heart to understand and to humble himself before his God. Daniel's spirit of humility made him a powerful force with God. As Proverbs reminds us, "Surely He scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble" (Prov. 3:34; cf. James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5).
A vital key to effective prayer is a humble spirit. Prayer moves the hand of God, but it must be humble prayer. We cannot enter God's presence with a list of demands or a detailed plan that we only want Him to bless. Instead, we must go with open hearts and open hands ready to receive whatever He knows is best for us. We must bow humbly before Him, willing to place ourselves at His disposal to meet His will, whatever that may be. That's the type of attitude that gets God's attention and response.
Consider your attitude in prayer. If you go with a grocery list to be filled or a sense that God somehow owes you an answer, you'll likely come away empty-handed. But if you come to Him recognizing that you do so only by His grace, unworthy to stand before His throne, and yet privileged to come through Christ, then you are ready to pray. Attitude is everything.
Only the humble can get God's ear.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Perhaps you have suffered abuse from a parent or spouse or another "trusted" person. Maybe you have suffered a traumatic personal loss. Or perhaps you have made some poor choices and are suffering the consequences.
God promises that despite all these things, you can have overwhelming victory through Christ. Come to him for help and forgiveness. If you do, nothing ,absolutely nothing,can separate you from his love.
Consider this
Sometimes it is easy to look at scriptures about God's love and think, Yes, God loves all people. But in our innermost being we don't include ourselves in the "all people." We think I'm different I'm just not good enough.That's alright for other people, but I've made too many mistakes. It's too late for me.
But God's Word makes it abundantly clear that you are included. No matter what you have done. No matter what other people say or think about you. No matter what you think about yourself. God loves you. Jesus died for you. Nothing will ever separate you from his love. And as you walk with Jesus, you can have overwhelming victory over every problem and obstacle in your life. The problems might still be there the obstacles may still come. But you won't have to face them alone and Jesus will give you the strength to overcome.
Prayer
Lord, thank you that these promises are not just for other people but they are really for me. Thank you for your unconditional love. Thank you that no matter what has happened in the past or comes my way in the future, I can walk in victory through Jesus.
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner, D.S.W. This study helps to minister to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships and is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
· Ministers to families from abusive relationships
· Ministers to victims of family violence
· Deals with wounded emotions
· Deals with control and intimacy issues
· Presents a strong message of Christ as healer of abusive relationships
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
UNQUESTIONED REVELATION
By Oswald Chambers
"And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing." John 16:23
When is "that day"? When the Ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. In that day you will be one with the Father as Jesus is, and "in that day," Jesus says, "ye shall ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is manifested in you, you want to ask this and that; then after a while you find all questions gone, you do not seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the place of entire reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus which brings you into perfect contact with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why shouldn't you?
There may be any number of things dark to your understanding, but they do not come in between your heart and God. "And in that day ye shall ask Me no question" - you do not need to, you are so certain that God will bring things out in accordance with His will. John 14:1 has become the real state of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong. When once your disposition is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, the understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will get to the place where there is no distance between the Father and His child because the Lord has made you one, and "in that day ye shall ask Me no question."
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God bless
Daily Devotionals May 29, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Finally Home
READ: John 14:1-6
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. -John 14:3
Jan and Hendrikje Kasper sailed into United States waters in January 1957. Their family of 12, along with other Dutch immigrants on board the Grote Beer, crowded on deck to catch their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
That initial view of Lady Liberty was exciting-and emotional. They had just endured an arduous 11-day journey across the sea on a no-frills voyage. They had left many friends and family members behind in The Netherlands. They had experienced rough seas brought on by a hurricane and had dealt with seemingly endless seasickness. But now-finally-they had arrived. They were home!
Someday those of us who have trusted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior will leave this life and go to the place He has prepared for us (John 14:3). The journey may be difficult or uncomfortable, but we certainly look forward to the final destination.
Composer Don Wyrtzen wrote the music for a wonderful song that pictures our earthly life as a "tempestuous sea." It ends with these words:
Just think of stepping on shore-and finding it heaven!
Of touching a hand-and finding it God's!
Of breathing new air-and finding it celestial!
Of waking up in glory-and finding it home!
When we see Jesus face to face for the first time-we will be "finally home."
- Cindy Hess Kasper
Those who love and serve God on earth will be right at home in heaven.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We are valuable to God. How could he have expressed his love for us any more than to send his only Son to die so that we might have life.
Focusing on these scriptures-and others like them-can remind you who you are in Christ Jesus
You are forgiven. 1 John 1:9
You have been made right in God's sight. Romans 5:1
You are righteous. 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3:26
You are loved. 1 John 3:1, 1 John 4:10
You are a member of God's family. Ephesians 2:19
You are known by God. Matthew 10:30
You are God's child. Romans 8:14
You are an overcomer. 1 John 5:3-5
You are his masterpiece-designed for a purpose. Ephesians 2:10
Consider this
Have other people said or done things that make it hard for you to see yourself as God sees you? You can't do anything right. You are ugly. You are stupid. You will never amount to anything. Or maybe you won't forgive yourself for past failures or sins.
Bring all the self-doubt and self-condemnation to Jesus. Receive his forgiveness and then walk tall. Meditate on scriptures like these that tell you how important you are to God. How much he loves you. How complete forgiveness in Jesus really is. And what great plans he has for you.
Prayer
Father, thank you for your great love for me. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you that I am special to you. Help me to view myself not as others do, not from my own perspective, but the way you see me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner, D.S.W. This study helps to minister to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships and is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
· Ministers to families from abusive relationships
· Ministers to victims of family violence
· Deals with wounded emotions
· Deals with control and intimacy issues
· Presents a strong message of Christ as healer of abusive relationships
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
UNDISTURBED RELATIONSHIP
By
Oswald Chambers
"At that day ye shall ask in My name . . ." "The Father Himself loveth you." John 16:26, 27
"At that day ye shall ask in My name," i.e., in My nature. Not - "You shall use My name as a magic word," but - "You will be so intimate with Me that you will be one with Me." "That day" is not a day hereafter, but a day meant for here and now. "The Father Himself loveth you" - the union is so complete and absolute. Our Lord does not mean that life will be free from external perplexities, but that just as He knew the Father's heart and mind, so by the baptism of the Holy Ghost He can lift us into the heavenly places where He can reveal the counsels of God to us.
"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name. . . ." "That day" is a day of undisturbed relationship between God and the saint. Just as Jesus stood unsullied in the presence of His Father, so by the mighty efficacy of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, we can be lifted into that relationship - "that they may be one, even as We are One."
"He will give it you." Jesus says that God will recognize our prayers. What a challenge! By the Resurrection and Ascension power of Jesus, by the sent-down Holy Ghost, we can be lifted into such a relationship with the Father that we are at one with the perfect sovereign will of God by our free choice even as Jesus was. In that wonderful position, placed there by Jesus Christ, we can pray to God in His name, in His nature, which is gifted to us by the Holy Ghost, and Jesus says - "What soever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you." - The sovereign character of Jesus Christ is tested by His own statements.
Powerful Prayer by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 10:13-14
"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision refers to many days yet to come."
Powerful Prayer
The English poet and hymn writer William Cowper wrote: Restraining prayer, we cease to fight:
Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright;
And Satan trembles when he sees,
The weakest saint upon his knees. Cowper rightly recognized that Satan fears the prayers of God's people more than anything else. Prayer is often described as simply "talking to God," and that's true. But it's also an act of spiritual warfare. When we pray, we are invading Satan's territory. Through prayer we can defeat the plans of the Devil and bring about events that will glorify God. These are not situations that Satan takes lightly. He will oppose sincere prayer every way he can. As you bow to pray, recognize that you are undertaking serious business, not just having a little chat with a good friend. You are engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a mortal enemy and crashing through his strongholds to enter the throne room of God. That's an incredible privilege. Don't take it lightly.
Prayer is not a playground; it's a battlefield.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals May 30, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
From Here To Heaven
READ: Ephesians 2:1-10
We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. -Ephesians 2:10
Pro athletes and coaches sometimes get something for nothing. Let's say a coach signs a 3-year contract, and the team agrees to pay him $1 million a year. But in his first season, the team is terrible and management fires him. So, the coach leaves but still has 2 more years of pay coming to him. He gets the next $2 million without doing a thing.
We as Christians have to be careful that we don't view our saving faith like that. We must never think, "Hey, I'm saved. I've got eternal riches coming my way. I don't have to do anything for God."
That's partially right but very wrong. In one regard, our journey from here to heaven is paid for in full by Jesus' sacrifice. There's nothing we can do to earn salvation. But there's another part of this that we must consider.
In Ephesians 2:8-9, after Paul clearly says that we do not have to "do" anything and that salvation is a "gift of God," he goes on. Verse 10 says we indeed have a job to do. As believers, we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works." God has tasks planned for us to do while we are on this earth-not to pay our debt but to honor our Savior.
Life from here to heaven is not a vacation cruise-it's a wonderful privilege and calling to serve God.
- Dave Branon
Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas? -Watts
We are not saved by good works but for good works.
Willing or Not by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 12:2
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Willing or Not
In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave covered with huge slabs of granite and marble and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. In time, however, a seed began to grow and push its way out from beneath the slabs. As the trunk enlarged, the stones were gradually shifted and the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. But the dynamic life force contained in that little seed is only a faint reflection of the tremendous power of God's creative word that someday will call to life the bodies of all who are in their graves. Willing or not, they will be resurrected.
A messenger from God revealed this same truth to Daniel. As this angelic messenger opened the door to the hallway of time, he revealed to the prophet many things: the rise and fall of various kingdoms, the invasion of the army from the North and, ultimately, the resurrection of the dead. For those who are prepared, whose names are written in the Book of Life, it is a resurrection to everlasting life. For those unprepared, it is a resurrection to everlasting shame and contempt.
This Old Testament message is also echoed throughout the New Testament. The apostle Paul declared that "the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thess. 4:16), while the apostle John saw the dead who were "judged, each one according to his works" (Rev. 20:13).
There is no way that you can avoid the resurrection, but you can be ready for it. Make sure that your name is written in the Book of Life. If you haven't done so already, receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and be ready and willing for what is sure to come.
Only a fool fails to prepare for what he knows is coming.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Philippians 3:12-14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
As we come to Jesus and begin to understand who we are in him, it is time to learn from the past, put it behind and move on ahead. Paul makes it clear in today's scripture that he is on a journey. He knows he is not perfect, but he determines to forget the past and reach forward-to become all Jesus wants him to be. He is moving the right direction-toward Jesus-and he is not turning back.
That's where we need to be too. On a journey to Jesus, to accomplishing his purpose for us. If we try to drag the hurts and mistakes of the past along with us on the journey, our progress will be slowed or come to a stop altogether. We need to give all that to Jesus and receive his healing and forgiveness. We need to keep our eyes on him and run forward.
Consider this
Are you dragging baggage along as you try to move ahead with Jesus? Painful memories of abuse or other hurts. Unforgiveness. Condemnation. If you have made Jesus Lord of your life, it is time to put all those things behind. You have been made right in God's sight. You are his child. You are his masterpiece, designed for a purpose.
Join the apostle Paul in putting the past behind and moving forward along the marvelous path God has set before you. He has a good plan for you. Press on!
Prayer
Father, thank you for your healing and forgiveness. Help me to truly leave my hurts and failures in the past and keep my eyes on Jesus as I move forward along the path you have for me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner, D.S.W. This study helps to minister to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships and is recommended for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
· Ministers to families from abusive relationships
· Ministers to victims of family violence
· Deals with wounded emotions
· Deals with control and intimacy issues
· Presents a strong message of Christ as healer of abusive relationships
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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"YES - BUT . . . !"
By Oswald Chambers
"Lord, I will follow Thee; but . . ." Luke 9:61
Supposing God tells you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense, what are you going to do? Hang back? If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physical domain, you will do it every time until you break the habit determinedly; and the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will get up to what Jesus Christ wants, and every time you will turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely. "Yes, but - supposing I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?" "Yes, I will obey God if He will let me use my common sense, but don't ask me to take a step in the dark." Jesus Christ demands of the man who trusts Him the same reckless sporting spirit that the natural man exhibits. If a man is going to do anything worth while, there are times when he has to risk everything on his leap, and in the spiritual domain Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold by common sense and leap into what He says, and immediately you do, you find that what He says fits on as solidly as common sense. At the bar of common sense Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad; but bring them to the bar of faith, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit that they are the words of God. Trust entirely in God, and when He brings you to the venture, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.
God bless
Daily Devotionals May 31, 2008
A time for revival! Won't you join The Gospel Hiway as we pray daily for a time of great revival in this world. All we ask is that you pray, ask your friends, pastors, and churches to pray. Our world is in need of great revival and is has to start somewhere, let it begin here.
Speeding Ticket
READ: Romans 3:9-20
There is none righteous, no, not one. -Romans 3:10
I had been driving in Singapore for 34 years when I received my first summons for speeding! It was not the first time I had exceeded the speed limit, but it was the first time I had been fined for doing so.
My first reaction was one of disgust. But as I contemplated the spiritual lesson, I realized that no matter how long I had been driving without a ticket, I was still accountable.
If I can break such a clearly defined law as a speed limit, think how easy it is to break God's perfect law, which covers every aspect of life. No one, no matter how moral or religiously fervent, can keep it perfectly.
Paul wrote, "By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). Keeping the law can't save us; rather, through the law we become aware of our sin (3:7-12). That's why God sent His Son to save us. We need the righteousness of Jesus, because we can't be justified through our good deeds. Paul concluded, we are "justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law" (v.28).
If you have put your faith in Christ, you can say with Paul, "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin" (Rom. 4:7-8).
- C. P. Hia
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued? -Wesley
God's law shows us a need that only God's grace can supply.
God's Stars by Woodrow Kroll
Daniel 12:3
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.
God's Stars
We are enamored with stars. When Robert Redford was in Santa Fe making a movie, a woman encountered him in an ice cream parlor on Canyon Street. Overcome with awe on the inside, she tried to stay calm on the outside. After leaving the ice cream parlor, however, she realized that she didn't have the ice cream cone she had paid for. Hurriedly she returned to the shop to ask for it. Redford, overhearing the conversation, quietly said, "Madam, you'll probably find it where you put it, in your purse."
God also has stars, but they seldom get the reactions that people like Robert Redford do, at least in this world. Yet God's messenger told Daniel that those "who turn many to righteousness" will shine like the stars for all of eternity. Earthly stars from stage and screen fade away and are forgotten by later generations, but God's stars are eternal.
Righteousness in its simplest form is having a "right relationship" with God. Those who have that right relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and share with others how they may have such a relationship are God's brightest stars. It's not a matter of being rich or famous. It's not necessary to be on television or in the movies. You don't even have to have a well-known name. All you need to do is share Jesus Christ with others.
Do you want to be a star for God? Do you want to shine forever? Then commit yourself to sharing Christ with others. Find a Gospel tract and become familiar enough with it that you can share it with someone else. Write the story of how you came to know Christ. Ask God to give you the opportunity to share that testimony with others. Let your light shine, and God will make you a star.
Earthly fame is fleeting; God's stars shine forever.
Your Enemy is Deceitful
There is an underhanded way to sell products called the bait-and-switch method. Here is how it works: A retailer entices a person to purchase an item. Yet when the consumer gets ready to buy the product, he is told that there are no more in inventory.
Immediately, the deceptive retailer tries to sell the consumer another product that is inferior to the one first offered. If the consumer buys it, the retailer makes a handsome profit, while the customer is swindled.
In the same way, false teachers use biblical words to capture attention and gain the trust of someone seeking Jesus Christ. They use trusted terms to lure people away from the salvation message of Jesus Christ. Essentially, they are the masters of the bait-and-switch method.
Deception is a principal tool used by the enemy. Names such as devil and Satan are significant words because they mean "deceiver" and "slanderer."
Like the false teachers in the New Testament, those who seek to deceive us through misguided religious interpretation have one goal, and that is to keep us from establishing an intimate relationship with the Lord. Satan directs them because he wants to deceive us into believing there is another way to know God other than the one God has given us through Jesus Christ.
It has been said that Satan is not fighting churches, he is joining them! He can do more harm by sowing tares than by pulling up wheat. How do you become spiritually "in tune" to God? Ask Him to make you sensitive to His voice. Refuse to listen to or to spend time with ideologies that do not line up with the Word of God.
Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name (Luke 21:8).
Everybody wants to have good friends... but what kind of a friend are you? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Building on the Right Foundation." Download it today.
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GOD FIRST
By Oswald Chambers
Put God First in Trust. "Jesus did not commit Himself unto them . . . for He knew what was in man." John 2:24-25
Our Lord trusted no man; yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man, because He put God first in trust; He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for any man. If I put my trust in human beings first, I will end in despairing of everyone; I will become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be - absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else.
Put God's Needs First. "Lo, I come to do Thy will, 0 God." Hebrews 10:9
A man's obedience is to what he sees to be a need; Our Lord's obedience was to the will of His Father. The cry to-day is - "We must get some work to do; the heathen are dying without God; we must go and tell them of Him." We have to see first of all that God's needs in us personally are being met. "Tarry ye until. . . ." The purpose of this College is to get us rightly related to the needs of God. When God's needs in us have been met, then He will open the way for us to realize His needs elsewhere.
Put God's Trust First. "And whoso receiveth one such little child in my name receiveth Me." Matthew 18:5
God's trust is that He gives me Himself as a babe. God expects my personal life to be a "Bethlehem." Am I allowing my natural life to be slowly transfigured by the indwelling life of the Son of God? God's ultimate purpose is that His Son might be manifested in my mortal flesh.
God Bless
Sorry this is late. Got a late start with the rain and storms in the area. God's blessing to you! Judy
Daily Devotionals June 1, 2008
Chums
READ: Colossians 1:3-8
We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. -Colossians 1:3
In 19th-century England, debtors' prison housed those unfortunate souls who couldn't pay their bills. New prisoners were escorted to the "chummage," a prison dormitory. Since the people were not there for violent crimes, a spirit of trust and camaraderie soon developed. They played games together and had plenty to eat. Some were even allowed private rooms.
In time, the prisoners began to refer to each other as "chums." Later, the word caught on outside the prison walls and took on the meaning of "a cordial friend."
Deep bonds of friendship also take place in Christian ministry. Those who worked alongside Paul were not strangers to persecution and imprisonment. But a common mission created a deep sense of connectedness. In his letter to the believers in Colosse, Paul called Epaphras a "fellow servant" (1:7). The term can be paraphrased as "together slave" or "one who serves the same master with another."
When believers live under the lordship of Christ, they can see their lives intertwined in service. By serving as slaves to Christ, a spiritual camaraderie results that transcends being "chums." And that special relationship will continue on into eternity!
- Dennis Fisher
Working together with others,
Serving the Lord day or night,
Telling the story of Jesus
Promises endless delight. -Hess
Christians stand strong when they stand together.
The Trouble Within by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 1:18
"Come now, and let us reason together," says the Lord, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
The Trouble Within
A pastor discovered that the clock at the back of the sanctuary was unable to keep the correct time. Repeatedly he set the hands to the appropriate hour and minute only to find by the next week that it was either too fast or too slow. Finally he gave up and hung a sign above the clock that read, "Don't blame my hands. The trouble lies deeper."
That is where the trouble lies with us when we do wrong. We can blame our environment, our education, or even our parents, but the real trouble lies deep within our own hearts. Jesus said, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matt. 15:19).
Fortunately, God has provided a solution for that heart problem, the blood of Jesus Christ. Even the most crimson sin is washed away when the blood of Calvary's cross is applied. The apostle John wrote, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). And the writer of Hebrews says, "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:13-14).
God assures you that no matter how colorful your sins may be, they can be washed white like snow. If you're still struggling with how to be cleansed from your sin and forgiven by God, accept what the Bible says as true. Confess your sins, ask for your heavenly Father's forgiveness and begin to live with a pure heart and a clear conscience. The difference is as striking as crimson and white.
Scarlet sins are no match for Christ's blood.
Open Arms
by Max Lucado
If you ever wonder how in the world God could use you to change the world, look at the people God used to change history. A ragbag of ne'er-do-wells and has-beens who found hope, not in their performance, but in God's proverbially open arms.
Abraham- God took what was good and forgave what was bad and used "old forked tongue" to start a nation. Moses- would you call upon a fugitive to carry the Ten Commandments? God did. David- his track record left little to be desired, but his repentant spirit was unquestionable. Jonah- God put him in a whale's belly to bring him back to his senses. But even the whale couldn't stomach this missionary for too long.
On and on the stories go: Elijah, the prophet who pouted; Solomon, the king who knew too much; Jacob, the wheeler-dealer; Gomer, the prostitute; Sarah, the woman who giggled at God. One story after another of God using man's best and overcoming man's worst.
The reassuring lesson is clear. God used (and uses!) people to change the world. People! Not saints or superhumans or geniuses, but people. Crooks, creeps, lovers, and liars-he uses them all. And what they may lack in perfection, God makes up for in love.
Jesus later summarized God's stubborn love with a parable. He told about a teenager who decided that life at the farm was too slow for his tastes. So with pockets full of inheritance money, he set out to find the big time. What he found instead were hangovers, fair-weather friends, and long unemployment lines. When he had had just about as much of the pig's life as he could take, he swallowed his pride, dug his hands deep into his empty pockets, and began the long walk home; all the while rehearsing a speech that he planned to give to his father.
He never used it. Just when he got to the top of the hill, his father, who'd been waiting at the gate, saw him. The boy's words of apology were quickly muffled by the father's words of forgiveness. And the boy's weary body fell into his father's opened arms.
The same open arms welcomed him that had welcomed Abraham, Moses, David, and Jonah. No wagging fingers. No clenched fists. No "I told you so!" slaps or "Where have you been?" interrogations. No crossed arms. No black eyes or fat lips. No. Only sweet, open arms. If you ever wonder how God can use you to make a difference in your world, just look at those he has already used and take heart. Look at the forgiveness found in those open arms and take courage.
And, by the way, never were those arms opened so wide as they were on the Roman cross. One arm extending back into history and the other reaching into the future. An embrace of forgiveness offered for anyone who'll come. A hen gathering her chicks. A father receiving his own. A redeemer redeeming the world.
No wonder they call him the Savior.
From No Wonder They Call Him the Savior
© (W Publishing Group, 1986, 2004) Max Lucado
THE STAGGERING QUESTION
By Oswald Chambers
"Son of man, can these bones live?" Ezekiel 37:3
Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: "O Lord, Thou knowest, I don't." Never trample in with religious common sense and say - "Oh, yes, with a little more Bible reading and devotion and prayer, I see how it can be done."
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration. That is why there are so few fellow workers with God and so many workers for Him. We would far rather work for God than believe in Him. Am I quite sure that God will do what I cannot do? I despair of men in the degree in which I have never realized that God has done anything for me. Is my experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never despair of anyone I see? Have I had any spiritual work done in me at all? The degree of panic is the degree of the lack of personal spiritual experience.
"Behold, O my people, I will open your graves." When God wants to show you what human nature is like apart from Himself, He has to show it you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He only does it when His Spirit is at work), you know there is no criminal who is half so bad in actuality as you know yourself to be in possibility. My "grave" has been opened by God and "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." God's Spirit continually reveals what human nature is like apart from His grace.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 2, 2008
Risky Business
READ: Matthew 8:23-27
He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. -Matthew 8:26
Denis Boyles knew it would be challenging to interview a man on a roller coaster-especially when the interview took place during an attempt to set a world's record for continuous riding. After several times around the track, Denis was so overcome with fear he could hardly talk.
Then the man showed him how to use his body and feet to lean into the loops, twists, and turns. Writing in AARP Magazine, Boyles explained how that took away the terror. It also taught him a lesson about risk and fear. The roller coaster felt risky though it was quite safe. But driving his car to the amusement park posed a far greater risk of injury. Risk and fear are easily confused.
As Jesus and His disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee, a storm came up and waves swept over their boat. Incredibly, Jesus was asleep. The disciples woke Him and said, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!" (Matt. 8:25). In a gentle rebuke, Jesus asked, "'Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?' Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm" (v.26).
Like the disciples, the more we learn about Jesus, the more we trust Him. Our greatest risk is failing to depend on Him when life seems out of control.
- David C. McCasland
But we see Jesus! Oh, what peace!
What balm for troubled heart!
His very name brings rest and calm
And bids the fears depart! -Adams
Keep your eyes on Jesus and you'll soon lose sight of your fears.
A Great Day Coming by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 2:4
He shall judge between the nations, and shall rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
A Great Day Coming
Peace has always been an elusive prospect. The Columbia Dispatch reported in 1993 that cable TV mogul Ted Turner funded a competition to find a book that gave a workable plan for world peace. Turner said he wanted to see if anybody had a real vision of a future world at peace and harmony. His quest ended in disappointment. He told an Atlanta gathering of news contributors to his Cable News Network's "World Report" that, "With 10,000 manuscripts, we did not have one plausible treatise on how we could get to a sustainable, peaceful future."
Apparently no one thought to check the Book of Isaiah. Here, God reveals that there is a day coming when wars will cease. This will not be the result of any plan proposed by the wisdom of man; it will come, instead, through the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 20:1-3 foretells the imprisonment of Satan so that he "should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished" (v. 3). During that time, the world will finally experience the peace it desperately needs. True peace can only come when the Prince of Peace brings it (Isa. 9:6).
We don't have to wait that long, however, to experience personal peace. That's available to you right now. When you trust Jesus Christ as Savior, you can have peace with God in your life immediately. The Bible says, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1).
World peace is a wonderful goal and it will be a great day when it happens, but personal peace right now is even greater. Peace among all the nations of the world will last only while Satan is imprisoned (Rev. 20:7-8). Our peace with God, on the other hand, will last forever (Ps. 16:11; 1 Thess. 4:17).
There has to be peace in the heart before there can be peace in the world.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
" For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her." Ephesians 5:25 NLT (Also read Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Peter 3:7, Colossians 3:19)
Thoughts for Today
In God's design for the family, each family member has a role to fulfill. The analogy of Christ and the church helps us understand God's plan for the husband in the marriage and family relationship. Christ's role as head of the church is the guideline for the husband's role and responsibility to his wife. The husband's primary responsibility to his wife is love, not dictatorship.
Through the years teaching about the husband's role has sometimes been distorted, giving him the right to rule with no apparent responsibility. Jesus loved the church (all of us) enough to die for us. The husband's love for his wife should be giving and sacrificial. His role of love and leadership provides the framework for family relationships-it is so important that he follow Christ's example of love and giving in fulfilling this awesome responsibility.
Consider this
This week we will be taking a look at some of the things the Bible has to say about family roles. Understanding these scriptures can help us be better marriage partners-and parents. It can also help us stay on an even keel when popularized teaching on Christian marriage gets out of balance.
Prayer Father, help me to understand my role in marriage and to be a better marriage partner. (men) Help me to love my wife in a totally unselfish way and to be wise in my family leadership role. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
WHAT ARE YOU HAUNTED BY?
By Oswald Chambers
What man is he that feareth the Lord?" Psalm 25:12
What are you haunted by? You will say - By nothing, but we are all haunted by something, generally by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our experience. The Psalmist says we are to be haunted by God. The abiding consciousness of the life is to be God, not thinking about Him. The whole of our life inside and out is to be absolutely haunted by the presence of God. A child's consciousness is so mother-haunted that although the child is not consciously thinking of its mother, yet when calamity arises, the relationship that abides is that of the mother. So we are to live and move and have our being in God, to look at everything in relation to God, because the abiding consciousness of God pushes itself to the front all the time.
If we are haunted by God, nothing else can get in, no cares, no tribulation, no anxieties. We see now why Our Lord so emphasized the sin of worry. How can we dare be so utterly unbelieving when God is round about us? To be haunted by God is to have an effective barricade against all the onslaughts of the enemy.
"His soul shall dwell at ease." In tribulation, misunderstanding, slander, in the midst of all these things, if our life is hid with Christ in God, He will keep us at ease. We rob ourselves of the marvellous revelation of this abiding companionship of God. "God is our Refuge" - nothing can come through that shelter.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 3, 2008
The Search For Justice
READ: Ecclesiastes 3:14-22
I saw under the sun: In the place of judgment, wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, iniquity was there. -Ecclesiastes 3:16
A trial has just ended, and the reactions to the verdict could not be more different. The family of the alleged murderer celebrates the declaration of a mistrial due to a legal technicality. Meanwhile, the grieving parents whose daughter has died wonder about a justice system that would allow such a decision. As they stand weeping before a mass of microphones and cameras, they exclaim: "Where is the justice in this? Where is the justice?"
We've seen this scenario played out in the news or on TV crime dramas. We instinctively long for justice but cannot seem to find it. The wisest man of his day, Solomon, faced a similar frustration and disappointment. He saw that imperfect human beings could never administer perfect justice. He wrote: "I saw under the sun: In the place of judgment, wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, iniquity was there" (Eccl. 3:16).
If all we trusted in were imperfect people, we would lose all hope. But Solomon wisely added in verse 17: "God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work."
The search for justice can be satisfied only by trusting the God who is always just.
- Bill Crowder
Though sin seems to triumph and wrong conquers right,
Though lies can put justice to flight,
God's truth is eternal, His Word shows His might,
And He will bring justice to light. -Gustafson
Someday the scales of justice will be perfectly balanced.
Tampering With The Contents by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Tampering With the Contents
On February 8, 1986, a Peekskill, New York, woman took a Tylenol capsule she had purchased at the local supermarket. Unknown to her, the bottle had been tampered with and the contents were contaminated with a lethal dose of potassium cyanide. Instead of helping her as she expected, the medicine took her life. Johnson and Johnson, the manufacturers of Tylenol, responded by removing the product from store shelves and reissuing the drug in caplet form contained in tamper-resistant bottles. These actions, however, could not alleviate the pain and grief of this woman's loved ones.
Millions of people have turned to the Bible to find relief from the pain of sin. Some, unfortunately, have not found the relief they sought. Instead they discover that people and churches have tampered with the words of Scripture, changing and adding to their meaning?even making what God says is evil appear to be good. For example, homosexuality is not a sin (Rom. 1:24-27), they claim, but an alternate lifestyle. Abortion is not murder (Ex. 21:22-25); it's a choice. What the Bible calls adultery, these people refer to euphemistically as "having an affair." Fornication is passed over as "living together." What is called drunkenness in God's Word is called the "disease of alcoholism" by a society bent on calling evil good and good evil. Obedience, on the other hand, is labeled as legalism, and zeal for the Lord is rejected as fanaticism.
Don't be fooled by this truth twisting. What God calls evil will never be made acceptable simply by using another word. Make sure that your beliefs are based on the solid foundation of God's Word. To keep your faith "tamper-proof," compare everything you hear with the Bible and see what God has to say. The Gospel is life-giving, but these additives and contradictions can be fatal.
Truth can't be improved with additives.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything." Ephesians 5:22-24 NLT (Also read Proverbs 31, 1 Peter 3:1-6)
Thoughts for Today
As we continue our brief look at God's design for each family member, we now turn to the wife. The analogy of Christ and the church helps us understand God's plan for the wife in the marriage and family relationship. The role of the church in submission to Christ is the guideline for the wife's role and responsibility to her husband. The wife's primary responsibility is to submit voluntarily to her husband's leadership role as the spiritual leader of the family.
These scriptures in Ephesians 5:22-33 describe a check and balance. Wives are to submit to their husbands and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church-he gave his life for the church.
Consider this
Submission and obedience are two different things. In fact, it is quite possible to obey without being submissive. Submission is more of a heart and attitude thing. Obedience is action.
It is also possible to be submissive without obeying. If a husband asks his wife to do something directly contrary to God's word, she must decline. Her first devotion should always be to God. However, she can maintain a respectful and submissive attitude even though she must decline to obey in that particular instance.
While we tend to think of submission as obeying, it is so much more. A wife should submit to her husband by showing respect by sharing her ideas, insights and wisdom and by partnering with him in praying for each other and for their family and demonstrating godly character in their relationship.
Prayer
Father, help me to understand my role in marriage and to be a better marriage partner. May your love and peace abound in our home. (women) Help me to submit to my husband as to the Lord. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE SECRET OF THE LORD
By Oswald Chambers
"The secret (friendship R.V.) of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Psalm 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? That he tells you secret Sorrows? No, that he tells you secret joys. Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys, or are we telling God our secrets so continually that we leave no room for Him to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God, then we find that God wants to get us into relationship with Himself, to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so wedded to Jesus Christ's idea of prayer - "Thy will be done" - that we catch the secrets of God? The things that make God dear to us are not so much His great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us; He knows every detail of our individual lives.
". . . him shall He teach in the way that He shall choose." At first we want the consciousness of being guided by God, then as we go on we live so much in the consciousness of God that we do not need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing any other will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified God guides us by our ordinary choices, and if we are going to choose what He does not want, He will check, and we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, Stop at once. Never reason it out and say - "I wonder why I shouldn't?" God instructs us in what we choose, that is, He guides our common sense, and we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually saying - "Now, Lord, what is Thy will?"
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 4, 2008
Don't Go Down There
READ: John 14:15-24
This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. -2 John 1:6
In his book Lessons Learned Early, Jerry Jenkins tells a story about his freshman year in college. It was 1968, a year of tremendous political and social upheaval in the US.
Riots had broken out in many major cities. From the rooftop of his dorm in Chicago, Jerry heard sirens and saw fires burning. Students had been told to stay on campus, but Jerry wanted to see what was happening.
As he ran toward a store that was blazing a few blocks away, a police car pulled up beside him. "Don't go down there," the officer warned.
Jerry waited till the car pulled away and then kept walking. The officer returned. This time he made it more clear as he repeated, "Don't go down there"-and leveled a shotgun out the window.
Our rebellious or willful streaks often lead to unhappy outcomes. In anger, Moses struck the rock to get water rather than just speak to it as God had commanded. He forfeited the privilege of entering the Promised Land with his people (Num. 20:7-12). Jonah disobeyed an order to go to Nineveh and was given 3 days to think about his choice-inside a big fish (Jonah 1).
What does it take for us to obey Him? Will we obey simply because we love Him? (John 14:15,21).
- Cindy Hess Kasper
Nothing between, like worldly pleasure:
Habits of life, though harmless they seem,
Must not my heart from Him ever sever-
He is my all! There's nothing between. -Tindley
© 1968 by Singspiration, Inc.
Obedience is another word for love and loyalty.
In the Presence of Holiness by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 6:2-3
Above [the throne] stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!"
In the Presence of Holiness
Dr. Bob Cook, president of the former King's College, New York, once mentioned that he had been at a gathering in Washington. While there he spoke with then-Vice President George Bush. Two hours later he chatted briefly with President Ronald Reagan. Smiling broadly, Dr. Cook added, "But that's nothing! Today I talked to God!"
Every Christian has the privilege of entering into the presence of God and speaking to the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. When we bow in prayer, the portals of heaven open and we have access to Him who sits on heaven's throne.
Isaiah's vision gives us some idea of what God's throne room must be like. It is a place permeated with the holiness of God. The seraphim standing above the throne cry out, "Holy, holy, holy." This thrice-repeated exclamation serves to emphasize the depths to which God's holiness exists. When we come before our Creator, we enter the intimate presence of a Holy God.
Is that how you approach God in prayer? Do you do so with the same sense of awe these seraphim have? They cover their face because God is too awesome and splendid to look upon. Even the highest of the angelic orders cover their feet before God in a gesture of humility. We must come into His presence with that same reverence. But like the seraphim, wings ready to fly at His command, you and I should also be prepared to proclaim His glory throughout the world. We come before Him with a sense of reverence, awe and obedience to serve. When we bow with these attitudes, we rise as more than conquerors (Rom. 8:37).
Holy praying requires a wholly prepared pray-er.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do." Ephesians 6:1 NLT (Also read Ephesians 6:2-3, Colossians 3:20, Proverbs 4:1-4)
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIV (Also read Deuteronomy 4:9, 11:18-19, Proverbs 29:17, Psalm 127:3, Ephesians 6:4, Timothy 3:4)
Thoughts for Today
God not only has a plan for the husband and wife, but also for children. Today's scriptures deal with children still living at home. God's plan includes instruction to the children-and to their parents.
It is important to remember that God's plan is for the ideal Christian family. Although most of us fall short of this ideal, we must never lose sight of our goal or give up moving toward it. We should always reach toward God's best for the home.
Consider this
God's plan moves from two directions. He instructs children to obey their parents and honor them. In so doing, they will please the Lord.
On the other hand, he gives parents the awesome responsibility of teaching their children what they are supposed to do-and how. Parents are to encourage-not frustrate. Parents are to correct their children when they do wrong. Teach them God's Word-by reading it, explaining it and living it. Pray for them. Love them.
What a challenge! Parents cannot do this alone. They must rely on God's help and strength. Sometimes it's easier to just give in than to stand firm. Sometimes it might be easier to look the other way than to correct. Sometimes it seems there just isn't enough time to have family devotions
. But this is God's perfect plan.
All of us as parents will make mistakes along the way, but it is vital that we don't give up. God has placed our children in our care. If we are to enjoy the blessing of parenthood, we must embrace the responsibility of parenthood.
Prayer
Father, thank you for my children. Help me to be a better parent to train them in the way they should go. Forgive me for the mistakes I have made. Sometimes the task is overwhelming, but I know I can do all things through you. In Jesus' name
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE NEVER-FAILING GOD
By Oswald Chambers
"For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Hebrews 13:5
What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what God says or to what I fear? Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I have heard what He says? "He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me."
"I will in no wise fail thee" - not for all my sin and selfishness and stubbornness and waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never fail me? If I have listened to this say-so of God's, then let me listen again.
"Neither will I in any wise forsake thee." Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God will forsake me, but drudgery. There is no Hill Difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out - can I hear God's say-so in these things?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and bye, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have God's say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 5, 2008
A Graduation Wish
READ: Psalm 42
Why are you cast down, O my soul? . . . Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him. -Psalm 42:5
The high school commencement speaker was the president of a large corporation. He was chosen for the occasion because of his success. Yet his speech came with a most unusual wish for the graduates.
The speaker told the students sitting before him in their graduation gowns, "If I could have one hope for you as you go out into the world, it would be this: I hope you fail. I hope that you fail at something that is important to you." He went on to say how his own early life had been one failure after another, until he learned to see failure as an effective teacher.
Many of the songs of Israel were born in seasons of failure. Out of desperation came the cry, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God" (Ps. 42:1-2).
Sometimes we are not ready to see the wonder of God's wisdom and strength until we are gasping for breath in the exhaustion of our own strength.
A recurring story of the Bible is that mountains of faith rise from the valleys of failure. Before discovering the high ground we are looking for, we may need to see the failure of the dreams we hold in our hearts and trust instead in the love, wisdom, and guidance of our God.
- Mart De Haan
The lessons we learn from our failures
Are lessons that help us succeed,
And if we are wise and we heed them,
Then failure is just what we need. -D. De Haan
Learn from your failures, or you will fail to learn.
Don't Be a Nobody by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 6:8
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."
Don't Be a Nobody
Once upon a time there were four men named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. But Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it. But Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about it, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, and Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody and Nobody did the job that Anybody could have done in the first place.
Nobody is still alive and well in our churches. When the pastor pleads for someone to teach Sunday school, Nobody is the most likely one to respond. When clean-up day rolls around, Nobody reports for duty. When there is a need to provide housing for a visiting college chorale, Nobody is first in line. How refreshing it must be for God to hear Somebody say, "Here am I! Send me."
When Isaiah envisioned the Holy God and the spiritual need of the unholy world, he was energized to respond to the Lord's calling (Isa. 6:1-8). When he was released from the burden of his sin, he found a new enthusiasm for serving God. And so will you.
When you hear the summons to duty, don't avoid the opportunity, or Nobody will end up doing it. Instead of a Nobody, be the Somebody who is willing to respond enthusiastically to the opportunities of service to God. Instead of making excuses and letting others do the work, find the joy of being God's instrument to accomplish His will in the world.
Be God's Somebody; don't let Nobody get all the credit.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Ephesians 5:21 NIV (Also read Ephesians 5:18-6:4, Galatians 5:13)
Thoughts for Today
In God's plan for the family, each family member has a role to fulfill. God's divine revelation for the family is mutual submission. Each family member is first a child of God. Children of God are to submit to each other out of reverence for Christ. Each family member is called to submit to and respect the other family members' God-given roles. This attitude of mutual respect can pass from generation to generation.
Important lessons about marriage are taught by the parents to the children through verbal and nonverbal communication. These lessons can have a tremendous influence-good or bad-on children. For example, if a husband loves and respects his wife, his son will probably love and respect his wife. And so on through the generations.
Consider this
God does not view the various family positions in a hierarchy of superior to inferior. Each is given a different, but equally important, role to play. As each one carries out his or her role in the way God has designed, everyone will benefit.
The husband is to honor and submit to his wife's role. To listen to her insights and the special wisdom God has given her. The wife is called to submit to and honor her husband as the spiritual leader of the home. Children are to honor and obey their parents. Parents are to submit to and honor their children-listening to the simple wisdom that God has blessed them with respecting their God-given talents and gifts and giving room and encouragement for the child to grow in those areas respecting the child's unique traits and helping them grow into the person God has designed them to be.
Mutual submission-out of reverence for Christ.
Prayer
Father, thank you for your perfect design for the family. Help our family members to understand and fulfill our roles according to your plan. Teach us to respect and submit to each other out of reverence for Christ. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE NEVER-FAILING GOD
By Oswald Chambers
"For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Hebrews 13:5
What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what God says or to what I fear? Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I have heard what He says? "He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me."
"I will in no wise fail thee" - not for all my sin and selfishness and stubbornness and waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never fail me? If I have listened to this say-so of God's, then let me listen again.
"Neither will I in any wise forsake thee." Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God will forsake me, but drudgery. There is no Hill Difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out - can I hear God's say-so in these things?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and bye, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have God's say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 6, 2008
Linked Hearts
READ: 1 John 4:7-14
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. -1 John 4:11
Each new day, it seems, brings new ways our family sees the body of Christ at work. One demonstration of the fellowship of Christians sits on my desk as I write.
It's a basket overflowing with letters from people I have never met. Since the time Our Daily Bread readers first learned of the car accident that ushered our daughter Melissa into heaven 6 years ago, we've received hundreds of messages from our brothers and sisters in the faith.
They've said things such as: "I grieve with you, my brother, and I will keep you and your family in my prayers." "I weep at your loss." "I hurt with you." Many recommended books to read. Others sent poems or articles of comfort and hope. Some shared their own stories of bereavement as we discovered new partners on the path of pain. They demonstrate the principle of love among the family of God that's commanded in 1 John 4:11.
Each of those gracious notes is different from the others, but they contain a common thread: Because of our shared faith in Christ, I find my heart joined to the hearts of the writers of these messages.
Hearts linked by Jesus create a chain of love that can encourage even the most grieving heart.
- Dave Branon
Bearing people's heavy burdens,
Shouldering their pain and grief,
Shows the love of Christ to others,
Bringing them His sure relief. -Sper
Our hearts are linked through the love of Christ.
The God of the Impossible by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
The God of the Impossible
Maybe you have seen the sign that says, "The difficult is done immediately; the impossible takes a little longer." Those who display such an advertisement are only engaging in wishful thinking. But for God, doing the impossible is a reality.
As Isaiah surrendered himself to be a messenger for God (Isa. 6:1-8), he was given an amazing prophecy. As a sign for his own day, it was given as an encouragement for Ahaz, king of Judah. Faced with threats from the king of Syria and the king of Israel (2 Kings 16:5), Ahaz was fearful. But through the Isaiah, God reassured him, saying, "Don't be afraid. A child will be born and before this child is old enough to tell right from wrong, these enemies will be destroyed." And they were. That child was born in 734 B.C. and was about two years old when Rezin, king of Syria, was killed by the Assyrians (2 Kings 16:9) and Pekah, king of Israel, was assassinated by Hoshea (2 Kings 15:30).
Yet an even more amazing fulfillment lay ahead. The prophecy had a near and far fulfillment. As Isaiah looked down the annals of history, he foresaw a day when God would do something that was truly amazing. Out of the womb of a virgin would come a child fathered by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, He would be called Immanuel, which means "God with us" because He would be God, the second Person of the Trinity, and He would dwell with men and women. In a way that exceeds human understanding, God would compact Himself into the body of a baby and grow up to become a man. That man was Jesus Christ, God the Son, who would die for our sins.
In the same way, God can deal with the challenges of your life, whether they be merely difficult or totally impossible. He who brought forth His Son, born of a virgin, is more than adequate for anything that may be facing you.
Only God can take the "im" out of impossible.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"As the Scriptures say, 'A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.'" Ephesians 5:31 NLT (Also read Matthew 19:5-6)
Thoughts for Today
Becoming one in Christ is God's plan for husbands and wives. This spiritual and physical union is a special miracle of God. Each partner has a responsibility to the other in commitment, love, acceptance and respect toward this miracle of God.
Today's scripture states that a man leaves his father and mother to be joined to his wife. The "leaving behind" is often difficult for both the man and the woman when it comes to baggage like unhealthy behavior patterns, neglect, abuse and lack of role models. In many cases, individuals bring this kind of baggage to the marriage, counting on their new relationship to "fix" the hurt. In actuality, bringing this kind of baggage to the marriage can hurt the relationship and hinder the process of truly becoming one.
Consider this
We all need to turn to Jesus for healing from these kinds of problems. Are there areas of baggage that you need to allow God to help you with in the process of "becoming one"? Are you ready to let him help?
Prayer
Father, I know I brought some things into my marriage that I should have dealt with before getting married. I guess I really did think that this marriage-and my spouse-would change everything. But I realize now that my answer can only be found in Jesus. Forgive me for waiting until now to turn to you. Thank you for loving me. Help me through this process of healing. Help my spouse and me to grow in our relationship and to be truly one in Christ. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows. It can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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WORK OUT WHAT GOD WORKS IN
Oswald Chambers
"Work out your own salvation." Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a disposition which renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord is presented to the conscience, the first thing conscience does is to rouse the will, and the will always agrees with God. You say - "But I do not know whether my will is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. The thing in you which makes you say "I shan't" is something less profound than your will; it is perversity, or obstinacy, and they are never in agreement with God. The profound thing in man is his will, not sin. Will is the essential element in God's creation of man: sin is a perverse disposition which entered into man. In a regenerated man the source of will is almighty. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." You have to work out with concentration and care what God works in; not work your own salvation, but work it out, while you base resolutely in unshaken faith on the complete and perfect Redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposed will to God's will, God's will is your will, and your natural choices are along the line of God's will, and the life is as natural as breathing. God is the source of your will, therefore you are able to work out His will. Obstinacy is an unintelligent 'wadge' that refuses to be enlightened; the only thing is for it to be blown up with dynamite, and the dynamite is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 7, 2008
Serving Together
READ: Galatians 5:13-16
Through love serve one another. -Galatians 5:13
When Cristine Bouwkamp and Kyle Kramer got married in the spring of 2007, they did something most of us wouldn't think of doing. Instead of hosting a "sit-down dinner," they held a simple reception at the church and invited their guests to help distribute food to people in need.
They bought a truckload of food and had it delivered to the church parking lot. Then they and their wedding guests served the people of the neighborhood. Cristine and Kyle said the first thing they wished to do as a married couple was to serve others. Because God had changed their lives so radically, they wanted to "bless God for blessing us with each other."
The Kramers chose a great start for their new marriage-blessing God by serving others. The apostle Paul encouraged the Christians of Galatia: "Through love serve one another" (Gal. 5:13). Some of them believed that the ceremonial practices of the Old Testament were still binding on the church. So Paul wrote that salvation is by grace through faith. It is by faith we live out our new life in Christ. He reminded them that the law was fulfilled in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (v.14).
As followers of Jesus, we're here to serve Him out of love-to "bless God for blessing us."
- Anne Cetas
O that my life may useful be
As I serve Jesus faithfully;
And may His love be seen in me-
This is my earnest prayer. -Hess
God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others.
A Light in the Darkness by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 9:2
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.
A Light in the Darkness
An artist created a painting of a wintry twilight. The trees were barren and laden with snow while a dreary-looking house stood desolate in the midst of the drifted field. It was a bleak and depressing picture. Then the artist took some yellow paint and with a few quick strokes painted a candle glowing in one of the windows of that home. The effect was almost magical. Just one little light and the entire scene was transformed into a vision of comfort and cheer.
The prophet Isaiah looked at his own country and recognized a need for comfort and cheer. He saw the spiritual darkness that enveloped many parts of his nation, especially in the north around the Sea of Galilee. This area had been conquered by the Syrian king Ben-Hadad (1 Kings 15:20) and became a melting pot of Jews and Gentiles. A mixture of Judaism and paganism became the dominant religion. The situation looked hopeless, but even into this stronghold of darkness and spiritual death, Isaiah saw a light break forth. Centuries later, when the apostles began to preach the resurrected Christ, this area became the center of a great revival (Acts 8:5-8). Indeed, the light of Christ's redemption shone brightly.
Whether it's your nation or your personal life, the light of Christ makes a difference. In the darkness of sin, you can find the light of His forgiveness. In the darkness of ignorance, His wisdom illumines the way. In the darkness of trials and trouble, His presence dispels the blackness. Whatever darkness threatens to overshadow your life, let Jesus be the light who drives it away. Jesus is the light of the world (John 9:5).
Wherever it is darkest, Christ shines the brightest.
Week of June 2
Your Enemy's Camouflage
One day, a famous English art critic took his daughter to the ocean. No matter how hard he tried, he could not persuade her to join him in the chilly waters of the Atlantic. He built a fire, heated a teakettle of water, and with a great flourish, poured the steaming water into the ocean. At that point and without further hesitation, the child ran gleefully into the icy waters.
This was a father's harmless trick. However, this is exactly what the enemy does with us. He mixes small amounts of truth into an ocean of falsehood, and people wade into the icy pool, not realizing that they have been deceived.
When Satan first came to Eve, he didn't come as a result of a whim or an "out of the blue" decision. He knew what he was doing. Also, understand that before the fall of man, the serpent was not a frightening creature. In fact, it was known for being wise and prudent.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan took on the form of prudence, wisdom, logic, common sense, social acceptability, and conformity. He uses this method with us today. When Eve stepped aside to listen to the enemy's lies, she made a horrifying mistake. She fell for the tempter's plan and took the first step toward repudiating God's authority.
Today, he tempts us to question God's plan and design for our lives. However, you do not have to be trapped by the snare of the enemy. Through Christ, who lives in you through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, you can turn away from the tempter.
God's Word provides the perfect outline for dealing with the resources of the enemy. Apply its principles to your life, and you will walk in true freedom.
When [Satan] lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).
Are you spiritually alert? Can you recognize your real enemy? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Who is Your Real Enemy?" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
DON'T SLACK OFF
Oswald Chambers
"Whatsoever ye shalt ask in My name, that will I do." John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of the interior? There is no snare or any danger of infatuation or pride in intercession, it is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit whereby the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to be frittered away, or am I bringing it all to one centre - the Atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest in my life? If the one central point, the great exerting influence in my life is the Atonement of the Lord, then every phase of my life will bear fruit for Him.
I must take time to realize what is the central point of power. Do I give one minute out of sixty to concentrate upon it? "If ye abide in Me" - continue to act and think and work from that centre - "ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Am I abiding? Am I taking time to abide? What is the greatest factor of power in my life? Is it work, service, sacrifice for others, or trying to work for God? The thing that ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the Atonement of the Lord. It is not the thing we spend the most time on that moulds us most; the greatest element is the thing that exerts most power. We must determine to be limited and concentrate our affinities.
"Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and his apparently free choices are God's fore-ordained decrees. Mysterious? Logically contradictory and absurd? Yes, but a glorious truth to a saint.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 8, 2008
Air Wars
READ: Proverbs 17:14-19,27-28 A man of understanding is of a calm spirit. -Proverbs 17:27
A spectacular air battle raged outside our window. Skilled, speedy flyers swarmed through the air, diving down from above, zooming in from left and right, climbing from underneath to knock the others out of the fight. The air was alive with sound as they attacked, eluded, hovered, and struck out at one another.
"Scrappy little things, aren't they?" my wife, Shirley, observed. Six hummingbirds filled the air with darting motion, hovering and whirring as they fought for the three positions on our red hummingbird feeder. "Why can't they just be patient?" she wondered.
Like so many disputes and quarrels that plague the church, these battles were totally unnecessary. The feeder held plenty of nectared water. We refilled it every day. Yet, for hours at a time, no hummers came near it-until they all wanted it. They seemed to prefer a good scrap.
Quarrels among believers in Jesus Christ bring dishonor to Him. They create wounds in our brothers and sisters, leaving scars. "It is honorable for a man to stop striving, since any fool can start a quarrel," says Proverbs 20:3. And "He who has knowledge spares his words" (17:27).
How much better it is when we speak gentle words of peace, not angry words of strife!
- David C. Egner
Like bullets flying through the air,
Our words can shatter peace;
The Spirit helps control the tongue,
And then the quarrels cease. -Egner
Two cannot quarrel when one will not.
Prince of Peace by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
What's in a Name?
Names are important. In fact, they are so important that the maker of Jelly Belly jelly beans puts the name of that candy on every little bean so consumers can distinguish them from "impostors." The chairman of the company said, "We want to guarantee consumers they are eating the best jelly beans on the market."
The same can be said for Jesus. There are many impostors who lay claim to the title of Christ. Billy Graham once noted that there are more than 2,000 people in the United States who claim to be a Messiah. Cult leaders such as Marshall Applewhite of Heaven's Gate and David Koresh of the Branch Davidians posed as Messianic figures, but led their followers to disaster.
Isaiah, however, says that the real Messiah will fulfill the roles of the Wonderful One, the Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. Only one person has fulfilled all those names, Jesus Christ. His counsel has been wonderful (Matt. 7:28-29; Mark 12:17). His power has been irresistible (Matt. 28:18). He has forever existed with the Father (John 1:1). And He alone is able to bring us peace (Rom. 5:1).
Don't be deceived by impostors. They may claim to be the Messiah, but they lack the obvious imprint of His names. They may appear to be genuine, but the apostle John warned, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). There is only one Messiah, the Lord Jesus.
Don't settle for less than the real thing, Jesus Christ.
Devotional 23
The Special Guide
"He leadeth me, O blessed thought...." "Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah...."
In the church, we sing a lot of hymns about guidance. If we listen carefully to the way we sing, this business of getting God's guidance is a snap for us.
The simple formula, based on the Bible, takes only three steps:
1. Perceive a need for guidance.
2. Confess any sin that hinders the relationship.
3. Ask God to guide, believe, and receive.
I love it when God then whispers, "This is the way, take it," and then I go forward. However, there's one problem with the formula: It doesn't always work.
God guides us, but not like any guide I've ever known in my life. For instance, I've traveled several times to Europe with a group. In each country, and sometimes in each city, we have a tour guide who shows us the sights, explains the history and culture, and answers our questions. Those guides seem to know everything. Once in Munich, Germany, we had three days of activities planned and were falling behind. The guide decided not to take us to Dachau, one of Hitler's labor camps.
"That's one thing I don't want to miss," I said. "I'll drop out of something else, but I want to see Dachau."
She shrugged and said, "All right, we'll go to Dachau and cut out something else."
I like that kind of guidance: I know what I want, I ask for it, and I get it.
Then why doesn't God work on some simple, direct system like that? I don't know, but the more I ask for divine guidance, the more I realize it deviates from a simple mathematical law most of us learned before seventh grade: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
The law of math may be true, but God doesn't seem to work with straight lines when it comes to guidance. Through reflecting on my own experiences and those of other Christians, I've realized that the Lord actively leads us into side paths, detours, and circuitous trips. That is, God's will seldom seems to be a straight line from conversion to glory.
Think about a few biblical characters and their experiences with guidance. "I'm going to give you a son," God told Abraham," and he will have so many descendants that it would be easier to count the grains of sand than to number them."
Abraham was childless and seventy-five-years-old when he heard the wonderful news. He waited, and I'm sure he must have bombarded heaven with prayers. God did give him a son-when old Abe was one hundred.
When the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt for the Promised Land, God didn't send them by the most direct way: "God did not lead them by ways of the land of Philistines, although that was near...So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea" (Ex 13:17-18, NKJV). In this case, the Bible gives the reason: "For God said, 'Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt'" (v. 17).
What kind of guidance did God give poor Joseph by letting the brothers throw him into a pit? Was there guidance when he was sold into slavery? Or when he was unjustly imprisoned for two years?
Or take David's kingship. Samuel the prophet-priest secretly anointed David to be the next king because, "I have rejected Saul," God said. For the next thirty plus years, David ran from Saul's armies, fearing for his life. He lived in caves, hid in out-of-the-way cities, and still the king pursued him. Hmm, some guidance.
We can see this in the life of Jesus. He had been ministering around Jerusalem and then headed toward Cana of Galilee. John 4:4 (NIV) reads, "He had to pass through Samaria."
He did? Jesus could have followed the seacoast road without going to Samaria. Or he could have taken one that wound through Perea. Either road would have been shorter and more commonly used by Jews of his day. But Jesus took the long way because he "had to go." The King James Version says, even more strongly, "must needs go through."
Of course, all that leads up to a delightful story of Jesus meeting a fallen woman of Samaria at the well, his telling her about God, and her apparent conversion and witnessing that brought the whole town to hear him.
How does this work for people like us today? Asking God to guide is a recurring topic for most of us, and I never seem to get it straight. Dozens of times I've laid out a perfectly logical plan that leads me from A to B to C to D, and I tell God. Often, my Special Guide ignores all my efforts and plans, and takes me another way. Sometimes I reach point D. Sometimes I end up at point K.
How does our Special Guide lead us then? First, our Special Guide knows what's ahead. Sometimes what we want to see or do may not be as simple as it looks to us. We don't know that we can't cross a gorge up ahead because there's no bridge and we have to detour four miles. Sometimes God, aware of the temptations ahead, takes us on a different path because we're not strong enough to win the battle.
Second, our Special Guide has different purposes than we do. Intellectually and theologically, we know we're microscopic dots on the face of this great world. But we get confused and try to make ourselves the center of the universe. Our Special Guide doesn't indulge our fantasy, but takes us through humbling experiences to teach us reality. There are more needs to be met than our own.
Third, God never promised Abraham, Moses, Peter, or anyone else that guidance would function like a visit to a psychic. We don't go to God to get spiritual palm readings. We tend to think that if we conjure up plans and seek God's seal of approval (i.e., guidance), then voila! it comes to pass.
Is it possible we have it all wrong? Is it possible that we have no real sense of what's important for our good and our growth? Is it possible that God really knows the best plan for us and determines to fulfill it despite our resistance or arguments?
Maybe our Special Guide wants us to figure out that, through all those side roads, bypaths, and circuitous routes, God really has only a single purpose for us. That purpose is that we would be "conformed to the image of his Son" (see Rom 8:29). Actually, that's a theological way of saying God brings all these divergent forces into our lives to make us like Jesus.
We're all for the end product. Our problem is what it takes to get there.
When we talk, our Special Guide listens-maybe with a twinkle and a grin-especially when we've explained how to run the section of the universe that applies to us. Ever tactful and kind, the Special Guide whispers, "Be at peace. Everything is working together for your good and you're moving closer to my purpose in your life. I'm going to keep working with you so I can make you more and more like Jesus."
That tells me how to pray. We can ask our Special Guide to take us down the paths we need to follow so that when we get to the end of them, we'll be "conformed to the image of his Son."
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Accept, O LORD the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws. Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law. --PSALMS 119:105, 108-109, NIV
Divine Guide,
forgive me when I try to tell you
how to direct me on my pathway.
I stumble a lot because I get too far away from your light,
but thanks for grabbing me by the shoulders,
hugging me,
and saying gently,
"Here, this is the way. Walk in it."
Thanks, Guide of my life. Amen.
For more from Cec, please visit www.cecilmurphey.com .
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Cecil Murphey has written more than one hundred books on a variety of topics with an emphasis on Spiritual Growth, Christian Living, Caregiving, and Heaven. He enjoys preaching in churches and speaking and teaching at conferences around the world. To book Cec for your next event, please contact Twila Belk at 563-332-1622.
What's Next To Do?
: If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them -John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself- begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice . . ." ( 1 Samuel 15:22 ). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." ( John 7:17 ).
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 9, 2008
Liberating Truth
READ: Ephesians 1:3-10
He made us accepted in the Beloved. -Ephesians 1:6
An unmarried missionary had been disparaging herself. She was unhappy with her life in general, but she was especially displeased with what she felt was her low level of spiritual growth.
One morning she looked searchingly at herself in the mirror. Then, very slowly, she said, "God, I thank You that I am myself and can never be anybody else."
That was her moment of liberating self-acceptance. She realized that by God's design she was an absolutely unique person, a Christ-redeemed human being who could never be replaced or duplicated.
Do you condemn yourself because you aren't as spiritual as you think you ought to be? Do you see yourself as a second-rate disciple, lacking the gifts and graces possessed by fellow believers who seem to be models of prayer, witness, and service? We can rise above the mood of self-rejection and enjoy grateful self-acceptance when we put our lives into the nail-pierced hands of Jesus. "In Him we have redemption through His blood, [and] the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1:7). We are accepted and chosen by Him (vv.4-6).
If the Lord has accepted us, surely we can accept ourselves! That's the liberating truth.
- Vernon C. Grounds
All praise to the Lamb, accepted I am,
Through faith in the Savior's adorable name;
In Him I confide, His blood is applied;
For me He hath suffered, for me He hath died. -Wesley
Accepting Jesus' free gift of salvation frees us to accept ourselves.
The Rod of Jesse by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 11:1-2
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Rod of Jesse
During World War II, Hitler's bombers rained destruction upon London from the skies. Over 15,000 people lost their lives and many parts of the city were reduced to rubble. Yet when spring came, an amazing thing happened. Beautiful wildflowers, many of them thought extinct, sprang up in the midst of the devastation. Botanists concluded that the seeds had laid dormant under buildings and other structures until the bomb blasts exposed them and gave them the opportunity to germinate.
Isaiah foresaw a day when Israel also would be devastated. The word for stem means a stump. David's lineage would be decimated. His mighty family tree would be chopped down to a stub.
Yet God would be faithful. Out of that "stump" would come the One who would be the Savior of the world. At a time when civilization lay devastated by the effects of sin, when the rubble of broken lives would be scattered over the countryside, a Branch from a tree long thought dead would appear with the promise of new life.
And so it happened. Paul declared, "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Gal. 4:4-5).
If the landscape of your life has been ravaged by discouragement and despair, look to Jesus, who is able to bring the hope of new life. Perhaps you have lost a loved one and life looks bleak. Maybe health problems have left you feeling like you're living in a war zone. Or family problems have created craters deep enough to swallow you whole. God will still be faithful to you. Give Him the "stump" of your life and watch Him grow a healthy and prosperous branch. Only the Rod of Jesse can give you such hope.
God can bring riches out of rubble.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Philippians 3:13-14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
God loves us so much that he gives us the freedom to make choices. Some are of little consequence, but others are life-changing. This freedom of choice dates back to Adam and Eve. They made a bad choice and sin entered the realm of mankind.
The freedom to make choices brings responsibility. We have all made poor choices at times and have suffered the consequences of those bad choices. The good news is that no matter what poor choices we may have made in the past, there is always hope for a better future. God knew that we would make some bad choices, but he loves us so much that he sent Jesus to pay the price for our sin and to provide a way that our relationship to him can be restored.
Some people go through life carrying the load of some wrong choices they've made in the past. They believe they've messed up so badly that nothing good can ever come of their lives. Do you ever feel this way? Good news! If you want to be set free from the past, Jesus is the answer. He has already paid the price for your sin for every wrong choice you've ever made. Talk to him. Ask him to forgive you and to help you make better choices from now on. He's ready and he's more than able.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us
from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8 NIV
Consider this
Remember, you are very special to God. He loves you no matter what you've done. He's there for you. He wants you to put the past behind so that you can become all that he has designed you to be. Ask God's forgiveness learn from your mistakes and look forward to a future filled with hope.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for forgiving my sins. I've made so many wrong choices. Help me now to put them behind and to look forward to the future you have planned for me one filled with hope.
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE NEXT BEST THING TO DO
Oswald Chambers
"For every one that asketh receiveth." Luke 11:10
There is nothing more difficult than to ask. We will long and desire and crave and suffer, but not until we are at the extreme limit will we ask. A sense of unreality makes us ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of moral poverty? "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God . . . but be sure that you do lack wisdom. You cannot bring yourself up against Reality when you like. The next best thing to do if you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes real in you all that Jesus did for you.
"For every one that asketh receiveth." This does not mean you will not get if you do not ask (cf. Matt. 5:45), but until you get to the point of asking you won't receive from God. To receive means you have come into the relationship of a child of God, and now you perceive with intelligent and moral appreciation and spiritual understanding that these things come from God.
"If any of you lack wisdom . . ." If you realize you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality; do not put your reasonable blinkers on again. People say - Preach us the simple gospel: don't tell us we have to be holy, because that produces a sense of abject poverty, and it is not nice to feel abjectly poor. "Ask" means beg. Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are like that spiritually. We will never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject panging condition of his poverty, he is not ashamed to beg. - Blessed are the paupers in spirit.
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 10, 2008
Loving Our Grown-Up Children
READ: 1 Corinthians 13
Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. -1 Corinthians 13:13
Comedian Henny Youngman used to say, "I've got two wonderful children-and two out of five isn't bad."
When children reach adulthood, most parents have an opinion about how their offspring have "turned out." Some are proud of everything their kids have done, while other parents express misgivings or disappointment about the choices their children have made. How can we continue a positive parenting role after the birds have left our nest?
In 1 Corinthians 13, often called "the love chapter" of the Bible, Paul writes that the greatest gifts of speaking, understanding, and sacrificial service are worthless without love (vv.1-3). Love itself is the foundation of winsome behavior, and its influence never ends. "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails" (vv.4-8).
When our children no longer seek our advice, they still value our love. In every stage of parenting, it's not only what we say but what we do that counts.
- David C. McCasland
May God in mercy grant to us
A home where Christ holds sway,
Where peace and joy from heaven above
Abide from day to day. -Crane
A parent's love never ends.
The Joy of My Salvation by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 12:2-3
Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; for YAH, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation. Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation."
The Joy of My Salvation
Someone once asked Haydn, the famous church musician, why his music was so cheerful. He replied, "I cannot make it otherwise. When I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap from my pen!"
Isaiah felt the same way. As he thought about the Lord, he reveled in the realization that God was totally trustworthy. He need never be afraid. No one could harm him when he was under the care of an omnipotent God. Furthermore, it was from this same God that he could draw his strength, not just physical strength, but the strength to face the trials and tribulations of life. Yet the crowning touch came as he considered that God was also the "well" of his salvation. Just as someone could draw life-saving water from a well in the ground, so Isaiah rejoiced that he could draw from the Lord the spiritual water he needed for his eternal life.
Such thoughts are the secret to a constant attitude of joy. But don't take your joy for granted. After David's sin with Bathsheba, God used the prophet Nathan to bring him to repentance. In the midst of his sorrow over his sin, David cried out, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation" (Ps. 51:12). When David lost his fellowship with God, he did not lose his salvation, but he did lose his joy. And without the joy, our salvation is lacking an important ingredient.
Is your salvation a source of joy in your life? Do you delight in your relationship with God? If not, confess any sin that might be blocking that joy and then let your heart be filled with the joy that only God can give.
If there is no joy in your salvation, check what's in the well of your religion.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you." Psalm 37:5 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We all make choices on a daily basis. We decide what to wear, what to eat, where to go and how to respond to people and to situations. Should I give an honest answer even though it might keep me from making the sale? Should I forgive this person who hurt me so badly? Should I tell the cashier she gave me too much change?
Making choices brings responsibility-responsibility to do the right thing. And when we make wrong choices, we bring about the natural consequences. If we lie to our boss, we might lose our job. If we refuse to forgive, we live with unhappiness and sometimes bitterness. If we break a confidence, we might lose a friend.
Consider this
Sometimes we want to take the easy way out-even though we know it is not the right way. We feel as though we don't have the strength to make the right choice. The good news is that we don't have to be alone in making choices. Jesus is standing by, wanting to help us-he is just waiting for an invitation. He knows what is best for us-and he wants to guide us into right choices and give us the strength to make them.
Are you struggling with a choice right now? Maybe you know the right thing to do, but aren't sure you have the strength. Are you willing to trust Jesus? Take a moment right now to ask for his help. You'll be glad you did.
Prayer
Lord, you know about this choice I am struggling with. Please help me to know the right thing to do-and then give me the strength to do it. Thank you that I don't have to do this alone. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
THE NEXT BEST THING TO DO
Oswald Chambers
"Seek, and ye shall find." Luke 11:9
"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, i.e., you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less will you seek God. "Seek, and ye shall find." Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to Him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you will find.
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent - so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metallic note will come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.
"Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." "Draw nigh to God." Knock - the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. "Cleanse your hands" - knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. "Purify your heart" - this is more personal still, you are desperately in earnest now - you will do anything. "Be afflicted" - have you ever been afflicted before God at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. "Humble yourself" - it is a humbling business to knock at God's door - you have to knock with the crucified thief. "To him that knocketh, it shall be opened."
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 11, 2008
A Cure For Futility
READ: Micah 6:6-8
What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? -Micah 6:8
I once heard interviews with survivors from World War II. The soldiers recalled how they spent a particular day. One sat in a foxhole; once or twice, a German tank drove by and he shot at it. Others played cards and frittered away the time. A few got involved in furious firefights. Mostly, the day passed like any other. Later, they learned they had just participated in one of the largest, most decisive engagements of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. It didn't feel decisive at the time because none had the big picture.
Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks.
When followers of Ignatius (1491-1556) endured periods of futility, he always prescribed the same cure: "In times of desolation we must never make a change, but stand firm and constant in the resolutions and determination in which we were the day before the desolations." Spiritual battles must be fought with the very weapons hardest to wield at the time: prayer, meditation, self-examination, and repentance.
Perhaps you sense you're in a spiritual rut. Stay at your assigned task! Obedience to God-and only obedience-offers the way out of our futility.
- Philip Yancey
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain. -Cowper
If you sense your faith is unraveling, go back to where you dropped the thread of obedience.
Trouble in the Evening by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 17:13-14
The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters; but God will rebuke them and they will flee far away, and be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. Then behold, at eventide, trouble! And before the morning, he is no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
Trouble in the Evening
What do Assyria, Babylon and the Roman Empire have in common? All of them, at one time or another, conquered Israel. Yet they share another commonality?none of them exists today as a nation. You will never get an Assyrian stamp in your passport. No one will every proudly announce to you, "I'm a Babylonian!" None of these once-powerful nations has survived into the 20th century?but Israel has.
Throughout history men and nations have demonstrated their hatred for God's people. The Roman Emperor Diocletian is a good example. He issued an edict in 303 A.D. designed to annihilate the Christian religion and destroy the Bible. The emperor even built a monument on which were inscribed the words Extincto nomene Christianorum (The name Christian is extinguished). Only 25 years later, however, the emperor was dead, and the new ruler, Constantine, commissioned 50 copies of the Bible to be prepared at government expense.
Are you are facing persecution at work or school? Maybe people in your own family are seeking to discourage you from living out your Christian faith. God never promised that you wouldn't face these kinds of trials. What He did promise, however, was that ultimately those who afflict His people will fail. Your day of difficulties may seem long, but it won't last forever. Take heart! Morning is coming and when the sun rises, the night of despair is no more.
For every night of trouble, there's a morning of glory.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by GOD. You're blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him. That's right-you don't go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set." Psalm 119:1-3 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Jesus is interested in helping us make choices. Perhaps one of the biggest choices for us to make is whether or not we are going to trust him to guide us.
The Bible promises us that if we follow Jesus, all things will work together for our good. I have found this to be so true. As I trust Jesus to help me make the right choices, I know without a doubt that no matter how things may look right now, in the end they will work out for the best. His way is always the best way and his time the best time.
Consider this
Why should you trust Jesus?
First of all, he loves you. In fact, he loves you so much that he died on the cross for you. His love is perfect-and nothing can ever separate you from that love. You are important to him.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death
nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about
tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in
the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to
separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39 NLT
Second, he knows what is best. He knows what is best for you in the here and now-and even more important, he knows what is best for you in eternity. He sees the whole picture-a perspective we can never have. Today's scripture beautifully expresses the blessing of trusting him in all planning and decisions.
And last, he is able. He has the power to work things out for your good.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who
love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28 NLT
All God asks is that you choose to trust him. That you are willing to do things his way.
Are you?
Prayer
Father, forgive me for the times I thought I knew better than you how to work things out. I know that you love me and want only what is best for me. And I know that no matter how things may look sometimes, your way is always the best way. Help me to trust you more and choose to do things your way. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Getting There (1)
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words- "Come to Me." Our Lord's words are not, "Do this, or don't do that," but- "Come to me." If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing- "Come to Me." If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord- "Come to Me," and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be "foolish" enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
". . . and I will give you rest"- that is, "I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm." He is not saying, "I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep." But, in essence, He is saying, "I will get you out of bed- out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity." Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about "suffering" the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 12, 2008
It's Elementary!
READ: Psalm 139:1-6
Known to God from eternity are all His works. -Acts 15:18
On a recent trip to London, we exited the Baker Street underground station where we were greeted by a life-size statue of legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Created by novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes was an investigative genius who could routinely assess seemingly random clues and solve the mystery.
Baffled by Holmes' uncanny brilliance, his sidekick, Dr. Watson, would ask for an explanation-to which Holmes would glibly respond, "Elementary!" and then proceed to unfold the solution.
If only life operated that way. So often, we face events and circumstances that are far more baffling than a Sherlock Holmes mystery. We struggle to figure life out, but we always seem to come up short.
In times like these, it's comforting to know that we have a God who doesn't need to assess the situation-He already knows everything perfectly well. In Acts 15:18 we read, "Known to God from eternity are all His works." He never has to wonder or resort to inductive reasoning.
Despite our finiteness, our lives rest in the hands of the One who knows all the whats, whys, and whens we'll ever face. As we trust in Him, He'll guide us in the path He desires us to take-and His way is never wrong.
- Bill Crowder
God is the One who sees the whole,
His knowledge is complete;
We see but portions of the truth
As lines that never meet. -D. De Haan
In a world of mystery, it's a comfort to know the God who knows all things.
Praise the Lord by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 25:1
O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
Praise the Lord
William Law, in his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, wrote, "Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives the most alms, or is best known for temperance, chastity, or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it."
Isaiah certainly fits Law's definition of a great saint. Even though this Old Testament prophet lived in a time of tremendous political upheaval, he never lost his sense of awe at God's greatness. He could see God at work doing "wonderful things." And despite the danger and peril that surrounded him, Isaiah was always ready to sing God's praises. He continually rejoiced in the knowledge that God's counsel is faithful and true.
Christians today live in a high-stress world as well. In some countries their physical lives are in danger. Kent Hill, executive director of The Institute on Religion and Democracy, said, "There have been more martyrs produced in the 20th century than in all the other centuries combined since the time of Christ." In the Western world the stress is more likely to come from rapid changes in technology and society. Yet these struggles produce anxieties and apprehension that are real as well.
What's the solution? Give yourself to praise. Whatever your situation, the all-powerful, all-knowing God of the universe is worthy to be exalted and glorified. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, once said, "Something happens to the man who praises God; his life is blessed and enriched and he is strengthened." Let that be true of your life as well. Determine to take some quality time today just to praise the Lord. See if your day doesn't go better.
Faith runs best when oiled with praise.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him." Luke 15:20 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Jesus taught the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. This young man made many wrong choices, but ultimately he accepted responsibility for the consequences of those choices.
Deciding to set out on his own, he asked his father for his inheritance and off he went. He proceeded to make more bad choices, squandering his money on wild living. Eventually the money was gone and he fell to the position of feeding another man's livestock. He was so hungry that even the food he was feeding the pigs looked good. He thought of home-even his father's servants would be eating better than this.
I think I'll return home and become one of my father's servants, he thought. I don't deserve more than that, but I believe he'll hire me. Good choices. To admit his error and not try to blame anyone else. To face up to responsibility.
The young man's father saw him coming home. He ran out to meet him with open arms, killed the fatted calf and had a huge party to celebrate his son's homecoming.
Consider this
Have you made some bad choices? Wandered off and squandered your talents, your opportunities to do good? I encourage you to make the right choice of coming to your Heavenly Father. He awaits you with open arms.
Prayer
Father, I've made so many mistakes. I know many of the things I've done have not pleased you, but I thank you for this assurance of your love. Please forgive me and take me into your loving arms. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Getting There (2)
They said to Him, 'Rabbi . . . where are You staying?' He said to them, 'Come and see' -John 1:38-39
Where our self-interest sleeps and the real interest is awakened. "They . . . remained with Him that day . . . ." That is about all some of us ever do. We stay with Him a short time, only to wake up to our own realities of life. Our self-interest rises up and our abiding with Him is past. Yet there is no circumstance of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
"You are Simon . . . . You shall be called Cephas" ( John 1:42 ). God writes our new name only on those places in our lives where He has erased our pride, self-sufficiency, and self-interest. Some of us have our new name written only in certain spots, like spiritual measles. And in those areas of our lives we look all right. When we are in our best spiritual mood, you would think we were the highest quality saints. But don't dare look at us when we are not in that mood. A true disciple is one who has his new name written all over him- self-interest, pride, and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.
Pride is the sin of making "self" our god. And some of us today do this, not like the Pharisee, but like the tax collector (see Luke 18:9-14 ). For you to say, "Oh, I'm no saint," is acceptable by human standards of pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. You defy God to make you a saint, as if to say, "I am too weak and hopeless and outside the reach of the atonement by the Cross of Christ." Why aren't you a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe that God can make you into one. You say it would be all right if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is exactly what He will do! And not only do we make our home with Him, but Jesus said of His Father and Himself, ". . . We will come to him and make Our home with him" ( John 14:23 ). Put no conditions on your life- let Jesus be everything to you, and He will take you home with Him not only for a day, but for eternity.
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 13, 2008
For Such A Time As This
READ: Esther 4:10-17
I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish. -Esther 4:16
When Sha'Ri Eggum was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, doctors told her that only a bone marrow transplant from a blood relative could save her life. Complicating matters, Eggum, 32, was adopted and didn't know anything about her biological family. But a private investigator tracked down her brother, Mike Ford, who was a perfect match. Today, Eggum's leukemia is in remission. Ford was the right person for the right moment.
The book of Esther tells another story of love, sacrifice, and God's timing. Mordecai, a Jew in exile, refused to bow to Haman, second in command to King Ahasuerus. Haman became furious and plotted to destroy Mordecai and all the Jews. So Haman deceived the king and persuaded him to issue an edict condemning the Jews to death. When Mordecai told his cousin Queen Esther about the edict, he urged her to intervene. "Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" he said (v.14). Approaching the king uninvited was punishable by death. But Esther seized the moment to save her people!
When we are able to rescue others, we should do so at all costs. Ask God for His direction and act! He may have placed you here "for such a time as this."
- Marvin Williams
O for a faith that will not shrink
Though pressed by many a foe,
That will not tremble on the brink
Of any earthly woe. -Bathurst
Courage is not the absence of fear-it is the mastery of it.
Perfect Peace by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 26:3
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
Perfect Peace
Several years ago a submarine was being tested and had to remain submerged for many days. When it returned to port, someone asked the captain, "How did the terrible storm last night affect you?" The officer looked at him in surprise and exclaimed, "Storm? We didn't even know there was a storm!" The sub had been so far beneath the surface that it had reached the area known to sailors as "the cushion of the sea." Although violent storms might whip the ocean above into huge waves, the waters deep below are never stirred.
This is the promise that God gives to every believer who is willing to put his total trust in Him. The word for perfect that Isaiah uses means "complete, with no parts missing." God will give us a peace, not just in some circumstances but in all. We will have peace about our family, about our finances and about our health. When we surrender our lives to Him, the God of peace gives us a peace that "surpasses all understanding" (Phil. 4:7). It is a peace that guards both our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. It's a deep-down peace.
But this peace comes only to those who truly believe in and focus on the promises of God. The apostle James wrote that the person who allows doubts to cause division in his mind will be "like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind . . . he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways" (James 1:6, 8).
As you read your Bible, be alert to the promises of God. Keep a list of those that are especially precious to you. Think about them. Meditate on them. Focus your attention on them. Pray back these promises to God, not as a reminder to Him, but as a reminder to yourself. If you fill your mind with His promises, God will fill your heart with His peace.
God's peace is for those who trust His purposes.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil!" Proverbs 3:5-7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Jesus never changes. When you climbed out of bed this morning, regardless of how you might have felt, he had not changed during the night. He is trustworthy and consistent.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8 NIV
No matter what your situation, you can turn to Jesus. What choices are you facing? I encourage you to choose to follow Jesus to choose his way, not yours to choose to receive his love to choose to trust him.
If you do this, you will still have problems and challenges You may still suffer consequences from wrong choices you made in the past But you won't have to face any of these things alone. Jesus will always be there-loving you and guiding you.
Consider this
When you choose to trust Jesus and do things his way, God has room to work in your life. He will help you move on past the hurt or pain or failures of the past. He will give you hope for the future.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and
not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
Prayer
Lord, I do trust you. I know you love me and that your plan for me is the best plan. Please keep me on track. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Getting There (3)
READ:
. . . come, follow Me -Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1 ). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you- and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, "Come," then He will continue to say, "Come," through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ's "Come." That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 14, 2008
For Those Who Serve
READ: Romans 13:1-7
Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the Word and doctrine! -1 Timothy 5:17
When my son Steve walks into a room, he often gets immediate respect. People want to shake his hand. They smile. They congratulate him. They thank him.
It happens at church. It happens in restaurants. It happens wherever he goes-as long as he is wearing his uniform of the United States Navy.
While in uniform, Steve gets instant respect because everyone knows that he is serving. He has given up many personal freedoms and desires so that he can serve his country.
People respect service. We honor police officers who serve. We pay homage to military personnel who serve. But do we give the same honor and respect to those who are in an even greater service-service to God? Do we show respect to our pastors, missionaries, Sunday school teachers?
Scripture tells us to give honor to whom honor is due (Rom. 13:7). Specifically, it tells us that double honor goes to those who direct the affairs of the church through teaching and preaching (1 Tim. 5:17).
Instead of criticizing your pastor, teacher, or spiritual leader, let others hear your words of gratitude and praise for their service. Hold them up in prayer. God's servants deserve our respect and honor.
- Dave Branon
Putting It Into Practice
· Send a card or note of appreciation to your pastor.
· Thank your teacher for a lesson that helped you.
· Ask your leaders how you can pray for them.
We honor God when we honor our leaders.
Building on the Cornerstone by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 28:16
Therefore thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; whoever believes will not act hastily."
Building on the Cornerstone
Historically, the cornerstone was the most important part of any building. The total weight of an edifice rested on this particular stone, which, if removed, would collapse the whole structure. The cornerstone was also the key to keeping the walls straight. The builders would take sightings along the edges of this part of the building. If the cornerstone was set properly, the stonemasons could be assured that all the other corners of the building would be at the appropriate angles as well. Thus, the cornerstone became a symbol for that which held life together.
In the days of Isaiah, the leaders of Israel had chosen to rest their security on a different cornerstone. They chose to put their trust in their own political savvy. Through various military alliances, they thought they could hold their nation together. Ultimately, however, this shaky cornerstone failed and Israel was taken captive by the Babylonians.
Yet God declared through Isaiah that He would establish a cornerstone that would never fail?a stone that could be trusted because it had been tried and proven to be precious and sure.
The New Testament writers recognized that this stone was Jesus Christ. The Savior said of Himself, "Did you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone'" (Matt. 21:42). The apostle Peter repeated Isaiah's prophecy and added, "And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame" (1 Pet. 2:6).
When the pressures of life bear down on you, there's only one cornerstone capable of handling the weight. When your need for guidance is urgent, there's only one cornerstone you can trust to keep your life straight. That cornerstone is Jesus. Trust Him with every aspect of your lives, and you will find that He never fails. He's not just a Rock; He's the Cornerstone.
A solid life begins with an immovable cornerstone.
Week of June 9
A Roaring Lion
After checking with those who work with wild animals, I was told that there are three reasons lions roar:
They roar when strange animals hunt in their territory.
Lions sound a roar of triumph after they have captured their prey.
Lions roar loudest when caught in a storm. They cannot tolerate the flashing lightning or the clashing of thunder.
Peter concludes his first epistle by drawing a word picture of Satan as a lion constantly on the move, prowling around and roaring each time a careless Christian falls victim to his deception.
This is why Peter admonishes us to "be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8).
Being alert is the antithesis of being in a drunken stupor. Each week, there are reports of people who have died as a result of being hit by drunk drivers. People who drink and drive have impaired mental and physical capacities. They cannot react properly to their circumstances and end up causing deadly accidents.
Peter is telling us that sin can numb your spiritual senses to a point where you are no longer spiritually sober. Your reaction time is affected and you fall victim to Satan's ploy.
In contrast, a person who is spiritually alert views life according to God's principles and values. Spiritually, alertness means being aware of approaching danger and having the determination to avoid it.
When it comes to the enemy, be very serious-minded. Don't be flippant about his intentions. His desire is clear: to destroy your testimony and life for Christ. Therefore, stand firm in your faith. Commit yourself to prayer and you will gain the victory!
Be self-controlled and alert (1 Peter 5:8).
Are you spiritually alert? Can you recognize your real enemy? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Who is Your Real Enemy?" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Get Moving! (1)
READ:
Abide in Me . . . -John 15:4
In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus- I have to do it myself. I have to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5 ). "Abide in Me"- in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord's inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father's plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord's life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is "hidden with Christ in God" ( Colossians 3:3 ).
Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, "Yes, Lord, just a minute- I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then." Get moving- begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 15, 2008
A Perfect Father
READ: Proverbs 20:3-7
The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him. -Proverbs 20:7
My father once admitted to me, "When you were growing up, I was gone a lot."
I don't remember that. Besides working his full-time job, he was gone some evenings to direct choir practice at church, and he occasionally traveled for a week or two with a men's quartet. But for all the significant (and many small) moments of my life-he was there.
For instance, when I was 8, I had a tiny part in an afternoon play at school. All the mothers came, but only one dad-mine. In many little ways, he has always let my sisters and me know that we are important to him and that he loves us. And seeing him tenderly caring for my mom in the last few years of her life taught me exactly what unselfish love looks like. Dad isn't perfect, but he's always been a dad who gives me a good glimpse of my heavenly Father. And ideally, that's what a Christian dad should do.
At times earthly fathers disappoint or hurt their children. But our Father in heaven is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy" (Ps. 103:8). When a dad who loves the Lord corrects, comforts, instructs, and provides for the needs of his children, he models for them our perfect Father in heaven.
- Cindy Hess Kasper
How blessed are the children
Who in their fathers see
The tender Father-love of God,
And find their way to Thee. -Johnson
A life lived for Christ is the best inheritance we can leave our children.
The Quiet Spirit by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 30:15 For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." But you would not . . . .
The Quiet Spirit
Human wisdom seldom produces the results that we desire. In an issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, the editors reported on a device used by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to test the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device launches a dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the planes flies. This indicates if the windshield could withstand a real collision with a bird during flight.
The British railway authorities were so impressed they borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher to test the windshield of one of their new high-speed train engines. In their test, however, the chicken not only went through the windshield but also the engineer's chair and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. Stunned, the British asked the FAA to recheck everything to see if they had done anything wrong. After thoroughly checking it out, the FAA had one recommendation: "Next time, don't use a frozen chicken."
The people of Israel also were seeking solutions, but they, too, were looking to human wisdom. God noted that they trusted "in oppression and perversity" (v. 12). He called upon them to rest in Him, but they declared, "No, for we will flee on horses." Therefore God concluded, "those who pursue you shall be swift!" (v. 16). All their human wisdom would end in failure. When viewed objectively, human wisdom doesn't have much of a track record.
If you are going through a troubled time, stop trusting in human wisdom. Instead, let your spirit be quiet before God. Take the difficulties that are bothering you and prayerfully hand each one to Him. Leave them in His care and rest confident that He who loved you so much that He sacrificed His only Son for your salvation, also loves you enough to deal with whatever might be disturbing your heart today.
The key to a quiet spirit is a trusting heart.
Week of June 13
An Uncommon Call to an Uncommon Life
by Max Lucado
Each person is given something to do that shows who God is.
1 Corinthians 12:7 MSG
Da Vinci painted one Mona Lisa. Beethoven composed one Fifth Symphony. And God made one version of you. He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment. Mine like a gold digger the unique-to-you nuggets from your life.
When I was six years old, my father built us a house. Architectural Digest didn't notice, but my mom sure did. Dad constructed it, board by board, every day after work. My youth didn't deter him from giving me a job. He tied an empty nail apron around my waist, placed a magnet in my hands, and sent me on daily patrols around the building site, carrying my magnet only inches off the ground.
One look at my tools and you could guess my job. Stray-nail collector.
One look at yours and the same can be said. Brick by brick, life by life, God is creating a kingdom, a "spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2:5 CEV). He entrusted you with a key task in the project. Examine your tools and discover it. Your ability unveils your destiny. "If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 4:11). When God gives an assignment, he also gives the skill. Study your skills, then, to reveal your assignment.
Look at you. Your uncanny ease with numbers. Your quenchless curiosity about chemistry. Others stare at blueprints and yawn; you read them and drool. "I was made to do this," you say.
Heed that inner music. No one else hears it the way you do.
What about you? Our Maker gives assignments to people, "to each according to each one's unique ability" (Matt. 25:15). As he calls, he equips. Look back over your life. What have you consistently done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness.
You have one. A divine spark. An uncommon call to an uncommon life. "The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others" (1 Cor. 12:7 CEV). So much for the excuse "I don't have anything to offer." Did the apostle Paul say, "The Spirit has given some of us "? Or, "The Spirit has given a few of us "? No. "The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others." Enough of this self-deprecating "I can't do anything."
And enough of its arrogant opposite: "I have to do everything
." No, you don't! You're not God's solution to society, but a solution in society. Imitate Paul, who said, "Our goal is to stay within the boundaries of God's plan for us" (2 Cor. 10:13 NLT). Clarify your contribution.
Don't worry about skills you don't have. Don't covet strengths others do have. Just extract your uniqueness. "Kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you" (2 Tim. 1:6 NASB).
From
Cure for the Common Life:
Living in Your Sweet Spot
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005) Max Lucado
Now in paperback with practical assessment tools included in the back of the book apply the powerful principles of Cure for the Common Life
Get Moving! (2)
READ:
Also . . . add to your faith . . . -2 Peter 1:5
In the matter of drudgery. Peter said in this passage that we have become "partakers of the divine nature" and that we should now be "giving all diligence," concentrating on forming godly habits (2 Peter 1:4-5 ). We are to "add" to our lives all that character means. No one is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; it must be developed. Nor are we born with habits- we have to form godly habits on the basis of the new life God has placed within us. We are not meant to be seen as God's perfect, bright-shining examples, but to be seen as the everyday essence of ordinary life exhibiting the miracle of His grace. Drudgery is the test of genuine character. The greatest hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will only look for big things to do. Yet, "Jesus . . . took a towel and . . . began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." ( John 13:3-5 ).
We all have those times when there are no flashes of light and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily routine with its common everyday tasks. The routine of life is actually God's way of saving us between our times of great inspiration which come from Him. Don't always expect God to give you His thrilling moments, but learn to live in those common times of the drudgery of life by the power of God.
It is difficult for us to do the "adding" that Peter mentioned here. We say we do not expect God to take us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we do! I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all of the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty's sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 16, 2008
Strings, Rings, Troublesome Things
READ: James 4:1-10
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. -James 4:10
Ray Bethell is a world champion kite flyer. He can make multiple kites twist and turn in such precision that they behave as if they are one. As I watched an amazing video of Ray and his three synchronized kites, I recalled a poem I had read many years ago.
In the library of Pastor Howard Sugden, I came across a well-worn book containing the works of John Newton. Inside was a poem titled "The Kite; or Pride Must Have a Fall." The kite in Newton's poem dreamed of being cut free from its string: "Were I but free, I'd take a flight, / And pierce the clouds beyond their sight, / But, ah! Like a poor pris'ner bound, / My string confines me near the ground." The kite does finally manage to tug itself free, but instead of soaring higher in the sky, it crashes into the sea.
The analogy calls me to reconsider some "strings" that make me feel constrained. Vows. Promises. Commitments. Responsibilities. Although such things make me feel tied down, God uses them to hold me up. As James teaches, it is our willingness to be humbled (or held down) that God uses to lift us up (James 4:10).
Before cutting any string, make sure it's not one that's holding you up.
- Julie Ackerman Link
Though I am His sheep, I'm still prone to stray,
So Jesus in love sends afflictions my way;
The lessons that come in this school of deep pain
Will teach me to follow my Lord once again! -Bosch
A Christian rises against the winds of adversity.
This Is the Way by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 30:21
Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.
This Is the Way
It used to be when you were lost that you stopped at a gas station and asked for directions. Hopefully the person who directed you knew what he was talking about. Technology, however, is changing all that. Rockwell International has produced the PathMaster system, which uses a satellite not only to beam route instructions to specially equipped automobiles but also allows the user to call up reviews of nearby restaurants and hotels. Etak Incorporated is offering a similar program, but in addition to travel directions it also keeps the driver up-to-date via satellite on possible traffic tie-ups and provides alternate routing instructions if necessary. The cost of these systems? Around $3,000.
Isaiah tells us, however, that there is a guidance system that takes no extra equipment or cash. All it takes is a heart sensitive to the still, small voice of God.
God has always been concerned with the direction in which mankind is headed. When He inquired of Adam in the Garden of Eden, "Where are you?" it was because He knew that Adam had veered off course. When the Israelites left the land of Egypt, He gave them a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night so that they would not lose their way. Isaiah confessed that the people of his day were "like sheep [that] have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way" (Isa. 53:6). But God did not give up on them. Instead He offered to restore them and give them the guidance they needed.
If you need God's guidance today, make sure your heart is right with Him. Then claim His promise. If you will listen to the voice of His Spirit, He will guide you through every twist and turn of your life's journey. He will tell you the way. Will you walk in it?
If you want to know God's way, you have to listen for His voice.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the LORD and turn away from evil. Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones." Proverbs 3:5-8 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Is there an area in your life that feels out of control?
We all have the potential of coming under the influence of a life-controlling problem. Facing the reality of the problem may be difficult; however, doing so can be the first step on the road to recovery.
One sign of a life-controlling problem (or the start of one) is when a substance, behavior or relationship interferes in an important area of our life (job, school, family ) but we continue the behavior regardless. In other words, we are hurting others or ourselves but do not make a change to correct the destructive issue.
Admitting our powerlessness over a life-controlling problem is not a weakness; it is a strength.
Consider this
Is there some negative issue in your life that you don't seem able to control? Perhaps you have thoughts like these: "There is no way out." "I am in over my head." "I feel like a runaway truck." "I feel overwhelmed."
As trapped as you might feel right now, there is a way out. You can change-but not by yourself. Take this first step. Admit your powerlessness over this problem. Don't allow embarrassment, pride or hopelessness to stop you from getting help. Admit your need to yourself and to God. Tell him that you need his help. He loves you, he wants to help you and he is able.
Prayer
Father, I do need your help. I have tried to hide this problem from you and from others-even from myself. Please forgive me and show me the way out. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
"Will You Lay Down Your Life?"
READ:
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . . -John 15:13, 15
Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, "I will lay down my life for Your sake," and he meant it ( John 13:37 ). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing- our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. Has the Lord ever asked you, "Will you lay down your life for My sake?" ( John 13:38 ). It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways. There was only one bright-shining moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was there that He emptied Himself of His glory for the second time, and then came down into the demon-possessed valley (seeMark 9:1-29 ). For thirty-three years Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father. "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" ( 1 John 3:16 ). Yet it is contrary to our human nature to do so.
If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, "Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful." And Jesus says to us, ". . . I have called you friends. . . ." Remain faithful to your Friend, and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 17, 2008
Captain Thunderbolt
READ: 2 Corinthians 11:3-4,12-15
Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. -2 Corinthians 11:14
When an English robber called Captain Thunderbolt escaped the law and moved to the eastern US in 1818, he began practicing medicine. He took on the name Dr. John Wilson. Often he wore three suits of clothes to escape recognition by making himself look larger and covering up a deformed leg.
Just before the man died, he asked his friends to bury him without removing his clothes. But to prepare his body for proper burial, that request could not be honored. The mortician was surprised to find scars from wounds and a withered leg. A search of "Dr. Wilson's" house revealed a stash of watches, jewelry, and diamonds. The sheriff learned that the doctor was in fact Thunderbolt, a thief in disguise. They had been fooled!
Satan and his followers have disguises too. It says in 2 Corinthians 11:15, "[Satan's] ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness." But how? One way is through false doctrine. Ever since Paul's day, false teachers have taught that good deeds can earn salvation.
Paul warned us not to be deceived by the devil's craftiness (v.3). The truth is: "By grace you have been saved through faith . . . ; it is the gift of God, not of works" (Eph. 2:8-9). Don't be fooled.
- Anne Cetas
The powers of darkness have blinded the race,
Closing our eyes to the glories of grace;
But faith in the Savior brings healing and sight-
He floods our soul with His truth and His light. -DJD
Satan has many tools, but deception is the handle that fits them all.
A Desert Rose by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 35:1-2
The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our God.
A Desert Rose
Boulder Dam was built in order to bring water to areas that had been desert. During the building of this dam, several workmen lost their lives. After its completion, a plaque was placed on the dam with the names of those who had been killed, with the following inscription: "These died that the desert might rejoice and blossom as the rose."
God revealed to Isaiah that Israel also would one day be restored. The land that had been devastated and destroyed until it was nothing more than a desert would be revived and become a place of beauty and fruitfulness.
To a certain degree, this prophecy has been realized. With the aid of technology and significant irrigation, Israel has restored many areas of the land to fruitfulness. Ultimately, however, Isaiah's prophecy will find fulfillment during the millennial reign of the Messiah. Then, not only will the nations beat their spears into pruning hooks (2:4) and the lion eat straw like the ox (11:7), but Israel will become an agricultural paradise. God promised it, so you can believe it.
Yet in a spiritual sense, this fulfillment can take place now. If your life has been a spiritual desert, Jesus can make it blossom. When you receive Him as your Savior, you become spiritually alive (Eph. 2:1). With the cultivation of the Holy Spirit, you will produce spiritual fruit a hundred times over (Matt. 13:23). Don't put that day off to some future time; do it now. Your life can blossom in the grace and mercy of God.
A surrendered heart is always a fruitful field.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity, he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ." Romans 3:23-24 MSG
Thoughts for Today
In dealing with life-controlling problems-actually in dealing with life itself-we all need help from a power greater than ourselves. People look in many places for that help: wealth, fame, success, New Age philosophies, and even their own willpower. But ultimately there is only one answer: Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Some people see God as a crutch for the weak or sick. Others may be dealing with anger toward God. Still others may have had unpleasant experiences with Christians and developed a distorted concept of God. The most important thing to remember is that there is hope for all in Christ.
Consider this
If you have been trying to deal with a life-controlling problem in your own strength, you are probably experiencing frustration, anger, fear, shame or rejection. It is important that you recognize that you can't do it on your own and turn to the only one who can truly help you: Jesus.
Jesus loves you. He paid the price for your failures by dying on the cross. He wants you to reach out to him and receive his forgiveness and his strength. He has a special purpose for your life and wants to help you achieve it. But first you must acknowledge your need for him and ask him to take charge of every area of your life.
Prayer
Father, I've been trying to handle things on my own too long. I need you. I need your love and forgiveness and guidance and strength. Forgive me for all the wrong and help me get back on track. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Beware of Criticizing Others
READ:
Judge not, that you be not judged -Matthew 7:1
Jesus' instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, "Don't." The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.
There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5 ). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24 ). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person's situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 18, 2008
An Invitation To Friendship
READ: John 15:9-17
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends. -John 15:15
I grew up in a home with lots of wall plaques. One had a quotation by poet Claude Mermet that stands out in my mind: "Friends are like melons; let me tell you why: To find a good one, you must one hundred try!"
Most of us can identify with that. It's hard to find good friends.
I wonder if God ever feels that way about us? Out of all the people in the Old Testament, only one was ever called His friend. In Isaiah 41:8, God says that He chose Jacob, who was an offspring of "Abraham My friend." Pretty exclusive club! So you can imagine how shocking it was for the disciples to hear Jesus say, "No longer do I call you servants, . . . but I have called you friends" (John 15:15).
Better yet, He is saying that to us as well. So, what does friendship with Jesus look like? It starts with commitment. As He said, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (v.14). Then He added the dynamic of communication. He promised to tell us all that the Father has told Him (v.15). Are you listening? And as His friends we begin to bear fruit (v.16), sharing a commonality with Him by reflecting His glory in our attitudes and actions (2 Cor. 3:18).
Jesus welcomes you to the privilege of friendship with Him! Are you His friend?
- Joe Stowell
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer! -Scriven
Welcome to the privilege of friendship with God.
The Eternal Word by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
The Eternal Word
Very few things are permanent, no matter how solid they seem to be. Japanese scholar Chikaosa Tanimoto is now saying that the Sphinx, which has stood immovable on the Giza Plateau outside of Cairo, Egypt, for more than 4,500 years, is destined for destruction within the next 200 years. Because of erosion created by pollution and the forces of nature, the structure eventually will disintegrate into a heap of rubble. Other ancient monuments such as the great pyramids, Cheops, Chephren and Myceriuns, which were supposedly built to last forever, are also showing signs of crumbling. Given sufficient time, they also will return to the dust from which they came.
The same, however, cannot be said of God's Word. Even though portions such as the Book of Job and the five books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) are nearly 4,000 years old, they are as relevant today as the day they were written. Because the Bible deals with the nature of man and the love of God, it will always be applicable to man's need. Technology changes, cultures vary, fads come and go. But human nature stays the same, and the Bible always has the answer for man's deepest need.
Nor will Scripture ever lose its validity. The Bible is absolute truth, and truth doesn't change with time. Just as two plus two is four today, it was a thousand years ago and it will be a thousand years from now. The sins that offended the holiness of God when the Bible was written, such as adultery, homosexuality, lying and stealing, are just as sinful and offensive to a holy God today.
Other things may last a long time, even thousands of years, but only God's Word is forever. Every word of Scripture that you make a part of your life is an investment in eternity. Study it, memorize it, apply it, and your life will never be out of date.
Only the eternal Word can meet the needs of an eternal soul.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins-make a clean breast of them-he won't let us down; he'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we've never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God-make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God." 1 John 1:8-10 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Overcoming a life-controlling problem is a process. It is important to acknowledge that you have a problem and come to Jesus for help. Your next step should be to get real-with yourself and with God.
Take an inventory of your life. Think about the ways you have been denying the reality of your condition. Have you been isolating yourself? Keeping your struggle a secret? Making light of it or rationalizing that it's OK?
Have you blamed other people and circumstances for your problem instead of accepting responsibility? Perhaps you point your finger at your parents or spouse or friends. Maybe you blame a job loss or even your childhood.
Consider this
Think about the ways your behavior has affected other people. Have you lost their respect and confidence? Are you experiencing strained relationships or problems with your children?
Determine to be honest about your problem and to accept responsibility for your behavior. Repent for what you have done and turn to Jesus for the hope that only he can give. Change won't be easy. And you may suffer natural consequences of past failures. But begin to focus on your new hope in Christ. He will not disappoint you in your time of personal searching and change.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for blaming people and circumstances for my behavior. I am ready to accept responsibility for my situation. Forgive me for my sin. I thank you for helping me through this time of change. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Keep Recognizing Jesus
READ:
. . . Peter . . . walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid . . . -Matthew 14:29-30
The wind really was boisterous and the waves really were high, but Peter didn't see them at first. He didn't consider them at all; he simply recognized his Lord, stepped out in recognition of Him, and "walked on the water." Then he began to take those things around him into account, and instantly, down he went. Why couldn't our Lord have enabled him to walk at the bottom of the waves, as well as on top of them? He could have, yet neither could be done without Peter's continuing recognition of the Lord Jesus.
We step right out with recognition of God in some things, then self-consideration enters our lives and down we go. If you are truly recognizing your Lord, you have no business being concerned about how and where He engineers your circumstances. The things surrounding you are real, but when you look at them you are immediately overwhelmed, and even unable to recognize Jesus. Then comes His rebuke, ". . . why did you doubt?" ( Matthew 14:31 ). Let your actual circumstances be what they may, but keep recognizing Jesus, maintaining complete reliance upon Him.
If you debate for even one second when God has spoken, it is all over for you. Never start to say, "Well, I wonder if He really did speak to me?" Be reckless immediately- totally unrestrained and willing to risk everything- by casting your all upon Him. You do not know when His voice will come to you, but whenever the realization of God comes, even in the faintest way imaginable, be determined to recklessly abandon yourself, surrendering everything to Him. It is only through abandonment of yourself and your circumstances that you will recognize Him. You will only recognize His voice more clearly through recklessness- being willing to risk your all.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 19, 2008
Juneteenth
READ: Romans 6:15-23
Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. -Romans 6:18
On June 19, 1865, over 2 years after President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and read General Order Number 3: "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free." For the first time, slaves in Texas learned that they were already free. Some were shocked; many others celebrated. June 19 soon became known as "Juneteenth."
Nearly 25 years after the "Emancipation Proclamation" of the cross of Jesus, Paul wrote to the Roman believers. Some of them still did not understand what it meant to be free from sin's bondage. They thought they could go on sinning because they were under grace (Rom. 6:15). So Paul reminded them of their status in Jesus by appealing to a familiar fact: Whatever we submit to becomes our master (John 8:34). To commit sin puts us in bondage to sin.
The other option is to be a slave of righteousness. Salvation actually means a change of bondage. As we once served sin, we are now committed to lives of righteousness because of the freedom Jesus provides.
My brothers and sisters, let us become in practice what we already are in status-free!
- Marvin Williams
The Savior can break sin's dominion,
The victory He won long ago;
In Him there is freedom from bondage,
He's able to conquer the foe. -Smith
True freedom is found in bondage to Christ.
Those Who Wait by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 40:31
Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Those Who Wait
People in the United States hate to wait. Some define a split second as the time between the traffic light turning green and the person behind you blowing his horn. Fast-food chains have sprung up everywhere because many people don't want to go to restaurants where they have to wait for their food. Grocery stores have express lanes so that those with only a few items will not have to wait long. Patience is certainly a dying virtue in our culture.
God knew that Israel would have to wait a long time for fulfillment of the many promises He gave through the prophet Isaiah. Nearly 150 years would pass before "Cyrus . . . My shepherd" would restore the people from captivity (44:28). It would be more than 700 years before the "people who walked in darkness" would see the light of the Gospel (9:2). And many promises have yet to be fulfilled (11:6-9; 35:1-10).
We may not like to wait, but God attaches a promise to waiting. In patiently trusting Him, He assures us, we will find a new strength. When the right time comes, we will have wings like eagles and supernatural endurance.
Many Christians wear themselves out because they are running ahead of God rather than waiting for His perfect time. If you're prone to do this, let God not only have His will in your life, but also let Him accomplish that will in His time. Use the waiting time as an opportunity to renew your strength and prepare for what lies ahead. Waiting doesn't have to be a drag; it can be a surge.
It's better to be renewed by waiting than ruined by rushing.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working]." James 5:16 AMP
Thoughts for Today
This week we've talked about admitting your needs to yourself and to God. Now it's time to share what you've learned with another person, perhaps a trusted Christian friend.
Sharing with others helps remove you from the isolation caused by defenses you may have built around yourself in an attempt to avoid pain and embarrassment. As you prepare to take this step, it is important to remember that although it may be helpful to share your concerns with another, only Christ can forgive sins. There are some personal concerns that only God needs to know.
Consider this
After honestly admitting your problem to God, yourself and others and receiving God's forgiveness, it's time to put the past behind and begin taking positive steps to rebuild your life. Some things will require continued prayer and corrective action on your part. Be open to God's guidance and to the people he may send to help you along the way. Throughout the process, remember this: You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. (Philippians 4:13)
Prayer
Father, give me the courage to share my struggles with a friend. Help me to be open and obedient to your guidance. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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My Utmost for His Highest
READ:
. . . do you love Me? . . . Tend My sheep -John 21:16
Jesus did not say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. We consider what we do in the way of Christian work as service, yet Jesus Christ calls service to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . , he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ). In this verse, there is no argument and no pressure from Jesus to follow Him; He is simply saying, in effect, "If you want to be My disciple, you must be devoted solely to Me." A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, "Now I see who Jesus is!"- that is the source of devotion.
Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way. Our Lord's primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of people- the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even though people may treat me like a "doormat." The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that "falls into the ground and dies"- it will spring up and change the entire landscape ( John 12:24 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 20, 2008
Ghost Town
READ: Nehemiah 1:4-11
What does the Lord your God require of you, but . . . to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. -Deuteronomy 10:12
A gold rush that began in the 1970s made Boa Vista, Brazil, a boomtown on the edge of one of the world's richest gold fields. That changed when the gold mines were shut down. Government officials say the miners were destroying the rain forest, dumping mercury into the rivers, and bringing guns and diseases that killed thousands of local residents. Today Boa Vista is a "town of lost souls and frustrated adventurers too poor to return to their bleak beginnings."
Such was the picture of God's people exiled in Babylon. All they had were memories of the days when God's favor was on them. Jerusalem was in ruins because a blessed people had been exploiting the weak, not caring for the land entrusted to them (2 Chron. 36:19-21), and going through the motions of worshiping God. The prophet Nehemiah confessed: "We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments" (Neh. 1:7).
God loved His people too much to let them continue harming themselves and others. By letting them "do time" in Babylon, He helped them see what can happen when a blessed people get caught up in a life that leaves God out of the picture. He'll do what it takes to help us see that as well!
- Mart De Haan
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne
And worship only Thee. -Cowper
God gives blessing to us so we can give glory to Him.
Fear Not by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 41:10
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
Fear Not
As an old farmer sat on his front porch, a stranger came along and asked, "How's your cotton coming?" "Ain't got none," he replied. "Didn't plant none. 'Fraid of the boll weevil." "Well, how's your corn?" "Didn't plant none of that either. 'Fraid o' drought." "How about your potatoes?" "Ain't got none. Scairt o' tater bugs." The stranger finally asked, "Well, what did you plant?" "Nothin," answered the farmer. "I just played it safe."
Isaiah was not called to "play it safe." Instead, God called him to confront kings (7:3) and denounce mighty nations (34:1-2). All around him vast armies were on the move, and political scheming was rampant. Yet in the midst of all these intimidating situations, God said, "Don't be afraid. I am with you."
There are many things that cause fear; in fact, someone has estimated that the average person has at least 200 fears. Yet the answer to all of them is the same, God. As the hymn writer so aptly put it, "Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand."
If God has called you to something, don't be afraid. If He has called you to be single, don't be afraid. He will stand in the gap. If He has called you to live alone, don't be afraid. His company will comfort you. If He has called you to serve Him far from family and friends, don't be afraid. He will be there for you. God has not called us to play it safe; He has called us to trust Him.
Where God has called us, He will keep us.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But we must keep going in the direction that we are now headed." Philippians 3:16 CEV
Thoughts for Today
This week we've looked at the importance of acknowledging any life-controlling problem in your life, admitting it to God and to yourself, asking him for forgiveness and help, accepting responsibility, sharing your struggle with a friend and preparing to move on. Then begins the process of walking out the changes-to keep going in the direction that you are now going.
These changes may involve steps like stopping the use of alcohol or drugs or pornography, ending an unhealthy relationship, reordering priorities, becoming accountable to a support group, and going to church regularly. The negative behavior caused by your problem may have destroyed your self-esteem. You might still be dealing with anger, fear and shame.
Consider this
As you begin to walk out the changes in your life and to see yourself as God's special creation, it is vital that you walk in agreement with God. Agreement that he has forgiven you. Agreement that he will give you the strength you need. Agreement that he created you for a positive purpose and will help you accomplish that purpose. Agreement that you will submit to him and put him first in all you do. Agreement that he loves you and will be with you through every trial, through every circumstance, through every difficult step and that with his help, you can do it. "Christ gives me the strength to face anything." Philippians 4:13 CEV
Prayer
Father, thank you for helping me get turned around. Help me keep going in the right direction. Thank you for the promise that you will give me the strength to face anything. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. is a Christ-centered twelve-step program suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Have You Come to "When" Yet?
READ:
The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends -Job 42:10
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, "Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer- I will walk rightly before You if You will help me." But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.
If you are not now receiving the "hundredfold" which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29 ), and not getting insight into God's Word, then start praying for your friends- enter into the ministry of the inner life. "The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends." As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.
God bless
June 21, 2008
Bird Song
READ: Psalm 104:24-35 Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. -Psalm 98:4
Why do birds sing? Birds sing "because they can and because they must," says David Rothenberg, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. "Songs are used to attract mates and defend territories, but the form is much more than function. Nature is full of beauty, and of music."
Birds sing because they have a syrinx instead of a larynx. The syrinx is the bird's voice box, an organ that lies deep in a bird's chest and is uniquely fashioned for song. That, at least, is the natural explanation for their gift.
But I ask again, why do birds sing? Because their Creator put a song in their hearts. Each bird is "heaven's high and holy muse," said John Donne, created to draw our hearts up to our Creator. They are reminders that He has given us a song that we may sing His praise.
So when you hear God's little hymn-birds singing their hearts out, remember to sing your own song of salvation. Lift up your voice-harmonious, hoarse, or harsh-and join with them in praise to our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord.
The birds of the air "sing among the branches," Israel's poet observes. "[Therefore] I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being" (Ps. 104:12,33).
- David H. Roper
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain
Call us to rejoice in Thee. -van Dyke
All creation sings God's praise.
Compassion Fatigue by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 42:3
A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth.
Compassion Fatigue
An Irishman was down on his luck and was panhandling on Fifth Avenue before the annual St. Patrick's Day parade got underway in New York City. As a couple strolled by, he called out, "May the blessing of the Lord, which brings love and joy and wealth and a fine family, follow you all the days of your life." There was a pause as the couple passed his outstretched hand without contributing. Then he shouted after them, "And never catch up to you!"
Perhaps we can identify with that couple. Our mailboxes are stuffed with appeals from various organizations; our phones ring with individuals seeking pledges; some people even come right to our doors with solicitations. After a while, we can fall into an attitude that sociologists call "compassion fatigue." It simply means we turn our back even on worthy causes because we can't handle another request.
Fortunately, God never suffers from such an ailment. No matter how often we go to Him with our needs, He never turns us away. His compassion is always available. He treats us as one who is as tender as a bruised reed or as fragile as smoking flax.
Christians need to take care that we do not become fatigued in our compassion. The apostle Paul exhorts us, "And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Gal. 6:9-10).
With limited time and funds, we must prayerfully ask the Lord what He would have us do when we are presented with an opportunity to give. Once we know His will, however, let nothing keep us from showing compassion. Succumbing to compassion fatigue can squelch the work of God.
Duty makes us do things well; compassion makes us do them beautifully.
Week of June 16
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
A spoiled little boy was throwing a temper tantrum. He was angry because the housekeeper would not let him have a valuable vase from the cabinet. Hearing him cry loudly, his mother went into the room to find out what was wrong.
The boy said, "I want that," pointing to the vase.
The mother said, "Yes, darling, you shall have it," falsely thinking this was how to make her son happy. But when she put the vase in front of him, the little boy cried even louder.
"What do you want now?" asked the mother.
Between sobs, the boy said, "I want something I can't have."
The apostle John explains that Satan can attack you in three ways-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). His attacks have also been described as inner selfishness, envy, and pride.
Satan is not merely interested in tempting you. He knows if he can get you to see something and to desire it, then ultimately it will have your affections and loyalty.
When you find yourself facing temptation, ask: Is it appealing to my selfish nature? Is it appealing to my covetous nature? Is it appealing to my pride?
Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, but the enemy could not overcome the Lord. As long as you are in the wilderness and at the center of God's will, He will sustain you.
The secret of Christ's victory also is the secret to your victory. Recognize the nature of the spiritual battle facing you, and use God's Word to resist the devil. When Satan appeals to your flesh, tell him that in Christ you have all of your sufficiency.
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Are you spiritually alert? Can you recognize your real enemy? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Who is Your Real Enemy?" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Ministry of the Inner Life: You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . -1 Peter 2:9
By what right have we become "a royal priesthood"? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our "hanging on by the skin of our teeth," although we say, "What a wonderful victory I have!" Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don't worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, "Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men." Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: "Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now."
How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 22, 2008
No Gripping
READ: Philippians 2:12-18
Do all things without complaining and disputing. -Philippians 2:14
During my first week of Bible college, we had several days of orientation in which we were given a rule book to study. Several days later, during a meeting to discuss those rules, one student stood up and asked, "What is 'no gripping'? And why is it against the rules?"
He was referring to a statement in the rule book he had misread. Instead of "gripping," it read "griping"-complaining or grumbling.
A rule against griping is perfectly understandable. The cancer of a complaining spirit can undermine the spiritual and emotional health of an individual and can infect an entire group. This can result in discontent, frustration, and even rebellion.
Moses heard griping among God's people a mere 3 days after leading them from slavery into freedom (Ex. 15:24). Centuries later, Samuel felt the weight of griping as he sought to represent God to his generation (1 Sam. 8:4-9).
A complaining spirit can destroy the effectiveness of a church too. Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, "Do all things without complaining and disputing" (Phil. 2:14).
We need to avoid a complaining spirit when serving Christ. Instead, rejoice and thank God for all He has done! No griping allowed.
- Bill Crowder
When things go wrong, I would not be a grumbler,
Complaining, seeing everything as grim;
For when I think of how the Lord has blessed me,
I cannot help but give my praise to Him. -Hess
When you feel like griping, start counting your blessings.
The One and Only by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 44:6, 8
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: "I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God. . . . Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one."
The One and Only
Michel Lotito of Grenoble, France, is one of the most unusual individuals in the world, at least when it comes to his culinary tastes. Since 1959, at the age of nine, Mr. Lotito has daily dined on metal and glass. According to The Guinness Book of Records, he consumes two pounds of metal per day. So far he has eaten, among other things, ten bicycles, a supermarket cart, seven TV sets, six chandeliers, a low-calorie Cessna light aircraft and a computer. Few have cared to match his record.
Michel Lotito is unusual, but God is more than unusual; He is unique. There are no others like Him. The God of all knowledge declares, "Is there a God besides me? Indeed there is no other rock; I know not one." No one is able even to come close to matching His deeds.
Yet in spite of his uniqueness, this singular Person of the universe has declared His love for you and me. He offers Himself as our rock, a place of safety and stability. He is the rock of our salvation (Ps. 95:1), the rock of refuge (31:2), the rock of our strength (62:7) and the rock that is "higher than I" (61:2). He is the one and only Person able to meet all our needs.
If you do not know this one and only God, you can. He has revealed Himself in many ways, most especially in His Son, Jesus Christ. When you come to know Jesus as your Savior, you come to know God as the One and Only God. Why not surrender your life to Him today?
There are many pebbles, but only one Rock.
Honor God in Your Work
by Max Lucado
Heaven's calendar has seven Sundays a week. God sanctifies each day. He conducts holy business at all hours and in all places. He uncommons the common by turning kitchen sinks into shrines, cafés into convents, and nine-to-five workdays into spiritual adventures.
Workdays? Yes, workdays. He ordained your work as something good. Before he gave Adam a wife or a child, even before he gave Adam britches, God gave Adam a job. "Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it" (Gen. 2:15 NASB). Innocence, not indolence, characterized the first family.
God views work worthy of its own engraved commandment: "You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest" (Exod. 34:21 NASB). We like the second half of that verse. But emphasis on the day of rest might cause us to miss the command to work: "You shall work six days." Whether you work at home or in the marketplace, your work matters to God.
And your work matters to society. We need you! Cities need plumbers. Nations need soldiers. Stoplights break. Bones break. We need people to repair the first and set the second. Someone has to raise kids, raise cane, and manage the kids who raise Cain.
Whether you log on or lace up for the day, you imitate God. Jehovah himself worked for the first six days of creation. Jesus said, "My Father never stops working, and so I keep working, too" (John 5:17 NCV). Your career consumes half of your lifetime. Shouldn't it broadcast God? Don't those forty to sixty hours a week belong to him as well?
The Bible never promotes workaholism or an addiction to employment as pain medication. But God unilaterally calls all the physically able to till the gardens he gives. God honors work. So honor God in your work. "There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good" (Eccles. 2:24 NASB).
Here is the big idea:
Use your uniqueness (what you do)
to make a big deal out of God (why you do it)
every day of your life (where you do it).
At the convergence of all three, you'll find the cure for the common life: your sweet spot.
From
Cure for the Common Life:
Living in Your Sweet Spot
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005) Max Lucado
Now in paperback with practical assessment tools included in the back of the book apply the powerful principles of Cure for the Common Life
The Unchanging Law of Judgment
With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you -Matthew 7:2
This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution- "with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God's throne down to us (see Psalm 18:25-26 ).
Romans 2:1 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts. To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts. The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, "Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge."
Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged" ( Matthew 7:1 ). He went on to say, in effect, "If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way." Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, "My God, judge me as I have judged others"? We have judged others as sinners- if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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God bless
Are you a Prayer Warrior?
A prayer warrior is a person dedicated to pray faithfully.
James 5:16 says... The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Is this you?
Colossians 4:2
Devote yourselves to prayer , being watchful and thankful
Matthew 21:22
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
Philippians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Luke 6:28
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
How to find a NEW LIFE in Jesus Christ
God loves you and wants you to know that He has a plan for your life.
The Bible says: "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly." John 10:10b (NASB)
God has given each of us a free will to choose to follow or to reject Him. Unfortunately, since Adam man has chosen to disobey God and to go his own way. Everyone has sinned against God.
The Bible says: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23
As hard as you may try, nothing you can do will compensate for your sins and bring you back into a right relationship with God.
The Bible says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast." Ephesians 2:8-9
Someone must pay for your sins before you can be rightly-related to God. Because you cannot pay, God did. He loves you so much that He sent His perfect, sinless son Jesus to earth to be crucified on a cross for your sins. When Jesus died that agonizing death, He paid the penalty for you.
The Bible says: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
If Jesus had not risen from the dead, you would still be separated from God by your sins. But He did. Jesus could not be overcome by death. He came back to life and now lives in heaven with His Father.
The Bible says: "That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, you shall be saved." Romans 10:9
Because Christ died for your sins, He has the power to forgive your sins and wash them away.
The Bible says: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I John 1:9
Jesus wants to give you the gift of salvation. But He won't push His way into your life. You have to invite Him into your heart and ask Him to be your Savior and the Lord of your life.
Jesus says: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him." Revelation 3:20
You can ask Him to come into your heart right now. Pray this prayer, or a similar one. The words you use aren't as important as the meaning that comes from your heart.
"Jesus, I am a sinner. Thank you for taking my place and dying for my sins. Right now, I open the door of my heart and accept You as my Lord and Savior. Thank You for forgiveness and for giving me a new life. Help me to be what You want me to be and to live each day for You. Amen.
Now what?
If you sincerely asked Jesus into your heart, you have been reborn as a member of the family of God. To continue to grow in your relationship with Christ, you need to do the following things:
Tell someone about your decision to live for Christ.
Jesus says: "Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 10:32
Read and study your Bible. God speaks to us through the Bible to let us know what He wants to do for us and through us.
The Bible says: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth." II Timothy 2:15
Pray every day. Talk to God and tell him about all of your joys and your problems. He wants you to depend on Him. Also, be sure to listen for God speaking to you.
The Bible says: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phillipians 4:6-7
Attend a Bible-teaching church. In fellowship with other believers we can encourage one another, study the Bible, worship the Lord and pray.
Jesus says: "Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them of My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered in My name, there am I in their midst." Matthew 18:19-20
Now, if you prayed and accepted Christ as your savior, we would love to hear from you so we can be praying for you. (Click Here)
*This is truly a foundation that will get you started in the right direction. As you read more into God's word you will find we have only touched the surface on what a wonderful life you will have through Jesus Christ.
Daily Devotionals June 24, 2008
Fire Mountain
READ: Matthew 24:36-44
Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. -Matthew 24:44
Rising 2,900 meters (9,600 ft.) above the rainforest in Indonesia's southern Java, Mount Merapi (the Fire Mountain) is one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes.
As the Fire Mountain showed signs of renewed activity, authorities tried to evacuate local residents. Then, on May 13, 2006, Merapi spewed a gray plume of sulfurous smoke that resembled a flock of sheep leaving the crater. Amazingly, villagers ignored the signs and returned to tending their livestock, apparently forgetting that in 1994 Merapi had killed 60 people. It's our human tendency to ignore signs.
When Jesus left the temple at Jerusalem for the last time, His disciples asked what would signal His return to earth (Matt. 24:3). He told them many things to watch for, but warned that people would still be unprepared.
The apostle Peter told us that in the last days scoffers would say of Jesus' return: "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4).
Scoffers are with us today, just as Peter warned. Are you among them? Or are you ready for the Lord Jesus to return? Ignoring these signs is even more dangerous than living in the shadow of the Fire Mountain.
- C. P. Hia
Signs of His coming multiply,
Morning light breaks in eastern sky;
Watch, for the time is drawing nigh-
What if it were today? -Morris
© Renewal 1940, by F. M. Lunk. Assigned to Hope Publishing Co.
To ignore the Bible is to invite disaster.
In Old Age by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 46:4
Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
In Old Age
The U.S. Census Bureau has declared the year 2020 as the beginning of the age of the elderly. The 65 and older segment of our population will increase from one in eight Americans today to one in six by that date and one in five by 2050. By the beginning of this new era, the nation's elderly will total 53.3 million, a 63 percent increase over the current elderly population of 33 million. It would appear that the United States is destined to become a nation of the aged.
Yet the very thought of old age strikes fear in the hearts of many people, perhaps with good reason. Old age brings with it health concerns as the body deteriorates, financial concerns with the onset of retirement and even social concerns as friends and relatives die. Just the thought of such dramatic changes is a terrifying prospect to some.
In the midst of all this, however, God promises that He will never change. Even though you experience many changes as you grow older, He will stay the same. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). Just as He saw you through the crises of youth and middle age, so He will see you through all the challenges of growing old. When your strength fails, just remember that He promises to carry you. When you feel trapped inside an aging body, remember that He who sustains you today will continue to bear you throughout all your days.
The God of the ages is also the God of the aged.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God." Ephesians 3:19 NLT
Thoughts for Today
People struggling with eating disorders become preoccupied with food and their body image. They become overly concerned about how others see and react to their body size. They tend to feel extremely guilty after eating and think a lot about dieting. Sometimes they even have fears about never being able to stop eating.
Consider this
If you or someone you care about is experiencing this kind of fear and guilt, here are a few thoughts. Try to accept the fact that bodies come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Remember that we can be our own worst critics and that others really find us attractive. Cut yourself some slack! Allow for normal variations in your weight and shape.
Let yourself enjoy the functions of your body parts, not just how they look. Be thankful that you can use your legs to walk and run and your arms and hands to do thousands of wonderful things.
Be willing to recognize your strengths in terms of your appearance- the parts of your body that you like-and your personal qualities like caring, enthusiasm and honesty.
God created you He loves you And that makes you very special indeed!
Prayer
Father, help me to refocus on your love for me. Help me to remember that I don't have to weigh a certain amount or look a certain way to be special. I am special because you love me ... and you always will. Thank you for your love. In Jesus name
These thoughts were drawn from Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet, Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. $3.00 plus shipping.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
READ:
This is your hour, and the power of darkness -Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact of sin- not recognizing it and refusing to deal with it- produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this "hour, and the power of darkness" into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, "Yes, I see what this sin would mean." The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship- it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous. Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.
Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 25, 2008
Anytime, Anywhere
READ: Ephesians 2:11-19 Through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. -Ephesians 2:18
When Mike Marolt is out of town, he remotely accesses the computer and files in his Aspen, Colorado, office. On a recent overseas trip, Marolt answered e-mails and kept in touch with his clients by using his laptop through a satellite phone hookup. This time, however, he was sitting in a base camp tent at 21,000 feet on the side of Mt. Everest. These days even that doesn't surprise us because we have become used to the technology that provides access to the rest of the world anytime, anywhere.
We can easily develop a similar lack of amazement toward prayer. Talk to God? "Of course." We don't have to wait in line, enter a building, or wear nice clothing. We can pour out our hearts to the Lord anytime, anywhere. It's easy to lose the wonder of that because it has become so familiar.
Paul always seemed to marvel at the door opened wide into the presence of God. "In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ," he wrote. "For through Him we both [Gentiles and Jews] have access by one Spirit to the Father" (Eph. 2:13,18).
The door is open for everyone. God welcomes all who come by faith. Through Christ we can enter His presence- anytime, anywhere. Amazing!
- David C. McCasland
Let's always keep the prayer lines open,
Knowing God is always there;
For we upon His name may call
Anytime and anywhere. -D. De Haan
There is no place or time we cannot pray.
Never Forgotten by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 49:15-16
Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.
Never Forgotten
I can empathize with the man who said, "I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it on." Most of us are able to forget much better than we remember.
Yet God assures us that He will never forget us. Not for a second are we ever out of His thoughts. In fact, Isaiah tells us that we are inscribed on the very palms of His hands, the part of our body we use to reach out and demonstrate our love and concern through the ministry of touch. And the palms are the most tender part of those hands. So it is with compassionate and tender love that God has engraved us on His divine palms.
Sometimes in the midst of our troubles it may seem as if God has overlooked us. We pray and God doesn't seem to hear us. We read our Bibles, but the verses all seem lifeless and meaningless. We look for solutions, but God provides no answers.
Despite your circumstances, remember where your name is engraved. Be assured that God has not forgotten you. The forgetfulness that is so common with humans can never afflict Him. Jesus' nail-pierced palms are vivid reminders of our infinite value and His unending love. Give God time to accomplish His purpose in your life. Have confidence that your situation is only temporary. Stand firm on God's promise, "Yet will I not forget you." You're in good hands with God.
God always oversees; He never overlooks.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to offer your bodies to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That's the most sensible way to serve God. Don't be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him." Romans 12:1-2 CEV
Thoughts for Today
People with eating disorders tend to get so preoccupied with their body image that they develop a distorted view of themselves. Their concerns about food, diet, body and weight can even begin to affect their relationships and their ability to function in day-to-day life.
If you are in this situation, determine not to let your obsession with your body keep you from closeness with God and with others. Decide how you wish to spend your energy-pursuing the "perfect" image? Or focusing on your spiritual growth and your personal and interpersonal needs.
Society changes its view of what is beautiful ... styles come and go. But God's view of beauty never changes. Identifying and challenging your negative thoughts and feelings about your body and keeping God's view in mind are essential to accepting yourself and your body.
Consider this
Always remember your value as a person is not based on how you look or what you accomplish. Your value is based on the unchangeable fact that God loves you so much that he gave his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for you. Reach out to him today. Receive his love and forgiveness. And thank him for making you just the way you are.
Prayer
Father, I guess I've been pretty confused lately. I've been so concerned about how I look that I've ignored you. And relationships with others I care about have suffered. Please help me to begin thinking more clearly to see things from your point of view. Thank you for loving me just the way I am. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet, Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. $3.00 plus shipping.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
READ: . . . what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 'Father, glorify Your name' -John 12:27-28As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 26, 2008
One Exception READ: Isaiah 53:4-12Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God's words. -John 8:46-47
Are there any perfect people alive today? Not in the opinion of Harvard University psychiatrist Jerome Groopman. In his engrossing book How Doctors Think, he expresses agreement with the profound insights found in the Bible. He writes, "Everyone is flawed at some time, in thought or in deed, from Abraham to Moses to the Apostles."
But what about Jesus Christ? He challenged His listeners regarding Himself: "Which of you convicts Me of sin?" (John 8:46). The disciples' verdict after they had opportunity to scrutinize His life for at least 3 years was that He was without sin (1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5).
Was Jesus a moral miracle, the one sinless Person in the whole procession of sinful humans? Yes, He was the one spotless exception to this observation of the apostle Paul: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). And that word all includes both you and me!
Because all humanity has sinned, we can rejoice that Jesus was qualified-He and He alone-to be the flawless Sacrifice we need.
We give thanks for Jesus Christ, our sinless sin-bearer-the one exception!
- Vernon C. Grounds
Guilty, vile, and helpless, we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
"Full atonement!" can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior! -Bliss
Only Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, can declare guilty people perfect.
Man of Sorrows by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 53:3-4
He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
Man of Sorrows
Ted Turner, founder of Cable News Network, spoke in Orlando, Florida, a few years back and told a very moving story. Turner mentioned that he was raised in a God-fearing family and had a sister who was ill. Her illness progressed; she became critical. He prayed desperately for the Lord to spare her life and make her well. But she died. Then Turner told the audience that from that point on he knew, even as a kid, there was no God. What kind of loving God would have allowed his sister to suffer and die? Since that experience, he said, he has depended upon himself, not on an unfeeling, phantom-being that does not exist.
It's sad that Turner's perspective on God became skewed. Isaiah gives us a much different insight. The prophet does not say that God removes our sorrows; instead He sent someone to bear them with us, the Lord Jesus. He is acquainted with our griefs because He experiences them along with us. For reasons beyond our comprehension, God chose to link His happiness to ours. When we hurt, He hurts.
What a great blessing this is! The writer of Hebrews says, "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:15-16).
How can you be sure you will find mercy and grace? Because God experiences your pain right along with you. He understands how you feel. So come boldly, not with the expectations that God will always remove your pain, but with the assurance that He will bear it with you.
The sorrow and grief that Christ bore were not His but yours.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life." Proverbs 4:23 NLT
Thoughts for Today
People with eating disorders tend to become very self-focused and overly concerned with being acceptable to other people. More and more they believe that in order to be lovable they must be thin and beautiful, and they become preoccupied with making that happen.
Acceptance of your body is a daily process of perspective. One day you may feel fat and unattractive, and the next day you may feel slim and pretty, even though your body has not essentially changed. Ask God to help you see your body from his perspective and to accept yourself as his special creation.
Consider this
It is important to take your primary focus off your external body and begin to explore your internal self emotionally, spiritually and as a maturing human being. Remember that attractiveness comes from within. The Bible tells us to guard our hearts above all else. And you will learn that feeling positive about yourself will affect how others view you.
Spend regular time reading the Bible. Ask God to help you begin to understand just how much he loves you and how special you are to him. Remember that he knew you even when your body was being formed within your mother's womb. He has a special plan for your life and it is a good plan. Begin to focus on maturing your "inner self" in order to become all he has designed you to be.
Prayer Father, help me to shift my focus and to be more concerned about becoming what you want me to be-on the inside. Thank you for loving me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet, Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. $3.00 plus shipping.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Drawing on the Grace of God- Now READ: We . . . plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain -2 Corinthians 6:1
The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. ". . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses"- that is where our patience is tested ( 2 Corinthians 6:4 ). Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, "Oh well, I won't count this time"? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you- it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.
". . . in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 6:5 )- in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.
". . . having nothing . . . ." Never hold anything in reserve. Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you. ". . . and yet possessing all things"- this is poverty triumphant ( 2 Corinthians 6:10 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals June 27, 2008
God's Greater Goal
READ: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. -2 Corinthians 12:8
I have an unmarried friend who prays earnestly for God to lessen or even remove his sexual drive. It causes him constant temptation. As gently as I can, I tell him I doubt that God will answer his prayer the way he wants. More likely, he will learn fidelity the way anyone learns it, by relying on discipline, community, and constant pleas of dependence.
For whatever reason, God has let this broken world endure in its fallen state for a very long time. God seems to value character more than our comfort, often using the very elements that cause us the most discomfort as His tools in fashioning that character. This was true in the life of the apostle Paul, who prayed fruitlessly that his mysterious "thorn in the flesh" be removed (2 Cor. 12:8).
In my own life, I am trying to remain open to new realities, not blaming God when my expectations go unmet but trusting Him to lead me through failures toward renewal and growth. I am seeking a trust that "the Father knows best" in how this world is run. I see that the way in which I may want God to act does not achieve the results I might expect.
When God sent His own Son-sinless, full of grace and healing-we killed Him. God Himself allows what He does not prefer, to achieve some greater goal.
- Philip Yancey
For Further Study
Astoundingly, God doesn't exempt Himself from the
consequences of our sin. Read Why Did Christ Have
To Die? at www.discoveryseries.org/q0202
God uses our difficulties to develop His Son's likeness in us.
Satisfaction Guaranteed by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 55:1-2
Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money; come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
An anonymous author who had lived for the fleeting things of this world penned the following lines: "How foolishly I have employed myself! In what delirium has my life been passed! How I've wasted my life while the sun in its race and the stars in their courses have lent their beams. perhaps only to light me to perdition! I have pursued shadows and entertained myself with dreams. I might have grazed with the beasts of the field, or sung with the birds of the woods, to much better purposes than any for which I have lived."
What a contrast to those things which God has to offer. Not only are the portions from His table free and abundant, but most important, in the end they satisfy. Instead of regret, they result in joy and satisfaction.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).
Israel had to learn this truth the hard way. In spite of Isaiah's pleas, the people chose to chase after material well-being and political security rather than turn their hearts to the Lord. In the end, they lost everything as they were carried away to Babylon.
Are you looking for satisfaction? Then open your Bible and partake of the feast that God has spread for you. His promise is that when you reach the end of your life, you will never regret a moment that you have spent at His table. With God, satisfaction is always guaranteed.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!" Proverbs 3:5-8 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Preoccupation with our body image is counter to God's will for our lives. If you find yourself in this struggle, take this first vital step: Run to God! Ask him to help you see yourself as he does-as his treasure, his precious child. He loves you unconditionally. He loves you so much that he gave his son, Jesus, to provide a way for you to be forgiven and live with him in heaven forever.
God loves you just the way you are. No matter what you have or haven't done, no matter what you look like, or how much you weigh. He wants you to know how special you are to him. He has a good plan for your life.
Consider this
Take time right now to talk to God. Tell him how you feel. Ask him to help you. Accept his forgiveness for all past sin and commit to follow him, to do things his way. He won't turn you away. Actually, he is waiting for you with open arms.
Your problems and challenges probably won't instantly disappear. But Jesus will be holding you hand and guiding you to health and healing, to right choices, and to becoming all he has designed you to be.
Run to him today!
Prayer
Father, I need your help. I come to you asking for forgiveness and for help in doing things your way. My way certainly hasn't worked. Guide me to health, to right choices, to becoming all you want me to be. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together.
A companion booklet, Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. $3.00 plus shipping.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Overshadowing of God's Personal Deliverance
READ:
. . . I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord -Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally- ". . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . ." (Jeremiah 39:18 ). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God's personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly." Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, "Why should I be treated like this?" If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, "Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance." Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard- we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God's name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6 ).
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 28, 2008
Amateur Christians
READ: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
The love of Christ compels us. -2 Corinthians 5:14
The word amateur has been redefined over the years and has lost the luster of its original meaning. The English word comes from the Latin word amore, which means "to love." An amateur is someone who does something simply for the love of it.
In today's way of thinking, receiving payment moves you into a "higher" category-that of a professional. The reasoning is that if someone is willing to pay for your service, you must be really good. An amateur, therefore, is considered to have less skill or talent.
As I read my Bible, however, I see a different hierarchy of values. During the time of Jesus, the religious professionals were using their position to gain power and prestige for themselves, not to serve the people. Jesus didn't choose those who were wise, mighty, or noble by human standards (1 Cor. 1:26). He sought those willing to follow Him and be trained for loving service.
In today's world, the scene is much the same. God is still looking for "amateurs," those who will serve the Lord for the sheer love of it. Compelled by our love for Jesus, may we, like the disciples and apostles before us, proclaim the love of God for the world by following Christ's example of loving and serving others.
- Julie Ackerman Link
I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me
And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree;
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow:
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now. -Featherstone
One proof of our love for God is our love for our neighbor.
Gotcha' God by Woodrow Kroll by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 55:8-9
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."
Gotcha' God!
A young boy at the dinner table asked, "Dad, is God everywhere?" "Yes," his father assured him, "God is everywhere." "Is He in this room?" the boy wanted to know. "Of course," his father said. "If God is everywhere, then He is in this room." Eyeing the sugar bowl on the table, the boy continued, "Well, is God in that sugar bowl?" "Yes," his father replied, "if God is everywhere, I guess we'd have to say that He's even in the sugar bowl." Reaching for the lid, the boy quickly slipped it over the bowl. "Gotcha', God!" he said.
The Israelites also wanted a "sugar bowl" god, someone they could control. Isaiah rebuked them for cutting down a tree and using part of it to warm themselves and with the rest making it "into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, 'Deliver me, for you are my god!'" (44:17). Israel wanted a god who could be contained in their temples and manipulated by their worship, but the God Isaiah had seen (6:1) was not that kind of a God.
How wonderful to know that the real God is so much greater than anything we can imagine or create. His ways and even His thoughts are so far beyond our finite minds that we can't begin to comprehend Him. When we come to Him with our problems and our difficulties, we never have to worry about whether He's big enough to handle them.
Don't try to put God in a sugar bowl. You won't be successful, for He is an awesome God. Rejoice that though you may not be able to understand Him, you will always be able to trust Him.
God will be God regardless of what we do!
Week of June 23
Be a Winner
Coach Bear Bryant is known as a football legend. But more than anything else, he is remembered as a winner. At the end of his 38-season career, he held six national championships and more victories than any other coach in college football history.
In a tribute to Coach Bryant in the February 19, 1983, issue of National Review, Victor Gold wrote, "Like all authentic Southern legends, he was of the soil."
Bryant once said, "If I hadn't found football, I would have ended up behind a mule just like my daddy. But I will tell you one thing: I would have plowed the straightest furrow in Arkansas."
Somebody asked Bryant if he considered himself an innovator or a trendsetter.
"No," Bryant replied, "I'm nothing but a winner."
This winning attitude and winning career says something very important to you as a believer. When Jesus died on the cross, He declared Satan's power to be no longer invincible. As a victor in a battle takes away the spoils of victory from his enemy, Jesus took away the privileges of Satan. "Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).
Because of the cross, the barrier of sin that once separated you from God has been removed. The gulf of sin has been bridged. The death that characterizes your fate has been taken away, and through Christ you have been made alive.
Wherever you are spiritually today, you can be a winner. Satan has no power over you. When Christ died on the cross and rose again, He was saying to you, "Be a winner."
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).
Are you spiritually alert? Can you recognize your real enemy? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Who is Your Real Enemy?" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Held by the Grip of God
READ:
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me -Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you "turn aside to the right hand or to the left" ( Deuteronomy 5:32 ). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has "laid hold of" us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, "Well, I'm really not suited for this." What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you- your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are- you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do. . . I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" ( Philippians 3:13-14 ).
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 29, 2008
True Confessions
READ: Psalm 51:1-13
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. -Psalm 51:5
I love coconut. I always have! So, after an exhausting day in second grade, I found a bag of shredded coconut in the cupboard and devoured the whole thing. When my mother went into the kitchen later to bake-you guessed it, a coconut cake-I heard, "Who ate the coconut?!"
I knew I was in trouble, but my escape plan was simple-a quick, easy lie: "Not me!"
She continued her inquiry with my sisters, but after they denied it, we all heard the familiar words: "Wait till your Dad comes home!" My cover-up plan was doomed to failure, and later that evening I finally confessed.
No one had to teach me to lie. As the psalmist David admits, "I was brought forth in iniquity" (Ps. 51:5). But in his sin David knew where to go-to the God of abundant mercy who will cleanse us from our sin (vv.1-2).
When we recognize the ongoing reality of sin in our lives, we are reminded of our ongoing need for the presence of God and the power of His Word to keep us safe and spiritually sane. He is waiting for us to confess our faults and embrace the forgiveness and cleansing that He readily offers.
Remember, a refreshing plunge into God's mercy awaits you on the other side of confessed sin!
- Joe Stowell
Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee. -Sleeper
Own up to your sin and experience the joy of confession.
The Living Link by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 59:2
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear
The Living Link
Great Britain's King George V was to give the opening address at a special disarmament conference with the speech relayed by radio to the United States. As the broadcast was about to begin, a cable broke in a New York Radio station and more than a million listeners were left without sound. A junior mechanic in the station, Harold Vivien, solved the problem by picking up both ends of the cable and allowing 250 volts of electricity to pass through him harmlessly. He became a living link.
Sin causes the same problem as a broken cable. It interferes with our ability to communicate with the King of the universe. In fact, Isaiah goes so far as to say that sin separates us from God.
Fortunately, a provision has been made to bridge that break. Just as Mr. Vivien became the means for communication to be restored with King George V, the Lord Jesus Christ has become the link to reconnect us to God. The apostle Paul wrote, "He [God] has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Col. 1:13-14).
When our sins are covered by the blood of Christ, God can communicate with us through His Word. Instead of being dull, lifeless words on a page, they are infused with spiritual vitality that can change our lives. Furthermore, our own communication with God, prayer, becomes unfettered. We have the assurance that He hears us and will respond to our needs.
If you feel like you aren't getting through to God, maybe the link is broken. Ask Him to show you any sin in your life that might be hindering your ability to communicate with Him. Then confess it, forsake it, and get back in communication with the King.
The Living Link is the only solution to the broken link.
Your God is a Good God
by Max Lucado
Use your uniqueness to take great risks for God!
The only mistake is not to risk making one.
Such was the error of the one-talent servant. Did the master notice him? Indeed, he did. And from the third servant we learn a sobering lesson. "Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground' " (Matt. 25: 24-25).
Contrast the reaction of the third servant with that of the first two.
The faithful servants "went and traded" (v. 16). The fearful one "went and dug" (v. 18).
The first two invested. The last one buried.
The first two went out on a limb. The third hugged the trunk.
The master wouldn't stand for it. Brace yourself for the force of his response. "You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest" (vv. 26-27).
Whoa. What just happened? Why the blowtorch? Find the answer in the missing phrase. The master repeated the assessment of the servant, word for word, with one exclusion. Did you note it? "I knew you to be a hard man" (v. 24). The master didn't repeat the description he wouldn't accept.
The servant levied a cruel judgment by calling the master a hard man. The servant used the exact word for "hard" that Christ used to describe stiff-necked and stubborn Pharisees (see Matt. 19:8; Acts 7:51). The writer of Hebrews employed the term to beg readers not to harden their hearts (3:8). The one-talent servant called his master stiff-necked, stubborn, and hard.
His sin was not mismanagement, but misunderstanding. Was his master hard? He gave multimillion-dollar gifts to undeserving servants; he honored the two-talent worker as much as the five; he stood face to face with both at homecoming and announced before the audiences of heaven and hell, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Was this a hard master? Infinitely good, graciously abundant, yes. But hard? No.
The one-talent servant never knew his master. He should have. He lived under his roof and shared his address. He knew his face, his name, but he never knew his master's heart. And, as a result, he broke it.
Who is this unprofitable servant? If you never use your gifts for God, you are. If you think God is a hard God, you are.
For fear of doing the wrong thing for God, you'll do nothing for God. For fear of making the wrong kingdom decision, you'll make no kingdom decision. For fear of messing up, you'll miss out. You will give what this servant gave and will hear what this servant heard: "You wicked and lazy servant" (v. 26).
But you don't have to. It's not too late to seek your Father's heart. Your God is a good God.
From
Cure for the Common Life:
Living in Your Sweet Spot
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005) Max Lucado
Now in paperback with practical assessment tools included in the back of the book apply the powerful principles of Cure for the Common Life
The Strictest Discipline
READ:
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell -Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that "if your right hand causes you to sin" in your walk with Him, then it is better to "cut it off." There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then "cut it off." The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do- things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, "What's so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!" There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God's sight than to appear lovely to man's eyes but lame to God's. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don't use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but inMatthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life- "You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
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God bless
Daily Devotionals June 30, 2008
Lassa Fever
READ: Romans 3:19-26
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. -Romans 5:9
When Lily Pinneo, a missionary nurse, was in West Africa, she contracted a deadly disease called Lassa fever. After Lily was flown to New York for medical treatment, her temperature soared to 107°F. To reduce the fever, doctors packed her in ice and fed her intravenously. The fever subsided. After 9 weeks, she had lost 28 pounds and most of her hair. Yet somehow, she survived.
In a laboratory, Dr. Casals carefully isolated and analyzed the Lassa virus. But he too fell ill from his exposure to the disease. At the time, no known treatment was effective. Fortunately, Nurse Pinneo was convalescing and had built up antibodies to the dread disease. She donated blood plasma to Dr. Casals and he recovered too. Her blood saved his life.
All of us are infected with the fatal disease of sin (Rom. 6:23). There is only one cure. It resides in the cleansing power of Jesus Christ's shed blood. Paul wrote, "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:9). The righteous wrath of God against transgression has been fully satisfied through Jesus' death in our place. All we need do is repent, recognize Him as our Savior, and receive the spiritual cure for sin. Have you made that decision?
- Dennis Fisher
Redeemed-how I love to proclaim it!
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed through His infinite mercy,
His child, and forever, I am. -Crosby
The price of our freedom from sin was paid by Jesus' blood.
Before You Call by Woodrow Kroll
Isaiah 65:24
It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.
Before You Call
Dr. Helen Roseveare, a missionary to Africa, told about a mother who died at the mission station after giving birth to a premature baby. An incubator was set up to keep the infant alive, but the only available hot water bottle was beyond repair. During devotions that morning the children were asked to pray for the baby and for her young sister, who were now orphans. One of the girls responded, "Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead. And dear Lord, send a doll for the sister so she won't feel so lonely."
That afternoon a large parcel arrived from England. Eagerly the children watched as it was opened. Much to their delight, under some clothing was a hot water bottle! Immediately the girl who had prayed so earnestly started to delve deeper, exclaiming, "If God sent that, I'm sure He also sent a doll." And she was right! Five months earlier, God had led a group of women in England to include both of those items in response to a prayer that had not yet been uttered.
That's the promise God gives us through Isaiah. As the One who knows what lies ahead, the Lord works even in the past to bring about blessings for His children's future.
As you consider your situation today, it may seem that the Lord is asking you to do the illogical. You may think, Why should God prompt me to do this? I see no need. But remember, what you do today could be the answer to someone's prayers tomorrow. Trust God, and let the One who holds both the past and future be your Guide for the present.
With God, the past and future are simply part of the eternal present.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You must not have any other god but me." Exodus 20:3 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The Ten Commandments deal with our relationship with God and with others. The bottom line is love. Each of these commandments holds a great deal of meaning for our lives today. One of the more prevalent "other gods" in our society today is the New Age Movement.
Today's scripture is the first of the Ten Commandments. It calls for an undivided faithfulness to God. Because we have been created in God's image, this relationship is at the very core of human need and affects everyone. "Other gods" usually brings to mind a wooden or stone image or the proclaimed god of another religion, but there are more subtle "other gods." Anything that takes our focus off Christ anything that we devote more time and attention and allegiance to than Jesus can become our other god. It might be money or sports or sex. It could be our job, a relationship or even working in a ministry.
Consider this
It is so easy to be sidetracked-sometimes even doing good things-that we let our personal relationship with the Lord suffer. It is good to do a periodic reality check. Am I asking God for guidance or doing my own thing? Am I trusting in my job, or another person or my own abilities more than I'm trusting in the Lord?
If you find that you've wandered off the path, begin to refocus on Jesus.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for sometimes getting sidetracked and making other things or people a more important part of my life than you are. Help me to refocus on Jesus. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Do It Now!
READ:
Agree with your adversary quickly . . . -Matthew 5:25
In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, "Do what you know you must do- now. Do it quickly. If you don't, an inevitable process will begin to work 'till you have paid the last penny' ( Matthew 5:26 ) in pain, agony, and distress." God's laws are unchangeable and there is no escape from them. The teachings of Jesus always penetrate right to the heart of our being.
Wanting to make sure that my adversary gives me all my rights is a natural thing. But Jesus says that it is a matter of inescapable and eternal importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord's standpoint it doesn't matter whether I am cheated or not, but what does matter is that I don't cheat someone else. Am I insisting on having my own rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ's standpoint?
Do it quickly- bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. If you don't, the inevitable, relentless process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit of God so strongly urges us to stay steadfastly in the light! (see John 3:19-21 ).
"Agree with your adversary quickly . . . ." Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly- make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person- do it now!
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 1, 2008
Joyful Living
READ: 1 Timothy 6:17-19
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. -1 Timothy 6:17
Our search for joy takes us many different directions-dream holidays, shopping, food, clothes, friends, cars-the list is almost endless.
My guess is that if you perked up at the mention of shopping, holidays, or cars, you might have felt a twinge of guilt. We often view the joy of temporal things as less than spiritual and show our discomfort by apologizing for nice things: "I wouldn't have bought this, but someone gave me a wonderful deal." As if real Christians never eat quiche, drive cool cars, or wear designer clothes!
No doubt God's greatest gift to us is our relationship with His Son Jesus. It's a gift beyond comparison. Jesus promised that when we abide in Him we will experience the fulfillment of His joy (John 15:11), and without that kind of deep, abiding joy the rest of life is mundane at best.
But Scripture also casts the joy of the Lord in terms of temporal things. The enjoyment of "things" can be a positive spiritual experience. When we recognize that He "gives us richly all things to enjoy" (1 Tim. 6:17) and that "every good gift . . . is from above" (James 1:17), our hearts should be full of thankfulness and praise. This, in and of itself, is an act of worship! Enjoy the Giver and the gifts. - Joe Stowell
We thank Thee, Lord, for daily food,
For plenteous store of earthly good;
For life and health we still possess,
With house and home so richly blessed. -Mohler
Our heavenly Father delights in bringing us delight.
Living in the Valleys by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 15:21-22
And Miriam answered them: "Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!" So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
Living in the Valleys
Mountaintops are great places. As you stand on some lofty peak it seems as if you can see forever. But most people don't live on mountains. The demands of reality require that life is generally lived in the valleys.
The Israelites had just come through one of the high points of their nation's history, a mountaintop experience. Pursued by Pharaoh's army, they crossed the Red Sea with dry sandals and then saw the waters rush together again upon their enemy's horses and chariots. With tremendous joy, they sang God's praise. Then they hit the valley,from the fresh air of the mountaintop to the dry, oppressive air of the wilderness. For three days they traveled without finding water. Compared to the mountaintops, the valleys are real spiritual challenges.
But that's the way real life is. Spiritual mountaintops are wonderful. You feel particularly close to God during your devotional time; you return from a weekend retreat knowing the living Lord has met with you in a special way; you come home from church after the pastor's sermon has met a deep spiritual need in your life. You revel in the warmth of these marvelous mountaintop experiences.
But that's not where you live. You live in the valley, where there are dirty dishes to wash, lawns to mow and children to raise. Often real life isn't much fun.
Fortunately, Israel discovered, as will you, that God is with you both on the mountain and in the valley. He never leaves you, never allows you out of His loving care. We all appreciate those times when we encounter God in a special way, but we know that God is also with us when we sink to spiritual lows and feel a little dry. The God you meet in the good times is the same God who meets you in the hard times.
The God who dwells on the mountains also inhabits the valleys.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Exodus 20:4 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This is the second of the Ten Commandments and shows that we are to worship only God. God forbids us to worship or use created things or even creation itself as an approach to him. The only correct image of God to worship is his son, Jesus Christ. Not trees or flowers or land. Not statues or monuments or traditions. Only Jesus.
We should have no God-substitutes. When we look to anyone or anything other than Christ as our primary source of meaning, self-worth, comfort or fulfillment, we are in danger of having an idol in our lives. An idol is anything that we depend on for solutions that only God can provide. Three common types of idols are substances, behaviors and relationships that control our lives.
Consider this
God doesn't want us to serve idols because he loves us and knows what is best for us. Let us come before him daily, seeking his will and his plan for our lives. Let us worship Jesus.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for trying to find comfort solutions happiness in things or activities or relationships. Although you may use some of these things or people to enrich my life and to help me, I know that you are the source of all good things. Help me to never again depend on a substitute. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Inevitable Penalty
READ:
You will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny -Matthew 5:26
There is no heaven that has a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure, holy, and right, and He will not allow you to escape from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit for even one moment. He urged you to come to judgment immediately when He convicted you, but you did not obey. Then the inevitable process began to work, bringing its inevitable penalty. Now you have been "thrown into prison, [and] . . . you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny" ( 5:25-26 ). Yet you ask, "Is this a God of mercy and love?" When seen from God's perspective, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure, spotless, and undefiled, but He wants you to recognize the nature you were exhibiting- the nature of demanding your right to yourself. The moment you are willing for God to change your nature, His recreating forces will begin to work. And the moment you realize that God's purpose is to get you into the right relationship with Himself and then with others, He will reach to the very limits of the universe to help you take the right road. Decide to do it right now, saying, "Yes, Lord, I will write that letter," or, "I will be reconciled to that person now."
These sermons of Jesus Christ are meant for your will and your conscience, not for your head. If you dispute these verses from the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you will dull the appeal to your heart.
If you find yourself asking, "I wonder why I'm not growing spiritually with God?"- then ask yourself if you are paying your debts from God's standpoint. Do now what you will have to do someday. Every moral question or call comes with an "ought" behind it- the knowledge of knowing what we ought to do.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 2, 2008
Being An Ambassador
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
[God] has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. -2 Corinthians 5:19-20
After visiting a homeless shelter, a group of teenagers couldn't wait to express what they had experienced. Excitedly, they wrote about their visits with men and women of all ages who were poor and destitute.
One teen wrote: "I talked with a Vietnam vet and told him that in heaven he would have a new body. I was able to reassure him in his faith."
Another said, "A guy named Michael showed me that even though he was living in a homeless shelter, having faith made all the difference."
Still another wrote: "I talked with a man who had almost stopped believing in God. I tried to [encourage him in his faith]."
While desiring to share God's message of reconciliation, these teens were surprised to find that some of the people already knew God. By cutting through the discomfort of their differences, the kids discovered people who needed the reassurance that God still cared for them. The teens' roles changed from sharing the good news to guiding their new friends toward a deeper faith.
Being "ambassadors for Christ" (2 Cor. 5:20) opens doors of opportunity both to share the gospel and to strengthen the struggling. Seek out someone today who needs encouragement or "the word of reconciliation" (v.19). - Dave Branon
Lord, use us as Your instruments
Of truth and love and care,
And may we bring encouragement
As Your good news we share. -Sper
A word of encouragement can make the difference between giving up and going on.
By The Waters Of Bitterness by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 15:23
Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.
By the Waters of Bitterness
During the last few decades the news has been filled with stories about a pollutant called acid rain. It?s an increasing problem in the northeastern United States and Canada. Acid rain is the result of sulfur and nitrogen oxides being washed from the air by normal rainfall. These pollutants are killing whole forests and destroying fish and other aquatic life in numerous lakes.
The people of Israel encountered a similar situation at an oasis they called Marah, which means "bitter." Something had so polluted the water that it was undrinkable. The people of God were in danger of dying of thirst. But when we need God most, He is always there. Jehovah directed Moses to a tree that miraculously restored the pureness of the water when cast into it (v. 25).
Bitter water also can destroy our spiritual lives. James asks, "Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?" (James 3:11). The sweet spirit God wants for us cannot exist in a heart polluted by bitterness. Bitterness on the inside will eventually manifest itself on the outside. No matter how carefully we think we have concealed it, bitterness will contaminate all we are, all we say, and all we do. The only solution is to apply the healing balm of God?s Spirit to the bitterness of our lives.
If you are being polluted by bitterness, isn't it time for God's freshness? Confess that your bitterness is a sin that is keeping you miserably distant from God. Ask for His forgiveness and begin to enjoy a renewed sweetness.
A bitter spirit will keep you from being a better person.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This is the third of the Ten Commandments and emphasizes right thinking regarding the name of the Lord. Most of us want our names to be spoken correctly and with honor and respect. God, whose name is above every name, desires-and deserves-his name to be used with the greatest respect and honor.
Consider this
Although this commandment is correctly viewed as prohibiting profanity and blasphemy, it means more than that. It also means we are never to take the Lord's reputation lightly. If we call ourselves Christian, we are privileged to use his name. We dishonor his precious name every time we say or do something that does not show honor or respect for him when we hurt or condemn rather than showing love to others.
We should take care not to take God's name frivolously in conversation or lightly in worship. We should avoid movies and TV programs that use his name in profanity or show other signs of disrespect.
Let us use the Lord's name with reverence and honor him in all we say, in all we do and in all that we are.
Prayer
Father, help me to honor your name not only in my speech, but also in every thought, in my attitudes and in all that I do. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Conditions of Discipleship
READ:
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also . . . . And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me . . . . So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple -Luke 14:26-27, 33
If the closest relationships of a disciple's life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person- our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause- He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has "poured out in our hearts" the very "love of God" (Romans 5:5 ). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 3, 2008
What, Me Worry? READ: Numbers 13:26-33Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. -Philippians 4:6
Whenever a preacher begins to talk about worry, I sense a pair of eyes staring at me. Without even turning my head, I know that my husband is looking at me to see if I'm paying attention.
I hate to admit it, but I'm a worrier. And precisely because there are a lot of people just like me, Jesus addressed this problem in Matthew 6:25-34 when He said: "Do not worry." Don't worry about the basic needs of life-food, clothing, shelter-and don't worry about tomorrow.
Worry may be a symptom of a bigger problem. Sometimes it's a lack of gratitude for the way God has cared for us in the past. Or perhaps it's a lack of faith that God really is trustworthy. Or it may be a refusal to depend on God instead of ourselves.
Some people expand the worry circle to their families, friends, and churches. They're a lot like the 10 spies in Numbers 13:26-33 who spread their fear and doubt to everyone else. But those who put their trust in God alone can stand alongside Joshua and Caleb, the only ones in the group of 12 whom God allowed to enter the Promised Land.
Don't let worries hold you back from what God may be trying to teach you. He invites you to bring your anxious thoughts directly to Him (Phil. 4:6). - Cindy Hess Kasper
When you feel the tension mounting,
And across the busy day
Only gloomy clouds are drifting,
As you start to worry-pray! -Anon.
To be anxious about nothing, pray about everything.
The Attitude of Ingratitude by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 15:24
And the people murmured against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?"
The Attitude of Ingratitude
Hot springs and cold springs are found side by side in some parts of Mexico. Because of the convenience of this natural phenomenon, women often bring their laundry to such places so they can boil their clothes in the hot springs and then rinse them in the cold ones. A tourist who was watching this procedure commented to his Mexican guide, "I imagine they think Mother Nature is pretty generous to supply such ample, clean, hot and cold water here side by side for their free use." The guide replied, "No, Senor, there is much grumbling because she supplies no soap."
Ingratitude is not limited to Mexican peasants; Israel demonstrated the same attitude. God had just performed some awe-inspiring miracles for His people's benefit. He had slain the first born of Egypt so that Pharaoh would free the Israelites. He had provided a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night to guide their journey. He had opened the Red Sea for them to cross and brought it crashing back on the Egyptian army pursuing them. Yet when they hit their first snag, instead of trusting God, they turned to complaining.
Times of need are times for praying, not complaining. Complaining says to God, "You aren?t taking very good care of me." Prayer says to God, "I may not understand what's happening, but I trust You to take care of me."
Do you feel life is treating you unfairly? Are you tempted to complain? Try this. Take a notebook and list some of the marvelous things God has already done in your life, such as providing your salvation, a measure of health, a supportive family and an inspired Bible. Then look with confidence that He will provide for your situation today as well.
Nothing cures ingratitude as quickly as a good memory.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." Exodus 20:8 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The fourth commandment focuses on setting aside a time for rest and worship and clearly shows that God is concerned about our time.
In today's world, time seems to be a real issue for most people. We have time management courses and an unending stream of electronic devices to help us organize, schedule and remember.
God wants us to balance work with rest and worship. Even he set aside a day of rest after six days of creation. Jesus set aside times to rest away from the crowds. And so we need to learn to balance all our busy activities with rest and worship. Sabbath means rest. God told us to set aside this time because he loves us and knows we need it. Without a special time to rest and worship, our focus on God will become dim. We will tend to stress out and to suffer physically and emotionally, as well as spiritually.
Consider this
Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man. It is a time to regroup for the coming days. A time to focus on God. A time to enjoy our family and to experience rest and recreation.
God has given us this gift. Let's enjoy it!
Prayer
Lord, thank you for the Sabbath, for this special time for rest and worship. Help me learn to balance my time and activities and not neglect the Sabbath. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Concentration of Personal SinREAD: Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips . . . -Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, "Oh yes, I know I am a sinner," but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind's attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone's life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, "I don't know where I've gone wrong," but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah's vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was "a man of unclean lips." "He touched my mouth with it, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged' " ( Isaiah 6:7 ). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 4, 2008
The Unpayable Debt We Owe
READ: Galatians 5:1-14
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. -Galatians 5:1
Our gratitude is deepened when we remember the price others paid to help obtain freedom. In the United States, one such person was Richard Stockton.
Stockton was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was a prominent lawyer and a wealthy landowner. Because he supported the war efforts, he and his family were driven from their home. That home was sacked and burned. Stockton was imprisoned for several years and subjected to harsh treatment that broke his health. He died a pauper at the age of 51. Yet few Americans remember this hero who paid such a high price for the cause of liberty. His sacrifice is largely forgotten.
Even more important, have we become so familiar with the gospel that we fail to appreciate what our salvation cost the Savior? We rejoice in the spiritual freedom we enjoy by faith in the sin-canceling death of Jesus, but do we realize at least to some small degree the price He paid?
Are we truly grateful to Jesus for all He sacrificed to set us free spiritually? If so, we are to "stand fast . . . in the liberty by which Christ has made us free" (Gal. 5:1). No matter what else may be demanding our attention, let's take time to remember the unpayable debt we owe Him. - Vernon C. Grounds
But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away-
'Tis all that I can do! -Watts
Salvation is infinitely costly but absolutely free.
Cry Out by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 15:25
So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and when he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them.
Cry Out
On a gloomy day in 1857, a man in New York City, Jeremiah Lanthier, scanned the morning newspaper. He was distressed to read that the depression gripping the nation was causing fear and panic among the people. Factories were closing and thousands were unemployed. Although Lanthier didn't know what to do, he knew who did! That day he sent a note to all his business acquaintances, telling them that at noon a prayer meeting would be held in his office.
On the first day no one came. All alone he prayed fervently that God would bring about a great change in him and in America. The second day a few friends joined him. A short time later similar gatherings were started around the city. Then like wildfire, the movement spread to all parts of the country. Some historians say that this effort of united prayer and faith was an integral part of the improvement in the economy that soon followed.
Moses also faced a situation for which he had no answers, but he knew who did. Fervently he cried out to God, and God showed him what to do. It was not something he would have dreamed up on his own; it was better. The waters of Marah were bitter, and so were God's people about the quality of the water. The Israelites grumbled about many little things, but this was life-threatening. All Moses could do was pray to God and trust His answer, regardless of how unorthodox that answer may be.
What do you do when you don't know what to do? Follow the example set by other godly people, cry out to the Lord and He will answer. If you are willing to follow His instructions, you will never be left without the right answers.
It's not what you know but who you know that counts.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Honor your father and your mother." Exodus 20:12 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This is the fifth of the Ten Commandments and is the centerpiece of all the commandments. The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God and the last six focus on social relationships. This one serves as a bridge from our focus on God to our focus on interpersonal relationships. Honoring one's father and mother is a model to respect God and others. Honor is learned in the home and flows into other areas of respect for various kinds of authority.
Children are to obey and honor their parents. Even though we are no longer called to obey after we enter adulthood and are living out on our own, our responsibility to honor them never ceases. If they treat us badly, we don't need to honor the wrong things they do, but we still need to honor them as our parents and show them respect.
As they age, we can continue to honor our parents by checking on them regularly, by seeing that they are lovingly cared for, by visiting them, talking to them, and especially by listening to them. It is easy to get so busy with job, friends and other family and even church that we begin to neglect our parents. It is important to guard against that.
Consider this
As you move through the various cycles of life, ask God to help you honor your parents with your time, your care, your prayers and your love.
Prayer
Father, thank you for my parents. Help me to always honor them in my thoughts, as well as my words and actions. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
One of God's Great "Don'ts"
READ:
Do not fret- it only causes harm -Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves "out of joint" mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, "Do not fret," but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It's easy to say, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" ( Psalm 37:7 ) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to "rest in the Lord" then? If this "Do not" doesn't work there, then it will not work anywhere. This "Do not" must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God's plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and "abide under the shadow of the Almighty" ( Psalm 91:1 ). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 5, 2008
Finders Keepers
READ: Matthew 25:31-40
Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. -Matthew 25:40
People who find something of value are generally eager to keep it. In such cases, the notion of "finders keepers" seems like a good thing. But what if the thing we find is a problem? In that case, we're eager to give it up.
While working for the US Justice Department, Gary Haugen discovered a big problem. Someone needs to do something about this, he thought. He looked around for someone who could take on the injustice and abuse of authority he had uncovered. But then he realized that God was looking at him. In 1997, Haugen founded International Justice Mission to rescue victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, and oppression.
Just as Moses was God's answer for the slavery of His people in Egypt (Ex. 3:9-10), so too Haugen and his team are becoming God's answer for those in slavery today. As Haugen says, "God doesn't have a Plan B. His plan is you. You are the answer."
God places us in unique circumstances where our abilities match the problem He wants to fix. Jesus said that what we do for those in need, we do for Him (Matt. 25:35-40).
Have you found a problem? How might you be God's solution? God may want you to be an answer to someone's prayer. - Julie Ackerman Link
By God's design, there lies in wait for you
Important work that no one else can do.
Just as the planets find their paths through space,
You too must grow to fill your proper place. -Thayer
When God shows you a problem, He may ask you to be His solution.
The Key to Health by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 15:26
"If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you."
The Key to Health
Millions of people are exploring alternatives to traditional Western medicine. Such approaches as biofeedback, autogenics training, kinesiology, bioenergetics, reflexology, stress management, homeopathy, naturopathy and macrobiotics are just a few of the possibilities. But God offers the real key to health; it's called obedience.
God told the Israelites if they would "give ear to His commandments" and "keep all His statutes," they would avoid many of the illnesses that plagued the people of Egypt. This was not a matter of "buying" their obedience; it was a matter of natural consequences. By avoiding sin, they would avoid the unhealthy results of sin as well.
This principle still holds true today. We talk a great deal about breaking God's laws, but we really only break ourselves against God's laws. By living contrary to God's commandments, people contract sexually transmitted diseases; others weaken their bodies by a lack of exercise, poor diets and high stress; still others smoke or drink themselves into life-threatening danger.
It is God's will that you treat your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). Don't take it anywhere or expose it to anything that you know to be contrary to God's law. Get appropriate rest, eat healthy food and reduce stress. Obedience is the key. Living in harmony with His commandments will avoid many illnesses and make others more easy to overcome.
An ounce of obedience is worth a pound of protection.
Week of June 30
The Day I Died
George Müller, an esteemed evangelist and prayer warrior of the nineteenth century, was once asked, "What is the secret of your victorious life?"
His answer was simple. "It was the day I died, utterly died."
As he spoke, Müller bent down until he reached the floor and then continued:
Died to George Müller-his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will. Died to the world-its approval or censure. Died to approval or blame-even of my brethren and friends. Since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.
Until you learn to die to self, you will live your Christian life in defeat. Until you learn to die to sin, you will live in bondage. Until you learn to die to pride, you will live in slavery and servitude.
If any believer feels defeated, it is because he has bought into the lie of believing that Satan has invincible power over him. As a child of God, you do not need to be in bondage. James 4:7 commands, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
When James says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you," it does not mean that you are standing in the battle arena and being beaten. Rather, it is a picture of a general who has defeated his enemy and calls out to his officers to clean house.
Your commanding general arose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is at the Father's right hand-with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to Him (1 Peter 3:22).
When you are joined with Christ, you have the same authority. You can break out of bondage. You can give up a sinful habit. You can be freed from an addiction-by the power of Christ.
You have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority (Colossians 2:10).
Are you spiritually alert? Can you recognize your real enemy? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Who is Your Real Enemy?" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Don't Plan Without God
READ:
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass -Psalm 37:5
Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him- that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our "spiritual face" before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don't plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? "Love . . . thinks no evil" ( 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 ). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don't plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1 ). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command- "Let not. . . ." To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 6, 2008
Why Bother With Church?
READ: Ephesians 4:1-16
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. -Hebrews 10:24-25
Winston Churchill once said that he related to the church rather like a flying buttress: He supported it from the outside. (A flying buttress is an external support that reinforces the walls of old cathedrals.) I tried that strategy for a while, after coming to believe Christian doctrine sincerely and committing myself to God.
I am not alone. Fewer people attend church on Sunday than claim to follow Christ. Some feel burned by a former experience. Others simply "get nothing out of church." Why bother?
Today, I could hardly imagine life without church. Church has filled a need for me that can't be met in any other way. An early-church leader wrote, "The virtuous soul that is alone . . . is like the burning coal that is alone. It will grow colder rather than hotter."
Christianity is not a purely intellectual, internal faith. It can be lived only in community. At a deep level, I sense that church contains something I desperately need. Whenever I abandoned church for a time, I found that I was the one who suffered. My faith faded, and the crusty shell of lovelessness grew over me again. I grew colder rather than hotter.
And so, my journeys away from church have always circled back to the church. - Philip Yancey
We join our hearts and hands together,
Faithful to the Lord's command;
We hold each other to God's standards-
All that truth and love demand. -D. De Haan
The church is not a select circle for a few but a spiritual center open to all.
Does Jesus Care? by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 15:27
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.
Does Jesus Care?
Almost a hundred years ago, a minister was plagued with ongoing trials and discouragements. When he thought he no longer could stand it, Rev. Frank Graeff remembered 1 Peter 5:7, which says, "casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." A new joy and peace encouraged his soul and he penned a song in which every stanza began with the question, "Does Jesus care . . . ?" The refrain echoes back, "O yes, He cares, I know He cares! His heart is touched with my grief."
The Israelites had reached a point in their journey where they were asking, "Does God care?" There had been years of hardship in Egypt. Then there was the hard trek through the wilderness. Finally they came upon a campsite where the water was unfit to drink. Life was not easy, but at last God brought them to Elim, where the water was plenteous and the trees were lush and shady. In the midst of their adversity, God brought them to a place of relief.
Does God care about you? He really does. If you're going through a tough time, don't give up. God has an Elim in your future. Scripture promises that God "will not allow you to be tempted [tried] beyond what you are able" (1 Cor. 10:13). Ahead, at God's rest stop, there is rest for the weary and tranquility for the distressed. If you're at Marah, the water of bitterness, look ahead to Elim, the place of peace.
In His time, God gives us rest from every test.
Choosing the Uncommon Life
by Max Lucado
One can't, at once, promote two reputations. Promote God's and forget yours. Or promote yours and forget God's. We must choose.
Joseph did. Matthew describes Jesus's earthly father as a craftsman (Matt. 13:55). He lives in Nazareth: a single-camel map dot on the edge of boredom. Joseph never speaks in the New Testament. He does much. He sees an angel, marries a pregnant girl, and leads his family to Bethlehem and Egypt. He does much, but says nothing.
A small-town carpenter who never said a Scripture-worthy word. Is Joseph the right choice? Doesn't God have better options? An eloquent priest from Jerusalem or a scholar from the Pharisees? Why Joseph? A major part of the answer lies in his reputation: he gives it up for Jesus. "Then Joseph [Mary's] husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly" (Matt. 1:19).
Mary's parents, by this point, have signed a contract and sealed it with a dowry. Mary belongs to Joseph; Joseph belongs to Mary. Legally and matrimonially bound.
Now what? His fiancée is pregnant, blemished, tainted, he is righteous, godly. On one hand, he has the law. On the other, he has his love. The law says, stone her. Love says, forgive her. Joseph is caught in the middle. But Joseph is a kind man. "Not wanting to disgrace her, [he] planned to send her away secretly" (v. 19 NASB).
A quiet divorce. How long would it stay quiet? Likely not long. But for a time, this was the solution.
Then comes the angel. "While he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit' " (v. 20).
Mary's growing belly gives no cause for concern, but reason to rejoice. "She carries the Son of God in her womb," the angel announces. But who would believe it? Who would buy this tale? Envision Joseph being questioned by the city leaders.
"Joseph," they say, "we understand that Mary is with child."
He nods.
"Is the child yours?"
He shakes his head.
"Do you know how she became pregnant?"
Gulp. A bead of sweat forms beneath Joseph's beard. He faces a dilemma. He makes his decision. "Joseph.took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS" (Matt. 1:24-25).
Joseph tanked his reputation. He swapped his reputation for a pregnant fiancée and an illegitimate son and made the big decision of discipleship. He placed God's plan ahead of his own.
Would you be willing to do the same? God grants us an uncommon life to the degree we surrender our common one. "If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life" (Matt. 16:25 NLT). Would you forfeit your reputation to see Jesus born into your world?
From
Cure for the Common Life:
Living in Your Sweet Spot
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005) Max Lucado
Now in paperback with practical assessment tools included in the back of the book apply the powerful principles of Cure for the Common Life.
Visions Become Reality
READ:
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . -Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor's hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 7, 2008
Fatal Frame Of Mind
READ: Exodus 11
Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. -Exodus 11:10
When Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel leave Egypt, thousands of innocent Egyptians died because of his stubborn will. Perhaps the knowledge of what was about to happen to Egypt's firstborn on that first Passover night caused the great anger Moses felt as he left Pharaoh (Ex. 11:8). It was going to be a night of devastation and sorrow because the ruler was in a fatal frame of mind.
It's easy for me to condemn Pharaoh's willful disobedience to God, and very difficult to face my own. But this passage forces me to ask, "Is my attitude choking the life out of someone close to me?"
Oswald Chambers said: "The right of life is insisted on all through the Bible. As long as I do not murder anyone outright the law cannot touch me, but is there someone dependent on me to whom in the tiniest way I am not giving the right to live? Someone for whom I am cherishing an unforgiving dislike? 'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer' (1 John 3:15)."
Our hearts become hard through repeated refusals to yield to God. But they can be softened by obedience. When we say "yes" to God, the result is relief and life-giving release for our families, colleagues, and friends.
What's my frame of mind today? - David C. McCasland
I thank You for Your patience, Lord,
Because I often strayed,
But, O the joy that came my way
When I Thy Word obeyed. -Stairs
The way of obedience is the way of blessing.
Selective Memories by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 16:2-3
Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."
Selective Memories
It's amazing how we are able to pick and choose the things we want to remember. A young boy was confronted by his father about the poor grades on his report card. "It's not my fault, Dad. I can't remember anything." "Well," his father assured him, "you're not going to any more baseball games until you get your grades up. And to begin with, forget tonight's game." "Wait a minute," said the boy. "You can't do that to me. The Braves are in town and Maddux is pitching. He was 15-11 last year with a 2.72 earned run average. He won four consecutive Cy Young awards and seven straight Gold Gloves. He led the league in ERA for three straight seasons, has been on five All-Star teams, and has won at least 15 games each of the last nine years."
Israel had the same problem, a selective memory. After only a short time in the wilderness, they had forgotten how they were required to make bricks without straw, how they had been beaten by merciless taskmasters and how the midwives were commanded to kill the infant Israelite boys to appease Pharaoh's fears. Instead, they remembered only the pots of meat and the loaves of bread they had enjoyed.
Satan may be tempting you in the same way. Maybe this new life is more difficult than you expected and your days as an unbeliever, as your now remember them, are looking pretty good after all. Perhaps the devil is reminding you of the sinful things you enjoyed in your old life and blocking the memories of despair and emptiness you felt as an unbeliever. Ask God to cut through these selective memories and help you recall the reality of the past. Don't be fooled by Satan's selective memories.
The memories Satan selects never reflect the way it really was.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This week we will continue looking at the Ten Commandments. The sixth commandment focuses on the sacredness of human life. It is designed to protect each of us in our relationship with others.
Many in our world today have less and less regard for God. Along with that decline comes a lessening of the value of human life. This decline is apparent in the growing number of abortions and acts of euthanasia. Every life is important to God-the unborn, the elderly, the sick. Everyone. And he calls us to value and protect every life.
Consider this
You may think, "I really don't have to be concerned about this commandment-I'd never kill anyone." But this command goes beyond the actual crime of murder. It includes the condition of our hearts. Jesus said, "You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder." Matthew 4:21-22 NIV Hidden emotions in the form of anger, malice, rage and revenge are in violation of the sixth commandment.
If you are holding on to anger or bitterness toward someone, ask God to help you let go. We must not let anger build and fester. Just as Jesus, in his love, paid the price on the cross for our sins, he calls us to show the same kind of love and forgiveness to others. You don't have to do it alone. Jesus will give you the strength and courage you need.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for any unforgiveness or anger in my heart. Help me to let go and to demonstrate your love and compassion to all people. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult
READ:
Enter by the narrow gate . . . . Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life . . . -Matthew 7:13-14
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but it difficulty does not make us faint and cave in-it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest-our best for His glory?
God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and "it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" ( Philippians 2:13 ). But we have to "work out" that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Philippians 2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.
Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory" (Hebrews 2:10 , and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God's grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 8, 2008
The Time Machine
READ: Revelation 21:1-4
With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. -2 Peter 3:8
In 1896, H. G. Wells published a book titled The Time Machine, an imaginative tale of a scientist who builds a machine that can transport someone through time. The time traveler is preoccupied with the future, not the past. Like many scientists, he believes "progress" will enable the human race to build a better world. Yet in Wells' book, this science-fiction story does not have a happy ending.
The protagonist travels millions of years into the future. There the world has grown cold and dark. As a bleak snow falls, he sees the last remnants of life awaiting extinction. Thoroughly sickened by the twilight of life on our planet, the scientist returns to the time of his origin to report his anguish.
The biblical view of the future is very different. It tells us that God is Lord over time itself: "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). We can be optimistic about the future because God will replace our world with a new one. In that new heaven and new earth we will experience blessed fellowship with our Creator for eternity (Rev. 21:1-4). Even now, Jesus is preparing a place for those who love Him (John 14:1-3), a place where "there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying" (Rev. 21:4). - Dennis Fisher
If God has made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found! -Montgomery
Jesus is preparing a place for us and preparing us for that place.
Tested By the Blessings
Exodus 16:4
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not."
Tested by the Blessings
Many tests come in the guise of hardship, illness or some other unpleasant experience, but not all of them. The good times can be just as much a test as the bad times.
When the people of Israel reached the Wilderness of Sin, they were unable to find food. This hot, barren wasteland offered nothing that would sustain a multitude of people. But God used this experience to test His children and teach them to trust Him. He graciously supplied a heavenly food that looked like a dewdrop, which the people called "manna." This miraculous gift was more than just a blessing, however. It was also God's test to see whether they would walk in His law or not.
Being obedient in the midst of plenteous blessings is often more difficult than when we are experiencing a multitude of difficulties. Pleasures can easily dull our spiritual ears so we no longer hear the Lord saying, "This is the way, walk in it" (Isa. 30:21). A lack of trials lulls us into a false sense of security and leaves us vulnerable to the attacks of Satan. It's no wonder that some people claim it's easier to survive poverty than wealth. Agur, the writer of Proverbs 30 prayed, "Feed me with the food You prescribe for me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, Who is the Lord?" (vv. 8-9).
If you are experiencing a time of blessing, that's wonderful, but be sensitive to the potential for danger. Testing doesn't stop just because the trials have ceased. The need for obedience is constant whether the sun shines or not.
Trust and obey, every day.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Be faithful in marriage." Exodus 20:14 CEV
Thoughts for Today
The seventh commandment serves to protect and purify the sexual urge and the marriage relationship. When followed, the commandment protects against the degradation of human relationships that accompanies adultery.
As with all the Ten Commandments, God gave this one out of love for us. He wants to protect individuals and families from the hurt that adultery is sure to bring. God knows that breaking this commandment will rob people of peace, love and affection while giving them misery and sorrow.
Consider this
We are surrounded by sexually impure thoughts and behavior-movies, television programs and even advertisements. Unless we stay focused on God and the pureness and beauty of the marriage relationship, straying from fidelity can be so easy. Getting emotionally involved with someone or indulging in a little fantasizing now and then might seem innocent enough at first, but adultery is usually committed in stages like these before the actual act occurs.
Be on guard. Don't allow yourself to get into compromising situations. And above all, focus on God and trust him to help you be all that he wants you to be.
Prayer
Father, help me to be faithful to my spouse--mentally, emotionally and physically. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . -Joshua 24:15
A person's will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will- I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God's Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
". . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . ." Your choice must be a deliberate determination- it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God- do not "confer with flesh and blood" about it ( Galatians 1:16 ). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading- the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, "I will be faithful." But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, "You are witnesses against yourselves . . ." ( Joshua 24:22 ). Don't consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, "I will serve You." Will to be faithful- and give other people credit for being faithful too.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 9, 2008
A Church That Cares
READ: Philippians 2:1-11
Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. -Philippians 2:4
While traveling together, my wife and I started talking with a delightful young woman we met. The time passed quickly as we chatted about lighthearted topics.
But when she heard that I was a minister, the conversation took a heart-wrenching turn. She began to share with us that when her husband left her only a few months earlier, she had struggled with the pain of that abandonment.
Then she smiled and said, "I can't tell you how much my church has meant to me these past months." Her mood and countenance changed dramatically as she recounted the ways her church family had wrapped their loving arms around her in her season of heartache. It was refreshing to hear how that local assembly had surrounded her with the love of Christ.
Far too often, it seems, we limit the significance of church to what happens on Sunday. But the church is to be so much more. It is to be a safe haven, a rescue station, a training center for spiritual service. It is particularly to be an expression of the concerned heart of the Lord for hurting, broken people, such as our young friend.
We are to "love one another," John the disciple reminded us, "for love is of God" (1 John 4:7). - Bill Crowder
It was only a brief little note,
Or a word that was prayerfully spoken,
Yet not in vain, for it soothed the pain
Of a heart that was nearly broken. -Anon.
Hope can be ignited by a spark of encouragement.
Glory in the Morning by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 16:7
And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord.
Glory in the Morning
Some days make you wonder if you should have stayed in bed. You cut yourself shaving, you spill coffee on your clothes, you have a computer crash at work, you receive overdue notices in the mail, and your son breaks his arm on the jungle gym at school. It's enough to make you want to crawl under the covers and hide.
The Israelites also were experiencing difficulties. They were hot, tired, hungry and upset. They even wondered if they should have stayed in Egypt. This trip was more difficult than they thought it was going to be.
In the midst of these trials, God did two things: He gave them manna for their physical bodies, but He also promised to reveal His glory to them "in the morning" for their spiritual well-being. God knew that the trials of the day needed a spiritual response as well as physical relief. And He chose to meet that spiritual need while the day was yet young.
When the day is hectic, the frustrations plentiful and the disappointments thick, it's time to turn to God. Yet how different the day might have gone had we turned to the Lord before we ever got started. Whether the events of the day change or not, when we have first spent time fellowshipping with God, we are better prepared to face them.
Perhaps you aren't a morning person, many people aren't. Yet getting up even 10 minutes earlier and spending those moments reading your Bible and praying will yield greater dividends than you might imagine. When you meet with God first in the morning, it's much easier to keep Him first all day.
How you begin your day will frequently determine how you end it.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not steal." Exodus 20:15 NIV
Thoughts for Today
God places a high value on private property. The eighth commandment focuses on the right of ownership.
While most of us would never go out and rob a bank, there are other forms of stealing: tax evasion, failure to pay debts, fraud, abusing copyright laws, charging excessive interest, being less than honest on an insurance claim-any act of taking something that does not belong to us. We might try to justify these acts with thoughts like That insurance company has plenty of money-and they overcharge me on my premiums or These taxes are unfair-I shouldn't have to pay them. But God says, "You shall not steal.
Consider this
Actually, everything belongs to God. We are stewards of what he has entrusted to us. To abuse people's right of ownership, whether they are rich or poor, is wrong. The rich should not rob their employees and the poor should not expect to be shown favoritism. The Christian example should be that of a giver, not a taker.
If you have been drawn into the all-too-common attitudes of selfishness and compromise that invade our world today, it's time to turn your back on those attitudes and focus on doing things God's way.
Prayer
Father, help me not to rationalize my way to dishonest behavior. In all things, help me to be a giver, not a taker. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Will You Examine Yourself?
READ: Joshua said to the people, 'You cannot serve the Lord . . .' -Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, "I cannot live a holy life," but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. "You cannot serve the Lord . . ."- but you can place yourself in the proper position where God's almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
"The people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve the Lord!" ( Joshua 24:21 ). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, "But God could never have called me to this. I'm too unworthy. It can't mean me." It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, "I will serve the Lord."
We say, "Oh, if only I really could believe!" The question is, "Will I believe?" No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief" ( Matthew 13:58 ). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 10, 2008
Don't Let It Grow
READ: Hebrews 12:14-25
Looking carefully . . . lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. -Hebrews 12:15
In June 1966, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a celebrated boxer, along with an acquaintance were convicted of murder in a highly publicized and racially charged trial. The boxer maintained his innocence and became his own jailhouse lawyer. After serving 19 years, Carter was released when the verdict was overturned. As a free man, he reflected: "Wouldn't anyone under those circumstances have a right to be bitter? . . . I've learned that bitterness only consumes the vessel that contains it. And for me to permit bitterness to control or infect my life in any way whatsoever would be to allow those who imprisoned me to take even more than . . . they've already taken."
I believe that bitterness is what the writer of Hebrews had in mind when he penned his warnings. In today's text, some of the Christians may have been considering returning to Judaism because of persecution and injustice. Like a small root that grows into a great tree, bitterness could spring up in their hearts and overshadow their deepest Christian relationships (12:15).
When we hold on to disappointment, a poisonous root of bitterness begins to grow. Let's allow the Spirit to fill us so He can heal the hurt that causes bitterness. - Marvin Williams
When angry feelings go unchecked,
They'll mushroom into hate;
So don't let time feed bitterness-
Forgiveness must not wait. -Sper
Bitterness is a root that ruins the garden of peace.
I Hate to Complain by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 16:8
Also Moses said, "This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full; for the Lord hears your murmurings which you make against Him. And what are we? Your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord."
I Hate to Complain
Certain expressions in the English language raise doubts in our minds, such as: "Your check is in the mail," from a debtor; "This shouldn't cost much," from your mechanic; or "This won't hurt," from your dentist. Another such expression we often hear is, "I hate to complain." How often have you heard someone say, "I hate to complain, but . . ." and then launch into a lengthy tale of how, in some fashion, you've fallen short of his expectations?
Moses and Aaron heard it a lot. At least on three occasions (at Marah, Ex. 15:24; in the Wilderness of Sin, Ex. 16:2; and at Rephidim, Ex. 17:3), the people complained about the hardships encountered on their journey. In fact, at Rephidim, Moses told God, "The people are ready to stone me!" (17:4).
The truth is, most of us don't mind complaining at all. Yet we need to remember that when we complain, ultimately the person we're finding fault with is God. He is sovereign, so everything that comes into our lives must first meet His approval. When we complain, we are telling God, "You've made a mistake. You shouldn't have allowed this to happen to me." But God is too wise to make a mistake and too loving to permit unnecessary heartache.
When you are next tempted to complain, remember that you have a sovereign God who loves you. All that you experience is to shape and mold you into the best person you can be. Instead of complaining, be happy that God cares enough about you even to allow you hardship under His watchful eye.
Ultimately, all our complaints are directed against God.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." Exodus 20:16 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The ninth commandment tells us that we are not to speak dishonestly about our neighbor. Who is our neighbor? Anyone in the human race!
This commandment is broken not only when we tell an outright lie, but also when we use deception of any kind. We have probably all been guilty of participating in gossip, either by carrying tales ourselves or by listening to others gossip and remaining silent, failing to stand up for the accused.
Consider this
Gossip is often couched in seemingly caring language: Please understand-I don't mean to put this person down, but did you know or Isn't it sad that Joe is abusing his wife or I wouldn't tell you this, but you need to know how to pray.
If for some reason we do need to share something negative about another person, we first need to be certain that we have our facts straight. Then we need to examine our motives for wanting to tell someone about it and to tell only those who really do need to know.
The Bible says "the tongue has the power of life and death." (Proverbs 18:21) Are you using yours for life? Strive always to speak the truth in love.
Prayer Lord, forgive me for the times I have participated in gossip the times my careless words have hurt someone. Help me always to speak the truth in love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Spiritually Lazy Saint
READ:
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . -Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative- our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.
"Yes, I think it is right," Peter said, ". . . to stir you up by reminding you . . ." (2 Peter 1:13 ). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up- someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up- all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement- He says, "Go and tell My brethren . . ." (Matthew 28:10 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 11, 2008
Savor The Flavor
READ: Galatians 3:26-29
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28
America has often been called "a melting pot." But obviously that is not the case. Politicians tend to fuel sensitivity to class and color divisions for their own gain. Gender tensions abound. Generational differences are more marked than ever. In fact, cultural observers are starting to say that the "melting pot" metaphor is outdated-that the goal should be a cultural "stew" in which the distinct taste of each ingredient is enhanced by the contribution of the other ingredients.
In a world where pride and prejudice abound, Jesus offers us the joy of unity across all the lines that so easily divide us. In His church, the unique flavors of our diverse backgrounds can complement each other, united "through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26) and empowered by His Spirit and our submission to His principles. In Him our diversity doesn't divide but rather unites and enriches us as we recognize that we all have Jesus, His Word, and His ways in common. As we embrace Him together, our differences become secondary and our mutual love for Him drives us to love each other as He has loved us.
Jesus is the master mixer! In His kingdom, pride and prejudice are out, and love and mutual acceptance are the order of the day. - Joe Stowell
Within the church of Jesus Christ
The joys of unity abound
When love accepts diversity
And prejudice cannot be found. -Sper
Christ's love creates unity in the midst of diversity.
Rest by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 16:23
Then he said to them, "This is what the Lord has said: Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning."
Rest
In 24 hours the average adult accomplishes much: his heart beats 103,689 times, his blood travels 168 million miles, he breathes 23,040 times, he inhales 438 cubic feet of air, he eats 3 1/2 pounds of food and drinks 2.9 quarts of liquid, he speaks 4,800 words, he moves 750 muscles, his nails grow .000046 inch, and he exercises 7 million brain cells. It's no wonder we need rest!
When God established the laws governing the lives of the Israelite people, He built into their schedule a time for rest. Physically it enabled their bodies to recuperate. Spiritually it reminded them that their salvation was not complete. They needed a spiritual "rest" that would come only when the Messiah would take away their sins. The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that even though the Jewish people practiced Sabbath-keeping, the real "rest" was a future event. He declared, "For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God" (Heb. 4:8-9).
In the New Testament the command to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy" is the only one of the Ten Commandments not repeated, and for good reason. The spiritual rest that the Old Testament saints looked forward to and which the Sabbath represented is now a reality. Jesus said, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).
Taking a day to rest is still an important part of maintaining a healthy body. But it's a physical necessity, not a spiritual law. Now we can rejoice in the true rest that comes in Christ.
Rest is a matter of wisdom, not law.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Exodus 20:17 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The tenth commandment focuses on a person's unseen evil motives and desires. Coveting can lead us to break the other nine commandments.
To covet is to wish for enviously, to long for or crave something, especially something that belongs to another person. This includes spouse, real estate, car, position, success, prosperity and so forth. A covetous person always wants more.
It is not wrong to desire things that will better our lives, but these desires can become a trap when they replace our focus on God.
Consider this
We live in an age of instant gratification. Advertising touts stuff and more stuff. Everything from cars to designer clothes to the latest electronic gadgets. But all the stuff in the world cannot bring us peace or lasting joy. Only a relationship with Jesus can do that.
It is important to keep your perspective. Don't think that more money and stuff and power will produce happiness. Instead, seek above all else a personal relationship with Jesus. Seek God's plan for your life. Only then will you find true contentment.
Prayer
Father, help me to keep my perspective and not to covet anything or anyone. Forgive me for the times I have focused so much on my desire to advance my career or to obtain some thing or just to have my own way so much that it distracted me from focusing on Jesus. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
READ: . . . that I may know Him . . . -Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing- even eating, drinking, or washing disciples' feet- we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. "Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." ( John 13:3-5 ).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is "that I may know Him . . ." Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 12, 2008
Marriage Before Love
READ: Genesis 24:61-67
Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun. -Ecclesiastes 9:9
A man went to his pastor for counseling. In his hands were pages of complaints against his wife. After hours of uninterrupted listening, the pastor couldn't help but ask, "If she is that bad, why did you marry her?" Immediately the man shot back, "She wasn't like this at first!" The pastor, unable to hold back his thoughts, asked, "So, are you saying that she is like this because she's been married to you?"
Whether or not this story is true, it does suggest an important lesson to be learned. At times, feelings toward a spouse may grow cold. But love is much more than feelings-it's a lifelong commitment.
Although most people choose to marry only because of love, in some cultures people still get married through matchmaking. In the lives of Isaac and Rebekah recorded in the book of Genesis, love came after marriage. It says in chapter 24 that Isaac married Rebekah and then he loved her (v.67).
Biblical love is about our willingness to do what is good for another. Husbands are instructed to "love their own wives as their own bodies" (Eph. 5:28).
So, walking in obedience to the Lord, let's keep our marriage vows to love "till death do us part." - Albert Lee
"For better or for worse," we pledge,
"Through sickness and through strife";
And by the help and grace of God
We'll keep these vows for life. -D. De Haan
Love is more than a feeling, it's a commitment.
Give 'Em A Brake by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 17:1-3
Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, "Give us water, that we may drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord?" And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, "Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"
Give 'Em a Brake
Where highway construction is taking place, a sign frequently will be posted that reads, "Give 'Em a Brake." This has a double message: one is to slow down, and the other is to spare the workers from injuries caused by carelessness. Highway workers do their job under hazardous conditions and we need to give them a "brake."
The same sign could have been posted outside the tents of Aaron and Moses. Time after time the people of Israel rushed into judgment against their leaders until finally, here at Rephidim, they were ready to stone Moses to death (v. 4). Only God's intervention prevented a tragedy. Without question, these people needed to give Moses a break.
This sign would fit equally well in front of the homes of many pastors and other church leaders. A study by Leadership Journal and Christianity Today, Inc., found that 22.8 percent of pastors have been fired or forced to leave their churches at least once in their career, and one in four of these has experienced this more than once. Sixty-two percent of the discharged pastors said the church that let them go was a "repeat offender" and had fired at least one previous pastor. Isn't it time we gave a break to those called of God to lead His church?
Be very careful when tempted to be critical of your pastor or other church leaders. You may find yourself not only opposing them but God as well. Slow down before passing judgment, sincerely check your motives, and make sure there is a sound, biblical reason for your complaint and not simply a personality issue. More often than not, what you need to do is "give 'em a brake."
Pastors need your grace, not your gripes.
Week of July 7
The Subtle Sin of Compromise
"The safest road to hell," wrote C.S. Lewis, "is the gradual one-the gentle slope, one that is soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."
Many Christians do not believe that they can or will ever drift away from God. They see their devotion as being solid. However, compromise and a lack of spiritual discipline quickly open the door to temptation and sin.
Once we accept Christ as our Savior, the enemy knows his work of eternal destruction has been thwarted. However, he is relentless in his effort to work havoc in the lives of God's people. Therefore, he goes to work in a different way. He knows that he cannot have our souls, but he remains committed to destroying our lives.
One of his greatest weapons against the body of Christ is pride. He seeks to tell us we are complete and worthy apart from the Lord. He wants us to feel good about our talents and abilities-so much so that we begin to make decisions without considering God's purpose and plan. Before we know it, we have believed a lie and departed from our first love, which is the love of Christ.
There is nothing wrong with knowing God has gifted you and that He is the One who is using your abilities. The story, however, changes when you begin to take life into your own hands without regard to the Savior's will.
Temptation by itself is not sin, but if left unchecked, it quickly leads to sin and broken fellowship with the Lord. You can say no to the subtle sin of compromise by asking the Lord to keep you close to Himself. Be committed to spending time in prayer with Him each day.
Prayer: Lord, forgive me for the times I have compromised my love for You.
Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? (Proverbs 6:27).
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up the race. Shore up your confidence in God today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
READ:
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . -Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose- that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ- ". . . that I may know Him. . ." ( Philippians 3:10 ). To fulfill God's perfect design for me requires my total surrender- complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 13, 2008
The Time Of Anyone's Life
READ: Galatians 6:6-10
Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. -Galatians 6:9
What am I getting out of life? That's a question often asked by those who focus only on themselves. But as believers, we need to ask: What am I putting into the lives of others?
Years ago, Dr. Wilfred Grenfell served as a medical missionary in Labrador. On a recruiting tour, he challenged nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital to join him for a summer in his difficult ministry. He promised them hardship and discomfort. He warned that instead of earning a salary, they would have to pay their own expenses. But he also promised them they would experience joy because "it's having the time of anyone's life to be in the service of Christ."
A nurse who accepted that challenge wrote this after her return from Labrador: "I never knew before that life was good for anything but what one could get out of it. Now I know that the real fun lies in seeing how much one can put into life for others." If we change that word fun to blessing, we have the key to Christian self-fulfillment.
Take the apostle Paul's encouragement: "[Do] not grow weary while doing good . . . . Do good to all" (Gal. 6:9-10). Put yourself into the lives of others for Jesus' sake. You'll experience a fulfillment beyond compare. - Vernon C. Grounds
Make me a channel of blessing today,
Make me a channel of blessing, I pray;
My life possessing, my service blessing,
Make me a channel of blessing today. -Smyth
We are at our best when we serve others.
Water From the Rock by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Exodus 17:5-6
And the Lord said to Moses, "Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go.
Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Water From the Rock
The importance of water can never be underestimated. Sixty percent of a lean, adult body is composed of water. A person can fast from food for 40 days or longer, but the human body can go only for about 7 days without water even under ideal circumstances.
It's no wonder, then, that the Israelites were getting desperate. The wilderness was far from ideal. It was a hot, desert-like stretch of land dotted with huge rocks but little vegetation. Without water they would quickly perish. So God instructed Moses to strike a rock, and out of this flinty hardness flowed sufficient water to meet the needs of all the people and their livestock.
The Bible writers later saw this rock as a symbol of Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). In the midst of a sin-parched life, Christ offers a well of living water that never runs dry, no matter how often we drink from it.
Have you received Christ as your Savior? If not, trust Jesus today and you will never thirst again. If you want eternal water, come to Jesus who said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).
The world offers a cistern; Christ offers a well.
Week of July 11
Serve One Another
by Max Lucado
Jesus "set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death-and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion" (Phil. 2:7-8 MSG).
Let's follow his example. Let's "put on the apron of humility, to serve one another" (1 Pet. 5:5 TEV). Jesus entered the world to serve. We can enter our jobs, our homes, our churches. Servanthood requires no unique skill or seminary degree. Regardless of your strengths, training, or church tenure, you can
Love the overlooked. Jesus sits in your classroom, wearing the thick glasses, outdated clothing, and a sad face. You've seen him. He's Jesus.
Jesus works in your office. Pregnant again, she shows up to work late and tired. No one knows the father. According to water-cooler rumors, even she doesn't know the father. You've seen her. She's Jesus.
When you talk to the lonely student, befriend the weary mom, you love Jesus. He dresses in the garb of the overlooked and ignored. "Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me-you did it to me" (Matt. 25:40 MSG).
You can do that. Even if your sweet spot has nothing to do with encouraging others, the cure for the common life involves loving the overlooked. You can also
Wave a white flag. We fight so much. "Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from?" asks the brother of Jesus. "Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves" (James 4:1 MSG). Serve someone by swallowing your pride. One more aspect of servanthood
Every day do something you don't want to do. Pick up someone else's trash. Surrender your parking place. Call the long-winded relative. Carry the cooler. Doesn't have to be a big thing. Helen Keller once told the Tennessee legislature that when she was young, she had longed to do great things and could not, so she decided to do small things in a great way. Don't be too big to do something small. "Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort" (1 Cor. 15:58 MSG).
A good action not only brings good fortune, it brings God's attention. He notices the actions of servants. He sent his Son to be one.
When you and I crest Mount Zion and hear the applause of saints, we'll realize this: hands pushed us up the mountain too. The pierced hands of Jesus Christ, the greatest servant who ever lived.
From
Cure for the Common Life:
Living in Your Sweet Spot
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005) Max Lucado
Now in paperback with practical assessment tools included in the back of the book apply the powerful principles of Cure for the Common Life
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The Price of the Vision
READ:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . -Isaiah 6:1
Our soul's personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally- when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord," there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God's surgical procedure- His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 14, 2008
Living Sacrifice
READ: Romans 12:1-8
Present your bodies a living sacrifice. -Romans 12:1
When my son Steve left home in the summer of 2006 to join the US Navy, he knew the gravity of his decision. He understood that once he walked onto that naval base for boot camp, he was giving up everything a teenager lives for. He was leaving behind his freedom, his guitars, his music, and his girlfriend. He surrendered the right to make his own choices and to do what he wanted to do. He said, in effect, "I am making myself a living sacrifice. I no longer do things for me; I do them for the service of my country."
The sacrifice Steve and thousands of others make when they enter the military service reminds me of what the apostle Paul taught in Romans 12:1. In that passage, he urged us "to present [our] bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." This means we are to give up our selfish ways and surrender ourselves completely to God. We are to seek to be "holy" in all we do-to have a godly character (1 Peter 1:16), which is acceptable to God.
It wasn't easy for Steve, who cherished self-determination, to give it all up for the Navy. But he did it. And it isn't easy for us to completely surrender our will to God. How can you and I be a living sacrifice for God today? - Dave Branon
Here is my heart, Lord Jesus,
I have but one for Thee;
Oh, let my heart be Thine alone,
Thy will be done in me. -Mick
A life given fully to God is at the heart of true sacrifice.
Unanswered Prayer by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early.
Hosea was a resident of the northern kingdom. Throughout his prophecy it is evident that Hosea had a tender feeling of compassion for the people of his land.
Alternately he warned the people and then pled with them to return to God in repentance. He knew, regardless of how wicked they had been, if they repented of their sins and forsook their wicked ways, God would receive them back in His love.
In Hosea 5:2 the prophet described the Israelites as "the revolters" and himself as "a rebuker." He saw it as his task to point out Israel's sin and call them to repentance. But there was a problem. Of the Jews he said, "They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD; but they shall not find Him; He hath withdrawn Himself from them." God does not answer our prayers if we have unconfessed personal sin in our lives. Again and again the Bible affirms this truth (see John 9:31; Psalm 66:18; Isaiah 59:1-2).
We should not assume that God will always hear and answer our prayers. There are many things that can militate against God's answer. The greatest hindrance to answered prayer is personal, unconfessed sin. The Apostle Peter, after listing a variety of attitudes that a righteous person will have, makes this observation: "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and His ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil" (1 Peter 3:12). Many other things in life block the divine answer to prayer: idolatry (Jeremiah 11:11-14), irreverence for the Bible (Proverbs 28:7-9), family problems (1 Peter 3:1-7), improper motives (James 4:3), prayer without faith (James 1:5-6); but the most certain way to make God unavailable to us when we seek Him is for us to harbor iniquity in our hearts.
If the conditions were met, God would not withdraw Himself from Israel, He would listen to their prayers, and He would answer them. Therefore, Jehovah promised, "I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offense and seek My face; in their affliction they will seek Me early" (Hosea 5:15). The absence of God's influence in their lives would be affliction enough for the Israelites. God was about to get their attention and He would do so by means of the calamities which Hosea prophesied. But once He got their attention and their repentance for sin was made, they would again arise early in the morning to seek the face of God.
If God appears to have withdrawn Himself from you, perhaps you ought to ask yourself these questions: "Have I treated God well enough for Him to answer my prayers?" (idolatry); "Have I heeded God's Word well enough for Him to answer my prayers?" (irreverence for the Bible); "Have I treated my family well enough for God to answer my prayers?" (family problems); "Have I examined my motives well enough for God to answer my prayers?" (improper motives); "Have I trusted God well enough for Him to answer my prayers?" (prayer without faith); "Have I confessed personal sin well enough for God to answer my prayers?" (iniquity). When we can answer each of these questions in the affirmative, there is no reason for God to withdraw Himself from us when we seek Him. He has promised always to be near. Having confessed our sin, let us claim that promise today.
MORNING HYMN
Power in prayer, Lord, power in prayer,
Here 'mid earth's sin and sorrow and care;
Men lost and dying, souls in despair,
O give me power, power in prayer!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The Bible is filled with scriptures that help us understand the reality of death and guide us toward comfort and healing when we suffer the loss of a loved one.
God promises us that nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:38-39). No matter what trauma we suffer or how painful the loss, God's love is still with us. And his love is a love of strength, comfort, healing and hope.
We know that life is not always easy, but with him it is always possible. Possible to sense his love and take comfort in it. Possible to receive his strength. Possible to experience healing from the hurt. Possible to have hope for tomorrow. Possible to move on.
Consider this
If you have lost a loved one, be encouraged to look up. God invites you to enter his presence and call on him in every time of need. Trust him to help you through this time. Trust him to love you no matter what. Trust him to help you enjoy memories of the past, give you strength for the challenges of the present and fill you with hope for the future.
Take time to read his words of comfort and strength in the Bible. God loves you. He cares. And he is able.
Prayer
Father, thank you for your love, your comfort and your strength. This time of loss and pain is so difficult for me, but I know that with you, it is possible. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. As a person goes through this group they will be able to identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This group study provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced the loss of a loved one, as well as help for anyone ministering to those experiencing other types of losses in life: divorce, loss of job, etc. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org
Suffering Afflictions and Going the Second Mile
READ:
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also -Matthew 5:39
This verse reveals the humiliation of being a Christian. In the natural realm, if a person does not hit back, it is because he is a coward. But in the spiritual realm, it is the very evidence of the Son of God in him if he does not hit back. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but you must make it an opportunity to exhibit the Son of God in your life. And you cannot imitate the nature of Jesus- it is either in you or it is not. A personal insult becomes an opportunity for a saint to reveal the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not, "Do your duty," but is, in effect, "Do what is not your duty." It is not your duty to go the second mile, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say, "Oh well, I just can't do any more, and I've been so misrepresented and misunderstood." Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself. That is the real meaning of filling "up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ). A disciple realizes that it is his Lord's honor that is at stake in his life, not his own honor.
Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself. We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is- Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
God bless
Judy, what a way to start the day with your Daily Devotionals, thanks for your work and dedication for doing this daily. Your message today is especially important to me as yesterday I attended my Mother's Family annual Cox reunion in Rose Hill Kansas. My Uncle announced that his son, Stan had rejoined the Army Reserve and had volunteered to go to Afghanistan, he is in training now. My cousin Stan Cox was Sheriff of Butler County, resigned as Sheriff and put in to go with his Reserve Unit to Iraq, Stan did his tour of duty in Iraq, returned home and now he has signed up at age 55 to go back in the reserve so he can be with his unit in Aghanistan. He said he wanted to be with his unit.
Frank
Daily Devotionals July 15, 2008
Silent Helper
READ: Isaiah 25:1-9
I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things. -Isaiah 25:1
The discovery of penicillin revolutionized health care. Prior to the 1940s, bacterial infections were often fatal. Since then, penicillin has saved countless lives by killing harmful bacteria. The men who recognized its potential and developed it for widespread use won a Nobel Prize in 1945.
Long before the discovery of penicillin, other silent killers were at work saving lives by destroying bacteria. These silent killers are white blood cells. These hard workers are God's way of protecting us from disease. No one knows how many invasions they have stopped or how many lives they have saved. They receive little recognition for all the good they do.
The Lord gets similar treatment. He often gets blamed when something goes wrong, but He seldom gets credit for all the things that go right. Every day people get up, get dressed, drive to work or school or the grocery store, and return safely to their families. No one knows how many times God has protected us from harm. But when there is a tragedy, we ask, "Where was God?"
When I consider all the wonderful things that God does silently on my behalf each day (Isa. 25:1), I realize that my list of praises should be much longer than my list of petitions. - Julie Ackerman Link
God's goodness undergirds our lives
In many silent ways;
His blessings are beyond compare-
For them we give Him praise. -D. De Haan
God keeps giving us reasons to praise Him.
God's Timetable by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.
If the child of God is to obey the will of God, he must keep his eye on the timetable of God. Israel had been miraculously delivered from Egyptian bondage by the evident power of God. Two months later the Israelites camped at the foot of Mount Sinai where Moses received the law of God. Here they remained nearly a year until God commanded them to move on to Kadesh-Barnea. Everything was right on God's schedule.
God had led His people each step of the way. But before He would lead them into the promised land, this luscious countryside had to be explored. For this task the twelve heads of their respective tribes were chosen. Their names are given at length but only two of them are memorable: Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
The twelve spies spent forty days on their intelligence gathering foray. Sure enough, the land was all that the Lord had promised. It was truly a land that "floweth with milk and honey." In fact, the grapes which they brought back were so robust that a cluster of them had to be borne on a staff supported on the shoulders of two men.
But the news was not all good. Ten of the returning spies reported that the people dwelt in very great, walled cities: the Amalekites in the south; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites in the mountains; and the Canaanites by the sea. But more than this, the giant sons of Anak dwelt there, before whom the spies felt as grasshoppers. In spite of the encouragement by Joshua and Caleb in the minority report, the people broke into open rebellion. God was leading them into the land, but they were afraid and would not follow His leading.
The disobedience of Israel evoked the wrath of God. All Israelites twenty years of age and older were banned from ever dwelling in the land they had refused to enter. Instead, God declared they would wander in the wilderness for forty years, one year for each day the spies were in the land, and would die during that wandering. Only Joshua and Caleb were permitted to settle in the promised land, for they alone were ready to move on God's command and according to His timetable.
When the people learned of God's sentence on their disobedience, they were not at all penitent. Instead, they resolved to atone for their sin by belatedly storming the promised land. But delayed obedience is the brother of disobedience. "And they rose up early in the morning" in preparation for their ill-fated campaign (Numbers 14:40). In spite of Moses' warning, the people marched against the Amalekites and Canaanites. What they would not do with God's help, they now attempted to do without it. First they refused to enter the land because of their unbelief in the power of God. Then they attempted to enter that same land because of their unbelief in the severity of God's judgment. In their own strength and outside of God's timing, they were sure to fail. They did. The enemy defeated the Israelites with a great slaughter and drove them back as far as Hormah.
Each of us who knows God must learn from Israel's tragedy so that it is not similarly repeated in our lives. We dare not question divine leading. If that leading is to dwell at the foot of Sinai, as the Israelites did, we must learn to be content where we are. But regardless of adverse circumstances, if God tells us that it is time to act, we have no reasonable choice but to act. Whether remaining indefinitely or moving out immediately, we must learn to follow the accurate timetable of God. This can be done successfully only when we are sensitive to that still small voice of His Holy Spirit and are willing to obey it.
MORNING HYMN
It may not be on the mountain's height,
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle's front
My Lord will have need of me;
But if by a still, small voice He calls
To paths I do not know,
I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Thine
I'll go where you want me to go.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Grieving over the death of a loved one involves a process. This process will vary for individuals and may last several months or even years. Although working through the process is different for everyone, some things never change.
Jesus always understands. He experienced grief in the death of his friend Lazarus and in facing his own death and separation from his Father.
God's mercy is always available. Join the psalmist in this prayer: "Take care of me, for your mercy is so plentiful" (Psalm 69:16 NLT). God abounds in mercy and lovingkindness (Psalm 86:15).
God always loves you. Today's Scripture assures us that nothing can separate us from his love-not death, not life, not worries about today and not fears about tomorrow. In times of stress and sorrow and change, God's love is a constant comfort. "I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love, for you have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul" (Psalm 31:7 NLT).
Consider this
There is always hope. No matter how bleak things seem, if you place your trust in Jesus, he will guide you and fill you with hope for the future. Jesus Christ-the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Prayer
Father, I thank you so much that even as everything else around me seems to be changing, I can always count on you. I know that you never change. You will always love me, always show me mercy and always give me hope.
These thoughts adapted from
Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. As a person goes through this group, they will be able to identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This group study provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced the loss of a loved one, as well as help for anyone ministering to those experiencing other types of losses in life: divorce, loss of job, etc. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
My Life's Spiritual Honor and Duty
READ:
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians . . . -Romans 1:14
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent his life to express it. The greatest inspiration in Paul's life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that same sense of indebtedness to Christ regarding every unsaved soul? As a saint, my life's spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to these lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? I will only be able to do this as the Spirit of God works into me this sense of indebtedness.
I am not a superior person among other people- I am a bondservant of the Lord Jesus. Paul said, ". . . you are not your own . . . you were bought at a price . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ). Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ and he said, in effect, "I am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus; I am free only that I may be an absolute bondservant of His." That is the characteristic of a Christian's life once this level of spiritual honor and duty becomes real. Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. That is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wine in real life.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 16, 2008
The Bible Guy
READ: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11
Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. -Romans 12:6
When the youth group in Rich's church needed Bibles for study, he went on a search for more than 70 copies. He got what they needed, but he never stopped collecting and distributing Bibles.
People and businesses donate money; others give him new and used Bibles to share. The motto on the side of the van he uses for this ministry explains his simple desire: "Need a Bible? Ask me for one." Rich is an ordinary guy, a heating and plumbing technician, who carries on this ministry in his spare time. His nickname around his church is "the Bible guy."
Do you ever wish you could have a special ministry like Rich's? The Lord has given each of us at least one spiritual gift to use for His kingdom purposes. The apostle Paul lists several in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, and some are mentioned in 1 Peter 4:9-11.
If you don't know what gifts you have, volunteer for a ministry in your church that interests you, or meet a need you learn about. Then ask yourself if you saw God work through you and if you had joy as you served. Ask fellow believers if they think you're gifted in that area. And ask the Lord to help you determine where you fit in His plans.
The Lord wants to use you too. - Anne Cetas
Help us, Lord, to work together
With the gifts that You bestow;
Give us unity of purpose
As we serve You here below. -Sper
Christians who bury their gifts make a grave mistake.
Fruit and Faith by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.
There is an old legend about a great teacher who was walking through an orchard on a windy day. The teacher came to a fence which divided the grove from an adjoining forest and he imagined that he could hear the trees talking to each other. The maple trees taunted a group of nearby fruit trees, "Why don't your leaves rustle in the breeze like ours so that you could be heard from a distance?"
"We don't need such useless fluttering to draw attention to our presence," was the reply. "Our fruit speaks for us!"
The story of Jesus cursing the fig tree is a story of fruit and faith. As our Lord approached the cross during the Passion Week, many outstanding events took place. On Palm Sunday He triumphantly entered the city of Jerusalem, but he retired to the house of His friends in Bethany that evening. On the morrow He made His way back to the city of Jerusalem early in the morning. He was eager to be about His father's business and did not want to disappoint the people who would come early to hear Him teach in the Temple. Because He had risen early and left Bethany before the breakfast hour, Jesus and His disciples were hungry. On the way He spied a fig tree in full bloom.
The fig tree is unique in that the fruit appears on the tree before it comes to full bloom. Figs generally appear in February, followed by leaves later in the spring. Thus when Jesus saw the tree in full bloom, He had every right to expect that there would be figs which He and the disciples could use for temporary sustenance. When He arrived at the tree, however, even though the tree was in full bloom, it was barren of fruit. Jesus cursed the tree saying, "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever" (Mark 11:14).
When Jesus and the disciples returned in the morning to the site of the fig tree, they saw that the tree had dried up from its roots (Mark 11:20). The disciples were astonished at how rapidly the cursed tree had begun to disintegrate. When Peter called this phenomenon to the Master's attention, Jesus said, "Have faith in God." The cursing of the fruitless fig tree was done deliberately to teach the lesson-"Have faith in God." Jesus continued to illustrate this when He said, "For verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass he shall have whatsoever he saith" (Mark 11:23).
Some years ago a group of botanists went on an expedition to a remote part of the Alps. They were searching for new varieties of flowers. One day they saw a beautiful rare species growing at the extreme bottom of a deep ravine. It was almost impossible to get at. Someone would have to be lowered into the gorge to retrieve the rare flower. The botanist noticed a local Swiss boy standing nearby and asked him if he would get the flower. A rope would be tied around his waist and the men would lower him to the floor of the canyon. The young boy peered thoughtfully into the chasm. "Wait," he said, "I'll be right back." The lad dashed off. When he returned he was accompanied by an older man. The boy said to the scientists, "I'll go over the cliff now and get the flower for you but this man must hold the rope. He's my dad."
Fruit and faith go hand in hand. The incident of Jesus' cursing of the fig tree illustrates this beautifully. If we are to bear fruit, we must have faith in the one who holds our hand. Whatever the task given to us, we will be only as successful in completing it as our faith in the Father will permit.
MORNING HYMN
I would be true, for there are those who trust me
I would be pure, for there are those who care.
I would be strong for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose. Psalm 25:12 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Divorce is the ultimate relationship loss. When marriage problems end in separation and divorce, the loss is experienced by the entire family. Divorce can leave the family in suspended animation as custody and child support battles sometimes rage long after the initial disruption.
Recovering from divorce involves working through a grieving process, much like when a spouse has died. It also involves making choices. You might not have had a choice in getting a divorce, but you do have choices in your response. Will you hold on to bitterness and anger or will you forgive? Will you give up and give into despair . or will you trust Jesus to help you rebuild your life? Will you walk in fear or will you place your faith in God to guide you and help you?
Consider this
Divorce can bring one of the most intense pains possible into a person's life. But you don't have to go through it alone. Jesus loves you and wants to help you. If you will commit your ways to him, he will guide you in making those choices he will give you the courage you need and he will restore your hope. With him all things are possible.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for the poor choices in the past. Right now I have to make so many decisions. I need your help. Help me to choose the right path the one that is right for my family, for me and most of all the one that is pleasing to you.
These thoughts adapted from Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. As a person goes through this group they will be able to identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This group study provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced the loss of a loved one, as well as help for anyone ministering to those experiencing other types of losses in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Concept of Divine Control
READ:
. . . how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! -Matthew 7:11
Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct in this passage for those people who have His Spirit. He urges us to keep our minds filled with the concept of God's control over everything, which means that a disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.
Fill your mind with the thought that God is there. And once your mind is truly filled with that thought, when you experience difficulties it will be as easy as breathing for you to remember, "My heavenly Father knows all about this!" This will be no effort at all, but will be a natural thing for you when difficulties and uncertainties arise. Before you formed this concept of divine control so powerfully in your mind, you used to go from person to person seeking help, but now you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those people who have His Spirit, and it works on the following principle: God is my Father, He loves me, and I will never think of anything that He will forget, so why should I worry?
Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God's will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but is an attitude of the mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7 ).
God bless
Thanks again Judy, you are an ecouragement everyday. With so much negatism, whining, finger pointing and bad news out there you give me a positive start everyday. Keep the messages coming.
HAVE A GREAT DAY
Frank
Frank, your family members who are going in harms way will be in my prayers. Please keep us posted on how they are doing. Wars used to be fought by the young....bless their hearts for going.
Daily Devotionals July 17, 2008
Why Pray?
READ: Luke 11:1-13
When [Jesus] had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. -Matthew 14:23
As a journalist, I have spent time with famous people who make me feel very small. I rarely sleep well the night before and have to fight a case of nerves. I wonder what I would do if seated at a banquet next to, say, Albert Einstein or Mozart. Would I chitchat? Would I make a fool of myself?
In prayer I am approaching the Creator of all that is-Someone who makes me feel immeasurably small. How can I do anything but fall silent in such presence? How can I believe that whatever I say matters to God?
The Bible sometimes emphasizes the distance between humans and God and sometimes the closeness. Without question, though, Jesus Himself taught us to count on the closeness. In His own prayers He used the word Abba (Daddy), an informal address that Jews had not previously used in prayer. A new way of praying was born.
Jesus understood better than anyone the vast difference between God and human beings. Yet He did not question the personal concern of God, who watches over sparrows and counts the hairs on our heads. He valued prayer enough to spend many hours at the task.
If I had to answer the question "Why pray?" in one sentence, it would be, "Because Jesus did." - Philip Yancey
For Further Study
Many of us don't pray to God on His terms. Learn from our Lord's model for prayer by reading Jesus' Blueprint For Prayer on the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/hj891
If Jesus needed to pray, how can we do less?
Good for Evil by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.
In his "Essay on Criticism" British author Alexander Pope inscribed the everlasting words, "To err is human; to forgive is divine." How easy it is to offend. Yet how difficult it is to forgive the offense. The devil counsels you to hate your enemies, hinder them, and seek every opportunity to destroy them. Our Lord counsels, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). The words of the Lord Jesus sound very idealistic, but in the nitty-gritty of everyday life it is quite difficult to forgive someone who has purposefully persecuted you.
Consider the plight of Isaac. When a famine arose in Canaan, Isaac was driven south to dwell in the land of Gerar. Here Isaac sowed the land and the Lord blessed him one-hundredfold. The patriarch became a very great man with possessions of flocks and herds. This made the Philistines of Gerar envious, and their king, Abimelech, asked Isaac to move elsewhere.
Thus Isaac departed in peace and pitched his tent farther south in the valley of Gerar. Immediately Isaac and his men redug the wells there which were previously owned by Abraham. Then Isaac's servants began to dig a new well. This brought strife with the herdsmen of Gerar who apparently did not want any more of the south country to be claimed by Isaac. The conflict was so great that Isaac named the well Esek, which means "contention." In order to avoid the problem, Isaac peaceably forsook that well and dug another. But this too brought the wrath of the Gerar herdsmen and Isaac named this well Sitnah (hatred). Again the well was given up in order to avoid confrontation. Isaac moved still farther south and his men dug yet a third well. This time they were apparently beyond the range of the envious herdsmen, for no strife followed. Isaac called this well Rehoboth, meaning "wide space," where the Lord would make them fruitful in the land.
Shortly Isaac traveled north to Beersheba. When Abimelech learned that the increasingly wealthy and influential Isaac had come to Beersheba, he quickly paid him a visit. Abimelech hoped to regain the favor of Isaac whom he had earlier expelled. When Isaac inquired why Abimelech and his friends had come, they replied, "We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath between us, even between us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no harm, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the LORD."
Abimelech and his friends were being quite gracious to themselves by saying that they had done Isaac nothing but good. In fact, they had uprooted him from fields which were giving a one-hundredfold yield. Even after he migrated south, the herdsmen of Gerar took possession of two of Isaac's tediously dug wells. Isaac had much to resent and be bitter about. But in typically godly fashion Isaac was willing to forgive the offenses against him.
A feast was made. Together they ate and drank. "And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another" (Genesis 26:31). Early the next morning they "cut a covenant," that is, they made a pact of peace that they would not harm one another. For Isaac this was a one-sided pact, for he had wronged no one. He could have reacted angrily to the suggestion of the peace pact. But instead, he forgave his offenders and dug another well at Beersheba (the "well of the covenant"). This confirmed the covenant with Abimelech.
To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human; to return good for evil is godlike. The rich and powerful Isaac had no reason to forgive Abimelech and agree to the peace pact except that the love of God constrained him to do so. Isaac's forgiving spirit is reflected in our Lord's instruction, "Be ye, therefore, merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (Luke 6:36-37). It's good advice. Let's heed it today.
MORNING HYMN
More like the Master I would live and grow,
More of His love to others I would show;
More self-denial, like His in Galilee
More like the Master I long to ever be.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me! Psalm 139:13-18 NLT
Thoughts for Today
In these days of industrial downsizing, as many as 3.5 million workers are laid off or fired each year. Loss of a job can produce anger, guilt, grief and fear.
If you have recently lost your job, you might be feeling like a complete failure. It is vital for you to understand that your worth is not measured by what other people think of you-it is measured by God's love for you. And his love is unlimited and unconditional.
While it is important to evaluate your own job performance and learn from any mistakes you might have made, it is also important to remember that you are precious to God and he wants to help you through this loss.
Consider this
Remember-you are special. Not because of what you have or haven't done. Because God made you and his workmanship is marvelous! His thoughts about you are precious. When you wake up each morning, he will still be with you!
Evaluate what has happened, learn from it, forgive if you've been treated unfairly then move on, trusting God for his plan for you, his help, his love and his strength.
Prayer
Father, help me to remember that my worth is not determined by what I've done or not done it's not determined by what other people think of me but it's determined by the fact that you designed me, and you loved me enough to send Jesus to die for me. Thank you for loving me thank you for caring thank you that with your help, I can move on with hope.
These thoughts adapted from
Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. As a person goes through this group they will be able to identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This group study provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced the loss of a loved one, as well as help for anyone ministering to those experiencing other types of losses in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Miracle of Belief
READ:
My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom . . . -1 Corinthians 2:4
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the highest degree; he was not speaking here out of a deep sense of humility, but was saying that when he preached the gospel, he would veil the power of God if he impressed people with the excellency of his speech. Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the effectiveness of redemption, not by impressive speech, nor by wooing and persuading, but only by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of redemption comes through the preaching of the gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher.
Real and effective fasting by a preacher is not fasting from food, but fasting from eloquence, from impressive diction, and from everything else that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God- ". . . as though God were pleading through us . . ." (2 Corinthians 5:20). He is there to present the gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get close to Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the gospel will result in making me a traitor to Jesus, and I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work.
"And I, if I am lifted up. . . , will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32).
God bless
Thank You Judy, a great way to start the day.
Frank
Daily Devotionals July 18, 2008
Little Things
READ: James 3:1-12
The tongue is a little member and boasts great things. -James 3:5
A mosquito is a tiny insect-but its potential for devastation is huge. When I was in the 5th grade, I was bitten by mosquitoes on both of my knees. The bites became infected and deteriorated into a threatening case of blood poisoning. For over a month, I was pricked repeatedly with penicillin shots, and my knees had to be lanced and drained twice daily to remove the infection. It was excruciatingly painful and quite terrifying for a 10-year-old kid. To this day, I carry scars on my knees from the numerous lancings. All because of something as tiny as a mosquito.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, warns us of another little thing that can also be very destructive. He says that even though the tongue is little, it boasts great things. It's like a small spark that sets a great forest on fire (3:5). Although the tongue is small, there is nothing small about the damage it can do. Words carry with them the power of healing or a destructive capacity far greater than the poison of any mosquito bite.
It is essential that we use our words with great wisdom and care. Consider carefully the words you choose. Will they be seasoned with the balm of grace or with the poison of anger? - Bill Crowder
A careless word may kindle strife,
A cruel word may wreck a life,
A timely word may lessen stress,
A loving word may heal and bless. -Anon.
It is better to bite your tongue than to let it bite someone else.
Praising God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
The Psalms are the poetry of Palestine. They record the pains and pleasures, the distresses and delights of David and others. Over many psalms is a superscription, that is, an inscription which names the author of the psalm or gives the occasion for its writing or the instrument upon which the tune is to be played. Although these superscriptions are not inspired of God, as the individual psalms are, nonetheless they appear to be highly accurate and provide a good source of information for us regarding the psalms. The superscription for Psalm 57 says, "To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David, when he fled from Saul in the cave."
King Saul had been openly seeking to take the life of David. Where could David turn for help? There was no question in his mind that the only place to turn for help was God. Thus he begins his psalm with the prayer, "Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me; for my soul trusteth in Thee. Yea, in the shadow of Thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpassed." The psalmist knew that God would not permit the king to seek his life forever and that one day these calamities would be over. Although he would roam the hills of southern Palestine, nonetheless he would make his refuge the shadow of God's wings.
The first half of this psalm records David's cry to God for deliverance and salvation. He notes that there is someone "that would swallow me up" (Psalm 57:3) and that he lives "among lions. . . whose teeth are spears and arrows" (verse 4). David is fully aware that Saul has prepared a net for his steps and will relentlessly pursue him until the end.
Perhaps you too are being relentlessly pursued, not by the king but by financial distress or physical infirmities. What should your reaction be to these things? David's reaction, in the midst of his distress and cry for help, was the positive statement of verse 5, "Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Thy glory be above all the earth." How could he say such a thing, given his circumstances? How could he remain calm in the midst of his storm? David provides the answer in verse 7, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
To sing praises unto God while we are being relentlessly pursued by sickness, disease and distress requires a heart that is fixed on God and a tongue prepared to praise Him in the midst of that pursuit. Thus the psalmist issues a threefold call to awake himself to the praise of God. He says, "Awake up, my glory." This is a call for his greatest intellect to give praise to the Lord. The tongue can never express our praise to God until our minds form that praise. Before we can praise God in the midst of our troubles, we must have the mind to do so. David calls for his glory, his intellect, to stir itself in praise of God.
Next he cries, "Awake, psaltery and harp." His fingers will fly in joy over the strings of the psaltery and harp because his mind has become fixed on God. He is determined to praise God regardless of how his enemies pursue him. Let all the music with which we are familiar be attuned to the praise of our God.
Finally he enjoins, "I myself will awake early" (Psalm 57:8). No sleepy verses or weary notes will be heard from us early in the morning. We will rouse ourselves to the highest calling of man, to praise the Lord God among the people. We will faithfully, daily, arouse our intellect and will to the praise of God. We will also employ our fingers and our tongues in praising Him for His great deliverance. We will awake early to set ourselves to that task, the noble task of praising God.
MORNING HYMN
'Tis the grandest theme thro' the ages rung;
'Tis the grandest theme for a mortal tongue
'Tis the grandest theme that the world e'er sung
"Our God is able to deliver thee."
And to stand every morning to thank and praise the LORD, and likewise at even.
King David, who himself had been a fugitive and a wanderer for many years of his life, would have liked nothing better than to build a permanent dwelling place for the ark of the covenant. But because he was a man of war, Jehovah would not permit David to realize this privilege, so David "called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build an house to the LORD God of Israel" (1 Chronicles 22:6).
The zealous David did all he could to help in the preparations for the building of this temple. He gathered materials, prepared iron for nails and had a crew of masons readied. But an even greater contribution than arranging for the materials may have been David's initiation of the first full choral service. In conjunction with the chief of the Levites, David set apart three families and commissioned them to the service of the temple. These were not just singers, but prophets as well, "to prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals" (1 Chronicles 25:1). Generation after generation their instruction was handed down from father to son, and their art and musical skills were carefully perpetuated.
These families were those of Asaph, the son of Berechiah the Gershonite, the chief singer and also a distinguished seer; of Heman the Kohathite, the grandson of the prophet Samuel and himself "the king's seer in the words of God" (1 Chronicles 25:5); and of Jeduthun (or Ethan), a Merarite, who is also called "the king's seer." Each of the names of these leaders is found in the titles or superscriptions of selected psalms in the Psalter.
From 1 Chronicles 23-25 we learn that the numbers of Levites involved in the service of the temple and tabernacle was enormous. The three families numbered 288 principal singers, divided into 24 courses of 12 each. The total number of Levites engaged in the important task of praising Jehovah with the instruments which David made was 4,000. Six thousand were designated as officers and judges, 4,000 were set apart to be doorkeepers, and the remaining 24,000 Levites were designated to the general "work of the house of Jehovah."
Although to us their work may appear to be mundane, it certainly was not to them. They were to wait on the priests for the service of the house of Jehovah, purifying the holy place and the holy things, preparing the shewbread and the meat offering and assisting in the offering of burnt sacrifices on the sabbaths and on feast days. But perhaps their greatest duty, as well as their greatest delight, was "to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord and likewise at even" (1 Chronicles 23:30).
Rising early in the morning, these Levites would initiate the praise to Jehovah that day. This was not only a responsible position but a very meaningful one as well. Psalm 88, a psalm for the sons of Korah designated as a Maschil of Heman, gives a fine example of what these Levites may have said morning after morning in praising Jehovah. "But unto Thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent [come before] Thee" (Psalm 88:13).
Rising early in the morning to initiate a day filled with praise to God is our privilege as well. May we be as faithful in exercising that privilege as David's choirmasters were. Faithfulness in early praise to God may make the difference between a good day and a bad day.
MORNING HYMN
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord. Psalm 40:1-3 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We may experience many different types of losses in our lives. The death of a loved one is the most painful and traumatic, but other kinds of losses can also inflict a great deal of pain. All losses hurt, whether they are big ones or little ones. We recover quickly from some losses; others take months or years to absorb. Some losses are temporary while others are permanent.
Any relational loss can be devastating. The loss of a valued friendship or romantic relationship. Divorce. Children leaving home for college or marriage. Other types of losses may include a home destroyed by a fire or storm, a large financial loss, deterioration of health, rejection by a friend or colleague, the loss of a job, the loss of roots brought about by a move. The list is endless.
Consider this
It is important to know that God is with you. Although recovery will involve a process, he wants to guide you through that process and give you the strength, comfort and love that you need and desire. Reach out to him by talking to him and reading the Bible. Invite him into your life, and specifically into this situation. Let him lift you out of despair let him set your feet on solid ground let him steady you let him give you a new song to sing.
Prayer
Father, I thank you that no matter how hopeless things appear right now, you are with me and will see me through. Please lift me out of this despair, set my feet on solid ground, steady me and give me a new song to sing. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from Handling Loss and Grief by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. As a person goes through this group they will be able to identify what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. To grieve is human; how to grieve Christianly is supernatural. It requires us to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us through the grieving process. This group study provides guidance in the use of Scripture to help the grieving. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss and comfort to those who have faced the loss of a loved one, as well as help for anyone ministering to those experiencing other types of losses in life: divorce, loss of job, etc.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Mystery of Believing
READ:
He said, "Who are You, Lord? -Acts 9:5
Through the miracle of redemption, Saul of Tarsus was instantly changed from a strong-willed and forceful Pharisee into a humble and devoted bondservant of the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing miraculous or mysterious about the things we can explain. We control what we are able to explain, consequently it is only natural to seek an explanation for everything. It is not natural to obey, yet it is not necessarily sinful to disobey. There can be no real disobedience, nor any moral virtue in obedience, unless a person recognizes the higher authority of the one giving the orders. If this recognition does not exist, even the one giving the orders may view the other person's disobedience as freedom. If one rules another by saying, "You must do this," and, "You will do that," he breaks the human spirit, making it unfit for God. A person is simply a slave for obeying, unless behind his obedience is the recognition of a holy God.
Many people begin coming to God once they stop being religious, because there is only one master of the human heart- Jesus Christ, not religion. But "Woe is me" if after seeing Him I still will not obey ( Isaiah 6:5 , also see Isaiah 6:1 ). Jesus will never insist that I obey, but if I don't,I have already begun to sign the death certificate of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say, "I will not obey," He will never insist. But when I do this, I am backing away from the recreating power of His redemption. It makes no difference to God's grace what an abomination I am, if I will only come to the light. But "Woe is me" if I refuse the light (seeJohn 3:19-21 ).
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God bless
Thanks Judy, as usual another good message. It kind of hit close to home this morning. I think maybe HE is trying to tell me something and I better listen. Have a great day.
Frank
Daily Devotionals July 19, 2008
Elephants Down
READ: Jonah 4
On the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest. -Exodus 23:12
When rainy-season storms caused flooding in a nature preserve in Thailand, seven elephant calves became unlikely victims. As they tried to ford a river at their usual crossing point, dangerous currents swept them over a 250-foot waterfall. Wildlife advocates said the loss could have been prevented. A spokesperson for the Thailand Wildlife Fund complained that the protective barriers, which had been built at the crossing where four other young elephants had died earlier, were useless.
Long before animal rights became a global issue, the story of Jonah shows the attention our Creator gives to all His creatures. As the story ends, the Lord expresses concern not only for the citizens of Nineveh but also for their livestock (Jonah 4:11). And earlier, God gave Moses laws that extended certain protections even to animals (Ex. 23:4-5,12).
Though humans alone are made in the image of God, the story of Jonah and other Bible texts show a link between caring for people and animals. The Creator gives us reason to provide appropriate, though different, attention to both.
The conclusion seems clear. If God cares even for livestock, how can we ignore the needs of any person for whom His Son died? - Mart De Haan
In trees and flowers of the field,
In creatures large and small,
We trace the watchful care of Him
Who planned and made them all. -King
God cares for us and calls us to care for His creation.
Walls of Water by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.
Everyone is aware of what can happen to the best laid plans of mice and men. But when the plans of men are in conflict with the purposes of God, they are destined for defeat. More than once the pages of Scripture record that God reversed an evil plan designed to destroy His people (cf. Esther 7:10; Daniel 3:22; 6:24).
The ancient Egyptians had been subjected to the ten most torturous plagues in history. The last of these plagues brought death to the firstborn of every Egyptian family, including the family of Pharaoh. The king called for Moses and Aaron and commanded them to get out of his land. Soon, however, because his heart was bitterly hardened, Pharaoh regretted letting his Israelite slaves go, and he quickly assembled the Egyptian armies, including an elite corps of 600 chosen chariots. The troops mustered, Pharaoh pursued the Israelites and overtook them at Pi-hahiroth. God's chosen people were trapped. With the wilderness to Israel's side, the vast Red Sea before them, and the Egyptian armies closing in, a wretched grin must have crossed Pharaoh's face. There was no way out for Israel, and the Egyptian king knew it.
Yet God had warned Moses not to fear but to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. At nightfall, without warning, the angel of God removed the pillar of the cloud from before the Israelites and placed it between their camp and the Egyptian armies. From this vantage point the cloud lighted the breadth of the sea for the Israelites but at the same time obscured the view of the Egyptians, causing them to grope in the inky darkness. As Moses stretched forth his hand, the Lord caused an east wind to howl with such force that it pushed back the waters of the Red Sea. The children of Israel, 600,000 men, plus women and children, crossed the sea on dry land between the walls of water. All night long the crossing proceeded. Finally the Egyptian charioteers apprehensively pursued God's people into the midst of the sea.
"In the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians" (Exodus 14:24). The Lord caused the wheels of the heavy Egyptian chariots to clog with mud and soon they began to break off. Panic-stricken and exhausted, they began to flee from the Israelites. But it was too late. The Lord commanded Moses to stretch forth his hand over the sea. When the first light of day appeared, the walls of water thundered together and not one Egyptian soldier was left. The bodies of Pharaoh's men washed ashore as a visible reminder to Israel of God's salvation.
Once a public school teacher, who was prejudiced against the Bible, was explaining to her class that the Jews' crossing the Red Sea was no miracle. "The water was only six inches deep," explained the godless teacher. "The Jews had nothing to worry about." From the back of the room came a little boy's shout, "Praise the Lord, Hallelujah."
"No, Johnny, you didn't hear me correctly. I said the water was only six inches deep where the Jews crossed the Red Sea. It was no miracle."
Johnny replied, "Oh, that's not what I was praising the Lord for. I was praising Him for the miracle that Pharaoh's army could drown in just six inches of water."
Once again Israel's situation was completely reversed by God. That which was to be the downfall of the children of God proved to be their salvation. The Red Sea became a great symbol of victory instead of a story of defeat. Israel was now rejoicing in the Lord on the other side of a miracle.
MORNING HYMN
Safe is my refuge, sweet is my rest,
Ill cannot harm me, nor foes e'er molest
Jesus my spirit so tenderly calms,
Holding me close in His mighty arms.
Week of July 14
Love Will Lift You
Love lifts a broken heart-not just any love, but the love of God. Most of us have sung James Rowe's hymn, "Love Lifted Me." The first verse contains these words:
I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more.
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me-now safe am I.
Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help, love lifted me!
Sometimes nothing can lift our hearts like the love of God. Friends abandon us. Colleagues try to bypass us. Even our families may fail to understand us. But God's love for us never changes.
Even when we act unlovable, God continues to love us. When we are undesirable, He embraces us. When it seems that the world has turned against us, God's love remains. He has promised never to leave us hopeless.
Difficulties in life can certainly leave us feeling broken and confused. Many times, disappointments come in order to teach us more about the depths of God's love. In desperation, we turn to God. This is when we discover that only His love can truly lift us up and restore our sense of hope.
We may struggle to find another way around our problems, hoping that someone or something will bring relief, but nothing can help us outside the love of God. Only His love has the ability to satisfy our every need.
Maybe you are wondering if God really loves you. Have you yielded to sin? Or have you allowed the world and its trappings to come between you and your Savior? Cry out to Him and He will restore the joy of your salvation. When nothing else can help, love will lift you.
Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up the race. Shore up your confidence in God today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Submission of the Believer
READ:
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am -John 13:13
Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, "You will submit to me." No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose- so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done; and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination, in which I acknowledge that "You are worthy, O Lord . . ." ( Revelation 4:11 ). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don't recognize his worthiness, nor obey his instructions for me, it is a sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.
If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other; like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, "I and My Father are one" ( John 10:30 ). ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" ( Hebrews 5:8 ). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because He was the Son, not in order to become God's Son.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 20, 2008
Expiration Date
READ: Psalm 139:7-18
In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me. -Psalm 139:16
Chuck Montague was undergoing an extended series of treatments at a cancer center far from home. Then his treatments were abruptly interrupted by another medical condition. But God answered prayer and removed this problem. Later, when Chuck testified in his church back home, he told of his gratitude for the prayers of God's people and the truths from His Word that had ministered to him and his wife, Janet.
At times Chuck had wondered whether or not he would survive. That thought drove him to the Scriptures, and he carefully read Psalm 139. His attention was drawn to verse 16, which says, "In Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them." Before we were created, all of our days were "fashioned" by the Lord. "It lifted my spirit to know that my life is in God's hands," Chuck said. "Every jug of milk or can of tuna has an expiration date. Well, so have I. . . . God's timing is best."
As we suffer illness or grow older, we naturally think more about death. If we're believers in Christ, we can be confident that death is an open door to eternal life with Jesus. With the psalmist David, we are comforted by the truth that the God who loves us knows our "expiration date." - David C. Egner
From Him, who loves me now so well,
What power my soul can sever?
Shall life or death, or earth or hell?
No-I am His forever. -Stebbins
God's timing is perfect-even in death.
Steps to Sin by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
A historian once observed that Abraham Lincoln died in time to be great. That is, if he had lived longer, his greatness may well have been tarnished with mistakes. David was not so fortunate. He lived to make his greatest mistake and to commit his greatest sin with Bathsheba.
David was at war with the children of Ammon, east of the Jordan River. He sent Joab his captain to seize the city of Rabbah, what is today Amman, the capital of Jordan. David remained behind at Jerusalem perhaps because he had become self-indulgent and faced a growing inclination toward enjoying the luxurious life of the royal palace. At any rate, remaining behind ultimately led to his downfall. The steps which David took to fall into sin are characteristic steps. They are identical to those taken by Adam and Eve (Genesis 3), by Achan (Joshua 7:21) and by others. Here are those steps.
First, David was strolling in the evening on the roof of his palace when he saw a beautiful woman bathing in an adjacent house. Sin always begins with sight, or some sensual exposure. The sight of sin is not sin itself. Occasionally we cannot help but look upon sin. But the second glance at what we should not see is always sin.
Second, David "sent and inquired after the woman." Had he not given in to his lust for the bathing woman, he would never have sent for information about her. In essence, he desired her and lusted after her when he knew he could not have her. The sight of sin the second time led David to illicit desire.
Third, 2 Samuel 11:4 indicates, "And David sent messengers, and took her." Like Eve in the garden of Eden and Achan at the battle of Jericho, David now actively participated in sin. These steps in the cycle of sin are universal; they cause us to stumble, as they caused David to stumble. In order to break this cycle, we must be aware that one step always leads to the next. David failed to recognize this, and it led to disgrace in the kingdom of Israel.
To have the king commit adultery was bad enough; but sin is never a private matter. It always involves others. Thus the fourth step in David's sin was to involve an innocent party in his sin. In this case the innocent party was Uriah the Hittite, the husband of Bathsheba.
When Bathsheba told David that she was with child and that it was his child, he unsuccessfully attempted to divert the consequences of his sin. He demanded that Uriah be returned to Jerusalem under the guise of wanting to know how the battle was going. He sent Uriah to his house, assuming that after Uriah had spent an evening at home with his wife, everyone would assume that she was pregnant with his child. But Uriah would not enter the house. A disappointed David even attempted to get Uriah drunk so that he would go home, but to no avail. The die was cast; everyone would know that Bathsheba's child was not Uriah's.
In the morning David callously caused Uriah to be the bearer of his own death warrant to Joab (2 Samuel 11:14). According to the king's instructions, Joab placed Uriah in the heat of the battle so that he would be killed. David now added murder to the crime of adultery. This is hardly what we would expect from the man God had chosen to be king of Israel. It is what we have come to expect, however, when one lingers at the door of sin. Lingering at the door of sin is an open invitation to enter that door, and David stayed too long on the top of his roof while viewing the bathing Bathsheba. Had he fled from the presence of temptation, he would not have entered the cycle of sin. You and I must flee temptation and the presence of evil if we would remain true to God. None of us has developed a resistant strain to the bacteria of sin.
MORNING HYMN
Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin
Each vict'ry will help you
Some other to win
Fight manfully onward,
Dark passions subdue,
Look ever to Jesus,
He will carry you through.
In God We (Nearly) Trust
by Max Lucado
A few days before our wedding, Denalyn and I enjoyed and endured a sailing voyage. Milt, a Miami church friend, had invited Denalyn, her mom, and me to join him and a few others on a leisurely cruise along the Florida coast.
Initially it was just that. Leisure. We stretched out on cushions, hung feet over the side, caught some zzz's and rays. Nice.
But then came the storm. The sky darkened, the rain started, and the flat ocean humped like a dragon's neck. Sudden waves of water tilted the vessel up until we saw nothing but sky and then downward until we saw nothing but blue. I learned this about sailing: there is nothing swell about a swell. Tanning stopped. Napping ceased. Eyes turned first to the thunderclouds, then to the captain. We looked to Milt.
He was deliberate and decisive. He told some people where to sit, others what to do, and all of us to hang on. And we did what he said. Why? We knew he knew best. No one else knew the difference between starboard and stern. Only Milt did. We trusted him. We knew he knew.
And we knew we didn't. Prior to the winds, we might have boasted about Boy Scout merit badges in sailing or bass-boat excursions. But once the storm hit, we shut up. (Except for Denalyn, who threw up.) We had no choice but to trust Milt. He knew what we didn't-and he cared. The vessel was captained, not by a hireling or a stranger, but by a pal. Our safety mattered to him. So we trusted him.
Oh, that the choice were equally easy in life. Need I remind you about your westerly winds? With the speed of lightning and the force of a thunderclap, williwaws anger tranquil waters. Victims of sudden storms populate unemployment lines and ICU wards. You know the winds. You've felt the waves. Good-bye, smooth sailing. Hello, rough waters.
Such typhoons test our trust in the Captain. Does God know what he is doing? Can he get us out? Why did he allow the storm?
Can you say about God what I said about Milt?
I know God knows what's best.
I know I don't.
I know he cares.
Such words come easily when the water is calm. But when you're looking at a wrecked car or a suspicious-looking mole, when war breaks out or thieves break in, do you trust him?
To embrace God's sovereignty is to drink from the well of his lordship and make a sailboat-in-the-storm decision. Not in regard to Milt and the sea, but in regard to God and life. You look toward the Captain and resolve: he knows what's best.
From
Come Thirsty
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
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Dependent on God's Presence
READ:
Those who wait on the Lord . . . shall walk and not faint -Isaiah 40:31
There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities. To "walk and not faint" is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person- ". . . John . . . looking at Jesus as He walked. . . said, 'Behold the Lamb of God!' " ( John 1:35-36 ). There is nothing abstract or obscure in the Bible; everything is vivid and real. God does not say, "Be spiritual," but He says, "Walk before Me. . ." ( Genesis 17:1 ).
When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" ( Isaiah 40:31 ), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.
Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of- "We will not fear, even though . . ." ( Psalm 46:2 )- will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God's presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, "He has been here all the time!" At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that." Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 21, 2008
We Are Connected
READ: Romans 12:3-13
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. -Romans 12:5
An air-monitoring station atop a California mountain has detected wind-borne particles that drifted across the Pacific Ocean from coal-fired power plants and smelters thousands of miles away. Some experts predict that expanding economies in other nations could one day account for a third of the pollution in California. The US, however, remains the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and other countries are feeling the effects of America's energy consumption.
An Associated Press report quoted atmospheric scientist Dan Jaffe: "There is no place where you can put away your pollution anymore." Every nation shares the world's atmosphere and is affected by the actions of others.
A similar principle is at work in the global community of those who follow Jesus Christ. We all have a stake in the lives of others because our actions, good and bad, affect every other Christian. In the body of Christ, each member belongs to all the others (Rom. 12:5). Because of that, we are urged to exercise our spiritual gifts (vv.6-8), and to be loving, faithful in prayer, and generous (vv.10-13).
Our obedience to the Lord may seem insignificant in the big picture, but it breathes freshness and life into the spiritual atmosphere of every believer. - David C. McCasland
We don't live unto ourselves,
We're part of one another;
For good or ill we touch a life
Of sister, friend, and brother. -D. De Haan
When believers influence each other for good, the body of Christ remains healthy.
Wet Feet by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.
Faith is getting yourself in so deep that only God can get you out. This concept of faith is readily seen in the account of Joshua and the children of Israel as they crossed the Jordan River into the promised land.
With the passing of Moses a new servant of the Lord was commissioned to lead the chosen people of God. Joshua clearly had the promise of God that He would be with the Israelites. Be strong and of good courage" (Joshua 1:6). "Only be thou strong and very courageous" (1:7). "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (1:9). "Only be strong and of a good courage" (1:18). Armed with these promises of divine assistance, Joshua immediately sent two men into the land to spy out the city of Jericho. Here the spies met Rahab the harlot and their lives were spared by her hiding them from the king's men. After three days the spies returned to Joshua and reported that all the inhabitants of the land were afraid of the mighty Jehovah and that Israel could easily enter the land and establish a beachhead there.
As a decisive leader, Joshua wasted no time in mustering the Israelite camp. Joshua rose early in the morning (Joshua 3:1) and they removed from Shittim to the Jordan River. Roaring downward toward the Dead Sea, the mighty current of the Jordan is very strong at Jericho, especially during the harvest season. Because of the melting snows in the Lebanon mountains, and the overflowing of the Jordan during the month of Nisan, crossing the river at this season was regarded in ancient times as a very extraordinary feat. It is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 12:15 as a heroic act on the part of the brave Gaddites. Undoubtedly the rushing waters had overflowed the banks when the two spies crossed the river a few days before. But it was altogether impossible for the children of Israel with their wives and children to cross the mighty current. What was a great obstacle for man was a great opportunity for a miracle for the omnipotent God.
After Joshua rose early in the morning and commanded the people to move to the water's edge, they abode there three days. Here they were given instructions as to how to proceed across the water and told to sanctify themselves, "for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you" (Joshua 3:5). In the morning, as commanded, the priests of Israel led the procession to the brink of Jordan's waters. Miraculously when the priest entered the water, bearing the ark of the covenant, the mighty Jordan River "stood upon an heap."
Faith that had faltered at Kadesh forty years before was now tested again. When God caused the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, it was for Israel to escape with their lives from the pursuit of the Egyptian foe. Now, however, Israel was on the march and the foe was on the other side of the river. But the crossing of the Jordan was more of an act of faith than the crossing of the Red Sea. Upon leaving Egypt the Israelites saw God part the waters before they entered them. But now the waters were not parted. Not until the soles of the priests' feet touched the water was the river rolled back. It was not an act of obedience following what God had already done, but an act of faith which caused the priests to enter the swift current of the mighty Jordan
We should never fear God's leading, even into the turbulent Jordans of our lives, for God stands behind His commands with His omnipotence. Trusting God is taking that step of faith. Trust Him today for today's step of faith.
MORNING HYMN
Encamped along the hills of light,
Ye Christian soldiers, rise,
And press the battle ere the night
Shall veil the glowing skies.
Against the foe in vales below
Let all our strength be hurled;
Faith is the victory, we know,
That overcomes the world.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Thoughts for Today
Is someone you care about suffering from a life-controlling problem-a dependence or compulsive behavior or addiction? It might be an eating disorder, drugs, alcohol, gambling, compulsive spending, pornography, overworking or one of many other things that can take hold of a person's life. Your loved one's problem is most likely affecting your life as well.
Rather than focusing on the person with the problem, let's talk about you as a concerned person. You might be finding that every day is a struggle with sensitive and emotional issues. It is important for you to know that you are not alone.
Consider this
The Bible tells us that God comforts us in all our troubles. This kind of comfort combines relief and consolation. God is a Comforter, standing at your side, ready to minister to your needs.
How can you receive this comfort? Talk to God. Tell him that you trust him and want to do things his way. Sometimes he will comfort you through other people. Sometimes he will comfort you through his words in the Bible. Other times he'll simply fill you with peace in the midst of turmoil.
Remember, God loves you. He cares. He understands. And he is able to comfort you, no matter what the circumstances.
Prayer
Lord, the struggle gets to be too much. I can't do it alone. Help me to remember that I don't have to. Help me remember that you are with me, offering me your love, your strength and your comfort. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Doorway to the Kingdom
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to reaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it. What good is there in telling me to be what I can never be- to be "pure in heart" ( Matthew 5:8 ), to do more than my duty, or to be completely devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach- He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The redemption means that Jesus Christ can place within anyone the same nature that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives us are based on that nature.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces a sense of despair in the natural man- exactly what Jesus means for it to do. As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord, I cannot even begin to do it." Then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." ( Matthew 5:11 ). This is the doorway to the kingdom, and yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work.
God bless
THANKS JUDY, A GREAT WAY TO START THE DAY. THAT MESSAGE ALSO SHOULD GIVE AMERIACA AND THE WORLD SOME INCENTIVE TO REDUCE PETROLEUM AND HYDROCARBON CONSUMPTION. WE SHOULD CONSIDER WHAT WE ARE DOING TO OUR CHILDREN, AND FUTURE GENERATIONS ATMOSPHERE AND SURVIVAL.
HAVE A GREAT DAY
FRANK
Daily Devotionals July 22, 2008
Love, INC
READ: Colossians 3:12-17
Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. -Colossians 3:17
When I heard about the service agency called Love, INC, I assumed that meant Love, Incorporated. But it actually means Love-In the Name of Christ. The organization's goal is to mobilize churches to reach out to a hurting and needy world in the name of Christ.
Throughout history, people have said they're acting in Jesus' name, when in reality it was for their own advantage. During World War II, the horrors of the Holocaust were sometimes rationalized by those who labeled the Jews "Christ-killers." Today racist groups dare to use "Christian" in their name or literature while using violence and hatred to intimidate people.
The Word of God is so saturated with the word love that it's hard to imagine how anyone could justify doing hateful acts in the name of Christ. Love is at the core of the gospel: Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was motivated by God's love. "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (1 John 4:9).
As grateful followers of Jesus, we are told to "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Col. 3:17). When we represent Him to other people in word and deed, they should see love, in the name of Christ. - Cindy Hess Kasper
Teach me to love-this is my plea;
May all the Spirit's graces shine through me;
Tear from my heart all hate, foolish pride;
Help me to live like Christ the crucified. -Peterson
© 1968 John W. Peterson Music Company.
Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, . . . but have not love, it profits me nothing. -1 Cor. 13:3
One God Alone by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.
Periodically in history God chooses to reveal in dramatic fashion that He alone is God. When the shepherd boy David took on the mighty giant Goliath, he was confident of victory, knowing that the Lord would deliver the giant into his hand, "that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel" (1 Samuel 17:46). When Sennacherib, King of Assyria, threatened Jerusalem with invasion, King Hezekiah was reminded that the gods of all the cities that fell before Jerusalem were unable to stay the Assyrian armies. Hezekiah fell before the Lord in prayer and said, "O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, Thou art the God, even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth" (2 Kings 19:15). When Jehovah wills, He elevates Himself over all the false gods of the earth and proves that there is no God but Jehovah.
When Eli the priest was old and Samuel still young, God chose to show His superiority over the gods of the Philistines. With Israel encamped at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek, a mighty battle ensued. Israel was defeated and lost 4,000 men in the fray. This completely devastated the Israelites, for they remembered the mighty deeds which God had performed against their enemies in the past. Why was He not smiling on them now? Had Jehovah abandoned them? If so, how could they take Him into battle? They hit upon a plan.
"Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us it may save us out of the hand of our enemies" (1 Samuel 4:3). They clung to the superstitious hope that the mere symbol of God's presence would be enough to bring them to victory. It wasn't. In the second battle 30,000 men were slain, among them Hophni and Phinehas, the licentious sons of Eli. But even worse, the ark of the covenant was seized by the hated enemy of Israel.
The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to Ashdod, to the house of Dagon their god. Here the ark was placed before the idol. That night the Ashdodites slept with the sleep of sweet revenge.
Early on the morrow the Philistines arose to savor their victory (l Samuel 5:3). But Jehovah God was up long before the Philistines arose; and when they entered the temple of their god, they saw Dagon fallen on his face before the ark of the Lord. It was the height of humiliation. It was as if Dagon had prostrated himself before the symbol of Jehovah. Quickly they returned the idol to its place and all the Ashdodites breathed a sigh of relief.
But once again Jehovah arose long before the Philistines for "when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD" (1 Samuel 5:4). To add injury to insult, the head of the statue and both of its hands were broken off; so that only the stump of Dagon was left.
God allowed the ark to be captured by the Philistines to punish His superstitious people. But even in their punishment Jehovah was still jealous of His glory; and when the Philistines should have been savoring their victory, they were swallowing their pride.
Dagon was no match for Jehovah. The Philistines were learning what David had learned, what we all must learn. "Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O LORD. . . . For Thou art great, and doest wondrous things: Thou art God alone" (Psalm 86:8,10). Since our God alone is God, let's praise Him today all the day long. We have a God who is a God of gods and worthy of our praise.
MORNING HYMN
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe
His craft and pow'r are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
God is good, a hiding place in tough times. He recognizes and welcomes anyone looking for help, No matter how desperate the trouble. Nahum 1:7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Do you sometimes feel as though nobody understands what you are experiencing?
Good news! Someone does understand. The Bible tells us that God is compassionate. He has a sympathetic understanding of what you are going through and he wants to ease your burden and free you from the load you carry. He is dependable. He is always there for you. He will never leave you alone. God's love has no limit or conditions and never fails, no matter what your circumstances.
Consider this
You have many challenges to face, but you don't have to face them alone. Talk to God about your feelings and your fears. As you spend time in the Bible, you will be comforted. You will learn that God is your refuge in your trouble. He offers strength and help He is ever-present. He cares for you. He wants to carry your anxiety. He will give you peace.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for your promise to be with me, no matter what. Thank you for understanding and caring. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Sanctification (1)
READ:
This is the will of God, your sanctification. . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Sanctification requires our coming to the place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid. There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is realized- something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . his own life . . . he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ).
In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest- simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword" ( Matthew 10:34 ). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, "But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me." Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.
Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply "me"? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ).
When I pray, "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me- it is Himself in me (see 1 Corinthians 1:30 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 23, 2008
Better With Age
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18
Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. -2 Corinthians 4:16
Some people are obsessed with physical fitness-daily workouts, vitamins, organic food-in spite of the fact that our bodies keep ticking away in inevitable decline. In our twenties and thirties we think we're invincible, but in the decades that follow, the eyesight starts to go, then the knees, then the mind. Let's face it, trying to ensure long-lasting physical health is like trying to stem the tide with a pitchfork!
And while it is true that the older we get the worse we get physically, it doesn't have to be that way spiritually. Believe it or not, it is possible to get better with age. It's what the apostle Paul meant when he said, "Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16).
Many of us fear aging with all the trouble it brings. But when we are gradually stripped of everything that props us up-whether wealth, independence, health, dignity, beauty, or all of the above-we are left with more and more of God. So no matter how old you are, it's not too late to dig deep in God's Word and invest more and more time in your spiritual well-being. You'll see the payoffs, now and later. The older you get, the better you can become! - Joe Stowell
Although our outward shell decays,
We still can be renewed each day;
Commitment to God's Word and prayer
Give strength that will not fade away. -Sper
To get better with age, get spiritually fit.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. Psalm 62:5-6 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Some of us-if not all of us-have known the frustration of being caught up in a situation we can't control and can't fix.
Are you suffering pressures, stress and pain from dealing with the consequences of a loved one's problem? Those pressures are very real, but even in the middle of that frustration and tension, you need to believe that there is hope. This kind of hope can be described as the confident expectation of something good. It is hope based on our knowledge of God and his willingness to meet us right where we are. He is here now and is ready to work in you and in your difficult circumstances.
Consider this
If you are not already doing so, determine to begin spending regular time praying and studying the Bible. When feelings of hopelessness fill your mind, go to God in prayer. Ask him for his strength. Ask him to bring to mind the promises you have studied in the Bible. Ask him to work his will and his plan in your life and in the life of your loved one. He loves you and he will meet your need.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for this reminder that there is always hope if I am willing to trust in you. You alone are my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Sanctification (2)
READ:
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . . -1 Corinthians 1:30
The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He "became for [me] . . . sanctification . . . ." Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.
The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is "Christ in you . . ." ( Colossians 1:27 ). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification- imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?
Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy- it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness- ". . . kept by the power of God . . ." ( 1 Peter 1:5 ).
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 24, 2008
The Power In Meekness
READ: Exodus 2:11-15; 3:7-12
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. -Isaiah 30:15
Niagara Falls is one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen. The roar of 6 million cubic feet of water each minute makes it the most powerful waterfall in North America. Few people, however, know that more than 50 percent of the river's water is diverted before it reaches those falls via four huge tunnels. This water passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas in the US and Canada before returning to the river well past the Falls.
Some would love to have others think of their lives like Niagara Falls- wild, spectacular, and loud. But power without control dissipates into useless energy. Moses thought he could use his royal power to bring about deliverance for God's people from slavery. He misused his power by killing an Egyptian, which only dissipated his power because he lost the respect of his own people (Ex. 2:11-15). God had to teach him meekness (Num. 12:3).
The meek prosper because they are the ones who have power under control. Our Lord said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5). You may be trying to live in this world by your own power. Let God teach you meekness so that you can live in, and depend on, His strength. - C. P. Hia
We strive to do the will of God
And struggle to succeed;
But we may fail to recognize
God's strength is what we need. -D. De Haan
Nothing is stronger than strength under God's control.
Pleasing Worship by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts.
Although little or nothing is known of the personal life of Malachi the prophet, nonetheless he has given us one of the most interesting books in the Bible. Not only is this the last book of the Old Testament, it is also the last stern rebuke of the people of God, the last call for them to repent, and the last promise of future blessing for Israel.
In Malachi's day the people had become increasingly indifferent to spiritual matters. Religion had lost its glow and many of the people had become skeptical, even cynical. The priests were unscrupulous, corrupt, and immoral. The people refused to pay their tithes and offerings to the Lord and their worship degenerated into empty formalism. While the people had strong male lambs in their flocks, they were bringing blind and lame animals to be offered on the altars of Jehovah. Malachi was commissioned by God to lash out against the laxity of the people of God.
This prophecy is unique for it is a continuous discourse. In fact, Malachi has been called "the Hebrew Socrates" because he uses a style which later rhetoricians call dialectic. The whole of this prophecy is a dialogue between God and the people in which the faithfulness of God is seen in contrast to the unfaithfulness of God's people. Thus Malachi is argumentative in style and unusually bold in his attacks on the priesthood, which had become corrupt.
The most blistering attack in the entire book comes in Jehovah's dispute with His priests. If anyone should have known better than to fall to idolatry and corruption, it ought to have been those who served at the Temple of God. Still, the priests had again and again polluted the bread of the altar of God; they had sacrificed spotted animals on that altar and thus had made the table of the Lord contemptible. In addition to this, the priests were involved in empty formalism. They went about their duties day after day in dull drudgery rather than in faith. This was not pleasing to Him and Jehovah told them so.
In contrast, Jehovah declared the kind of worship that is acceptable: "For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same My name shall be great among the Gentiles" (Malachi 1:11). It is obvious this was not true in the days of Malachi, for the Gentiles had not yet come to praise the name of Jehovah. Nonetheless, Malachi is speaking prophetically and the day will come, the great millennial day, when all the nations of the earth will flock to the Temple in Jerusalem and there they will worship in sincerity the God of Israel. This worship will be carried on from the rising of the earliest sun to its setting hours later. All day long, service in that day will not be dull drudgery but will be a delightful duty.
What a contrast there is between the conclusion of the Old Testament and the conclusion of the New Testament. The Old Testament concludes with an invective against dead formalism in the church. The New Testament concludes with the bright and morning Star in the midst of the church. Thank God that prophecy does not end with the Old Testament but continues until the day that Jesus Christ will usher in an eternity with Him in Heaven. But let's not wait until then. Let's rise with the sun today and begin a day filled with praise to our God.
MORNING HYMN
O worship the King, all glorious above,
And gratefully sing His pow'r and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Philippians 4:6-7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Dealing with the consequences of a loved one's problem is difficult. Pain, stress and frustration often build up to an overload level. Living in that overload condition can do harm. It can affect our emotional and physical health-virtually everything in our lives.
In order to avoid this state of overload, we must believe that there is hope. Not hope in our loved ones' ability to overcome the problem on their own. Not hope in our own ability to fix the problem. As much as we may want to, we can't take charge and make things right.
There is only one real hope-faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in his love-he cares greatly about where we are and what we need. Faith in his power-he is able to deliver us from the fears and stress. Faith in his plan for us-he has a plan for our future that will not harm us, but will prosper us.
Consider this
God won't force our loved ones to change, but he will help them when they are ready to reach out to him. In the meantime, he will comfort and strengthen us. Ask him to help you approach each day with an attitude that confidently expects him to do good things in your life and in the lives of those you care about.
Prayer
Father, sometimes I really do feel as though I'm running on overload. Thank you for reminding me that I don't have to-that I'm not alone. Teach me to trust Jesus instead of being overcome with worry.
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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His Nature and Our Motives
READ:
. . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, "If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind." Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations- He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature- He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.
God bless
Daily Devotionals July 25, 2008
Wheelchair Ride
READ: Psalm 59
You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. -Psalm 59:16
Ben Carpenter has muscular dystrophy and gets around in an electric wheelchair. One day as he was crossing an intersection, the light changed and a semi-truck caught the handles of Ben's wheelchair in its grille. Unaware, the driver started down the road, and before long Ben was being pushed along at 50 miles per hour. Soon the rubber on the wheelchair's tires began to burn off.
Passersby saw the bizarre sight and phoned 911 to inform the police. When the truck driver pulled over, he was astonished to see what was attached to his truck's grille. Ben had a big scare but escaped without injury.
Sometimes we may feel as if our lives have been hijacked by unexpected circumstances. When David was invited to King Saul's court, he soothed the king's nerves by playing on his lyre. Then, unpredictably, the jealous king threw a spear at him. David found himself caught in a dangerous drama of pursuit in which King Saul tried to take his life. Yet David looked to God for immediate protection, and he ultimately received deliverance. Because of this experience he wrote of the faithfulness of God: "You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble" (Ps. 59:16).
No matter what our trouble, God is there. - Dennis Fisher
I never walk alone, Christ walks beside me,
He is the dearest Friend I've ever known;
With such a Friend to comfort and to guide me,
I never, no, I never walk alone. -Ackley
© 1952 The Rodeheaver Co.
When troubles call on you, call on God.
Never Alone by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
The patriarch Jacob was a man rarely in solitude. His life was lived in rich association with others. The husband of four wives, Jacob fathered twelve sons, of whom were descended the tribes of Israel. He could not even claim solitude at birth, for he was the second-born of twin sons. It seemed that Jacob's life was destined to be lived in association with others. Even when he died, Jacob was buried in the cave of Machpelah with his parents, grandparents, and wife Leah.
There was one occasion, however, when Jacob was alone, quite alone. After he had purchased the birthright from his brother Esau and had deviously received his father's blessing, Jacob set out to seek a wife. His father charged him not to marry a Canaanite but to journey to distant Paddan-aram and take a wife of the daughters of Laban, his mother's brother. This provided the perfect excuse for Jacob to flee from the wrath of his cheated brother, who had vowed to kill him.
Exiled from home and running from revenge, this solitary wanderer traveled north from Beersheba toward Haran. He camped on a remote plateau near the city of Luz. Here Jacob had time to ponder the events of his early life. Would the God of Abraham and Isaac be the God of Jacob as well? Was the covenant to extend to him? A sense of loneliness crept over him. Fear that his brother had followed him made Jacob apprehensive. He saw the figure of Esau behind every tree and rock. Finally, sheer exhaustion caused him to sleep, even with nothing but a stone for his pillow.
During the night Jacob had a dream. This was no ordinary dream, but a revelation from God. Jacob saw a ladder set up on the earth which reached into the heavens. Upon the ladder were the angels of God ascending and descending. But the most amazing feature of the dream was that at the top of the ladder stood the Lord Himself saying, "l am the LORD God of Abraham . . . and, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places to which thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee."
The words of God must have been music to Jacob's ears. The blessing which God had promised to Abraham and Isaac was now promised to Jacob as well. His lonely heart would never be lonely again. Jacob awakened with a start and gasped, "Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. . . . And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it" and called the place Bethel--the "house of God" (Genesis 28:18-19). Certainly this was a turning point in his religious life. When Jacob arose early that morning it was with a new attitude toward God. Jehovah was not some distant and unknowable god, but one who had been there, right in that very place. There was an open pathway of communication between God and men.
In essence, the revelation of this stairway to Jacob is a revelation of Jesus Christ. He is our ladder of communication to heaven. With regard to salvation, Jesus Christ is our stairway through the stars to the God of heaven. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (John 14:6). But the Lord Jesus is so much more. To the Christian Jesus Christ is a continual, well-worn pathway to God. The Apostle Paul expressed it so clearly: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). The ladder of communication between God and men is Jesus Christ. He is our go-between, our mediator, our ladder of prayer.
Jacob was astounded to learn that communication between God and men was possible. Yet armed with that knowledge, he was no longer lonely. The Father's "I am with thee" to Jacob is God's promise to all His heirs. Jesus said, "And lo, I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20). As the heir of God's promise we need never feel alone. We never are.
MORNING HYMN
When in affliction's valley I tread the road of care
My Savior helps me to carry the cross so heavy to bear Tho' all around me is darkness, Earthly joys all flown; My Savior whispers His promise, Never to leave me alone!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Whatever your loved one's problem, the stress and frustration it causes can bring you to a wounded condition.
When we are wounded and hurting, we need to understand and experience the comfort of God and believe that our hope is in Jesus. These steps will open the door to God's healing.
Consider this
The Bible talks about things we can do, things others can do for us, and things God will do. All these things center on prayer and trusting God.
For our part, we can ask mature Christians to pray for us. We can confess our sins to each other and pray for one another. We can forgive those who have hurt us. We can ask God to forgive our failures. And we can forgive ourselves, refusing to carry blame for our loved one's problem.
Others can pray for our healing and help us get a biblical perspective.
And then God will raise us up and make us well. He will forgive us and answer our prayers. He will fill us with his strength and help us in every circumstance.
Prayer
Father, teach me to wait on you and learn to trust you more. I thank you that you will restore my strength and that I will even soar high with wings like eagles. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Am I Blessed Like This?
READ:
Blessed are . . . -Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the "dynamite" of the Holy Spirit. And they "explode" when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, "What a startling statement that is!" Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child's play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations- it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
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God bless
Daily Devotionals July 26, 2008
Bowling A Googley
READ: 1 Peter 4:12-19
Do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, . . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings. -1 Peter 4:12-13
George Bernard Shaw once said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." An example from the world of sports demonstrates his point.
As a lifelong baseball fan, I'm familiar with the term curveball. It's a ball thrown by the pitcher in such a way that it changes direction, fooling the opponent. In cricket, the strategy is similar but the word is very different. The bowler (pitcher) tries to overcome the batsman by "bowling a googley" (pitching a curveball).
Though games and cultures differ, the concept of the curveball portrays a reality familiar in any language. Life is full of times when we are unsuspectingly "bowled a googley," and we find ourselves overwhelmed. In those moments of fear and confusion, it's comforting to know we have a God who is sufficient for any challenge.
Trials are to be expected (1 Peter 4:12). Yet we may well be shocked by the circumstances facing us. But God is never surprised! He permits our trials, and He can enable us to respond to them in a way that honors Him.
When we suffer, we must "commit [our] souls to Him in doing good," wrote Peter (v.19). In God's strength, we can face life's most troublesome curveballs. - Bill Crowder
For Further Study
How are we to cope with life's inevitable troubles?
Read Navigating The Storms Of Life on the Web at
Nothing surprises God.
Wisdom and Riches by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.
Proverbs belongs to that segment of the Old Testament designated as "wisdom literature." Such proverbial teaching represents one of the most ancient forms of instruction. The wisdom literature of Israel was the chief storehouse of moral and practical instruction for the Jews. It guided the head of state as well as the head of the home. It embodied the difference between right and wrong, righteousness and unrighteousness. But most of all, Israel's wisdom literature taught the Jews how to live before Jehovah. It contrasted the wisdom of the world, a wisdom of possessions, with the wisdom of God, a wisdom of piety.
Proverbs teaches us that all who would live godly must seek the wisdom of God and forsake the wisdom of the world. To seek divine wisdom, therefore, is to seek to know God better and to possess less. Wisdom is God; and speaking as wisdom, God says, "I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me" (Proverbs 8:17). God is to be sought early in life and early in each day of life. When we show Him we love Him in this way, He shows us He loves us by filling our day with His wisdom.
Seeking the wisdom of God and the God of wisdom does not necessarily mean we will be paupers on this earth. God says, "Riches and honor are with me; yea durable riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yea than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver" (Proverbs 8:18-19). The revenue paid by seeking this world's wealth is temporal gain and a frequent deterrent to godliness. The revenue gained by seeking divine wisdom is eternal gain and an everlasting aid to godliness. Therefore, the truly wise person in this world will seek God's wisdom instead of the world's wealth. But should God allow us to have both, our attitude toward our possessions will be, "Every man to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God" (Ecclesiastes 5:19).
An English nobleman once visited Josiah Wedgwood to see how he made his legendary china and pottery. A young apprentice was instructed to give the nobleman a tour of the factory. The nobleman didn't believe in God and was sacrilegious and foul-mouthed, and he consistently ridiculed the Bible during the tour. At first the young apprentice was shocked, but after awhile he began to laugh when the man made his cynical remarks. Josiah Wedgwood was greatly disturbed by this, especially when he saw how his young apprentice was being influenced by this wealthy nobleman. Later the atheist asked if he could purchase a particularly expensive vase. As he handed it to the nobleman, Wedgwood deliberately let it crash to the floor. With a vile oath the nobleman angrily said, "That's the one I really wanted and now it's shattered by your carelessness." Josiah Wedgwood replied, "Sir, there are things more precious than any vase things that can never be restored once they are ruined. I can make another vase, but you can never give back to my helper the pure heart you've defiled by your vile language and sacrilegious talk!"
The nobleman was an example of a man who did not seek the Lord early but sought riches all the day. Josiah Wedgwood is a fine example of a man who early sought the Lord and recognized that his wealth was a gift from God. God never intended that we should not have riches; He only intended that riches should not have us. It is vitally important for Christians who possess wealth not to be possessed by it. Seek the wisdom of the Lord early in the day, before earning the wealth of the world. Then use that wealth in a way which will bring eternal reward.
MORNING HYMN
I take, O cross, thy shadow
For my abiding place
I ask no other sunshine than
The sunshine of His face
Content to let the world go by,
To know no gain nor loss,
My sinful self my only shame,
My glory all the cross.
Joy from Within
Polls and surveys consistently show that the top three things people want the most in life are love, happiness, and peace. So often we confuse happiness with joy. There is a difference.
Happiness is the result of getting what we want. We tell ourselves that we'll be happy when we get a newer home. Or life will be great if we get a promotion at work and a pay increase.
However, getting what we want only offers a temporary form of happiness that fades over time. We get our new home, and we are so happy until we realize that we, in order to remain happy, must have all the furniture and decorations to go with it. This kind of happiness is dependent on our circumstances, and can be accompanied with a fear that we may lose whatever it is we feel has made us happy.
Joy, however, is a fruit of the Spirit. It comes from within and not from external conditions. Jesus said that we are to abide in Him so that our joy can be complete (John 15:9-11). We can experience the joy of the Lord regardless of our circumstances because joy is dependent on our relationship with Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul instructed the Philippians to rejoice always in the Lord (Philippians 4:4). While this group of believers was anxious about their material needs, Paul reminded them that their joy came from God. They were oppressed and persecuted by the Romans. They suffered economic hardships. Yet they had a reason to be joyful-their lives belonged to the Lord.
The world tries to persuade us that joy is found in material possessions, worldly achievements, and social status. However, true joy comes from the knowledge that we are saved through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him (Romans 15:13).
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up the race. Shore up your confidence in God today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Way to Purity
READ:
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart . . . . For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . . -Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, "But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart." We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own "innocent ignorance"? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own "innocence," I am living in a fool's paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals July 27, 2008
The Revisable Edition
READ: Matthew 5:43-48
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable . . . for instruction in righteousness. -2 Timothy 3:16
Randall Peterson, a retired autoworker, thinks there could be an interest for a new kind of Bible. He sarcastically says that a publisher ought to create an electronic Bible that would allow for editing from the pew. That way individuals and churches could make the Bible say what they want it to say. He says it could be called the "LAME" Bible: "Locally Adaptive Multifaith Edition" and "could be sold to any church regardless of what it believes."
He's making a point, of course, but we might be tempted by such a product. Jesus gives us some hard teachings! As believers, our desire is to be obedient to Him in our choices and attitudes, but at times we resist the Word of God and may wish we could soften His commands.
Some of Jesus' hard teachings are found in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5, He says: "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (v.44). That's what He tells us to do, so we know we can't just delete it. We need to apply it to our personal situation with the Holy Spirit's enablement.
God's Word is to be obeyed by His people. We're the ones who need to be "revised"-not the Scriptures. - Anne Cetas
The laws of God are true and right;
They stand as firm today
As when He put them in His Word
And told us to obey. -Fasick
To love God is to obey God.
Obeying God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught.
There is a legend in Greek mythology about an old sailor who was piloting his ship through the rough waters of a stormy sea. In his extremity he stood erect and cried to the gods, "Father Neptune, you may sink me if you will, or you may save me if you will, but whatever happens, I will keep my rudder true!" While sailing the tempestuous Aegean Sea, this old captain exhibited the kind of determination necessary for anyone who would stand by his convictions.
In the development of the early Church, the apostles and early followers of the Lord Jesus frequently found themselves at odds with the Roman government and with the Jewish religious establishment. Acts 5 records that the high priest rose in indignation, accompanied by the Sadducees, and cast the apostles into the common prison for preaching in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. But while they were incarcerated, an angel of the Lord appeared, opened the prison doors during the night, and set the apostles free. The command of the Lord's angel was, "Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life." With renewed freedom and determination the apostles "entered into the temple early in the morning and taught" (Acts 5:21). Although they knew that teaching in the name of the Lord Jesus would most certainly mean additional imprisonment, these apostles obeyed the word of the Lord rather than the wishes of man.
When it came to the attention of the religious officials that these apostles were again teaching in the temple, the indignation of the Jews rose to a fever pitch. The captain of the temple and the chief priests once again brought them before the council and the high priest asked, "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? And, behold ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." Now the situation worsened; the apostles were faced with the decision whether to defy the direct orders of the religious senate and avoid persecution or to accept the persecution as a consequence of standing up for their beliefs. As usual, Peter was the spokesman, and he said, "We ought to obey God rather than man." The die was cast. Unashamed of the Gospel of Christ, these apostles chose certain imprisonment rather than disobey the direct command of God to preach in the name of Jesus.
Frederick the Great once invited some notable people to his royal table, including his top-ranking generals. One of them was Hans von Zieten, a devout Christian. Von Zieten declined the emperor's invitation because he wanted to attend a communion service at his church. At a subsequent banquet Frederick the Great and his guests mocked the general for his religious beliefs and derided the Lord's Table. In great peril of his life the officer stood to his feet and said respectfully to the monarch, "My lord, there is a greater king than you, a king to whom I have sworn allegiance even unto death. I am a Christian and I cannot sit quietly as the Lord's name is dishonored, His character belittled, and His cause subjected to ridicule. With your permission I shall withdraw." The other generals present at this occasion trembled in silence, knowing that von Zieten might well be killed for his stand. But to their surprise, Frederick grasped von Zieten's hand, asked his forgiveness, and requested that he remain. Frederick promised that he would never again make light of such serious spiritual matters.
Occasions do arise when we must obey God rather than men. When they arise, we must be willing to suffer the consequences, whether it be ridicule, as in the case of Hans von Zieten, or even imprisonment, as in the case of the apostles. That to which we are subjected because of our stand for Christ is not our concern. Our concern is that we take the stand.
MORNING HYMN
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
The trumpet call obey;
Forth to the mighty conflict
In this His glorious day.
Ye that are men now serve Him
Against unnumbered foes;
Let courage rise with danger
And strength to strength oppose.
Water for Your Soul
by Max Lucado
Where do you find water for the soul? Jesus gave an answer one October day in Jerusalem. People had packed the streets for the annual reenactment of the rock-giving-water miracle of Moses. Each morning a priest filled a golden pitcher with water from the Gihon spring and carried it down a people-lined path to the temple. He did this every day, once a day, for seven days. "On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water' " (John 7:37-38).
He "stood and shouted" (NLT). The traditional rabbinic teaching posture was sitting and speaking. But Jesus stood up and shouted out. Forget a kind clearing of the throat. God was pounding his gavel on heaven's bench. Christ demanded attention.
He shouted because his time was short. The sand in the neck of his hourglass was down to measurable grains. In six months he'd be dragging a cross through these streets. And the people? The people thirsted. They needed water, not for their throats, but for their hearts. So Jesus invited: Are your insides starting to shrivel? Drink me.
Internalize him. Ingest him. Welcome him into the inner workings of your life. Let Christ be the water of your soul.
Toward this end, I give you this tool: a prayer for the thirsty heart. Carry it just as a cyclist carries a water bottle. The prayer outlines four essential fluids for soul hydration: God's work, God's energy, his lordship, and his love. You'll find the prayer easy to remember. Just think of the word W-E-L-L.
Lord, I come thirsty. I come to drink, to receive. I receive your work on the cross and in your resurrection. My sins are pardoned, and my death is defeated. I receive your energy. Empowered by your Holy Spirit, I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. I receive your lordship. I belong to you. Nothing comes to me that hasn't passed through you. And I receive your love. Nothing can separate me from your love.
Don't you need regular sips from God's reservoir? I do. I've offered this prayer in countless situations: stressful meetings, dull days, long drives, demanding trips, character-testing decisions. Many times a day I step to the underground spring of God and receive anew his work for my sin and death, the energy of his Spirit, his lordship, and his love.
Drink with me from his bottomless well. You don't have to live with a dehydrated heart.
Receive Christ's work on the cross,
the energy of his Spirit,
his lordship over your life,
his unending, unfailing love.
Drink deeply and often. And out of you will flow rivers of living water.
From
Come Thirsty
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
The Way to Knowledge
READ:
If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine . . . -John 7:17
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" ( Matthew 5:23-24 ). He is saying, in essence, "Don't say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right." The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don't try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, "First . . . go . . .." Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals July 28, 2008
Desperate For Answers
READ: Deuteronomy 18:9-14
When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. -Deuteronomy 18:9
A popular afternoon television program a few years ago was hosted by a self-proclaimed medium. He supposedly received messages from spirits of the dead to give to their family members in his studio audience. His readings prompted many people to believe in this occultic practice.
We live in a culture where people are desperate to know their future, and they'll turn to psychics and mediums for answers-a practice expressly forbidden in the Scriptures.
The ancient Israelites were desperate to know their future, and God knew that they would be tempted to consult ungodly sources for answers. So He warned them to stay away from mediums and those who contact the dead (Lev. 19:26,31; 20:27; Deut. 18:9-14).
God knew that these practices would prevent ancient Israel from being a holy, set-apart people who would be a blessing to all nations. The future for Israel was determined by their faithfulness to God's covenant, not the words of soothsayers and psychics. Reliance on these evil practices indicated a failure to trust the Lord with their lives.
When you are desperate for information about your future, turn to the sovereign God of heaven. He is the only One who holds the answers you seek. - Marvin Williams
Shall not He who led me safely
Through the footsteps of this day
Lead with equal understanding
All along my future way? -Adams
The what of our future is determined by the who of eternity.
Reaction or Response by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried Him away, and delivered Him to Pilate.
A converted Hindu woman had suffered much at the hands of her unsaved relatives. One day a missionary asked her, "When your husband is angry and persecutes you, what do you do?" The Hindu woman replied, "I just cook the food better and sweep the floor a little cleaner. When he speaks unkindly, I answer him mildly, trying to show him in every way that when I became a Christian, I also became a better wife." Although that husband had resisted all the efforts of the missionaries, he could not resist the sweet silence of his Christian wife. The Holy Spirit used her to win him to Christ.
How do you react when you meet antagonism? When you are mistreated or wrongly accused, do you harbor resentment or seek revenge? Do you attempt to retaliate or verbally abuse those who have abused you?
Jesus had been led away to the high priest. His agony in the garden had been interrupted by His betrayal. To make matters worse, His primary disciple, the Apostle Peter, had denied Him three times. Our Lord had endured both physical and verbal abuse all night long. "And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried Him away, and delivered Him to Pilate" (Mark 15:1). As the Sanhedrin gathered early on the morning of Jesus' crucifixion, they attempted to make the trial official. Yet their single purpose was "to put Him to death" (Matthew 27:1).
Jesus was falsely arraigned, falsely accused, and falsely abused. Yet to all of the trumped-up charges, to all of this pseudo evidence, our Lord made no reply. When the chief priests continued to accuse Him falsely of many things, Mark records that the Lord Jesus answered nothing. So uncharacteristic was it for a person falsely accused not to rise to His own defense that Pilate asked in astonishment, "Answerest Thou nothing?" But the narrative repeats, "Jesus yet answered nothing." It was nothing short of remarkable that Jesus would not retaliate or lash out against those who had treated Him so cruelly and unjustly.
A young sergeant was serving the British army in Egypt under the Highland Regiment. This soldier was an effervescent and shining Christian. When he was asked how he came to know the Lord Jesus as Savior, he recounted his conversion by saying, "There is a private in this company who was converted in Malta before the regiment came to Egypt. We gave that fellow an awful time. On one terrible night he came in very tired and wet. But before getting into bed, he knelt down to pray. My boots were soaked with water and covered with mud, and I let him have it with one on the side of his head, and I struck him with the second on the other side. But he just went on praying. The next morning I found those boots beautifully polished and standing by the side of my bed. That was his reply to me, and it just broke my heart. I was saved that day."
Our response to those who lie against us must never be to lash out against them. As we arise early in the morning, perhaps after a day in which our character has been slandered and our conduct has been slashed, we must arise with a commitment to live a life like the Lord Jesus who, when He was reviled, reviled not again. Only then will we live happily in a world filled with unhappy people.
MORNING HYMN
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood-
Sealed my pardon with His blood:
Hallelujah, what a Saviour!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth! Psalm 46:10 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Life-controlling problems are things that master our lives things like addictions, destructive behaviors and even certain types of relationships.
Is someone you care about struggling with a life-controlling problem? Do you want to help? That's wonderful but it's vital for you to realize what you can-and can't-do.
In order to help your loved one, you must examine yourself to see if you are experiencing the "Messiah Complex" and rid yourself of it if you are. The Messiah Complex describes the situation when we want to see a person receive help so much that we take on the role of God. Our goal should be to trust God versus please God by fixing the problem; otherwise, we may find ourselves driven by guilt and hopelessly resigned to making things happen on our own.
Consider this
God doesn't want us to take on God-sized problems. He wants us to trust him. We simply need to take a deep breath and realize that he is God.
Are you in a frenzy of confusion? You want to help but nothing you try seems to work? Feeling frustrated, and maybe even a little frantic? Take time out to "Be still and know that I am God."
He is power he is all-knowing he is love he is able.
Prayer
Lord, I get in such a frenzy sometimes trying to fix everything myself. And it just doesn't work. Help me to remember to be still to be calm and to know, really know, that you are God.
These thoughts adapted from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is a complement to the Concerned Persons small group study. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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God's Purpose or Mine?
READ:
He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . -Mark 6:45
We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God's purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
What is my vision of God's purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish- His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see "Him walking on the sea" with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see "Him walking on the sea" ( Mark 6:49 ). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
God's training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God's purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals July 29, 2008
The Sign
READ: Philippians 1:9-18
Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill. -Philippians 1:15
A pastor friend told me about a sign he had seen in front of a neighborhood church. Instead of just advertising the congregation's own time of worship, the sign also listed the schedule for two other churches that met at different times in the same small town. Interestingly, my friend didn't think this was impractical or foolish. Instead, he imagined what it must do for a church to put such unselfishness at the heart of everything it did!
Whether it is a good idea to advertise the worship times of other churches is a matter of opinion. But one thing is certain-the Spirit of Christ is not found in a spirit of envy and self-serving competition. The generosity and goodwill that Paul expressed toward self-serving church leaders is a mark of the authentic Christian spirit (Phil. 1:14-18). This Christlike attitude lines up with the absence of spiritual competition James called for in his epistle (James 3:14-17).
Churches ought to be concerned about building their congregations. But beware of setting the bar too low by worrying about numbers. The wisdom and grace of Christ are not necessarily found in conventional wisdom. Good judgment often requires that we perform counter-intuitive acts of unselfishness that reflect Jesus' life in us. - Mart De Haan
More like the Master I would live and grow,
More of His love to others I would show;
More self-denial, like His in Galilee,
More like the Master I long to ever be. -Gabriel
Nothing is more pleasing to God than self-sacrifice that grows out of obedience.
Personally Known by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
But unto Thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer precede Thee.
We have today as our Scripture the darkest, most mournful psalm in the Psalter. This psalm is unique in that it is the only psalm in which the outpouring to God of a burdened heart fails to bring relief or consolation.
Yet, as terrible as the despair of the psalmist is, he is not in utter despair. No one who utterly despairs will pray, for prayer is the proof of lingering hope. Even in the midst of despair, the psalmist recognizes that, should there be any hope, it will be found only in God (Psalm 88:1,2,9,13).
Have you ever felt alone? Have you ever felt abandoned, even by God? Have you ever felt you have been left to face the world and its trials all by yourself? If so, you can join the rest of us and the writer of this psalm. He felt he had been abandoned by God, that he was all alone. The psalmist was concerned that he was not getting through to God, that his prayers were not being heard. God appeared to be unmoved by his prayers.
With a trouble-filled soul, the psalmist was convinced that his "life draweth nigh unto the grave" and that he was numbered "with them that go down into the pit." He had been afflicted with waves of the wrath of God. Night and day he wept because of his affliction. He says, "But unto Thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer precede Thee" (Psalm 88:13). Day after day he arose before the dawn and began to pray before the sun was up. He was consistent in seeking the face of the Lord early in the morning. Still no resolution was given to his problem. No answer came from God.
Perhaps the psalmist felt that God did not know who he was. Perhaps he was just another face in the crowd, unknown to the Lord of heaven. Perhaps he was just too insignificant for God to take time to hear his prayer. All of these were a "perhaps" in his mind. None of them was true.
There is a small arctic seabird called the guillemot that lives on the rocky cliffs of northern coastal regions. These birds flock together by the thousands in comparatively small areas. Because of the extremely crowded conditions the females must lay their pear-shaped eggs side by side in a long row on a narrow ledge. All the eggs look alike, but the mother bird knows exactly which one is hers. If someone disturbs the eggs and moves one of them, the mother guillemot is able to find her egg among the thousands and return it to its original location. To the human eye the eggs appear as if they have been mass produced on an assembly line. To the guillemot, each egg is known personally, identified personally, and attended personally.
The Bible is clear that our heavenly Father is even more intimately acquainted with His own children than the mother guillemot is with her egg. He knows us, He knows us personally. He even knows the number of hairs on our heads. He can tell identical twins apart. He knows every thought and emotion we have, and He understands all the decisions we make. He gives personal attention to each of us in all our affairs from morning until night.
So great is our Lord's loving concern for our lives that Jesus told His disciples the Father knows when a single sparrow falls upon the ground. Since human beings are of much greater value than the fowls of the air, we can certainly be assured that He knows all about us. We are the object of His constant care and attention. We have not been abandoned by God, nor as His children will we ever be abandoned.
MORNING HYMN
Be not dismayed whate'er betide,
God will take care of you;
Beneath His wings of love abide
God will take care of you.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
For that is what God is like. He is our God forever and ever, and he will guide us until we die. Psalm 48:14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Remind yourself every day that life is a journey. When trying to help a loved one, there are some days, if not many, that things seem hopeless. Live each day focusing on God, and he will work things out in your life. He promises to be our guide along the journey.
Ask God to clear your thinking and remove any obstacles that may exist in your relationship with him. Perhaps you have made some poor decisions or used bad judgment as a helper. God is there to forgive you and help you get back on track.
Consider this
Always remember that you can create the environment for change, but God does the changing. And the Bible assures us that with him, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). Let him be your guide.
Prayer
Father, thank you for being my constant guide. Help me be sensitive-and obedient- to your guidance. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is a complement to the Concerned Persons small group study. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
READ:
Behold, He is coming with clouds . . . -Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" ( Nahum 1:3 ). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds- He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child- a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God's character, we do not yet know Him.
". . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud" (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is "no one anymore, but only Jesus . . ." (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2-7 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals July 30, 2008
Snapshots Of Time
READ: Psalm 90:1-12
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. -Psalm 90:12
The designers of an innovative Web site call their creation a "snapshot" of our world. Every hour, computers monitor international news sources, select the most frequently occurring words and pictures, then display them as an interactive image. Over time, these hourly snapshots compose a mosaic of unfolding world events.
If a computer could track our words and actions, what would a snapshot of yesterday reveal? Over the weeks and months, what patterns would emerge? And what theme would dominate the final mosaic of our lives?
Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses the man of God, is a powerfully honest look at the brevity and significance of life. The writer compares an entire lifetime to a dream or a blade of grass, and cries out to God: "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (v.12). Our days often seem so insignificant, yet they add up to so much. The Message renders verse 12: "Teach us to live wisely and well." It is a prayer for the snapshots of life with the final image in view.
When all the pictures of our life are laid on the table, they will reveal our recurring words and actions. What story will they tell? It's worth considering as we make our choices each day. - David C. McCasland
God has given life abundant-
Live it fully every day;
Though our time on earth is fleeting,
He goes with us all the way. -Hess
It's not how long you live that counts, but how you live.
God's Provision by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the LORD; for that He heareth your murmurings against the LORD: and what are we, that ye murmur against us?
If we enjoyed the vantage point of heaven, above both space and time, we would readily see the hand of God guiding us through history. The continuity of God's dealings with man-kind would then become quite evident, for we would not be bound by the years of one lifetime. But even though we cannot rise above space and time, we are not left without insight into God's providential leading through history. Through the use of types and symbols the Bible miraculously illustrates the essential unity between the Old and New Testaments. By comparing the prophetic types of the Old Testament with their fulfillment in the New, we see that history is proceeding on the course designed by God before time began.
One month after the children of Israel walked away from Egyptian bondage and crossed the Red Sea, they struck a course inward from the sea to the Wilderness of Sin. Their unleavened bread was exhausted, and they began to face the hunger and thirst of the sandy desert. The Israelites murmured that they had it better back in Egypt and should have remained there. But the Lord promised Moses He would rain bread from heaven to feed the starving Israelite multitudes. Moses relayed the message. "And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the LORD; for that He heareth your murmurings against the LORD"(Exodus 16:7). This heavenly bread, referred to as manna, was like the coriander seed of the parsley family, but it resembled the silver-white hoarfrost which covered the ground on Middle Eastern mornings. It tasted like wafers made with honey.
This manna is a type of Christ, foreshadowing God's provision for mankind centuries later. Our Lord said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" John 6:47-51).
The similarities between the Old Testament type, the manna, and the New Testament fulfillment, Jesus Christ, are striking. The pure-white manna descended noiselessly in the night without fanfare. The Christ child was born on a silent night without fanfare. The heavenly manna was to be gathered early each morning. Nine verses of this chapter refer to the morning. We are to seek the Lord Jesus not only early in the day (Psalm 63:1), but early in life as well (Ecclesiastes 12:1).
The manna was clearly a gift from God. Israel did not earn this bread; in fact, this murmuring lot didn't even deserve it. God's salvation is never earned or deserved. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). Manna was God's gift of life to the Israelites. Jesus Christ is God's gift of life to all mankind. Without God's gift of manna, the undeserving Israelites would have died. But without God's gift of Jesus Christ, the bread of life, all the world would be condemned to death.
God's hand is guiding history today as it always has. The theme of His life-giving provision spans the ages. This is the message of God which runs through the centuries: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Past, present, or future, God's provision is always there for those who will receive it.
MORNING HYMN
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim thro' this barren land
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy pow'rful hand.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again. Proverbs 19:19 NIV
Thoughts for Today
When someone we love is in the grip of a harmful substance or behavior, we naturally want to help. In spite of our best intentions, our efforts are sometimes harmful rather than helpful. Enabling is good intentions gone wrong.
Enabling allows people to continue in their self-destructive behaviors without feeling the painful consequences that might convince them to stop before the problem spirals out of control. Today's Scripture cautions us that if we rescue a person from the consequences of his or her choices, we'll just have to do it again and again.
Consider this
Do you find yourself covering up the behavior of a friend or love one, or bailing them out of jail? You might make excuses for them or even blame yourself for their problem. And it's very easy to give them "one more chance" over and over again. These are common examples of enabling.
Our responsibility to our troubled loved ones is to be supportive. We need to empathize but not fix. To encourage but not protect. We must allow them to suffer the consequences of their actions and not rescue them. To confront them with truth, but not try to control. All of us need to look at whether we are helping or harming the struggling people in our lives. And then we can begin the process of being a supporter instead of an enabler. We need to "let go and let God."
Prayer
Lord, it's so hard not to try to fix my loved one's problems. But when I come to the rescue instead of letting him suffer the consequences of his actions, I do find that I have to come to the rescue again and again. Nothing really gets fixed. Teach me to be a supporter instead of an enabler. Help me to trust you more. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is a complement to the Concerned Persons small group study. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Teaching of Disillusionment
READ: Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . . , for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens- if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God, and in what God's grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals July 31, 2008
Are You Ready?
READ: Hebrews 4:1-7
Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. -Hebrews 4:7
It was a wild night for our family. At 11:30 p.m., I got a call from my son Steve. "Dad, I'm going to Iraq." "Right now?" I asked in disbelief. "Yes, I'm ready to go." Earlier that day, our Navy corpsman (medic) son had told me he thought it would be several months before he would go.
We talked a little more until he had to hang up. Then family phone calls followed as we let his sisters know what was happening. They called him to wish him well and pray for him-and that was it.
A couple of restless hours later, Steve sent a text message: "We're not going. We're headed back." A helicopter ride to another state and back was the extent of Steve's trip that night, but it was still a valuable experience. It tested their readiness. The military had to know that when the call came, the corpsmen would be mentally ready to go.
When it comes to being ready for eternity, we won't get that kind of practice. No one knows when we will depart this earth through death or be called home at Jesus' return.
If you were called into eternity today, would you be prepared to meet God face-to-face? Have you opened your heart to Him? (Heb. 4:7). Are your sins forgiven? Are you ready to go? - Dave Branon
Ready to speak, ready to warn,
Ready o'er souls to yearn,
Ready in life, ready in death,
Ready for His return. -Tillman
God's call may come at any time-so be ready all the time!
Commitment by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.
Commitment: an absolute dedication and faithfulness to someone or something. It's something we all claim to have, yet very few demonstrate it. Many people claim to have a strong commitment to the local church, but they rarely attend, even when they have nothing else to do. Others take wedding vows which include promises of commitment. Yet those vows are broken rapidly and all commitment is nullified. Nothing is so distressing to the Lord God as to see a Christian who is only half committed to Him. (See Revelation 3:14-22.)
The greatest example of a lack of commitment in the Old Testament is found in the prophecy of Hosea. Hosea (whose name means "salvation") was a prophet to the northern kingdom and a contemporary of Amos. In fact, Hosea was to the northern kingdom what Jeremiah was to the southern kingdom - a weeping prophet. His prophecy is very tender and his ministry is similar to that of John the Apostle.
The purpose of Hosea's prophecy was to provide Israel with a real-life example of her spiritual idolatry. Hosea transferred his personal tragedy into a figure of the tragedy of Israel as a nation. The lack of commitment to him by his wife and her infidelity was but a minute calamity when compared with the spiritual infidelity of Israel and their lack of commitment to God. Hosea called Israel to national repentance much as he pleaded with his adulterous wife for personal repentance.
To bring Israel to understand how complacent they had become, the prophet observed, "Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away" (Hosea 6:4). Israel's commitment was shallow at best, and Hosea likened the fleeting goodness of uncommitted men to a morning cloud and the early dew which vanishes with the morning sun. God is never pleased with such a halfhearted commitment and a complacent attitude toward Him. Israel had not yet learned that lesson; apparently twentieth-century Christians haven't either.
There is a tiny harbor town on the ocean shore where many ships have crashed on the rocks in violent weather. This town became well known because of the dedicated rescue team which aided mariners in distress. The rescue team would rally to the sound of the siren and rush to the scene of the accident, risking life and limb to save the sailors from drowning. As time went on, the citizens of that tiny town raised enough money to build a rescue station close to the shore. While this greatly facilitated the operation, it softened the dedicated team as well. As time went by, they added some of the comforts and conveniences that other rescue stations had. Through the years the rescue station became a social club, where the town's people gathered to have fun and relax. Ships would still crash upon the rocks; the alarm would still sound; but eventually no one responded. They were reluctant to leave their comforts, because their commitment to rescue the miserable mariners was no match for their complacency.
We can imagine that Hosea felt much the same way about Israel as we may feel toward this once-dedicated rescue team. Still there are many Christians today who have a halfhearted attitude toward God and, in fact, have committed spiritual adultery with the world just as Hosea's wife did. Much of Christianity today is nothing more than "country-club Christianity," basking in the goodness of God, relying on the riches of this world's goods, and unconcerned about commitment to the Father or the rescue of those who are perishing.
We can almost hear Hosea saying, "Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away." The fleeting goodness of uncommitted Christians is not goodness at all. It is just a temporary rest stop on the highway to complacency.
MORNING HYMN
A charge to keep I have
A God to glorify
Who gave His Son my soul to save
And fit it for the sky.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. 1 Peter 5:7 AMP
Thoughts for Today
When trying to help a loved one struggling with a life-controlling problem, we need to be aware of the "Three C's cause, control and cure.
We did not cause our loved ones' problems. They are responsible for the choices that led to where they are, no matter what the circumstances may have been.
We cannot control our loved ones' problems. As much as we might want to, we cannot fix them-only God can do that. Accepting this fact of powerlessness is the first step toward recovery for you as a helper.
We cannot cure our loved one's problems, but the Bible tells us that Jesus cares and we can trust him to help us through any situation. We must commit our struggling friend or loved one into God's loving care.
Consider this
The best way we can help others is to take steps to get and keep our own life on the right path. As we trust God and make him the center of our life, he will take care of the rest.
Prayer
Lord, I'm beginning to realize that I can't fix my loved one's problems, but it's so hard to let go. Help me turn all my anxieties, all my worries, all my concerns over to you once and for all. In Jesus' name.
These thoughts adapted from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is a complement to the Concerned Persons small group study. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Becoming Entirely His
READ:
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing -James 1:4
Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.
Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.
We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God's redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. "Let patience have its perfect work . . . ." The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, "Now let your patience become a finished product." Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, "Oh, that will have to do for now." Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 1, 2008
The Midwife's Tale
READ: John 3:1-8
The wind blows where it wishes . . . . So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. -John 3:8
Historian Laurel Ulrich received a Pulitzer Prize for her book The Midwife's Tale. The book was based on the diary of Martha Ballard, who lived during the American Revolution. Martha was a midwife who traveled by canoe, horse, or sometimes on foot to assist women in delivering their babies. At a time when many women died in childbirth, Martha's track record was extraordinary. In more than 1,000 deliveries, she never lost a mother in childbirth.
In God's kingdom, there is a spiritual Helper who produces new life. But His role is to bring about "second birth" (John 3:5-8). The Holy Spirit uses a variety of ways to accomplish this. He convicts the world of sin (John 16:8), empowers the gospel (1 Thess. 1:5), regenerates us from within (Titus 3:5), and places believers into eternal union with Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-13). Though He is invisible, His life-changing activity can be clearly seen.
Jesus said of the Holy Spirit: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
The Spirit desires to use us in sharing the gospel so others can experience that second birth. - Dennis Fisher
God sent the Holy Spirit after
Christ ascended from this earth,
And this we know-He's left us here
To share good news of second birth. -Hess
The Holy Spirit is the Christian's source of power.
Haunting Sin by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And they arose early: and it came to pass about the spring of the day, that Samuel called Saul to the top of the house, saying, Up, that I may send thee away. And Saul arose, and they went out both of them, he and Samuel, abroad.
Samuel had been a judge for many years and was yielding to advanced age. Who would lead the people after his death? Like the sons of Eli before him, both of Samuel's sons, Joel and Abiah, had disqualified themselves for they had "turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment" (1 Samuel 8:3). If Israel did not choose a king and Samuel died, anarchy would once again prevail as it had in the days of the judges, when everyone did "that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6).
Besides, without a king Israel was missing out on all the pomp and ceremony that the other royal courts of the ancient Near East enjoyed. While the Jews were wandering nomads, unsettled and without a homeland, they cared little about what other nations did or had. But now they had become firmly established in the Promised Land, and all the surrounding nations had a king. Why not Israel?
In the permissive will of God, Saul was to be that king. The son of Kish, a wealthy and influential Benjamite, Saul, as choice for king, may appear to the untrained eye as a matter of pure chance. Sent by his father to round up some stray donkeys and failing to locate them, Saul decided to appeal to Samuel the prophet for assistance in locating the strays. The day before, God had forewarned Samuel that on the morrow a Benjamite, whom he should anoint to be captain over Israel, would approach him. When Saul arrived, there was little question in the priest's mind about his identity. Blessed with natural graces and talents, not to mention that he was head and shoulders taller than any of the other Jews, Saul was the natural selection for king of Israel. But more than this, in the permissive will of God his was also the supernatural selection. Jehovah had decided to give Israel her wish, for better or for worse, and Saul was His selection for the man who would be king.
As the Benjamite approached Samuel, the word of Jehovah came to the priest and he said, "Behold the man." Led to the banquet chamber of the high place, Saul and his servant were seated above the 30 guests who had assembled there. Samuel instructed the cook to bring the best portion of the meat from the sacrifice and place it before Saul. More than this, something that is rarely done, Samuel invited Saul to stay with him that night and sleep upon the top of the house. They arose early, after communing through the night, and made their way through the city, where Samuel took a vial of oil, poured it upon Saul's head, gave him the kiss of homage and anointed him as captain over the Lord's inheritance, the nation Israel (1 Samuel 9:26).
To live in God's permissive will is but to receive temporary blessing. Saul is one of the great tragic figures of Old Testament history. Although selected by God at the cries of the people, he degenerated into a psychopathic condition in which his powers were sapped and his kingdom was rent from his hands. Rejection, defeat and suicide were the inevitable results.
Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, but it is nonetheless striking that when the priest encountered the man who in God's permissive will would become king of the Jews, he said, "Behold the man" (1 Samuel 9:17). Centuries later, when Pilate encountered the man who in God's perfect will would become King of the Jews, he likewise said, "Behold the man!" (John 19:5). Saul's reign was immediately accepted by the people because he was handsome, and they anticipated he would lead Israel successfully into battle against her enemies. Jesus' reign was immediately rejected by the people, for He had "no form nor comeliness" and He never intended to lead His people victoriously against Israel's enemy. Saul was Israel's choice; Jesus is God's choice. How much better off we are to live in His perfect will rather than to settle for His permissive will.
MORNING HYMN
Simply trusting ev'ry day,
Trusting through a stormy way;
Even when my faith is small,
Trusting Jesus that is all.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
For we are each responsible for our own conduct. Galatians 6:5 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Do you sometimes feel as though your life centers around the problems of someone you care about?
It is vital for us to give up ownership of our loved ones. We should continue to pray and to care, but not make their problems ours. It is important that we don't take away their personal responsibility. They must understand that their choices bring consequences. Although the Bible encourages us to help each other, it also makes the fact clear that each person is responsible for his or her own actions.
Take steps to remove yourself from the control your loved one has over you. Stop building your life around their dysfunctional lifestyle. Don't let them control your walk with God, your relationship with other family and friends, church attendance, employment performance, or any other part of your life.
Consider this
The Bible tells us to put God at the center of our lives. Keep an active prayer life. Get involved in a Bible-believing church. Participate in a Christ-centered support group where you can receive love and friendship.
Keep the communication lines open with cards, notes, letters and calls to let your loved one know you are there to help them find help. But they must make the decision to change.
Facing the consequences of their actions and seeing you model God's love will help them learn to build a healthy relationship with God, themselves and others.
Prayer
Father, I have been feeling so frustrated and stressed from trying to fix my loved one's problems. Thank you for this reminder that we are all responsible for our own actions. Help me to love and encourage without trying to control. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Close But Not Too Close by Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee is a complement to the Concerned Persons small group study. This 36-page booklet is written primarily for those who want to help someone close to them who is enslaved by the stronghold of a life-controlling issue. It is also designed to help someone who is suffering the consequences of a loved one's problem.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Learning About His Ways
READ:
When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities -Matthew 11:1
He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, "I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here," it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. "Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . ." ( Luke 9:33 ).
Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God's role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.
He works where He sends us to wait. ". . . tarry . . . until . . ." (Luke 24:49 ). "Wait on the Lord" and He will work (Psalm 37:34 ). But don't wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can't see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to "wait patiently for Him"? ( Psalm 37:7 ). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.
These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 2, 2008
They Are The Problem
READ: 2 Corinthians 10:12-18
He who glories, let him glory in the Lord. -2 Corinthians 10:17
Researchers from Virginia Tech University, along with police administrators, recently determined that distracted drivers put others in more danger than aggressive drivers. Drivers who eat, discipline children in the backseat, or talk on the phone are the most hazardous.
When residents in Grand Rapids, Michigan, were asked about the bad habits of drivers that made the highways unsafe, most felt that others caused more problems than they themselves. One woman said that she talked on her cell phone a little, but at least she didn't dial the phone numbers while on the road. She concluded her comments by stating that others "aren't following the rules of the road . . . . They put us all at risk."
It's our nature to point a finger at others. The apostle Paul talked about fellow teachers who avoided looking at their own behavior and instead attacked him (2 Cor. 10:12-18). He wrote, "They, measuring themselves by themselves, . . . are not wise" (v.12).
When we don't look at our own actions but instead compare ourselves with others, we often come out looking good. But, as Paul said, it's the Lord's commendation that counts, not our own approval of ourselves (v.18). - Anne Cetas
The faults I see in others' lives
Are often true of me;
So help me, Lord, to recognize
My own hypocrisy. -Sper
If you must compare yourself with someone, compare yourself with Christ.
Partnership by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place.
The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another" (Genesis 31:49). How frequently these words are used as a benediction, especially at the close of a church service. They seem to express the prayer of two parties for mutual protection by the Lord until such time as they are safely and happily reunited. However, the context in which these words were uttered compels just the opposite conclusion.
Jacob was a scoundrel. He took advantage of his twin brother Esau by persuading him to sell the birthright for a mess of pottage. Later Jacob lied to his father and tricked Isaac into bestowing on him the irrevocable family blessing. Even Jacob's name means "supplanter, one who removes or replaces by scheming or treachery." Yet he met his match in his father-in-law, Laban. When Jacob reached Haran, he spied the beautiful Rachel and agreed to serve Laban seven years for her hand in marriage. At the end of those seven long years Laban tricked Jacob by switching his daughter Leah for Rachel. This meant another seven years of labor for the girl Jacob loved. In all, the patriarch served fourteen years for Laban's daughters and six years for a herd of cattle.
At the end of this time God reminded Jacob of the vow he made to return to the Promised Land. Jacob asked Laban to release him and permit his return to Bethel. This, however, would have ruined Laban financially. Scoundrel that he was, Jacob was still heir to the promise of God, and Laban knew that the secret of his own increasing wealth was God's blessing on Jacob. Therefore Laban proposed that Jacob forget about leaving and become his partner. This meant that Jacob's only recourse was to depart secretly from Haran while Laban was away shearing his sheep.
Aware that she would receive no inheritance from her father, Rachel removed the family gods as she prepared to leave Laban's house. Archaeological excavations at Nuzi in northern Mesopotamia indicate that when the household gods (seraphim) were in the possession of a son-in-law, he was legally designated as the principal heir. For this reason Rachel stole her father's gods without the consent or knowledge of Jacob.
When Laban learned of his son-in-law's hasty departure, he pursued Jacob and his family. Seven days later, at Mount Gilead, Laban overtook them and immediately confronted Jacob about the stolen gods. Having no knowledge of them, Jacob permitted a search to be made. The gods, cleverly hidden by Rachel, were not found, and this only served to increase the distrust between father and son-in-law. It was obvious that the suspicion between the two could not continue indefinitely. Therefore a covenant was devised which would not permit either party to further impede the other. Sworn to at Mizpah, the terms of the covenant were simple. A pile of stones was erected as a heap of witness between Laban and Jacob that from that day forward neither one would pass beyond that heap in order to do the other harm. Since the only witness to this event was God, the two men said, "The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." Suspicion and distrust are clearly present in this malediction. "Early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them," returning to Haran (Genesis 31:55). He is never heard from again in the narrative of Scripture.
Jacob, the man of God, had made a covenant with Laban, the man of the world. The Bible does not prohibit God's children from making necessary pacts with the world. Frequently such business covenants or contracts are made. However, the Bible does warn against making unequal partnerships or yokes with the world (2 Corinthians 6:14). For 20 years Jacob carefully eluded making such a yoke with Laban, even though he was his father-in-law. The man of God knew that a lifetime with the world, enticing and profitable as it may have seemed, was no substitute for the blessings of the Promised Land. Christians today still need to learn that lesson.
MORNING HYMN
I am resolved no longer to linger,
Charmed by the world's delight;
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.
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Envy
Imagine a man who is happily married to a woman whose physical and emotional companionship he values and cherishes. He is successful in his profession. His children are well-behaved and accomplished. He is satisfied with his life until he attends his twentieth college reunion.
This is where he makes a crucial mistake. He tells himself that many of his former classmates have achieved a higher social and professional status than he. He also mistakenly believes that they are married to more educated and more attractive wives, and that they seem to have more money and to have traveled more often than he has.
A sense of failure begins to grow in his heart. Once a happy man, he is now wrongly focused on his circumstances. He loses his peace and contentment to envy and jealousy.
Proverbs 14:30 states, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones." King Ahab of Israel had everything. But he wanted a vineyard that was close to his palace. When Naboth refused to sell, Ahab pouted and sulked until his wicked wife, Jezebel, plotted to kill Naboth and to take his field to satisfy the envy of King Ahab.
There are people who have everything and are still envious for more. Even a godly man like King David coveted what another man had. As a result of his actions, he committed adultery and murder, and lost his peace by harming his fellowship with God.
Envy always leads to strife and a loss of peace. Are you longing for what you cannot have? Look to Jesus. Only He can satisfy the desires of your heart. He alone brings peace and contentment to your life.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up the race. Shore up your confidence in God today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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The Teaching of Adversity
READ:
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world -John 16:33
The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . ." ( Psalm 91:1,10 )- the place where you are at one with God.
If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He is saying, "There is nothing for you to fear." The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.
God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment- "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life . . ." (Revelation 2:7 ). If you completely give of yourself physically, you become exhausted. But when you give of yourself spiritually, you get more strength. God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment. Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense. But a saint can "be of good cheer" even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God.
God Bless
Thanks Judy, it is always refreshing to start the day with reading your post. We just got back from the farmers market that sets up every Saturday in downtown Bartlesville. Lots of really neat people with their fruits, vegetables, plants and crafts setup.
HAVE A GREAT DAY
Frank
Daily Devotionals August 3, 2008
Tell Me The Story
READ: 1 Corinthians 10:1-11
All these things happened to them as examples, and . . . for our admonition. -1 Corinthians 10:11
Now that I have grandkids, I'm back into the classic children's Bible stories. Wide-eyed stories like David and Goliath, Noah's ark, and Jonah and the big fish quickly capture a child's imagination!
But there's a danger here-not with the stories themselves but rather with our attitude toward them. If we view them simply as kids' stories, kind of like the Grimm's Fairy Tales of the Bible, we miss the point.
The stories of the Bible were never meant to be outgrown. There are profound lessons to be learned from the amazing accounts of those who faced giants, floods, and fish!
Hundreds of years after the fact, the apostle Paul explained that the things that happened to Moses and the Israelites as they wandered through the desert "happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition" (1 Cor. 10:11). These stories are about us. They mirror the tensions we face daily as we too seek to apply God's will and ways to the realities of our lives. They teach us of the treachery of sin, our desperate need to trust God unflinchingly, and the importance of staying faithful and true to Him regardless of what happens.
Don't ignore the old stories. You might be surprised what God wants to teach you through them. - Joe Stowell
We learn the blessed Word of God
To fix it firmly in our heart,
And when we act upon that Word
Its truth from us will not depart. -D. De Haan
Stories from the past can give us pointers for the present.
Reformation by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Then Hezekiah, the king, rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the LORD.
Unlike the 10 northern tribes of Israel, which had only downs, the two tribes of Judah to the south had their ups and downs. Just five or six years before the Northern Kingdom came to an end with the fall of Samaria, Hezekiah became king of Judah. As the 13th king of Judah, Hezekiah succeeded his father, Ahaz, in the third year of Hoshea, the 19th and last king of Israel. He was 25 years old when he began to reign and had a long reign of 29 years in Jerusalem.
In contrast to his father, Hezekiah proved to be the most faithful to Jehovah of any of Judah's kings since David. It is said of him, "And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done" (2 Chronicles 29:2). Ben Sira, the ancient historian, reckons Hezekiah with David and Josiah as the only three kings who did not forsake the law of the Most High God. Of him it is written, "He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the LORD and departed not from following Him, but kept His commandments which the LORD commanded Moses. And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth" (2 Kings 18:5-7).
In the very first month of his reign Hezekiah set in motion the most thorough religious revival that Judah had ever known. This revival began by reopening and repairing the doors of the temple, which had been closed by Ahaz, and by cleansing and purifying that sacred edifice. Undoubtedly the prophet Isaiah had a beneficial influence on Hezekiah to initiate such a revival. There is even a Jewish tradition that he was a cousin of King Hezekiah. Regardless, he is said to have prophesied in the reign of four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1). Together, Isaiah as prophet and Hezekiah as king, they would restore the religion of Israel to the worship of Jehovah.
In just eight days the house of the Lord was restored and sanctified. The report came back to Hezekiah that the priests and Levites had cleansed the house and the altar of burnt offerings with all the vessels and the table of shewbread thereof. These had been discarded during the reign of Ahaz.
After all had been made ready, "Hezekiah the king rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the LORD" (2 Chronicles 29:20). The priests made the appropriate sacrifices and the Levites, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps, began to praise the Lord with music. All the congregation worshipped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters blew their trumpets. It was a joyous occasion indeed. All that were present with the king bowed themselves with Hezekiah and worshipped Jehovah. And this was only phase one of Hezekiah's great revival.
In phase two he sent word to all Israel and Judah that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem and keep the Passover. This is the first recorded ceremony of Passover-keeping since the time of Joshua, hundreds of years earlier. How low the people of God must have sunk during these turbulent years.
The heart of Jehovah must have been thrilled to see a man so concerned with the spiritual well-being of His people that he would restore the house of God, cleanse it, reinstitute the services and sacrifices in it, and rise early in the morning to worship Him. All of this was just the beginning of Hezekiah's reforms. How it would thrill the heart of Jehovah to see a man like Hezekiah raised up today to reform the worship of Israel once again. Let's pray to that end. Pray for the salvation of God's people and for the peace of Jerusalem.
MORNING HYMN
Revive Thy work O Lord!
Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak with the voice that wakes the dead,
And make Thy people hear.
When Death Becomes Birth
by Max Lucado
You live one final breath from your own funeral.
Which, from God's perspective, is nothing to grieve. He responds to these grave facts with this great news: "The day you die is better than the day you are born" (Eccles. 7:1). Now there is a twist. Heaven enjoys a maternity-ward reaction to funerals. Angels watch body burials the same way grandparents monitor delivery-room doors. "He'll be coming through any minute!" They can't wait to see the new arrival. While we're driving hearses and wearing black, they're hanging pink and blue streamers and passing out cigars. We don't grieve when babies enter the world. The hosts of heaven don't weep when we leave it.
Oh, but many of us weep at the thought of death. Do you? Do you dread your death? And is your dread of death robbing your joy of life?
Jesus came to "deliver those who have lived all their lives as slaves to the fear of dying" (Heb. 2:15).
Your death may surprise you and sadden others, but heaven knows no untimely death: "You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed" (Ps. 139:16).
Dread of death ends when you know heaven is your true home. In all my air travels I've never seen one passenger weep when the plane landed. Never. No one clings to the armrests and begs, "Don't make me leave. Don't make me leave. Let me stay and eat more peanuts." We're willing to exit because the plane has no permanent mailing address. Nor does this world. "But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior" (Phil. 3:20).
Why don't you do this: give God your death. Imagine your last breath, envision your final minutes, and offer them to him. Deliberately. Regularly. "Lord, I receive your work on the cross and in your resurrection. I entrust you with my departure from earth." With Christ as your friend and heaven as your home, the day of death becomes sweeter than the day of birth.
From
Come Thirsty
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
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The Compelling Purpose of God
READ:
He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . -Luke 18:31
Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord, represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will. Jesus said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" ( John 5:30 ). Seeking to do "the will of the Father" was the one dominating concern throughout our Lord's life. And whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, success or failure, He was never deterred from that purpose. ". . . He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem . . ." ( Luke 9:51 ).
The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God's purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. "You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . ." ( John 15:16 ).
We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God's purpose- we are taken into God's purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God's goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God's aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God's purpose is. We say, "God means for me to go over there," and, "God has called me to do this special work." We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan. "He took the twelve aside . . ." ( Luke 18:31 ). God takes us aside all the time. We have not yet understood all there is to know of the compelling purpose of God
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 4, 2008
A Place To Stand
READ: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. -1 Corinthians 3:11
While taking a break during a ministry trip, we were snorkeling in the Caribbean Sea. The boat that had taken us to the deep water for better sites had gone back to shore, and I began to feel panicky about being in the open water. Finding it hard to control my breathing, I asked my son-in-law Todd and a friend, Dave Velzen, for help. They held my arms while I searched for an outcropping of coral close enough to the surface for me to stand on. Once I had a place to stand, even though surrounded by deep waters, I was okay.
Are you feeling a bit panicky about events in your life? Maybe it seems as if you are surrounded by the open waters of relationship problems, or money woes, or simply an inability to put your life in order. Perhaps you feel as if you are drowning in a sea of trials and trouble.
May I suggest two things? First, find a fellow Christian or two who can come beside you and hold you up (see Eccl. 4:10), pray for you, talk with you, and remind you that you are not alone. Then rest your feet on the only solid foundation in life: Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11).
Life's troubles are too tough to take on alone. Get some help and find in Jesus a place to stand. - Dave Branon
God often meets our deepest need
With help we gain from others,
From caring members of His church-
Our sisters and our brothers. -Brown
Build your life on the solid foundation-Jesus Christ.
Effective Prayer by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning behold, they were all dead corpses.
King Hezekiah was in a jam. Although he had trusted God, and did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, nonetheless his Assyrian enemy was knocking at his door. Sennacherib had sent three of his lieutenants to Jerusalem with a great host of Assyrian soldiers. Rab-shakeh, the spokesman for this terrible trio, taunted the Israelites, ridiculing their faith in Jehovah. He stood before the wall of Jerusalem shouting obscenities to the Jews and counseling them, "Let not Hezekiah deceive you. . . Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD. . . hearken not to Hezekiah. . . . Make an agreement with me" (2 Kings 18:29-31).
When the king heard that the Assyrians were outside the city walls, he rent his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. Here Isaiah, the prophet, encouraged Hezekiah that God had the situation well in control. Soon Hezekiah received a letter from the king of Assyria demanding that he surrender the city. What Hezekiah did next is characteristic of a man of faith. Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord God, and in his prayer we can see the elements of all righteous prayer.
His prayer was instinctively spontaneous (verse 14). When Hezekiah received the threatening letter, he immediately spread it before the Lord. There was no thought of calling a committee or seeking the advice of others; Hezekiah knew what to do, as did Elisha (2 Kings 4:33) and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2:4) in similar situations.
His prayer was praisefully reverent (verse 15). He addressed Jehovah as, "O LORD God of Israel which dwellest between the cherubims, Thou art the God, even Thou alone." The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9) indicates the same kind of reverence.
His prayer was intimately personal (verse 16). After he addressed God in a reverent fashion, Hezekiah said, "LORD, bow down Thine ear and hear." He had recognized God as sovereign; now he addresses Him as friend.
His prayer was respectfully informative (verses 17-18). Hezekiah did not demand of God what should be done. He was reminding himself in prayer of what God had promised. When we inform God of our situation in prayer, it is not because He is unaware of how desperate we are; we do it so we are aware of how desperate we are.
His prayer was purposefully direct (verse 19a). The time had come to get down to business. He pointedly made his request known unto the Lord. "O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save Thou us out of his hand." Hezekiah did not mince words; he was direct and forthright in his request to God.
His prayer was properly motivated (verse 19b). Hezekiah prayed for deliverance from the Assyrians, "that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even Thou only." Anything that happens to God's people reflects on God's purpose. Our prayers ought to be motivated so that the world sees the grace of God in our deliverance from desperate situations.
His prayer was powerfully effective and 2 Kings 19:35-36 shows the powerful effect of the righteous man's prayer: "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." Early the next morning Hezekiah and the Jews found their enemy routed and 185,000 dead soldiers. God had performed what He promised.
Prayer is the power that gets a hold of God. Each of us would be wise to study carefully Hezekiah's prayer and see how these seven characteristics of his prayer can be applied to our prayer lives. Let's be like Hezekiah and believe that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16).
MORNING HYMN
I must tell Jesus all of my trials,
I cannot bear these burdens alone;
In my distress He kindly will help me,
He ever loves and cares for His own.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
The Master said, "Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it-it's the main course, and won't be taken from her." Luke 10:42 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Are you so busy serving God and doing good things that you don't have time for him?
In Luke 10 we read the story of two sisters: Mary and Martha. Jesus and his disciples visited their home, quite possibly for the first time. Martha busied herself in the kitchen. She wanted everything to be just right for their special guests.
While Martha scurried to prepare the food, Mary sat calmly at the feet of Jesus, absorbing all that he said. Getting to know him better.
Finally, Martha, totally stressed out, barged into the room and told Jesus to send Mary into the kitchen to help her. But Jesus lovingly explained to Martha that Mary had chosen the most important thing, the "main course," and that Martha was fussing too much about less important things.
Was Martha wrong to want to be a good hostess? Of course not. She wanted to serve Jesus well. But she let serving him become more important than knowing him.
Consider this
Don't we do the same thing?
Sometimes we get so busy in a ministry, or helping people, or working for good causes-all in the name of Jesus-that we fail to put him first. To spend quiet time with him, knowing him better, absorbing his love and joy and peace.
Let's not forget the most important thing-the main course.
Prayer
Father, I know that sometimes I get so busy doing things, even good things, that I neglect spending time with you. Teach me to be more like Mary. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman is the second study in the Abundant Living Series. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Brave Friendship of God
READ:
He took the twelve aside . . . -Luke 18:31
Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, "But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value"? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value to Him He cannot choose you, because you have purposes of your own to serve. But if you will allow Him to take you to the end of your own self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him "to Jerusalem" ( Luke 18:31 ). And that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.
We tend to say that because a person has natural ability, he will make a good Christian. It is not a matter of our equipment, but a matter of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a matter of natural virtues, of strength of character, of knowledge, or of experience- all of that is of no avail in this concern. The only thing of value is being taken into the compelling purpose of God and being made His friends (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 ). God's friendship is with people who know their poverty. He can accomplish nothing with the person who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not here for our own purpose at all- we are here for the purpose of God, and the two are not the same. We do not know what God's compelling purpose is, but whatever happens, we must maintain our relationship with Him. We must never allow anything to damage our relationship with God, but if something does damage it, we must take the time to make it right again. The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 5, 2008
Spiritual Therapy
READ: Psalm 88
Lord, why do You cast off my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? -Psalm 88:14
I once wrote a book titled Disappointment With God. My publishers worried that it seemed heretical to introduce a book with such a title into Christian bookstores. In the process of writing it, however, I found that the Bible includes detailed accounts of people sorely disappointed with God. Job and Moses had it out with God, as did Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and many of the unnamed psalmists.
It seems strange for sacred writings to include scenes of spiritual failure, but this reflects an important principle. A marriage therapist will warn couples, "Your relationship may get worse before it gets better." Misunderstandings must be exposed before true understanding can flourish. The psalmists do not rationalize anger or give abstract advice about pain; rather, they express emotions vividly and loudly, directing their feelings primarily at God. The anguished conclusion of Psalm 88 provides ample evidence (vv.13-18).
The psalms present a mosaic of spiritual therapy in process. Doubt, paranoia, giddiness, delight, hatred, joy, praise, vengefulness, betrayal-you find it all in the psalms. From them I learn to bring to God whatever I feel about Him. I need not paper over my failures; far better to bring my weaknesses to Him, who alone has the power to heal. - Philip Yancey
Do you fear the gathering clouds of sorrow?
Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus;
Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow?
Tell it to Jesus alone. -Rankin
An honest talk with God is the first step in finding peace of mind.
Our Majestic God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
The waning years of the 20th century will undoubtedly be remembered both as an era of mushrooming technology and vanishing virtue. As the world's scientific achievements increase, its moral discernment declines. Institutions once sacred are now scorned. Beliefs that our less sophisticated forefathers revered and respected are now relinquished and ridiculed. The last third of this century has spawned a noticeable decrease in reverence, and this tendency is nowhere more evident than in religion. Even the church has a grossly inadequate appreciation of who God is and how He should be revered.
In the third month after the exodus Israel entered the desert of Sinai and encamped at the foot of the great mountain. As God's representative, Moses was summoned to Mount Sinai. Here God revealed that He would make Israel a "peculiar treasure" unto Himself above all other people. They would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation if they would but obey God's voice and keep His covenant. Moses returned to the people with this proposition and they all agreed.
In three days the covenant would be established, but the holiness of Almighty God is so awesome that much preparation would have to be made before the Israelites could enjoy His presence. Only the pure in heart can "see" God. Moses was to sanctify the people for two days. They were to wash their clothes, an outward sign of the fact that they were inwardly clean. This cleansing within must stem from a heartfelt repentance, deep contrition, and a sincere desire to live righteously before God. Such preparation each man had to make for himself. In addition, fences or barriers were to be set up in public preparation to meet God. To impress Israel with the awesome majesty of God and the reverence with which they should meet Him, the mountain was itself declared holy - off limits to everyone but Moses and Aaron. None could touch it or even approach it beyond the fences.
With the preparations made and the people standing by in silent awe, "It came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled" (Exodus 19:16). The reverence for God that this event was designed to instill in Israel renders vain any attempt to describe adequately the scene.
The Holy One of Israel appeared in a thick cloud because His presence was awesome, too tremendous to be seen physically. Accompanying the clapping of thunder was the voice of the trumpet, exceedingly loud. So terrifying was the trumpet that the people in the camp below were dumbfounded. They stood in mute reverence to the holiness of Almighty God. The whole mountain quaked greatly, shaking from top to bottom, as the people stood in amazement.
The awfulness and terror of this event is even more remarkable when we consider that God was not descending to Mount Sinai as Israel's Judge. He was not about to pronounce a sentence of doom on them, but in love He was drawing them unto Himself through the Sinai covenant. The smoke, fire, cloud, trumpet, lightning, and thunder were all to bring Israel to revere Him, for He is holy and almighty. He is of incredible majesty.
Although it is the duty of the Christian to praise God, it is our first duty to revere and fear Him. He alone is worthy of all reverence. "Wherefore receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29). Let's revere the Lord today and spend some time praising Him for who He is.
MORNING HYMN
Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty,
The King of creation!
O my soul praise Him,
For He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Join me in glad adoration!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10 NIV
Thoughts for Today
These eight words found in the Psalms speak volumes about putting God at the center of our lives.
Be still
Stop worrying. Calm down. Don't be afraid. Stop trying to figure it out by yourself. Stop trying to make things happen. Slow down. Take a deep breath. Forget the money crunch. Take time out from the pressures at work. Stop striving. Stop talking and listen.
Know that I am God
I know you. I know your needs. Nothing surprises me. I am the Creator of all things. I care about everything that concerns you. I am love. I am peace. I am joy. I am holy. I am sovereign. I am all-knowing. I am all-powerful. I am eternal. I am faithful. I am merciful. I am gracious. I am the King of kings and Lord of lords. I am your Father, your Daddy. I am the same yesterday, today and forever. I love you with an everlasting love. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Consider this
When we are willing to be still and to know that he is God, he will become the center of our lives. And everything else we do will revolve around him and all that he is.
Prayer
Father, teach me to set aside all my anxieties, fears, and "to-do's" and to be truly still before you. Help me to know you better, to begin to grasp your greatness, your love and your mercy. In Jesus name
These thoughts adapted from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman is the second study in the Abundant Living Series. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Bewildering Call of God
READ:
'. . . and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.' . . . But they understood none of these things . . . -Luke 18:31, 34
God called Jesus Christ to what seemed absolute disaster. And Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death, leading every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. His life was an absolute failure from every standpoint except God's. But what seemed to be failure from man's standpoint was a triumph from God's standpoint, because God's purpose is never the same as man's purpose.
This bewildering call of God comes into our lives as well. The call of God can never be understood absolutely or explained externally; it is a call that can only be perceived and understood internally by our true inner-nature. The call of God is like the call of the sea- no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him. What God calls us to cannot be definitely stated, because His call is simply to be His friend to accomplish His own purposes. Our real test is in truly believing that God knows what He desires. The things that happen do not happen by chance- they happen entirely by the decree of God. God is sovereignly working out His own purposes.
If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, "I wonder why God allowed this or that?" And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 6, 2008
The Apprentice
READ: Joshua 1:1-7
As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. -Joshua 1:5
When some employers were asked what makes a good apprentice, they responded that they seek to hire "someone who wants to learn."
In the Bible, a good example of an apprentice is Joshua. We remember Joshua for marching around the wall of Jericho. He also had some important responsibilities as a spy (Num. 13:16) and as a warrior (Ex. 17:10). But he was often in the shadow of someone else-Moses. For 40 years, Joshua served as Moses' assistant, aide, and apprentice (Ex. 24:13).
God takes His own time to prepare us for service. Sometimes that period of waiting is as valuable as learning all the needed strategies and goals. Joshua observed Moses' faith in God. He learned what it meant to be humble (Num. 12:3), how to take instruction (Ex. 17:10), and how to be a true servant of God (Josh. 1:1; 24:29). Even a display of Moses' temper (Num. 20:7-12) was an opportunity to watch and learn. By spending time with Moses, Joshua learned things that couldn't be learned from a book.
Joshua's own time to lead was coming. And when it came, he was able to trust God's promise to him: "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you" (Josh. 1:5). - Cindy Hess Kasper
People who become great leaders
Sometimes need to learn
How to serve and follow others-
Then they'll get their turn. -Sper
A person who is not willing to follow is not prepared to lead.
Morning Mercies by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness.
The book of Lamentations may be the saddest writing in the ancient Near East. Composed of five chapters, each chapter is an elegy, almost a funeral dirge. Each of these elegies is sad beyond description. The whole of the book of Lamentations is a poem of pain, a symphony of sorrow. Lamentations has been called the wailing wall of the Bible, and so it is. The tears shed with each distressing chapter only increase as the Lamentations progress. There is but one bright spot in the five lamentations. This bright spot is our devotional for today.
In the midst of the most monstrous dirge of despair the prophet Jeremiah issues a remarkable testimony to the breadth and the force of divine grace. The black clouds which characterize the Lamentations are not universal; there is a minute break in those clouds through which the brightest sunlight streams forth. The penetrating rays of Lamentations 3:22-23 find their way through the chinks and crannies of the deepest dungeon. In the midst of his despondency over the destruction of Jerusalem Jeremiah sees a ray of hope which depicts the unceasing mercies of God.
Although we have no claim on God's mercies, and although they are altogether undeserved, nonetheless they never cease. We have done much to provoke God and give Him cause to cut off His mercy in our behalf. We have abused His mercy, ignored His mercy, even at times ungratefully accepted His mercy. Still, while God's mercies may not always be visible, they are always present. The mercies of God may change their form, as the morning light varies from the evening light, but the mercies of God will never cease to give their light. Even chastisement is mercy in disguise; and frequently, under the circumstances which make chastisement necessary, it proves to be more merciful than if God had not chastised us at all.
In the ray of sunlight presented by Lamentations 3:22-23 we learn that not only are the mercies of God not consumed, "They are new every morning," proving the great faithfulness of God.
There is great novelty in human life. Each day brings to us new and difficult problems, new and exciting challenges. God's mercy is ever-present, but the form it takes is ever-changing. God adapts His mercy to our immediate needs of each day. His mercies are not chiseled in stone but are vital and vibrant. We need not exhume the antique mercies which God showered on Moses, Jeremiah, or John. God's mercies on our behalf are fresh and alive today. As God renews His world by greening it every spring, so too He refreshes and invigorates His people by renewing His mercies to them every morning.
With every new morning nature offers a tribute of praise to God's mercy. The sun rises; the birds sing; the trees sway in the breeze. Shall we alone be silent and ungrateful? Shall the Christian, who has the most reasons to praise God for His mercy, be slow to acknowledge that God's mercy is renewed to him each day? Will we allow the natural creation of God alone to praise its Creator?
No matter how dark our day may appear to be, let us remember this with Jeremiah, "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23).
MORNING HYMN
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father!
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Our God says, "Calm down, and learn that I am God! Psalm 46:10 CEV
Thoughts for Today
The words in today's scripture apply to our quiet times with the Lord, but they are not limited to that.
No matter what your circumstances, you will face challenging, stressful times. Times when it is difficult to cope. That's just part of life.
If you have been spending quiet time before the Lord, being still and reflecting on his character and listening to him, then as difficult situations arise throughout the day, it's easier to take a moment, wherever you are, to be calm and remember that he is God. He is in control. Nothing takes him by surprise, and he will help you through this.
Consider this
When anything or anyone other than God is at the center of your life, problems that arise can cause things to spin out of control. But when he is at the center, day in and day out, he will calm you even when chaos is swirling around you. You will sense his strength, his love and his reassurance and that will make all the difference.
Is he at the center? Or just occupying a compartment of your life. Is he your first thought in every situation? Or just an afterthought when you are desperate.
Begin to give him first place in all things to make him the center of your life.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for not always making you the center of my life. I will commit to spending more quiet time, reflecting on your goodness. And then when things become stressful through the day, remind me to be calm, and to remember that you are in control. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman is the second study in the Abundant Living Series. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Cross in Prayer
READ:
In that day you will ask in My name . . . -John 16:26
We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to get through, yet we get through for the purpose of getting into it. The Cross represents only one thing for us- complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ- and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.
"Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" ( Matthew 6:8 ). Then why should we ask? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God's grace.
". . . I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you . . ." ( John 16:26-27 ). Have you reached such a level of intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that it has become one with the prayer life of Jesus Christ? Has our Lord exchanged your life with His vital life? If so, then "in that day" you will be so closely identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.
When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason- God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 7, 2008
God's Training School
READ: Romans 8:12-17
[We are] heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him. -Romans 8:17
Lew Wallace's book Ben-Hur tells the story of a Jewish aristocrat betrayed by his best friend and condemned to serve as a galley slave in the Roman navy. On a forced march to the ship, Judah Ben-Hur meets Jesus of Nazareth, whose compassion fills him with hope. Eventually, Ben-Hur saves the Roman commander during battle. In gratitude, the commander adopts Ben-Hur as his son, instantly elevating him from slave to heir.
That's what happens to us when God adopts us into His family. But great privilege brings great responsibility. Paul said that we become "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him" (Rom. 8:17). The gospel does not say, "Come to Jesus and live happily ever after." God's syllabus for His children's education includes training through hardships.
Ben-Hur's years of enduring hardship as a Roman slave strengthened him and increased his endurance. He eventually defeated his "friend-turned-enemy" in a chariot race.
As endurance and training were key to Ben-Hur's victory, so are they vital to victory in the Christian's war with sin and evil. The hard times we endure are God's way to prepare us for greater service for His glory. - C. P. Hia
So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see,
To spend though it be blood-to spend and spare not-
So send I you to taste of Calvary. -Clarkson
© 1966 Singspiration
We conquer by continuing.
A Long Day by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
Bible students find many parallels between what they read in the Word of God and what they see in the animal kingdom. Many of God's creatures have been singled out as examples of various kinds of activities. We are all familiar with the expression, "Busy as a bee." Although perhaps not as noticeable, the activity of others of God's creatures is just as great as that of the bee. For example, the thrush gets up at 2:30 every morning, begins work at once and does not stop until 9:30 at night. That's a whole nineteen-hour day. During that period of time this bird feeds its hungry fledglings about two hundred times. While the busyness of the bee is more noticeable, the activity of the thrush is equally as productive.
Astounding parallels can be drawn between the life of the apostle Paul and the busy activity of the bees and the long days of the thrush. When Paul was saved on the road to Damascus, the Bible says, "Straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). Paul may have said something like this to God at his salvation, "Lord, if you save me, the world will never hear the end of it!" It never did.
In this last chapter of Acts the apostle completes his tortuous journey to Rome and arrives to be placed under house arrest until his hearing before Caesar. It would have been a time for rest, recuperation from the rigors of the voyage, and restoration. No one would have criticized Paul for a lack of activity. He could have rationalized that to preach Christ in this situation would have jeopardized his case before Caesar and perhaps ultimately cut short his ministry. Still, "There came many to him into his lodgings; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening" (Acts 28:23).
He had just spent two years in prison at Caesarea. Since he was a Roman citizen, his final appeal was always to Caesar. While en route to Rome, a tempestuous wind arose. The ship was tossed to and fro for 14 days and finally ran aground. With the others Paul had to swim to shore, clinging to broken pieces of the ship. As if that were not enough, on shore he was bitten by a viper, but he did not die. After three months they continued their journey, finally arriving at Rome. All this occurred just before Acts 28:23. From early in the morning until late at night he continued his preaching and teaching activity. No one asked him to put in such a long day, especially after the trials of the preceding months. Paul did it as a volunteer in the service of the Lord.
More importantly, the busyness of his activity was not in defense of his apostleship or in spinning yarns of his shipwreck. His activity was entirely a witness to the grace of God. He expounded and testified of the kingdom of God and persuaded them of the messiahship of Jesus. He had the right method; he preached unto them. He had the right message; he preached Jesus unto them. He had the right manner; he preached Jesus unto them from morning until evening.
Even toward the end of his recorded ministry the apostle Paul put in a long day of activity for the Lord. You and I have the same responsibility, the same opportunity, the same message as did the apostle. We must be as busy as a bee and put in a day like the thrush, with the message which stirred the heart of the apostle, if we are to rest at the end of this day fully satisfied of our service to the Lord God. Let's make sure we're satisfied tonight.
MORNING HYMN
Give of your best to the Master,
Give Him first place in your heart;
Give Him first place in your service,
Consecrate ev'ry part.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Colossians 3:17 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Consciously or sub-consciously, we all tend to divide our lives into compartments and then prioritize them. God, spouse, children, ministry, job, recreation, rest, friends, hobby, school, Internet-and on and on.
We try to be careful to keep God at the top.
But is that really what God wants? A top compartment? For us to decide how much time we allot to "God" things? Probably not.
Yes, we certainly want to put God first in our lives. But not just in a slot at the top. We need to put him at the center, allowing him to be an integral part of every compartment in our life.
When God is truly at the center of our lives, he is in every relationship, in our business, in our job, in our family, in our ministry, in our recreation, in our hobby, in our rest he is in everything that we do and say and are.
Consider this
How about you? Have you given God a time slot? Or is he in every area of your life.
Be willing to take him out of the time slot and invite him to permeate every nook and cranny of your life. Make him the center.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for not allowing you into some areas of my life. I invite you to be a part of my family, my job, my business, my social life, my recreation-everything. Help me to represent you in everything that I do and say. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman is the second study in the Abundant Living Series. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Prayer in the Father's House
READ:
. . . they found Him in the temple . . . . And He said to them, '. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' -Luke 2:46, 49
Our Lord's childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood- His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father's house? Is the Son of God living in His Father's house within me?
The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong- when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. ". . . I must be about My Father's business"- and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father's house.
Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord's life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father's house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.
The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 8, 2008
The Greatest RaceREAD: 1 Corinthians 13Love never fails. -1 Corinthians 13:8
As the Olympic Games open in Beijing, my thoughts go back to Eric Liddell, a former champion immortalized for his surprising gold medal victory in the 400 meters during the 1924 Games in Paris. A year after his triumph, Liddell went to China, where he spent the last 20 years of his life as a missionary teacher and rural pastor. There he ran the greatest race of his life against opponents we all know-difficult circumstances, war, uncertainty, and disease.
Crowded into a Japanese internment camp with 1,500 other people, Eric lived out the words he had paraphrased from 1 Corinthians 13:6-8- "Love is never glad when others go wrong. Love finds no pleasure in injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Love is always slow to expose, it knows how to be silent. Love is always eager to believe the best about a person. Love is full of hope, full of patient endurance; love never fails."
Eric served the others in camp, whether carrying water for the elderly or refereeing games for the teens. When he died of a brain tumor in February 1945, one internee described him as a man "who lived better than he preached."
In life's most difficult race, Eric Liddell crossed the finish line victorious through love. - David C. McCasland
O for a love that knows no end,
A love that is strong and pure,
Reaching afar to both foe and friend,
So deep it will always endure. -R. De Haan
Love enables us to walk fearlessly, to run confidently, and to live victoriously.
Friendship by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Then David arose, and all the people that were with him, and they passed over Jordan: by the morning light there lacked not one of them that was not gone over Jordan.
One of the prize gems of human relationships is friendship. Emerson said, "The only way to have a friend is to be one," an echo of Proverbs 18:24. Friendship always enriches our lives, but sometimes it preserves them as well. The friendship of Hushai with David is a fine example.
Nathan's prophecy upon David for his great sin was severe and swift in coming. It struck first with David's son Amnon, and quickly thereafter with the hot-tempered Absalom. Absalom's rebellion against his father had taken firm root in Israel. He was clearly in command and was now residing in Jerusalem. But the aura of David's presence in Israel, and the legend of his prowess as a man of war made Absalom's rebellion tenuous. He must pursue his own father and the warriors who were with him. How would this be done?
Absalom's close advisor, Ahithophel, hatched a plan, the sagacity of which was unrivaled. He proposed that the armies of Israel pursue David with 12,000 chosen men and fall on him when David and his soldiers were weary and sapped of strength. They would kill David only. What is most unbelievable is that Absalom readily agreed that this was a good plan. But in the providence of God Absalom opted to get another opinion before he enacted it. Thus he called Hushai the Archite. Although pretending allegiance to Absalom, Hushai remained the loyal friend of David and acted as his informer, revealing Absalom's every move.
The plan of Hushai was a classic case of overkill. He called for Absalom to gather Israel from Dan to Beersheba, as many as the sand of the sea, against David in battle. His rhetoric must have appeared venomous, and thus Absalom liked the plan even more than that of Ahithophel. The foolish Absalom did not know that this plan was divinely originated and calculated for his own destruction. "For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom."
No sooner was the plan accepted by Absalom than Hushai dispatched Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, to warn David of the impending danger. David arose, and all his men passed over the Jordan River by the morning light (2 Samuel 17:22). They were taking no chances; they fled at the rising of the sun. It is always a wise decision to flee evil at the beginning of the day.
Absalom pursued his father across the Jordan River, and the famous incident of his catching his long-flowing hair in the boughs of a great oak tree occurred that day. That day Absalom was killed. God had crushed an evil rebellion against His ordained king through the loyalty and godly commitment of a friend.
Visitors to the Ft. Myers, Florida, home of Thomas Alva Edison, are intrigued by a path in his garden that he called "the walk of friendship." The uniqueness of this walk is that each of the stones that constitute the walk was given to Edison by a friend. The pathway is designed as a memorial to friendship, the kind of friendship that Hushai had with David. Friends lead friends step by step out of danger into delight.
If you have a close friend, rejoice in that friend and thank God for him or her. Enjoy that bond of friendship that you have. In fact, why not write or call that friend today and tell him you love him in the Lord and are praying for him. You will never know what it will mean to him if you don't.
MORNING HYMN
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Ev'ry thing to God in prayer.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62:5-8 NLT
Thoughts for Today
You might be a full-time Christian worker or a volunteer. You might be a Sunday school teacher, a deacon, a choir member or a nursery worker. You might be a mom or dad or involved grandparent. You might be pursuing a worthwhile career, working toward financial well-being for your family.
These are all good things. They can all be ways of serving God. It is important that he is in all these activities and that you are doing everything as unto him.
But we can get so busy doing for the Lord that we don't spend time being with him, drawing closer to him, listening to him, knowing him better. And then, all the flurry of activity involved in the doing can begin to produce exhaustion and stress.
Consider this
How do we break this cycle? By making a choice. By choosing to spend time sitting at the feet of Jesus. By being with him, worshiping him, loving him, listening to him.
You might be thinking, "That's easy for you to say. You should see my schedule." Rest assured, if you choose this kind of time with Jesus, other things will fall into place.
Make him the center of your life.
Prayer
Lord, I know that sometimes I do get so busy "doing" that I neglect time "being" with you. Please forgive me. Let all that I am wait quietly before you, for my hope truly is in you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman is the second study in the Abundant Living Series. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. This study shows you how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Prayer in the Father's HonorREAD: . . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God -Luke 1:35
If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God's birth on earth is true of every saint. God's Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise the right of a child- the right of always being face to face with my Father through prayer. Do I find myself continually saying in amazement to the commonsense part of my life, "Why did you want me to turn here or to go over there? 'Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' " ( Luke 2:49 ). Whatever our circumstances may be, that holy, innocent, and eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.
Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He having His wonderful way with me? Is God's will being fulfilled in that His Son has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19 ), or have I carefully pushed Him to one side? Oh, the noisy outcry of today! Why does everyone seem to be crying out so loudly? People today are crying out for the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for God's Son right now- no room for quiet, holy fellowship and oneness with the Father.
Is the Son of God praying in me, bringing honor to the Father, or am I dictating my demands to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the time of His manhood here on earth? Is God's Son in me going through His passion, suffering so that His own purposes might be fulfilled? The more a person knows of the inner life of God's most mature saints, the more he sees what God's purpose really is: to ". . . fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ). And when we think of what it takes to "fill up," there is always something yet to be done.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 9, 2008
Open The Shutters
READ: Ephesians 5:8-14
Walk as children of light. -Ephesians 5:8
Have you heard of the 17th-century theologian Samuel Rutherford? Perhaps it's time to resurrect his faith-inspiring memory.
Rutherford, a member of the council that wrote the Westminster Confession, was imprisoned because of his beliefs. While in prison, he wrote this soul-strengthening letter expressing the joy that sustained him through his trials: "If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven."
When the candles that light up our darkness are blown out, let's rejoice that God is throwing open shuttered windows and pouring in the sunshine of His love.
Like Samuel Rutherford, let's "walk as children of light" (Eph. 5:8). - Vernon C. Grounds
Afflictions may test me,
They cannot destroy;
One glimpse of Thy love
Turns them all into joy. -Willett
We value the light more fully after we've come through the darkness.
Awake Early by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
Are you a morning person? Do you know others who claim to be night people? Whether a morning person or a night person, each of us must ask ourselves if our heart is fixed upon God.
David wrote in Psalm 108, "O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory" Whether a morning person or a night person, the one who knows and loves the Lord God can have an unperturbed heart when he sees the world reeling around him. Our hearts bow to sing and give praise with all our intellect, our skills, our resources, ourselves. It is the call to obey the command of the unperturbed heart that causes us to rise in the morning with a song on our lips. David, an early riser, not only resolved to sing and give praises to God with his lips, but he resolved to employ the use of musical instruments in that same melody of praise. He implores, "Awake, psaltery and harp." Not content with singing the praises of God alone, he will use the well-tuned strings of the psaltery and harp, and his flying fingers to accompany his vocal chords.
Still the key to his praise for God is not found in his voice or in the psaltery and harp. The key is found in his call to "awake" himself to the lively pursuit of praise to God. It is only when a thoroughly enraptured soul sings to God that his vocal praise is acceptable to Him. David says, "Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early" (Psalm 108:2). His praise to the Lord God will precede the dawn. The best and brightest hours of the day will find the psalmist heartily aroused to bless God. Not only will he awaken early to praise Him, but he will awaken every fiber of his being to praise God. Some engage in praise to God in a halfhearted manner; these sing in drawling tones, as if they were half asleep. They arise early to praise God but do not awaken their minds, their spirits, and their bodies in praise to God. Early risers who seek to please the Lord must make certain that they have awakened themselves thoroughly before they begin to praise Him, or their practice of predawn praise will be reduced to mere ritualism.
Having a time alone with God early in the morning is a blessed experience. But too often our prayer life early in the morning is burdened down with weariness, sleepiness, and a half-awake attitude toward God. When we have our morning devotions, we must be certain that we are wide awake and ready to meet with God. Then will our meeting with the Almighty be something enjoyable, something vibrant, alive, and awake.
Henry Ward Beecher relates an incident about a laborer on his father's farm in Litchfield, Connecticut. Of this laborer he said: "He had a little room, in one corner of which I had a small cot; and as a boy I used to lie there and wonder at the enthusiasm with which he engaged in his devotions. It was a regular thing. First he would read the New Testament, hardly aware that I was in the room. Then he would alternately pray and sing and laugh. I never saw the Bible enjoyed like that! But I want to bear record that his praying made a profound impression upon me. It never entered my mind whether or not his actions were appropriate. I only thought, 'How that man does enjoy it!' I gained from him more of an idea of the desirableness of rejoicing prayer than I ever did from my mother or father. He led me to see that there should be real overflowing gladness and thanksgiving in it all."
Is it any wonder that when David's heart was fixed upon God, he called himself to awaken early in praise of God. To have our minds ready, the psaltery and harp ready, but not ourselves ready is an affront to our early morning praise to God.
Let us always be alert, awake, and available to praise God early in the morning. Only as we are sufficiently alive to engage in a meaningful and enjoyable prayer life with God, will He hear us when we pray, "Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth."
MORNING HYMN
Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God,
I commune as friend with friend!
Week of August 4
The Root of All Evil
Money and prosperity not only have the ability to create conflict between family members and friends, they can also wreak havoc in the Christian community. In many ways, nothing has a greater ability to derail ministry work than a rich endowment.
Some Christian leaders may balk at this statement, but the truth is not hard to discern. Many of America's universities were founded on Christian principles and values, but have since abandoned their faith. When their endowments grew larger, their commitment and devotion to godly education grew smaller. They adjusted their ethics to reflect the views of their contributors.
Both Lot and Abraham were wealthy men. However, there was a tremendous difference in their love for God. Abraham's quest was to follow God by faith, while Lot lived for the moment and to gain more than he had been given.
Have you ever been tempted to make the same type of decision? You may have waited a long time to enjoy the goodness of God's blessing, but be careful. Don't allow the temptation of self-centeredness to grasp your heart. Remember, you do not have to be wealthy to be consumed by thoughts of greed. Anyone can become entrapped by the world's lusts and passions.
Abraham refused to allow his wealth to control him. Lot, on the other hand, allowed the size of his herd and bank roll to negatively influence his worship of God. Open your life up to the Savior. Trust Him for your future and lay aside the destructive thoughts of envy and jealousy.
Lord, teach me how to enjoy what You have given and not allow it to take Your place.
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up running the race. Shore up your confidence in God, today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Prayer in the Father's Hearing
READ:
Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me' -John 11:41
When the Son of God prays, He is mindful and consciously aware of only His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19 ) the Father will always hear my prayers. But I must see to it that the Son of God is exhibited in my human flesh. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . . " ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ), that is, your body is the Bethlehem of God's Son. Is the Son of God being given His opportunity to work in me? Is the direct simplicity of His life being worked out in me exactly as it was worked out in His life while here on earth? When I come into contact with the everyday occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of God's eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? Jesus says, "In that day you will ask in My name . . ." ( John 16:26 ). What day does He mean? He is referring to the day when the Holy Spirit has come to me and made me one with my Lord.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied by your life, or are you exhibiting a walk of spiritual pride before Him? Never let your common sense become so prominent and forceful that it pushes the Son of God to one side. Common sense is a gift that God gave to our human nature- but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son, and we should never put our common sense on the throne. The Son always recognizes and identifies with the Father, but common sense has never yet done so and never will. Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God. We must make sure that our human flesh is kept in perfect submission to Him, allowing Him to work through it moment by moment. Are we living at such a level of human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being exhibited moment by moment in us?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 10, 2008
The Eye Of God
READ: 2 Chronicles 16:7-14
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. -2 Chronicles 16:9
The Hubble Space Telescope has taken photos of the Helix Nebula. Some astronomers describe it as "a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases." At its center is a dying star that has ejected dust and gas stretching toward its outer rim. Remarkable photos of it look like the blue iris of a human eye complete with eyelids. Because of this, some have called it the "Eye of God."
Although this nebula is not literally the eye of God, the Scriptures do talk about God's gaze on our lives. The prophet Hanani said, "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him" (2 Chron. 16:9).
This proclamation of God's all-seeing eye was given in response to King Asa's reliance upon another ruler for military security. Asa seemed to have forgotten that it was the Lord God, not mere soldiers, who had given him past victories over his enemies (14:11-12). This spiritual disloyalty did not escape the notice of God, who seeks to pour out blessing on acts of obedience to Him.
Although we cannot see the eyes of God, we can be assured that He sees us. His desire is to show Himself strong to those who are loyal to Him with their whole heart. - Dennis Fisher
Precious promise God hath given
To the weary passerby,
On the way from earth to heaven,
"I will guide thee with Mine eye." -Niles
To know that God sees us brings both conviction and comfort.
Morning Moments by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried; I hoped in Thy word.
Today our early morning devotional takes us to the great psalm--Psalm 119. This is a psalm dedicated to the praise of God's Word. It is the longest and most elaborate of the alphabetic psalms. While there are eight other acrostic psalms (9; 10; 25; 34; 37; 111; 112; and 145), this one far exceeds all the others in splendor. It is arranged in twenty-two stanzas, corresponding to the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Within each stanza the first line of every verse begins with the same letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Although we cannot see that in English, in our Bible the word supplied at the head of each stanza is the name of the Hebrew letter with which each verse in that stanza begins.
The author of the psalm is unknown but it is definitely Davidic in tone and expression and squares with David's experiences at many interesting points.
While these details of the psalm are interesting, devotionally there is something far more important in Psalm 119. The Masseretes, those scribes who copied the ancient Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament, observed that in every verse but one (verse 122) there is a direct reference to the law under one of ten legal names found in the psalm. Others dispute that claim but it is clear that the theme of this great psalm is the Word of God. The great preponderance of verses contain at least one word which identifies the Word of God and sings man's praises to it.
Psalm 119 is filled with delightful expressions of appreciation for God's Word. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word" (verse 9). "I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies, as much as in all riches" (verse 14). "I will speak of Thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed" (verse 46). "For ever, O LORD, Thy word is settled in heaven" (verse 89). "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (verse 105). With expressions of love and devotion like these, what more could God hear that would bring joy to His ears? What promise could the psalmist make that would seal his eagerness to know God's law?
Psalm 119:147 provides the answer. The psalmist says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried; I hoped in Thy word." Before the light broke through the shadows of the dark night, the psalmist was already prevailing on God in prayer. He cried unto His God before He spoke unto his fellow man. He spent time hoping in God's Word each morning before he gave himself to speaking God's Word throughout the day. It was at the dawning of the morning that the psalmist found the Word of God most precious to him.
Ambrose commented, "It is a grievous thing if the rays of the rising sun find thee lazy and ashamed in thy bed, and the bright light strike on eyes still weighed down with slumbering sloth." The psalmist would agree with this church father.
To delight in the law of God, to sing praises to the Word of God, to read and meditate on the testimonies of God, all bring joy to the heart of God. But I believe the greatest joy is brought to His heart when we do these things at the dawning of the day. When we seek His word above all others, His encouragement before all others, His truth instead of all others, then we will be pleasing to Him more than all others.
One grand benefit of preceding the dawn with Bible reading and prayer is that it will not only add God's blessing to our day, but it will also encourage us to continue in His Word and prayer throughout the day. The same psalmist who rose early in the morning to hope in God's Word continued into the night watches meditating in that same Word (verse 148). When we begin the day early in prayer and the Word, we can continue that practice throughout the day. But if we do not come to the Lord until the evening hours, we can never know the joy of spending the day with Him. Let us enjoy His Word throughout this day.
MORNING HYMN
Break Thou the bread of life,
Dear Lord, to me,
As Thou didst break the loaves,
Beside the sea;
Beyond the sacred page,
I seek Thee, Lord
My spirit pants for Thee,
O living Word.
His Wing Shelters You
by Max Lucado
"He will shield you with his wings. He will shelter you with his feathers."
(Psalm 91:4)
My college friends and I barely escaped a West Texas storm before it pummeled the park where we were spending a Saturday afternoon. As we were leaving, my buddy brought the car to a sudden stop and gestured to a tender sight on the ground. A mother bird sat exposed to the rain, her wing extended over her baby who had fallen out of the nest. The fierce storm prohibited her from returning to the tree, so she covered her child until the wind passed.
From how many winds is God protecting you? His wing, at this moment, shields you. A slanderous critic heading toward your desk is interrupted by a phone call. A burglar en route to your house has a flat tire. A drunk driver runs out of gas before your car passes his. God, your guardian, protects you from
"every trap" (Ps. 91:3);
"the fatal plague" (Ps. 91:3);
"the plague that stalks in darkness" (Ps. 91:6);
"the terrors of the night the dangers of the day" (Ps. 91:5).
One translation boldly promises: "Nothing bad will happen to you" (Ps. 91:10 NCV).
"Then why does it?" someone erupts. "Explain my job transfer. Or the bum who called himself my dad. Or the death of our child." If God is our guardian, why do bad things happen to us?
Have they? Have bad things really happened to you? You and God may have different definitions for the word bad.
God views your life the way you view a movie after you've read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. Not you. Why? You've read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot. God views your life with the same confidence. He's not only read your story he wrote it. His perspective is different, and his purpose is clear.
God uses struggles to toughen our spiritual skin.
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2-4)
Trust him. "But when I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Ps. 56:3). Join with Isaiah, who resolved, "I will trust in him and not be afraid" (Isa. 12:2).
God is directing your steps and delighting in every detail of your life (Ps. 37:23-24). In fact, that's his car pulling over to the side of the road. That's God opening the door. And that's you climbing into the passenger seat.
There now, don't you feel safer knowing he is in control?
From
Come Thirsty
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
The Holy Suffering of the Saint
READ:
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good . . . -1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will- even if it means you will suffer- is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, "God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:21-23 ). We must be merciful to God's reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23 ). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10 ).
Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 11, 2008
True Teamwork
READ: 1 Corinthians 9:19-27
They [train] to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. -1 Corinthians 9:25
Sports brings out the best and the worst in people. The news media often focus on the worst. Those who comfort players with "It's not whether you win or lose that counts; it's how you play the game" seldom make world news. But once in a while they do.
After a baseball team from Georgia defeated a team from Japan in the Little League World Series, one reporter wrote: "The boys from Warner Robins left a lasting impression of their inner character for the world to see. They proved again, it's not whether you win or lose that counts. It is, how you play the game."
When the losing players broke down in tears, the winning team members stopped their victory celebration to console them. "I just hated to see them cry," said pitcher Kendall Scott, "and I just wanted to let them know that I care." Some referred to the moment as "sportsmanship at its best."
It was indeed heartwarming, but it points out that sports-even at its best-is an imperfect metaphor for Christianity. In sports, someone always loses. But when someone is won to Christ, the only loser is Satan.
For Christians, true teamwork is not about defeating opponents; it's about recruiting them to join our team (1 Cor. 9:19-22). - Julie Ackerman Link
Lord, too often I view as my enemies those who don't know You. Help me love them as You love them. Help me gently share Your truth with them. Help me see them as part of Your great mission field. Amen.
Tact is the knack of winning a point without making an enemy.
Perfect Promises by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times.
Every few years the countries of the free world participate in national elections. The democratic system of government provides the opportunity for men and women representing their parties to campaign, make promises and pledges, and run for office on the basis of their platform and promises. Generally the winner is the person who promises the most and who, in the minds of the voters, can actually deliver on those campaign promises. Unfortunately history has taught us that most political promises are little more than campaign rhetoric and the voters have justifiable reason for concern about their validity. In contrast to this are the promises of God in which the believer may have absolute confidence. God has a perfect record of keeping His promises.
The story of Jericho's conquest is a fine example of the completed promises of God. Prior to their entrance into the promised land, Joshua sent two men across the Jordan to spy out the city of Jericho. These spies came to the place where information would freely flow among the men of the town. They entered the house of Rahab the harlot. Although the life of Rahab as a harlot was certainly not condoned by the Israeli spies, nevertheless apparently the Lord God had been working in the heart of Rahab. When the king of Jericho attempted to track down the two spies, Rahab hid them on her roof among the sticks of flax. She confessed her faith in Jehovah God saying "The LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath" (Joshua 2:11). Because this woman aided His secret agents, God promised Rahab and her household salvation in the midst of the peril of her city.
God's battle plan for the defeat of Jericho was unconventional, to say the least. Joshua would command seven priests, bearing seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord, to march around the city walls in silence for seven days, once each day until the seventh. On the seventh day they would march seven times around the wall. Then amid the blast of the seven jubilee trumpets and the war cry of the people of God, the destruction of the stronghold at Jericho would take place.
The children of Israel did as God commanded. "And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day and compassed the city after the same manner seven times" Joshua (6:15). On the seventh circuit of the seventh day the people shouted and the walls of Jericho fell down flat. The army of Israel entered the city unhindered and utterly destroyed all that was in the city, with one notable exception--the household of Rahab. Because they obeyed the Lord explicitly, the people saw two great promises of the Lord performed on the same day. The city of Jericho, the strongest outpost of the Canaanite defenses, had been utterly destroyed as God had promised. Likewise Rahab and her household had been spared destruction, as God had promised.
But there is one final promise of God that can be seen in the conquest of Jericho. In verse 26 Joshua counseled the people, warning them, "Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it." To show that God means business when He makes a promise, Joshua imprecated a solemn curse on anyone who would rebuild the now-destroyed Jericho. This curse was literally fulfilled in the fate of Heil, the Bethelite, who rebuilt Jericho in the reign of Ahab (about 925 B.C.). Heil's firstborn son, Abiram, died as he was laying the foundation for the rebuilding of Jericho. Also his youngest son, Segub, died while he was setting up the gates of the city (1 Kings 16:34). What God promises, God performs.
Whether the promise is for salvation, as in the case of Rahab, or for destruction, as in the case of Heil, the promises of God must never be taken lightly. Whatever God promises, God performs. You can count on it.
MORNING HYMN
Standing on the promises that cannot fail,
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail
By the living word of God I shall prevail,
Standing on the promises of God.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
So rejoice in the Lord and be glad, all you who obey him! Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure! Psalm 32:11 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Is laughter really the best medicine? Is it ok for "real" Christians to laugh? Shouldn't we be more serious?
Sometimes the greatest obstacle to the message of Christianity is Christians themselves. We are often perceived as pessimistic, suspicious, critical, judgmental, cranky, stingy people. Wow! People are just not standing in line to see more of that.
How contrary this is to the Christian life Jesus described. He called it "life to the full" ... a better life. Such a life is characterized by joy. When the world sees genuine happiness in the lives of Christ's followers, they will take notice. They will begin to see what real Christianity is all about.
Consider this
How about it? Does your face need a tune-up? Is your countenance reflecting criticism and pessimism and a judgmental frame of mind? Or the light and love and joy of Jesus.
How's your attitude? Do people around you see a grumbler and complainer? Or one who takes things in stride and sees the best in everything and everyone.
We might not be laugh-out-loud happy all the time, but that inner joy of the Lord should show through.
Children sing, "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart." Do you have that joy? And does it bubble over for others to see? Let people know that Jesus really does make a difference in your life.
Prayer
Lord, sometimes I forget how much I have to be thankful for. Forgive me for grumbling and complaining. Help me to focus on Jesus. Help me to focus on my blessings-especially the joy of salvation. I will rejoice in the LORD and be glad!
These thoughts adapted from
Authentic Living by Dr. Mike Chapman. Authentic people who are living in authentic Christian Community are powerful witnesses. Topics for this study include: What Does It Mean to Be Real?, Real Christians Laugh, Real Christians Learn, Real Christians Lean, Real Christians Linger, and Real Christians Love. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Experience Must Come
READ:
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha . . . saw him no more -2 Kings 2:11-12
It is not wrong for you to depend on your "Elijah" for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, "I cannot continue without my 'Elijah.' " Yet God says you must continue.
Alone at Your "Jordan" ( Kings 2:14 ). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your "Elijah." You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go- the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your "Jordan" alone.
Alone at Your "Jericho" ( 2 Kings 2:15 ). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your "Elijah" do great things. Yet when you come alone to your "Jericho," you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your "Elijah," you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.
Alone at Your "Bethel" ( 2 Kings 2:23 ). At your "Bethel" you will find yourself at your wits' end but at the beginning of God's wisdom. When you come to your wits' end and feel inclined to panic- don't! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your "Elijah"- use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14 ). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 12, 2008
"This Is It!"
READ: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17
The Lord Himself will descend from heaven . . . . Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up. -1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
Have you ever had a time when you thought the Lord was coming back right then? Many believers in Jesus are so eager to "meet the Lord in the air," as Scripture puts it (1 Thessalonians 4:17), that they have felt "This is it!" at one time or another.
My wife, Sue, who once worked in a Christian nursing home, recalls being aboard an elevator at the facility when she had "second coming" thoughts. She had closed the door and started up to the second floor when the elevator came to a halt. Sue was stuck between floors. As she waited, there was a jolt and a quick flash of light-and then nothing again.
Sue recalled later that the power of the light and movement startled her and made her think that something unusual was happening. In that moment, her mind went toward the much-anticipated return of Jesus. It was a "This is it!" moment.
Whether we have experienced this feeling is not important. What is absolutely vital is that we know we are ready at any time for the Lord's return. If we have received Jesus as our Savior, we will find ourselves anticipating with excitement His appearing-eager to "stir up love and good works" in one another as we "see the Day approaching" (Heb. 10:24-25). - Dave Branon
A little while-then Christ will come;
The glorious hour draws nigh
When He will come to take His bride
To dwell with Him on high. -Gilmore
Christ's second coming is as certain as His first.
Prayer and Peace by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
With my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early: for when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
One of the prevailing themes of both Old and New Testaments is the constant presence of peace in the hearts of those who abide in God. The prophet Isaiah said it this way, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee" (Isaiah 26:3). Literally Isaiah said, "Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace." Or God will keep us in double peace. He will give us a double portion of peace when our minds rest on Him.
Likewise in the New Testament Jesus taught His disciples that His very presence would bring them peace. He said, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you" John 14:27). He told His disciples, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
The apostle Paul understood the principle of fixing our minds on God and enjoying His peace. He counseled the Colossian believers to "let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful" (Colossians 3:15). If our minds are stayed upon God, His peace will rule the affairs entertained by our minds. If, on the other hand, we allow our minds to dwell on the cares of this world, God's peace will be far from our thoughts.
It is for this very reason that the apostle told the Philippian believers, "Be careful for nothing" or be full of care about nothing "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7). The peace of God that garrisons our hearts and minds cannot exist alongside the cares of this life. Each of us must make the decision whether our minds will dwell on those things that trouble us or on the power of God to deliver us. A mind full of care can be a mind full of peace. The difference is only a prayer away.
Isaiah was in the habit of seeking God in the middle of the night. When the thick clouds of sorrow overshadowed his heart and he no longer could endure the disappointments of that day, he did not allow his mind to dwell on those disappointments, but rather on the Lord's deliverance. Rather than lay his head on a pillow of doubt, he would lay it on the pillow of dependence on the Lord God.
Isaiah continued, "Yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early" (Isaiah 26:9). The experience of meeting the Lord in the darkness of midnight and having his mind freed from fear enabled the prophet to face the new day, eagerly awaiting an additional measure of God's peace. Thus he determined that his spirit would seek the Lord early, fully confident that the Lord would answer his prayer: "Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace for us: for Thou also hast wrought all our works in us" (Isaiah 26:12).
The pattern for dealing with the cares of this world is the same for us today. God has designed us to live at peace with Him, with our world and with ourselves. But we can do this only as we turn our cares over to Him in exchange for His ruling peace. Whatever difficulties you faced yesterday and wrestled with through the night last night, give them early this morning to the Lord, and let Him replace your cares with the comfort of His peace. Remember, God's peace is but a prayer away.
MORNING HYMN
Peace! peace! wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above;
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray,
In fathomless billows of love.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Christianity is joyful. Joy is good for your health.
Current thought recognizes many health benefits of laughter. It has been said that laughter reduces stress, strengthens the immune system, relaxes muscles, lowers blood pressure, provides respiratory cleansing, diminishes pain and is good cardiac exercise.
Isn't that just like our heavenly Father? He uses something as great as laughter to help us stay healthy.
Consider this
Laughter is healthy, but what do most of us tend to do? Worry complain focus on problems more than blessings indulge in staying overly busystress out over the little things, as well as the big things. There is no laughter and joy in that!
God is a happy God. We could do well to learn from little children. They are more like God than we are. They know how to laugh and have fun.
Eat right, exercise, get enough rest and ... laugh! It's good for you.
Prayer
Father, thank you for joy and laughter. Thank you for making something as great as laughter good for my health. Help me to focus on blessings more than problems to trust instead of worry to give thanks instead of complain. Help me to have a cheerful mind. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Authentic Living by Dr. Mike Chapman. Authentic people who are living in authentic Christian Community are powerful witnesses. Topics for this study include: What Does It Mean to Be Real?, Real Christians Laugh, Real Christians Learn, Real Christians Lean, Real Christians Linger, and Real Christians Love. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Theology of Resting in God
READ:
Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? -Matthew 8:26
When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable. Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God. We come to our wits' end, showing that we don't have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world. To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us.
". . . O you of little faith!" What a stinging pain must have shot through the disciples as they surely thought to themselves, "We missed the mark again!" And what a sharp pain will go through us when we suddenly realize that we could have produced complete and utter joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, in spite of what we were facing.
There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible. But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him.
We have been talking quite a lot about sanctification, but what will be the result in our lives? It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him. And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also a profound joy to Him
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 13, 2008
The Same Hand
READ: Exodus 15:22-27
He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. -Exodus 15:25
The children of Israel had not gone far from the shore of the Red Sea when the realities of their new freedom began to register. They no longer enjoyed the ample food and water supply of Egypt. Now, after traveling 3 days into the wilderness, the large crowd had no water. And when they finally arrived at the oasis of Marah, the water was bitter (Ex. 15:23).
Thus the children of Israel were compelled to rely on a miracle. So they cried out to Moses, and Moses cried out to the Lord. The Lord showed him a tree, which Moses cast into the water. Miraculously, the water turned sweet.
The transformation of the water was a miracle akin to the plague of blood sent to Pharaoh and the Egyptians (Ex. 7:14-25). Egypt's clean water had been sullied with blood by the hand of the Lord. The lesson of Marah was clear-the same hand that turned water into blood could turn bitter water into sweet. The same power that brought curses on Egypt could bring health to Israel.
If you have a seemingly impossible need today, remember that the hand that supplied your greatest need-forgiveness of sin-is the same hand that can adequately supply all your needs. Trust Him to accomplish things that seem impossible. - Marvin Williams
When our problems overwhelm us,
God wants us to look to Him;
He provides the right solutions-
Lighting paths that once were dim. -Sper
Impossibilities compel us to rely on God.
Reasonable Service by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
Consecration to the Lord requires separation from evil, devotion to God, and the endless pursuit of holiness. Although the Lord would have all His children be fully consecrated to His service, He requires of us "reasonable" service (Romans 12:1). Consecration made under the influence of emotion or the excitement of the moment is not to be trusted. The believer must carefully, prayerfully and reasonably count the cost of discipleship before committing his life in service to the Lord.
After the great law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, God sought ratification of the covenant He had made with the Israelites. Once again Moses ascended the holy mountain, this time with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel. When they descended again, Moses relayed to the people all the ordinances of God's covenant. As soon as the terms of the covenant were known, "the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do" (Exodus 24:3). Immediately Moses sensed that the people were too readily consecrating themselves to the ordinances of God's covenant and had not counted the cost. Thus Moses maneuvered to make their consecration more reasonable.
First Moses purposely prolonged the process of consecration. He did not permit the people to ratify the covenant at once. Instead, this great man of God wrote down all the words of the Lord and went to bed. He "rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Exodus 24:4). The altar was built in preparation for the sacrifice without which no covenant was considered binding. By making the people wait one day before they could officially ratify the covenant, Moses reduced the emotional influence of the Israelites' hasty acceptance of the covenant.
Secondly, Moses surrounded the ratification of the covenant and the consecration with impressive ceremonies. He sent the young men, perhaps the firstborn of the families--since the Levitical order had not yet been instituted--and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. This was to be a solemn occasion, one that the Israelites would not soon forget.
Thirdly, great pains were taken to insure that the people understood the terms of the covenant. They could not properly consecrate themselves to God if they did not fully comprehend what their consecration meant. Not only did Moses relay the words of the Lord to the people when he descended from the mountain, but now, a day later, he read from the book of the covenant in the hearing of all the people. Moses wanted to be absolutely convinced that the people were making a rational decision to give their lives in service to the Lord.
Finally, Moses took the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled it on the people, saying, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words." It was the blood that sealed the covenant. It was the symbol of the covenant. The blood of the sacrifice was placed upon the people to etch in their minds that they were chosen of God and now consecrated to Him.
Choosing a life of consecration to the Lord should be a sensible, reasonable, thoughtful act. The decision to give yourself to God and His service is a solemn act based in reason, not in emotion. It is indeed praiseworthy for a believer to consecrate his life to the Lord, but he must never do so lightly or thoughtlessly. Before committing your life in service to God today, count the cost, for "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62).
MORNING HYMN
All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being's ransomed pow'rs:
All my tho'ts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:2-4 NLT
Thoughts for Today
God has blessed us with laughter and joy. Christianity is joyful and joy is good for our health.
We all experience difficult times that hold no laughter, but during those trying times God provides joy in spite of our circumstances. One of Webster's definitions of joy is "a source or cause of delight." God is our source of joy and he never changes, no matter what is happening. He provides the cause of our joy: his love, his forgiveness, his grace, his peace, his strength, his hope for today, for tomorrow, and especially for eternity.
All of these wonderful things are ours no matter what our circumstances, no matter what we are going through.
Consider this We have a choice. When we are going through difficult times, we can choose to remember all those good things and to allow this joy to stay strong within us Or we can focus totally on the difficulties and fail to trust God to bring us through, to meet the need, to ultimately work all things for good.
God loves you. He wants to bring you joy that is beyond understanding. Joy through the good times and the painful times.
Will you choose joy?
Prayer
Father, thank you for joy and laughter. Sometimes when things aren't going well, I struggle to hold on to the joy. No matter what I go through, help me to trust you to work all things together for good. Help me to consider it an opportunity for great joy. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Authentic Living by Dr. Mike Chapman. Authentic people who are living in authentic Christian Community are powerful witnesses. Topics for this study include: What Does It Mean to Be Real?, Real Christians Laugh, Real Christians Learn, Real Christians Lean, Real Christians Linger, and Real Christians Love. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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"Do Not Quench the Spirit"
READ:
Do not quench the Spirit -1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze- so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a "still small voice" ( 1 Kings 19:12 ), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, "Once, a number of years ago, I was saved." If you have put your "hand to the plow" and are walking in the light, there is no "looking back"- the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God ( Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7 ). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to "walk in the light" by recalling your past experiences when you did "walk in the light" ( 1 John 1:7 ). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be
God Bless
Daily Devotionals Augst 14, 2008
Feed My Sheep
READ: John 21:15-17
Do you love Me? . . . Feed My sheep. -John 21:17
Just before Jesus left this earth, He instructed Simon Peter to care for the dearest object of His love-His sheep. How could anyone care for them as Jesus cares? Only out of love for Him. There is no other way.
Three times Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love Me?" Peter answered, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." Each time, Jesus answered, "Feed My sheep."
Was Jesus unaware of Peter's love? Of course not. His threefold question was not for Himself, but for Peter. He asked His questions to underscore the essential truth that only love for Christ would sustain Peter in the work that lay ahead-that arduous, demanding work of caring for people's souls-perhaps the hardest work of all.
Jesus did not ask Peter if he loved His sheep, but if he loved Him. Affection for God's people in itself will not sustain us. His sheep can be unresponsive, unappreciative, and harshly critical of our efforts to love and to serve them. In the end, we will find ourselves defeated and discouraged.
The "love of Christ"-our love for Him-is the only sufficient motivation that will enable us to stay the course, to continue to feed the flock of God. Thus Jesus asks you and me, "Do you love Me? Feed My sheep." - David H. Roper
More about Jesus would I know,
More of His grace to others show,
More of His saving fullness see,
More of His love who died for me. -Hewitt
It is love for Christ that will enable us to love His children.
The Gift of Criticism by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down, and taught them.
It was after a church service one morning in which the minister had preached on spiritual gifts that he was greeted at the door by a lady who said, "Pastor, I believe I have the gift of criticism." The pastor looked at her and asked, "Remember the person in Jesus' parable who had the one talent?" The woman nodded her understanding. "Do you recall what he did with it?" "Yes," replied the lady, "he went out and buried it." The pastor suggested, "Go, thou, and do likewise!"
The Pharisees and Sadducees apparently felt they too had the gift of criticism. Frequently they attempted to ensnare the Lord Jesus. As was the Master's habit, He entered Jerusalem, crossing the Mount of Olives; and "early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them" (John 8:2). His reappearance in the temple provided an opportunity for the Pharisees and scribes to lay a subtle snare for Him. They brought a woman taken in the very act of adultery. The Feast of Tabernacles had just been celebrated, and acts of immorality during that festive week were not unusual. The scribes attempted to put Christ in a dilemma by quoting the law of Moses. They knew that if He answered that the woman should be stoned, He would violate the Roman law, which forbade such acts. However, if Jesus answered that the woman should not be stoned, He would be violating Moses' law (Deuteronomy 22:24).
The religious leaders were not so much interested in the adulterous woman as they were in Jesus' response to her situation. Their criticism of her was motivated by their desire to entrap Him. But Christ knew well how to repel such attacks by an appeal to higher principles. The same law that adjudged the guilty to be stoned to death also required the witnesses to cast the first stones. Jesus' statement, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," was sure to bring an end to their criticism. The crowd, one by one, stealthily left the scene. Ironically the only one who was left was the Lord Jesus, the only one of the crowd who had lived a perfect life and had a right to condemn her.
This very teaching is reiterated by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8. Paul asks the hypothetical questions, "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? . . . who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:31, 33-34). Only the mind of God could conceive of a plan whereby the one person who lived a righteous life and had the right to condemn us was the very person who laid down that life to die for us. The woman taken in adultery was speaking to the one who did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.
One businessman keeps a fairly large stone on his desk. The stone is mounted and lettered with one word: "First." This acts as a constant reminder to him of Jesus' words, "He that is without sin . . . let him first cast a stone." When his employees enter his office and there is reason to criticize them for their lack of achievement, the man looks at the stone and recalls his own shortcomings. He deals with his employees in mercy and grace.
This passage of Scripture does not teach us to look the other way when people sin. It does not teach us that we ought to condone adultery or any other crime. What it does teach us, however, is that it is not the responsibility of a Christian continually to be on the lookout for sin in other Christians--or anyone else for that matter. If we have lived a perfect life, we can be watchdogs on others who have not lived a perfect life. But we have enough trouble keeping ourselves in line; we need not constantly be critical of the way others live. Jesus was teaching the critical religious leaders of His day that although the woman was a great sinner, she was no greater a sinner than they were. We must remember the same as we meet others today.
MORNING HYMN
More like the Master I would live and grow,
More of His love to others I would show;
More self-denial like His in Galilee,
More like the Master I long to ever be.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Be happy [in your faith] and rejoice and be glad-hearted continually (always). 1 Thessalonians 5:16 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Laughter is one of the marks of God's image in us. To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for our existence. God wants his joy to be in us.
It's not only ok for "real" Christians to laugh. It's imperative! Today's scripture makes it clear that the Bible puts joy in the non-optional category. Philippians 4:4 AMP says, "Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, gladden yourselves in Him]; again I say, Rejoice!"
God wants us to be happy, and he makes it possible. There is only one catch to all of this. It is impossible to experience real joy unless you have invited the King of Joy, Jesus, to come into your life.
Consider this
Are you experiencing the joy of the Lord? Joy that gives you laughter joy that sustains you even through difficult times?
If not, perhaps you've never invited Jesus into your life Or maybe you have, but have continued doing things your way, rather than his way.
Jesus wants to help you, to strengthen you, to fill you with the laughter and joy that only he can give.
Consider making the King of Joy, Jesus, Lord of your life today.
Prayer
Lord, I've tried things my own way and have never found lasting joy. I'm ready to do things your way. I believe that Jesus died for me. Please forgive my sins and help me live your way. Help me to be happy in my faith and to rejoice continually. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Authentic Living by Dr. Mike Chapman. Authentic people who are living in authentic Christian Community are powerful witnesses. Topics for this study include: What Does It Mean to Be Real?, Real Christians Laugh, Real Christians Learn, Real Christians Lean, Real Christians Linger, and Real Christians Love. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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"The Discipline of the Lord"
READ:
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him -Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, "Oh, that must be from the devil."
"Do not quench the Spirit" ( 1 Thessalonians 5:19 ), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, "Don't be blind on this point anymore- you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I'm revealing it to you right now." When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
". . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him." We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, "Oh well, I can't help it. I prayed and things didn't turn out right anyway. So I'm simply going to give up on everything." Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me- sanctification is God's idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 15, 2008
Gathering SticksREAD: Acts 28:1-10Through love serve one another. -Galatians 5:13
A painful illness had prevented Bible teacher Billy Walker from carrying on his active schedule for several months. He told a group of men that he especially missed being able to preach, but that God was teaching him throughout his recovery.
One day during his illness, as he meditated and prayed, Billy's attention was drawn to the passage about Paul's shipwreck on Malta recorded in Acts 28. There is more to the story than Paul's miraculous immunity to a venomous snakebite (vv.3-6).
This great apostle to the Gentiles, preacher to thousands, worker of miracles, and writer of much of the New Testament, was stuck on an island as a prisoner. Did he lie back and bemoan his condition? Did he think he should be treated better than others because he was an apostle? No! The Scriptures tell us that he chose to contribute to the work and needs of his fellowmen. It was cold and rainy, so Paul "gathered a bundle of sticks" for a much-needed, warming fire (v.3).
Perhaps you've been set aside for a while due to difficult circumstances. Maybe you've reached the time in your life when vigorous activity is no longer possible. Don't despair. Remember Paul's example, and do what you can do-even if it's simply "gathering sticks." - David C. Egner
Start where you are in serving the Lord,
Claim His sure promise and trust in His Word;
God simply asks you to do what you can,
He'll use your efforts to further His plan. -Anon.
God never puts you in the wrong place to serve Him.
Glory to God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Then Jerubbaal who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early, and pitched beside the well of Harod: so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
Natural man has a penchant for trying to explain away God. The theory of evolution was developed in an attempt to remove God from the arena of creation. Liberal theologians have attempted to demythologize the Bible in order to remove the miraculous works of God from it. Man does all he can to explain naturally the divinely originated phenomena in our world.
God has always been aware of man's desire to usurp His position and authority. Frequently in Scripture can be found accounts where God places men in deliberate situations so they must recognize that their deliverance is solely of Him. When God removes the possibility of any natural explanation, man is left with the inevitable conclusion that God is in the miracle business. Such was the case in our Scripture today.
Israel was assembled and ready for battle. Already the fight had been stayed two days by the dewy and dry fleece so that Gideon could receive a token of God's presence with them. Now the fight was to be delayed again.
On the morning following the second test with the fleece, Gideon and all the people with him "rose up early and pitched beside the well of Harod" (Judges 7:1). Anxious for the battle, they had already moved into military position when God told Gideon he had too many people in His army. Jehovah wanted to be certain that Gideon, as well as Israel and the nations watching, would understand that Israel had won the battle by the hand of God. Therefore he instructed Gideon to command any of the 32,000 troops who were afraid to return home from the front. Much to the surprise of Gideon, 22,000 admitted their fear and retreated. Surely if a battle was won by 10,000 Israeli troops against 135,000 Midianites (Judges 8:10), this would indicate that the victory was the Lord's. But again Jehovah surprised Gideon by indicating that these 10,000 troops were still far too many.
Gideon was to take the troops to the spring of Harod for a strange and severe test. The soldiers were divided into two groups, those who lapped water as a dog and those who dropped to their knees to drink. Whatever the purpose of the test, only 300 soldiers were selected for Gideon's army.
Next God instructed Gideon to go with his servant, Phurah, down to the perimeter of the Midianite encampment and eavesdrop on the Midianites. They overheard one soldier telling another of his dream about a cake of barley bread that rolled into the Midian camp, against the king's tent, and flattened it. His fellow soldier interpreted the dream that this was none other than the sword of Gideon and that God was about to deliver Midian into Gideon's hands. So evident was it that this dream and the interpretation had both come from God that Gideon immediately returned to the host of Israel and said, "Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian." Three hundred men defeated the entire Midianite army and the glory belonged entirely to God.
We must never shy away from impossible situations. When the odds seem least favorable for our success, that is when God can gain the greatest glory from our success. Large armies are not as admirable as dedicated ones. The recruiting slogan of the United States Marine Corps includes the words, "A few good men." God is looking for the same. Will you be one today?
MORNING HYMN
On ev'ry hand the foe we find
Drawn up in dread array;
Let tents of ease be left behind,
And onward to the fray!
Salvation's helmet on each,
With truth all girt about:
The earth shall tremble 'neath our tread
And echo with our shout.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again-rejoice! Philippians 4:4 NLT
Thoughts for Today
As Christians, one of our greatest desires is to share the message of Christianity with others. Yet sometimes unbelievers don't want to hear our message because they perceive Christians as pessimistic, suspicious, critical, judgmental, cranky people. And, sadly, probably all of us are guilty of at least one or two of these characteristics from time to time.
But God tells us to be joyful and loving, to fill our lives with laughter. He knows that when we do this, we will be happier and healthier ... and a better testimony of his love.
Consider this
What are some ways we can live our lives with more laughter?
Well, for one thing most of us should stop taking ourselves so seriously. It's ok to spend some time just having fun!
Another step toward more laughter is to hang around happy people. Laughter really does seem to be contagious.
Most of us need to simplify our lives and avoid getting bogged down with busyness. Being over-tired and over-stressed can quickly rob us of our joy.
As we learn to trust God in every area of our lives and allow his joy to fill us to overflowing, our lives will begin to reflect his love to others and then they might want to hear more about this thing called Christianity.
Prayer
Father, help me to always be full of joy in you. Help others to see the joy of Jesus in me so that they might want to meet Him. In His name
These thoughts adapted from
Authentic Living by Dr. Mike Chapman. Authentic people who are living in authentic Christian Community are powerful witnesses. Topics for this study include: What Does It Mean to Be Real?, Real Christians Laugh, Real Christians Learn, Real Christians Lean, Real Christians Linger, and Real Christians Love. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Evidence of the New Birth
READ: You must be born again -John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus' question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced ( John 3:4 ). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
"But as many as received Him. . ." ( John 1:12 ). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
". . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God " (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God's kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God's control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
"Whoever has been born of God does not sin. . ." ( 1 John 3:9 ). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, "Should a Christian sin?" The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin- it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 16, 2008
Chip Off The Ol' Block
READ: Ephesians 5:1-5
Be imitators of God as dear children. -Ephesians 5:1
I'll never forget the time I was asked to bring my family to a banquet where I was to be the speaker. After dinner, my son Matt came up to me and asked to sit on my lap. "Sure," I said and picked him up.
Over the course of his young life, Matt had watched me strike up conversations with lots of strangers. As an unrepentant people-person, in restaurants I would often look at the server's name tag and start my order with, "Hey, Barbara, how are you today?" To which my kids would inevitably say, "Dad, you embarrass us!"
But now, sitting on my lap, Matt turned to the "big-shot" organizer of the banquet next to me, read his name tag, and stuck out his little hand, saying, "Hey, John, how are you?" A proud moment for me! He was acting just like his dad-a chip off the ol' block!
This is exactly what Paul had in mind when he exhorted us to "be imitators of God" (Eph. 5:1). But life has a way of making us anything but like God. We are often uncaring, short-tempered, grumpy, and unforgiving-flat-out too much like ourselves and not enough like Him!
Remember, we are saved to bear the Family resemblance, to become increasingly more like Jesus and less like ourselves. - Joe Stowell
O to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I'll forfeit all of earth's treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear. -Chisholm
Every child of God should have a growing likeness to the Father.
God's Unfailing Word by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And all the people came early in the morning to Him in the temple, for to hear Him.
Throughout His teaching ministry Jesus' message enjoyed increasing appreciation. Thousands thronged around Him, not only to view His powers of healing and raising the dead, but also to hear His words. Jesus was more than a prophet, a priest, and a king. The gospel writers describe Him as a preacher and teacher as well. Just before the Passion Week Luke records that Jesus taught daily in the Temple, "And all the people came early in the morning to Him in the temple, for to hear Him" (Luke 21:38). His message was not just novel; it was truth.
Much of what Jesus taught daily in the Temple was prophetic in nature. In the early part of Luke 21 Jesus passed through the temple treasury and commented on the splendor of the magnificent Temple. However, Jesus predicted that it would be destroyed, and His words are descriptive of the days leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70.
The latter half of this chapter is a prophecy concerning Jerusalem during the great tribulation period of this earth. He describes it as a time in which there shall be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars. Men's hearts will fail them for fear. The powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Jesus taught the crowds who followed Him early in the morning to the Temple that God would unleash His vengeance on a sinful world before the Son of Man rode out of heaven in power and great glory to establish His kingdom on this earth (cf. Revelation 19:11-16).
As the people came daily to hear the teachings of the Lord, He knew that His time was quickly coming to an end on this earth. Therefore He reminded them that "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass away" (Luke 21:33). It is evident that the Word of God, whether given verbally by the Lord Jesus or inscribed by God in the Holy Bible, is more unshakable than the universe itself. The same God who has the power to shake the very heavens also has the power to make unshakable His Word. While the heavens will not stand according to the prophecy of Jesus, the Word of God will always stand.
Today, in the twentieth century, Jesus does not speak to us and teach us as He did early in the morning in the temple, but He still speaks to us through His Word, God's Word the Holy Bible. We have the benefit of hearing the very same teaching that these heard who came at the dawning of the day to the temple. We can sit at the feet of Jesus today by reading His Word.
H. A. Ironside told of a godly man named Andrew Frazer, who had come to southern California to recover from a serious illness. Though this Irishman was quite weak, he opened his worn Bible and began expounding the truths of God's Word in a way that Ironside had never heard before. So moved by Frazer's words was Ironside, that his curiosity drove him to ask, "Where did you learn these things? Did you learn them in some college or seminary?" The sickly man said, "My dear young man, I learned these things on my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland. There, with my open Bible before me, I used to kneel for hours at a time and ask the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the Word to my heart. He taught me more on my knees on that mud floor than I ever could have learned in all the seminaries or colleges in the world."
To spend time in the Word of God yields a much richer understanding of the deep things of theology than to spend time in a classroom. For the person denied a formal education in Bible and theology there is no shame if we spend time at the feet of Jesus. From early in the morning, throughout the day, and into the evening hours the great scholars of the Word become so because of time spent in God's Book and on their knees. Each of us has the same opportunity to do that. Let's take that opportunity today.
MORNING HYMN
Thy Word is like a garden, Lord, With flowers bright and fair;
And ev'ryone who seeks may pluck A lovely cluster there.
Thy Word is like a deep, deep mine, And jewels rich and rare
Are hidden in its mighty depths For ev'ry searcher there.
God's Peace
Some people believe that if they have a certain level of wealth, then they will have peace-or if they marry right, then they will know contentment. Others mistakenly believe that if they can just live in some ideal location or receive certain recognition at work, then they will have all they could ever hope to achieve.
However, none of these scenarios is capable of providing the peace and contentment we long to experience. True peace only comes as a result of living a life filled with the Spirit of God. It is eternal and has only one source-Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon writes, "The God of peace gives perfect peace to those whose hearts are fixed upon Him."
We can try to achieve peace through accomplishments and hard work. We may look for peace everywhere-thinking that new experiences, buying things, or stashing money away will deliver peace. However, apart from God, we will never find lasting peace.
In order to experience the peace of God, we first must have peace with God-which comes as the result of a complete surrender to Christ as our Lord and Savior. Once we are saved, God's peace is available to us. A famous actress once lamented that she had everything she could possibly want, but she still did not have a sense of peace. There are some things that money cannot buy, and peace is one of them.
Before His death, Jesus comforted His disciples with these words: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).
We, too, can find the peace and comfort we need within His eternal care.
The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up running the race. Shore up your confidence in God, today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Does He Know Me . . . ?
READ:
He calls his own . . . by name . . . -John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18 ). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person's soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2 ); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. ". . . she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. . . . Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' " ( John 20:14, 16 ). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. "She turned and said to Him, 'Rabboni!' " ( John 20:16 ).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29 ). Have I been doubting something about Jesus- maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord" ( John 20:25 ). But Thomas doubted, saying, "Unless I see . . . I will not believe" ( John 20:25 ). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. "Thomas . . . said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' " ( John 20:28 ).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17 ). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75 ), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, "Lord . . . You know that I love You" ( John 21:17 ).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him- a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 17, 2008
In God's House
READ: Psalm 84
My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord. -Psalm 84:2
Tobias, who recently turned 3, loves to go to church. He cries when he isn't able to attend. Each week when he arrives for the children's program of Bible stories, games, singing, and dinner, he runs into the building and enthusiastically announces to the leaders and other children: "Let's get this party started!" The Lord must smile at this child's excitement about being in what he thinks is God's house.
The author of Psalm 84, one of the sons of Korah, also had a love for God's house. Some commentators have speculated that for a time he, a temple singer, was unable to go to the temple-either because of sickness or circumstances. So as he wrote this psalm, his soul was especially longing and crying out to be in "the courts of the Lord" (v.2). He believed that one day of worship in God's house gave more satisfaction than a thousand days spent anywhere else (v.10).
There's something special about praising God together with His people, and we should take every opportunity we can to do so. But if we can't, like the psalmist, we can still express our love for the living God and our longing to know Him (v.2). The Lord is pleased and we'll be blessed when our heart's desire is to be with Him and His people. - Anne Cetas
One day that's spent with You, O Lord,
In worship and in praise
Is better than a thousand spent
In less important ways. -Sper
A good indicator of our spiritual temperature is our eagerness to worship God.
Fleece or Faith by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.
Discouraged and pathetic, Israel needed a champion. God had chosen His man. The angel of the Lord appeared unto Gideon, a mighty man of valor, and encouraged him with the promise of God's presence and power. Gideon had broken down the altar to Baal. Idolatry throughout the land of Israel was pounded with a heavy blow. Jehovah alone was now worshipped in Ophrah, and the fame of Gideon spread throughout the land. It was apparent that Gideon was the man behind whom all Israel could rally.
Once again the Midianite Bedouins swarmed across the land. Gideon knew that the time for battle had come, but this time he was ready. Judges 6:34 says, "The Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon." Literally the Spirit of Jehovah clothed Gideon like a garment. The once discouraged and despondent young farmer of Ophrah was now suited up for battle in the armor of the Spirit of God. When he sounded the mustering trumpet, immediately all of the clan of Abiezer gathered around him. Messengers were sent throughout all the land. From Naphtali, Zebulun, Asher, and Manasseh they came, prepared to fight under the leadership of Gideon.
All was ready for the mighty battle, but one thing more troubled Gideon. Again he asked a sign from the Lord. Seeking a sign from God was characteristic of Jewish behavior (1 Corinthians 1:22). With troops arrayed for battle, Gideon spread a fleece of wool on the ground and said to the Lord God, "If the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that Thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as Thou hast said." A heavy dew is very common in the highlands of Palestine. Even today clothes left outdoors overnight must be wrung out in the morning. Although energized for battle, the entire camp of Israel waited throughout the night for the sign from God.
The Scripture records that Gideon rose up early on the next morning and wrung enough dew out of the fleece to fill a bowl full of water (Judges 6:38). Miracle accomplished! However, Gideon entreated the grace and patience of the Lord again and asked Jehovah to reverse the sign. One more night the Israelites waited before entering battle. In the morning the ground was saturated with dew but the fleece was entirely dry. This was proof positive that God was in this battle and that Gideon was His chosen leader.
Frequently much indecision and lack of courage is camouflaged under the guise of "putting out the fleece." Such a practice is not always an admirable one, nor does it always produce admirable results.
When John Wesley was a 32-year-old missionary in Georgia, he fell deeply in love with a young woman he wanted to marry. Some of his friends suggested that perhaps God would have the evangelist remain unmarried and devote his life to his work. One even suggested they draw lots in order to discern God's will for Wesley. The evangelist agreed. Three small slips of paper were prepared: one said, "Marry"; the second, "Think not of it this year"; and the third, "Think of it no more." Wesley drew a slip and with much sadness read, "Think of it no more." Heartbroken, he ended his courtship. Fifteen years later Wesley married a wealthy widow who became a hindrance to his ministry. After 20 years of mutual misery, she left him. He had allowed a fleece to determine his fortune.
When God sets up the parameters, encourages us in a given situation, and calls us to action, let's not be guilty of "fleecing" Him. How much better if Gideon had been remembered for his faith, as was Abraham, than for his fleece. For what will you be remembered?
MORNING HYMN
I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus
Trusting only Thee;
Trusting Thee for full salvation, Great and free.
I am trusting Thee to guide me,
Thou alone shalt lead,
Ev'ry day and hour supplying All my need.
God Believes in You
by Max Lucado
The tale involves a wealthy father and a willful son. The boy prematurely takes his inheritance and moves to Las Vegas and there wastes the money on slot machines and call girls. As fast as you can say "blackjack," he is broke. Too proud to go home, he gets a job sweeping horse stables at the racetrack. When he finds himself tasting some of their oats and thinking, H'm, a dash of salt and this wouldn't be too bad, he realizes enough is enough. It's time to go home. The gardener at his father's house does better than this. So off he goes, rehearsing his repentance speech every step of the way.
But the father has other ideas. He "had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him."
We don't expect such a response. We expect crossed arms and a furrowed brow. At best a guarded handshake. At least a stern lecture. But the father gives none of these. Instead he gives gifts. "Bring out the best robe, a ring, sandals, And bring the fatted calf and let us eat and be merry" (Luke 15:11-23 NKJV). Robe, sandals, calf, and , Did you see it? A ring.
Before the boy has a chance to wash his hands, he has a ring to put on his finger. In Christ's day rings were more than gifts; they were symbols of delegated sovereignty. The bearer of the ring could speak on behalf of the giver. It was used to press a seal into soft wax to validate a transaction. The one who wore the ring conducted business in the name of the one who gave it.
Would you have done this? Would you have given this prodigal son power-of-attorney privileges over your affairs? Would you have entrusted him with a credit card? Would you have given him this ring?
Before you start questioning the wisdom of the father, remember, in this story you are the boy. When you came home to God, you were given authority to conduct business in your heavenly Father's name.
When you speak truth, you are God's ambassador.
As you steward the money he gives, you are his business manager.
When you declare forgiveness, you are his priest.
As you stir the healing of the body or the soul, you are his physician.
And when you pray, he listens to you as a father listens to a son. You have a voice in the household of God. He has given you his ring.
God believes in you. And, I wonder, could you take some of the belief that he has in you and share it with someone else?
You and I have the privilege to do for others what God does for us. How do we show people that we believe in them?
Do not withhold encouragement from the discouraged. Do not keep affirmation from the beaten down! Speak words that make people stronger. Believe in them as God has believed in you.
From
A Love Worth Giving
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
NOW IN PAPERBACK
With a Reader's Guide focusing on:
1. Love Remembered: gleans crucial quotes from the chapter and invites you to reexamine them by answering some probing questions.
2. Love Deepened: uses parallel Scriptures to reinforce and clarify the thrust of the chapter.
3. Love Given: application questions to help you integrate the main focus of each chapter into your life of faith.
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Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
READ:
. . . Jesus . . . said to him, 'You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.' But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven't, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, "Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me." Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him- He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened- not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain- He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 18, 2008
Another Chance
READ: Philemon 1:8-19
[You] have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him. -Colossians 3:10
For almost 100 years, a huge piece of flawed Carrara marble lay in the courtyard of a cathedral in Florence, Italy. Then, in 1501, a young sculptor was asked to do something with it. He measured the block and noted its imperfections. In his mind, he envisioned a young shepherd boy.
For 3 years, he chiseled and shaped the marble skillfully. Finally, when the 18-foot towering figure of David was unveiled, his student exclaimed to Michelangelo, "Master, it lacks only one thing-speech!"
Onesimus was like that flawed marble. He was an unfaithful servant when he fled from his master Philemon. But while on the run he came to know the Master Sculptor. As a changed man, he served God faithfully and was invaluable to Paul's ministry. When Paul sent him back to Philemon, he commended him as one "who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me" (1:11). He asked Philemon to receive Onesimus back as a brother (v.16).
Paul knew what it meant to be given another chance after past wrongs (Acts 9:26-28). He knew personally the transformation God can accomplish. Now he saw it in the life of Onesimus. The Lord can chisel His image on our flawed lives and make us beautiful and useful too. - Albert Lee
Christ takes each sin, each pain, each loss,
And by the power of His cross
Transforms our brokenness and shame
So that our lives exalt His name. -D. De Haan
Our rough edges must be chipped away to bring out the image of Christ.
Incomplete Obedience by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.
Incomplete obedience is the half brother of disobedience. Not to obey God explicitly is to disobey Him implicitly. Saul is an example of this kind of disobedience.
Several great military victories over Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the kings of Zobah all strengthened Saul's position as king of Israel and secured for him the loyalty of the people. He was their hero, and he was beginning to know it.
Still the great Bedouin tribe of the Amalekites continued to harass the Jews. In the wilderness at Sinai in the past and in the days of Gideon these Amalekites repeatedly attacked the Israelites without provocation. Thus through the prophets God told Saul to kill the wicked Amalekites and destroy all their livestock. He wanted His people to realize just how much He hates sin, and thus God would not allow them to be enriched in any way by the conquests of their ungodly neighbors.
Mustering a force of 2,000 infantrymen and an additional 10,000 men from Judah, Saul marched to the south against the Amalekites. Saul's victory over the Amalekites was complete and decisive. The Israelite army annihilated the entire tribe as God had commanded. But Saul did something that God did not command, in fact, something that He explicitly prohibited. "And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive . . . and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them."
Twice before Saul had shown himself unfit for leadership because of his disobedience to God. Now God indicated to Samuel that Saul could no longer be king because of his disobedience and rebellion; he would be rejected by God. So distressing was this news to Samuel that he cried unto the Lord all night long, but to no avail. Jehovah's mind was set; Saul must go. Reluctant to deliver such a message to the king and having wrestled about it with God all night, Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning (I Samuel 15:12).
When Samuel approached Saul at Gilgal, Saul piously greeted him, "Blessed be thou of the LORD," as if he had done nothing wrong. In fact, he reported, "I have performed the commandment of the LORD." But Samuel knew otherwise and pointedly asked the king, "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" Bleating sheep and lowing oxen are seldom informers, but in this instance they revealed the partial disobedience of the king, demonstrating again the principle of Numbers 32:23, "Be sure your sin will find you out."
Embarrassed that his disobedience had been discovered but always ready with an explanation, Saul violated his leadership and squarely blamed the people for this sin. Samuel rehearsed in Saul's ears what the Lord had commanded him to do and how he had failed to keep the Lord's command. Assuming that the prophet would be pacified by the prospects of a sacrifice to Jehovah, Saul thought he had devised the perfect excuse for disobedience. How could God not be pleased with a sacrifice? But Samuel countered, "Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?" There was no answer. Saul was trapped in his disobedience.
The lesson that Saul failed to learn is one that we must not fail to learn from him. Samuel taught the king, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice." Obeying the voice of God can never become subservient to acts of worship or service. Obedience is the primary response necessary from a servant to his master. Partial obedience merely betrays rebellion against our master. Thus partial obedience is in reality disobedience. First, last, and always obedience is the best thing.
MORNING HYMN
When we walk with the Lord In the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Don't sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent." Psalm 4:4 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Anger is one of the most common emotions we experience. It is part of being human. All of us have lost our tempers and lashed out at God, others or ourselves. Many of us have silently boiled in rage or frustration.
We might not want to admit to being angry - we would rather have people see us as calm and controlled. But let's face it try as we might to avoid it, we do get angry. The good news is that we don't have to let anger control our lives.
Consider this
The first step to ensuring that anger does not control your life is to admit that you do get angry. Letting anger simmer beneath the surface, refusing to admit even to yourself that it is there, only leads to problems. It is important to deal with it as soon as possible.
The Bible encourages us to find ways to manage our anger. As we accept anger as a common part of life, it is vital that we learn how to deal with it. Pray for God's guidance in discovering where you are in accepting your anger and in making it your servant, not your master.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for the times I've been controlled by anger and have responded to people with unkind words and thoughts. Forgive me also for sometimes just holding the anger in and letting it build into serious resentment and even bitterness. Teach me to deal with anger and not be controlled by it. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. This not only ministers to church members but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Some of the content covered includes:
Beginning steps in managing anger.
Methods to help you control anger in your relationships.
Ten steps for preventing anger's control in your life.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
READ:
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus' words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God's Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, "If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions."
"Sell all that you have . . ." ( Luke 18:22 ). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought- in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult- it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus- not love for Jesus Himself.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 19, 2008
One Small Choice
READ: Joshua 24:15-24
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. -Joshua 24:15
As a boy, my father often played violin in the local symphony. This budding young talent continued improving into his high school years.
Then one day he decided to join his buddies in a harmless prank. As they raced through the school hallways and out the door, my dad hurried to follow them. The door slammed just as he reached it. His left hand smashed the glass of the door-severing the tendons to three fingers. All the doctors could do was tie the tendons in knots, rendering his fingers useless and taking the violin out of his life forever.
I wonder how Dad's life might have been different had he not made that one small choice. "What-ifs" have dubious merit-we can always second-guess ourselves. But we cannot underestimate the impact of our choices. One choice can produce lifelong consequences, for good or bad.
Joshua's counsel is a good place to start. "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve," he told Israel. "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:15).
Serving God will not always be the easy choice. But it is a choice that brings the kind of consequence we can live with. - Bill Crowder
I am resolved to follow the Savior,
Faithful and true each day;
Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth-
He is the living way. -Hartsough
What you will be tomorrow depends on the choices you make today.
Come and Dine by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
Have you ever noticed that the most difficult time to serve the Lord is immediately after a defeat in your life? When we are on a spiritual high, serving the Lord comes almost naturally. But when we experience the roller-coaster ride to the depths of despair after some spiritual tragedy, we have a tendency to become complacent. While activity tends to produce additional activity, inactivity also reproduces itself.
The popularity of Jesus Christ had been building throughout His earthly ministry. Thousands of people followed Him through the hills of Galilee, watching His miracles and listening to His teachings. The disciples had become an intimate group, well known for their association with Jesus. As His popularity grew, so did their own.
The culmination of their intimate relationship with the Lord came the night of His betrayal. He had gathered the disciples in the upper room to keep the Passover. They were all there. They ate with the Lord, prayed with Him, sang hymns with Him, pledged their loyalty to Him. Around this meal, the institution of the Lord's supper, the disciples reached a spiritual high. Their heightened spirits, however, were soon to be dashed. Jesus was led away from the garden, He endured a cruel and illegal trial, and the disciples were dispersed. Even though Jesus again and again had told them that He must suffer the cruelty of the cross, the disciples still did not assimilate this tenet of His teaching. With His death and burial the disciples' balloon had burst. Even the resurrection of the Lord and the immediate post-resurrection appearances did not do much to reassure the disciples.
As instructed by the Lord Himself, the disciples returned to Galilee. Their meeting with Jesus on the mountain of Galilee, where He had appointed them, must have been subsequent to the account of our Scripture for today. Seven of the apostles had returned to their vocation as fishermen. How easy it was to be a follower of the Lord when He was present; how easy it was to return to their occupation in His absence.
It was Peter who first suggested that he would go fishing. This does not necessarily imply that he intended to renounce his apostleship in favor of the fishing trade. This is what he knew best; this is what he would do until the Lord commanded him otherwise. Hence Peter and the others entered into a ship and fished all night, but caught nothing. How could this be? Had they lost the knack of fishing during their years with the Messiah? Why were they so unsuccessful at a business in which they had been extremely successful before Jesus called them to discipleship? Throughout the night they fished without any success at all.
"But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore" (John 21:4). For some providential reason the disciples did not recognize the stranger standing on the shore. As He called to them and inquired how successful they had been, they had to answer that they were extremely unsuccessful in fishing that night. It was the resurrected Lord, keeping His rendezvous with them in Galilee. But they did not recognize this until He commanded them to cast their nets on the other side of the ship. This was reminiscent of a similar but earlier command of the Lord with the same result (Luke 5:1-11).
When the disciples had hauled in an incredible number of fish, they came to the shore at Jesus' invitation to "Come and dine" (John 21:12). It was almost as if the Lord was reigniting the fire of intimacy and love that had cooled since their last supper together. Jesus Christ did not want His disciple band to become complacent, for complacency is kin to disobedience.
After we have once served the Lord well and lived in intimate relationship with Him, it is easy to become complacent, to drift from Him and not to sit at His table. However, the Lord calls to each of us to "come and dine"; and if we are to be an effective and useful tool in the Master's hand, we must find our feet under His table frequently.
MORNING HYMN
Revive us again fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled with fire from above.
Hallelujah, Thine the glory! Hallelujah, amen!
Hallelujah, Thine the glory! Revive us again.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry - but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. Don't go to bed angry. Don't give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life." Ephesians 4:26-27 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Anger: right or wrong? The answer is that anger is right but it can be wrong. Anger is God-given emotional energy designed for good. The expression of this anger-produced energy can lead to sin but it doesn't have to. With God's help, we can control our thoughts and actions.
The Bible tells of many times when anger was a positive force for good. Moses' anger when the Israelites worshipped idols resulted in their repentance (Exodus 32:19-35). Jesus' anger motivated him to clear abusers from his Father's temple (Luke 19:45-48).
Consider this
Our anger can be a positive force as well. Appropriate anger at our children's wrong behaviors can motivate us as parents to exert firm but loving discipline. Anger against injustices and wrongdoing in our communities can motivate us to do something positive about the situation.
Our anger can also lead to sinful acts of selfishness, unkindness or even aggression. It is our responsibility to use our anger-induced energy in positive ways, even if it's just walking around the block to cool off.
The next time you feel angry, remember that it doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's your choice.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for the times I have used my anger in sinful ways instead of as a positive force. Help me control my thoughts and actions and to use my anger in positive ways. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. This not only ministers to church members but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Some of the content covered includes:
Beginning steps in managing anger.
Methods to help you control anger in your relationships.
Ten steps for preventing anger's control in your life.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Self-Awareness
READ:
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one- "Come to Me . . . ." The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 20, 2008
Whose Side Is God On?
READ: 2 Chronicles 15:1-15
The Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. -1 Chronicles 28:9
I do not boast that God is on my side," wrote Abraham Lincoln. "I humbly pray that I am on God's side."
Lincoln's words paraphrase the thoughts Azariah expressed to King Asa of Judah. After the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, he said, "The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you" (2 Chron. 15:2).
Throughout history, people have done despicable deeds while boldly claiming that God was on their side. But being a Christian doesn't guarantee that God is "on our side" any more than being an ancient Israelite guaranteed that God was on theirs (Isa. 3:14-15). God is on the side of those who are on His side-who know His heart and mind and do His will-not those who insist on convincing God and others that their way is right.
Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord indicated that He sides with the oppressed (Isa. 58:6-7,10). For Christians, that means it is right to be on the side of those who are being wronged.
Instead of jumping into a situation with the presumption that God is on our side, we need to be certain that we are on His. - Julie Ackerman Link
Who will leave the world's side? Who will face the foe?
Who is on the Lord's side? Who for Him will go?
By Thy call of mercy, by Thy grace divine,
We are on the Lord's side-Savior, we are Thine! -Havergal
It's dangerous to mistake our wishes for God's will.
Little Things by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the trench, as the host was going forth to the fight, and shouted for the battle.
Occasionally it is necessary to remind ourselves that success in life often depends upon little things. Little people, little tasks and little responsibilities often loom large in the eyes of God.
The Philistines waged frequent raids on Israel. The leader of the Philistines, a giant of tremendous stature named Goliath of Gath, was probably one of the Anakim (Numbers 13:33; Joshua 11:22), a strain of huge men that Joshua drove out of Hebron and who took refuge among the Philistines. No Israelite was a match for Goliath, especially not little David, who was sent to the battlefield to inquire of the welfare of his three elder brothers, Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah. David's task was a small one; he was entrusted with very little. Told to take his brothers an ephah of parched corn, ten loaves and ten cheeses for the captain of the army, David set out to the battlefield. This day began with a small task, but it was to be a momentous day in the history of Israel.
"David rose up early in the morning, and left his sheep with a keeper" and engaged in the small chore his father had commissioned to him (1 Samuel 17:20). As he talked with his brothers, behold the Philistine champion came out again to challenge the Israelites. The armies of Israel stood by, trembling in their sandals; but David was appalled and amazed at the fear that paralyzed the Israelite warriors. Not willing to see his nation shamed or his God embarrassed, he inquired why someone did not stand up to the godless Goliath. "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" Immediately his eldest brother whisked him away to quiet him. Someone entrusted with such a small task as bringing bread and cheese to his soldier-brothers should not be so vocal about the cowardice of the Israelite army.
Yes, David had slain the lion and the bear, but he was still slight in the sight of those around him. Those were but small feats; silencing the giant Goliath would be a gargantuan task. Besides, even if David accepted the challenge, he was too small to wear the armor necessary to enter battle with Goliath. His weapon, a sling, was likewise a small implement. Everything about David was small, including his chances of success against the giant. But as we all know, David's God was victorious; the slight shepherd of Israel slew the giant Goliath.
Horatius Banal, reflecting on God's use of that which is small, realized that little things can frequently be used by God to be great things. He wrote, "A holy life is made up of a multitude of small things. It is the little things of the hour and not the great things of the age that fill up a life like that of the Apostle Paul or John or David Brainard or Henry Martyn. Little words, not eloquent speeches or sermons, little deeds, not miracles or battles or one great heroic effort or martyrdom, make up the true Christian life. It's the little constant sunbeam, not the lightning, the waters of Siloam that go softly in their meek mission of refreshment, not the waters of the rivers great and main rushing down in torrent, noise, and force that are the true symbols of the holy life."
There are no small people, small tasks or small responsibilities in the service of God. You can be small only if you fail to take the bread and cheese as God has commanded. How much happier Goliath would have been if little David had stayed home that day.
MORNING HYMN
Little is much, when God is in it!
Labor not for wealth or fame;
There's a crown and you can win it,
If you'll go in Jesus' name.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs." Proverbs 19:11 NLT
Thoughts for Today
What causes anger? In reality, the answer could be "nothing." We might think that a rude driver or unfair criticism or a friend's betrayal angers us, but the anger is actually our own doing. It is our response that creates the anger.
Many factors can stimulate anger. Behavior we learned in childhood, a stressful work environment, poor health or medicines we take can cause our temper to flare more easily but only if we allow them to.
Consider this
When someone insults us or treats us badly, we can choose how to respond. If we have feelings of anger, we can choose how to express that anger. God has given us free will to control our feelings, thoughts and actions. Will we choose unkind words or finding a way to "get even" or will we overlook and forgive? It's our choice. No matter what our background or the current circumstances, we are responsible for our own behavior.
None of us express our feelings appropriately all the time. But the Bible tells us, "For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need." (Philippians 4:13 NLT) Jesus can help us make anger our servant instead of our master.
Prayer
Father, when I am wronged in some way, help me to choose the right response ... the one that is pleasing to you. Teach me to overlook and forgive. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. This not only ministers to church members but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Some of the content covered includes:
Beginning steps in managing anger.
Methods to help you control anger in your relationships.
Ten steps for preventing anger's control in your life.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Christ-Awareness
READ:
. . . and I will give you rest -Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don't allow yourself to say, "Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I'm sure I must have this cleared up with them already." Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, "Lord, what is your will?" A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest," that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest- the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 21, 2008
Phenomenal!
READ: Psalm 8
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth! -Psalm 8:1
At 3:00 one August morning, I awoke to experience a total lunar eclipse. It began at the precise moment the astronomers predicted and progressed just as they said it would. In one sense, it was a natural, recurring event, but it was also a phenomenal glimpse at the power and glory of God.
As the earth's shadow crept slowly across a bright full moon, the psalmist's words came to mind: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?" (Ps. 8:3-4).
Planet earth is not all about us, but by God's design, it involves us. The psalmist marveled at the heavens, but he was more amazed that the great Creator, whose glory is above the heavens, included us in His grand plan for the ages.
To worship any part of God's creation stops short of giving glory to the One who made it. The Bible lifts our eyes to see that all creation proclaims the glory of God, who has showered His grace and love on us through Christ.
"O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!" (Ps. 8:1). - David C. McCasland
Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast. -Anon.
God's glory shines through His creation.
How to Judge Advice by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Esther 5:14
"Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, "Let a gallows be made, fifty cubits high, and in the morning suggest to the king that Mordecai be hanged on it; then go merrily with the king to the banquet." And the thing pleased Haman; so he had the gallows made."
How to Judge Advice
America's first "official" advice giver was a woman whose pen name was Dorothy Dix. Her first column appeared July 11, 1896, in the New Orleans Picayune. The column ran for 55 years. By the time of her death in 1951, her column was carried by nearly 300 papers. She was popularly known as the "Mother Confessor to Millions."
Miss Dix has been followed by a hoard of others. We have Miss Manners, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Dear Abby, her twin sister, Ann Landers, and many more. In fact, most people relish the opportunity to give advice either officially or unofficially. The challenge on our part is to know whether the advice is good or bad.
Like you and me, Haman also had his advice givers. His wife, Zeresh, and his friends in the city of Shushan were more than happy to play to Haman's pride and prejudices. But the advice they gave ultimately led to his destruction.
As Christians, our best advisor is the Word of God. God never sugarcoats His commandments to spare our feelings. We can always trust Him to tell us what is right, even if we don't want to hear it.
Wisdom dictates that we turn to others for counsel. The Bible says, "Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days" (Prov. 19:20). It also warns, "There are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless the Lord's counsel--that will stand." There are many places and many people from whom you can get advice, but make sure the advice you're being given is consistent with God's counsel.
Free advice is sometimes the most costly kind.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many." Hebrews 12:15 NLT
Thoughts for Today
When you feel angry with someone, do you express your feelings ... or do you hold the anger inside? People who bury their anger usually believe they are doing the right thing by appearing calm on the outside. The reality, however, is that unresolved anger can fester and develop into resentment, bitterness or depression.
Some people respond to anger by holding it in and then releasing it or letting it go without hurting themselves or others. When this happens, the results may be beneficial. But if you tend to hold your anger inside and become resentful, ask God to help you share your angry feelings with people as they occur. Not in a rage or with unkind words ... just an honest expression of your feelings. The Bible teaches that we shouldn't carry anger overnight. Get it settled before going to bed. Otherwise, it is likely that resentment will begin to grow.
Consider this
Perhaps you are already experiencing bitterness because of past unexpressed grievances. The answer? Acknowledge the hurt. Forgive or ask for forgiveness. Then let go of the anger and move on.
Holding on to bitterness can damage your relationship with God and with others, your peace of mind, and can even harm your health. Forgiving - and being forgiven - can change all that. Ask God - he will help you.
Prayer
Father, forgive me and help me deal with this resentment I have been carrying. Give me the strength and wisdom to acknowledge the hurt, to forgive and to let go. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. This not only ministers to church members but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Some of the content covered includes:
Beginning steps in managing anger.
Methods to help you control anger in your relationships.
Ten steps for preventing anger's control in your life.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Ministry of the Unnoticed
READ:
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This literally means, "Blessed are the paupers." Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person's strength of will or the beauty of his character- things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, "Make a decision for Jesus Christ," places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him- something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, "Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom." I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness- I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. "He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" ( John 7:38 ). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 22, 2008
The Foot-Washing God
READ: John 13:1-5
[Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet. -John 13:5
Questions about God's existence often troubled H. A. Hodges, a brilliant young professor of philosophy at Oxford University. One day as he strolled down the street, he passed by an art store. His attention was gripped by a simple picture in the window. It showed Jesus kneeling to wash His disciples' feet.
Hodges knew the story recorded in John 13-God incarnate washing human feet. But suddenly the sheer meaning of that scene gripped the heart of this young philosopher. God-God!-humbling Himself to do that lowliest of tasks! He thought, If God is like that, then that God shall be my God! Seeing that painting was one of the circumstances that caused Hodges to surrender his life to the true God-the foot-washing God.
We Christians sometimes take God's existence for granted. We believe what the Bible tells us about the eternal Spirit who had no beginning and whose existence will never end. But we may wonder sometimes about His character. If He allows disaster, how could He also be kind and loving?
As we read John 13 thoughtfully, we see that God is the foot-washing God. His unfathomable, sacrificial love for us should cause us to surrender to Him too. - Vernon C. Grounds
All to Jesus I surrender,
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit-
Truly know that Thou art mine. -Van de Venter
No life is more secure than a life surrendered to God.
Do Your Best by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Esther 6:2-3
"And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. Then the king said, 'What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?' And the king's servants who attended him said, 'Nothing has been done for him.'"
Do Your Best
Several years ago, a crew of men was working on the road bed of a railroad when they were interrupted by a slow-moving train. The train stopped and a window in the last car--which was custom-made and air-conditioned--was raised. A friendly voice called out, "Dave, is that you?" Dave Anderson, the crew chief, called back, "Sure is, Jim. It's good to see you." With that pleasant exchange, Dave was invited to join Jim Murphy, the president of the railroad, for a visit.
After the train pulled out, Dave's crew surrounded him and expressed astonishment that he knew Mr. Murphy as a personal friend. Dave then explained that many years earlier he and Jim had started to work for the railroad on the same day. One man half jokingly asked Dave why he was still working out in the hot sun and Jim Murphy was now president. Wistfully Dave explained, "Twenty-three years ago I went to work for $1.75 an hour and Jim Murphy went to work for the railroad."
In the same way, when Mordecai became a court official, he went to work for the king, not just to draw a salary. His goal was not financial gain but to do the best job he possibly could. It was only natural, then, that when he discovered a plot on the king's life, he immediately reported it. He was loyal to the king and was only doing his job well.
Is your commitment to the paycheck or to the job? Are you fulfilling your duties to the best of your ability, or are you simply concerned about what you receive in return? Take your cue from Mordecai. Ask God to show you how you can honor Him through your employment.
When you take care of your job, God will take care of the paycheck.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare." Proverbs 15:1 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Yesterday we looked at those of us who tend to hold our anger in, sometimes allowing bitterness and resentment to build. On the other hand, some of us have more of a tendency to vent our anger immediately. This response could be described as "blowing up" or being "hot under the collar."
The Bible teaches that open hostility, retaliation and any aggressive expression of anger are not acceptable behaviors. "But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips" (Colossians 3:8 NIV). Aggression that explodes in thoughtless anger can hurt others and ourselves.
Consider this
One step in learning to manage your anger is to describe your feelings. For example, "I am irritated. I am furious." Take time to think through and determine the best thing to say or do in response to the angry feelings. Pray about it. Think about what caused your anger. Learn to give a "gentle answer."
With God's help, carefully choose the proper words and actions to bring some closure and resolution to the issue. Develop a list of responses that work for the best for other people and for you. It is at this level that anger becomes your servant and can be productive.
Prayer
Father, teach me to respond to people with a gentle answer, rather than harsh words and actions. Teach me wisdom and patience and help me to respond in love and forgiveness. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. This not only ministers to church members but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Some of the content covered includes:
Beginning steps in managing anger.
Methods to help you control anger in your relationships.
Ten steps for preventing anger's control in your life.
Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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"I Indeed . . . But He"
READ:
I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire -Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, "I indeed . . . but He . . ."? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more- but He begins right there- He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin- it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. "He will baptize you . . . ." The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
"I indeed" was this in the past, "but He" came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 23, 2008
Pascal's Prayer
READ: Philippians 4:4-13
Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. -1 Corinthians 10:31
Blaise Pascal, the brilliant 17th-century intellectual, made significant contributions in the fields of science and mathematics. He established the groundwork for the development of mechanical calculators and modern hydraulic operations.
As a young man, Pascal had a profound encounter with Jesus Christ. This life-changing experience motivated him to refocus his study from science and math to theology.
Pascal wrote a remarkable prayer that can help each believer in facing the tasks of life. He prayed: "Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with Your power; and little things as though they were great, since I do them in Your name."
Pascal's supplication is profoundly scriptural. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13) and admonishes us that "whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). Pascal echoes these admonitions to depend upon God for His power and to view every act as important, since it will reflect on His glory.
The next time you face a huge task, remember that God is your strength. And when you encounter a seemingly insignificant one, determine to do it with excellence to the glory of God. - Dennis Fisher
If you have some work to do,
Start this very hour;
You supply the willingness,
God supplies the power. -Anon.
Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God. -William Carey
Look Before You Leap by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Esther 6:6
"So Haman came in, and the king asked him, 'What shall be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?' Now Haman thought in his heart, 'Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?'"
Look Before You LeapDivers in Acapulco, Mexico, daily leap from the 87.5-foot-high La Quebrada cliff to the amazement of hundreds of gazing bystanders. In an extraordinary display of bravery, these daredevils risk death as they plunge into a rocky cove below only 12-feet deep. Their secret to success is that they carefully time their leap to coincide with incoming waves. When the waves are at their peak, they provide sufficient water to cushion the dive.
Haman could have profited from such an example before leaping to a conclusion that led to his humiliation. Eagerness to advance his own cause drove him to assume that it was he whom the king wanted to honor. Instead of receiving the privileges he proposed, however, he found himself honoring the man he hated the most, Mordecai.
The world is a dangerous place, especially for those prone to leap before they look. Scams abound even in religious circles. Too often miracle manipulators, financial swindlers and false prophets have operated under the banner of Christianity. Cultists prey on those who are rash or careless. No wonder Jesus warned his disciples, "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matt. 10:16).
In every area of your life--physical, spiritual, financial, emotional--look carefully before you take a plunge. Compare the claims made by people or groups with what the Bible says. Never assume because they carry the name "Church" or "Christian" that they faithfully adhere to the teachings of God's Word. Look before your leap. Be gentle, but by all means be wise!
The most dangerous leap is the leap to conclusions.
The Bow and Arrow
Have you ever been described as an impatient person? It is easy to feel impatient. Maybe traffic isn't moving fast enough and you are going to be late for your meeting. Or you can't get through the checkout lane quickly enough to pick up your children from the babysitter. These daily irritations can zap your strength and cause you to lose sight of what really matters.
The source of true patience is the Spirit of God. His patience toward us allows us the opportunity to grow and to become more like Him. He does not give up on us. When we are stubborn and fail to learn what God wants to teach us, He continues to demonstrate His patience.
Many times, we grow impatient with a colleague, friend, child, or spouse and forget that God is patient with us and requires us to do the same with others. One of the causes of impatience is spiritual shortsightedness. Our view is limited. Therefore, many times we only see what has a direct impact on our lives. We become impatient because we can't see life from God's perspective!
God has a greater plan. While He does not always show us the details, we can know the big picture-we are in His loving hands.
Oswald Chambers writes:
Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of the archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says, 'I cannot stand anymore.' God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God's hands.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12).
The Holy Spirit possesses a dynamite-like power that works within a believer to blast out anything that is unlike God. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Dynamite Power." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Prayer- Battle in "The Secret Place"
READ:
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly -Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, "Dream about your Father who is in the secret place," but He said, ". . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . ." Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, "This needs to be done, and I have to do that today." Jesus says to "shut your door." Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from "the secret place"- He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in "the secret place," it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into "the secret place," and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and "pray to your Father who is in the secret place," every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 24, 2008
God's Restraint
READ: Psalm 76
Surely the wrath of man shall praise You; with the remainder of wrath You shall gird Yourself. -Psalm 76:10
Augustine said that God "judged it better to bring good out of evil, than not to permit any evil to exist." Thus God takes the worst evil that men and women can do to us and turns it into good. Even the wrath of ungodly men brings praise to Him (Ps. 76:10).
God has not promised that your life will be easy-indeed it may not be. But He has promised to sustain you in your struggle and uphold you with His mighty arm. If you trust Him, He will empower you to make your way bravely through extraordinary difficulty with faith, hope, and love. The trials God permits in your life will lead to His praise and glory, if only you will abide in Him.
Furthermore, there will be a restraint and a respite. The Hebrew text is somewhat obscure in Psalm 76:10. Literally it reads, "Surely the wrath of man will praise You; the remnant of wrath [God] will bind." God will use men's wrath to bring glory and praise to Himself, but when that purpose is fulfilled He will then restrain it.
God will not allow you to be pressed beyond endurance. That is His sure promise. When the lesson has been learned, when the revelation of God's glory is complete and your soul has been tried and proven-then God will raise His hand and save you. He will say, "No more." - David H. Roper
When He leads through some valley of trouble,
His omnipotent hand we trace;
For the trials and sorrows He sends us
Are part of His lessons in grace. -Anon.
In every desert of trial, God has an oasis of comfort.
Believing is Not Seeing by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning behold, they were all dead corpses.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Perhaps no more graphic illustration of this truth can be found in the Scriptures than the events recorded in Isaiah 36 and 37. The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, had opened a campaign against Judah by attacking the fortresses in her southland. He was engaged in the siege of Lachish, a city southwest of Jerusalem, when he decided to send a contingent of soldiers against Jerusalem under Rabshakeh, his chief cupbearer. Apparently the Assyrians felt that King Hezekiah would surrender Jerusalem without a fight if Rabshakeh could dishearten the Jewish warriors.
The Assyrian cupbearer made light of Judah's possibilities of victory. Would she rely on the armies of the Pharaoh of Egypt, armies now so weakened that they are likened to leaning on a broken staff? Would she rely on the God of Israel in the face of the might of Assyria? What would Hezekiah and his Israelites do? The servants of King Hezekiah came to seek advice from Isaiah, the man of God. Isaiah assured Hezekiah that God took the blasphemies of Rabshakeh as uttered against Him personally and would destroy the armies of Sennacherib because of their blasphemy. In destroying the armies of the Assyrians the whole world would know "that Thou art the LORD, even Thou only" (Isaiah 37:20). Isaiah predicted that the king of Assyria would never enter God's holy city nor shoot an arrow at it. God would somehow miraculously deliver His city because of the blasphemy of the Assyrians against Him. Hezekiah and the Jews must live lives of faith, for they would not be told how this deliverance would come about; they must trust God.
That very night the predicted catastrophe for the Assyrian armies occurred. "Then the angel of the LORD went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses" (Isaiah 37:36). God had kept His word, even though the Jews could not see through the fog of doubt. Early in the morning they arose to find 185,000 Assyrian corpses. They never had opportunity to move against God's holy city because God always performs what He promises.
On July 4, 1952, Florence Chadwick attempted to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast. It was not the distance that was the great challenge to her but the bone-chilling waters of the Pacific. To make matters worse, a dense fog enshrouded the entire area, making it impossible to see the land. After she had swum for 15 hours and was within half a mile of her goal, Florence Chadwick gave up. Later she told a newspaper reporter, "If I could have seen land, I might have made it."
Not long thereafter she again attempted this same feat. Once again the fog shrouded the coastline and she could not see the shore, but this time she successfully completed her swim because she kept reminding herself that the land was out there, somewhere. With that confidence she bravely swam on and achieved her goal. In fact, she broke the men's record by more than two hours.
Sometimes we do not achieve our goals in life because we cannot clearly see God's hand moving in our behalf. Although we desire with all our heart to reach our goal, the fog of doubt sets in and makes it impossible for us to see clearly. Still, if believing in God we continue to press toward the mark, early in the morning we will see our goal achieved and the battlefield littered with the corpses of the enemy. We must trust God in the dark; we must remember that faith is the evidence of things not seen.
MORNING HYMN
O for a faith that will not shrink
Tho' pressed by many a foe,
That will not tremble on the brink
Of any earthly woe.
Take Every Thought Captive
by Max Lucado
Today's thoughts are tomorrow's actions.
Today's jealousy is tomorrow's temper tantrum.
Today's bigotry is tomorrow's hate crime.
Today's anger is tomorrow's abuse.
Today's lust is tomorrow's adultery.
Today's greed is tomorrow's embezzlement.
Today's guilt is tomorrow's fear.
Could that be why Paul writes, "Love keeps no record of wrongs" (1 Cor. 13:5 NIV)?
Some folks don't know we have an option.
Paul says we do: "We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).
Do you hear some battlefield jargon in that passage-"capture every thought," "make it give up" and "obey Christ"? You get the impression that we are the soldiers and the thoughts are the enemies.
It was for Jesus. Remember the thoughts that came his way courtesy of the mouth of Peter? Jesus had just prophesied his death, burial, and resurrection, but Peter couldn't bear the thought of it. "Peter took Jesus aside and told him not to talk like that Jesus said to Peter, 'Go away from me, Satan! You are not helping me! You don't care about the things of God, but only about the things people think are important'" (Matt. 16:22-23).
See the decisiveness of Jesus?
What if you did that? What if you took every thought captive? What if you took the counsel of Solomon: "Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life" (Prov. 4:23).
You are not a victim of your thoughts. You have a vote. You have a voice. You can exercise thought prevention. You can also exercise thought permission.
Change the thoughts, and you change the person. If today's thoughts are tomorrow's actions, what happens when we fill our minds with thoughts of God's love? Will standing beneath the downpour of his grace change the way we feel about others?
Paul says absolutely! It's not enough to keep the bad stuff out. We've got to let the good stuff in. It's not enough to keep no list of wrongs. We have to cultivate a list of blessings. The same verb Paul uses for keeps in the phrase "keeps no list of wrongs" is used for think in Philippians 4:8: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (RSV). Thinking conveys the idea of pondering-studying and focusing, allowing what is viewed to have an impact on us.
Rather than store up the sour, store up the sweet.
From
A Love Worth Giving
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
NOW IN PAPERBACK
With a Reader's Guide focusing on:
1. Love Remembered: gleans crucial quotes from the chapter and invites you to reexamine them by answering some probing questions.
2. Love Deepened: uses parallel Scriptures to reinforce and clarify the thrust of the chapter.
3. Love Given: application questions to help you integrate the main focus of each chapter into your life of faith.
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? -Matthew 7:9
The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (seeMatthew 5:45 ). Never say that it is not God's will to give you what you ask. Don't faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a "good child" in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, "I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings"? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a "good child."
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God's child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12 ).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I "walk in the light" ( 1 John 1:7 ). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong- a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, "Everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Matthew 7:8
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 25, 2008
Foundation Of The Heart
READ: Psalm 131
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. -Psalm 131:2
The great cathedrals of Europe are not only breathtaking but intriguing in their architecture. Because their massive ceilings were too heavy for the walls to support, flying buttresses, or external extensions, were built to support the expansive roofs.
Although we are "the temple of the living God" (2 Cor. 6:16), I wonder if we are not more like these cathedrals, with buttresses of external influences holding us up while we remain weak at the core. Pastors, friends, rules, books, and small groups are helpful to support and bolster our faith. But if we depend too heavily on them, they can actually distract us from developing a healthy heart for God.
Our heart is the place where God meets and relates to us personally. It's where He allows us to respond to His correction. Spending time in His Word and in prayer opens the door for Him to interact with us at the deepest levels of our need and gives Him opportunities to comfort and convict. As we open our hearts to Him, He fans the flame of an intimate, life-changing relationship.
Authentic Christianity is the inside-out expression of this dynamic relationship with Jesus that provides the strength to live for His glory-regardless of what is happening on the outside! - Joe Stowell
Speak, O blessed Master,
In this quiet hour;
Let me see Thy face, Lord,
Feel Thy touch of power. -Grimes
When you open your heart to the Savior, He opens your mind to His Word.
Joy in the Morning by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
For His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
In Psalm 30, as in so many other psalms, David promises to praise the Lord. He had experienced a great deliverance and was thankful. He cried unto heaven and the Lord heard him, bringing his soul back from the grave. Thus he exclaims that he will "Sing unto the Lord . . .for His anger endureth but a moment." This thought is reinforced by the delightful expression, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5).
How often we have experienced the truth of this verse! Heavy trials weigh us down as we pillow our heads at night. Our minds seem unable to bear the pressure. Restlessly we toss and turn, but our body refuses to rest. We are miserable and feel helpless. Finally sleep comes, but only after hours of restlessness.
The Christian life is filled with the interchanges of sickness and health, weakness and strength, disgrace and honor, want and wealth. Sometimes we enjoy the comfort of being one of God's own; other times we bear the cross of that same privilege. On occasion the south winds of God's mercy blow over our lives; on other occasions blow the north winds of adversity. Nonetheless, when the nipping north winds of calamity chill our nights and cause us to be restless, we may rest in the promise of God that "weeping may endure [only] for a night." God always places a time limit on the suffering and restlessness of His children.
After such a night of struggle, we frequently awake with a vague sense of what transpired the night before. As we gather our thoughts, we wonder why it was so difficult for us to fall asleep. Why were we so helpless and despairing? Things do not look as impossible as they once did. What is it that makes the difference? It is the joy that comes in the morning when we cast our care upon the Lord, knowing that He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7; cf. Job 33:26; Isaiah 26:20; 54:7).
Not only are the trials of the night temporary; they are gifts from God as well. We cannot deny that Christians are often called to endure soul-shaking experiences. In the Christian life there is weeping, and sometimes plenty of it. The nights of adversity are long and frequent. But God never allows them to be endless or without cause.
The cupola of St. Paul's Cathedral in London was painted by Sir James Thornhill. It was necessary for Sir James to complete his work while standing on a swinging scaffold high above the pavement. One day when he had finished a particularly difficult portion with painstaking effort, he stopped to inspect his artistry. As a good artist does, slowly he began moving backwards in order to gain a more appropriate view of his work. A helper working with him suddenly recognized that if Sir James should take one step farther backward, he would be killed in a fatal fall. The man knew that if he startled the man with a shout, it might topple him from the scaffold. As quickly as possible, he grabbed a brush and made a sweeping stroke across the exquisite work that Sir James was admiring. Understandably disturbed, the artist rushed forward with a cry of dismay. When his companion explained why he had taken this drastic measure, Sir James Thornhill burst into tears of gratitude.
We may be sure that no physician ever weighed out medicine to his patients with half as much care and exactness as God weighs out the trials of a sleepless night to us. Perhaps the dawning light of relief seems far away to you, but remember, morning will come, and with it God's promised joy. You have God's Word on it.
MORNING HYMN
Does Jesus care when my heart is pained
Too deeply for mirth and song,
As the burdens press, and the cares distress,
And the day grows weary and long?
O yes, He cares; I know He cares,
His heart is touched with my grief;
When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Saviour cares.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 AMP
Thoughts for Today
When a family learns that a loved one is trapped in a life-controlling problem, letting go can be difficult. And yet letting go is one of the most important things we can do.
When a person is struggling with a life-controlling problem, everyone around that individual is affected. Family members often grieve the emotional loss of their loved one and usually go through emotional stages much like those of a dying person learning to accept his death. Researchers have found these five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Consider this
If someone you care about is struggling with a life-controlling problem, being aware of these five stages can help you understand what you've been feeling and see that your feelings are normal.
Often the first stage is denial. In this stage we protect ourselves from the shock of learning about our loved one's condition by refusing to accept it. We're trying to protect ourselves from the reality. "This can't be" is our natural first reaction.
When we are in this stage, we need to overcome the denial that is distorting our thinking so that we can look clearly at what is really happening.
We need to ask God to help us let go of the fear and shock. We can't ever reach the point of helping our loved one if we refuse to face the truth. We need to let go and let God.
Prayer
Lord, I really don't want to admit that my loved one has this life-controlling problem, but deep down I know it's true. I also know I can't deal with this on my own. Teach me not to rely on my own understanding, but to lean on you for guidance and strength. Help me take this first big step of admitting the truth.
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons Group: Because We Need Each Other by Dr. Jimmy Lee Ray is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It emphasizes the need we all have for each other and helps people focus on Christ rather than on the problem. This group is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups and can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then pointing them to Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Sacrifice and Friendship
READ:
I have called you friends . . . -John 15:15
We will never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we surrender in every detail of our lives. Yet self-surrender is the most difficult thing for us to do. We make it conditional by saying, "I'll surrender if . . . !" Or we approach it by saying, "I suppose I have to devote my life to God." We will never find the joy of self-sacrifice in either of these ways.
But as soon as we do totally surrender, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a taste of His joy. The ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is to lay down our lives for our Friend (see John 15:13-14 ). When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, our greatest desire is to lay down our lives for Jesus. Yet the thought of self-sacrifice never even crosses our minds, because sacrifice is the Holy Spirit's ultimate expression of love.
Our Lord is our example of a life of self-sacrifice, and He perfectly exemplified Psalm 40:8, "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . . ." He endured tremendous personal sacrifice, yet with overflowing joy. Have I ever yielded myself in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If He is not the One to whom I am looking for direction and guidance, then there is no benefit in my sacrifice. But when my sacrifice is made with my eyes focused on Him, slowly but surely His molding influence becomes evident in my life (see Hebrews 12:1-2 ).
Beware of letting your natural desires hinder your walk in love before God. One of the cruelest ways to kill natural love is through the rejection that results from having built the love on natural desires. But the one true desire of a saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not something sentimental or emotional- for a saint to love as God loves is the most practical thing imaginable.
"I have called you friends. . . ." Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created in us, which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God. It is a life that is completely humble, pure, and devoted to God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 26, 2008
The King's Colors
READ: John 13:31-35
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. -John 13:35
In Thailand, the people greatly love and admire King Bhumibol (Rama IX), who has led them for over 60 years. To display their respect for the king, the Thai people wear bright yellow shirts every Monday, because yellow is the official color of the king.
As we seek to live for our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, we should also show our colors of allegiance and appreciation for all He has done for us. But how? What are the "colors" that declare to the world that we serve the King of kings and Lord of lords?
The night before His crucifixion, King Jesus told us what our "colors" should be when He said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). His disciple John echoed this when he wrote, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:11).
When we display Christ's love for our fellow believers, it is more than just kindness or care. It is one of the most tangible ways we can show our love and devotion for the Savior.
As we interact with fellow Christ-followers, let's be sure to show our colors. That will honor our King before a watching world. - Bill Crowder
Teach me to love as Thou dost love,
And let the whole world know
That Jesus Christ lives in my heart,
His glorious light to show. -Brandt
Our love for God shows in our love for others.
Web of Conspiracy by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it shall be, that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, thou shalt rise early, and set upon the city: and, behold, when he and the people that is with him come out against thee, then mayest thou do to them as thou shalt find occasion.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." Conspirators against those who are righteous are ultimately destroyed by their conspiracy. How this is evident in the tragic days following the triumph of Gideon and his 300 men!
Judges 8:33-35 records the failure of the Israelites to live after the defeat of the Midianites as they had during the battle. As a result of Israel's forgetting the God who delivered them, internal strife became more damaging than their external enemies. The royalty which Gideon had refused was coveted by Abimelech, his son by a handmaiden of Shechem. Attempting to trade on his father's reputation, Abimelech harangued the men of Shechem, claiming that it was far better to be ruled by one man, a Shechemite, than by all 70 of Gideon's sons. With money stolen from the sacred treasury of Baal-berith, Abimelech hired "vain and light persons," a band of desperadoes, to slay Gideon's other sons. Miraculously, however, one son, Jotham, escaped the conspiracy.
Abimelech reigned over a limited area in Israel for three years. But his reign did not go unchallenged by Jotham, who fled to Mount Gerizim, where he pronounced a curse on Abimelech and the men of Shechem. This curse came in the form of a parable about the tree that wished one of their number to rule over them. They asked the olive tree, fig tree, and vine in succession, only to be rebuffed each time. Then they turned to the worthless thorny bramble, which accepted their offer to rule over them.
The meaning of this parable was obvious to all. The trees, which are themselves producers, are more interested in fruit than in control; but the thorn, which has nothing to give, seeks to be the leader sheerly for personal gain. Abimelech was a thorn. Jotham cried, "Let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech" (Judges 9:20).
Jotham's curse was not long in being fulfilled. After three years God sent an "evil spirit" between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. The Shechemites revolted and plotted against his life. But Zebul, the governor of the city and an Abimelech loyalist, informed Abimelech of the plot to dethrone him; and a counter plan was hatched. Zebul counseled Abimelech and his men to lie in wait for the Shechemites during the night in the fields before the city. "And it shall be, that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, thou shalt rise early and set upon the city"(Judges 9:33). Abimelech massacred the inhabitants of Shechem.
Having treacherously murdered his pseudo-subjects, Abimelech turned his attention to the neighboring city of Thebez. Some of the Shechemites, the men and women of Thebez, fled to a strong tower for safety. Again Abimelech prepared to burn them out, but a woman cast a piece of millstone out of the tower. In ironic reciprocation, the stone found its target the head of Abimelech and broke his skull. Jotham's prophecy was fulfilled.
Abimelech, the would-be-king conspirator, and the Shechemites, his would-be subjects, were caught in the middle of their web of conspiracy. Having destroyed the righteous, they were themselves destroyed by each other. Deception always brings destruction. How much better we are passively to accept the will of God as good, acceptable, and perfect (Romans 12:2) than to conspire self-promotion without the blessing of God.
MORNING HYMN
The God of Abraham praise,
Who reigns enthroned above,
Ancient of everlasting days
And God of love.
Jehovah, great I AM,
By earth and Heav'n confessed,
I bow and bless the sacred
Name forever blest.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
And "don't sin by letting anger control you." Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. Ephesians 4:26 NLT
Thoughts for Today
When confronted with the fact that a loved one has a life-controlling problem, we usually respond in denial. As we work through the denial stage and begin to accept the facts of what is happening, we become angry. We might direct our anger at God, at the circumstances, or at other people who, in our opinion, should have helped. We might look at our dependent family and even at ourselves. This is a time of great emotional pain.
In our anger, we need to see how we have allowed ourselves to be controlled and preoccupied by our loved one. This anger can become a life-controlling problem of its own in our lives.
Consider this
If you find yourself in this angry stage, you need to share your feelings with an understanding listener. Be aware of the harm that this anger can do to other relationships, especially to a marriage.
Just keep in mind that these angry feelings are normal, but it's important to work through your feelings and let go of the anger before it consumes you.
We need to let go and let God.
Prayer
Father, help me to work through this anger and not allow it to control me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons Group: Because We Need Each Other by Dr. Jimmy Lee Ray is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It emphasizes the need we all have for each other and helps people focus on Christ rather than on the problem. This group is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups and can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then pointing them to Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you . . . -John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always "spirit, and they are life" ( John 6:63 ). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? ". . . My peace I give to you. . ."- a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you "looking unto Jesus" ( Hebrews 12:2 ) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." ( John 14:27 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 27, 2008
An Audience Of One
READ: Matthew 6:1-6
[Jesus] made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant. -Philippians 2:7
When I worked as a young journalist for Campus Life magazine, my assistant kept a plaque on her desk with this two-line poem: Only one life, 'twill soon be past / Only what's done for Christ will last.
Reading that plaque brought me up short every time. Although I believed its truth, how could I put it into practice? How should my faith in the invisible world affect my day-to-day life in the visible world?
According to Jesus, it's what God thinks of us that matters, not what others think. Jesus instructed us to pray in a closed room, where no one could see us, rather than in a public place where we might get credit for being spiritual (Matt. 6:6). In other words, live for God and not others.
Do we clamor for attention and achievement? Jesus invites us to let go of that competitive struggle, to trust that God's opinion of us is the only one that ultimately counts.
How would our lives differ if we truly played to an audience of One? Certainly our sense of ego and rivalry would fade, because we would no longer need to worry about proving ourselves to others. We could concentrate instead on pleasing God by living in a way that would attract people to Jesus. - Philip Yancey
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee! -Herbert
Christ is seen most clearly when we remain in the background.
Failure and Success by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Joshua rose up early in the morning and numbered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people of Ai.
It has been aptly said that failure is the back door to success. Nowhere is this adage more graphically illustrated in Scripture than in the capture of Ai. With a task force of 3,000 men Israel had failed miserably in her attempted conquest of Ai because of one man's sin. Achan kept God's people from victory, but once his sin had been dealt with, victory would most assuredly come again to Israel.
The defeat at Ai could have dealt a devastating blow to Joshua's leadership. Joshua feared the Canaanites would hear of Israel's cowardice and their name would be cut off from the earth. His concern really was what such a defeat would mean to the great name of Jehovah God. But his fears were alleviated when Jehovah promised Joshua victory in the second battle of Ai.
The plan of attack for this battle, unlike that of Jericho, was far more likely to be included in military manuals. God told Joshua to put an ambush of 30,000 men between Ai and Bethel to the west. To this was later added another ambush of 5,000 men in the same direction. Meanwhile "Joshua rose up early in the morning, and numbered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people of Ai" (Joshua 8:10). When the king of Ai saw what was happening, he too "hasted and rose up early" in the morning (Joshua 8:14). Mustering his Aiite troops, he marched out to meet the main body of the Israelite forces. Because he knew that the enemy was fully aware that Israel had retreated once in defeat, Joshua feigned a retreat, drawing his troops back to the northeast. The Aiite troops followed.
While this was happening, the Israelites that were waiting in ambush entered the now empty city of Ai and burned it to the ground. When the king and his men turned to see their city smoldering, they realized their defeat was imminent. They were surrounded by Israelite soldiers. The Israelites in the ambush then came out of Ai and marched on the rear flank of the Aiite army. Joshua reversed his movement and caught the king and his men in a pincer movement. The people of Ai were defeated; Joshua's victory was now complete.
Joshua had taken the stumbling stone of defeat and turned it into the stepping-stone of success. In doing so he learned the valuable lesson that our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. Others give striking testimony to this fact as well.
In 1832 a young American was a candidate for the legislature. He lost. In 1834 he was again a candidate and this time he won. In 1847 he went to the United States Congress but served only one term. He was not even renominated by his party. He campaigned for Zachary Taylor for president, hoping to be appointed commissioner of the General Land Office. He wasn't. He returned to private law practice. In 1854 he again ran for the legislature and won but soon resigned because he hoped the new anti-Nebraska party would support him for the senate. They didn't. In 1856 he was nominated for the office of vice-president of the United States and lost. In 1858 he ran again for the United States Senate and lost again. In 1860 he was simply nominated as a favorite son from Illinois for the presidency, and later that year he, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president of the United States. Like Lincoln, we must never allow yesterday's mistakes to bankrupt tomorrow's efforts.
Just as there is no failure more disastrous than success that leaves God out of the picture, likewise there is no success greater than the rediscovery of the power of God in our lives. We must never be ashamed to confess that we have failed, for this is but one way of saying we are wiser today than we were yesterday.
MORNING HYMN
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious Thy great name we praise.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV
Thoughts for Today
It is common for people concerned about someone with a life-controlling problem to try to strike bargains with themselves, with others and with God. We might promise ourselves that we will be better. We will say the right thing next time. We will make things right.
We might even set up agreements with our loved ones to reward them for refraining from their problem behavior.
Or we might bargain with God and promise to give to the church or do some good deeds if only he will fix our loved ones' problems.
Consider this
If you are in this bargaining stage, you need to understand that help for a friend or loved one doesn't depend on your performance. None of us is good enough to merit God's help. No one can be transformed except through Jesus. We need to accept our powerlessness to change another person.
Prayer
Father, all my efforts have failed. No matter what I do, I realize now that I can't fix my loved one's problems. But I thank you that you can. Your grace is enough. Help me to let go and trust you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons Group: Because We Need Each Other by Dr. Jimmy Lee Ray is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It emphasizes the need we all have for each other and helps people focus on Christ rather than on the problem. This group is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups and can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then pointing them to Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Living Your Theology
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . . . -John 12:35
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" ( Matthew 6:23 ). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.
The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.
Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, ". . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" ( Matthew 5:20 ). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 28, 2008
Comfort Food
READ: Romans 15:1-7
Whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. -Romans 15:4
I love the phrase "comfort food." It speaks of the things that are so good, so familiar, so right, that they can always bring a smile to your face. For me, comfort food usually includes some form of beef and potatoes. Hamburgers and French fries. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy. Also, chocolate in almost any form imaginable. These are the foods that speak to me and say that all is well with the world. (I'm not saying they're the most healthy!)
Unfortunately, all is not well with the world, and no amount of hamburgers and French fries can make it right. Real comfort is not the byproduct of specific foods any more than it is the result of alcohol or drugs or money or pleasure or power. It is a much deeper need that requires a much deeper solution.
Paul told the church at Rome that the search for comfort can begin in the pages of the Bible. He wrote, "Whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).
God has given us His Word to draw us to Himself. Through a relationship with Him, He provides the comfort we need to live in a broken world. - Bill Crowder
Jesus is all this poor world needs today;
Blindly they strive, for sin darkens their way.
O to draw back the grim curtains of night-
One glimpse of Jesus and all will be bright! -Loes
© Renewal 1943 H. D. Loes. Assigned to Hope Publishing
God's Word is a life preserver that keeps the soul from sinking in a sea of trouble.
The Deceitful Heart by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.
The prophet Jeremiah observed that, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). The Bible gives more than ample evidence to support Jeremiah's observation. In fact, so does this morning's newspaper.
A prime example of how innately wicked the human heart is can be seen in the unfaithfulness of Israel at Mount Sinai. When the people of God encamped at the foot of the mountain, Moses ascended the slopes of Sinai and received the Law. After the people acknowledged the covenant of God and answered with one voice, "All the words which the LORD hath said will we do" (Exodus 24:3), Moses again ascended the mount of God. This time he received God's instruction in the ordinances of divine worship.
Moses' sojourn on the mountain was much longer than anyone expected. After nearly six weeks passed without his return, the people grew impatient and fearful. Had they lost their leader? How could Moses survive on the mountain without food? And what about their God? He was on the mountain too, in the pillar of a cloud that led them from Egypt. Had He forsaken them?
Israel had come face to face with a real test of faith, a test they failed miserably. As long as Moses was with the Israelites, he could encourage them to "live by faith and not by sight." But now he was gone and Israel's faith rapidly evaporated. The desperate wickedness of their hearts came to the fore. The Israelites frantically begged Aaron to make gods for them, gods that would go before them as the Everlasting God had done in the cloud. Immediately Aaron instructed the people to take off their golden earrings, which were then melted down and fashioned into an idolatrous golden calf. Aaron proclaimed that on the next day they would have a feast to the Lord.
The Israelites were like a child with a new toy, barely sleeping that night because of excitement. "And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings" (Exodus 32:6). The people then sat down to eat and drink.
But the Bible says that after that they "rose up to play." This may sound innocent enough, but the "play" in which the people of God engaged was hardly the harmless kind. They fell into the pattern of sensuality that accompanies pagan worship. Idol worship nearly always ended in an orgy so disgusting that it cannot be described. So boisterous was the Israelite orgy that when Moses and Joshua returned from the mount, Joshua assumed that the delirious shouts of the people were noises of war. But the people of God were caught up in a wild frenzy that was both licentious and idolatrous. It was the sight of this frenzy that angered Moses and caused him to cast the tables of stone to the ground, breaking them.
Exodus 32:25 enhances our understanding of the depths to which the Israelites had fallen. Not only were the people worshipping an idol, engaged in a wild orgy, and worked into a frenzy by licentious dancing, they were naked as well. Their nakedness was not only offensive to Moses but it was an affront to God as well.
There is scarcely a depth to which Satan cannot drag desperately wicked human hearts, even the hearts of God's chosen people. New Testament believers must never be deceived into thinking that we have sufficient strength in ourselves to keep us from similar depths of sin. Only the Spirit of God can prevent our wicked hearts from dragging us into sin. Today let us pray as the Lord Jesus taught us, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:13).
MORNING HYMN
Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
Try me, O Saviour, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me:
Cleanse me from ev'ry sin, and set me free.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Grief fills the life of a person who feels they have lost a family member to a life-controlling problem. That loss often brings on depression, a state that can be serious. This can be a time of hopelessness and deep emotional pain.
People going through depression need hope. They also need help in understanding their feelings. Sharing painful emotions can help work through this depression stage. The Bible tells us that God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others who are hurting.
Consider this
If you are going through this kind of struggle, consider talking to a trusted friend. Be honest about your feelings. Allow God to comfort you. Find hope in his love and in his promises.
Let go and let God.
Prayer
Lord, I've been so frustrated and depressed. I know I've been focusing on the problem and not on you and the hope and comfort you offer. Help me to refocus on you and receive the comfort that only you can give. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons Group: Because We Need Each Other by Dr. Jimmy Lee Ray is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It emphasizes the need we all have for each other and helps people focus on Christ rather than on the problem. This group is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups and can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then pointing them to Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Purpose of Prayer
READ:
. . . one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray . . .' -Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person's life will suffer if he doesn't pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Ask, and you will receive . . ." ( John 16:24 ). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." ( Matthew 18:3 ). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits' end. When a person is at his wits' end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems- the very things that have brought you to your wits' end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
To say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 29, 2008
Don't Rust Out
READ: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. -1 Timothy 6:11
On June 15, 1957, a brand-new car was buried in a concrete vault under the courthouse lawn in Tulsa. In June 2007, the car was unearthed as the city celebrated Oklahoma's 100th year of statehood. Writing in the Tulsa World, Randy Krehbiel said: "Now we know what 50 years in a hole does to a Plymouth Belvedere." Water seeping into the vault had turned the once shiny car into a rusted monument to the past. A hot-rod expert hired to start the engine pronounced it "hopeless."
Spiritual inactivity corrodes the soul like moisture acting on metal. Paul urged Timothy, his young protégé, to "pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness" (1 Tim. 6:11). This command had no expiration date attached to it. The spiritual disciplines require continued attention throughout our lives. If rest becomes our goal, then rust is right behind.
Oswald Chambers said: "The intellect works with the greatest intensity when it works continuously; the more you do, the more you can do. We must work hard to keep in trim for God. Clean off the rust and keep bright by use."
Our capabilities may vary with age, but pursuing the righteous life to which God has called us should never end. Don't rust out! - David C. McCasland
For Further Study
For practical advice on how to keep spiritually active as we age, you may wish to read Finishing Well on the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/q0713
Spiritual inactivity corrodes the soul.
Rewardable Service by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
Jesus' favorite method of teaching was by parable. A parable is an account of something that may or may not have actually happened but nonetheless is designed to teach a truth. One of our Lord's most difficult parables is the parable of the kingdom that is likened to a householder.
In summary, the parable is this: Early in the morning one day a householder went out to hire laborers for a vineyard (Matthew 20:1). He agreed to pay the laborers a penny for the day, which were evidently the regular wages for the ordinary laborer. About the third hour the man returned to town and hired others to work in his vineyard, promising to pay them what was fair. At the sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours he returned to find others standing idle and likewise hired them with the same promise of payment.
At the end of the day the householder called his laborers together and had the steward of the house pay them, beginning with the last hired. Each was paid the same, but when those who were hired early in the morning received just a penny, they murmured that it was unfair to pay them a penny when those who had worked only an hour were also paid a penny. The householder replied that he had been just with the day-long workers, as he had been with the hour-long workers, and that whatever funds he had were his; he could do with them as he chose.
What would the Lord have us learn about Him from this parable? There are three things.
First, the Lord Jesus seeks laborers for His vineyard. There is much work to be done if we are going to win the world for Christ and train those who have been won to reproduce themselves and bear fruit in abundance. We are not saved to sit, soak, and sour; we are saved to serve the Lord. The most frustrated person in the world, I believe, is not the unsaved person; he has little understanding of what really awaits him. The most frustrated person in the world is the one who is saved and does not know why God has left him on the earth. Ephesians 2:10 claims, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." The Lord saved us to be laborers in His field.
Secondly, the Lord Jesus hires laborers at various hours and various stages in life. The Church did not begin fully equipped. Throughout history others have been added to the New Testament Church, as we have been added during these last decades. Those who were apostles in the New Testament Church will not receive a greater wage for their labors simply because they entered early into Christ's vineyard. God is interested in rewardable labor, not the hour in which we became laborers. If you have come to know the Lord as Saviour later in life and have not had the opportunities to serve Him as those who have been saved many years, do not despair. God is absolutely just in meting out rewards.
Thirdly, the Lord Jesus rewards generously as well as justly. This final lesson that this parable teaches us is perhaps the greatest of all. Each of these laborers was rewarded in an unexpected manner. Each one received a penny, a day's wage; and no one could complain that he was paid less than fair wages. Beyond acting justly to those who had been hired first, the householder acted generously to the others. When people see generosity to others and not to themselves, they are hurt and accuse the generous person of being unfair. But this is not the case. Having rewarded justly, the Lord Jesus was then free to reward generously.
A kind storekeeper once said to a little girl who was eagerly eyeing a jar of candy, "Take some; take a whole handful!" The little girl hesitated for a moment and then replied, "Will you please give it to me? Your hand is bigger than mine!" When we begin to compare our lives with others and compute our anticipated rewards, we will be dissatisfied. We must let the hand of God reward us as He deems just and fair. Remember, His hand is always bigger than ours. Let us live for Him today; let Him reward us tomorrow
MORNING HYMN
Praise the Saviour, ye who know Him!
Who can tell how much we owe Him?
Gladly let us render to Him
All we are and have.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. Psalm 62:5-6 NLT
Thoughts for Today
After passing through denial, then anger, bargaining and depression, many people concerned about a loved one with a life-controlling problem reach the point of acceptance.
Acceptance is a welcome place of relief. Now we can finally turn our loved one over to God. To his love and discipline, to his mercy and grace. To his healing power.
Consider this
Turning our struggling loved one over to God does not mean that we no longer care what happens to him, but that we have accepted the reality of the situation and the fact that we can't fix the problem.
This is where we emotionally detach ourselves from our loved ones, even as we continue to love them and trust God's guidance in redesigning our role in their life.
Here we are able to acknowledge that they are themselves responsible for their own behavior. We accept our powerlessness to change them.
We are finally ready to
Let go and let God.
Prayer
Lord, help me come to this point of acceptance. I know I can't fix my loved one's problems. I know he has to take responsibility for his own choices. Help me to let go. Help me to rest in you, knowing that you love this one even more than I and that you alone are able to help him. In Jesus' name
These thoughts adapted from
Concerned Persons Group: Because We Need Each Other by Dr. Jimmy Lee Ray is designed for the many people who have a current or past relationship with a person who has a life-controlling problem. It emphasizes the need we all have for each other and helps people focus on Christ rather than on the problem. This group is suggested for home groups, support groups, recovery groups or cell groups and can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then pointing them to Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith
Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?' -John 11:40
Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, "It's all a lie"? When you are on the mountaintop, it's easy to say, "Oh yes, I believe God can do it," but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief (see Luke 9:28-42 ). Every time my theology becomes clear to my own mind, I encounter something that contradicts it. As soon as I say, "I believe 'God shall supply all [my] need,' " the testing of my faith begins ( Philippians 4:19 ). When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat?
Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" Matthew 11:6 ). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. "We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . ." ( Hebrews 3:14 ). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God- trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 30, 2008
Change Of Address
READ: Colossians 1:9-14
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. -Colossians 1:13
If you keep in touch with family and friends through the postal service or e-mail, you probably have received or sent a change of address notice. It goes something like this: "I will no longer be receiving mail at _____________. My new address will be _____________. Thank you for making a note of this change."
Paul reminded the believers in Colosse that they had "a change of address" and that they should share it with others. They had been moved from one community and "conveyed" or transplanted, by the grace of God, into a new community. They had been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and been brought into the kingdom of Jesus (1:13). Their old address was sinner@kingdomofdarkness. But when they became followers of Jesus, their new address became saved@kingdomofHisdearSon.
In Philippians 3:20, Paul declared that all believers are citizens of heaven and should live worthy of their new address. He encouraged the Christians in Colosse to walk in wisdom toward those who were outside the faith so that people could see and hear about the changes (Col. 4:5-6).
If you have had "a change of address," tell someone about what Jesus has done in you. - Marvin Williams
When we're reborn-made new in Christ-
It should be plain for all to see
That God has changed us from within
And placed us in His family. -Sper
When Jesus comes into a life, He changes everything.
Firm in Faith by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And very early in the morning the first day of the week they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
Faith is not always a champion which marches alone. Sometimes faith is accompanied by fear. Faith is not the absence of questioning; it is the presence of action in the midst of those questions. Faith does not provide all the answers; it provides a basis for confidence in the midst of unreasonable circumstances.
We do not fully understand how God takes oxygen and hydrogen, both of them odorless, tasteless, and colorless, and combines them with carbon, which is insoluble, black, and tasteless, to produce a beautiful, white, sweet substance we call sugar. Although we do not have all the answers as to how God accomplishes this, in the midst of our circumstances we accept God's product on faith. Real faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is trusting God when you cannot see through the fog.
It was early Easter Sunday morning when Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome set out on a mission of faith. These women had covenanted among themselves to purchase spices that were needed to embalm the body of Jesus. They could not do so until after dusk on Saturday. So when the Sabbath was passed, the women purchased the sweet spices that they might come to the tomb of Joseph and there make the body of the Lord Jesus ready for burial.
It was very early in the morning the first day of the week that they came to the sepulcher, at the rising of the sun (Mark 16:2). With the spices that they had purchased the previous evening in hand, the women made their way through the dark streets of Jerusalem just before the sunrise of Sunday morning. As they approached the garden in which the tomb was located, they chattered among themselves, questioning how they would gain access to the tomb. Here is a grand example of faith amid questions. The women could not themselves roll away the stone, for it was simply too cumbersome to do so. Yet they did not stay at home and attend a seminar on stone-rolling, argue the pros and cons of gaining entrance to the tomb, or form a committee to study the problem. In the midst of their concerns about how they would gain entrance to the tomb, they steadily progressed toward the tomb in faith. Faith is not the absence of questions; it is the presence of action amidst those questions.
Once an ocean liner was engulfed in a dense fog off the coast of Newfoundland. It was Wednesday evening and the captain had been on the bridge for more than 24 hours, when he was startled by someone tapping him on the shoulder. As he turned, he saw the great man of prayer and faith, George Mueller. The concerned Mueller stated, "Captain, I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon." Expressing his dismay, the captain replied, "That's impossible!" The fog was so dense and the progress of the ship so slow that the captain knew they would never make it to shore on time. He mumbled, "I'm helpless!" Being a man of faith, George Mueller suggested, "Let's go down to the chart room and pray." The captain, who could see only his circumstances, replied, "Do you know how dense the fog is?"
"No," Mueller said, "My eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life." The captain and Mueller left the bridge and went below where Mueller fell to his knees and prayed. Within a matter of minutes the fog lifted, the ocean liner progressed rapidly, and Mueller was in Quebec before Saturday.
If we are to live a life of faith, we must get our eyes off the stone before the tomb and on the God who does the impossible. The women knew the stone would keep them from their Lord, and yet they purchased their spices, readied themselves early in the morning, and made their way in the darkness toward the garden tomb. Faith is not being free from questions; faith is being firm in commitment to the power of God. How will you demonstrate your faith today?
MORNING HYMN
May Thy rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart,
My zeal inspire;
As Thou hast died for me,
O may my love to Thee
Pure, warm and changeless be
A living fire
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Kindness
While traveling from one city to the next, a man was overtaken by robbers. Taking his clothes and possessions, they left him badly beaten. Not long after the attack, a priest traveled the same road. He passed by without stopping. Then another traveler saw the man but did not offer to help.
Finally, someone stopped-a Samaritan. He put bandages on the man's wounds and took him to an inn for the night. The next day he gave the innkeeper money and instructions to take care of the wounded man.
The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 is a wonderful example of godly kindness. It also demonstrates that kindness often requires something of us-time, plans, privacy, and desires. The Good Samaritan interrupted his travel plans to help a stranger. What better example to follow than that of Christ? He gave us the ultimate gift of kindness-He died that we might live.
However, we cannot learn to be kind simply by disciplining ourselves. Kindness can be hard work, and from time to time, this may mean that we have to face difficult situations that drain us emotionally and physically.
Often kindness cannot grow apart from conflict and strife. We learn to be kind through the kindness of others, but we also learn a greater kindness when we are called to be kind and caring in difficult situations.
A disagreement with a co-worker, spouse, friend, or family member can tempt us to be abrupt or uncaring. Circumstances appear out of focus and God's fruit of kindness becomes lost in the battle. However, through the power of Christ we are able to act in kindness even toward those who hurt us. Is there someone who needs your kindness today?
Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble (1 Peter 3:8).
The Holy Spirit possesses a dynamite-like power that works within a believer to blast out anything that is unlike God. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Dynamite Power." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Usefulness or Relationship?
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven -Luke 10:20
Jesus Christ is saying here, "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service- rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour "rivers of living water" through you ( John 7:38 ). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7 ).
Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone's usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint's usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person's life is that person's relationship with God- something of great value to His Father. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory . . ." ( Hebrews 2:10 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals August 31, 2008
Wonderful Mystery
READ: Luke 23:32-43
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. -Psalm 103:12
The headline in our Grand Rapids Press wasn't good news. Fifteen million gallons of partially treated waste water suddenly disappeared from a storage lagoon in a water treatment facility. Just outside the small town of Sand Lake, Michigan, a 500- by-500-foot pond disappeared into a sinkhole.
The problem was that nobody knew where the wastewater went. According to a county spokesperson, "It will depend on where it went before we can say what happened."
As I read the article, I imagined all the wrongs of my life as being like that missing filthy lagoon. In my clearest moments of faith, I can say in all honesty that I really don't know where they went, but they are gone. The last time I saw the real guilt of my envy, anger, and impatience, they were all nailed to the cross of a Man suffering for wrongs He never committed.
Where did my guilt go? The Bible gives me answers that I can't really understand: buried in the deepest sea (Mic. 7:19), as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12), erased from the eternal books of heaven's justice (Col. 2:13-15).
No, all I can really understand is that I owe unending gratefulness, praise, and honor to the One who bore our sin-a mystery of inexpressibly good news. - Mart De Haan
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
To His feet thy tribute bring;
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Evermore His praises sing. -Lyte
When God forgives, He removes our sin and restores our soul.
Character by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
This is the second psalm ascribed to Asaph and the first of eleven consecutive psalms that bear his name. In 2 Chronicles 29:30 King Hezekiah invites the Levites to sing "the words of David, and of Asaph the seer." Asaph was not only a writer but a prophet as well. This psalm deals with the same perplexing subject as that of Psalm 37, curiously the transposition of Psalm 73. It is the subject of Psalm 49 and the entire book of Job. How can an infinitely powerful God be good and still allow the wicked to appear to prosper and the righteous to be in want? Perhaps you have asked the same question of God. If so, your answer is given in Psalm 73.
The way to heaven is an afflicted way, a perplexed, a persecuted way, crushed close together with crosses, as was the Israelites' way in the wilderness. This was true of Asaph the psalmist when his feet were almost gone and his steps had well nigh slipped. He was envious when he looked around and saw the prosperity of the wicked. There were no pangs or pains in their death. The eyes of the wicked ever gloat on the luxuries around them. They increase in prosperity and riches while they curse God, and the Almighty appears to do nothing about it.
On the other hand, Asaph had cleansed his heart and had washed his hands before God. He had lived uprightly and yet he was afflicted and distressed. Why would God allow him to be afflicted when he had lived as God desired? Although God does not daily bring a man to his bed, breaking his spirit and his bones, nevertheless seldom a day passes without some rebuke or chastening from God. It is as much a part of the Christian's life to know afflictions as it is to know mercies, to know when God smites as to know when He smiles.
Still Asaph complains, "For all day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning" (Psalm 73:14). Every morning it appears to the psalmist that he arose after having been whipped by God. His breakfast was the bread of sorrow; his juice was the water of adversity. Morning after morning he would arise only to feel the affliction of God that day. Asaph began to question whether or not it was worth living a godly life, a life pure and unspotted from the world, when those around him refused to do so and prospered. Perhaps this question has crossed your mind as well.
In the forests of northern Europe lives the ermine, a small animal that we know best for its snow-white fur. Instinctively the ermine protects its white coat lest it become soiled. European hunters often capitalize on this trait. Instead of setting a mechanical trap to catch the ermine, they find its home in the cleft of a rock and daub the entrance with tar. A chase ensues and the frightened ermine flees toward its home. When it arrives at the cleft of the rock and finds it covered with dirt, the animal spurns its place of safety. Rather than soil itself and its white fur, it courageously faces the hunters. That's character. To the ermine, purity is dearer than life itself.
Whenever we feel we are being chastised by God unjustly and are tempted to cast off our righteous lifestyle, let's remember the ermine. To keep ourselves "unspotted from the world" (James 1:27) should be as important to the Christian as life itself. Affliction tests character; and character tested, with the right response, is character strengthened. Rejoice today that God loves you enough to afflict you.
MORNING HYMN
In the hour of trial, Jesus, plead for me;
Lest by base denial I depart from Thee;
When Thou see'st me waver, with a look recall;
Nor thro' fear or favor suffer me to fall.
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Hand Delivered Bouquets
by Max Lucado
Through Christ, God has accepted you. Think about what this means. You cannot keep people from rejecting you. But you can keep rejections from enraging you.
Rejections are like speed bumps on the road. They come with the journey. You're going to get cut, dished, dropped, and kicked around. You cannot keep people from rejecting you. But you can keep rejections from enraging you. How? By letting his acceptance compensate for their rejection.
Think of it this way. Suppose you dwell in a high-rise apartment. On the window sill of your room is a solitary daisy. This morning you picked the daisy and pinned it on your lapel. Since you have only one plant, this is a big event and a special daisy.
But as soon as you're out the door, people start picking petals off your daisy. Someone snags your subway seat. Petal picked. You're blamed for the bad report of a coworker. Three petals. The promotion is given to someone with less experience but USC water polo looks. More petals. By the end of the day, you're down to one. Woe be to the soul who dares to draw near it. You're only one petal-snatching away from a blowup.
What if the scenario was altered slightly? Let's add one character. The kind man in the apartment next door runs a flower shop on the corner. Every night on the way home he stops at your place with a fresh, undeserved, yet irresistible bouquet. These are not leftover flowers. They are top-of-the-line arrangements. You don't know why he thinks so highly of you, but you aren't complaining. Because of him, your apartment has a sweet fragrance, and your step has a happy bounce. Let someone mess with your flower, and you've got a basketful to replace it!
The difference is huge. And the interpretation is obvious.
God will load your world with flowers. He hand-delivers a bouquet to your door every day. Open it! Take them! Then, when rejections come, you won't be left short-petaled.
God can help you get rid of your anger. He made galaxies no one has ever seen and dug canyons we have yet to find. "The LORD heals all your diseases" (Ps. 103:2-3 NIV). Do you think among those diseases might be the affliction of anger?
Do you think God could heal your angry heart?
Do you want him to? This is not a trick question. He asks the same question of you that he asked of the invalid: "Do you want to be well?" (John 5:6). Not everyone does. You may be addicted to anger. You may be a rage junkie. Anger may be part of your identity. But if you want him to, he can change your identity. Do you want him to do so?
Do you have a better option? Like moving to a rejection-free zone? If so, enjoy your life on your desert island.
Take the flowers. Receive from him so you can love or at least put up with others.
From
A Love Worth Giving
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
NOW IN PAPERBACK
With a Reader's Guide focusing on:
1. Love Remembered: gleans crucial quotes from the chapter and invites you to reexamine them by answering some probing questions.
2. Love Deepened: uses parallel Scriptures to reinforce and clarify the thrust of the chapter.
3. Love Given: application questions to help you integrate the main focus of each chapter into your life of faith.
"My Joy . . . Your Joy"
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full -John 15:11
What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father- the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do- ". . . who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross . . ." ( Hebrews 12:2 ). "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . ." ( Psalm 40:8 ). Jesus prayed that our joy might continue fulfilling itself until it becomes the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God's work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, ". . . the cares of this world, . . . choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" ( Mark 4:19 ). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold- He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" ( John 7:38 ). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His "living water." Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live "your life . . . hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3 ). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 1, 2008
Titles And ResponsibilitiesREAD: John 13:3-16If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. -John 13:14
Research conducted by a leading compensation technology firm found that among employees planning to leave their companies, a majority felt they were underpaid. Fewer than 20 percent of them, however, were receiving less than the industry standard for their duties.
Bill Coleman, of Salary.com, believes that many unhappy workers are overtitled rather than underpaid. Some companies give employees lofty titles even though their job responsibilities have not increased. In time, employees feel they deserve more money than their actual duties merit. "When it comes to salary," Coleman says, "it's what you do, not what you're called, that counts."
It's interesting how Jesus dealt with the issue of titles and responsibilities. During the Last Supper, He performed the task of a lowly servant by washing His disciples' feet, setting the stage for His astonishing statement about humility: "You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:13-14).
Christ the Lord set the example for all who would follow Him, confirming that it's not what we're called, but what we do that counts. - David C. McCasland
When Jesus took a servant's towel-
His honor set aside-
He humbly showed us how to serve,
And how to conquer pride. -Sper
The more we serve Christ, the less we will serve self.
Foolish Vows by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses.
A weatherman, certain that his prediction for fair weather would be fulfilled, said, "If it rains tomorrow, I'll eat my hat!" Such a lightly considered vow is an invitation to disaster, for it is entirely possible that factors unknown to the weatherman may cause a downpour. The Bible gives many similar examples of foolishly made oaths (cf. Judges 11).
During the worldwide seven years' famine in the days of Jacob, the sons of the patriarch found themselves trapped by such a foolish vow. They had sold their brother Joseph into slavery, and unknown to them he had risen to a position of great authority in the Egyptian government. With the supply of grain in Canaan exhausted, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain. In Pharaoh's land the brothers purchased grain from Joseph, whom they did not recognize. After that grain was gone, they returned to Egypt to buy more.
When they came to Joseph the second time, he invited them to dine; and he commanded the steward to fill the men's sacks with food and put their purchase money back in each sack. Also Joseph specifically instructed that his silver cup be placed in the sack of the youngest brother, Benjamin. "As soon as the morning was light," the brothers embarked on the long trek back to Canaan (Genesis 44:3). Before they had gone very far, Joseph commanded the steward to overtake them and accuse the brothers of stealing his royal cup. This was not done to be vindictive but simply to test the loyalty and integrity of the brothers who had once sold Joseph into slavery.
As soon as the charge was leveled against the sons of Jacob, they indignantly denied it. To think that this steward would accuse them of dishonesty! Unaware that Joseph had planted the cup in Benjamin's sack, the brothers hastily vowed a vow in order to intensify their claim of innocence: "With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord's servants." Suddenly they were trapped. They had made an irrevocable oath that would enslave them and bring death to their father's favorite son. When the search was made and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack, the brothers tore their clothes in anguish and returned to Joseph, the Egyptian governor.
It was no sin to vow this vow, for the making of such oaths was entirely voluntary. However, after a vow was made, it was sacredly binding (Deuteronomy 23:21). The Apostle Paul called upon God in making an oath (2 Corinthians 1:23; 11:31) and our Lord Himself did not refuse to answer when put under oath (Matthew 26:63-64). Yet the Lord Jesus refined the general thought of Scripture on vowing vows when He said, "Swear not at all; neither by heaven . . . Nor by the earth . . . Neither shalt thou swear by thy head. . . . But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil" (Matthew 5:34-37).
This does not mean that we cannot vow a vow to God. By the time of the New Testament the practice of making hasty and unmeaningful oaths was common. Oriental conversation was sprinkled with expressions like, "I swear that . . . ." This profaned the true meaning and sacred character of a vow, and our Lord condemned the practice. Much better, said He, that others are assured that what you say is true because of your personal integrity, rather than because of an unmeaningful oath.
It would be better to make no oath at all than to make one with no intention of keeping it (Ecclesiastes 5:5). Vows made with pure intentions and based on certain knowledge can bring great blessings. But those hastily made, like those of Jacob's sons, or those loosely used in ordinary conversation, are to be shunned by all who seek a life pleasing to God. Be careful what vows you make today! Be careful to keep those you have made!
MORNING HYMN
So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Isaiah 26:3 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The nine months of pregnancy are a time of preparation. The physical preparations like picking out names and furnishing a nursery might be exciting, but the most important preparation is emotional and spiritual. This is the time to consolidate your attitudes toward your pregnancy and toward child rearing.
Emotional preparation should include taking steps to reduce anxiety and tension in your life. These stressful emotions are communicated to your unborn infant. When a mother's stress hormones become elevated, the baby may become agitated.
Consider this
In order to reduce your stress level, you may need to cut back on some present commitments. Take 30 to 60 minutes daily for yourself with no plans, no work. Just read, pray and rest. Listen to soothing music. Soft music has been shown to have a calming effect on both mother and baby.
Do you have fears concerning your pregnancy and childbirth? Discuss your concerns with a friend who has had a good experience in giving birth. Get educated by reading books and searching the Internet. Be sure to explore some of the excellent Christian books on the subject. Discuss any questions with your doctor.
Plan and prepare. And, most important, ask God to fill you with his peace. Trust him and keep your thoughts fixed on him.
These same principles apply to all of us, even if we are not expecting a child. God wants each of us to be at peace, no matter what our circumstances - and he has provided the way.
Prayer
Father, I have felt anxious about all that is happening. Help me to use wisdom in my day-to-day activities. I do trust you. Help me to trust you more and to keep my mind fixed on you. And I thank you for the peace that you have promised. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Parenting addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
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© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Destined To Be Holy
READ: . . it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy' -1 Peter 1:16
We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them. Many of them may be right, noble, and good, and may later be fulfilled, but in the meantime God must cause their importance to us to decrease. The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy. At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God.
Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? If through your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching. The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind- holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity- He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.
Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth, and every thought in your mind- placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 2, 2008
Pass It OnREAD: Deuteronomy 4:5-10Lest you forget the things your eyes have seen . . . teach them to your children and your grandchildren. -Deuteronomy 4:9
One day as my wife was baby-sitting our granddaughter, she shared an old, familiar friend with her. With Eliana in her arms, Sue picked up a well-worn book that we had read to our daughter when she was a little girl. It's a book called The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, a staple in our efforts to share God's truth with our children.
So now it is Eliana's turn to begin to learn about God's creation, His goodness, His plan, and His salvation. It's time for her to be told about what we have seen and experienced in our walk of faith. As Deuteronomy 4:9 says, "Teach [God's statutes] to your children and your grandchildren."
Back in the days of Deuteronomy, the people were being handed a gift from God-"the statutes and the judgments" (v.1) that would allow them to live properly in the land of God's promise. Along with those laws came an admonition for the people to share with their progeny the lessons God taught them on the way. They were told not to "forget the things your eyes have seen" (v.9) and to teach God's words to their children and grandchildren.
We have a similar legacy to convey to the next generation. As followers of Christ, we take this as one of our greatest responsibilities. Pass it on. - Dave Branon
Begin to train them early
To fear and love the Lord,
To carry on life's pathway
God's lamp, His holy Word. -Fennema
If children are to find their way to God, we must point the way.
Mysterious Ways by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.
The famous English hymnist William Cowper once wrote, "God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform." Nowhere in the pages of Scripture is this more evident than in the story of Balak, the king of Moab, and Balaam, the false prophet of Pethor in Mesopotamia.
With the conquest of the Amorites the people of Israel neared their goal, the promised land. They descended into the valley of Jordan, opposite Jericho, on the plains of Moab. Such a bold move by Israel aroused the Moabites. Seeing that Israel was too strong for him in the field, Moabite king Balak made a confederacy with the sheiks of Midian. But even the combined strength of Moab and Midian was of doubtful value in the face of mighty Israel. It was evident to Balak that supernatural help must be sought.
The prophet Balaam, son of Beor, was one of those who still retained some knowledge of the true God. It is obvious, however, that he practiced the more questionable arts of divination as well and in fact believed that Jehovah was simply one of many gods. He found it quite to his advantage to believe in all the gods of oriental society. The emissaries from Balak came to Balaam with a strange request. There was a people come out of Egypt who covered the face of the earth. They were a threat to the very existence of Moab, or so the Moabite king believed. If Balaam would curse the intruders, the emissaries were empowered to give him the rewards of divination.
Balaam consulted the God of Heaven as to the advisability of cursing the people who had come out of Egypt. The answer of Jehovah left no room for variant interpretations. "Thou shalt not go with them: thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed" (Numbers 22:12). Balaam rose up in the morning and reported to the princes of Balak that Jehovah had directly forbidden him to curse their enemy Israel.
When the princes returned to Balak with this unexpected news, the Moabite king was undaunted. He sent to Balaam more numerous and more honorable envoys. The king promised the prophet that he would promote him to very great honor and give him any desire of his heart. The greed of Balaam was too much for his loyalty to the God of Heaven, and consequently he wavered in his stand against cursing Israel. Instead of resting confidently on the clear word of the Lord, Balaam hedged on that clarity in order to feed his lustful desire for fame and honor. Thus God gave him his desire and delivered him to the destruction that he courted. Despite the evident will of God to the contrary, Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab (Numbers 22:21).
This Old Testament account features the miraculous happening of a dumb animal speaking to his master in order that the plan of God might be fulfilled. But an even more mysterious way in which God moved to perform His wonders was that He chose a false prophet, one who thought more of himself than he did of God, to advance one of the greatest prophecies of the Old Testament. It was Balaam the son of Beor who brought the message of Christ in the book of Numbers. His messianic prophecy was, "I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth" (Numbers 24:17).
No greater prophecy concerning the messianic kingdom can be found anywhere in Scripture and, in the mysterious plan of God, this prophecy came from the lips of a self-seeking prophet. We may never fully be able to understand the methods or motives of God, but we are not required to understand them, simply to trust them.
MORNING HYMN
Praise to the Lord
Who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under
His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen
All that is needful hath been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Parents-to-be need to remember that their original commitment was to God first and then to each other. Now that your commitment is broadening to include family, do not neglect your commitment to God and to each other as husband and wife.
One of the greatest gifts you can give your child is a home founded on love, respect and commitment - to God and to each other. Too often the child becomes the focal point of everything the family does, and the marriage is weakened. How much better to provide your child with the security and well-being that a strong union of the parents, serving God together, can provide.
Consider this
Pray daily for the strength of your marriage and for your love for each other. Pray for wisdom and guidance as together you prepare to parent this gift from God to you.
Parenting is a wonderful gift and an awesome responsibility. Don't try to do it alone. Even after baby is born, continue together to turn to God and his Word daily for direction and strength. And commit to a family life that is pleasing to him. Join Joshua in committing as a family to serve the Lord. These same principles apply to all of us, even if we are not expecting a child. God wants each of us to balance our lives and our relationships according to his plan, to trust him for wisdom and to serve him first.
Prayer
Father, help us to be strong in our commitment to each other as husband and wife, and help us together to renew our commitment to you. Thank you for blessing us with this child. Help us to provide a home founded on love, respect and commitment, a home dedicated to serving you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Parenting addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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A Life of Pure and Holy SacrificeREAD: He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow . . . -John 7:38
Jesus did not say, "He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God," but, in essence, "He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him." Our Lord's teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person- His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God's purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us- and we cannot measure that at all.
When Mary of Bethany "broke the flask . . . of very costly oil . . . and poured it on [Jesus'] head," it was an act for which no one else saw any special occasion; in fact, ". . . there were some who . . . said, 'Why was this fragrant oil wasted?' " (Mark 14:3-4 ). But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said, ". . . wherever this gospel is preached . . . what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her" ( Mark 14:9 ). Our Lord is filled with overflowing joy whenever He sees any of us doing what Mary did- not being bound by a particular set of rules, but being totally surrendered to Him. God poured out the life of His Son "that the world through Him might be saved" ( John 3:17 ). Are we prepared to pour out our lives for Him?
"He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water"- and hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. Now is the time for us to break "the flask" of our lives, to stop seeking our own satisfaction, and to pour out our lives before Him. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 3, 2008
Life LabREAD: Haggai 1:2-7Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Consider your ways!" - Haggai 1:7
Hurricane Andrew struck the US mainland in August 1992. As residents tried to cope with the destruction, scientists turned Florida into a huge laboratory. Teams of researchers descended on the state to measure the storm's impact on everything from building materials to tropical fish. Psychologists analyzed the hurricane's influence on children. Geographers mapped sunken boats. Marine scientists cataloged the damage done to reefs, sea grass, and mangroves. Criminologists studied price-gouging and the breakdown of social order.
The prophets of the Bible did a similar evaluation after spiritual disasters. They documented the personal, social, and environmental effects of turning away from the one true God (Isa. 1:1-9; Hag. 1:2-7).
In behalf of a loving God, Haggai urged his neighbors to give careful attention to what had happened. He noted the priority they were giving to their own comforts and wanted them to observe how dissatisfied and empty they still were.
If God didn't care, He wouldn't ask us to consider the time and effort we are spending on diminishing returns. If He didn't love us, He couldn't remind us of all that He has given us. God sees what has happened to us and knows how much we need to focus on Him today. - Mart De Haan
I would live for Thee, Lord Jesus,
Keep my eyes so turned toward Thee
That the world and all its system
May attract no part of me. -Graves
When Christ is the center of your interests, life will be in focus.
The Trial of Faith by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief.
Throughout Job's long ordeal one concern continually raced through his mind. He was fully aware that all men are sinners and therefore are justly deserving of divine punishment. His concern was, however, that he had always dealt with sin in an open manner. He had sacrificed daily to the Lord God and had conducted his life in such a way that it was pleasing to God. Throughout the ordeal the so-called comfort afforded him by his three friends was generated by the belief that Job's suffering was the result of secret sin and that if he would confess that sin, God would surely remove the suffering. Job, however, knew of no secret sin in his life and believed that his suffering must be due to his piety. Job's mind was characterized by bewilderment, not by the suppression of known sin.
Job's understanding of the foolish heart of man is theologically correct. He knows that sin can never be successfully hidden from God. So wicked is the heart of man that he will confiscate the property of the fatherless and deny charity to the poor; and as wild asses rising with the light, they kill the poor and needy, assuming that no one will discover their crime (Job 24:14). "The morning is to them even as the shadow of death" (Job 24:17), for the rising of the sun brings to light the wickedness in which they have been engaged throughout the dark hours of the night. Yet Job knows that he has not conducted himself in this manner. It is understandable that God would punish with affliction those who have lived in the way Job has described, but it is not understandable why the righteous should suffer in the same manner. Job was upright before the Lord. How could the Lord allow this to happen to him?
A similar circumstance once occurred in the life of William Carey, the pioneer missionary to India. After his work was established, those who supported him in England sent a printer to assist him in the work. Together they began producing portions of the Bible for distribution in India. One day while he was away from his station, a fire broke out and completely destroyed everything Carey had accomplished. The building, the presses, the Bibles, and worst of all, the manuscripts, grammars, and dictionaries on which he had spent many years of his life were all burned and destroyed. When Carey returned, his servant met him and tearfully relayed the news of the dreadful fire. How would Carey react? Without a word of despair or anger, William Carey knelt and thanked God that he still had strength enough to do that work all over again. Immediately he began, not wasting his time or licking his wounds. Before Carey died, under the direction of the Spirit of God he had not only duplicated his earlier achievements but produced far better grammars, dictionaries, and translations of the Scripture than the first time.
William Carey had learned what Job had learned. Disaster does not necessarily mean the presence of secret sin. Sometimes God allows the pious to suffer just as He allows the impious. It is the trial of our faith that worketh patience, and without this trial the legendary patience of Job would not be such a comfort to us today.
May each of us view those disasters that enter our lives through the godly glasses of courage and patience. May our lives be free from known sin so that with Job we may say of the Lord, "But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10).
MORNING HYMN
I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33 NLT
Thoughts for Today
An important part of preparing for the changes and challenges a new baby can bring is the strengthening of the husband's and wife's commitment to each other - a fresh resolve to show love and respect for each other in all you do. If you are an expectant couple, try to spend more time together during these months of waiting. Perhaps you can even plan a week-end get-away to be alone.
Spend time just relaxing and enjoying each other's company. But also talk - and listen. Share your dreams. Discuss your fears and anxieties about parenting. Celebrate the joy and excitement you feel about bringing this child into the world.
Consider this
Together, plan what kind of parents you want to be. Come to an agreement about boundaries and discipline for the child. However difficult it may be, it's important to come to agreement about these things in order to present a united front to your child - even during the very young years.
It would be good for each of you to write a paragraph in your own words that describes the type of parent you want to be. Share these thoughts with each other and talk about them. Most important, pray together. Ask God to give you wisdom as you prepare to begin one of the greatest joys - and challenges - of your life: godly parenting.
Not expecting? These are great guidelines for every couple. Spend time together, talk to each other, dream and plan together, and pray together. In these ways, show your love and respect for each other.
Prayer
Father, I thank you for my spouse. Help me to express my love and respect in meaningful ways. Guide us as together we make our parenting plans. Help us to love and guide our child according to your plan. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Parenting addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Pouring Out the Water of SatisfactionREAD: He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord -2 Samuel 23:16
What has been like "water from the well of Bethlehem" to you recently- love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing ( 2 Samuel 23:16 )? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out "to the Lord." You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God- something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.
How can I pour out "to the Lord" natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way- I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out "to the Lord." Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as "rivers of living water" all around me ( John 7:38 ). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out "to the Lord."
If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything "to the Lord," other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 4, 2008
The Sorrow Of BetrayalREAD: Matthew 27:1-10I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. -Matthew 27:4
When I was a boy, my dad observed my spendthrift ways and often said that money burned a hole in my pocket. I suppose it's not unlike the way those 30 pieces of silver burned a hole in Judas' heart after he had betrayed Jesus for a little cash. Imagine how he must have felt as he watched his friend Jesus, with hands bound, being led to trial. Judas had seen those hands calm the stormy sea and touch the blind and lame. How often those loving hands had touched his own life!
For Judas, the silver was no longer a reward but rather a reminder of what he had done to Jesus. With every step, the clanging coins sounded a dirge of condemnation, until in despair he admitted, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood" (Matt. 27:4).
When we make choices that betray Jesus, eventually our lives become filled with sorrow. Even well-intentioned followers find that their desire to love and serve Him is frequently on a collision course with the lure of cash or other seductions. But the things we have gained at His expense ultimately and inevitably become clanging symbols of sorrow and regret.
The next time you have to make a choice about cash-or anything else-remember the clatter of Judas' condemning coins, and don't betray your loving Leader. - Joe Stowell
Jesus is all the world to me,
And true to Him I'll be;
O how could I this Friend deny,
When He's so true to me? -Thompson
When faced with a choice, don't betray your loving Leader.
Morning Marching Orders by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning, for in Thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soul unto Thee.
In today's modern, rushing world, many of us have all we can do to get out of bed in the morning and get to work on time. Often our schedule appears to preclude the possibility of morning devotions. Yet under the old dispensation of the law it was the duty of the priestly tribe of the Levites to rise at dawn and give thanks and praise the Lord (1 Chronicles 23:30). We are not under the dispensation of the law, but as New Testament priests (1 Peter 2:5,9) we too should begin the day with God. If we do, we will have a keen sense of His presence with us throughout the busy hours that follow.
This great truth was obviously known by David. One of the most enjoyable verses to come from his pen is Psalm 143:8, "Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in Thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee." In this morning prayer David made two requests: to hear the lovingkindness of God in the morning, and to know the way in which he should walk throughout the day. These two requests bear a definite relationship.
David wanted the lovingkindness of God to engage his thoughts and affections early in the morning. If other thoughts get into our hearts in the morning, we may not be able to burn them away throughout the day. Prayer and praise, reading and meditation will influence our minds for hours throughout the day. Lovingkindness is a favorite theme of David. Simply, lovingkindness is love that shows kindness. By deeds and words it is God living through us to a hurting world. That's the kind of life David wanted to live. The Lord's lovingkindness is our all-sufficient source of joy. Such joy can be sought elsewhere but found only here. It is the divine joy that sweetens every bitter experience of life and makes even those that are sweet, sweeter still. It binds every wound and is the balm for every hurt. It is little wonder that David sought such an experience early in the morning. With that kind of start, what must the rest of the day be like?
The old expression is here very applicable, "Well begun; half done." David began his day well by seeking the Lord and His lovingkindness. Half the battle of a successful day was already won. He continued to ask the Lord to show him the way he should walk throughout the day. Frequently the path we determine to be logical for our daily walk is not the path designed by God. We must keep the same close touch with Him hour after hour that we began with Him in the morning.
Speaking of his mountain-climbing experience, nineteenth century preacher George Barrell Cheever commented on this verse: "The whole valley is surrounded by ranges of regal crags, but the mountain, apparently absolutely inaccessible, is the last point which you would turn for an outlet. A side gorge that sweeps up to the glaciers and snowy pyramids flashing upon you in the opposite direction is the route that you suppose your guide is going to take. So convinced was I that the path must go in that direction that I took a shortcut, which I conceived would bring me again into the mule path at a point under the glaciers; but after scaling precipices and getting lost in a wood of firs in the valley, I was glad to rejoin my friend with the guide and to clamber on in pure ignorance and wonder."
We are tempted to walk our own way when we have no other resource. But as Christians we have a higher resource than our mind. We have the resource of the lovingkindness of God, which can be ours every morning if we but seek it. We should never attempt to walk alone throughout the day and to chart our own course when we have the ability to tap the resources of heaven in the morning and receive our marching orders for the day, marching orders that are always designed to lead to victory. How foolish it is to neglect to seek the Lord in the morning and have to walk without Him the rest of the day.
MORNING HYMN
Thou my everlasting portion,
More than friend or life to me;
All along my pilgrim journey,
Saviour, let me walk with Thee.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Children are a blessing and a gift from the LORD. Psalm 127:3 CEV
Thoughts for Today
If you are expecting a baby, your preparation should include reading the Bible in order to more fully understand how God views the child in your womb. This baby is a gift and a blessing from him. God is the giver of life. He has formed the baby in your womb. He is intimately involved with each of the changes that takes place during your pregnancy.
You are the one who put me together inside my mother's body, and I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me. Everything you do is marvelous! Of this I have no doubt. Nothing about me is hidden from you! I was secretly woven together deep in the earth below, but with your own eyes you saw my body being formed. Even before I was born, you had written in your book everything I would do. Psalm 139:13-16 CEV
Consider this
Your initial emotion when you learned that you were pregnant might have been regret or fear or joy. No matter what you felt then, understanding God's involvement in your pregnancy should bring about peace.
God loves you. He loves your baby. No matter what your circumstances or special challenges, God is with you. He will give you the strength and wisdom that you need. He will continue to love you and your baby and will make all good things possible.
God has a plan for your life - and your baby's life - and it is a good plan. Praise him for his goodness. Thank him for this new life within you. Thank him for caring, for loving you and for helping you. Praise him for all the good things he has in store for you and your baby. Thank him that you can do all things through Jesus who gives you strength.
Prayer
Father, thank you for helping me understand that my baby is a gift and a blessing from you. Thank you for your promise to love us and care for us. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Parenting addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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His!
READ: They were Yours, You gave them to Me . . . -John 17:6
A missionary is someone in whom the Holy Spirit has brought about this realization: "You are not your own" ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). To say, "I am not my own," is to have reached a high point in my spiritual stature. The true nature of that life in actual everyday confusion is evidenced by the deliberate giving up of myself to another Person through a sovereign decision, and that Person is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit interprets and explains the nature of Jesus to me to make me one with my Lord, not that I might simply become a trophy for His showcase. Our Lord never sent any of His disciples out on the basis of what He had done for them. It was not until after the resurrection, when the disciples had perceived through the power of the Holy Spirit who Jesus really was, that He said, "Go" (Matthew 28:19; also see Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8 ).
"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ). He was not saying that this person cannot be good and upright, but that he cannot be someone over whom Jesus can write the word Mine. Any one of the relationships our Lord mentions in this verse can compete with our relationship with Him. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself, but if that is the case, then, Jesus said, "[You] cannot be My disciple." This does not mean that I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be entirely His.
Our Lord makes His disciple His very own possession, becoming responsible for him. ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ). The desire that comes into a disciple is not one of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a perfect delight to Him. The missionary's secret is truly being able to say, "I am His, and He is accomplishing His work and His purposes through me."
Be entirely His!
God Bless
Judy, as usual your posts are an inspiration, keep up the great work you make my day and I think you give many of us the desire to stop and give thanks for all that the Lord has blessed us with, including you.
Frank Winn
Daily Devotionals September 5, 2008
Roots Or Shoots?READ: Matthew 13:1-9Because they had no root they withered away. -Matthew 13:6
In the life of trees, one key to survival is having more roots than shoots. In his book Oak: The Frame of Civilization,, author William Bryant Logan says, "If a tree puts on a lot of top growth and few roots, it is liable to be weak-wooded and short-lived. . . . If a tree puts down a great deal of roots and adds shoots more slowly, however, it is liable to be long-lived and more resistant to stress and strain."
People and organizations can be like trees. The rise to prominence is exhilarating, but anything that puts up shoots faster than it puts down roots is fragile and in danger of breaking, falling, or dying.
Jesus used a similar analogy in His parable of the sower. People who hear the Word and receive it joyfully are like seed sown on stony places; they spring up quickly but endure only a short time because they have no roots (Matt. 13:6,20-21).
Roots aren't at all glamorous, but they are the source of our strength. If our roots go deep in the knowledge of God (Jer. 9:24) and our lives are "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3), we'll be strong, resistant to blight, and more likely to survive the storms of adversity.
How deep are your roots? - Julie Ackerman Link
Lord, keep me from being envious of the beautiful and the seemingly powerful. May I use Your resources to put down roots that will make me strong rather than growing branches to make me attractive. Amen.
The roots of stability come from being grounded in God's Word and prayer.
Vengeance by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken. Wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
One of the most obnoxious men in the Bible is Nabal. Nabal was a wealthy shepherd who had many flocks and servants. It appears that David and his men showed kindness to Nabal's servants and gave protection to them. Subsequently David's men needed provision and refreshment and he sent them to Nabal. But when David's men arrived at Carmel, Nabal lashed out at them, ridiculed them, and refused any help to them. The Bible describes Nabal as a churlish man "and evil in his doings." This simply means that he was hard to deal with, a difficult person to get along with. Not recognizing the anointing of God on David, Nabal demanded, "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse?" He ranked David among the common mavericks of the day. Nabal sent David's men away empty-handed. When the men returned to David and reported to him how offensively Nabal had acted and how unfriendly he had been, David's anger was piqued.
Four hundred of David's warriors were prepared to march against Nabal and retaliate for his unfriendly attitude. This would have engaged David in a sinful tirade against a sinful tyrant. Had it not been for the intervention of God through the actions of the quick-thinking wife of Nabal, David would undoubtedly have shed innocent blood that day. But Abigail, Nabal's wife, intercepted the irate David, brought gifts to him and persuaded him not to take vengeance against her husband. She was God's messenger to God's man and David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." Nabal's attitude was unforgivable, but David's reaction was equally unforgivable. He would heed Abigail's advice, the same advice Paul gave to the Roman believers when he said, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto [God's] wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19).
When Abigail returned to tell her husband what she had done, she wisely decided to tell him nothing until the morning light since he was filled with wine (1 Samuel 25:36). In the morning (verse 37) when Nabal was sober, Abigail related to him what she had done to spare his life and the reputation of David. At that point the churlish man apparently had a stroke and 10 days later the Lord took his life. Abigail's wisdom permitted God to return the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head and still preserve David from making a foolish mistake.
General Robert E. Lee was asked what he thought of one of his fellow officers in the Confederate Army. This officer had made many derogatory remarks about General Lee. Lee rated him as a fine officer and good soldier. Someone questioned, saying, "General, I guess you don't know what he's been saying about you." Lee responded, "I know, but I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!"
Although we may be slandered or maligned by others, we are not at liberty to do anything but show the love of the Lord Jesus unto them. Perhaps today you have an antagonist spreading falsehood about you. Do not plan to avenge the wrong you have been done; give place to God's wrath instead and speak kindly of that antagonist. Then and then alone will a difficult situation bring glory to the name of God.
MORNING HYMN
Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready, my God, Thy will to see;
Open my eyes illumine me,
Spirit divine!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not your own judgment. Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow. Proverbs 3:5-6 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Getting ready for a new baby involves preparation in many areas: choosing the right doctor, eating and exercising for a healthy baby and a healthy you, planning the nursery, buying clothes - and so much more.
If you and your spouse desire to be godly parents, this is a good time to examine where you are spiritually. Is Jesus the Lord of your life? Are you trusting him for guidance and help in being the kind of parent he wants you to be?
Being a parent is an awesome privilege - and responsibility - entrusted to you by God. You have been chosen to usher new life into the world, and you have been given the responsibility of guiding and directing and loving that new life into healthy and responsible adulthood.
Consider this
Your child is going to learn more from what you do than from what you say. Keeping your heart right with God is the most important thing you can do for your child. You won't be perfect, but even when you make mistakes you can teach your child good things by admitting your misdeed and making it right.
Pray continually for guidance and help. Pray always for your child. And give yourself permission to make mistakes! You will learn to be a parent by parenting.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for entrusting this precious life to me. I know this is a job too big for me, but I also know that with your help I can do it. Please lead me through the journey. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Parenting addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org
Watching With JesusREAD: Stay here and watch with Me -Matthew 26:38
Watch with Me." Jesus was saying, in effect, "Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me." In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular "Gethsemane" experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, "No, Lord, I can't see the meaning of this, and besides, it's very painful." And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don't even know why He is suffering? We don't know how to watch with Him- we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.
The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they "all . . . forsook Him and fled" ( Matthew 26:56 ).
"They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . ." ( Acts 2:4 ). "They" refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events- our Lord's death, resurrection, and ascension- and the disciples have now been invaded and "filled with the Holy Spirit." Our Lord had said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 6, 2008
Do Your Best And Leave The RestREAD: 1 Thessalonians 5:14-24He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. -1 Thessalonians 5:24
Have you at some time found yourself under extreme pressure? Have there been episodes in your life when you were so burdened by tasks and responsibilities that there was simply no breathing space to prepare for your service to God?
That was the experience of a pastor by the name of A. J. Gossip. During one hectic week, he didn't have his customary amount of time to prepare his sermon. As he walked to his pulpit that Sunday morning, he felt guilty about the scanty sermon notes in his hand. It seemed that the Lord was asking him, "Is this the best you could do for Me this week?" And Gossip honestly replied, "Yes, Lord, it is my best." He told a friend later that Jesus took that ill-prepared piece of work and in His hands "it became a trumpet" to his congregation.
The apostle Paul encouraged the Thessalonians to give their all for God (1 Thess. 5:14-22). They were to exhort, warn, comfort, rejoice, pray, and express their gratitude to God-among other things. We too should always do our best in our Christian life and service. But when pressure-periods come and we just don't have the time we feel we need, we should do the best we can and then prayerfully trust God's faithfulness (v.24). - Vernon C. Grounds
Give of your best to the Master,
Give Him first place in your heart;
Give Him first place in your service,
Consecrate every part. -Grose
Be faithful-and leave the results to God.
Hospitality and Inhospitality by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And it came to pass on the fourth day, when they arose early in the morning, that he rose up to depart: and the damsel's father said unto his son-in-law, Comfort thine heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward go your way.
In the family life of the ancient Near East, two important and contrasting features stand out in bold relief. They are the hospitality of the common folk and the inhospitality of those who are evil and cruel. The story of Judges 19 portrays both these features.
According to the historical account a certain Levite who resided in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem-judah. Having proven unfaithful to him, the woman returned to her father's house in Bethlehem and there remained four months. After this separation the Levite decided to propose a reconciliation and thus traveled south to Bethlehem to speak with the woman and her father. Apparently the reconciliation was accomplished immediately, for the father was quite happy to see his son-in-law.
The house of the Bethlehem father-in-law is a prime example of hospitality in the ancient Near East. Three days the son-in-law remained in the house and there "they did eat and drink." It was now time to leave. On the fourth day they arose early in the morning in order to escape the punishing rays of the Palestinian sun (Judges 19:5). But the damsel's father invited his son-in-law to stay and have bread with him one more time. Soon the day had worn away and the invitation to tarry all night and wait for the morrow was given. Again the next day he arose early in the morning with the intent to leave, but the same thing happened (Judges 19:8). As the day wore on, the man received a second invitation to tarry throughout the night, but this time he refused. With his wife he left Bethlehem and began to journey, even though he knew he could not reach Mount Ephraim by nightfall.
Bypassing Jerusalem because the Jebusites lived there, the man chose to travel three miles further north to Gibeah, where he anticipated a more hospitable reception. He found none and thus made preparations to spend the night in the street. Finally he and his wife were taken in by a former resident of Ephraim who now lived in Gibeah.
At this point the story begins to sound like Sodom and Gomorrah all over again. Base men, sons of Satan, encircled the house and began to beat on the door, demanding that these men engage in a homosexual relationship with them. Perhaps taking his cue from Lot (cf. Genesis 19:1-11), unbelievably the master of the house offered his daughter and the Levite's concubine to the vicious mob in place of his house guest. This pacified the bisexual mob who abused the concubine all night long. When the Levite rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house, there he found the woman lying on the threshold (Judges 19:26-27).
Hospitality and inhospitality, both are seen here. What is it that causes one man to open his home in a gesture of hospitality and another man to beat down the door of a home to perform an act of homosexuality? What brings one man to do what is delightful in the eyes of God and another to do what is despicable in the eyes of God? Perhaps the answer is that we are made in the image of God and therefore have a desire to do good but have been marred by our own sin and have an innate bent toward evil. The Bethlehem father-in-law and the Ephraimite from Gibeah both sought to please others. The homosexual mob of Gibeah sought only to please themselves. Seeking one's own pleasure at the expense of all others arises out of a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). There is no control over such a heart, only a cure found in the grace of salvation.
MORNING HYMN
Now incline me to repent,
Let me now my sins lament;
Now my foul revolt deplore,
Weep, believe, and sin no more.
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The Joy of Giving
Perhaps there was a time in your life when you made a bold pledge to God, vowing to give Him all that you are and all that you have. But then you were drawn off course and ended up forgetting you made this promise.
As believers intent on reflecting the goodness of God's grace, we must learn what it means to be grace givers-people who give out of nothing but love for the One to whom they give. Many Christians give because the Bible says to do it, but those who have found the secret of giving know it is more than just duty that sparks their hearts to give.
They give because God has first given to them. He is the One who gives and keeps on giving His love and so much more to us.
When we emulate God's love to others, we are doing the very thing He has commanded us to d to love and to extend His grace and forgiveness even to those who hurt us. When we do this, His heart is warmed by our actions.
Simply modeling God's grace out of obligation will not last long. God sees the motives of our hearts. However, when we seek to live according to the model He has given us through Jesus Christ and out of pure love for Him, God is honored. When we give to
God and to others out of love-not out of duty-those around us will see our hearts aflame for Christ and be changed by our testimony.
Christ gave more to the world than anyone else has given. He yielded His own pure life to be sacrificed so that others may come to know Him intimately and experience His gracious gift of salvation. And the truth is: Jesus Christ is still giving Himself to us each day.
Prayer: Lord, instill in me the passion to give as freely as Christ gave, not out of duty, but out of love.
Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity (2 Corinthians 8:2).
The Holy Spirit possesses a dynamite-like power that works within a believer to blast out anything that is unlike God. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Dynamite Power." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life
READ: He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water -John 7:38
A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, "rivers of living water" will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even "to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8 ) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow- "This is the work of God, that you believe. . ." ( John 6:29 ). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.
A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ- not emotion nor experience- nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.
Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 7, 2008
The Dangers Of SuccessREAD: Deuteronomy 8:6-18Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes. -Deuteronomy 8:11
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said that he learned to pray in a Siberian concentration camp because he had no other hope. Before his arrest, when things were going well, he seldom gave God a thought.
Similarly, the Israelites learned the habit of depending on God in the Sinai wilderness where they had no choice; they needed His daily intervention just to eat and drink. But when they finally stood on the banks of the Jordan River, they awaited a more difficult test of faith. After they entered the land of plenty, would they soon forget God?
The Israelites knew little about the seductions of other cultures, having spent their lives in the desert. Moses was more afraid of the coming prosperity than the rigors of the desert-the alluring sensuality, the exotic religions, the glittering wealth. The Israelites might put God behind them and credit themselves for their success (Deut. 8:11,17).
Ironically, success makes it harder to depend on the Lord. The Israelites did prove less faithful after they moved into the Promised Land. Again and again they turned their hearts to other gods.
Beware of the temptation that success brings. There is grave danger in getting what we want. - Philip Yancey
I blindly ask for what I crave,
With haughty heart and will so stout;
He oft denies me what I seek,
But gives me grace to do without. -Anon.
There is no failure more disastrous than the success that leaves God out.
Hidden Resources by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.
David had returned to his capital city, Jerusalem. All serious challenges to his authority were now behind him. He was about to die at age 70, having ruled Judah for 7 years and as king over all Israel for another 33 years.
Indeed David was a very remarkable man. He had great ability, great insight, great grace. As a soldier he was a mighty man of valor. As a poet he was the "sweet psalmist of Israel." He was decisive in politics and chivalrous in war. But he was as human as he was great. Perhaps it's that quality about David that makes the man so lovable to us. David had boundless love for Jehovah and an unshakable faith and loyalty to Him. While he frequently stumbled and fell, he always knew how to get hold of God, ask forgiveness and go on for God. He had a true hunger to know the will of God and do it.
Second Samuel 23:1 claims to record the last words of David. Although these are the last literary or poetic words, David's final dying words are not recorded until 1 Kings 2. David describes the kind of man God would have as king of Israel. "He that ruleth over men must be just" (2 Samuel 23:3). One who would be king, president, prime minister or any leader can never assume he or she possesses the qualifications for these important tasks unless that person has a sense of justice that is more than human. Human justice views all men as created equal. Divine justice views all men as created equal before God, a God with whom all men have to do. This is why the next clause is so important. A godly leader is one "ruling in the fear of God."
When Jethro counseled Moses about organizing Israel, he said, "Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens" (Exodus 18:21). As important as it is that a ruler be just, the capability to be just arises only out of a fear of God. God would have no one rule Israel who did not fear Him.
How can we draw upon the resource of the fear of God in order to be just to all men? We must depend upon our hidden resources. All nature depends on hidden resources. Rivers, deep and wide, have their sources in the snowcapped mountains. Great trees are only as strong as the part you cannot see, their root system. The entire earth draws upon the water and minerals under the ground, their hidden resources. A ruler in America, in Israel or anywhere in the world will only be as great as his fear of God, and his fear of God will only be as deep as his hidden resources in God. This is why choosing a nation's leader must go beyond partisan politics, beyond basic morality, beyond simple decency.
David was keenly aware that he had not always exhibited the fear of God, the kind of fear that is pure, pristine, and clear. He describes the just man who fears God as one who "shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds" (2 Samuel 23:4). This kind of clearness and brightness comes only to a man who seeks the Lord, his hidden resource, early in the morning, before he begins to make the decisions of his day. Let's pray that God will give us that kind of ruler.
MORNING HYMN
Take time to be holy,
Speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always
And feed on His Word.
Make friends of God's children,
Help those who are weak
Forgetting in nothing
His blessing to seek.
Love Always Protects
by Max Lucado
Genesis 3:21 has been called the first gospel sermon. Preached not by preachers, but by God himself. Not with words, but with symbol and action.
"The LORD God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them" (Gen. 3:21).
God covers them. He protects them.
Love always protects.
Hasn't he done the same for us? We eat our share of forbidden fruit. We say what we shouldn't say. Go where we shouldn't go. Pluck fruit from trees we shouldn't touch.
So what does God do? Exactly what he did for our parents in the garden. He sheds innocent blood. He offers the life of his Son. And from the scene of the sacrifice the Father takes a robe, not the skin of an animal, but the robe of righteousness. And does he throw it in our direction and tell us to shape up? No, he dresses us himself. He dresses us with himself. "You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ" (Gal. 3:26-27).
God has clothed us. He protects us with a cloak of love. Can you look back over your life and see instances of God's protection? I can too. My junior year in college I was fascinated by a movement of Christians several thousand miles from my campus. Some of my friends decided to spend the summer at the movement's largest church and be discipled. When I tried to do the same, every door closed. Problem after problem with finances, logistics, and travel.
A second opportunity surfaced: spending a summer in Brazil. In this case, every door I knocked on swung open. Two and one half decades later I see how God protected me. The movement has become a cult,dangerous and oppressive. Time in Brazil introduced me to grace,freeing and joyful. Did God protect me? Does God protect us?
And you? Did he keep you from a bad relationship? Protect you from the wrong job? Insulate you from _______________ (you fill in the blank)? "Like hovering birds, so will [the LORD Almighty] protect Jerusalem" (Isa. 31:5 JB). "He will strengthen and protect you" (2 Thess. 3:3 NIV). "He will command his angels to guard you" (Ps. 91:11 NIV). God protects you with a cloak of love.
From
A Love Worth Giving
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004) Max Lucado
NOW IN PAPERBACK
With a Reader's Guide focusing on:
1. Love Remembered: gleans crucial quotes from the chapter and invites you to reexamine them by answering some probing questions.
2. Love Deepened: uses parallel Scriptures to reinforce and clarify the thrust of the chapter.
3. Love Given: application questions to help you integrate the main focus of each chapter into your life of faith.
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Fountains of Blessings The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life -John 4:14
The picture our Lord described here is not that of a simple stream of water, but an overflowing fountain. Continue to "be filled" ( Ephesians 5:18 ) and the sweetness of your vital relationship to Jesus will flow as generously out of you as it has been given to you. If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame- something is obstructing the flow. Was Jesus saying to stay focused on the Source so that you may be blessed personally? No, you are to focus on the Source so that out of you "will flow rivers of living water"- irrepressible life ( John 7:38 ).
We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as "rivers of living water" in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you "will flow rivers of living water." It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.
Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, "But I don't see the rivers"? Through the history of God's work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 8, 2008
Compliments Given HereREAD: 1 Corinthians 4:1-8Each one's praise will come from God. -1 Corinthians 4:5
Artist Tom Greaves knows how to give compliments. He designed a bright red-and-white-striped box for an art exhibit in Washington, DC, called "The Compliment Machine." As people walk by, the machine dishes out compliments from an internal iPod. It says things like, "Your eyes are beautiful," "You smell good," and "People are drawn to your positive energy."
Greaves won't say what his motive is for the box, other than that it's in response to a saccharine culture in which everyone is special and nobody is criticized, regardless of performance.
Everybody loves to hear a compliment now and then; that is, if it's genuine. It makes us feel good about ourselves to have the approval or admiration of others-for a few minutes at least. The apostle Paul, though, looked at what others thought of him or even what he thought of himself as "a very small thing" (1 Cor. 4:3). He said, "He who judges me is the Lord" (v.4). He knew that one day our hearts will be revealed, and "then each one's praise will come from God" (v.5).
Could there be any greater compliment than this from our heavenly Father when we meet Him: "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:23). - Anne Cetas
What joy 'twill be to hear Him say,
"Rejoice, My child, well done!
You've fought the battles there on earth,
The victor's crown you've won." -Sherbert
Work well done for Christ will receive a "well done" from Christ.
God's Providence by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Wherefore now rise up early in the morning with thy master's servants that are come with thee: and as soon as ye be up early in the morning, and have light, depart.
When we live lives that are pleasing before the Lord, godly lives, righteous lives, we may always be assured that no matter where our steps take us, we have been led there by the Lord God Himself. Indeed, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD" (Psalm 37:23).
By this time in his life the madness of King Saul had become so notable that he had nearly destroyed himself and his nation as well. His hatred for David and his jealousy of this young Bethlehemite caused David to be resigned to a life of wandering. Once David learned that the Philistines were besieging the city of Keilah, he immediately hurried to rescue the city. Successful in his rescue, he drove off the enemy and scattered them, making this for a short time his headquarters (1 Samuel 23:1-6).
However, whenever Saul learned of the whereabouts of David, he was sure to be persistent in his pursuit of him; again David was forced to flee (1 Samuel 23:7-14). Although during his wanderings David attracted to his side 600 soldiers in support of his cause, nevertheless these were days of hardship and grief for David. Finally he had to leave the kingdom entirely and seek refuge among his former enemies, the Philistines.
Although the enemy clearly remembered that David slew the giant Goliath, now he was an enemy of Israel's king; and so the Philistines made an unlikely alliance with David and his men. With the consent of Achish, king of Gath, David made his headquarters at Ziklag for more than a year (1 Samuel 27:1-7). Because he supported the Philistine king in raids on the tribes to the south of the wilderness of Shur (1 Samuel 27:8-12), David gained the respect and friendship of Achish. Things were fine as long as the Philistines were fighting someone other than the Israelites. But that situation was about to change.
The Philistine armies assembled at Aphek to encounter the Israelites in Jezreel. David was now in a desperately ticklish situation. He was with the armies of the Philistines, arrayed in preparation for battle against his own people, Israel. What would he do? How would God get him out of this jam?
David didn't have to wait long for a resolution to the problem. The princes of the Philistines began to wonder whether or not they could trust David fighting against his own people. If he were to win the favor of King Saul again, what better way than to kill the Philistines. Therefore, Achish commanded, "Wherefore now rise up early in the morning with thy master's servants that are come with thee: and as soon as ye be up early in the morning, and have light, depart" (1 Samuel 29:10). Once again, through the suspicions of the Philistines, God had spared David from fighting against his own people.
Rowland V. Bingham, founder of the Sudan Interior Mission, was once seriously injured in a terrible automobile accident. Rushed to the hospital in critical condition, he did not regain consciousness until the next day. When he asked the nurse what he was doing there, she replied, "Don't try to talk now, just rest. You have been in an accident."
"Accident? Accident?" exclaimed Dr. Bingham. "There are no accidents in the life of the Christian. This is just an incident in God's perfect leading." Our attitude toward the Lord's leading our steps ought to be the same. When we live righteously before Him, free from known sin, there are no accidents in our lives, only incidents in His perfect leading. Let Him lead you today.
MORNING HYMN
In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet,
God leads His dear children along,
Where the water's cool flow bathes the weary one's feet,
God leads His dear children along.
Some thru the waters, some thru the flood,
Some thru the fire, but all thru the blood;
Some thru great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Tammy Webb-Witholt, author of our curriculum Lessons Learned, years ago moved out of a lesbian lifestyle and into a walk with God. She says, "If you had asked me if I was born gay, I would have given you a resounding 'yes.' Now I know I was not born gay, and I am not defined by the fact that I lived as a homosexual. When I came to God, He redefined me as a follower of Christ."
Often we define ourselves by a lifestyle, a role we play or some of our personal characteristics. Whether these definitions are painful or joyful, good or bad, represent success or failure ... they are comfort zones. And even when we come to Jesus, we might be reluctant to let go of them.
Consider this
People in or coming from a homosexual lifestyle might consider the gay world a safe place. People caught in a workaholic mode base their worth on their own accomplishments and success - they feel more in control that way. But when they come to Jesus, it is vital for them to let go of those identities and come to recognize who they are in Christ.
Even though you may still be struggling with old habits, be encouraged to let go of the old definitions and know that your most important identity is in Christ. You are a new creation! God has a great plan for your life and he is worthy of your trust.
Prayer
Father, I thank you for transforming me into a new creation when I became a follower of Christ. I still tend to see myself as "the old me." Please help me to see myself through your eyes - cleansed and made new. And help me remember that no matter what other roles I play in life, my number one identity is always "a follower of Christ." In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Lessons Learned by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Do It Yourself (1) . . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God's divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . ." (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier "against the knowledge of God" is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God's power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin- Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched- the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers "against the knowledge of God." We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).
God Bless
The Chimp's Birthday Card
READ: Genesis 3:1-13The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." -Genesis 3:12
Not long ago my wife asked me to pick up a belated birthday card for her brother. Scanning the rack, I ran across a card with a chimpanzee on the front holding a phone receiver in his hand.
This is what it said: "I better not hear . . . about how upset you are that I missed your birthday. I mean, how do you know I wasn't in a serious car accident and lying in some ditch out in the middle of nowhere? . . . Well, I may have forgotten your birthday, but I didn't exactly get any phone calls to see if I was okay. All I know is you better have a good excuse why I didn't hear from you on your birthday!"
The extent to which people avoid legitimate responsibility is almost laughable, but it is nothing new. When God confronted Adam for eating the forbidden fruit, he chose to blame his wife and God: "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate" (Gen. 3:12).
When we have done something wrong, we can either accept legitimate blame for what we have done or shift the blame to others. The way that pleases God and results in spiritual growth is to accept personal responsibility for our actions. Irrationally blaming others is no laughing matter. - Dennis Fisher
His eye our secret thoughts behold,
His mercies all our lives enfold,
He knows our purposes untold,
You cannot hide from God! -Ackley
A good test of a person's character is his behavior when he is wrong.
Morning Praise by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name is to be praised.
Like the two psalms preceding it, this one is without title. Some commentators have ascribed it to Samuel, others to David. However the authorship is unknown. Whoever the author was, in his best journalistic style he answers the five key questions that any young reporter would ask when writing a story. He answers the five W's: who, what, when, where and why. Let's notice what excited this young reporter to write in such a way.
Who. To whom does the writer speak? To all of us. Anyone who reads this psalm is included in the "ye" of verse 1, most specifically, "O ye servants of the LORD." More than anyone else, the servants of the Lord ought to be involved in the exalted activity of praising God. Each of us who claims to serve the Lord must publicly discharge his or her responsibility. We are best acquainted with the reasons for praising Him, and we are also the best instruments to declare His praise.
What. The responsibility of the servants of the Lord is simply, "Praise ye the LORD . . . praise the name of the LORD." The repetition of this phrase in a single verse is not without significance. You would think that we who have been saved by His grace would automatically and consistently praise His name. However this is not the case, for we are frequently slow in praising God for His blessings. Therefore the psalmist finds it necessary to stimulate us, to cajole us; and the repetition of the stimulus calls us to perseverance in sounding forth the praises of God.
When. To indicate when the servants of the Lord are to be engaged in praising the Lord, the psalmist uses an expression that is more characteristic of the old Greek poets than of the Hebrew prophets. He says, "From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name is to be praised" (Psalm 113:3). This poetic expression indicates that there is never a time of the day, never a waking hour, never an inappropriate moment, when the servant of the Lord cannot praise His name. We are to begin His praise at the very rising of the sun, early in the morning, and we are to continue that praise until sunset. Praising the name of the Lord is a daylong, lifelong privilege.
Where. If we are to praise the Lord from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same, where is it that we shall engage in this exalted activity? Since "the LORD is high above all nations, and His glory above heaven," and yet He "humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth," it is incumbent upon us to see that His name is praised wherever His presence is known. Therefore we are to praise His name in the highest heavens and the lowest earth. Just as there is not a waking hour that is inappropriate to praise His name, there is not the slightest place on earth that is inappropriate to the praising of His name. As servants of the Lord, we are to praise Him continually, wherever we find ourselves.
Why. The reasons for praising the Lord are manifold. He is high above all nations, and His glory is above the heavens. Still He humbleth Himself to observe our affairs on earth. He raiseth the poor out of the dust and the needy out of the dunghill. He makes princes out of paupers and makes the barren woman a homemaker and the mother of children.
Today would be a good day for us to make a praise list. Just as we have a prayer list, Christians ought to have a praise list, a list of reasons for praising the Lord. Begin with His love for you, His death for you, and His salvation of you, and keep listing things for which to praise the Lord from morning to night. Don't be surprised if you have to make a second list, for we have much for which to praise the Lord. A praise list it's an idea worth consideration.
MORNING HYMN
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
I ask-ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory-to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him-endless energy, boundless strength! Ephesians 1:17-19 MSG
Thoughts for Today
What are some of the words you would use to define yourself? Gay, straight, alcoholic, workaholic? Or teacher, attorney, mother, grandfather or even intelligent, witty, cute, stupid, ugly, clueless ...
While these words may describe some of your characteristics or roles, the real you is defined by your relationship to Christ. When we receive Jesus as Lord, God redefines us as followers of Christ, according to his purposes.
Homosexuality is a lifestyle you used to live (and might still be struggling with)-it's not who you are. Workaholism is a life-controlling problem, but not who you are.
Even the positive roles you play and your good characteristics may be a part of God's plan for your life-but they are not your main identity.
Consider this
If you have made Jesus Lord of your life, you are a follower of Christ. He now lives within you. You are a child of the King. He has clothed you in his righteousness. He has a plan and a purpose for your life-and he will help you accomplish all that he has prepared you for and called you to do.
Prayer
Father, I thank you that my main identity in life is now "follower of Christ." Help me to truly grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Lessons Learned by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Do It Yourself (2). . . bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Discipline Other Things. This is another difficult aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul said, according to the Moffatt translation of this verse, ". . . I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ . . . ." So much Christian work today has never been disciplined, but has simply come into being by impulse! In our Lord's life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was never the slightest tendency to follow the impulse of His own will as distinct from His Father's will- "the Son can do nothing of Himself . . . " ( John 5:19 ). Then compare this with what we do- we take "every thought" or project that comes to us by impulse and jump into action immediately, instead of imprisoning and disciplining ourselves to obey Christ.
Practical work for Christians is greatly overemphasized today, and the saints who are "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity" are criticized and told that they are not determined, and that they lack zeal for God or zeal for the souls of others. But true determination and zeal are found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that arises from our own undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity," but are simply doing work for God that has been instigated by their own human nature, and has not been made spiritual through determined discipline.
We have a tendency to forget that a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible, and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God, the world, and of sin and the devil. This means that each person must recognize the responsibility to "be transformed by the renewing of [his] mind. . . ." (Romans 12:2 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 10, 2008
Hear Their Cry
READ: Exodus 22:22-27You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry. -Exodus 22:22-23
CNN recently reported that there are approximately 40 million widows in India. Fifteen thousand of them live on the streets of the northern city of Vrindavan. Unfortunately, many of their families do not hear their cries. A 70-year-old widow says, "My son tells me: 'You have grown old. Now who is going to feed you? Go away.'?" She cries, "What do I do? My pain has no limit."
When God gave His people instructions in the desert, He told them they had a responsibility to care for widows and fatherless children in the land (Ex. 22:22-23). They were to leave some of the harvest in the field for them, and every third year they took up a special tithe for the needy. God expected His people to hear the cries of the powerless, defend their rights, and care for them.
The Israelites were commanded to care for others as a remembrance of their experience in Egypt. When they were in trouble and cried out to God, He heard their cries and helped them. So their memory of oppression and release was intended to mold their values, attitudes, and actions toward the powerless in the land (Deut. 24:18-22).
Let us imitate our Father by hearing the cries of the needy in our world. - Marvin Williams
To love your neighbor as yourself
Is not an easy task,
But God will show His love through you
If only you will ask. -Sper
The closer you are to God, the more you'll have a heart for others.
Pride by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
For when David was up in the morning, the word of the Lord came unto the prophet Gad, David's seer.
Have you ever noticed that you make your greatest mistakes immediately after your greatest victories? Why is that? The answer is likely pride. The Bible frequently warns us about the penalty of pride. Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall." The pages of the Holy Scriptures are filled with people who have met their defeat, not because of their inferiority, but because of their haughty and arrogant spirit.
A graphic illustration of the penalty of pride is seen in the life of King David. A man after God's own heart, David early won favor with Jehovah for his faithfulness and purity of life. He rose above the usurpation of his throne by two of his sons. He lived down the shame of his sin with Bathsheba. Now he had come to the end of his life, a valiant warrior and a victor.
Following the catalog of David's mighty men is the statement, "And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah" (2 Samuel 24:1). The wrath of God was upon His people at this time, not so much for a specific offense as for the general deterioration of their faithfulness to Him. First Chronicles 21:1 indicates that it was Satan who incited David to take this census. Although the penalty for this sin affected all people, David accepted it as the result of his own personal sin. Why? Because the numbering of the people was done in pride, for the purpose of self-glory, and pride always pays a penalty.
Immediately after David learned the strength of his army, he recognized the basis for his need to know their number. "And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done . . . for I have done very foolishly." As soon as David was up in the morning (2 Samuel 24:11), God offered three potential punishments for this pride. David's options were not good: the people could endure seven years of famine; David could flee three months from his enemies; Israel could experience three days of the worst pestilence they had ever seen. David preferred to receive punishment from God rather than from his enemies. Thus the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel in the morning. Because of Israel's continued sin and David's pride, 70,000 men died during the next three days in Israel.
There is an old fable about two ducks and a frog that played together in a small pond. Each summer, when the days got long and hot, the pond shrank to a small puddle, and the ducks and frog were forced to move. The ducks could fly to another place, but not the frog. As the fable goes, the frog finally suggested that the ducks put a stick in their bills so he could cling to it with his mouth and thus fly away with them. The frog was very proud of his brilliant idea. As the ducks took off for a nearby lake, the stick between their bills and the frog clinging tightly, they passed over a farmer, who seeing this strange sight questioned, "Well, isn't that a clever stunt! I wonder who thought of it?" Swelling with pride, the frog said, "I did!" and with that he lost his grip and went crashing to the ground. His own pride had done him in.
Let us beware of our pride today, for it may lead to the same kind of painful end that the frog experienced. Even worse, it may lead to pain inflicted upon others, as was experienced in the life of David. Remember, "Pride goeth before destruction" (Proverbs 16:18).
MORNING HYMN
Lord Jesus, look down from Thy throne in the skies
And help me to make a complete sacrifice.
I give up myself and whatever I know
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
So I have reason to be enthusiastic about all Christ Jesus has done through me in my service to God. Yet I dare not boast about anything except what Christ has done through me Romans 15:17-18 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Sometimes a role we play in life can become our main identity. Our world comes to revolve around this part of our life. And this can make us feel pretty good about ourselves.
Super mom world's best dad successful career person accomplished musician popular pastor well-known writer politician beloved teacher computer whiz
These can all be good roles to play-or they can hinder our growth and even lead to our downfall. When we start thinking the role we play is our main identity in life-who we are-our focus on Jesus and his plan for us can diminish and pride can set in.
Consider this
As Christians, we all have the same innate identity-we are followers of Christ. He will give us a different combination of gifts, lead us into different roles and situations and help us represent him wherever we are and whatever we do. But the bottom line is this: We are his children. That's our main identity. That's who we are. And nothing could be better.
Prayer
Father, thank you for the gifts and opportunities you've given me. Help me to always remember that I am first and foremost your child ... and to use these gifts and opportunities to honor you. May I never become prideful in anything I do. Help me to always remember that all good and perfect gifts come from you. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from
Lessons Learned by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Missionary Weapons (1)READ: When you were under the fig tree, I saw you -John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us- it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, "If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion"? Yet you won't rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God's training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person's true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private "fig-tree" life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, "But I can't be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn't come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready"? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God's work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 11, 2008
Called
READ: Romans 12:3-8Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. -Romans 12:6
In September 2001, Lisa Jefferson had an unexpected opportunity to be used by God. Her now well-known 15-minute conversation with a passenger on United Flight 93 forever changed the direction of her life. In her book Called, she emphasizes that her listening skills and her ability to take charge and stay calm in a crisis were used to encourage fellow believer Todd Beamer in the last moments of his life.
She didn't ask to be used that way. But God saw a woman who was available and matched her with someone who was in need. Lisa now shares her story with whomever she can to encourage believers to always be ready to serve.
Not only has God given us natural abilities, He also equips every believer with spiritual gifts for the purpose of ministry. God doesn't use the unwilling-He won't force us to serve Him. His part is to equip us (Eph. 4:11-13) and empower and prepare us for service. Our part is to be faithful and available and aware of opportunities to use our gifts (Rom. 12:6).
When you feel impelled to help fill a need, when you are inwardly driven to serve-listen to those thoughts. You don't want to miss God's call. - Cindy Hess Kasper
In gladness I go forth each day
Expectantly to serve and claim
The happiness that service gives
When freely rendered in God's name. -Anon.
God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary work.
Relying on God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so He giveth His beloved sleep.
The theme of this delightful little psalm is the folly of human effort apart from God. Anything we attempt in life is doomed to failure unless we rely on the power of God. The psalmist shows us this is true in four aspects of human life: social (verse la); civic (verse 1b); business (verse 2); and domestic (verses 3-5). In each of these there is an unmistakable emphasis on the necessity for reliance on God.
"Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it." Regardless if it is a private dwelling or the house of God, it is useless to undertake building unless we seek the prosperity of God. The psalmist does not say that unless the Lord consents that the house should be built, he says unless the Lord builds the house. We supply the materials; He does the work in our social lives.
"Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Turning from social to civic life, the psalmist knows the unseen watchman of every city is Jehovah Himself. The constant vigilance of a sentinel is without reward if he watches alone. It does little good for us to stand watch unless the Lord stands with us. Not to set a watch when the enemy is at hand is foolish, but to set a watch in our own strength is just as foolish.
"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows." Here the psalmist does not counsel us against rising early. His intent is to show us that nothing is accomplished by rising early or staying up late if all we do is fret about our problems. Here too we must have absolute dependence upon God.
Finally, the psalmist turns his attention to reliance on God in domestic matters. He begins with a statement about children that is diametrically opposed to the philosophy of the world today. In a day in which children are frequently viewed as a bother, an infringement on personal freedom, and are therefore aborted before they are born, the psalmist counters, "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD." Children come to us from God and are another means of building a house. In fact, in the Hebrew, the word for son (ben) and daughter (bath) both come from the same root word for house (beth). Although building a house is akin to building sons and daughters, building sons and daughters is more important than building a house around them.
A preacher once was entertained by a couple who had two teenage boys. When he entered the house, he noticed immediately a sense of warmth. He also noticed that the living room carpet was very tattered. Before he left, the mother related that one day several boys from the neighborhood were having a good time in her living room. Perhaps they were being a little too rough, and she asked them to play elsewhere. They responded, "But where will we go?" Nodding to one of them she asked, "How about your place?" "Not a chance," replied the boy. "We're not allowed to invite kids into our house." Others questioned gave similar replies. The mother soon sensed that her home was the only one where the boys felt free to come and have fun. From then on they were always welcome.
While the mother did not allow the children to be disrespectful to her property, she nonetheless recognized that the rug was only property, but that children were an heritage from the Lord. She knew if she were to raise a family she would have to show a lot of love and rely on the Lord.
To whatever endeavor God calls you today, whether it be social, civic, business, or domestic, reliance on Him is a prerequisite to success. You cannot build a house fruitfully without the labor of God. You cannot watch a city successfully without the protection of God. You cannot engage in business tirelessly without the strength of God. You cannot raise children lovingly without the wisdom of God. All human activity is but folly unless you rely upon God for success. Ask Him to make you successful today.
MORNING HYMN
If God build not the house, and lay
The groundwork sure whoever build,
It cannot stand one stormy day.
If God be not the city's shield,
If He be not their bars and wall,
In vain is watchtower; men, and all.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels. Isaiah 61:19 NLT
Thoughts for Today
What words come to mind when asked to describe yourself? Sometimes we might define ourselves by listing our failures and our negative traits. But God has a different perspective! If we are followers of Christ, this is how God sees us
We say: I'm a failure. I can't do anything right.
God says: You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Philippians 4:13
We say: I still feel guilty about things I've done in the past, even though I've confessed it all as sin and don't do those things anymore.
God says: I blot out your sins and remember them no more. Isaiah 43:25
We say: Sometimes I feel so unlovable. How can God possibly keep on loving me?
God says: God says nothing can separate us from his love. Romans 8:38-39
We say: I tend to be such a fearful person.
God says: The righteous are as bold as a lion. Proverbs 28:1
God sees us as righteous, wise and forgiven. He sees us as his treasures, his children.
Consider this
Search the scriptures to learn more about how God sees you. And ask him to help you see yourself through his eyes. Only then will you understand your true identity.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for clothing me in the righteousness of Christ. Help me not to think too lowly-or too highly-of myself, but to see myself as you do. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Lessons Learned by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Missionary Weapons (2)READ: If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet -John 13:14
Ministering in Everyday Opportunities. Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings- it means being God's very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.
The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God's power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.
Jesus said, "I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you" (13:15). Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.
Do you find yourself responding by saying, "Oh, I will do all that once I'm out on the mission field"? Talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while in the trenches of the battlefield--you will be killed while trying to do it.
We have to go the "second mile" with God (see Matthew 5:41 ). Yet some of us become worn out in the first ten steps. Then we say, "Well, I'll just wait until I get closer to the next big crisis in my life." But if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 12, 2008
LifeworkREAD: 1 Timothy 5:1-8If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. -1 Timothy 5:8
Some of our friends have chosen to curtail or leave their ministries this year. They did so in order to care for family members-for aging parents, ill spouses, siblings, or children with special needs. All were involved in fruitful works for which they were uniquely gifted. All believed that there was much to be done.
Some have chosen to reduce the time and energy they spend on those ministries; others have left their work completely. These adjustments have been difficult because ministry has been their lifework-a work for which they spent years in preparation and had many years yet to serve.
It occurs to me, however, that they have not given up their lifework but rather have assumed another. Loving and caring for others is our life's work, and caring for those of our "own house" is the highest and holiest work of all. To deny love is to align ourselves with a cold, uncaring world.
Not everyone can leave a career or calling to care for others. Financial realities and obligations may dictate otherwise. But is not such love the mark of one who does the work of God? Did not Jesus promise that one who gives a cup of cold water to one of His children "shall by no means lose his reward"? (Matt. 10:42). - David H. Roper
Thinking It Through
Paul says we are to help those who "are really widows" (1 Tim. 5:3-5). What does he mean by this? (vv.9-10). Who should help before the church does? (v.16).
True love is doing, not just feeling.
Jesus First by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
Just as Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is a book of beginnings, Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is a book of new beginnings. Before these new beginnings can occur, however, a series of endings must transpire. Thus the book of Revelation represents numerous "finals" in the Word of God.
Genesis 3:9 is God's initial call to man: "And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" Revelation 22:17 is God's final call to man: "And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Somewhere between Genesis 3:9 and Revelation 22:17 everyone who would enjoy eternity in heaven with Christ must answer one of God's calls. Perhaps you have answered Jesus' call in Matthew 11:28, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Or maybe it was the call of Christ in John 4:14, "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." But if you have not responded to the call of Christ, if you have never received Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you must respond to His call in order to receive eternal life.
Once we have responded positively to the Lord's call to salvation, we have a whole new outlook on the future. Our destiny is brighter. Our lives are sunnier. The birds' songs are sweeter. We look forward to serving Jesus every day and anticipate the day we shall live with Him in glory.
Just before God's final call in Revelation 22:17, Jesus verifies that He is indeed the one to whom we are called in salvation. He says, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star" (Revelation 22:16). These titles are applied to Him elsewhere in Scripture (cf. Isaiah 11:1; Numbers 24:17), but nowhere do they take on more meaning than just prior to the final call in the Bible. When we come to God in salvation, we come to the offspring of David. When we leave the darkness of sin, we enter the light of the Bright and Morning Star. It is the shining face of Jesus, the one who died for us, that we will first want to see when we enter the brightness of heaven. After all, being with our Savior is what makes heaven heavenly.
When Fanny Crosby, the hymn writer who wrote more than 8,000 gospel songs even though she was blinded at the age of six weeks, was pitied by a friend because she could not see, Miss Crosby replied, "Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I would have been born blind?" The friend was puzzled by this answer and asked her for further explanation. "Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!" We too will want to see our Savior first of all.
There is a story about Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, who once captured a prince and his entire family. When they came before the monarch, Cyrus asked the prisoner, "What will you give me if I release you?" The prince replied, "The half of my wealth." "And if I release your children?" The prince replied, "Everything I possess." Finally Cyrus said, "And what will you give me if I will release your wife?" The prince replied, "Your Majesty, I will give myself." So moved was Cyrus by the devotion of this young prince that he freed him and his entire family. As the prince, his wife and children returned to their home, the prince said to his wife, "Wasn't Cyrus a handsome man!" With a tender look of love in her eyes, the wife said to her husband, "I did not notice. I could only keep my eyes on you the one who was willing to give himself for me."
Morning by morning we arise to give praise to the one who saved us. Day by day we serve the one who saved us. Evening by evening we rejoice in the one who saved us. Let's concentrate today on loving the Lord Jesus and adoring no other face than the one who loved us so much that He died for us (John 3:16).
MORNING HYMN
All hail the pow'r of Jesus' name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. Romans 3:23-24 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We are defined not by our accomplishments or failures, but by who we are in Christ.
This can be good news when what we've done is nothing to brag about. Maybe we've lived a sinful lifestyle, been selfish and unkind, or just experienced a lot of failure in our life. Praise God that he doesn't define us by what we've done, but by what Christ did for us. He died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. And when we believe and accept the sacrifice he made for us, we are cleansed. Then God sees us as though we have never sinned! And that's our new identity a follower of Christ, clothed in his righteousness.
But on the other hand, maybe we've lived a pretty good life and achieved a high level of success. We really like being defined by that. We like feeling good about what we've done. We like the praise and admiration of others. But you know what? Our accomplishments aren't really that impressive to God. He sees our hearts. He knows that they are not always pure. He knows that we need Jesus. We need to know that too.
Consider this All the accomplishments in the world don't mean a thing when it comes to getting right with God and spending eternity with him. We just can't do enough to earn our way-that's why we need Jesus.
If you are not a fully committed follower of Christ, you can make that decision right now. No matter what your past no matter how good or bad your behavior you need Jesus. He loves you and is reaching out to you right now. Do you want to meet him? Just tell him that you know you need him and that you want to follow him. He is ready are you?
Prayer
Jesus, I believe that you died for my sins. Please forgive me for all my past. I'm ready for a change. I want to follow you and do things your way. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Lessons Learned by Tammy Webb-Witholt. We live in a broken and fallen world; our brokenness extends to the depths of our emotions, our souls, and our sexuality. This small group curriculum deals with moving from a homosexual lifestyle into a vital growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Going Through Spiritual Confusion Jesus answered and said, 'You do not know what you ask' -Matthew 20:22
There are times in your spiritual life when there is confusion, and the way out of it is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you.
The Shrouding of His Friendship (see Luke 11:5-8 ). Jesus gave the illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember?He is not. The time will come when everything will be explained. There seems to be a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller fellowship and oneness. When God appears to be completely shrouded, will you hang on with confidence in Him?
The Shadow on His Fatherhood (see Luke 11:11-13 ). Jesus said that there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father?as if He were callous and indifferent- but remember, He is not. "Everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Luke 11:10 ). If all you see is a shadow on the face of the Father right now, hang on to the fact that He will ultimately give you clear understanding and will fully justify Himself in everything that He has allowed into your life.
The Strangeness of His Faithfulness (see Luke 18:1-8 ). "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" ( Luke 18:8 ). Will He find the kind of faith that counts on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand firm in faith, believing that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing. He has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you are asking of Him right now.
God Bless
Family...........Forgive me, but I didn't stop to think that all of the devotional I had been using came out of The Gospel Highway and they are based in Houston.
Their message today and maybe days to come have been slowed by the hurricane that hit Texas.....and they have told the masses that it maybe several days before they get back and running.
so I am going to use a different site until they come back.
Bear with me......I was not paying attention and just taking the postings as they were emailed to me........I may confuse all of us....including me.......if I make a mistake let me know....and if any of you want to grab hold and share with us....I think that would be super.
I will post something daily.....I know God is leading me to do this and He will show me the ones I am to use.
God bless
Wisdom from the Psalms 9/13
September 13
Psalm 115:1
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto they name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.
Max had worked at the mission for over forty years. There had been weeks on end when he hadn't even gotten to go home. He lived to serve the poor and homeless in his area. When he finally decided to retire, the entire city pitched in to pay him tribute. Throughout the proceedings Max seemed uncomfortable, and finally he stood to speak.
"I don't want to seem ungrateful, but all this really isn't necessary, and besides, I don't really deserve it. God is the one who needs to be honored. I have just been fortunate enough that He has used me all these years. I really haven't done anything special. I just did what God wanted me to."
It is difficult to set aside our own ego in order to serve God freely. When all is said and done, however, all that we are able to do is made possible by God's grace. Our triumphs are God's triumphs. Like Max, we should feel privileged that God has chosen to work with and through us.
Prayer:
Use me, Lord. With the gifts and talents You bestowed upon me, enable me to spread Your Good News to everyone I meet. Amen.
Today's Verse For Sunday, September 14
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:22-25 NIV
Crosswalk the Devotional - Sept. 12, 2008
September 12, 2008
"Pulling an Assisi"
by Laura MacCorkle, Crosswalk.com Senior Entertainment Editor
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words."
— Saint Francis of Assisi
Whenever I read or hear the above quote by St. Francis of Assisi, I naturally think of myself first. Ahem.
But, of course, it's not because I am the poster child for this way of living. Hardly. It makes me think of how my actions often do not point others to Christ.
A Scripture passage that really convicts me and leads me toward "pulling an Assisi" and living out my faith without words is Romans 12:10-13:
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Truth be told, after reading these verses, I feel like there's no way I could ever do all of this. How can I possibly achieve all of these life instructions? Or, at the very least, how can I live out just one of these today?
The Lord knows that without him, without the power of the Holy Spirit, I cannot do this on my own. And so I take comfort after reading Philippians 2:1-2:
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
When I empty myself of me, I make way for God to go to work. And it is only by the Holy Spirit working through me, and working through you, that we are able to live like this. He knits us to himself, and he knits us together as the body of Christ.
While we're here on earth, I also think it is natural for us to look to other believers as examples of those who "preach the gospel at all times" and "if necessary, use words." These are people who seem to have "effortlessly" discovered how to really empty themselves of themselves. Among other things, they're people who:
Open their homes and welcome anyone without prejudice
Have made personal, countercultural sacrifices to draw closer to God
Spread hope because their lives have been radically transformed
Admit their weaknesses so that others may see Christ at work
Give others the benefit of the doubt before judging
Make sure others are recognized first for their gifts and efforts
Accept (not reject) those with whom they disagree
Love the unlovely and befriend the outcasts
Don't boast about themselves or their achievements
Remember others in prayer and continually encourage
Do what they say they will do and don't make excuses
Seek to make amends first, no matter who is at fault
Make time for people, even if it means rearranging their schedules
Do you know someone who lives like this? It's encouraging to witness, isn't it? These individuals are the ones who draw us together and point us to Christ.
Yes, they are far from perfect, but they are consistently offering their lives as a sacrifice of praise and are being used by God. They are preaching the gospel. And they, without words, are "pulling an Assisi."
Intersecting Faith & Life: Call your church office to see if a single mother or a widow has requested assistance. Or ask your elderly neighbor what he or she needs. Then, give as you are able by opening your wallet or by making an appointment on your calendar to help out.
Further Reading:
Colossians 3:1-4, NIV
Galatians 5:22-23, NIV
God Bless
Quiet Walk Daily E-Votional from Crosswalk.com
September 15
Acts 25
Felix vacates his office without resolving Paul's status.
INSIGHT
How strangely God fulfills His own word: "So you must also bear witness at Rome" (Acts 23:11). Paul knows he will have to go to Rome, but he doesn't expect to go under Roman guard and at Rome's expense. After two years the Jews still thirst for his blood! Had he been transferred to Jerusalem, his life would have been imperiled. However, God had called him to preach the Gospel in Rome. Through these circumstances, Paul is transferred.
PRAYER
Let's praise God for His wonderful ways:
Blessed be the Lord,
Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him. (Psalm 28:6-7)
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;
But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
They have bowed down and fallen;
But we have risen and stand upright.
Save, Lord!
May the King answer us when we call.
(Psalm 20:7-9)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
You are holy,
Enthroned in the praises of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in You;
They trusted, and You delivered them.
They cried to You, and were delivered;
They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.
(Psalm 22:3-5)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Careful speech
Troubling current events
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, close with this prayer to the Lord:
I will declare Your name to My brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
You who fear the Lord, praise Him!
All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him,
And fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!
For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from Him;
But when He cried to Him, He heard. (Psalm 22:22-24)
God Bless
September 16
Acts 26
Paul is given an audience with King Agrippa.
INSIGHT
To repent means to turn around, to go in the opposite direction, or to think opposite thoughts. If you have not received Christ, you must repent to do so. In his defense before King Agrippa and Festus, Paul says he preaches to everyone that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance (v. 20). One cannot repent without changing. Repentance toward Christ brings new birth and the power to change. Have you repented and turned to God?
PRAYER
Praise the Lord for His patience and love:
I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart;
I will tell of all Your marvelous works.
I will be glad and rejoice in You;
I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.
(Psalm 9:1-2)
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!
For praise from the upright is beautiful.
Praise the Lord with the harp;
Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy. (Psalm 33:1-3)
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Lord, I hope for Your salvation,
And I do Your commandments.
My soul keeps Your testimonies,
And I love them exceedingly.
I keep Your precepts and Your testimonies,
For all my ways are before You. (Psalm 119:166-168)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Power to become more Christ-like
Your activities for the day
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
The Lord is righteous,
He loves righteousness;
His countenance beholds the upright. (Psalm 11:7)
God Bless
Daily Devotionals September 16, 2008
We're back, well sort of. Working off of a generator but at least we can access the internet. No major damage just a lot of debris. And thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers. God most certainly was merciful to us. Please continue to keep the people of the Texas gulf coast in your prayers. Ike was a major disaster, roughly 75% of the area has no electricity, gas is difficult to find and the grocery stores are not well stocked. Many lost everything so please continue to pray for us.
Responding To Criticism
READ: 1 Peter 2:4-12
When they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God. -1 Peter 2:12
Abraham Lincoln knew what it meant to face criticism. He is quoted as saying, "If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how-the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."
Lincoln, against huge opposition, went on to reunite the fractured United States, win the Civil War, and abolish slavery in the US. Had he allowed his critics to defeat him, Lincoln would not have accomplished what he did.
The apostle Peter understood the dangers of unfounded criticism. He wrote, "Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God" (1 Peter 2:12).
Criticism can consume our lives to the point of emotional paralysis, or we can set our hearts to serve God faithfully undeterred by that criticism and put our God on display. When we do that, we won't need to answer our critics with words-our lives will say all that is needed. - Bill Crowder
If we keep doing what is right-
And serving Christ each day,
We need not fear what others think
Nor what the critics say. -D. De Haan
The most powerful testimony is a godly life.
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God Alone by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
The book of Job is an epic poem ranking among the greatest writings of mankind. Alfred Lord Tennyson said that the book of Job was "the greatest poem of ancient or modern times." As the story of a man who lived righteously before God, was fiercely attacked by Satan, continued his righteous life, and had restored to him all that he lost and more, the Book of Job ought to be an encouragement to all of us. Somewhere in the book you and I find ourselves.
It was not bad enough that Job was attacked by Satan, but his three friends, who sought to comfort him, were equally vicious in their pompous assumptions about Job's sin. The majority of Job's chapters record cycles of speeches given by Job's friends and the replies of the righteous Job.
The first cycle contains the speech of Eliphaz. In vivid language Eliphaz describes a vision in which he saw the majestic purity of God compared with the sinfulness of all of God's created beings. Since only the evil perish, Job was experiencing his difficulty because he was evil, Eliphaz thought. His suggestion was that the righteous Job not be bitter but turn to God in repentance.
In replying to Eliphaz, Job likens human life to service in the armed forces, to the life of a hireling, to the lowly lot of a servant. Job can identify with each of these roles, for he too is caught in a life situation well beyond his control. He recognizes that the servant or hireling has but a few days on earth and many of these days are lived in menial meaninglessness. Job feels the same way about his life, now that his family and possessions are gone and his friends have turned against him, assuming his unrighteousness.
I suppose each of us has had occasion to identify with Job 7:4. When Job lies upon his bed at night and sleep does not come, his only thought is, "When shall I arise, and the night be gone?" When financial reversals or personal losses plague us and faithful friends fail us, the nights do seem long indeed. Like Job, we may feel that we are "full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day" (Job 7:4).
What can Job do? Where can he turn? Who is the one person who will listen and understand? In the transitoriness of life, who remains the same forever? Job knows the answer; he will make his prayer to God and there find his hope.
Vance Havner once told a story about an elderly woman who was disturbed by her great and many troubles. Some of these troubles were real, but others were imaginary. After friends and family had prayed with her, comforted her and attempted to help her, they reminded her, "Grandma, we've done all we can for you. You'll just have to trust God for the rest." With a look of shock and despair Grandma's eyes flashed back to her family the message, "Oh dear, has it come to that?" Havner notes, "It always comes to that, so we might as well begin with that!"
This is the lesson that Job learned. Sometimes in attempting to provide comfort our family and friends actually do a disservice to us in our need. Sometimes we are misunderstood for our actions. But God always understands and God is always a source of comfort. It always comes to the need to rest in God. We may rest in Him for our health and strength, for vindication from false accusations, for companionship in time of solitude. It always comes to that and thank God it does.
MORNING HYMN
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. 2 Corinthians 7:1
Thoughts for Today
Television programs are rampant with kids showing no respect to parents, workers showing no respect to employers, people showing no respect to God.
Reverencing God means we do not take God or his message lightly. Watching movies that trivialize him or socializing with people who use his name in vain can slowly but surely detract from our reverence for him.
Noah was surrounded by people who had no respect for God. In fact, the world was full of so much violence and corruption that the Lord was grieved and decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth.
Noah didn't go along with the crowd to "fit in." Even when people laughed at him and said cruel things about him, Noah continued to do all that God commanded.
God's instructions to build an ark probably didn't make sense to Noah, but he reverenced his Lord and so he obeyed. The result? Noah and his family were saved from the coming judgment. And God counted Noah's faith as righteousness.
Consider this
Let us not take God lightly. May we trust him and reverence him enough to walk with him in obedience - even when we don't understand even when others ridicule or oppose us.
Prayer
Father, help me to do what is right rather than what is easy. Help me to honor you by totally trusting and obeying you. In Jesus name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes contains a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Praying to God in Secret
READ:
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place . . . -Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is- keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
"When you pray, do not use vain repetitions . . ." ( Matthew 6:7 ). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly- He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God- that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19 ), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
"Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Matthew 7:8 ). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer- but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, ". . . you will ask what you desire. . ." ( John 15:7 ). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, "Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask." But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
God Bless
September 17
Acts 27
Paul exercises his right as a Roman citizen to take his case before Caesar.
INSIGHT
One of the secrets of peace is believing the promises of God. There are many things that we think we believe, but our anxiety level reveals that we do not. The Lord promises to meet all our needs, but our labor and worry reveal that we are not so sure. Paul receives a word from God that he will not perish. In relating this to the sailors, Paul says: "Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me" (v. 25). If we believe, we can be at peace; if we do not believe, we will fret. Review the promises of Scripture when you are troubled. What among them are you not believing? If you are trying to believe but still struggle, you may pray the prayer of the father regarding his son who had an evil spirit: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).
PRAYER
Praise God that He rewards our faith, even if it is as small as a mustard seed:
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel,
Who only does wondrous things!
And blessed be His glorious name forever!
And let the whole earth be filled with His glory.
Amen and Amen. (Psalm 72:18-19)
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
O Israel, return to the Lord your God,
For you have stumbled because of your iniquity;
Take words with you,
And return to the Lord.
Say to Him,
"Take away all iniquity;
Receive us graciously,
For we will offer the sacrifices of our lips."
(Hosea 14:1-2)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever;
and the bread that I shall give is My flesh,
which I shall give for the life of the world." (John 6:51)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater love for your family
Missions in North America
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
"The Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works." (Matthew 16:27)
Daily Devotionals September 17, 2008
Please continue to keep the people of the Texas Gulf Coast in your prayers.
He's There All The TimeREAD: Isaiah 45:18-25I did not say . . . , "Seek Me in vain." -Isaiah 45:19
I'll never forget my frustrating experience when I went to Chicago's Union Station early one morning to pick up an elderly relative who was arriving by train. When I got there, she wasn't where I thought she would be. With increasing anxiety I scoured the place-to no avail. Thinking she had missed her train, I was about to leave when I glanced down a hallway toward the baggage area. There she was, luggage at her feet, patiently waiting for me to arrive. She had been there all the time. And, to my chagrin, she was right where she was supposed to be.
It's that way with God. He's there, patiently waiting for us. He assures us, "I did not say . . . , 'Seek Me in vain'" (Isa. 45:19). Why, then, do we often have trouble finding Him? Probably because we are looking in all the wrong places.
You'll find Him right where He is supposed to be-in His Word, in prayer, and in the voice of the Holy Spirit who lives within you. The God who says "seek, and you will find" (Matt. 7:7) also promises that "He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" (Heb. 11:6). So, you can rejoice that God is right where He is supposed to be, and He's waiting for you right now. - Joe Stowell
The Lord is near to all who call;
He promised in His holy Word
That if we will draw near to Him,
Our faintest heartcry will be heard. -Hess
Have we been looking for God in all the wrong places?
Thinking of Others by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD.
SELFISHNESS is innate to man's being. Human philosophy says, Look out for number one for if you don't, no one else will. The question of the first murderer,Am I my brother's keeper is still being asked in society today. This is indeed unfortunate. When we live self-centered lives we are denied the joy of delighting in others.
Abraham was a man little given to such selfishness. When he and nephew Lot came to a parting of the ways, Abraham gave his kin first pick of the land. Looking eastward on the fertile plain of the Jordan, Lot fell prey to temptation and chose the valley thick with vegetation. Abraham then withdrew to the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, in the center of the south hill country. Willing to obey the stern inward call of duty, Abraham quietly received the less desirable terrain.
The picturesque valley of the lower Jordan was dotted with five cities of the plain. They were Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela, which was later renamed Zoar. Sodom, the chief city of this pentapolis, was so wicked that a particularly abnormal sin still bears its name. Here the worldly Lot chose to settle and even become prominent. The men of this city were especially wicked and sinned exceedingly before the Lord. How it must have grieved the genuinely pious Abraham to see his nephew choose these surroundings.
In the course of time three angelic guests stopped at the door of Abraham's tent in Mamre. Abraham greeted them hospitably and made ready a feast. As the men prepared to leave, Abraham accompanied them a short distance toward Sodom. Two of the strangers went on ahead while the third, who was actually the Lord, lingered awhile with Abraham. It was then that Abraham received the crushing news. The Lord had come with His two angels to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sins of these two cities were so heinous and abundant that God could no longer tolerate their existence. They must be destroyed.
Immediately Abraham thought of Lot. He began to intercede with the Lord in Lot's behalf. After a typically oriental bargaining session, Abraham pled with the Lord not to destroy Sodom if ten righteous people could be found in it. The Lord agreed. However, there could not be found ten righteous citizens in this horribly wicked city and its destruction was certain. The angels prompted Lot to take his wife and two daughters and escape to the mountains. Lot fled, not to the mountains, but to the city of Zoar and as soon as he arrived the Lord rained fire and brimstone down upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
This fierce fire and brimstone that fell from Heaven not only destroyed the cities and their inhabitants but even the soil around them. The entire valley was burned out and utterly destroyed. It is likely that either the Dead Sea originated with this catastrophic event or that the existing sea was greatly enlarged to the south by engulfing this destroyed valley.
And what of Abraham? Is he resting comfortably in his tent while all this is going on? Not at all. Genesis 19:27 records, And Abraham got up early in the morning and viewed the smoke rising from the plain. He was genuinely interested in the welfare of Lot and his family and eagerly awaited news of them. The foolish nephew was spared from this devastation because God remembered the concern of Abraham.
Lot had slapped Abraham in the face by choosing the best land for himself. He had broken the heart of God's friend by settling in a center of wickedness. Abraham had every right to care nothing about Lot's welfare, yet he did care. He arose early, unselfishly, for he had learned not to seek his own but the good of others (1 Corinthians 10:24; Philippians 2:4). If you want to be happy today, why not spend the day helping others? Be interested in them; pray for them; bring good cheer to them. It will do a lot for you, too.
MORNING HYMN
Others, Lord, yes, others,
Let this my motto be.
Help me to live for others,
That I might live like Thee.
Is There Good in Temptation?READ: No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man . . . -1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person's inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal- it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don't know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else--what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations--He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16 ).
God Bless
September 18
Acts 28
Paul finally arrives in Rome after a harrowing journey by sea.
INSIGHT
Our lives are a constant struggle between our own wills and the will of God. The circumstances of God's will are often strange and enigmatic; they do not always make sense. However, His will is being worked out even in ways we cannot see or understand. When we relinquish control of our lives and yield to God's will, then peace, love, and joy will characterize our lives. Paul must have wondered from time to time how shipwreck and imprisonment were working into God's will; yet with historical perspective, we can see that good came of these events. In the words of the old hymn, we must: "Trust and obey, for there´s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."
PRAYER
Thank the Lord and praise Him because He is good and can be trusted:
Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting,
You are God. . . .
Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
(Psalm 90:1-2, 14)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye. (Psalm 32:8)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Faithfulness with your finances
Revival in America
Whatever else is on your heart
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
Daily Devotionals September 18, 2008
Spare BedsREAD: Hebrews 13:1-6Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. -Hebrews 13:2
In 2004, Casey Fenton co-founded a nonprofit service that helps travelers find a "friendlier alternative" to unfriendly hotels. They find homeowners who are willing to offer their spare beds and couches to others.
The group boasts almost a quarter of a million friendships that have been formed from their service. "The more we network," said Fenton, "the better chance we have of this world being a better place."
That service sounds a lot like biblical hospitality. In the final pages of his letter to the Hebrews, the writer instructed believers to practice their faith in Jesus Christ through hospitality (13:2). That was defined by the early Christ-followers as acts of generosity toward strangers.
In the first century, hospitality often included housing a guest. This was hardest to do during a time of persecution. These believers would not know whether the person was a spy or a fellow believer being pursued. But by entertaining strangers, the writer said, they could indeed be inviting a blessing into their homes.
As God's people, we are called to be hospitable to others as part of our gratitude for the salvation we have received from God. - Marvin Williams
Lord, grant me a loving heart,
A will to give and share,
A whispered prayer upon my lips
To show I really care. -Brandt
People with a heart for God have a heart for people.
Waiting on God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning.
DURING OUR DARK MOMENTS frequently we become impatient and ask God to speak to us immediately. But sometimes God is silent, and we must be silent as well. When the tears of frustration stream down our cheeks, when defeat and despair hang around us like a shroud, when we don't know which way to turn, we must heed God's advice to the psalmist, "Be still, and know that I am God"(Psalm 46:10).
Perhaps this divine stillness in the midst of the storm is best illustrated in the story of Ruth. A severe famine in Palestine drove Elimelech and Naomi, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, to Moab with their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. Here the sons married Moabite girls named Ruth and Orpah. After ten years the father and sons died leaving three childless widows. Naomi decided to return to her homeland. Realizing the lonely life ahead for her daughters-in-law in a foreign country, she entreated them to remain behind in Moab. After some persuasion Orpah returned but Ruth requested, "Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodges, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people and thy God my God"(Ruth 1:16). Hence, Ruth and Naomi traveled on together.
It was springtime during the barley harvest when Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem. Immediately Ruth went to glean in the field of a wealthy Ephrathite named Boaz, a relative of Elimelech, her father-in-law. Boaz showed kindness to Ruth, allowing her to eat with the Jews, contrary to the Hebrew custom, and eventually came to love her. Full of gratitude to God, Naomi instructed Ruth to claim her rights under the levirate law of marriage. This law, similar to those of the Assyrians and the Hittites, permitted a childless widow to marry her husband's brother or nearest kinsman in order to perpetuate the dead husband's name.
That night, when Boaz went to sleep, Ruth softly came and laid at his feet. During the night Boaz awoke and was startled to see Ruth. She identified herself and asked him to perform the duties of the near kinsman. Apparently Boaz's interest in Ruth had blossomed. However, he knew there was a kinsman nearer than he who must first be given the opportunity to perform this custom. Thus Boaz instructed Ruth, "Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of the kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part; but if he will not do the part of the kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of the kinsman to thee, as the LORD liveth: lie down until the morning"(Ruth 3:13).
In the morning Ruth arose, was given six measures of barley by Boaz, and returned to the house of Naomi. Filled with anxiety over her future, Naomi instructed Ruth in the lesson of quiet faith. She said, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall." Boaz kept his word. He called ten witnesses of the elders to take their seats in the gate of the city to ratify his negotiations with the nearest kinsman to Ruth. When the kinsman refused to redeem his possession, that transferred the right of redemption legally to Boaz. Boaz and Ruth were married; she bore a son named Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David. Good things happen to us when we sit still and wait on God.
Like Ruth, we must learn that no one who trusts God is ever forgotten by our Saviour. He is ever praying for us (Hebrews 7:25). We may feel forsaken and forlorn, but our High Priest is always touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15-16). He catches the tears of our anxiety and anguish alike "in [His] bottle"(Psalm 56:8). He is fully aware of our situation. In the meantime, we must simply sit still until we see how the matter will fall and learn the glorious lesson that, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31).
MORNING HYMN
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed.
Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass. Psalm 37:3-5 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Building an ark on dry ground was a witness to the unbelieving people of Noah's time. Noah demonstrated his reverence for God by obeying him. Noah persevered amidst ridicule for more than 120 years. And during that time, he further showed his reverence for God, and his love toward the people, by attempting to share his faith with his tormentors.
Noah's eyes were on God - not the failures, not the hopelessness of it all, not the way people treated him. He reverenced God and kept his focus on what God had told him to do, no matter what the circumstances. As a result, God saved him and his family and used them to replenish the earth.
Consider this
Are you obeying God and yet not seeing the results you hoped to see? Don't give up! Keep your eyes on Jesus. Reverence God above your own expectations. Obey him even if you don't understand what you see. Focus on what he has called you to do and trust him for the rest.
God's ways are definitely not our ways. But respect him and trust him enough to know that his ways are the right ways. And seek his ways above all else.
Prayer
Father, sometimes I get my eyes on circumstances and get so discouraged. Help me keep my eyes on Jesus ... on your love and on your Word. I do know that you will work everything out for good and that your timetable is best. In Jesus name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes contains a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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His Temptation and OursREAD: We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin -Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord's temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19 ), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things- he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus' baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One "who takes away the sin of the world" ( John 1:29 ) He "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness" ( Matthew 4:1 ) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation "without sin," and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
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Please continue to pray for the people of the Texas Gulf Coast. The road back is going to be very long for many and they are in great need of your prayers
God Bless
September 19
Romans 1
Paul emphasizes the importance of the gospel message.
INSIGHT
According to Romans 1:18-20, all people have two avenues for beginning to learn about God. First, all human beings have an inner awareness of God or conscience (v. 19). Second, they can look at nature and learn several truths about God: (1) His invisible attributes--beauty, intelligence, etc.; (2) His eternal power--what awesome power it takes to put the stars in place!; (3) His divine nature--that there is a God who is higher than man and nature. Whenever anyone looks at nature and honestly searches his own heart, he can know that there is a God.
PRAYER
The righteousness of God has been imputed to you if you are a child of God, and you can praise Him in holiness and truth:
The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty;
The Lord is clothed,
He has girded Himself with strength.
Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved.
Your throne is established from of old;
You are from everlasting. (Psalm 93:1-2)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart--
These, O God, You will not despise.
(Psalm 51:16-17)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven
given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
The development of an eternal perspective
Your activities for the day
Whatever else is on your heart
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
Daily Devotionals September 19, 2008
A LearnerREAD: Isaiah 50:4-6, Luke 2:46-52They found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. -Luke 2:46
The poster in the church hallway pictured a young boy dressed in Middle Eastern clothing, with Bible in hand, walking up a hill to church. The caption read: "Jesus was a good Christian boy who went to Sunday school every Sunday."
As a Jewish boy, Jesus didn't go to Sunday school and church on Sunday, so the poster was inappropriate. But the picture is correct in portraying Jesus' desire to be in His Father's temple to listen to His teaching.
When Jesus was 12, He went with His parents to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover (Luke 2:41-42). On their way home, His parents realized He was not with them. When they returned, they "found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions" (v.46).
Jesus had the heart of a learner-disciple. Isaiah writes of Him as Jehovah's Servant: "The Lord God . . . awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened My ear" (50:4-5). In His humanity, the Son was open to learn from His Father.
Jesus' example challenges us to be listeners to God's Word. We too can become learner-disciples if we'll keep our hearts open to God's teaching. - Anne Cetas
Fill me with the knowledge
Of Thy glorious will;
All Thine own good pleasure
In Thy child fulfill. -Grimes
The highest goal of learning is toknow God.
Satan's Imitators by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand.
Of all the brother teams in the Old Testament, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Hophni and Phinehas, etc., perhaps none was so outstanding as Moses and Aaron. Together they were called upon to undertake the impossible dream,the exodus of Israel from Egypt. Jehovah had made Moses a god to Pharaoh and brother Aaron was his prophet. As a team they stood before the Egyptian king and demanded the release of God's people Israel.
During the new kingdom period the power of Pharaoh was unsurpassed among contemporary nations. At times his kingdom extended as far as the Euphrates River. For Moses and Aaron to appear at the royal Egyptian court demanding that the people of Israel be set free was a challenge to Pharaoh's power. From the start the king's attitude was one of arrogant defiance. Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go"(Exodus 5:2).
But the Lord had forewarned Moses and Aaron of Pharaoh's attitude, informing them that when the king asked for a miracle to prove God's power they should cast Aaron's rod to the ground and it would become a serpent. When Pharaoh questioned them, Aaron obeyed God and, as God had promised, the rod miraculously became a serpent. However, much to the surprise of Moses and Aaron, the king of Egypt called upon his wise men sorcerers to do the same and their rods too became serpents.
Apparently these Egyptian magicians knew the secret of paralyzing a snake by applying pressure on the back of the neck. This would make the serpent become rigid and the pompous Egyptian sorcerers would stroll along the streets using the paralyzed snakes as walking sticks. When they cast the snake to the ground, releasing the pressure, the snake would begin to crawl. Capturing the snake was a simple matter of grabbing it by the back of the neck, renewing the pressure, and making the serpent rigid again.
Such was the case in the contest between Moses and Aaron and the magicians of Pharaoh's court. However, as the Egyptians imitated the miracle of God they did not have opportunity to grab the serpents by the back of the neck and reapply the pressure. Before they could do so Aaron's rod-serpent swallowed them up.
Rather than be stunned by the defeat of his magicians, Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Thus the Lord instructed Moses to "Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning" and to demand that the people of Israel be released (Exodus 7:15). Early the next morning the confrontation took place and as a result of Pharaoh's refusal the Nile River, long worshiped by the Egyptians, turned to blood. Thus began the great plagues of Egypt.
Although in the first two plagues God allowed the Egyptian magicians to imitate His miracles, by the third one they had run out of tricks. Candidly they had to admit to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19). This did not end imitations of God's power, however, for Satan is the great imitator of God. He has been imitating God through the centuries, and many have been deceived by some clever counterfeits which seem to be of God, but actually are of the devil.
Today the world is deluged with deception. Satan is on a rampage imitating the acts of God. This is why Christians are cautioned to "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). Moses and Aaron were not fooled or intimidated by the imitation miracles of the Egyptian magicians. Believers today must not be fooled or intimidated by the power of Satan, "because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).
MORNING HYMN
Thy Holy Spirit, Lord, alone,
Can turn our hearts from sin;
His pow'r alone can sanctify,
And keep us pure within.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16 NIV
Thoughts for Today
No Fear printed across tee-shirts. Bumper stickers that read Question Authority. Television programs flaunting rebellion. Movies that trivialize God. ... Sadly, these are all signs of our times.
Respect, reverence and fear have become distasteful words in our society. A lack of concern or respect for each other or for anyone in authority has led to rebellion, hatred and even bloodshed.
A lack of respect for mankind and other distorted attitudes can be traced to a lack of reverence toward God. To reverence the Lord means to treat God and his message with awe.
Consider this
What are some ways we can show our respect and reverence to God? Noah did it by persevering in obedience even in very difficult circumstances. We too need to put God first in our lives to strive to please him in all we do to have regular devotional times with him to live our day-to-day lives in a way that honors him.
People who don't know Jesus often judge him by what they see in his followers. What do they learn about Jesus from your life?
Prayer
Father, help me to consistently live in such a way that others will sense your love and will honor you and want to know you. In Jesus name
These thoughts were drawn from
Godly Heroes contains a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Are You Going on With Jesus?READ: You are those who have continued with Me in My trials -Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? "From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" ( John 6:66 ).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ's honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on "outside the camp" ( Hebrews 13:13 ). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow- but only the voice saying, "Follow Me" ( Matthew 4:19 )
Please continue to keep the people of the Texas Gulf Coast in your prayers. They are battered but not beaten by Ike. This link should give you some kind of idea of the damage http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of.html
God Bless
September 20
Romans 2
The Jews have no partiality with God because they live for the Law.
INSIGHT
Without God, there is no right and wrong; there is only preference. We can say that we prefer something to be or not to be; but unless we appeal to God, we cannot use the words right and wrong. If one person says something is right and another says it is wrong, their opinions cancel each other out unless they can appeal to a higher authority. Mankind needs God not only for salvation but also for the normal functioning of society. It is sobering to ask, "If everyone were exactly like me, what kind of society would we have?"
PRAYER
Give praise and thanks to the Lord for the matchless gift of eternal life through Christ:
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is the great God,
And the great King above all gods. . . .
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand. (Psalm 95:1-3, 6-7)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits. (Psalm 103:1-2)
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.
I have sworn and confirmed
That I will keep Your righteous judgments. . . .
Accept, I pray, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord,
And teach me Your judgments. (Psalm 119:105-106, 108)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater personal discipline
Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
To the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17)
September 20-21, 2008
Is Our Country On Thin Ice?
Romans 2:1-8
Our country was founded on the premise that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are "unalienable rights," endowed by the Creator. In the mid-1900s, the Pledge of Allegiance was amended to convey a similar idea—that we are "one nation under God."
Soon, however, morality in our land took a downward turn, and over the past 50 years, the Founders' vision has become clouded. One indicator is the media—if a citizen in 1950 could have seen some of our current TV programs, he no doubt would have been shocked by the language, dress, and content.
Can the attempt to remove Jesus from the public square have anything to do with our crumbling values? Perhaps. A country that takes prayer out of schools and government meetings can easily drift from godly ways. We have even debated removing "In God We Trust" from our currency and "one nation under God" from the Pledge. What's more, our nation is sometimes so accepting of "all religions" that Christians are persecuted for believing Jesus is the only way (John 14:6).
God is holy, so surely He doesn't approve of all the actions sanctioned by our laws. Yet He has been patient—and we've been blessed beyond measure. But the Father's patience won't last forever (Neh. 9:30). America must repent of its choice to disregard His precepts.
Have you sat back and allowed ungodly values to infiltrate this land? As citizens, Christians have a responsibility to influence government decisions in the direction of righteousness. Ask for God's guidance as you determine how to stand up for Him.
God Bless
September 21
Romans 3
The world stands guilty before God, and can only be forgiven through Christ.
INSIGHT
There are several commonly held misconceptions about how God evaluates the deeds of men. One idea is that as long as we don't do anything "terrible," God will overlook our "little" sins. Another is that God weighs all our good works on one side of a scale and all our bad works on the other. If the good outweighs the bad, we're okay. A third incorrect notion is that God lines up all the people who have ever lived from the best to the worst and then divides them in half. If you make the cut, you're okay. The truth the Bible teaches is that God demands sinlessness. And since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, all people are condemned. There is only one way out: Receive Jesus as your personal Savior. Through Him, all your sins can be forgiven.
PRAYER
Offer your praise to the Lord for His grace and salvation:
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning,
And Your faithfulness every night . . .
To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
(Psalm 92:1-2, 15)
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
You have forgotten the exhortation
which speaks to you as to sons:
"My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives."
(Hebrews 12:5-6).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world.
He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
A stronger desire to be like Christ
Churches across the nation
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
To Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ . . . to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. (Romans 16:25, 27)
Daily Devotionals September 21, 2008
Rightly Dividing The WordREAD: 2 Timothy 2:14-19Be diligent . . . rightly dividing the Word of truth. -2 Timothy 2:15
In 1879, James Murray was hired as the editor of The Oxford English Dictionary. He had little advanced education, but he was a gifted linguist. Murray enlisted a large number of volunteers around the world to read widely and send him usages of assigned words. At Oxford, he and a small staff of scholars cataloged and edited the definitions they received.
During his lifetime, Murray was knighted and awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford. Today, the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary is still recognized as one of the most accurate and comprehensive dictionaries in the world.
Murray's legacy of precision and accuracy with words reminds me of what the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, a young pastor of the Ephesian church: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). The phrase "rightly dividing" is a metaphor derived from the stonemason's craft of cutting stones straight to fit into their proper place in a building.
Precision with words is essential to an accurate interpretation of God's Word. Let's be people who care deeply about what the Bible says and what it means. - Dennis Fisher
Correctly handling the Word of truth
Takes diligence and care;
So make the time to study it
And then that truth declare. -Hess
Rightly dividing the Word multiplies our understanding.
Practical Religion by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
Faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour transforms us from a shallow meaningless person into one filled with the Spirit of God. If we are born again and the Spirit resides within us, our religion ought to be as full of meaning as our lives are full of the Spirit. How terrible to see many religions in which there is absolute meaninglessness because of spiritual ritualism. Jesus encountered this very same thing in His day as well.
The Pharisees were always guilty of practicing an empty religion. This is why John the Baptist called them a "generation of vipers" (Matthew 3:7). The Pharisees were constantly interested in keeping the ceremonial law, but they had the wrong heart attitude toward God. When Jesus called Matthew to discipleship, the Pharisees were right there to question the Lord's disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" (Matthew 9:11). When He cast a demon out of a man who was dumb, the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out devils through the power of the prince of the devils (Matthew 9:34).
Always the Pharisees were seeking a sign from Jesus that He was the Messiah. Time and again He refused to give them such a sign saying that the sign of Jonah was all they would need. His resurrection after a death of three days would be the great sign to them that He was indeed the Messiah. If they would not believe that sign, neither would they believe any other.
At Magdala Jesus again encountered the Pharisees, this time in league with the Sadducees and Herodians, who again asked Him for a sign. As before, Jesus refused to give them such a sign but at the same time He taught them something about the emptiness and blindness of their spiritual ritualism. Jesus noted that the Pharisees and Sadducees could read the weather signs in the heavens. He said, "When it is evening you say, it will be fair weather for the sky is red." This is comparable to our axiom, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight." But Jesus continued, "And in the morning it will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowring" (Matthew 16:3). Or, as we would say, "Red sky in morning, sailors take warning."
Jesus then concluded with the assessment, "O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" These religious leaders could read the skies with the best astronomers and mariners, but could not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah. This was where their expertise should have been, but because they had been involved so long with empty formalism instead of meaningful activity in carrying God's love to the world, they did not have the eyes of faith with which to see Jesus as their Saviour.
An item from a church bulletin clearly points out the inconsistency of pious religion which does not follow through in meeting the needs of people. It is a satirical rephrasing of Matthew 25: "I was famished and you formed a humanitarian club to discuss my hunger...I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your church to pray for my release. I was naked and you debated the morality of my unseemly appearance. I was sick and you knew it, yet did nothing but thank God for your own health. I was homeless and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God. I was lonely and you left me by myself while you went and prayed for me. You seemed so holy, so close to God; but I am still very hungry, desolate, and cold!"
While the Pharisees had all the trappings of religion, all the robes, all the religious paraphernalia, they had none of the heart, none of what true religion is all about. Yet today as well there are many churches and denominations that have all the trap-pings of religion but none of the heart of the Lord Jesus. It is up to each of us to make sure that we attend faithfully those churches which show the heart of the Lord Jesus and not the heart of the Pharisee. Is your church following Jesus or following the Pharisees? Is your religion practical? Make it a point to pray for your church today.
MORNING HYMN
All Thy works with joy surround Thee,
Earth and Heav'n reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
He Wants to Comfort You
by Max Lucado
My child's feelings are hurt. I tell her she's special. My child is injured. I do whatever it takes to make her feel better.
My child is afraid. I won't go to sleep until she is secure.
I'm not a hero. I'm not a superstar. I'm not unusual. I'm a parent. When a child hurts, a parent does what comes naturally. He helps.
And after I help, I don't charge a fee. I don't ask for a favor in return. When my child cries, I don't tell her to buck up, act tough, and keep a stiff upper lip. Nor do I consult a list and ask her why she is still scraping the same elbow or waking me up again.
I'm not a prophet, nor the son of one, but something tells me that in the whole scheme of things the tender moments described above are infinitely more valuable than anything I do in front of a computer screen or congregation. Something tells me that the moments of comfort I give my child are a small price to pay for the joy of someday seeing my daughter do for her daughter what her dad did for her.
Moments of comfort from a parent. As a father, I can tell you they are the sweetest moments in my day. They come naturally. They come willingly. They come joyfully.
If all of that is true, if I know that one of the privileges of fatherhood is to comfort a child, then why am I so reluctant to let my heavenly Father comfort me?
Why do I think he wouldn't want to hear about my problems? ("They are puny compared to people starving in India.")
Why do I think he is too busy for me? ("He's got a whole universe to worry about.")
Why do I think he's tired of hearing the same old stuff?
Why do I think he groans when he sees me coming?
Why do I think he consults his list when I ask for forgiveness and asks, "Don't you think you're going to the well a few too many times on this one?"
Why do I think I have to speak a holy language around him that I don't speak with anyone else?
Why do I not take him seriously when he questions, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11)
Why don't I let my Father do for me what I am more than willing to do for my own children?
I'm learning, though. Being a parent is better than a course on theology. Being a father is teaching me that when I am criticized, injured, or afraid, there is a Father who is ready to comfort me. There is a Father who will hold me until I'm better, help me until I can live with the hurt, and who won't go to sleep when I'm afraid of waking up and seeing the dark.
Ever. And that's enough.
From
The Applause of Heaven
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999) Max Lucado
September 22
Romans 4
Justification by faith is illustrated in the Old Testament through the lives of Abraham and David.
INSIGHT
To impute something means "to apply something to your account." The Bible teaches that no one can earn salvation. However, God will give it to us freely if we have faith in Him. God honors the attitude of our hearts and imputes righteousness to our accounts. To be able to impute righteousness to those living during Old Testament times, God looked ahead to the work of Christ on the cross. Now He looks back to the Cross. But in both cases, God´s people have been saved by grace through faith.
PRAYER
Offer praise to God for His righteous works:
I will praise the name of God with a song,
And will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bull,
Which has horns and hooves.
The humble shall see this and be glad;
And you who seek God, your hearts shall live.
(Psalm 69:30-32)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Have we not all one Father?
Has not one God created us?
Why do we deal treacherously with one another
By profaning the covenant of the fathers?
(Malachi 2:10)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Your name, O Lord, endures forever,
Your fame, O Lord, throughout all generations.
For the Lord will judge His people,
And He will have compassion on His servants.
(Psalm 135:13-14).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
A humble spirit
Evangelism in Russia
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
To Him who alone does great wonders,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who by wisdom made the heavens,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who laid out the earth above the waters,
For His mercy endures forever;
To Him who made great lights,
For His mercy endures forever
The sun to rule by day,
For His mercy endures forever;
The moon and stars to rule by night,
For His mercy endures forever.
(Psalm 136:4-9)
Daily Devotionals September 22, 2008
Arms Of LoveREAD: 1 John 3:16-20Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. -1 John 3:18
Many college students go on summer missions trips. But rarely does one come back with plans to rescue a baby. Mallery Thurlow, a student at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, went to Haiti to help distribute food. One day a mother showed up at the distribution center with a very sick infant in her arms. The woman was out of options. The baby needed surgery, but no one would perform it. Without intervention, the baby would die. Mallery took baby Rose into her arms-and into her heart.
After returning to the US, Mallery searched for someone to operate on baby Rose. Most doctors held out little hope. Finally, Rose was granted a visa to leave Haiti, and Mallery went back to get her. Detroit Children's Hospital donated the $100,000 surgery, and it was successful. A little life was saved.
It's unlikely that we will have such a dramatic impact on others. Yet challenged by this student's willingness, we can find ways to provide help. She didn't let circumstances, youth, or inconvenience stop her from saving Rose's life.
Like Mallery, we are called to love "in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18). Who needs you to be God's arms of love today? - Dave Branon
When you see someone in need,
Love demands a loving deed;
Don't just say you love him true,
Prove it by the deeds you do. -Sper
Compassion puts love into action.
A Lapse Into Sin by Elisabeth Elliot
Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid.
Our folly and God's grace; if you see one, can the other be far behind? Frequent are the occasions when God's children foolishly mire themselves in difficulty only to have God graciously dig them out. Even the venerable Abraham found himself in this situation more than once.
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham departed from the groves of Mamre and journeyed south to the Negev. Here he dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, pitching his tent in Gerar. Upon arriving in the south country Abraham hatched a plan which he had tried unsuccessfully in Egypt some twenty years earlier. He instructed his wife, Sarah, to claim that she was his sister.
Because of the disastrous consequences which it previously had brought on the pharaoh of Egypt, it is almost inconceivable that Abraham would try this scheme again. Apparently the stern rebuke Abraham received from Pharaoh had by this time faded from his memory. Still, Abraham had only recently received God's assurance that Sarah was destined to be the mother of the promised seed. By spreading the half truth that she was his sister and therefore eligible for marriage, Abraham placed Sarah's virtue in serious jeopardy. This constituted a foolish lapse in Abraham's usually stellar performance as the friend of God.
The arrival of Abraham and Sarah brought a greeting from Abimelech, the warlike king of Gerar. Having heard that Sarah was unmarried, Abimelech immediately sent and brought her into his harem. This likely was done to ally himself with the rich nomad prince, Abraham. Sarah was by this time ninety years old and probably not the beautiful maid she used to be. Suddenly Abraham's lie had come back to haunt him once again.
The whole course of human history could have been different if it were not for God's intervention. Genesis 20:3 begins, "But God," words which usually indicate the turning point between man's foolishness and God's grace. Abraham had lied about his wife and she was now part of Abimelech's harem. Her virtue would undoubtedly be violated. But God warned the Philistine king in a dream that Sarah was already a man's wife. He also caused Abimelech to be afflicted with an illness which prevented him from coming near Sarah. Thus, miraculously and graciously, the mother of the chosen nation was kept from impurity, not because of the wisdom of Abraham, but because of the grace of God.
In the dream God revealed to Abimelech that, although he had done no wrong, nevertheless he must restore Sarah to her husband. If the king refused, his death and that of all his kingdom would ensue. This was enough to convince Abimelech. The king "rose early in the morning, and called all his servants," relaying the message to them (Genesis 20:8). Respecting the authority of the living God, Abimelech was anxious to heed the divine directives. The Philistine wasted no time in returning Sarah to her husband but not without a sharp rebuke to Abraham. Happy to have his wife back safe and sound, Abraham received the reprimand with a sigh of relief. In return he prayed to God and Abimelech was healed along with his wife and maidservants. The kingdom returned to normal.
Once again God's grace had prevailed over man's folly. The results could have been drastically different, however, had not God's providence overruled man's foolishness. Yet, how much anguish could have been spared both Abraham and Abimelech, both Sarah and the Philistine's wife, if there had not been that one lapse from righteousness. The knowledge that God's grace is waiting in the wings is insufficient grounds for contemplating foolish action. As Abraham finally learned, every friend of God must carefully guard against even slight lapses into the folly of sin (Romans 6:1-4).
MORNING HYMN
Sinners Jesus will receive;
Sound this word of grace to all
Who the heav'nly pathway leave,
All who linger, all who fall.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Ephesians 4:15-16 NLT
Thoughts for Today
According to the 2000 census, more than 93 million people in the United States are single. About 20 million are divorced, another 13.5 million widowed, and 60 million have never been married.
Many singles feel that singleness equals rejection. Even if they don't feel that way themselves, often society looks upon them as rejected.
If you are single, you can choose to make excuses or to blame someone else. These choices view singleness as a problem and attempt to blame something or someone for it.
A more positive and productive approach is to accept your singleness and make choices that will move you toward your life goals. With this attitude you will have the control to move forward with your life.
Consider this
Being single is not God's second best. Some people will find great fulfillment in being married, but there are others who can find the same fulfillment and sense of purpose in the single life.
You are special to God. You are his workmanship, and his workmanship is marvelous! God has a plan for your life, and it is best to focus on seeking his will and becoming all that he has designed you to be.
Prayer
Father, thank you for making me just the way I am. Help me to always remember that success in my life's journey does not depend on whether I'm married or single. My success in life can only be measured by how well I fit into your plans for me. Help me to focus on you and accomplish your purpose for my journey. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Single Christian: Living as One in a World of Twos by Dr. Elizabeth Holland. Whether you have never been married, are divorced or are widowed, this study is for you. In this study, Dr. Holland examines many of the different facets of singleness, including rejection, bitterness and unforgiveness, loneliness, dating, single parenting and the positives of being single. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Missionary's Master and TeacherREAD: You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am . . . . I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master . . . -John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less- ". . . for One is your Teacher, the Christ . . ." ( Matthew 23:8 ).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
"You call Me Teacher and Lord . . ."- but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God's servant- He was His Son. ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience. . ." (Hebrews 5:8 ). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness
God Bless
September 23
Romans 5
"Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 1).
INSIGHT
Paul spells out in specific terms how our salvation is accomplished. We learn that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
We also discover that "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
"Sin entered the world" through Adam "and death through sin," for all sinned (5:12). But salvation is offered to all through the God-Man, Jesus Christ. We can escape death by trusting in Christ as our Redeemer.
PRAYER
Praise the Son for His glorious sacrifice on the cross:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions. . .
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart
These, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51:1, 17)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
The love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
(2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
An attitude of gratefulness
Unsaved family members
Your activities for the day
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
Therefore God also has highly exalted [1] and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2:9-11)
He Watches Over UsREAD: Psalm 33:8-22From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth. -Psalm 33:14
In the early 1960s, I read the novel 1984 by George Orwell, which made famous the phrase "Big Brother is watching you." In this imaginary society, all aspects of life are under surveillance.
Today, there are an estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit video cameras in the UK alone! London is saturated with them. These cameras watch lobbies and sidewalks for security reasons. They even monitor traffic.
Psalm 33 tells us that God is also watching from on high (v.14). He sees not just images and activities but discerns thoughts and motives. As Creator God, when He speaks, it will be done (v.9). His eternal purposes march on unhindered (vv.10-11). Earthly obstacles are mere steppingstones to Him. Though many may depend on military strength for deliverance and safety, their hope is in vain (vv.16-17).
Yet we who fear the Lord need not flee from this awesome God. The psalmist affirms, "The eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy . . . . He is our help and our shield" (vv.18,20).
The eye of the Lord may be fearsome, but we who trust in Him rejoice. He is not an intrusive "Big Brother" but our loving heavenly Father who watches over us. - Albert Lee
The Rock of Ages stands secure,
He always will be there;
He watches over all His own
To calm their anxious care. -Keith
Keep your eyes on the Lord; He never takes His eyes off you.
God's "Haves" and "Wills" by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.
As they had miraculously left the land of Egypt, Israel had now entered the land of Canaan by a similar miracle. All the people were safely across the swift waters of the Jordan. The army of Israel encamped at Gilgal. Having settled in the land, Joshua and the people were now ready for their first great test?the capture of the outpost of Jericho.
Since Jericho was the most secure stronghold in a string of fortifications defending the eastern front of Canaan, there were many anxious Israelite hearts the night before the conquest began. Joshua himself was pacing the ground at the edge of the Israeli encampment. While meditating on how to attack Jericho, a man appeared to Joshua with a sword drawn in his hand. Intrepidly Joshua asked, "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" (Joshua 5:13) The powerful figure identified himself as the Captain of the host of the Lord. This title, so often afterward applied to the Son of God, revealed to Joshua that this was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Joshua must have known immediately the identity of this warrior for he fell on his face to the earth and worshiped Him.
Joshua 6:2 records, "And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor." Although it was the night before the once-a-day treks around the city of Jericho, the Lord's promise to Joshua was, "I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof." Their lines of battle had not yet been drawn. The fighting had not yet begun. Yet the victory was certain. Even before the event occurred, God said "I have done it."
How can this be? How can God say the battle is won before it is begun? The answer is that God is above time. He has no futures nor pasts, only an eternal present. He always deals in what is for Him the "now." Frequently God uses the words "I will" and "I have" interchangeably.
Consider the similar experience of Abraham, recorded in Genesis 17. Abram was ninety-nine years old when the Lord God appeared to him and, as Joshua did, he fell on his face before the Lord. The Almighty God was about to make a covenant with Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. To Abraham God said, "Neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee" (Genesis 17:5). To a childless ninety-nine-year-old man, whose wife was nearly that age, God said, "A father of many nations have I made thee."
In quoting that promise in Romans 4:17, the Apostle Paul notes, "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Romans 4:19). It did not matter that Sarah was well beyond the age of childbearing. God said He had made Abraham the father of many nations and we can count God's "wills" as God's "haves."
As twentieth century believers, the promises of God to us which have yet to be fulfilled are in the eternality of God already fulfilled. Thus the Lord Jesus promised, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again" (John 14:2-3). Although this is an event in history future, nevertheless, it is a promise as certain as if it had already been fulfilled. God calls things that are not yet as if they already are.
Hence, even though the battle plan was strange to Joshua, the defeat of the enemy was sure. Trusting the God of completed promises, "Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD" (Joshua 6:12) and the children of Israel proceeded to the conquest of Jericho. Another great victory was won for the Lord God whose "haves" and "wills" are interchangeable.
MORNING HYMN
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ephesians 4:15-16 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Some singles who have never married are burdened with feelings of not measuring up or of not being desirable or attractive. They may have the same feelings as a small child on a playground who is chosen last for team sports. A sense of waiting but never being chosen. Feelings of not being good enough to be asked to play or of not being wanted.
Several years ago a single woman in her late 30s wrote a prominent advice columnist to ask for a snappy comeback when people asked why she was not yet married. She was advised to tell her questioners that she had not found a man who deserved to be as happy as she could make him. A humorous response but this lady's question indicates anxiety about the way society looks at the never-married.
Consider this
Whether you plan to stay single or to marry one day, make the most of each day now. Think of the old saying, "This is the first day of the rest of your life." Build your career, develop meaningful relationships.
Above all, remember how special you are because you are special to God. He loves you with a love greater than we can even imagine. He has given you your own unique personality and blessed you with gifts to serve him and others. He has a special purpose for your life. Pursue the fulfillment of that purpose today and every "today" to come.
Prayer
Father, help me to stop focusing on what tomorrow might bring. Help me to focus on today. Help me to accomplish the purpose of today's journey. I praise you for your love and thank you for the good plans you have for me. Help me to walk in the center of that plan today. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Single Christian: Living as One in a World of Twos by Dr. Elizabeth Holland. Whether you have never been married, are divorced or are widowed, this study is for you. In this study, Dr. Holland examines many of the different facets of singleness including rejection, bitterness and unforgiveness, loneliness, dating, single parenting and the positives of being single. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Missionary's GoalREAD: He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . . ' -Luke 18:31
In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him?". . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." ( Ephesians 4:13 ), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.
In our Lord's life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go "up to Jerusalem."
"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master" ( Matthew 10:24 ). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our "Jerusalem." There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going "up to [our] Jerusalem."
". . . there they crucified Him . . ." ( Luke 23:33 ). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord's grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, "I too go 'up to Jerusalem.' "
God Bless
September 24
Romans 6
We are to present our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.
INSIGHT
Micky Cohen, a noted gangster of a past generation, said that after he embraced Christianity, he felt betrayed. No one had explained that God would require a change in his behavior. "There are Christian athletes and Christian businessmen. Why not Christian gangsters?" he reasoned. But when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are no longer free to continue living as we did in the world. Our affections and activities must change to reflect the God whom we serve. The term "Christian gangster" contradicts itself because the activities of a gangster generally oppose the character of Christ.
PRAYER
Use the following psalm to offer the Lord your praise for all He has done for you:
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.
Declare His glory among the nations,
His wonders among all peoples.
For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods. (Psalm 96:1-4)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
O God, You know my foolishness;
And my sins are not hidden from You.
Let not those who wait for You, O Lord God
of hosts, be ashamed because of me;
Let not those who seek You be confounded
because of me, O God of Israel. (Psalm 69:5-6)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."
(John 6:37)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater love for others
The work of missions worldwide
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24-25).
Daily Devotionals September 24, 2008
Building A CityREAD: Hebrews 11:8-16They desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. -Hebrews 11:16
For 41 years, New York's Empire State Building enjoyed the distinction of being the world's tallest building at 1,250 feet. Since then, others have passed it, including the 1,483-foot Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the 1,670-foot Taipei 101 building. The 2,657-foot Burj in Dubai to be completed in late 2008 will surpass those by far.
From ancient times, man has tried to distinguish himself through monuments of all kinds. It is still the dream of many today.
The writer to the Hebrews presents a better way to achieve significance. He noted that heroes of the faith never lost sight of the fact that they "were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11:13). As a result, "God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them" (v.16).
It is a fact of life that every monumental work will likely be surpassed. Even man's biggest "successes" are fleeting. Our best efforts can bring only temporary honor, which all too soon will be eclipsed by the new and greater achievements of others. But those who invest their efforts in living to please God have a lasting city and an everlasting honor to look forward to. God is even now preparing these for them.
Who is building your life? You or God? - C. P. Hia
True greatness does not lie with those
Who strive for worldly fame;
It lies instead with those who choose
To serve in Jesus' name. -D. De Haan
A solid foundation gives strength to a building and a life.
Divine Direction by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And so it was, when the cloud abode from even unto the morning, and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed: whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed.
Each of us who is active and aggressive in our service for the Lord finds one aspect of the Christian life more difficult than any other. We find it almost impossible just to sit and not to move when God is not moving us. The best antidote for anxiety is to trust in God and wait patiently on Him.
The movement of the nation of Israel through the wilderness graphically illustrates the need for God's people to wait on Him. Numbers 9 gives God's program for Israel's progression. The Jews were not on a steady march for forty years in the wilderness, neither were they at permanent rest. In fact, their journey was a long series of stops and goes. Both were at the command of God.
God never leaves His people alone, without a witness or guide. Living by faith sometimes means walking in the dark, it never means living without a light. God would provide the natural phenomena of a cloud and fire. On the day that it was erected, a cloud covered the Tabernacle so that it was entirely enshrouded during the day. At night fire appeared in the sky and prohibited Israel from losing sight of the abode of God. Numbers 9:21 summarizes, "And so it was, when the cloud bode from even unto the morning, and that the cloud was taken in the morning then they journeyed: whether it was by day or night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed." Since the length of the stay at any one place in the wilderness could vary from two days, to a month, to a year, Israel's only obligation was to trust God and watch for the movement of the cloud.
Many are the occasions that we find ourselves awaiting direction from the Lord and wondering if it will ever come. But if we let Him be our guide, we will not only "Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him" (Psalm 37:7), but when He does move us we will be certain that our direction is the correct one.
Some years ago a party of fisherman took their small boat into the Gulf of Mexico. They came to their favorite spot, a place they had been many times before. The weather was balmy, the fish were biting, and they completely lost themselves in the hours of the afternoon. By nightfall a dense fog had moved in and they found themselves completely engulfed in the "soup" and could see only a few feet ahead of them. Their hearts raced with excitement. Then one of the fishermen remembered that he had a small compass in his pocket. They had already determined which direction they should go, but the compass pointed in the opposite direction. Now they were faced with a dilemma. Would they follow their own instincts, or the sure rule of the compass? All the men agreed to follow the direction of the compass. After what seemed an endlessly long time, they saw the shadowy outline of the shore emerging through the fog. They found themselves only a few yards from the dock where they started earlier in the day. The reliable compass had told them which direction to go, they trusted it, and they returned home safely.
Let us not be guilty today of attempting to move ahead of God when He says to "sit still." Likewise, when through the Word of God we are moved in a particular direction, let us not question that direction, but do the will of God. The clouds of concern may completely encircle us today but God will remove them in His own good time and will provide direction for us if we simply trust Him and wait upon Him.
MORNING HYMN
Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine,
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since 'tis my God that leadeth me!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The mistaken belief that singleness equals rejection can lead to insecurity and depression. If you are experiencing these feelings, it may help to remember that Jesus was always single. Although he never had a marriage relationship, he did have many friends.
The apostle Paul was either single or widowed. Used greatly by God, Paul wrote that his singleness allowed him to have a deeper relationship with God and to serve him more fully (1 Corinthians 7).
Consider this
God wants you to look to him, not to another person, to have your needs met. His presence within you can help you handle loneliness and depression, your need for intimacy and your search for fulfillment.
Remember that being single is not God's second best. Although marriage can be wonderful, it is not for everyone! Some people find contentment in being married; others find contentment in singleness. God has a plan for your life. Your main concern should not be in whether you will be single or married, but in fulfilling God's purpose.
If you are not already content in your singleness, whether it be for a time or throughout your life, ask God to help you be content in his plan for you.
Prayer
Lord, help me be content in your plan for me-single or married. I thank you that I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Single Christian: Living as One in a World of Twosby Dr. Elizabeth Holland. Whether you have never been married, are divorced or are widowed, this study is for you. In this study, Dr. Holland examines many of the different facets of singleness including rejection, bitterness and unforgiveness, loneliness, dating, single parenting and the positives of being single. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The "Go" of PreparationREAD: If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift-Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord's words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. ". . . go your way. First be reconciled to your brother. . . ." The "go" of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don't just admit it- confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, "I will not give up my right to myself"- the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ
God Bless
September 25
Romans 7
A civil war rages in the life of every Christian.
INSIGHT
The "inward man" (v. 22) is created in righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24), wills to do good (v. 21), joyfully delights in the law of God (v. 22), and serves "the law of God" (v. 25). However, the "flesh" (v. 18) practices the thing the inward man hates (v. 15). "Nothing good" dwells in the flesh (v. 18). It wars against the law of the mind (v. 23) and serves "the law of sin" (v. 25). As a result of this civil war, our lives do not run smoothly. We do things we don't want to do, and we fail to do things we want to do. Who can deliver us from "this body of death" (v. 24)? Only Jesus. When we receive Him as our personal Savior, the spiritual forces are put into place to free us from the bondage of sin. Then we must begin the process of dying to sin on a daily basis.
PRAYER
Offer your praise to the Lord because He frees you from the bondage of sin and gives you glorious, eternal life:
All the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the Lord made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.
Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
Give to the Lord glory and strength.
Give to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts. . . .
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness. (Psalm 96:5-8, 11)
Pause to express your praise and thankfulness.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful,
And have forgotten the God who fathered you.
(Deuteronomy 32:18)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Faithfulness in sharing Christ
The Lord´s work in world affairs
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.
(2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)
Daily Devotionals September 25, 2008
The Power Of PatienceREAD: Galatians 5:16-24The fruit of the Spirit is . . . longsuffering. -Galatians 5:22
We've all heard the prayer: "Lord, make me more patient-and do it now!"
Why is it that patience evaporates when we are late for a critical engagement and are caught in a traffic jam? Or we rush to the "10 items or less" line at the store, only to find someone in front of us with 16 items!
Being forced to wait ratchets up the stress and shortens our fuse. When that happens, we not only fail to be patient but we undercut the Spirit's work in our lives.
Patience is not just a virtue, it's a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22)-which means that demonstrations of impatience reveal the sour fruit of our fallen hearts rather than the sweetness of Jesus in our lives. Since God is a patient God, when we abandon patience we miss the opportunity to show our world the glory of God through our lives.
Bursts of impatience only demonstrate that we are more concerned with our own agendas than the needs and struggles of others. So let's all take a deep breath and turn our focus away from ourselves by patiently loving others instead of ourselves in the midst of stress.
Patience gives us the privilege of sharing the refreshing fruit of God with others. - Joe Stowell
Our wrath uncurbed will not fulfill
God's perfect plan for us;
We must be patient and refuse
To fret, to fume, to fuss. -Sper
Be patient. Show your world what God is really like.
Morning Corruption by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
I said, Surely thou will fear me, thou wilt receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, and corrupted all their doings.
Zephaniah is a book of contrasts. Perhaps no other prophecy in the Old Testament paints a blacker picture of God's judgment than does Zephaniah. It is a foreboding portrait of the day of Jehovah, the day of the Lord. Still, no prophet paints a brighter picture of Israel's future glory.
Zephaniah was a unique prophet. A contemporary of Jeremiah, more is known about the pedigree of Zephaniah than any other prophet. The first verse of this prophecy shows that his lineage was in the royal line; he was the great-great-grandson of good King Hezekiah. His royal heritage makes Zephaniah's rebuke of the nobles and princes all the more significant. He spoke to Judah and Jerusalem as one of their own, as royalty.
Taking occasion from the threat of invasion by the savage Scythian hordes from the north, Zephaniah preached of the coming of the great day of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem. With all the fervor of a revivalist, Zephaniah announced, "The great day of the LORD is near.... That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.... And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD; and their blood shall be poured out as dust.... Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath...for He shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land" (Zephaniah 1:14-18).
In the three chapters of this tiny book nearly every word is laced with a warning about God's wrath. In chapter 1 the utter desolation of Judah is predicted as a judgment for idolatry and neglect of the Lord. In chapter 2 Zephaniah predicts that the house of Judah as well as her enemies, Moab and Ammon, will be threatened with perpetual destruction. In chapter 3 he turns his attention to the city of Jerusalem, calling it "filthy and polluted" and "the oppressing city."
Hurling invectives at Jerusalem's princes, her judges, her prophets, and her priests, Zephaniah warns that "the just LORD is in the midst thereof; He will not do iniquity: every morning doth He bring His judgment to light, He faileth not" (Zephaniah 3:5). Literally, morning by morning God will bring His judgment on the wicked city of Jerusalem. No one who defies the Lord God ever escapes punishment. Still, the princes, prophets, priests, and inhabitants of Jerusalem paid no attention to Zephaniah's warning. Instead, "they rose early and corrupted all their doings" (Zephaniah 3:7).
Although this section of Zephaniah's prophecy ends with the failure of the people to heed his warnings, nonetheless the prophet concludes with a series of promises (Zephaniah 3:8-20). The general tone of this last portion is messianic, speaking of the day when Christ will gather the nations and assemble His kingdoms, the day in which He will be in the midst of Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and the faithful remnant of Israel will rejoice and sing praises unto Him.
Zephaniah's life as a prophet was a miserable one; he was unheeded and mocked. Still, the future fulfillment of all his prophecies will grant him eternal vindication. It would be Zephaniah's prayer that none of us today rise early to corrupt our ways. Let's answer his prayer.
MORNING HYMN
For the Lord our God shall come
And shall take His harvest home:
From His field shall in that day
All offenses purge away--
Give His angels charge at last
In the fire the tares to cast
But the fruitful ears to store
In His garner evermore.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 NIV
Thoughts for Today
If you are divorced or have recently experienced a broken engagement or separation, you probably are having painful feelings of rejection. The sense of loss felt in these situations can be overwhelming. You thought you were secure and now you suddenly find yourself on your own. You might even have children to care for and inadequate resources of time and money.
Even though you have been rejected by someone very close to you, your attitude toward that rejection is your choice. You may choose to allow the pain of rejection to dominate and define the rest of your life, causing bitterness, depression and self-pity. Or you may choose to forgive the one who has hurt you, to accept your singleness-at least until God leads you in a different direction-and to move on with your life making the most of each day.
Consider this
Even with positive choices, the pain won't immediately disappear-but it will begin to heal. The time and money challenges will still be there, but you will be able to start dealing with them.
We live in a society of "quick fixes," but recovering from this kind of hurt is a process. Learn to take one step at a time, trusting God to strengthen you and allowing him to love you.
Prayer
Father, help me to forgive. You've forgiven me of so much, even though I didn't deserve it. Help me to forgive and to begin rebuilding my life. I know I can only do that with your strength, your love and your guidance. Thank you for freely giving me all this and more. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Single Christian: Living as One in a World of Twosby Dr. Elizabeth Holland. Whether you have never been married, are divorced or are widowed, this study is for you. In this study, Dr. Holland examines many of the different facets of singleness including rejection, bitterness and unforgiveness, loneliness, dating, single parenting and the positives of being single. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The "Go" of Relationship
READ: Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two-Matthew 5:41
Our Lord's teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a super-natural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice. No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself- a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, "I am here for God to send me where He will." Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally. And as long as we consciously maintain the determined purpose to be His disciples, we can be sure that we are not disciples. Jesus says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you. . ." ( John 15:16 ). That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we can never escape; we can disobey it, but we can never start it or produce it ourselves. We are drawn to God by a work of His supernatural grace, and we can never trace back to find where the work began. Our Lord's making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us- He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace, and that is where the cross we must bear will always come
God Bless
September 26
Romans 8
What the Law cannot do in delivering us from sin, God does through Christ.
INSIGHT
In Greece, a little boy might run into the kitchen and call "Mama, Mama!" when he wants to find his mother. And late in the afternoon as he hears familiar masculine footsteps approaching the house, he may run out to his father and cry "Abba, Abba!" "Mama" and "Abba" are terms of close family endearment. God loves the whole world, but He loves His spiritual children in a different, special way. With respect and joy, we can express our love back to Him with the tender name, "Abba, Abba." It's a term of endearment in the spiritual family.
PRAYER
Because the Lord has made us a part of such a loving entity as the body of Christ, offer your praise to Him:
Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.
Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.
(Psalm 100:1-5)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Achan answered Joshua and said,
"Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel."
(Joshua 7:20).
Show me Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day. (Psalm 25:4-5)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Health and strength to serve Him
His will to be done on earth
Today's activities
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
"I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. . . . I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You." (Job 42:2, 5)
Daily Devotionals September 26, 2008
Things Above
READ: Colossians 3:1-13Seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. -Colossians 3:1
Stepping outside and gazing heavenward on a star-studded evening always helps to soothe my soul after a trouble-filled day. When I peer into the night sky, I forget, at least for a moment, the cares of life on earth.
Ancient Israel's prolific songwriter wrote a poem thousands of years ago that still rings true: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?" (Ps. 8:3-4).
When we try to imagine the immensity of God's heavens, our problems indeed seem trivial. Yet God doesn't think so! With all the galaxies He has to attend to, God is mindful of us. And not only are we on His mind, He cares for us.
No wonder the apostle Paul advised new believers to set their minds on things above (Col. 3:2). In doing so, we raise our thoughts above the level of earthly disputes and focus instead on our loving, heavenly Father, who wants us to know Him, to know how to live peacefully with one another, and to know that we can live eternally with Him in a place even more beautiful than the heavens.
"The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 19:1). Let's join creation in praise to Him. - Julie Ackerman Link
Bless the Lord and sing His praises,
Bless the Lord now, O my soul;
Join the song all heaven raises,
Let the anthem loudly roll! -Peterson
© Renewal 1986, John W. Peterson Music Company.
Because God gives us everything, we owe Him all our praise.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39 NLT
Thoughts for Today
If you are recently widowed, you might be finding it almost impossible to move beyond the mourning period, especially if your marriage was a long and fulfilling one. Beginning each new day may seem like an overwhelming task. The loneliness may seem unbearable at times.
It is important to remember that you are never really alone. God is there with you. Nothing can separate you from his love. Open your heart to Jesus. Let him love you and fill you with his peace. Your new road may still be difficult, but with Jesus it will be possible.
Consider this
God can make this a time of growth and renewed intimacy with him-if you want him to. But you have a choice.
As time moves on you can choose to dwell on your loss and on what might have been. Or you can choose life appreciating the time you had with your spouse, but beginning to move on, praising God for the many blessings you still have. And remember that the Lord isn't finished with you. Choose to rise each morning, asking him to help you accomplish the purpose of that day's journey.
Even with positive choices, recovery will take time. Learn to take one step at a time, trusting Jesus and basking in his comfort and love.
Prayer
Father, I thank you so much that I can trust in your presence and your love. I need your help to get through this. I take great comfort in your promise that nothing can separate me from your love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Single Christian: Living as One in a World of Twosby Dr. Elizabeth Holland. Whether you have never been married, are divorced or are widowed, this study is for you. In this study, Dr. Holland examines many of the different facets of singleness including rejection, bitterness and unforgiveness, loneliness, dating, single parenting and the positives of being single. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The "Go" of ReconciliationREAD: If you . . . remember that your brother has something against you . . . -Matthew 5:23
This verse says, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you . . . ." It is not saying, "If you search and find something because of your unbalanced sensitivity," but, "If you . . . remember . . . ." In other words, if something is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God- "First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:24 ). Never object to the intense sensitivity of the Spirit of God in you when He is instructing you down to the smallest detail.
"First be reconciled to your brother . . . ." Our Lord's directive is simple- "First be reconciled . . . ." He says, in effect, "Go back the way you came- the way indicated to you by the conviction given to you at the altar; have an attitude in your mind and soul toward the person who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing." Jesus does not mention the other person- He says for you to go. It is not a matter of your rights. The true mark of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
". . . and then come and offer your gift." The process of reconciliation is clearly marked. First we have the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden restraint by the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, and then we are stopped at the point of our conviction. This is followed by obedience to the Word of God, which builds an attitude or state of mind that places no blame on the one with whom you have been in the wrong. And finally there is the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
God Bless
Thanks Judy, you are the sunshine in a cloudy day. We have talked about how positive you are even in the face of your problems.
FINANCES
Keeping Our Perspective in a Tough Economy -- Steve Diggs
No Debt No Sweat! Financial Seminar Ministry
It seems that everywhere we turn these days its gloom and doom. The press and TV pundits all have their reasons: The Fed raised or lowered the discount rate too much; China is charging more for its labor; oil is well over $120/barrel; or the mortgage crisis is the cause. Frankly, I can't pinpoint one reason why the economy is in a slump. There are simply too many external forces that impact and drive it. But, no doubt -- things feel pretty scary right now. The real question is: As Christians who are designed to be in (but not of) the world, how should we respond?
My first suggestion is simply to remain calm. Good times come and good times go. Economies are cyclical. Even this current crisis is nothing new. In the 1930's American's thought the economy would never rebound — it did. In the 1970's we thought there would always be long gas lines—they went away and prices fell. In the early 1980's mortgage rates topped at well over 12% -- later they fell to less than 6%. It's important to remember that usually the only people who get rich by convincing us that the sky is falling are the helmet salesmen!
But with all of that said, I believe that there are some practical things we can do to insulate us from some of the financial pain we might otherwise experience. When a storm is brewing it makes sense to get back to the basics. Vince Lomardi, the legendary Green Bay Packer coach who led that team to so many championships, used to begin the season by pulling a football out of the duffle bag and walking in front of his team. Then he would hold the ball up in front of those grizzled pros and say, "Gentlemen, this is a football." That was his way of reminding the team that they had to focus on the basics—the fundamentals. It's the same for us. So, let's review some of the fundamentals.
1. Pay off your short-term, high-interest debt—fast! Credit cards and car loans are never fun—but they can spell disaster when you lose your job. This is the time to cut back on the restaurant meals, movies, $5 cups of coffee, and resort vacations. This is the time to get all the over-time work and second jobs you can find. Cut costs and make extra money—and quickly reduce the debt. One day you may be VERY glad you did.
2. Get a raise in thirty days. Do a thirty-day spending journal where you list literally every dime you spend—on everything you buy. Then, at the end of those thirty days take a yellow highlighter and mark everything you bought that you didn't have to buy. That's how much of a raise you can give yourself starting the next month. You may be stunned at how much is being wasted.
3. Defer gratification. This is when we start saying "no" to ourselves. If we don't need it—we don't buy it. By the way, this can be an invaluable lesson for the kids.
4. Stop "drugging yourself." Many Christians who would be critical of others who become drunk or drug dependant think nothing of their own drug of choice. When life's pressures close in and the bills start to stack up, they head to the mall with their credit cards to anesthetize their own pain. As Christians we would do well to remember Who called us. In Matthew, Jesus told us not to store up treasures in this world where they come and go so quickly. Later, in I Timothy 6, Paul warns Christians not to trust in their financial wealth that is so easily lost. Instead, as Kingdom citizens, we know that our wealth is on the other side. Joy is based in finding contentment in the things God gives us; and being free of the unending lust for more and more stuff.
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Steve Diggs presents the No Debt No Sweat! Christian Money Management Seminar at churches and other venues nationwide. Visit Steve on the Web at www.stevediggs.com or call 615-834-3063. The author of several books, today Steve serves as a minister for the Antioch Church of Christ in Nashville. For 25 years he was President of the Franklin Group, Inc. Steve and Bonnie have four children whom they have home schooled. The family lives in Brentwood, Tennessee.
A complete financial compendium, 19 chapters
• What you can do today to get out of debt and kill the Debt Monster
• A,B,C's of handling your money God's way
• How to save, invest, and retire wisely
• How mutual funds work
• How to stop fighting over money
• What to teach your kids about money
• Learn how home & car buying, college financing and insurance work.
• How to develop a budget that works -- forever!
• Features simple charts, graphs, and easy-to-use forms.
September 27
Romans 12
The Christian life is a life of total dedication and service to others.
INSIGHT
To better understand the implications of the first two verses of chapter 12, it is helpful to read them backwards. We all want to be a living demonstration of the fact that the will of God is "good and acceptable and perfect." In order to do that, we must have our minds transformed and renewed. In order to have our minds transformed and renewed, we must make our bodies "a living sacrifice" to God. We all want the will of God in our lives. We can experience it if we present ourselves as a living sacrifice to Him.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord for the bond of love that binds us to Him and to other Christians:
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, You are very great:
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. . .
May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
May the Lord rejoice in His works. . .
May sinners be consumed from the earth,
And the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 104:1-2, 31, 35)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
"For a mere moment I have forsaken you,
But with great mercies I will gather you.
With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment;
But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,"
Says the Lord, your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:7-8)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." (John 15:10)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
That others will see Christ in you
That the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
May the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10-11)
September 28
Romans 13
The Christian is to obey the government and love his fellow man.
INSIGHT
Love is the central characteristic of the Christian. In Matthew 22:37-40, a lawyer asks Jesus which is the greatest commandment. Jesus says: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Then the Lord gives the second greatest commandment: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes that love is the greatest characteristic--even greater than faith or hope. Now in Romans this theme is picked up again. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the Law. God is love. If we are to be like Him, we also must love.
PRAYER
Thank the Lord that He loves you, and praise Him that through Him you can love others:
You who love the Lord, hate evil!
He preserves the souls of His saints;
He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.
Light is sown for the righteous,
And gladness for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous,
And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.
(Psalm 97:10-12)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. . . .
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
(Isaiah 53:3, 6)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater sensitivity to sin
Your role in the ministry of your church
Your activities for the day
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
Daily Devotionals September 28, 2008
Showing Up
READ: Psalm 116
Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. -Psalm 116:2
Leonardo da Vinci spent 10 years drawing ears, elbows, hands, and other parts of the body in many different aspects. Then one day he set aside the exercises and painted what he saw. Likewise, athletes and musicians never become great without regular practice.
For years I resisted a regular routine of prayer, believing that communication with God should be spontaneous and free. But I found that I needed the discipline of regularity to make possible those exceptional times of free communication with God. Eventually I learned that spontaneity often flows from discipline.
The writer Nancy Mairs says she attends church in the same spirit she goes to her desk every morning to write, so that if an idea comes she'll be there to receive it. I approach prayer the same way. I keep on whether it feels like I am profiting or not. I show up in hopes of getting to know God better, perhaps hearing from Him in ways accessible only through solitude.
The English word meditate derives from a Latin word that means "to rehearse." Often my prayers seem like a kind of rehearsal. I go over basic notes (the Lord's Prayer), practice familiar pieces (the Psalms), and try out a few new tunes. Mainly, I show up. - Philip Yancey
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant's lips can try;
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high. -Montgomery
Prayer is an intimate conversation with our God.
Discouragement by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built.
The book of Judges recounts the history of Israel during the centuries which followed the conquest of the land of Canaan. These were checkered years in Israel's history, which frequently saw relapses into idolatry. After each time Israel turned aside from the Lord, Jehovah would graciously raise up a judge, who was a military not a judicial leader, to bring His chosen people back to Him. The cycle of relapse, repentance, and restoration occurred frequently during these turbulent centuries.
The narrative of Judges 6 opens with a record of the renewed idolatry of Israel. This time judgment came from the Midianites who swept down through the plain of Jezreel, terrorizing Israel as far south as Gaza. They did not permanently occupy the land, but each harvest season they would arrive unexpectedly and plunder the harvest. What spoil they could not carry away they destroyed. So insecure were the Israelites that they lived in dens, caves, and strongholds to seek safety for their possessions and for themselves.
But suddenly things changed. An angel of the Lord appeared under the great oak by Ophrah, a little township on the southwestern border of the territory of Manasseh. There Gideon, the son of Joash, was beating out wheat with a stick. He did so secretly and with constant apprehension that a wild band of Midianite bedouins might sweep down on him, taking his grain and his life.
Gideon is typical of many believers today. Although the angel of the Lord called him a "mighty man of valor," Gideon's clandestine operations at his father's winepress did not exhibit great valor. For seven years his people had been oppressed by the enemy and this mighty warrior was despondent and discouraged. The angel of the Lord appeared unto him at his lowest ebb to encourage him.
Gideon was startled at first by this stranger, not certain who he was. When the angel proclaimed that the Lord was with him, Gideon's questioning response was, "If the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us?" (Judges 6:13). Gideon believed that if Jehovah had not withdrawn Himself from Israel, the present Midianite calamity would never have occurred. As well, this mighty man of valor, like Moses of old, questioned why the Lord would choose him to deliver Israel. His family was poor in Manasseh and he was the least of his father's household. But in the midst of Gideon's concern the Lord God promised, "Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man."
Gideon was still not convinced. How did he know this person was really the angel of the Lord? Thus Gideon asked for a sign and the angel of the Lord flash-fired the flesh of a kid and unleavened cakes which Gideon had placed on a rock.
Having felt the hand of God upon his life and claiming the promise of divine presence and power, Gideon proceeded to be the delivering judge of Israel. At the command of the Lord he threw down the altar of Baal his father had built. In its place he built an altar unto Jehovah God. "And when the men of the city arose early in the morning behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down" (Judges 6:28). Who had done such a thing? The answer--Gideon, the son of Joash. The fearful men of the city stormed the house of Joash and demanded that he hand over his son to be slain. But the acts of an encouraged Gideon bred encouragement in the heart of his father as well. Joash challenged the men to allow Baal to plead for himself, if he truly was a god. It was becoming increasingly evident to the men of Ophrah that Baal was not a god to be feared, as was Jehovah.
All that was necessary for a discouraged people to rise up against their oppressors was for the heart of one man to be impressed with the presence and power of the Lord. How much the Gideons of the twentieth century need to recognize the still small voice of the Lord saying to them, "Surely I will be with thee." Be encouraged and let God do something courageous through you today.
MORNING HYMN
Take my life and let it be,
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee
Take my hands and let them move,
At the impulse of Thy love,
Take my feet and let them be,
Swift and beautiful for Thee;
Take my voice and let me sing,
Always, only, for my King.
He Can Do The Impossible
by Max Lucado
The kingdom of heaven. Its citizens are drunk on wonder.
Consider the case of Sarai. She is in her golden years, but God promises her a son. She gets excited. She visits the maternity shop and buys a few dresses. She plans her shower and remodels her tent but no son. She eats a few birthday cakes and blows out a lot of candles still no son. She goes through a decade of wall calendars still no son.
So Sarai decides to take matters into her own hands. ("Maybe God needs me to take care of this one.")
She convinces Abram that time is running out. ("Face it, Abe, you ain't getting any younger, either.") She commands her maid, Hagar, to go into Abram's tent and see if he needs anything. ("And I mean 'anything'!") Hagar goes in a maid. She comes out a mom. And the problems begin.
Hagar is haughty. Sarai is jealous. Abram is dizzy from the dilemma. And God calls the baby boy a "wild donkey"-an appropriate name for one born out of stubbornness and destined to kick his way into history.
It isn't the cozy family Sarai expected. And it isn't a topic Abram and Sarai bring up very often at dinner.
Finally, fourteen years later, when Abram is pushing a century of years and Sarai ninety when Abram has stopped listening to Sarai's advice, and Sarai has stopped giving it when the wallpaper in the nursery is faded and the baby furniture is several seasons out of date when the topic of the promised child brings sighs and tears and long looks into a silent sky. God pays them a visit and tells them they had better select a name for their new son.
Abram and Sarai have the same response: laughter. They laugh partly because it is too good to happen and partly because it might. They laugh because they have given up hope, and hope born anew is always funny before it is real.
They laugh at the lunacy of it all.
They laugh because that is what you do when someone says he can do the impossible. They laugh a little at God, and a lot with God-for God is laughing, too. Then, with the smile still on his face, he gets busy doing what he does best-the unbelievable.
He changes a few things-beginning with their names. Abram, the father of one, will now be Abraham, the father of a multitude. Sarai, the barren one, will now be Sarah, the mother.
But their names aren't the only things God changes. He changes their minds. He changes their faith. He changes the number of their tax deductions. He changes the way they define the word impossible.
From
The Applause of Heaven
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999) Max Lucado
God Bless
September 29
Romans 14
Christians should not exercise personal liberty if it destroys another Christian.
INSIGHT
We are a part of others; what we say and what we do affects others. This is especially true of Christians. We are a part of the body of Christ; we are a part of one another. Not only does God not want us to live isolated lives but He has made it so that we cannot make it alone. Therefore, we must always be alert to how our actions affect others. If something we do harms another person, we must take that into account. If our freedom causes hurt to a brother or sister in Christ, then love dictates that we limit our freedom.
PRAYER
Praise your heavenly Father for your brothers and sisters in Christ:
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity! . . .
It is like the dew of Hermon,
Descending upon the mountains of Zion;
For there the Lord commanded the blessing--
Life forevermore. (Psalm 133:1, 3)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and as you seek to keep your life free from sin, pray this confession to the Lord:
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to have a walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Kindness in your dealings with others
Encouragement for missionaries in Europe
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
"For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song;
He also has become my salvation." (Isaiah 12:2)
Daily Devotion September 29
Ask Me Now
READ: James 1:1-8If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. -James 1:5
Whether you need a weather forecast for Singapore or driving directions to a restaurant in Chicago, the answer may be just a cell-phone call away. A California-based mobile service called AskMeNow utilizes Internet content sources to send text-message replies to queries from registered users on just about any subject. In many cases, a text-message reply may be received within minutes of submitting a question.
In a sense, the invitation to ask anything, anytime, anywhere mirrors God's call to all who follow Jesus: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach" (James 1:5). But this is more than a mobile information service. It is our heavenly Father's promise to provide the guidance we need, especially during trying times.
All we need is a sincere desire to follow God's direction and faith that His way is best. Because the Lord "gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty," we can ask in faith without doubting (vv.5-6 Phillips).
The Internet is a great place to find helpful information, but there is only one source of divine wisdom to direct our steps each day. The Father invites our sincere requests anytime, anywhere. - David C. McCasland
My Lord is ever with me
Along life's busy way;
I trust in Him completely
For guidance day by day. -Anon.
Be smart-ask for God's wisdom.
Practical Wisdom by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.
How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! And to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver? (Proverbs 16:16). These sentiments of Solomon, regarding the preference for wisdom over wealth, stem from a strange dream that changed his life.
Once Solomon attended a solemn procession to the altar at Gibeon, about five miles from Jerusalem. This is where the ancient Tabernacle yet stood. Here the king celebrated an elaborate, religious festival in which he offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar built by Bezaleel nearly five centuries before. While at Gibeon, Solomon received a dream from the Lord, in which God demanded, "Ask what I shall give thee" (1 Kings 3:5). Solomon barely knew what to request from God. Then he remembered the great task that had been laid before him. He was the king of the chosen nation, a great people that could not be numbered for their multitude. Solomon asked for practical wisdom, the ability to discern between right and wrong and to make immediate judgments that were founded on the truth. He was not asking for spiritual discernment; he wanted to rule the people well. God was pleased with Solomon's concern to be a just ruler and thus granted Solomon's request and added riches, honor, and length of days as well.
An occasion soon arose to test this divine gift of practical wisdom. Two harlots came before the king bearing two children, one dead, one alive. Although their stories were conflicting they did agree both lived in the same house and recently, within days of one another, each gave birth to a child. One woman claimed that the dead child was the result of the other mother's carelessness in accidentally laying on the child during the night and suffocating it. She claimed that the other woman rose at midnight, took her living son from beside her, and placed the dead infant in its stead. When the woman arose in the morning to feed the child, she discovered it was dead (1 Kings 3:21). She also discovered in the morning, at the light of day, that it was not her child lifelessly lying beside her in bed. She claimed that the living child was hers. The other woman disputed the claim saying that the first woman's child had simply died and she was now trying to compensate for her loss by taking the live child to be her own.
The situation appeared hopeless. It was the perfect test for Solomon's practical wisdom. What would he do? The king resolved to appeal to the maternal instinct of the women He called for a sword to "divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other." Immediately the child's mother screamed and requested that the king give her own child to the other woman rather than see him slain. Solomon thus discerned which woman was telling the truth and presented the child to his mother.
The fame of this decision spread throughout all Israel, inspiring fear of the king's justice and a conviction that God had given Solomon exceptional discernment. Israel believed that he would carry out his administrative duties with supreme justice.
Solomon's wisdom, however, appears to have gone beyond mere practical shrewdness in everyday affairs: 1 Kings 4:29-34 indicates Solomon demonstrated significant literary ability in speaking three thousand proverbs and writing more than one thousand psalms. One of those proverbs was, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18:21). On this occasion, a happy mother had just realized the truth of those words.
MORNING HYMN
Hover o'er me, Holy Spirit,
Bathe my trembling heart and brow;
Fill me with thy hallow'd presence,
Come, O come and fill me now.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. Proverbs 15:22 NIV
Thoughts for Today
If you are not already caring for an aging loved one, you probably will be in the future. The elderly are the fastest growing age group in the United States. The reality is that people are living longer. Consequently, many people in middle age and beyond are facing the challenges of caring for an elderly parent or some other aging loved one.
Ideally, the best time to become familiar with the roles and responsibilities of caregiving and to prepare accordingly is before there is a need to provide support. However, you might find yourself in the middle of the situation before you have taken the time to prepare.
Consider this
You don't have to be alone in this journey. It is often a lengthy journey, and it is so important to continue on with your own life, to take care of your own health, and to avoid neglecting your spouse or children. Try not to internalize everything and let things get bottled up inside. Help is available-from community organizations and government agencies from family and friends and most importantly, from God.
Whether you are currently knee-deep in a crisis situation or planning ahead, it is important for you to take steps now to learn about the programs and resources in your area and the be willing to accept the help that you need.
Throughout these steps, ask God for guidance
If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. James 1:5-6 MSG
Prayer
Father, sometimes I feel so overwhelmed. Please show me step-by-step how to go about getting help and advice so that my parent can benefit from help that is available. And teach me to balance my time and to commit my concerns to you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Caregiving: Caring for Aging Parents by Charles Puchta. The purpose of this group curriculum is to provide hope and direction to those concerned about the health and well-being of aging parents or an ill spouse or relative. It addresses predominate issues most families face. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Awareness of the Call. . . for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
We are inclined to forget the deeply spiritual and supernatural touch of God. If you are able to tell exactly where you were when you received the call of God and can explain all about it, I question whether you have truly been called. The call of God does not come like that; it is much more supernatural. The realization of the call in a person's life may come like a clap of thunder or it may dawn gradually. But however quickly or slowly this awareness comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural- something that is inexpressible and produces a "glow." At any moment the sudden awareness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising call that has taken hold of your life may break through- "I chose you . . ." ( John 15:16 ). The call of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. You are not called to preach the gospel because you are sanctified; the call to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a compulsion that was placed upon him.
If you have ignored, and thereby removed, the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances. See where you have put your own ideas of service or your particular abilities ahead of the call of God. Paul said, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" He had become aware of the call of God, and his compulsion to "preach the gospel" was so strong that nothing else was any longer even a competitor for his strength.
If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn't matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for His purpose in the end. If you will agree with God's purpose, He will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.
God Bless
September 30
Romans 15
We are to conduct our lives in a way that glorifies God.
INSIGHT
When we become Christians, we exchange our citizenship on earth for citizenship in heaven. Therefore, we live according to the value system in heaven, not the value system on earth. On earth we look out for ourselves, and we satisfy our own wants and desires. In heaven we look out for the welfare of others. This does not mean that we neglect ourselves and our families. Other passages in Scripture indicate that we are to love our spouses, children, and parents and care for their needs, which brings this teaching into balance with other truths.
PRAYER
Praise God for His love that we can pass on to others:
"Praise the Lord, call upon His name;
Declare His deeds among the peoples,
Make mention that His name is exalted.
Sing to the Lord,
For He has done excellent things;
This is known in all the earth.
Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!" (Isaiah 12:4-6)
Having offered Him your praise, pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
The fool has said in his heart,
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity;
There is none who does good.
God looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
Every one of them has turned aside;
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one. (Psalm 53:1-3)
Pray this affirmation to the Lord:
I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater peace and trust
Guidance for your church leaders
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
As we have heard,
So we have seen
In the city of the Lord of hosts,
In the city of our God:
God will establish it forever. Selah.
(Psalm 48:8)
Daily Devotionals September 30, 2008
That You May KnowREAD: 1 John 5:6-13These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. -1 John 5:13
One day, while Wim was in the marketplace in the Netherlands, he struck up a conversation with a woman who remarked that you can get to heaven by doing good works.
His attempt to explain that it is by God's grace that we are "saved through faith" (Eph. 2:8) brought a smile as the woman repeated confidently: "and . . . by doing good works." Then another woman volunteered, "You can hope you'll go to heaven, but you can't be sure." Wim's assertion that he did know for sure was met with a muttered, "Nobody knows for sure."
Wim then showed the woman what 1 John 5:11-13 says. He explained: "See, it doesn't say hope there, it says know." Unconvinced, she said, "Like you, my pastor says that we have to have faith, but you really never know whether you've been good enough. You may think you have, but who can be sure?"
To some, Wim's confidence may seem incredible. But he based his words on this statement: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works" (Eph. 2:8-9).
It's true. We can't be good enough. We can never do enough good things. But we can be sure of heaven if we simply believe on the Lord (Acts 16:31). - Cindy Hess Kasper
We cannot earn our way to heaven
By word or work or worth;
But if we trust in Christ to save us,
Then we'll enjoy new birth. -Branon
We are saved by God's mercy, not by our merit-by Christ's dying, not by our doing.
First Appointment by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
How amazing it is that finite creatures such as you and I may have fellowship with the infinite God. Yet this is our privilege as Christians; it is our right. But rights always bring responsibilities.
Psalm 63 is a gem of a morning psalm. The eloquent preacher of the fourth century, Chrysostom, testifies, "It was decreed and ordained by the primitive fathers, that no day should pass without the public singing of this psalm." It is easy to see why the early Christians sang this song aloud at the beginning of every day. They would start their song, "O God, Thou art my God." This is easy to say, but difficult to live. To say that God is our God conveys a great deal of benefit. Because He is our God, all that He has is ours as well. We are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:17). Ours is not an empty relationship with God but one filled with great blessing, great benefit, great privilege.
But all of us who claim the Lord as our God don't just receive special favors from Him; we return special services to Him. This is why in Psalm 118:28 David says, "Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee: Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee." Because He is our God and because we have special rights it is incumbent upon us to exercise certain responsibilities. This David recognizes when he says, "O God, Thou art my God: early will I seek thee" (Psalm 63:1).
While as servants of God we may claim interest in Him, we also must exhibit our duty toward Him. Before all things, at the dawn of every day, before we seek anyone else, before we have our breakfast, "early will I seek Thee."
There seems to be a direct relationship between seeking God in the morning and success throughout the day. Dr. Andrew Bonar once wrote in his diary: "Tonight I gave myself to a time of waiting upon the Lord. I had not been much in the spirit of prayer, but now several things have become clear to me. I realize I have not communed enough with the Lord, nor come to Him as often as I should. Little forethought has been given to the requests I've made. There has been much conversing and outward engagement with men, but I have not been occupied enough with God Himself. I also realize that a closeness to Him gives abundant strength and is like sunlight shining through the clouds on a gloomy day." Bonar recognized that had he sought the Lord early, at the beginning of his day, and walked with Him consistently throughout the day, his evening time of waiting on the Lord in prayer would have been much more productive. The same is true for each of us.
Satisfaction for the soul cannot be found apart from fellowship with the Lord. David the psalmist sought to maintain his companionship with God from early morning until late at night. He made a practice of being in the "presence" of God throughout the day by the blessed privilege of prayer.
When our souls thirst for the Lord as our parched tongues thirst for water, when our appetite for righteousness equals our appetite for food, then we will make it a habit of rising early in the morning to make our first appointment of the day an appointment with God. He will be the first one on our minds in the morning, and the last one on our minds at night.
MORNING HYMN
When morning gilds the skies,
My heart awaking cries;
May Jesus Christ be praised;
Alike at work and prayer
To Jesus I repair;
May Jesus Christ be praised.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel Proverbs 1:5 NAS
Thoughts for Today
While caregiving situations differ, studies indicate that adult children, relatives and spouses who take on the responsibility of family caregiver usually find themselves unprepared. Most people lack the information, skills and confidence they need to provide care effectively and efficiently.
Community organizations and government agencies provide various kinds of assistance, from supplying information all the way to in-home care. You'll quickly find that most people are ready and eager to help you. To locate organizations in your area, visit ElderCare.gov or talk to a local senior services agency.
Consider this
As a caregiver, you will benefit greatly from learning about what is available and then applying for appropriate kinds of help. Your parents' team of healthcare professionals can also be a tremendous source of assistance-especially in helping you understand what is "normal" and giving you an idea of what to anticipate as time goes on. Keep a running list of questions and take the list with you to medical appointments.
Remember don't be embarrassed or feel guilty about asking for help and advice. God's Word says a wise man will listen and learn.
Prayer
Lord, sometimes I get in an "I can do it myself" mode, but your Word says that a wise man will seek counsel. Help me to seek counsel in the right places and to listen to good advice. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Caregiving: Caring for Aging Parents by Charles Puchta. The purpose of this group curriculum is to provide hope and direction to those concerned about the health and well-being of aging parents or an ill spouse or relative. It addresses predominate issues most families face. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Assigning of the CallREAD: I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . . -Colossians 1:24
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" ( Isaiah 6:8 ).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed- you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children
God Bless
October 1
1 Corinthians 1
Paul appeals for unity among the Corinthian believers.
INSIGHT
It has been said: God does the work of God and man does the work of man. Man cannot do the work of God. God will not do the work of man. Paul's exhortation to the Corinthian believers certainly supports this. The Corinthian church had split into factions, following different men. Some said, "I follow Paul." Others said, "I follow Apollos." The most pious among them disdained to follow mere men and said, "I follow Christ." Using the imagery of a husbandman, Paul says, "I planted (brought the message of salvation), Apollos watered (taught you more advanced things), but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase" (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Pursue the work of man with all diligence. And rest in the work of God.
PRAYER
Praise God for caring for the things that are out of your control:
Oh, give thanks to the Lord!
Call upon His name;
Make known His deeds among the peoples.
Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him;
Talk of all His wondrous works.
Glory in His holy name;
Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!
(Psalm 105:1-3)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me. (Psalm 19:12-13)
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
He is the Lord our God;
His judgments are in all the earth.
Remember His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations.
(1 Chronicles 16:14-15)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
The fruit of the Spirit in your life
Those who minister in the inner cities
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
And let them say among the nations,
"The Lord reigns." . . .
Then the trees of the woods shall rejoice before the Lord,
For He is coming to judge the earth.
(1 Chronicles 16:31, 33)
Daily Devotionals October 1, 2008
Cardboard Kids
READ: Proverbs 1:8-19 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. -Proverbs 1:10
When Mike Wood began to advertise his sign company, he didn't know how useful his work would become. Some of his signs were life-size cardboard pictures of kids, which he put close to the street.
Besides advertising his business, the signs had another effect. Motorists thought the cutouts were real children and began to drop their speed. Now Mike sells the cardboard kids to parents who want to slow down speeding drivers in their area. Mike said, "We truly hope that some of our standups help to control speeding in neighborhoods around the country."
Parents work at protecting their children from physical danger. But there are other dangers as well. Solomon, the writer of Proverbs 1, was concerned about the people who would pose spiritual danger to his son. He warned him about those who would entice him to do evil (vv.10-14) and told him, "Do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path; for their feet run to evil" (vv.15-16).
We need to protect our children by teaching them God's Word and training them to avoid evil influences. Busy streets are hazardous for our children, but the enticement of taking an evil path is far more dangerous. - Anne Cetas
Children are a heritage,
A gift from God above;
He asks you to protect and care
And nourish them with love. -Hess
Tomorrow's world will be shaped by what we teach our children today.
Getting Ahead of God by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
It is sometimes disconcerting to board an airplane at the scheduled departure time and then have to endure a lengthy wait on the runway before being cleared for takeoff. Not only do you miss your appointments in a distant city, but you begin to wonder if the marvels of our space-age technology are so marvelous. Yet just as bad as an unscheduled delay would be an unscheduled hastening of the takeoff. You can imagine the turmoil if a flight scheduled for 2:00 o'clock departure left at 1:30. Getting ahead of what is designed can be just as devastating as falling behind.
Abraham was a great man of faith, a friend of God. When God called him to leave his homeland and go to an unknown destination, Abraham immediately obeyed. Later the Lord promised Abraham that his seed would be as numberless as the dust the earth. But Abraham remained childless. His only heir was Eliezer of Damascus, whom he had adopted. When he questioned God, Abraham was told, "This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own loins shall be thine heir. And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said to him, So shall thy seed be." Abraham believed this promise and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:4-6). Yet Abraham and his wife suffered from the same frailties all humans do. After years of expectation and disappointment, they began to wonder if the divine promise was really true. Barren Sarah decided to take matters into her own hands. She had an Egyptian handmaid whose name was Hagar. Herself not able conceive, Sarah convinced Abraham to take Hagar as his wife that she might bear him a son.
Although this was a common practice in the Ancient Near East, nevertheless it was not the fulfillment of God's promise. The appointed time for the birth of Abraham's heir had not yet arrived, but Sarah wanted to force the issue. Shortly Abraham was presented with a son, but by Hagar, not Sarah. An angel of the Lord had previously instructed Hagar to name the child Ishmael. But the heavenly messenger also warned that the child would be a wild man and every man's hand would be against him.
It wasn't until twenty-four years later that the Lord performed a miracle for Sarah and the son of promise was born. Although Abraham was now one hundred years old, this was the promised time and Isaac was the promised son. On the eighth day Isaac was circumcised and months later Abraham made a great feast when the child was weaned. At this festive occasion the behavior of Ishmael betrayed his jealousy. He taunted his young half brother, mocked and ridiculed baby Isaac. As Sarah viewed this it raised her motherly dander. She demanded of her husband, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Genesis 21:10).
This grieved Abraham very much for Ishmael was his own flesh and blood. But God comforted him assuring him that, although Isaac was indeed the promised seed, nevertheless God would also make of Ishmael a great nation. Thus, "Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water," and bid Hagar and the boy a sad good-bye (Genesis 21:14).
God was kind to Ishmael and providentially protected his mother and him. But it was clear that Isaac was the child of promise, not Ishmael. Ishmael was the result of the impatience of Abraham and Sarah. The wild man was born because this couple got ahead of God. They believed that God would provide the promised seed but mistakenly attempted to speed up God's timetable. God performs what He promises, but always in His own time. "Wait on the LORD be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the LORD" (Psalm 27:14). That's good advice for us today.
MORNING HYMN
My Jesus, as Thou wilt!
O may Thy will be mine;
Into Thy hand of love
I would my all resign.
Thro' sorrow, or thro' joy,
Conduct me as Thine own;
And help me still to say,
My Lord, Thy will be done.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble." Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The Bible is full of practical advice given from a realistic perspective. The task of caring for aging parents is almost always more than a person can handle alone. God knows that we need the strength of friends and family, as well as the help that only God can supply. In this passage from Ecclesiastes, we are advised to find strength from others.
Consider this
Don't hesitate to ask family and friends for emotional support, as well as physical help with the tasks at hand. Ask them to pray for you. Find someone with whom you can talk freely about the emotions you are experiencing. Consider joining a small group where you can build supporting relationships.
As a caregiver, you will likely struggle as your loved one's physical and cognitive limitations become more apparent. When you experience a wide range of emotions, be careful not to deny your feelings. Talking with others may help you accept and cope with loss.
Prayer
Lord, I do need your help. And I'm beginning to realize that I need help from others. I thank you for providing people who care. Give me wisdom and boldness in learning to ask and receive help. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Caregiving: Caring for Aging Parents by Charles Puchta. The purpose of this group curriculum is to provide hope and direction to those concerned about the health and well-being of aging parents or an ill spouse or relative. It addresses predominate issues most families face. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free..
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Place of Exaltation
READ: . . . Jesus took . . . them up on a high mountain apart by themselves . . . -Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God's perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14-18 ). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life- those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, "What's the use of this experience?" We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose
God Bless
October 2
1 Corinthians 2
When Paul ministers to the Corinthians, he relies on the work of the Holy Spirit.
INSIGHT
When we speak, teach, or preach to the unsaved, we are not speaking to those who are merely blindfolded; we are speaking to those who are blind. It is not as though we can appeal to them to remove their blindfolds. Rather, we must appeal to the Lord to remove their blindness through the power of His Holy Spirit. "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). Therefore, it is foolishness on our part to attempt to minister to others without first praying fervently for that ministry, asking the Lord to draw those hearts to Christ.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that He broke through your blindness with the Light of life:
O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions . . .
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the Lord. (Psalm 104:24, 33-34)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
That others might see Christ in you
That the Lord of the harvest will send laborers into His fields
Today's activities
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen. (Jude 24-25)
Daily Devotionals October 2, 2008
For A Limited TimeREAD: James 4:13-17You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. -James 4:14
On a crisp October morning, our local newspaper featured a stunning photo of sun-drenched aspen trees whose leaves had turned autumn gold. The caption read: FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY. The irresistible invitation to take a drive through the mountains to savor the brilliant colors conveyed the urgency of doing it quickly. Autumn leaves that are golden today are often gone tomorrow.
Our opportunities to obey God's promptings are also fleeting. James warned against an arrogance that assumes endless days will be available to carry out our good intentions. "You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. . . . Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin" (4:14,17).
Is there an act of kindness or encouragement that God has urged you to do for someone in His name? How long has it been since that first prompting? With so many demands on our time, the urgent tasks demand our attention while the important things can be postponed. But a time will come when even the important can no longer be done.
When we follow God's urging with our action now, today will be golden. - David C. McCasland
If God is prompting you today
To help someone who has a need,
Don't hesitate, the time is short;
Tomorrow is not guaranteed. -Sper
Doing what's right today means no regrets tomorrow.
Sin in the Camp by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken.
Israel had just won the biggest battle in its military history. The impregnable fortress of Jericho was destroyed by the mighty hand of God. The inhabitants of Canaan trembled in terror before the armies of Israel. But as is frequently the case, a great victory had made them susceptible to a great defeat.
With the ashes of Jericho behind it, Israel now faced the next battle in its conquest of Canaan. Situated east of Bethel, in the foothills of the Judean highlands, was the tiny town of Ai. When spies returned from scouting this town they reported that three thousand soldiers were needed to seize this tiny, indefensible town. What they did not know was that, whereas God had gone with them into battle at Jericho, because of sin in their ranks God would not go with them in battle at Ai. The Israelites soon learned that the difference between victory and defeat is not military strength but the presence of the Lord.
The men of Ai routed the Israelite force, slaying thirty-six of them and chasing the rest all the way to Shebarim. Licking their wounds, they returned to Joshua and the elders who immediately fell on their faces before the ark of the Lord. Joshua thought he had been abandoned by God, but the Lord quickly revealed to him that the defeat at Ai was due to sin in the camp of Israel. "So he rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes (Joshua 7:16). The tribe of Judah was indicated. Then all the families of Judah were marched before Joshua and Zerah pointed out as head of the sinning family. From the family Zerahites, man by man, they were escorted into the presence Joshua and Zabdi was taken. The household of Zabdi remained and Achan, the son of Carmi, was accused.
Joshua bade Achan to give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make a public confession. Achan confessed that his sin began innocently enough when he saw the spoils of war. But immediately that simple sight degenerated into covetousness and to actually taking the accursed thing. But worse than that, because he thought he could get away with his sin, he hid the beautiful garment and the silver and gold he took in the earth beneath his tent. Although succumbing to the temptation to sin was evil enough, Achan's greatest mistake was thinking that he could hide that sin from God.
That we can never successfully hide our sin from God is the teaching of Jesus' parable of the lighted candle. Luke 8:16-17 records, "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candle-stick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be made known and come abroad." The seeing eye of God searches even the innermost secrets of men. No sin, however large or small, escapes the eye of God.
Exodus 2 describes how Moses spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, and he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no man watching him he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand (Exodus 2:12). The very next day however Moses' sin was discovered and he had to flee from the land of the Pharaoh and spend the next forty years in Midian. Moses' sin was unsuccessfully hidden. Beloved King David had a similar experience. After sinning with Bathsheba and attempting to cover his sin through the death of Uriah the Hittite, the trespass of David soon came to light when Nathan the prophet pointed his finger in the king's face and said, "Thou art the man" (2 Samuel 12:7). In remorse King David said, "O God, Thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from Thee" (Psalm 69:5).
From the sad experiences of Achan and these others, let us learn well the truth that sin is never successfully hidden. We cannot hide our sin from God; we only can deal with it. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Don't try to hide sin today; let God forgive it instead.
MORNING HYMN
Depth of mercy! Can there be
mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear
Me, the chief of sinners spare?
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Moses' father-in-law replied, 'What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.'" Exodus 18:17-18 NIV
Thoughts for Today
When Moses was leading God's people from Egypt to their homeland, he was overwhelmed with his responsibilities in caring for the needs of his people. In Exodus 18 Moses receives life-changing advice from his father-in-law. In essence, Jethro told Moses that the process Moses was using was a bad thing for Moses and for the people he was trying to help. It was wearing them all out!
Jethro presented a plan for delegation that Moses began to follow, and everyone was better off.
Consider this
Caregiving can be an overwhelming responsibility, but we might be hesitant to ask for help for any number of reasons. "If I don't do it, it won't be done right." "I don't need help." "My sister already has so much to do-I just hate to ask." "My brother lives so far away."
We can always come up with reasons why we shouldn't ask anyone else to help. But the fact is, our parents and we will all be better off if we share the load with others. We might even be depriving others of a blessing if we refuse their help!
Consider meeting with other family members and friends. Work out a plan in which each of you can do what you do best, or what circumstances will allow.
Moses learned that sharing the load was better-you will too.
Prayer
Father, I know that sometimes I'm too much of a "do it myself" person. I guess it may be a mixture of pride, a desire for control, and sometimes just not wanting to bother other people. Help me to recognize when the job is too much for me to do alone and to be willing to share the load. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Caregiving: Caring for Aging Parents by Charles Puchta. The purpose of this group curriculum is to provide hope and direction to those concerned about the health and well-being of aging parents or an ill spouse or relative. It addresses predominate issues most families face. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Place of Humiliation
READ: If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us -Mark 9:22
After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God- that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see Mark 9:5-6 , Mark 14-23 ).
"If you can do anything . . . ." It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus- will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation?
God Bless
October 3
1 Corinthians 3
Paul says no foundation can be laid other than Jesus, and anything else is worthless in eternity.
INSIGHT
When the events of life are viewed with an eternal perspective, things that initially seemed important become unimportant, and things that seemed unimportant become important. Religious activity that is not undertaken with the right spirit or motive is worthless in view of eternity, regardless of how much weight it is given by men. And conversely the smallest cup of water given in the name of Christ receives eternal reward. Be careful how you build your life's work. Keep eternity in mind at all times.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that He loved us enough to sacrifice His pleasures in heaven for our welfare:
O God, my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and give praise, even with my glory. . . .
I will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples,
And I will sing praises to You among the nations.
For Your mercy is great above the heavens,
And Your truth reaches to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
And Your glory above all the earth.
(Psalm 108:1, 3-5)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater wisdom for living
Needs of your immediate family
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 7:11-12).
Daily Devotionals October 3, 2008
Read A Banned BookREAD: Jeremiah 36:1-8,21-26Write . . . all the words that I have spoken to you . . . that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. -Jeremiah 36:2-3
The American Library Association has designated this week as Banned Books Week in celebration of the freedom to read and to express one's opinion "even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular."
The Bible is the all-time bestselling book, but in some parts of the world it is banned because it's considered dangerous. The Bible is dangerous, however, only to those who fear finding out that they are wrong. It's dangerous to those who exploit the weak and the innocent, who use force to keep others enslaved in poverty and ignorance, who don't want to give up their favorite sin, who believe that salvation can be found apart from Christ.
No one wants to be told they are wrong. No one wants to hear that their behavior is putting themselves and those they love in danger or that God's patience will eventually wear out. Yet that was the message God told Jeremiah to write (Jer. 36:2). When His message was read to King Jehoiakim, the king cut up the scroll and threw it into the fire (v.23).
The only way to know we are right is to be willing to discover where we are wrong. Read the all-time bestselling banned book, and let it reveal to you the truth about God-and about yourself. - Julie Ackerman Link
Lord Jesus, show Thyself to me
In very truth and deed;
Help me to find, O Christ, in Thee,
More than my deepest need. -Clarkson
The Bible shows us a picture of who we really are.
Jesus Clinging By: Ron Edmondson Friday, October 03, 2008 He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made sea and the land." Jonah 1:9 NIV
Today's verse is from the story of Jonah. God wanted the prophet Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh to preach against their sin. Jonah, afraid for his life, tried to run from the Lord. (Obviously, if you know the rest of the story, this is an impossible task.)
God sent a violent wind to the sea, tossing the boat around to the point that it would soon break. The experienced seamen were afraid for their lives, never having experienced such a powerful storm. They called out to their little "g" gods, but there was no response. They rushed frantically to Jonah who was asleep below the deck. Waking him, they asked him to call upon his Lord.
With no relief, the sailors cast lots and the lots fell on Jonah. Jonah was the guilty party, the reason for such a fierce storm. Jonah was exposed! Guilty! Broken! Naked! He was laid bare before these pagan men.
He could hide no more. He confessed to the sailors, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the One who made the sea and the land" and who sent this great wind.
Let me ask you a very serious question. When you are stripped of everything you are clinging to, when you are naked before the world and your Lord, who do you claim as your God? When you have nothing else in life, is God still God?
At this point in Jonah's life, he thought the world as he knew it was over. He thought his life was about to end, but, barren and without (although he really wasn't), he confessed that he was a child of God!
When you have nothing else to cling to, you still have Jesus! Is He enough for you today?
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31 NIV
Thoughts for Today
God never promised us days without pain, laughter without sorrow, or sun without rain but he did promise strength to get through each day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way. As you provide care and support for an aging parent, a spouse or friend, turn to God for strength and hope.
The Bible has a great deal to say about aging and caregiving concerns. Take time to meditate on God's Word. You will find guidance, strength and hope. Open your Bible and spend quiet time with God every day. No matter how busy you are, determine to set aside that special time with him. And remember that he is with you every moment of the day.
Consider this
While at times you might not understand why you and your family are facing these challenging times, if you seek God, you will find him. He promises to hear your prayers and meet your needs. He is your source. He is the one who will make the impossible, possible.
Too often we exhaust ourselves with our own efforts before we ask God for his help and provision for our needs. We focus on the need and become overwhelmed by it. He will help us, and he wants us to pray to him for the strength, wisdom and resources to accomplish his will.
Prayer
Father, at times I get so weary, physically and emotionally. And sometimes I find myself turning everywhere else for help before coming to you. Help me to remember to always come to you first. I know that you are truly my source of strength. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Caregiving: Caring for Aging Parents by Charles Puchta. The purpose of this group curriculum is to provide hope and direction to those concerned about the health and well-being of aging parents or an ill spouse or relative. It addresses predominate issues most families face. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Place of MinistryREAD: He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting' -Mark 9:29
His disciples asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?' " ( Mark 9:28 ). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" ( Isaiah 40:31 ), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" ( Philippians 4:13 ) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
God Bless
October 4
1 Corinthians 6
Brothers should not go to court against brothers, especially before unbelievers.
INSIGHT
When we come to Christ, we give up our title to all earthly possessions, and we receive eternal possessions that are fabulous beyond imagination. All of the riches of Christ are ours as co-inheritors with Him; all those things that we might have viewed as possessions must now be seen as "on loan." We are now merely administrators, stewards of these things that belong to the Lord. We must hold them loosely with an open hand, not as possessions, and use them as we believe Christ would.
PRAYER
Thank the Lord and praise Him that Christ's passion for us went as far as the Cross:
Praise the Lord!
I will praise the Lord with my whole heart,
In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. . . .
His work is honorable and glorious,
And His righteousness endures forever.
He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. . . .
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.
His praise endures forever. (Psalm 111:1, 3-4, 10)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful,
And have forgotten the God who fathered you. (Deuteronomy 32:18)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Patience in dealing with others
The hungry around the world
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
"The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you,
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26).
October 4-5, 2008
WORDS OF COMFORT
by Charles R. Swindoll
Read Job 3:1--26
In the early l960s when a Christian suffered from a depression that resulted in Job's kind of thinking and candid admission, you never said so publicly. You wallowed your sorrow. The first book I read on this subject, covering emotional turmoil and mental illness among Christians, was considered heresy by most of my evangelical friends.
The pervasive opinion then was simple: Christians didn't have breakdowns. Furthermore, you certainly didn't say "depressed!" You know what term was used to describe those who struggled with deep depression in the early and mid-sixties? "Nervous." "He's got a nervous problem." Or simply, "She's nervous." And if you ever, God help you, had to be hospitalized due to your "nervous" disorder, there just wasn't a Christian word for it. I repeat, you didn't tell a soul. Shame upon shame that you didn't trust the Lord through your struggle and find Him faithful to help you "get over" your depression.
I remember being told by a seminary prof, who talked to us about assisting families with funerals, that if you did funerals for those who had committed suicide and the deceased was a Christian, we were never to mention that fact. Frankly, it didn't sound right then, and it doesn't sound right today. Shame-based counsel never sounds right because it isn't right! And I didn't know enough to know that Job 3 was in the book back then. Had I known, I would have said, "Hey, what about Job?"
I want to write to you who are reading these lines who may be in the pit, struggling to find your way back. It's possible that things have gotten so dark that you need a competent Christian psychologist (or psychiatrist) to help you find your way. The most intelligent thing you can do is locate one and go. In fact, go as long as you need to go. Make sure that the counselor really does know the Lord Jesus and is truly competent, able to provide the direction you need so you can work your way through your maze of misery. And, I would add, "God bless you for every hour you spend finding your way out of the hole that you have been in. There is hope. Our faithful God will see you through."
Reprinted by permission. Day by Day, Charles Swindoll, July 2005, Thomas Nelson, inc., Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.
God Bless
October 5
1 Corinthians 7
Paul instructs the Corinthians concerning marriage, divorce, and singleness.
INSIGHT
Within the bonds of marriage, spiritual, emotional, and physical dimensions exist. The relationship should be established by a spiritual bond out of which flow emotional and physical bonds. When this order is properly maintained, the relationship is balanced and satisfying. However, many marriages take the opposite direction. Out of physical attraction grow emotional bonds, and spiritual bonds may or may not follow. Strive to strengthen the spiritual bonds in your relationships in order to keep them healthy and balanced. Even in a marriage where one partner is unsaved, the relationship will be stronger and more satisfying if your spouse sees the reality of your spiritual life and love for Jesus Christ.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that our spiritual bond with Christ can strengthen the bonds of other relationships:
Praise the Lord!
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord?
Who can declare all His praise? . . .
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
From everlasting to everlasting!
And let all the people say, "Amen!"
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 106:1-2, 48)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving as you pray this confession to the Lord:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:23).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater sensitivity to sin
The ministry of your church
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea,
and all that are in them, I heard saying:
"Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever!" (Revelation 5:13)
Rosetta Stone
READ: Ephesians 3:1-7 The mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, . . . has now been revealed by the Spirit. -Ephesians 3:4-5
For centuries, the hieroglyphic word pictures painted on Egyptian ruins were a mystery. Then in 1799 a French archaeological expedition at the Egyptian harbor of Rosetta discovered an ancient stone. It weighed 1,676 pounds and reflected beautiful dark gray, blue, and pink hues. But that is not what made it valuable.
The stone was inscribed with an identical message in different ancient scripts. Among them were hieroglyphics and classical Greek. Using Greek to translate, scholars soon understood the meaning of the hieroglyphics. They were no longer a mystery.
The Bible has also contained an ancient mystery. For centuries, it seemed as if God's purposes were limited to the Jews. Yet with the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, the promise to Abraham to bless the whole world came to light (Gen. 12:1-3). Paul wrote: "The mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known . . . has now been revealed by the Spirit" (Eph. 3:4-5). God provides salvation to all people who repent and believe in His Son (Gal. 3:8-9,28).
The revelation of the New Testament describes a glorious future when people from every ethnic group, nation, and language will share in the inheritance of the children of God (Rev. 5:9). - Dennis Fisher
O glorious mystery of love,
That I, a child of earth,
May dwell by faith with Christ above,
The Lamb of matchless worth! -Christiansen
The Christian's inheritance is guaranteed forever!
Send Someone Else
Imagine standing before the Lord and finding the strength within you to say what Moses said: "O Lord, please send someone else to do it" (Exodus 4:13).
Hard to imagine? Think you would never have the nerve to say these same words? We often do just that. We essentially tell God no by refusing to do what He has directed us to do.
Two verses earlier, Moses had admitted his weaknesses: "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue" (Exodus 4:10).
There was no doubt that Moses had a problem with his self-esteem. However, he quickly decided it was in his best interest to obey the Lord. Although he had limitations and inabilities, he refused to allow these to prevent him from answering God's call.
There are times when we look at others and think we could never do what they are doing. Although we long to step forward and lead, we often fall back with feelings of inferiority and defeat.
We also allow pride to skew our view of those around us. We see someone who is either physically or mentally challenged and wonder why God has chosen that person for a particular task. He often chooses to use the "foolish" things of this world to do a mighty work (1 Corinthians 1:27).
While Moses was a meek man, he certainly was not weak. He had a tremendous inner strength and discernment that was God-given. In the end, the Lord used his meek spirit to lead Israel out of bondage and to the doorstep of the Promised Land.
Have you made meekness a personal goal of your life? If you have, then you are in store for a tremendous blessing.
The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace (Psalm 37:11).
Seeking wisdom is like seeking a hidden treasure. When you're looking for a treasure-especially a treasure on which your life depends-what do you do? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Finding Godly Wisdom." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
He Can Heal the Hurt
by Max Lucado
Grudge is one of those words that defines itself. Its very sound betrays its meaning.
Say it slowly: "Grr-uuuud-ge."
It starts with a growl. "Grr " Like a bear with bad breath coming out of hibernation or a mangy mongrel defending his bone in an alley. "Grrr "
Remove a GR from the word grudge and replace it with SL and you have the junk that grudge bearers trudge through. Sludge. Black, thick, ankle-deep resentment that steals the bounce from the step. No joyful skips through the meadows. No healthy hikes up the mountain. Just day after day of walking into the storm, shoulders bent against the wind, and feet dragging through all the muck life has delivered.
Is this the way you are coping with your hurts? Are you allowing your hurts to turn into hates? If so, ask yourself: Is it working? Has your hatred done you any good? Has your resentment brought you any relief, any peace? Has it granted you any joy?
Let's say you get even. Let's say you get him back. Let's say she gets what she deserves. Let's say your fantasy of fury runs its ferocious course and you return all your pain with interest. Imagine yourself standing over the corpse of the one you have hated. Will you now be free?
The writer of the following letter thought she would be. She thought her revenge would bring release. But she learned otherwise.
I caught my husband making love to another woman. He swore it would never happen again. He begged me to forgive him, but I could not-would not. I was so bitter and so incapable of swallowing my pride that I could think of nothing but revenge. I was going to make him pay and pay dearly. I'd have my pound of flesh.
I filed for divorce, even though my children begged me not to.
Even after the divorce, my husband tried for two years to win me back. I refused to have anything to do with him. He had struck first; now I was striking back. All I wanted was to make him pay.
Finally he gave up and married a lovely young widow with a couple of small children. He began rebuilding his life-without me.
I see them occasionally, and he looks so happy. They all do. And here I am-a lonely, old, miserable woman who allowed her selfish pride and foolish stubbornness to ruin her life.
Unfaithfulness is wrong. Revenge is bad. But the worst part of all is that, without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left.
The state of your heart dictates whether you harbor a grudge or give grace, seek self-pity or seek Christ, drink human misery or taste God's mercy.
No wonder, then, the wise man begs, "Above all else, guard your heart."
David's prayer should be ours: "Create in me a pure heart, O God."
From
The Applause of Heaven
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999) Max Lucado
The Nature of DegenerationREAD: Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . -Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away- an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26 ). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, "I am my own god." This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis- my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25 ).
Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch- only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "This is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light . . . " ( John 3:19 ).
God Bless
October 6
1 Corinthians 8
Take care that your actions do not wound another Christian.
INSIGHT
There is an inseparable link between Christ and the church. In Acts 9:4 Jesus appears to Saul on the road to Damascus and asks, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" Yet Saul had not persecuted Jesus; he had never even seen Jesus. However, because he was persecuting the church, Jesus rebuked Saul for persecuting Him. Again in 1 Corinthians 8 Paul teaches that if we sin against our brothers in Christ--wounding their consciences when they are weak--we sin against Christ. We must be cautious with our words and actions.
PRAYER
Praise Christ, the Head of the church:
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height , and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14, 17-19)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
"Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and
the glory forever. Amen" (Matthew 6:11-13).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my meditation.
Give heed to the voice of my cry,
My King and my God,
For to You I will pray.
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord;
In the morning I will direct it to You,
And I will look up. (Psalm 5:1-3)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Perseverance
Endurance for those who work with the homeless
Whatever else is on your heart
Close this time of worship with the following prayer:
To Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
Daily Devotionals October 6, 2008
Not Much In BetweenREAD: Ephesians 3:14-21That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:19
In the western panhandle of Texas is a small town named Texline. It had an ostentatious beginning in the late 1800s as a thriving center along a new railroad line. Within a few years, though, most of the shops had closed and the town's population shriveled to about 400. In 2000, the population was still just over 500.
One online description of Texline says that it has "a city limits sign at one end, another at the other end, and not much in between."
What a waste if the same description could be given of our spiritual journey! The journey of the Christian life on earth begins at the moment of faith in Jesus and ends when the believer goes to be with the Lord. This raises an important question: What happens in between?
A rich and full life is available to all who believe in and serve Jesus. The apostle Paul prayed that believers would "be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:19). He wanted them to know life "abundantly" (John 10:10). But how many of us experience even a small part of the abundant life Christ promised to those who are faithful to Him?
God desires to give us a marvelous beginning with salvation and a great ending in Glory-with much in between. - David C. Egner
Lord, thank You for all that You have done for me.
I commit myself to making the most of my spiritual journey.
I want to experience as much as I can of You and all
You have to offer to me. Amen.
A life given fully to God becomes a God-filled life.
Destruction By: Ron Edmondson That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction. Joshua 7:12 NIV
What in your life is "devoted to destruction"? I know that seems like a silly question, but it's not to God. He wants us to rid ourselves of anything that is devoted to our downfall.
In the passage above, the people of God had lost a major battle. People were killed in the process. Joshua fell upon his face before the Lord. "What has happened to our blessing?
Joshua must have thought. He cried out to the Lord and the Lord said, "Get off your face Joshua!"
God said that Joshua and the Israelites needed to rid themselves of anything that was standing between them and God. Joshua went to the people and found a man who had been worshipping idols. The people took that man from the city and stoned him to death. It would be very fair to say that that man was "devoted to destruction." In fact, that might be an understatement.
Pretty powerful stuff! Yet, God takes devotion very seriously. Those things that have our devotion should be dedicated and pleasing to God!
What in your life is devoted to destruction? What do you need to rid from your life so that you can more fully worship and serve God? Is fear an issue in your life? Do you tend to worry unnecessarily? Is money your chief motivator? Would you put your career before your service to God? Are you greedy? Do you hold grudges? Are you prejudiced? (Here's a space for you to insert your own: _______________________ )
I feel, based on the authority of the word of God, I need to warn you of something! THESE THINGS ARE DEVOTED TO DESTRUCTION!
God wants us to rid our lives of those things that take us away from His good and perfect will! Ask God to help you today!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Refrain from anger and turn from wrath." Psalm 37:8 NIV
"In your anger do not sin." Ephesians 4:26 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The Bible tells us to refrain from anger. It also tells us to be angry, but not to sin. Although this first sounds like a contradiction, a study of the Scriptures reveals that there are times when anger is accepted and appropriate-and other times when it is not. The Bible teaches that it is what makes us angry and how we express it that determine whether anger is right or wrong.
Throughout the Old Testament we read time and again of God's anger-always directed at people's sin. And in the New Testament, Jesus expressed his anger and cleansed the temple of the greedy money changers who were showing dishonor and disrespect and defiling and disrupting God's house. And so we know that there are times when anger is the most appropriate behavior. But what about when we become angry for selfish reasons or express our anger in spiteful ways? In your anger do not sin.
Consider this
What is the source of your anger? Do you get angry when you are denied something you want? Or because someone didn't respond to you the way you desired? Or are you angry because God is being dishonored? What is making you angry and what are you going to do about it? The answers to these questions will determine the right and the wrong of it.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for the times I have become angry for the wrong reasons and the times I have expressed anger in hurtful ways. I pray that you will help me not to sin in my anger. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant-Creative Use of a Powerful Emotion by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. It not only ministers to church members, but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Nature of RegenerationWhen it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . -Galatians 1:15-16
If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this- I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature- His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God's verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.
The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God- ". . . until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19 ). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." ( Matthew 5:11 ). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.
Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19 ). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.
God Bless
October 7
1 Corinthians 9
Paul limits his freedom for the sake of other Christians.
INSIGHT
Spiritual maturity is not a product of human effort. The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of the Spirit, not of self-effort. Yet God will not grant spiritual maturity to us unless we are striving for it. Paul says, "I run . . . not with uncertainty. I fight . . . not as one who beats the air. I discipline my body . . . " in pursuit of spiritual goals (1 Corinthians 9:26-27). The reality is that few of us have the spiritual passion to equal the temporal passion of the unsaved. It is a challenge to care about the same things God cares about--a challenge we must accept!
PRAYER
Praise God that His work of sanctification continues in your life:
May the Lord give you increase more and more,
You and your children.
May you be blessed by the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's;
But the earth He has given to the children of men.
The dead do not praise the Lord,
Nor any who go down into silence.
But we will bless the Lord
From this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord!
(Psalm 115:14-18)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
"Execute true justice,
Show mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.
Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
Let none of you plan evil in his heart
Against his brother" (Zechariah 7:9-10).
As you confess your sins, pray this affirmation to the Lord:
I will praise You,
For You have answered me,
And have become my salvation. (Psalm 118:21)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Purity of mind
Your spiritual goals
Today's activities
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:15-16)
Daily Devotionals October 7, 2008
Unused MusclesREAD: 1 Corinthians 12:14-27The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. -1 Corinthians 12:7
My wife recently visited a physiotherapist to seek relief for her neck and shoulder pain. When the problem did not go away after several visits, she asked why. She was told that her pain was because of some "lazy neck muscles."
Apparently, the neck muscles that were supposed to hold her head upright were not doing their job. As a result, her shoulder muscles had to take over the function of holding up her head. This caused unnaturally stiffened shoulder muscles. The solution? Exercises were prescribed to train her neck muscles to do what they were designed to do.
In a way, her problem depicts what happens in the body of Christ. God has given each believer gifts that are to be exercised for the common good of the church (1 Cor. 12:7). But when some don't pull their weight, others far less gifted in those areas must pitch in. Although the body of Christ continues to function, it is not functioning at its best. There are some overworked Christians around!
God wants us to use our spiritual gifts to benefit others in the church. When we work together, we keep the body strong. What has God gifted you to do so that you can help relieve the strain the church is suffering? - C. P. Hia
All Christians have been gifted
By grace from God above,
Equipped to build and strengthen
The church in faith and love. -Fitzhugh
Teamwork divides the effort and multiplies the effect.
Greatness of Jesus By: Ron Edmondson Tuesday, October 07, 2008 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. John 21:25 NIV
Do you remember the song: "He's got the whole world in His hand, the whole wide world in His hands. He's got me and you Sister in His hands, He's got the whole world in His hands"?
Jesus has been good to me! I feel like John. John was close to Jesus. John was "the disciple whom Jesus loved." They were prayer partners. John had witnessed miracle after miracle. He tried to recount, with the help of the Holy Spirit, all the things Jesus did that we needed to know.
However, John just couldn't record it all! Read in Revelation how John saw the vision of Heaven, and he just wasn't able to put it into real descriptive words. It was just too, you know, glorious! Even greater!
John would love to have you experience Jesus the way he has. He would love for you to walk in his steps a while and learn and know the Lord and all His wonderful ways. But, there is no way in the world to describe His greatness!
You need to walk with Jesus, growing in fellowship with Him, relying on Him to fulfill all your needs, trusting Him by faith, and watching Him care for you and give you peace. Only then can you understand what John was (and I am) talking about!
The whole world can't contain His greatness!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry."James 1:19 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Anger is a God-given emotional energy designed for good. It can lead to sin, but doesn't have to. We can control our thoughts and actions. We can stop allowing anger to master us. The Bible teaches that we should not be quick-tempered.
We need to slow down and think about things before we respond in anger. We have all blurted out hurtful angry remarks and then wished we could take the words back. Slowing down can help us avoid these situations.
Consider this
The next time someone does or says something that you don't like-stop! Take a deep breath. Consider your response. You can avoid a lot of hurt and regret by making the right choices at this point.
Prayer
Father, help me look beyond what people say and see their heart. Forgive me for the times I've responded too quickly-and foolishly-in anger. Teach me to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant-Creative Use of a Powerful Emotion by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. It not only ministers to church members, but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Nature of ReconciliationREAD: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him -2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship- it is not wrong doing, but wrong being- it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins- the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son "to be sin" that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . ." and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A man cannot redeem himself- redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person's life.
God Bless
October 8
1 Corinthians 13
Love is the greatest virtue that all Christians should exhibit.
INSIGHT
Throughout the Bible, love is clearly considered the supreme virtue. Both Jesus and Paul teach that the greatest Christian virtue is love. However, it is not always easy to measure love, especially because our society has such a distorted concept of what love is. Many people think that love is simply an emotion. We may think that if we don't feel "warm and fuzzy," we don't love. While emotions certainly may be attached to biblical love, love is primarily an act of the will. And God commands us to love. If you exhibit the qualities listed in today's chapter, you are loving regardless of your emotions.
PRAYER
Thank the Lord and praise Him that He loves us with the same love He asks from us:
Praise the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
Praise the name of the Lord!
Blessed be the name of the Lord
From this time forth and forevermore!
From the rising of the sun to its going down
The Lord's name is to be praised.
The Lord is high above all nations,
His glory above the heavens. (Psalm 113:1-4)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
So Samuel said:
"Has the Lord as great delight in burnt
offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams" (1 Samuel 15:22).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater love for fellow Christians
The work of missions in Europe and Asia
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Let the words of my mouth and the
meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)
Daily Devotionals October 8, 2008
Erev Yom Kippur
READ: Matthew 5:21-26First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. -Matthew 5:24
In Judaism, the holiest day of the year is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. On that day, the nation seeks God's forgiveness for sins both personal and national.
What is interesting, however, is the day before Yom Kippur, known as Erev Yom Kippur. It represents a person's last opportunity to seek forgiveness from other people before Yom Kippur begins. This is important because, in Jewish thought, you must seek forgiveness from other people before you can seek the forgiveness of God.
Today, we are called to do the same. Jesus pointed out that in order to worship Him with all our heart, we first need to resolve matters with others. In Matthew 5:23-24, He said, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."
Even in a matter so basic as our giving, the ability to truly worship God is hindered by the reality of relationships broken by our wrong actions, attitudes, and words.
So that our worship can be pleasing and acceptable to God, let us make every effort to be reconciled to one another-today. - Bill Crowder
Have you hurt a friend or brother?
Go at once and make things right;
From your heart say, "Please forgive me."
How these words bring God delight! -D. De Haan
An offense against your neighbor is a fence between you and God.
Ambition to Preach By: Ron Edmondson It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Romans 15:20 NIV
What is your ambition in life? To retire early? To acquire great wealth? To get more degrees than the others in your class? To be a straight-A student? To live in a really big house? To sail the seven seas? To climb the highest mountain? To discover the latest cure?
Those may all be meaningful ambitions, and I'm sure yours is as well, but do you really want to make a difference in the world? Then tell someone about Jesus!
A friend of mine said he walked into a fast food restaurant the other day and handed one of the workers a gospel track. The boy had never heard of the gospel. Oh, he had heard of Jesus, but he hadn't a clue what difference Jesus could make in his life today. No one had ever told him that to enter Heaven one must be born again. The boy, that day, prayed to receive Christ. He will never be the same! I can't wait to meet him in Heaven! He'll be the one with the big smile on his face.
You and I have been assigned a mission in life. We are to win a lost world to Jesus. Can you imagine, right around you today, perhaps where you work or even in your own home, someone you know is lost and going to Hell. God may be depending on you to lead them to Christ!
Make it your ambition today to tell someone about the love of Jesus! Their lives will never be the same and neither will yours!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And 'don't sin by letting anger control you.' Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry." Ephesians 4:26 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Yesterday we looked at the importance of being slow to anger-to listen well and not react impulsively. But the Bible also tells us to deal with the anger appropriately. We shouldn't wait for days, weeks, months or even years to pass before we talk with someone we may have hurt or reacted to in anger. Delay could cause greater pain for everyone concerned. In fact, God's Word instructs us to deal with anger the same day it occurs. "Do not let the sun go down"
Deal with your anger while there is opportunity to do so. Don't let it stockpile in a slush fund of repressed and denied angry feelings-feelings that may surface at unexpected times, causing you to hurt someone you care about. Lingering anger can develop into bitterness and resentment, leading to emotional, spiritual and even physical problems.
Consider this
When you are angry at someone, think about why you are angry. Ask God to help you understand your feelings and to express them appropriately. And then tell the other person(s) involved how you feel. If you have hurt them or treated them unfairly, ask for their forgiveness. And always be quick to forgive them.
Is there someone you should talk to today?
Prayer
Lord, help me understand my feelings and learn to express them appropriately. Help me not to take offense easily, but when I am angry, help me to settle things quickly and in love. Help me not to let the sun go down on my anger. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant-Creative Use of a Powerful Emotion by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. It not only ministers to church members, but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Coming to JesusREAD: Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Isn't it humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things about which we will not come to Jesus Christ. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words- "Come to Me . . . ." In every dimension in which you are not real, you will argue or evade the issue altogether rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; and you will do anything rather than come the last lap of the race of seemingly unspeakable foolishness and say, "Just as I am, I come." As long as you have even the least bit of spiritual disrespect, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do something very big, and yet all He is telling you to do is to "Come . . . ."
"Come to Me . . . ." When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, and it will involve anything that will uproot whatever is preventing you from getting through to Jesus. And you will never get any further until you are willing to do that very thing. The Holy Spirit will search out that one immovable stronghold within you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him do so.
How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away thinking, "I've really received what I wanted this time!" And yet you go away with nothing, while all the time God has stood with His hands outstretched not only to take you but also for you to take Him. Just think of the invincible, unconquerable, and untiring patience of Jesus, who lovingly says, "Come to Me. . . ."
God Bless
October 9
1 Corinthians 15
Christ's resurrection is the basis for our resurrection, which is the final victory over sin.
INSIGHT
It is difficult for us to imagine what our resurrected bodies will be like. Yet there are snatches of information in the Scriptures that may give us some idea. In Matthew 17, for example, we read about Jesus, Moses, and Elijah who, having lost their earthly appearance, glow with a dazzling light. From this one brief example, we might conclude that our bodies will shine with dazzling light, that we will be free from gravity, that we may travel at fabulous speeds, and will be able to appear and disappear. C. S. Lewis once wrote that if we were to see our glorified selves coming down the street, we would be tempted to fall at our own feet and worship ourselves.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that each believer will have a wonderful resurrected body:
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,
But to Your name give glory,
Because of Your mercy,
Because of Your truth. . .
You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield. . .
But we will bless the Lord
From this time forth and forevermore.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 115:1, 11, 18)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
David's heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have done very foolishly"
(2 Samuel 24:10).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater faithfulness with your time
The president, national leaders, and national and world affairs
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Who is wise?
Let him understand these things.
Who is prudent?
Let him know them.
For the ways of the Lord are right;
The righteous walk in them,
But transgressors stumble in them.
(Hosea 14:9)
Daily Devotionals October 9, 2008
The Chain Of Ungrace
READ: Matthew 6:9-15
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. -Matthew 6:12
When I feel wronged, I can contrive a hundred reasons against forgiveness. "He needs to learn a lesson." "I'll let her stew for a while; it'll do her good." "It's not up to me to make the first move." When I finally soften to the point of granting forgiveness, it seems a leap from hard logic to mushy sentiment.
One factor that motivates me to forgive is that as a Christian I am commanded to, as the child of a Father who forgives. Jesus said, "If you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses" (Mark 11:25).
But beyond that, I can identify three pragmatic reasons. First, forgiveness halts the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace. Without it we remain bound to the people we can't forgive, held in their vise grip.
Second, forgiveness loosens the stranglehold of guilt in the perpetrator. It allows the possibility of transformation in the guilty party, even if a just punishment is still required.
And third, forgiveness creates a remarkable linkage, placing the forgiver on the same side as the party who did the wrong. We are not as different from the wrongdoer as we would like to think, for we too must ask our heavenly Father, "Forgive us our debts" (Matt. 6:12). - Philip Yancey
When I consider Calvary's dismay-
The shame, the scorn, the scourging borne by You-
Resentment melts; I am compelled to say,
"Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do!" -Mollon
He who cannot forgive others burns the bridge over which he himself must pass. -Herbert
The Will of God
By: Ron Edmondson
The world and all its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:17 NIV
Some of my best growth times with the Lord have been during teaching times with my children. I remember when my son asked an important question, "Daddy, what is the 'will of God'?"
Now, he wasn't asking, "What does God want me to do?" It was more general than that. He simply wanted to know what the phrase "will of God" meant. My hope is that you and I can also grow through this experience.
I explained it to him, as I understand it, that God's will can actually be described in several ways. First there is God's individual will. That is for the individual decisions you and I make each day. You know that God cares intimately for you, even down to the number of hairs on your head. God does allow, however, for you to make some decisions for yourself in life. You may choose what to eat for breakfast or you may choose a red car instead of a blue. It isn't that God doesn't care which you get, but He most likely will allow you to make that decision.
Second, there is God's moral will. God's desire for you is that you develop your character into the image of Christ. He will present you with every opportunity for you to do just that, but you will play a part in how far you grow spiritually. You may choose to love your neighbor as yourself or you may choose to be a very selfish person. God, however, is very concerned about your character, and for His moral will for your life. In fact, God cares more that His moral will for your life be done than His individual will, because God is in the character-changing business.
Third, there is God's sovereign will. God has a will that is set in stone! It won't change. It can't change. It always stays the same! For example, God cannot help but love you because that is His sovereign will. God cannot break His promises, because that is His sovereign will. Some things God has set into motion, and they will never be different.
Now, I don't know what God's individual will is for your life. (I hope for you it is Wheaties and a shiny red convertible.) But I can tell you this. His moral will is that you be right with Him through the blood of Jesus! And better yet, His sovereign will says that once you do, He will reserve you a place in Heaven!
You can't be in a better place than within the "will of God"!
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense." Proverbs 19:11 NIV
Thoughts for Today
One key to controlling our temper is to have realistic expectations of others. No one is ever wrong or right all the time. It is wrong to expect others to always be happy and helpful. None of us are "up" all the time. We all have times that we are sick, stressed or just plain tired. And, right or wrong, these things do affect our moods.
We need to remember that other people are affected by these same things. They may have reasons for their seemingly rude behavior and are not just being selfish or thoughtless. We need to avoid getting offended every time people don't respond or act the way we think they should. They might just be having a bad day.
We also need to remember that everyone and everything do not exist for our convenience or purpose. We will control anger better if we do not say things like "I can't stand this " or "They better never " These statements lock us into emotionalizing rather than thinking.
Consider this
Learn to align yourself with reality. Don't let everything bother you to the point that you always "lose it" over other people's failures. Show them the same kind of understanding you would like to have on your challenging days.
Prayer
Lord, help me not to expect others to be perfect or to always do things my way. Make me willing to overlook offenses, to see people's hearts and be sensitive to their needs. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant-Creative Use of a Powerful Emotion by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. It not only ministers to church members, but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Building on the Atonement
. . . present . . . your members as instruments of righteousness to God -Romans 6:13
I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it. If I construct my faith on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life- an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation- it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every kind of experience you have by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
The atonement of Jesus must be exhibited in practical, unassuming ways in my life. Every time I obey, the absolute deity of God is on my side, so that the grace of God and my natural obedience are in perfect agreement. Obedience means that I have completely placed my trust in the atonement, and my obedience is immediately met by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.
Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life- it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the trial or test of the atonement and ask, "Where is the discernment of the atonement in this, and in that?"
God Bless
Sunday's Inspirational
The Cold Within
by: Author Unknown, Source Unknown
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In black and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
The first woman held hers back
For on the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.
The next man looking cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third man sat in tattered clothes;
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store.
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
The logs held tight in death's still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within
That's awesome Jo
Yes, yes and yes!
Thank you Jo.........God bless
Judy
October 10
2 Corinthians 1
The Lord comforts us in our affliction so we may comfort others.
INSIGHT
There is a fellowship of suffering. Someone who has suffered the same things we have suffered is better able to minister to us. And if we have been comforted in our suffering, we are better able to comfort someone else who experiences the same difficulties. Suffering can make us compassionate toward others. As the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives, so can the compassion of Christ overflow from our lives into the lives of others.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that Jesus was willing to lay down His immediate comfort for our sakes:
Praise the Lord!
Praise the name of the Lord;
Praise Him, O you servants of the Lord!
You who stand in the house of the Lord,
In the courts of the house of our God,
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
Sing praises to His name, for it is pleasant.
For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself,
Israel for His special treasure.
For I know that the Lord is great,
And our Lord is above all gods. . .
Blessed be the Lord out of Zion,
Who dwells in Jerusalem!
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 135:1-5, 21)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord - how long? (Psalm 6:1-3)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
When the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy,
He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit . . .
that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs
according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-5, 7)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
The renewing of your mind
The needs of your extended family
Your activities for the day
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)
Daily Devotionals October 10, 2008
A Handful Of ThornsREAD: Psalm 105:1-6Give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! -Psalm 107:21
Jeremy Taylor was a 17th-century English cleric who was severely persecuted for his faith. But though his house was plundered, his family left destitute, and his property confiscated, he continued to count the blessings he could not lose.
He wrote: "They have not taken away my merry countenance, my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they have still left me with the providence of God, and all His promises . . . my hopes of Heaven, and my charity to them, too, and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great should never choose to sit down upon his little handful of thorns."
Although we may not be afflicted with the grievous difficulties that Jeremy Taylor endured, all of us face trials and troubles. Are we grumbling? Or do we refuse to let our "little handful of thorns," our troubles, obscure the overwhelming abundance of our blessings?
When we feel like complaining, let's remember God's faithfulness and "give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! . . . Remember His marvelous works which He has done!" (Ps. 105:1,5). - Vernon C. Grounds
When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost;
Count your many blessings-name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done. -Oatman
Spend your time counting your blessings, not airing your complaints.
Come Home By: Ron Edmondson So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20 NIV
This is one of the finest word pictures in the Bible: God running to His children!
Jesus told this parable, not about a boy, foolish in his youth who squanders away all his wealth and then comes cowering back to an expectant father. Oh, it's a great story, and that is what occurs in the story, but this story is about you and me.
Jesus is describing for us how God feels about His children. If you are a child of God, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus through your faith in Him and Him alone to save you, then God will always be ready to welcome you home! God will never give up on His children.
Now He may discipline you, even to the point of bringing you home to Heaven, but you can rest assured He will never forsake you. You are His, and He will wait for you as His own.
Stop for a moment and picture this story as Jesus meant for you to. You are the prodigal child. You have wandered away from the comfort and protection of your Father God. You have wasted your life on wild living. Oh it was fun at first, but then the new wore off and you were homesick. You realized what you had given up. What you wouldn't give to go home.
But, how could you? You had traveled so far. Your pride was at stake. People would say, "I told you so." Your friends might make fun of you. How could He ever forgive you for what you have done? And does He really want you to come home anyway?
Still, anything is better than where you are at. So, you head for home. But, before you can even see the front porch, while your head is still hanging low, you hear a sound. It sounds like footsteps. Heavy footsteps. You look up, almost afraid to, and you see a sight never seen before!
GOD IS RUNNING TO MEET YOU! God, the Creator of stars is running to greet you, a sinner, and welcome you home. He isn't coming with a frown or a smirk of anger on His face. He has His arms open wide! He has on a great big smile! He has that loving twinkle in His eye, the kind He always had when He was proud of something you did!
He reaches you and instead of shouting insults at you, He tells you how pleased He is to have you home. There are tears in His eyes! He lets out a shout of joy. He orders a party to be held in your honor! He tells the angels to get the band playing! GOD IS GLAD YOU HAVE COME HOME!
Maybe you need to go home today. God is waiting. He's probably over half-way towards you right now! All you have to do is turn around, and head for home!
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking." James 1:5 NLT
Thoughts for Today
One vital key to controlling anger is to correctly identify the cause. Sort out what you did and what others did to produce the anger. Sometimes the incident that seems to trigger the anger is not actually the root cause.
For example, if you get angry because your car won't start, are you really angry that the car won't start or are you afraid of being late and facing your boss's recriminations? Or maybe you are angry because if the car is broken, you will have additional financial sorry and stress.
Try to learn to accept responsibility for your anger and then to locate the true cause. A variety of needs such as insecurity, fear, pride, loneliness, inferiority and unrealistic expectations can create anger. You might get angry with a friend who is encouraging you to take on a challenging project. You accuse the friend of being pushy. In fact, the project may be something you'd like to do but are afraid to try-afraid of failure.
Consider this
Are you struggling with anger right now? Ask God to give you wisdom and insight. Ask him to help you identify the real source of your anger and then to deal with it appropriately.
Prayer
Lord, I need your help, your wisdom. Help me to understand my anger and to overcome it. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Anger: Our Master or Our Servant-Creative Use of a Powerful Emotion by Larry Heath. This study offers a clear explanation of anger, what causes it, and how to recognize when you are sinning with anger. It not only ministers to church members, but serves as a powerful evangelistic tool. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
How Will I Know?READ: Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes' -Matthew 11:25
We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step- we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin- "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" ( 1 John 1:7 ). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God's revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don't say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17 ).
God Bless
October 11
2 Corinthians 4
Man's evident weakness presents an opportunity for God to manifest His power.
INSIGHT
When we look at Israel and the Mosaic Law, we tend to think that the Jews performed poorly. All they had to do was be obedient to some basic laws, and God would bless them beyond measure. Yet they might say the same about us. With the Holy Spirit living in us, we have only to live in love toward God and man and God will bless us spiritually beyond measure. While human frailty is glaring in both systems, the work of God is being accomplished nevertheless. God's message is carried in "jars of clay" so that in eternity the glory of the redeemed will go to God and not to man.
PRAYER
Offer your praise to the Lord as an expression of the gratefulness of your heart:
I will extol You, my God, O King;
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts.
I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty,
And on Your wondrous works. (Psalm 145:1-5)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great
transgression. (Psalm 19:12-13)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:11)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
The Lord's leading in your life
Opportunities for evangelism
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days! (Psalm 90:14)
Daily Devotionals October 11, 2008
The Art Of Common PeopleREAD: Matthew 4:18-25I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. -Luke 5:32
The 16th-century Italian painter Caravaggio received scathing criticism in his day for depicting people of the Bible as common. His critics reflected a time when only members of royalty and aristocracy were considered appropriate subjects for the "immortality" of art. His commissioned canvas of St. Matthew and the Angel so offended church leaders that it had to be redone. They could not accept seeing Matthew with the physical features of an everyday laborer.
According to one biographer, what the church fathers did not understand was that "Caravaggio, in elevating this humble figure, was copying Christ, who had Himself raised Matthew from the street."
Caravaggio was right about the people of the Bible. Jesus Himself grew up in the home of a laborer. When His time came to go public, He was announced by a weather-worn man of the wilderness known as John the Baptizer. His disciples were fishermen and common people.
Jesus lived, loved, and died for wealthy people too. But by befriending those who had been demon-possessed, lepers, fishermen, and even despised tax collectors, the teacher from Nazareth showed that no one is too poor, too sinful, or too insignificant to be His friend. - Mart De Haan
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer! -Scriven
Jesus wants you for a friend.
Pride Undercover
Would you consider yourself a meek person? Or are you still unsure of what true meekness looks like? It may be helpful to know that most of the men and women who were biblical heroes of the faith had to learn meekness.
Meekness is not something that comes naturally; instead it is learned under the direction of the Holy Spirit. When Peter first met Jesus, he was not meek. Instead, he had his heart set on selfish ideas, but life with the Savior changed that. He never lost his sense of courage or confidence. However, Christ molded Peter's personality so that he began to reflect the strength and mercy of God.
Another important aspect we need to consider is that godly meekness is different from human modesty. False meekness can be far more dangerous than bragging about all you have and all you can do. A false sense of meekness or modesty often is hard to detect. It is pride undercover and will usually be found in the lives of those who find it hard to accept God's grace for their lives.
True meekness comes as a result of sincere devotion to the Lord. It is a fruit of the Spirit that He wants to develop in each of our lives. However, there is only one way to begin this journey and that is through prayer and personal dedication. It may also require facing a time of testing. Before Peter could serve, he had to learn how to be meek and humble.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I realize I need Your gift of meekness in my life. My greatest desire is not to serve myself but to serve You. My prayer is that You will develop in me a true sense of meekness so that others will see You living in me and be drawn closer to You.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5).
Seeking wisdom is like seeking a hidden treasure. When you're looking for a treasure-especially a treasure on which your life depends-what do you do? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Finding Godly Wisdom." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
He is Waiting in the Midst of the Storm
by Max Lucado
Peter knows he is in trouble.
The winds roar down onto the Sea of Galilee like a hawk on a rat. Lightning zigzags across the black sky. The clouds vibrate with thunder. The rain taps, then pops, then slaps against the deck of the boat until everyone aboard is soaked and shaking. Ten-foot waves pick them up and slam them down again with bonejarring force.
These drenched men don't look like a team of apostles who are only a decade away from changing the world. And you can be sure of one thing. The one with the widest eyes is the one with the biggest biceps-Peter. He's seen these storms before. He's seen the wreckage and bloated bodies float to shore. He knows what the fury of wind and wave can do. And he knows that times like this are not times to make a name for yourself; they're times to get some help.
That is why, when he sees Jesus walking on the water toward the boat, he is the first to say, "Lord, if it's you tell me to come to you on the water." (Matthew 14:28)
He is aware of two facts: He's going down, and Jesus is staying up. And it doesn't take him too long to decide where he would rather be.
Perhaps a better interpretation of his request would be, "Jeeeeeeeesus. If that is you, then get me out of here!"
"Come on" is the invitation.
And Peter doesn't have to be told twice. It's not every day that you walk on water through waves that are taller than you are. But when faced with the alternative of sure death or possible life, Peter knows which one he wants.
The first few steps go well. But a few strides out onto the water, and he forgets to look to the One who got him there in the first place, and down he plunges.
Peter's response may lack class-it probably wouldn't get him on the cover of Gentleman's Quarterly or even Sports Illustrated-but it gets him out of some deep water:
"Help me!"
And since Peter would rather swallow pride than water, a hand comes through the rain and pulls him up.
The message is clear.
As long as Jesus is one of many options, he is no option. As long as you can carry your burdens alone, you don't need a burden bearer. As long as your situation brings you no grief, you will receive no comfort. And as long as you can take him or leave him, you might as well leave him, because he won't be taken half-heartedly.
But when you mourn, when you get to the point of sorrow for your sins, when you admit that you have no other option but to cast all your cares on him, and when there is truly no other name that you can call, then cast all your cares on him, for he is waiting in the midst of the storm.
From
The Applause of Heaven
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999) Max Lucado
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God's Silence- Then What?READ: When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was -John 11:6
Has God trusted you with His silence- a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible- with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9 ). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" ( John 6:35 ).
A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy- silence.
God Bless
October 12
2 Corinthians 5
We should live for the eternal rather than the temporal, and we will be rewarded accordingly.
INSIGHT
One of the marks of maturity is the ability to put off immediate reward for the sake of a future goal. Likewise, the willingness to put off temporal reward for the sake of eternal reward is a good mark of Christian maturity. The Scriptures teach that someday we must all appear before the bema seat of Christ. In ancient Greece, the bema was the grandstand where judges gave out honors to the winners of athletic competitions. Thus, it is before the divine "bema" that we will all appear. If we compete according to the eternal rules, we will gain the honor of reward from the eternal Judge. As Paul wrote, we must set our minds "on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2).
PRAYER
Offer your praise to the Lord as you "set your mind on things above":
Unto You I lift up my eyes,
O You who dwell in the heavens.
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
So our eyes look to the Lord our God,
Until He has mercy on us. (Psalm 123:1-2)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
As you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him, pray this confession to the Lord:
"My God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens" (Ezra 9:6).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Then pray this affirmation to the Lord:
We make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:9-10)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater commitment to Him
The work of specific Christian ministries
Your activities for the day
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Oh, love the Lord, all you His saints!
For the Lord preserves the faithful,
And fully repays the proud person.
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart,
All you who hope in the Lord. (Psalm 31:23-24)
Daily Devotionals October 12, 2008
Life According To Plumb READ: Psalm 119:9-16Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. -Psalm 119:11
Charlie Riggs has been called "the man behind Billy Graham." For nearly 40 years, Riggs was the director of counseling and follow-up for Mr. Graham's evangelistic meetings. In his counselor training classes, Charlie taught thousands of people the basic principles of how to live for Christ and share their faith with others.
At Charlie's 90th birthday celebration, many tributes mentioned his lifelong practice of memorizing Scripture. His goal was not merely to know the Bible, but to know Christ and live by His Word.
Charlie followed Psalm 119:9-11, "How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your Word. . . . Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You." He likened the Scriptures to "plumb bobs" for his heart. Like the weight that holds a builder's plumb line straight and true, these divine principles never change, no matter what the circumstances. He sought to measure his own thoughts, feelings, and behavior by God's Word, not the other way around.
Charlie Riggs' life was quiet and steady behind the scenes. His example challenges us today to hide God's Word in our hearts and let it guide our lives. Charlie demonstrated what it means to live according to plumb. - David C. McCasland
The Bible will transform our lives
And turn us from our sin,
If we will read it and obey
God's principles within. -Sper
The Bible: Know it in your head, stow it in your heart, show it in your life, sow it in the world.
By Dr. Bill Bright
You Can Be Sure
"And how can we be sure that we belong to Him? By looking within ourselves: are we really trying to do what He wants us to? Someone may say, 'I am a Christian; I am on my way to heaven; I belong to Christ.' But if he doesn't do what Christ tells him to do, he is a liar. But those who do what Christ tells them to will learn to love God more and more. That is the way to know whether or not you are a Christian. Anyone who says He is a Christian should live as Christ did" (1 John 2:3-6).
I frequently counsel with people who assure me that they are Christians, but their life-styles betray their profession. In fact, Jesus refers to this kind of person in His parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30).
"I never knew you; depart from me," He will say to people whose profession of Christian faith is insincere (Matthew 7:23, NAS). According to the Word of God, these people are confused, and we do them a great injustice if we do not hold before them the mirror of God's Word. Our Scripture portion today is one of the most effective passages to help open their eyes.
If there has not been a difference in your life-style since you professed faith in Christ; if, even in your failure and sin - and we all fail and sin at times - you do not have a desire to obey God and live a life pleasing to Him, it is quite possible that the new birth has not taken place in your life. Test yourself if you are not sure; if you have not done so, you can experience the new birth simply by receiving Christ into your heart today. This applies more directly to carnal Christians.
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TODAY'S ACTION POINT: To be absolutely certain of my relationship with Jesus Christ, I will take spiritual inventory of my life and seek to ascertain whether my life-style is consistent with that of the true believer and follower of Christ.
Getting into God's StrideREAD: Enoch walked with God . . . -Genesis 5:24
The true test of a person's spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person's worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight (seeJohn 1:35-37 and John 3:30 ). It is painful work to get in step with God and to keep pace with Him- it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God, there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride, but once we have done so, the only characteristic that exhibits itself is the very life of God Himself. The individual person is merged into a personal oneness with God, and God's stride and His power alone are exhibited.
It is difficult to get into stride with God, because as soon as we start walking with Him we find that His pace has surpassed us before we have even taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus- "He will not fail nor be discouraged . . ." (Isaiah 42:4 ) because He never worked from His own individual standpoint, but always worked from the standpoint of His Father. And we must learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning. It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God's stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give up because the pain is intense right now- get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.
God Bless
October 13
2 Corinthians 8
We should follow Christ's example and be generous toward others.
INSIGHT
One of the marks of maturity is the ability to put off immediate reward for the sake of a future goal. Likewise, the willingness to put off temporal reward for the sake of eternal reward is a good mark of Christian maturity. The Scriptures teach that someday we must all appear before the bema seat of Christ. In ancient Greece, the bema was the grandstand where judges gave out honors to the winners of athletic competitions. Thus, it is before the divine "bema" that we will all appear. If we compete according to the eternal rules, we will gain the honor of reward from the eternal Judge. As Paul wrote, we must set our minds "on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2).
PRAYER
Praise God for supplying all your needs:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Indeed I have all and abound. I am full . . .
And my God shall supply all your needs according to
His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:18-19)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
It is good for me that I have been afflicted,
That I may learn Your statutes.
The law of Your mouth is better to me
Than thousands of coins of gold and silver. (Psalm 119:71-72)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
And the man who gains understanding;
For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver,
And her gain than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
And all the things you may desire cannot
compare with her. (Proverbs 3:13-15)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Yieldedness to God's will
Missionaries in the Middle East
Your activities for the day
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
May the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)
Daily Devotionals October 13, 2008
Erasmus READ: Psalm 119:17-24
Your Word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. -Jeremiah 15:16
For centuries, many Christians were not permitted to read God's Word in their own language. Instead, they were encouraged to attend Latin services that few could understand.
Then, in 1516, the Dutch scholar Erasmus compiled and published the first New Testament in the original Greek language. This landmark work was the basis for the later publication of Luther's German Bible, Tyndale's English Bible, and the King James Version. These translations made the Scriptures understandable to millions of people around the world.
Erasmus could not have known the influence his Greek New Testament would have, but he did have a passion for getting its message to laypeople from all walks of life. In the preface he wrote: "I would have [the Gospels and the Epistles] translated into all languages . . . . I long for the plowboy to sing them to himself as he follows the plow [and] the weaver to hum them to the tune of his shuttle."
The prophet Jeremiah reflected this same passion for the Word: "Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your Word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" (15:16).
Having God's Word in our own language allows us to experience the joy of meditating on it each day. - Dennis Fisher
More precious than gold is God's Word to me,
Much better than pearls from deep in the sea;
For in the Lord's Word I take great delight,
And it is my joy each day and each night. -Fitzhugh
The treasures of truth in God's Word are best mined with the spade of meditation.
God-sized Miracle By: Ron Edmondson Monday, October 13, 2008
My days have passed, my plans are shattered, and so are the desires of my heart. Job 17:11 NIV
Notice what book of the Bible this comes from? This is Job talking. Good ole righteous Job. A follower of God. A good man. A man who had a great misfortune. In fact, Job lost it all-- his children, his livestock, his health-- and then his wife and friends try to convince him he is a failure. Job was a desperate man.
Have you ever felt like Job? Job never really cursed God. He just thought his last days had come. He thought his good life had ended and he would suffer and die. He had given up on life. His plans were shattered. He had no more dreams. All he had worked and planned for, all he had hoped for in this life were gone.
My dear friend, I hope you have never been to this desperate point in life. I have! I have been to a point where I felt that my best days were behind me. The only thing I could see in the future, except for eternity, was pain and suffering.
Maybe you have felt this kind of pain. Perhaps a business has failed. Maybe someone let you down. You might have had a marriage fail or your children turned away from your love. Maybe this world has just stepped all over you.
If you are feeling like Job today, let me tell you some good news. The story of Job has a happy ending. My story has a happy ending. God is good! God is still in the business of restoring lives. Jesus still mends the broken hearted. He still restores futures!
Job's life ended better than it had ever been before! His desires, his dreams, his plans in life were far exceeded by the wonderful grace of a loving God.
Job saw the glory of God restore a life to peace! You and I can, too! Call to God and ask Him to show you His power! Ask God to work a Job-sized miracle in your life!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Hot-tempered people must pay the penalty. If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again." Proverbs 19:19 NLT
Thoughts for Today
When someone we care about is struggling with a life-controlling problem, we naturally want to help. But sometimes, even though we have the best intentions, our efforts hurt more than they help and we end up enabling our loved one to continue in the destructive behavior.
Negative consequences naturally flow from wrong behaviors. When we intervene and prevent someone from experiencing those consequences, they have no reason to change their behavior. We enable them to continue.
Consider this
Enabling is progressive. It begins by making small allowances for someone's irresponsible behavior and gradually progresses until our lives are dominated by trying to cure and control our loved one. A line must be drawn to avoid the progression. The first time you bail someone out, that's mercy. The second time, it is enabling.
Prayer
Father, I want so much to help my loved one. I've tried to take care of him, to "fix" things, to keep him from suffering. But I see now that continually rescuing him is just prolonging the problem and even making it worse. Help me to trust you more. Help me stand back and allow him to learn. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. and Dan Strickland, M.Div. Using Living Free training, your church or ministry can unleash a new kind of group leader-one who understands how tough life can be, but also knows the hope and freedom found in Christ.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth
READ: . . . when Moses was grown . . . he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens -Exodus 2:11
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, " '. . . bring My people . . . out of Egypt.' But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go . . . ?' " ( Exodus 3:10-11 ). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses' forty years in the wilderness. It's as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, "Who am I that I should go . . . ?" We must learn that God's great stride is summed up in these words- "I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you" ( Exodus 3:14 ). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him- our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be "well pleased" ( Matthew 3:17 ). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, "I know this is what God wants me to do." But we have not yet learned to get into God's stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead
God Bless
October 14
2 Corinthians 9
Christians should give generously as God has prospered them.
INSIGHT
God asks for your money, not for His sake, but for yours. What God wants is your heart, and one measure of how much of your heart He has is how willing you are to give your money back to Him. Two of God's reasons for asking Christians to give to other Christians are to foster mutual unity and concern among believers, and to show the love of God to the unsaved. Remember, it is not the amount but the willingness that counts. Give as God has prospered you.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord for the many material possessions you enjoy:
We have thought, O God, on Your lovingkindness,
In the midst of Your temple.
According to Your name, O God,
So is Your praise to the ends of the earth;
Your right hand is full of righteousness.
Let Mount Zion rejoice,
Let the daughters of Judah be glad,
Because of Your judgments. (Psalm 48:9-11)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me."
But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:21-22)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way. . .
Deal with Your servant according to Your mercy,
And teach me Your statutes.
I am Your servant;
Give me understanding,
That I may know Your testimonies.
(Psalm 119:103-104, 124-125)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Contentment with what you own
Health concerns of friends and family members
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Your testimonies are wonderful;
Therefore my soul keeps them.
The entrance of Your words gives light;
It gives understanding to the simple.
(Psalm 119:129-130)
Daily Devotionals October 14, 2008
The UshpizzinREAD: James 1:19-27Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. -James 1:27
In Jewish legend, the ushpizzin are guests who visit the pious at Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. They are supposedly the great Old Testament heroes who come offering comfort and encouragement to the faithful.
According to Jewish lore, these unseen guests only visit the sukkah (shelter) where the poor are welcome-a reminder of each person's responsibility to care for others. It also reminds them that unseen watchers may be observing their conduct.
The story of the ushpizzin isn't true, of course. But beyond the lore and legend we are reminded that we as Christ-followers are living observed lives. Others are watching us. And our concern for others, particularly the least among us, is an expression of the compassion Christ displayed to the hurting and outcast of His generation.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, challenged believers to put the love of Christ into practice. He wrote, "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27).
The example of Christ and the words of Scripture inspire us to care for our hurting world. Who's watching us? Our world is watching. And so is our Lord! - Bill Crowder
FOR FURTHER STUDY
The church is made up of needy people-including us! How are we to respond to each other's needs? Read The Church We Need at www.discoveryseries.org/q0904
When people observe your life, do they see the love of Christ?
Salvation Plan By: Ron Edmondson Tuesday, October 14, 2008 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12 NIV
Jesus, only Jesus! There is no other way!
We have, as a generation of peoples, watered down the gospel. We have tried to please man by making our churches more contemporary. We have seen entire denominations rewrite scripture so that it "fits" with current society. We have witnessed our schools and government dictate when and where the name of Jesus can be proclaimed.
We see a nation, perhaps some would say, the most powerful nation on Earth, fall from a land built on the foundations of God to become a nation where God's people are a minority. We have seen the profession of preaching the gospel go from the most admired career to one of the least admired.
We see young people, searching for something fulfilling, often turning to a life of drugs and violence (although there are a precious few who faithfully serve our Lord). We watch as our prisons fill faster than we can build new ones.
All the while, we, as Christians, try to "adapt" the word of God to meet the needs around us. We see people adding to (or taking away from) the scriptures for a "new generation."
Dear friends, read carefully, I love contemporary music and the church I pastor is contemporary, and I agree Jesus adapted His message so that His listeners could understand it, but let me also say that we must never forget the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ! We must get back to the basics of our faith!
God loves us! We are sinners! Christ died for us! We need to accept Him as our personal Lord and Savior!
Only by Jesus, ONLY BY JESUS, can we be saved! There is no other way!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Enablers work hard to shield their loved ones from the consequences of self-destructive choices. As a result, the enabler brings pain upon themselves that really belongs to their loved one.
In their well-intentioned efforts to help, enablers may:
lie for their loved one
allow abusive behaviors
hide the truth from relatives and friends
defend their loved one when others point out problems
help them with legal difficulties
change the home environment to accommodate the person with the problem
refuse to discuss the problem with anyone
Consider this
It is difficult to stop enabling a loved one because we don't like to admit that we have no power to change another person. As we take on responsibility-and control-of our loved one, our focus is on "fixing" them. But only God can transform lives. This is a God-size problem, not one we can fix. And we need to step back, to give our worry and anxiety to God, and to trust him.
If we don't come to the realization that we have no power to change another person, enabling will progress to a condition known as codependency. Codependents take ownership of another person's problems, get their sense of well-being from managing the behavior of the dependent person, and end up being controlled by the person they are trying to help.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for trying to take your place in my loved one's life. I realize now that I cannot change anyone's life. Only the power of Jesus can do that. I commit my loved one to you. I pray that he will turn to you for help in making right choices. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. and Dan Strickland, M.Div. Using Living Free training, your church or ministry can unleash a new kind of group leader-one who understands how tough life can be, but also knows the hope and freedom found in Christ.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Key to the Missionary's Work (1)READ:Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . .' -Matthew 28:18-19
The key to the missionary's work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don't go- He simply says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . ." He says, "Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me."
"Then the eleven disciples went . . . to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them" ( Matthew 28:16 ). If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him myself. I must take time to worship the One whose name I bear. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . ."- that is the place to meet Jesus- "all you who labor and are heavy laden . . ." ( Matthew 11:28 )- and how many missionaries are! We completely dismiss these wonderful words of the universal Sovereign of the world, but they are the words of Jesus to His disciples meant for here and now.
"Go therefore . . . ." To "go" simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say in this verse, "Go into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria," but, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me in [all these places]." He takes upon Himself the work of sending us.
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you . . ." ( John 15:7 )- that is the way to keep going. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings.
"None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . ." ( Acts 20:24 ). That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life.
God Bless
October 15
2 Corinthians 12
Paul was given a vision of heaven and then "a thorn in the flesh" to keep him humble.
INSIGHT
The Bible gives us a number of reasons why Christians suffer adversity. One reason is to strengthen and mature us. Another is that it is the natural consequence of our own foolishness from which God does not necessarily protect us. And another reason Paul gives us in today's chapter is to keep us humble. If things always went well for us, if life was always "coming up roses," we would tend to become conceited, to think more highly of ourselves than we ought and perhaps think less of others. Notice that Paul only prayed three times for the removal of his "thorn in the flesh" (vv. 7-8). When it was clear that God was not going to remove it, Paul accepted it.
PRAYER
Because the Lord always has a reason for allowing adversity, we can praise Him for all things:
Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts,
And I will declare Your greatness.
They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness,
And shall sing of Your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
Slow to anger and great in mercy.
The Lord is good to all,
And His tender mercies are over all His works.
(Psalm 145:6-9)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
Show me Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day. (Psalm 25:4-5)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Patience in difficult circumstances
The work of missions in South America
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, close with this prayer to the Lord:
Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90:17)
Daily Devotionals October 15, 2008
Joy To The World
READ: Deuteronomy 31:9-13The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14
When Christmas displays go up before Halloween displays come down, I long for the days when people didn't think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. However, there may be a legitimate reason to celebrate Christmas in October.
No one knows the exact day when Jesus was born, but December 25 is unlikely. His birth may have been in autumn, when the weather was still warm enough for shepherds to be outdoors with their flocks. We know that Jesus was crucified on Passover, and that the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost. So some scholars have reasoned that Jesus' birth may have occurred on another Jewish holiday, the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot.
Although we cannot know for sure, we do know that it would be in keeping with God's way of working to send His Son-the Word made flesh who "dwelt" ("tabernacled") among us (John 1:14)-on the Feast of Tabernacles. Sukkot was a time when observant Jews lived in temporary dwellings and listened to the Word of the Lord being read (Deut. 31:10-13).
For Jews, Sukkot is "the time of our rejoicing." For all of us, our time of rejoicing is the birth of Christ, who brings the joy of salvation to all the world. - Julie Ackerman Link
Tidings, glad tidings! God is love,
To man He sends His salvation!
His Son beloved, His only Son,
The work of mercy hath begun. -Montgomery
The date of Christ's birth may be debatable, but the fact of His life is indisputable.
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Do You Trust Him Now? By: Ron Edmondson Wednesday, October 15, 2008 If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. Isaiah 7:9b NIV
Jesus said He hated lukewarm Christianity. Do you?
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to trust in God when everything is going well, but when a little trouble comes our way, our faith waivers? Do you think that is why God's Word consistently tries to prepare us for the tough times of life, and why God repeats the promise "I will never leave you nor forsake you"?
Let me tell you something I have learned from Christian experience, if I do not stand firm in my faith, I will have no faith at all! I can't be half-hearted in my devotion to Christ, or I will have no devotion at all. It is not enough just to say I believe, I have to live it out everyday; through the good times and the bad. If I play with my Christianity, Satan will win in his temptations towards me everytime.
I can honestly say I have had my share of hard times. Don't misunderstand, I can clearly see evidence of God's goodness, but the truth is my faith has been tested. I have learned this, when I plant my faith deeply in God, in His Holy Word, and when I lean on Him completely and not on my own abilities, I seem to have a strength about me that overcomes the problems of this world. I seem to be able to conquer the spirit of fear and relish in the peace and joy of the Lord.
It does require a firm foundation of faith! But, I have learned that without a firm faith, I have no faith at all! It is all or nothing with God!
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen." Romans 1:25 NLT
Thoughts for Today
When we become obsessed with controlling someone else's behavior, we have a problem called codependency. Codependents center their lives on the person they are trying to help, and as a result they exchange the truth of God for a lie, worshiping and serving a created person (the struggling loved one) rather than God the Creator.
Codependency is harmful because the person becomes mastered by a loved one's problem or becomes a loved one's master (playing God).
Generally, people are not aware that they are enabling and becoming codependent. They are trying to do the right thing, but too often they feel guilty because their efforts are not good enough to make the person they love change. Children are especially vulnerable to this distorted, guilt-ridden thinking.
Consider this
Christians can be unusually susceptible to codependency. Sometimes when attempting to love others as Christ has commanded us, we slip into enabling behaviors that lead to codependent relations. The subject of codependency should be approached with balance. According to the apostle Paul, the body of Christ should be interdependent (see Romans 12:7-16 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-27). We need to avoid the extremes of selfish independence and codependence.
Prayer
Father, teach me to love and help people without going to the extreme of trying to fix or control them. Help me to always put you first and trust you to guide me in loving and helping others. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. and Dan Strickland, M.Div. Using Living Free training, your church or ministry can unleash a new kind of group leader-one who understands how tough life can be, but also knows the hope and freedom found in Christ.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Key to the Missionary's Work (2)READ: He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world -1 John 2:2
The key to the missionary's message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus- His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ's work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But- "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"- that is limitless (John 1:29 ). The missionary's message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.
The real key to the missionary's message is the "remissionary" aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. ". . . repentance and remission of sins should be preached . . . to all nations . . ." ( Luke 24:47 ). The greatest message of limitless importance is that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins . . . ." The missionary's message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is "for the whole world." When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim "the Lamb of God." It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, "Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me," but, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" ( 1 Corinthians 9:16 ). And this is the gospel- "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
God Bless
October 16
Galatians 5
As Christians walk by the Spirit, they will manifest His characteristics.
INSIGHT
As Paul teaches in Romans 7, a civil war rages within every child of God. The opposing forces are the power of the flesh and the power of the Spirit. Paul refers to these as the "outer man" and the "inner man." What is at stake is the control of the child of God. As we yield ourselves to the control of the Spirit, then love, joy, peace, patience, etc., begin to take root and bear fruit in our lives. As we yield ourselves to the control of our unrighteous promptings, then anger, jealousy, impurity, etc., begin to take root and bear fruit in our lives. We must yield our "members as instruments of righteousness to God" (Romans 6:13) and begin to taste of the fruit of God.
PRAYER
Because we can taste the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, give thanks and praise to Him:
Praise the Lord!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and harp! . . .
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:1-3, 6)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving, and pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindness,
For they are from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions;
According to Your mercy remember me,
For Your goodness sake, O Lord. (Psalm 25:6-7)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Now pray this affirmation to the Lord:
They said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:31).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Faithfulness with your talents
The ministry of Christian radio
Your activities for the day
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You ministers of His, who do His pleasure.
Bless the Lord, all His works,
In all places of His dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul! (Psalm 103:21-22)
Daily Devotionals October 16, 2008
A Special SeatREAD: Luke 10:38-42[Martha] had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. -Luke 10:39
I've never sat in the first-class section of an airplane. But I still hold out the hope that someday I'll get on the plane and the flight attendant will stop me and say, "Come with me. I have a special seat for you."
That's why I was pretty excited when a friend gave my sister some tickets for an event and we realized that they were for box seats. Instead of sitting shoulder to shoulder with strangers all around us, we sat in a private compartment where we could see and hear everything perfectly. That evening, we felt privileged and special.
Remember Jesus' friends, Mary and Martha? Although Martha had the opportunity to enjoy having Jesus as her guest, she soon became frustrated with her sister Mary and overwhelmed with the busyness of her preparations. Certainly understandable to a lot of us! Jesus made it clear to her, however, that sometimes it's necessary to step away from the unending pressures of life and spend undistracted time with Him. God has given us the opportunity to have personal moments with Him. By taking the time just to be with the Lord, we are fed, refreshed, and renewed.
Jesus commended Mary for taking time to sit and learn at her Savior's feet (Luke 10:42). As it turned out-she had the best seat in the house! - Cindy Hess Kasper
Take time to be holy,
The world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret
With Jesus alone. -Longstaff
Jesus longs for our fellowship even more than we long for His.
Childhood Games By: Ron Edmondson Thursday, October 16, 2008 He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart.... Psalm 15:2 NIV
"Daddy, he did it!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!
"Did not!"
The blame game! If you have children, it is probably a common occurrence in your house! The blame game happens often in our lives, as well. Someone is always at fault. "Someone caused it, and it wasn't me!" We are quick to judge and seldom care to be judged. It is far easier to pass blame than to accept it.
The world is full, it seems, of those who "didn't do it." No one really wants to take responsibility.
The one who wants to dwell with Jesus will be the one whose walk strives to be TRULY blameless! He or she will be the one who, in spite of all the temptations of life, most often chooses the right and excellent way. The one who lives on the Holy Hill in the presence of our Savior is the one who speaks a word and people listen. Not because the word is always the greatest idea, but because it is consistently truthful.
Does that describe you? Do people trust your words, because over and over again, you have proven to be truthful? Do you have a reputation of one who is "above" the fussing and fighting that so often accompanies relationships in the world today? Do people hold you to a higher standard?
Would friends, those who know you best, be surprised to hear you gossip or tell a dirty joke? Are you above the immature actions of making a politically incorrect remark? Do others expect more dignity to come from you?
Are you walking blameless before your Lord today? He is watching! He wants those who can love Him in this selfless way to join Him on His Holy Hill! It is an open invitation to the invited few.
Are you on the guest list yet?
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord and turn [entirely] away from evil." Proverbs 3:5-7 AMP
Thoughts for Today
If you are trying to help a loved one with a life-controlling problem, you must first reach a point of accepting the reality of their situation. Only then will you feel free to turn your loved one over to God. This is a time when you are able to detach yourself from the one you love so much. You will be able to truly lean on and trust in the Lord and stop depending on yourself to fix your struggling loved one.
Consider this
The prodigal son's father was not an enabler. He allowed his son to be responsible for his own actions (read Luke 15:11-32). The rebellious son asked to receive an early inheritance and then squandered it all on wild living. He then had nothing he was hired to feed pigs and found himself yearning for their food. Even at this point, no one reached out to rescue his from the consequences of his behavior (verse 16). And so he "came to his senses" (verse 17). He finally was ready to take responsibility for his behavior. He showed humility and took positive action (verses 18-20). He returned home and confessed his sin toward his father and heaven.
This father had faith that his son would return. Although he showed compassion, there is no record of his enabling his son. He allowed the son to be responsible for his actions.
Do you love the struggling person in your life enough to let go and lean on God?
Prayer
Father, I have tried leaning on my own understanding. I know now that I must let go of my loved one, allow him to suffer the natural consequences of his behavior, and lean on you. Help me fully trust in your way and your time. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. and Dan Strickland, M.Div. Using Living Free training, your church or ministry can unleash a new kind of group leader-one who understands how tough life can be, but also knows the hope and freedom found in Christ.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Key to the Master's OrdersREAD: Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest -Matthew 9:38
The key to the missionary's difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work- that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary's difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master's orders- the key is prayer. "Pray the Lord of the harvest . . . ." In the natural realm, prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the commonsense point of view.
From Jesus Christ's perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person- Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father's or your brother's life- are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, "a servant [who] is not greater than his master" (John 13:16 ), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work- He calls us to Himself. "Pray the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.
God Bless
October 17
Galatians 6
Christians are to look out for one another and bear one another's burdens.
INSIGHT
John Donne once wrote: "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. . . . If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less." What Donne wrote generally and poetically, Paul wrote specifically hundreds of years earlier: "Restore" one another and "bear one another's burdens" (vv. 1-2); "do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith" (v. 10). We are part of one another, and we are to live for one another in harmony and mutual concern. We are all part of the same "continent"--the "continent" of Christ.
PRAYER
Offer praise to the Lord because the message of Christ the Savior has come to you:
The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
The Lord preserves all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy.
My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord,
And all flesh shall bless His holy name
Forever and ever. (Psalm 145:17-21)
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to stay in fellowship with Him:
My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me,
For I am desolate and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart have enlarged,
Bring me out of my distresses!
Look on my affliction and my pain,
And forgive all my sins. . . .
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,
For I wait for You. (Psalm 25:15-18, 21)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
(2 Corinthians 5:17)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Greater wisdom in decision making
The needs of personal friends
Your activities for the day
Offer this closing prayer to the Lord:
That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:6)
Daily Devotionals October 17, 2008
Breaking The Spin Cycle READ: John 8:42-47[Satan] was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. . . . He is a liar and the father of it. -John 8:44
Politicians are adept at "spinning" the details of a story to advance their own agenda. During a political campaign, spin doctors massage stories to ensure that their candidate is cast in a positive light-often at the expense of the truth. This leaves us with serious questions about what the real truth is.
According to Jesus, Satan is the "spin doctor" of hell-the master deceiver who "speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar" (John 8:44). He casts himself as the one who wants to give us unfettered freedom and pleasure, carefully masking his plan to steal, kill, and destroy us (John 10:10). He even spins the loving laws of God by claiming that God's boundaries are restrictive, simply intended to take all the fun out of living. When we buy into Satan's damaging lies, we will eventually find ourselves empty and broken-sidelined in our journey with God.
Thankfully, Jesus warns us. He says that Satan is the father of lies. And we know Satan is lying when what he tells us contradicts God's Word. Jesus, on the other hand, is the truth (John 14:6). So, when it comes to sorting out the spin, our only defense against the spin doctor of hell is to listen constantly for the voice of Jesus as we pray and study His Word. And that's the truth! - Joe Stowell
The devil is crafty, deceptive, and sly;
He cleverly tricks us to swallow his lie.
But his cunning methods we're sure to discern
If we make God's warnings our daily concern. -D. De Haan
God's truth stops the spin of Satan's lies.
Imagine World By: Ron Edmondson Friday, October 17, 2008 [He who] has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man Psalm 15:3 NIV
What kind of friend are you?
When someone confides in you, can they count on you to keep it to yourself? Are you someone others can trust? Or is gossip listed as one of your favorite hobbies?
People in need are desperate for someone they can trust. Recently a friend of mine was going through a rough time. Countless accusations were being made about him. He tells me that he is innocent of all charges (none of them of a criminal nature), but the word on the street has already convicted him. At stake is his reputation, as well as the general welfare of his family life. His question to me was, "What can I do?"
Good question! I wish I had an answer!
Those who want to reside with Jesus will need to walk in His ways. Jesus was not a gossip. He was not a rumor-mill operator. Jesus was a man of integrity, committed to telling the truth, but also dedicated to protecting those He loved. And He loved everyone.
Jesus never commended sin, but He didn't turn the sinner into a public spectacle. Jesus loved the sinner, and He tried to lead them to a saving knowledge of Him. He always had their best interest as His primary goal.
If we want to be like Jesus and dwell on His holy hill, we will treat others as we want to be treated. We will speak only truth, and we will not say anything about someone else that would be hurtful in any way. In love, we will build others up as we strive to lead them closer to the cross.
Imagine a world where everyone looked out for each other, wanting only good to come to our neighbors! What a wonderful world that would be!
Sounds almost like Heaven!----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord and turn [entirely] away from evil." Proverbs 3:5-7 AMP
Thoughts for Today
If you are trying to help a loved one with a life-controlling problem, you must first reach a point of accepting the reality of their situation. Only then will you feel free to turn your loved one over to God. This is a time when you are able to detach yourself from the one you love so much. You will be able to truly lean on and trust in the Lord-and stop depending on yourself to fix your struggling loved one.
Consider this
The prodigal son's father was not an enabler. He allowed his son to be responsible for his own actions (read Luke 15:11-32). The rebellious son asked to receive an early inheritance and then squandered it all on wild living. He then had nothing-he was hired to feed pigs and found himself yearning for their food. Even at this point, no one reached out to rescue his from the consequences of his behavior (verse 16). And so he "came to his senses" (verse 17). He finally was ready to take responsibility for his behavior. He showed humility and took positive action (verses 18-20). He returned home and confessed his sin toward his father and heaven.
This father had faith that his son would return. Although he showed compassion, there is no record of his enabling his son. He allowed the son to be responsible for his actions.
Do you love the struggling person in your life enough to let go and lean on God?
Prayer
Father, I have tried leaning on my own understanding. I know now that I must let go of my loved one, allow him to suffer the natural consequences of his behavior, and lean on you. Help me fully trust in your way and your time. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. and Dan Strickland, M.Div. Using Living Free training, your church or ministry can unleash a new kind of group leader-one who understands how tough life can be, but also knows the hope and freedom found in Christ.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Key of the Greater Work READ: . . . I say to you, he who believes in Me, . . . greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father -John 14:12
Prayer does not equip us for greater works- prayer is the greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God's work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God. The way fruit remains firm is through prayer, but remember that it is prayer based on the agony of Christ in redemption, not on my own agony. We must go to God as His child, because only a child gets his prayers answered; a "wise" man does not (see Matthew 11:25 ).
Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are. However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray. Never allow yourself this thought, "I am of no use where I am," because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him. And He promises, "Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . ." (John 14:13 ). Yet we refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. We must learn to work according to God's direction, and He says to pray. "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" ( Matthew 9:38 ).
There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God's perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.
God Bless
October 18
Ephesians 1
Christians have forgiveness of sin--an eternal inheritance.
INSIGHT
Most Christians need to re-identify who they are. We still see ourselves as mere human beings, children of the age with the albatross of the world hanging around our necks. That is who we once were, but are no longer. We have been adopted by God and are now His children. We are newly created in Him in holiness and righteousness. We have been given an inheritance in heaven that includes wealth and power. We have been changed; we are no longer what we were. When that truth "sinks in," we begin to act like who we really are rather than who we were.
PRAYER
Praise God for His mighty work of regeneration in your life!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
While I live I will praise the Lord;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. . . .
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God. . . .
The Lord shall reign forever--
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 146:1-2, 5, 10)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
I said, "Lord, be merciful to me;
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You." . . .
But You, O Lord, be merciful to me, and raise me up,
That I may repay them. . . .
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
From everlasting to everlasting!
Amen and Amen. (Psalm 41:4, 10, 13)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
A renewed mind
Opportunities to serve the Lord
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Romans 15:13)
Daily Devotionals October 18, 2008
A Hill Too High
READ: Exodus 16:1-5 Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. -Matthew 6:34
My wife and I like to rollerblade. Near the end of one of our favorite routes is a long hill. When we first started taking this route, I tried to encourage Sue by saying, "Are you ready for the hill?" just before pushing our way to the top. But one day she said, "Could you please not say that? You make it sound like a huge mountain, and that discourages me."
It was better for Sue to face the hill thinking only about one "step," or one rollerblade push, at a time instead of an entire steep hill to conquer.
Life can be like that. If we peer too far ahead of today, the challenges may feel like a Mt. Everest climb. They can appear impossible to handle if we think we have to be "ready for the hill."
The Bible reminds us that today is all we need to tackle. We don't need to worry about tomorrow's tasks (Matt. 6:34). Imagine Moses thinking, "I've got to feed all these people for who knows how long. How can I get that much food?" God took care of that mountain with manna-but only enough for one day at a time (Ex. 16:4).
Every hill in life is too high if we think we must climb it all at once. But no hill is insurmountable if we take it one step forward at a time-with God's help. - Dave Branon
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best-
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest. -Berg
God is there to give us strength for every hill we have to climb.
A Remote Control Attitude
A father asked his daughter, who spent too much time watching television, to begin memorizing Scripture. He chose the verses in Galatians concerning the fruit of the Spirit as a place for her to begin.
When she was sure she had reached her goal, she began to list the fruit of the Spirit to her Dad, "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and remote control!"
When it comes to the subject of self-control, many of us would like to dodge the issue. Maybe we would like to think there is a way to put our minds, wills, and emotions under God's "remote control." Instead of having to take responsibility for our actions and decisions, we think it would be easier for God simply to control us.
However, God has a more creative plan in mind. He designed us with a limited free will. This means we have the ability to choose right over wrong and self-control over emotional response.
Paul warns:
Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. ... Be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything (Ephesians 5:15-20).
Don't set your heart on having a "remote control" attitude. Dig deep into God's Word. Learn what it means to be self-controlled. Pray that you always will reflect His love and self-control to others whose lives are spinning out of control.
Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control (2 Peter 1:5-6).
Seeking wisdom is like seeking a hidden treasure. When you're looking for a treasure-especially a treasure on which your life depends-what do you do? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Finding Godly Wisdom." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Your Place in God's Band
by Max Lucado
Two of my teenage years were spent carrying a tuba in my high school marching band. My mom wanted me to learn to read music, and the choir was full while the band was a tuba-tooter short, so I signed up. Not necessarily what you would describe as a call from God, but it wasn't a wasted experience either.
I had a date with a twirler.
I learned to paint white shoe polish on school buses.
And I learned some facts about harmony that I'll pass on to you.
I marched next to the bass-drum player. What a great sound. Boom. Boom. Boom. Deep, cavernous, thundering.
And at the end of my flank marched the flute section. Oh, how their music soared. Whispering, lifting, rising into the clouds.
Ahead of me, at the front of my line, was our first-chair trumpet. He could raise the spirit. He could raise the flag. He could have raised the roof on the stadium if we'd had one.
The soft flute
needs
the brash trumpet
needs
the steady drum
needs
the soft flute
needs
the brash trumpet.
Get the idea? The operative word is need. They need each other.
By themselves they make music. But together, they make magic.
Now, what I saw two decades ago in the band, I see today in the church. We need each other. Not all of us play the same instrument. Some believers are lofty, and others are solid. Some keep the pace while others lead the band. Not all of us make the same sound. Some are soft, and others are loud. And not all of us have the same ability. But each of us has a place.
Some play the drums (like Martha).
Some play the flute (like Mary).
And others sound the trumpet (like Lazarus).
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were like family to Jesus. After the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead, they decided to give a dinner for Jesus. They decided to honor him by having a party on his behalf (see John 12:2).
They didn't argue over the best seat. They didn't resent each other's abilities. They didn't try to outdo each other. All three worked together with one purpose. But each one fulfilled that purpose in his or her unique manner. Martha served; she always kept everyone in step. Mary worshiped; she anointed her Lord with an extravagant gift, and its aroma filled the air. Lazarus had a story to tell, and he was ready to tell it.
Three people, each one with a different skill, a different ability. But each one of equal value.
From
Cast of Characters
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008) Max Lucado
The Key to the Missionary's DevotionREAD:. . . they went forth for His name's sake . . . -3 John 7
Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, "Do you love Me?" ( John 21:17 ). And then He said, "Feed My sheep." In effect, He said, "Identify yourself with My interests in other people," not, "Identify Me with your interests in other people." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love- it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.
Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit- "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." ( Romans 5:5 ). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.
The key to the missionary's devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.
The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
God Bless
October 19
Ephesians 2
All men are dead in sin, but by grace through faith in Christ they may be saved from sin.
INSIGHT
Two of the most wonderful words in the Bible occur in this chapter: "But God . . ." We were dead in our transgressions and sins; we followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the spirit of disobedience; we lived to gratify the cravings of our sinful natures; and we were by nature objects of wrath. BUT GOD, because of His great love for us, made us alive with Christ. We have been saved; God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms, that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that He extends grace to you:
All Your works shall praise You, O Lord,
And Your saints shall bless You.
They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom,
And talk of Your power,
To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts,
And the glorious majesty of His kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
(Psalm 145:10-13)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Good and upright is the Lord;
Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.
The humble He guides in justice,
And the humble He teaches His way. . .
For Your name's sake, O Lord,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
(Psalm 25:8-9, 11)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Christian educational institutions
Challenges for the disabled
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore. (Psalm 121:7-8)
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal
but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4)
Daily Devotionals October 19, 2008
Looks Can Be Deceiving READ: Matthew 15:1-11These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. -Matthew 15:8
On June 22, 2002, a 33-year-old pitching star for the St. Louis Cardinals was found dead in his Chicago hotel room. He was young, physically active, and appeared to be in good health. However, the autopsy revealed that he had a 90-percent blockage in two of three coronary arteries, an enlarged heart, and a blood clot in one of the arteries. His appearance misled many to think that he was physically healthy.
Jesus said that appearances can deceive people into thinking that they are spiritually healthy. After the Pharisees accused Him and His followers of breaking religious traditions by not washing their hands before they ate, Jesus said that the Pharisees had laid aside commands of God for man-made, religious traditions. He reminded them that kingdom righteousness was not an outside-in job but an inside-out, transforming work of God. Jesus said that they looked impressive spiritually, but their hearts were diseased and distant: "[They] honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me" (Matt. 15:8). Their talk never matched their walk, thus producing the illegitimate child of hypocrisy.
Spiritual health is not determined by how we look, but by how we live. Let's ask God to search us, know our hearts, test us, and lead us in His way (Ps. 139:23-24). - Marvin Williams
Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray.
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin and set me free. -Orr
1964 Singspiration
As we talk the talk, let's make sure we walk the walk.
By Dr. Bill Bright
God's Word Works
"As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, so also is My Word. I send it out and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to, and prosper everywhere I send it" (Isaiah 55:10-11).
An angry student leader confronted me at the conclusion of my message to a student meeting at UCLA. "You have no right to impose your views on these students," he exclaimed. "You will confuse them. They are easily influenced and might respond to some of your religious views which I totally reject."
I learned that he was the Communist leader on the campus and did not believe in God or the Scriptures. I invited him to our home for dinner and as we ate, we talked about many things of a general nature, nothing controversial. After we had finished our dessert, I reached over and picked up my Bible and said that I would like to read something very important to him. He resisted, saying, "I don't want to hear anything from the Bible. I don't believe it. It is a ridiculous book filled with all kinds of myths, contradictions and exaggerations."
I would have made similar statements during my years of agnosticism. Not because I knew such statements to be true, but because I was simply parroting what others had told me - I did not really know the facts.
I said, "If you don't mind, I would like to read you something anyway," and I turned to John 1:1. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (KJV). I continued through the 14th verse. Then I turned to Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1, reading similar portions identifying Christ as the Creator, the visible expression of the invisible God. I concluded with 1 John 2:22,23.
As I read each passage, he asked if he could read for himself. The initial flash of anger soon turned to interest and then to acceptance and finally he was life a repentant child experiencing the love of the Father's embrace. He surrendered all resistance. As he stood to leave that evening, I asked him to sign our guest book. He wrote his name, address and these words: "The night of decision"
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Today I will share a portion of God's word with someone who does not know our Savior with the prayer that he, too, will come to know Him and experience with me the supernatural life which is our heritage in Christ.
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The Unheeded Secret READ: Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world -John 18:36
The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation . . . . For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you" ( Luke 17:20-21 ). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person's life.
We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord's life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.
It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College- its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God's redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.
God Bless
October 20
Ephesians 3
Paul is called to be a minister and to take the Gospel to the Gentiles.
INSIGHT
Paul calls his ministry the fulfillment of a "mystery." In the Bible, a mystery is nothing mysterious but something previously unknown. The mystery was that Jews and Gentiles would join together to form a new entity--the church. This mystery was foretold by Jesus, but the details of the doctrine, walk, and destiny of the church were communicated by Paul and his fellow apostles. Now as a new thing--the body of Christ--we are all to allow Christ to live His life through us.
PRAYER
Praise God for the mighty plan He has for the church:
Praise the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
Praise the name of the Lord! . . .
The Lord is high above all nations,
His glory above the heavens.
Who is like the Lord our God,
Who dwells on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?
(Psalm 113:1, 4-6)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
By Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:16-18)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
Wisdom as you serve in your local church
Your activities for the day
Whatever else is on your heart
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:9-10)
Daily Devotionals October 20, 2008
Do Something With NothingREAD: Ephesians 5:15-21Walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. -Ephesians 5:15-16
A newspaper ad showed three people waiting for a city bus. Two of them were bored and listless, while the third was happily playing a game on a small electronic device. "Do something with your nothing," the ad said. "That nothing time. The time in between everything else you have to do." The idea was to sell the portable player so people could use all those segments of wasted "waiting" time.
I suspect that many of us already constructively use those small increments of waiting time to read a book, memorize a verse, or pray for a friend. It's our longer waiting periods filled with uncertainty and indecision that may leave us anxious and frustrated.
Paul challenged the Christians in Ephesus to "walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Eph. 5:15-16). The Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest suggests that this refers to time in its "strategic, opportune seasons" and means "making a wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing good."
During those seasons when we wonder, "How did I get here and when can I leave?" it's best to look for our God-given opportunities instead of focusing on the obstacles. That's the way to do something with our nothing. - David C. McCasland
Wait and, in waiting, listen for His leading;
Be strong, thy strength for every day is stored.
Go forth in faith, and let thine heart take courage;
There is no disappointment with the Lord. -Anon.
When you find time on your hands, put them together in prayer.
God Is Seeking By: Ron Edmondson Monday, October 20, 2008 [He] who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts Psalm 15:4 NIV
The man whom God esteems, the one who can dwell on the Holy Hill of our Lord, is the man whose heart is in line with the Creator and whose mind is steadfast on the things of his heart!
If you want to really please God, then honor those who do His will. Place the emphasis of your life on lifting up those who have set their hearts on the things of God. Give respect to the ones who fear the Lord and are committed to seeing the cross exalted!
Hate sin! Be careful of those with whom you associate. Love everyone, but don't give credence to those who participate in worldly living or that take people away from being holy. Don't honor the sinner; honor the saint!
And keep your word! Try everyday not to make promises you cannot keep. If you do make a commitment, follow it through at any cost! Let your yes be yes and your no be no! People should know that they can rely on you to be above reproach. As people begin to see you in your consistent, trusting walk with God, they will begin to understand how they can trust Him as Lord of their lives, too.
God is seeking those who will honor Him with their obedience. Those who do have the wonderful blessing of dwelling intimately with the Master!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude], And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God's image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:23-24 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Some estimate that in the United States alone as many as 15 million adults are affected by major depression in any given year.
People experiencing severe depression may find it hard to believe, deep down, that there are good things about themselves. They are trapped between a rock and a hard place, between a deep desire to be affirmed as "good" and a deep feeling of not being very good at all.
The Apostle Paul declared that "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV But depression causes many of us to reject the free gift of God: a new identity as a good and righteous person.
Consider this
Astronomers tell us there are swirling whirlpools in the universe with a powerful magnetic pull that does not allow light to escape from within them. Black holes, therefore, cannot be seen, but their existence can be identified by the debris that revolves around them. In the same way, we cannot see into the heart of another person, but we can tell the condition of the heart by observing the things that revolve around that person's life. If we are suffering from depression, those revolving things might include feeling angry, helpless, hopeless, isolated and even suicidal. All of these revolve around a black hole, a self-identity of being worthless.
The "trap" occurs when we allow our attention to be distracted primarily by the things revolving around our heart rather than focusing on the condition of the heart itself. The path out of this trap is a process of learning a new identity, one based on the truth of God's Word rather than on a lie. A process of putting "on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God's image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness."
Prayer
Father, I see myself as worthless, but your Word tells me that as your child, I am clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Help me to accept my new identity as a good and righteous person to see myself as you see me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
Bible-based coping skills
How to pray for healing and what to expect
Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Is God's Will My Will?READ: This is the will of God, your sanctification . . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
Sanctification is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me- is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me everything that has been made possible through the atonement of the Cross of Christ? Am I willing to let Jesus become sanctification to me, and to let His life be exhibited in my human flesh? (see 1 Corinthians 1:30). Beware of saying, "Oh, I am longing to be sanctified." No, you are not. Recognize your need, but stop longing and make it a matter of action. Receive Jesus Christ to become sanctification for you by absolute, unquestioning faith, and the great miracle of the atonement of Jesus will become real in you.
All that Jesus made possible becomes mine through the free and loving gift of God on the basis of what Christ accomplished on the cross. And my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound, humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness). It is a holiness based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing about Him (see Romans 5:8). He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification. No wonder Paul said that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is accomplished only through the magnificent atonement of Christ. Never confuse the effect with the cause. The effect in me is obedience, service, and prayer, and is the outcome of inexpressible thanks and adoration for the miraculous sanctification that has been brought about in me because of the atonement through the Cross of Christ.
God Bless
October 21
Ephesians 4
Christians are to live in righteousness and holiness, worthy of their calling in Christ.
INSIGHT
On the basis of who we are in Christ - redeemed, inheritors with Christ, adopted into God's family, and destined to spend eternity with Him - we are to live a lifestyle that reflects our identity. We are no longer to live as we did before we knew the Lord - or as those who do not know Him. By putting on the "new man" we will preserve the unity of the Spirit and show the world that Christ is real. He makes a difference in the life that is dedicated to Him.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that He is molding you into His image:
Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who delights greatly in His commandments.
His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.
Wealth and riches will be in his house,
And his righteousness endures forever.
Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness;
He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous (Psalm 112:1-4).
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
I will behave wisely in a perfect way.
Oh, when will You come to me?
I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
I will set nothing wicked before my eyes;
I hate the work of those who fall away;
It shall not cling to me.
A perverse heart shall depart from me;
I will not know wickedness
(Psalm 101:2-4).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, You are very great:
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. . . .
You who laid the foundations of the earth,
So that it should not be moved forever
(Psalm 104:1-2, 5).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
sensitivity to the Holy Spirit,
unsaved friends and co-workers.
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
Whoever is wise will observe these things,
And they will understand the lovingkindness of the Lord
(Psalm 107:43)
Daily Devotionals October 21, 2008
God's Love Story
READ: Hosea 11How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? . . . My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. -Hosea 11:8
Is there any human feeling more powerful than that of betrayal? Ask a high school girl whose boyfriend has dumped her for a pretty cheerleader. Or tune your radio to a country-western station and listen to the lyrics of infidelity. Or check out the murders reported in the daily newspaper, an amazing number of which trace back to a quarrel with an estranged lover.
In the Old Testament, God through Hosea's marriage demonstrates in living color exactly what it is like to love someone desperately and get nothing in return. Not even God, with all His power, will force a human being to love Him.
Many people think of God as an impersonal force, something akin to the law of gravity. The book of Hosea portrays almost the opposite: a God of passion and fury and tears and love. A God in mourning over Israel's rejection of Him (11:8).
God the lover does not desire to share His bride with anyone else. Yet, amazingly, when Israel turned her back on God, He stuck with her. He was willing to suffer, in hope that someday she would return to Him.
Hosea, and later Jesus, prove that God longs not to punish but to love. In fact, He loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us! - Philip Yancey
Love sent the Savior to die in my stead.
Why should He love me so?
Meekly to Calvary's cross He was led.
Why should He love me so? -Harkness
God loved us so much, He sent His only Son.
God Dwelling By: Ron Edmondson Tuesday, October 21, 2008 [He] who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken. Psalm 15:5 NIV
We have talked this week about who can dwell intimately in the presence of an Almighty God. God's word has outlined here for us some qualities He is seeking for us to allow Him to take up residence in our lives.
Now, we know that we can only come to God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We must accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the only way a sinful man can get to a holy God.
We know, however, that God can allow no sin in His presence. In fact, God turned His back on Jesus as Jesus bore our sins on the cross. Therefore, for God to truly be active and intimate in our walk with Him, we must be striving to be righteous in all we do.
The man with whom God can dwell, as today's verse indicates, must not be a lover of money. He must not take advantage of others for the sake of creating his own wealth. Money should be a means to bring forth blessings for the kingdom of God.
This fits well with the previous verses. God is looking for an attitude that wants to honor and please Him. God is yearning to dwell with those who will strive to be holy, because He Himself is Holy!
God wants to dwell with you and me! And guess what? The promise to those with whom He dwells is that we will never be shaken! Though the world tries to toss us around, we, the children of God, will never be moved! We shall overcome!
Are you ready to dwell with Him now?
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Our childhood experiences contribute to our present makeup, as does our biogenetic and spiritual history. In our struggle to overcome depression, we need to remember that while our psychological and biogenetic past cannot be changed, our spiritual condition can. If we draw our identity from the negative symptom cluster around us (feeling angry, helpless, hopeless, isolated and perhaps even suicidal) rather than from our true identity as a "new creation in Christ Jesus," then indeed we are continually being sucked into a black hole of despair, and we are easily trapped in a self-reinforcing belief system about ourselves: I'm worthless, there is no hope.
Healing can begin to come when we recognize that our problem is not anger or childhood abuse or even "depression," but our self-identity as a worthless person. Only then can we learn a new identity, one based on the truth of God's Word.
Consider this
When our lives begin to revolve around a self-identity that is based on faith and formed by the Bible, we can begin to overcome depression. Then, instead of seeing ourselves as worthless, we can begin to view ourselves as a child of God, a shining star. Now the characteristics revolving around our new self-identity based on our faith in Christ can include surrender to God's purposes human kindness pure love goodness reaching for truth courage and fortitude and a determination to keep going.
Prayer
Father, help me to stop focusing on the swirling symptoms of depression that surround me like debris around a black hole. Help me instead to focus on Jesus and what he has done for me. Help me to remember that I am a new creation in him. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
Bible-based coping skills
How to pray for healing and what to expect
Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Impulsiveness or Discipleship?READ: But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith . . . -Jude 20
There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God's nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman-an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he "followed Him at a distance" on dry land ( Mark 14:54 ). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises-human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God-but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people-and this is not learned in five minutes.
God Bless
October 22
Ephesians 5
We are to walk in love just as Christ did.
INSIGHT
The wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience (the unsaved). Therefore, we are not to partake of their deeds. For we were formerly darkness, but now we are light in the Lord. If this is so, do you as a Christian need to alter any of your present habits? What about your television viewing habits? If it is disgraceful even to speak of the things that are done by the children of darkness, how much more disgraceful is it to sit in our living rooms and watch it? What about movies, books, magazines, or conversations with friends? Do your habits reflect the light of God?
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that He has transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light:
Mary said:
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation"(Luke 1:46-50).
Pause for praise and thanksgiving as you pray this confession to the Lord:
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit
(Psalm 32:1-2).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
The Lord God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer's feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills (Habakkuk 3:19).
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
greater love for your family,
the work of missions in South America.
Finally, close with this prayer:
To Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, . . . to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.
(Romans 16:25-27)
Daily Devotionals October 22, 2008
On His Shoulders
READ: Luke 15:3-7 He shall dwell between His shoulders. -Deuteronomy 33:12
Our family likes to hike, and we've had some grand adventures together. But when our boys were small, our enthusiasm caused us to walk too fast and too far, and their legs often grew weary. They couldn't keep up the pace, despite their determined efforts and our assurance that the end of the trail was just over the next hill.
"Dad," would come the plaintive request, accompanied by upraised arms, "will you carry me?" "Of course," I would reply, and hoist the child on my shoulders. He was not a burden, for he was little and light.
How often, like my children, I've grown weary, and the end of my efforts is not even in sight. I can no longer keep up or accomplish the task. But I am learning that I can turn with arms upraised to my heavenly Father, who walks beside me, and I can ask Him to carry me.
I know He will lay me on His shoulder as a shepherd carries the lamb that was lost (Luke 15:5). There He will joyfully carry me all day long, for I am little and light-no burden to Him. There I find rest, for "the beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him, who shelters him all the day long; and he shall dwell between His shoulders" (Deut. 33:12). - David H. Roper
Ask the Savior to help you,
Comfort, strengthen, and keep you;
He is willing to aid you-
He will carry you through. -Palmer
The God who holds the universe is the God who is holding you.
God is Holy By: Ron Edmondson Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory. Isaiah 6:3 NIV
God is Holy to the third power and beyond!
The word holy essentially means being absent of any wrong doings (sin) to such a degree as to deserve special recognition, worship or praise. Sounds like God to me!
To be holy is to have no sin! To say someone is holy means they have NO SIN! When you say God is holy, you are saying God has never, will never, and in fact could never sin! Are you starting to have an understanding of the word now? God is holy!
One word holy would be enough to describe that sinless state, but our God is so perfectly holy that it requires three or more holies to get the point across! God is HOLY, HOLY, HOLY!
And, that is where we come in. You see, you and I can't even garner one holy! There is nothing in us, not one ten second span of our lives that could ever be considered holy, not using the definition we have already established for the word.
In fact, when we are compared to God's HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, holiness, we become aware of just how unholy we really are! God is so completely holy, and we, in comparison, are so completely unholy, that the gap between us is greater than you or I could ever fathom.
Don't you see now why we can never get to God apart from His divine intervention? Can't you see how He, the HOLY, HOLY, HOLY God must reach way down into our sin drenched world to reach the lost and bring us by His grace into His Holy presence? Isn't it clear we need Jesus?
We couldn't get to God, so He came to us! HOLY, HOLY, HOLY came down and lifted us up by the precious blood of Jesus!
Aren't we glad today?
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires." 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV (Suggested reading 2 Peter 1:3-11)
Thoughts for Today
Monday we discussed the fact that the self-identity of a person deep in depression involves a sense of worthlessness. Characteristics that surround this person can include feeling angry, helpless, hopeless, isolated and suicidal. Yesterday we looked at a person set free from that sense of worthlessness, a person who by faith sees himself as a child of God, a shining star. This center of faith can result in surrender to God's purposes, human kindness, pure love, goodness, reaching for truth, courage, fortitude and determination to keep going.
So how do we move from the first scenario to the second? It can't be done by willpower. Only the revelation and power of the Holy Spirit working through our faith can set us free.
We may wonder how our faith can grow and become a channel of God's gift of everything we need. In Romans 10:17 KJV, Paul writes that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." In other words, faith is strengthened as we study and meditate on God's Word and allow truth to become the core of what we believe. Only then can we begin to see ourselves through God's eyes: forgiven, righteous, precious, created for a purpose.
Consider this
Depression causes people to feel deeply that they are terribly lacking. They may feel that growing in faith is impossible for them. But every Christian has faith! Peter says that by definition, a believer has already been granted faith, and faith receives the gift of everything we need for happiness and productivity. (See also Romans 12:3.) Jesus said that even if a person's faith is as small as a mustard seed, it is sufficient to move mountains (Matthew 17:20).
Prayer
Father, help me grow in faith as I focus on you and your Word. Help me to fully believe that your promises are for me and to reach the point where I begin to see myself as you see me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
Bible-based coping skills
How to pray for healing and what to expect
Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Witness of the Spirit READ: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit . . . -Romans 8:16
We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him- we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.
Why doesn't God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won't abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself- He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28 , "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . . ." Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13 ).
The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.
God Bless
October 23
Ephesians 6
We are to put on the full armor of God to fight and win the spiritual war.
INSIGHT
Satan is a deceiver and a destroyer; he deceives in order to destroy. A part of his deception is to have us believe he is not at work opposing our pursuit of righteousness. To combat his efforts, we must do several things. First, recognize that we must "be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might"(v. 10), not in our own strength. Second, we must "put on the whole armor of God" (v. 11). Each piece described in verses 14-17 must be in place daily. Third, we must pray at all times Òin the SpiritÓ (v. 18). And finally, having done all that, we must stand firm without fear, knowing we are secure (v. 13).
PRAYER
Because the Lord has promised to fight for us, we can praise Him!
Praise the Lord!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;
For it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted
And binds up their wounds.
He counts the number of the stars;
He calls them all by name.
Great is our Lord, and mighty in power;
His understanding is infinite. . . .
The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His mercy. . . .
He has not dealt thus with any nation;
And as for His judgments, they have not known them.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 147:1-5, 11, 20).
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,"
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.
Selah (Psalm 32:5).
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, and pray this affirmation to the Lord:
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
faithfulness with your finances,
revival among Christians in America,
your activities for the day.
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen
(2 Corinthians 13:14)
Daily Devotionals October 23, 2008
Silhouette READ: Lamentations 1:12-16; 3:19-23Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. -Lamentations 3:22
In the 18th century, silhouettes (shadow profiles traced and cut from black paper) were a popular alternative to costly portraits. The word took its name from the French controller general of finance, Étienne de Silhouette. During the Seven Years War against England, he tried to raise revenues by heavily taxing the wealthy. Victims of his high taxes complained and used the word silhouette to refer to their wealth being reduced to a mere shadow of what it once was.
With the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremiah lamented over the shadow of what once was a great city and center of worship now devastated by war. "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow" (Lam. 1:12).
But Jeremiah did not remain in despair. He recognized God's sovereignty in suffering. Later in this book of sorrow, the prophet reflected: "I have hope. Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning" (3:21-23).
Has sorrow or suffering made your life feel like a dark silhouette of what it once was? Remember, God's mercies are new every morning. He is compassionately working in your life for His glory and your blessing. - Dennis Fisher
Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt nor a fear, not a sigh nor a tear
Can abide while we trust and obey. -Sammis
To see beyond earth's shadows, look to Christ the Light.
Growth in Holiness by Mary Wilder Tileston
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ.
--2 CORINTHIANS 2:14
FIGHT the good fight
With all thy might;
Christ is thy Strength, and Christ thy Right;
Lay hold on life,
And it shall be
Thy joy and crown eternally.
--J. B. S. MONSELL
LET the first act on waking be to place yourself, your heart, mind, faculties, your whole being, in God's hands. Ask Him to take entire possession of you, to be the Guide of your soul, your Life, your Wisdom, your Strength. He wills that we seek Him in all our needs, that we may both know Him truly, and draw closer and closer to Him; and in prayer we gain an invisible force which will triumph over seemingly hopeless difficulties.
--H. L. SIDNEY LEAR
However matters go, it is our happiness to win new ground daily in Christ's love, and to purchase a new piece of it daily, and to add conquest to conquest.
--SAMUEL RUTHERFORD
This ought to be our endeavor,--to conquer ourselves, and daily to wax stronger, and to make a further growth in holiness.
--THOMAS A KEMPIS
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But like money in some savings account God's precious gifts remain in the bank and our lives remain dwarfed and pinched, largely dependent upon small talents and starved by large doubts. Only by cashing in on God's glorious promises are we able to live effectively and productively in our kind of world." 2 Peter 1:3-4 Epistles Now by Leslie Brandt
Thoughts for Today
In today's scripture, Peter makes it clear that there is a common human problem not restricted to people with depression that causes many to live in the black hole of life instead of in the light of God's divine nature. "Only by cashing in on God's glorious promises" do we live effectively and productively.
The NIV translation of this same passage (verse 4) says that because we have been given everything we need for happiness and productivity, we have also received promises from God that allow us to "participate in the divine nature"!
Consider this
So how do we do this? How do we go about "cashing in" on God's promises? How do we move them from our "bank account" into our everyday lives?
We have already concluded that desire and willpower are insufficient. Only the work of the Holy Spirit in us can bring us into this kind of productive living. (Read Romans 8:12-15.) And so we must believe that God has provided all we need. We must have faith that by the power of the Holy Spirit we can live effectively and productively for Jesus. We must soak in His Word daily and we must ask the Holy Spirit for his empowerment.
Don't let the treasures God has already provided sit unused in your "bank account."
Prayer
Father, I sometimes see myself as so worthless and helpless. And yet your Word tells me that you have already provided everything I need to live an effective and productive life. I ask that the Holy Spirit will infuse me with power to become all that you have called me to be. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
Bible-based coping skills
How to pray for healing and what to expect
Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Nothing of the Old Life! READ: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
Our Lord never tolerates our prejudices- He is directly opposed to them and puts them to death. We tend to think that God has some special interest in our particular prejudices, and are very sure that He will never deal with us as He has to deal with others. We even say to ourselves, "God has to deal with other people in a very strict way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right." But we must learn that God accepts nothing of the old life! Instead of being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately removing them from us. It is part of our moral education to see our prejudices put to death by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.
When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is nothing remaining of the old life. Our old gloomy outlook disappears, as does our old attitude toward things, and "all things are of God" (2 Corinthians 5:18 ). How are we going to get a life that has no lust, no self-interest, and is not sensitive to the ridicule of others? How will we have the type of love that "is kind . . . is not provoked, [and] thinks no evil"? ( 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 ). The only way is by allowing nothing of the old life to remain, and by having only simple, perfect trust in God- such a trust that we no longer want God's blessings, but only want God Himself. Have we come to the point where God can withdraw His blessings from us without our trust in Him being affected? Once we truly see God at work, we will never be concerned again about the things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in heaven, whom the world cannot see.
God Bless
October 24
Philippians 1
Paul urges us to have his perspective: "To live is Christ, and to die is gain" (v. 21).
INSIGHT
With Paul's perspective on life, he cannot lose. Wherever he is, Paul considers it "the world" into which the Lord wants him to go to preach the Gospel. Even prison is a positive experience for Paul, because he is able to spread the Gospel there. And if he is to die, that is even better. To live is fruitful ministry, but to die is gain. Most of us have our affections too deeply implanted in the things of this world to identify with hisperspective. We must learn to let go.
PRAYER
The Lord is worthy of our praise:
"Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. You show lovingkindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after themÑthe Great, the Mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts. You are great in counsel and mighty in work, for Your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings."
(Jeremiah 32:17-19)
Pause for praise and thanksgiving.
Now pray this confession to the Lord as you seek to keep your life free from sin:
Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me.
(Psalm 51:1-3)
Confess any sins that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
Then pray this affirmation to the Lord:
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
(2 Corinthians 8:9)
As you make your requests known to the Lord, include:
an eternal perspective,
your ministry in your local church,
whatever else is on your heart.
Finally, offer this prayer to the Lord:
To Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20-21)
Daily Devotionals October 24, 2008
Satisfaction
READ: 1 John 2:12-17The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. -1 John 2:17
Pornography, once a secretive backdoor industry, is now out in the open. The easy access and anonymity of the Internet have turned it into a multibillion-dollar-a-year "business." But it leaves a trail of broken families, ineffective Christian leaders, and men who have lost the respect of their loved ones.
The apostle John was known for his great love for Christ and His church. In 1 John 2:12-17, he warned fathers and young men against these three lusts:
The lust of the flesh-the insatiable appetite to indulge in pleasures that inflame the flesh but never satisfy.
The lust of the eyes-wandering eyes that continually want more riches and possessions but always remain covetous.
The pride of life-the vain mind that thirsts for man's applause. But the glory evaporates quickly.
Pornography damages users and victims alike. It feeds lustful desires in ways that can never satisfy. True satisfaction is found only when we give our affections to eternal things-to a right relationship with our heavenly Father and with those He has created in His image.
"The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever" (v.17). - Albert Lee
Many Christian men struggle with the temptations of pornography. Find help by reading When A Man's Eye Wanders Inner peace springs out of inner purity.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Reasons for Trials
"He...comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does He do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us" (2 Corinthians 1:3,4).
For two years, Annette had suffered through the agony of her beloved husband's terminal cancer. Meanwhile, their only son had been drawn into drug addiction through the influence of an undesirable group of students in the local high school. She was devastated. Her whole life was filled with heartache and sorrow. She had nothing to live for. Then a neighbor told her of Jesus - how He could give her peace of heart and peace of mind and could provide the purpose she needed in her life. He could even change her son.
So Annette received the wonderful gift of God's love, the Lord Jesus Christ, and began to pray for her son. At first he was antagonistic, but gradually he became aware of the dramatic transformation in his mother, and in answer to her prayers, along with those of her new-found friends in the local church, he too came to worship the Savior and make Him Lord of his life.
In the meantime, Annette was suffering great financial difficulty because of the huge doctor and hospital bills and her lack of ability to work during her husband's illness. But God wonderfully comforted and strengthened her so that now she can witness joyfully of His gracious mercy and faithfulness in her behalf. She and her son are ministering effectively to others who are experiencing heartache and tragedy similar to those which once plagued them.
Are you experiencing difficulties, sorrows, heartaches, disappointments? Ask the Lord to show you how to translate them into victories so that He can use you to be a blessing to those around you who are experiencing similar difficulties.
Bible Reading: II Corinthians 1:3-7
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Knowing that God is faithful in His love and wisdom, I will trust the indwelling Holy Spirit for the power to accept the trial or adversity I face today, and will expect God to use it to comfort and help someone else through me.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Getting out of the black hole where life revolves around untruths and putting on a new life of light is a battle. And God tells us not to face the battle alone. Along with trusting him and asking the Holy Spirit to empower us, we are to motivate each other and spend time together. We need to choose and resolve that we will help and encourage one another to go on in the Christian life until we live in the light daily. And then we need to continue encouraging each other and praying for each other.
People struggling with depression-or any life-controlling problem-tend to isolate themselves. Coming out of that isolation and allowing others to help and encourage is a vital step in recovery.
Consider this
Not only should we allow others to help and encourage us-we should encourage them as well. "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." Philippians 2:4 NIV
One of God's most precious gifts to us is the opportunity to lean on ... and reach out to ... our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us be faithful to meet together to pray for each other to encourage each other to admonish each other in love to help each other.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for sometimes being "me" focused. For hiding out from others in the family of God when I am struggling. For not reaching out to them when I see them in need. Help us to motivate each other to love and good works. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding Depression: Overcoming Despair through Christ by Donald G. Miles, Ed.D. This study deals with depression, a condition common throughout the world, and is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Understanding what depression is and how it affects relationships
Understanding the relationship between depression and spiritual warfare
Ways to fight depression with scripture, prayer and mutual support
Understanding the special prayer needs of depressed persons
Bible-based coping skills
How to pray for healing and what to expect
Serves as a powerful evangelistic tool by providing a way to minister to people's felt needs and then lead them to Christ
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Proper Perspective READ: Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 2:14
The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God's perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Don't think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.
The proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose- to be captives marching in the procession of Christ's triumphs. We are not on display in God's showcase- we are here to exhibit only one thing- the "captivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ" ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, "I am standing all alone, battling for Jesus," or, "I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him." But Paul said, in essence, "I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn't matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph." Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul's secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive- and that became his purpose. It was Paul's joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." ( Romans 8:37 ).
"We are to God the fragrance of Christ . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 2:15 ). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 25, 2008
Shark Tonic
READ: Hebrews 12:1-11 Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. -Hebrews 12:1
Have you ever heard of shark "tonic"? It isn't a serum that prevents shark attacks or a medicine given to sharks. The actual term is "tonic immobility," described as "a natural state of paralysis that animals enter. . . . Sharks can be placed in a tonic immobility state by turning them upside down. The shark remains in this state of paralysis for an average of 15 minutes before it recovers."
Imagine, a dangerous shark can be made vulnerable simply by turning it upside down. The state of tonic immobility makes the shark incapable of movement.
Sin is like that. Our ability to honor our Lord, for which we are created in Christ, can be put into "tonic immobility" by the power and consequences of sin. To that end, the writer of Hebrews wants us to be proactive. He wrote, "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1).
If we are to run the race of the Christian life effectively, we must deal with sin before it immobilizes us. We need to lay aside the sin that hinders us from pleasing Him-starting today. - Bill Crowder
Start early today to run in the race
That Christians are told they can win;
First wait on the Lord for the strength He will give,
Then lay aside every known sin. -Branon
We must face up to our sins before we can put them behind us.
Walls of Protection
When Nehemiah first heard of Jerusalem's destruction, he wept and was emotionally shaken. He wrote, "For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven" (Nehemiah 1:4). Nehemiah suddenly realized the walls around the city of Jerusalem were in ruins. Through all of this, he had mistakenly thought they had remained in place. But when the news arrived of their destruction, he became even more burdened.
In Old Testament times, walls around a city were a symbol of strength and security. Without these, a town would be left defenseless, vulnerable, and open to attack. This was the plight of Jerusalem. It was a city without protection against even wild animals. It had lost its identity and was on the verge of being totally reduced to a mound of rubble.
A person who has an undisciplined spirit or no self-control is like a city without walls. He or she is open to enemy attack at any given moment. When we fail to exercise a spirit of self-control, the wild animals of jealousy, rage, frustration, gossip, bearing a false witness, and more can enter our lives easily and unopposed.
The lack of self-control is Satan's way of preparing us for destruction. However, you do not have to fall victim to the enemy's schemes. You have all you need to stand firm in your faith. God is the One who strengthens you. When you fall in battle and cry out to Him, He rushes to your side and lifts you up.
If you have allowed sin to come into your life, then your spiritual walls of protection are down. However, God will repair them, but you must turn to Him, confess your sin, and seek His forgiveness. When you do, He will restore His walls of holy protection around your life.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control (Proverbs 25:28).
Seeking wisdom is like seeking a hidden treasure. When you're looking for a treasure-especially a treasure on which your life depends-what do you do? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Finding Godly Wisdom." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
By Dr. Bill Bright
Our Great Privilege
"And don't you realize that you also will perish unless you leave your evil ways and turn to God?" (Luke 13:3).
Today I sought to share the love and forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ with a taxi driver who reacted impatiently when I handed him a book which I had written, entitled "Jesus and the Intellectual." He flung it aside in contempt. I have seldom met anyone who appeared to be more angry and resentful of God than he was. I felt impressed to say to him what Jesus said to the Galileans, "It is a matter of life and death what you do with Jesus Christ. There is a heaven and there is a hell. God loves you and cares for you. He wants you to come to Him and receive the gift of His only begotten Son through whom you can have forgiveness, life abundant, and life eternal." From all appearances he could not have cared less.
That warning to the Galileans many years ago applies equally to the nations and individuals today. If one truth in the Word of God is made abundantly clear, it is this: Repent or perish.
"It is because of this solemn fear of the Lord, which is ever present in our minds, that we work so hard to win others. God knows our hearts, that they are pure in this matter, and I hope that, deep within, you really know it too" (2 Corinthians 5:11).
As Christians we have the same awesome responsibility and great privilege to tell everyone who will listen about Christ. Most of us would take great risk to save the life of a drowning child or to snatch up a toddler from the path of an automobile. Yet, most everyone who is living today will be dead in 100 years or less, but all men will live in heaven or hell for eternity. How much more important it is to tell men and women who are perishing without Christ of the loving Savior who cares and who is waiting to forgive if only they will surrender their lives to Him!
We must warn them and if we do not know how, it behooves us to learn how to share our faith. One method of witnessing is the use of the Four Spiritual Laws booklet. Anyone is capable of sharing this booklet with others - if not vocally, at least by handing it to someone.
If you are hesitant to witness vocally why not begin distributing literature like the Four Spiritual Laws booklet?
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Bible Reading: Luke 13:1-5
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I resolve with God's help, to begin to distribute Christian literature, especially the Word of God and materials that will help individuals to make definite commitments of their lives to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
Submitting to God's Purpose READ: I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some -1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God's man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, "If only I were somewhere else!" All of God's people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God's almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul's whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact- ". . . Jesus Christ and Him crucified" ( 1 Corinthians 2:2 ).
"I chose you . . ." ( John 15:16 ). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose- that He may be able to say, "This is My man, and this is My woman." We have to be in God's hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you "turn aside . . . to the right or the left . . ." ( Deuteronomy 28:14 ). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 26, 2008
The Ripening Self READ: 1 Peter 5:5-11 May the God of all grace, . . . after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. -1 Peter 5:10
In his early years of ministry, the English preacher Charles Simeon (1759-1836) was a harsh and self-assertive man. One day he was visiting a friend and fellow pastor in a nearby village. When he left to go home, his friend's daughters complained to their father about Simeon's manner. So he took the girls to the backyard and said, "Pick me one of those peaches." It was early summer, and the peaches were green. The girls asked why he wanted green, unripe fruit. He replied, "Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon."
Simeon, in due time, did change. The warmth of God's love and the "showers" of misunderstanding and disappointment were the means by which he became a gentle, humble man.
The God of all grace works in all His children, humbling the proud and exalting the humble, to make them ripe and sweet. Our task is to take hold of God's grace to endure our afflictions with patience, without growing weary.
In time, He will "perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle" us (1 Peter 5:10). We must "wait on the LORD" and "be of good courage" (Ps. 27:14). - David H. Roper
Our fruitfulness and growth in Christ
Won't happen instantly,
But meditating on God's Word
Will bring maturity. -Sper
Salvation is the miracle of a moment; growth is the labor of a lifetime.
Martha
by Max Lucado
Every church needs a Martha. Change that. Every church needs a hundred Marthas. Sleeves rolled and ready, they keep the pace for the church. Because of Marthas, the church budget gets balanced, the church babies get bounced, and the church building gets built. You don't appreciate Marthas until a Martha is missing, and then all the Marys and Lazaruses are scrambling around looking for the keys and the thermostats and the overhead projectors.
Marthas are the Energizer bunnies of the church. They keep going and going and going. They store strength like a camel stores water. Since they don't seek the spotlight, they don't live off the applause. That's not to say they don't need it. They just aren't addicted to it.
Marthas have a mission. In fact, if Marthas have a weakness, it is their tendency to elevate the mission over the Master. Remember when Martha did that? A younger Martha invites a younger Jesus to come for dinner. Jesus accepts and brings his disciples.
The scene Luke describes has Mary seated and Martha fuming. Martha is angry because Mary is, horror of horrors, sitting at the feet of Jesus. How impractical! How irrelevant! How unnecessary! I mean, who has time to sit and listen when there is bread to be baked, tables to be set, and souls to be saved? So Martha complained, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell her to help me" (Luke 10:40).
All of a sudden Martha has gone from serving Jesus to making demands of Jesus. The room falls silent. The disciples duck their eyes. Mary flushes red. And Jesus speaks.
"Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42).
Apparently Martha got the point, for later we find her serving again.
"Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume" (John 12:2-3 NIV).
Is Mary in the kitchen? No she is worshiping, for that is what she loves to do. But this time Martha doesn't object. She has learned that there is a place for praise and worship, and that is what Mary is doing. And what is Mary's part in the dinner? She brings a pint of very expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus' feet, then wipes his feet with her hair. The smell of the perfume fills the house, just like the sound of praise can fill a church.
An earlier Martha would have objected. Such an act was too lavish, too extravagant, too generous. But this mature Martha has learned that just as there is a place in the kingdom of God for sacrificial service, there is also a place for extravagant praise.
From
Cast of Characters
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008) Max Lucado
Now Available
By Dr. Bill Bright
You Will Be Saved
"For if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is your Lord, and believe in your own heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).
Many years ago, God clearly led me in the preparation, planning and production of a little booklet called the Four Spiritual Laws. Still widely used today, its volume of copies to date might well be second only to the Bible itself. More than a billion copies have been distributed and one can reasonably conclude that many millions have received Christ as a result of reading its message.
In something so succinct, it of course was impossible to include all of the appropriate Scriptures under each of the four laws. This verse for today, Romans 10:9, is one of those that might have been used with the Law Four, for it fits in well with the wording:
"We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives."
The three passages used (John 1:12; Ephesians 2:8,9; Revelation 3:20) clearly direct the seeker after God. And of course this verse in Romans clearly confirms all that the other passages affirm.
Two conditions precede salvation, the apostle Paul is saying to the church in Rome: (1) "Tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is your Lord," and (2) "Believe in your own heart that God has raised Him from the dead." Simple, yet significant and meaningful, are these two preparatory steps.
As you share your faith with others today and in the days to come, recall with joy these two simple conditions that must be met.
Bible Reading:
Romans 10:8-13
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: "Dear Lord, I thank You with all of my heart for the simplicity of the gospel and, with the enabling of the Holy Spirit, I will share this good news with all who will listen."
What is a Missionary? READ: Jesus said to them again, '. . . As the Father has sent Me, I also send you' -John 20:21
A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front- to sweep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him- to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God's call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ- "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . ." ( Matthew 28:19 ).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, "What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!" But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were "foolish" enough to trust God's wisdom and His supernatural equipment.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 27, 2008
Make A U-Turn
READ: Psalm 32:1-5 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. -Isaiah 53:6
When we went on a weekend road trip with some friends, we had our first experience using a Global Positioning System. The GPS has a female voice, so our friends John and Mary call their device Gladys. We programmed our destination into the GPS, and she did her job and plotted our course. Then we sat back. Having put our faith in this little navigator, we let her direct us.
"Turn right in .2 miles," Gladys said confidently. She was right-Gladys is always right. In fact, when we made an unexpected detour to get gas, she got a bit insistent: "Please make a U-turn . . . Please make a U-turn at your earliest convenience!"
Gladys had calculated a route for us, but we had gone a different way. That was our choice, naturally. But if we had continued going our own way, we would have become lost.
Isaiah 53:6 reminds us that just like sheep, we have a tendency to go astray. That's why we need a Shepherd to guide us and a Savior to pay the penalty for our sin.
No matter how far you've traveled in the wrong direction, it's not too late to turn around. God is ready to forgive and restore (Ps. 32:5). If you're headed down the wrong road, please make a U-turn. - Cindy Hess Kasper
I've strayed, O Lord, and turned aside,
I've disobeyed Your voice;
But now with contrite heart I turn
And make Your will my choice. -D. De Haan
No matter how far you've run from God, He's only a prayer away.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
You Will Rejoice
"You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and then you will rejoice; and no one can rob you of that joy" (John 16:22).
Once you and I truly experience the joy of the Lord, no one can rob us of that joy!
That does not mean that we will never experience disappointment, sorrow or grief; but it does mean that deeps down underneath it all is the joy that comes as a gift from God, the fruit of the Spirit. And that is the kind of joy that no one can take away.
Underneath the tears, the heartache, lies the calm, sweet peace that God gives to those who walk in faith and obedience. And that is a part of the joy that He promises.
Jesus' promise to see His disciples again, of course, refers to after the resurrection. "You will be so firmly persuaded that I have risen," He says to them, "and that I am the Messiah, that neither the threats nor the persecutions of men will ever be able to shake your faith, or produce doubt or unbelief and thus take away your joy."
Jesus' prediction, as we know, was remarkably fulfilled, for after He revealed Himself to them following the resurrection, not one of the apostles ever doubted for a moment that He has risen from the dead. No trial or persecution was able to shake their faith - so that their joy remained.
You and I have certainties of faith that are unshakable, and thus they produce joy - joy that will remain forever and ever.
Bible Reading: John 16:20-24
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will remember to praise and thank God for the unshakable joy that He alone gives.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"All of you must keep awake (give strict attention, be cautious and active) and watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:41 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Are you immune to the temptation of sexual sin? The truth is, we all have boundaries that, if crossed, can result in the loss of self-control.
The sin of proximity happens when we allow ourselves to be enticed to sin by not avoiding events, people, places, objects or anything else that we know will likely stir up lustful thoughts in our minds. Some would describe the sin of proximity as allowing ourselves to come into contact with the occasion for sin.
When we commit a sin of proximity, what we are doing is setting the stage for overt sin to occur. We are prone to lie to ourselves that what we are doing will not have consequences. We think we can play around the edges of sin without actually acting it out. This thinking is self-deceptive because sin has great power and, if entertained, can overwhelm us.
Consider this
Avoiding the people or events or things that may tempt us to sexual sin is vital to overcoming sexual addiction or to avoid entering into any kind of sexual sin. We must remember, however, that there is no "formula for success" in this path-otherwise we would trust the formula and not God.
The rules are only tools to enable us to better love Jesus. The real key is to stay in fellowship with Him-to "give strict attention, be cautious and active and watch and pray."
Prayer
Father, I know that only as I stay in close fellowship with you-through prayer and through your Word-will I be able to resist the temptations that come my way. I thank you for your love. Please give me the wisdom and strength to avoid situations and relationships that may entice me to sin. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Crossroads Group: Choosing the Road to Sexual Purity, by David E. Longacre, is for those who desire to continue to walk in purity, as well as for individuals who are already trapped and looking for a way out. It is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Method of Missions Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . -Matthew 28:19
Jesus Christ did not say, "Go and save souls" (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but He said, "Go . . . make disciples of all the nations . . . ." Yet you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples returned from their first mission, they were filled with joy because even the demons were subject to them. But Jesus said, in effect, "Don't rejoice in successful service- the great secret of joy is that you have the right relationship with Me" (see Luke 10:17-20 ). The missionary's great essential is remaining true to the call of God, and realizing that his one and only purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. Remember that there is a passion for souls that does not come from God, but from our desire to make converts to our point of view.
The challenge to the missionary does not come from the fact that people are difficult to bring to salvation, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, or that there is a barrier of callous indifference. No, the challenge comes from the perspective of the missionary's own personal relationship with Jesus Christ- "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" ( Matthew 9:28 ). Our Lord unwaveringly asks us that question, and it confronts us in every individual situation we encounter. The one great challenge to us is- do I know my risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit? Am I wise enough in God's sight, but foolish enough according to the wisdom of the world, to trust in what Jesus Christ has said? Or am I abandoning the great supernatural position of limitless confidence in Christ Jesus, which is really God's only call for a missionary? If I follow any other method, I depart altogether from the methods prescribed by our Lord- "All authority has been given to Me . . . . Gotherefore. . ." ( Matthew 28:18-19 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 28, 2008
In Your Head READ: Galatians 1:6-9I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel. -Galatians 1:6
I love the prayer that begins, "God be in my head." When I first heard it, admittedly I thought it sounded a little weird. But then I got to thinking how unfortunate it is if in our efforts to get closer to Jesus we focus on our emotional experience of Him and check our brains at the door. Without His truth ringing in our heads, we're bound to get off track.
Just look at the early Christians. False teachers filled their heads with misinformation, saying that salvation and spiritual growth could be attained only through keeping the requirements of the law. When Paul heard of it, he was astonished at how quickly they had gotten off track: "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ" (Gal. 1:6).
It's not just false teachers who lead us astray. Our world is full of twisted thinking like, "If it feels good, do it," or "The one with the most toys wins." Let's face it, you and I can't afford to check our brains at the door. In fact, intimacy with Jesus begins with getting to know Him, and it's the facts about Him that make us want to get close to Him.
So, strange as it may sound, if you want to stay on track with Jesus, start each day by asking Him to be in your head! - Joe Stowell
God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking. -Sarum Primer
To stay on track, let God guide your thinking.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
More Than You Need
"God is able to make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more, so that there will not only be enough for your own needs, but plenty left over to give joyfully to others" (2 Corinthians 9:8).
One of the greatest discoveries that I have ever made in the Christian life is the law of sowing and reaping. Paul explains, beginning in his second letter to the Corinthians with the sixth verse of Chapter 9, "If you give little, you'll get little. A farmer who plants just a few seeds will harvest only a small crop, but if he plants much, he will reap much. Everyone must make up his own mind as to how much he should give. Don't force anyone to give more than he really wants to, for cheerful givers are the ones God prizes" (2 Corinthians 9:6,7).
I have several friends and colleagues who have joined with me in claiming this marvelous promise of God and in every case the blessings are abundant. People with modest incomes are able not only to give large sums of money, but also enjoy a life-style that one could hardly expect even from individuals whose salaries were much more than theirs. It is a "loaves and fishes" kind of demonstration of God's faithfulness. You cannot outgive God. As someone put it, "I give to God by the spoonsful and He returns to me shovelsful."
Most believers have never discovered the joy and excitement of Christian stewardship. Always remember that God's graces are bestowed upon us, not that we may hoard them, but that we may pass them on to others.
The same principle of giving also applies to the giving of our time and our talent to the proclamation of the gospel. The more we give, the more we receive. Was God giving you an extra portion of love today, of joy, of patience, of encouragement, or peace? Pass it on. Has something happened to you? He may have given that extra supply for you to pass it on to others in need. By the same token, if your supply in any of these things is lacking, you need only ask. With your motivation of wanting to share with others, God will not delay in responding to your request.
Bible Reading: II Corinthians 9:6-11
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: In order to be a faithful steward of that which God has entrusted to me, I shall seek to share with others a generous portion of all that He gives to me, with special emphasis on the good news concerning our Lord Jesus Christ and the supernatural life which He gives.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track." Proverbs 3:5-6 MSG
Thoughts for Today
The sin of proximity is not the same for everyone. What may constitute an occasion for sin for one person may not tempt another.
We all have our triggers that, if pulled, will likely lead us to acting out our sexual impulses. We need to learn to avoid these sin traps. Doing this requires making decisions and taking action before we are confronted with the situations that tempt our weaknesses. If we can recognize these occasions for sin and learn how to avoid them, we will have greater victory against the sin.
Consider this
Above all, we must recognize that we need God's help in avoiding and overcoming sin. We don't have the strength or the wisdom to avoid temptation on our own. But if we truly desire to do what is right and trust God to help us, he will. His Word promises that he will "keep us on track."
Trust him listen to him obey him and he will make all things possible.
Prayer
Father, I really want to do what is right. I realize now, however, that I can't do it on my own. Forgive me for my failures. Teach me how to avoid circumstances and people and things that would entice me to sin. Give me the strength to stay away. Help me to live in a way that pleases you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Crossroads Group: Choosing the Road to Sexual Purity, by David E. Longacre, is for those who desire to continue to walk in purity, as well as for individuals who are already trapped and looking for a way out. It is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Justification by Faith READ: If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life -Romans 5:10
I am not saved by believing- I simply realize I am saved by believing. And it is not repentance that saves me- repentance is only the sign that I realize what God has done through Christ Jesus. The danger here is putting the emphasis on the effect, instead of on the cause. Is it my obedience, consecration, and dedication that make me right with God? It is never that! I am made right with God because, prior to all of that, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals, the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ instantly places me into a right relationship with God. And as a result of the supernatural miracle of God's grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, or because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The Spirit of God brings justification with a shattering, radiant light, and I know that I am saved, even though I don't know how it was accomplished.
The salvation that comes from God is not based on human logic, but on the sacrificial death of Jesus. We can be born again solely because of the atonement of our Lord. Sinful men and women can be changed into new creations, not through their repentance or their belief, but through the wonderful work of God in Christ Jesus which preceded all of our experience (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 ). The unconquerable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We do not have to accomplish these things ourselves- they have been accomplished through the atonement of the Cross of Christ. The supernatural becomes natural to us through the miracle of God, and there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done- "It is finished!" ( John 19:30 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 29, 2008
Perspective READ: Isaiah 40:12-13,25-31 He . . . sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. -Isaiah 40:22
Question: When is a bird bigger than a mountain? Answer: When the bird is closer than the mountain.
In reality, the bird is not bigger than the mountain, but it sure looks that way when the feathery fellow is perched on my window ledge and the mountain is far away in the distance.
Sometimes we perceive God this way in relationship to our problems. The troubles facing us seem huge because they are so close-like a big black bird with beady eyes and a sharp beak waiting for a smaller animal's weariness to turn into helplessness so it can devour it. At such times, God seems as far away as a distant mountain, and we perceive Him as being small and unreachable.
The prophet Isaiah changes our perspective by asking these rhetorical questions: "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" (40:12). The Lord "gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength" (v.29).
Just as a bird is never bigger than a mountain, no problem is ever bigger than God. It's all a matter of changing our perspective. - Julie Ackerman Link
The problems that we face each day
Can seem too much to bear
Until we turn our eyes to Christ
And trust His tender care. -Sper
We worship a God who is greater than our greatest problem.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
A Prosperous Land
"If my people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).
On April 29, 1980, 500,000 men and women gathered on the Washington Mall to fast and pray and claim this promise of God.
For years, I have had a growing conviction in my heart that, because the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading and prayer in our schools is unconstitutional, our nation has turned more and more away from God - immorality has become the "new morality"; homosexuality has become the "alternative life-style"; drug addiction and alcoholism are no longer treated as evil; even violent criminals are being declared "not guilty by reason of insanity." The decaying of our society is evident on all sides.
One of the more alarming, documented facts is that the Soviet Union has been accelerating its production of armaments of war, including nuclear weapons. And through a massive move toward peace through disarmament and through neglect on the part of our leaders, we have allowed our military power to disintegrate to the point of vulnerability.
During the late 60's and 70's I genuinely believed that unless God supernaturally met with us and we repented as a nation and turned from our sin, the boast of Nikita S. Khrushchev, former head of the Soviet Union, "We will bury you!" could well come true. For this reason I agreed, along with Pat Robertson, founder and president of Christian Broadcasting Network, and John Gimenez, to cosponsor that great gathering on the Washington Mall.
As 500,000 people spent the day from early in the morning until late in the afternoon, praying, fasting and crying out to God, I sensed that God lifted my load. And, as I sat on the platform joining with my brothers and sisters from all over America, including millions who were joining us in prayer over radio and television, God lifted the burden that had been on my heart for at least fifteen years. he gave me the assurance that the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14 would be fulfilled as a direct result of our gathering on that day.
Since that time, there has been no question in my mind but what God heard our prayers and laid the groundwork for a dramatic turnaround in our nation.
Bible Reading: Leviticus 23:3-12
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Claiming the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14, I will pray for God's supernatural release of blessing and power upon this nation, that we might experience a continuous revival from each individual in the smallest community of America to our leaders in the halls of Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don't let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires." Romans 13:14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The sin of proximity involves occasions for sin that we consciously or unconsciously bring upon ourselves-these usually occur because we have not completely cut our relationship with our chronic sin habits.
There are other occasions for sin that are totally beyond our control and seem to come out of nowhere. Although we can't prevent these occasions, we need to be mentally and spiritually prepared to resist the temptations when they do occur.
Consider this
Cutting our relationship with sinful habits requires serious choices. Today's scripture warns us not to let ourselves think about ways to indulge our evil impulses. When we find ourselves thinking about how to gratify our sinful natures, we are setting ourselves up for an occasion to sin. This thinking process can be very subtle and deceptive. We may go into a bookstore telling ourselves we are looking for a science fiction book, but, once in the store, gravitate toward the pornography section.
Let us ask God to help us be honest with ourselves and to make the right choices.
Prayer
Father, help me to be honest with myself when I make these serious choices. Help me to make choices that will keep me away from any occasion for sin. Help me to honestly avoid the things and situations I know would be enticing. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Crossroads Group: Choosing the Road to Sexual Purity, by David E. Longacre, is for those who desire to continue to walk in purity, as well as for individuals who are already trapped and looking for a way out. It is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
SUBSTITUTION Oswald Chambers
"He hath made Him to be sin for us . . . that we might be made the righteousness of God. . ." 2 Corinthians 5:.21
The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin. Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us. We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Fatherhood of God, the loving-kindness of God; the New Testament says He came to bear away the sin of the world. The revelation of His Father is to those to whom He has been introduced as Saviour. Jesus Christ never spoke of Himself to the world as one Who revealed the Father, but as a stumbling block (see John 15:22- 24). John 14:9 was spoken to His disciples.
That Christ died for me, therefore I go scot free, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that "He died for all" (not - He died my death), and that by identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have imparted to me His very righteousness. The substitution taught in the New Testament is twofold: "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." It is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 30, 2008
God-ography READ: Hebrews 11:1-6 Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. -Hebrews 11:6
A National Geographic News survey in 2006 reported that many young Americans are geographically illiterate. According to the survey, 63 percent of Americans aged 18-24 failed to correctly locate Iraq on a map of the Middle East. The results for US geography are even more dismal. Half could not find New York State on the map, a third could not find Louisiana, and 48 percent could not locate the state of Mississippi.
Understanding geography is helpful in daily life, but "God-ography" (finding God) is infinitely more crucial-for now and for eternity.
In Hebrews 11:6 we are told that to find God and please Him, we first have to believe that He exists. How can we prove that God exists? Finding God is a matter of faith-confidence in Him and commitment to Him. This confidence and commitment should remain strong even though the objects of our faith are unseen. The writer of Hebrews and the apostle John agree that ultimately the way to find the Lord and please Him is by believing in His Son Jesus (Heb. 11:6; John 14:6).
Finding God is solely a work of God. Those who seek Him will find Him because God will give them a heart to recognize Him as Lord (Jer. 29:13-14). - Marvin Williams
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, as He sought me;
It was not I who found, O Savior true;
No, I was found of Thee. -Anon.
To find God, we must be willing to seek Him.
Giving Joyfully Ray Stedman
READ: 2 Corinthians 8:16-9:15
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8)
True giving must be expectant. You are dealing with God, and He is able to give back. Many people get nervous about this. They say, "That is giving in order to be given to. That is selfish giving." I would grant that it is possible to view giving to God selfishly, but there is nothing wrong with recognizing that you will be benefited by your giving, because the Word everywhere tells us that. If you do not give, something happens to you. The boundaries of your experience are narrowed and reduced and you become a tight, stingy, Scroogelike person.
But, on the other hand, those who learn to give, and give for right reasons, become generous, gracious, godly-minded people. That is what Paul is talking about here. God is able to give back. It is not wrong for you to give with that recognition in mind, for everything we have ultimately comes from Him. When you eat a loaf of bread, you ought to remember the steps in producing it: the snowy flour, the mill, the field of wheat, the rain, and the Father's will. Therefore, everything comes from His hand.
If you give in order that you might have more to give, you are right in line with God's program. Yet your motivation should not be to spend on yourself. If you give so that there will be more for you to enjoy, then you are giving for wrong reasons. A lot of Christians are being taught that today. God delights to give, but His return is not always, by any means, material return. That is what the next verses show us: "You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God" (2 Corinthians 9:11-12).
Paul is saying that if you give according to the law of harvest, God will give back. And this is the form it will take: It will awaken gratitude in those to whom you give. In our church we have had the joy on many occasions of witnessing people publicly giving thanks, sometimes with tears running down their faces, for the way others have responded to their physical or material needs. I am delighted at that. It is a wonderful repayment for our giving, isn't it, to see people helped, blessed, and moved to give thanks for that.
Lord, indeed I have received much at Your hand. I did not deserve it, but it was given to me in Jesus Christ. May that free giving on Your part stimulate me to meet needs around me. Help me look for places to give, knowing that it increases my joy and delights Your heart.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body." 1 Corinthians 6:18 NLT
Thoughts for Today
This week we have discussed the fact that when it is in our power to change a situation that will likely cause us to sin and we choose not to act to change it, we are guilty of the sin of proximity-sometimes call the sin before the sin.
The sin before the sin involves the little decisions we make that set us up for temptation and sin. If we are to overcome the strongholds in our lives that constantly pull us in the wrong direction, we have to come to a place of radical obedience and do everything possible to eliminate those occasions for sin that are in our control.
Failing to take appropriate actions to eliminate the stumbling blocks that lead us to sin is a serious issue for many of us. Sexual temptation has presented itself to most of us at some time in our lives. Today's scripture advises us to run from sexual sin.
Consider this
With sexual sin, the longer we are in the presence of temptation the less likely we are to escape without sinning. It is so much better to avoid the sin before the sin. To run from the sin of proximity.
Stay in fellowship with Jesus. Turn to him for the strength you need. With him, you can do all things.
Prayer
Lord, help me to run from all temptation to be involved in sexual sin. Help me to run from the sin and run to you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Crossroads Group: Choosing the Road to Sexual Purity, by David E. Longacre, is for those who desire to continue to walk in purity, as well as for individuals who are already trapped and looking for a way out. It is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
FAITH By Oswald Chambers
"Without faith it is impossible to please Him." Hebrews 11:6
Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into a right relation. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual; of impulse and inspiration. Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails. Faith must be tried before the reality of faith is actual. "We know that all things work together for good," then no matter what happens, the alchemy of God's providence transfigures the ideal faith into actual reality. Faith always works on the personal line, the whole purpose of God being to see that the ideal faith is made real in His children.
For every detail of the common-sense life, there is a revelation fact of God whereby we can prove in practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle which always puts Jesus Christ first - Lord, Thou hast said so and so (e.g., Matthew 6:33), it looks mad, but I am going to venture on Thy word. To turn head faith into a personal possession is a fight always, not sometimes. God brings us into circumstances in order to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make its object real. Until we know Jesus, God is a mere abstraction, we can not have faith in Him; but immediately we hear Jesus say - "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," we have something that is real, and faith is boundless. Faith is the whole man rightly related to God by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals October 31, 2008
Who Is Your God? READ: Deuteronomy 6:1-6You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. -Deuteronomy 6:5
At a funeral, I once overheard someone say of the deceased, "He was close to his god. He's safe now."
At times like that, I wish it were true that everyone could have their own god, live in whatever way they wanted, and also be assured of eternal life in heaven. Then we wouldn't have to think too seriously about death. We wouldn't have to be concerned about where our unbelieving loved ones went when they died.
But the Scriptures say that there is only one true God. "The LORD our God, the LORD is one!" (Deut. 6:4). And He is holy (Lev. 19:2). He says that we don't measure up to His standard for a relationship with Him. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). Our sin has alienated us from Him.
In love, the heavenly Father provided the way to Himself through His perfect Son Jesus who died to pay the penalty for our sin. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). But we need to humble our hearts and receive His gift of forgiveness.
There is only one true God. He is holy and has provided the only way of eternal life through Jesus. Is He the God you are trusting in? Think about it-seriously. - Anne Cetas
FOR FURTHER STUDY
How do I know what is true about God and salvation? Is sincerity enough? Read Do I Have The Right Kind Of Faith? at www.discoveryseries.org/q0603
To get into heaven, it's who you know that counts.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
You Will Have Life
"But these are recorded so that you will believe that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing in Him you will have life" (John 20:31).
What a message you and I have to share. That is why John wrote this entire Gospel, so that we, first of all, might believe, but then also that we might share the good news with all who will listen.
"These are recorded" - the miracles presented in this gospel - so that we might believe. The goal of the book is two-fold: (1) to prove that Jesus was (is) Messiah and (2) that all those who look at the proof might be convinced and thus find eternal life.
The miracles, facts, arguments, instructions and conversations - all are directed toward that end. John's goal (to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah), if kept steadily in view will throw much light on the book. The argument is unanswerable, framed after the strictest rules of reasoning, infinitely beyond the skill of man, and having throughout the cleared evidence of demonstration.
All Scripture is given to us for a purpose. The purpose of this particular passage is crystal clear; hence it demands some kind of response from those of us who truly believe. To know the truth is not enough. We must act on it, trusting the Lord of the harvest to make us sensitive and alert to the spiritual needs of those around us.
Bible Reading: John 3:9-15
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will seek to be sensitive to the spiritual needs of all with whom I have contact.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure." 1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Once in the proximity of sexual temptation, the will to resist is low. The Borg on the science fiction Star Trek TV series claim that "resistance is futile." When we are in certain situations, we might feel that resistance to temptation really is futile. But it isn't.
For Christians, resistance to temptation is NEVER futile. In today's scripture, we are promised that others have had the same temptations that God won't allow more than we can stand and that he always provides a way out.
Don't believe the lie that you are the only one who has ever had this temptation. Don't believe the lie that it is more than you can bear. Don't believe the lie that there is no way out. God's promise tells us that resistance is NOT futile!
Consider this
We can escape temptation, but we cannot fight the battle alone. We need to first turn to Jesus-appeal to his mercy and grace-before we can resist even the urge to fulfill sinful desires.
It all circles back to Jesus. He is calling us to obedience, and he promises to give us the strength to do what he is telling us to do. If we will trust him and put him first in our lives, he will always give us the desire and power to do what pleases him.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for your assurance that my situation is not hopeless. I know that with your help I can overcome-and I really do want to overcome. Show me the way out. Help me to walk in obedience. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Crossroads Group: Choosing the Road to Sexual Purity, by David E. Longacre, is for those who desire to continue to walk in purity, as well as for individuals who are already trapped and looking for a way out. It is suggested for use in support groups and Christian counseling.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Trial of Faith
By Oswald Chambers
If you have faith as a mustard seed . . . nothing will be impossible for you -Matthew 17:20
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith- faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" ( 2 Corinthians 5:7 ). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is- "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" ( Job 13:15 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 1, 2008
"Gimme It!" READ: James 3:13-18 My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. -Isaiah 55:8
I heard the screams long before I could see him, but as I wheeled my grocery cart around to the next aisle of the store, there he was!
With angry tears streaming out of squinty eyes, the little boy was shouting, "Gimme it!" His mom glanced at me for a moment. I won't debate the merits of her actions, but, embarrassed and worn down, she grabbed the cheap trinket and tossed it into her cart.
I think I recognized that kid. He looked a lot like me. Yes, I've often been the willful child. And sometimes I've even pleaded with God, "Why not? Why can't I have it?" On occasion, God's given me what I wanted, but not because I wore Him down. No, I think He wanted me to see what happens when I put myself in charge.
What we think is best is not necessarily the best that God desires for us. In Isaiah 55:8, the Lord said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways."
In his book Days of Grace, tennis champion Arthur Ashe paraphrased James 1:5 when he wrote this advice to his young daughter: "Ask God for the wisdom to know what is right, what God wants done, and the will to do it."
That's just the kind of sincere prayer that God wants to hear from His children. - Cindy Hess Kasper
We can't presume to know what's best
When we begin to pray;
So we must ask, "What honors God?"
Then seek His will and way. -Sper
If God doesn't give us what we ask for, we can be sure that He has something far better.
Entering God's Presence through Praise
What is praise? It is adoration, thanksgiving, appreciation, and worship of our Lord and Savior. Praise flows from a relationship of love and devotion from us to the Lord. Praise brings us closer to Him. It changes us and helps us grow in our faith. Praise reminds us of who God is. A life filled with praise places us in a position to receive God's blessings.
C.S. Lewis said:
Only in acts of worship and praise can a person learn to believe in the goodness and the greatness of God. God wants us to praise Him not because He needs or craves in any sense our flattery, but because He knows that praise creates joy and thankfulness.
Praise is not something that we do for God. Nor is it something that we do in order to get God's approval so that He will grant our desires. When we praise God, we are changed-even if our circumstances are not. While God is present everywhere, all the time, He is present in a special way when His people praise Him.
Words are the expressions of our hearts. The Bible says, "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).
What happens to the person who continually complains about the problems and challenges of life?
If he only focuses on those things, he will lose sight of his eternal destiny. He may become pessimistic, even depressed. We all have tiring days, minor setbacks, and unexpected expenses. As believers, we can choose to find strength by praising God, or we may sink into despair.
Regardless of our problems or difficulties, when we praise God our focus shifts. We become aware, once again, of who He is and His love for us. Why wait? Praise God now and experience His power, which is capable of handling anything you might face.
You are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel (Psalm 22:3).
Learn how praise can make all the difference in your life. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Empowered by Praise." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
A Place Prepared for You
"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14:3, KJV).
Recently my 93-year-old father went to be with the Lord. Though I was saddened to realize that I would never see him again in this life, and I shed a few tears of sorrow for myself, at the same time I rejoiced in the knowledge that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
My father is now rejoicing in the presence of our wonderful God and Savior. One day I shall join with him, my mother (who is still living at 93), all my brothers and sisters who have declared their faith in Christ, and multitudes of other loved ones, friends and saints to spend eternity in that place where "eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard...what God hath prepared for those who love Him."
"I cannot think what we shall find to do in heaven," mused Martin Luther. "No change, no work, no eating, no drinking, nothing to do."
"Yes," responded a friend, "'Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'"
"Why, of course," said Luther, "that sight will give us quite enough to do!"
Joy of joys, you and I not only have been given purpose and power for living the supernatural, abundant life - by the indwelling Holy Spirit - but we have also been promised a place in His presence when this life is over. And, as Luther realized, we will then worship Him face to face throughout the endless ages of eternity.
We need not know exactly what heaven will be like; we need only know who will be there - our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That assurance and anticipation should motivate us to live the kind of supernatural life that burdens and concerns us about the needs of others, moment by moment, day by day.
Bible Reading: John 14:27-31
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Today I will meditate on the glory and beauty of my heavenly Father and my eternal home where I shall worship and have fellowship with my Lord throughout eternity. I will encourage loved ones, friends and strangers alike to prepare to go there also when their work on earth is done
"You Are Not Your Own"
By Oswald Chambers
Do you not know that . . . you are not your own? -1 Corinthians 6:19
There is no such thing as a private life, or a place to hide in this world, for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. God divides the private life of His saints and makes it a highway for the world on one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves. We are called into intimacy with the gospel, and things happen that appear to have nothing to do with us. But God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way. If you refuse, you will be of no value to God in His redemptive work in the world, but will be a hindrance and a stumbling block.
The first thing God does is get us grounded on strong reality and truth. He does this until our cares for ourselves individually have been brought into submission to His way for the purpose of His redemption. Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 2, 2008
Class Participation READ: Psalm 119:129-136The entrance of Your words gives light. -Psalm 119:130
As a high school teacher and college professor, I have observed that learning is a cooperative effort between the student and the instructor. That's why educators try to get the student involved in class participation. The teacher does some work; the student does some work. Together progress is made. Education happens.
In Psalm 119, the writer suggests a similar pattern in verses 129-136. God is the teacher; we are the students.
Let's look at God's role in our education. He shows us mercy (v.132). He guides our steps (v.133). And He redeems us from outside trouble (v.134).
But first we must be eager students, ready to accept God's teaching, guidance, and help. We should enter His classroom with anticipation: "The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. . . . I longed for Your commandments" (vv.130-131). In our role as students of God's Word, we should fulfill three requirements: (1) examine God's words for what they are teaching, (2) gain understanding from those words, and (3) obey His statutes.
It's time to enter God's classroom and listen and learn from Him. When we do, we'll look at God with renewed love and at the world with renewed concern (v.136). - Dave Branon
Thy Word is like a deep, deep mine,
And jewels rich and rare
Are hidden in its mighty depths
For every searcher there. -Hodder
Careful meditation on the Scriptures makes for a closer walk with the Savior.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Judging the World
"For He has set a day for justly judging the world by the man He has appointed, and has pointed Him out by bringing Him back to life again" (Acts 17:31).
Why does God command men and women to repent? And why does He expect you and me to relay His message to them?
The answer is simple: because "He has set a day for justly judging the world." And if people refuse to be penitent and thus become pardoned, they must be condemned.
"Justly," of course, can be interpreted: "according to the rules of strict justice." And who will do the judging? The man God has appointed - His only Son, Jesus Christ; the one He has pointed out to us clearly by bringing Him back to life again.
Jesus, you will remember, declared that He would judge the nations (John 5:25,26 and Matthew 25). God confirmed the truth of those declarations by raising Him from the dead - giving His sanction to what the Lord Jesus has said, for surely God would not work a miracle on behalf of an imposter. What comfort and help can you and I receive from these truths today? Surely, this is a reminder that God is still on the throne; He is in control; nothing is going on in the world without His knowledge and consent. Further, we are reminded of God's justice, which assures us that He will always do right in behalf of His children. That falls right in line with Romans 8:28, of course, which concerns all things working together for our good.
Bible Reading: Psalm 9:7-10
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: World turmoil will not upset me, for I know the God who sits on the throne - and who rules over all
Obedience or Independence?
By Oswald Chambers
If you love Me, keep My commandments -John 14:15
Our Lord never insists obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an "If," meaning, "You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so." "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . ." ( Luke 9:23 ). In other words, "To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me." Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26 ). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God's redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 3, 2008
God's Catalog READ: John 17:20-26 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. -John 13:35
Tis the season to receive catalogs in the mail. Every trip to the mailbox ends with an armload of slick holiday catalogs. Each one claims to offer me something I need-immediately. "Don't wait!" "Limited offer!" "Order now!"
The lure works. I open the pages to discover what I didn't know I needed. Sure enough, I see things that suddenly seem essential, even though a few minutes earlier I didn't know they existed. Manufacturers use catalog illustrations to create desire for their products.
In a way, Christians are God's catalogs. We are His illustration to the world of what He has to offer. His work in our lives makes us a picture of qualities that people may not know they need or want until they see them at work in us.
Jesus prayed that His followers would be unified so the world would know that God sent Him and loved them as God loved Him (John 17:23). When Christ is alive in us, we become examples of God's love. We can't manufacture love. God is the manufacturer, and we are His workmanship.
As you browse holiday catalogs, consider what the "catalog" of your life says about God. Do people see qualities in you that make them long for God? - Julie Ackerman Link
What does the world see in us
That they can't live without?
Do they see winsome qualities
And love that reaches out? -Sper
As a Christian, you are "God's advertisement." Do people want what they see in you?
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
He Welcomes You
"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, KJV).
Several years ago I had the privilege of meeting with a world-famous theologian. This great scholar had denied the deity of Christ and had taught thousands of seminarians who had studied under him that Jesus was only a great man and a great teacher. He was not God incarnate, and surely could not forgive sin and provide rest to His followers. Yet, in a unique way God had created a hunger in his heart for truth and for two years he had done an in-depth study of the life of Jesus.
As we met together in his office, he asked, "What do you tell a student when he asks you how to become a Christian?"
When I realized he was sincere, I proceeded to explain why I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and why all men everywhere need Him as their Savior and Lord, and how anyone who wants to can receive Him.
"I am persuaded," he said after a long while, "that no honest person who is willing to consider the overwhelming evidence for the deity of Christ can deny that He is the Son of God."
This great scholar, who had denied the deity of Christ all his life and encouraged millions of others to think likewise, bowed in prayer and received Christ into his life as Savior and Lord.
Jesus Christ stands out clearly as the one supernaturally unique figure in all of history. He is incomparable. He invites all who will to experience His love and forgiveness. "Come unto Me." He welcomes "all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest...My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Bible Reading: Matthew 11:23-27
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Through the enabling of the Holy Spirit, I will seek to make sure that every loved one, every friend, every contact I make today is fully aware of the fact that God loves him, that Jesus Christ died for him and will welcome him into His family through a simple act of faith. I will tell him that He offers peace and rest - from life's burdens - to all who follow Him in faith and obedience
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts." 1 Chronicles 28:9 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Our natural tendency as human beings is to be attracted to sameness and resist all that is different. We congregate with people who are like us-the same color, culture, social level or income bracket. We tend to mistrust and even resist anyone who is different.
People often judge others by what they see on the outside. They lump everyone from a particular racial or cultural group in one basket. They shun one another and even engage wars against each other based solely on racial identity.
Aren't you glad Jesus doesn't see us that way? He loves us regardless of our race or culture or career or income. He searches every heart. He is interested in what's inside.
Consider this
Let's ask Jesus to help us search other people's hearts and see them through his eyes. As God's creation ... designed in his image. Jesus gave his life for all people of all races and cultures. He sees everyone through eyes of love and compassion. He looks beyond faults to needs. It is time for us to let go of our prejudices and see others as Jesus does.
Prayer
Father, help me to see others through the eyes of Jesus. Reveal to me any prejudices I may have hidden in my heart. Forgive me, and help me to let go of them and the walls they create. Help me to stop looking at the outside and to truly search every heart. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation. This study shows that the foundational truth for the entire process of overcoming prejudice is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
A Bondservant of Jesus
By Oswald Chambers
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . . -Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, ". . . for My sake" ( Matthew 5:11 ). That is what makes a strong saint.
Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is-will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable-"I have been crucified with Christ . . . ."
The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God's call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 4, 2008
Choosing Our Leader READ: Joshua 24:14-25Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. -Joshua 24:15
Today, millions of people in the United States will cast their votes for a slate of political leaders, including President. After months of campaign speeches, television ads, and debates, each voter has the opportunity to say to one candidate, "I choose you." Not everyone's favorite will win, but every voter has a choice.
Unlike a political election in which the majority rules, each of us is given the opportunity to select our personal leader each day. In the spiritual election deep within our hearts, our choice will stand no matter what others may decide.
After many years in the Promised Land of Canaan, the aged Joshua called the people of Israel together and issued this challenge: "If it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:15). In a great collective response, the people said, "We will serve the Lord!" (v.21).
Everyone serves some kind of god. Whom will we choose to have rule in our hearts today? - David C. McCasland
Thy will I choose; I give to Thee
All of the life Thou gavest me;
Thy will I choose, no life I ask
Except to do Thy given task. -Anon.
Each day we choose the one we will follow in life.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Prayer Has Great Power
"Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results" (James 5:16).
"I can take my telescope and look millions and millions of miles into space," said the great scientist Sir Issac Newton , "but I can lay it aside and go into my room, shut the door, get down on my knees in earnest prayer, and see more of heaven and get closer to God than I can assisted by all the telescopes and material agencies on earth."
Among many other things, the carnal Christian is characterized by a poor prayer life. The spiritual Christian, on the other hand, is characterized by an effective fruitful prayer life.
Prayer is simply communicating with God by listening as well as talking. The acrostic ACTS is helpful in recalling the various components of effective prayer, though the order is not necessarily rigid.
"A" is for adoration - worship of God, first for who He is; and second for all of His benefits. He alone is worthy of our adoration and praise.
"C" stands for confession. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Sometimes this component should take priority, especially for the unbeliever and the disobedient believer, because God does not hear the prayers of the disobedient until they confess. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Psalms 66:18, KJV).
"T" is for thanksgiving - gratitude to God for His blessings.
"S" represents supplication - expressing our petitions to God for individuals and specific things and events.
Bible Reading: James 5:13-18
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will claim great power and wonderful results for supernatural living by a righteous life and by giving priority to prayer. I will remember to bring my adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication to God throughout the day
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know." 2 Corinthians 5:16 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Jesus doesn't look at how much we have in our bank account, or how talented we are, or what background we come from. He looks at our heart. Do you have a worldly point of view or a Christ-like point of view?
A worldly point of view considers how a person looks what a person possesses or lacks or who a person knows. Financially well-to-do people may avoid associating with the working class. People in lower income brackets may assume that everyone with money is stuck-up and unkind. But Jesus doesn't see people on a ledger sheet. He sees each of us as an individual with needs and desires and feelings.
Consider this
Are there people you avoid because of their social or financial standing? Remember that they are God's creation-just like you. A successful businessperson who seems aloof may need a friend to talk to. Another person might not have the college degrees you have, but could have godly wisdom that would make a difference in your life.
We need to leave the worldly point of view, with all its prejudices and misconceptions, behind. Ask God to help you see people through his eyes and reach out to them with his love.
Prayer
Father, help me not to evaluate people by what they have or how they look. Help me to have a Christ-like point of view and to respond to the real person, not what I see on the surface. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation. This study shows that the foundational truth for the entire process of overcoming prejudice is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Authority of Truth
By Oswald Chambers
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you -James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual-you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood-work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God's almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. "Come to Me . . ." ( Matthew 11:28 ). His word come means "to act." Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 4, 2008
Exploratory Procedure READ: Hebrews 4:11-16 The Word of God is living and powerful, . . . a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. -Hebrews 4:12
I have a friend who recently underwent a laryngoscopy. I winced as he explained how his doctor took a camera with a light on the end and stuck it down his throat to try to find the cause of his pain.
It reminded me that God's Word is like a laryngoscopy. It invades the unseen areas of our lives, exposing the diseased and damaged spiritual tissue that troubles us. If you're wincing at the thought of how uncomfortable this divine procedure might be, consider Jesus' words: "Everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed" (John 3:20). Internal intrusions may be uncomfortable, but do you really want the disease?
Welcoming God's Word to penetrate the deep, dark places of our hearts is the only way to find true healing and the spiritual health we long for. Believe me, the procedure will be thorough. As the writer of Hebrews assures, God's Word is "sharper than any two-edged sword" (4:12)-piercing all the way through the external stuff of our lives, all the way down to our thoughts, intentions, and motives.
So what are you waiting for? With God's Word you don't need an appointment. The divine Surgeon is ready when you are! - Joe Stowell
Ever present, truest Friend,
Ever near Thine aid to lend,
Guide us as we search the Word,
Make it both our shield and sword. -Anon.
Let God's Word explore your inner being.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
You Can Trust Him
"So don't worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the heathen? For they take pride in all these things and are deeply concerned about them. But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and He will give them to you if you give Him first place in your life and live as He wants you to" (Matthew 6:31-33).
As a young businessman, I was strongly attracted to the material things of the world and worked very hard to achieve success. But when I became a Christian, I could not ignore the logic of Christ's command, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33, KJV).
I made my commitment to obey His command. Since that day so many years ago, I have sought to be obedient to that command. The Lord has graciously and abundantly blessed me with the fulfillment of the promise of His supernatural provision which follows:
"You heavenly father already knows perfectly well (the things you need), and He will give them to you if you give Him first place in your life and live as He wants you to."
God is trustworthy, and the obedient, faithful Christian soon learns that he, life the psalmist of old, can proclaim:
"I have never seen the Lord forsake a man who loves Him, nor have I seen the children of the godly go hungry" (Psalm 37:25).
Bible Reading: Matthew 6:25-30
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Resting on the absolute certainties of the Word of God, I will refuse to worry about anything today (recognizing that concern involves others, while worry involves only myself). "All things work together for good to them that love God..." (Romans 8:28). "My God shall supply all your need..." (Philippians 4:19). By trusting these and other promises from God's word, I have no reason to worry
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"... People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 NLT
Thoughts for Today
It is said that you can't judge a book by its cover. You have to examine what is inside.
Isn't it the same with people? When we judge them by what is outside, we can miss what they are really all about. And yet, how often do we make quick judgments about individuals based only on what we see
"Look at that that girl has three earrings in her nose! She must be wild and weird." "Look at those tattoos. I'll bet he's never set a foot in church." "I can't understand that religious fanatic. He is more heavenly minded than earthly good."
Because of what we see on the outside, we judge, reject or just ignore "those kinds of people." We never try to get to know them. And so we may miss an opportunity to encourage to help or even to be blessed ourselves by the good inside of them that we'll never see.
Aren't you glad Jesus doesn't look just at the outside of us? That he cares enough to see what's really going on inside?
Consider this
The next time you come into contact with someone who looks or acts a little different, ask God for Christ-like vision. Spend some time getting to know the individual. you might be in for some pleasant surprises!
Prayer
Father, thank you for looking at my heart, for caring enough to see the "real me." Help me to do the same when I look at others. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation. This study shows that the foundational truth for the entire process of overcoming prejudice is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Partakers of His Suffering READ: . . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings . . . -1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, "Oh, I can't deal with that person." Why can't you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.
The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered "according to the will of God" ( 1 Peter 4:19 ), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God's purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God's orders through a shortcut of their own. God's way is always the way of suffering- the way of the "long road home."
Are we partakers of Christ's sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through- we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize- "God has strengthened me and I didn't even know it!"
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 6, 2008
Serve Or Die READ: Mark 10:35-45 The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. -Mark 10:45
Dr. Paul Brand told me of a memorable Frenchman named Pierre, who had served in Parliament until he became disillusioned with the slow pace of political change. During a harsh winter, many Parisian beggars froze to death. In desperation, Pierre became a friar to work among them and organize the beggars themselves.
They divided into teams to scour the city for bottles. Next, he led them to build a warehouse out of discarded bricks and start a business processing the bottles. Finally, he gave each beggar responsibility to help another poorer than himself. The project caught on. In a few years he founded the charitable organization Emmaus.
Eventually, there were few beggars to be found in Paris. So Pierre went to India. "If I don't find people worse off than my beggars," he said, "this movement could turn inward. They'll become a powerful, rich organization, and the whole spiritual impact will be lost. They'll have no one to serve."
At a leprosy colony in India, Pierre met patients worse off than his former beggars. Returning to France, he mobilized the beggars to build a leprosy ward at a hospital in India.
"It is you who have saved us," he told the grateful patients. "We must serve or we die." - Philip Yancey
THINKING IT THROUGH
In Mark 10:35-37, what did James and John seek?
What did Jesus say about the world's authority? (v.42).
How are followers of Christ to be different? (vv.43-45).
If you want a field of service, look around you.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
How to Obey God's Laws
"So now we can obey God's laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us" (Romans 8:4).
Are you not glad that the Word of God make things so simple? If we really want to obey God's laws, His resources are available to us. First and foremost, the Holy Spirit abides within to guide us. While it is true that we have all of the Holy Spirit at the time of conversion, we cannot expect the full blessing and power of God until the Holy Spirit has full control of all of us.
As we appropriate the fullness of His Holy Spirit by faith, we are supplied with supernatural power to obey God's laws. That supernatural power, even, is contingent upon our cooperation in that we must not only commit ourselves to the Holy Spirit but we must also be familiar with the Word of God if we are indeed to obey its commands.
Obedience is a key word in the Christian life. This verse points it out quite clearly, for we either obey God's laws or we obey the old evil nature. The choice is ours as we are controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Someone has well pointed out that all of life, really, is nothing more nor less than a series of choices. The secret of the successful Christian life is in making the right choices. And even the wisdom to make the right choices is available - as a gift from God.
That leaves us, you and me, without excuse. We can, if we choose, through the enabling of the Holy Spirit, obey God's laws and thus accomplish His purpose for us as believers.
Bible Reading: Galatians 5:16-26
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Drawing upon the supernatural resources of the Holy Spirit I choose to obey God's laws rather than yield to the pull of my old evil nature
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God." Ephesians 5:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Society teaches us to judge the value of a person by outward characteristics-education, wealth, beauty and so forth. This kind of value system opens the door for envy, jealousy and division. It teaches us to judge not only others in these terms, but ourselves as well. We may begin to think that we are worthless unless we have a college degree or a power job or are thin and beautiful.
The Bible tells us that we are all valuable in God's eyes. Not because of what we do or don't do-but because he loves us and created us in his image. Because Jesus died for us. The Bible teaches that God treasures us ... we are precious to him.
This is how we should view others-as valuable and precious to God. Not because of their career success or lack of it, not because of who they know, not because of how they look or how intelligent they are-but because Jesus loved them enough to die for them.
Consider this
Do you have a biblical point of view when you look at people? We shouldn't look down-or up-to people because of their social position or bank account or career success. We shouldn't think they are better if they wear designer clothes or drive expensive cars. And we shouldn't let their race or cultural background determine their worth in our eyes.
Ask Jesus to help you know and appreciate people for who they really are-on the inside. Ask him to help you follow his example and see them through his eyes ... and love them with his love.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for your assurance that you love me and value me-not because of what I have or how I look-but because you love me and created me in your image. Because Jesus died for me. Help me to follow your example and begin to love others with your kind of love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation. This study shows that the foundational truth for the entire process of overcoming prejudice is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Intimate Theology READ: Do you believe this? -John 11:26
Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But- she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha's theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance- "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ . . ." ( John 11:27 ).
Is the Lord dealing with you in the same way? Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal intimacy with Himself? Allow Him to drive His question home to you- "Do you believe this?" Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a personal problem brings the awareness of our personal need.
To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone.
Then, when I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me, "Do you believe this?" I find that faith is as natural as breathing. And I am staggered when I think how foolish I have been in not trusting Him earlier
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 7, 2008
Waiting READ: Psalm 70 Make haste to help me, O Lord! -Psalm 70:1
Make haste to help me, O Lord!" the psalmist David prayed (Ps. 70:1).
Like him, we don't like to wait. We dislike the long lines at super-market checkout counters, and the traffic jams downtown and around shopping malls. We hate to wait at the bank or at a restaurant.
And then there are the harder waits: a childless couple waiting for a child; a single person waiting for marriage; an addict waiting for deliverance; a spouse waiting for a kind and gentle word; a worried patient waiting for a diagnosis from a doctor.
What we wait for, however, is far less important than what God is doing while we wait. In such times He works in us to develop those hard-to-achieve spiritual virtues of meekness, kindness, and patience with others. But more important, we learn to lean on God alone and to "rejoice and be glad" in Him (v.4).
F. B. Meyer said, "What a chapter might be written of God's delays! It is the mystery of the art of educating human spirits to the finest temper of which they are capable. What searchings of heart, what analyzings of motives, what testings of the Word of God, what upliftings of soul. . . . All these are associated with those weary days of waiting, which are, nevertheless, big with spiritual destiny." - David H. Roper
Be still, My child, and know that I am God!
Wait thou patiently-I know the path you trod.
So falter not, nor fear, nor think to run and hide,
For I, thy hope and strength, am waiting by thy side. -Hein
God stretches our patience to enlarge our soul.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
No Other Savior
"There is salvation in no one else! Under all heaven there is no other name for men to call upon to save them" (Acts 4:12).
As a young sceptic, I had difficulty believing in the resurrection, for I could not believe in the supernatural. But as I became aware of the uniqueness of Jesus and of the different quality of life that was His, I was forced to reconsider the biblical claim to His resurrection.
Since it is a matter of historical fact that the tomb in which His dead body was placed was empty three days later, I set out to discover if the tomb could have been empty on any other basis than the biblical claim that He had been raised from the dead. In my research, I learned that there were three different theories explaining the empty tomb.
First, it was proposed that He was not really dead but had fainted from the loss of blood on the cross, and that He recovered in the cool of the tomb (this notion is today expounded by certain skeptics under the name of the "swoon theory"). Second, it was conceivable that Jesus' body was stolen by His enemies; or third, that it was stolen by the disciples.
Experience and logic have forced me to discount all three of these theories as impossibilities. First, Jesus could never have moved the stone or escaped from the guards in His weakened condition. Second, Jesus' enemies had no reason to steal His body since they did not want to give credence to a belief in His resurrection. Even if they had stolen the body, they could simply have produced it to discount the resurrection.
Third, the disciples who deserted Jesus at His trial and crucifixion were the same men who, having seen Him after His resurrection, spent the rest of their lives telling everyone who would listen, even at the cost of their own lives, that Jesus was alive. Ask yourself this question, "Would the disciples be willing to die as martyrs propagating a lie?"
Christianity alone has a living Savior; in Him alone is salvation.
Bible Reading: Romans 10:9-13
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Several times today, as the Holy Spirit prompts me, I will remember to thank God for the gift of His Son as my personal Savior and will tell someone else that Jesus is alive and wants to be his Savior, too
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:14 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This week we have discussed the fact that society tends to rate people according to race, gender, class and worldly achievements. But none of these things are significant in the eyes of Christ. He sees all people as equal. All have sinned All need forgiveness Jesus died for all All who receive his gift of life are forgiven and will live with him in heaven forever.
Jesus doesn't treat us differently because of our worldly achievements or economic class or race or gender. He sees every one of us as special.
Understanding all this should change the way we view people. Each of us is special to God because he created us and we are fearfully and wonderfully made. He loves every individual. And each person should be special to us because they are special to God.
Consider this
We need to ask God to help us see each other through his eyes so that the walls we have built between the races and the social classes ... and denominations ... will fall. So that we will see each other as individuals and reach out to one another in understanding. So that we will look beyond fault to need. So that we will see with the eyes of Jesus and reach out to each other in his love.
Prayer
Lord, help me to remember that each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made by you, our creator. Teach me to look beyond fault to need. Teach me to see with your eyes. Teach me to love with your love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
One Nation Under God: Toward Race Reconciliation. This study shows that the foundational truth for the entire process of overcoming prejudice is oneness in Christ. This guide discusses the barriers and shows how to make Christ visible through love in action. It also offers the way to strengthen and bond relationships. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Visit our website to read more about this study and learn more about Living Free small groups.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can't understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, "I'm going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that." All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession- utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, ". . . but the Spirit Himself makes intercession" in each of our lives ( Romans 8:26 ). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 8, 2008
Flawed And Frail
READ: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. -1 Corinthians 1:27
One of my boyhood heroes was Davy Crockett, the "King of the Wild Frontier." I looked up to him, admiring his courage and exploits.
Years later, my brother gave me a book that traced the experiences of the real-life David Crockett. I was surprised by his humanness. The real Davy Crockett made mistakes and had serious personal problems. The book depicted him as both flawed and frail.
This was both disappointing and reassuring to me. It was disappointing because he was less than I had come to believe, but reassuring because that reality made Crockett more accessible to me-and even more of a hero.
In the Bible we see that God consistently used people who were far less than perfect. That shouldn't surprise us. God is glorified by showing Himself strong through our weaknesses. It shows us that He desires to work through our lives not because we are perfect but because He is. And since He uses weak and foolish things (1 Cor. 1:27), it means you and I are prime candidates for His work.
The Lord isn't looking for superheroes. He uses those of us who are flawed and frail, so that He can show His strength and grace. He wants those with a willing and available heart. - Bill Crowder
It's not in the flash of the style that you hone,
Nor all the degrees you've compiled;
The Savior is looking for servants who own
The warm, willing heart of a child. -Gustafson
In God's service, our greatest ability is our availability.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Claiming the Promise
"But when I am afraid, I will put my confidence in You. Yes, I will trust the promises of God. And since I am trusting Him, what can mere man do to me?" (Psalm 56:3,4).
Raymond and Martha were active church members and gave generously to the needs of the fellowship. But their real security, as Raymond shared, was largely in monetary holdings. After working hard for many years to build a financial empire, they had nothing to worry about. They were on "Easy Street" and could do anything for the rest of their lives, confident of being able to pass on a sizable fortune to their children and grandchildren.
But at this point, Raymond turned over the reins of his business to a trusted employee who, through mismanagement and embezzlement, coupled with a severe economic depression, was able to destroy in approximately two years what had taken Raymond more than thirty years to accumulate.
Devastated and fearful, Raymond and Martha turned to God and His Word. As they claimed God's promises, the Savior whom they had professed to know but had not really known, became a reality in their lives. They became joyful, radiant and victorious. Though they had lost almost everything materially, they had, in the process, gained all that was really important. Now their trust was in the Lord who filled their lives with His love and grace. They passed on God's blessing to others, including me.
Bible Reading: Psalm 25:4-10
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will not wait until personal tragedy, physical illness, financial reverses, heartache or sorrow cross my path, but will place my confidence in the Lord and in his Word and begin now to draw upon His supernatural resources to live a full and meaningful life for His glory
Transforming Your Life
When a person does a job well, we find ourselves wanting to praise him. But what about our praise to the Lord for who He is and what He has done for us? Charles Spurgeon writes:
The Lord always deserves to be praised for what He is in Himself, for His works of creation and providence, for His goodness towards His creatures, and especially for the transcendent act of redemption.
Praise is a constant reminder of God's unconditional love, His all-knowing wisdom, and His unchanging power. The more realistic we are about our weaknesses and faults, the more we comprehend God's graciousness toward us.
Spurgeon goes on to say, "It is always beneficial to praise the Lord; it cheers the day and brightens the night; it lightens toil and softens sorrow."
Praise reminds of us of who God is, and who we really are-sinful human beings, redeemed and saved solely by the grace of God. Without Christ we are nothing, but in Christ we have every good thing.
Because Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of mankind, those who believe in Him have newness of life and the promise of eternity with Him. But we don't have to wait for eternity to enter God's presence. Through praise we can enter His presence every minute of every day.
As we praise God, He begins to work in our lives, conforming us to His image. Our prayer should be, "Lord, make me into the person You desire me to be." His power will transform your life and give you strength and hope for what He has called you to do.
Whatever your past difficulties may be, there continues to be many reasons to praise the Lord. For it is through our praise that we enter His presence-into His very throne room. There is no better place to be.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands (Psalm 63:4).
Learn how praise can make all the difference in your life. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Empowered by Praise." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world.
Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered -Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don't often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
"He," the Holy Spirit in you, "makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God" ( Romans 8:27 ). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . ." (1 Corinthians 6:19 ). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, ". . . He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple" ( Mark 11:16 ). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer . . . . But you have made it a 'den of thieves' " (Mark 11:17 ).
Have we come to realize that our "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit"? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a "temple of the Holy Spirit." He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don't know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 9, 2008
They Never Meet
READ: Psalm 103:6-14 You have cast all my sins behind Your back. -Isaiah 38:17
Did you know that the farthest point east and the farthest point west in the United States are both in Alaska? It's a geographical trick, actually. Pochnoi Point in the Aleutians is as far west as you can go and still be in the US. But if you travel a few miles farther west, you'll end up at Alaska's Amatignak Island. Because that spot is west of the 180th meridian separating the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, it is technically east of the rest of the US.
But you'll never find a spot where east and west are actually next to each other. In going west, you never "find" east. East goes on forever. West goes on forever. They never meet. You can't get farther from something than that.
What difference does this make? Just this: When you read in Scripture that your forgiven sins are separated from you "as far as the east is from the west" (Ps. 103:12), you are assured that they are an immeasurable distance away-gone forever. If that's not enough, try this: God says, "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins" (Isa. 43:25).
Concerned about your sins? Through Jesus' death on the cross, God is able to say, "What sins?" But He will do that only if you put your faith in His Son. - Dave Branon
"Oh, East is East, and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet."
So far has God removed our sins:
Salvation is complete. -Hess
We invite defeat when we remember what we should forget.
Lazarus
by Max Lucado
Marys need to remember that service is worship.
Marthas need to remember that worship is service.
And Lazarus? He needs to remember that not everyone can play the trumpet.
You see, as far as we know, Lazarus did nothing at the dinner. He saved his actions for outside the house. Read carefully John 12:9:
"A large crowd of Jews heard that Jesus was in Bethany. So they went there to see not only Jesus, but Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. So the leading priests made plans to kill Lazarus, too. Because of Lazarus many Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus."
Wow! Because of Lazarus many Jews were "believing in Jesus." Lazarus has been given a trumpet. He has a testimony to give-and what a testimony he has!
"I was always a good fellow," he would say. "I paid my bills. I loved my sisters. I even enjoyed being around Jesus. But I wasn't one of the followers. I didn't get as close as Peter and James and those guys. I kept my distance. Nothing personal. I just didn't want to get carried away.
"But then I got sick. And then I died. I mean, I died dead.
"Nothing left. Stone-cold. No life. No breath. Nothing. I died to everything. I saw life from the tomb. And then Jesus called me from the grave. When he spoke, my heart beat and my soul stirred, and I was alive again. And I want you to know he can do the same for you."
God gave Martha a bass drum of service. God gave Mary a flute for praise. And God gave Lazarus a trumpet. And he stood on center stage and played it.
God still gives trumpets. God still calls people from the pits. God still gives pinch-me-I'm-dreaming, too-good-to-be-true testimonies. But not everyone has a dramatic testimony. Who wants a band full of trumpets?
Some convert the lost. Some encourage the saved. And some keep the movement in step. All are needed.
If God has called you to be a Lazarus, then testify. Remind the rest of us that we, too, have a story to tell. We, too, have neighbors who are lost. We, too, have died and been resurrected.
From
Cast of Characters
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008) Max Lucado
Sacred Service I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . . -Colossians 1:24
The Christian worker has to be a sacred "go-between." He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual's personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker's life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.
When we say, "What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!" then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 10, 2008
Gossip-Free Zone READ: Proverbs 25:8-18 A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow. -Proverbs 25:18
In some offices, you can get fired for gossiping. According to a 2002 survey, the average employee gossips 65 hours a year. One Chicago firm decided to become a "gossip-free zone." They require that employees never talk badly about co-workers behind their backs. If you're caught, you lose your job.
A ministry for people in the entertainment industry takes a refreshing alternative to gossip. They combat it with prayer. Instead of putting down famous people who get in trouble with bad choices, they encourage people to pray for them.
Among God's commands to His people is "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Ex. 20:16). While this may be talking primarily about lying at judicial proceedings, gossip could also be included in the command because it violates the law of love toward our neighbor. Proverbs uses strong language to describe this use of our words. It's like "a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow" against others (25:18).
Gossip feeds into our natural desires to feel superior to others and to belong or fit in, so combating it in our personal lives can be a challenge. But if we choose to love through prayer, our lives can be a gossip-free zone. - Anne Cetas
Lord, forgive us for speaking carelessly
about others to make ourselves look better.
Help us to think before we speak. Teach us
to be loving with our words. Amen.
You can never justify gossip.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Before We Even Call
"I will answer them before they even call to Me. While they are still talking to Me about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!" (Isaiah 65:24).
Allenby's Bridge, which spans the Jordan River, was built to honor the man whom God used to lead the miraculous conquest of Jerusalem with the firing of a single gun.
Allenby recalled how, as a little boy when he use to lisp his evening prayers, he was taught to repeat after his mother the closing part of the prayer:
"And, O Lord, we will not forget They ancient people, Israel. Lord, hasten the day when Israel truly shall be thy people and shall be restored to They favor and to their land."
"I never knew then," Allenby said at a reception in London, "that God would give me the privilege of helping to answer my own childhood prayers."
Even more wonderful than that kind of divine providence is the truth expressed in Isaiah 65:24 (KJV): "Before they call I will answer." I have seen this promise fulfilled many times in the global program of Campus Crusade for Christ. Even during the time we have prayed for desperate needs - financial and otherwise - God was already laying it upon the hearts of His faithful people to respond.
What a great comfort to know that we serve that kind of God!
Bible Reading: Isaiah 65:18-25
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Even as I pray for the needs of others and myself today, I will remember the power and faithfulness of God who has already begun to answer even before I ask
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Romans 12:15 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Are you trying to help someone with a problem? Developing certain qualities in your relationship will enable you to help your friend more effectively. We will be looking at some of those traits this week. One of these qualities is called empathy.
There is a difference between empathy and sympathy. With accurate empathy, we can correctly perceive the feelings of another person without being captured by that person's emotions. If we sympathize, we may actually feel what our friend feels, preventing us from being objective in a helping relationship since we are likely to be caught up in our hurting friend's emotions. The focus may become pity and prevent healing. Compassion and understanding assist the helper in perceiving the other person's feelings and experiences accurately.
Consider this
The key to accurate empathy is understanding the pain while remaining in a neutral position. As a helper, set your goal to feel with the hurting person instead of feeling what the individual feels.
Even if you've never experienced the same hurts as your friend, with accurate empathy you can help. A helping relationship starts with the development of empathy.
Prayer
Father, I really want to help my hurting friend. And I'd like to develop stronger relationships with all my friends. Teach me to feel with them. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding the Times. This book by Dr. Jimmy Lee offers biblical strategies for ministry to our family and friends. Contemporary issues and needs faced by society are addressed with biblical principles that are timeless. Ideal for small group leaders and Sunday school teachers who want a better understanding of ministry in an addictive culture. The qualities described in this week's devotions are derived from Gary Sweeten's work in Apples of God I and II. We appreciate his contribution.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Fellowship in the Gospel. . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . -1 Thessalonians 3:2
After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God's interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.
I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, "Lord, this causes me such heartache." To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy "world within the world," and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being "frost-bitten."
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 11, 2008
No Greater Love READ: John 15:9-17 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. -John 15:13
Melbourne, Australia, is home to the Shrine of Remembrance, a war memorial honoring those who died for their country. Built following World War I, it has since been expanded to honor those who served in subsequent conflicts.
It's a beautiful place, with reminders of courage and devotion, but the highlight of the shrine is a hall containing a carved stone that simply reads, "Greater Love Hath No Man." Every year on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:00 a.m., a mirror reflects the sun's light onto the stone to spotlight the word love. It is a poignant tribute to those who gave their lives.
We honor the memory of those who paid the ultimate price for freedom. Yet the words on that stone carry a far greater meaning. Jesus spoke them the night before He died on the cross for the sins of a needy world (John 15:13). His death was not for freedom from political tyranny but freedom from the penalty of sin. His death was not just to give us a better life, but to give us eternal life.
It is important to remember those who have given their lives for their country-but may we never forget to praise and honor the Christ who died for a dying world. Truly, there is no greater love than this. - Bill Crowder
There is no greater love than that of Christ above,
That made Him stoop to earth, become a Man,
And by His death provide redemption's plan;
There is no greater love. -Peterson
© Renewal 1983, John W. Peterson Music Company.
The cross of Jesus is the supreme evidence of the love of God.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Living the Godly Life
"As God's messenger I give each of you God's warning: Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how much faith God has given you" (Romans 12:3).
A newly appointed director of affairs for our ministry came to me for counsel after being given his assignment. "Tell me," he inquired, "what are the biggest problems that I will encounter in my new area of responsibility?"
"Three major ones," I responded. "First, pride, the problem that causes Satan to seek a place of authority over God Himself, resulting in his expulsion from the heavenly kingdom. Since creation, man's greatest problem has been pride - thinking more highly of oneself than one ought to think.
"Your second problem will be materialism - the desire to accumulate wealth, to live the good life, to keep up with the Joneses with better houses, cars, clothes, and security.
"And the third problem will be sex, the temptation to immorality. Man's second greatest drive after self-perservation is sex. In the marriage bond, sex is one of the most beautiful of the God-given privileges. But out of marriage, it results in grieving and quenching the Spirit and, ultimately, in the discipline of God. Therefore, be faithful to the wife that God has given you and love her as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25).
"Keep yourself humble by God's power. Seek the simple life and be motivated and constrained by the love of God for the souls of men, rather than for the good things of this world."
This is my counsel to all of our staff. It is my message to all Christian leaders and to all who seek to live godly lives.
The highways and byways of the world are littered with men and women of great talent and ability who are no longer being used of God. The fire has gone out of their hearts; the smile is gone from their faces. They harvest no fruit for the kingdom. They have fallen, thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think, after the example of Satan, the author of pride.
God's Word admonishes us to think soberly, wisely, prudently and modestly. The faith which we each have is a gift from God, measure by Him. That fact alone should produce in you and me a true, humility, changing any feeling of pride to one of gratitude. The truly humble person regards God as the source of all blessings.
Bible Reading: Ephesians 4:1-6
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: When the temptation comes to think more highly of myself than I ought to think, with God's help I will remember that everything I have is a gift of His grace. I will humble myself before God and man and, by faith, live a supernatural, godly life, dedicated to the extension of His kingdom
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Let us have real warm affection for one another as between brothers Romans 12:10 Phillips
Thoughts for Today
Yesterday we looked at the importance of developing the quality of empathy in order to more effectively help a loved one struggling with a problem. Another essential quality is warmth.
Genuine warmth is communicated more by our actions than by what we actually say. Speaking the right words will most likely be totally ineffective if our body language reflects condemnation or impatience or if we seem distracted or unfocused.
A caring tone of voice, eye contact, non-possessive touch, pleasant facial expressions, friendly gestures and a relaxed stance impart a sense of warmth and caring. A warm voice and a caring touch can bring peace and calmness to a brokenhearted person. Warmth communicates openness and lessens defensiveness.
Consider this
When planning to meet with a hurting friend, set aside time when you can focus and not feel rushed. Pray for him or her before you meet. Ask God to make you sensitive to the need. This preparation will help you show the warmth of caring. You won't just be saying words-your heart attitude will be reflected in body language that will help create an environment for encouragement and healing.
Prayer
Father, help me help my friend. May my heart be filled with your compassion and may my body language reflect the warmth of caring. In all ways, help me to demonstrate real warm affection. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding the Times. This book by Dr. Jimmy Lee offers biblical strategies for ministry to our family and friends. Contemporary issues and needs faced by society are addressed with biblical principles that are timeless. Ideal for small group leaders and Sunday school teachers who want a better understanding of ministry in an addictive culture. The qualities described in this week's devotions are derived from Gary Sweeten's work in Apples of God I and II. We appreciate his contribution.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Supreme Climb He said, 'Take now your son . . .' -Genesis 22:2
God's command is, "Take now," not later. It is incredible how we debate! We know something is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately. If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later- it must be done now. And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we actually perform it.
"So Abraham rose early in the morning . . . and went to the place of which God had told him" ( Genesis 22:3 ). Oh, the wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not "confer with flesh and blood" ( Galatians 1:16 ). Beware when you want to "confer with flesh and blood" or even your own thoughts, insights, or understandings- anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.
Abraham did not choose what the sacrifice would be. Always guard against self-chosen service for God. Self-sacrifice may be a disease that impairs your service. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it. But never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, "I will only go to there, but no farther." God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed. If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him. You must go through the trial before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because by going through the trial you learn to know God better. God is working in us to reach His highest goals until His purpose and our purpose become one
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 12, 2008
Out Of Obscurity READ: 2 Kings 22:3-11 I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord. -2 Kings 22:8
In an old house close to a Civil War battleground in Virginia, workers are painstakingly restoring graffiti. Unsightly scribbling similar to what we scrub from public view is considered a clue to knowledge of the past. Workers are ecstatic when a new letter or word emerges from obscurity to provide information that has remained hidden for over 145 years.
The story brings to mind a scene in ancient Israel when Hilkiah the priest found the long lost book of the law in the temple of the Lord. The very words of God, entrusted to the nation of Israel, had been ignored, forgotten, and eventually lost. But King Josiah was determined to follow the Lord, so he instructed the priest to restore worship in the temple. In the process, the Law of Moses was discovered.
But an even greater discovery was yet to be made. Many years later, after meeting Jesus, Philip reported to his friend Nathanael: "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law" (John 1:45 NIV).
People today get excited about discovering the scribbles of Civil War soldiers. How much more exciting it is to discover the words of Almighty God expressed in the Word made flesh, Jesus the Messiah. - Julie Ackerman Link
The treasures of the Word of God
Are great beyond compare;
But if we do not search them out,
We cannot use what's there. -Sper
The Bible is old, but its truths are always new.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Satisfies God's Requirements
"Love does no wrong to anyone. That's why it fully satisfies all of God's requirements. It is the only law you need" (Romans 13:10).
Early in my Christian life, I was troubled over the command to love God so completely, as I mentioned in yesterday's reading. How could I ever measure up to such a high standard? Then He showed me how to love by faith.
We are to love God. We are to love our neighbors. We are to love our enemies. We are to love our family members. And we are to love ourselves with God's kind of love, by faith.
Since the greatest commandment is to love God, we are to give Him our first love, never allowing anyone or anything to come before Him. And supernaturally, we are to express the agape kind of love to others - a love no less in its quality and magnitude than that which we express toward God.
In the same way, God loves all His children perfectly. He loves you and me just as much as He loves His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (John 17:23).
The person who has not yet learned to love God and to seek Him above all else and all others is to be pitied. Such a person is only denying himself the blessings that await all who love God with all their heart, soul and mind.
It is natural for us to fulfill the command to love our neighbors as ourselves if we truly love God in the way mentioned above. If we are properly related to God, vertically, we will be properly related to our fellow man, horizontally.
Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 13
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: By faith I will claim God's love - for Him, for my neighbors, for myself, for my enemies - and as a result do only good, which is a result of supernatural living
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Show proper respect to everyone." 1 Peter 2:17 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The third vital quality we need to develop in helping a hurting loved one-and in every relationship-is respect. People with life-controlling problems might not seem to deserve our respect, but our respect for them could be one of the keys to their healing. Even if their life is controlled by destructive behaviors, people deserve respect as a human being.
Respecting loved ones with a life-controlling problem doesn't mean you should own their problem or rescue them from taking responsibility for their behavior. It does mean you should treat them as equals and not put them down.
How is this possible? First, you need to separate them from their behavior. Look beyond their wrong behavior and see them as God's creation. Even though you cannot respect their wrongdoing, you can respect them as a person.
Second, remember that God loves us no matter what we do. He gave us free will even though we sometimes use that freedom in harmful ways. Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. If God shows us this kind of love and respect, how can we do less for each other?
Consider this
Ask God to help you love and respect people as his creation even when you can't respect what they are doing. Difficult? Yes. But with Christ, all things are possible.
Prayer
Lord, teach me to separate people from their behavior and learn to love and respect them as your creation. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding the Times. This book by Dr. Jimmy Lee offers biblical strategies for ministry to our family and friends. Contemporary issues and needs faced by society are addressed with biblical principles that are timeless. Ideal for small group leaders and Sunday school teachers who want a better understanding of ministry in an addictive culture. The qualities described in this week's devotions are derived from Gary Sweeten's work in Apples of God I and II. We appreciate his contribution.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Changed LifeIf anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is- has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above- you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I "walk in the light as He is in the light" ( 1 John 1:7 ), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 13, 2008
Whom Will You Trust? READ: Philippians 3:1-11
By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. -Ephesians 2:8
Ayn Rand, an American philosopher who died in 1982, gathered a sizable following who read her books and attended her lectures. An avid individualist, she had this to say: "Now I see the free face of god and I raise this god over all the earth, this god who men have sought since men came into being, the god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word, I." When asked if she believed in God, she answered, "This god is myself, I." Egotism-faith in oneself-that's what this philosopher believed in.
The apostle Paul bore witness to a trust that is exactly the opposite of that misplaced self-confidence. He declared, "[We] worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3). He put his trust solely in Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, the true God of love and mercy.
We read in the book of Ephesians, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (2:8).
Are we embracing the philosophy of egotism, which is really a confidence that will prove eternally self-destructive? Or have we, like Paul, embraced the self-sacrificing grace of Jesus Christ? - Vernon C. Grounds
By grace now I'm saved-Hallelujah!
Praise God, and through faith it's been done;
Naught of myself, but believing
In the finished work of His Son. -Gladwin
We are saved not by what we do but by trusting what Christ has done.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Wonderful Friendship
"God will surely do this for you, for He always does just what He says, and He is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with His Son, even Christ our Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:9).
You and I do not always prove faithful, but the apostle Paul wants us to know, by way of his letter to the believers in Corinth, that our God will surely do what He has promised; in this case, make us "blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (verse 8).
The apostle wants the Corinthians to know that they can depend upon the faithfulness of God, who had begun a good work among them, and certainly would see them through to the end. He did the inviting; He would do the keeping.
Christians are able to participate with Christ in several ways. First in His trials and sufferings, for we are subjected to temptations and trials similar to His: "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings" (1 Peter 4:13, KJV).
Second, in His feelings and views (Romans 8:9).
Third, in His heirship to the inheritance and glory which awaits Him: "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17, KJV).
Fourth, in His triumph in the resurrection and future glory: "Ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28, KJV).
Are you not glad for that kind of friendship?
Bible Reading: 2 Thessalonians 3:3-5
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: When I look for a faithful friend, my first thought will be of Christ Himself, who truly qualifies as my very best friend
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed. You can't hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known." Luke 12:2 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Many of us wear a mask. We don't want other people to know the "real us." And yet, if we want to help someone we care about who is struggling with a problem, we need to take off the mask and be real. This quality of being genuine will enable us to be more effective in relationships with those we want to help-actually, in any relationship.
If people you are trying to help believe that you are a phony, they are not going to trust you with what you say and do. They need to see you living a consistent life from day to day, whether you are at church or on the job or having a good time with friends. They need to hear you be honest about your feelings-although you do need to find a balance. Don't be so transparent that you hurt or offend people with your honesty.
Consider this
As a genuine person, you will not act superior or pretend to be someone you are not. You will honestly admit when you've been wrong.
Being openly genuine will open the door to a trusting relationship between you and those you want to help. It will encourage them to come to you and to respect what you say.
If you want to help others, be willing to be real.
Prayer
Father, teach me to set aside my pride and be willing to be real. Help me to be honest about my feelings and genuine in all I do. Help me to take off the mask. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding the Times. This book by Dr. Jimmy Lee offers biblical strategies for ministry to our family and friends. Contemporary issues and needs faced by society are addressed with biblical principles that are timeless. Ideal for small group leaders and Sunday school teachers who want a better understanding of ministry in an addictive culture. The qualities described in this week's devotions are derived from Gary Sweeten's work in Apples of God I and II. We appreciate his contribution.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Faith or Experience? . . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me -Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, "I haven't had this experience or that experience"! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides- He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith "in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God- and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 1:30 ). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ- not a "prayer meeting" Jesus Christ, or a "book" Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.
It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 14, 2008
The Person Makes The Place READ: Revelation 22:6-17God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. -Revelation 21:3-4
Engaged couples often spend hours poring over travel brochures and vacation Web sites looking for just the right honeymoon spot. They can hardly wait for their romantic getaway. But it's not so much about the place; it's about being with the person they love.
We get used to places no matter how glorious they are. But being with a person who loves us never gets old!
In Revelation, John paints a beautiful picture of what heaven will be like. But it's not really about the place-it's about the Person we'll be with. The day is coming when Jesus will come to take us to be with Him in the place He has prepared for us. And the wonderful news is that He says: "Behold, I am coming quickly!" (22:7).
If you're thinking, He may come back for others, but surely not for me, don't miss verse 17: "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." Anyone is welcome to join the wedding feast. All we have to do is believe in the One who died for us, Jesus Christ, the Lover of our souls.
Make no mistake, the place-heaven-will be incredible beyond our dreams. But our greatest joy will be the experience of being with Jesus forever! - Joe Stowell
He will take me to be with Him
In His happy Home above,
Where no sin or pain can enter,
And all is joy and love. -Anon.
The greatest aspect of heaven will be spending eternity with Jesus.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Abundant, Supernatural Life
"Even so, consider yourself to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11, NAS).
My friend Randy had given up on the Christian life. He said, "I have tried, but failed so many times; nothing seems to work. God doesn't hear my prayers, and I am tired of trying. I've read the Bible, prayed, memorized Scripture, and gone to church. But there is no joy and I don't see any purpose in continuing a life of shame and hypocrisy, pretending I am something that I'm not."
After listening to his account of his many failures and defeats, I began to explain the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He interrupted me with, "I know all about the Holy Spirit. I've read everything I can find, everything you and others have written - and nothing works for me."
My thoughts turned to Romans, chapter 6. I asked him, "Randy, are you sure you're a Christian?"
"Yes," he answered. "I'm sure."
"How do you know?"
"By faith," he responded. "The Scripture promises, 'For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.' I know I'm saved."
"Why," I asked him, "do you trust God for your salvation, but do not believe in His other promises concerning your rights as a child of God?"
I began to read from Romans 6 and reminded Randy that every believer has available to him the mighty, supernatural power of the risen Christ. With the enabling of the Holy Spirit, the believer can live that supernatural life simply by claiming his rights through an act of his will. The same Holy Spirit who inspired Ephesians 2:8 and 9 inspired Romans 6, and, by faith, we can claim that sin no longer has control over us and that the mighty power of the resurrection is available as promised.
That day, God touched Randy's life, his spiritual eyes were opened and he began, by faith, to live in accordance with his God-given heritage.
Bible Reading: Romans 6:12-18
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Today, by faith, I will claim the truths of Romans 6. As an act of my will, I surrender the members of my body as instruments of righteousness unto God, to live that abundant, supernatural life, which is my heritage in Christ. Enabled by the Holy Spirit, I will encourage other believers to claim their kingdom rights, and non-believers to join this adventure with the risen Savior
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand-shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Appropriate self-disclosure can be a useful tool in a helping relationship. Sharing your own personal experiences and insight may help your friend understand how to deal with a life-controlling problem. Keep the conversation positive, telling about your mistakes but focusing on how God helped you and the things you learned through the process. A word of caution-don't overuse self-disclosure by talking too much, shifting the focus of the conversation toward you and away from the person you want to help.
It is also important that while sharing with others, you do not talk down to them, making them feel as though you are treating them like a child or an inferior person. Your self-disclosure should have a clear goal of providing insight your friend does not appear to have and moving him or her toward healing. Try to stay at the level of insight relevant to the person's need.
Consider this
Freedom from a life-controlling problem is a process. Pray that God will help you disclose all that will assist your friend in that process, but not so much as to produce confusion. And pray that God will use what you say to help set your loved one free.
Prayer
Father, help me be generous with my life and share with my friend those things that will hasten deliverance and healing. I pray that my self-disclosure will be an encouragement to my friend to open up to you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Understanding the Times. This book by Dr. Jimmy Lee offers biblical strategies for ministry to our family and friends. Contemporary issues and needs faced by society are addressed with biblical principles that are timeless. Ideal for small group leaders and Sunday school teachers who want a better understanding of ministry in an addictive culture. The qualities described in this week's devotions are derived from Gary Sweeten's work in Apples of God I and II. We appreciate his contribution.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Discovering Divine Design As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me . . . -Genesis 24:27
We should be so one with God that we don't need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child's life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God's will (see Romans 12:2 ). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God's appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.
Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, "I will never do this or that," in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 15, 2008
Your Children Will Ask READ: Exodus 12:13-17,25-27 When your children say to you, "What do you mean by this service?" . . . you shall say, "It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord." -Exodus 12:26-27
One of the most important events in Jewish history is the exodus, when God freed His people from the bondage of Egypt. Prior to leaving Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to eat a special meal called the Passover. As an act of judgment upon the Egyptians, God said that He would strike down every firstborn son, but He would pass over the houses that had the blood of a lamb on the top and sides of the door frame (Ex. 12).
To commemorate this act of judgment and grace, God's people would share in the Passover meal. God said that one day their children would ask: "What do you mean by this?" They were then responsible to retell the story of the exodus and God's salvation. God did not want the story of His great salvation to get lost in one generation.
When our children ask us about our values, lifestyle, prayer in decision-making, Bible-reading, church attendance, and worship, we have a responsibility to answer them. We are followers of Jesus. We must retell the story of how He became our Passover Lamb. His blood is the marker over our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin but are free to serve the Eternal One of heaven.
What are you teaching the children? - Marvin Williams
How great, O God, Your acts of love!
Your saving deeds would proclaim
That generations yet to come
May set their hope in Your great name. -D. De Haan
A parent's life is a child's guidebook.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Overwhelming Love
"But despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us" (Romans 8:37).
Today I prayed with a beloved friend who is dying of cancer. As he and his precious wife and I held hands, we lifted our voices in praise to God, knowing that He makes no mistakes, that "all things work together for good to those who love Him," and that he is fully aware of my brother's body riddled with pain as a result of cancerous cells that are on a warpath. Together we claimed that victory which comes from an unwavering confidence in Christ's sufficiency.
The victory comes, of course, through Christ who loved us enough to die for us. Such love is beyond our ability to grasp with our minds, but it is not beyond our ability to experience with our hearts. God's love is unconditional and it is constant. Because He is perfect, His love is perfect, too.
The Scriptures tell of a certain lawyer who asked Jesus, "Sir, which is the most important command in the Law of Moses?"
Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second most important is similar: Love your neighbor as you love yourself."
The question may come to your mind: "Why does God want our love?"
From a human standpoint, this could appear selfish and egotistical. But God, in His sovereignty and love, has so created man that he finds his greatest joy and fulfillment when he loves God with all his heart and soul and mind, and his neighbor as himself.
Early in my Christian life, I was troubled over the command to love God so completely. But now the Holy Spirit has filled my heart with God's love. And as I meditate on the "overwhelming victory" that He gives us, I find my love for Him growing.
Bible Reading: Romans 8:35-39
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: His great love and "overwhelming victory" for me prompts me to respond with supernatural love for Him and for others
Praise: The Ultimate Cure for Pride
Pride asks, "How do others perceive me?" and "What impression am I making on other people?" When there is pride in our lives, it makes us self-conscious. Pride wants to be praised.
While we all need encouragement, only God deserves praise.
Pride can blind us to any feeling of gratitude toward the Lord. Unchecked, it will ultimately separate us from God and those we love. The only cure for pride is surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ-making a commitment to Him and then choosing to let the Spirit of God work in our lives on a daily basis.
After David was anointed as king over Israel, he and his men brought the ark of God back to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 15).
David appointed musicians and singers, and the ark of God entered the city with shouts, trumpets, and the playing of harps. In exuberance and excitement, David took off his royal robe and began to dance before the Lord (2 Samuel 6:14). But his wife Michal watched and later criticized David's actions. She was proud and thought David's actions were not kingly (2 Samuel 6:20).
Placing undue importance on our self-images and the opinions of others are just two of the distractions that Satan uses to discourage us. However, God wants us to have healthy self images based on His unconditional love for us. Once we accept Christ as our Savior, we become children of the King of kings and are made members of His royal family.
David was not concerned about his image. He was praising God. He was focused on the Lord and not on himself. Are you concerned about your appearance before others? Don't withhold your worship of the Lord because of fear of what others will think.
Praise frees you from the hold of pride.
Those who walk in pride he is able to humble (Daniel 4:37).
Learn how praise can make all the difference in your life. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Empowered by Praise." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
"What Is That to You?"Peter . . . said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, '. . . what is that to you? You follow Me' -John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God's plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn't." You put your hand right in front of God's permissive will to stop it, and then God says, "What is that to you?" Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don't allow it to continue, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another- proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness- consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we're not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach- a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 16, 2008
"I Did Not Know It" READ: Genesis 28:10-16 Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." -Genesis 28:16
As Jacob did in Genesis 28, I like to remind myself each morning when I awaken that God is here, "in this place," present with me (v.16). As I spend time with Him each morning, reading His Word and responding in prayer, it reinforces my sense of His presence-that He is near. Although we do not see Him, Peter reminds us that we can love Him and rejoice in His love for us with "inexpressible," glorious joy (1 Peter 1:8).
We take the Lord's presence with us all through the day, blending work and play with prayer. He is our teacher, our philosopher, our companion-our gentle, kind, and very best friend.
God is with us wherever we go. He is in the commonplace, whether we know it or not. "Surely the Lord is in this place," Jacob said of a most unlikely spot, "and I did not know it" (Gen. 28:16). We may not realize He is close by. We may feel lonely and sad. Our day may seem bleak and dreary without a visible ray of hope-yet He is present.
Amid all the clamor and din of this visible and audible world, listen carefully for God's quiet voice. Listen to Him in the Bible. Talk to Him frequently in prayer. Look for Him in your circumstances. Seek Him. He is with you wherever you go! - David H. Roper
Oh, how oft I wake and find
I have been forgetting Thee!
I am never from Thy mind;
Thou it is that wakest me. -MacDonald
Our greatest privilege is to enjoy God's presence.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
He Gives the Victory
"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57, KJV).
In our busy lives, yours and mine, there are days when victory seems an impossibility. Heartaches, trials, burdens, or just the ordinary cares of the day, all seem foreign to the idea of being victorious.
And yet the fact remains that we are "more than conquerors" even when we do not feel like it. God graciously allows His children to be human and to express our doubts and fears when suffering and pain and testing and trial seem to overwhelm us.
"I have to be very honest," confessed Joyce Landorf, well-known Christian author and speaker, during a long period of illness. "One of the things I have learned from severe pain is that I have felt totally abandoned by God. I didn't think he'd let that happen to me, but He has.
"And maybe the feeling of abandonment when pain is at its writhing best..maybe that's what makes it so sweet after the pain goes and the Lord says, 'I was here all the time. I haven't left you. I will never forsake you.' Now those words get sweeter to me because I know what it has felt like to not feel His presence."
We do not have all the answers, but we know one who does. And that is where our victory begins - acknowledging (1) that God is a God of love, one who never makes a mistake, and (2) he will never leave us or forsake us.
Bible Reading: Romans 7:18-25
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will consider myself a victor, whatever may transpire, because I serve the victorious one
Judas
by Max Lucado
If God has called you to be a Martha, then serve! Remind the rest of us that there is evangelism in feeding the poor and there is worship in nursing the sick.
If God has called you to be a Mary, then worship! Remind the rest of us that we don't have to be busy to be holy. Urge us with your example to put down our clipboards and megaphones and be quiet in worship.
If God has called you to be a Lazarus, then testify. Remind the rest of us that we, too, have a story to tell. We, too, have neighbors who are lost. We, too, have died and been resurrected.
Each of us has our place at the table.
Except one. There was one at Martha's house who didn't find his place. Though he had been near Jesus longer than any of the others, he was furthest in his faith. His name was Judas. He was a thief. When Mary poured the perfume he feigned spirituality. "The perfume could have been sold and given to the poor," he said. But Jesus knew Judas's heart, and Jesus defended Mary's worship. Years later, John, too, knew Judas's heart, and John explained that Judas was a thief (John 12:6). And all these years he had been dipping his hand in the treasury. The reason he wanted the perfume to be sold and the money put in the treasury was so that he could get his hands on it.
What a sad ending to a beautiful story. But what an appropriate ending. For in every church there are those like Martha who take time to serve. There are those like Mary who take time to worship. There are those like Lazarus who take time to testify.
And there are those like Judas who take, take, take, and never give in return. Are you a Judas? I ask the question carefully, yet honestly. Are you near Christ but far from his heart? Are you at the dinner with a sour soul? Are you always criticizing the gifts of others yet seldom, if ever, giving your own? Are you benefiting from the church while never giving to it? Do others give sacrificially while you give miserly? Are you a Judas?
Do you take, take, take, and never give? If so, you are the Judas in this story.
If you are a Martha, be strengthened. God sees your service.
If you are a Mary, be encouraged. God receives your worship.
If you are a Lazarus, be strong. God honors your conviction.
But if you are a Judas, be warned. God sees your selfishness.
From
Cast of Characters
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008) Max Lucado
Now Available
Still Human!. . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It's one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, "What a wonderful man of prayer he is!" or, "What a great woman of devotion she is!" If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, "Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!" But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God's Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint's life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions ( Colossians 3:3 ). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 17, 2008
Closing The Gaps READ: Acts 5:1-11 Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God. -Acts 5:4
After the final episode of the 2002 TV program Survivor: Africa, a wrap-up special focused on the final contestants. The show's host Jeff Probst said that the victor won "mostly by sticking with his principles." The champion later explained that he wanted to win while retaining "dignity and self-respect." He elaborated that you don't have to lie, cheat, or do underhanded things to win. You can be competitive, yet still be truthful and nice. In short, he permitted no discrepancy between image and reality.
In the book of Acts we read about Ananias and Sapphira, who did have a gap between what they wanted to be known for and who they really were (5:1-11). Satan filled their hearts with a deceptive plan. They sold a piece of property and brought just a portion of the money to the apostles, while pretending they were giving all the proceeds. They wanted to be recognized as a generous couple, but they were not what they appeared to be. This gap caused them to lie to the Holy Spirit and to the faith community. They paid a terrible price-death. Their example stands as a stark warning to us all.
What discrepancies have we permitted in our lives? We must confess them and close the gaps. - Marvin Williams
Lord, by Your Spirit grant that we
May live with such integrity
That when we simply give our word
No one will doubt what has been heard. -D. De Haan
Integrity means never having to look over your shoulder.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
His Great Love for Us
"But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8).
A dear friend and Christian leader from another country hated and resented his father, who was an alcoholic. Through the years, my friends had been humiliated and embarrassed by his father's conduct. He wanted nothing to do with him.
As he grew more and more mature in his faith, and the Christlike qualities began to develop in his life, he began to realize that his attitude toward his father was wrong. He knew well that God's Word commanded him to love and honor his mother and father, with no conditions.
Then he began to comprehend and experience the truth of loving by faith after a message which he had heard me give. As a result, he went to his father and, as an act of the will, by faith - because at that point he did not honestly feel like doing so - he expressed his love.
He was amazed to discover that his father had been hurt for years because he had sensed that his son despised and rejected him.
When the son began to demonstrate love for him - to assure him that he cared for him, whether he drank or did not drink - it prompted the father to commit his life to Christ and to trust Him to help him overcome the problem which had plagued him most of his life.
Through this new relationship with the Lord, my friend's father became a new creature and was able to gain victory over the addiction to alcohol several years before he died - a dramatic example of the power of love.
Bible Reading: Romans 5:9-15
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: Knowing Christ's great love for me, I will claim His supernatural love for others today
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take." Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT
Thoughts for Today
In today's world, a sense of safety and security may be difficult to find. The good news is that there is one way we can always be secure.
Most people feel more secure when they are in control. Somehow a trip down a mountain road does not feel as dangerous to us when we have our hands on the steering wheel. The passengers with us are likely to have much greater anxiety.
Having control over our circumstances is very important to most of us-it makes us feel more secure and confident. But we can't always be in control. And when circumstances beyond our control happen, we may feel helpless and experience panic or depression.
God provides a way for us to always experience a sense of security. He leaves it up to us we can either continue depending on ourselves, panicking or losing hope when we can't control a situation or we can depend on the Lord. If we choose Jesus and his way for our lives, we can always be secure in his love. We will still experience problems and trials on this earth, but we will begin to view them from an eternal perspective. When we turn control over to Jesus, we can know that no matter what challenges or trials we face, he will ultimately work them out for good.
Consider this
Whose hands have control of your steering wheel? Are you still trying to control every detail of your life? Do you experience frustration, fear or even anger when you can't control what is happening to you? Consider turning everything over to Jesus. You can trust him.
Prayer
Father, it seems that every time I turn a situation over to you, I hang on to some little part of it and pull it away from you again. I want to be in control, and yet I know that doesn't always work out. Please forgive me for not trusting you with every area of my life. Help me to trust you more and to leave the control of my life in your hands. Help me to rest securely in your love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Completely Free! by Dan Strickland. Everyone struggles from time to time, but we can have confidence that in Christ we are released from sin's slavery, from condemnation and from fear of failure. This group study of Romans 1-8 helps Christians break out of the dull routine of a stagnant spiritual life. Applying the truths found in Romans can transform any believer into a person eager to follow God's will, no matter what the circumstances in a person's personal life, in his country or in the world. This study can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by explaining the message of salvation as presented in Romans. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Eternal Goal By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . . -Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself . . .
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
"At any cost . . . by any road" means submitting to God's way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, "Come," I simply come; when He says, "Let go," I let go; when He says, "Trust God in this matter," I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God's revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God's character.
'Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, "In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee."
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. "All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . ." (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our "Yes" must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, "Amen," or, "So be it." That promise becomes ours.
God Bless
With the holiday's approaching the Gospel Hiway asks "what are your thankful for?" Share your Thankful Heart Testimony with us by clicking here My Thankful Heart and tell others what God has done in your life. Won't you share what God has done in your life and be an encouragement to others?
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King James Version (KJV)
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Daily Devotionals November 18, 2008
Cooler Heads READ: Proverbs 17:22-28 A man of understanding is of a calm spirit. -Proverbs 17:27
A Christian I know was angry with someone at his workplace over a perceived injustice. A colleague listened to his grievance and sensed that his temper still ran high. He gave him this wise advice to consider before confronting those involved: "Cooler heads prevail."
As we interact with others, disagreements are inevitable. The discerning believer understands his own heart and takes steps to deal with conflict diplomatically.
Proverbs 17:27 tells us: "He who has knowledge spares his words." This means keeping in check a multitude of opinions that could ignite further anger in others. Someone who displays wisdom will think before speaking, and then will share only insights likely to be helpful.
The Proverbs also give us wise counsel on the emotional side of controlling our frustrations. "A man of understanding is of a calm spirit." A mature person exhibits understanding by keeping cool in conflict. Problem-solving is enhanced by an even-tempered approach.
The next time you become angry, stop and prayerfully reflect for a moment. Ask God for a calm spirit and the right words to say.
Remember, cooler heads prevail. - Dennis Fisher
For Further Study
It's important to handle anger in constructive ways.
Visit www.discoveryseries.org/cb942 on the Web
and read When Anger Burns.
The best time to stop an argument is before it starts.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
He Wonderfully Comforts
"What a wonderful God we have - He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does He do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us" (2 Corinthians 1:3,4).
Whatever God does for you and me is without merit on our part and by pure grace on His part, and it is done for a purpose. Here the apostle Paul tells the Corinthian believers why God so wonderfully comforts and strengthens them, and us, in our hardships and trials.
This scriptural principle is a good one to remember: God never gives to or benefits His children solely for their own selfish ends. We are not comforted and strengthened in our hardships and trials just so that we will feel better.
Eleven out of the 13 Pauline epistles begin with the exclamations of joy, praise and thanksgiving. Second Corinthians, obviously, is one of those. Though Paul had been afflicted and persecuted, he had also been favored with God's comfort and consolation.
Paul delighted in tracing all his comforts back to God. He found no other real source of happiness. The apostle does not say that God's comfort and strength is given solely for the benefit of others, but he does say that this is an important purpose. We are not to hoard God's blessings.
Bible Reading: Hebrews 13:15-19
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: As I live in the supernatural strength of the Lord God, I will make an effort, with His help, to share that strength (and other blessings) with others
Living Free Every Day® Today's Scripture
"And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Security means different things to different people. Some feel secure if their health is good, others if their finances are strong, still others if they are surrounded by a loving family. But depending on any earthly person or thing can result in disappointment.
Suppose you work for a company many years, building up a healthy retirement fund that you are depending on for security in later life. Soon after your 60th birthday, the company bankrupts and the retirement fund is no more. If your faith has been in that retirement plan, you are most likely devastated and fearful for the future. But if you recognize that God, not the retirement fund, is your real source, you can rest in the assurance that he has a plan ... and that he will take care of you. Nothing takes God by surprise. You might not see his plan, but you can go forward knowing that he has everything under control.
The same principle applies when you lose a job, don't get an expected promotion, or your business has a setback. If your faith is in the job ... or the promotion ... or your business, you may lose hope. But if your faith is in Jesus, you know that he never changes. Nothing can separate you from his love. And he will provide a way. He may choose to provide through another job, or increased business, or some other earthly means, but as you go forward, doing what you can but trusting in him as your source, he will take care of you.
Consider this...
God wants us to ask for guidance and wisdom in planning for our financial future. But he also wants us to remember that all good things come from him. Bottom line ... no matter what means he uses to bless us, he is our source. And he is trustworthy. He will take care of us.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for the times I have depended on other people and things, and then lost hope when they let me down. Help me to remember that you are my source, and that you are unchanging and totally trustworthy. Thank you for supplying all my needs. Thank you for taking care of me. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Completely Free! by Dan Strickland. Everyone struggles from time to time, but we can have confidence that in Christ we are released from sin's slavery, from condemnation and from fear of failure. This group study of Romans 1-8 helps Christians break out of the dull routine of a stagnant spiritual life. Applying the truths found in Romans can transform any believer into a person eager to follow God's will, no matter what the circumstances in a person's personal life, in his country or in the world. This study can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by explaining the message of salvation as presented in Romans. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Winning into Freedom by Oswald Chambers
: If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed -John 8:36
If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, "I can't surrender," or "I can't be free." But the spiritual part of our being never says "I can't"; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin- we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, "I can't do that." God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our "arguments . . . and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5 )- we have to do it. Don't say, "Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts." Don't suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
"If the Son makes you free . . . ." Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. ". . . you shall be free indeed"- free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 19, 2008
Out Of Options? READ: 2 Kings 5:1-3,9-15 Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. -2 Kings 5:15
As ancient Syria's mightiest military commander, General Naaman had all the benefits the empire could offer: influence, affluence, and power. All, that is, except for health! Naaman was a leper (2 Kings 5:1-3).
In contrast, the servant girl in the general's household had no options or power at all. As a captive from an army raid, she had been forced into a lifetime of slavery (v.2). But she did not permit herself to be overcome by despair and bitterness. Rather, she rose above her no-option estate to serve wholeheartedly the best interests of her master.
This servant girl didn't see her master's leprosy as God's punishment but as an opportunity to point Naaman to God's prophet in Samaria (v.3). Her recommendation led to Naaman's complete healing. He declared, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel" (v.15).
Today, many people have abundant options. Others, however, have their choices curtailed by poverty, poor health, or other adverse circumstances. When a crisis comes, even their limited options evaporate.
Yet one choice always remains. Like Naaman's servant girl, we can still choose to serve God and point others to Him-regardless of our limited circumstances. - Albert Lee
'Tis mine to choose if self shall die
And never rise again;
'Tis mine to yield the throne to Christ
And bid Him rule and reign. -Christiansen
Facing an impossibility gives us the opportunity to trust God.
Today's Promise: A Daily Devotional
By Dr. Bill Bright
Like a Sweet Perfume
"But thanks be to God! For through what Christ has done, He has triumphed over us so that now wherever we go He uses us to tell others about the Lord and to spread the Gospel like a sweet perfume" (2 Corinthians 2:14).
We can certainly learn a lesson from the apostle Paul. He frequently begins a chapter or a verse with a note of praise. To say that he had a thankful spirit would be understating the case. That perhaps is the key to victory in every area of our lives, to begin with thanksgiving.
It is God who leads us to triumph over principalities and powers. And in leading us to triumph, He is then able to use us to tell others of His love and forgiveness through the Lord Jesus. As we rest in His victory and in His command, with its promise of "Lo, I am with you always," we spread the gospel like a sweet perfume.
In your own home and in your own neighborhood, perhaps, are those who need the sweet perfume of the gospel, that heavenly aroma that comes first from God, then through us as His servants, and finally in the message itself: the good news of sins forgiven and a heavenly home assured.
Around the world, literally, I personally have seen multitudes of men and women, old and young, become new creatures in Christ. The aroma indeed is one of sweet perfume, for tangled lives have become untangled to the glory of God, and joy abounds in hearts and lives where only sadness and despair had been known.
Bible Reading: 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: "Dear Lord, help me to bear a heavenly aroma as I share the sweet perfume of the gospel with others."
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble." Psalm 46:1 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We often find security in a relationship-with a spouse, a family member or a best friend. We are secure in knowing that this person loves us and is always there for us ... and then we may find that this loved one is suddenly gone. Perhaps they chose to leave us, or perhaps they were taken in death.
This kind of loss is always extremely painful. A long process of grief usually follows. And if our entire sense of security depended on our relationship with this person, we are likely to lose all hope.
On the other hand, if we look to Jesus for our security, we will still hurt we will still grieve but we won't lose all hope. Nothing can separate us from God's love. We can still look to him for the strength to go on. We will still have the hope of accomplishing his purpose for our life.
Consider this
No matter what your circumstances, determine to look to Jesus as your source. He may choose to provide for your well-being through a special relationship with a loved one ... or he may choose another way. But always remember that he is your source, and he will never leave you nor forsake you. He will always love you unconditionally. You can count on him.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for being my refuge and my strength. Thank you that no matter what the circumstances, I can count on you to shelter me and to give me strength. Thank you that even if things around me seem to crumble, you are always with me, always loving me, always helping me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Completely Free! by Dan Strickland. Everyone struggles from time to time, but we can have confidence that in Christ we are released from sin's slavery, from condemnation and from fear of failure. This group study of Romans 1-8 helps Christians break out of the dull routine of a stagnant spiritual life. Applying the truths found in Romans can transform any believer into a person eager to follow God's will, no matter what the circumstances in a person's personal life, in his country or in the world. This study can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by explaining the message of salvation as presented in Romans. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
With the holiday's approaching the Gospel Hiway asks "what are your thankful for?" Share your Thankful Heart Testimony with us by clicking here My Thankful Heart and tell others what God has done in your life.
"When He Has Come"When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . . -John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one- "Against You, You only, have I sinned . . ." ( Psalm 51:4 ). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary- nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn't merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 20, 2008
Life's Surprises READ: 1 Samuel 16:1-7 The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. -1 Samuel 16:7
No one watching Britain's Got Talent (a popular televised talent show) expected much when mobile phone salesman Paul Potts took the stage. The judges looked skeptically at one another when the nervous, unassuming, ordinary-looking chap announced he would sing opera-until Potts opened his mouth.
He began to sing Puccini's "Nessun Dorma"-and it was magical! The crowd roared and stood in amazement while the judges sat stunned in tearful silence. It was one of the greatest surprises any such television program has ever had, in large part because it came wrapped in such an ordinary package.
In the Old Testament, the rescuer of Israel arrived at the battlefield in a most unlikely form-a young shepherd boy (1 Sam. 17). King Saul and his entire army were surprised when David defeated Goliath and won the day. They needed to learn the way that God looks at people. He said to the prophet Samuel, "The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (16:7).
If we judge others only by their outer appearance, we might miss the wonderful surprise of what's in their heart. - Bill Crowder
O Lord, we are so quick to judge,
Though much is veiled from sight;
Lord, may we see how just You are
To guide us in what's right. -D. De Haan
It's what's in the heart that counts.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39 NLT
Thoughts for Today
This week we are focusing on the truth that real security comes from God.
We are secure because God promised that he will never stop loving us, and nothing could ever happen to make him change his mind. His Word assures us that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from his love.
We can be secure in God's promise to work all things together for our good and in knowing that suffering tremendous hardship is not a sign of his lack of love for us. His love will see us through. And we can be secure in knowing that after a relatively miniscule time on this earth, we will spend forever in a perfect heaven with Jesus.
Consider this
Are you experiencing a difficult time right now? Don't let the enemy convince you that it's because God doesn't love you. Jesus went through extremely difficult times here on earth because he loves us so much. He even chose to suffer and die on the cross for our sins because of his great love for us. He said we would have problems on this earth, but he also promised that with his help we can overcome those problems.
Take comfort in knowing that no matter how difficult things may seem right now, you are enveloped in the love of Jesus and he will give you the strength you need. Nothing can ever separate you from his love.
Prayer
Jesus, thank you for your love. Thank you for giving your life on the cross for me. Help me be reminded that even though things are difficult right now, you are with me, you are loving me and that you will work all things together for good.
These thoughts were drawn from
Completely Free! by Dan Strickland. Everyone struggles from time to time, but we can have confidence that in Christ we are released from sin's slavery, from condemnation and from fear of failure. This group study of Romans 1-8 helps Christians break out of the dull routine of a stagnant spiritual life. Applying the truths found in Romans can transform any believer into a person eager to follow God's will, no matter what the circumstances in a person's personal life, in his country or in the world. This study can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by explaining the message of salvation as presented in Romans. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Forgiveness of GodIn Him we have . . . the forgiveness of sins . . . -Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive- He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God's forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 21, 2008
Off Track
READ: 2 Samuel 12:1-13
Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? -2 Samuel 12:9
When I sat in my car at the start of the automatic car wash, I didn't know that my left front tire was not properly lined up with the track. The car wash started but my car wasn't moving, so I accelerated. That caused my tire to jump the track.
Now I was stuck-I couldn't move forward or backward. The car wash continued through its cycle without my car. Meanwhile, cars began lining up and waiting for me. I was glad when two workers at the station helped me get my car back on the track.
Sometimes in our Christian lives we get off track too. King David did in a big way. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and later ordered that her husband be put "in the forefront of the hottest battle" and left there to be killed (2 Sam. 11:3-4,15-17). David's actions were way out of line with how God wanted him to behave as His chosen king.
David needed help to get back on track. The Bible says that "the Lord sent Nathan to David" (12:1). He confronted him about stealing another man's wife, and David wisely repented (v.13). Nathan took a risk to help David get right with God, even though his sin still had dire consequences.
Does someone you know need your help to get back on track? - Anne Cetas
Fellowship with other Christians
Strengthens us when we are weak,
Reprimands when we are sinning,
Helps us when God's will we seek. -Sper
True love dares to confront.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him." Nahum 1:7 NIV
Thoughts for Today
If you were traveling on an airplane, who would you want in control of flying the plane: a trained pilot or a six-year-old child?
If you were having surgery, who would you want to be in control of the surgery: a doctor or a gourmet chef?
If you need help for your life, who would you want to be in control: Almighty God who created all things and is all-knowing and all-powerful and loves you unconditionally or you, the created?
Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?
Our world is in turmoil today. Wars, terrorists and famines. Traditional values being turned upside down. Horrific crimes. Financial ups and downs. But amid the turmoil is a place of security. Of indescribable peace. That place of refuge is in Jesus.
Consider this
If you are already trusting Jesus to be in control of your life, continue standing fast and strong. The turmoil around us will continue and is likely to grow, but Jesus will always be greater.
"Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence." Ephesians 3:12 NLT
Prayer
Jesus, thank you for providing a place of safety and peace in the middle of chaos. I want to trust you as Lord of my life and experience the peace that only you can give.
These thoughts were drawn from
Completely Free! by Dan Strickland. Everyone struggles from time to time, but we can have confidence that in Christ we are released from sin's slavery, from condemnation and from fear of failure. This group study of Romans 1-8 helps Christians break out of the dull routine of a stagnant spiritual life. Applying the truths found in Romans can transform any believer into a person eager to follow God's will, no matter what the circumstances in a person's personal life, in his country or in the world. This study can also serve as a powerful evangelistic tool by explaining the message of salvation as presented in Romans. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
A Man Who Has God's Favor
Zechariah 8:23
"...Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you."
Few men of God have become extraordinary people of faith without the influence of mentors. A mentor is one who takes responsibility for the spiritual and, sometimes, physical care of another. It requires a commitment from the teacher and the student.
Elijah mentored Elisha. Elisha became one of the greatest prophets in all the Bible. One of the primary reasons for this was Elisha's hunger. Elisha wanted a double portion of Elijah's spirit. It was this hunger that drove Elisha to be sold out to God's purposes for his life.
I have been privileged to have had many mentors throughout my spiritual life. In each stage of my maturity, God brought new mentors who had unique gifts that the previous mentor did not have. God has given me the hunger to desire a double portion of those positive attributes of my mentors. This desire is sorely missing among many today. I fail to see the hunger among many who could be used greatly in the Kingdom. Instead, they get distracted by the cares of this world. It is an attitude of a la carte versus an attitude of pressing in to the full measure of what God might have for them.
Who are the people of God He has placed in your life? Are you learning from them? Are you seeking a double portion of their anointing? What prevents you from gaining from their wisdom and experience? God may have brought them into your life to prepare you to be a man or woman of God with great anointing. However, there is a time of training and waiting to prove out your own faith. Ask God today if there is someone He would have you mentor or be mentored by.
Who Can You Trust?
Who Can You Trust?
In Who Can You Trust?,
Howard E. Butt, Jr. candidly shares his own real-life experience and expertise to help you recognize and resolve past trust issues that have shattered your faith and your spirit. And he shows you how to let your faith help you build stronger trust in the future for all your most important relationships.
Learn More or Order
'It is Finished!'
READ:
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . ." ( Hebrews 2:9 ). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" ( John 19:30 ). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
God Bless
How Will They Know? READ: 1 John 4:7-21 He who loves God must love his brother also. -1 John 4:21
Did you ever notice that some Christians act decidedly un-Christian while trying to prove how godly they are?
One example is a man who angrily shuts his hymnbook and pouts through the rest of the service if the song leader does not sing every verse of a song.
Another example is the church where members argue against adding a new service geared toward youth, because they dislike the music.
Then there is the church in which the middle aisle is a demarcation line between two social classes of people who refuse to mix.
As Christians, we must stand for truth as spelled out in the Bible. Though truth was not violated in any of these situations, these professing followers of Christ acted in decidedly unloving ways. They chose to protect personal preferences rather than demonstrate the love of Jesus to a watching world.
As we read 1 John 4:7-21, we see that God's love seeks to transform our behavior. In His love, we don't react disdainfully toward others simply because we don't agree.
Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Do others see the love of Jesus in you? - Dave Branon
May all I am and do and say
Give glory to my Lord alway,
And may no act of mine cause shame
Nor bring reproach upon His name. -Anon.
A church with one heart and one mind will make for a won world
Godly Rewards
Malachi 3:14-15
You have said, "It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape."
Have you ever felt that serving God had little reward and the ungodly seemed actually to be more blessed than you? This is what the people of God felt. God heard their cry and responded through the prophet Malachi to explain God's view on this matter.
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name. "They will be Mine," says the Lord Almighty, "in the day when I make up My treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not" (Malachi 3:16-18).
Notice that after the people complained about this, they began to talk to each other, and the Lord listened and heard. God had been taking note of those who were serving Him and honoring Him. There is a day coming in which God will honor His "treasured possessions." We will see that there is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked on that day when "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall" (Mal. 4:2). What a beautiful picture of what we will feel like on that day.
Faithful obedience is rewarded by God. It often requires patience, suffering, and perseverance. Be of good cheer; He will reward you if you faint not.
Who Can You Trust? Who Can You Trust?In Who Can You Trust?, Howard E. Butt, Jr. candidly shares his own real-life experience and expertise to help you recognize and resolve past trust issues that have shattered your faith and your spirit. And he shows you how to let your faith help you build stronger trust in the future for all your most important relationships. Learn More or Order
Praise and an Untrue Heart
Pride is not the only thing that can keep us from praising God. An untrue heart can squelch both the desire and the ability to develop a life of praise. An untrue heart is a heart that is insincere, hypocritical, or filled with doubt. The writer of Hebrews said:
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22).
There are some people who try to honor God with their lips while their hearts are full of anger, bitterness, or envy. However, God knows the status of our hearts and our weaknesses.
We cannot develop a life of praise alone or in our own strength. Instead, we must surrender our intellect, feelings, and will to the Lord. As we do this, God will empower us to develop a habit of praising Him-regardless of our circumstances.
In Genesis 22, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, He was asking him to surrender the object of his love. He was asking Abraham to give up something that meant more to him than anything else.
Did God want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? No. God wanted to be certain that Abraham was willing to surrender everything to Him. Like Abraham, God wants us to surrender to Him. He wants us to praise Him. Praise is a sacrifice that costs us our pride, our plans, and our desires. True praise requires that we place everything on the altar to the Lord.
Don't let pride or an untrue heart keep you from a life of praise. Yield to the Lord, come before Him in humility, and God will give you His strength and power to live a victorious life.
Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! (Psalm 66:20).
Learn how praise can make all the difference in your life. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Empowered by Praise." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person- God became a baby.
To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all- the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." ( Matthew 10:24 ).
We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.
Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 23, 2008
How Great Is Our God! READ: Job 38:31-41;42:5-6 Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? -Job 38:31
A team of astronomers from the University of Minnesota say they have found a giant hole in the universe. The void they've discovered is in a region of sky southwest of Orion. The mysterious empty place has no galaxies, stars, or even dark matter. One of the astronomers said that the hole in the heavens is a billion light-years across.
When I try to capture the meaning of such immensity, something happens to me. The fight goes out of me. I don't know what to do with my thoughts. Who can relate to the magnitude of such emptiness?
Then I remember what the Lord did with Job. He drew His suffering servant's attention to the same part of the night sky. Using the region of the constellation Orion along with the wonders of the weather and the natural world, the Lord brought Job to the end of his reasonings and arguments (Job 38:31; 42:5-6).
In the presence of such wonder, I want to join Job in collapsing before the Lord in surrender to His inexpressible power and wisdom. I want to let go of my anxiety, my anger, and my resistance to the mysterious leading of God. I want to claim my only confidence as being in the immeasurable greatness of our God. - Mart De Haan
For Further Study
To increase your appreciation for the Creator,
read the online resource Celebrating The Wonder
Of Creation at discoveryseries.org/q1108
The wonders of the universe compel us to worship our wonderful God.
Fruitful Suffering
Genesis 41:52
..."It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering."
Joseph named his second son Ephraim. Ephraim was given to him after he had been delivered from his suffering of 13 years. Joseph said that he named him this because God had made him fruitful in the land of his suffering. Ephraim means "twice fruitful."
Joseph was fruitful in two instances. He was fruitful during his time of adversity and in his prosperity. When God brings us into a time of suffering, it can be a fruitful time. It's rare for us to see the fruit during the suffering period. But know that the roots are going deep into the spiritual soil of our soul because of our pressing in to God during our time of suffering. This is producing a work in our character that cannot be seen until it finishes the process. Such was the case for Joseph.
It was not until several years after such a time of suffering that I began to see the fruit of the trials that the Lord allowed me to experience. How grateful I am to understand some of the "why" that has led to a new life in Him that I would never have had without this period.
Samson had great anointing but lacked character. We see many today who have great anointing yet lack character. But God is raising up Josephs who not only have great anointing for these days but also great character. Suffering produces character.
If you find yourself in a time of suffering, now is the time to press into God. Let your roots grow deeper. Whenever there is a famine, tree roots are forced to drive deeper into the soil to find water. These times are designed to create such a deep-rooted faith that our natures will be changed forever.
A Forever Home
by Max Lucado
For the last twenty years, I've wanted a dog. A big dog. But there were always problems. The apartment was too small. The budget was too tight. The girls were too young. But most of all, Denalyn was unenthusiastic. Her logic? She'd already married one slobbering, shedding beast, why put up with a second? So we compromised and got a small dog.
I like Salty, but small dogs aren't really dogs. They don't bark; they yelp. They don't eat; they nibble. They don't lick you; they sniff you. I like Salty, but I wanted a real dog. A man's-best-friend type of dog. A fat-pawed, big-eating, slurp-you-on-the-face type of dog you could saddle or wrestle or both.
I was alone in my passion until Sara was born. She loves dogs. And the two of us were able to sway the household vote. Denalyn gave in, and Sara and I began the search. We discovered a woman in South Carolina who breeds golden retrievers in a Christian environment. From birth the dogs are surrounded by inspirational music and prayers. (No, I don't know if they tithe with dog biscuits.) When the trainer told me that she had read my books, I got on board. A woman with such good taste is bound to be a good breeder, right?
So we ordered a pup. We mailed the check, selected the name Molly, and cleared a corner for her dog pillow. The dog hadn't even been born, and she was named, claimed, and given a place in the house.
Can't the same be said about you? Long before your first whimper, your Master claimed you, named you, and hung a reserved sign on your room. You and Molly have more in common than odor and eating habits. (Just teasing.)
You're both being groomed for a trip. We prefer the terms maturation and sanctification to weaning and training, but it's all the same. You're being prepared for your Master's house. You don't know the departure date or flight number, but you can bet your puppy chow that you'll be seeing your Owner someday. Isn't this the concluding promise of David?
"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Ps. 23:6 nkjv).
Where will you live forever? In the house of the Lord. If his house is your "forever house," what does that make this earthly house? You got it! Short-term housing. This is not our home. "Our homeland is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20).
We, like Molly, are being prepared for another house.
Don't quench, but rather, stir this longing for heaven.
God's home is a forever home. "And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Ps. 23:6 nkjv).
From
Traveling Light
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
The Distraction of Contempt READ: Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt -Psalm 123:3
What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. "Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously" ( Malachi 2:16 ). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.
Beware of "the cares of this world . . ." ( Mark 4:19 ). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by "the cares of this world."
Another thing that distracts us is our passion for vindication. St. Augustine prayed, "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself." Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul's faith in God. Don't say, "I must explain myself," or, "I must get people to understand." Our Lord never explained anything- He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.
When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 24, 2008
Spiritual Warfare
Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood....
Have you ever heard someone say, "I will never do business with another Christian"? I hear this comment quite often in my dealings with Christian businesspeople. This comment represents the battle that rages against us by the enemy of our soul to destroy the witness and effectiveness of Christian businesspeople. We must realize that we are in a war-a war for the souls of men, a war to discredit all that a Christian stands for, a war that is designed to divide Christian against Christian.
Satan's ploy in the life of Christian businesspersons is to do several things to make them ineffective as soldiers in the marketplace. First, he wants to discredit them by allowing them to fail other people in their professional services. This often shows up in failing to perform what they committed to do or performing in an unsatisfactory way. Sometimes, this is a result of a downright failure of the businessperson to perform with excellence. In other cases, it may be a misunderstanding in the midst of the service that causes strife and division instigated by the enemy.
The result in both cases is the same: a division among Christians and even non-Christians, further resulting in a damaged witness for Christ. The apostle Peter admonishes us to "live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us" (1 Pet. 2:12).
There are times when each of us is thrust into situations out of our control. Sometimes this results in our inability to pay a bill on time, or to deliver a service. Defeating satan in these battles requires extra communication with those with whom we are dealing. If the motive of your heart is to do right, then God will give you favor in order to work through these difficult spots. Ask God today to show you where the enemy is seeking to make you ineffective.
We wage a spiritual war that is not flesh and blood. We must fight this war with spiritual weapons applied to practical daily living.
Impossible Itokawa
READ: Matthew 19:16-26
With God all things are possible. -Matthew 19:26
In 2005, Japan's unmanned Haya-busa spacecraft visited an "impossible" asteroid. Images and data indicate that the asteroid, named Itokawa, is twice as porous as loose sand. This has astonished scientists, who believe that asteroids make repeated impacts with other space rocks and hence should be very dense. As they make additional discoveries, scientists may learn why Itokawa is different. But for now, we have an asteroid that challenges scientific understanding.
Two thousand years ago, a young ruler asked Jesus an "impossible" question: "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" (Matt. 19:16). After an intriguing exchange, the man "went away sorrowful" (v.22) when he realized he would have to give up his wealth-the very thing he valued more than a relationship with Jesus.
This upright man had kept the letter of the law, yet had fallen short. "Who then can be saved?" asked the astonished disciples (v.25). Jesus answered, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (v.26).
The One who created this universe out of nothing has a history of accomplishing the impossible. When we forsake what this life has to offer and follow Him, He does the impossible once again-He gives us eternal life! - C. P. Hia
It took a miracle to put the stars in place,
It took a miracle to hang the world in space;
But when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole,
It took a miracle of love and grace! -Peterson
© Renewal 1976, John W. Peterson Music Company.
Our limited ability accents God's limitless power.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Laughter can conceal a heavy heart, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains." Proverbs 14:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Most of us have some degree of trouble admitting our true feelings and being able to express them, especially if we are struggling with life-controlling problems. But throughout the Bible, God encourages us to know our feelings and not keep them hidden inside. Jesus set an example for us: He had emotions and he expressed them. He cried. He got angry. He was sad.
We often hide the way we feel behind a defense to keep our real self from showing through. Inside we may feel fearful or angry or sad, but we hide those feelings by joking or acting superior or being silent or using some other defense. We may try to cover our sadness with laughter, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains.
Hiding our feelings can give them control over our lives. Unexpressed anger or fear or guilt can have a destructive influence on everything we do. Hidden shame and sadness are roadblocks to hope and healing.
Consider this
If you have been hiding your true feelings, has your "cover-up" helped? Or have you learned firsthand that when the laughter ends, the grief remains? Admitting your feelings can be a turning point. Be honest with yourself. And with God. And then with a friend. Being real will open the door for healing.
Prayer
Lord, I have been hiding my feelings for a long time, but I know now it is time to be honest. Help me to be real. Help me to share my real feelings with my loved one. Set me free. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Insight Group: Discover the Path to Christian Character by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. With its emphasis on developing Christian character, this is a powerful group for those who want to be sure to prevent life-controlling problems from developing in their lives, as well as for those who need to overcome a current problem. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free
Direction of Focus
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters . . . , so our eyes look to the Lord our God . . . -Psalm 123:2
This verse is a description of total reliance on God. Just as the eyes of a servant are riveted on his master, our eyes should be directed to and focused on God. This is how knowledge of His countenance is gained and how God reveals Himself to us (seeIsaiah 53:1 ). Our spiritual strength begins to be drained when we stop lifting our eyes to Him. Our stamina is sapped, not so much through external troubles surrounding us but through problems in our thinking. We wrongfully think, "I suppose I've been stretching myself a little too much, standing too tall and trying to look like God instead of being an ordinary humble person." We have to realize that no effort can be too high.
For example, you came to a crisis in your life, took a stand for God, and even had the witness of the Spirit as a confirmation that what you did was right. But now, maybe weeks or years have gone by, and you are slowly coming to the conclusion- "Well, maybe what I did showed too much pride or was superficial. Was I taking a stand a bit too high for me?" Your "rational" friends come and say, "Don't be silly. We knew when you first talked about this spiritual awakening that it was a passing impulse, that you couldn't hold up under the strain. And anyway, God doesn't expect you to endure." You respond by saying, "Well, I suppose I was expecting too much." That sounds humble to say, but it means that your reliance on God is gone, and you are now relying on worldly opinion. The danger comes when, no longer relying on God, you neglect to focus your eyes on Him. Only when God brings you to a sudden stop will you realize that you have been the loser. Whenever there is a spiritual drain in your life, correct it immediately. Realize that something has been coming between you and God, and change or remove it at once.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 25, 2008
Holding Your Hand
READ: Psalm 73
Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. -Psalm 73:23
One of the joys of being with kids is holding their hands. We do it to keep them safe while crossing the street, or to keep them from getting lost in a crowd. And whenever they stumble and lose their footing, we grab their little hands tighter to keep them from falling.
That's what God does for us. Inevitably there are stones and cracks that trip us up on the sidewalks of life. That's why it's easy to identify with the psalmist, who said, "My steps had nearly slipped" (Ps. 73:2).
We all face a variety of issues that threaten to make us stumble. For the psalmist Asaph, seeing the prosperity of the wicked caused him to question the goodness of God. But God squeezed his hand and reassured him that, given the judgment of God, the wicked do not really prosper. True prosperity, the psalmist discovered, was found in the fact that God was always with him: "You hold me by my right hand" (v.23). And just for good measure, God reminded him that He would also guide him through life and ultimately welcome him home to heaven (v.24). How good is that!
So, next time you stumble, remember that the powerful hand of God is holding your hand and walking you through life-all the way home! - Joe Stowell
Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand;
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand. -Stanphill
© Renewal 1978, Singspiration.
Let God do the holding and you do the trusting.
Knowing Versus Doing
Philippians 3:10
I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection....
If I asked you the purpose for which God made you, what might you say? You might give a lot of answers that required some action on your part. However, the simplest answer to that question relates to one primary thing: fellowship. The most important thing God desires from us today is to have a deep and intimate fellowship with each of us.
The apostle Paul said he wanted to know Christ, and by knowing Christ he could experience the power of His resurrection. I find this to be the hardest thing for many of us businesspeople to do. So often it is much easier to be busy with the urgent (or even Christian) activity than spending quiet moments before the Lord. Before we realize it, days have passed since our last quiet time with Jesus.
Jesus understood how important quiet moments were with the Father. "After He had dismissed them, He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone" (Mt. 14:23). The more mature I become in my relationship with the Lord, the more precious this time becomes to me. It is a time I look forward to almost daily. It offers me a time to reflect, to share my concerns with my Lord, and to hear Him speak. In the last few years I have begun prayer walks, which accomplish three things: fellowship, prayer, and exercise. It has changed my prayer life. I have come to understand that Jesus views us as His friend and He wants to spend time with us. We are depriving Him of His time when we put Him aside for the urgent. An interesting thing happens when we make prayer a priority: Urgent things seems to wane as we focus on Him. He makes all these other things fall into place.
Are you taking the time to get to know Him today?
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord." 2 Peter 1:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Often we are ruled by our feelings, rather than the truth of God's Word. Instead of letting our actions be determined by our feelings (which can delude us), we need to base our actions on what is certain and true. We need to grow in our knowledge of God and of Jesus. We need to understand what Jesus did for us on the cross and the way God sees us. We need to grow in our knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. It is only as we do this that we open the door to receive more and more grace and peace from God.
How do we grow in our knowledge? The answers are really very basic. We need to prayerfully study the Bible. We need to spend time in prayer and learn to listen to God. Only then can we begin to live based on our knowledge of who we are through faith in Jesus Christ. We also need to realize that this is a lifetime process. Every day we have choices to make: Are we going to base our actions on feelings of fear, insecurity, hopelessness, grief, etc. or are we going to believe God?
Consider this
Your feelings may be telling you that you are worthless, but in Christ you are redeemed (paid for at great cost). You are valuable! Your feelings may tell you that you are dirty and guilty, but God's Word says in Ephesians 1:7 that you are forgiven and clean ... that all your sins have been wiped from God's sight.
Prayer
Lord, help me to grow every day in my knowledge of you. Help me today to make choices based on your truth, rather than my feelings. I thank you that Jesus died for my sins, that I am forgiven and that I am valuable to you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Insight Group: Discover the Path to Christian Character by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. With its emphasis on developing Christian character this is a powerful group for those who want to be sure to prevent life-controlling problems from developing in their lives, as well as for those who need to overcome a current problem. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Secret of Spiritual Consistency
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
When a person is newly born again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more concerned about being consistent externally. In the external expression of things, Paul lived in the basement, while his critics lived on the upper level. And these two levels do not begin to touch each other. But Paul's consistency was down deep in the fundamentals. The great basis of his consistency was the agony of God in the redemption of the world, namely, the Cross of Christ.
State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. ". . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 1:21, 23 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 26, 2008
Catch And Release
READ: Romans 6:15-23
Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." -John 8:34
I'm a "catch and release" fisherman, which means I don't kill the trout I catch, but net and handle them gently and set them free. It's a technique that ensures "sustainability," as conservation officers like to say, and keeps trout and other target species from disappearing in heavily fished waters.
I rarely release a trout without recalling Paul's words about those who have been "taken captive" by Satan to do his will (2 Tim. 2:26), for I know that our adversary the devil does not catch and release but captures to consume and destroy.
We may think we can deliberately sin in a limited way for a short period of time and then get ourselves free. But as Jesus teaches us, "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34). Even "little" sins lead to greater and greater unrighteousness. Sin becomes the consequence of sin. We find ourselves entrapped and enslaved, and like a luckless trout, we cannot wriggle free.
Sin enslaves us. But when we yield ourselves in obedience to Christ and call upon Him for the strength to do His will, we are "released." The result is increasing righteousness (Rom. 6:16).
Jesus assures us, "If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). - David H. Roper
Christ broke the bonds of sin, that I
Might know His strong eternal tie;
This blood-bought liberty I bring
To be Your bond-slave, Master-King. -F. Hess
Christ releases us from sin's slavery into salvation's liberty.
Coming Out of Babylon
Revelation 18:4
..."Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes."
There is a day when God is going to judge the system of Babylon around the world. What is Babylon? Babylon is a system of doing business. The stronghold of the marketplace is mammon and pride. Dependence on money and misplaced trust are at the core of a Babylonian philosophy of life. Revelation 18 describes a time when God will judge this Babylonian system. It is the one place that we see a system destroyed in one day, even one hour. I do not believe Babylon is a particular city, but a world system. "Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her" (Rev. 18:8a). "Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!" (Rev. 18:10b).
As Christian businesspeople we are called to acknowledge the signs of the times. When the Soviet Union fell, many knew it was going to happen because they could recognize the signs of the times. God has a way of shaking things up. These shakings force us to determine who and what we will place our trust in. God says that we are to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Mt. 22:37).
Are you still living in Babylon in the way you do business? If so, expect to share in the sins of Babylon when God decides to judge her. Ask God to show you where you might be operating in a "Babylonian" system of work.
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
When we are dealing with a life-controlling problem, we may begin to think, "What's the use? I'll never overcome this. I have tried ... and failed ... again and again. I just don't have what it takes to get things right."
And you know what? We would be right. We probably don't have what it takes. But we know someone who does. Jesus. And the Bible promises us that we can do all things-through Christ. If we are willing to commit our lives to him, he will give us the strength we need to do what is right. He will guide us on the right path. And he will often send other people to help us.
In order to receive this strength from Christ, we first need to admit that we need help. We need to be honest with him, with ourselves and with others. We need to take off our mask of self-sufficiency and get real.
Consider this
Are you dealing with a problem right now that seems hopeless? Take the first step: Admit you need help. Ask God for his plan. Ask him for strength through Christ. Admit to caring people that you need help.
Prayer
Lord, I have been trying everything I know to overcome this problem, but nothing seems to work. I need-and desire-your strength and guidance. Help me be honest about my need with others you send to help me. Help me remember that I can succeed through Christ. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Insight Group: Discover the Path to Christian Character by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. With its emphasis on developing Christian character this is a powerful group for those who want to be sure to prevent life-controlling problems from developing in their lives, as well as for those who need to overcome a current problem. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Focal Point of Spiritual Power
. . . except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
If you want to know the power of God (that is, the resurrection life of Jesus) in your human flesh, you must dwell on the tragedy of God. Break away from your personal concern over your own spiritual condition, and with a completely open spirit consider the tragedy of God. Instantly the power of God will be in you. "Look to Me. . ." (Isaiah 45:22). Pay attention to the external Source and the internal power will be there. We lose power because we don't focus on the right thing. The effect of the Cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these. We are to preach "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" ( 1 Corinthians 2:2 ). The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work. Concentrate on God's focal point in your preaching, and even if your listeners seem to pay it no attention, they will never be the same again. If I share my own words, they are of no more importance than your words are to me. But if we share the truth of God with one another, we will encounter it again and again. We have to focus on the great point of spiritual power- the Cross. If we stay in contact with that center of power, its energy is released in our lives. In holiness movements and spiritual experience meetings, the focus tends to be put not on the Cross of Christ but on the effects of the Cross.
The feebleness of the church is being criticized today, and the criticism is justified. One reason for the feebleness is that there has not been this focus on the true center of spiritual power. We have not dwelt enough on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 27, 2008
Gladly!
READ: Psalm 100
Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! -Psalm 100:1
Psalm 100 is one of the great songs of thanksgiving in the Bible. It calls us to realize that we belong to God our Maker (vv.3-4), and to praise Him for His goodness, mercy, and truth (v.5).
During a recent reading, however, I was struck by a phrase that speaks of expressing thanks in a tangible, willing way: "Serve the Lord with gladness" (v.2). Many times my service to God is more grudging than glad. I do what I consider my duty, but I'm not happy about it.
Oswald Chambers put his finger on my unthankful attitude when he said: "The will of God is the gladdest, brightest, most bountiful thing possible to conceive, and yet some of us talk of the will of God with a terrific sigh-'Oh well, I suppose it is the will of God,' as if His will were the most calamitous thing that could befall us. . . . We become spiritual whiners and talk pathetically about 'suffering the will of the Lord.' Where is the majestic vitality and might of the Son of God about that!"
True thankfulness is more than being grateful for what we possess. It's an attitude that permeates our relationship with the Lord so that we may serve Him with gladness and joy. - David C. McCasland
Then let us adore and give Him His right,
All glory and power, all wisdom and might,
All honor and blessing, with angels above,
And thanks never ceasing for infinite love. -Wesley
For the Christian, thanksgiving is not just a day but a way of life.
Developing Our Heart for God
Zechariah 9:13
I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and make you like a warrior's sword.
In the third and fourth centuries Socrates and other Greek scholars began to influence the Church in ways that were different from the Hebraic roots of the early Church. The Greek influence appeals more to the intellect, whereas the early-Church Hebraic model appealed to the heart. The Greek influence resulted in more emphasis on oratory skills and cognitive knowledge of God. Over the many centuries, this influence has shown itself in a more programmatic approach to the gospel rather than a process of living out our faith. So why is it important for us to understand this?
I realized in my own life that I was a product of this Greek system. My walk with Christ focused more on what I knew than on an intimate and powerful walk with God. Knowledge without power to express the life within is of little value. The more programmatic the focus, the less emphasis we place on building deep and caring relationships that result in changed lives. Our early Church fathers knew there was a cost to living out the Word of God, not simply giving mental assent to it.
Are you walking with God today in an intimate fellowship? Or, are you only involved in programs and activities designed to do good things? Reflect on Proverbs 23:12: "Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge." We must listen and respond with the heart. Whatever service we give to God should be a result of our relationship with our heavenly Father, not an end unto itself.
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Have you ever tried to hold an inflated toy under water? That can be hard work! And yet, we often work even harder to keep our true feelings out of view. We build walls around our real selves and around any problems we may be struggling with.
The self-constructed walls cause us to isolate ourselves from other people and even from God. They cause us to hide from the truth about a problem that has a hold on us. These walls we build are called defenses. Defenses can take many forms: rationalization, humor, blaming, denying. We might say things like "What I did isn't so bad" or "You don't understand the pressure I'm under." Sound familiar? We have all used defenses like these to cover the truth.
When we are hiding behind the defenses, we are attempting to hide the truth about ourselves and our situation-from God, from other people, and even from ourselves. We are also blinding ourselves from the truth of God's Word. And yet our only answer is in the truth-because the truth will set us free.
Consider this...
Have you built walls around yourself? Walls that you hoped would defend you. Walls that in reality are blocking the road to freedom. It is important to recognize those walls and begin to tear them down. But remember, you can't tear them down all at once. Building them was a process, and so is tearing them down. It is done by being honest with God, with yourself and with others. It is done by learning to trust the truth of the Bible more than your feelings.
Prayer
Father, I realize I have been trying to hide the truth by building walls around myself. I have rationalized. I have pointed the finger at others. I have denied. But the truth is that I need help. Help me to be honest with you, with others and with myself. Help me to depend on the truth of your Word more than on my feelings. Help me to tear down the walls. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Insight Group: Discover the Path to Christian Character by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. With its emphasis on developing Christian character this is a powerful group for those who want to be sure to prevent life-controlling problems from developing in their lives, as well as for those who need to overcome a current problem. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Consecration of Spiritual Power
. . . by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world -Galatians 6:14
If I dwell on the Cross of Christ, I do not simply become inwardly devout and solely interested in my own holiness- I become strongly focused on Jesus Christ's interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor a fanatical holy man practicing self-denial. He did not physically cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. In fact, He was so much in the common everyday world that the religious people of His day accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual power.
It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives- no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one" ( John 17:15 ). We are to be in the world but not of it- to be separated internally, not externally (seeJohn 17:16 ).
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God's service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God's part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, "Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?"
Praise God from whom ALL blessing flow
Have a safe, blessed and Happy Thanksgiving.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 28, 2008
Sin Crouches At The Door
READ: Genesis 4:1-16
Sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. -Genesis 4:7
The award-winning author John Steinbeck often used biblical themes in his novels. In his book East of Eden, he describes characters who illustrate the conflict of jealousy and revenge reflected in the story of Cain and Abel. Steinbeck shows how an angry heart burning with revenge doesn't have to act a certain way. There's always a choice.
When Abel's animal sacrifice received divine favor and Cain's offering of fruit was rejected, Cain burned with anger (Gen. 4:1-6). But the Lord admonished him, "Sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it" (Gen. 4:7). The original Hebrew words paint the picture of an animal crouching, ready to devour its prey. Cain's anger and jealousy, if not brought under control, would "eat him up" and spill out in destructive behavior. Tragically, Cain gave in to his evil desires. It resulted in the first homicide and his departure from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:8-16).
Do you have feelings of jealousy or anger toward someone? If so, you have a choice. If you ignore the internal struggle, it will only get worse and control you. But if you bring your anger to the Lord and ask for His help, in His strength you will have victory. - Dennis Fisher
When faced with trials from without
Or tempted from within,
Rely upon the Lord for strength
To turn away from sin. -Sper
Control your anger, or it will control you.
Tapping Into Our Secret Weapon
Colossians 4:12
He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.
"Good morning. Before we begin our staff business meeting I wish to ask John to give us the intercessors' report regarding the direction of our new business development program."
"Our intercessors have been prayerfully reviewing the action plan I gave them. We believe the Lord is directing us in this way. However, our intercessors believe we may need to adjust our direction on this."
Does this sound like a far-fetched illustration of a modern-day company? If we are truly going to remove the separation of what we perceive as holy versus unholy, then we must make some paradigm shifts in our thinking.
The Lord has called you and me to be ministers of the gospel in and through the workplace. This means we must fight our battles, grow our companies, and minister to our employees and vendors through the power of the Holy Spirit. Intercessory prayer is the secret weapon of Spirit-led activity. Imagine having intercessors who are part of your team, committed to helping you make decisions in your business life "that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured." It is a comforting feeling to know the decisions you and I make during the course of a business day are in the will of God.
Some time ago the Lord showed me that I needed to find intercessors for my business. I needed to use intercessors in the daily decision process for my business. This has transformed the way I conduct business. No major decisions are made without prayerful review with my intercessory team. Intercessors are the front-line warriors raised up to do battle for the saints. Ask God to raise up intercessors who can support you as you go forth in the battlefield of the marketplace.
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"In everything we have won more than a victory because of Christ who loves us." Romans 8:37 CEV
Thoughts for Today
When we hide behind self-built defenses, we may have a sense that we are in control. We tell ourselves that we are holding our feelings in check. But in reality we are not in control at all-our problems are at the helm. We've pushed away the people who really care about us, the ones who could help us. And we've allowed our problem, our situation, to take control.
Only when we allow the defensive walls to crumble and start living and choosing and acting on the basis of who we are in Christ ... and on all the strength and guidance and wisdom God has promised to provide ... can we begin to practice true self-control.
Consider this
Do you know who you are? The Bible makes it clear. Because of Christ ...
You are redeemed-paid for at a great price. (Ephesians 1:7)
You are forgiven-clean your sin has been forgotten. (Psalm 103:12)
You are strong and capable and can do everything through Christ. (Philippians 4:13)
You are a conqueror-an overcomer. (Romans 8:37)
Prayer
Lord, help me to stop hiding behind my self-built defenses. Help me to see myself as you do because of Christ-redeemed, forgiven, strong, capable, an overcomer. Help me always to remember what a great price was paid at the cross so that I could have this new identity. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Insight Group: Discover the Path to Christian Character by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. With its emphasis on developing Christian character this is a powerful group for those who want to be sure to prevent life-controlling problems from developing in their lives, as well as for those who need to overcome a current problem. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Riches of the Destitute
. . . being justified freely by His grace . . . -Romans 3:24
The gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the truth that it reveals is not palatable or easy to swallow. There is a certain pride in people that causes them to give and give, but to come and accept a gift is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom; I will dedicate my life to service- I will do anything. But do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God through our own efforts. We must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest spiritual blessing we receive is when we come to the knowledge that we are destitute. Until we get there, our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us as long as we think we are sufficient in and of ourselves. We must enter into His kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are "rich," particularly in the area of pride or independence, God can do nothing for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit. The gift of the essential nature of God is placed and made effective in us by the Holy Spirit. He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, making us truly alive. He takes that which was "beyond" us and places it "within" us. And immediately, once "the beyond" has come "within," it rises up to "the above," and we are lifted into the kingdom where Jesus lives and reigns (see John 3:5 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 29, 2008
A Convenient Christianity
READ: Matthew 16:24-28
Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. -Matthew 16:25
So many television programs, so little time to watch them. Apparently that's what our culture thinks, because now technology allows us to see an hour-long program in just 6 minutes or less! The Minisode Network has pruned episodes of popular series into shorter, more convenient packages for interested viewers. "The shows you love-only shorter" is how it's advertised. All to make our life more convenient.
Some have tried to make the Christian life more convenient. They choose to practice Christianity on Sunday only. They attend a religious service at whatever church makes them most comfortable. They give a small offering and are nice to fellow churchgoers-nothing that requires much effort on their part. That way they can have the rest of the week to themselves, to live as they please.
That would be a convenient Christianity. But we know that following Jesus is a lifestyle and not a Sunday-only convenience. Being a "disciple" calls for giving up our lives for Him (Matt. 16:25). It's about living as Jesus calls us to live, daily giving up our plans and purposes for His. A relationship with Him causes us to be concerned with our thoughts, decisions, attitudes, and actions-all to make our life joy-filled for us and pleasing to God. - Anne Cetas
The Christian life is more than just
A prayer of faith made in the past;
It's dedicating every day
To live for Christ and what will last. -Sper
Faith in Christ is not just a single step but a life of walking with Him.
Forgiveness Ensures Freedom
Hebrews 12:15
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
In business and life the opportunity to harbor bitterness for a wrong suffered is great. We are given plenty of opportunities to grow bitter from relationships that bring hurt and pain. The writer of the Hebrews passage above admonishes us not to miss the grace of God so that we won't take up bitterness as a response to life's pain. He cautions us against this because he knows that a bitter root grows and grows until it eventually defiles many others through a wake of bitterness. If bitterness is allowed to take root, we become imprisoned to it. God's grace will no longer have as great an effect in our lives. We become ineffective, insensitive, and spiritually dead. We can even become physically ill from it. God does not live in bitterness. He lives in grace. He has provided grace for every person to walk in.
One day I was challenged to deal with an individual who hurt me terribly. I was faced with a decision. Would I choose bitterness, or would I choose grace? Oh, how my natural tendency was to choose bitterness. But God provided the courage to choose grace. With that grace came freedom-a freedom to love and even accept the person who was the source of such pain.
This is the real place where Christ's power is most revealed. We cannot live without His supernatural grace. Are you in need of grace today? It is there for the receiving. It will take courage to accept it and walk in it. This will be your step to freedom.
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
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A Heart of Thanksgiving
As the enemy attempts to lure us subtly away from God's best plan for our lives, we begin to compromise in many areas. And the trick that the enemy has used since the beginning of time is trying to convince us that we are getting a bad deal.
Human nature does not like to get taken by anybody or anything-and the enemy knows this. So, once Satan convinces us that God is robbing us of some of life's greatest pleasures, we begin to plan and to plot how we will get what we think we deserve. It is dangerous to venture down such a path.
However, there is a way to combat such tempting thoughts. To have a heart of gratitude means that we appreciate what God has given us. In fact, life itself is a gift from God to us for our enjoyment and pleasure.
When Paul and Silas were tossed into prison, they sang praises and hymns to God. These grateful hearts prepared the way for God to do something incredible in that Philippian jail. Had they been murmuring and grumbling about how a loving God could let them land in such a place, they would have missed an opportunity to lead a man and his entire family to the Lord.
As we seek God more and more, we discover that for every temptation the enemy presents, there is a greater blessing God wants to give. We must remain faithful to the Lord in those trying moments, pressing ahead with the knowledge that God will not withhold His best plan for our lives as long as we are putting Him first.
Prayer: Lord, please help me realize when I have an ungrateful heart and give me a heart of thanksgiving.
The Lord is my strength. ... My heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song (Psalm 28:7).
Learn how praise can make all the difference in your life. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Empowered by Praise." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
He will glorify Me . . . -John 16:14
The holiness movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them. There is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ. All that is required is a pious atmosphere, prayer, and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous. It did not cost the sufferings of God, nor is it stained with "the blood of the Lamb" ( Revelation 12:11 ). It is not marked or sealed by the Holy Spirit as being genuine, and it has no visual sign that causes people to exclaim with awe and wonder, "That is the work of God Almighty!" Yet the New Testament is about the work of God and nothing else.
The New Testament example of the Christian experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the Person of Jesus. There is no regeneration- no being born again into the kingdom in which Christ lives and reigns supreme. There is only the idea that He is our pattern. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Savior long before He is the pattern. Today He is being portrayed as the figurehead of a religion- a mere example. He is that, but He is infinitely more. He is salvation itself; He is the gospel of God!
Jesus said, ". . . when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, . . . He will glorify Me . . ." (John 16:13-14 ). When I commit myself to the revealed truth of the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit, who then begins interpreting to me what Jesus did. The Spirit of God does in me internally all that Jesus Christ did for me externally.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals November 30, 2008
Lend A Hand
READ: Romans 12:9-21
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. -Romans 12:15
The next month will be very difficult for many people who are still reeling from a loss this past year. The crippling hurt caused by the absence of a loved one can cloud holiday gatherings and even dim the desire to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Poet Ann Weems has written:
Some of us walk into Advent
tethered to our unresolved yesterdays,
the pain still stabbing,
the hurt still throbbing.
It's not that we don't know better;
it's just that we can't stand up
anymore by ourselves.
On the way to Bethlehem,
will you give us a hand?
In Romans 12:9-21, Paul gives ways to express practical Christianity in our relationships. One seems especially needed at this time of year: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep" (v.15). We can "give a hand" to grieving friends and family by understanding their sorrow and not expecting them to "get over it" in time to celebrate the holidays. We can freely mention the name of the person whose death has brought such desolation and then share a fond memory. We can be quiet, listen, and pray for God's help.
Only God can heal the deep wounds of the heart, but we can lend a hand. - David C. McCasland
If I can help some wounded heart,
If I can by my love impart
Some blessing that will help more now-
Lord, just show me how. -Brandt
No one is strong enough to bear his burdens alone.
Knowledge + Action = Faith
Hebrews 4:2
For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.
The people of Israel were called out of the bondage of Egyptian slavery. God said they would be brought out of 400 years of slavery so that they might worship Him. God desired to bring them into a place of milk and honey-the Promised Land. Yet that generation never entered into the Promised Land. Why? They never took what they knew in their head and transferred it to their heart. Finally, it never resulted in actions that were based on what they believed.
When I was a new Christian I heard an illustration of what belief and faith looked like when combined. If you were a trapeze artist and were skilled at walking across tightropes over high places, you might even be willing to walk across Niagara Falls. In fact, I would have confidence that you could because I had seen your abilities as a trapeze artist. However, if you asked me if you could push me in a wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls, you would be challenging me to put my beliefs into action. This requires faith, participation, and risk, which, until now, was based only on mental assent.
The writer of Hebrews is telling us that if we believe God but do not enter in to those promises, we are like the man who chooses not to get into the wheelbarrow. If we don't act on our beliefs, then we remain in the desert like the people of Israel who never received God's promises. They did not combine what they knew in their head with a faith that was put into action.
Has God spoken to you about an area in your life that requires a step of faith? Let God provide the courage, as He does the knowledge, to act in faith on what you believe.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
Click to Order or Learn More
Welcome Home
by Max Lucado
Homesickness is one of the burdens God doesn't mind if we carry. God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (Eccles. 3:11 NIV). Down deep you know you are not home yet.
This is not our forever house. It will serve for the time being. But there is nothing like the moment we enter his door.
Molly can tell you. After a month in our house she ran away. I came home one night to find the place unusually quiet. Molly was gone.
She'd slipped out unnoticed. The search began immediately. Within an hour we knew that she was far, far from home. Now, if you don't like pets, what I'm about to say is going to sound strange. If you do like pets, you will understand.
You'll understand why we walked up and down the street, calling her name. You'll understand why I drove around the neighborhood at 10:30 P.M. You'll understand why I put up a poster in the convenience store and convened the family for a prayer. (Honestly, I did.) You'll understand why I sent e-mails to the staff, asking for prayers, and to her breeder, asking for advice. And you'll understand why we were ready to toss the confetti and party when she showed up.
Here is what happened. The next morning Denalyn was on her way home from taking the girls to school when she saw the trash truck. She asked the workers to keep an eye out for Molly and then hurried home to host a moms' prayer group. Soon after the ladies arrived, the trash truck pulled into our driveway, a worker opened the door, and out bounded our dog. She had been found.
When Denalyn called to tell me the news, I could barely hear her voice. It was Mardi Gras in the kitchen. The ladies were celebrating the return of Molly.
This story pops with symbolism. The master leaving his house, searching for the lost. Victories in the midst of prayer. Great things coming out of trash. But most of all: the celebration at the coming home. That's something else you have in common with Molly-a party at your homecoming.
Those you love will shout. Those you know will applaud. But all the noise will cease when the Father cups your chin and says, "Welcome home." And with scarred hand he'll wipe every tear from your eye. And you will dwell in the house of your Lord-forever.
From
Traveling Light
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
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"By the Grace of God I Am What I Am"
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . -1 Corinthians 15:10
The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God's perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, "Oh, I shouldn't claim to be sanctified; I'm not a saint." But to say that before God means, "No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn't possible." That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.
Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, "Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified," is in God's eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.
There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 1, 2008
Waiting For Joy
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:8-18
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. -Psalm 30:5
A large part of life centers around anticipation. How much we would lose if we were to wake up one day to the unexpected announcement: "Christmas in 10 minutes!" The enjoyment in many of life's events is built on the fact that we have time to anticipate them.
Christmas, vacations, mission trips, sporting events. All grow in value because of the hours we spend looking forward to them-eagerly running through our minds the fun, challenges, and excitement they'll bring.
I think about the value of anticipation and the thrill it can bring to the human heart when I read Psalm 30:5, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." The psalmist is declaring the comforting idea that our earthly sorrow lasts but a short time when compared with the anticipated joy that will begin in heaven and last forever. Paul pens a similar idea in 2 Corinthians 4:17, where we discover that our "light affliction" leads to a glory of eternal value.
For now, those of us who weep can dwell on hope instead of hopelessness and anticipation instead of sorrow. It may be nighttime in our hearts, but just ahead lies the dawn of eternity. And with it, God promises the endless joy of heavenly morning. - Dave Branon
Tribulation, grief, and sorrow
Are but heaven's steppingstones
To a bright and glad tomorrow
Where no heartache can be known. -Glass
We can endure this life's trials because of the next life's joys.
Marketplace Meditations 12/1
Striving Versus Abiding
Psalms 127:1
Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.
What does it mean for the Lord to build the house? It almost seems a contradiction when we consider that we might be the builders in this passage. God wants us to allow Him to build the house. He explains further:
Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-for He grants sleep to those He loves (Psalm 127:1-2).
God is telling us there is a way of working without striving. There is a way to conduct business without sweating and toiling for outcome. His warning to each of us is to avoid thinking that outcome is based on our sweat and toil. Outcome is based on obedience. That outcome is sometimes more than we deserve. Sometimes it is less than we hoped for. His desire for each of us is to see Him working in our daily work life. He wants us to avoid looking to our own effort to gain an outcome.
One day Jesus called out to Peter from the shore of the lake and suggested he throw his net on the other side of the boat. It was this simple act of obedience that yielded a tremendous catch that he would not have received unless he obeyed.
We are called to work; He is called to bring forth the fruit. He is the vine. We are the branches. Fruit comes forth naturally from a healthy tree.
Today, ask God to show you when you enter into striving. Ask Him to show you the difference between loving trust and obedience and striving for outcome. It can be challenging for us to balance this in our daily work experience. He wants to help us walk in this freedom and rest.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free - Dec. 1, 2008
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love." 1 John 4:17-18 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Daily the media reports violence and abuse, especially in the home-child neglect, sexual violence, rape, abandonment, and on and on. Victims of such abuse usually suffer pain long after the actual abuse has ended. Memories haunt them. They continue to feel the shame, fear, anger and grief brought about by painful events of the past.
Consider this...
Are you or someone you love a surviving victim of abuse? If so, you may be allowing fear to rule in your life. The fear you experienced when you were being abused has become a fear of everyday life. Fear of committing to a relationship. Fear of rejection. Fear of failure. Fear of intimacy.
These feelings of fear often cause victims to put up barriers to God and to relationships with other people. Fear is an extremely powerful emotion that we don't know how to control. It attacks our ability to trust. It compromises our ability to relax in relationships. Fear of becoming vulnerable, of being betrayed by others or even by God.
One of the first steps to overcoming fear and tearing down the barriers it has built between you and others is to ask God's forgiveness for your failure to trust him. This will open the door for you to begin building a relationship with him. To know him better by spending time talking to him and reading his Word. Only then can you begin to know how much he loves you. Only then can you grow to understand his character. With that understanding, you will know that you can trust him, and he will help you build closer relationships with those around you.
Children raised by an abusive or neglectful father often have an incorrect view of God, picturing him like their earthly father. The good news is that our Heavenly Father is perfect and fair. Perfect love drives out fear. God's love is perfect.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for not trusting you as I should. I believe you love me. I believe Jesus died for me. I want to be your child. Help me to trust you and your perfect love and then to be able to overcome the fear that has ruled my life. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner. This study ministers to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships. It deals with overcoming these abusive relationships through Christ and is recommended for use in small groups and Christian counseling. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Law and the Gospel
Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all -James 2:10
The moral law does not consider our weaknesses as human beings; in fact, it does not take into account our heredity or infirmities. It simply demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never changes, either for the highest of society or for the weakest in the world. It is enduring and eternally the same. The moral law, ordained by God, does not make itself weak to the weak by excusing our shortcomings. It remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we are not aware of this, it is because we are less than alive. Once we do realize it, our life immediately becomes a fatal tragedy. "I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died" ( Romans 7:9 ). The moment we realize this, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin. Until a person gets there and sees that there is no hope, the Cross of Christ remains absurd to him. Conviction of sin always brings a fearful, confining sense of the law. It makes a person hopeless- ". . . sold under sin" ( Romans 7:14 ). I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God- it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience. Who of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!
We only begin to realize the power of the moral law once we see that it comes with a condition and a promise. But God never coerces us. Sometimes we wish He would make us be obedient, and at other times we wish He would leave us alone. Whenever God's will is in complete control, He removes all pressure. And when we deliberately choose to obey Him, He will reach to the remotest star and to the ends of the earth to assist us with all of His almighty power.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 2, 2008
A Passion For People
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:9-21
He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. -2 Corinthians 5:15
Mark Twain said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
This quote appears on a Web site intended to help people discover what they are passionate about so they can live with greater significance.
The apostle Paul's passion in life was largely driven by concern for the eternal destiny of others. In 2 Corinthians 5, he names three things that fueled his passion. First, he recognized that he was accountable to Christ for his service and wanted to give a good accounting at the judgment seat of Christ (vv.9-10). Second, Paul was driven by Christ's love and a desire that others would know the love that he had experienced. In verse 14 he wrote, "For the love of Christ compels us." Finally, he understood that a lost and dying world needs the Savior (v.20).
What are you passionate about? Paul's passion for people was fueled by the love of Christ-and ours should be as well. Let's apply Twain's words of challenge to our efforts in outreach: "Sail away from the safe harbor." Share the love of Christ with someone today. - Bill Crowder
Set us afire, Lord, stir us we pray!
While the world perishes, we go our way
Purposeless, passionless, day after day;
Set us afire, Lord, stir us we pray! -Cushman
Talking to Christ about others helps us to talk to others about Christ.
The Depth and Width of Your Calling
2 Corinthians 1:6
If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
"God must love you a lot! He doesn't allow someone to go through the kinds of adversity you have experienced unless He has a special calling on your life." Those were the words said to me by two different mentors at two different times within a three-year period. Later I would learn another related truth from a respected man of God-a man who lives in another country, a man whom God uses throughout the globe. "The depth and width of your faith experiences are directly proportional to your calling." What were these men of God saying?
They were describing a process of preparation that God takes each of His leaders through when He plans to use them in significant ways. A "faith experience" is an event or "spiritual marker" in your life about which you can say, "That is where I saw God personally move in my life." It is an unmistakable event in which God showed Himself personally to you. It was the burning bush for Moses; the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River for the nation of Israel; Jacob's encounter with the angel. It was the feeding of the 5,000 for the disciples. It was the time when you saw God face to face in your life.
If God has plans of using you in the lives of many others, you can expect that He is going to allow certain faith experiences to come into your life in order to build a foundation that will be solid. That foundation is what you will be able to look back on to keep you faithful to Him in the times of testing. Each of us must have personal faith experiences in which we experience God personally so that we can move in faith to whatever He may call us. Do you need a personal faith experience right now in your life? Pray that God will reveal Himself to you. He delights in doing that.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil!" Proverbs 3:5-7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
If you were ever a victim of violence or abuse of any kind, you no doubt felt totally out of control in the situation, whether it was child neglect or abuse, sexual violence, rape or any other form of mistreatment. You never want to feel out of control again, so now you try to control every situation-and relationship-in your life. You probably don't even trust God to be in control.
None of us can be free to become all we were meant to be until we recognize that God is in control, that he loves us and wants to care for us. We are fooling ourselves when we think we can make it on our own through this life. We need to lean on Jesus. On his wisdom, his strength and his love.
Consider this
Jesus loves you. He is inviting you to put your hands in his and let him guide you and help you through the circumstances of life. Stop trying to figure everything out on your own. Stop trying to forge through life depending on your own strength and understanding. Let Jesus love you. Let him help you reach your full potential and accomplish all the good things he has called you to do.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for thinking I could make it through life on my own. I need your help and your guidance in everything I do. Help me to stop trying to control everything Help me to listen to your voice to obey you and to trust you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner. This study ministers to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships. It deals with overcoming these abusive relationships through Christ and is recommended for use in small groups and Christian counseling. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Christian Perfection
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect . . . -Philippians 3:12
It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do- God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life's determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, "It could never be God's will for me to be sick"? If it was God's will to bruise His own Son ( Isaiah 53:10 ), why shouldn't He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do. The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives may leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary- that through your own human effort and devotion you can attain God's standard for your life. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God's purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 3, 2008
Sorry no Daily Bread today, problems with their website. Again sorry!
Living for a Cause Greater Than Yourself
Philippians 4:13
I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.
In the thirteenth century a man named William Wallace became the instrument of freedom from England's tyranny over Scotland. A very wicked king ruled England. A tragedy in the life of William Wallace launched him into living for this cause. Initially his cause was revenge, but soon his cause turned to something bigger than himself-freedom for a nation. When he challenged the commoners to fight for this freedom, they responded that the enemy was too great and that they might die on the battlefield. They also refused to fight for the nobles, the knights and leaders who had a vested interest in gaining more land for themselves versus a pure cause of freedom. Wallace's response: "Yes, we might die. We will all die sooner or later. But we will die for a cause worth dying for. So that our children and their children might live in freedom." This story was popularized in the movie Brave Heart (Sherman Oaks, California: Paramount Pictures, 1995).
Today we find many Christian businesspeople living a status quo relationship with God that is more characterized as "business as usual" than a life demonstrating God's power. Our focus is often more concerned with improving our standard of living than improving the Kingdom of God through our circle of influence. While this takes place, millions upon millions die without the saving grace of Christ. Many other Christians die never experiencing the freedom in Christ that His blood paid for. God has called each of us to live for a cause greater than ourselves-a life that is dependent on His grace and power to achieve things we never thought possible through our lives. This is His plan for your life. The apostle Paul prayed that He might experience the power of the resurrection in his life. This power is available to you and me to live for a cause greater than ourselves. Ask God what He wants to achieve through your life today. And consider yourself dead already to the consequences of what that might mean for you.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
Click to Order or Learn More
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death." Romans 8:1-2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
This week we have been looking at the pain from suffering abuse that often lasts for years after the abuse has ended. Victims of verbal abuse suffer constant criticism and condemnation from their abuser. They often continue suffering the effects of this abuse long after it has ended. They tend to criticize and condemn themselves and others, a behavior learned from those who criticized and condemned them.
Repentance is the key to breaking this destructive pattern. You are never called to repent for the abusive acts that happened to you ... but you do need to repent of the self-destructive behaviors that may have developed in your life. Only through repentance can you grow in your relationship with the Lord.
Consider this...
Self-condemnation leads to a miserable and ineffective lifestyle. Unjust criticism and condemnation of others hinder the development of relationships. Repentance involves bringing your failures to the cross. As you receive Christ's forgiveness, healing of the past can begin. You can start to understand how special you are to Jesus. And you can learn to see yourself and others through his eyes of understanding and love.
Prayer
Father, I had no control over the abuse I suffered in the past, but I realize now that I do have control over where I choose to go with my life from here. I have made many bad choices and developed some wrong attitudes and behaviors. Please forgive me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for seeing me as someone special. Help me to see myself and others through your eyes of understanding and love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner. This study ministers to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships. It deals with overcoming these abusive relationships through Christ and is recommended for use in small groups and Christian counseling. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
NOT BY MIGHT NOR BY POWER
Oswald Chambers
"And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." 1 Corinthians 2:4
If in preaching the Gospel you substitute your clear knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the Gospel, you hinder people getting to Reality. You have to see that while you proclaim your knowledge of the way of salvation, you yourself are rooted and grounded in faith in God. Never rely on the clearness of your exposition, but as you give your exposition see that you are relying on the Holy Spirit. Rely on the certainty of God's redemptive power, and He will create His own life in souls.
When once you are rooted in Reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, any thing that happens is likely to upset that faith; but nothing can ever upset God or the almighty Reality of Redemption; base your faith on that, and you are as eternally secure as God. When once you get into personal contact with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. That is the meaning of sanctification. God puts His disapproval on human experience when we begin to adhere to the conception that sanctification is merely an experience, and forget that sanctification itself has to be sanctified (see John 17:19). I have deliberately to give my sanctified life to God for His service, so that He can use me as His hands and His feet.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 4, 2008
Gone With The Wind
READ: Ecclesiastes 1:2-9,14
All is vanity and grasping for the wind. -Ecclesiastes 1:14
The epic film based on Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone With the Wind opens with these lines:
"There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. . . . Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind."
Not only does a way of life disappear but also the dreams that drive the main characters. Throughout the Civil War, Scarlett O'Hara is preoccupied with her love for Ashley Wilkes. But by story's end, she is disillusioned.
Solomon saw the futility of seeking satisfaction in people and things. Despite amassing wealth and knowledge, completing great projects, and marrying many wives, he said, "All is vanity and grasping for the wind" (Eccl. 1:14).
Why does chasing transitory things leave us unfulfilled? The biblical answer is that we were created to find our ultimate fulfillment in God. Jesus promised, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
People and things come and go. But the spiritual satisfaction Christ offers sustains us in this world and will endure into eternity. - Dennis Fisher
What comes from man will never last,
It's here today, tomorrow past;
What comes from God will always be
The same for all eternity! -Spencer
Invest your life in what pays eternal dividends.
Faith Versus Presumption
Genesis 16:2
So she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
Presumption is based on our own reasoning. Abraham and Sarah fell into presumption when they got too old to have children. God had promised a son to Abraham and Sarah-a son who would fulfill His promise to birth a nation. But Abraham and Sarah were past the normal age for childbearing. So, they concluded that God needed help to work out His plan.
Many businesspeople make the same mistake every day. We make assumptions about what we believe God is doing and wants us to do. However, before we really have full assurance that God has spoken to us on the matter and revealed His perfect action plan, we move forward with our steps to get it done. How do we protect ourselves from presumption? The Proverbs tell us that there is safety in a multitude of counselors (see Prov. 11:14 KJV). Submitting our decisions to others for confirmation protects each of us from the deceit of our own heart. This process will protect us from presumption and encourage us to move in faith. The next time you believe God is directing you toward a specific action, consult with your spouse first, then some close, spiritual friends who will take the time to prayerfully consider your request. If you don't have consensus, wait until you do before you move forward. God will move through this process to His desired will for the matter.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Forgiveness can be tough. Especially when someone has hurt us deeply or has maliciously abused us. How is it possible to forgive someone who has been so cruel?
If you have not forgiven someone who has hurt you, remember that real healing cannot take place until you let go of all bitterness and unforgiveness. Forgiveness is a process that may require considerable time and much prayer. But with Christ's help, you can do it. He forgave his attackers even as he died on the cross. And he forgives us freely when we turn to him. How can we do less?
Consider this
You have a choice. You can choose to continue as you are. Or you can choose to forgive. Forgiveness will allow you to experience God's peace and all the good he has planned for your life.
Choose forgiveness today. It won't be easy, but God will make it possible. Ask him to forgive you for the bitterness and anger you feel. And then trust him to help you forgive your abuser and move on to the joy and fulfillment God has provided for you.
Prayer
Father, teach me to forgive. You have covered me with your grace and mercy. Forgive me for holding in so much bitterness toward the one who has hurt me. Help me to extend grace to this person. Help me to forgive. And help me to love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner. This study ministers to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships. It deals with overcoming these abusive relationships through Christ and is recommended for use in small groups and Christian counseling. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Law of Opposition
To him who overcomes . . . -Revelation 2:7
Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.
Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me. To maintain good health I must have sufficient internal strength to fight off the things that are external. Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead. If I have enough inner strength to fight, I help to produce the balance needed for health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.
Morally it is the same. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.
And spiritually it is also the same. Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation . . ." ( John 16:33 ). This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, ". . . but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I must learn to fight against and overcome the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness. Then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.
Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 5, 2008
Seeing Jesus
READ: Isaiah 53:1-6
He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. -Isaiah 53:2
When I was young, I thought I knew exactly what Jesus looked like. After all, I saw Him every day whenever I looked at some pictures in my bedroom. One showed Jesus knocking at a door and the other depicted Him as a Shepherd with His sheep.
What I didn't know was that a mere decade before I was born, those pictures of Jesus didn't exist. Warner Sallman painted the well-known "Head of Christ" and other portraits of Jesus in the 1940s. Those images were just one man's idea of what Jesus might have looked like.
The Bible never gives a physical description of Jesus. Even the men who saw Him every day didn't tell us what He looked like. In fact, the only clue we have is a passage in Isaiah that says: "There is no beauty that we should desire Him" (53:2). It seems that Jesus' human form was deliberately de-emphasized. He looked like an ordinary man. People weren't drawn to Him because of a regal appearance but because of what He said and did and because of the message of love He came to give (John 3:16).
But the next time Jesus comes to earth, it will be different. When our Savior returns, we will recognize Him as the sovereign King of kings and Lord of lords! (1 Tim. 6:14-15). - Cindy Hess Kasper
The more I see His beauty,
The more I know His grace,
The more I long, unhindered,
To gaze upon His face. -Anon.
To see Jesus will be heaven's greatest joy.
Confidence in Numbers
2 Samuel 24:10
David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg You, take away the guilt of Your servant. I have done a very foolish thing."
It just seems to be human nature. As we grow in wealth and ability, our confidence moves from complete trust in the Lord to trust in our resources. King David decided one day that he needed to know how many fighting men he had in his army. This was a grievous sin in the nation of Israel. God always made it clear to the nation that He, not their army, was their source. It was against the law of God to number the troops. David's general, Joab, knew the serious nature of such an action.
But Joab replied to the king, "May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?" (2 Samuel 24:3)
Joab knew that David was treading in dangerous waters when he brought up the idea to him. But David had it in his mind that this is what he was going to do. And he did. The result: God judged David for this sin by smiting the nation with a plague that resulted in the loss of 70,000 lives.
Recently, I was having lunch with a former stockbroker who lost everything in the 1987 stock crash in the United States. He made an interesting comment. "You cannot know how to fully trust the Lord in the financial area until you really have to. When I lost everything, I was forced to trust Him when I knew I could not pay my next bill unless God provided. This was the time I learned to trust God. I never had to trust God before I lost my money because I had plenty. We don't willingly enter this level of trust with God."
Ask God today to keep you from trusting in your own resources. Ask Him how to balance trust and blessing from Him this day.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You. So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages]." Isaiah 26:3-4 AMP
Thoughts for Today
This week we have been discussing healing from the pain of abuse. Many people who have suffered abuse experience pain long after the abuse has ended. We have looked at the importance of overcoming fear by learning to trust God seeking forgiveness for the wrong attitudes and responses we have allowed to develop in our life forgiving those who have hurt us.
There is no quick fix for the pain of abuse. Healing is a process. Today's scripture gives us keys to this process: focusing our mind on Jesus, trusting him, committing ourselves to him, leaning on him and hoping in him. As we do these things, he promises to guard us and keep us in perfect and constant peace.
Consider this
During the healing process, you will probably face some painful memories and some difficult experiences within yourself. Remember . God is your greatest source of comfort. Go to him and he will comfort you by his Spirit, who is living in you. With his help, you can be healed and truly put the past behind.
Prayer
Father, thank you for your promise of peace. Help me to trust you more, to keep my focus on you, and to follow the steps you lay before me in this process of healing. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Restoring Families: Overcoming Abusive Relationships through Christ by Janet M. Lerner. This study ministers to families caught in the cycle of abusive relationships. It deals with overcoming these abusive relationships through Christ and is recommended for use in small groups and Christian counseling. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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"The Temple of the Holy Spirit"
. . . only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you -Genesis 41:40
I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority. Paul said he did not "set aside the grace of God"- make it ineffective ( Galatians 2:21 ). The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever. I am not being saved- I am saved. Salvation is as eternal as God's throne, but I must put to work or use what God has placed within me. To "work out [my] own salvation" ( Philippians 2:12 ) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me. It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly. "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 9:27 ). Every Christian can have his body under absolute control for God. God has given us the responsibility to rule over all "the temple of the Holy Spirit," including our thoughts and desires ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). We are responsible for these, and we must never give way to improper ones. But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves. We make excuses for things in ourselves, while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.
Paul said, "I beseech you . . . that you present your bodies a living sacrifice . . ." ( Romans 12:1 ). What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple. Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth-my body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit."
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 6, 2008
A Commitment To Walk
READ: Genesis 5:18-24
Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. -Genesis 5:24
One thing that impresses me about my wife is her commitment to walk two to four times a week for at least an hour. Come rain, snow, sleet, or shine, my wife layers up or down (depending on the weather), puts on her headphones, and off she goes walking through our community.
My wife's commitment to walking reminds me of a man named Enoch. Genesis 5:18-24 is a short paragraph about his life, and it shines like a diamond amid the earthly record of deaths. In a storyline where the funeral bells tolled out their mournful drone ("and he died" is repeated eight times in the chapter), there is a ray of hope-Enoch walked with God.
What did it mean for Enoch to walk with God? It describes Enoch's close communion with God-as if literally walking by His side. Also, it refers to Enoch's unswerving obedience to God in a corrupt culture. God rewarded Enoch's faithfulness by taking him to heaven while he was still alive. Death would not have the final word in God's creation.
Enoch's walk with God reminds us that it is possible for all of us to enjoy intimate communion with the Lord. Let's commit ourselves to walking faithfully with Him every day. - Marvin Williams
He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known. -Miles
© Renewal 1940 The Rodeheaver Co.
You're headed in the right direction when you walk with God.
When God Restores What the Locusts Eat
Joel 2:25
I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten-the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm-My great army that I sent among you.
There are seasons in our lives that involve times of famine and times of restoration. Solomon tells us that He has made everything beautiful in its time and that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven. (See Ecclesiastes 3:1,11.)
God brings about both the good and the bad. The seasons of famine have a divine purpose in our lives. They accomplish things that only these hard places can accomplish. But there is a time when those hard places have accomplished their purpose and He begins to restore. God did this with the nation of Israel after a season of famine and devastation.
Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten-the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm-My great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will My people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will My people be shamed" (Joel 2:23-27).
God wants each of us to know that there is a time when He will restore in order to demonstrate His gracious hand in our lives. He is a loving Father who tenderly guides His children through the difficult places. If God has taken you through a time of leanness, know that He is the restorer of that which the locusts have eaten. Wait patiently for Him to bring this about in your life. He will do it.
Real Christianity
How One Person Changed the World
Arguably the most outspoken Christian member of Parliament in the history of England, William Wilberforce changed the course of his nation -- and the world -- with his determination to end the British slave trade. His mentor was none other than John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace. In his classic book, Real Christianity, Wilberforce describes what true Christian faith looks like in practical actions. This modern version of Real Christianity will strongly challenge you to consider your own faith in contrast to the "Christian sub-culture" that exists today.
Click to Order or Learn More
A Vision of Heaven
Do you ever feel frustrated that things are not going the way they should? Do you get uptight because things seem to be out of control?
Take heart, because you are not supposed to be in control. You are not on the throne-God is. His throne is the place of authority and the center of His rule for the activities of heaven. Jesus Christ, who is glorified and magnified, sits at the right hand of the throne.
One day we will be with Christ in heaven, praising Him. Peter writes:
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9).
Do you ever wonder what heaven is like? We can try to imagine it based on our earthly ideas. When we think of the grandest place on earth, we might imagine a palace or the sanctuary of the most architecturally elaborate cathedral ever built. We might even think of the private home of the wealthiest person on earth. No matter what we may try to compare heaven to, until we see it for ourselves we will not be able to grasp the scope of its magnificence.
When we see the splendor of heaven, we are going to fall on our faces. We are going to comprehend our complete unworthiness. We are going to regret our stubbornness, disobedience, and self-centeredness.
As you go about your daily routine and you feel tired, frustrated, and out of control, think about heaven. Remember that you are a member of God's royal priesthood, chosen by Him.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth (Revelation 5:10).
The circumstances of life do not have to get you down. Learn how you can turn negative situations into ones of hope and promise in our free resource this month-"When Life Gets You Down, Look Up!" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
"My Rainbow in the Cloud"
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth -Genesis 9:13
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn't God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn't God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is- will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won't do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God--a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don't believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, "Now I believe." There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." ( Isaiah 45:22 ).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement- no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 7, 2008
Eat This Bread
READ: Matthew 26:20-30
Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel. -Micah 5:2
Christmas isn't the time of year when our thoughts naturally turn to the Last Supper-or what the Jews called Passover. But that particular Passover is critical to Christmas. After breaking bread and giving it to His disciples, Jesus said, "Take, eat; this is My body" (Matt. 26:26). Breaking bread was a traditional part of Passover, but adding "this is my body" was a striking departure from the familiar liturgy. The disciples must have been bewildered.
Later the meaning became clear. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means "house of Bread." He was laid in a manger-a feeding trough. He once said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh" (John 6:51).
The prophet Micah indicated that One born in Bethlehem would rule over Israel (5:2). But not until Jesus came did anyone realize the uniqueness of this Kingdom. Christ's rule would not be imposed upon anyone; it would be imparted to those who accepted this new citizenship.
As we sing of Bethlehem's manger, let's remember that the heaven-sent infant King came so that we might "eat this bread" and partake of His divine nature. - Julie Ackerman Link
Thou art the bread of life, O Lord, to me,
Thy holy Word the truth that saveth me;
Give me to eat and live with Thee above,
Teach me to love Thy truth, for Thou art love. -Lathbury
Only Christ the Living Bread can satisfy our spiritual hunger.
Suffering for the Salvation of Another
Matthew 5:11
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Recently, a friend told a true story about one of his closest friends who experienced great suffering for the soul of his persecutor. This man worked on a cargo ship. His boss was the captain. This friend was a committed Christian who shared his faith with others and was a good worker. One day the friend led the sea captain's girlfriend to Christ. The sea captain already hated and ridiculed the Christian worker because of his faith in Christ. When his girlfriend came to Christ, she stopped sleeping with the captain. The captain blamed the Christian man for the change in his girlfriend. One day he entered the restaurant where the Christian man was having lunch. He walked over to his table and began hurling obscenities and began beating him. The Christian man simply tried to defend himself but did not fight back. The captain kept beating him until eventually the man lay on the floor bleeding.
Two men entered the restaurant and saw what was taking place. They jumped the sea captain and took him outside and began beating him. The sea captain was beaten so badly that he needed immediate medical attention. The Christian worker saw the condition of the sea captain, came to his aid, and began helping him. The sea captain was so moved that this man could do this after he had literally beaten him bloody that he began to weep, not understanding what could move a man to have such love in the face of being beaten. The sea captain accepted Jesus at that moment.
The Bible tells us that while we were yet sinners Christ came and paid our penalty so that we might live eternally. Many in the marketplace have never known the love of Christ. You might be the only one they ever meet who can introduce them to this love. Ask God to show you how to love the unlovable in your workplace today.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Learning to Trust the Master
by Max Lucado
A man and his dog are in the same car. The dog howls bright-moon-in-the-middle-of-the-night caterwauling howls. The man pleads, promising a daily delivery of dog biscuit bouquets if only the hound will hush. After all, it's only a car wash.
Never occurred to him-ahem, to me-that the car wash would scare my dog. But it did. Placing myself in her paws, I can see why. A huge, noisy machine presses toward us, pounding our window with water, banging against the door with brushes. Duck! We're under attack.
"Don't panic. The car wash was my idea." "I've done this before." "It's for our own good." Ever tried to explain a car wash to a canine? Dog dictionaries are minus the words brush and detail job. My words fell on fallen flaps. Nothing helped. She just did what dogs do; she wailed.
Actually, she did what we do. Don't we howl? Not at car washes perhaps but at hospital stays and job transfers. Let the economy go south or the kids move north, and we have a wail of a time. And when our Master explains what's happening, we react as if he's speaking Yalunka. We don't understand a word he says.
Is your world wet and wild?
God's greatest blessings often come costumed as disasters. Any doubters need to do nothing more than ascend the hill of Calvary.
Jerusalem's collective opinion that Friday was this: Jesus is finished.
Such is the view of the disciples, the opinion of the friends, and the outlook of the enemies. Label it the dog-in-the-passenger-seat view.
The Master who sits behind the wheel thinks differently. God is not surprised. His plan is right on schedule. Even in-especially in-death, Christ is still the king, the king over his own crucifixion.
Can't he do the same for you? Can't he turn your Friday into a Sunday?
Some of you doubt it. How can God use cancer or death or divorce? Simple.
He's smarter than we are. He is to you what I was to four-year-old Amy. I met her at a bookstore. She asked me if I would sign her children's book. When I asked her name, she watched as I began to write, "To Amy "
She stopped me right there. With wide eyes and open mouth, she asked, "How did you know how to spell my name?"
She was awed. You aren't. You know the difference between the knowledge of a child and an adult. Can you imagine the difference between the wisdom of a human and the wisdom of God? What is impossible to us is like spelling "Amy" to him. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:9).
I keep taking Molly to the car wash. She's howling less. I don't think she understands the machinery. She's just learning to trust her master. Maybe we'll learn the same.
From
Next Door Savior
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
Repentance
READ:
Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation . . . -2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction of sin is best described in the words:
My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall.
Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8 ). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person's conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person's relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God- "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight . . ." ( Psalm 51:4 ). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, "I have sinned." The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes- a reflex action caused by self-disgust.
The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man's respectable "goodness." Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person's life (see Galatians 4:19 ). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses- repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 8, 2008
Here Comes The Boss!
READ: Joshua 7:16-22
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9
A number of computer games come with a special feature called the "Boss Key." If you're playing a game when you're supposed to be working, and someone (like the boss) walks into your office, you quickly strike the Boss Key. Your computer screen changes immediately, hiding what you've been doing.
Trying to hide from others when we've done something wrong comes naturally. We may feel guilty, but our desire to avoid admitting our responsibility is often stronger than our guilt.
Achan tried to hide his sin. He had stolen silver and gold and hidden it in his tent (Josh. 7:20-21). But when the Israelites were defeated in battle, the Lord told their leader Joshua that the loss was due to sin in the camp (vv.11-12). The Lord identified Achan as the one who had sinned. And even though Achan confessed, he and his family were executed (v.25).
We may not understand why God dealt so harshly with Achan's sin, but we do know He was instructing His people in His holiness and their need for obedience to His commands (Ex. 20:17).
If you've been disobedient, it's time to come out of hiding. God is lovingly calling you and offering His cleansing, forgiveness, and restoration. - Anne Cetas
O Lord, help me to come to You
When I would rather hide my sin;
Give me the courage to confess
So I can be made clean within. -Sper
Confession is the key that opens the door to forgiveness.
Understanding the Source of Anger
Proverbs 29:11
A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.
The marketplace can be a pressure-packed world. The demands that are often put on us can bring out things that we never knew were there. Sometimes we begin to think that the source of that pressure is to blame for our response to the pressure. It could be an event, a spouse, a boss, a client, a child, or even a driver who cuts us off in traffic.
I recall responding to a close friend one time, "If you had not done that, I would never have responded that way." Later I learned that this response had little truth to it. We all choose to get angry. No one else is to blame for our anger.
"The circumstances of life, the events of life, and the people around me in life, do not make me the way I am, but reveal the way I am" [Dr. Sam Peeples].
This simple quote has had a profound impact on how I view my anger now. Anger only reveals what is inside of me. I can't blame anyone but me for my response to a situation. I have learned that anger is only the symptom of something else that is going on inside of me. This quote now resides on my refrigerator door as a daily reminder of the truth about my response to life's situations.
It has been said that anger is like the warning panel on the dash of your car. It is the light that tells us something is going on under the hood and we need to find out what is the source of the problem. I discovered that the source of anger is often unmet expectations or personal rights. We believe we are entitled to a particular outcome to a situation. When this doesn't happen, it triggers something in us. At the core of this is fear, often a fear of failure or rejection, fear of what others think, fear of the unknown.
If you struggle with anger, ask God to reveal the source of that anger. Ask Him to heal you of any fears that may be the root of your anger. Ask God to help you take responsibility for your response to difficult situations.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:18 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Do you ever say one thing and your spouse hears a totally different message than you intended?
Faulty communication is a common cause of marital conflict. In fact, most married couples experience miscommunication at times. One message is sent, but a different one is received. This week we will look at some keys to successful communication.
One thing we need to remember is that the words we say don't necessarily determine what is heard. Our tone of voice, facial expression and overall body language usually speak louder than words. Timing is also important. Consider what kind of a day your spouse has had and pressures that might be having an impact. Other communication keys include thinking before speaking, maintaining eye contact, listening before answering and building up rather than pulling down.
Consider this
One sure way to avoid miscommunication is to frequently say the three words "I love you" to your spouse. There are also many non-verbal ways you can express your love. Plan a special dinner or trip, buy something you know he or she has been wanting, help with a project your spouse is working on. Husbands, let your wife have a day all for herself occasionally. All these acts are really ways of communicating your love.
God communicates his love to us not only through his words, but through his actions. We need to do the same.
Prayer
Father, help me express love to my spouse through my body language and actions as well as my words. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This study can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Impartial Power of God
READ:
By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified -Hebrews 10:14
We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only reason for the forgiveness of our sins by God, and the infinite depth of His promise to forget them, is the death of Jesus Christ. Our repentance is merely the result of our personal realization of the atonement by the Cross of Christ, which He has provided for us. ". . . Christ Jesus . . . became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 1:30 ). Once we realize that Christ has become all this for us, the limitless joy of God begins in us. And wherever the joy of God is not present, the death sentence is still in effect.
No matter who or what we are, God restores us to right standing with Himself only by means of the death of Jesus Christ. God does this, not because Jesus pleads with Him to do so but because He died. It cannot be earned, just accepted. All the pleading for salvation which deliberately ignores the Cross of Christ is useless. It is knocking at a door other than the one which Jesus has already opened. We protest by saying, "But I don't want to come that way. It is too humiliating to be received as a sinner." God's response, through Peter, is, ". . . there is no other name . . . by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12 ). What at first appears to be heartlessness on God's part is actually the true expression of His heart. There is unlimited entrance His way. "In Him we have redemption through His blood . . ." ( Ephesians 1:7 ). To identify with the death of Jesus Christ means that we must die to everything that was never a part of Him.
God is just in saving bad people only as He makes them good. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The atonement by the Cross of Christ is the propitiation God uses to make unholy people holy.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 9, 2008
Lessons Of The Coke Bottle
READ: Romans 5:15-21
Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. -Romans 5:20
Pastor Louie was preaching on the pervasiveness of sin. "It's everywhere!" he stated emphatically. He told about waiting for a traffic light when he saw the man in the car in front of him finish his Coke, open the door, set the glass bottle on the street, and drive away.
"That was wrong!" Louie said. "It was a selfish sin! He could have caused someone to have a flat tire or even an accident." We don't typically think of littering as sin, but it is clear evidence of our inherent selfishness.
Later, as Louie was greeting people by the door, a Bible professor at a local Christian university said quietly as he walked by, "Sin puts the bottle on the street, but grace picks it up."
Now, many years later, Louie has not forgotten the lesson of that scriptural principle. It comes right out of Romans 5, one of the most uplifting texts in the Bible describing the grace of God. Adam's transgression brought sin into the world (v.12), and its consequences spread to all people. But God responded with grace, offering forgiveness through His Son to all who choose to believe. The human race sinned, and God answered with abounding grace (v.20).
God does much more than just "pick up the bottle," He cleanses the heart of the transgressor! - David C. Egner
Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
Freely bestowed on all who believe!
You that are longing to see His face,
Will you this moment His grace receive? -Johnston
Confession of sin is the soil in which forgiveness flourishes.
Obeying the Spirit of God
Acts 8:26
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road-the desert road-that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza."
Philip was conducting what we might today call a revival meeting. God was blessing the meeting, and many were being healed and delivered from demonic influence. Here is the scene:
Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city (Acts 8:5-8).
And yet, in the midst of this great event, the Holy Spirit spoke to Philip and told him to remove himself and go to a completely different area to speak to one individual. Philip was so sensitive to the directive of the Holy Spirit that he left what would be deemed a successful event to go speak to another-an Ethiopian eunuch. The result of his obedience was that Philip led the eunuch to faith in Christ and baptized him. The Lord then took Philip away supernaturally to another region many miles away.
God's ways of determining where we invest our time and energy often have little to do with results. The danger for each of us is to determine that we are in the center of God's will simply by the success or failure of the events we are involved in. Our plumbline for determining success can be only one thing: obedience. Philip responded in obedience to the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Are you listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit? Has God prompted you to speak, go, or come alongside another? Ask God today to help you hear the Holy Spirit's voice so that you might be used mightily in your marketplace.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out." Colossians 4:6 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Communicating with I-messages rather than you-messages is one key to successful communication in marriage and in any relationship.
You-messages sound like this: You just don't care You are a problem Can't you ? You are sooo
I-messages deal with facts. They convey what you feel or how your spouse's behavior is making you feel. Here are some examples: I feel very angry because I feel rejected because I feel hurt because
Consider this
I-messages communicate honesty and openness. The Bible teaches us to build up, not tear down. When we use I-messages, we are less likely to harm our marriage relationship since we aren't attacking our spouse's self-esteem. We are being gracious in our speech.
Prayer
Father, help me to be more gracious in communicating with my spouse. Help me to build up and not tear down. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This study can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Opposition of the Natural
READ:
Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires -Galatians 5:24
The natural life itself is not sinful. But we must abandon sin, having nothing to do with it in any way whatsoever. Sin belongs to hell and to the devil. I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and to God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God's best. Once we come to understand that natural moral excellence opposes or counteracts surrender to God, we bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us would debate over what is filthy, evil, and wrong, but we do debate over what is good. It is the good that opposes the best. The higher up the scale of moral excellence a person goes, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ. "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh . . . ." The cost to your natural life is not just one or two things, but everything. Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. . ." ( Matthew 16:24 ). That is, he must deny his right to himself, and he must realize who Jesus Christ is before he will bring himself to do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.
The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. There is no high or easy road. Each of us has the means to accomplish it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying, but of sacrificing, and thereby performing His will.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 10, 2008
Marred
READ: Matthew 1:18-25
She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. -Matthew 1:21
During an all-night festival in Paris, five young people, apparently drunk, broke into the Orsay Museum and left a 4-inch gash in a priceless painting by Claude Monet. Culture Minister Christine Albanel said the painting could be restored, but she was deeply disturbed at the damage done by "a purely criminal act."
One news headline read: "Monet Masterpiece Marred." To mar is to injure or damage; to spoil, disfigure, or impair. It's an apt description of sin's effect on us. We know well the results of our own choices made in ignorance or defiance of God.
As we approach Christmas, it's good to remember why Jesus was born. The Son of God did not come to establish a nostalgic, family-oriented, commercially successful holiday. The angel told Joseph: "[Mary] will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21).
Christmas began with a present from God to His sin-damaged world: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).
The masterpiece of God's human creation, marred by turning away from Him, can be restored when we give our hearts to Christ. - David C. McCasland
He came into this world a babe,
This world that He Himself had made;
He came to do the Father's will,
That ended on dark Calvary's hill. -Newstrom
Jesus came to earth to repair our sin-damaged lives.
The First Requirement of Ministry
Joel 1:9
The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord.
The first requirement for being used by God in the life of others is to mourn on their behalf. We must identify with their pain and suffering. Each of us must be broken for others first.
In order to be fully used by God in the marketplace, we need to understand what breaks God's heart. When we understand what breaks God's heart, we are able to mourn on behalf of a grieving person, or a nation we are called to serve. What breaks God's heart? When we begin to answer this question, we begin the first step to becoming instruments of change for those things that are important to God. Perhaps it is an overemphasis in our own talent and abilities, or lack of complete trust in Jesus. Perhaps it is the lack of respect for human life that leads to the killing of innocent babies. Perhaps it is the deceit and pride that often rule the marketplace of commerce. Or perhaps it is the strife and divisions among His own Body that grieve Him most. When we begin to mourn over our own sins in these areas, God begins to use us as instruments of righteousness to affect these things. It was only when God let me see my own sins in the marketplace and how they broke His heart that I began to be an instrument for His purposes.
Today, ask God to show you what things in your world are breaking His heart. Then see how He might want you to be the priest to affect for Him. The first step is identification with what breaks God's heart.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires." James 1:19-20 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Active listening is perhaps the most important key to communicating with your spouse (or anyone else!). It shows that you care, that you accept and respect your mate. Three examples of active listening are restatement, clarifying and summarizing.
Restatement means repeating the content of what your spouse said. This conveys that you are paying attention and really hearing what he or she is saying.
Clarifying might sound like this: "Do you mean "-and relay in your own words what your spouse just said.
Summarizing pulls together your mate's message and draws it to a concluding point based on what you have seen and heard in the conversation.
Consider this
Active listening can help you and your spouse understand each other better and build the trust level between you. It is a way to encourage and build up your mate and can have a calming effect when he or she is angry or frustrated. (A word of caution-active listening is not effective when your spouse is out of control for example, intoxicated or severely depressed. It is also not good to use if he or she needs immediate action.)
Ask God to help you learn to listen really listen.
Prayer
Lord, help me be quick to listen and to listen actively. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This study can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Offering of the Natural
It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman -Galatians 4:22
Paul was not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural can be turned into the spiritual only through sacrifice. Without this a person will lead a divided life. Why did God demand that the natural must be sacrificed? God did not demand it. It is not God's perfect will, but His permissive will. God's perfect will was for the natural to be changed into the spiritual through obedience. Sin is what made it necessary for the natural to be sacrificed.
Abraham had to offer up Ishmael before he offered up Isaac (see Genesis 21:8-14 ). Some of us are trying to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God before we have sacrificed the natural. The only way we can offer a spiritual sacrifice to God is to "present [our] bodies a living sacrifice . . ." ( Romans 12:1 ). Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost.
If we do not sacrifice the natural to the spiritual, the natural life will resist and defy the life of the Son of God in us and will produce continual turmoil. This is always the result of an undisciplined spiritual nature. We go wrong because we stubbornly refuse to discipline ourselves physically, morally, or mentally. We excuse ourselves by saying, "Well, I wasn't taught to be disciplined when I was a child." Then discipline yourself now! If you don't, you will ruin your entire personal life for God.
God is not actively involved with our natural life as long as we continue to pamper and gratify it. But once we are willing to put it out in the desert and are determined to keep it under control, God will be with it. He will then provide wells and oases and fulfill all His promises for the natural (see Genesis 21:15-19 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 11, 2008
Absolutely Nobody
READ: Exodus 4:10-17
Surely I am more stupid than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man. -Proverbs 30:2
He wanted to be a nobody. In 1992, a Seattle man running for the office of Washington State's lieutenant governor legally changed his name to "Absolutely Nobody." As he entered the race, he said he wanted to greet the voters, saying, "Hi, I'm Absolutely Nobody. Vote for me." He later admitted that the purpose of his campaign was to abolish the office of lieutenant governor.
This man used a name as a gimmick, but the Bible has a lot to say to those of us who present ourselves to others as a nobody. The right kind of humility is healthy. The songwriters of Israel knew how important it is to see our foolishness apart from God (Ps. 73:22; Prov. 30:2). Jesus Himself showed us that without God we won't accomplish anything of lasting value (John 5:30; 15:5).
But we read a warning in the story of Moses. There's a downside to insisting that we are "nobody" if it is to avoid doing what God commands (Ex. 4:1-17). Our motives make us into somebody who resists the loving purposes of God.
We may treat ourselves and others as having no worth. But remember, God doesn't make nobodies. Like Moses, if we surrender to God, we can do anything God wants us to do-in His strength. - Mart De Haan
Lord, take my life and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
I now surrender, Lord-in me abide. -Orr
Without Christ we can do nothing. With Him we can do everything He wants us to do.
Following Only the Father's Commands
John 5:19
Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."
Have you ever thought about a typical day in Jesus' life? Perhaps He might have had questions like these, "Who am I going to heal today? Who will I visit today? Which person will I deliver from demons this day?" etc. The demands on Jesus' time were great. Yet we see that Jesus allocated His time very deliberately. We don't get the idea that Jesus was flustered or stressed from the activity He was involved in. He often sought times of prayer and reflection away from the disciples. His life appeared to have a balance of quiet moments and active ministry into the lives He came in contact with.
How do we determine what we will be involved in each day of our lives? What keeps us in sync with the will of our heavenly Father for the daily tasks He calls us to? Jesus tells us that He was only involved in those things the Father was involved in. Nothing more, nothing less. So often we determine our participation in an activity based on whether we have the time to do it or whether we desire to participate. The real question we should ask is, "Does the Father want me to participate in this activity?"
"Lord, should I add this Bible study to my schedule? Should I spend an extra night out on this committee this week? Should I take on new business that will take me away from home more? Should my daughter be involved in music lessons?" These are the daily challenges for the world we now live in. We are an activity-based society that often encourages more and more activity, often in the name of Christian virtue.
Our lives will become less cluttered, less stressful, and more fulfilling when we follow the model Jesus provided. It may not always please everyone. Jesus never sought to please everyone. Ask the Lord each day this week how you and He are to spend your time. Yield your schedule to Him. Let Jesus direct your every activity. You may discover that He desires you to cut back some things in order to spend more time alone with Him. He will be faithful to show you. And you will become more fulfilled because you are centered in His will for you.
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Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church." Ephesians 4:15 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Conflicts do occur in marriage and can cause disastrous results if not managed properly. Attitude can make all the difference. One option in dealing with conflict is an "I'll get him (her)" attitude. "I win and you lose because I am right and you are wrong." This is a power play and shows little or no love.
Another option says, "I'll get out. I'm uncomfortable, so I'll withdraw from the conflict." And you storm from the room with nothing solved.
"I'll give in. I'll be nice and submit to your demands so you'll love me." You become a doormat who is smiling but frustrated.
"I'll meet you halfway. I have only half of the truth and I need your half." This is the attitude of creative compromise, but these two half-truths may not equal the real truth.
Consider this
The most fruitful attitude is "I care enough to confront. I want to stay in a respectful and honest relationship with you. I want you to know where I stand and what I am feeling, needing, valuing and wanting." This attitude invites your spouse to change but does not demand it.
The Bible calls it speaking the truth in love.
Prayer
Father, help me when facing conflict. Help me to have the right attitude to always reflect the love of Christ. Help me to speak the truth in love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This study can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Individuality
READ:
Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . .' -Matthew 16:24
Individuality is the hard outer layer surrounding the inner spiritual life. Individuality shoves others aside, separating and isolating people. We see it as the primary characteristic of a child, and rightly so. When we confuse individuality with the spiritual life, we remain isolated. This shell of individuality is God's created natural covering designed to protect the spiritual life. But our individuality must be yielded to God so that our spiritual life may be brought forth into fellowship with Him. Individuality counterfeits spirituality, just as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself, but individuality corrupts that human nature for its own purposes.
The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-will. We hinder our spiritual growth more than any other way by continually asserting our individuality. If you say, "I can't believe," it is because your individuality is blocking the way; individuality can never believe. But our spirit cannot help believing. Watch yourself closely when the Spirit of God is at work in you. He pushes you to the limits of your individuality where a choice must be made. The choice is either to say, "I will not surrender," or to surrender, breaking the hard shell of individuality, which allows the spiritual life to emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing (see Matthew 5:23-24 ). It is your individuality that refuses to "be reconciled to your brother" ( Matthew 5:24 ). God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself, He cannot. ". . . let him deny himself . . ."- deny his independent right to himself. Then the real life-the spiritual life-is allowed the opportunity to grow.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 11, 2008
Ebenezer
READ: Psalm 42:1-5
Samuel took a stone . . . and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." -1 Samuel 7:12
In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the central character is Ebenezer Scrooge. As a boy, I enjoyed watching the old black-and-white version of that movie with Alastair Sim portraying Scrooge. Sim did a phenomenal job presenting the heartless, miserly, self-centered Scrooge. I still look in the television schedule each Christmas to learn when I can watch that particular rendition of Dickens' tale.
Years of watching the travails of Scrooge have spoiled something for me though-the name "Ebenezer." I have associated it with Scrooge, but its original meaning was light-years away from that. In 1 Samuel, following a decisive battle with the Philistines, the Israelites erected a stone as a reminder of the Lord's help in the battle. They named that stone Ebenezer, which means "Stone of Help," to remind people of how God rescued them from their enemies (7:12).
What a contrast! A name that I had come to associate with man's selfishness can actually serve as a reminder of the readily available help of God. As we move through life, may we focus on the faithfulness of the Lord and not the selfishness of man. Let's look to Him as our true Ebenezer-our help in the challenges of life. - Bill Crowder
God's faithfulness we've known throughout the years,
His oneness with us in our joys and tears;
So many times the Lord has helped us through,
Has answered prayer and given strength anew. -F. Hess
Our only hope here below is help from God above.
Death and Birth of a Vision
John 12:24
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Almost every significant thing God births He allows to die before the vision is fulfilled in His own way.
Abraham had a vision of being the father of a great nation (birth). Sarah was barren and became too old to have children (death). God gave Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age. He became the father of a great nation (fulfillment).
Joseph had a vision that he would be a great leader and that many would bow down to him (birth). Joseph's brothers sold him to some merchants and he became a slave. Later he was falsely condemned to spend his years in prison (death). God allowed Joseph to interpret the dreams of the butler and baker and later the king, whereupon, he was made a ruler in the land (fulfillment).
Moses had a vision of leading his people out of the bondage of Egypt (birth). Pharaoh as well as his own people drove Moses out of Egypt after Moses' first attempt to relieve their bondage (death). God gave Moses signs and wonders to convince Pharaoh to free the people and bring them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land (fulfillment).
The disciples had a vision of establishing the Kingdom of God with Jesus (birth). The very ones He came to save killed Jesus, and the disciples saw Him buried in a tomb (death). God raised Jesus from the dead, and the disciples performed great miracles until the gospel had spread through all the world (fulfillment).
A grain of wheat has a "vision" of reproducing itself and many more grains of wheat (birth). The grain dies in the ground (death). A harvest springs up out of the very process of "death" in the ground (fulfillment).
Has God given you a vision that is yet unfulfilled? If that vision is born of God, He will raise it up in His own way. Do not try to raise the vision in your own strength. Like Moses, who tried to fulfill the vision of freeing the Hebrews by killing the Egyptian, it will only fail. But wait on your heavenly Father to fulfill the vision. Then you will know that it was His vision when He fulfills it in the way only He can do.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
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Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Kind words are like honey-sweet to the soul and healthy for the body." Proverbs 16:24 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Yesterday we discussed speaking the truth in love. Author David Augsburger expands on this thought by suggesting a creative way to deal with conflict that he calls "carefronting."
When in conflict, there are ways to confront your spouse in love without being judgmental. One such way is to focus your feedback on the action, not on the actor. This gives your spouse the freedom to change the behavior without feeling personal rejection.
It is also good to focus your feedback on your observations, not on your conclusions. Don't comment on what you think or imagine, but on what you have actually seen or heard. You are less likely to put your spouse on the defensive.
Focus your feedback not on why, but on what and how. Why critiques values, motives and intents. Why is judgmental. What and how relate to observable actions, behaviors, words and tone of voice.
Consider this
Carefronting should be done caringly, gently, constructively and clearly-not with put-downs and condemnation. Jesus set the example in the way he approached people during his ministry here on earth. Ask him to help you. He will teach you to speak the truth in love.
Prayer
Father, please forgive me for the times I've responded to my spouse in anger, speaking harshly and putting him (her) down. Help me to respond caringly, gently, constructively and clearly. Teach me to speak the truth in love. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Committed Couples: God's Plan for Marriage & the Family by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This study can help every married couple grow spiritually and emotionally in their relationship. It is also a great help for engaged-to-be-married couples. Whether in a private or group setting, couples will be encouraged spiritually and romantically as they research biblical principles that affirm their vows.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Personality
READ:
. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . -John 17:22
Personality is the unique, limitless part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. It is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island in the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island. We don't know the great depths of our being, therefore we cannot measure ourselves. We start out thinking we can, but soon realize that there is really only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator.
Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality is the characteristic of the outer, natural man. Our Lord can never be described in terms of individuality and independence, but only in terms of His total Person- "I and My Father are one" ( John 10:30 ). Personality merges, and you only reach your true identity once you are merged with another person. When love or the Spirit of God come upon a person, he is transformed. He will then no longer insist on maintaining his individuality. Our Lord never referred to a person's individuality or his isolated position, but spoke in terms of the total person- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . ." Once your rights to yourself are surrendered to God, your true personal nature begins responding to God immediately. Jesus Christ brings freedom to your total person, and even your individuality is transformed. The transformation is brought about by love- personal devotion to Jesus. Love is the overflowing result of one person in true fellowship with another.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 13, 2008
Whodunit?
READ: Genesis 1:1,20-27
God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness." -Genesis 1:26
The word whodunit is actually in the dictionary. It means "detective story." The most important whodunit of all time is the question of creation.
Some people wish the Bible said, "In the beginning, God wasn't needed." To them, it's unacceptable to say, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1), or "Let Us make man in Our image" (v.26).
Instead, they believe that after an explosion of energy and matter, somehow an atmosphere conducive to life was formed. Then, single-celled organisms morphed into the exceedingly complex life forms we have today.
No need for God, they say, for it all happened naturally. On an earth and in an atmosphere not of anyone's making, forces with a blueprint designed by no one joined together to place the earth perfectly for life to thrive.
What we do with "In the beginning God" is at the center of it all. We must either believe His Word-and everything His Word claims-or we must believe that our meaningless lives resulted from an accidental, mindless chain reaction. What a stark contrast to "Let Us make man in Our image"!
In the beginning. Was it God? Or was it chance? Our answer to this whodunit reveals whether or not we truly worship the awesome God of creation. - Dave Branon
For Further Study
Why should we believe an ancient book? Does it conflict with science? Read Can I Really Trust The Bible? on the Web at
http://www.rbc.org/bible-study/discovery-series/bookletDetail.aspx?id=48226
Only God could create the cosmos out of nothing.
A Refiner's Fire
Malachi 3:2
For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap.
The Lord has a specific manner of preparing His people for useful service. God desires to turn His children from rough, hard-edged stones into gems of gold and silver.
He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years (Malachi 3:3-4).
The refiner's fire can only accomplish its purposes when the heat is turned up to extraordinary temperatures. It breaks down the metal in order for it to become moldable and shapeable. Only when the temperatures reach this level can the work be fully accomplished. So it is in our lives.
Until the Lord completes His refining process, the offerings we make are not made in righteousness and cannot be acceptable. Thank God that Jesus is our righteousness and that there is no righteousness apart from Him. Still, the Lord continues to purge all that is not of His righteousness out of our lives. This comes through trials that bring each of us to the end of ourselves in order that He may only reflect that which is Himself.
When God takes you through the refiner's fire, be encouraged because it is His overriding commitment to turn you from a rough, hard-edged stone to a precious metal. He will do this through certain events in your marketplace, your relationships, and other circumstances in your life. Our job is to avoid trying to blow out the fire.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
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A Citizen of Heaven
Heaven is a real place. Even though we can't see it now, one day our eyes will take in the grandeur of God's dwelling place. We will stand before His throne, and Christ will judge all that we have or have not done.
The merciful, loving Christ of today will be the executor of judgment on the last day. He will not judge unfairly, but He will judge us perfectly. He will not trump up charges against us, but He will judge us on the basis of what we have done with Him during our lifetime.
Have you accepted Him as your Savior? Have you obeyed Him and submitted your life to Him? Have you invited Him to reign in your life? Or will your testimony prove that you were too busy, too preoccupied, too bitter, too angry, too doubting, or too full of wanting your own way to be with Him?
God wants to make us holy, pure, and righteous. However, we have to allow Him to mold us into His image. Sin is the one thing that shakes our security in Christ and our confidence in His finished work on the cross. Our old nature is at strife with our new nature in Christ-the flesh wars against the spirit.
Are you clinging to something you know God is asking you to surrender to Him? What is distracting you from growing closer to the Lord? Is it financial worries? Are you concerned about some relational problem? Are you worried about the future? These seem small in comparison to eternity in heaven.
God has a purpose for your life and a place for you with Him in eternity. When you are in heaven, you will not be a visitor with a day pass-you will be a beloved citizen of His kingdom.
Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! (Revelation 5:12).
The circumstances of life do not have to get you down. Learn how you can turn negative situations into ones of hope and promise in our free resource this month-"When Life Gets You Down, Look Up!" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Intercessory Prayer
READ:
. . . men always ought to pray and not lose heart -Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to "fill up . . . [with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" ( Colossians 1:24 ), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, "It is putting yourself in someone else's place." That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God's place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can't pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply "patched up." We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 14, 2008
The Glory Of Humility
READ: Isaiah 40:1-5
The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. -Isaiah 40:5
I remember sitting one Christmas season in London listening to Handel's Messiah, with a full chorus singing about the day when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed." I had spent the morning viewing remnants of England's glory-the crown jewels, the Lord Mayor's gilded carriage-and it occurred to me that just such images of wealth and power must have filled the minds of Isaiah's contemporaries who first heard that promise.
The Messiah who showed up, however, wore a different kind of glory-the glory of humility. The God who roared, who if He so desired could order armies and empires about like pawns, this God emerged in Bethlehem as a baby who could not speak or eat solid food. This God who created all things became dependent on a teenager for shelter, food, and love.
Rulers stride through the world with bodyguards, fanfare, and flashing jewelry. In contrast, God's visit to earth took place in a shelter for animals, with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn King but a feed trough. Indeed, the event that divided history into two parts may have had more animal than human witnesses. As Phillips Brooks put it:
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven.
In most religions, fear is the primary emotion when approaching God. In Jesus, God made a way of relating to us that did not involve fear. - Philip Yancey
In Christ, God veiled His deity to serve and to save humanity.
Discerning the Work of God
Nehemiah 6:14
Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who have been trying to intimidate me.
Nehemiah set out to rebuild the wall at Jerusalem that had been destroyed. Nehemiah held a position in the Persian Empire that would be comparable to Chief of Staff in our government. Nehemiah wept over the destruction of the city wall and repented for the sins of his generation and the generations before him that had led to the fall of Jerusalem. Nehemiah responded to the news by seeking approval from his superior to take time off to rebuild the wall. Tobiah and Sanballat met Nehemiah's action with resistance, as did Noadiah the prophetess and other prophets. These were the religious and political leaders of his day. They became distractions to his work and opposed him.
Whenever God does a new work, it is often met with resistance by those in the established religious community, and sometimes among those from whom we would expect support. Jesus met the same resistance when He began His public ministry. This same phenomenon happens today. When God begins a new work that cannot be easily explained based upon prior experiences, many make the mistake of assuming it not to be of God. The very people who should embrace and encourage the work become the source of skepticism and opposition. God tells us that His ways are not our ways. He does things in ways beyond our limited understanding.
Before you are tempted to criticize or oppose something that looks different from your past experience, ask God for wisdom and discernment. Examine why you might be tempted to oppose it. The Lord cannot be put in a box. He delights in doing things in ways that may not fit our former paradigms.
Handbook to Leadership
Handbook to Leadership
All the features of The Leadership Bible created by Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell, and Bill Perkins have been combined in this attractive and compact black leather volume. Handbook to Leadership has four parts: 52-Week Leadership Guide, Topical Leadership Guide, Leadership Character Studies, and Books of the Bible Leadership Guide. Order or Learn More
Changing Our Nature
by Max Lucado
My dog Molly and I aren't getting along. The problem is not her personality. A sweeter mutt you will not find. She sees every person as a friend and every day as a holiday. I have no problem with Molly's attitude. I have a problem with her habits.
Eating scraps out of the trash. Licking dirty plates in the dishwasher. Dropping dead birds on our sidewalk and stealing bones from the neighbor's dog. Shameful! Molly rolls in the grass, chews on her paw, does her business in the wrong places, and, I'm embarrassed to admit, quenches her thirst in the toilet.
Now what kind of behavior is that?
Dog behavior, you reply.
You are right. So right. Molly's problem is not a Molly problem. Molly has a dog problem. It is a dog's nature to do such things. And it is her nature that I wish to change. Not just her behavior, mind you. A canine obedience school can change what she does; I want to go deeper. I want to change who she is.
Here is my idea: a me-to-her transfusion. The deposit of a Max seed in Molly. I want to give her a kernel of human character. As it grew, would she not change? Her human nature would develop, and her dog nature would diminish. We would witness, not just a change of habits, but a change of essence. In time Molly would be less like Molly and more like me, sharing my disgust for trash snacking, potty slurping, and dish licking. She would have a new nature. Why, Denalyn might even let her eat at the table.
You think the plan is crazy? Then take it up with God. The idea is his.
What I would like to do with Molly, God does with us. He changes our nature from the inside out! "I will put a new way of thinking inside you. I will take out the stubborn hearts of stone from your bodies, and I will give you obedient hearts of flesh. I will put my Spirit inside you and help you live by my rules and carefully obey my laws" (Ezek. 36:26-27 NCV.).
God doesn't send us to obedience school to learn new habits; he sends us to the hospital to be given a new heart. Forget training; he gives transplants.
Do you understand what God has done? He has deposited a Christ seed in you. As it grows, you will change. It's not that sin has no more presence in your life, but rather that sin has no more power over your life. Temptation will pester you, but temptation will not master you. What hope this brings!
It's not up to you! Within you abides a budding power. Trust him!
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6 NIV.). God will do with you what I only dream of doing with Molly. Change you from the inside out. When he is finished, he'll even let you sit at his table.
From
Next Door Savior
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
The Great Life
READ:
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled . . . -John 14:27
Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. But as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight to us. As long as we try to serve two masters, ourselves and God, there will be difficulties combined with doubt and confusion. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit for our own purposes.
God's mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace; not a natural peace, "as the world gives," but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, wait until it does, or seek to find out why it is not coming. If you are acting on your own impulse, or out of a sense of the heroic, to be seen by others, the peace of Jesus will not exhibit itself. This shows no unity with God or confidence in Him. The spirit of simplicity, clarity, and unity is born through the Holy Spirit, not through your decisions. God counters our self-willed decisions with an appeal for simplicity and unity.
My questions arise whenever I cease to obey. When I do obey God, problems come, not between me and God, but as a means to keep my mind examining with amazement the revealed truth of God. But any problem that comes between God and myself is the result of disobedience. Any problem that comes while I obey God (and there will be many), increases my overjoyed delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 15, 2008
Never Disappointed
READ: 1 Kings 8:54-61
There has not failed one word of all His good promise. -1 Kings 8:56
As an avid baseball fan, my favorite team is the Chicago Cubs. The interesting thing about being a Cubs fan is that the team has a way of letting us down. They have not won a World Series since 1908. And while they often have great promise at the beginning of the season, they usually disappoint their loyal fans in the end. One die-hard fan had it right when he said, "If they didn't disappoint us, they wouldn't be our Cubs!"
Thankfully, God is not like the Cubs! You can count on Him. He will not disappoint you in the end. He always keeps His promises, and His Word provides comfort, hope, and wise advice that never fails.
When King Solomon dedicated the temple, he attested to the fact that God had not let His people down: "Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise" (1 Kings 8:56).
Thousands of years later, those words still ring true. And better yet, we are heirs of the greatest fulfilled promise of all time-Jesus! The longer you know Him, the more compelling He becomes.
So if you are looking for someone who won't disappoint you, look no further. Jesus never fails! - Joe Stowell
All that I need He will always be,
All that I need till His face I see;
All that I need through eternity,
Jesus is all I need. -Rowe
Looking for someone who won't disappoint you? Look to Jesus.
The Fallacy of Full-Time Christian Work
Colossians 3:23-24
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
"I didn't know you were in full-time Christian work," said my close friend as we were driving. "I didn't realize that," she went on. I responded, "Every person who has followed the will of God in their life is in full-time Christian work." God calls some to the mission field, others to be accountants, and others to be advertising executives, and still others to be construction workers. God never made a distinction between sacred and secular. In fact, the Hebrew word avodah is the root word having the same meaning of "work" and "worship." God sees our work as worship.
We have incorrectly elevated the roll of the Christian worker to be more holy and committed than the person who is serving in a more secular environment. Yet the call to the secular marketplace is as important as any other calling. God has to have His people in every sphere of life. Otherwise, many would never come to know Him because they would be separated from society.
I learned this lesson personally when I sought to go into "full-time" service as a pastor in my late twenties, only to have God thrust me back into the business world unwillingly. This turned out to be the best thing He could have done for me, because it was never His will for me to be a pastor. He knew I was more suited for the marketplace.
We are all in missions. Some are called to foreign lands. Some are called to the jungles of the marketplace. Wherever you are called, serve the Lord in that place. Let Him demonstrate His power through your life so that others might experience Him through you today and see your vocation as worship to His glory.
Handbook to Leadership
Handbook to Leadership
All the features of The Leadership Bible created by Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell, and Bill Perkins have been combined in this attractive and compact black leather volume. Handbook to Leadership has four parts: 52-Week Leadership Guide, Topical Leadership Guide, Leadership Character Studies, and Books of the Bible Leadership Guide. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others." Colossians 3:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Have you experienced a setback or disappointment in your life? If so, have you been able to move on, or is your life still plagued by the pain?
Perhaps you were hurt badly by someone close to you. You may have experienced abuse as a child or the betrayal of a spouse in later years. Whatever form your trauma took, it involved another person.
This week we will be discussing forgiveness. Bitterness and anger toward the one who hurt you can destroy your happiness and peace. God wants to prosper you and give you hope for the future, but unforgiveness can serve as a stone wall, blocking your ability to experience the freedom he has for you.
Consider this
If healing is to take place, it is vital that you are honest with yourself and with God. Forgiveness requires facing the truth.
If you are harboring resentment and bitterness, ask God to help you forgive. To forgive means to turn loose, to let go, to release. Let go of the anger. Let go of the unforgiveness. Let go of the hurt and shame. Be willing to forgive-even though the individual may not deserve your forgiveness-just as Christ forgives us, even though we don't deserve it. It's called grace.
What better time than the beginning of a new year to let go of past grievances and begin to experience the fullness of God's freedom? This kind of forgiveness is not easy. Don't try to do it alone. God loves you and he will help you.
Prayer
Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you that even though I didn't deserve it, he died to pay the price for my sins. I've been carrying unforgiveness toward this one who hurt me for much too long. Please forgive me and help me to forgive. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow: Overcoming Setbacks and Disappointments by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group study will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
"Approved to God"
READ:
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth -2 Timothy 2:15
If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don't, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God's winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God's truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God's wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, "I'm not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I'll just borrow my words from someone else," then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.
Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn't know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 16, 2008
The Task Remains
READ: Psalm 112
He will not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. -Psalm 112:7
Our life had always been rather simple. When my wife and I were first married, we were not looking for riches or fame-just a way to glorify God with whatever He gave us to do. In all arenas of our life, that purpose stayed clear. As our children grew and I began working at RBC Ministries, our goal continued to center around glorifying God.
But then, in 2002, came bad news of the worst kind. Our third child, 17-year-old Melissa, was unexpectedly ushered into heaven. Suddenly, we were forced to rethink things. Could we, in our new identity as bereaved parents, still find a way to glorify God? Or did this unbearable circumstance alter our perspective and goal?
We've spent a lot of time pondering that question. When the One you've entrusted with your children allows one of them to be taken, it would be easy to stop trusting, serving, and pointing others to God. But the psalmist's words showed us the way. He said that the person who fears God "will never be shaken . . . . His heart is steadfast" (Ps. 112:6-7). And so we-and you, no matter what you are facing-can continue to be "steadfast, trusting in the Lord."
Even in the face of "evil tidings," the task remains: Glorify God. - Dave Branon
Griefs bravely borne may serve Him
And richly glorify,
As quiet waters mirror
The beauty of the sky. -Nicholson
Trust through sorrow brings triumph over sadness.
The Anguish of Faith
Psalms 143:7
Do not hide Your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
Of all the biblical characters, David gives us a glimpse of a man who walked with God with great emotion in victory and in defeat. David never lost a battle throughout his many years of serving as king of Israel. In many of the Psalms, David often lamented about the difficult places where God had placed him. He talked of his enemies and the need for God to deliver Him. He talked of God's everlasting love for him. How do you suppose David came to this understanding after years of being sought after by King Saul who wanted to take his life? His years of turmoil within his family gave him many reasons to lose all hope in a loving God.
David often began his Psalms in a place of discouragement and loss of hope. But He never ended one Psalm in defeat. He always came to a place of victory in God by the end of the Psalm. David always placed his life in God's hands, knowing He would care for him.
Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul. Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in You. Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground (Psalm 143:8-10).
It is okay to feel discouragement. It is part of the process of grieving and working through those times of pain. But God wants each of us to allow Him to walk with us in these places. If you find yourself in one of these places, do what David did. Ask God to show you the way and let Him bring the word of His unfailing love to you.
Handbook to Leadership
Handbook to Leadership
All the features of The Leadership Bible created by Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell, and Bill Perkins have been combined in this attractive and compact black leather volume. Handbook to Leadership has four parts: 52-Week Leadership Guide, Topical Leadership Guide, Leadership Character Studies, and Books of the Bible Leadership Guide. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions." 1 John 3:18 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Has someone you cared about mistreated you? Hurt you deeply? Even though years may have passed, you might still harbor resentment and anger. And that unforgiveness is most likely affecting other relationships-maybe even your whole outlook on life. Try as you might to forget the offense, you find yourself rewinding and reviewing again and again.
You will never be able to overcome the hurt of the past and move on freely with your life until you forgive the offender.
Consider this
As we prepare to begin a new year, determine to be active in your pursuit to forgive. Begin to change your thought pattern about the person. Ask God to help you see this individual with eyes of love, looking beyond fault and seeing need. When you speak about the person, speak of needs and strengths-not offenses and weaknesses. Pray for this person and, if possible, take action to do something nice for him or her.
Forgiveness is not easy, especially when the hurt is deep. It helps to remember what Jesus did for us. Even though we certainly didn't deserve forgiveness, he died on the cross to pay the price for our sin. He offers us forgiveness as a gift. Let us be willing to offer others the gift of our forgiveness.
Prayer
Father, help me to be active in my pursuit to forgive. Help me to see this person through your eyes. Help me to speak and think good and not bad about him. Help me to offer the gift of my forgiveness. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow: Overcoming Setbacks and Disappointments by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group study will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Wrestling Before God
Take up the whole armor of God . . . praying always . . . -Ephesians 6:13,18
You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn't meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint (see Genesis 32:24-25 ). Don't become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." ( Romans 8:37 ). Wrestling before God makes an impact in His kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness- "take up the whole armor of God . . . ."
Always make a distinction between God's perfect will and His permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our lives. God's perfect will is unchangeable. It is with His permissive will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must wrestle before Him. It is our reaction to these things allowed by His permissive will that enables us to come to the point of seeing His perfect will for us. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . ." ( Romans 8:28 )- to those who remain true to God's perfect will- His calling in Christ Jesus. God's permissive will is the testing He uses to reveal His true sons and daughters. We should not be spineless and automatically say, "Yes, it is the Lord's will." We don't have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 17, 2008
Discovery
READ: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. -1 Corinthians 2:10
Imagine Christmas morning without wrapping paper! The joy would be short-lived, for much of the excitement is the anticipation of finding out what's in the package.
Apparently God created us with a "normal" setting that causes us to enjoy the process of discovery, because finding something is often more exciting than having it. That is, after all, why we wrap presents.
Many passages in Scripture allude to this concept. In Proverbs we read of wisdom: "Those who seek me diligently will find me" (8:17). And the prophet Jeremiah wrote of the Lord: "You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (29:13).
God could have revealed all truth to all people at the very beginning of time, but He chose to reveal Himself gradually (1 Cor. 2:7-8). Perhaps that's because we value things more when we have to search and wait for them.
God is not playing a cruel game of hide-and-seek. He is allowing us to enjoy the process of discovering who He is and what He is up to in the universe.
So don't be discouraged over what you don't know about God. Be excited about unwrapping all there is yet to discover. - Julie Ackerman Link
More about Jesus let me learn,
More of His holy will discern;
Spirit of God, my teacher be,
Showing the things of Christ to me. -Hewitt
God's gift of Himself to us is a present we will always be unwrapping.
The Training Ground of God
Psalms 144:1
Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
David was a man skilled in war. From his days as a shepherd boy to the days of serving in Saul's army to leading his own army, David learned to be a skillful warrior. How does one become a skillful warrior?
The only way one can become a skillful warrior is to be trained and placed in the middle of the battle. It is only when we are placed in the furnace of battle that we truly learn to fight the real battles. Practice doesn't make you battle ready. War games won't prepare you for facing your real enemy in the battlefield. The stark reality of being in the midst of the battle makes us effective warriors.
Simply reading your Bible will not make you a warrior for the Kingdom. Knowledge without experience is mere folly. Only when you are placed in situations where there is nothing or no one who can save you but God will you learn the lessons of warrior faith. This is the training ground of God, which will make you into a soldier for Christ in the marketplace. Consider it to be suicidal faith-faith that says I want to be dead to anything that keeps me from fulfilling God's purposes for my life. It is when your efforts can do nothing to change your circumstance and you are at the mercy of God. These are the real training grounds of God. Do not shrink back from the battle that God may be leading you to today. It may be a training ground that is necessary for the calling He has on your life.
If you can trust Him in these times, you'll know that you have gained a faith that will move mountains and will sustain you in the most difficult of circumstances. "Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."
Handbook to Leadership
Handbook to Leadership
All the features of The Leadership Bible created by Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell, and Bill Perkins have been combined in this attractive and compact black leather volume. Handbook to Leadership has four parts: 52-Week Leadership Guide, Topical Leadership Guide, Leadership Character Studies, and Books of the Bible Leadership Guide. Order or Learn
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Philippians 3:13-14 NLT
Thoughts for Today
We all experience setbacks and disappointments in life. Sometimes small ones that we shrug off, learn from and move on. But sometimes disappointments have more impact. They stay with us, causing the past to haunt our present-and future.
The setback could be anything-bankruptcy a failed marriage termination from a job a friendship gone sour. Or it might be losing a parent at a young age. Or the death of a spouse or someone else we cared for deeply.
A natural tendency when we have suffered a severe disappointment is to place blame. Perhaps we hold another person responsible. Sometimes we blame ourselves. We might even get angry with God.
Consider this
God has promised us a future and a hope, but unforgiveness can block our ability to experience all the freedom he has planned for us. As long as we are unwilling to forgive, the disappointment of the past has control over our lives, and we cannot move forward.
It's time to forgive those who have hurt us. It's time to forgive ourselves. It's time to open our hearts to the love and forgiveness of our heavenly Father. And then it will be time to move on to the wonderful plans he has for us.
Prayer
Father, help me to truly put the past behind and look forward to what lies ahead. Forgive my sin. Help me to walk in forgiveness-of others and of myself. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow: Overcoming Setbacks and Disappointments by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group study will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Redemption- Creating the Need it Satisfies
The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him . . . -1 Corinthians 2:14
The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel. Is the gospel hidden to those who are servants already? No, Paul said, "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ). The majority of people think of themselves as being completely moral, and have no sense of need for the gospel. It is God who creates this sense of need in a human being, but that person remains totally unaware of his need until God makes Himself evident. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7 ). But God cannot give until a man asks. It is not that He wants to withhold something from us, but that is the plan He has established for the way of redemption. Through our asking, God puts His process in motion, creating something in us that was nonexistent until we asked. The inner reality of redemption is that it creates all the time. And as redemption creates the life of God in us, it also creates the things which belong to that life. The only thing that can possibly satisfy the need is what created the need. This is the meaning of redemption- it creates and it satisfies.
Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" ( John 12:32 ). When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it awakens no real sense of need. But once Jesus Christ is "lifted up," the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him. The creative power of the redemption of God works in the souls of men only through the preaching of the gospel. It is never the sharing of personal experiences that saves people, but the truth of redemption. "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" ( John 6:63 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 18, 2008
Desert Pete
READ: Exodus 17:1-7
The word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith. -Hebrews 4:2
In the 1960s, the Kingston Trio released a song called "Desert Pete." The ballad tells of a thirsty cowboy who is crossing the desert and finds a hand pump. Next to it, Desert Pete has left a note urging the reader not to drink from the jar hidden there but to use its contents to prime the pump.
The cowboy resists the temptation to drink and uses the water as the note instructs. In reward for his obedience, he receives an abundance of cold, satisfying water. Had he not acted in faith, he would have had only a jar of unsatisfying, warm water to drink.
This reminds me of Israel's journey through the wilderness. When their thirst became overwhelming (Ex. 17:1-7), Moses sought the Lord. He was told to strike the rock of Horeb with his staff. Moses believed and obeyed, and water gushed from the stone.
Sadly, Israel would not consistently follow Moses' example of faith. Ultimately, "the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith" (Heb. 4:2).
Sometimes life can seem like an arid desert. But God can quench our spiritual thirst in the most unlikely circumstances. When by faith we believe the promises of God's Word, we can experience rivers of living water and grace for our daily needs. - Dennis Fisher
Drink deep of God's goodness, His faithfulness too,
Leave no room for doubting and fear;
His Word is the water of life pure and true,
Refreshing and cooling and clear. -Hess
Only Jesus, the Living Water, can satisfy our thirst for God.
David's Source of Direction
Psalms 143:8
Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul.
David is the only person in the Bible whom God describes as a man after His own heart. Despite David's many setbacks he continually sought to know and do God's will in his life. Like many of us, his will got in the way of a sinless life.
In the morning hour, David sought to hear from God. I can imagine David sitting on the open deck of his palace looking over the hills of Jerusalem, listening to God. There, in his morning watch, he felt God's unfailing love. He reaffirmed his trust in God. He also understood that the key to knowing God's will lay in spending such moments alone to reflect on what God had done and was doing in his life.
Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground (Psalm 143:10).
Sometimes we fall prey to believing that God is not concerned, and that He does not lead us in our work life. We are tempted to think that He leads us in other areas, but not in our daily workplace. The truth is that God is in every aspect of life and desires to direct us.
Do you need direction in your life today? If so, David provides the best example of gaining direction. Set aside the morning hour to draw close to His presence. There, you will sense His unfailing love for you. His direction for your life will be a natural by-product of this time of communion with Him. Ask God to lead you by His Spirit today.
Handbook to Leadership
Handbook to Leadership
All the features of The Leadership Bible created by Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell, and Bill Perkins have been combined in this attractive and compact black leather volume. Handbook to Leadership has four parts: 52-Week Leadership Guide, Topical Leadership Guide, Leadership Character Studies, and Books of the Bible Leadership Guide. Order or Learn More
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Forgiveness requires our facing the truth. The truth of Christ's forgiveness. The truth of our own unforgiveness. The truth that if we are ever to be free, we must receive Christ's forgiveness and forgive those who have hurt us.
In order to experience true freedom in Christ, we must forgive those who have caused us harm or disappointment-even when that means forgiving ourselves.
All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins. Romans 3:23-24 CEV
How can we do less? Forgiven by the Lord, we have both the reason and responsibility to forgive others. Forgiveness is a choice we make.
Consider this
Sometimes it is hard to let go. In fact, when we have been deeply hurt, it may not be possible to forgive-on our own. But it is important to remember that we don't have to do it alone.
If you are struggling to forgive, ask Jesus to help you. He loves you, he cares and he is able.
Prayer
Father, I've kept these feelings of resentment and unforgiveness buried much too long. Help me to face the truth. Thank you for your mercy and forgiveness. Help me to show the same to others, even those who have hurt me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow: Overcoming Setbacks and Disappointments by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group study will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Test of Faithfulness
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28
It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith- the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.
Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don't ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.
The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 19, 2008
No Batteries?
READ: Ephesians 1:15-23
That you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe. -Ephesians 1:18-19
My 2-year-old grandson was fascinated by the bubbling mud pool, the result of geothermal activity in Rotorua, New Zealand. On moving to another spot and seeing no bubbles there, he remarked, "No batteries?" He was so accustomed to his electronic toys that he attributed even natural phenomena to battery power!
Christians can make a similar mistake-they look to their own puny power to live righteous lives. But the high moral and ethical standards of a holy God prove impossible to live up to. The result is joyless Christians, hopelessly burdened and defeated.
Paul's prayer for the believers in Ephesus was that "the eyes of your understanding [be] enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe" (Eph. 1:18-19). He wanted them to see that the power available to help them live God-honoring lives is the same power that "raised [Christ] from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places" (v.20).
The power to live according to God's standards comes only when we plug into His inexhaustible power. How do we do that? By daily seeking His face and asking Him to fill us with His Holy Spirit. - C. P. Hia
Fill each heart and reign alone,
Break the idols we have known;
Lead us to confession true,
Give us strength Thy will to do. -Peterson
© 1964 John W. Peterson Music Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
The Light of the World knows no power failure.
No Confidence in the Flesh
Philippians 3:4
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.
The apostle Paul surely could relate to the business executive. Paul reached the height of his profession only to have it completely stripped and torn from him. What he thought mattered in life became rubbish compared to what God did in his heart as He destroyed what seemed valuable at the time. It took a dramatic event to bring Paul into this revelation. It took a bright light-blindness, and the most fearful experience a human could have-being addressed personally by God, who was questioning why Paul was persecuting His people.
It would not be too long after his conversion that Paul would learn one of the greatest lessons every child of God must learn. That lesson is to avoid putting confidence in the flesh. In business we are rewarded for achievement. It is a "measurable" life. We work. We see results. We get certain feelings of accomplishment from these activities.
It was not until I was placed in a situation to experience utter failure that I could identify with the words of Paul. I have met other businesspeople as well who achieved great success in their business life only to experience dramatic failure. That personal handshake with failure leads to a realization that:
Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him... (Phillipians 3:7-9).
Sometimes God lets us experience great pain to learn the lessons of greatest importance. Knowing Christ intimately is the most important lesson we will learn. Take stock in what you find your greatest pleasure in today. Avoid placing your confidence in things that are but rubbish so that you might know Him more intimately.
Handbook to Leadership
Handbook to Leadership
All the features of The Leadership Bible created by Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell, and Bill Perkins have been combined in this attractive and compact black leather volume. Handbook to Leadership has four parts: 52-Week Leadership Guide, Topical Leadership Guide, Leadership Character Studies, and Books of the Bible Leadership Guide. Order or Learn
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious-the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse." Philippians 4:8 MSG
Thoughts for Today
We cannot become all that God has designed us to be if we harbor resentment and bitterness. It is vital that we make the choice to forgive and even to reconcile with the person who has hurt us.
In taking steps to reconciliation, begin with your thoughts. Ask God to help you think about the person's needs, rather than the faults. Then begin to speak well of him or her, drawing attention to strengths, rather than offenses. Next take action-begin to seek reconciliation.
Consider this
You might be in a difficult situation in which the other party is not willing to reconcile. If this is the case, make sure you have forgiven in your own heart. Then keep yourself ready to pursue complete reconciliation if and when the other person is ready.
Wait on God's timing for the individual to join in total reconciliation. It may not be safe to be physically reconciled with some people. Don't try to force-let God work it out in his way and time. Above all, remember that Jesus loves you, and he will give you the strength and courage you need.
Prayer
Father, in all my relationships, help me dwell on things to praise, not things to curse. And especially help me to do this when I think or speak about this one who has offended me. May I walk in forgiveness and be open to reconciliation in your way and your time. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Free to Grow: Overcoming Setbacks and Disappointments by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. The purpose of this group study is to help people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. The group study will help participants understand how to be set free so that they can grow and become all that God has designed them to be. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Focus Of Our Message
I did not come to bring peace but a sword -Matthew 10:34
Never be sympathetic with a person whose situation causes you to conclude that God is dealing harshly with him. God can be more tender than we can conceive, and every once in a while He gives us the opportunity to deal firmly with someone so that He may be viewed as the tender One. If a person cannot go to God, it is because he has something secret which he does not intend to give up- he may admit his sin, but would no more give up that thing than he could fly under his own power. It is impossible to deal sympathetically with people like that. We must reach down deep in their lives to the root of the problem, which will cause hostility and resentment toward the message. People want the blessing of God, but they can't stand something that pierces right through to the heart of the matter.
If you are sensitive to God's way, your message as His servant will be merciless and insistent, cutting to the very root. Otherwise, there will be no healing. We must drive the message home so forcefully that a person cannot possibly hide, but must apply its truth. Deal with people where they are, until they begin to realize their true need. Then hold high the standard of Jesus for their lives. Their response may be, "We can never be that." Then drive it home with, "Jesus Christ says you must." "But how can we be?" "You can't, unless you have a new Spirit" (see Luke 11:13 ).
There must be a sense of need created before your message is of any use. Thousands of people in this world profess to be happy without God. But if we could be truly happy and moral without Jesus, then why did He come? He came because that kind of happiness and peace is only superficial. Jesus Christ came to "bring . . . a sword" through every kind of peace that is not based on a personal relationship with Himself.
God Bless
Today's Verse For Saturday, December 20
LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken. Psalm 15:1-5 NIV
Daily Devotionals December 21, 2008
What Child Is This?
READ: Luke 2:25-35
This Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel . . . that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. -Luke 2:34-35
One of our most beloved Christmas carols was written in 1865 by William Dix, an Englishman who managed a maritime insurance company and loved to write hymns. Sung to the English melody "Greensleeves," some versions use the latter half of the first verse as a chorus for the other verses:
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard
and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring Him laud-
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
But in other versions, each stanza is unique. The second verse, rarely sung today, looks beyond the manger to the cross:
Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear, for sinners here,
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
Simeon said to Mary, "This Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Luke 2:34-35).
The Child of Christmas came to be our Savior. "Joy, joy for Christ is born, the Babe, the Son of Mary." - David C. McCasland
The birth of Christ brought God to man; the cross of Christ brings man to God.
Making Adjustments
John 21:6
..."Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some."
A former client of mine was the marketing director of a large food brokerage company and told me a story about one of their client grocery stores located in the upper Midwest. It seems that the store could not understand why at a certain time every winter sales plummeted. They studied their product line and interviewed customers. They did everything possible to uncover the mystery. Finally, someone made a remarkable discovery that changed everything.
It seemed that whenever it was really cold outside, the manager raised the temperature in the store. When customers came into the store it was too warm for them, so they removed their coats and placed them in their shopping carts. This meant less room for food and resulted in reduced sales overall. They lowered the temperature of the store, and as a result, the sales climbed back to the levels they were accustomed to. Their adjustment resulted in restoring sales levels.
Jesus stood on the shoreline and watched Peter and a few of the disciples fish. Jesus yelled from the shoreline asking if they had caught anything. They had not. He then suggested they cast their line on the other side of the boat. Without knowing the person who was addressing them, they took His advice. They began catching so many fish they could not bring them in.
Adjusting our lives to God is the first thing that has to happen in order to begin experiencing Him in our daily lives. For some, it is simply following the advice of those above us. For others, it may require a major change in our job situation. Still, for others it could mean making changes in relationships. Whatever the case, you can be sure that until we adjust our lives to God we will not receive His full blessing. Ask Him today where you need to adjust to Him.
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and complexities of career and family.
Click
Leave Your Enemies in God's Hands
by Max Lucado
Some years ago a rottweiler attacked our golden retriever puppy at a kennel. The worthless animal climbed out of its run and into Molly's and nearly killed her. He left her with dozens of gashes and a dangling ear. I wrote a letter to the dog's owner, urging him to put the dog to sleep.
But when I showed the letter to the kennel owner, she begged me to reconsider. "What that dog did was horrible, but I'm still training him. I'm not finished with him yet."
God would say the same about the rottweiler who attacked you. "What he did was unthinkable, unacceptable, inexcusable, but I'm not finished yet."
Your enemies still figure into God's plan. Their pulse is proof: God hasn't given up on them. They may be out of God's will, but not out of his reach. You honor God when you see them, not as his failures, but as his projects.
God occupies the only seat on the supreme court of heaven. He wears the robe and refuses to share the gavel. For this reason Paul wrote, "Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. 'I'll do the judging,' says God. 'I'll take care of it' " (Rom. 12:19 MSG).
Revenge removes God from the equation. Vigilantes displace and replace God. "I'm not sure you can handle this one, Lord. You may punish too little or too slowly. I'll take this matter into my hands, thank you."
Is this what you want to say? Jesus didn't. No one had a clearer sense of right and wrong than the perfect Son of God. Yet, "when he suffered, he didn't make any threats but left everything to the one who judges fairly" (1 Pet. 2:23 GOD'S WORD).
Only God assesses accurate judgments. We impose punishments too slight or severe. God dispenses perfect justice. Vengeance is his job. Leave your enemies in God's hands. You're not endorsing their misbehavior when you do. You can hate what someone did without letting hatred consume you. Forgiveness is not excusing.
Nor is forgiveness pretending. David didn't gloss over or sidestep Saul's sin. He addressed it directly. He didn't avoid the issue, but he did avoid Saul.
Do the same. Give grace, but, if need be, keep your distance. You can forgive the abusive husband without living with him. Be quick to give mercy to the immoral pastor, but be slow to give him a pulpit. Society can dispense grace and prison terms at the same time. Offer the child molester a second chance, but keep him off the playgrounds.
Forgiveness is not foolishness.
Forgiveness is, at its core, choosing to see your offender with different eyes. You don't excuse him, endorse her, or embrace them. You just route thoughts about them through heaven. You see your enemy as God's child and revenge as God's job.
By the way, how can we grace-recipients do anything less? Dare we ask God for grace when we refuse to give it? This is a huge issue in Scripture. Jesus was tough on sinners who refused to forgive other sinners. In the final sum, we give grace because we've been given grace.
From
Facing Your Giants
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
Experience or God's Revealed Truth?
We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God -1 Corinthians 2:12
My experience is not what makes redemption real- redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth- Jesus Christ.
If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, "I do not care what I experience- I am sure of Him!"
Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God's revealed truth is the only faith there is.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 22, 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December Desire
READ: Revelation 22:1-5
They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. -Revelation
22:5
December is a month when people celebrate miracles. The Jewish tradition of
Hanukkah-the
Holiday of Lights-commemorates the time when a small amount of oil lasted 8 days
and kept the light in the temple from going out. And Christmas celebrates the coming
of the "Light of the World," God in human form-Jesus.
A miracle is generally thought of as something that contradicts nature. But a true
miracle is the introduction of God's supernatural power into our world in a way
that suspends the laws of physics as we understand them.
In December, it seems that more of us are willing to suspend disbelief and entertain
the possibility that "nature" is not the final authority. Even the non-religious
yearn for miracles. Deep down, everyone wants to believe that darkness, disease,
and death can be overcome.
Perhaps the most wondrous thing about miracles is that it is God's nature to do
the supernatural. The closing chapters of Scripture assure us that this "December
desire" for all to be well will become a reality: "There shall be no more death,
nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain" (Rev. 21:4). God will one
day bring to an end the unnatural rule of Satan and begin His righteous reign as
the rightful Ruler of the universe. - Julie Ackerman Link
Thank You, Lord, that although we live in a world
where Satan's shadow obscures Your glorious light,
we eagerly anticipate the day when Your full glory will once again illuminate all
creation. Amen.
A miracle needs no explanation to those who believe in God; to those who don't,
no explanation is enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living a Life of Conviction
1 Thessalonians 1:4-5
For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came
to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with
deep conviction.
Everyone lives a life of conviction. Whatever we give our greatest time, our greatest
energies, and our greatest resources to is a good indication of where our convictions
lie. Some live a life of conviction about sports. Some live a life of conviction
around pleasure. Still others live a life of conviction about very little that
matters at all.
Whenever God chooses to do a deep work in a life, a strong conviction is born of
the Holy Spirit. Conversions in the early Church resulted in changed lives that
held to a deep, life-transforming conviction regarding what they believed and how
they lived out that belief. Paul explains that the gospel they received came not
just in words, but also in power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.
In order to impact the marketplace for Jesus Christ, each of us must be reflecting
a faith that is demonstrated through deeply held convictions. Are you living a life
of deep conviction that spurs you on to reflect the power of Christ in your life
and the lives of others? Paul was willing to suffer great persecution for his faith
in a living God. God calls each of us to a life that is supernatural, not simply
a good, moral life. The early Church understood the role the Holy Spirit played
in demonstrating this power of the gospel. It was this deep work that resulted
in living the gospel with great conviction. If you are not living the gospel with
great conviction, ask the Holy Spirit to so fill your life today that the power
of His Spirit is truly reflected in your life so that you may impact others in your
marketplace.
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb
to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's
life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation
and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and
complexities
of career and family.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living Free Every Day
Today's Scripture
"Let's take a good look at the way we're living and reorder our lives under God."
Lamentations 3:40 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Business owners take regular inventory of their stock. These inventories can be
a useful business planning tool. They can reveal growth or decline in business
productivity
and possible obstacles to growth. They can assist business owners in making changes
for a better future.
Taking a regular inventory of our life can be productive, as well. It can help us
answer questions about the directions our life is moving. Are we growing or declining
in character development? Are we moving toward our life goals, or are there hindering
obstacles? Are we growing in our relationship with God? What changes do we need
to make to move ahead more effectively?
Consider this
As we approach a new year, determine to take inventory of your life. Consider your
relationships with God, your family, your church and your friends. Be honest. Ask
God to help you see things as they really are and to face any inappropriate behavior
without making excuses for yourself.
God loves you and he wants to help you eliminate those things in your life that
may be hurting you-and others. But before he can help you, you must face up to the
fact that these problems exist. Remember Jesus is with you. He will not disappoint
you in your time of personal searching.
Prayer
Father, help me take a good, honest look at myself. Help me see what is pleasing
to you and what is disappointing you. Help me to reorder my life under you. In
Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom: A Christ-Centered Twelve-Step Program
-
by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This twelve-step program is suggested for use in support
groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with
a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling
or workaholism. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and
we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively
as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website?
Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day
devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others,
please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written
permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending
e-mail to info@LivingFree.org
================================================================================
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Drawing of the Father
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . -John 6:44
When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately.
Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him?
To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate
and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to
decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15-16).
Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of
my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself
completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says?
If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God's throne.
In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come
from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender
to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my
faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but
only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete
trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will
to believe. But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort
to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things. I must surrender myself
completely to God.
Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But
it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner,
personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the
miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent
appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life.
God Bless
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Daily Devotionals December 23, 2008
Invisible Man
READ: John 14:5-20
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. -Hebrews 12:2
As a boy, I was fascinated by the book The Invisible Man. The main character played an elaborate game of hide-and-seek, staying just out of reach of mere mortals "cursed" with a visible nature. To have a physical presence, he wore clothes and wrapped his face in bandages. When it was time to escape, he simply removed everything and disappeared.
I wonder if we have similar thoughts about our unseen God. We feel He is beyond our reach and express it in song with one of my favorite hymns:
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible
Hid from our eyes.
Yet, while declaring the wonder of God, the hymn speaks of a God who is not just invisible:
All praise we would render-O help us to see
'Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee!
We perceive that God is distant, far off, inaccessible, and hidden. But we need a God who is accessible, and we wonder how to have a meaningful relationship with Him.
We will never fully comprehend what God is like. Yet He Himself is accessible to us. In part, that is why Jesus came-to "show us the Father" (John 14:8-11) and to bring us close to Him, because "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Col. 1:15).
Our God is an invisible God, beyond our limited comprehension. Thankfully, Jesus came to show us how near to us He really is. - Bill Crowder
God's presence with us is His greatest present to us.
Treasures in Darkness
Isaiah 45:3
I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
"I have never been in this place before. It is new ground for me, and I find I am way out of my comfort zone. I am scared to death to trust Him at this level. I had to confess to the Lord I have not been able to accept or believe His love for me in this area." Those were the words I expressed to a friend when I was in a difficult place in my life. That day when I confessed those words, God led me to this passage of Scripture.
What we perceive as dark periods in our lives are designed to be treasures from God. They are actually riches stored in secret places. We cannot see those times in this light because of the often-accompanying pain or fear that prevents us from accepting these times as treasures. They have a particular purpose from God's viewpoint: "...so that you may know that I am the Lord...who summons you by name."
You see, unless we are cast into times in which we are completely at God's mercy for breakthroughs in our lives, we will never experience God's faithfulness in those areas. We will never know how personal He is, or that He can be trusted to meet the deepest needs in our lives. God wants each of us to know that we are "summoned by name." Every hair of our head is numbered. He knows every activity we are involved in. His love for you and me knows no bounds, and He will take every opportunity to demonstrate this to us.
Has God brought you into a place of darkness? Trust Him today to reveal that hidden treasure that can be found in this darkness. Let Him summon you by name.
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and complexities of career and family.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don't drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it." 2 Corinthians 13:5 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Yesterday we considered the importance of taking a regular inventory of our lives. A good place to start is by examining our relationship with God. As you begin to do this, ask yourself some hard questions like these:
Do I know God better today than I did last month or last year?
Am I asking God about his plan for my life-or just forging on ahead, doing my own thing?
Am I too busy for God? (A trap we can all easily fall into, especially this time of year)
Am I persisting in some behavior that I know is displeasing to him?
Consider this
You can trust Jesus to forgive your failures and give you the strength to get your life back on track. The changes might be small or large. The important thing is to always be moving in the right direction toward God and his plan for your life.
Prayer
Father, I desire to grow in my walk with you, to know you better, to accomplish your plan for my life. As I celebrate the birth of your Son and all that he means to me, help me see the areas in my life that need change-and then to do something about it. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom: A Christ-Centered Twelve-Step Program by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This twelve-step program is suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Sharing in the Atonement
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
The gospel of Jesus Christ always forces a decision of our will. Have I accepted God's verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ? Do I have even the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death- to be completely dead to all interest in sin, worldliness, and self? Do I long to be so closely identified with Jesus that I am of no value for anything except Him and His purposes? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can commit myself under the banner of His Cross, and that means death to sin. You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you, or that at any cost you want to be identified with His death. When you act in confident faith in what our Lord did on the cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place immediately. And you will come to know through a higher knowledge that your old life was "crucified with Him" (Romans 6:6 ). The proof that your old life is dead, having been "crucified with Christ" ( Galatians 2:20 ), is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you now enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.
Every once in a while our Lord gives us a glimpse of what we would be like if it were not for Him. This is a confirmation of what He said- ". . . without Me you can do nothing" ( John 15:5 ). That is why the underlying foundation of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus. We mistake the joy of our first introduction into God's kingdom as His purpose for getting us there. Yet God's purpose in getting us into His kingdom is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 24, 2008
Christmas In Tokyo
READ: Acts 17:22-34
The One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you. -Acts 17:23
On Christmas Eve 2003, noted painter Makoto Fujimura gathered with other artists for a party at Sato Museum in Tokyo. Many had donated their works for a benefit exhibit to raise money for children in Afghanistan. After the meal, Mr. Fujimura, an ardent Christian who lives in New York, shared some words about the true meaning of Christmas and their opportunity as artists to create works that help bring hope into the world.
Reflecting on that event, Fujimura wrote: "I was convinced, that evening in Tokyo, that Jesus invited Himself to be among artists who may not even know His name. Some of these artists, I suspect, have already sensed His presence in their studios as they labored to create peace via their paintings. All gifts of creativity, like the Magi's [star], point straight to a stable in Bethlehem."
Paul said that God is at work among people of all nations "so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28).
We should be alert for the Lord's presence where we least expect to see Him. Jesus may invite Himself to any Christmas party. After all, it's His birthday. - David C. McCasland
The star shines forth in its glory bright
To lighten the gloom of earth's darkest night;
And Calvary's Christ will still impart
His comfort and love to the needy heart. -Richey
This Christmas, be alert for the work and presence of Jesus.
Marketplace Meditations 12/24
Resolving the Ownership Issue
Psalms 24:1-2
The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.
As Christian businesspeople, God calls us to view Him as the owner of everything. We are to be stewards of all that He entrusts to us. This is one of the hardest of all commandments to follow for the Christian businessperson because, if we work hard at business, we receive all the benefits of that work. It appears as though all that we have achieved was through our hand. Yet God says that it is by His hand that we are able to make wealth (see Deut. 8). He is the source of that ability. As soon as we become owners and not managers, we fall into trouble with God.
Joseph understood that he was a steward of all the resources of Egypt. God promoted him to affect an entire region of the world. Joseph had more power, prestige, and wealth than any 30-year-old who ever lived before him. The temptation for him in this newfound role in life must have been great. Many a man has not been able to handle material success. Many of God's choicest servants began well in their calling and service to God only to fail at the end. Consider Hezekiah, the great king who achieved many great things but failed to acknowledge God's blessing at the end of his reign. His reign was cut short due to pride. Gideon's fate was similar. Success can lead to pride if we are not careful.
"Not every man can carry a full cup. Sudden elevation frequently leads to pride and a fall. The most exacting test of all to survive is prosperity" [Oswald Chambers].
Ask the Lord today if you are living as a steward or an owner. Put whatever skills and resources you possess on His altar. Then you can expect God to do great things through you.
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and complexities of career and family.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand." 2 Psalm 37:23-24 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Continuing to think about taking inventory of our lives, another important area to examine is our family relationships. Many of us will gather with our family members this week to celebrate Christmas an especially good opportunity to reflect on our relationships with them. Make your own list of questions-you might want to use some like these:
Am I holding on to bitterness toward a family member who has hurt me?
How is my lifestyle affecting other family members?
Is there someone in my family in need of more of my time and attention?
Are my priorities in order?
As you consider these questions and others, ask God to help you see clearly. The Bible tells us that he knows our undertakings and thoughts even before we act or think-so be honest with him about what you see and feel. Always remember that he loves you no matter what. He wants to help you in your family relationships and in every area of your life.
Consider this
Ask Jesus to forgive you for past failures and to help you make right choices. Focus on him-he will forgive you, he will guide you, and he will enable you to become the person he has called you to be.
Prayer
Father, as I examine my family relationships, I see some places where I need to change, to grow. I thank you that you care about every detail of my life. Forgive me for my failures. Help me to set things right. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom: A Christ-Centered Twelve-Step Program by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This twelve-step program is suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Hidden Life
. . . your life is hidden with Christ in God -Colossians 3:3
The Spirit of God testifies to and confirms the simple, but almighty, security of the life that "is hidden with Christ in God." Paul continually brought this out in his New Testament letters. We talk as if living a sanctified life were the most uncertain and insecure thing we could do. Yet it is the most secure thing possible, because it has Almighty God in and behind it. The most dangerous and unsure thing is to try to live without God. For one who is born again, it is easier to live in a right-standing relationship with God than it is to go wrong, provided we heed God's warnings and "walk in the light" ( 1 John 1:7 ).
When we think of being delivered from sin, being "filled with the Spirit" ( Ephesians 5:18 ), and "walk[ing] in the light," we picture the peak of a great mountain. We see it as very high and wonderful, but we say, "Oh, I could never live up there!" However, when we do get there through God's grace, we find it is not a mountain peak at all, but a plateau with plenty of room to live and to grow. "You enlarged my path under me, so my feet did not slip" ( Psalm 18:36 ).
When you really see Jesus, I defy you to doubt Him. If you see Him when He says, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:27 ), I defy you to worry. It is virtually impossible to doubt when He is there. Every time you are in personal contact with Jesus, His words are real to you. "My peace I give to you . . ." (John 14:27 )- a peace which brings an unconstrained confidence and covers you completely, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. ". . . your life is hidden with Christ in God," and the peace of Jesus Christ that cannot be disturbed has been imparted to you.
God Bless Happy Birthday, Jesus.
Merry Christmas
Daily Devotionals December 25, 2008
A Gift Most Lavish
READ: Micah 5:2-6
Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. -2 Corinthians 8:9
I have a piece of old plaster on my desk that comes from the ancient site of the Herodium in the land of Israel. It reminds me of the humility of our Lord Jesus.
Herodium was a lavish residence that served as King Herod's summer palace, a sumptuous villa with opulent apartments furnished for the royal family and their guests. It boasted a Roman bath with hot and cold pools, surrounded by colonnaded gardens.
It's said that Herod built his palace to commemorate a victory in battle, but knowing Herod's selfish ambition it's possible he had another purpose in mind. Some have conjectured that Herod, despite inquiring of the scribes (Matt. 2:4-6), knew about Micah's prediction that Israel's Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. He may have wanted Israel's King to be born in his palace.
The Father's plan, however, was for our Lord to be born not in a castle but in a cave. It was in a lowly manger that the little Lord Jesus was born.
This is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, "Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). This is the gift of lavish salvation-of all gifts, the greatest gift that you and I will ever receive. - David H. Roper
He did not use a silvery box
Or paper green and red;
God laid His Christmas gift to me
Within a manger bed. -Prentice
The goodness and love of God became incarnate at Bethlehem.
Understanding Our Own Calling
John 21:22
..."If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow Me."
Jesus was talking to Peter after he had just had a very important encounter with Him-one of the last meetings the two would have. This was the third time Jesus had shown Himself to the disciples after His resurrection. It is the famous dialogue between Jesus and Peter in which Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him. Jesus followed by commanding, "Feed My sheep." Jesus went on to foretell of Peter's future death. As they were walking together, John was with Peter and Jesus. Peter asked Jesus about John and whether he would die also. Jesus reacted sharply to Peter's comment, telling him not to worry about what John's role or purpose was in life. All Peter had to do was worry about fulfilling his own purpose.
As businesspeople we tend to measure our success on whether we have achieved a certain position or stature in life. Even as Christians the temptation to believe that someone is blessed if they have achieved prominence is always confronting us. In His discussion with Peter, Jesus was getting at the very heart of the matter of a person's calling. Peter was worried about whether his friend John was going to get the same lot in life as he was. Jesus told him it should not be his concern. He was to concern himself only with one thing: his own calling before God.
Are you tempted to compare yourself with where others are in their life? Are you dissatisfied with where God has you right now? Be of good cheer-"[be] confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6).
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and complexities of career and family.
Click to Order
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track." 2 Proverbs 3:5-6 MSG
Thoughts for Today
This week so far we have considered taking inventory of our relationships with God and with our family. Another important area to audit is our relationships with friends. The Bible has much to say about being a good friend, choosing our friends wisely, and the value of friendship. Here are some suggested questions again, add your own to the list.
Do I have any friends who help keep me accountable to making right choices?
Can my friends see Jesus in me?
Am I self-centered in my relationships, or do I really care about being a good friend?
Do I take offense too easily?
Am I forgiving when a friend hurts me?
Do I have any friends who are drawing me away from my walk with God?
Ask God to help you evaluate this area of your life honestly and to accept responsibility for any problems you discover.
Consider this
Today we celebrate God's greatest expression of his love: coming to earth to live and die for us so that we might spend eternity with him. God loves you and wants only the best for you. He has a good plan for your life, but you can block that plan by making poor choices. Be encouraged to do things God's way. He loves you and he will guide you and help you through every step of your journey.
Prayer
Father, help me to be a good friend. I pray that my friends can see Jesus in me. Help me to listen for your voice and to trust your guidance in the area of friendship-and in every area of my life. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom: A Christ-Centered Twelve-Step Program by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This twelve-step program is suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
His Birth and Our New Birth
'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God with us' -Matthew 1:23
His Birth in History. ". . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God ( Luke 1:35 ). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of- He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate- God coming into human flesh from outside it. His life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors. Our Lord's birth was an advent- the appearance of God in human form.
His Birth in Me. "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you . . ." (Galatians 4:19 ). Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a "Bethlehem" for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. "You must be born again" ( John 3:7 ). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that "Christ is formed" in me. And once "Christ is formed" in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.
God Evident in the Flesh. This is what is made so profoundly possible for you and for me through the redemption of man by Jesus Christ.
Happy Birthday! Jesus
Merry Christmas!
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 26, 2008
He Can Lead You Out Of It
READ: 1 Kings 19:1-12
After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. -1 Kings 19:12
Almost everyone will at some time in their life be affected by depression, either their own or someone else's. Some common signs and symptoms of depression include feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, worthlessness, and helplessness. Although we cannot say for certain that characters in the Bible experienced depression, we can say that some did exhibit a deep sense of despondency, discouragement, and sadness that is linked to personal powerlessness and loss of meaning and enthusiasm for life.
Elijah is one biblical character who fits this description. After defeating the prophets of Baal, he received a death threat from Jezebel. His hope was shattered, and despondency set in. He wanted to die! God helped Elijah deal with his despondency in several ways. The Lord did not rebuke him for his feelings but sent an angel to provide for his physical needs. Then, the Lord revealed Himself and reminded Elijah that He was quietly working among His people. Next, He renewed Elijah's mission by giving him new orders. Finally, God reminded Elijah that he wasn't alone.
In our times of discouragement, let us remember that God loves us and desires to lead us to a place of a renewed vision of Himself! - Marvin Williams
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain. -von Schlegel
The weak, the helpless, and the discouraged are in the Shepherd's special care.
Embracing the Lean Times
Jeremiah 17:7
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.
Have you ever considered at what point a test becomes so difficult that you decide you can no longer trust in God and you must take over to solve the problem? The prophet Jeremiah describes a situation in which the temptation to solve a financial problem can become so great that we trust in man's way to solve it.
This is what the Lord says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:5-8).
Jeremiah drew a sharp comparison between the man who trusts in his own effort to solve his problem and the man who trusts in God when he cannot see the outcome. The man who trusts in God bears fruit despite the circumstances in his life. He does not shrivel when the heat comes; in fact, his roots go deeper into God's grace. He continues to bear fruit in spite of his circumstances.
Recently, a friend from South Africa explained to me that whenever a plant lives in an arid climate, the roots drive deeper and deeper into the soil to get the water they need. This forces the plant to develop a root system that is far beyond the normal plant because it is forced to go deeper to gain the water it needs. Sometimes God forces us to go deeper into the grace of His love in order to build a greater foundation in our own lives. These lean times are designed to accomplish this in us. If you find yourself in this condition, ask the Lord who provides the water for our soul for the grace you need today to continue to bear fruit in the desert.
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and complexities of career and family.
Click to
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD. Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." 2 Proverbs 16:2-3 NIV
Thoughts for Today
For our last look this week at inventorying our lives, let's think about choices in the workplace. Sometimes we tend to live by a different set of standards in our career or business, but God wants us to be guided by his principles in every area of our lives. It is especially important to consider our motives for doing what we do at work. Are we motivated mostly by our desire to move up the ladder and make more money-or is honoring Jesus still our most important motivator?
In taking inventory, make a list of questions to ask yourself. You might want to use some like these:
Have I been swept into a competitive mode that causes me to try to get ahead even at the expense of hurting other people?
Do I base business decisions solely on my desire to succeed, or do I first consider the integrity of my choices?
Has my work become so all-consuming that I am putting it above my focus on my family?
Am I participating in workplace gossip or complaining?
What kind of influence am I having on those around me?
Consider this
Honestly inventorying your attitudes and actions in the workplace is the first step toward correcting any problem areas. As you confess your failures to God, he will forgive you and help you chart a better path. Jesus loves you. Only as you choose to do things his way will you find real success-the kind that lasts for an eternity.
Prayer
Lord, help me clearly see my motives for all I do in the workplace. Forgive me for letting my desire to get ahead in my career overshadow my desire to honor you in all I do. I pray above all that my employer and co-workers will see Jesus in me and that you will use me to encourage them and influence them toward you. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Stepping into Freedom: A Christ-Centered Twelve-Step Program by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This twelve-step program is suggested for use in support groups, recovery groups and home groups. It offers help for anyone struggling with a life-controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
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© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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'Walk in the Light'
If we walk in the light as He is in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin -1 John 1:7
To mistake freedom from sin only on the conscious level of our lives for complete deliverance from sin by the atonement through the Cross of Christ is a great error. No one fully knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced at Calvary. The evidence that I have been delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me. For a person to really know what sin is requires the full work and deep touch of the atonement of Jesus Christ, that is, the imparting of His absolute perfection.
The Holy Spirit applies or administers the work of the atonement to us in the deep unconscious realm as well as in the conscious realm. And it is not until we truly perceive the unrivaled power of the Spirit in us that we understand the meaning of 1 John 1:7 , which says, ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." This verse does not refer only to conscious sin, but also to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Spirit in me can accomplish.
I must "walk in the light as He is in the light . . ."- not in the light of my own conscience, but in God's light. If I will walk there, with nothing held back or hidden, then this amazing truth is revealed to me: ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses [me] from all sin" so that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke in me. On the conscious level it produces a keen, sorrowful knowledge of what sin really is. The love of God working in me causes me to hate, with the Holy Spirit's hatred for sin, anything that is not in keeping with God's holiness. To "walk in the light" means that everything that is of the darkness actually drives me closer to the center of the light.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 27, 2008
Feelings-Deficient
READ: Psalm 62
I sought the Lord, and He heard me. -Psalm 34:4
Mallory doesn't feel loved by God. She received Jesus as her Savior several years ago and is confident that she is forgiven and will spend eternity with Him. She believes what God says in His Word, but she would also like to feel loved.
Her friends give her what she thinks is a pat answer: "It's not about feelings! Just believe and the feelings will come later." She says, "Okay, but when is later?" She believes she's "feelings-deficient."
God created us in His image to have emotions, so the longing to feel loved is legitimate and good. One way that many of us sense we're loved is when someone talks with us and listens to us.
God provides those needs in our relationship with Him too. He speaks through His Word to our heart (Heb. 4:12), and He wants us to pour out our heart to Him about everything (Ps. 62:8)-even our longing to feel His love. Besides a relationship
Knowing that God loves us comes by faith; feeling His love for us comes by relationshipwith Him, He daily gives us our breath, clothing, food, and shelter. Like the psalmist, we can find Him to be our "rock" and "refuge" as we trust Him (vv.2,7).
God loves us. Now, we walk by faith. One day, when we're in His very presence, we'll never again be feelings-deficient. - Anne Cetas
Thinking It Through
Read these passages about God's love for you:
1 John 4:9-10
Jeremiah 31:3 John 15:9-11
What can you thank God for today?
Knowing that God loves us comes by faith; feeling His love for us comes by relationship.
An Eternal View of Circumstances
Philippians 1:12
Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.
Are your life circumstances advancing the gospel? Can you see the Lord's hand in your life in such a way that all of your life experiences, joys, sorrows, hardships, and training have resulted in advancing the gospel?
Paul was a tentmaker by trade. But he had an overall ministry objective in his business life. That objective left him imprisoned and persecuted at times. But Paul saw these events not as roadblocks to his mission. Rather, they were catalysts to advancing the cause of Christ. Paul's revelation of this kept him from despairing about his circumstances.
One day a little-known pastor who lived in the small African nation of Benin began to pray for his Marxist president. For two years he prayed. Then the Lord told the pastor to go to meet this president and share the gospel with him. The president rejected the gospel, but after another such occasion, the president accepted the gospel and became a Christian. He was removed from power but was discipled by this pastor. Sometime later this same president was elected again. Today that president is now a Christian leader of a nation committed to spreading the gospel throughout his nation. One man-but millions have been affected by his obedience. This modern-day story is retold in countless lives of those willing to live for a cause greater than themselves.
Are your business and life experiences serving to advance the gospel? What experiences has God allowed in your life that are part of His plan to advance the gospel? Ask Him to help you see your life the way He sees it. Seeing our life the way God sees it will help us avoid discouragement in those times when life appears to be a mystery to us.
Beyond Leadership to Destiny
Jacob's Life: Beyond Leadership To Destiny
This book provides a comprehensive look into the life of Jacob whose life from womb to tomb covers half the book of Genesis. Through the compelling seasons of Jacob's life, leaders today can identify with the timeless realities of spiritual formation and life development, and experience healing power for their own wounds and complexities of career and family.
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The Door Is Not Closed
In Revelation 7-8 we read how the trumpets have been sounded and God's redemptive plan fulfilled. Not all men and women will be saved from an eternal death. Certainly, God's desire is that every person would come to know Him as Savior and Lord, but many have chosen to follow other gods.
The good news is that it is not too late to know the Savior. As of today, the trumpet has not sounded. The door of eternal opportunity has not closed, and you still have time to make a decision to follow Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon writes:
One person may say, "I cannot see how simply trusting Christ and believing God's witness of Him would save my soul." To which I would reply, "My dear man, are you never to believe anything but what you can see, and how are you to see this thing till you have tried it? You must believe the gospel on the evidence of God, and not otherwise, or have faith in the record God has given concerning His Son-a faith that takes God at His word. Believe, then, on the Lord Jesus Christ and you have believed God to be true; refuse to trust in Jesus Christ, unless you get some other evidence beyond the witness of God, and you have practically said that God's testimony is not enough-that is to say, you have made God a liar."
But God is not a liar. Within Him is all truth and justice. Up until the final moment, He is longing for the lost to accept His gracious gift of salvation. Satan, however, wants to lead us astray by filling our minds with the idea that we don't need God.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Have you fully surrendered your life and heart to the Savior? If not, today is the day to discover anew the graciousness of His love.
Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen! (Revelation 7:12).
The circumstances of life do not have to get you down. Learn how you can turn negative situations into ones of hope and promise in our free resource this month-"When Life Gets You Down, Look Up!" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Where the Battle is Won or Lost
'If you will return, O Israel,' says the Lord . . . -Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, "I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I'll put God to the test." Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point- a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 28, 2008
Soul Food
READ: Psalm 19:7-14
Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. -Jeremiah 15:16
Grocery shopping with my wife, Martie, is like taking a seminar in nutrition. I'll often pick up a box of something that looks good, and she'll say: "Look at the label. Are there trans-fats? What's the calorie count? How about the cholesterol rating?" I have to confess that if she weren't the nutrition cop in my life, I'd look like Shamu the whale!
More important than making good choices in the grocery store is thinking carefully about the food we digest for our souls. I love the verse that says: "Your words were found, and I ate them" (Jer. 15:16).
When we read God's Word, we have to be doing more than checking it off our to-do list. We have to read it to digest it. Slow, thoughtful absorption of the Word of God with quiet reflection on its implications is high in nutrition. His Word provides all the ingredients we need to thrive spiritually:
a direct connection to the sustainer of our soul
brain food that makes us wise and discerning
a daily check-up revealing the condition of our hearts
preventive medicine keeping us from sin
a spiritual shower of peace, hope, and comfort
Eat God's Word. It's a spiritual feast! - Joe Stowell
God's Word provides the nourishment
That Christians need if we're to grow;
But if we do not feast on it,
A vibrant faith we'll never know. -Sper
The Bible contains all the nutrients for a healthy soul.
Opening Our Spiritual Eyes
2 Kings 6:17
And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Elisha was counseling the nation of Israel against the impending attack of the king of Aram. The Lord supernaturally gave Elisha the plans that the king was implementing, and in turn, Elisha warned Israel of each intended attack. The king could not understand why his plans were continually foiled. It seemed there was a secret informer in his midst. He was furious when he was told it was the God of Israel who was to blame for this inside information. The king decided the only way to resolve the situation was to get rid of the problem-kill Elisha.
The king's forces arrived and surrounded Elisha and his servant. Elisha's servant became upset and fearful when Elisha was not upset. Elisha immediately prayed that his servant's eyes might be opened to see that there was no need to be afraid, because the angels were protecting them.
And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, "Strike these people with blindness." So He struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked (2 Kings 6:17-18).
Who is the Elisha in your life? Do you have a mentor friend who can see the activity of God in your life when you cannot see it? We all need to have somebody we can trust to help us see the activity of God. It is often difficult for us to see what God is really doing because we are so consumed by the circumstances of the moment. Ask God today to help open your spiritual eyes that you might see Him in your circumstances.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
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The Arrival
by Max Lucado
God had entered the world as a baby.
Yet, were someone to chance upon the sheep stable on the outskirts of Bethlehem that morning, what a peculiar scene they would behold.
The stable stinks like all stables do. The stench of urine, dung, and sheep reeks pungently in the air. The ground is hard, the hay scarce. Cobwebs cling to the ceiling and a mouse scurries across the dirt floor.
A more lowly place of birth could not exist.
Off to one side sit a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor; perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him-so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.
Near the young mother sits the weary father. If anyone is dozing, he is. He can't remember the last time he sat down. And now that the excitement has subsided a bit, now that Mary and the baby are comfortable, he leans against the wall of the stable and feels his eyes grow heavy. He still hasn't figured it all out. The mystery of the event puzzles him. But he hasn't the energy to wrestle with the questions. What's important is that the baby is fine and that Mary is safe. As sleep comes he remembers the name the angel told him to use ... Jesus. "We will call him Jesus."
Wide awake is Mary. My, how young she looks! Her head rests on the soft leather of Joseph's saddle. The pain has been eclipsed by wonder. She looks into the face of the baby. Her son. Her Lord. His Majesty. At this point in history, the human being who best understands who God is and what he is doing is a teenage girl in a smelly stable. She can't take her eyes off him. Somehow Mary knows she is holding God. So this is he. She remembers the words of the angel. "His kingdom will never end." (Luke 1:33)
He looks like anything but a king. His face is prunish and red. His cry, though strong and healthy, is still the helpless and piercing cry of a baby. And he is absolutely dependent upon Mary for his well-being.
Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter.
She touches the face of the infant-God. How long was your journey!
This baby had overlooked the universe. These rags keeping him warm were the robes of eternity. His golden throne room had been abandoned in favor of a dirty sheep pen. And worshiping angels had been replaced with kind but bewildered shepherds.
Meanwhile, the city hums. The merchants are unaware that God has visited their planet. The innkeeper would never believe that he had just sent God into the cold. And the people would scoff at anyone who told them the Messiah lay in the arms of a teenager on the outskirts of their village. They were all too busy to consider the possibility.
Those who missed His Majesty's arrival that night missed it not because of evil acts or malice; no, they missed it because they simply weren't looking.
Little has changed in the last two thousand years, has it?
From
God Came Near
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
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Continuous Conversion
. . . unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 18:3
These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God's, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must "put on the new man . . ." (Ephesians 4:24 ). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule- God must rule in us.
To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, "I won't submit." We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 29, 2008
Hearts And Banjos
READ: Psalm 85:1-7
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? -Psalm 85:6
While working my way through graduate school, I taught five-string banjo in a music store. The job provided me with the opportunity to buy a brand-new, professional-quality instrument for nearly half-price.
That was over 30 years ago, and that banjo has accompanied me on ministry efforts around the world. But despite its excellent craftsmanship, eventually it needed to be refurbished. A master repairman pointed out how imperfections had worn into the banjo. He was confident that his repairs would result in the instrument sounding better than new.
I wasn't disappointed. The action on the strings and the clarity of the sound are astonishingly superior to its original condition when I purchased the instrument.
In a way, our lives are like musical instruments intended for "the praise of the glory of [God's] grace" (Eph. 1:6). But over time, life wears us down. Our hearts cry out for renewal. The psalmist prayed: "Will You not revive us again?" (Ps. 85:6). The Hebrew word for revive means not only "to restore and refresh" but also "to repair."
It's vital that we submit our souls to the Master's restorative touch. Why not set aside some time for spiritual retreat, and ask the Lord to repair your heart? - Dennis Fisher
Revive us again-
Fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above. -Mackay
Time in Christ's service requires time out for renewal.
Spiritual Contracts
Daniel 9:2
In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.
When you enter a legal contract, it binds the two parties to fulfill the terms of that contract. In Heaven there are legal contracts that, when fulfilled, allow the spiritual to impact the physical.
Israel had been in captivity to Babylon for 70 years. Daniel, when he investigated the history of his nation, found the prophecy of Jeremiah that revealed there would be 70 years of captivity. He recognized that in order to release his nation from this captivity, there had to be a confession of sin on the part of the nation. Daniel took that responsibility. Although he could not personally repent for his nation, he could acknowledge their sin and repent himself. When Daniel acknowledged this sin before God, something took place in Heaven. God heard this prayer and responded by sending His angel Gabriel to Daniel's side.
We know from history that this was the time when Judah's return from exile began. Daniel's prayer of confession was the spiritual key to the physical manifestation of releasing the nation from captivity to Babylon.
Whenever you want to confront spiritual forces that have dominion over a situation, you must find the source of the problem. Once you find the source of the problem, you must take the necessary steps in the spiritual realm to release God's power into that situation. For Daniel, it meant taking responsibility for the sin of the nation by confessing its sins and asking forgiveness on behalf of the entire nation. This allowed God to begin the process of releasing the nation.
Ask God to show you the source of the problems that may exist in your city, your business, or people you want to see freed to fulfill God's purposes for their lives.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Remember that some men's sins are obvious, and are equally obvious bringing them into judgment. The sins of other men are not apparent, but are dogging them nevertheless under the surface. Similarly some virtues are plain to see, while others, though not at all conspicuous, will eventually become known." 1 Timothy 5:24-25 Phillips
Thoughts for Today
People with life-controlling problems often look great in public, but inside they struggle with issues they can't handle alone. Even in our churches, many people are struggling with hurts and problems hidden behind Sunday smiles.
These struggles can be described as addictions, dependencies, controlling behaviors, or even just the normal challenges of life that sometimes overwhelm us. We can become so preoccupied and weakened that we are unable to grow spiritually and serve God, perhaps even unable to cope with day-to-day living.
We resist admitting our struggles because we fear what others think, and so we hide our problem from others and sometimes even from ourselves.
Consider this
If you are dealing with a life-controlling problem, please understand that you are not unique in your situation. Because we all struggle, everyone has the potential for developing a life-controlling problem. When you have this kind of a problem, it's not a time to hide-it's a time to be honest with God, with yourself and with others. It's a time to ask for help.
God loves you unconditionally. No matter what you've done. No matter what your problem. He wants to help. Talk to him today and open your heart to his love, his forgiveness and his help.
Prayer
Father, I haven't wanted to admit that I have this problem-even to you. But I don't want to continue like this. Help me to be honest with you and with others-and with myself. Please forgive me. I need your help. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free DVD Training. Prepare your congregation to minister to hurting people within your church and your community. Through Living Free, your church or ministry can unleash a fresh wave of small group leaders and develop a small group ministry that will result in transformed lives.
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© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Deserter or Disciple?
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more -John 6:66
When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must "walk in the light" of that vision ( 1 John 1:7 ). Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don't "walk in the light" of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord. Mentally disobeying the "heavenly vision" ( Acts 26:19 ) will make you a slave to ideas and views that are completely foreign to Jesus Christ. Don't look at someone else and say, "Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why can't I?" You have to "walk in the light" of the vision that has been given to you. Don't compare yourself with others or judge them- that is between God and them. When you find that one of your favorite and strongly held views clashes with the "heavenly vision," do not begin to debate it. If you do, a sense of property and personal right will emerge in you- things on which Jesus placed no value. He was against these things as being the root of everything foreign to Himself- ". . . for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" ( Luke 12:15 ). If we don't see and understand this, it is because we are ignoring the underlying principles of our Lord's teaching.
Our tendency is to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us. But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don't try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide. It means your conscience does not respond to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you as one who either continues on with even more devotion as a disciple of Jesus Christ, or as one who turns to go back as a deserter.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 30, 2008
No Fear In The New Year
READ: Mark 6:45-52
Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. -Isaiah 43:1
Hours before 2007 began, some friends of ours in the UK were aboard their boat, anticipating the arrival of the new year, when a violent storm struck. But they were able to send us this reassuring note: "John and Linda are sitting on board the good ship Norna, and happy to say that we are secure. . . . The wind is storm force ten [48-55 knots]. Hope that all of you have a happy and prosperous new year."
Jesus' disciples also encountered a stormy experience. They were on the Sea of Galilee when a windstorm whipped up (Mark 6:48). The storm was so violent that despite being experienced fishermen who knew the lake well, they feared for their lives. But Jesus walked out to them and saved them.
No one can predict with certainty how stormy the new year will be. We do know, though, that everyone will face storms. But we who have Jesus have our future securely moored to Him. Jesus, who did not fail us in the past, will not fail us in the future.
Lewis Edgar Jones aptly described our situation in his old hymn:
I've anchored in Jesus, the storms of life I'll brave;
I've anchored in Jesus, I'll fear no wind or wave.
I've anchored in Jesus, for He hath power to save;
I've anchored to the Rock of Ages!
How will you fare in the storms of the new year? If you're anchored in Jesus, you have nothing to fear. - C. P. Hia
Faith in Christ will keep us steady in the stormy sea of change.
Is Anything Too Hard for God?
Genesis 18:12
So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"
God had promised Abraham and Sarah a son who would be the seed of a whole nation. Sarah was now beyond childbearing years. So when some angels from God paid Abraham and Sarah a visit to inform them that Sarah was going to have a child, she happened to be listening outside the tent and erupted with laughter. The thought seemed preposterous to her. The angels reminded her that nothing is impossible with God. "Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son" (Gen. 18:14). Sarah gave birth to Isaac as foretold.
Recently, I was considering putting on another marketplace-leader summit for ministry leaders who minister to those in the workplace. I had been involved in such an event a year earlier. My friend Gunnar Olson, who is the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce of Sweden, had been involved with me in putting on the first event, so I inquired whether he would be willing to participate in the second event. He wrote me an e-mail letter informing me that an international gathering of Christian marketplace leaders would be taking place on the island of Cyprus in March and asked if I could postpone my event and instead participate in an event in Cyprus and invite other leaders. My initial response was laughter due to my current financial condition. In fact, I had to go to a map to see just where this place was.
The following day I received a call from a man I had met only 30 days earlier. We had not discussed this event in March. "What are you doing tomorrow? I would like you to go to the airport with me to pick up a missionary whom I want you to meet. We'd like to propose an idea to you. Can you come?"
"Sure," I said.
The next day he picked me up and informed me that we were picking up a missionary who was flying in from Cyprus. "We are planning to take 25 businesspeople to Cyprus for an event that Gunnar Olson is involved in and would like you to come and teach your Esau-to-Joseph workshop the day before. We will cover your expenses. Would you be interested in doing this?" Again, I had to laugh as I saw the hand of God orchestrate in such a miraculous way and in such a timely manner to assure me of His involvement in the new directions in my life.
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God" (Mark 10:27).
Are there things that make you laugh when you think of the miracle that would be required for it to take place? Ask God for the miracle you need today.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure." 1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
People who become entrapped by life-controlling issues tend to follow a predictable pattern. At the beginning we are usually lured into experimenting with a dangerous substance, behavior or relationship because it is accompanied by a "high." It makes us feel good. The experience may involve alcohol or other drugs, illicit sex, pornography, work, sports, gambling, excessive spending, or any other avenue to addiction, but the pattern and end result are similar.
We call the pattern "The Trap" because it often snags its victims before they realize what is happening. Every person has the potential to experience a life-controlling problem. Addiction is death on the installment plan. No one ever plans to fall into The Trap, yet it happens all the time.
The best time to deal with a life-controlling problem is before it begins.
Consider this
Are you falling into the trap of a behavior, substance or relationship that is gaining more and more control in your life? Now is the time to recognize it. Now is the time to admit it. Now is the time to get help.
Remember, God loves you unconditionally. Ask him to show you the way out. Seek and you will find his love, his forgiveness and his help.
Prayer
Lord, your Word tells me that you will provide a way out from every temptation. Until now, I haven't really wanted that way out, but now I am ready. Please forgive me and help me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free DVD Training. Prepare your congregation to minister to hurting people within your church and your community. Through Living Free, your church or ministry can unleash a fresh wave of small group leaders and develop a small group ministry that will result in transformed lives.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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"And Every Virtue We Possess"
. . . All my springs are in you -Psalm 87:7
Our Lord never "patches up" our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside- ". . . put on the new man . . ." ( Ephesians 4:24 ). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ- a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals December 31, 2008
Times And Seasons
READ: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. -Ecclesiastes 3:1
The Rev. Gardner Taylor has been called "the dean of American preaching." Born in Louisiana in 1918, the grandson of slaves, he overcame the segregation of his youth to become the pastor of a large New York congregation and a leader in the struggle for racial equality. For 6 decades he traveled the world as a much sought-after preacher.
But at age 89, Rev. Taylor's health gave way and he could no longer accept speaking engagements. He told Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press: "I at first felt rather crestfallen." But then he spoke of his belief that "there are seasons and eras, and we have to see what they are as best as we can, and to find what is positive in them."
In an effort to face the challenges of life, we often turn to Solomon's words: "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven" (Eccl. 3:1). But we readily admit that we would rather laugh than weep, dance than mourn, and gain than lose (vv.4,6).
Yet we know that as we embrace the lessons and opportunities of every season that comes to us, we find that "God is our refuge and strength" (Ps. 46:1).
Whatever season we're in, it's always the season to trust in Him. - David C. McCasland
Just as the winter turns to spring,
Our lives have changing seasons too;
So when a gloomy forecast comes,
Remember-God has plans for you. -Sper
Whatever the season of life, attitude makes all the difference.
The Dangers of Overcontrol
1 Samuel 15:23
For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.
A friend of mine who is a jet pilot once told me that whenever a jet goes out of control and begins to spin, the only thing to do is totally take your hands off the controls and the plane will right itself. This goes against our natural inclination to control and manipulate in order to bring things back under control. It is scary to be out of control. Or is it?
Saul was a man out of control. He was losing control of his kingdom to David. He was losing the favor of God and the people. It began as compromises. Eventually he was given a final test to obey the voice of God fully. He was instructed to kill the Amalekites completely; but he failed to follow through. The prophet Samuel delivered a hard word to King Saul, "Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king" (see 1 Sam. 15:26). Saul obeyed partially, but not fully. It was partial obedience that led to his removal as king of Israel and his calling from God. But why did Saul do such a thing? "I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them" (1 Sam. 15:24b). Saul's fear and insecurity made him more afraid of the people and what they thought than of God. At the core of Saul's disobedience was fear of losing control. That fear of losing control led to partial obedience and the loss of his reign as king.
How many of us are in danger of losing God's blessing due to partial obedience? How many of us have such a need to control people and circumstances that we fail to fully walk in obedience to God's voice in our lives? Saul provides a great lesson for us as businesspeople. The need to overcontrol things around us can prevent us from receiving all that God has for us. Today, take an inventory of your control quotient.
Ask God if you are being fully obedient to what He has called you to do this day, and avoid being put on the shelf for disobedience. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15:22b).
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcover version ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Come close to God, and God will come close to you." James 4:8 NLT
Thoughts for Today
People who become entrapped by life-controlling issues generally progress through four stages: experimentation, social use, daily preoccupation and finally using the substance or practicing the behavior just to feel normal. Not everyone progresses through all these stages, but there is no way to predict which people who begin the pattern will continue to stage four.
During the experimentation stage, we enjoy the feel-good time when we use the substance or practice the behavior, but we still return to normal feelings following isolated indulgences.
Then we may take a step deeper into The Trap-we enter the stage of social use or practice. Now we begin practicing the behavior regularly but set limits for ourselves about when, where or how we do it. The self-imposed rules make us feel safe and appropriate. We refuse to admit that this practice is beginning to have a stronger and stronger influence in our lives.
Consider this
Do you see this pattern emerging somewhere in your life? Is there something that is gaining more and more control over your time, your thoughts and your actions? It is vital that you recognize and admit what is happening. As we enter the new year, ask God for his forgiveness and his help. Now is not the time to run from him. It is the time to run to him.
Prayer
Father, I do see this pattern in my life. Please forgive me. I want to come close to you and invite you to come close to me. Help me get my life back in order. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free DVD Training. Prepare your congregation to minister to hurting people within your church and your community. Through Living Free, your church or ministry can unleash a fresh wave of small group leaders and develop a small group ministry that will result in transformed lives.
Yesterday
You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard -Isaiah 52:12
Security from Yesterday. ". . . God requires an account of what is past" ( Ecclesiastes 3:15 ). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. ". . . the Lord will go before you . . . ." This is a gracious revelation- that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our "rear guard." And God's hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. "You shall not go out with haste . . . ." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 1, 2009
Live It!
READ: Ezekiel 33:30-33
You are to them as a very lovely song . . . they hear your words, but they do not do them. -Ezekiel 33:32
Each year, one of my goals is to read the entire Bible. While listing it among my New Year's resolutions, I noticed a bookmark on my desk. On one side was a brief appeal for people to take in foster children. On the other side were these words referring to that appeal: "Don't read it. Live it. Real children. Real stories. Real life." The people who produced the bookmark knew how easily we absorb information without acting on it. They wanted people to respond.
Regular intake of God's Word is a worthy practice, but it's not an end in itself. The prophet Ezekiel spoke to an audience who loved to listen but refused to act. The Lord said to Ezekiel: "Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them" (33:32).
Jesus said: "Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock" (Matt. 7:24).
How will each of us read the Bible this year? Will we read it quickly to achieve the goal of getting through it? Or will we read it with the aim of doing what it says?
Don't just read it. Live it! - David C. McCasland
The Bible gives us all we need
To live our lives for God each day;
But it won't help if we don't read
Then follow what its pages say. -Sper
The value of the Bible consists not only in knowing it but obeying it.
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us -- yes, establish the work of our hands (Ps 90:17).
Martin Luther brought the word of God back to the people. Today, God is bringing the work of God back to the people. God never intended the clergy to be the primary distribution channel of His Gospel. You and I are the distribution channel to those of us in the workplace.
The local church is simply the franchise to equip and release His army into the world to effect every aspect of society. Today, God is establishing mini-franchises in the form of prayer groups and Bible studies in the workplace. He is igniting the silent remnant of workplace believers who have never realized, until now, that their work really is their ministry. It is a holy calling on par with vocational ministry.
Our local franchises (churches) should be viewed as mini battle ships designed to raise an army of qualified warriors who can pray, create, and influence their workplaces and industries with a biblical worldview. We must be reminded of God's perfect plan found in Ephesians 4:11-13.
"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
The next time you are tempted to pass ministry responsibility to your pastor, remember what Ephesians 4 says. After all, there are no part-time Christians in His Kingdom. We may get our checks in secular fields, but our ministry is full-time
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"God is good, a hiding place in tough times. He recognizes and welcomes anyone looking for help, No matter how desperate the trouble." Nahum 1:7 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Becoming entrapped by life-controlling issues is generally a four-stage progression through experimentation, social use, daily preoccupation and finally using the substance or practicing the behavior just to feel normal.
When we move from the social use or practice stage into daily preoccupation, we start to lose control and break the self-imposed rules we set during stage 2. The behavior or substance becomes the center of our lives. We look to it for comfort and relief. We begin to feel the pain of addiction, and our life enters a downward spiral of deterioration. Our delusion grows deeper until we no longer recognize the truth.
Consider this
Does this sound like a hopeless situation?
Perhaps you have reached this stage of a problem in your life. Or maybe you have a loved one who is trapped by a life-controlling problem. Finding the way out of this despair might seem impossible. And alone, it probably is. But you are not alone. And your loved one is not alone. Jesus is with you and he loves you unconditionally-a love so great that we can't even comprehend it.
Will you turn to him today? Receive his love, his forgiveness and his guidance. He won't let you down.
Prayer
Father, thank you for your promise to help me in tough times. I realize now that my situation is hopeless without you. Please forgive me and help me. In Jesus' name
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These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free DVD Training. Prepare your congregation to minister to hurting people within your church and your community. Through Living Free, your church or ministry can unleash a fresh wave of small group leaders and develop a small group ministry that will result in transformed lives.
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Let Us Keep to the Point
". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death" -Philippians 1:20
My Utmost for His Highest. ". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed . . . ." We will all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus the areas of our lives He has asked us to yield to Him. It's as if Paul were saying, "My determined purpose is to be my utmost for His highest- my best for His glory." To reach that level of determination is a matter of the will, not of debate or of reasoning. It is absolute and irrevocable surrender of the will at that point. An undue amount of thought and consideration for ourselves is what keeps us from making that decision, although we cover it up with the pretense that it is others we are considering. When we think seriously about what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He doesn't know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point- He does know. Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only- my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone.
My Unstoppable Determination for His Holiness. "Whether it means life or death-it makes no difference!" (see Philippians 1:21). Paul was determined that nothing would stop him from doing exactly what God wanted. But before we choose to follow God's will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens because we tend to be unresponsive to God's gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide- for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 2, 2009
Don't Waste Your Breath
READ: Genesis 2:1-7
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. -Psalm 150:6
If I were to scoop up a handful of dirt and blow into it, all I would get is a dirty face. When God did it, He got a living, breathing human being capable of thinking, feeling, dreaming, loving, reproducing, and living forever.
As one of these human beings, I speak of "catching" my breath, "holding" my breath, or "saving" my breath, but these are idioms of language. I cannot save my breath for use at a later time. If I don't use the one I have now, I'll lose it, and I may even lose consciousness.
When God breathed into Adam, He gave more than life; He gave a reason to live: Worship! As the psalmist said, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Ps. 150:6).
This means that we waste our breath when we use it for something that doesn't honor the One in whom "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Although we cannot blow life into a handful of dirt, we can use our breath to speak words of comfort, to sing songs of praise, and to run to help the sick and oppressed. When we use our breath to honor our Creator with our unique combination of talents, abilities, and opportunities, we will never be wasting it. - Julie Ackerman Link
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do. -Hatch
All that I am and have I owe to Jesus.
So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand (Exod. 4:20).
When Moses was called by God from his forty years in the desert to lead the people out of Egypt, God first changed his paradigm about his shepherd's staff which represented his work life as a shepherd. God told him He was going to perform miracles through his staff (v17).
A shepherd was considered a very lowly profession by the Egyptians. Moses had a time of breaking in the desert which separated him from all that he learned in Egypt. Many times, the way God calls us into His purpose in our work life is through a hardship of some kind.
God will often "break" our staff, or our vocation, in order to reshape and re-commission us. The purpose of the breaking is not to destroy us, but to bring us to a place of willingness to lay down our vocations so that God can use them for His purposes. The breaking prepares our heart for the new calling. God required Moses to lay down his staff in order for him to see it as something that had power. He had not viewed his work life as a shepherd as having any power.
God was instructing Moses to lay down that which represented his life and calling, so that He could transform it and raise it up for His purposes. Once Moses laid his staff down and then took it back up, a significant change took place. It was no longer his shepherd's staff; it was the "staff of God."
God's staff has power. After Moses' staff became God's, it was used as the instrument of deliverance and transformation for the people of God. It delivered people out of the slavery of Egypt through one of the most dramatic miracles of all time -- the parting of the Red Sea (see Ex. 14:16). Moses' staff transformed a people from slavery to freedom and was used to demonstrate his God-given authority.
How about you? Are you willing for God to use your "staff" to bring a people out of bondage?
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"I patiently waited, LORD, for you to hear my prayer. You listened and pulled me from a lonely pit full of mud and mire. You let me stand on a rock with my feet firm, and you gave me a new song, a song of praise to you. Many will see this, and they will honor and trust you, the LORD God." Psalm 40:1-3 CEV
Thoughts for Today
We have been looking at the four-stage progression of life-controlling problems. When we reach the fourth stage, the only times we feel normal are when we are using the substance or engaging in the behavior. We can't get through a day without it. We are out of control and in constant pain spiritually, emotionally and sometimes physically. Without help, we are headed for disaster.
Consider this
Perhaps your life is out of control. Finding the way out of this despair might seem impossible. And alone, it probably is. But you are not alone. Help is available to you, but first you must admit that you need help and decide that you want help. Then turn to Jesus and to people who care about you. Be honest with yourself and with them.
Reaching this level of despair took time, and working your way out will take time too. It is a process. But with Jesus' help you can do it. He is offering you his love, forgiveness and strength. Turn to him today. He won't let you down.
Prayer
Lord, I'm really in trouble here. I have made so many mistakes and let so many people down. Please forgive me. Help me start the process of working my way out. Please pull me out of this lonely pit and stand me on a rock. I need your help. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Living Free DVD Training. Prepare your congregation to minister to hurting people within your church and your community. Through Living Free, your church or ministry can unleash a fresh wave of small group leaders and develop a small group ministry that will result in transformed lives.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Will You Go Out Without Knowing?
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
Have you ever "gone out" in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, "What do you expect to do?" You don't know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to "go out" in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, because you don't know what God is going to do next. Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to "go out," building your confidence in God. ". . . do not worry about your life . . . nor about the body . . ." (Luke 12:22). In other words, don't worry about the things that concerned you before you did "go out."
Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do- He reveals to you who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you "go out" in complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?
Believe God is always the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him. Then think how unnecessary and disrespectful worry is! Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to "go out" in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus. You must learn to "go out" through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 3, 2009
Eating As Worship
READ: Genesis 2:8-17
Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need. -Proverbs 25:16
When you walk into the bookstore and see a table filled with books on dieting, you know it must be January. After several weeks of overeating all kinds of holiday foods, people in many cultures turn their attention to not eating.
Food plays an important role in Scripture. God uses it not only to bless us but also to teach us. Our misuse of food keeps us from knowing God in ways He wants to be known.
In the Old Testament, God gave instructions to Adam as to what to eat and what not to eat (Gen. 2:16-17). Later He gave the Israelites manna to convince them that He was God and to test them to find out if they believed Him (Ex. 16:12; Deut. 8:16). In the New Testament, the apostle Paul stated the proper attitude for everything we do, including eating: "Whether you eat or drink, . . . do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).
When we think of food as a friend that comforts us or an enemy that makes us fat, we miss the wonder of receiving with gratitude a splendid gift from God. Obsessive eating or not eating indicates that we are focused on the gift rather than on the Giver, which is a form of idolatry.
When eating becomes a true act of worship, we will no longer worship food. - Julie Ackerman Link
You alone are worthy, Lord,
To be worshiped and adored;
We to You our tribute bring
As our hearts rejoice and sing. -Hess
When food becomes our god, our appetite for the Bread of Life is diminished.
Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (Exod. 33:15-16).
A few years ago, the "AD 2000" movement was a major emphasis in the church and had a goal of reaching the "10/40" window. This reference was related to the 10th parallel and the 40th parallel of the globe. It was determined that this was where the most people resided who had never heard the message of the gospel.
Today, there is a new move of God that is focused on the "9-5" window. This represents those who work-whether they are homemakers, construction workers, nurses, executives, Fortune 500 CEOs or pastors and vocational ministers. The one thing many of us have in common is that we work. However, the one thing most workers have failed to do is bring Jesus into their work lives. But, God is changing this.
God is helping workplace believers today understand the importance of bringing the presence of Jesus into their work lives so that He may be shared with those who have yet to receive salvation. God is calling us to move past "principle-based" living to "presence-based" living. It is only when we bring God's presence into our work lives that we see real transformation in us and others. It is the mission field of the 21st century-the "9-5" window. It is where more unsaved people live than the 10/40 window.
God is calling us to establish "church plants" into this new frontier that the church has failed to focus upon. The "Church" is a Church when two believers come together in the name of Jesus. It is not a building. It is a people. So today, bring the Church to the workplace by focusing your mission activity on the greatest mission field of the 21st century-the 9-5 window.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
The Door Is Not Closed
In Revelation 7-8 we read how the trumpets have been sounded and God's redemptive plan fulfilled. Not all men and women will be saved from an eternal death. Certainly, God's desire is that every person would come to know Him as Savior and Lord, but many have chosen to follow other gods.
The good news is that it is not too late to know the Savior. As of today, the trumpet has not sounded. The door of eternal opportunity has not closed, and you still have time to make a decision to follow Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon writes:
One person may say, "I cannot see how simply trusting Christ and believing God's witness of Him would save my soul." To which I would reply, "My dear man, are you never to believe anything but what you can see, and how are you to see this thing till you have tried it? You must believe the gospel on the evidence of God, and not otherwise, or have faith in the record God has given concerning His Son-a faith that takes God at His word. Believe, then, on the Lord Jesus Christ and you have believed God to be true; refuse to trust in Jesus Christ, unless you get some other evidence beyond the witness of God, and you have practically said that God's testimony is not enough-that is to say, you have made God a liar."
But God is not a liar. Within Him is all truth and justice. Up until the final moment, He is longing for the lost to accept His gracious gift of salvation. Satan, however, wants to lead us astray by filling our minds with the idea that we don't need God.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Have you fully surrendered your life and heart to the Savior? If not, today is the day to discover anew the graciousness of His love.
Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen! (Revelation 7:12).
The circumstances of life do not have to get you down. Learn how you can turn negative situations into ones of hope and promise in our free resource this month-"When Life Gets You Down, Look Up!" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Clouds and Darkness
Clouds and darkness surround Him . . . -Psalm 97:2
A person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when he is baptized by the Holy Spirit, he finds that "clouds and darkness surround Him . . . ." When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first realization of this. The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet- getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God- it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. Only after the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable "darkness" of realizing who He is.
Jesus said, "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Once, the Bible was just so many words to us - "clouds and darkness"- then, suddenly, the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us when our circumstances make the words new. That is the way God speaks to us; not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to God, it is by the most simple way- words.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 4, 2009
Living Deceptively
READ: 2 Timothy 3:10-17
You have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. -2 Timothy 3:15
The year 2007 was labeled the "Year of Living Deceptively" for South Korea, because of the country's numerous scandals involving fake academics and corrupt politicians. A survey of 340 professors selected the Chinese phrase "ja-gi-gi-in" (deceiving yourself and others) to sum up the year.
It should not surprise us to hear of deception like that. The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:13, "Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." To deceive is to make others believe falsehood as truth and accept wrong as right.
Our defense against deception is to know God's Word, for "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (v.16). Correction is to set right what is wrong, and instruction is to make known what is right. God's Word not only makes us aware of wrongs, it also prompts and teaches us to do what is right.
Is your New Year's resolution to walk rightly before God and others and to be "thoroughly equipped for every good work"? (v.17). Then read and apply God's Word, asking the Lord to make you a person of integrity. - Albert Lee
When reading God's Word, take special care
To find the rich treasures hidden there;
Give thought to each truth, each precept hear,
Then practice it well with godly fear. -Anon.
The more we meditate on Scripture, the more readily we'll detect error.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Cor. 5:17).
A mulligan is a golf term which allows a player to play a second shot off the first tee if the first shot is poor. It's a second chance to get a fresh start without penalty.
Sometimes in life we need a mulligan - a new start. Christ represents the invitation to throw away our first life and begin anew with Him as a new creation.
The Promised Land represented a new life for the people of Israel who had lived a life of bondage and slavery in Egypt. It is also symbolic of a new life in Christ. It says we are no longer going to be driven by the appetites of our old nature, but Christ now lives in us to live a righteous and holy life. It does not mean we're perfect, we're just forgiven.
The new life in Christ has nothing to do with church attendance or even doing good things. Christ said there will be many people who will claim Him as their Savior but they never really knew Him. In other words, there was no evidence of the living Savior in them. "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" (Matt 7:22-23).
Jesus invites everyone to partake of the new life He offers. We only must believe, invite him to remove our sins and allow Him to live as Lord through our lives. "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me?" (Rev 3:20).
If you've never had a mulligan in life, now is the time to let Jesus give you a brand new start. Ask Him for that new start today.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Just a Moment
by Max Lucado
It all happened in a moment, a most remarkable moment.
As moments go, that one appeared no different than any other. If you could somehow pick it up off the timeline and examine it, it would look exactly like the ones that have passed while you have read these words. It came and it went. It was preceded and succeeded by others just like it. It was one of the countless moments that have marked time since eternity became measurable.
But in reality, that particular moment was like none other. For through that segment of time a spectacular thing occurred. God became a man. While the creatures of earth walked unaware, Divinity arrived. Heaven opened herself and placed her most precious one in a human womb.
The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl.
God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created.
God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother.
God had come near.
He came, not as a flash of light or as an unapproachable conqueror, but as one whose first cries were heard by a peasant girl and a sleepy carpenter. The hands that first held him were unmanicured, calloused, and dirty.
For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt. His feet got tired. And his head ached.
To think of Jesus in such a light is-well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn't it? It's not something we like to do; it's uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer.
He's easier to stomach that way. There is something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant, packaged, predictable.
But don't do it. For heaven's sake, don't. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.
It all happened in a moment. In one moment ... a most remarkable moment. The Word became flesh.
There will be another. The world will see another instantaneous transformation. You see, in becoming man, God made it possible for man to see God. When Jesus went home he left the back door open. As a result, "we will all be changed-in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)
The first moment of transformation went unnoticed by the world. But you can bet your sweet September that the second one won't. The next time you use the phrase "just a moment, ... " remember that's all the time it will take to change this world.
From
God Came Near
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
Why Can I Not Follow You Now?
Peter said to Him, 'Lord, why can I not follow You now?' -John 13:37
There are times when you can't understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don't fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification- to be set apart from sin and made holy- or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt- wait.
At first you may see clearly what God's will is- the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is distinctly God's will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move.
Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. "I will lay down my life for Your sake." Peter's statement was honest but ignorant. "Jesus answered him, ' . . . the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times' " (John 13:38). This was said with a deeper knowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not follow Jesus because he did not know himself or his own capabilities well enough. Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His irresistible charm, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 5, 2009
A Lot To Remember
READ: Proverbs 10:11-21
He who restrains his lips is wise. -Proverbs 10:19
Thanks a lot," the man behind the postal counter said to the person in front of me. The clerk, Jon, had seen me in line and was hoping I would overhear him. When it was my turn, I said hello to Jon, who had been a student of mine when I taught high school in the 1980s.
"Did you notice what I said to her?" Jon asked. "I told her, 'Thanks a lot.'" Sensing that I was missing his point, he explained, "Remember what you told us about the term a lot? You said a lot was a piece of land, not a phrase to use instead of much."
Astounding! An English lesson from a quarter-century before had stuck with Jon through all those years. That speaks clearly to us of the importance of what we say to others. It also backs up one of my favorite lines by poet Emily Dickinson: "A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day."
The words we say may have long-term consequences. Our comments, our compliments, and even our harsh criticisms may stick with the hearer for decades.
No wonder Scripture says, "He who restrains his lips is wise" (Prov. 10:19). The words we speak today live on. Let's make sure they come from "the tongue of the righteous" (v.20). - Dave Branon
Father, help me live today
With thoughtfulness in what I say,
Confronting wrong with truth and fact,
Expressing gentleness and tact. -Hess
The tongue is a small organ that creates either discord or harmony.
"You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something" (Psalm 139: 15). (Msg)
If you are going to discover how God wants to use your life and work, you must know why you were created. If you start trying to determine your purpose in life before understanding why you were created, you will inevitably get hung up on the things you do as the basis for fulfillment in your life, which will only lead to frustration and disappointment.
First and foremost, God created you to know Him and to have an intimate relationship with Him. In fact, God says that if a man is going to boast about anything in life, "boast about this: that he understands and knows me" (Jer. 9:24). Mankind's relationship with God was lost in the Garden when Adam and Eve sinned. Jesus' death on the cross, however, allows us to restore this relationship with God and to have an intimate fellowship with Him. The apostle Paul came to understand this when he said, "I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself" (Phil. 3:10, THE MESSAGE).
Establishing this relationship with God is vital to understanding your purpose. If you don't have this relationship with God, you will seek to fulfill your purpose out of wrong motives; such as fear, insecurity, pride, money, relationships, guilt, or unresolved anger. God's desire is for you to be motivated out of love for Him and to desire to worship Him in all that you do. As you develop your relationship with God, He will begin to reveal His purpose for your life. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord" (Jer. 29:11).
Today, ask God to help you discover your unique purpose.
Note: Marketplace Leaders.org provides a process to help every believer discover their unique purpose. Visit our website and click on Discover My Purpose.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
"Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you would only listen to me! ... But no, my people wouldn't listen. ... Oh, that my people would listen to me!" Psalm 81:8, 11, 13 NLT (Suggested reading: Psalm 81:8-14)
Thoughts for Today
In today's passage, God is lamenting the fact that no one is listening. You can almost feel the sadness in his heart as he speaks these words. He pleads with his people: Please listen to me!
These words were directed toward Israel, but God wants all of his children to listen. Jesus said, "My sheep listen to my voice." (John 10:27 NIV)
Consider this
Have you ever been involved in a "conversation" with a person who never gives you a chance to say a word? Frustrating, isn't it? But sadly, this is what we so often do when we pray. We do all the talking and expect God to do all the listening!
God wants us to talk to him. And he listens. The psalmist expressed it well: "He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening." (Psalm 22:24 MSG) God listens to us, and he wants us to listen to him. In our prayer time and throughout the day.
Are you listening?
Prayer
Father, so often I am guilty of spending all my prayer time talking, never staying quiet to listen to you. Please forgive me and help me be a better listener. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study teaches participant how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Life of Power to Follow
Jesus answered him, 'Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward' -John 13:36
"And when He had spoken this, He said to him, 'Follow Me' " (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, "Follow Me" (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first "Follow Me" was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18 ).
Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. ". . . He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit' " (John 20:22 ). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.
All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to "receive the Holy Spirit." "Receive the Holy Spirit "- the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 6, 2009
Faith Of A Child
READ: Matthew 18:1-5
Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. -Matthew 18:3
One Sunday I heard Mike talk about his relationship with his two fathers-the one who raised him as a child, and his Father in heaven.
First he described his childhood trust toward his earthly father as "simple and uncomplicated." He expected his dad to fix broken things and to give advice. He dreaded displeasing him, however, because he often forgot that his father's love and forgiveness always followed.
Mike continued, "Some years ago I made a mess of things and hurt a lot of people. Because of my guilt, I ended a happy, simple relationship with my heavenly Father. I forgot that I could ask Him to fix what I had broken and seek His advice."
Years passed. Eventually Mike became desperate for God, yet he wondered what to do. His pastor said simply, "Say you're sorry to God, and mean it!"
Instead, Mike asked complicated questions, like: "How does this work?" and "What if . . .?"
Finally his pastor prayed, "Please, God, give Mike the faith of a child!" Mike later testified joyfully, "The Lord did!"
Mike found closeness with his heavenly Father. The key for him and for us is to practice the simple and uncomplicated faith of a child. - Joanie Yoder
Have you noticed that the childlike faith
Of a little girl or boy
Has so often shown to older folks
How to know salvation's joy? -Branon
Faith shines brightest in a childlike heart.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Gen. 2:15).
Imagine for a moment that Jesus has just completed his three years of training with the disciples. He has been crucified and is now commissioning the twelve to go into the world and disciple the nations. Now imagine him also making this statement to them.
"Dear brothers, it is now time for you to share what you have learned from me. However, as you share with others be sure that you keep what I taught you separate from your work life. The principles I have shared with you only apply in situations outside your work life. Do not make them fit into this context. The miracles you saw in me can only be done in certain situations outside work life. Keep this in mind when thinking about praying for the sick or the lost. These truths will not work in the marketplace."
Sound preposterous? It may, but this is the mindset of many in our world today. The spiritual does not mix with the everyday world of the workplace. "What happens on Monday has no relationship to what takes place on Sunday," they say.
These are the thoughts expressed so much in our day and time, although they are not expressed in such direct terms. Let's think more about this idea. When Jesus came to earth, how did He come? He came as a carpenter. He was a man given to work with his hands and to provide an honest service to his fellow man. He did not come as a priest, although He was both a King and a Priest (Rev. 1:6 KJV). When it came time to recruit those for whom the Church would be founded, He chose twelve men from the workplace - a fisherman, a tax collector, a doctor, and so on.
They all came from the workplace. None of his disciples were priests from the synagogue, a natural place to recruit from if you were going to start a religious movement. Jesus called them all from the marketplace of life. Was this any accident that Jesus called men and women from the marketplace to play such a vital role in His mission? I think not.
Today, embrace your work life as a holy calling.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice." John 10:3 MSG
Thoughts for Today
When you hear someone say, "God told me " do you wonder if God spoke to them audibly and why that never happens to you?
While there are instances recorded in the Bible of God speaking audibly and it no doubt still happens this is not a common occurrence. But there are other ways God speaks to us: through the Bible and in a still small voice in our hearts. As we learn to listen and respond, we will become more and more familiar with his voice.
Consider this
God speaks through the Bible. This is the logos of God-the authoritative, infallible, inerrant, eternal Word of God that is forever settled in heaven. Second Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is God-breathed."
As we read the Bible, every word is God speaking to us. We need to spend regular time in God's Word listening and growing. "people need more than food to live-they need every word that the LORD has spoken" (Deuteronomy 8:3 CEV).
As we spend time in his Word, God also speaks to us in "scripture explosions." This is when a verse literally jumps off the page and speaks to us.
Sometimes God will also speak to us directly through a still small voice, a thought that we know is not our own. Tomorrow we will consider some ways to recognize God's voice.
Prayer
Father, I commit to spending more time in your Word, listening as you speak to me through the scriptures. Help me to become more familiar with your voice. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study teaches participant how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Worship
He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord -Genesis 12:8
Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20 ). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.
Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time- there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life- worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God's idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 7, 2009
The Innocent Man
READ: Genesis 18:22-33
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? -Genesis 18:25
John Grisham is well known for his courtroom novels-fast-paced tales of lawyers and victims, authorities and wrongdoers. However, his book The Innocent Man is not fiction. It is a real-life story of injustice. It tells of the brutal murder of a young woman and the two men who, though innocent, were convicted and sentenced to death for the crime. Only with the advent of DNA testing were they proven innocent and spared from execution after 17 years of suffering wrongly. At long last, justice prevailed.
Everyone desires justice. But we must recognize that our human frailty makes it challenging to mete out true justice. And we can be bent toward revenge, making a casualty out of the pursuit of it.
It's helpful to remember that perfect justice can be found only in God. Abraham described Him with the rhetorical question, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25). The necessary answer is yes. But even more, His courtroom is the one and only place where we can be certain that justice will prevail.
In a world filled with injustice, we can take the wrongs done to us, submit them to the Judge of all the earth, and trust Him for ultimate justice. - Bill Crowder
The best of judges on this earth
Aren't always right or fair;
But God, the Righteous Judge of all,
Wrongs no one in His care. -Egner
Life is not always fair, but God is always faithful.
The Gospel of the Kingdom
1 John 2:5-6
This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.
When Christ came to earth, He came to bring to mankind the gospel of the Kingdom. Over the centuries, the Church has tended to emphasize only a portion of the gospel. That portion is the gospel of salvation. However, Jesus came that we might have more than just salvation. He came to give us a whole new life that was accompanied by signs, wonders, and His Spirit living in us and revealing Himself to us daily. He came so that we might walk on this earth as He did. If our lives are not reflecting the same things as Jesus' did, we must ask why?
I have noticed three distinct types of businesspeople throughout my 24 years of walking with Christ. First, many of us come to Christ out of a need for salvation. Our hearts have been touched by His call on our lives. We reason and analyze the claims of Christ and make a decision for Him. It is the convenient time to accept Him in our lives. This first stage is often characterized by a "Bless me, Lord" attitude toward God. It is the first stage that primarily brings salvation into our lives. Some never really go past this first stage.
The second stage is the crisis stage. A crisis takes place in our lives, and we are motivated to seek Christ with a whole heart. However, this motivation is not out of pure love for Christ; rather, it is motivated by the desire to get out of the pain of living. The motivation is to solve the what versus the why in my life at the time. This stage is best characterized as "Help me, Lord."
In the third stage we begin to experience the gospel of the Kingdom. It is the place where Jesus resided in His walk with His heavenly Father. It is the place of conviction. The number of people who live at this level are quite few, but these people are experiencing the reality of a walk with God that is foreign to all others. They are seeing daily occurrences of His involvement in their lives. They are motivated by a deep love for Him. They know Him. These people have an attitude characterized by these thoughts, "Have me, Lord; though He slay me, still will I trust Him."
Where are you today? Have you merely accepted His salvation to simply float along? Or do you seek Him with a whole heart only when a crisis occurs? His desire is for you and me to live a life of conviction, motivated by our love for Him and His love for us. This is where we will experience the gospel of the Kingdom.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me." John 10:27 AMP
Thoughts for Today
When you think God is speaking a word to you through the Scriptures, through circumstances, or through that still small voice in your mind and heart, how can you be sure it is God? Jesus said his sheep are listening to his voice; if we belong to him, he will help us know when he is speaking to us. Here are some guidelines based on biblical principles:
The Approach: God comes openly. The enemy sneaks in causing fear, anxiety and guilt.
The Relevance: What you hear will often be a confirmation of something God has already spoken to you. You will understand.
The Content: Always lines up with the Scriptures and builds faith.
The Results: More love, more power, mind will not be fragmented.
Consider this
Do you believe that God is speaking to you about some area in your life? How does what you are hearing line up with these four points?
For major decisions, it is always good to confirm God's voice through the protection of spiritual authority. Talk to your pastor or an elder in your church. "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account." (Hebrews 13:17)
Prayer
Lord, thank you for your promise that your sheep can hear your voice. Teach me to listen better and to recognize when it is you speaking. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study teaches participant how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Intimate With Jesus
Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?' -John 14:9
These words were not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus was encouraging Philip to draw closer. Yet the last person we get intimate with is Jesus. Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jesus as the One who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see Luke 10:18-20). It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to come: ". . . I have called you friends . . ." (John 15:15). True friendship is rare on earth. It means identifying with someone in thought, heart, and spirit. The whole experience of life is designed to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ. We receive His blessings and know His Word, but do we really know Him?
Jesus said, "It is to your advantage that I go away . . ." (John 16:7). He left that relationship to lead them even closer. It is a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in Scripture to be the visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (see John 15:1-4).
Once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely and we never lack for understanding or compassion. We can continually pour out our hearts to Him without being perceived as overly emotional or pitiful. The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control. This is the outcome of allowing Jesus to satisfy every area of life to its depth. The picture resulting from such a life is that of the strong, calm balance that our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 8, 2009
The King
READ: Revelation 17:9-14
These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings. -Revelation 17:14
It might be surprising how many people around the world know that today is Elvis Presley's birthday. The enduring popularity of the singer from Mississippi spans generations and cultures. More than 30 years after his death, sales of Presley's music, memorabilia, and licensing agreements generate millions of dollars in annual income. Once dubbed "The King of Rock and Roll," Elvis is often called simply, "The King."
Whether the "kings" of this world are celebrities, athletes, crowned heads, or tycoons, they come and go. Their influence may be immense and their followers fanatically loyal, but it doesn't last forever.
The Bible, however, refers to Jesus Christ as the eternal King. Revelation 17 speaks prophetically of earthly kings who will fight to establish their authority at the end of the ages. Biblical scholars have debated the identities of these kings, but there is no mistake about the One they cannot overpower: "These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful" (Rev. 17:14).
Jesus Christ the Lord is King, and He will reign forever. - David C. McCasland
The King of kings and Lord of lords,
Who reigns today within our heart,
Will one day bring His peace on earth-
A kingdom that will not depart. -Sper
There is no greater privilege than to be a subject of the King of kings.
Jesus Was A Workplace Minister
by Os Hillman, www.MarketplaceLeaders.com
"Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him (Mark 6:3).
In 2005, a movie entitled The Passion was released that chronicled the last twenty-four hours of Jesus' life. During a flashback scene, Jesus was seen in his carpentry shop making a table with his mother standing by playfully observing. It was a very beautiful scene that reminds us that Jesus was a carpenter for most of his adult life. In fact, Jesus was more qualified to be a carpenter than the Son of God in the eyes of the people because that is the history they knew of this young working class man from Nazareth.
Consider that in the New Testament of Jesus' 132 public appearances, 122 were in the marketplace. Of 52 parables Jesus told, 45 had a workplace context. Of 40 miracles in the book of Acts, 39 were in the marketplace. Jesus spent his adult life as a carpenter until age 30 before he went into a preaching ministry in the workplace. And, 54% of Jesus' reported teaching ministry arose out of issues posed by others in the scope of daily life experience. Saint Bonaventure said, "His doing nothing 'wonderful' (his first 30-years) was in itself a kind of wonder."
Work, in its different forms, is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible -more than all the words used to express worship, music, praise, and singing combined. God created work and He is a worker. "My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working" (John 5:17).
So, the next time you are tempted to minimize your daily work as anything less than a holy calling, remember that Jesus was a workplace minister as a carpenter in his community. He has called you and I to reflect His glory in our work.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our bodies cleansed with pure water." Hebrews 10:22 AMP
Thoughts for Today
It is important to prepare ourselves to actively listen to God. Today's scripture suggests some "hearing aids"-ways to prepare ourselves to hear from God.
Approach God honestly, with a sincere heart. Are our motives right? Do we really want to hear his truth? Are we ready to obey, even if his plan is different from ours?
Full assurance of faith. Do we have "absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness"?
Hearts cleansed from a guilty conscience. Have we repented of any sin in our life?
Body washed with pure water. Are we walking in obedience to God?
Consider this
Habakkuk 2:1-2 provides a process for active listening. "I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me ... Then the LORD replied: 'Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets.'"
There are three more "hearing aids" set forth in this passage that can help us be ongoing, active listeners:
Close yourself in with God.
Look and listen for God.
Write down what he tells you.
Prayer
Lord, fill me with a hunger to be a more active listener in my relationship with you. Help me to prepare my heart so that I might hear you clearly. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study teaches participant how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Is My Sacrifice Living?
Abraham built an altar . . . ; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar . . . -Genesis 22:9
This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not- "Lord, I am ready to go with You . . . to death" (Luke 22:33 ). But- "I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God."
We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him.
It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a "living sacrifice"- to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12:1). This is what is acceptable to God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 9, 2009
To Judge Or Not To Judge
READ: Matthew 7:1-21
Judge not, that you be not judged. -Matthew 7:1
What better way to tell people to mind their own business than to quote Jesus? People who seldom read the Bible are quick to quote Matthew 7:1 when they want to silence someone whose opinion they don't like. "Judge not, that you be not judged" seems like the perfect response.
In context, however, the passage indicates that we are indeed to judge; we're just supposed to avoid faulty judgments. Furthermore, our judgments are to begin with self: "First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye," Jesus said (v.5). He then said, "Beware of false prophets" (v.15). This too requires judging-we need to be able to discern truth from falsehood.
Jesus used the metaphor of fruit to give us the proper criteria for judging. "By their fruits you will know them" (v.20). We are to judge people (including ourselves) by the quality of the fruit they produce. This fruit cannot be judged by earthly values such as how good we look (v.15). It must be judged by heavenly values-the fruit of the Spirit produced within us-love, joy, peace (Gal. 5:22).
Our tendency is to judge by appearance. But God judges by what we produce, and so should we. - Julie Ackerman Link
They truly lead who lead by love
And humbly serve the Lord;
Their lives will bear the Spirit's fruit
And magnify His Word. -D. De Haan
Be slow to judge others and quick to judge yourself.
When Your Sails No Longer Have Wind
by Os Hillman, www.MarketplaceLeaders.com
He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven (Ps 107:29-30).
Imagine for a moment you began an exciting sailing adventure. You've been trained to navigate and sail on the ocean and be ready should trouble arise. You are confident you can handle the challenge. However, midway in the journey your resources have dried up. It almost seems God has intentionally destroyed all the skills you have to deal with the weather and the obstacles and your sails are now damaged. Even your engine has broken down. And to make matters even worse, your oars were lost overboard. You are stuck in the middle of the ocean and there is no wind to propel your boat. You are, as they say, "up the creek without a paddle."
All of this leads you to the end of yourself and you say, "Lord, I don't know why you brought me out here only to die." The silence is deafening.
Finally, the Lord speaks, "Yes, you are right. I did bring you out here. I did destroy your sails. I did break your engine. And yes, I do want you dead. Not in a physical sense, mind you, but in a spiritual sense. In order that you may LIVE."
"You see my child, you are nothing without Me. You cannot do anything without my grace and power in your life." The sailor quietly yields. Suddenly, a gentle wave lifts the front of the boat. An easterly wind blows through the broken sail moving the boat in the right direction. You realize God is moving your boat! Your role now is to steer it.
Do your sails no longer have wind to move you? Is your engine broken? Does it feel like God has propelled you into the open sea only to stop midway with no options? Perhaps He is saying it is time to die in order that He might live through you. Give the Lord total control today and you will see His wind moving through your tattered sails.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear!" James 1:22 MSG
Thoughts for Today
According to dictionary.com, listen means "to give attention with the ear to pay attention; heed; obey."
True listening requires obedience. Today's scripture makes it clear that when we hear God's word, when we listen to him speak to us, we must act on what we hear!
Consider this
Sometimes God speaks to us to comfort and encourage us. Do we listen-or do we go right on worrying?
Sometimes we ask God's guidance in making a decision. Do we follow his guidance-even if we wanted to hear a different answer?
Sometimes God speaks to us about some behavior we need to change. Do we obey-or do we continue doing what we want to do?
Sometimes God prompts us to pray for someone or share a testimony. Are we quick to respond-or do we step back in fear?
If we want to listen for God's voice, let's be ready to act on what we hear.
Prayer
Father, help me to be a better listener. Help me to take time to listen, to listen with an honest and clean heart, and to act on what you say to me. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
A Passionate Pursuit of God: Drawing Nearer to Him by Dr. Mike Chapman. This study teaches participant how to move into God's inner circle, how to listen for the voice of God, how to enjoy the freedom of worship, and how to embrace the mission of worship. This 45-minute format will accommodate groups with limited meeting times. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Prayerful Inner-Searching
May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
"Your whole spirit . . . ." The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139 . The psalmist implies- "O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me."
Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7 ). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus-no longer condemned in God's sight.
We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 10, 2009
The Old And The New
READ: Galatians 5:16-23
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. -2 Corinthians 5:17
Typical resolutions in January are to lose weight, exercise more, spend less time at work and more time with family-maybe even stop chatting on the cell phone while driving.
It's not surprising that we want to change the things in our lives that we're unhappy about-even though most New Year's resolutions are kept for no more than 3 weeks.
What if you were to ask God what He wants you to change, improve, or begin this year? He might tell you to:
· Demonstrate more of the fruit of the Spirit in your life, which is "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23).
· "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who . . . persecute you" (Matt. 5:44).
· "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).
· "Be content with such things as you have" (Heb. 13:5).
· "Walk according to His commandments" (2 John 1:6).
As believers and new creations, we can be free from old patterns and failures. We must ask God to help us live each day in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then we can shed the old and embrace the new (2 Cor. 5:17). - Cindy Hess Kasper
How can we live to please the Lord?
By knowing what He says to do
And trusting in the Spirit's strength
To make us into someone new. -Sper
Resolutions are easier to keep when you rely on God.
Your Secular Work Is Ministry
by Os Hillman, www.MarketplaceLeaders.com
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Col 3:23-25).
I sat across the table from the well known seminary professor and former missionary as he asked me a very direct question: "So, Os, tell me about this faith at work movement." "Well, there's really nothing complicated about it. I believe every person's work can be viewed as a ministry if done with a motive to glorify God based upon Colossians 3:23," I responded.
"How can you say that if you're not sharing the gospel in that job? You would have to be actively sharing your faith for it to be construed as ministry," he argued.
"No, that's not true. The work itself is ministry because the word for ministry and service come from the same Greek root word, diakonia. When you are serving others even through your secular work and do it with a motive to glorify God, that's why it is ministry. In fact, the Bible says you'll receive an inheritance when you do," I said.
We continued bantering back and forth on the issue. I continued, "God created even secular work to meet human needs. Man began to divide work into spiritual and non-spiritual terms which introduced a form of dualism in the third and fourth centuries. But God never secularized our work. He desires our work to be viewed as worship."
We concluded our meeting in disagreement. However, a few months later I met my friend at a booksellers convention. "Hey, you were right Os! I've done my study and work really is ministry because it is service. This man went on to write a book on the subject and said this; "Think about this. If you are filling someone's teeth, you are ministering to your patient. If you are playing in a symphony orchestra, you are ministering to the audience. If you are flying an airplane, you are ministering to the passengers. If you wait on tables, you are ministering to the customers. All of that clearly fits under biblical diakonia."
It was the first time I'd ever won a theological argument with a theologian!
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Finding the Strength to Stay Faithful
Ephesians 1:4 clearly states, "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." What an amazing realization we gain when we accept Christ's calling!
Not only are we chosen by God, but also we are called "faithful." However, being called faithful does not mean that we are. We are faithful when we spend time praying and reading God's Word. We are faithful when we share our faith with others, and when we gather with other believers to worship Him.
We are faithful when our behavior reflects Christ. We are faithful when we forgive others for the hurts they have caused us, just as Christ has forgiven us. We are faithful when we give back a portion to the Lord of what He has given us. Are you faithful-in your business, relationships, morals, and finances?
Charles Spurgeon writes, "Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no 'baseless fabric of a vision,' but may it be built of material able to endure that awful fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite.
"May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desire earnest. May your whole life be so firm and strong, that all the blasts of hell and the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you."
You may feel insufficient in being called the chosen and faithful of God. Only the Lord can give you the strength and ability to remain faithful.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12).
The circumstances of life do not have to get you down. Learn how you can turn negative situations into ones of hope and promise in our free resource this month-"When Life Gets You Down, Look Up!" Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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The Opened Sight
I now send you, to open their eyes . . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . -Acts 26:17-18
This verse is the greatest example of the true essence of the message of a disciple of Jesus Christ in all of the New Testament.
God's first sovereign work of grace is summed up in the words, ". . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . ." When a person fails in his personal Christian life, it is usually because he has never received anything. The only sign that a person is saved is that he has received something from Jesus Christ. Our job as workers for God is to open people's eyes so that they may turn themselves from darkness to light. But that is not salvation; it is conversion-only the effort of an awakened human being. I do not think it is too broad a statement to say that the majority of so-called Christians are like this. Their eyes are open, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration. This is a neglected fact in our preaching today. When a person is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision. People may make vows and promises, and may be determined to follow through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to the place where we are able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ, namely, forgiveness of sins.
This is followed by God's second mighty work of grace: ". . . an inheritance among those who are sanctified . . . ." In sanctification, the one who has been born again deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's ministry to others.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 11, 2009
That's Awesome!
READ: Psalm 66:1-12
Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men. -Psalm 66:5
The word awesome is tossed around a lot these days. Talk about cars, movies, songs, or food-and somebody will say, "That's awesome!"
But if we call earth-side stuff awesome and then call God awesome, we diminish how truly awesome He is. A friend of mine has a rule in her house-the word awesome is reserved only for God.
Trivializing God is no trivial matter. He is far more than a companion who will fit into our "buddy system" or a divine ATM responding to our impulses. Until we are stunned by the awesomeness of God, we will be way too impressed with ourselves and lose the joy of the privilege of belonging to an awesome God.
A look at the Psalms puts it all in perspective. One psalmist declares, "For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth" (Ps. 47:2). And another psalm commands: "Say to God, 'How awesome are Your works!' . . . Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men" (Ps. 66:3,5).
What could be more awesome than the love that compelled Jesus to go to the cross for us? Put Him in His proper place as the only One who is truly awesome, and praise God for His awesome work in your life! - Joe Stowell
Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert and art and evermore shalt be. -Heber
If you're too impressed with yourself, take a closer look at God's awesomeness.
Four Attributes of a Life God Blesses
Isaiah 28:16
So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed."
Whenever God calls us into a consecrated life, it is made up of four distinct stages. Christ often compared this process to building a house. First, we must prepare to build by laying a foundation. That foundation is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Any foundation other than Christ will not stand.
Second, as we enter a walk of faith with God, He allows each of us to experience trials, testings, miracles, and challenges in life that are designed to provide "faith experiences" that demonstrate tangible evidences of His work in our life: Moses' burning-bush experience, Peter's walk on the water, Joshua's parting of the Jordan River. These experiences built the faith of these people. The depth and width of our calling is directly proportional to the faith experiences He allows in each of our lives. If God plans an international ministry with you, chances are you will experience a higher degree of faith experiences compared to another. The reason is, you will need to look on these to ensure your calling and provide testimony to His work in your life.
The third stage deals with motives. "All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord" (Prov. 16:2). What is the motive behind my actions? Is it only financial accumulation? Is it to gain control? Is it to create independence? The primary motive must be God's leading you to take such an action-it must be obedience. These other factors must be by-products of the decision.
Finally, we are prepared to take action. Here we must ask, "Do we have the skill, quality, and ability to enter into this activity?" So often we have not trained ourselves adequately to be successful in our endeavor. You would never want someone working on your teeth who had not been trained and certified as a dentist.
Before you begin your next project, ask yourself these four questions. What is the foundation this project is based on? What experiences has God demonstrated in my life that indicate His involvement? What is my motive for entering this activity? Do I have the skill, quality, and ability to accomplish the task? Answering these questions will tell you whether God will bless your activity.
Don't Miss This Conference
Workplace leaders, business owners, professionals, and ministry leaders will come together from across the US and world to Atlanta, Georgia on January 24-26, 2008 for a powerful conference to learn how to become strategic influencers in the 7 key areas that shape society. 8 main sessions and 18 workshops will focus on re-claiming our society for Christ. Reserve your spot today. www.SevenMountains.digbrocom
Laws of the Lighthouse
by Max Lucado
The first of the year is known for three things: black-eyed peas, bowl games, and lists. Some don't eat black-eyed peas. Others hate football. But everybody likes lists.
The Bible certainly has its share of lists. Moses brought one down from the mountain.
There are lists of the gifts of the Spirit. Lists of good fruit and bad. Lists of salutations and greetings. Even the disciples' boat got into the action as it listed in the stormy Sea of Galilee. (If you smiled at that, then I've got a list of puns you'd enjoy.)
But the greatest day of lists is still New Year's Day. And the number one list is the list I call the Laws of the Lighthouse.
The Laws of the Lighthouse contain more than good ideas, personal preferences, and honest opinions. They are God-given, time-tested truths that define the way you should navigate your life. Observe them and enjoy secure passage. Ignore them and crash against the ragged rocks of reality.
Smart move. The wise captain shifts the direction of his craft according to the signal of the lighthouse. A wise person does the same.
Herewith, then, are the lights I look for and the signals I heed:
- Love God more than you fear hell.
- Once a week, let a child take you on a walk.
- Make major decisions in a cemetery.
- When no one is watching, live as if someone is.
- Succeed at home first.
- Don't spend tomorrow's money today.
- Pray twice as much as you fret.
- Listen twice as much as you speak.
- Only harbor a grudge when God does.
- Never outgrow your love of sunsets.
- Treat people like angels; you will meet some and help make some.
- 'Tis wiser to err on the side of generosity than on the side of scrutiny.
- God has forgiven you; you'd be wise to do the same.
- When you can't trace God's hand, trust his heart.
- Toot your own horn and the notes will be flat.
- Don't feel guilty for God's goodness.
- The book of life is lived in chapters, so know your page number.
- Never let the important be the victim of the trivial.
- Live your liturgy.
To sum it all up:
Approach life like a voyage on a schooner. Enjoy the view. Explore the vessel. Make friends with the captain. Fish a little. And then get off when you get home.
From
In the Eye of the Storm
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
What My Obedience to God Costs Other People
As they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon . . . , and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus -Luke 23:26
If we obey God, it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the pain begins. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything- it is a delight. But to those who do not love Him, our obedience does cost a great deal. If we obey God, it will mean that other people's plans are upset. They will ridicule us as if to say, "You call this Christianity?" We could prevent the suffering, but not if we are obedient to God. We must let the cost be paid.
When our obedience begins to cost others, our human pride entrenches itself and we say, "I will never accept anything from anyone." But we must, or disobey God. We have no right to think that the type of relationships we have with others should be any different from those the Lord Himself had (see Luke 8:1-3).
A lack of progress in our spiritual life results when we try to bear all the costs ourselves. And actually, we cannot. Because we are so involved in the universal purposes of God, others are immediately affected by our obedience to Him. Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent? Or will we do just the opposite and say, "I will not cause other people to suffer"? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but it will grieve our Lord. If, however, we obey God, He will care for those who have suffered the consequences of our obedience. We must simply obey and leave all the consequences with Him.
Beware of the inclination to dictate to God what consequences you would allow as a condition of your obedience to Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 12, 2009
Beyond Help?
READ: Luke 23:33-43
Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." -Luke 23:43
A 110-year-old Israeli Bedouin shepherd was admitted to a Beersheba hospital while experiencing a heart attack. In spite of his age, doctors worked hard to save him. The man was thought to be the oldest heart patient ever to be treated successfully with anticlotting drugs. A hospital spokesperson reported that the Bedouin returned to his tent in the Negev Desert to tend his goats.
The care given to this 110-year-old man faintly echoes the way Jesus responded to those people we consider beyond help. His ability and willingness to go beyond social barriers to help lepers and social outcasts went far beyond the normal expectations of what a good person would do.
Even in the agony of His own suffering, Jesus reached out to a dying man everyone else regarded as beyond help. The man was a criminal, condemned to die, and only hours from entering a lost eternity. In that moment, Jesus responded to the man's cry for help and said, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43).
Do you know someone who seems beyond help today? Perhaps you think you are without hope. The God of the Bible specializes in giving help to those regarded as so old, so guilty, or so weak as to be beyond help. - Mart De Haan
Jesus seeks the lowly ones
When others do not care;
His lovingkindness and His help
He longs with them to share. -D. De Haan
God's strength is best seen in our weakness.
I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name (Isa 45:3).
When God takes you to a depth of soul experience be alert to new truths and new perspectives. During these times God often leads us to amazing new discoveries. It can be a storehouse of unexpected riches for the soul.
Bible teacher F. B. Meyer once observed, "Whenever you get into a prison of circumstances, be on watch. Prisons are rare places for seeing things. It was in prison that Bunyan saw his wondrous allegory and Paul met the Lord and John looked through heaven's open door and Joseph saw God's mercy. God has no chance to show His mercy to some of us except when we are in some distressing sorrow. The night is the time to see the stars."1
I began writing TGIF Today God Is First daily devotionals in the middle of a seven year period of darkness. Today, the devotionals are read daily by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. God has revealed to me secret things that have benefited countless others. Writing has become a central focus of God's work in me. If I had not gone through that dark time, I wouldn't be an author today.
We must live each day to the fullest. We can't live in the past or in the future. We must live in the moment God that gives us right now. Our time of deliverance will come according to God's schedule. Meanwhile, we need to be faithful in doing what God has given us to do and be content in the place where He has placed us.
When we go through a trial of adversity, we need to understand that God is performing radical surgery on our life. The purpose of this surgery is not to destroy us, but to give us a new heart. God is making a fundamental change in who we are and who we will be.
And, He will always reveal treasures from these secret places if we are willing to walk through the process patiently.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"It is because of the Lord's mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Life is filled with many kinds of losses. All losses hurt, whether they are big ones or little ones. We recover quickly from some losses; others take months or years to absorb. Some losses are temporary while others are permanent.
In today's environment of business closings and downsizing, many are facing the loss of their job. This kind of loss can be devastating to anyone, especially the breadwinner of a family. Even if it is a second job, it may represent a threat to survival.
Consider this...
Job loss can produce many emotions, but fear is usually at the root of any response. Will I lose my home? My child is leaving for college this fall-will I have to break the news that it will be impossible? We have built up credit card debt trying to keep our heads above water what now?
These and many other concerns are very real and can seem extremely threatening. If we keep our eyes on the waves, we will sink into despair and hopelessness. This is a time when it is difficult-but imperative-that we focus on Jesus, not on the problems. This is a time to remember that he, not our job, is our source.
We may go through some real challenges. We may have to tighten our belts and make some sacrifices. These struggles are not easy, but with Jesus we can find hope.
Our job may be gone. The economy may be falling apart. But God has not changed. It is because of his mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed. "His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness."
Jesus will make a way.
Prayer
Father, this job loss has left me feeling angry and fearful. Help me to regroup-to remember that you are here, that you love me and my family and that you have a plan. Help me remember that you have not been taken by surprise and that you have already made a way for us. Thank you that your compassion never fails and that your stability and faithfulness are abundant. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief: How to Face Losses in Life and Grieve Christianly by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This study teaches participants what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (1)
When they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples -Mark 4:34
Our Solitude with Him. Jesus doesn't take us aside and explain things to us all the time; He explains things to us as we are able to understand them. The lives of others are examples for us, but God requires us to examine our own souls. It is slow work- so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose. We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it. But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage?
We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves. That is always the last bit of pride to go. The only One who understands us is God. The greatest curse in our spiritual life is pride. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we will never say, "Oh, I'm so unworthy." We will understand that this goes without saying. But as long as there is any doubt that we are unworthy, God will continue to close us in until He gets us alone. Whenever there is any element of pride or conceit remaining, Jesus can't teach us anything. He will allow us to experience heartbreak or the disappointment we feel when our intellectual pride is wounded. He will reveal numerous misplaced affections or desires- things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. Many things are shown to us, often without effect. But when God gets us alone over them, they will be clear
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 13, 2009
The Bible's School Of Prayer
READ: Habakkuk 1:1-4
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. -Job 7:11
To call God and us unequal partners is a laughable understatement. And yet by inviting us to do kingdom work on earth, God has indeed set up a kind of odd-couple alliance. God delegates work to human beings so that we do history together, so to speak. Clearly, the partnership has one dominant partner-something like an alliance between Microsoft and a high school programmer.
We know well what happens when human beings form unequal alliances: the dominant partner tends to throw his weight around and the subordinate mostly keeps quiet. But God, who has no reason to be threatened by us, invites a steady and honest flow of communication.
I sometimes wonder why God places such a high value on honesty in our prayers, even to the extent of enduring unjust outbursts. I am startled to see how many biblical prayers seem ill-tempered. Jeremiah griped about unfairness (20:7-10); Habakkuk accused God of deafness (1:2); Job conceded, "What profit do we have if we pray to Him?" (21:15). The Bible teaches us to pray with blistering honesty.
God wants us to come to Him with our complaints. If we march through life pretending to smile while inside we bleed, we dishonor the relationship. - Philip Yancey
Give Him each perplexing problem,
All your needs to Him make known;
Bring to Him your daily burdens-
Never carry them alone! -Adams
The best thermometer of your spiritual temperature is the intensity of your prayer. -Spurgeon
Living for a cause Greater than Yourself
By Os Hillman
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked (Ps 82:3-4).
God raises up leaders to take on causes that are much greater than themselves.
However, these causes are often first birthed as a result of a personal crisis or conviction; then this leads to a larger cause.
Martin Luther King had a personal conviction that racial discrimination was wrong. He sought to change this through preaching and nonviolent demonstrations. It wasn't long before this became the conviction of others and it became a movement larger than any one person.
William Wilberforce was a political statesman in England. He came to Christ when he was twenty-eight years old. He began to have personal convictions about slavery in England and he committed his life to the goal of destroying slavery. He finally achieved his goal after fifty years of work. His work also resulted in sixty-four world changing initiatives before he died.
William Wallace was burdened about the persecution his country received from the wicked English king named Edward the Longshanks. Born in 1272, Wallace grew up under the persecution from the wicked king. When he was older, he led a rebellion against England that resulted in the freedom for the nation of Scotland. The popular movie, Braveheart, was the story of William Wallace.
My own ministry to those in the workplace first began as a personal crisis. This developed later into a call to serve believers in the marketplace.
Has God allowed a crisis in your life? God often raises leaders and begins movements as a result of a personal crisis in a leader's life.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
"I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am." Philippians 4:12-13 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Many people are experiencing severe financial loss in the current economic climate. Stock market woes. Investment values plummeting. Retirement funds disappearing. Even without job loss, this downhill slide can be frightening. Coupled with job loss, it can be devastating but it doesn't have to be.
In today's scripture the apostle Paul tells us that he has experienced both riches and poverty, but that he has reached a point where his joy and his well-being don't depend on the security of his bank account. No matter what he is going through, he knows that Jesus will give him the strength to make it through.
Jesus will do the same for you.
Consider this
As human beings, we all have a tendency to place our confidence in things we can see or control. Looking at a solid report on our investments or a sizable bank balance on our statement can give us a feeling of security. But in the current economic crisis, we are being reminded all too clearly that these things are not secure, that they can disappear in a moment.
Paul knew where his security was. He knew that no matter what the circumstances, Jesus would be there and would give him the strength needed to make it through.
No matter what your circumstances, remember that Jesus is with you. He will give you the strength you need. As you lean on him, and trust him and obey him, he will make a way.
Prayer
Father, help me remember that even if all my investments fail and my retirement fund collapses, you haven't changed. Thank you that your love for me will never change and that with you I can make it-no matter what. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief: How to Face Losses in Life and Grieve Christianly by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This study teaches participants what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (2)
When He was alone . . . the twelve asked Him about the parable -Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship- when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. Notice Jesus Christ's training of the Twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were confused. His disciples constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly explained things to them, but they didn't understand until after they received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person's struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 14, 2009
On The Wing
READ: Matthew 10:27-31
Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. -Matthew 10:31
In his book On the Wing, Alan Tennant chronicles his efforts to track the migration of the peregrine falcon. Valued for their beauty, swiftness, and power, these amazing birds of prey were favorite hunting companions of emperors and nobility. Sadly, the wide use of the pesticide DDT in the 1950s interfered with their reproductive cycle and placed them on the endangered species list.
Interested in the recovery of this species, Tennant attached transmitters to a select number of falcons to track their migration patterns. But when he and his pilot flew their Cessna behind the birds, they repeatedly lost signal from the transmitters. Despite their advanced technology, they were not always able to track the birds they wanted to help.
It's good to know that the God who cares for us never loses track of us. In fact, Jesus said that not even one sparrow "falls to the ground apart from [God's] will. . . . Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows" (Matt. 10:29-31).
When we face difficult circumstances, fear may cause us to wonder if God is aware of our situation. Jesus' teaching assures us that God cares deeply and is in control. His tracking of our lives will never fail. - Dennis Fisher
I would tell the Lord my longings,
Roll on Him my every care;
Cast upon Him all my burdens,
Burdens that I cannot bear. -Weigle
If God cares for birds, will He not care for His children?
Big Assignments
By Os Hillman
The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children (Ex 12:37-38).
How does God prepare someone for big assignments? Consider the mission given to Moses. He was called to deliver an entire nation from slavery. The assignment was to bring six hundred thousand men, on foot, out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. In addition, there were the women and children. Talk about a big assignment! Imagine the logistics of such an endeavor.
God prepared Moses by allowing him to grow up from infancy under the ways of Egypt. He learned their customs, their idols, and was a favored son of Pharaoh until God revealed his birthright. He began to realize God had placed him in the court of Pharaoh but realized he was not one of them. He was being called back to his own people. He tried to deliver his people using the ways of Egypt. This was not God's way. So, God banished him to the land of Midian for additional training.
God guided Moses to Midian because the Midianites were of the seed of Abraham, and retained the worship of the true God among them. God allowed Moses to learn the trade of shepherding sheep for forty years. Moses learned while living in the arid dry land moving sheep around to places where water and grass could be found. The desert was a place of preparation for one of the greatest assignments given to one man. Did you hear what I just said? Yes, the desert was the place of preparation.
Moses was battle-trained in the same environment he would spend another forty years to bring a stubborn and willful people out of slavery.
What kind of assignment is God preparing you for? Does He have you in the desert of preparation? Learn well the lessons you are there to learn. You may find you are called to be a deliverer, just like Moses.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do." 1 Thessalonians 5:18 CEV
Thoughts for Today
We all experience various kinds of loss through our lives. This week we have specifically addressed job and financial loss because so many people are currently dealing with these situations. A natural result of financial setbacks is often loss of home or other tangible things. Literally thousands have faced foreclosure in recent times.
The loss of a home can cause severe emotional trauma and demands many decisions. Where will we live? How can we tell our children they have to change schools and move away from their friends? Will we ever be able to own a home again? What are we going to do?
Consider this
During extremely difficult times like these, it is so much easier to focus on what we have lost, what we don't have, than to consider our blessings. Today's scripture reminds us that no matter what is happening, we do have much to be thankful for- and that is exactly what God wants us to do thank him for our blessings, starting with Jesus and all he has done for us.
If you are in the middle of trying times, take time right now to write a list of your blessings. Your list might include family and loved ones, friends, health, freedom and must include Jesus' love and forgiveness. As you begin to name a few blessings, you will no doubt find that the list continues to grow. And as you realize how much you have to be thankful for, you will open your heart for Jesus to fill it with hope for the future.
Prayer
Father, as I begin to think about these things, I realize that even in the midst of this difficult time, I have so much to be thankful for. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for life. Thank you for each kindness others have shown me. Thank you for so much more ... And thank you that I can trust in you for today and tomorrow and the future. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief: How to Face Losses in Life and Grieve Christianly by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This study teaches participants what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Called By God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me' -Isaiah 6:8
God did not direct His call to Isaiah- Isaiah overheard God saying, ". . . who will go for Us?" The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God's call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). That is, few prove that they are the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have had their spiritual condition changed and their ears opened. Then they hear "the voice of the Lord" continually asking, ". . . who will go for Us?" However, God doesn't single out someone and say, "Now, you go." He did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call. His response, performed in complete freedom, could only be to say, "Here am I! Send me."
Remove the thought from your mind of expecting God to come to force you or to plead with you. When our Lord called His disciples, He did it without irresistible pressure from the outside. The quiet, yet passionate, insistence of His "Follow Me" was spoken to men whose every sense was receptive (Matthew 4:19). If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard-"the voice of the Lord." In perfect freedom we too will say, "Here am I! Send me."
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 15, 2009
It's In God's Word
READ: Psalm 119:25-32
I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart. -Psalm 119:32
As optimistic as I am (I can find a bright side to just about everything), I also know that life can be a dark and lonely place.
I've talked to teenagers who have a parent whose anger makes just going home after school a dreaded trip.
I've known people who can't escape the curtain of depression.
I've spent considerable time with others who, like my wife and me, are enduring life with the sudden death of a child.
I've seen what relentless poverty can do to people all over the world.
Despite knowing that these scenarios exist, I don't despair. I know that hope is available in Jesus, that guidance comes through the Spirit, and that knowledge and power are found in God's Word.
The words of Psalm 119 give us encouragement. When our soul "clings to the dust," we can be revived according to God's Word (v.25). When our soul is full of sorrow, we can be strengthened by His Word (v.28). When we are threatened by deceit, we can follow the truth of His Word (vv.29-30). Our heart can be set free by God's commands (v.32).
Are life's demands overwhelming you? If so, you can find hope, guidance, and knowledge to help. It's in God's Word. - Dave Branon
If your soul is parched and thirsty
And you feel weighed down by care,
Go to God's Word for refreshment-
You'll find strength and comfort there. -Sper
A well-read Bible makes a well-fed soul.
The New Employee
By Os Hillman
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Cor 4:7).
What would happen if Jesus took your place for a year in your workplace? Let's consider some hypothetical things that He might do.
He would do His work with excellence. He would be known around the office for the great work He did (Exodus 31:2).
He would develop new ideas for doing things better (Eph 3:20).
He would hang out with sinners in order to develop a relationship with them in order to speak to them about the Father (Mt 9:12).
He would strategically pray for each worker about their concerns and their needs. He would pray for those who even disliked Him (Mt 5:44).
He would rally the office to support a needy family during Christmas (Jer 22:16).
He would offer to pray for those who were sick in the office and see them get healed (Mt 14:14).
He would honor the boss and respect him/her (Titus 2:9).
He would consider the boss as His authority in His workplace (Rom 13:1).
He would be truthful in all his dealings and never exaggerate for the sake of advancement ( Ps 15:2).
He would be concerned about His city (Lk 19:41).
He would always have a motive to help others become successful, even at his own expense (Pr 16:2).
Hmm. Sounds like some good ideas we could each model.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Jesus Christ never changes! He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. " Hebrews 13:8 CEV
Thoughts for Today
This week we have been discussing loss-loss of job, finances, home and other possessions. These losses, especially loss of home, can result in rootedness losses. Children are especially susceptible to loss of roots that happen when their parents move to a new part of town or even to a different town. They have to give up their friends, teachers and familiar surroundings. Leaving the familiar behind and being overwhelmed by the strangeness of the new situation puts pressures on their young lives that can leave indelible marks and bring frustration for years to come.
Loss of roots can also be traumatic for adults. In the types of situations we are considering, at a time when money pressures are great and the future seems uncertain, our sense of security can be further shaken by losing our familiar surroundings and relationships.
Consider this
There is no quick or easy answer. Working our way through solutions involves a process and takes time. But throughout the process, we can take great comfort in knowing that when everything around us seems to change, Jesus never changes. We can always count on him to be there for us. We can always count on his love, his strength, his guidance, his comfort.
Look to Jesus for your security. Remind your children that even though everything and everyone around them may be new, Jesus has moved with them and will never leave them. His love and care for them (and you) will never change. Rest in him.
Prayer
Lord, it seems that everything in my life has changed. I have been frightened and confused. Thank you for reminding me that the most important things have not changed. You are still with me. You still love me and will help me through this. You will never change. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief: How to Face Losses in Life and Grieve Christianly by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This study teaches participants what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Do You Walk In White?
We were buried with Him . . . that just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . even so we also should walk in newness of life -Romans 6:4
No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a "white funeral"-the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a "white funeral," a death with only one resurrection-a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can defeat a life like this. It has oneness with God for only one purpose- to be a witness for Him.
Have you really come to your last days? You have often come to them in your mind, but have you really experienced them? You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement. Death means you stop being. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death. It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death. It is dying- being "baptized into His death" (Romans 6:3 ).
Have you had your "white funeral," or are you piously deceiving your own soul? Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, "Yes, it was then, at my 'white funeral,' that I made an agreement with God."
"This is the will of God, your sanctification . . ." (1 Thessalonians 4:3 ). Once you truly realize this is God's will, you will enter into the process of sanctification as a natural response. Are you willing to experience that "white funeral" now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 16, 2009
A Sin By Any Other Name
READ: Genesis 39:1-9
How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? -Genesis 39:9
Joseph found himself in a difficult position one day when his master's wife attempted to seduce him. How tantalizing this woman must have been to a healthy young man! And it must have occurred to Joseph how fearsome her wrath would be when he spurned her advances.
Yet Joseph flatly resisted her. His moral convictions stemmed from his clear view of sin and his reverence for God. He said to her, "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:9).
Today, it is popular to call sin by more acceptable names. But using euphemisms for offenses against God will only weaken our resistance and trivialize sin's harmfulness to us.
To Joseph, sin was not just "an error of judgment." Nor was it a mere "slip of the tongue" or an "indiscretion" in a "moment of weakness." Joseph saw sin for what it was-a serious offense against the Lord-and he did not play down the gravity of the offense.
God's moral standards are absolute. It is only when we see sin as something abhorrent to the Lord that we will be motivated to make right moral judgments.
Calling sin by a softer name will change neither its offensiveness to God nor its cost to us. - C. P. Hia
Was it for crimes that I have done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree! -Watts
There's no excuse for excusing sin.
It's Time for a Funeral
By Os Hillman
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20).
"There's nothing wrong with you that a good funeral won't solve," I said to the woman. "I'll even send you flowers!" She smiled in response. I was speaking figuratively to the woman who was stressing out about an issue in her life.
Her problem was the same problem most of us have - too much of "us" and not enough of Jesus and the cross. Many of the daily problems in life can be solved by coming to an end of ourselves so Jesus can take over. I believe this is what the psalmist meant when he said: "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints" (Ps 116:15).
The apostle Paul recognized the need for a funeral too when he penned these words: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Rom 6:1-4).
Whenever we stress over a matter, get angry over a daily circumstance, or seek to have our own way - it is a sign there is still life in the grave. We need to fill it with dirt and smother the life of our flesh so that Christ may live freely, unhindered by the "old" man. Send yourself some flowers today. Have a good funeral.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]" John 14:27 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Emotional losses are among the hardest to accept. Bankruptcy, loss of job, or foreclosure on our home can lead to a loss of status and self esteem, bringing embarrassment that never seems to go away. Shame and guilt bring alienation from others, compounded by self-blame and withdrawal from supportive relationships.
In today's scripture, Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was to come-betrayal, death, resurrection and his return to heaven. He promised peace and exhorted them not to be troubled and frightened. As his followers today, we can receive that same peace-no matter what our circumstances. No matter what has happened, we are still special to him. He still loves us and will never forsake us.
Consider this
The attitude we have toward the losses of life will either make us or break us. We need to learn that we cannot always be in control of our lives. We should learn to change the things we can change, learn to accept the things we cannot change and ask for divine guidance to know the difference.
Prayer
Father, thank you for peace, the kind of peace that passes all understanding. Help me to do as Jesus said, to put aside anxiety and fear. Help me to experience your peace. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
Handling Loss and Grief: How to Face Losses in Life and Grieve Christianly by Raymond T. Brock, Ed.D. This study teaches participants what the Bible has to say about handling the losses of life. It offers biblical coping methods for facing loss.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Voice of the Nature of God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' -Isaiah 6:8
When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God's voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person's opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
God Bless
Crosswalk the Devotional - Jan. 16, 2009
January 16, 2009
Vengeance is Not Mine
by Laura MacCorkle, Crosswalk.com Senior Entertainment Editor
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:19-21, NIV
Vengeance is not mine. It's not yours. And it's certainly not Clint Eastwood's.
Thankfully, I already knew all of this before I watched his latest film, Gran Torino. And so this fact was merely reinforced as a result. I wouldn't recommend seeing Gran Torino, though, as it is the same old tired formula of a tough guy trying to right some wrongs (see our full review at Crosswalk right here).
Also, there's a load of "colorful" language, racism and gang violence to wade through before getting to the heart of the story of a man who goes to great lengths to help his friends (and has good intentions, for the most part), but oversteps his bounds into vengeance. That being said, I am still thinking about this movie and the concept of repaying. One of the lines in our review sums up what I'm still processing:
[Gran Torino] gives audiences a loveable rascal in Eastwood's character, and allows a flawed, racist man to be the instrument of change in the life of a young man in need of direction.
Instrument of change. Is that what Paul means in Romans 12? If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. I think so, because if you've ever been kind and tried to reach out to your enemy, then you know that there is definitely some change going on there (for both parties). And it's unexpected change, too. Your enemy usually never sees it coming and doesn't really know what to think. Especially when it feels like someone is heaping burning coals on his head.
I did a little research on that. Isn't it not very nice to make someone feel like hot things are being dumped on him or her? One Bible commentary I read through said that this phrase may refer to an Egyptian ritual where people carried around pans of burning charcoal on their heads to show their repentance. So, in essence, showing kindness to our enemies could lead to them feeling ashamed and penitent. A change of heart, perhaps.
So, it's about reaching out and basically providing nourishment for our enemies. Sounds easy enough, but if you've ever tried to do so then you know how hard it really is. Think of your worst enemy right now. We all have one in this world. Could be a family member. Could be a coworker. Maybe it's your neighbor or someone at your church. Anyone who has wronged you and for whom you hold contempt.
How can you be an "instrument of change" in his or her life when they've caused destruction or pain or grief or distress in yours? If you're honest, you don't really want to, right? Because it's easier for you, for me, to be overcome by evil than to overcome evil with good. We are flawed, and our flesh wants to repay! But the Lord says, "Leave that to me. I will take care of it." And he is calling us instead to love and pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44).
Perhaps taking a baby step is all that you can muster today. This week. Or this month. Maybe just by sitting near this enemy at the lunch table. At church. In a business meeting. What would be a good first step for you to take to help build a bridge with this person? Maybe it means you just start with a "Hello. How are you?" Acknowledge his or her presence. Start chipping away at the wall. And begin a dialogue.
Sometimes we'd rather heap the burning coals on our own heads than to love our worst enemies. But God can help us overcome. Through the cross, we are reconciled to him (Romans 5:10).
We are no longer his enemies, and by his example we can learn to reach out in love to others.
Intersecting Faith & Life: Ponder these lyrics from Point of Grace's song, "The Great Divide" and consider how Christ overcame evil and reached out to you ...
Silence, trying to fathom the distance
Looking out 'cross the canyon carved by my hands
God is gracious
Sin would still separate us
Were it not for the bridge His grace has made us
His love will carry me
CHORUS:
There's a bridge to cross the great divide
A way was made to reach the other side
The mercy of the Father cost His Son his life
His love is deep, His love is wide
There's a cross to bridge the great divide
God is faithful; on my own I'm unable
He found me hopeless, alone,
and sent a Savior
He's provided
a path and promised to guide us
safely past all the sin that would divide us
His love delivers me
Further Reading
Leviticus 19:18, NIV
Ephesians 4:32, NIV
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 18, 2009
Wonderfully Made
READ: Psalm 139:7-16
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. -Psalm 139:14
A quote in George MacDonald's book David Elginbrod speaks to those who wonder, at times, why God has made them the way they are-and who wish they were someone else.
Lady Emily muses: "I wish I were you, Margaret."
Margaret answers: "If I were you, my lady, I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of. For to have been thought about-born in God's thoughts-and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all thinking."
MacDonald may have had Psalm 139:17 in mind: "How precious . . . are Your thoughts to me, O God!" In this psalm, David is thinking about his conception, and vividly describes God's thoughts as He wove him together in his mother's womb, creating a unique and special individual to be the object of His love.
It's a comforting thought to know that we're not a terrible mistake, but a very special creation, "born in God's thoughts." David could stand before a mirror and say in all honesty and humility: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works" (v.14).
You are a designer original! As such, you are dear, grand, and precious to God. - David H. Roper
Of all creation's treasures rare,
Not one compares in worth with man;
In God's own image he was made
To fill a place in His great plan. -D. De Haan
You are one of a kind-designed to glorify God as only you can.
Overcoming Life's Monotony
Consider for a moment an average person in an average home who wakes up early in the morning to beat everyone into the shower so that he can get ready and get on the road to get to work on time. He works hard all day and then jumps back into the car to beat the traffic home, so he can sit down to eat and watch television. He sets his alarm and goes to bed so he can begin the whole process all over again. Does this life sound familiar?
In the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon says that there is nothing new under the sun. There is monotony, he writes, and there is boredom in our lives. But a life lived with God, in fellowship with Him, under His authority, is a life of joy and fulfillment. All humans can live a life of emptiness, boredom, and meaninglessness living without God, or they can experience a life full of joy, excitement, and contentment when they live it with Him.
Throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon warns us saying, "Please, do not go where I went. Please, be forewarned about living your life the wrong way. Learn from my failures, and do not make the mistakes I have made. Live in fellowship with God. Live under the authority of God." He says the temptations we will face in life are not worth the trouble they will cause, and cautions us against falling prey to them. Much of our worldly pursuits in life will bring us nothing but emptiness, misery, and disappointment. A life without God's leading is a life without purpose and meaning.
But thanks to God, there is a better way! A life that is lived in fellowship with God, a life lived under the authority of the Word of God, a life which is lived by the principles given to us in the Word-that life will be meaningful. That sort of life will be purposeful. That life will be joyful and fulfilling. That life will be a blessing to you and to others. Most importantly, that life will be a blessing to God.
The good news is that those who are experiencing a personal relationship with the Son of God will not only find contentment in this life-they will know with all assurance that the day is coming when they will have perfect knowledge, perfect bodies, perfect memories, and perfect stamina. And the reason that they can have this full life is that they know who they are and to Whom they belong. They know their purpose for living and they know their ultimate destination.
Are you experiencing emptiness, drudgery, or monotony? You can change direction, and you can do it today. You can begin a life of meaning, a life full of purpose, a life with the absolute and perfect assurance of your ultimate and eternal destination. If that is your desire, then you can say to the Lord, "Lord, I am tired of living a life of emptiness and monotony. I want to live a life of purpose; I want to live my life for You and for Your Kingdom." And God will answer that prayer-of that you can be sure. In His time, you will begin to live a life full of joy, peace, fulfillment, and contentment. Only God, His truths, His purpose, and His Word can give your life the meaning you have always wanted.
***
In a world gone mad with relativism and political correctness... What can we do to ignite spiritual renewal in our lives and in our churches? Read the passion Michael Youssef has for this subject in our free resource-"We Preach Christ." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Awaited One
by Max Lucado
We were a wreath of Light around the stable, a necklace of diamonds around the structure. Every angel had been called from his post for the coming, even Michael. None doubted God would, but none knew how He could, fulfill his promise.
I've heated the water!"
"No need to yell, Joseph I hear you fine."
Mary would have heard had Joseph whispered. The stable was even smaller than Joseph had imagined but the innkeeper was right- it was clean. I started to clear out the sheep and cow, but Michael stopped me. "The Father wants all of creation to witness the moment."
Mary cried out and gripped Joseph's arm with one hand and a feed trough with the other. The thrust in her abdomen lifted her back, and she leaned forward.
"Is it time?" Joseph asked.
She shot back a glance, and he had his answer.
Within moments the Awaited One was born. I was privileged to have a position close to the couple, only a step behind Michael. We both gazed into the wrinkled face of the infant. Joseph had placed hay in a feed trough, giving Jesus his first bed.
All of God was in the infant. Light encircled His face and radiated from His tiny hands. The very glory I had witnessed in His throne room now burst through His skin.
I felt we should sing but did not know what. We had no song. We had no verse. We had never seen the sight of God in a baby. When God had made a star, our words had roared. When He had delivered His servants, our tongues had flown with praise. Before His throne, our songs never ended. But what do you sing to God in a feed trough?
In that moment a wonderful thing happened. As we looked at the baby Jesus, the darkness lifted. Not the darkness of the night, but the darkness of the mystery. Heaven's enlightenment engulfed the legions.
Our minds were filled with the Truth we had never before known. We became aware for the first time of the Father's plan to rescue those who bear His name.
From An Angel's Story
(originally published as Cosmic Christmas)
Copyright (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002, 2004) Max Lucado
"It Is the Lord!"
Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' -John 20:28
Jesus said to her, 'Give Me a drink' " (John 4:7). How many of us are expecting Jesus Christ to quench our thirst when we should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). That means lives of pure, uncompromising, and unrestrained devotion to the Lord Jesus, which will be satisfying to Him wherever He may send us.
Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 19, 2009
Impossible?
READ: Matthew 5:38-42
You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I tell you not to resist an evil person. -Matthew 5:38-39
When Nobel Chairman Gunnar John delivered his presentation speech for Martin Luther King's 1964 Peace Prize, he quoted Jesus: "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39). As Mr. John noted: "It was not because he led a racial minority in their struggle for equality that Martin Luther King achieved fame. . . . [His] name will endure for the way in which he has waged his struggle."
In 1955, King had led a year-long, peaceful boycott to protest segregation on buses. He paid a high price. His home was bombed, and he was assaulted and arrested. He never retaliated. Eventually he was murdered.
How contrary Dr. King's peaceful example stands to my fleshly nature! I want justice now. I want retribution. I want others to pay for their wrongdoing, especially when it's directed at me. What I do not want is to turn the other cheek and invite them to take another swing.
Haddon Robinson comments on the lofty standards Jesus set forth in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), calling them "goals . . . not impossible ideals. [Jesus] wants His disciples to strive toward these goals to master a new kind of life."
Amid the injustices of life, may we have the courage, faith, and strength to turn the other cheek. - Tim Gustafson
So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see,
To spend-though it be blood-to spend and spare not-
So send I you to taste of Calvary. -Clarkson
1968 Singspiration.
It takes true strength to refuse to retaliate.
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You must not have any other god but me." Exodus 20:3 NLT
Thoughts for Today
The Ten Commandments deal with our relationship with God and with others. The bottom line is love. Each of these commandments holds a great deal of meaning for our lives today.
Today's scripture is the first of the Ten Commandments. It calls for an undivided faithfulness to God. Because we have been created in God's image, this relationship is at the very core of human need and affects everyone.
"Other gods" usually brings to mind a wooden or stone image-or the proclaimed god of another religion. But there are more subtle "other gods." Anything that takes our focus off Christ anything that we devote more time and attention and allegiance to than Jesus can become our other god. It might be money or sports or sex. It could be our job, a relationship or even working in a ministry.
Consider this
It is so easy to be sidetracked, sometimes even doing good things, that we let our personal relationship with the Lord suffer. A periodic reality check can be enlightening. Am I asking God for guidance or doing my own thing. Am I trusting in my job, or another person, or my own abilities more than I am trusting in the Lord?
If you find that you have wandered off the path, begin to refocus on Jesus.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for sometimes getting sidetracked and making other things or people a more important part of my life than you are. Help me to refocus on Jesus. In His name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments: Applying the Foundations of Living to My Personal Life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. Knowing that there are absolutes that define moral conduct and ethical decisions is essential for believers surrounded by relativistic values. This guide helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Lost Donkeys
By Os Hillman
"Now the donkeys belonging to Saul's father Kish were lost" (1 Sam 9:3).
God used adversity to call the first king of Israel. In 1 Samuel 9 and 10, we find Saul working in the family business, employed by his father, Kish. In Bible times, donkeys represented trade and commerce, for they were the primary means of transporting goods.
Some of Kish's donkeys were missing, so Kish told his son Saul to take a servant with him and go find the missing donkeys. Saul and the servant traveled the countryside three days in search of the missing donkeys - but without results. Saul thought his father might worry about him, so he told the servant, "Let's go back."
The servant replied, "Look, in this town there's a man of God, a prophet. Let's go see him and maybe he will tell us which way to take." In today's terminology, it was time to call in a consultant.
So Saul and the servant went through the town and the prophet - a man named Samuel - was walking toward them along the street. As Samuel walked toward Saul, God told the prophet, "The man who is approaching is the one I told you about. He will be the leader of My people."
Saul stopped Samuel in the street and said, "Sir, would you please tell me how to find the house of the prophet?"
"I'm the prophet you're looking for," Samuel replied. "Today you'll have dinner with me and tomorrow I'll tell you everything that is in your heart."
Saul's pathway to leadership led through the experience of a business setback: a missing herd of donkeys. God arranged every step of Saul's journey.
It was God who sent the donkeys away, which made it necessary for Saul to go searching for them. When Saul was ready to give up the search, God arranged for the servant to suggest that they look for a prophet in a nearby city. The Lord spoke to the prophet and told him to expect Saul's arrival. There was not a single detail left to chance. God's plan worked flawlessly.
So it is in your life and mine. God is in control of every detail in your life.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
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Vision and Darkness
When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him -Genesis 15:12
Whenever God gives a vision to a Christian, it is as if He puts him in "the shadow of His hand" (Isaiah 49:2). The saint's duty is to be still and listen. There is a "darkness" that comes from too much light-that is the time to listen. The story of Abram and Hagar in Genesis 16 is an excellent example of listening to so-called good advice during a time of darkness, rather than waiting for God to send the light. When God gives you a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will bring the vision He has given you to reality in your life if you will wait on His timing. Never try to help God fulfill His word. Abram went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all of his self-sufficiency was destroyed. He grew past the point of relying on his own common sense. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not a period of God's displeasure. There is never any need to pretend that your life is filled with joy and confidence; just wait upon God and be grounded in Him (see Isaiah 50:10-11 ).
Do I trust at all in the flesh? Or have I learned to go beyond all confidence in myself and other people of God? Do I trust in books and prayers or other joys in my life? Or have I placed my confidence in God Himself, not in His blessings? "I am Almighty God . . ."- El-Shaddai, the All-Powerful God (Genesis 17:1). The reason we are all being disciplined is that we will know God is real. As soon as God becomes real to us, people pale by comparison, becoming shadows of reality. Nothing that other saints do or say can ever upset the one who is built on God.
God Bless
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Daily Devotionals January 20, 2009
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Protocol
READ: James 1:1-8
Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the
sea driven and tossed by the wind. -James 1:6
If you were invited to a meeting at the White House with the President of the United
States, regardless of your opinion of him or her, you would probably go. Upon entering
the White House, a protocol officer would meet you and outline the proper procedures
for meeting the President. Suffice it to say, it would be unacceptable to let loose
with a burst of undignified familiarity or negative criticism as you shook hands.
So it should come as no surprise that God's Word makes it clear that there is a
protocol for entering the presence of God. Hebrews 11:6 outlines one aspect of
appropriate
interaction: "He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder
of those who diligently seek Him." God wants us to be fully devoted to Him-and He
takes it personally when our hearts are filled with criticism, unbelief, and doubt.
James tells us that when we ask God for wisdom, the key to His response is whether
or not we are asking "in faith" (1:6). God is pleased when we approach Him with
unwavering faith.
So leave your doubt at the door and follow the protocol: Approach God with a heart
of faith, and He will be pleased to provide all the wisdom you need. - Joe Stowell
God, give me the faith of a little child!
A faith that will look to Thee-
That never will falter and never fail,
But follow Thee trustingly. -Showerman
Exchange the dissatisfaction of doubt for the fulfillment of faith in God.
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His Work, His Way
By Os Hillman
"So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because
you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law" (Mal
2:9).
My work, My way - When you and I live in this world without Christ we live a life
just as Esau lived his life. Esau despised his birthright and failed to enter into
a relationship with God that allowed him to fulfill his destiny. In essence, Esau
fulfilled his work, his way. His life represented the carnal life of the flesh.
His work, my way - When you and I become born-again by the Spirit of God, we begin
to focus our attention on living for Christ. We realize it is His work we are doing
but it takes time before we learn what it means to do His work, His way.
My work, His way - As the Holy Spirit does His work in us, we learn to walk with
God. We learn what it means to see our work as His work and we desire to do it
His way. The Israelites were guilty of not knowing His ways and were unable to move
into the Promised Land because of not understanding how to do Their work, His ways.
His work, His way - When we begin to walk with God we begin to realize that all
that we do is His work and He calls us to do it His way. When we begin to walk with
God in this manner we begin to see the Kingdom of God manifested in our working
lives. We begin to experience His power and learn what it means to do His work,
His way.
In order to experience God in this way, each of us must give our working lives to
the Lord and ask him to teach us His way. Moses asked God: "If you are pleased with
me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you" (Ex
33:12). Moses realized He needed God to teach him His ways in order for him to prosper
in His relationship with God.
What best describes your life today? Your work, your way; Your work, His way; His
work, your way; or His work, His way? Pray that you learn to do His work, His way.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of
our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming
the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your
marketplace
calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your
assignment.
This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the
leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above
or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Exodus 20:4 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This is the second of the Ten Commandments and shows that we are to worship only
God. God forbids us to worship or use created things or even creation itself as
an approach to him. The only correct image of God to worship is his son, Jesus
Christ. Not trees or flowers or animals or land. Not statues or monuments or
traditions.
Only Jesus.
We should have no God-substitutes. When we look to anyone or anything other than
Christ as our primary source of meaning, self-worth, comfort or fulfillment, we
are in danger of having an idol in our lives. An idol is anything that we depend
on for solutions that only God can provide. Three common types of idols are substances,
behaviors and relationships that control our lives.
Consider this
God doesn't want us to serve idols because he loves us and knows what is best for
us. Let us come before him daily, seeking his will and his plan for our lives. Let
us worship Jesus.
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for trying to find comfort ... solutions happiness in things or
activities or relationships. Although you may use some of these things or people
to enrich my life and to help me, I know that you are the source of all good things.
Help me to never again depend on a substitute. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from
The Ten Commandments: Applying the Foundations of Living to My Personal Life
by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. Knowing that there are absolutes that define moral conduct
and ethical decisions is essential for believers surrounded by relativistic values.
This guide helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments
apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every
civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see
the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written
especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However,
it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website?
Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day
devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others,
please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written
permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending
================================================================================
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are You Fresh for Everything?
Jesus answered and said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' -John 3:3
Sometimes we are fresh and eager to attend a prayer meeting, but do we feel that
same freshness for such mundane tasks as polishing shoes?
Being born again by the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as
the wind, and as surprising as God Himself. We don't know where it begins- it is
hidden away in the depths of our soul. Being born again from above is an enduring,
perpetual, and eternal beginning. It provides a freshness all the time in thinking,
talking, and living- a continual surprise of the life of God. Staleness is an
indication
that something in our lives is out of step with God. We say to ourselves, "I have
to do this thing or it will never get done." That is the first sign of staleness.
Do we feel fresh this very moment or are we stale, frantically searching our minds
for something to do? Freshness is not the result of obedience; it comes from the
Holy Spirit. Obedience keeps us "in the light as He is in the light . . ." (1 John
1:7
Jealously guard your relationship with God. Jesus prayed "that they may be one just
as We are one"-with nothing in between (John 17:22
Keep your whole life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don't pretend to be open
with Him. Are you drawing your life from any source other than God Himself? If you
are depending on something else as your source of freshness and strength, you will
not realize when His power is gone.
Being born of the Spirit means much more than we usually think. It gives us new
vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything through the never-ending supply
of the life of God.
God Bless
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Daily Devotionals January 21, 2009
The Perfect Sentence
READ: Exodus 3:13-18
Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? -Exodus 15:11
As a young girl writing in my diary, my secret ambition was to compose the perfect sentence. I wondered what it would look and sound like. Perhaps it would include a strong verb and colorful adjectives.
My pursuit of the perfect sentence will never be satisfied, but I have found a statement of perfection in Exodus 3:14. When the Lord God called Moses from the burning bush, He told him that he had been chosen to bring His people out of bondage in Egypt (v.10). Moses, who was anxious about this responsibility, wondered what to say if the Israelites doubted him and asked who he was representing.
The Lord replied, "I AM WHO I AM" (v.14). By using His unique name, He offered Moses a glimpse of the nature of His eternal existence in one sentence. You might say it's a statement of perfection!
Bible commentator G. Bush writes this about God's description of Himself: "He, in distinction from all others, is the one only true God, the God who really is . . . . The eternal, self-existent, and immutable Being; the only being who can say that He always will be what He always has been."
God says, "I AM WHO I AM." He and His name are perfect. In reverence we are to bow before Him. - Anne Cetas
For Further Study
At the name of Jesus, every knee will one day bow.
To learn about His name read The Amazing Prophecy
Of Names at
http://www.rbc.org/bible-study/discovery-series/bookletDetail.aspx?id=48130
Looking for perfection? Look to Jesus.
Market Resistance
By Os Hillman
"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him" (James 1:5-6).
Have you ever heard someone say, "He was before his time?" There are many examples of people who invented a product or service in a time when the market was not ready to embrace the product yet. Other things had to develop before the product could be a success.
George Washington Carver experienced this. Born around 1861 during the Civil War, he was a man who should have been a victim to his circumstances. Discriminated against constantly, he lost his mother to slave traders. As a young boy he cried out to God in the midst of his circumstances and God heard him. God gave George an indomitable persevering spirit and he was highly motivated to learn.
Carver discovered that Southern farmers who planted cotton for hundreds of years needed to plant a new crop because the soil had worn out and the farmers were going into interminable debt as a result. To restore the soil Carver advised the planting of peanuts and sweet potatoes instead of cotton. After much persuasion, planters gradually increased their peanut and sweet potato acreage, until these became the number-one crops in the South. However, there was not substantial market for the peanuts and sweet potatoes. Forced to let the product rot in the fields, the farmers ended up losing more money then before.
This situation placed a great deal of pressure on Carver. He took the problem to God in prayer and said, "Mr. Creator, why did You make the peanut?" Many years later, he shared that God led him back to his lab and worked with him to discover some 300 marketable products from the peanut including lard, mayonnaise, cheese, shampoo, instant coffee, flour, sop, face powder, plastics, adhesives, axle grease, and pickles.
Likewise, from the sweet potato he made more than 100 discoveries, among them starch, library paste, vinegar, shoe blacking, ink, and molasses. Because of these new products, the demand for peanuts and sweet potatoes grew and literally transformed the Southern economy.*
Has God made you an inventor? Ask him to help you bring your product to market.
*Adapted from More Than Conquerors, John Woodridge, General Editor, Moody Press, 820 N LaSalle St Chicago, IL 60610-3284 p. 311, 1992.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold any guiltless who misuses his name." Exodus 20:7 NIV
Thoughts for Today
This is the third of the Ten Commandments and emphasizes right thinking regarding the name of the Lord. Most of us want our names to be spoken correctly and with respect. God, whose name is above every name, desires-and deserves-his name to be used with the greatest respect and honor.
Consider this
Although this commandment is correctly viewed as prohibiting profanity and blasphemy, it means more than that. It also means we are never to take the Lord's reputation lightly. If we call ourselves Christian, we are privileged to use his name. And we dishonor his precious name every time we say or do something that does not show honor or respect for him when we hurt or condemn rather than showing love to others.
We should be careful not to take God's name frivolously in conversation or lightly in worship. We should avoid movies and TV programs that use his name in profanity or show other signs of disrespect.
Let us use the Lord's name with reverence and honor him in all we say, in all we do and in all that we are.
Prayer
Father, help me to honor your name not only in my speech, but in every thought, in my attitudes and in all that I do. In Jesus' name
These thoughts were drawn from...
The Ten Commandments: Applying the Foundations of Living to My Personal Life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. Knowing that there are absolutes that define moral conduct and ethical decisions is essential for believers surrounded by relativistic values. This guide helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recall What God Remembers
Thus says the Lord: 'I remember . . . the kindness of your youth . . .' -Jeremiah 2:2
Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Does everything in my life fill His heart with gladness, or do I constantly complain because things don't seem to be going my way? A person who has forgotten what God treasures will not be filled with joy. It is wonderful to remember that Jesus Christ has needs which we can meet- "Give Me a drink" (John 4:7). How much kindness have I shown Him in the past week? Has my life been a good reflection on His reputation?
God is saying to His people, "You are not in love with Me now, but I remember a time when you were." He says, "I remember . . . the love of your betrothal . . ." (Jeremiah 2:2). Am I as filled to overflowing with love for Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He ever find me pondering the time when I cared only for Him? Is that where I am now, or have I chosen man's wisdom over true love for Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no thought for where He might lead me? Or am I watching to see how much respect I get as I measure how much service I should give Him?
As I recall what God remembers about me, I may also begin to realize that He is not what He used to be to me. When this happens, I should allow the shame and humiliation it creates in my life, because it will bring godly sorrow, and "godly sorrow produces repentance . . ." (2 Corinthians 7:10).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 22, 2009
The God Of Victory
READ: 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. -Romans 12:21
In Greek mythology, Nike was the goddess of victory. Nike fought on the side of the Olympian gods, gaining a victory over the mighty Titans. As a result, she became a symbol of winning. But Nike's alleged powers were not just limited to warfare. She also became a favorite goddess of athletes who wanted to win in competitive sports. The Romans adopted her into their worship and gave her the Latin name Victoria.
In the Greco-Roman world where Paul taught, victory was highly valued. So when he expressed Christian truth, he used words his audience could understand. In his letters, he described Christ as the One who leads us in a military procession of triumph (2 Cor. 2:14-17) and compared the Christian life to someone training for the ancient Olympic games (1 Cor. 9:24-27).
Paul also used the word for victory in reference to our struggles with those who intentionally hurt us. "Overcome [be a victor over] evil with good" (Rom. 12:21). This may mean returning kindness for spite or respectfully setting limits on evil behavior. In either case, an attitude of love cannot be generated in our own strength. But in Christ, we have divine power that ancient pagans could only hope for. Jesus Christ is the genuine God of victory. - Dennis Fisher
Through trials we learn to overcome,
Through Christ our victories are won;
Come lay your burdens at His feet
And find this inner peace so sweet. -Halsey
God will give us the victory when we join Him in the fight.
Masquerading as a Dentist
By Os Hillman
"For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Col 3:2-4).
"Hello, my name is Dr. Bengel. I am a Christian, masquerading as a dentist. What is your name?" I laughed as I met this man for the very first time. He was boldly proclaiming that He wanted to be known by who he was in Christ instead of who he was in his occupation.
If Christ is Lord over all of life, then He must be Lord over work, too. Our identity must be wrapped up in who we are, not just what we do. "Whatever we do for work, we should do it in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Col 3:17), that is, with a concern for His approval and in a manner that honors Him.
The Spirit empowers us to live and work with Christ-likeness. Christ gives the Holy Spirit to help us live in a way that pleases Him that has enormous implications for how we do our jobs.
God values our work even when the product has no spiritual value. A common measure of the significance of a job is its perceived value from the eternal perspective. Will the work "last"? Will it "really count" for eternity? The assumption is that God values work for eternity, but not work for the here and now. This is not a biblical truth, but heresy. Keep in mind the following when you are tempted to deem secular work as second-class Christianity.
God Himself has created a world which is time-bound and temporary (2 Pet. 3:10-11).
God promises rewards to people in everyday jobs, based on their attitude and conduct (Eph. 6:7, 9; Col. 3:23, 4:1).
God cares about the everyday needs of people as well as their spiritual needs. He cares whether people have food, clothing, shelter, and so forth.
God cares about people, who will enter eternity. To the extent that a job serves the needs of people, He values it because He values people.*
Your work does matter to God. You are called to first to be a Christian, but masquerading as a doctor, lawyer, construction worker, secretary, or whatever.
*Adapted from Study notes from the Word In Life Study Bible, copyright 1993, 1996, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The study notes from the Word In Life Study Bible appearing at this web site are for personal use only.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." Exodus 20:8 NIV
Thoughts for Today
The fourth commandment focuses on setting aside a time for rest and worship and clearly shows that God is concerned about our time.
In this day and age, time seems to be a real issue for most people. We have time management courses and an unending stream of electronic devices to help us organize, schedule and remember.
God wants us to balance work with rest and worship. Even he set aside a day of rest after six days of creation. Jesus set aside times to rest away from the crowds. And so we need to learn to balance all our busy activities with rest and worship. Sabbath means rest. God told us to set aside this time because he loves us and knows we need it. Without a special time to rest and worship, our focus on God will become dim. We will tend to stress out and to suffer physically and emotionally, as well as spiritually.
Consider this...
Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man. It is a time to regroup for the coming days. A time to focus on God. A time to enjoy our family and to experience rest and recreation.
God has given us this gift. Let's enjoy it!
Prayer
Lord, thank you for the Sabbath, for this special time for rest and worship. Help me learn to balance my time and activities and not neglect the Sabbath. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
The Ten Commandments: Applying the Foundations of Living to My Personal Life by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. Knowing that there are absolutes that define moral conduct and ethical decisions is essential for believers surrounded by relativistic values. This guide helps us understand God's boundaries. It shows how the Ten Commandments apply today. It also discusses the biblical laws on which the legal codes of every civilized society are based. This guide is written in a way that helps people see the Ten Commandments in light of today's problems. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Am I Looking To God?
Look to Me, and be saved . . . -Isaiah 45:22
Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us? He says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ." The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult. Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere. The basic lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is to narrow all your interests until your mind, heart, and body are focused on Jesus Christ. "Look to Me . . . ."
Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians' lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God. This is not salvation- it is not simple enough. He says, in effect, "Look to Me and you are saved," not "You will be saved someday." We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ." Our difficulties, our trials, and our worries about tomorrow all vanish when we look to God.
Wake yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter how many things seem to be pressing in on you, be determined to push them aside and look to Him. "Look to Me . . . ." Salvation is yours the moment you look.
God Bless
Today's Verse For Saturday, January 24
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19 NIV
January 24, 2009
Small Is Beautiful
READ: John 6:53-71
Who has despised the day of small things? —Zechariah 4:10Just the other day someone said of a friend, "This man is destined for a great ministry," by which he meant he was headed for the big time—a high-profile church with a big budget.
It made me wonder: Why do we think that God's call is necessarily upwardly mobile? Why wouldn't He send His best workers to labor for a lifetime in some small place? Aren't there people in obscure places who need to be evangelized and taught? God is not willing that any perish.
Jesus cared about the individual as well as the masses. He taught large crowds if they appeared, but it never bothered Him that His audience grew smaller every day. Many left Him, John said (John 6:66), a fickle attrition that would have thrown most of us into high panic. Yet Jesus pressed on with those the Father gave Him.
We live in a culture where bigger is better, where size is the measure of success. It takes a strong person to resist that trend, especially if he or she is laboring in a small place.
But size is nothing; substance is everything. Whether you're pastoring a small church or leading a small Bible study or Sunday school class, serve them with all your heart. Pray, love, teach by word and example. Your little place is not a steppingstone to greatness. It is greatness. — David H. Roper
The Lord will give you help and strength
For work He bids you do;
To serve Him from a heart of love
Is all He asks of you. —Fasick
Little is much when God is in it.
God Bless
Today's Verse For Sunday, January 25
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 5:6-11 NIV
January 25, 2009
Benediction Blessing
READ: Numbers 6:22-27
The Lord bless you and keep you. —Numbers 6:24 Our church introduced a new practice for the close of our traditional morning worship service. We turn to one another and sing the familiar Aaronic blessing the Lord gave to Moses to give to Israel: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you . . ." (Num. 6:24-26). Our hearts are uplifted as we mutually catch the eye of a fellow believer and extend our blessing to him or her.
One Sunday, I noticed a heartwarming and special exchange that has now become a weekly event. In a pew near the front sat Oscar and Marian Carlson, faithful followers of Jesus Christ and devoted partners for the 62 years of their married life. When we began to sing, Oscar reached over and took Marian's hands in his. They sang the opening words of this special blessing to each other before looking to others. Everyone nearby sneaked a peek at the look of love and tenderness on their faces.
A benediction is not simply a ritualistic closing; it's a genuine prayerful wish for God's goodness to follow the other person. In offering it to one another, Oscar and Marian exemplify its warmest and deepest meaning. In blessing others, we express gratitude for what God has done for us through Christ's death (Heb. 13:20-21). — David C. Egner
Bless me, Lord, and make me a blessing;
I'll gladly your message convey;
Use me to help some poor needy soul,
And make me a blessing today. —Anon.
God gives blessing to us so we can be a blessing to others.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 26, 2009
Cod Liver Oil Coercion
READ: John 16:8-11
When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. -John 15:26
A woman bought a bottle of cod liver oil to give to her dog so he could have a healthier and shinier coat. Every morning, she pried the dog's jaws open and forced the liquid down his throat. He struggled, but she persisted. He doesn't know what's good for him! she thought. Faithfully, each day she repeated the process.
One day, however, the bottle tipped over and she released her grip on the dog for just a moment to wipe up the mess. The dog sniffed at the fishy liquid and began lapping up what she had spilled. He actually loved the stuff. He had simply objected to being coerced!
Sometimes we use a similar method in telling others about Christ. Called buttonholing, it's an intense, in-your-face kind of confrontation. While earnestly desiring to share the gospel, we may end up repelling people instead. In our sincere but overly enthusiastic attempt, we create resistance.
We are called to share the good news, but we are not responsible for someone's acceptance or rejection of Christ. It's not our job to try to convict someone of sin. That's the Holy Spirit's responsibility (John 16:8).
As you tell others of Christ's sacrifice, be sensitive. Know when to slow down and let God and His Word do the convicting and drawing to Himself. - Cindy Hess Kasper
The Spirit's role is to convict
The world of all their sin
So they will seek forgiveness and
Be cleansed and changed within. -Sper
The Spirit convicts so that Christ might cleanse.
Out of Your Comfort Zone
By Os Hillman
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Cor 9:8).
Have you ever been given an assignment at work that was beyond your perceived ability?
When I was in my late twenties I made a career change which necessitated a job change. I decided to apply for a job that involved selling advertising on golf score cards. Usually this meant going into small towns and making sales calls to small business owners in that community. Not an easy job for a rookie in his first sales job.
At first the two non-Christian owners refused to hire me because my answers to their questions led to me discussing my faith in Christ. They felt I should be in the ministry, not sales. However, they reluctantly decided to take a chance on me and sent me to small towns in Kentucky to sell golf scorecards in the middle of winter. Little did I know that they were trying to set me up for failure and did not think I had any chance of success.
I got into my Volkswagen bus and headed for the hills of Kentucky. As I took on my new job I told the Lord I was not qualified for this and He would have to help me to be successful. After a week of selling and sleeping in my car at night, I returned with a full inventory of sales from several cities. When I walked into the office and met with the owners, they looked at me with total surprise. They could not believe I had been successful. I would go on to work two years at this company, become an executive with them, and play a key role in leading one of the partners to Christ.
Do you have a major challenge in your work life? Ask God to help you be successful in your assignment. God delights in showing His children His power so you can abound in your good work.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the LORD and with men." 1 Samuel 2:26 NIV
Thoughts for Today
When your children reach school age, they enter an entirely new phase of their lives. They attend school and have new authorities and new rules they are expected to obey. Their horizons are expanding. They will make new friends and face new challenges.
It is your task and privilege to guide them during these times of change. Be their source of security, their source of information, their source of love. You will watch and teach and guide as they grow in stature as well as in favor with God and man.
The key to parenting during the school-age years is encouragement! Consistent discipline and training remain important, but it is through encouragement, not pushing, that your children will grow to like themselves and to be all they can be.
Consider this...
Think of some practical ways you can encourage your children during these elementary school years. Praise them. Compliment them. Take an interest in their activities, in what they are learning. Value their opinions. Spend time with them ... and learn to listen.
Prayer
Father, thank you for my children. Teach me to be a godly parent. Help me understand them and find ways to encourage them. Enable me to watch and teach and guide as they grow in stature as well as in favor with God and man. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Parenting: Parenting Skills at Each Stage of Growth by N. Elizabeth Holland, M.D. This study addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
If you are the parent, grandparent or teacher of children about 8-11 years old, we encourage you to consider our new curriculum for children ...
Insight Group: Empowering Kids for Life. Join J.C.(Jesus Cares) bulldog as he teaches children how to "live free" by setting appropriate boundaries. Using the eight objectives from 2 Peter 1:3-11, the Empowering Kids for Life workbook and facilitator's guide will give children the tools they need to build their own "tower of power" to avoid life-controlling problems.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Look Again and Consecrate
READ:
If God so clothes the grass of the field . . . , will He not much more clothe you . . . ? -Matthew 6:30
A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us because we will not be simple. How can we maintain the simplicity of Jesus so that we may understand Him? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, and obeying Him as He brings us the truth of His Word, life will become amazingly simple. Jesus asks us to consider that "if God so clothes the grass of the field . . ." how "much more" will He clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him? Every time we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it is because we have disrespectfully thought that we knew better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed "the cares of this world" to enter in (Matthew 13:22), while forgetting the "much more" of our heavenly Father.
"Look at the birds of the air . . ." (Matthew 6:26). Their function is to obey the instincts God placed within them, and God watches over them. Jesus said that if you have the right relationship with Him and will obey His Spirit within you, then God will care for your "feathers" too.
"Consider the lilies of the field . . ." (Matthew 6:28). They grow where they are planted. Many of us refuse to grow where God plants us. Therefore, we don't take root anywhere. Jesus said if we would obey the life of God within us, He would look after all other things. Did Jesus Christ lie to us? Are we experiencing the "much more" He promised? If we are not, it is because we are not obeying the life God has given us and have cluttered our minds with confusing thoughts and worries. How much time have we wasted asking God senseless questions while we should be absolutely free to concentrate on our service to Him? Consecration is the act of continually separating myself from everything except that which God has appointed me to do. It is not a one-time experience but an ongoing process. Am I continually separating myself and looking to God every day of my life?
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 27, 2009
Prayer Circles
READ: Luke 18:9-14
Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. -Luke 18:14
Around the circle the 6th-grade girls went, taking turns praying for each other in the Bible-study group. "Father in heaven," Anna prayed, "please help Tonya not to be so boy-crazy." Tonya added with a giggle, "And help Anna to stop acting so horrible in school and bothering other kids." Then Talia prayed, "Lord, help Tonya to listen to her mother instead of always talking back."
Although the requests were real, the girls seemed to enjoy teasing their friends by pointing out their flaws in front of the others instead of caring about their need for God's help. Their group leader reminded them about the seriousness of talking to almighty God and the importance of evaluating their own hearts.
If we use prayer to point out the faults of others while ignoring our own, we're like the Pharisee in Jesus' parable. He prayed, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men-extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector" (Luke 18:11). Instead, we're to be like the man who asked God to be merciful to him, "a sinner" (v.13).
Let's be careful not to let our prayers become a listing of others' flaws. The kind of prayer God desires flows out of a humble evaluation of our own sinful hearts. - Anne Cetas
Lord, teach us how to pray aright,
Oh, lead us in Your way;
Humbly we bow in Your pure light;
Lord, teach us how to pray. -Anon.
The highest form of prayer comes from the depths of a humble heart.
Father, Son and Holy Scriptures?
By Os Hillman
"Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?'" (John 14:9).
The disciples had been with Jesus for three years. They'd seen miracles - dead men came back to life, the sick were healed, and water was turned to wine. These were but a few of the hundreds of miracles they saw Jesus perform. However, even after these experiences, they lacked one important thing - intimacy with Jesus. They didn't really know Jesus.
This must have been a great disappointment to Jesus. He'd invested so much into developing a close and intimate relationship with the twelve. Consider that they spent three years with their Master. They learned about Him during those years. However, they had knowledge without intimacy. They experienced God's power individually and He even performed miracles through their own lives. Sometimes it is easier to do the work of God without the intimacy with God.
A friend once commented about the current condition of much of the mainline churches today: "You'd think the trinity was the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures versus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." There's never been a better description of the Church today.
But, alas, this is a challenge to my own walk with God. It is easy for me to fall into this trap of working so hard for Jesus that I forget to work with Jesus. Jesus desires intimacy more than works. He tells us in John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." Whatever works we do must be a fruit of our intimacy with Him.
Lord, help us not to just know about you. We desire to know you.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Details and Online Registration
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Love is always supportive ..." 1 Corinthians 13:7 CEV
Thoughts for Today
When your children enter school, they will likely be more quiet and shy than in the past. This is a normal change.
At this point, your children are completely verbal but will also communicate with you using body language. Show your loving support by learning to interpret what they are saying to you and by responding appropriately. He (or she) might say, "Things went ok at school," yet you see tears in his eyes. He might say, "I'm not angry," as he clenches and unclenches his fist. He may express insecurity by just needing a hug.
Consider this...
The best time for family communication is meal times. Ask your children questions. Respect their opinion even if you don't agree. Ask why they feel the way they do and offer alternatives.
If your children go outside your home to school, talk to them each day about what they have learned, not only in the classroom, but also from their friends. If they report questionable information or behavior or attitudes, help them think through the situation. Help them to apply what they know of right and wrong.
Prayer
Father, teach me to lovingly support my children by "listening" to body language, as well as words, and responding wisely. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Parenting: Parenting Skills at Each Stage of Growth by N. Elizabeth Holland, M.D. This study addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
If you are the parent, grandparent or teacher of children about 8-11 years old, we encourage you to consider our new curriculum for children ...
Insight Group: Empowering Kids for Life. Join J.C.(Jesus Cares) bulldog as he teaches children how to "live free" by setting appropriate boundaries. Using the eight objectives from 2 Peter 1:3-11, the Empowering Kids for Life workbook and facilitator's guide will give children the tools they need to build their own "tower of power" to avoid life-controlling problems.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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Look Again and Think
Do not worry about your life . . . -Matthew 6:25
A warning which needs to be repeated is that "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches," and the lust for other things, will choke out the life of God in us (Matthew 13:22). We are never free from the recurring waves of this invasion. If the frontline of attack is not about clothes and food, it may be about money or the lack of money; or friends or lack of friends; or the line may be drawn over difficult circumstances. It is one steady invasion, and these things will come in like a flood, unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the banner against it.
"I say to you, do not worry about your life . . . ." Our Lord says to be careful only about one thing-our relationship to Him. But our common sense shouts loudly and says, "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, and I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing yourself to think that He says this while not understanding your circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things to the point where they become the primary concern of our life. Whenever there are competing concerns in your life, be sure you always put your relationship to God first.
"Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matthew 6:34). How much trouble has begun to threaten you today? What kind of mean little demons have been looking into your life and saying, "What are your plans for next month- or next summer?" Jesus tells us not to worry about any of these things. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father (Matthew 6:30).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 28, 2009
Murphy's Laws
READ: Exodus 20:1-17
You shall have no other gods before Me. -Exodus 20:3
Murphy's Laws are observations about life that seem to have the weight of experience behind them. You've probably heard this one: "If anything can go wrong, it will." Here's another one: "You can't do just one thing; everything has its consequences."
My own experience seems to confirm many of Murphy's Laws, but it's that second one that I would hang on the wall as a motto. Wrong choices have their consequences. For example, if we choose to live for pleasure, that will affect our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (Ex. 20:4-5). If we walk away from God, we may discover that our children have taken that trip with us. Later, even if we return to Him, they may not.
But there is also good news. Devotion to the Lord has its consequences too. Men and women who live in faith before God can have a strong influence on their children and their children's children. If they live a long life, they can witness the effect their faith has had on several generations. What satisfaction it brings to older people to see their posterity living for Christ!
Murphy and the Bible agree on this point: "Everything has its consequences." - Haddon W. Robinson
If you sow seeds of wickedness,
Sin's harvest you will reap;
But scattered seeds of righteousness
Yield blessings you can keep. -Sper
People who follow Christ lead others in the right direction.
Forgiving Ourselves
By Os Hillman
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
The murderer was condemned to life in prison. Then one day something amazing happened. The guard came and opened the jail cell. "You are free to go. Someone else is taking your place," said the guard. "How can this be? I am still guilty!" said the prisoner. "Your debt has been paid. You are free to leave," said the guard once more. The prisoner decided not to leave. "I cannot allow another to pay my debt," said the prisoner. Because of his pride he chose to remain in bondage.
Imagine the guilt Peter must have felt when he betrayed the Son of God three times by saying he never knew him. Imagine what he must have felt the moment he reunited with Him after the resurrection.
The hardest person to forgive sometimes is ourselves. It is especially hard for high achievers to forgive themselves. We think we are above such failure. However, the Bible says we all sin and it is impossible to remedy that sin by ourselves.
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives?" (1 John 1:8,10). The question is not whether we will sin, the question is what we will do when we do sin.
There is only one thing for us to do. Go to the cross. Jesus paid for that sin by dying on the cross. Picture yourself writing your sin on a white piece of paper, then pinning it to the cross. Now, leave it there. The cross is for sinners. When Jesus looks at you, He no longer sees your sin. He cannot see the sin because He can only see the cross.
When you come to Jesus with your sin, there is nothing more you can do besides confessing and renouncing your sin. Sometimes it may require restitution with others. However, once you confess your sin and ask forgiveness, it is no longer on the ledger of debts.
Why not choose to walk free. The cell has been opened.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Details and Online Registration
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it." Proverbs 22:6 NLT
Thoughts for Today
School age children should be given definite chores or responsibilities in your home. Chores appropriate for this age would be carrying out the garbage, making their bed, clearing the table.
You might consider offering payment for extra chores. It is a good way to teach them the value of work. Their basic duties should not be compensated. They need to learn that they are expected to help simply because they are a part of the family.
Consider this...
At 5-6 years, you might want to start a small weekly allowance (perhaps $1-$2) if you have not done so already. Encourage them to save one portion, to tithe one portion, and allow them to choose how they use the remainder. Teach and encourage generosity.
By age 9 or 10, it is helpful to let your children open their own bank account, in their name. A way to encourage saving is to offer each month to match the money they have deposited. They can learn to save for specific items, or special occasions, as well as learning delayed gratification. A child's own bank account can be a source of great pride and can go a long way in promoting responsibility.
Prayer
Father, help my children to develop a sense of responsibility. Give me wisdom and patience in teaching them. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Parenting: Parenting Skills at Each Stage of Growth by N. Elizabeth Holland, M.D. This study addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
If you are the parent, grandparent or teacher of children about 8-11 years old, we encourage you to consider our new curriculum for children...
Insight Group: Empowering Kids for Life. Join J.C.(Jesus Cares) bulldog as he teaches children how to "live free" by setting appropriate boundaries. Using the eight objectives from 2 Peter 1:3-11, the Empowering Kids for Life workbook and facilitator's guide will give children the tools they need to build their own "tower of power" to avoid life-controlling problems.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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How Could Someone So Persecute Jesus!
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? -Acts 26:14
Are you determined to have your own way in living for God? We will never be free from this trap until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of "the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3:11). Stubbornness and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set on our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our own rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Him. Whenever we rely on self-respect, we systematically disturb and grieve His Spirit. And when we finally understand that it is Jesus we have been persecuting all this time, it is the most crushing revelation ever.
Is the Word of God tremendously penetrating and sharp in me as I hand it on to you, or does my life betray the things I profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of Satan, the very spirit that persecutes Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of only one thing- a perfect oneness with the Father. And He tells us, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29 ). All I do should be based on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that others may use me, go around me, or completely ignore me, but if I will submit to it for His sake, I will prevent Jesus Christ from being persecuted.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 29, 2009
The Aging Process
READ: Psalm 71
Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails. -Psalm 71:9
I was having breakfast with a friend who had recently celebrated his 60th birthday. We discussed the "trauma" of the number 6 being the first digit in his age and all that the age of 60 implies (retirement, social security, etc.). We also pondered the fact that he felt so much younger than such a "large" number would seem to indicate.
Then the conversation turned to the lessons, joys, and blessings he'd found in living those 60 years, and he said, "You know, it isn't really that bad. In fact, it's pretty exciting." The lessons of the past had brought a change in how he viewed the present.
Such is the aging process. We learn from our past in order to live in our present-a lesson reflected on by the psalmist: "For You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my youth" (Ps. 71:5). He continued, "By You I have been upheld from birth; You are He who took me out of my mother's womb. My praise shall be continually of You" (v.6). As the psalmist looked back, he clearly saw the faithfulness of God. With confidence in that faithfulness, he could face the future and its uncertainties-and so can we.
May we say with the psalmist, "I will praise You-and Your faithfulness, O my God!" (v.22). - Bill Crowder
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father!
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be. -Chisholm
© Renewal 1951 Hope Publishing Company.
As the years add up, God's faithfulness keeps multiplying.
Why Work?
By Os Hillman
"For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread." (2 Thess. 3:10-13 NKJV)
Jesus probably spent most of His life working in His family's carpentry business. We know almost nothing of His youth from adolescence until He began His public ministry at about age 30. But we know that His father was a carpenter (Matt. 13:55) and that Jesus also practiced the trade (Mark 6:3). Carpenters worked with wood, metal, and stone to produce furniture and farm implements, and constructed houses and public buildings.
Jesus may have continued His occupation even after He began to teach and travel. Rabbis (or teachers) of the day commonly spent anywhere from one-third to one-half of their time working (most likely with their hands) to provide for themselves. And while Jesus' opponents, many of them rabbis, attacked Him on numerous grounds, they never accused Him of laziness or freeloading. Indeed, He was known to them as a carpenter.[1]
That reputation passed on to the early church. Paul tells the Thessalonians that anyone who has an ability to work should do so. It is God's mandate for every believer and is the place where we can best express the nature of God in everyday life.
Our work allows us to demonstrate integrity. Our work allows us to provide for our families and others in need. Our work allows us to often connect with non-believers. Our work allows us to live out His calling upon our lives. Our work allows us to experience His power in the midst of daily challenges. Our work can be a place of worship when we do it with a motive to glorify Him.
Today, view your work the way God views your work. It is your primary call.
[1] Adapted from Word in life study Bible article, http://www.ivmdl.org/wil.cfm?study=43
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Details and Online Registration
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own." 1 Corinthians 6:29 CEV
Thoughts for Today
Begin to teach your school age children about drugs and alcohol. It is very common today for children in grade school to be offered drugs, especially tobacco, alcohol or marijuana. This is true, unfortunately, even in many Christian schools.
Teach them that drug use of any type is not acceptable, and is, in addition, against the law. Teach them to say NO! Ask them how they would handle a situation where drugs were offered. Listen to them and avoid condemnation, but be sure they understand the boundaries you have set and why you have set them.
Consider this...
Teach your children that using anything that harms their body is not pleasing to God. As believers, our bodies are his temple and we should keep ourselves clean and pure for him.
Prayer
Father, help my children understand that their bodies are your dwelling place. Help me teach them the dangers of drugs and prepare them to say NO. Help them make right choices. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Parenting: Parenting Skills at Each Stage of Growth by N. Elizabeth Holland, M.D. This study addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
If you are the parent, grandparent or teacher of children about 8-11 years old, we encourage you to consider our new curriculum for children...
Insight Group: Empowering Kids for Life. Join J.C.(Jesus Cares) bulldog as he teaches children how to "live free" by setting appropriate boundaries. Using the eight objectives from 2 Peter 1:3-11, the Empowering Kids for Life workbook and facilitator's guide will give children the tools they need to build their own "tower of power" to avoid life-controlling problems.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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How Could Someone Be So Ignorant!
Who are You, Lord? -Acts 26:15
"The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand . . ." (Isaiah 8:11). There is no escape when our Lord speaks. He always comes using His authority and taking hold of our understanding. Has the voice of God come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you. God speaks in the language you know best- not through your ears, but through your circumstances.
God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. We say, "I know that this is what I should do"-and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We show our ignorance of Him in the very way we decide to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, and hurt Him by our defense of Him. We push His claims in the spirit of the devil; our words sound all right, but the spirit is that of an enemy. "He . . . rebuked them, and said, 'You do not know what manner of spirit you are of' " (Luke 9:55). The spirit of our Lord in His followers is described in 1 Corinthians 13 .
Have I been persecuting Jesus by an eager determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty, yet have hurt Him in the process, I can be sure that this was not my duty. My way will not be to foster a meek and quiet spirit, only the spirit of self-satisfaction. We presume that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord- "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . ." (Psalm 40:8).
God bless
Daily Devotionals January 30, 2009
Planting Time
READ: Galatians 6:6-10
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. -Galatians 6:7
Somewhere in the world right now a farmer is dropping seeds into the ground. Soon those seeds will begin to change the place where they were planted. The carefully prepared soil that appears barren today will become a field ready for harvest.
In the same way, New Year's resolutions can be seeds to alter the landscape of life for others and ourselves. This prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is a powerful model of this longing to bring positive change in a hurting world:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
A farmer who sows wheat is never surprised when wheat grows from the ground where it was planted. That's the universal law of sowing and reaping. Paul used it to illustrate a corresponding spiritual principle: "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Gal. 6:7). Our sinful nature says, "Satisfy yourself," while the Spirit urges us to please God (v.8).
Today is planting time. God has promised: "In due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart" (v.9). - David C. McCasland
Let's sow good deeds though life be grim
And leave the harvest time with Him;
Let's give and serve as to the Lord
And look to Him for our reward. -Jarvis
Sow today what you want to reap tomorrow.
Greater Works Shall You Do
By Os Hillman
"Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know." (Acts 2:22)
Jesus did all of His miracles as a man, not as God. Let that sink in. This is a profound truth that has major implications for you and me. It changes everything.
Pastor Bill Johnson writes: "Jesus could not heal the sick. Neither could He deliver the tormented from demons or raise the dead. To believe otherwise is to ignore what Jesus said about Himself, and more importantly, to miss the purpose of His self-imposed restriction to live as a man.
Jesus said of Himself: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does (John 5:19-20)." In the Greek language the word 'nothing' has a unique meaning -- it means NOTHING. Just like it does in English! He had NO supernatural capabilities whatsoever!
While He is 100 percent God, He chose to live with the same limitations that man would face once He was redeemed. He made that point over and over again. Jesus became the model for all who would embrace the invitation to invade the impossible in His name. He performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God... not as God.
If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle. Recapturing this simple truth changes everything.. and makes possible a full restoration of the ministry of Jesus in His Church. "[1]
Jesus said you and I will do even greater works than He did. "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12-13)
The question for each of us is, "How dependent and obedient to the Holy Spirit are we so we can experience this same power?"
[1]Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth, Destiny Image, p. 29, Shippensburg, PA 02003
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Details and Online Registration
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 AMP
Thoughts for Today
Although school is now an integral part in the teaching of your children, you remain their ultimate authority. Don't neglect their training during these years. God has appointed you as their parent, their authority, and you must continue to make choices and decisions that will affect their well being.
Now you may begin to allow them more freedom in some choices. Even when they make bad ones, they will gain valuable insights and a deeper understanding of consequences.
Consider this...
Spiritual teaching and training are vital. Continue regular church attendance. Take them, don't send them. Allow them to discuss what they have learned in Sunday school. Have regular family prayer time, letting them participate. Encourage them to pray before bedtime and as they begin each day. You are instilling habits that will remain with them throughout their lives.
Prayer
Father, help me to lovingly train up my children in the way they should go. And may my life be a godly example to them. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Parenting: Parenting Skills at Each Stage of Growth by N. Elizabeth Holland, M.D. This study addresses parenting skills from the time of conception until the child has reached adulthood. It suggests methods for raising healthy, godly children in an increasingly secular society. Specific emphasis is placed on communication and teaching skills, discipline, protection and sexual issues at each age. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
If you are the parent, grandparent or teacher of children about 8-11 years old, we encourage you to consider our new curriculum for children...
Insight Group: Empowering Kids for Life. Join J.C.(Jesus Cares) bulldog as he teaches children how to "live free" by setting appropriate boundaries. Using the eight objectives from 2 Peter 1:3-11, the Empowering Kids for Life workbook and facilitator's guide will give children the tools they need to build their own "tower of power" to avoid life-controlling problems.
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Dilemma of Obedience
Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision -1 Samuel 3:15
God never speaks to us in dramatic ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand. Then we say, "I wonder if that is God's voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spoke to him "with a strong hand," that is, by the pressure of his circumstances (Isaiah 8:11). Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?
Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord," and life will become a romance (1 Samuel 3:9). Every time circumstances press in on you, say, "Speak, Lord," and make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline- it is meant to bring me to the point of saying, "Speak, Lord." Think back to a time when God spoke to you. Do you remember what He said? Was it Luke 11:13 , or was it 1 Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ears become more sensitive, and like Jesus, we will hear God all the time.
Should I tell my "Eli" what God has shown to me? This is where the dilemma of obedience hits us. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences and thinking, "I must shield 'Eli,' " who represents the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli- he had to decide that for himself. God's message to you may hurt your "Eli," buttrying to prevent suffering in another's life will prove to be an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own risk that you prevent someone's right hand being cut off or right eye being plucked out (see Matthew 5:29-30 ).
Never ask another person's advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. ". . . I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood . . ." (Galatians 1:16 ).
God Bless
Daily Devotionals January 31, 2009
A Breach In The Wall
READ: Nehemiah 4:7-18
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father. -1 John 2:16
The 4,000-mile-long Great Wall of China was built to keep out invaders from the north. The first wall was constructed by Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, who lived between 259 and 210 bc. But in ad 1644 the Manchus broke through the Great Wall and overran China. They did this by bribing a general of the Ming dynasty to open the gates.
During the reconstruction of ancient Jerusalem, Nehemiah understood the acute danger posed by those who opposed the rebuilding of the city's ruined walls. So he commanded constant vigilance. Half of the workers were to stand watch while half rebuilt the walls (Neh. 4:13-18).
As Christians, we must be vigilant that nothing breaches our spiritual defenses. Even the most mature believer can never afford to let down his guard.
The apostle John warns us of enemies from three quarters. He identifies them as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). These enemies lure us away from God and His Word and leave a gap for the enemy to sneak in.
Let's be alert to what entices us today. A lapse opens the door to sin, which in turn may develop into a habit that overwhelms us. Don't permit a breach in the wall. - C. P. Hia
It may not be some heinous deed
That chills our hearts and chokes the seed;
It's often just a trifling toy
That grabs our eye and steals our joy. -Gustafson
The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. -1 John 2:17
Creating a Memory
By Os Hillman
"The greatest among you will be your servant" (Matt 23:11).
Ken Blanchard, the author of the One-Minute Manager, once shared a story about what can happen when individuals in a company model servant leadership, no matter where they are on the totem pole.
A business consultant was training more than 3000 employees of a mid-western grocery chain to approach their jobs with a goal of creating a memory for their customers. She stated that "this is what will distinguish your store from all others."
Johnny was a 19-year-old bag boy that had down-syndrome. His first response to the consultant's suggestion was "I'm just a 'bag boy.'" Nevertheless, he went home and shared what the consultant said with his mother. They began to ponder the consultant's words about how he could create a memory for his customers. Johnny had a habit of collecting inspirational thoughts that he would often read. He decided he would begin printing these sayings and place one in each of the bags of his customers. When customers came through the line he would place the sayings in their bag and say, "I've included some of my favorite sayings in your bag in hopes it will encourage you today. Thanks for shopping with us."
After just a few weeks, an amazing thing began to happen. One day the store manager noticed that all the customers were lined up at only one cashier station when there were other stations open. He began to panic, thinking the other stations were broken. After further investigation he found this was not the case. Actually, customers wanted to come through Johnny's line in order to get his saying of the day.
One woman came up to the manager and said, "I used to come to the store only once a week, but now I come everyday!" Johnny's example spread to other departments in the store. The florist began giving a flower to each florist customer. The meat department put Snoopy stickers on each meat order with a special greeting. This one act by a bag boy changed the entire climate of the store.*
How can you create a memory for someone in your workplace today? Jesus was all about creating memories.
*Ken Blanchard, presentation made at 2004 His Presence in the Workplace conference, San Antonio, TX, 2005
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Church In The Workplace Conference: Reclaim the 7 Mountains of Culture
February 6-8, 2009 Atlanta, GA
"Shout! For the Lord has given you the city" (Joshua 6:16b). This is the theme of our 2009 International Church in the Workplace Conference on the theme of Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture. If you are called to impact culture through your marketplace calling you must understand the spiritual and the physical dimension of your assignment. This year's conference will focus on the process that God uses in the life of the leader to impact culture. You can become a change agent!
Gaining Godly Wisdom
When we have godly wisdom, we will see things from an eternal perspective-not from a worldly, temporal perspective. And when we see things from an eternal perspective, we are going to accept the challenges and unexpected turns of life. We will be able to face obstacles, turning them from hindrances into stepping stones.
In Ecclesiastes 7 we read, "Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun. Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor" (Ecclesiastes 7:11-12).
Solomon is saying that when we face challenging situations in life, wisdom will be far more precious than a very rich inheritance. Godly wisdom keeps its value; godly wisdom will never be lost. The person who has godly wisdom will be able to use wealth wisely. The person who has godly wisdom will be able to bless others-but a foolish person with a billion dollars can blow it in a few days.
Godly wisdom gives us perspective, vision, and a purpose for living. If we have godly wisdom, then we will have balance in life. When we have godly wisdom, we are going to walk by faith-both on the familiar roads of life and the unfamiliar ones. When we face difficult circumstances, most of us forget all of the blessings that God has given us-and we focus on our problems. But when we begin to think of all the blessings that God has given us, we will be overwhelmed with thanksgiving.
Solomon says that wisdom will give us power for living. "Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city" (Ecclesiastes 7:19). We are going to face temptation, manipulation, seduction and deception-from Satan as well as from others. We can expect to face all of that in life. But godly wisdom will give us power to discern Satan's traps. It will give us power to overcome temptations and power to defeat the devil. It will give us power to avoid the entrapments of this world. And it will give us power to walk in His righteousness alone.
Solomon determines that wisdom is valuable, something worth seeking: "All this I tested by wisdom and I said, 'I am determined to be wise'-but this was beyond me. Whatever wisdom may be, it is far off and most profound-who can discover it?" (Ecclesiastes 7:23-24).
How do we get godly wisdom? We receive it when the Holy Spirit of God comes to indwell in us. (The Holy Spirit has many names, and the Spirit of Wisdom is foremost among them.) And after that, we must continually, on a daily basis, be filled with the Spirit of God. It is important to study Scripture, to pray, and to seek the counsel and teaching of godly leaders.
It begins with declaring Jesus as the Lord of your life and the Savior of your soul-because the Spirit of Wisdom cannot come and dwell in you until Jesus becomes the Lord of your life. Until you begin to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ, you will not understand and you will not experience daily living with the Spirit of Wisdom. If you have never declared Jesus to be the Savior of your soul, if you never have submitted to Him as the Lord of your life, you can do that today.
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In a world gone mad with relativism and political correctness... What can we do to ignite spiritual renewal in our lives and in our churches? Read the passion Michael Youssef has for this subject in our free resource-"We Preach Christ." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
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Do You See Your Calling?
. . . separated to the gospel of God. . . -Romans 1:1
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell- it is redemption. The need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.
Paul did not say that he separated himself, but "when it pleased God, who separated me . . ." (Galatians 1:15). Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. "Don't ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes." To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose- to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 1, 2009
God Is At Work
It is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. -Philippians 2:13
We always crave change in a new year. This is why on January 1 we start diets, exercise programs, and new hobbies. Of course, a month later we're usually back to our old bad habits. Maybe that's because we crave too big a change and do not have enough power and will to make the changes.
I wonder how many Jesus-followers have made commitments to change and grow spiritually but are experiencing frustration because they don't have the will and power to carry out those steps.
Paul addresses this issue in his letter to the Philippians. As he encouraged them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (2:12), Paul said they would not be on their own. God Himself would energize them to grow and carry out His tasks. The first area affected would be their desires. God was at work in them, giving them the desire to change and grow. He was also working to give them the power to make the actual changes (v.13).
God has not left us alone in our struggles to attain spiritual growth. He helps us want to obey Him, and then He gives us the power to do what He wants. Ask Him to help you want to do His will. - Marvin Williams
Every day more like my Savior,
Every day my will resign,
Until at last Christ reigns supremely
In this grateful heart of mine. -Brandt
The power that compels us comes from the Spirit who indwells us.
Manifest vs. Market
By Os Hillman
"Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water" (Num 20:7-8).
The Bible says that Moses had a unique walk with God. God said Moses was the most humble man on earth and He spoke with him face to face (Num 12:3 and Exodus 3:11).
When Moses met God at the burning bush God said, "Moses, I'm going to perform miracles through your staff." And He did. He turned his staff into a snake. He brought plagues upon the nation and even parted the Red Sea with his staff. He even struck the rock with his staff to bring forth water.
But later, God called Moses to operate on a new level. Instead of using his workplace tool (his staff) to perform miracles, God was calling Moses to manifest the miracle through his words. "Speak to the rock Moses!" But Moses, frustrated by the stiff-necked people, struck the rock instead out of anger. Amazingly and in spite of his disobedience, God still allowed Moses to get water out of the rock. God will often work through your anointing, even when you do it in your flesh, just for the sake of others. But beware my friend, it will be at a great cost. Like Moses, you will not enter your promised land and may lose your inheritance.
God is calling us to manifest breakthroughs by operating at times as God did--by speaking to the problem. Be available to the Holy Spirit at times when God calls you to use your authority in your calling to manifest His power in a situation that needs a breakthrough.
Friend, God is calling you to manifest His Kingdom through a higher level of relationship with Him. Are you willing?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Who Can You Trust?
Who Can You Trust?
In Who Can You Trust?, Howard E. Butt, Jr. candidly shares his own real-life experience and expertise to help you recognize and resolve past trust issues that have shattered your faith and your spirit. And he shows you how to let your faith help you build stronger trust in the future for all your most important relationships.
Learn
He Loves to Be with the Ones He Loves
by Max Lucado
Holiday travel. It isn't easy. Then why do we do it? Why cram the trunks and endure the airports? You know the answer. We love to be with the ones we love.
The four-year-old running up the sidewalk into the arms of Grandpa.
The cup of coffee with Mom before the rest of the house awakes.
That moment when, for a moment, everyone is quiet as we hold hands around the table and thank God for family and friends and pumpkin pie.
We love to be with the ones we love.
May I remind you? So does God. He loves to be with the ones he loves. How else do you explain what he did? Between him and us there was a distance-a great span. And he couldn't bear it. He couldn't stand it. So he did something about it.
Before coming to the earth, "Christ himself was like God in every-thing But he gave up his place with God and made himself nothing. He was born to be a man and became like a servant" (Phil. 2:6-7 NCV).
Why? Why did Jesus travel so far?
I was asking myself that question when I spotted the squirrels outside my window. A family of black-tailed squirrels has made its home amid the roots of the tree north of my office. We've been neighbors for three years now. They watch me peck the keyboard. I watch them store their nuts and climb the trunk. We're mutually amused. I could watch them all day. Sometimes I do.
But I've never considered becoming one of them. The squirrel world holds no appeal to me. Who wants to sleep next to a hairy rodent with beady eyes? (No comments from you wives who feel you already do.) Give up the Rocky Mountains, bass fishing, weddings, and laughter for a hole in the ground and a diet of dirty nuts? Count me out.
But count Jesus in. What a world he left. Our classiest mansion would be a tree trunk to him. Earth's finest cuisine would be walnuts on heaven's table. And the idea of becoming a squirrel with claws and tiny teeth and a furry tail? It's nothing compared to God becoming a one-celled embryo and entering the womb of Mary.
But he did. The God of the universe kicked against the wall of a womb, was born into the poverty of a peasant, and spent his first night in the feed trough of a cow. "The Word became flesh and lived among us" (John 1:14 NRSV). The God of the universe left the glory of heaven and moved into the neighborhood. Our neighborhood! Who could have imagined he would do such a thing.
Why? He loves to be with the ones he loves.
From Next Door Savior
Available in Hardback or Paperback
Copyright (W Publishing Group, 2003) Max Lucado
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The Call of God
READ:
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel . . . -1 Corinthians 1:17
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "the gospel," namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification- we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32 ). It is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God. The fact that we can experience redemption illustrates the power of its reality, but that experience is a byproduct and not the goal of redemption. If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden His energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.
The one passion of Paul's life was to proclaim the gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for only one reason- these things kept him unmovable in his devotion to the gospel of God.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 2, 2009
Punxsutawney Phil
READ: 2 Peter 1:16-21
We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed. -2 Peter 1:19
Punxsutawney Phil is a groundhog that comes out of his burrow on Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania, each February 2 to predict the weather. According to legend, if Phil sees his shadow, there will be 6 more weeks of cold weather. If he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early.
This is all humbug and good humor, of course. No one to my knowledge takes Phil's predictions seriously. Furthermore, he's unreliable-more often wrong than right, I'm told.
There is One, however, who is always right and whom we must take seriously. Peter writes of Him, "We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (2 Peter 1:19).
Peter was thinking of that day on the Mount of Transfiguration with James and John when he saw Jesus standing with the two great prophets of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah. In that august company of true prophets the Father pointed to the Son and said: "This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!" (Luke 9:35). Jesus' word is a "prophetic word" that is certain!
There is One who is never wrong and who will never lead us astray: our Lord Jesus. We must hear Him! - David H. Roper
At the name of Jesus bowing,
Falling prostrate at His feet,
King of kings in heaven we'll crown Him
When our journey is complete. -Baxter
In a world full of speculation, only God's Word is certain.
Marketplace Meditations
Deep Things
By Os Hillman
"He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light" (Job 12:22).
One of the great mysteries of the Kingdom is how God uses the darkest times in our lives to reveal greater depths of understanding of His ways. The only way we can receive these deeper things is to be driven to the depths of darkness. It is here that we discover important truths that He plans to use in our lives and the lives of others.
There is a process God uses to draw us into greater levels of intimacy. The first phase involves a depth of soul experience that causes great pain in our lives. We seek God for deliverance from the incredible emotional pain this causes. Our primary motivation for seeking God is to get out of our pain.
During this time, God meets us in the depths of darkness. We discover that He never left us but is in the midst of the darkness. We develop a new relationship with God. Gradually our motivation turns from removal of pain to love and intimacy with God. This is the place our Heavenly Father desires us to be.
During this season God will make spiritual deposits into your life. Others will be making withdrawals in the future from your life as well. You see, God reveals deep things in darkness that will be revealed in the light.
If you find yourself in great distress, know that God will bring your deep shadows into the light. The key to your deliverance is becoming satisfied in God. He becomes your all. He is your life. You will know your deliverance is near when your circumstances simply don't matter to you anymore.
Love the Lord your God with all your soul and see what things He will show you in the deep things of darkness.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Who Can You Trust?
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"... Your life is safe in the care of the LORD your God, secure in his treasure pouch!" 1 Samuel 25:29 NLT
Thoughts for Today
What makes you feel good about yourself?
We too often seek self-worth in the wrong places. Thinness, performance and control do not equal significance and wholeness. We are important because God designed and created us ... because he loved us so much that he sent his only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven and we could live with him forever. We are his treasure and he wants to protect us, to keep us "secure in his treasure pouch." When we don't recognize that God loves us unconditionally, we set ourselves up for rejection, shame, guilt, hopelessness and powerlessness.
An eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia can be brought about by a person's attempt to feel better about herself. This problem affects as many as eleven million women and men in the United States alone. Although sufferers are mostly girls and women, an increasing number of boys and men are affected as well.
Consider this...
If you are struggling with an eating disorder, it is vital that you seek medical help, as well as counseling from a professional. And remember that you are special because God created you and loves you unconditionally. In his eyes you are significant; you are his treasure. Through Jesus you can find safety, security and a sense of belonging.
The Bible promises that nothing can separate you from God's love (Romans 8:38-39). Turn to him today. Thank him for loving you. Thank him for making you a special person. And ask him to help you overcome your eating disorder. You can do all things with his help.
Prayer
Father, it is so difficult for me to see myself as an attractive, cared for, valuable person. Help me begin to understand how special I am to you. Help me to see myself through your eyes. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA, LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together. A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Compelling Force of the Call
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
Beware of refusing to hear the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact of his salvation. That, however, is not the same as the call to preach, but is merely an illustration which can be used in preaching. In this verse, Paul was referring to the stinging pains produced in him by the compelling force of the call to preach the gospel. Never try to apply what Paul said regarding the call to preach to those souls who are being called to God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved, because it is solely God's sovereign work- "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." ( Isaiah 45:22 ). Our Lord never requires the same conditions for discipleship that he requires for salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ. But discipleship has an option with it-"If anyone . . ." ( Luke 14:26 ).
Paul's words have to do with our being made servants of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be "separated to the gospel" means being able to hear the call of God ( Romans 1:1 ). Once someone begins to hear that call, a suffering worthy of the name of Christ is produced. Suddenly, every ambition, every desire of life, and every outlook is completely blotted out and extinguished. Only one thing remains- ". . . separated to the gospel. . . ." Woe be to the soul who tries to head in any other direction once that call has come to him. The Bible Training College exists so that each of you may know whether or not God has a man or woman here who truly cares about proclaiming His gospel and to see if God grips you for this purpose. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 3, 2009
A Refresher Course On God's Majesty
READ: Exodus 33:1-11
You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live. -Exodus 33:20
My book Disappointment With God explores three questions many Christians ask: Is God hidden? Is God silent? Is God unfair? It struck me that those questions did not trouble the Hebrews in the Sinai wilderness. They saw evidence of God every day, heard Him speak, and lived under a contract signed in His own hand. Out of this relationship emerged a great gift from the Jews to the world: monotheism-the belief in one sovereign, holy God.
Today many treat God like a cosmic good buddy. We could use a refresher course from the Old Testament on God's majesty.
Pastor Gordon MacDonald writes, "The most costly sins I have committed came at a time when I briefly suspended my reverence for God. . . . I quietly (and insanely) concluded that God didn't care and most likely wouldn't intervene were I to risk the violation of one of His commandments."
MacDonald says his own love for God has moved away from a sentimental model, which never satisfied him, to something closer to a father/son model. He is learning to reverence, obey, and thank God; to express appropriate sorrow for sin; to pursue a quietness in which he might hear God whisper. He seeks a relationship with God appropriate to the profound difference between the two parties.
As God's children, we may "come boldly to the throne of grace" (Heb. 4:16). But let us ever be mindful of our Father's inestimable majesty. - Philip Yancey
To worship is to recognize the supreme worth of God.
Being Choked by Wealth
Ecclesiastes 5:10
Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income....
Businesspeople are especially susceptible to a trap in their spiritual lives-one to which others may not be so susceptible. That trap is wealth. Scripture tells us that if we are having our basic needs met for food and clothing, we are considered to have riches. Jesus cautioned us against living a lifestyle that required more than our basic necessities. However, it is clear that Jesus was not against wealth, but against a dependence on wealth. Jesus continually taught that a dependence on anything other than God was evil. Whenever Jesus determined that money was an issue for an individual, He addressed it and found that the individual could not let go. This was true for the rich young ruler. When talking about what he must do to inherit the Kingdom, Jesus told him to do the one thing that would be the most difficult-to give away his wealth and follow Him. Jesus was not saying this was what every person must do, only the rich young ruler, because Jesus knew this was his greatest stumbling block. For others of us, it could be something else Jesus would ask us to give up (see Mt. 19:16-30).
In the parable of the sower in which He describes four types of people, Jesus also gave us another example of the problem money creates for any follower of Jesus.
A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop-a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown (Matthew 13:3b-8).
The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful (Matthew 13:22).
Much like the frog in the boiling pot, if we are not careful we gradually begin to acquire and walk the treadmill of material gain. Those around us begin to expect more and more. Soon we begin expanding our lifestyle. Before we know it, we are worrying about how to take care of what we acquire. Our emphasis becomes what we own versus our relationship with Jesus and His Kingdom. One day I woke up and realized I had a cold heart toward God. Apathy toward the things of God became apparent. I was still going through the motions of service toward God, but with no power. We wake up to realize Christ is no longer Lord of our lives, much less of our money. The greater independence money gives us, the less dependence on God we need. Christ talked much about money in the Kingdom because He knew how much of a problem it was. This is why we have so few who are bearing 100, 60, or 30 times what is sown.
Do you have the same hunger for God that you once had? Has financial blessing had an adverse effect on your passion for Jesus Christ? Ask Him today if your heart has grown cold as a result of financial blessing. Ask Him to keep you hungering for more of His presence in your life.
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Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help." Psalm 86:5 NLT
Thoughts for Today
An eating disorder is a perceived external solution to inner turmoil. The focus on body size is an attempt to convert a worry about something inside oneself to something outside. For example, if a person's thoughts of "Am I good enough?" become "Am I thin enough?" she has created an external and measurable scale of her self-worth. When we focus on weight as the source of discomfort, our real problems are not resolved. We are relying on an external substance to alleviate internal distress.
The truth is, nothing we do on our own will give us a lasting peace. Nothing we do will make us perfect ... But you know what? That's ok because God loves us anyhow. No matter what we have or haven't done . No matter how smart or pretty or thin we are. We are his children and he loves us unconditionally.
Consider this...
What do we need to do? We need to ask him for forgiveness. We need to rely on him instead of ourselves. We need to let him love us and take care of us.
His love is perfect. His love is unconditional. His love lasts forever. And he loves you.
Prayer
Father, help me remember that even though I'm not perfect, because of Jesus I am forgiven. Help me to stop trying to "fix" myself and instead rely on you and your strength and your love. Thank you for your unfailing love. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
by Martha Homme, MA, LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together. A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Becoming the "Filth of the World"
We have been made as the filth of the world . . . -1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or "filth of the world." "Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration-being "separated to the gospel of God . . ." ( Romans 1:1 ).
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you . . ." (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, "I won't submit; I won't bow or bend." And you don't have to- you can be saved by the "skin of your teeth" if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is "separated to the gospel . . . ." Or you can say, "I don't care if I am treated like 'the filth of the world' as long as the gospel is proclaimed." A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but "to reveal His Son in me. . ." ( Galatians 1:16 ).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 4, 2009
The Great Storyteller
READ: Luke 15:11-24
Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them. -Matthew 13:34
In his book Teacher Man, Pulitzer Prize-winner Frank McCourt reflects on his 30 years as a teacher in New York City high schools. He used a variety of techniques in his English and creative writing classes, but one that seemed to surface again and again was the power of a compelling story to capture attention and encourage learning.
This method of instruction was used by the greatest Teacher of all-the Lord Jesus Christ. The scholarly religious leader Nicodemus said to Jesus, "We know that You are a teacher come from God" (John 3:2). Yet when Jesus addressed the crowds that followed Him, He didn't recite great truths of the Talmud. Rather, He spoke with the homespun style of a storyteller.
The parables of Jesus endure because they showcase matters of the heart. Through the story of the Pharisee and tax collector (Luke 18), we learn about God's grace and forgiveness. And the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15) showcases God's love for repentant sinners.
The inspired parables of Jesus teach us about Him and the life He wants us to lead. We too can use our faith-stories to point others to the ultimate Storyteller and Teacher, whose own life is the greatest story ever told. - Dennis Fisher
Take control of my words today,
May they tell of Your great love;
And may the story of Your grace
Turn some heart to You above. -Sees
A good way to learn God's truth is to teach it to others.
How God Uses Pain
By Os Hillman
"I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things" (Isa 45:7).
God will use pain in order to create a love relationship with His creation. This statement may challenge your theology. However, consider that God allowed Jesus to experience incredible pain in order to create an opportunity to have a relationship with His creation. Consider how Jesus created a relationship with Paul. He blinded him and used a crisis in his life in order to bring him into a relationship with him and use him for God's purposes. Consider how God recruited Jonah for the mission He had for him.
This is not God's first choice for His creation. Romans 2:4 reveals that God's preference is to show mercy and kindness: "Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" The problem is there are few people who respond to the goodness of God. God loves people more than He loves their comfort. He invests a great deal into mankind. He desires relationship with us and will go to great lengths to create such a relationship in order for us to receive the rewards and inheritance He has for us.
I have observed this process in the scriptures in working with people through years of ministry. I have noticed three distinct stages. First, we live based on convenience. Our obedience is largely based on circumstances in our lives. We choose to obey based on the circumstances.
The second stage is the crisis stage. God allows a crisis to come into our lives. We are motivated to obey God in order to get out of the pain of our situation. Many times God allows us to stay in this condition in order to demonstrate His love and faithfulness during our pain. Gradually, we discover something new about God and often have a personal encounter with Him that changes us. Our very nature is affected by this God-encounter.
This begins to move us into a third phase that is a relationship that is motivated now by love and devotion instead of pain. This is where God desires us to be. Another way of saying this is we are no longer seeking His hand. We are seeking Him. We want to know God personally.
Obedience will not last when the motivation is only the removal of our pain. Obedience only lasts when the motivation is loving devotion. Where are you in your obedience and what is the primary motivation? If it isn't love, why not tell the Lord you love Him today and want to know Him for who He is and not for what He can do for you.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Who Can You Trust?
Who Can You Trust?
In Who Can You Trust?, Howard E. Butt, Jr. candidly shares his own real-life experience and expertise to help you recognize and resolve past trust issues that have shattered your faith and your spirit. And he shows you how to let your faith help you build stronger trust in the future for all your most important relationships.
Learn
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!" Proverbs 3:5-8 MSG
Thoughts for Today
Eating is a normal life function that becomes a disorder when the primary need it satisfies is psychological, not physical. An eating disorder is an attempt to use control to solve unseen emotional difficulties that in fact have little to do with either food or weight.
The chaotic eating involved in disorders like anorexia and bulimia does not solve any problems, but it does create new ones. Physical and psychological complications can be severe and sometimes even lead to death. Medical help is critical to restoring physical well-being. Psychological, emotional and spiritual help are essential to restoration of God's plan for each of his creation.
God has planned for each of us to enjoy self-worth, security and a sense of belonging-things we can only experience as we learn to trust him. Life brings challenges, but God does not intend for us to have to face those challenges alone.
Consider this...
No matter what your circumstances ... No matter what you have done or what you are feeling inside ... God loves you and is waiting for you to trust him-and to be willing to do things his way. You'll soon learn that his way is always the best way.
Prayer
Lord, I'm beginning to realize that I have been trying to exercise control in my life with my eating habits. Help me to give up that need for control to you. Help me to trust you and do things your way. My way isn't working. I believe yours will. In Jesus' name ..
These thoughts were drawn from...
by Martha Homme, MA, LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together. A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
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The Compelling Majesty of His Power
The love of Christ compels us . . . -2 Corinthians 5:14
Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by "the love of Christ." Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. "The love of Christ compels us . . . ." When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person's life.
When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you "receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8 ). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . . ." Not witnesses to what Jesus can do- that is basic and understood- but "witnesses to Me . . . ." We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it's the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane-he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for- to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of "the love of Christ." This total surrender to "the love of Christ" is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God's holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 5, 2009
The Search For Peace
READ: Philippians 4:4-12
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. -Philippians 4:7
At the height of their popularity, creativity, and wealth, the Beatles produced a controversial project called "The White Album." It signaled the breakup of the band by featuring pieces that were primarily individual in nature instead of collaborative.
It also revealed a growing disenchantment with all that their fame had produced. In his song "I'm So Tired," John Lennon expressed the emptiness of his "successful" and wealthy life with these profound words: "I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind." All that he had, all that he had accomplished, and all that he had become could not meet this simple, yet deep, personal need.
The world we live in cannot offer peace. It offers only poor options. Pleasure, power, and possessions are no substitute for peace of heart and mind.
Paul reminded the believers at Philippi, "The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:7). This is the peace God brings to those who have been reconciled to God by faith in His Son Jesus (Eph. 2:14-16). It is a peace we are to share with a world that is desperate for it.
Peace-real peace-is found only in a relationship with Jesus. Have you received His peace? - Bill Crowder
Finding Real Peace
Accept the reconciliation God offers by asking Him
to forgive you. Believe that His Son Jesus died on the
cross for your sins and was raised from the dead.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. -Jesus
Strange Instructions
By Os Hillman
"And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands" (2 John 6).
A distinguished Indian evangelist named Sadhu Chellappa was on a mission trip to a village north of Madras, when in the middle of the night he suddenly sensed God speaking to him: "Leave this house quickly and run away!"
Not exactly a convenient thing to do. But Chellappa was accustomed to accepting even strange instructions from the Lord without debate, so he dressed quickly and ran into the darkness.
After a while, he was in open country. As he passed beneath a large tree, he felt God tell him, "Stay here and start to preach!" Now, even for an experienced evangelist, this was puzzling--because there was no one to be seen. Why did God want him to preach to an empty field in the middle of the night? But he stopped under the tree and began to preach the gospel.
Finally, he reached the point at which he called on his unseen listeners to give their lives to Jesus. He was surprised to hear a voice from the top of the tree and see a man climb down, crying. The man tearfully gave his life to Jesus. When Chellappa asked why he was in a tree out in the middle of nowhere, the man admitted, "I came out here to hang myself."
How is your obedience quotient? God calls us to be obedient to that small voice inside that can direct us to sometimes do strange things. Jesus was obedient in ALL things. "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Rom 5:19). God can do exceedingly great things through one man or woman who is willing to be obedient to God's voice. Ask for His grace today to be obedient to His voice.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Who Can You Trust?
Who Can You Trust?
In Who Can You Trust?, Howard E. Butt, Jr. candidly shares his own real-life experience and expertise to help you recognize and resolve past trust issues that have shattered your faith and your spirit. And he shows you how to let your faith help you build stronger trust in the future for all your most important relationships.
Learn
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 NIV
Thoughts for Today
"I have to be perfect." "I must have everyone's love and approval." "I'll be a social outcast unless I lose weight."
Irrational beliefs like these can lead to unhappiness, depression and eating disordered behaviors. These misguided beliefs often come from basing truth on our own thoughts, feelings, experiences and expertise ... or on what other people say and think.
There is only one place we can be sure to find truth: in the Bible. Jesus said that he is the truth. We can never know the truth of our worth, our circumstances, our wants and needs, our rights and responsibilities, or our purpose unless we first hear truth from Jesus, the author of truth. "Jesus told the people who had faith in him, 'If you keep on obeying what I have said, you truly are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" John 8:31-32 CEV
Consider this...
Have you accepted Jesus as truth? Are you looking to him for truth? You can find the truth by reading the Bible. By talking to God. By inviting Jesus into your life.
What is the truth about you? The Bible says that you were designed by God ... you are his treasure ... you are loved unconditionally by him ... Jesus died for your sins and you can be forgiven, no matter what you have done. God has a good plan and a special purpose for your life. And that is real truth.
Prayer
Father, please forgive me for looking everywhere except to you to find the truth about me and my life. Help me to stop basing my beliefs on my emotions and on what other people think about me. Teach me to look to you and to learn the real truth in the Bible. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
by Martha Homme, MA, LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together. A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)
If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all -Philippians 2:17
Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer- to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, "I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don't want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, 'Well done.' "
It is one thing to follow God's way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a "doormat" under other people's feet. God's purpose may be to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased . . ." ( Philippians 4:12 ). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket-to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted- not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 6, 2009
Rise Up!
READ: John 20:1-8,19-20
You, being dead in your trespasses, . . . He has made alive together with Him. -Colossians 2:13
On February 6, 1958, a chartered plane carrying most of the members of the English football (soccer) club Manchester United crashed on takeoff from Munich, Germany. With so many of their star players lost, some despaired over prospects for the club's survival. Yet today it is one of the best-known teams in the world. Fittingly, the man who rebuilt the team, Matt Busby, survived the crash himself.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus' arrest and subsequent crucifixion caused many of His followers to despair. The disciples themselves had lost hope. But their despondency evaporated on that first Easter morning when they found that the stone sealing the tomb had been moved aside (John 20:1). Jesus had risen!
Jesus soon appeared to Mary Magdalene (vv.11-16) and then to His disciples, who had gathered behind locked doors (v.19). His visit brought a remarkable change in them. As one version renders it, they were "overjoyed" (v.20 NIV).
Perhaps your world has crashed around you. It may be a deeply personal loss, a tragedy in your family, or some other great trial. Jesus' resurrection proved that He is greater than the greatest obstacles. He can rebuild your life-as He did with His disciples-starting today. - C. P. Hia
He rose! And with Him hope arose, and life and light.
Men said, "Not Christ, but death, died yesternight."
And joy and truth and all things virtuous
Rose when He rose. -Anon.
God can turn any difficulty into an opportunity.
Jesus Could Not Heal the Sick
By Os Hillman
"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know" (Acts 2:22).
In his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, Pastor Bill Johnson makes an insightful observation about Jesus.
"He could not heal the sick. Neither could He deliver the tormented from demons or raise the dead. To believe otherwise is to ignore what he said about Himself, and more importantly, to miss the purpose of His self-imposed restriction to live as a man."
Jesus Christ said of Himself, "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19). In the Greek language that word nothing has a unique meaning - it means NOTHING, just like it does in English! He had NO supernatural capabilities whatsoever! While he is 100 percent God, He chose to live with the same limitations that man would face once He was redeemed. He made that point over and over again. Jesus became the model for all who would embrace the invitation to invade the impossible in His name. He performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God - not as God. If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if he did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle. Recapturing this simple truth changes everything - and makes possible a full restoration of the ministry of Jesus in His Church.
What were the distinctions of His humanity?
1. He had no sin to separate Him from the Father.
2. He was completely dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him.
What are the distinctions of our humanity?
We are sinners cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Through his sacrifice he has successfully dealt with the power and effect of sin for all who believe. Now nothing separates us from the Father. There remains only one unsettled issue - how dependent on the Holy Spirit are we willing to live?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Who Can You Trust?
Who Can You Trust?
In Who Can You Trust?, Howard E. Butt, Jr. candidly shares his own real-life experience and expertise to help you recognize and resolve past trust issues that have shattered your faith and your spirit. And he shows you how to let your faith help you build stronger trust in the future for all your most important relationships.
Learn
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Overcoming an eating disorder is not ever simply a matter of self-control. Stronger willpower or healthier eating habits won't make the problem disappear. An eating disorder is a perceived external solution to inner turmoil. Sufferers are trying to feel better about themselves, but they are walking a destructive path.
People on this path need help. Eating disorders lead to all sorts of physical and psychological consequences. It is important to seek medical attention and counseling.
Consider this...
Spiritual healing is also vital. If you are suffering from an eating disorder, consider turning to Jesus for help. Search the Bible for the truth about how treasured you are. God made you and designed you for a special purpose. He loves you unconditionally, and the Bible promises that absolutely nothing can separate you from his love. In Jesus you can find forgiveness, hope and healing.
Try to find a Christian support group where you can talk honestly about your feelings and encourage others. A place of accountability.
Above all, remember that with Christ, all things are possible. Reach out to him today. He won't ever let you down.
Prayer
Father, sometimes I feel so alone. Help me remember that you are always with me. Help me remember that all things are possible with your help and your strength. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
by Martha Homme, MA, LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together. A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering . . . -2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don't deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
"Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar" ( Psalm 118:27 ). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents-burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose-the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don't eliminate it, God does. You "bind the sacrifice . . . to the horns of the altar" and see to it that you don't wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
GOD BLESS
Today's Verse For Saturday, February 7
Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. Ecclesiastes 11:4-6 NIV
February 7, 2009
Turkish Delight
READ: John 21:15-19
Your law is my delight. —Psalm 119:174
In C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch needed to know only one thing about Edmund to get him to betray his siblings. By asking a few simple questions, the witch learned that Edmund's weakness was his love for a candy called Turkish Delight. The piece she gave to Edmund was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted. Soon Edmund could think only about "trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted."
Each of us has a vulnerability like Edmund's that Satan is eager to exploit. It may be something addictive like drugs or alcohol, or it may be something seemingly harmless and perhaps even good like food, friendship, or work.
After His resurrection, Jesus asked Peter this personal and probing question: "Do you love Me more than these?" (John 21:15). Many have speculated as to what Jesus meant by the word "these," but it's probably better that we don't know. It allows each of us to personalize the question and ask ourselves, "What do I love more than Jesus?"
When Satan finds out what we love more than God, he knows how to manipulate us. But he loses his power over us when we delight in the Lord. — Julie Ackerman Link
I love Thee, because Thou hast first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree;
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now. —Featherstone
God takes delight in us—how can we help but delight in Him?
February 6, 2009
What Are You Looking At?
by Laura MacCorkle, Crosswalk.com Senior Entertainment Editor
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18, NIV
In "a previous life" and in a different job, I worked in a bull-pen situation.
For those of you who have not experienced this type of work environment, imagine this if you will:
A narrow room of maybe 100 x 300 feet. Four or five windows along the length of one wall (so plenty of natural light, thankfully). Exposed brick. Hardwood floors. High ceilings. Open-concept layout with desks for about up to 10 people.
Employees hollered across the room at one another to relay information, instead of phoning or instant-messaging. And most of the time, we would all just roll our office chairs across the floor to make our way from desk to desk.
Add in 10+ hour work days, music blaring (at each work station), phones ringing, keyboards click-clacking, voices chatting, a disco ball that came out after dusk ... and well, you get the picture. Crazy as it were.
This was my life for about a year or so. But somehow, I learned to focus and get my job done despite all of the distractions. Looking back, I have no idea how I did it. I even did some writing while in this type of environment! Go figure. Most people require peace and quiet so that they may collect their thoughts and let the creativity flow uninterrupted. But in my situation, I had no choice. It was sink or swim.
Thankfully (and as fun as they actually could be at times), those circumstances were only temporary and didn't last long. Nowadays, I have my own office again and am able to get my work done in a relatively calm environment. But you know what? I have trouble focusing!
Unbelievable, I know. But when I do a little personal inventory to figure out what's distracting me, I see that it's internal. It's all in my mind!
Yep. There's no one rolling past me in their chairs. No phones ringing or loud music playing. The noise is only in my head. Life issues, mostly. In fact, I just made a list of 10 things that are distracting me right now and feel like they are sweeping over my life. They all seem to be crashing in and keeping me from the task at hand. They are "demanding" my attention and my natural response is to drop what I'm doing. To worry. To grow anxious.
Much like the disciples did when a storm overtook them in the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 8:23-27), I am not putting my faith in the Lord. "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Jesus asked the disciples. I must ask myself the same question today. If God has power over all of nature, doesn't he also have control over all the elements affecting my life? A thousand times yes!
"What kind of man is this?" asked the disciples after Jesus calmed the storm. "Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
No matter what we see overtaking our lives today, let's resolve to put our faith and our focus in what is unseen: the Lord of all creation, the Almighty God.
Intersecting Faith & Life: What are you looking at today? Are temporal things distracting you? Do what I did and make a list of everything that has got your mind tied up in knots. Pray through these items and ask the Lord to help you not be overwhelmed by what you see and to fix your eyes on what is eternal. Know that he has a plan and purpose for your life and is always working, even when you can't see what he's doing.
Further Reading:
Hebrews 3:1, NIV
Proverbs 4:25, NIV
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 8, 2009
Breathless
READ: Psalm 8
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Your glory be above all the earth. -Psalm 57:5
When was the last time something took your breath away because of its majesty?
I'm not talking about an electronic gadget or some special effects in a movie. I'm talking about a nighttime sky show such as an eclipse of the moon. Or walking outside on a starry night to see Orion or Pleiades-constellations mentioned thousands of years ago in Scripture (Amos 5:8) that are still glowing today for our enjoyment. I'm speaking of a bursting dawn that radiates with glorious colors to signal another sunrise. Or the sound and light show that accompanies God's way of watering the earth with food-producing rain (Job 36:27-33).
Have you stood by a fence and marveled at the power of a horse as it gallops gallantly through the field, mane flowing and hoofs pounding? (39:19-25). Or watched a soaring, swooping eagle drop from the sky because his God-designed vision has sighted supper from his mountain-peak nest? (39:27-30).
At creation, God gave man breath. Then he took man's breath away with the beauty, grandeur, and eloquence of a universe of marvels created by His own hand. Look around. Examine what God has done. Then, breathless, proclaim His majesty. - Dave Branon
The wonder of creation speaks
To everyone in different ways;
But those who know and love the Lord
Can for His handiwork give praise. -Sper
All creation is an outstretched finger pointing toward God.
By Os Hillman
"For nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37).
I walked into the doctor's office for my pre-opt visit. The doctor came in and told me all about my procedure of arthroscopic knee surgery.
"So, doc. I have been told this is pretty routine. If that is the case, I have a golf outing I am responsible for that is four days after the surgery. Is there any chance I would be able to play golf that soon?" I asked. "Not a chance," the doctor responded. "You need to let go of that idea. You will definitely not be able to play golf four days after surgery. It may be minor, but it is still surgery." I was disappointed, but I had resigned myself that I may have to host the event for my friend's 50th surprise birthday celebration as a spectator. Nevertheless, having no shame, I prayed anyway that God would let me play.
My day of surgery came and when I awoke I was given my crutches and greeted in the recovery room by my wife. "How are you doing?" she asked. "I feel groggy, but pretty good." About thirty minutes later, she wheeled me out to the car and I used the crutches to get in the car. The next day I noticed I had no soreness or discomfort. I questioned whether I had even had surgery. But the three incisions and photographs assured me it had taken place.
By that afternoon, I could put all my weight on my right leg without discomfort. I put away the crutches and began walking unaided. The doctor called from the hospital to inquire about my progress. Angie answered the phone. "Is he supposed to have soreness and pain from this procedure?" she inquired. "Oh, yes. He should be pretty sore and experience some pain," said the doctor. "Well," she said. "He has no pain and no soreness. He is walking like he has never had surgery!" "That is hard to believe," said the doctor. "In fact, that is incredible!"
The next day, I could go up and down steps with full weight on my right knee. Then, only four days after surgery--I played 18 holes of golf for my friend's 50th birthday celebration. The day after the golf outing, I awoke with no soreness and no pain.
Do you need something special from God? "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Phil 4:6-7).
Nothing is impossible through God!
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
When You Speak, God Hears
by Max Lucado
Those who pray keep alive the watch fires of faith. For the most part we don't even know their names. Such is the case of someone who prayed on a day long ago. His name is not important. He is important not because of who he was, but because of what he did.
He went to Jesus on behalf of a friend. His friend was sick, and Jesus could help, and someone needed to go to Jesus, so someone went. Others cared for the sick man in other ways. Some brought food; others provided treatment; still others comforted the family. Each role was crucial. Each person was helpful, but no one was more vital than the one who went to Jesus.
John writes: "So Mary and Martha sent someone to tell Jesus, 'Lord, the one you love is sick'" (John 11:3, emphasis mine).
Someone carried the request. Someone walked the trail. Someone went to Jesus on behalf of Lazarus. And because someone went, Jesus responded.
In the economy of heaven, the prayers of saints are a valued commodity. John the apostle would agree. He wrote the story of Lazarus and was careful to show the sequence: The healing began when the request was made.
The phrase the friend of Lazarus used is worth noting. When he told Jesus of the illness, he said, "The one you love is sick." The power of the prayer, in other words, does not depend on the one who makes the prayer but on the one who hears the prayer.
We can and must repeat the phrase in manifold ways. "The one you love is tired, sad, hungry, lonely, fearful, depressed." The words of the prayer vary, but the response never changes. The Savior hears the prayer. He silences heaven so he won't miss a word. The Master heard the request. Jesus stopped whatever he was doing and took note of the man's words. This anonymous courier was heard by God.
John's message is critical. You can talk to God because God listens. Your voice matters in heaven. He takes you very seriously. When you enter his presence, the attendants turn to you to hear your voice. No need to fear that you will be ignored. Even if you stammer or stumble, even if what you have to say impresses no one, it impresses God-and he listens.
Intently. Carefully. The prayers are honored as precious jewels. Purified and empowered, the words rise in a delightful fragrance to our Lord. "The smoke from the incense went up from the angel's hand to God" (Rev. 8:4). Incredible. Your words do not stop until they reach the very throne of God.
One call and heaven's fleet appears. Your prayer on earth activates God's power in heaven.
You are the someone of God's kingdom. Your prayers move God to change the world. You may not understand the mystery of prayer. You don't need to. But this much is clear: Actions in heaven begin when someone prays on earth. What an amazing thought!
When you speak, Jesus hears.
And when Jesus hears, the world is changed.
All because someone prayed.
From
For These Tough Times:
Reaching Toward Heaven for Hope and Healing
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God's point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God's purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." ( John 17:19 ). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul's prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23 ). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person's life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's work in us
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 9, 2009
Something's Wrong With Harry
READ: 1 Peter 2:9-17
A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance. -Proverbs 15:13
Every morning Harry, a Christian, walked into his office singing a song from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Oklahoma: "Oh, what a beautiful morning; oh, what a beautiful day! I got a beautiful feeling, everything's going my way!"
But one morning, he forgot to sing. Harry soon noticed that something was wrong at the office; everyone around him seemed on edge. When he finally asked a co-worker what was wrong, she replied, "You didn't sing this morning, and we thought you were upset!"
Harry had become known for such a cheerful, positive spirit that his co-workers were sure something was wrong with him that morning. Harry hadn't realized how closely people were watching him, and he resolved from then on always to come to work singing.
First Peter 2 reminds us that people are observing our lives (vv.11-12). To be good representatives of Jesus Christ, Peter teaches that we're to be submissive to authority, to live an honorable life, to do good works, to honor all people, and to fear God (vv.12-17).
The testimony of our lives can give us opportunities to share the good news of Jesus. So we might want to ask ourselves, "What do people see in me?" - Anne Cetas
Help me to sing a joyful song
For those bowed down with care,
A song of hope and freedom
For those in dark despair. -Andrews
Do others see Jesus in you?
Your Ministry to the Poor
By Os Hillman
"Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter?when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" (Is 58:7).
For many years, I have read this passage without responding to it personally. I read it and moved on to the rest of my Bible reading without any actions steps. It was just another verse of scripture. Then one day the Holy Spirit asked me a question. "Os, how are you ministering to the poor in my name?" It was a very convicting question.
As I began to ponder that question, I realized I had no specific focus on the poor in my workplace ministry. Sure, I give to my local church that often gives to the poor and I may give a donation to the needy here or there. However, I was not directly involved in any specific activity that served the poor. I believed God was challenging me to change this.
I began praying about this and soon God connected me with a Christian leader in the nation of Uganda. I had never been to a third world nation. I had not seen poverty up close and personal. I decided this was God's answer to my prayer. Paying all my own expenses, I traveled to Uganda. I visited the camps where thousands of people have come to live - having abandoned their lands because of a 20-year rebel war. Children have been killed and maimed. During my stay, I experienced limited access to electricity and other basic needs we take for granted in the west. It is a stark contrast to how so many of us live.
This trip has begun a long term relationship with the nation of Uganda. The Lord does not ask us to give what we don't have. However, I do believe each of us should ask God, "What do I have in my hand that I can offer?" That is what Elisha asked of the widow. And God performed a miracle through what she had (2 Kings 4:2).
Ask God today what you have in your hand that you can give to the poor.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." Galatians 6:9 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Heroes are known for bold exploits and notable achievements acclaimed by people. But the godly hero is acclaimed by God. This week we will take a look at some of the heroes in the Bible who paint a picture of what makes a godly hero-even today.
God used Joshua to carry out great military strategies in the Promised Land. One of the great victories was the conquest of Jericho, a city protected by two parallel walls, the outer one six feet thick, the inner one double that width, both about 30 feet high. The Lord instructed Joshua and his warriors to march around the city of Jericho once a day for six days. On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times. The seventh time the priests were to blow the trumpets and the people were to give a loud shout.
Did this make sense? Of course not. But Joshua believed God, and he was persistent in his obedience. They circled the city six days ... and nothing happened. Joshua persisted. They circled Jericho the seventh time, the priests blew the trumpets, the people shouted-and those mighty walls came down. Joshua took the city. (Joshua 6)
Consider this...
Has God led you to do something that just doesn't make sense-and doesn't seem to be working? Don't be discouraged. God's plan will work-in his way and in his time. Be persistent. Keep your eyes on Jesus and don't give up!
Prayer
Father, I really believe I am doing what you have called me to do, but sometimes things just don't seem to be working out the way I thought they would. Help me to keep my eyes on Jesus and not to give up. I thank you for your love and faithfulness-and for the outcome you will bring. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Are You Exhausted Spiritually?
The everlasting God . . . neither faints nor is weary -Isaiah 40:28
Exhaustion means that our vital energies are completely worn out and spent. Spiritual exhaustion is never the result of sin, but of service. Whether or not you experience exhaustion will depend on where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter, "Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing with which to feed them ( John 21:17 ). The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people's souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely- to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.
Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God? If so, then renew and rekindle your desires and affections. Examine your reasons for service. Is your source based on your own understanding or is it grounded on the redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually look back to the foundation of your love and affection and remember where your Source of power lies. You have no right to complain, "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that He is your supply. "All my springs are in you" ( Psalm 87:7 ).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 10, 2009
What's For Dinner?
READ: Genesis 22:1-12
It came to pass . . . that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." -Genesis 22:1
I can hardly imagine inviting special friends over for dinner and then throwing a few leftovers into the microwave to serve up to them. But if I were to do that, it would speak volumes about how I really feel about them.
Giving God the leftovers of our lives speaks volumes about His true worth to us. When God asked Abraham to give Isaac back to Him as an act of worship, Genesis 22:1 calls it a test. A test to see if there was anything in his life that he treasured more than God.
It's no different for us. There are times when God requires something really important to get His work done. He'll ask us to give up our natural instincts to seek revenge so that we can communicate His forgiving love by forgiving our enemies. He may call us to sacrifice portions of our time or money or comforts to advance His cause. Or He may require us to allow our sons and daughters to go to a far-off land to tell others about His saving love. The way we respond to what He requires says volumes about how we really feel about Him.
Anyone can offer the leftovers. Only those who love God more than anything else will serve up the very best for Him. - Joe Stowell
"Take up thy cross and follow Me,"
I hear the blessed Savior call;
How can I make a lesser sacrifice
When Jesus gave His all? -Ackley
No sacrifice we make is too great for the One who sacrificed His all.
Withholding Your Natural Gifting
By Os Hillman
"My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power" (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).
In the work world, we are trained to press through obstacles, no matter the cost. However, perseverance that is not directed by the Holy Spirit is only sweat and toil. We must learn to walk the fine line between these two concepts. On this subject of relying on our human strength, Watchman Nee wrote:
I believe many people are so rich and strong that they give no ground for God to work. I frequently recall the words, "helpless and hopeless." I must tell God, "all that I have is yours, I myself have nothing. Apart from you I am truly helpless and hopeless." We need to have such a dependent attitude toward God that it is as if we cannot inhale or exhale without Him. In this way we shall see that our power as well as our holiness all comes from Him. Oh how God delights in seeing us coming hopeless and helpless to Him. A brother once asked me,
"What is the condition for the working of the Spirit?" To which I replied that . . . the Holy Spirit must first bring us to a place where we can do nothing by ourselves.
Of course, God gives us our natural skills and He will use them, although it can be hard at times to tell whether it is God working through us or if it is our natural skill alone making things happen. We need to try to distinguish the difference even as we resist over-analyzing (which can result in paralysis by analysis).
The apostle Paul understood that it was not his ability to deliver eloquent sermons that changed people. It was the power of God working through him. If God's power comes through our work, that brings glory to the Father.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." Acts 3:19 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Rahab was a godly hero. Because she was willing to turn from her old ways and turn to God, he was able to do great things through her.
Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute. Even though the Canaanites were very much anti-God, Rahab acknowledged the Israelites' God as the one true God. Her faith was so strong that she helped two Israelite spies with the understanding they would protect her and her family when they attacked the city. When Jericho was conquered, at the command of Joshua, she and her relatives were taken to safety. (Joshua 2)
And so Rahab turned her back on her ungodly ways and chose to serve God. She became a part of the people of God and was even mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus.
Godly heroes turn from ungodliness.
Consider this...
Rahab's experience is one more reminder that the grace of God extends to down-and-outers, the rejected, the rich, the poor-to everyone. Grace is undeserved favor. Although God's grace is deserved by none of us, because of Jesus it is freely given to all who ask.
No matter where you may be in your life right now or how hopeless things may seem to you-no matter what you've done-God's amazing grace is sufficient. If you are willing to turn from ungodliness and turn to the loving arms of Jesus, you will learn that God's grace is always enough.
Prayer
Lord, I know there are some things in my life that are not pleasing to you. I want to turn around, to turn my back on those things and to turn every area of my life over to you. Please forgive me and help me to make a clean start and to accomplish your purpose for my life. I thank you that no matter what I've done, because of Jesus your grace is enough. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Is Your Ability to See God Blinded?
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things . . . -Isaiah 40:26
The people of God in Isaiah's time had blinded their minds' ability to see God by looking on the face of idols. But Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their power to think and to visualize correctly. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in nature and will realize that it is holy and sacred. We will see God reaching out to us in every wind that blows, every sunrise and sunset, every cloud in the sky, every flower that blooms, and every leaf that fades, if we will only begin to use our blinded thinking to visualize it.
The real test of spiritual focus is being able to bring your mind and thoughts under control. Is your mind focused on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Is it your work? Is it your idea of what a servant should be, or maybe your experience of salvation and sanctification? If so, then your ability to see God is blinded. You will be powerless when faced with difficulties and will be forced to endure in darkness. If your power to see has been blinded, don't look back on your own experiences, but look to God. It is God you need. Go beyond yourself and away from the faces of your idols and away from everything else that has been blinding your thinking. Wake up and accept the ridicule that Isaiah gave to his people, and deliberately turn your thoughts and your eyes to God.
One of the reasons for our sense of futility in prayer is that we have lost our power to visualize. We can no longer even imagine putting ourselves deliberately before God. It is actually more important to be broken bread and poured-out wine in the area of intercession than in our personal contact with others. The power of visualization is what God gives a saint so that he can go beyond himself and be firmly placed into relationships he never before experienced.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 11, 2009
Path To Humility
READ: Psalm 131
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. -James 4:10
My friend declared, as he tried to keep a straight face, "I'm so proud of my humility!" That reminds me of the joke about a leader who was given an award for his humility. Because he accepted the award, it was taken back the following week!
David seemed to be making the same error when he said, "My heart is not haughty" (Ps. 131:1). When we understand the text, however, we know that he wasn't boasting about his humility. Rather, in response to the accusation of treason made by Saul's men, David stated he didn't consider himself so important nor think of himself so highly as to have "lofty" eyes.
Instead, David learned to be like a "weaned child" in the Lord's arms (v.2). Like a baby who is completely dependent on his parents, he waited on God for His protection while he was a fugitive under King Saul's pursuit. In his darkest hour, David realized his need and then advised his people: "Hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever" (v.3).
The path to humility is twofold. It involves knowing who we are-having a proper self-esteem rather than thinking too highly of self. But most important, it requires knowing who God is-holding Him in highest esteem and trusting Him for His best in His time. - Albert Lee
Humility's a slippery prize
That seldom can be won;
We're only humble in God's eyes
When serving like His Son. -Gustafson
When we think we're humble-we're not.
Do You Know Who You Are?
By Os Hillman
"Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart" (Ps 36:10).
Someone once said, "Success is when those who know you the best are those who love you the most."
Years ago a man named Jahari developed a self-assessment tool that helps us understand how we relate to others. The Jahari Window helps us realize where we are in our ability to know who we are and for others to know who we are. Real transparency in communication takes place when those we associate with us know who we are after we discover who we really are. See if you can identify what category you might fall among these four:
Transparent Life
The transparent life is the life we should desire. I know who I am and others know me. There is nothing hidden. I have come to know who I am as an individual and basically people get what they see in me.
Bull-In-The-China Shop
This person is blinded to the things that others recognize about him. The solution to becoming a transparent person is to get feedback from those around us about the blind spots in our personality. We must ask for the feedback and be willing to respond to their input.
Aloof/Hidden Secrets
This person lives in a secret world. They don't allow others to know about themselves. They know themselves but are fearful of letting others know. Those around them do not know them either. What do others really know about you? Have you allowed yourself to get close enough to others to share who you really are inside?
Hidden Potential
This is a combination of Bull-In-A-China Shop and Aloof/Hidden Secrets. It is the saddest of all conditions. These people don't know themselves and others don't know them either. This means both parties have to invest the energy to communicate and get feedback from one another.
How about you? Why not take a step to find out who you really are in the eyes of others. It could change your life.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"The LORD is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. This is my God, and I will praise him-my father's God, and I will exalt him!" Exodus 15:2 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Many godly heroes have had setbacks, handicaps or poor family conditions. Numerous people in history could easily have settled for being a victim, but chose not to.
One godly hero in the Bible was Gideon. He was called by God when Israel was suffering from the oppressive rule of the Midianites. An angel appeared to Gideon, declaring, "The Lord is with you." Gideon saw his family as being the weakest in their tribe and himself as the least of his family. But when the Lord declared him a mighty warrior, Gideon made a choice. He chose to be a victor, not a victim. Following God's instructions, he became a mighty leader and eventually ruled as judge. (Judges 6-7)
Consider this...
We all have disappointments in life. Many of us have experienced unfair treatment by someone, the loss of a job or business, or even the traumatic death of someone we love. Some have experienced a serious personal illness or injury.
In every difficult circumstance, we have a choice. We can choose to be a victim, never overcoming and moving on with our lives. Or we can trust God to show us the way to victory.
Prayer
Father, I thank you that I have a choice-I don't have to be a victim in any situation if I will trust you for victory. Help me remember that even when I go through difficult situations, you are with me and want to help me find victory. I don't have to be a victim-with your help, I can be a victor and move on with my life. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Is Your Mind Stayed on God?
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You -Isaiah 26:3
Is your mind stayed on God or is it starved? Starvation of the mind, caused by neglect, is one of the chief sources of exhaustion and weakness in a servant's life. If you have never used your mind to place yourself before God, begin to do it now. There is no reason to wait for God to come to you. You must turn your thoughts and your eyes away from the face of idols and look to Him and be saved (see Isaiah 45:22 ).
Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. You should seek to be "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). This will be one of the greatest assets of your faith when a time of trial comes, because then your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. When you have thoughts and ideas that are worthy of credit to God, learn to compare and associate them with all that happens in nature-the rising and the setting of the sun, the shining of the moon and the stars, and the changing of the seasons. You will begin to see that your thoughts are from God as well, and your mind will no longer be at the mercy of your impulsive thinking, but will always be used in service to God.
"We have sinned with our fathers . . . [and] . . . did not remember . . ." ( Psalm 106:6-7 ). Then prod your memory and wake up immediately. Don't say to yourself, "But God is not talking to me right now." He ought to be. Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Encourage yourself to remember, and your affection for God will increase tenfold. Your mind will no longer be starved, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 12, 2009
Learning From Lincoln
READ: Proverbs 3:1-8
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. -Proverbs 3:6
The day before his 52nd birthday, Abraham Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois, to become President of the United States. With the threat of civil war looming, he said goodbye to the friends and neighbors who had come to see him off. "I now leave," he told them, "not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
Lincoln's reliance on God for guidance and strength reflects the instruction of Solomon: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths" (Prov. 3:5-6).
On this 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, we celebrate his kindness, integrity, and courage. And we can also learn from him how to face a daunting future with confident hope in the Lord. - David C. McCasland
Into His hands I lay the fears that haunt me,
The dread of future ills that may befall;
Into His hands I lay the doubts that taunt me,
And rest securely, trusting Him for all. -Christiansen
Living without trust in God is like driving in the fog.
They're Always Watching and Listening
By Os Hillman
"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25-26).
It didn't take long for non-believers to realize I was different in the secular workplaces where I've worked. I didn't participate in the jokes, the dirty language, or criticism of management. I didn't judge them for their behavior because they were merely acting the way they should act as one who does not have Christ in their life. I viewed them as prisoners awaiting their salvation and that I might be the instrument to lead them to my Savior.
I would often be known as the "religious guy." It wasn't because I was particularly vocal or I tried to separate myself; it happened naturally. The Christ in me naturally made me stand out. Jesus called us to be the "salt and light" of any life situation. The secular workplace economy is contrary to the Kingdom of God economy so we should naturally stand out in any situation.
When Paul and Silas were in prison their lifestyle of worship and prayer in the midst of the horrible conditions of a dirty prison stood out in stark contrast to their circumstances. They didn't pray and sing to impress their cellmates, they simply did what was natural to them. Still, "the other prisoners were watching and listening."
No matter where you are, others are watching you to determine if your faith is real or if you're an imposter. The world is looking to discredit your faith. You are a witness always whether you choose to be or not.
"The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'" (Acts 16:29-30). When you begin to reflect the love and power of Christ in your life you won't have to have an evangelism program to win others into the Kingdom. It will be a fruit of your life. The "fish" will actually jump into the boat!
Beware how you conduct your life today. Because the prisoners are watching and listening.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV
Thoughts for Today
Being a self-made person is considered a good thing by many, especially in the United States. We tend to have an "I can do it myself" mentality. We somehow feel we haven't really succeeded if we've asked for help. However, godly heroes recognize that they have weaknesses and are willing to accept their dependence on God and allow him to turn weaknesses into strengths.
When God called Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt, Moses argued that he had never been eloquent and was slow of speech and tongue. But God wasn't concerned about these weaknesses. He wasn't depending on Moses' strength-he was looking for his obedience.
Moses did choose to obey God and to trust him. God made him a great leader of millions of people. Moses' slowness of speech became his strength because it helped him know that he couldn't begin to do what God was calling him to do on his own-he had to rely on God. And God's strength is unlimited. (Judges 6-7)
Godly heroes turn weaknesses into strengths.
Consider this...
Has God called you to do something that seems impossible because of your weaknesses? You feel as though you are not smart enough .. or experienced enough ... or strong enough? Good! Now you know that you will have to depend on God to get the job done.
Prayer
Lord, I feel so inadequate to do what you've led me to do. I thank you for helping me recognize that I can't do it on my own. I know that as I stop worrying about my inadequacies and start depending on your strengths ... the job will get done. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
Godly Heroes: A Small Group Study of Hebrews 11 by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
Are You Listening to God?
READ:
They said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die' ` -Exodus 20:19
We don't consciously and deliberately disobey God- we simply don't listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them- not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.
"You speak with us, . . . but let not God speak with us . . . ." We show how little love we have for God by preferring to listen to His servants rather than to Him. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we don't want God Himself to speak to us. Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us? It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey. But if it is simply one of God's servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative. We respond by saying, "Well, that's only your own idea, even though I don't deny that what you said is probably God's truth."
Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child? Once I finally do hear Him, the humiliation I have heaped on Him returns to me. My response then becomes, "Lord, why was I so insensitive and obstinate?" This is always the result once we hear God. But our real delight in finally hearing Him is tempered with the shame we feel for having taken so long to do so.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 13, 2009
Enduring Love
READ: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8
[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. -1 Corinthians 13:7
Like many people, I enjoy the Google homepage artwork that appears on special days and holidays. Last Valentine's Day, the artistic logo showed an older couple-a man with a cane and a white-haired woman-walking hand in hand as the woman held two heart-shaped balloons. It was a beautiful reminder that while our culture glorifies youthful romance, true love has many stages during our journey through life.
Paul's great essay in 1 Corinthians 13 celebrates the depth and tenacity of the love that carries us beyond self-interest and mere affection. "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails" (vv.4-8).
Brian Wren has captured this reality in his moving hymn, "When Love Is Found":
When love is tried as loved ones change,
Hold still to hope though all seems strange,
Till ease returns, and love grows wise
Through listening ears and opened eyes.
© Hope Publishing Co.
When our commitments are tested in the fires of life, no matter what difficulties we face, may God grant us a greater experience of His enduring love and the grace to demonstrate it each day. - David C. McCasland
God's love is a fabric that never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the waters of adversity.
Microsoft Mary
By Os Hillman
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" (Prov 3:5- 6).
I travel a lot. One of the greatest modern-day inventions I've appreciated most is the GPS system for cars. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, a navigational system tied to a satellite that can pinpoint your location and chart directions to any destination you select. I remember a time when my wife Angie and I used one of these when we were in Germany and Switzerland. We were able to program the GPS in English. We began our drive to our destination when a pleasant voice came on: "Turn left in 200 yards." We called our invisible road counselor, Microsoft Mary.
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to help you and I navigate through life. "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come" (John 16:13-14).
A story is told years ago about the Chinese underground church having to rely on the Holy Spirit to tell them when and where they were to meet. It was too dangerous to announce public meetings. So, each member had to ask the Holy Spirit the time and place. They would all arrive at the same place at the same time.
Is the Holy Spirit active in your work life? Are you asking for His direction to succeed in your work? Microsoft Mary may help us navigate traffic, but Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to help us navigate life. Ask Him to guide you today.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Living Free Every Day®
Today's Scripture
"Love the LORD your God, walk in all his ways, obey his commands, hold firmly to him, and serve him with all your heart and all your soul." Joshua 22:5 NLT
Thoughts for Today
If you walk together with another person, you probably have a good relationship with him or her. To walk with a person every day-whether in the mall, around a track or in your neighborhood-means that you enjoy each other's company. Walking together is a time to share and strengthen the relationship, to learn more about each other.... And so it should be in our walk with God.
The Bible tells us that Enoch was a man who walked with God. He must have developed a very close relationship with God because he didn't die-God chose to take him directly to heaven. Enoch was a man of faith-and truly a godly hero. (Genesis 5:21-24)
If he were living today, Enoch's press clippings would not be impressive. His testimony probably would not attract thousands to a citywide crusade. It is unlikely he would sign a book contract or be a TV attraction. However, as a godly hero, he did have an adventurous life. He had the best of the best-intimate fellowship with God.
Godly heroes walk with God.
Consider this...
Walking with God encompasses many things. Spending quality time with him-and enjoying that time. Talking to him, and especially listening to him. Trusting him, loving him, desiring above all else to please him.
How's your walk?
Prayer
Father, I thank you so much that I can walk with you. That you invite me to spend time with you. And yet, sometimes I neglect that wonderful opportunity. Please forgive me. Help me to be a better walking partner. In Jesus' name ...
These thoughts were drawn from...
by Jimmy Ray Lee, D.Min. This guide presents a step-by-step study of Hebrews 11. It also features the profile of the characteristics of Godly heroes, written in language that relates to today's living. In this guide you will find definitions, characteristics and examples of the heroes' faith life. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
Would you like to have these devotions appear daily on your church or ministry website? Learn More
PO Box 22127 ~ Chattanooga, Tennessee 37421 ~ 423-899-4770
© Living Free 2007. Living Free is a registered trademark. Living Free Every Day devotionals may be reproduced for personal use. When reproduced to share with others, please acknowledge the source as Living Free, Chattanooga, TN. Must have written permission to use in any format to be sold. Permission may be requested by sending e-mail to info@LivingFree.org.
The Devotion of Hearing
Samuel answered, 'Speak, for Your servant hears' -1 Samuel 3:10
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, "You are My friends . . ." ( John 15:14 ). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord's this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don't even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41 ). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God's message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don't want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don't hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, "Speak, for Your servant hears." If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God's voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things- things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God's voice today?
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 14, 2009
Written In Red
READ: 1 John 4:7-19
God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. -1 John 4:9
My first Bible was printed mostly in black type, but some of its words were in red. It didn't take me long to discover that the ones in red had been spoken by Jesus.
More than 100 years ago, a man named Louis Klopsch published the first "red-letter" Bible. As he thought about Jesus' words in Luke 22:20, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you," he purposely used blood-red ink to call specific attention to His words.
The words of the Bible are priceless to us because they tell of the "love letter" God sent 2,000 years ago in the Person of His Son (1 John 4:10).
Jesus' purpose in coming to earth as a Man was to die, to be sacrificed, to give His life for ours. God's plan was written in red-written with "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:19).
Those of us who have accepted God's gift of love are called to be "letters" to those who don't know Him. We are epistles of Christ "written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God" (2 Cor. 3:3).
Long before a day in February was set aside to celebrate love, the world received a love letter-and that changed everything (John 3:16). - Cindy Hess Kasper
If you'd like to know the love of God the Father,
Come to Him through Jesus Christ, His loving Son;
He'll forgive your sins and save your soul forever,
And you'll love forevermore this faithful One. -Felten
Nothing speaks more clearly of God's love than the cross of Jesus Christ.
Walk as Jesus Did
By Os Hillman
"This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did" (1 John 2:6).
I have always found the above verse very intimidating. It says that if we are truly living in Christ, we must walk as Jesus did. How did Jesus walk? He healed the sick. He perceived the needs and situations of others supernaturally. He spoke boldly into the lives of the unsaved. He met the needs of people by leading them to the Kingdom of God. Jesus says we must walk as He did. So, I can only conclude from this verse that if we are each called to live this way, He will also equip us to live this way.
How did Jesus walk? He walked on earth as a human being, not as God, yet He was God. His miracles were done as a human being who tapped into the power of His Heavenly Father. This is why he can exhort us to live like He did not as deity, but as a human being who could appropriate all the Father had for him. This is what He means when He says "live as He lived." We are to exercise obedience and faith just as He did.
I believe we live in a day that requires more than proclamation evangelism to break through in the workplace. We live and work in a skeptical society. It takes more than reasoning to see those in the workplace come to Christ. The workplace is trained to see past phonies. So, it will require the genuine love and power of Christ to be manifested to break through to a Muslim co-worker, a power-driven executive, or a foul-mouthed construction worker.
Jesus modeled a way of reaching the lost. He did not use reasoning to convince a person to follow him. He often operated in the supernatural revelation about a need in that person's life. Such was the case of the Samaritan woman. This encounter not only led to a woman placing her faith in the Messiah, but it led to the transformation of a city.
Next time you have an encounter with an unsaved associate, find out about a need they have and ask God how you can meet it through His power.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Achieving Authentic Success 6-CD Set
Achieving Authentic Success
Dr. Ron Jenson, America's Life Coach, shares over six hours of his immensely valuable insights and wisdom in this 6-CD series on Achieving Authentic Success. Each principle is unpacked to help you maximize your personal and professional opportunities so you can live a life of significance and impact. Order or Learn More
Triumph Over Trials
Many Christians have the erroneous belief that if they just try hard enough to be "good," then they can escape the trials of life. But the Bible teaches us something completely different: "A righteous man may have many troubles" (Psalm 34:19). However, we can find joy in the conclusion of this verse: "but the Lord delivers him from them all." No matter what we face in life, God will be there with us. Only God can turn our worst tragedies into victories.
King David of the Old Testament faced more life-changing trials than many of us will know. His life was often at risk from enemies who sought to kill him. He paid great consequences for his moral and judgment errors. He was even betrayed by a rebellious son. Yet through his example, we see how David was able to use his suffering to bring glory to God.
Read Psalm 3. During the time David wrote this, he was in hiding from his own son, Absalom, who was plotting to dethrone his father (see 2 Samuel 15). David had experienced a bitter betrayal by his own son and by some of his closest friends. His life was on the line. His heart was broken. He was struggling in his spirit as to why this was happening. David cries out, "O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me!" (Psalm 3:1).
Have you ever been betrayed by people you loved and trusted? Sometimes the emotional and spiritual wounds made by another person can hurt far worse than any sword. One of Satan's favorite tricks is to cause dissension in our families, in our relationships, and in our churches. When we maliciously speak against another person or stir up rebellion, we become an Absalom in the household of David.
But sometimes these personal attacks on us can be used for a greater good. If you are experiencing a trial right now, ask God to show you how He wants you to use it. Are you being disciplined for a sin in your life? Confess and repent of that sin today. Is your trial an opportunity to share your personal testimony? What may seem like a dark valley may be the open door to sharing about Christ's grace and provision in your life.
The secret of David's triumph was his trust in God: "But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill" (Psalm 3:3-4). There can be no triumph unless there is a trial. There can be no testimony unless there is a test. There can be no conquest unless there is a conflict. Many people want to be used mightily by God, yet they refuse to pay the cost. Are you willing to go through dark times so that God's kingdom may grow?
Even in the midst of suffering, David knew that God already had won the battle. His confidence in God allowed him a peaceful sleep the night before the battle. He knew that by handing over his trial to God, God would provide the victory. "I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side" (Psalm 3:5, 6).
The burden that you are carrying can be a blessing if you trust in God. He can turn your burden into victory. He can turn your trials into triumph. We can rest easy at night, knowing that our Father holds our tomorrow in His hands.
Is your trial keeping you up at night? Are you struggling with worry and anxiety? Confess your concerns and fears to God. Turn your burdens over to Him. He wants to help you overcome them. He wants to give you a great victory, but first you must put your trust in Him. When we try to face the battle on our own, we are likely to fail. But with God at the heart of our battle plan, we can succeed. Only when our trust is in God will we find peace and rest during troubled times.
****
Everybody wants to be loved by somebody... But what really is true love? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"The Truth About Love." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops -Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2 ). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."- pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood- darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart- a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 15, 2009
Drift
READ: Hebrews 2:1-9
We must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. -Hebrews 2:1
In the 1923 silent movie Our Hospitality, comedian and acrobat Buster Keaton performed a daring stunt near a waterfall. A retaining line, called a "holdback" cable, hidden in the water and attached to him, kept him from being carried over the falls.
During filming, the cable broke, and Keaton was swept toward the falls. He managed to grab an overhanging branch, which he clung to until the crew could rescue him. The dramatic scene appears in the finished film.
Drifting into unintended hazards can make for exciting film footage. In real life, however, dangers of this kind are usually marked with warning signs to prevent people from venturing into harm's way.
Similarly, the Bible has provided us with warning signs about drifting from the safety of God's Word. "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away" (Heb. 2:1).
When we don't cling to God's Word through study and reflection, it's easy to drift. Like a swift stream, the attractions of this fallen world draw us toward sin. But as we meditate on Scripture and seek the Holy Spirit's guidance, we learn the reality of our spiritual anchor and are kept secure-even in the dangers of the world's current. - Dennis Fisher
The Bible stands like a rock undaunted
'Mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal,
And they glow with a light sublime. -Lillenas
© Renewal 1945 Haldor Lillenas.
The compass of God's Word will keep you from spiritual shipwreck.
Fulfilling Your Purpose
By Os Hillman
"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD" (Ps 139:1-4).
Your purpose in life is chosen by God. It is not negotiable. It is like calling water wet-there is no changing that fact, and there's no changing God's purpose for your life. While you may not fulfill the purpose for which you were made, you still have a purpose that God intends for you to fulfill. This is your blueprint from God. In the same way that He had a specific purpose in mind for Jesus when He sent Him to the earth, He has a specific purpose in mind for your life.
This doesn't mean, however, that there is one highly specific niche for you to fill and that if you miss it, too bad. It is my belief that you can achieve your purpose in many different and creative ways. This should take the pressure off. You won't throw your entire life off course by choosing the wrong college, job or mate. God is much bigger than any miscalculation or disobedience on your part. "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me" (Ps. 138:8). Isn't that comforting to know?
Defining your purpose will help you to determine the activities that you should be involved in. Like Jesus, you should not involve yourself in activities that contradict His purpose for your existence. Jesus' purpose was to do the will of the Father and become the salvation for mankind.
Each of us must ask why we are involved in an activity. Is it a God-activity, or just a good activity? Remember, Jesus only did something if He saw the Father doing it, and He was able to see what His Father was doing because of His intimate relationship with Him.
Today, take steps to insure you are aligned with your purpose.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order
It's Going to Be Okay
by Max Lucado
Bill Tucker was sixteen years old when his dad suffered a health crisis and consequently had to leave his business. Even after Mr. Tucker regained his health, the Tucker family struggled financially, barely getting by.
Mr. Tucker, an entrepreneurial sort, came up with an idea. He won the bid to reupholster the chairs at the local movie theater. This stunned his family. He had never stitched a seat. He didn't even own a sewing apparatus. Still, he found someone to teach him the skill and located an industrial-strength machine. The family scraped together every cent they had to buy it. They drained savings accounts and dug coins out of the sofa. Finally, they had enough.
It was a fine day when Bill road with his dad to pick up the equipment. Bill remembers a jovial, hour-long trip discussing the bright horizons this new opportunity afforded them. They loaded the machine in the back of their truck and secured it right behind the cab. Mr. Tucker then invited his son to drive home. I'll let Bill tell you what happened next:
"As we were driving along, we were excited, and I, like any sixteen-year-old driver, was probably not paying enough attention to my speed. Just as we were turning on the cloverleaf to get on the expressway, I will never ever, ever forget watching that sewing machine, which was already top-heavy, begin to tip. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. I saw it go over the side. I jumped out and ran around the back of the truck. As I rounded the corner, I saw our hope and our dream lying on its side in pieces. And then I saw my dad just looking. All of his risk and all of his endeavor and all of his struggling and all of his dream, all of his hope to take care of his family was lying there, shattered.
"You know what comes next don't you? 'Stupid, punk kid driving too fast, not paying attention, ruined the family by taking away our livelihood.' But that's not what he said. He looked right at me. 'Oh, Bill, I am so sorry.' And he walked over, put his arms around me, and said, 'Son, this is going to be okay.'
God is whispering the same to you. Those are his arms you feel. Trust him. That is his voice you hear. Believe him. Allow the only decision maker in the universe to comfort you. Life at times appears to fall to pieces, seem irreparable. But it's going to be okay. How can you know? Because God so loved the world. If God can make a billion galaxies, can't he make good out of our bad and sense out of our faltering lives? Of course he can. He is God.
From 3:16, The Numbers of Hope
Copyright (W Publishing Group, 2007) Max Lucado
"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"
None of us lives to himself . . . -Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We "sit together in the heavenly places . . ." ( Ephesians 2:6 ). "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 12:26 ). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, "Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?" "Our sufficiency is from God . . ." and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5 ).
"You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone- to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say "thank you" to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him- ". . . lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" ( 1 Corinthians 9:27 ).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 16, 2009
The Answers
READ: 1 John 3:1-9
Beloved, now we are children of God. -1 John 3:2
The story is told that the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was sauntering through Berlin's famous Tiergarden one day, mentally probing the questions of origin and destiny that had been constantly perplexing him: Who am I? Where am I going?
A park-keeper, closely observing the shabbily dressed philosopher as he walked slowly with head bowed, suspected that Schopenhauer was a tramp. So he walked up to the philosopher and demanded, "Who are you? Where are you going?" With a pained expression, Schopenhauer replied, "I don't know. I wish somebody could tell me."
Are you ever perplexed by those same questions? Who am I? Where am I going? What a comfort it is to have God's authoritative answers in the Bible. Who are we? In 1 John 3, John calls his readers "children of God" (v.2). We become His children by receiving Jesus as our Savior from sin (John 1:12). And where are we going? John 14:1-6 tells us that one day He will receive us into a home He is preparing in heaven.
Our Maker is not only the Author of science and history, but He writes the story of every member of Adam's family-yours and mine. We can trust His answers. - Vernon C. Grounds
Open my ears, that I may hear
Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;
And while the wave-notes fall on my ear,
Everything false will disappear. -Scott
When you know Jesus, you know who you are and where you're going.
When Satan Attacks Your Destiny
By Os Hillman
"When the Philistines heard that David had been crowned king of Israel, they tried to capture him; but David was told that they were coming and went into the stronghold. The Philistines arrived and spread out across the valley of Rephaim. Then David asked the Lord, 'Shall I go out and fight against them? Will you defeat them for me?'" (2 Sam 5:17-19).
When you are about to enter your destiny, there is always opposition from Satan designed to prevent you from fulfilling your destiny.
When Jesus was born, Herod tried to kill him. When Jesus was baptized and fasted 40 days, Satan came to tempt Him in an effort to derail his destiny. When David had been anointed king over Israel, God's destiny had been revealed for all to see-even Satan. So, Satan raised up the Philistines to try and kill David's destiny.
However, in response, we see David do two things. First, he retreats to his stronghold. It is a place of protection. It is a quiet place. Second, he inquires of God. It is here that he inquires of God for the strategy to defeat his enemy. God reveals it to him and he goes on to defeat the Philistines. In fact, David NEVER lost a battle because he learned to inquire of God for the strategy to defeat his enemies.
Do you know God's intended destiny for your life? Beware of Satan's strategy to attack you in the place of your destiny. His desire is to take you off this divine path.
We must follow David's example in response to the enemy of our souls. We must retreat to our stronghold, seek the Lord, and listen for His answer. Then, we will fulfill the purpose for which God created us.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others.
What Will Last Forever?
Everything seems so fragile these days. News gets old in
seconds, emails in hours, movies in days, electronic gadgets in
weeks, cars in months, and buildings in years. Nothing seems enduring
in our world. We live more and more in a world that is temporary.
From the delete button on the email screen to the trash can on our
digital cameras-everything seems to be short lived. All around us we
see decay, even on the cosmic level everything is headed toward what
physicists call 'heat death'.
WHAT LASTS FOREVER?
When we get to the end of everything--what is left? In other
words, what will last forever? The Bible ends with the book called
Revelation. The last chapter is Revelation 22, and that last chapter
ends with only three things left in eternity that really matter: God,
Heaven and one more element-servants serving God.
Have you paused to notice who are those surrounding God's
Throne? Revelation 22:3 And there shall be no more curse, but
the Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants
shall serve Him. NKJV Servants are those who choose to discipline
themselves to serve God. All that lasts are God and those who
serve Him; that is what God's Word is all about. If we are to someday
spend eternity serving God, how are we doing at disciplining
ourselves to be His good, faithful, and godly servants? That is the
question answered in these pages. May we all seek and receive His
"well done" when Christ examines and measures our lives.
Each one's work will become clear; for the Day will
declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the
fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is
-1 Corinthians 3:13
We are not our own.As a redeemed child of God we have a
life to live that ends with a personal examination by the One we
love, the One who bought us, and the only One who really matters-
Jesus Christ our Lord. How we've used our time on Earth will one
day be tested by fire-the fire of Christ's presence that will burn away
everything we did which wasn't pleasing to Him.
How can we live in a way that truly pleases the Lord? Is it something
we have to guess about or wonder whether we are doing what
He desires?
The description of what lasts and pleases Him is in God's Word. To
glorify Christ to the maximum by how we live takes choosing to stay
in step with His plan. That plan, His Word, is intended by God to fill
our lives. Hence, a Word filled life won't be burned up, which is the
only way to not waste the life He has given each of us to use for His
glory. If I could describe the best life possible-a life of peace, serenity,
security, and joy-it would be the Word filled life!
A Word Filled
Life Is the Only
Way to Not
Waste Your Life
Discipline Yourself For Godliness
God's Word contains clear guidelines for how to have an exciting
lifetime filled with confidence, purpose, direction, and hope. The
Scriptures instruct us on how to have a joyous Word filled marriage
and the most harmonious and loving family possible-a Word filled
family! And a Word filled work life can be the most satisfying, purposeful,
and rewarding employment for an entire lifetime!
God wants to greatly bless us through the Word filled life and into
senior citizenship! Then, as we face that appointment with Christ to
show what we have done with our lives (2 Corinthians 5:10), we can
enter His presence with joy-thrilled to be with the One who loved
us, and whom we love supremely.
No matter who you are or where you are in life, your age or what
your past might be, God has described His perfect plan for you in the
Scriptures. The Lord of heaven and earth has much to say about the
optimal operating range we should live within, and has instilled in
each of us every needed option to operate and fulfill His plans.
We find the details on how to do all those things in God's Word.
If you want to live life the way God says it should be-the best life
possible-live a Word filled life!
In the New Testament, Christ's recorded words during His ministry
on earth are highlighted in what we call a "red letter edition" Bible.
To me, it is astounding to read these first words Jesus said after He
was introduced publicly at His baptism:
... "It is written, 'Man shall not live [exist, continue, go on] by
bread alone [eating our physical food], but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God' " (Matthew 4:4).
In other words, Jesus was saying, "It is not enough just to eat and
exist and have physical life. If you want to have a full and abundant
life in your youth, marriage, family, work, and senior years, as I
designed it to be, you must allow My every Word to fill your life!"
For more from Discover the Book Ministries, please visit discoverthebook.org .
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead . . . -Ephesians 5:14
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, "Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard- just do what needs to be done!" That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, "Get up and get going," suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, "Arise from the dead . . . ." When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to "arise from the dead" and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we "get up and get going." God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, "Arise from the dead . . . ," we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand" (Matthew 12:13 ). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 17, 2009
Perhaps Today
READ: Matthew 24:36-46
You also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. -Matthew 24:44
A year ago, I read an article saying that millions of TV sets in the United States would stop working today unless they were able to receive digital signals. Notices appeared in electronics stores, and the government even offered a free $40 coupon toward the purchase of a converter box.
I suspect that most people took the necessary steps to make sure their TV set would work when they turned it on today. We usually respond well to warnings tied to specific dates, but often fail to prepare for an event that will come "some day."
When the disciples asked Jesus about the date of His return (Matt. 24:3), He told them that only God the Father knows: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only" (v.36). Then He urged them to be prepared so that they would not be taken by surprise. "Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect" (v.44).
We don't know when Jesus will return; He may come at any time. Dr. M. R. De Haan, founder of RBC Ministries, kept a two-word motto in his office: "Perhaps Today."
When we make our daily plans, are we aware that Christ may return? Are we prepared to meet Him? - David C. McCasland
The darkness deepens! Yes, but dawn is nearer!
The Lord from heaven may soon be on His way;
The "blessed hope" in these dark days grows dearer,
Our Savior Christ will come-perhaps today! -Smith
If Christ comes today, will you be ready to meet Him?
When Satan Attacks Your Destiny
By Os Hillman
"LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance" (Ps 16:5-6).
Most of us will have many jobs over our lifetime. As I look back over my past, I've had quite a varied history of jobs that included being a waiter, retail clerk, golf pro, advertising sales executive, ad agency executive, and ad agency owner. Today, I am a writer and lead an international workplace ministry. All of these jobs were important because they gave me a level of experience from which I now express God's ministry. I am able to relate to those in the workplace because of my varied work experience throughout my career.
With each of our jobs, God is building something in us that will be used for His purposes now and in the future. Oswald Chambers says "In the beginning we do not train for God, we train for work, for our own aims; but as we go on with God we lose all our own aims and are trained into God's purpose. Unless practical work is appointed by God, it will prove a curse."
Jesus was prepared for His ultimate calling by working with His father in his carpentry shop until He was thirty years old. More than 54% of Jesus' teaching arose out of issues in daily life experience. Joseph was prepared to be head of a nation by serving prison time and being a slave in Potiphar's house. Moses was prepared to lead a nation out of slavery by serving in Pharoah's house and later working forty years as a shepherd.
Do not despise the small jobs - for they are stepping stones to a greater purpose in God's plan for your life and for God's preparation for your ultimate destiny. Some of these jobs are necessary for the message He is forming in you.
Pray that God accomplishes His intended outcome in you through the work you are doing today.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order This Resource
Overrated
We read in Proverbs 23:4,
Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!
First, I want you to notice that this verse does not say don't work. And it does not say don't work hard. It says don't overwork.
There are some people in God's family who are not led, they are driven. They are so focused on reaching their goals and achieving whatever level of success they are going after, that they are making a lot of sacrifices along the way.
But they are making the wrong sacrifices. They are sacrificing their marriage and they are sacrificing their relationship with their kids. Why? Because they overwork. And, friend, that is not healthy.
In fact, I would say that overworking is as unhealthy as not working. You miss out on the grand things in life, the important things in life. With some people, even their relationship with God gets squeezed out because they overwork.
You need to be motivated; you need to work hard; but you don't want to overdo it to the point that you don't have time for your children. You don't want to work so hard that you don't have time for your spouse. And you don't want to so overwork that you don't have time for your God.
You are missing life if you are just after possessions, and you are sacrificing the more important things along the way.
How does your work life measure up today? Are you overworking at the expense of your marriage, your family, and your relationship with God? If so, determine today to get your life back in balance.
Overworking is overrated!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat -1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive- only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God's creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things-things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 18, 2009
Making Melody
READ: Psalm 126
Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. -Ephesians 5:19
Do you know why bees hum? It's because they can't remember the words!
Ironically, that old joke reminds me of a serious story I read about a man awaiting heart bypass surgery. He was aware that people die during surgery. As he thought about all that could go wrong, he felt very much alone.
Then an orderly walked into his room to take him to surgery. As the young man began to push his gurney along the corridor, the patient heard him humming an ancient Irish hymn, "Be Thou My Vision." It prompted his memories of lush green fields and the ancient stone ruins of Ireland, the land of his birth. The hymn flooded his soul like a fresh breath of home. When the orderly finished with that song, he hummed Horatio Spafford's hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul."
When they stopped outside the surgical suite, the man thanked him for the hymns. "God has used you this day," he said, "to remove my fears and restore my soul." "How so?" the orderly asked in surprise. "Your 'hums' brought God to me," the man replied.
"The Lord has done great things for us" (Ps. 126:3). He has filled our heart with song. He may even use our "hums" to restore someone's soul. - David H. Roper
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart-
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night-
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. -Irish hymn
© Chatto and Windus, Ltd., London.
Praise flows freely from the choir of the redeemed.
Prayerfully Arranged Marriage
By Os Hillman
"The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16).
James Rutz, author of MegaShift, tells a wonderful story of God's supernatural hand in answering prayer.
"I have a good friend named Barclay Tait who sells vacation real estate in Niceville, Florida. Back in 1977, he was a 36-year-old Florida basketball coach. That summer, he decided to hitch-hike to a Christian conference in Front Royal, Virginia. Arriving four days early, he went to a nearby forest and pitched his tent by a stream. On the last day, a tall, thin hiker with a notebook under his arm suddenly appeared, startling him as he read his Bible. Barclay explained that he came out there to fast and meditate.
Dave, the hiker, replied, "Well, I'm an intercessor. What would you like me to pray for?"
Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, Barclay said, "Uh, frankly, I'd like prayer for a wife." The man wrote the request in his notebook and walked on.
By 1988, Barclay, now married to Sherry, has been divinely guided to move to Asheville, North Carolina. A chance encounter in the Holiday Inn parking lot led to an invitation to join a gathering of a Christian group outside of town. Arriving just before the 7:00 P.M. meeting, the host walks in from the kitchen and stops dead in his tracks. "I know you!" he exclaims, pointing his finger. "You're Barclay Tait!" Barclay draws a blank.
"Just a minute. I have something I want to show you," the host announces. He scampers upstairs, leaving the puzzled Taits standing in the middle of the suddenly hushed room. In a moment the host reappeared with a well-worn ledger book. "See here? This is where I wrote your prayer request in column one when I met you in Front Royal in 1977: 'Barclay Tait: God's choice for a wife.'" Barclay looked down at the journal entry. It was the most detailed, methodical prayer journal he'd ever seen.
"I prayed for you for seven years," proclaims Dave. "Then in the middle of the night on December 30, 1984, God woke me up out of a sound sleep and said, 'Write in your journal, "Prayer answered." So I did. See? Here in column two, "Prayer answered.'"
Barclay and Sherry look at each other with their mouths open. They sat down, and their eyes fill with tears. Quietly, Barclay tells Dave, "That was the day we were married."
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order This
Only Temporary
In our last devotional, we looked at Proverbs 23:4. Today I want us to look at the next verse. I will bet you can relate to it. Verse 5 says,
Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Does it ever seem to you that your money has wings? That it just flies off more quickly than you would have ever imagined?!
Money can be very temporary, very transitory in nature. Proverbs 27:24 reinforces that truth when it tells us,
For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
You need to understand that wealth is temporary just like our time here is temporary. What are the implications for how we live our lives? As believers, it is so important for us to have a pilgrim mindset and realize that we are just passing through.
This world is not our home. This life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. If you begin to think that somehow things are permanent, and you plan as if it is all permanent, you are going to get off course in your life with God.
Moses is a great example of someone who made a choice to live life with the right priorities. You can read about it in Hebrews 11. In that chapter, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy all the riches of Egypt.
Moses had everything at his fingertips, but he made the right choice. He said, "You know what? There are more important things. My priorities are different than this." And his lifestyle changed pretty radically in a hurry.
But looking back, it's obvious that Moses made the right choice isn't it? He changed the world and right now he is in heaven enjoying the presence of God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Oswald Chambers
Rise, let us be going -Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, "Well, it's all over and ruined now; what's the point in trying anymore." If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, "Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can't change that. But get up, and let's go on to the next thing." In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing- they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, "Get up, and do the next thing." If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 19, 2009
Celebrate Winter
READ: Psalm 42
Why are you cast down, O my soul? . . . Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. -Psalm 42:5
I love living where there are four seasons. But even though I love settling down with a good book by a crackling fire when it's snowing, I must admit that my love for the seasons grows a little dim when the long gray days of winter drone on into February.
Yet regardless of the weather, there is always something special about winter: Christmas! Thankfully, long after the decorations are down, the reality of Christmas still lifts my spirits no matter what's happening.
If it weren't for the reality of Christ's birth, not only would winter be dark and dreary, but our hearts would be bleak and have nothing to hope for. No hope for the freedom from guilt and judgment. No hope of His reassuring and strengthening presence through dark and difficult times. No hope for a future secured in heaven.
In the winter of a troubled life, the psalmist asked, "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" The remedy was clear: "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Ps. 42:5).
In C. S. Lewis' tales of Narnia, Mr. Tumnus complains that in Narnia it is "always winter and never Christmas." But for those of us who know the God who made the seasons, it is always Christmas in our hearts! - Joe Stowell
When our lives are heavy laden,
Cold and bleak as winter long,
Stir the embers in our hearts, Lord;
Make Your flame burn bright and strong. -Kieda
Let the reality of Christmas chase away the blahs of winter.
Her First Car
By Os Hillman
"Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him" (1 Samuel 3:7).
Charis, my sixteen-year-old daughter at the time, was now driving age. She had saved her hard-earned money to match her father's contribution to buy her first car. It was time to begin the hunt. I told her that we needed to pray for God to lead us to that perfect car. She was excited about the possibilities.
I began combing the newspaper and internet to find the right car. We prayed we would find the right car, even in the gray or silver color and model that she wanted. Finally, after several weeks, she got discouraged and began to tear up, "We will never find a car for this price." I told her the car was out there, but it was not God's time yet. We had to be patient to allow God to provide in His time, not ours. This didn't go over well with a teenager.
Finally, one day I came upon a car that seemed like it fit our criteria. I called the owner. The parents of the boy who owned it answered the call and gave me more information. I liked the parents right away. They had a nice "spirit" about them. We drove over to the house and there in the front yard was a silver sports car - the model she had been looking for, complete with a fantastic stereo and speaker system. We noticed a small fish symbol on the back bumper, which indicated the owner may have been a Christian. "These people appear to be believers!" I exclaimed to my daughter.
We met them and talked about price. It was a little higher than our budget. We asked if they could meet our price. They did. My daughter had her new car with a personal imprint from God to show my daughter that He was the source of the new car.
One of the most important roles you and I have as parents is to transfer our faith to our children. There comes a time when our children need to take ownership of their own faith in the Lord, rather than living off mom or dad's faith. Today, consider how to pass your faith to your children.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order
Untrustworthy
Proverbs 11:28 uncovers a powerful truth,
He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage.
Solomon is giving us an important warning: He who trusts in his riches will fall. Why does he tell us this? Because it is our natural tendency, when prosperity comes, to trust in that prosperity and to have that become our source of security.
As Psalm 62:10 says, If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them. There is a tendency in every human heart to do just that, and that is why God warns us. If the blessing comes, if prosperity comes, if you achieve a degree of success, do not set your heart on the wealth.
Instead, make sure your trust remains in God because riches are not trustworthy. In fact, if you trust in your wealth, you will fall!
The New Testament echoes this same truth in 1 Timothy 6:17. In this passage, Paul is writing to his son in the faith, Timothy. He is giving him some instructions to pass along to other believers,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Like Solomon, Paul is warning us that riches are uncertain. Do not put your trust in them. Instead, make sure your trust is in God. If riches increase, do not set your heart on them. And I like the last part. He said to put your trust in God, Who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Where is your trust today? Are you trusting in your money and wealth? Or is the object of your trust God? I hope you will answer honestly. If you find yourself trusting in riches, just remember, they are untrustworthy!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine . . . -Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us- He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue- a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery- washing fishermen's feet. He then says to them, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14 ). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer's body has become "the temple of the Holy Spirit"
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 20, 2009
Dying For Justice
READ: Deut. 24:14-22
You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. -Deuteronomy 24:18
When Presbyterian clergyman Elijah Lovejoy (1802-1837) left the pulpit, he returned to the printing presses in order to reach more people. After witnessing a lynching, Lovejoy committed to fighting the injustice of slavery. His life was threatened by hateful mobs, but this did not stop him: "If by compromise is meant that I should cease from my duty, I cannot make it. I fear God more than I fear man. Crush me if you will, but I shall die at my post." Four days after these words, he was killed at the hands of another angry mob.
Concern about justice for the oppressed is evident throughout Scripture. It was especially clear when God established the rules for His covenant people after they were released from Egyptian bondage (Deut. 24:18-22). Moses emphasized concern for the underprivileged (Ex. 22:22-27; 23:6-9; Lev. 19:9-10). Repeatedly, the Israelites were reminded that they had been slaves in Egypt and should deal justly with the underprivileged in their community. They were to love strangers ("aliens") because God loves them, and the Israelites had themselves been aliens in Egypt (Ex. 23:9; Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:17-19).
God desires that His people affirm the supreme worth of every individual by fighting against injustice. - Marvin Williams
Open my eyes, Lord, to people around me,
Help me to see them as You do above;
Give me the wisdom and strength to take action
So others may see the depth of Your love. -K. De Haan
Standing for justice means fighting against injustice.
God Has Need of Your Donkey
By Os Hillman
"Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them" (Matt 21:2-3).
In Bible times, donkeys were a primary means for distributing goods and services. They represented commerce in the scriptures. Jesus told the disciples He had need of someone's donkey to ride into Jerusalem, the religious and spiritual center of their society. It would become known as Jesus' triumphal entry.
My wife, Angie and I were attending a Christian business conference in Singapore. It was the night before I was to speak a second time when I was prompted to add a teaching segment on the above passage of scripture.
I am sure the disciples must have been uneasy with their master's request to untie a perfect stranger's donkey and take it. After all, He was asking them to take what was the equivalent to a man's "truck." And men love their trucks! Jesus was illustrating that He wanted to use that man's donkey, or that which represented their work, to bring glory to the Father.
The next morning Angie and I went to breakfast. While we were eating, a lady named Maggie joined us. Maggie was from Malaysia and was an intercessor for the conference. She fasted 40 days in preparation for the event. "So, Maggie, has the Lord spoken to you about this conference?" I said. "Oh yes," she said, very excitedly. On September 17 the Lord said that the Singapore business people needed to give their donkeys to the Lord." Angie and I looked at one another in amazement. God was confirming His Word to me from the night before. That day the focus of our conference became the need for the Singapore business people to "give their donkeys" to the Lord.
Friend, have you ever dedicated your work life to the Lord? Today, why not commit your donkey to the Lord. He will use it to bring glory to Himself and fulfill your life more than you could ever imagine.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order This
The Right Perspective
Yesterday's devotional showed us how money, riches, and wealth are untrustworthy. So the natural question is, "Is wealth a bad thing?"
Let's go back to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 for our answer,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I believe God makes it clear that if you are in a position where He has blessed you, you should enjoy it. And do it guilt-free. If you can take the whole family on a 30-day vacation to Europe, go for it.
Just make sure you pay your tithes first. Make sure you are generous to the work of God, but enjoy what God gives you. It is a gift of God to be able to enjoy the fruit of the work of your hands.
God is all for us enjoying whatever measure of prosperity we have. He just wants us to be generous in proportion to our prosperity. He wants us to be ready and willing to give big. To be sowing extravagantly into the gospel and thereby laying up treasure in heaven.
The point is this: Do not just live with your eye on this world. Rather, live with your eye on the world to come. If you do, you will truly be able to enjoy the wealth God gives you.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
READ:
Arise, let us go from here -John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God's blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: "Don't sit or stand there, just go!"
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, "Come aside by yourselves . . ." then that is meditation before Him to seek His will ( Mark 6:31 ). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don't sit and daydream about that person all the time- you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
GOD BLESS
HomeWord - Feb. 20, 2009
Extravagant Waste
This devotional was written by Leslie Snyder
While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. "This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor." Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. Matthew 26:6-10
Not long ago our family was enjoying a night free of outside activities. The kids were playing games, reading, and doing homework, my husband was kicked back in the recliner watching TV and I was lying down on the couch, feet up and relishing the slower pace. It was then I felt something cold being spread across my toes. I opened my eyes to see our three-year-old son carefully "painting" my toenails with his sister's sparkly blue gel body glitter. Surprised, I asked him what he was doing. "I'm painting your toes, Mama," came the straightforward reply. He was, in fact, intently working on his "design" which started at my toes and ended up covering my entire foot. What amazed me, however, was not his action so much as the devotion that covered his face. When my husband started to intervene with expressions of how Jesse was "wasting" the girls' glitter, Wisdom jumped in and stopped him. For, this was more than just playing dress up and wasting his sisters' makeup, this was an act of love from a young son to his dearly loved Mama.
It was that night that I embraced the humanity depicted in the Scripture above. Truly, the scene invites us to close our eyes and allow our imaginations to dive in and listen to the mixture of conversation and laughter of Jesus and his followers; to smell the freshly-made bread and pungent aroma of cooked lamb; to see Jesus reclining on the floor next to a low table lit with oil candles and covered with bowls of dates, figs, and olives; and to imagine the unusual mixture of guests of fishermen, tax collectors, Pharisees, men, women, servants and Jesus. The room must have been filled with energy and wonder.
Enter the woman. Oblivious to the activity around her, she focuses intently on the Object of her devotion, the One who set her free. Her tears flow freely as the perfume runs down Jesus' hair, face, shoulders and body. "What waste!" her objectors retort but are quickly hushed by Jesus as He accepts the gift of her love and devotion. Extravagant waste? Maybe. Extravagant devotion? Absolutely.
Going Deeper: Sometimes we hold back our expression of love to Jesus for fear of the reaction of those around us. What would your devotion look like if we did the same as the woman?
Further Reading: John 12: 1-8; Mark 14:1-9; Luke 7:36-50
Leslie Snyder is a youth and family ministry veteran currently serving in the Kansas City area with her husband and three kids.
GOD BLESS
2/22
Is That You, Neighbor?
READ: Luke 6:27-36
And who is my neighbor? -Luke 10:29
An English yachtsman sailing in the Caribbean, 4,000 miles from home, lost his mast in a storm. He had been adrift for 2 days, and was taking water in 20-foot waves, when his desperate SOS was picked up. According to Ananova news service, 90 minutes later he was rescued by the captain of a 116,000-ton superliner.
Only when he was pulled out of the water did the rescued sailor discover that the captain who had responded to his call for help was a neighbor from his Hampshire village of Warsash. The rescued man later asked, "What are the chances of being rescued in the middle of nowhere by your neighbor?"
Jesus saw neighbors in unlikely places. When an expert in Jewish law asked Him to define the neighbor we are to love, Jesus drew a big circle. He told the story of a merciful Samaritan to show that a neighbor is the friend, stranger, or enemy who needs the help we can give (Luke 10).
To distinguish ourselves as Jesus' people, we need to show kindness even to those who wish us harm (Luke 6:32-34). Only then will we reflect the heart of the One who, while we were still His enemies, paid the ultimate price to come to our rescue. - Mart De Haan
How many lives shall I touch today?
How many neighbors will pass my way?
I can bless so many and help so much
If I meet each one with a Christlike touch. -Jones
Our love for Christ is only as real as our love for our neighbor.
Guidance Through The Valley
Who is in control of your life? Who directs your plans, dreams, and goals? We all are influenced by something-our egos, our greed, our pride, our circumstances, our relationships. But only the Lord, the One who created us and every living thing, has the right to claim ownership on our lives.
In Psalm 23 David declares, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want" (Psalm 23:1). David acknowledges God as his shepherd-the one who governs and manages his life, the one who is the owner of his life-and He is the best manager we could ever have. A sheep's life isn't easy-but no matter what our circumstances, our Shepherd provides His guidance and comfort.
We are never in need because our Shepherd cares for us. He provides us rest when we cannot carry on in our own strength. He quenches our thirst. He restores us and forgives us when we are broken and weak. "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul" (Psalm 23:2-3).
Even in our darkest days, our Shepherd will remain with us: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me" (Psalm 23:4). With the Shepherd leading us, we have nothing to fear-not the disappointments of life, the dark days, not even death itself. Whatever valley we go through, God is leading us to higher ground.
In the midst of those who attack us, we can find joy in the Lord because we have been anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit. "You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows" (Psalm 23:5). Only our Shepherd can provide us with this Spirit-filled, joyful life that empowers us when our enemies attack. The Bible tells us, "the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).
We will never lack for anything because our Creator's goodness and mercy will be our constant companions throughout life and for eternity. "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Psalm 23:6). This doesn't mean that we are guaranteed financial wealth, perfect health, or a pain-free life. But our Shepherd knows the deepest needs of our souls, and He alone knows how to fill them.
Psalm 116 tells us, "The Lord protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me. Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm 116:6-9).
Our Shepherd is truly like none other-He even gave His own life for us. Jesus tells us, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (John 10:11). Trust Him alone to take care of your safety, your needs, your relationships. He is never off the clock-He is always providing, always caring, and always watching over us. There is no other shepherd that compares to Him. He alone can give us the comfort and restoration that we need.
The sheep's only responsibility is to follow the shepherd. And our Good Shepherd wants our obedience to Him. If you have been a wayward sheep, surrender to Him today. If you have been a fearful sheep, scared of the wolves that hunt you, give your anxieties to your Shepherd. Not only can He turn our lives around, but He will show us the way-the safe way, the better way, the right way.
Think about the many ways the Shepherd cares for you, and list them below. Spend time praising God for His guidance, provision, and comfort. Thank the Good Shepherd for laying down His life for His sheep. Submit your life to His leadership today.
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Everybody wants to be loved by somebody... But what really is true love? Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"The Truth About Love." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me -Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things- things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? "She has done a good work for Me."
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. ". . . but perfect love casts out fear . . ." once we are surrendered to God ( 1 John 4:18 ). We should quit asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
God Bless
Daily Devotionals February 22, 2009
Choosing The Hard Thing
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:5-18
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair. -2 Corinthians 4:8
On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, about the difficult challenges facing the nation. He also shared his passion for the United States to place a man on the moon.
In balancing the needs of his people with the desire to conquer space, Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade. We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard." The nation responded. Seven years later, Neil Armstrong took a "giant leap for mankind" in July of 1969, by walking on the moon.
Today's world is filled with energy-saving devices that make life easier, but there is something to be said for embracing life's challenges. The apostle Paul found serving Christ hard, but he didn't see it as a cause for discouragement. He continued to focus on Christ, and wrote, "We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair" (2 Cor. 4:8). Paul knew that "He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you" (v.14). The goal was worth the pain.
By the grace of God, may we commit to serving Jesus-not just when it's easy, but when it's hard. - Bill Crowder
For Further Study
Learn more about dealing with difficulties in life.
Read Joseph: Overcoming Life's Challenges on
the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/q0715
Jesus gave His all to save us-are we giving our all to serve Him?
Confirmed by Others
By Os Hillman
"The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD" (1 Sam 3:19-20).
When I was 14 years old I was an exceptional junior golfer. This is not pride on my part, but merely a fact. I had already broken 70 several times and had three hole-in-ones. I competed in the US Junior Amateur and eventually turned pro after attending college on a four year golf scholarship. Those who knew me affirmed the gift and calling that appeared to be on my life. I turned professional for about three years, but God later redirected my life into business and vocational ministry. All of these experiences have combined over many years to contribute to the calling I am living out today.
As we mature in our natural and spiritual lives, God uses our parents, teachers, uncles, coaches and pastors to affirm the gifts and callings that are on our lives. At the time, it often seems like these people are trying to get in the way of what we want to do. However, God uses authority figures to provide key direction during the early teen and twenty-something years. He is using these people to help guide us to the ultimate destiny He has for our lives.
When we are young, we are often more impressionable than at any other time in our lives. The young person who can allow wisdom to rule over immaturity and impatience is a rare individual. However, if you are able to receive from the people God puts in your life at this stage, you will be so far ahead of your peers and you will be amazed.
"God is continually preparing His heroes, and when the opportunity is right, He puts them into position in an instant. He works so fast, the world wonders where they came from," said A. B. Simpson.
Let God do the foundation work so that he can advance you to His ultimate destiny He has for your life.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Elk River Story
City Experiences Spiritual Climate Change
Imagine a community where the mayor openly expresses Christian faith, pastors and business leaders come together to pray regularly, 100+ youth make a commitment to Jesus Christ, a bank sees 70 physical healings and 100 people accept Jesus during business hours, and inmates at the county jail experience God's miraculous transformation. Such a community exists near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Read first-hand accounts of these stories and more. Order or Learn More
His Stuff
You have probably noticed that over the last few days of devotionals, we have been focusing on material blessings and how we should view those blessings.
1 Chronicles 29:14-16 is very helpful to see God's perspective,
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. "O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own."
In these verses, King David is actually talking to the Lord as an offering is being received, and resources are being collected for the building of the temple (something his son Solomon is going to achieve).
We see that David recognized that everything he had, everything the people had, literally belonged to God. They were just giving God back something that belonged to Him in the first place.
I am going to let you in on a little secret: You and I are just stewards, and one day the Owner will call us into account for how we handled His stuff. Every one of us will give an account for our stewardship of His possessions.
While He gives us richly all things to enjoy, He is going to ask you if you did what He told you to do with His stuff. It is not our stuff.
Material treasure is a stewardship, and we must do what the Owner wants with it. This means we have a responsibility to be listening for the Owner's voice and following His instructions with His goods.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Discipline of Spiritual Perseverance
Be still, and know that I am God . . . -Psalm 46:10
Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for- love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men- will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.
If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere . . ." ( Revelation 3:10 ).
Continue to persevere spiritually.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 23, 2009
Waiting For The Harvest
READ: Mark 4:26-29
First the blade, then the head, after that the full grain . . . . The harvest has come. -Mark 4:28-29
In the book What's Gone Wrong With the Harvest? James Engel and Wilbert Norton illustrate on a graph how people often go through a series of preconversion stages before stepping over the line of faith and receiving Jesus as their Savior.
When we hear individuals share their conversion experience, we may conclude that faith happened all at once. But their salvation frequently carries an extended back-story of spiritual pilgrimage before they made that decision. They needed time to reflect on the gospel. For them, coming to the Savior was a process.
This is similar to the process of farming: Months of waiting come to an end and workers stream into the fields to help with the harvest. One of our Lord's parables illustrates how faith-like a crop-needs time to develop. Responding to the gospel is like a seed that grows "first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain," until finally, "the harvest has come" (Mark 4:28-29).
Because people may need time and multiple exposures to the gospel before they are ready to make a decision, we need to be sensitive to where they are in their faith-journey. In the meantime, we can cultivate spiritual interest, pray for them, and wait for the harvest! - Dennis Fisher
Have you thought of where you're going
When this earthly life is past?
Will the seed that you are sowing
Bring a harvest that will last? -Jacobson
We sow the seed-God produces the harvest.
The Trinity's Teamwork
By Os Hillman
"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand" (Isa 64:8).
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit make up three distinct aspects of the God-head. Each of these persons form the trinity and contribute to the overall work of God. The trinity reveals God's belief in teamwork. Even God brought a team together to accomplish His purposes. The Leadership Bible gives us further insight into the distinct roles the Trinity plays.
The three Persons of the Godhead are never independent but always work together in concert. Scripture records the work of the divine trinity in the creation cosmos (see Genesis 1:1-2, John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-17), but this perfect and harmonious interaction was especially evident in how God made it possible for people who were formerly alienated from him to be transformed into his beloved children.
Paul first spoke of the work of the Father in accomplishing our salvation in verses 3-6. The Father chose us before the creation of the world and sent his Son into the world so that through him we could be adopted into his family. Second, the apostle focused on the work of the Son in verses 7-12. Christ's blood sacrifice on our behalf paid the penalty for our sins so that we could enjoy forgiveness and lay hold of God's purpose for our lives. Third, the work of the Holy Spirit, identified in verses 13-14, seals and guarantees our spiritual inheritance. Thus, the Father initiated our salvation, The Son accomplished it and the Holy Spirit made it real in our lives. At the end of each of these three sections the phrase 'to the praise of his glory' appears. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit perform distinct roles, but they work together in perfect harmony and agreement.*
This three-fold team of the trinity is committed to bringing you into full maturity in Jesus Christ. May the Father, Son and Holy Spirit take your feet of clay and build a solid foundation for the praise of His Son.
The Leadership Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 1998 p.1378
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Elk River Story
City Experiences Spiritual Climate Change
Imagine a community where the mayor openly expresses Christian faith, pastors and business leaders come together to pray regularly, 100+ youth make a commitment to Jesus Christ, a bank sees 70 physical healings and 100 people accept Jesus during business hours, and inmates at the county jail experience God's miraculous transformation. Such a community exists near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Read first-hand accounts of these stories and more. Order or Learn More
Spiritual Treasure
In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul tells us,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
If you look at this chapter, Paul helps us understand that this treasure is ministry, the gospel, the Word of God, and the light and the glory of God, God's presence.
Paul wants us to understand that God has placed in us an incredible spiritual treasure...a treasure residing in these earthen vessels...our bodies. The treasure is in you and me!
But that treasure needs to be poured out.
I can't help but think that Paul was thinking of two particular earthen vessels that were used in his day. One was the vessel of mercy and the other the vessel of honor.
One place you would find the vessel of honor was around the home. People would use the water to wash their feet after traveling the dusty roads before they would enter your house, or they would use the water to quench their thirst. Like the vessel of honor, we are to wash the feet of our family, to humbly serve them and to help quench their thirst for more of God.
The vessel of mercy looked identical to the vessel of honor, but it was located in public places like the town square, so that any traveler coming through that arid land would be guaranteed to find a fresh drink of water. It was placed where the needs were. We need to take mercy where mercy is needed most-out onto the highways of humanity.
You are an earthen vessel filled with His spiritual treasure, so start pouring it out-in your home and out where the people are.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Determination to Serve
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . . -Matthew 20:28
Jesus also said, "Yet I am among you as the One who serves" (Luke 22:27). Paul's idea of service was the same as our Lord's- ". . . ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake" ( 2 Corinthians 4:5 ). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people. But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a "doormat" for others- called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, "I know how to be abased . . ." (Philippians 4:12 ). Paul's idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul's service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.
Paul's understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. "I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man . . ." ( 1 Timothy 1:13 ). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 24, 2009
Managing The Mess
READ: Ruth 1:15-22
Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me? -Ruth 1:21
When we meet Naomi in the Scriptures, her life is a mess. She and her husband had gone to Moab searching for food during a famine. While in that land, their two sons married Moabite women, and life was good-until her husband and sons died and she was stuck, widowed in a foreign land.
Though honest about her pain, Naomi obviously had a sense of who was in control: "The Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me" (Ruth 1:21).
The Hebrew word for "Almighty" (Shaddai) indicates God's sufficiency for any situation. The word "Lord" (Yahweh) refers to His faithfulness as the loving covenant-keeping God. I love how Naomi put these two names together. In the midst of her complaint, she never lost sight of the fact that her God was a capable and faithful God. And, sure enough, He proved His capability to deliver her and His faithfulness to care for her to the very end.
If there seems to be no way out of your despair, remember that Naomi's God is your God as well. And He specializes in managing our messes to good and glorious outcomes. Thankfully, He is both capable and faithful. So, when your life is a mess, remember who your God is! - Joe Stowell
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last. -von Schlegel
Stand back and watch the Lord manage your mess into a glorious outcome.
John the Baptist was the Greatest
By Os Hillman
"I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matt 11:11-12).
John the Baptist did no miracles. Elijah performed miracle after miracle. Daniel interpreted dreams for kings and he and his friends impacted an entire nation. Jeremiah and Isaiah were two of Israel's greatest prophetic voices. Jesus built his church through the twelve disciples. But Jesus made a profound declaration about this man who performed no miracles - He is the greatest among all the prophets.
Why did Jesus make such a claim? Because he did one very important thing - he fulfilled his purpose on earth in every way.
The disciples asked John the Baptist, "Are you the one we have been waiting for? John responded quickly, "No." Then he made a profound statement: "A man can receive only what God gives him" (John 3:27). He had a complete understanding of why he was placed on earth.
Jesus proclaimed John the Baptist was the greatest because he (John) knew and fulfilled his purpose. The angel Gabriel described John's purpose to his father: "And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous - to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Luke 1:17).
His purpose was absolutely necessary to be achieved in order to prepare the way for Jesus. Do you know why God made you? Are you fulfilling the destiny He has planned for you since the foundation of the earth?
Understanding your work life purpose is key to receiving your inheritance. Paul said no matter what kind of work you do, if God has called you to do it, you will receive an inheritance for doing it. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Col 3:23-25).
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Elk River Story
City Experiences Spiritual Climate Change
Imagine a community where the mayor openly expresses Christian faith, pastors and business leaders come together to pray regularly, 100+ youth make a commitment to Jesus Christ, a bank sees 70 physical healings and 100 people accept Jesus during business hours, and inmates at the county jail experience God's miraculous transformation. Such a community exists near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Read first-hand accounts of these stories and more. Order or Learn More
You're Not Stuck
1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
The word temptation in this verse also means test or trial. With that in mind, here are a couple of thoughts to encourage you today.
1. Whatever test, trial, or temptation you are facing today, it is "common to man." That means that you are not the only one who has gone through whatever you are facing.
It is comforting to know that others have faced similar problems before us and made it through!
2. God makes a way of escape with the trial or temptation. That means you're not stuck! Before your difficulty ever arose, God designed a way of escape. And that means of escape comes with the problem.
So if you find yourself embroiled in trials, tests, or temptations today, start looking for God's way of escape-it exists. Trust Him to guide you safely through and out of your difficulties!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Delight of Sacrifice
I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls . . . -2 Corinthians 12:15
Once "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit," we deliberately begin to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests and purposes in others' lives (Romans 5:5 ). And Jesus has an interest in every individual person. We have no right in Christian service to be guided by our own interests and desires. In fact, this is one of the greatest tests of our relationship with Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, Jesus (see John 15:13 ). I don't throw my life away, but I willingly and deliberately lay it down for Him and His interests in other people. And I do this for no cause or purpose of my own. Paul spent his life for only one purpose- that he might win people to Jesus Christ. Paul always attracted people to his Lord, but never to himself. He said, "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" ( 1 Corinthians 9:22 ).
When someone thinks that to develop a holy life he must always be alone with God, he is no longer of any use to others. This is like putting himself on a pedestal and isolating himself from the rest of society. Paul was a holy person, but wherever he went Jesus Christ was always allowed to help Himself to his life. Many of us are interested only in our own goals, and Jesus cannot help Himself to our lives. But if we are totally surrendered to Him, we have no goals of our own to serve. Paul said that he knew how to be a "doormat" without resenting it, because the motivation of his life was devotion to Jesus. We tend to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which allow us more spiritual freedom than total surrender to Him would allow. Freedom was not Paul's motive at all. In fact, he stated, "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren . . ." ( Romans 9:3 ). Had Paul lost his ability to reason? Not at all! For someone who is in love, this is not an overstatement. And Paul was in love with Jesus Christ.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 25, 2009
Okello's Story, Our Story
READ: Luke 5:12-16
[Jesus] put out His hand and touched [the leper]. -Luke 5:13
My friend Roxanne has had some impressive jobs in her life. She has covered the Olympics as a reporter. She has worked in Washington, DC, for noted people and companies. For years, she has written articles about top Christian athletes. But none of those jobs can compare with what she is doing now: giving the love of Jesus to children in Uganda.
What are her days like? Consider the rainy Thursday when she walked the muddy pathway to a cancer ward. Once inside, she scooped up little Okello, whose arms bore sores from poor IV care and whose body raged with a high fever. She carried him to the office of the only cancer doctor in the building and stayed with him until he got help and his condition stabilized.
Jesus, our example, spent His entire ministry among the suffering, healing them and bringing them the good news of God's love (Luke 7:21-22).
How significant are the jobs we do? Sure, it's vital to make a living to support ourselves and our families. But is there something we can do to help relieve the suffering in our world of pain? We may not be able to move to Uganda like Roxanne, but we can all find ways to assist someone. In whose life will you make a difference? - Dave Branon
God uses us to show His love
To people caught in life's despair;
Our deeds of kindness open doors
To talk of God and His great care. -Sper
One measure of our likeness to Christ is our sensitivity to the suffering of others.
But Master...
By Os Hillman
Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets" (Luke 5:5).
Have you ever argued with God? One of the first sermons Jesus ever gave was from a boat. It was Simon Peter's boat. Jesus used a businessman's business to preach the Gospel. However, Peter had to first make his business available to the Master. When he did, something wonderful happened to his business.
You see, Peter's fishing business was in a slump. They had just fished all night and caught nothing. Nevertheless, Peter made his boat available to Jesus to use as He wished. Jesus used it to preach to the multitudes. After Jesus used Peter's boat for His purposes Jesus did something interesting for Peter. He blessed his business. However, Peter almost missed the blessing because he began to argue with Jesus. Peter was looking at the market conditions instead of the instruction of Jesus. Something inside of him made him reconsider Jesus' instruction. Jesus rewarded his obedience. "When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink?" (Luke 5:6-7).
We see a number of Kingdom principles we can apply in our work lives in this story. 1) We must be willing to let God use our work life for His purposes. 2) We must not look at circumstances and argue with Jesus when His instruction seems to contradict what we have seen or experienced already. 3) We must obey the Lord.
When we obey the Lord we might just see Jesus use us for His glory and bless our obedience.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Elk River Story
City Experiences Spiritual Climate Change
Imagine a community where the mayor openly expresses Christian faith, pastors and business leaders come together to pray regularly, 100+ youth make a commitment to Jesus Christ, a bank sees 70 physical healings and 100 people accept Jesus during business hours, and inmates at the county jail experience God's miraculous transformation. Such a community exists near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Read first-hand accounts of these stories and more. Order or Learn More
Agreeing With God's Word
When the twelve spies returned from searching the promised land, they said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we" (Numbers 13:31).
That was the report they brought back-at least ten of them that is. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, had this to say,
"Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them" (Numbers 14:9).
They all saw the same things in the land of Canaan, but only Joshua and Caleb chose to agree with God. The Lord had previously told them that He would give them victory and that they would be able to drive out the inhabitants of the land.
The ten spies (along with all Israel) died without ever possessing what God had promised. Only two men from that generation entered into Canaan and possessed the land. I think you can guess who they were-Joshua and Caleb. The only two who agreed with the declarations of God.
Check out what you have been saying. Do your words agree with God or not?
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Destitution of Service
. . . though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved -2 Corinthians 12:15
Natural human love expects something in return. But Paul is saying, "It doesn't really matter to me whether you love me or not. I am willing to be completely destitute anyway; willing to be poverty-stricken, not just for your sakes, but also that I may be able to get you to God." "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 8:9 ). And Paul's idea of service was the same as our Lord's. He did not care how high the cost was to himself- he would gladly pay it. It was a joyful thing to Paul.
The institutional church's idea of a servant of God is not at all like Jesus Christ's idea. His idea is that we serve Him by being the servants of others. Jesus Christ actually "out-socialized" the socialists. He said that in His kingdom the greatest one would be the servant of all (see Matthew 23:11 ). The real test of a saint is not one's willingness to preach the gospel, but one's willingness to do something like washing the disciples' feet- that is, being willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God. It was Paul's delight to spend his life for God's interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. But before we will serve, we stop to ponder our personal and financial concerns- "What if God wants me to go over there? And what about my salary? What is the climate like there? Who will take care of me? A person must consider all these things." All that is an indication that we have reservations about serving God. But the apostle Paul had no conditions or reservations. Paul focused his life on Jesus Christ's idea of a New Testament saint; that is, not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 26, 2009
A Sad Split
READ: Malachi 2:10-16
Let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. -Malachi 2:15
The drama played out in a nest of bald eagles monitored by a webcam. A beloved eagle family, viewed by many via the Internet, was breaking up. After raising several offspring in previous seasons, the mother again laid new eggs in the spring. But then a young female invaded their happy home. When Dad started cavorting with her, Mom disappeared and the life in the abandoned eggs died.
In an Internet chat room, questions and accusations flew wildly. Everyone who loved the pair was distraught. Biologists warned the amateur eagle enthusiasts not to attribute human values to birds. But everyone did. We all wanted the original couple to reunite. Everyone seemed to "know" that the family unit is sacred.
As chat room members expressed their sadness, I wondered if they knew that God feels much the same way about human family breakups. I also wondered about myself: Why did I feel more sadness over the eagles than over the fractured human families in my community? Clearly, I need to revise my priorities.
In Malachi 2, we see God's view of marriage. It symbolizes His covenant with His people (v.11). He takes it very seriously-and so should we. - Julie Ackerman Link
Thinking It Over
In Malachi 2:11, what is "profaned" and how?
How does Malachi 2:15 echo Genesis 2:24?
Why is this important? (Mal. 2:15-16).
Put Christ first if you want your marriage to last.
Going Against Public Opinion
By Os Hillman
"On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, 'No! He is to be called John.' They said to her, 'There is no one among your relatives who has that name.'" (Luke 1:59-61).
Have you ever had to go against public opinion or advice from family members or peers? Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist. It was time to name the child. Tradition said the name would be in honor of a family member. The family members were insistent. When Elizabeth didn't agree with them, they appealed to Zechariah who supported Elizabeth.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were told by the angel Gabriel the name was to be "John." They were being obedient to the Lord's command which went against tradition and public opinion.
We live in a day when leaders are often driven more by public opinion than what is right. We are each called to live a life based on obedience-based decisions, not public opinion. Living a life of obedience will often go against the tide of public opinion. Jesus lived a life based on a purity of purpose and mission. The Pharisees wanted Him to conform to the rules of religious tradition. The result was He died because He lived to obey an audience of One, not public opinion.
Are you challenged to live a life of conviction versus pleasing others? Be true to what God has called you to do no matter the cost.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Elk River Story
City Experiences Spiritual Climate Change
Imagine a community where the mayor openly expresses Christian faith, pastors and business leaders come together to pray regularly, 100+ youth make a commitment to Jesus Christ, a bank sees 70 physical healings and 100 people accept Jesus during business hours, and inmates at the county jail experience God's miraculous transformation. Such a community exists near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Read first-hand accounts of these stories and more. Order or Learn More
Unlikely Vessels
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 says,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
God delights in calling and using those the world passes by and counts as nothing. One old preacher said, "God isn't looking for golden vessels, God isn't looking for silver vessels, God is looking for yielded vessels." I think that is true.
It is amazing what God can do through someone's life who doesn't have to have the credit.
You may feel like you do not have much to offer. If that is the case, then you are perfect! When God does great things through you, then He will get the credit. People will know it was Him and not you!
God is looking for yielded vessels that He can use in a dynamic, community-altering way.
Why not say today, "Here I am Lord, use me;" and after praying that simple prayer, get ready. God may bring some amazing opportunities your way to step out and be used for His glory.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Our Misgivings About Jesus
The woman said to Him, 'Sir, You have nothing to draw [water] with, and the well is deep' -John 4:11
Have you ever said to yourself, "I am impressed with the wonderful truths of God's Word, but He can't really expect me to live up to that and work all those details into my life!" When it comes to confronting Jesus Christ on the basis of His qualities and abilities, our attitudes reflect religious superiority. We think His ideals are lofty and they impress us, but we believe He is not in touch with reality- that what He says cannot actually be done. Each of us thinks this about Jesus in one area of our life or another. These doubts or misgivings about Jesus begin as we consider questions that divert our focus away from God. While we talk of our dealings with Him, others ask us, "Where are you going to get enough money to live? How will you live and who will take care of you?" Or our misgivings begin within ourselves when we tell Jesus that our circumstances are just a little too difficult for Him. We say, "It's easy to say, 'Trust in the Lord,' but a person has to live; and besides, Jesus has nothing with which to draw water- no means to be able to give us these things." And beware of exhibiting religious deceit by saying, "Oh, I have no misgivings about Jesus, only misgivings about myself." If we are honest, we will admit that we never have misgivings or doubts about ourselves, because we know exactly what we are capable or incapable of doing. But we do have misgivings about Jesus. And our pride is hurt even at the thought that He can do what we can't.
My misgivings arise from the fact that I search within to find how He will do what He says. My doubts spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, I should bring them into the light and confess them openly- "Lord, I have had misgivings about You. I have not believed in Your abilities, but only my own. And I have not believed in Your almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it."
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 27, 2009
Quiet Times
READ: Psalm 23:1-3; Mark 6:30-32
Be still, and know that I am God. -Psalm 46:10
My friend Mary told me that she had always valued the time she spent fishing with her dad. Not being a fishing aficionado myself, I was curious about what she found so enjoyable. "I just like being with my dad," she said. "So you just fish and talk?" I asked her. "Oh, no, we don't really talk," she said. "We just fish."
It wasn't the conversation-it was the company.
Did you ever think about how much time we spend talking? In what we like to call our "quiet time" with God, we usually fill in any silence with our prayers. But do we ever practice just being "still"?
God said, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10). When Jesus noticed that the disciples were so busy that they didn't even have time to eat, He told them, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while" (Mark 6:31). When we leave the distractions of life behind, we can more easily rest and refocus on God.
Are you allowing quiet moments alone with God to be a part of your life? Do you desire for Him to restore your soul? (Ps. 23:1-3). Let Him teach you how to "be still." And listen when Jesus invites you: "Come aside with Me and rest a while." - Cindy Hess Kasper
The quiet times we spend with God
In solitude and prayer
Will strengthen and restore our souls
And help us sense His care. -Sper
Quiet times with God store up power for future emergencies.
Filled with the Holy Spirit
By Os Hillman
"Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord-Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here-has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit'"(Acts 9:1).
Billy Graham, the great evangelist, shared a personal story about the role of the Holy Spirit in his life-long ministry and how he came to see the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
In my own life there have been times when I have also had the sense of being filled with the Spirit, knowing that some special strength was added for some task I was being called to perform. We sailed for England in 1954 for a crusade that was to last for three months. While on the ship, I experienced a definite sense of oppression. Satan seemed to have assembled a formidable array of his artillery against me. Not only was I oppressed, I was overtaken by a sense of depression, accomplished by a frightening feeling of inadequacy for the task that lay ahead. Almost night and day I prayed. I knew in a new way what Paul was telling us when he spoke about 'praying without ceasing.' Then one day in a prayer meeting with my wife and colleagues, a break came. As I wept before the Lord, I was filled with deep assurance that power belonged to God and He was faithful. I had been baptized by the Spirit into the Body of Christ when I was saved, but I believe God gave me a special anointing on the way to England. From that moment on I was confident that God the Holy Sprit was in control for the tasks that lay ahead. That proved true.*
As a believer, God has provided the Holy Spirit for you and I so that we can experience the power of the gospel that allows us to live the Christian life.
Today, if you have not done so, invite the Holy Spirit to fill your life to overflowing so that you can be a witness in your workplace, city and nation.
*Elmer Towns, Understanding the Deeper Life, Revell, Old Tappan, NJ 1988, pp. 214, 215
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Elk River Story
City Experiences Spiritual Climate Change
Imagine a community where the mayor openly expresses Christian faith, pastors and business leaders come together to pray regularly, 100+ youth make a commitment to Jesus Christ, a bank sees 70 physical healings and 100 people accept Jesus during business hours, and inmates at the county jail experience God's miraculous transformation. Such a community exists near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Read first-hand accounts of these stories and more. Order or Learn More
The Road to Perfect and Complete
I want us to focus our attention today on James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What I want to look at today is how God seeks to bring us to maturity by building patience into our lives. If there is one thing I have learned in my Christian walk, it is that God is not in as much of a hurry as I am!
Now, what is patience? Patience is the long-lasting quality of your faith. If you let go of your patience, your faith falls to the floor.
The end result God is looking for is that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The word perfect here means mature. God is developing maturity in us by working on our patience.
I have a dear friend who has a great church. They endeavored to build another building on their property and it ended up being a major undertaking. In fact, it turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done. I mean, it took a strip out of his hide.
Eventually it got built, but you know what my friend says about it? He says, "You see that building? I didn't build that building. It built me."
Going through those trials, facing those difficulties, having his faith tested, having to trust God when it seemed like there was a lack of finances, having to hold onto God's Word when he was a laughing stock with some people, all of that built character in him as he stood the test.
I have a question for you: Has anything been building you lately? If so, rejoice, because God is working maturity in you!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus
Where then do You get that living water? -John 4:11
"The well is deep"- and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! ( John 4:11 ). Think of the depths of human nature and human life; think of the depth of the "wells" in you. Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you have a deep "well" of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says to you, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1 ). Would your response be to shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even You can't draw up quietness and comfort out of it." Actually, that is correct. Jesus doesn't bring anything up from the wells of human nature- He brings them down from above. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering only what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and also by saying, "Of course, I cannot expect God to do this particular thing." The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do. We impoverish and weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. The impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from approaching Him as our Almighty God.
The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, "Of course, He can't do anything about this." We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, "It can't be done." You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals February 28, 2009
Fever Pitch
READ: Matthew 22:34-40
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. -Matthew 22:39
In the movie Fever Pitch, Ben Wrightman is crazy about the Boston Red Sox baseball team. He rarely misses a game during the spring and summer months.
One winter, Ben falls in love with a young woman named Lindsey and wins her heart. Then spring rolls around, and she finds out that he's a different person during baseball season. He has no time for her unless she goes to the games with him.
When Lindsey ends her relationship with Ben because of his fanaticism, he talks with a young friend, who says, "You love the Sox. But tell me, have they ever loved you back?" Those words cause Ben to analyze his priorities and to give more time to the woman he loves, who loves him back.
We pour our lives into hobbies, pleasures, activities, work-many good things. But two things should always be thought about when making our choices. Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart . . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:37,39).
When it seems our life is getting out of balance, the question, "Has that hobby or activity or thing ever loved me back?" may help to keep us in check. Loving God and loving people are what really count. - Anne Cetas
Follow with reverent steps the great example
Of Him whose holy work was doing good:
So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. -Whittier
We show our love for God when we share His love with others.
The Judas Test
By Os Hillman
"If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we walked with the throng at the house of God" (Ps. 55:12-14).
Betrayal is one of the most difficult tests that we will ever face because it involves being wounded by someone we trust. It's hard not to become bitter when a friend or family member wounds us. It takes a lot of Christ-like grace to forgive a traitor.
You have probably faced the Judas Test yourself. Everyday you and I work in a marketplace that is rife with betrayal, deception, duplicity, and treachery. Perhaps you have been betrayed by your boss or a coworker. Or perhaps somebody betrayed a confidence or stabbed you in the back. It may have even been someone you've gone to church with or prayed with - someone you trusted as a brother in Christ.
The Judas kiss stings worse than a slap across the face. Almost every leader I know has experienced that sting at one time or another. Yet God is watching to see how we respond to the Judas Test. If we pass the test, He can then take us to the next level, the next test. If we fail, we'll probably have to repeat the test until we learn to forgive.
The Judas Test is God's graduate level course in faith, designed to reveal the truth about ourselves: Are we willing to trust Him enough to forgive the Judases in our lives? The book of Hebrews warns, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (Heb 12:15). When we refuse to forgive we risk infecting others with a "bitter root" of resentment.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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It Will All Work Out
Ephesians 1:11 is a powerful verse with a vital lesson,
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Over the 30 years of my Christian life, I have come to have great confidence in God's ability to work things out. No matter what is going on or how obscured my understanding of a situation is, I believe God is always working things according to His great sovereign plan.
It is as if there is this giant tapestry that God is weaving, and my life is a part of it. I sometimes get caught up with the temporal things and the stuff that is happening, but God reminds me, "Hey, nothing is taking Me by surprise. I'm weaving all of these things into this great pattern. Your mistakes, the stuff that happens to you, it is all going to turn out alright!"
Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God? The thing you are embroiled in right now did not take God by surprise. He did not look at your situation and say, "Oh no! I didn't figure on that! Gabriel, do you have any suggestions? What are we going to do?"
I know that sometimes in my microscopic view of things I have said, "Lord, such and such has got to happen." And God has replied, "Well, you don't have the big picture." Then, as time went on, God pulled the camera back, and I got the wide view, and I realized God was up to something very cool-totally apart from what I thought "had to happen."
Whatever your situation, you can rest assured that God has plans to work things out. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So relax! Even if your present circumstances have totally taken you by surprise, God saw it coming and made provision far ahead of time.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Strength Against The Enemy
As Christians, we will face opposition because of our faith. A neighbor might snub us, for example, or a co-worker may ridicule us. In the middle of these attacks, we may be tempted to call them the enemy. But our true enemy is spiritual in nature.
Are you under a spiritual attack today? Perhaps Satan is tempting you to sin. Or maybe he is using a broken relationship to grow seeds of bitterness in your soul. Whatever tactics the enemy uses to try to trip us, we have no reason to fear because we have God on our side.
In Psalm 27, we see that David trusted God to provide His protection and strength. "The Lord is my light and my salvation-whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident" (Psalm 27:1-3).
David was able to go into battle with confidence because he began his battle in prayer. When we call upon God's power instead of fearing our circumstances, we are on the path to victory. The more time we spend in prayer and worship of our Savior, the less we will feel afraid. The only way to be a successful spiritual warrior is to start as a successful worshiper: "Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord" (Psalm 27:6).
When we forget to seek Him on a daily basis, we become easy prey for the enemy. The enemy is always present, ready to trip us up or to lure us down the wrong path. "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8).
We desperately need God's guidance to lead us in the right direction. Yet when we neglect our relationship with God, we become insensitive to His voice. We need to remember David's cry: "My heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' Your face, Lord, I will seek" (Psalm 27:8).
There are times when God will call us to act immediately during a battle. But there are other times when He wants us to wait upon Him, so that He may act on our behalf. What seems like a frustrating delay is God's preparation for a great blessing to come. "I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord" (Psalm 27:13-14).
Sometimes it takes as much courage to wait upon God as it does to act in His name. As we wait before the Lord in worship and as we walk with Him daily, He puts His strength in our hearts. "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31, ESV).
As we look at David's example in Psalm 27, we see that he worshiped God, walked with God, and waited upon God. How close is this strategy to your own battle plan? We need to remain in a constant state of readiness, recognizing that the only way to find victory is through God. Confess to God today the times when you have neglected the worship that He deserves. Seek forgiveness for the times you ignored His voice. Confess your impatience during His calls for waiting. Seek to follow God wholeheartedly-not only during times of battle, but also in a daily walk with Him.
*****
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GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 1, 2009
The Need For Nourishment
READ: Psalm 37:1-11
Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. -Psalm 37:3
Our grandson Cameron was born 6 weeks prematurely. Undersized and in danger, he became a resident of the hospital's neonatal unit for about 2 weeks until he gained enough weight to go home. His biggest challenge was that, in the physical exercise of eating, he burned more calories than he was taking in. This obviously hindered his development. It seemed that the little guy took two steps backward for every step of progress he made.
No medicine or treatment could solve the problem; he just needed the strength-giving fortification of nourishment.
As followers of Christ, we are constantly finding our emotional and spiritual reserves drained by the challenges of life in a fallen world. In such times, we need nourishment to strengthen us. In Psalm 37, David encouraged us to strengthen our hearts by feeding our souls. He wrote, "Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness" (v.3).
When weakness afflicts us, the reassurance of God's never-ending faithfulness can enable us to carry on in His name. His faithful care is the nourishment we need, giving us, as the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" says, "strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow." - Bill Crowder
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside! -Chisholm
© Renewal 1951. W.M. Runyan. Hope Publishing.
Feed on God's faithfulness to find the strength you need.
Learning the Art of Forgiveness
By Os Hillman
"Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us" (Luke 11:4).
"I'm sorry for speaking to you harshly last night," I said. Then the Holy Spirit reminded me to add the second and most important part of my admission. "Will you forgive me?" Without this request we have only partially repented of our sin. It is important to humble ourselves before those we sin against. This is repentance. If we only say we are sorry we are only stating remorse for our actions.
Jesus modeled this in the Lords Prayer: "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us" (Luke 11:4). When I owned my advertising agency I once filed a lawsuit against a client who refused to pay a $140,000 bill. However, the Lord instructed me that because I had also sinned in the situation, I was to drop the suit. My next move was to talk to my former client. I tried phoning him, but he wouldn't return my calls. Finally, I reached his secretary and said, "I want you to take this message down and give it to your boss, word for word - no changes: 'I have sinned against you. I know that I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I ask your forgiveness for filing the lawsuit against you. You are no longer obligated to pay the balance you owe me if you don't feel you owe it.'"
I could hear the secretary begin to cry on the other end of the line. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. About an hour later, my former client called. We hadn't spoken for six months. We reconciled the relationship.
The next few years were incredibly difficult because of the financial setback I suffered, but God provided for my needs. Looking back, I realize that this was my Judas Test. I passed the test when I let go of my resentment and asked to be forgiven, and God was glorified in the situation.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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The Remnant
Today, I want you to read Romans 11:2-5,
God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
When Elijah pleads with God, he is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Jezebel is after his head and he has run into the wilderness. He is sitting down under a tree, and he is crying to God, "I'm the only one. Nobody else is serving You."
But God says, "Hey, wait a minute, Tiger. I have seven thousand more who haven't bowed their knee to the false idol. You're not the only one."
God is saying, "I have a remnant." And then Paul brings it right into present day, and says, "Just like God had a remnant then, God has a remnant today."
A remnant is a small group that has remained. That is where the word remnant comes from. It comes from the root "to remain." God always has a remnant. A remnant that remains faithful, committed, on course, obedient to God. That does not get discouraged, quit, or give up because of life's many turns.
Life has its share of setbacks and unexpected turns, and many people give up because of those setbacks. But those who stay on course and remain faithful will experience God's richer blessings.
God blesses all of His children. But those who stay the course are rewarded for their faithfulness.
So stay on track, hold course, stay steady, and remain faithful. Be a part of the remnant.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Piercing Question
READ:
Do you love Me? -John 21:17
Peter's response to this piercing question is considerably different from the bold defiance he exhibited only a few days before when he declared, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" ( Matthew 26:35 ; also see Matthew 26:33-34 ). Our natural individuality, or our natural self, boldly speaks out and declares its feelings. But the true love within our inner spiritual self can be discovered only by experiencing the hurt of this question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way any natural man loves a good person. Yet that is nothing but emotional love. It may reach deeply into our natural self, but it never penetrates to the spirit of a person. True love never simply declares itself. Jesus said, "Whoever confesses Me before men [that is, confesses his love by everything he does, not merely by his words], him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God" ( Luke 12:8 ).
Unless we are experiencing the hurt of facing every deception about ourselves, we have hindered the work of the Word of God in our lives. The Word of God inflicts hurt on us more than sin ever could, because sin dulls our senses. But this question of the Lord intensifies our sensitivities to the point that this hurt produced by Jesus is the most exquisite pain conceivable. It hurts not only on the natural level, but also on the deeper spiritual level. "For the Word of God is living and powerful . . . , piercing even to the division of soul and spirit . . ."- to the point that no deception can remain ( Hebrews 4:12). When the Lord asks us this question, it is impossible to think and respond properly, because when the Lord speaks directly to us, the pain is too intense. It causes such a tremendous hurt that any part of our life which may be out of line with His will can feel the pain. There is never any mistaking the pain of the Lord's Word by His children, but the moment that pain is felt is the very moment at which God reveals His
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 2, 2009
Finding Our Calling
READ: Ephesians 4:1-16
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. -Ephesians 4:1
A continuing struggle as we seek to follow Christ is trying to find our calling in life. While we often think in terms of occupation and location, perhaps a more important issue is one of character-the being that undergirds doing. "Lord, who do You want me to be?"
In Ephesians 4, Paul wrote, "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called" (v.1). He followed this with three "be's," as one translation renders it: be humble, be gentle, be patient, "bearing with one another in love" (v.2 NIV). Paul wrote this from prison, a difficult place where he continued to live out his calling from God.
Oswald Chambers said: "Consecration is not the giving over of the calling in life to God, but the separation from all other callings and the giving over of ourselves to God, letting His providence place us where He will-in business, or law, or science; in workshop, in politics, or in drudgery. We are to be there working according to the laws and principles of the Kingdom of God."
When we are the right people before God, we can do whatever task He sends, wherever He puts us. In so doing, we discover and affirm His calling for us. - David C. McCasland
You are called with a holy calling
The light of the world to be;
To lift up the lamp of the gospel
That others the light may see. -Anon.
It's not what you do but who you are that's most important.
Exceeding Expectations
By Os Hillman
"She said to the king, 'The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard'" (1 Kings 10:6-8).
"I'm shocked," said the woman on the phone. "I've just seen your picture. I was expecting a grey haired old man. You are too young to have the wisdom that I read in your messages."
When people meet you, or experience your work life skills, would they say that you far exceeded their expectations? Do you undersell and over produce, or oversell and under produce? Solomon's wisdom far exceeded any man's wisdom and it was evident to others. When people come in contact with you do they come away with a sense of greater appreciation of you after meeting you?
"Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men" (Prov 22:29). Whenever we exceed the expectations of man, we bring glory to our Heavenly Father and He often elevates us among men.
Bezalel was a man who designed the ark of the covenant for Moses because God handpicked him to design it because of his exceptional skill. Then Moses said to the Israelites, "See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts - to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic craftsmanship. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others" (Ex 35:30-35).
If there was a Kingdom project to be done would God recommend you for the job? God calls you and I to live our lives and do our work with excellence.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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Not There Yet
In Philippians 3:12-13, Paul gives us an important insight into becoming complete or mature in Christ,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected (or complete); but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
As believers, we must realize that we have a way to go. We have not arrived. There are still some things ahead. We still must press on.
But some people have the idea they have arrived. They don't need to grow anymore; they don't need to study anymore; they don't need to increase anymore.
It is like the true story of a young neighbor who was talking to Albert Einstein at a dinner party. She asked, "What is it exactly that you do as a profession?" Einstein looked at her and said, "I've devoted myself to the study of physics." And in shock she replied, "Studying physics at your age? I finished my studies a year ago!"
Unfortunately, that is the attitude many Christians have today about their spiritual growth. They think they have finished. Instead, our attitude should be like 95-year-old Pablo Casals, considered to be the greatest cellist that the world has ever known.
A young reporter asked him one day, "You're 95. The world considers you to be its greatest cellist; and still, at 95, you practice six hours a day. Why?" To which he responded, "Because I think I'm making progress."
Friend, you have not arrived. Set your goal to be making progress every day. That is how you will become mature in Christ.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Have You Felt the Pain Inflicted by the Lord?
He said to him the third time, '. . . do you love Me?' -John 21:17
Have you ever felt the pain, inflicted by the Lord, at the very center of your being, deep down in the most sensitive area of your life? The devil never inflicts pain there, and neither can sin nor human emotions. Nothing can cut through to that part of our being but the Word of God. "Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' " Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. And then he began to see what Jesus' patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest bit of doubt left in Peter's mind; he could never be deceived again. And there was no need for an impassioned response; no need for immediate action or an emotional display. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he simply said, "Lord, You know all things . . . ." Peter began to see how very much he did love Jesus, and there was no need to say, "Look at this or that as proof of my love." Peter was beginning to discover within himself just how much he really did love the Lord. He discovered that his eyes were so fixed on Jesus Christ that he saw no one else in heaven above or on the earth below. But he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord were asked. The Lord's questions always reveal the true me to myself.
Oh, the wonder of the patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the perfect time. Rarely, but probably once in each of our lives, He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with His piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 3, 2009
What Are We Holding On To?
READ: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. -1 Timothy 6:12
Tolkien's classic The Lord of the Rings trilogy came to life in recent years on film. In the second epic story, the hero, Frodo, reached a point of despair and wearily confided to his friend, "I can't do this, Sam." As a good friend, Sam gave a rousing speech: "It's like in the great stories . . . . Full of darkness and danger they were. . . . Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something." Which prompted Frodo to ask: "What are we holding on to, Sam?"
It's a significant question, one that we all need to ask ourselves. Living in a fallen, broken world, it's no wonder that sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the powers of darkness. When we are at the point of despair, ready to throw in the towel, we do well to follow Paul's advice to Timothy: "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. 6:12).
In life's battles, let's hold on to the fact that good will triumph over evil in the end, that one day we will see our Master and Leader face-to-face, and we will reign with Him forever. You can be part of this great story, knowing that if you have trusted Jesus for salvation you are guaranteed a victorious ending! - Joe Stowell
Though weak and helpless in life's fray,
God's mighty power shall be my stay;
Without, within, He gives to me
The strength to gain the victory. -D. De Haan
The trials of earth are small compared with the triumphs of heaven.
The University of Adversity
By Os Hillman
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter 4:12-13).
I've observed a principle: The pathway to leadership almost always takes us through the valley of adversity. We see this principle not only in the story of Joseph, who endured thirteen years of adversity, but also in the lives of many other leaders in both the Old and New Testament.
Moses was raised in the royal splendor of Pharaoh's household in Egypt, but he was forced to flee and spend 40 years in desert exile before God spoke from a burning bush and called him to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery. Joshua spent the years of his youth as a slave in Egypt and his middle-aged years wandering in the desert at Moses' side. He was well acquainted with adversity when God called him to lead Israel's armies in the conquest of Canaan. The prophet Daniel was thrown into a den of hungry lions before he could reach a place of power and influence in the Babylonian courts. And we see this same pattern played out in the lives of David, Isaiah, Amos, Hosea and other Old Testament leaders.
Turning to the New Testament, we see that even Jesus had to face adversity in the desert, suffering hunger, thirst, temptation and opposition from Satan. Only then could He begin His public ministry. The Lord's disciples had to endure the loss of their Master, the failure of their own faith and character, and the dark days of despair between the cross and the empty tomb before they could become the founding leaders of the Lord's church.
It's hard to find anyone in Christian history who became a great leader without earning an advanced degree at the "University of Adversity."
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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Prayers and Preaching
Yesterday we talked about how progressing towards spiritual maturity is a process that will never end in this life. There are two things I want to focus your attention on today that will help you in that effort.
The first is found in Colossians 4:12,
Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
If you are going to be complete or mature in Christ, you need the prayers of others. In the long haul, I am convinced none of us make it across the finish line without the prayers of other Christians.
The second is found in Colossians 1:27-28,
...Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
In addition to the prayers of others, you need to be under good preaching and teaching to become complete in Christ. Preaching promotes change while teaching promotes growth, and you need both of them.
Looking back at my Christian life, I can still remember messages that literally shook my world and changed me. I remember one in particular when I had been saved less than a month.
Some new Christian friends took me to hear an evangelist preach. I was blessed so I decided to go back the next night. That night I heard a message that changed my life. It was a message on the parable of the sower, and that night I fell in love with the Word of God. It absolutely shaped me.
To become mature in your faith, make sure you are under solid biblical preaching and teaching, and develop the prayer habit as well as soliciting the prayers of others.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
His Commission to Us
Feed My sheep -John 21:17
This is love in the making. The love of God is not created- it is His nature. When we receive the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit, He unites us with God so that His love is demonstrated in us. The goal of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not just to unite us with God, but to do it in such a way that we will be one with the Father in exactly the same way Jesus was. And what kind of oneness did Jesus Christ have with the Father? He had such a oneness with the Father that He was obedient when His Father sent Him down here to be poured out for us. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" ( John 20:21 ).
Peter now realizes that he does love Him, due to the revelation that came with the Lord's piercing question. The Lord's next point is- "Pour yourself out. Don't testify about how much you love Me and don't talk about the wonderful revelation you have had, just 'Feed My sheep.' " Jesus has some extraordinarily peculiar sheep: some that are unkempt and dirty, some that are awkward or pushy, and some that have gone astray! But it is impossible to exhaust God's love, and it is impossible to exhaust my love if it flows from the Spirit of God within me. The love of God pays no attention to my prejudices caused by my natural individuality. If I love my Lord, I have no business being guided by natural emotions- I have to feed His sheep. We will not be delivered or released from His commission to us. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by following your own natural human emotions, sympathies, or understandings. That will only serve to revile and abuse the true love of God.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 4, 2009
An Ocean Of Ink
READ: Ephesians 3:14-19
To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. -Ephesians 3:19
The words of the hymn "The Love of God" capture in word pictures the breathtaking magnitude of divine love:
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies
of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll
contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.
These marvelous lyrics echo Paul's response to the love of God. The apostle prayed that believers might "be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge" (Eph. 3:18-19). In reflecting on these verses about God's love, some Bible scholars believe "width" refers to its worldwide embrace (John 3:16); "length," its existence through all ages (Eph. 3:21); "depth," its profound wisdom (Rom. 11:33); and "height," its victory over sin opening the way to heaven (Eph. 4:8).
We are admonished to appreciate this amazing love. Yet as we expand our awareness of God's love, we soon realize that its full measure is beyond our understanding. Even if the ocean were filled with ink, using it to write about the love of God would drain it dry. - Dennis Fisher
God's love cannot be explained-it can only be experienced.
Isn't This Joseph's Son?
By Os Hillman
"All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. 'Isn't this Joseph's son?' they asked" (Luke 4:22).
Jesus was more qualified to be a carpenter than the Son of God in the view of religious leaders and the common people of his day. He was also becoming known as a rabbi who thought and did things "outside the box." He was an unusual mixture of the earthly common man who did daily work just like his other villagers in Nazareth. So, when the public ministry side of his life began to surface, the first observations were, "Isn't this Joseph, the carpenter's son?"
This is not unlike what happens when God calls you or I into a more public ministry. "Isn't that John, the CPA, or Bill the restaurant manager, or Susie the bank executive?" The first question among our critics is "Where did John, Bill, or Susie get religion?"
The religious spirit in the workplace reveals itself in many ways. The religious spirit can best be defined as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. The religious spirit seeks to distort a genuine move of God through deception, control and manipulation. It was the primary force against Jesus designed to intimidate and turn His relationship with God into a set of rules and regulations. Satan does not want Jesus in the workplace because that is where the authority lies to change a workplace, city or nation. God desires you to bring His presence with you into the workplace every day. Do not let the enemy of your soul shame you into alienating your faith from your work.
Today, ask Jesus to go into the workplace with you. The two of you just might be the team to bring someone out of slavery and bondage.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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Bearing One Another's Burdens
In Galatians 6:1-2, Paul admonishes us,
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
We need to bear one another's burdens. Paul, in this passage, gives us some keen insight into what that looks like.
First, the word overtaken means to be taken by surprise, to suddenly fall into. In other words, the sin Paul is referring to is not a premeditated sin, but rather a temptation that suddenly came up, the person stumbled in, and now they are having trouble getting out.
Notice Paul also says, "If you're spiritual, restore that one." The word restore actually brings with it the thought of setting a dislocated limb. The role of the spiritually mature person is to skillfully and gently relocate the "limb" that has been knocked out of its socket.
I think this happens most often to baby Christians. They are suddenly invaded, they give in to some temptation, and they feel awful. Then the devil goes to work on them, "Some Christian you are! You hypocrite! You better never go back to church again! You're so wicked. You're probably not even saved."
They do not know how to pull themselves out, and you and I need to help them get back in right relationship with God and the Church.
I had a friend who dislocated a shoulder one time. It took him 45 minutes to work it back in by himself. It would have been easier to have someone help him.
And, that is true for us as Christians. We need to be there to help restore that brother or sister whose spiritual life has been dislocated.
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Is This True of Me?
None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself . . . -Acts 20:24
It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because then you are not bothered by what He requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion, becomes your guide. You may be more prosperous and successful from the world's perspective, and will have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do His will. You will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.
What do I count in my life as "dear to myself"? If I have not been seized by Jesus Christ and have not surrendered myself to Him, I will consider the time I decide to give God and my own ideas of service as dear. I will also consider my own life as "dear to myself." But Paul said he considered his life dear so that he might fulfill the ministry he had received, and he refused to use his energy on anything else. This verse shows an almost noble annoyance by Paul at being asked to consider himself. He was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him. Our reasonable work is based on the following argument which we say to ourselves, "Remember how useful you are here, and think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude chooses our own judgment, instead of Jesus Christ, to be our guide as to where we should go and where we could be used the most. Never consider whether or not you are of use- but always consider that "you are not your own" ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). You are His!
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 5, 2009
Idols In The Heart
READ: Ezekiel 14:1-8
Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts. -Ezekiel 14:3
When my husband and I first went out as missionaries, I recall being concerned about the growth of materialism in our society. It never crossed my mind that I myself could be materialistic. After all, hadn't we gone overseas with almost nothing? Weren't we choosing to live in a shabbily furnished, rundown apartment? I thought materialism couldn't touch us.
Nonetheless, feelings of discontent gradually began to take root in my heart. Before long I was craving hungrily after nice things and secretly feeling resentful over not having them.
Then one day God's Spirit opened my eyes with a disturbing insight: Materialism isn't necessarily having things; it can also be craving them. There I stood-guilty of materialism! God had exposed my discontent for what it was-an idol in my heart! That day as I repented of this subtle sin, God recaptured my heart as His rightful throne. Needless to say, a deep contentment followed, based not on things but on Him.
In Ezekiel's day, God dealt thoroughly with this kind of secret idolatry. His throne on earth has always been in the hearts of His people. That's why we must rid our heart of anything that destroys our contentment with Him. - Joanie Yoder
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne
And worship only Thee. -Cowper
An idol is anything that takes the place of God.
Learning to Receive
By Os Hillman
"In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for he grants sleep to those he loves" (Ps 127:2).
One of the paradigm shifts every believer must learn once they make Jesus lord of their lives is how to move from receiving by sweating and toiling to receiving by trusting and obeying. In the scripture, Egypt represented sweat and toil and bondage. The Promised Land represents a land of milk and honey received by trust and obedience. We learn in Joshua 24:13 that our obedience will allow us to receive things we would never receive out of sweat and toil. "So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant."
I learned this principle when God began to transition me from owning and operating an advertising agency to a vocational marketplace ministry. Many times I could not see how provision to do my work would result because it was not based upon a contract-for-services model. I was once invited to speak to a small group of people on a Caribbean island. I knew it would require three days of my time and I'd receive very little compensation. The Lord instructed me to go anyway. Just as I thought, I did not receive a commensurate income for the time invested for the three days. (This is often the way we think in business).
However, I left some books behind and they began to be circulated to other islands. A few businessmen received the books and they invited me to speak at a conference for 22 Caribbean islands later that year. One man was touched by my teaching. On January 2, I received a check for $5000 from this man. I pondered the sequence of events that led to receiving this provision. It was because of my obedience to the small things that God was able to "give me a land on which I did not toil."
Be faithful to the small things and God will always honor your obedience.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
God's GPS
Hebrews 13:20-21 are two verses that give me great encouragement,
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
These verses teach us that God is working in us all the time to bring us to maturity-our destiny in Christ.
A friend of mine shared a brilliant illustration of this one time. He likened God's guidance to that of the Global Positioning System (GPS), one of those systems they now have in cars that guides you to your destination.
A GPS system uses a satellite to give an aerial view, and its sole function is to get you to your destination, your "destiny."
As you travel to your destination, you have a map on the screen, and this little annoying voice talking to you through the whole trip, "Left turn a quarter mile ahead; left turn 150 feet ahead; left turn 50 feet ahead."
If you miss your turn, it immediately computes a new course for you so you can get back to where you are supposed to be. And if you mess up on those directions, it then computes another new course.
In the same way, God has a destiny for us to fulfill, something that fits into His great master plan. By His grace, He is guiding us all the way, even when we get off track. God just readjusts and says, "This is the next thing you need to do to get back into My plan."
Through His "GPS," He is always working to get us where we need to be. Praise God!
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Is He Really My Lord?
. . . so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . . -Acts 20:24
Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced came from doing what the Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21 ). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it- to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant" ( Matthew 25:21 ). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal Savior. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 - "I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."
"Do you love Me?" Then, "Feed My sheep" ( John 21:17 ). He is not offering us a choice of how we can serve Him; He is asking for absolute loyalty to His commission, a faithfulness to what we discern when we are in the closest possible fellowship with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is not the same as the call- the need is the opportunity to exercise the call. The call is to be faithful to the ministry you received when you were in true fellowship with Him. This does not imply that there is a whole series of differing ministries marked out for you. It does mean that you must be sensitive to what God has called you to do, and this may sometimes require ignoring demands for service in other areas.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 6, 2009
You Are Not Forgotten
READ: Hebrews 11:24-40
God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints. -Hebrews 6:10
When Britain's oldest man turned 111, vintage aircraft did a flyover, and the Band of the Royal Marines played "Happy Birthday." According to the Daily Mirror, Henry Allingham was amazed by all of the attention. Until 6 years earlier, he had for 86 years kept secret the horrific memories of what happened in the trenches of World War I. Only when tracked down by the World War I Veteran's Association did this old man, who had been shelled, bombed, and shot, receive honor for what he had endured in behalf of his country.
The story of the Bible gives us parallels to Henry's story. The Scriptures show that those who fight the battles of God often end up wounded, imprisoned, and even killed as a result of their service.
The cynic might observe such lives and conclude with a sigh that no good deed goes unpunished. But the author of Hebrews sees a bigger picture. He reminds us that everything and anything we have done in faith and love will one day be honored by God (6:10).
Are you discouraged today? Do you feel insignificant? Do you feel forgotten after trying to serve God? Be assured that God will not forget anything you have done in your service to Him or others. - Mart De Haan
Does the place you're called to labor
Seem so small and little known?
It is great if God is in it,
And He'll not forget His own. -Suffield
God remembers the good we forget.
An Encouraging Word
A while back I ran into a woman who I hadn't seen in quite some time. Being my friendly self I said, "Hi!"
The moment I said that she replied, "Oh, Bayless!" and proceeded to open her purse and pull out a letter I had written to encourage her three years earlier. She said, "I take this with me everywhere I go."
I wanted to cry! I mean, I was touched. But then I thought, "Is there no one else who comforts you? Is there no one else who speaks encouraging words into your life?" And I wonder the same about you.
Are you needing some encouragement today? I don't know what you may be faced with, but I personally find comfort and encouragement in the following passage. It is 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11,
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
Think about this for a moment. As you look into eternity, which is what ultimately matters, you and I are not appointed to wrath! That is good news! That is great news! That is encouraging news! And that is great comfort!
God is storing up wrath against the ungodly. But, just like in ancient Egypt when the death angel passed over every home where the blood of the Lamb was, I thank God the wrath of God passes over us!
It is being stored up, but not for me or for you. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have escaped the wrath of God.
Thank you, Jesus!
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Taking the Next Step
. . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses -2 Corinthians 6:4
When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.
Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17 .
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 7, 2009
God's Love And Ours
READ: Romans 5:1-11
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:8
Franklin Graham regrets it now, but in his youth he was wild and rebellious. One day he went roaring up to his dad's house on his Harley Davidson motorcycle to ask for some money. Dressed in his leathers, dusty and bearded, he burst into his father's living room-and walked right into a meeting of Billy's executive board.
Without hesitation, Billy Graham identified Franklin as his son. Then he proudly introduced him to every member of the board. Billy did not apologize for his son or show any shame or guilt. Franklin wrote later in his autobiography, Rebel With a Cause, that the love and respect his father gave him that day never left him, even during his rebellious years.
Our children don't have to earn our love. To withhold love for our own selfish purposes is to follow the enemy, not God. God's love for us is undeserved. We did nothing to earn it; no good in us merited it. "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). In all our relationships, especially with our children, we must genuinely show that same kind of love.
We are called to treat our children, and all people, with love and respect. It helps to remember what we were when Christ died for us. - David C. Egner
Help me, Lord, to show respect and love to others,
always mindful of the fact that each of us is created
in Your image. May Your love shine through my life
and bring praise and honor to You. Amen.
God's love changes prodigal sons into precious saints.
Going Without Jesus
By Os Hillman
"After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it" (Luke 2:43).
Bob and Janice had five kids. When they go on any trip, Benjamin, the youngest, always sleeps under the seat in their mini van. In the rush of preparing for their visit to the grocery store and getting the other kids situated, they failed to pick up Benjamin, who was standing outside at the other end of the store. As they proceeded down the road, they assumed that Benjamin was quietly sleeping in his normal place under the seat in the back of the van.
Meanwhile, about an hour later, young Benjamin was wondering why his parents had not picked him up. He went back into the store and told the manager his plight. The manager called the police. The young boy was eventually picked up by a policeman.
Mary and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. Jesus was 12-years old. They were evidently very distracted by the excitement and business of the Feast. In fact, Mary and Joseph began their return trip to Nazareth only to realize well into the trip that Jesus was not with them. It would be three days before they would be reunited with their 12-year-old son. It caused quite a scare for Mary and Joseph, and they reprimanded Jesus for "wandering" off.
As a parent, I find this story truly amazing. How can parents of the Son of God not know their son is not in their presence? Yet, this story illustrates how each of us can become so busy that we continue to operate not realizing Jesus is no longer with us.
We can walk away from fellowship with Jesus. Do not let this happen to you. He longs to have daily fellowship with you because He loves you. Today, ask yourself if Jesus is accompanying you in your daily activities. He desires to walk with you each and every day.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
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Forever With Him
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 gives us powerful prophetic words,
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Jesus Christ will return, and the church will be caught away! We will meet the Lord in the clouds and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. From that moment on, we will always be with the Lord.
Maybe you are going through a rough patch right now. If so, let me remind you that this earthly life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. But we have eternity in store. Thank God we will ever be with the Lord!
If He tarries and we die before He returns, we get to go to heaven. But I have a feeling, with the way things are shaping up, that we will be the generation that sees His return.
Have you noticed how the eyes of the world are on the Middle East? This is all end times stuff. Also, one of the things that Jesus said would be a precursor to the end is that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to every nation, literally, to every language group.
And you know what? That will be completed in our generation.
So keep your eyes fixed on His return, and that day you will meet Him in the air and be with Him forever!
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The Source of Abundant Joy
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us -Romans 8:37
Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.
Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let's apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against- tribulation, suffering, and persecution- are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. "We are more than conquerors through Him" "in all these things"; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4 ).
The undiminished radiance, which is the result of abundant joy, is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can change. And the experiences of life, whether they are everyday events or terrifying ones, are powerless to "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" ( Romans 8:39 ).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 8, 2009
The Time Will Come
READ: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. -2 Timothy 4:3
A USA Today article describes how parents today seek to initiate their children into a world of all faiths. Ema Drouillard, who runs a ceremony service, was asked by a couple to conduct a service for their baby, Greer. The mother said, "We just wanted a larger spirit to guide our daughter, but we didn't want to get specific. I wanted all her bases covered." The couple said, "We just do Christianity L-I-T-E" for Greer, who "believes in angels and fairies, leprechauns and Santa Claus." This illustrates the low value placed on scriptural truth that is so prevalent in our culture today.
The apostle Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would prefer "lite" spiritual meals and would not tolerate substantive teaching (2 Tim. 4:3-4). He predicted that false teaching would increase and be embraced by many because it caters to the needs of their flesh. They have a craving to be entertained and desire teaching that leaves them with good feelings about themselves. Paul instructed Timothy to combat this by teaching doctrines according to God's Word. The purpose of his instruction was to correct, rebuke, and encourage others (v.2).
As believers we are called to teach and obey the Word of God, not to scratch the itches of our culture. - Marvin Williams
Lord, teach us from Your holy Word
All error to discern,
And by Your Spirit's light help us
From Satan's snares to turn. -Bosch
Stand on the Word of God and you won't fall into error.
The Awesomeness of God
When was the last time you stopped to reflect on the awesomeness of God? When did you last slow down to contemplate on how amazing our Creator is? In our skeptical and scientific world, it seems we have lost our childlike sense of wonder and awe. We fail to notice the daily miracles surrounding us.
Jesus warns us, "Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Mark 10:15). Jesus is telling us to call upon God with the wonder and amazement of a child. He calls us to believe in Him with the trusting nature of a child. He wants to see our excitement every time we seek His face.
What is it like to stand in wonder of God? It is recognizing His hand in every sunset, mountain, and star that we see. It is marveling at the miracle of a tiny life being formed in its mother's womb. It is reading a Scripture passage for the hundredth time and still finding new insight in its words.
There are so many qualities about God and so many things He has done for us that are awe-inspiring. In Psalm 139, we see David's praises for four of God's awesome characteristics: His knowledge, presence, power, and judgment.
When we think of God's omniscience, we often associate it with His knowledge of the big, eternal picture. Yet He also knows the very deepest corners of our hearts. Our Creator knows us inside and out-better than we know ourselves. He knows our hidden motivations. He knows what we're going to say even before we say it.
"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord" (Psalm 139:1-4). When we think of how vast and how intricate and how intelligent God's knowledge is, we should be overwhelmed.
David also praises God for His omnipresence. "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ... If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast" (Psalm 139:7, 9-10).
We cannot go anyplace where God is not already present-physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Even during our darkest days, we know that God is right there in the midst of our situation with us.
Our God is omnipotent, able to create life itself. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (Psalm 139:13-14). How amazing is our God who designed everything from the tiniest cell in our bodies to the grandest star in the universe!
David concludes his psalm by acknowledging God's perfect judgment. God loves His children enough to purify and to refine their hearts. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).
Have you lost your wonder and awe of God? Do you take the intricacies of His Creation for granted? Do you gloss over His words when reading the Bible? Stop today and praise God for His amazing nature. Thank Him for caring for you through His knowledge, presence, power, and judgment. Write below how He manifests each of these qualities in your life.
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Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises
2 Peter 1:2-4 says,
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I want to draw your attention to verse 4 where the Scripture states that through the promises we partake of God's nature.
The promise is the connector, it is the pipeline through which God's nature flows to us.
"What is God's nature?" you might ask. It is the answer to everything you need! His nature is life, it is health, it is peace, it is wisdom, it is abundance. There is an answer in God's nature for every one of mankind's needs.
That is why the promises are called "exceedingly great and precious." Without a promise, there is no pipeline. Without a promise, we cannot partake.
But when you take a promise-an exceedingly great and precious promise-and act upon it in faith, God's nature is released into your situation.
Thank God for His promises!
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The Surrendered Life
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.
If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 9, 2009
You Can't Say That!
READ: Genesis 3:9-19
"Lord, what do You want me to do?" -Acts 9:6
According to a career-building Web site, certain words should be avoided on the job. When someone in authority asks you to do a project, you shouldn't say, "Sure, no problem," if you don't mean it and aren't going to follow through. Otherwise, you'll become known as someone who doesn't keep his word. And don't say, "That's not my job," because you may need that person's help in the future.
And if your boss comes to you with a problem, careerbuilder.com suggests it's best not to blame someone else and say, "It's not my fault!"
That's the excuse Adam and Eve gave to God. They were told not to eat from the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). When they disobeyed and were confronted by God, Adam blamed God and Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent (3:9-19). They basically said, "It's not my fault!"
Perhaps there are things we should avoid saying to God about what He's told us to do or not to do. For example, He gives us specific instructions for Christlike behavior in
1 Corinthians 13, yet we may be tempted to say, "I just don't feel convicted about that," or "That's not really my gift."
What is the Lord asking of you today? How will you respond? How about, "Yes, Lord!" - Anne Cetas
God wants complete obedience,
Excuses will not do;
His Word and Spirit show His will-
Then we must follow through. -Sper
The highest motive for obeying God is the desire to please Him.
Comforting Others
By Os Hillman
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" (2 Cor 1:3-4).
I was 14 years old in September 1966. I was home watching I Dream of Jeannie on television when the program was interrupted by a news bulletin: "Three prominent local businessmen have died in a plane crash in the mountains of Tennessee." That's how I learned of the death of my father.
It was difficult and painful growing up without a father. I loved and needed my dad. I couldn't understand why God would take him away from me so suddenly. I certainly didn't see the death of my father as a "blessing" in any sense of the word.
Yet I have seen blessings come out of that terrible tragedy. In the years since my father died, God has brought a number of men across my path that have lost fathers at an early age. Because of my own loss, I had an instant connection with others who suffered similar losses. We shared an experience that other people couldn't fully understand.
I went through a seven year period where I experienced major financial problems. I can't say that it was a blessing to go through those seven years of adversity, but God has used my trial to bring blessing to other people. It actually was a catalyst to move me into a whole new calling. When I meet someone who is going through a business failure or a financial loss, there's an instant bond between us of shared experience.
God can take our adversity-a heart attack, cancer, an automobile accident, violent crime, bankruptcy, a marriage crisis, the loss of a loved one-and transform that pain into encouragement for the people around us. We come out of those experiences stronger and better able to comfort others.
Although adversity may never be a blessing, God in His grace can bring blessing out of our adversity. The key is releasing the hurt and pain to the Lord so He can bring the needed healing to our lives. Why not give your circumstance to the Lord today and let Him use it in the lives of others. This will be the first step toward healing.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Richer Blessings
Jeremiah 23:3-4 says,
"But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking," says the LORD.
As we discovered in one of our earlier devotionals, God gives richer blessings to these who remain faithful (the remnant). A good question to ask is, "What are the blessings for those who remain faithful?"
Jeremiah gives us a good clue,
They will have no fear.
They will lack for nothing.
They will be fruitful.
They will increase.
Are you interested in increasing? In fruitfulness? In not being afraid? God says those are things that happen to the remnant. These are the rich blessings you will receive if you stay faithful, committed, and obedient.
I once read a story about an old member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a pitcher named Harry Hartman. In 1918, he was called up from the minors to pitch against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was his dream come true! On his first pitch, the batter hit a single. No big deal.
The next batter hit a triple. Harry walked the next guy on four consecutive pitches. The next batter hit a single. Harry Hartman walked off the mound, went into the locker room, showered, put on his street clothes, went to a local naval recruiting office, and enlisted. The next day he was in uniform and was never seen again in professional baseball. He got discouraged and quit.
No matter what, do not give up! Remain faithful, because God promises great blessings to those who stay the course.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Turning Back or Walking with Jesus?
READ:
Do you also want to go away? -John 6:67
What a penetrating question! Our Lord's words often hit home for us when He speaks in the simplest way. In spite of the fact that we know who Jesus is, He asks, "Do you also want to go away?" We must continually maintain an adventurous attitude toward Him, despite any potential personal risk.
"From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66 ). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. One thing God constantly requires of us is a oneness with Jesus Christ. After being set apart through sanctification, we should discipline our lives spiritually to maintain this intimate oneness. When God gives you a clear determination of His will for you, all your striving to maintain that relationship by some particular method is completely unnecessary. All that is required is to live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. Never try to live your life with God in any other way than His way. And His way means absolute devotion to Him. Showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus.
Peter saw in Jesus only someone who could minister salvation to him and to the world. But our Lord wants us to be fellow laborers with Him.
In John 6:70 Jesus lovingly reminded Peter that he was chosen to go with Him. And each of us must answer this question for ourselves and no one else: "Do you also want to go away?"
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 10, 2009
For The Birds
READ: Hebrews 13:5-16
You shall not covet . . . anything that is your neighbor's. -Exodus 20:17
The bird feeder attached to my office window is just beyond the reach of the squirrels. But one squirrel has made it his mission to get the seeds meant for the birds. Having seen his tiny neighbors nibbling noisily from the abundant supply, the squirrel is fixated on enjoying the same pleasure. He has tried coming at the feeder from every direction but without success. He clawed his way up the wooden window casing to within inches of the feeder but slid down the slippery glass. He climbed the thin branches of the forsythia bush. Then he reached so far that he fell to the ground.
The squirrel's tireless attempts to get what isn't meant to be his calls to mind a man and woman who reached for food that wasn't meant to be theirs. They too suffered a fall-a fall so severe that it hurt the whole human race. Because they were disobedient and helped themselves to food that God told them not to eat, He put them where they could no longer reach it. As a result of their disobedience, they and their descendants must now work hard to get what He originally had given as a gift-food (see Gen. 2-3).
May our desire to have what God has kept from us not keep us from enjoying what He has given to us (Heb. 13:5). - Julie Ackerman Link
Thinking It Through
What (or who) am I looking to for happiness?
Is this wise? Or do I need to make some changes?
How may I be content? (Heb. 13:5).
Godliness with contentment is great gain. -1 Timothy 6:6
Discipling the Nations
By Os Hillman
"A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous" ( Prov 13:22 NKJV).
As a student in 1971, Berthold Becker was converted from being a socialist activist to a disciple of the Lord Jesus. Shortly after completing his university education, Berthold decided he wanted to understand what it meant to experience God in his professional career. So, he learned to walk with God at work in the automotive industry. Berthold testifies how God gave him many designs for cars that became their best-sellers. He was often referred to as the "prophet" among his non-Christian auto executives.
With his wife Barbara as his personal intercessor, Berthold left his career in the auto industry in 1986, to begin many entrepreneurial Kingdom initiatives. One was launched in the Ukraine through an initiative called GfS (Gesellschaft für Strukturentwicklung). Berthold became active in many training, consulting and joint venture situations, helping Ukrainian business start-ups. During his travels there, he noticed the lack of availability of good bread, and he decided to do something about it. He started small businesses using mobile bakeries that he bought from the Swiss Army. The German and Ukranian governments soon recognized that Berthold had been serving the nation through his business expertise and came alongside him to say, "You are doing it better than we can." The governments began funding his enterprises, while his group remained in control of the business. The Bible says "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession" (Ps 2:8). I believe one way that will happen is when Christians become the source of blessing to a city or nation.
These enterprises (which include technology transfer and training centers for bread, meat, and dairy products) have become a joint venture with a Ukrainian business group, operating successfully in the food industry.
Today, God is raising up a new breed of Christian workplace leader. God will use anyone to impact a nation because we are all called to disciple the nations. How might God want to use you in the days ahead? What idea might God give you to impact a nation?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Liberty!
Look at Isaiah 30:21,
Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.
The idea this verse is conveying is that if you get off-course with God, He is going to let you know you are making a wrong decision or a wrong turn.
The Living Bible puts it this way, And if you leave God's paths and go astray, you will hear a voice behind you say, "Not this way. Walk here."
What I have come to realize is that you and I have far greater liberty within the parameters of God's will than I previously thought.
It is important that you stay open and keep things laid out before God. But I have discovered, as I said, that we have far greater liberty than I previously thought. Let me give you an example.
Not long ago, my wife and I were very seriously considering selling our house and moving. Real estate had gone up so much that the equity in our house had more than doubled since we bought it. So we got to thinking that it might be a good time for us to move.
I did not have a word from God about moving. But I just know God well enough to know that I could make a decision like that. If I was getting into an area where we were going to make a mistake, God would let me know!
Some people get so uptight about everything. But as long as you stay open to God, you can make those kinds of decisions, because He will be there to direct you if indeed you are making a mistake.
That is true liberty!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Being an Example of His Message
Preach the word! -2 Timothy 4:2
We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message- "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" ( John 6:63 ). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God's purpose to make a person's life a holy example of God's message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God's truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples' lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God's message in the flesh. ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ).
Allow God to have complete liberty in your life when you speak. Before God's message can liberate other people, His liberation must first be real in you. Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to "set your words on fire" for His glory.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 11, 2009
Flying Machines
READ: Psalm 6
I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears. -Psalm 6:6
Recording artist James Taylor exploded onto the music scene in early 1970 with the song "Fire and Rain." In it, he talked about the disappointments of life, describing them as "sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground." That was a reference to Taylor's original band Flying Machine, whose attempt at breaking into the recording industry had failed badly, causing him to wonder if his dreams of a musical career would ever come true. The reality of crushed expectations had taken their toll, leaving Taylor with a sense of loss and hopelessness.
The psalmist David also experienced hopeless despair as he struggled with his own failures, the attacks of others, and the disappointments of life. In Psalm 6:6 he said, "I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears." The depth of his sorrow and loss drove him to heartache-but in that grief he turned to the God of all comfort. David's own crushed and broken "flying machines" gave way to the assurance of God's care, prompting him to say, "The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer" (v.9).
In our own seasons of disappointment, we too can find comfort in God, who cares for our broken hearts. - Bill Crowder
Even in my darkest hour
The Lord will bless me with His power;
His loving grace will sure abound,
In His sweet care I shall be found. -Brandt
God's whisper of comfort quiets the noise of our trials.
Failing Forward
By Os Hillman
"Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).
Back in the 1970's, Tom Watson was the up and coming golfer on the PGA Tour. But time after time, when Tom led a tournament coming into the last round, he would choke, bogey a few holes, and finish in the middle of the pack. Soon, the media began calling him a "choker." That kind of criticism only increases the pressure and the tendency to choke.
In an interview with Guy Yocom for Golf Digest, Watson said, "Everybody has choked. In the 1974 U.S. Open, I kept hitting the ball right to right. My nerves wouldn't allow me to adjust. That's what choking is-being so nervous you can't find a swing or a putting stroke you can trust."
How did Watson overcome his tendency to choke? "Byron gave me the best cure for it," Watson recalled, referring to Byron Nelson, the legendary golf pro of the 1930s and '40s. "[Byron said], 'Walk slowly, talk slowly, deliberately do everything more slowly than you normally do. It has a way of settling you down."* That advice helped Tom Watson overcome his nervousness. He went on to win many tournaments, including five British Opens.
Everybody fails. It's part of the process that leads us to maturity and success. Most successful entrepreneurs have been through a number of failures in life, but they usually don't think of their failures as defeats. They think of them as lessons.
My failures have served to help many people who are also experiencing failure in their lives. God will always have a redeeming value in our failures if we let Him reveal His life through them.
If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures.
*Os Hillman, Upside of Adversity, Regal Books, Ventura, CA p. 195, 2006
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Obedience to the "Heavenly Vision"
I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision -Acts 26:19
If we lose "the heavenly vision" God has given us, we alone are responsible- not God. We lose the vision because of our own lack of spiritual growth. If we do not apply our beliefs about God to the issues of everyday life, the vision God has given us will never be fulfilled. The only way to be obedient to "the heavenly vision" is to give our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory. This can be accomplished only when we make a determination to continually remember God's vision. But the acid test is obedience to the vision in the details of our everyday life- sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour, not just during times of personal prayer or public meetings.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . ." ( Habakkuk 2:3 ). We cannot bring the vision to fulfillment through our own efforts, but must live under its inspiration until it fulfills itself. We try to be so practical that we forget the vision. At the very beginning we saw the vision but did not wait for it. We rushed off to do our practical work, and once the vision was fulfilled we could no longer even see it. Waiting for a vision that "tarries" is the true test of our faithfulness to God. It is at the risk of our own soul's welfare that we get caught up in practical busy-work, only to miss the fulfillment of the vision.
Watch for the storms of God. The only way God plants His saints is through the whirlwind of His storms. Will you be proven to be an empty pod with no seed inside? That will depend on whether or not you are actually living in the light of the vision you have seen. Let God send you out through His storm, and don't go until He does. If you select your own spot to be planted, you will prove yourself to be an unproductive, empty pod. However, if you allow God to plant you, you will "bear much fruit" ( John 15:8 ).
It is essential that we live and "walk in the light" of God's vision for us ( 1 John 1:7 ).
Amazed
1 Corinthians 8:2 is a short verse, but one that has come to have real meaning in my life,
And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
Here is what this verse has come to mean to me: The more I realize of God, the more I realize how little I know of God.
It is almost as if God is represented by this enormous mountain, and it is shrouded in fog. As the fog retreats, I can see how vast this mountain is and how little I have really seen, how little I have explored, how little I have experienced. I am in awe as I look at this enormous mountain.
I once thought, "I'm really mature in God. I've learned so much. Look at these gems I've dug out! And I've experienced this, and I've climbed here, and I've looked from the heights." Then the fog began to roll away, and I realized I hadn't even gotten out of the foothills yet.
God just really amazes me.
Think about God. He merely spoke and created the universe. I read an article not too long ago where scientists now think that perhaps there is not just a "universe" but there is really a "multiverse," or multiple universes.
Whether it is one that spans millions of light years, or multiple universes spanning even greater distances, God made it all just by saying something.
And that is what I mean. The more I learn of God, the more I am amazed at just how little I really know of Him. I hope you too will be amazed, and let that wonder and amazement bring you into the worship of our great and awesome God!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 12, 2009
Incomplete
READ: Philippians 1:3-11
He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. -Philippians 1:6
When I was a little girl, my parents bought their first house. One afternoon, the family hopped into the car and drove to see where we soon would be living.
I couldn't believe it. The house had no windows or doors, and there was a strange odor. The basement was clearly visible through big gaps in the floor and we had to climb a ladder to get down there.
That night when I asked my mother why they wanted to live in a house like that, she explained that the builder wasn't finished with it yet. "Just wait and see," she said. "I think you'll like it when it's done."
Soon we began to see changes. The house got windows, then doors. The "funny smell" of new lumber faded. The holes in the floor were covered and a staircase was added. Walls were painted. Mom put up curtains at the windows and pictures on the walls. The incomplete house had been transformed. It had taken some time but finally it was finished.
As Christians, we need "finishing" too. Although the groundwork is laid at our conversion, the growing process continues throughout our life. As we obediently follow Jesus, "the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:2), one day we too will be complete. - Cindy Hess Kasper
God sees in us a masterpiece
That one day will be done;
His Spirit works throughout our lives
To make us like His Son. -Sper
Please be patient. God isn't finished with me yet!
God's Priority
In Matthew 28:18-20, we have the top priority on God's list,
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Just imagine after the Resurrection that an angel comes up to Jesus and says, "Jesus, this is wonderful! You have paid the price for mankind's sin. What are You going to do to let the whole world know that they can be saved and they won't have to perish and spend an eternity without God? What is Your plan? How are You going to do it?"
And Jesus replies by saying, "Well, My few disciples are going to tell people, who in turn will tell other people, who are going to tell other people, who are going to tell other people."
Puzzled, the angel then asks, "Well, do You have a backup plan?" And Jesus says, "No." Still confused, the angel asks, "Well, no offense, Lord, but what if they fail?" Jesus replies by saying, "I have confidence in them."
My friend, there is no Plan B. God has no backup plan. You and I are it! We are Plan A! The problem is, too many Christians today do not have God's priority as their priority.
Over the next few devotionals, I am going to share with you what I call the five "P"s of evangelism. I pray they will encourage you to actively share the Good News of our risen Savior!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
The Cost of Unbelief
By Os Hillman
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Heb 11:5-6).
How is your faith quotient? On a scale of 1 to 10 where would you rank yourself? Everyday, I marvel at the faith most of us exercise without even thinking about it.
We drive our cars 60-70 miles per hour with an oncoming car doing the same with only a white line and six to eight feet separating us. We place our faith that every car will not cross into our lane. We fly on airplanes that take us over oceans, trusting the pilots with our very lives. We ride on thrilling amusement rides that take us several stories into the air and travel fifty to seventy miles per hour down a winding slope. We trust the operators of that ride with our own mortality.
There is a great irony in the fact that we can place our faith in such things but cannot place our faith in the hands of our Creator. God got angry with one of his priests named Zechariah when he questioned his angelic messenger about his wife becoming pregnant with John the Baptist.
"Zechariah asked the angel, 'How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.' The angel answered, 'I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time'" (Luke 1:8-20).
Zechariah was struck mute because of his unbelief for nine months until the birth of John the Baptist. What consequence have you suffered from a lack of faith? Jesus is always looking for faith on the earth. Is there an area in your life where you have not been able to trust God? Why not repent of your unbelief and place your faith totally in His hands today.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Total Surrender
Peter began to say to Him, 'See, we have left all and followed You' -Mark 10:28
Our Lord replies to this statement of Peter by saying that this surrender is "for My sake and the gospel's" (10:29). It was not for the purpose of what the disciples themselves would get out of it. Beware of surrender that is motivated by personal benefits that may result. For example, "I'm going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy." Being delivered from sin and being made holy are the result of being right with God, but surrender resulting from this kind of thinking is certainly not the true nature of Christianity. Our motive for surrender should not be for any personal gain at all. We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want you; I want myself. But I do want You to clean me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I want to be on display in Your showcase so I can say, 'This is what God has done for me.' " Gaining heaven, being delivered from sin, and being made useful to God are things that should never even be a consideration in real surrender. Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.
Where does Jesus Christ figure in when we have a concern about our natural relationships? Most of us will desert Him with this excuse-"Yes, Lord, I heard you call me, but my family needs me and I have my own interests. I just can't go any further" (see Luke 9:57-62 ). "Then," Jesus says, "you 'cannot be My disciple' " (see Luke 14:26-33 ).
True surrender will always go beyond natural devotion. If we will only give up, God will surrender Himself to embrace all those around us and will meet their needs, which were created by our surrender. Beware of stopping anywhere short of total surrender to God. Most of us have only a vision of what this really means, but have never truly experienced it.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 13, 2009
To Be Or Not To Be
READ: 2 Corinthians 1:3-11
We were burdened beyond measure, . . . so that we despaired even of life. -2 Corinthians 1:8
When I was a child, kids on the playground jokingly quoted Shakespeare's famous line: "To be or not to be-that is the question!" But we really didn't understand what it meant. Later I learned that Shakespeare's character Hamlet, who speaks these lines, is a melancholy prince who learns that his uncle has killed his father and married his mother. The horror of this realization is so disturbing that he contemplates suicide. The question for him was: "to be" (to go on living) or "not to be" (to take his own life).
At times, life's pain can become so overwhelming that we are tempted to despair. The apostle Paul told the church at Corinth that his persecution in Asia was so intense he "despaired even of life" (2 Cor. 1:8). Yet by shifting his focus to his life-sustaining God, he became resilient instead of overwhelmed, and learned "that we should not trust in ourselves but in God" (v.9).
Trials can make life seem not worth living. Focusing on ourselves can lead to despair. But putting our trust in God gives us an entirely different perspective. As long as we live in this world, we can be certain that our all-sufficient God will sustain us. And as His followers, we will always have a divine purpose "to be." - Dennis Fisher
Lord, give us grace to trust You when
Life's burdens seem too much to bear;
Dispel the darkness with new hope
And help us rise above despair. -Sper
Trials make us think; thinking makes us wise; wisdom makes life profitable.
The Prerequisite of Prayer
In yesterday's devotional, I shared that God's priority is to see people come to know Him. Today, I want to give you the first of the five "P"s of evangelism, which I hope will encourage you as you seek to share your faith.
The Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:1-6,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
I want you to notice verse 4 in particular: God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants them saved and discipled.
As Jesus said, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all nations." Those are our two main jobs. Proclaim the gospel to see people get saved, and then disciple them. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
But did you notice that verse 1 preceded verse 4? Verse 1 says, Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Verse 4 will not and cannot happen until verse 1 happens. First there is prayer, then comes sharing the plan of salvation.
We must first talk to God about men before we talk to men about God. We cannot be successful unless we talk to God about men first.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Knowing the Risk and Reward
By Os Hillman
March 13
"David asked the men standing near him, 'What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?'" (1 Sam 17:26).
Every entrepreneur must determine the risk and reward before entering a venture. This is not the only consideration. We must determine if God is leading us after we consider all factors. We also must consider if the timing is right to proceed.
David was a young shepherd when he was bringing food to his older brothers in the army. He had already killed a lion and a bear during his days as a shepherd. David understood the risk/reward principle. When he heard about Goliath and that no one was willing to fight him he was angry. However, he didn't just respond out of pure emotion. He asked a very important question. "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?" He got the answer he was hoping for: "The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from taxes in Israel." (1 Sam 17:25).
Do you see the reward? He gets financial wealth, a wife, and no longer has to pay taxes! What more motivation does a young Jewish boy need? Does this take away from the spiritual significance of the story? Absolutely not.
The religious spirit always tries to make the business side of faith evil. Money and profit is not evil. It is the love of money and the pride of life that gets man into trouble. David understood the proper balance of these co-existing to accomplish God's purposes. To avoid getting into trouble simply ask this question of yourself: "What is the true motive of my heart?" If it does not have the spiritual element balanced with the business element, you may be in trouble. Ask God four questions before you proceed in any venture:
Is the Holy Spirit leading me?
Is this the time to be involved?
Is the risk and reward worth it?
Do I have what is necessary to be successful in the venture with God's help?
After you've asked these questions go about your task with all your heart.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
God's Total Surrender to Us
For God so loved the world that He gave . . . -John 3:16
Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:2 ). The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is actually part of the effect of His wonderful and total surrender to us.
If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. Beware of talking about surrender if you know nothing about it. In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us- totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 14, 2009
Clearing Out The Clutter
READ: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? -1 Corinthians 6:19
My garage serves as "storage" for things that don't have a place in our home, and, frankly, there are times when I am ashamed to open the door. I don't want anyone to see the clutter. So, periodically, I set aside a workday to clean it up.
Our hearts and minds are a lot like that-they accumulate lots of clutter. As we rub shoulders with the world, inevitably, perhaps unknowingly, we pick up ungodly thoughts and attitudes. Thinking that life is all about "me." Demanding our rights. Reacting bitterly toward those who have hurt us. Before long, our hearts and minds are no longer clean and orderly. And while we think we can hide the mess, eventually it will show.
Paul pointedly asked, "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?" (1 Cor. 6:19)-which makes me wonder if God often feels like He is living in our messy garage.
Perhaps it's time to set aside a spiritual workday and, with His help, get to work clearing out the clutter. Discard those thoughts of bitterness. Bag up and throw out the old patterns of sensual thoughts. Organize your attitudes. Fill your heart with the beauty of God's Word. Make it clean to the core, and then leave the door open for all to see! - Joe Stowell
More like the Master I would ever be,
More of His meekness, more humility;
More zeal to labor, more courage to be true,
More consecration for work He bids me do. -Gabriel
Don't let the Spirit reside in a cluttered heart. Take some time to clean it up today!
Turning Desire into Prayer
I want to follow up yesterday's devotional by turning your attention to something I believe is very profound. It is Romans 10:1, where Paul states,
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
It is important to pray that people be saved. In fact, I want you to notice how Paul turned his desire into a prayer.
I think if I were to ask any believer, "Do you desire your family to be saved?" they would say yes. Or, "Do you desire your friends to be saved?" they would answer yes. Or, "Do you desire your coworkers to be saved?" they would reply yes.
Well, that is great. That is to be commended, but it is not enough. Your desire must be turned into a prayer. It is not enough just to have a desire that they be saved. That desire has to translate into prayer. Prayer that they may be saved.
It's all right to pray generally, but it is better to pray specifically. I encourage you to make a list of every unsaved person in your life. Start with the network of relationships that already exist in your life. Make a list of family members, friends, and associates who are not saved, and then do your best to pray for the people on that list every day.
Most Christians genuinely desire for folks to be saved, but not all Christians pray for the salvation of people that they love. And even fewer pray for the salvation of folks that they work with.
Turn your desire for the unsaved people in your life to be saved into prayer for their salvation. And start today.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
3 Phase Obedience
By Os Hillman
"Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:37-39).
From 1994 to 2001, I went through what I call my "Joseph Pit" experience. It was during this time of great adversity and great growth that I wrote TGIF Today God Is First and also birthed many of the things I am doing today. During this season, I discovered a spiritual truth about how most believers experience three distinct phases of their growth toward obedience in their Christian walks.
When we first begin our spiritual journey we often make decisions from convenience. Often, we decide what the outcome is that we want and then make decisions based on the perceived outcome. If it is a positive outcome, then we will make an obedient decision. I call this outcome-based obedience.
However, God desires that each of us live an Obedience-based life. In order to transition us from an outcome-based process to an obedience-based process, he will bring a crisis into our lives. This crisis is designed to create pain which motivates us to seek Him to alleviate the pain. We have all heard of "fox-hole" Christianity. There is place of obedience for everyone! However, this is not where God desires us to remain.
Ultimately, God desires us to live a life of obedience and intimacy rooted in conviction. We obey His commands from a heart of love and devotion. During the crisis phase we discover the personal love of God in our lives which we had never experienced before. Most of us will get to this phase of our walk with God by first living a life of convenience, then we will go through the crisis that will them lead us into an intimate love relationship with God.
The Christian life can be summed up in one word - love. God's desire for each of us is to know Him intimately and to love Him with all of our heart. Have you told your Heavenly Father you love Him today?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF
Volume 2
All New TGIF Devotionals by Os Hillman
Os Hillman has the unique ability to capture a deep spiritual truth in a succinct "daily devotional" format that is amazingly relevant to the 'real-world' of business and the workplace.Volume 2 contains all new 365 daily messages at your fingertips in an attractive hardcoverversion ready to encourage you daily at work. New messages on topics such as work as ministry, handling disappointments, time management, integrity, finances, decision-making, hearing God, and much more.
Click to Order or Learn More
Yielding
. . . you are that one's slaves whom you obey . . . -Romans 6:16
The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.
If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is- "I must have it now," whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. ". . . He has anointed Me . . . to proclaim liberty to the captives . . ." ( Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1 ).
When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you will know you can't. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person's life
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 15, 2009
Reaching Up To Heaven
READ: Romans 8:18-27
The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. -Romans 8:26
I see children reach up their hands to their mothers, eager to get their attention. It reminds me of my own efforts to reach up to God in prayer.
The early church stated that the work of the aged is to love and to pray. Of the two, I find love to be the most difficult, and prayer to be the most confusing. My infirmity lies in not knowing the exact thing for which I ought to pray. Should I pray that others will be delivered from their troubles-or that their troubles will go away? Or should I pray for courage to carry on through the difficulties that belabor them?
I'm comforted by Paul's words: "The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses" (Rom. 8:26). Here the apostle uses a verb that means, "to help by joining in an activity or effort." God's Spirit is joined to ours when we pray. He intercedes for us "with groanings which cannot be uttered." He is touched by our troubles; He sighs often as He prays. He cares for us deeply-more than we care for ourselves. Furthermore, He prays "according to the will of God" (v.27). He knows the right words to say.
Therefore, I needn't worry about getting my request exactly right. I need only to hunger for God and to reach up, knowing that He cares. - David H. Roper
O God, too weak and worn for words, I shrink
From trials that deeply wound, and yet to think
Your Holy Spirit helps me as I pray
And gives a voice to what I cannot say! -Gustafson
When praying, it's better to have a heart without words than words without heart.
How to Pray for the Unsaved
In the last two devotionals, I have stressed the importance of praying for the unsaved people in our lives to be saved. Today, I want to give you four ways you can pray for them:
1. Pray for openness and understanding. Acts 16:14 says the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to heed the things spoken by Paul. Paul was speaking the gospel. And if the Lord can open Lydia's heart, He can open your Aunt Mildred's heart.
2. Pray that God would send laborers to them. In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." I am confident that God will answer any prayer He has commanded us to pray, and this prayer is not a suggestion. Jesus commanded us to pray that God would send out laborers into the harvest.
3. Pray that God will visit them and reveal Himself to them. I do not know of a specific promise in the Bible where it says God is going to visit someone in a dream or give them a vision. But I do see in Scripture where God reveals Himself to people in such ways, like Saul of Tarsus, who, on the Damascus Road, had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved.
4. Pray for personal direction and for personal opportunities to share. Jesus, in Luke 10:2 said, "The harvest is great, laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest." In the next verse Jesus said, "Behold, I send you." You can become the answer to your own prayer!
So pray for the unsaved people in your life, and do not stop praying until they get saved.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Shepherd Your People
By Os Hillman
"Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, which lives by itself in a forest, in fertile pasturelands" (Micah 7:14).
You and I are called to be shepherds in the workplace. Your "staff" (vocation) represents your calling to your work life ministry. Moses' staff represented his calling as a shepherd. God's first words to Moses were: "Remove your shoes. For this is Holy ground." God came to Moses during his work day. His work became holy because God's presence was there.
God used Moses' staff to perform miracles and deliver the people of Israel from bondage. (Ex. 4:17). He is still issuing this same call today to you and I in the workplace. For most of us, this is where our inheritance lies. As we minister through our work life call, our inheritance will come as a result of letting God use our abilities. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:23, 24: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."
What makes our work holy is the motivation by which we do it. If we work to glorify God in it and serve others in the process, that is what makes it ministry. The word ministry and service are derived from the same Greek word, diakonia.
Those in the workplace are like a remnant of a wayward people in a forest awaiting harvest. It is a fertile pasture awaiting a shepherd who can lead them into a life of purpose and destiny. Will you be the instrument of God to shepherd His people out of bondage?
Ask the Lord to use your "staff" to perform miracles and to become a shepherd to those He has called you to lead. Why not start today?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Integrity in the Workplace
Integrity in the Workplace:
Blueprint for Today's Business Success
This book provides a firm, Biblical blueprint for understanding and building integrity in the workplace. Using real world case study examples, and applying solid biblical principles, the book explores the components of true success, including: doing what you say you're going to do, delighting your customers, making ethical decisions, accepting responsibility for your actions, communicating honestly, and encouraging teamwork.
Learn More or Buy Now
The Awesomeness of God
When was the last time you stopped to reflect on the awesomeness of God? When did you last slow down to contemplate on how amazing our Creator is? In our skeptical and scientific world, it seems we have lost our childlike sense of wonder and awe. We fail to notice the daily miracles surrounding us.
Jesus warns us, "Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Mark 10:15). Jesus is telling us to call upon God with the wonder and amazement of a child. He calls us to believe in Him with the trusting nature of a child. He wants to see our excitement every time we seek His face.
What is it like to stand in wonder of God? It is recognizing His hand in every sunset, mountain, and star that we see. It is marveling at the miracle of a tiny life being formed in its mother's womb. It is reading a Scripture passage for the hundredth time and still finding new insight in its words.
There are so many qualities about God and so many things He has done for us that are awe-inspiring. In Psalm 139, we see David's praises for four of God's awesome characteristics: His knowledge, presence, power, and judgment.
When we think of God's omniscience, we often associate it with His knowledge of the big, eternal picture. Yet He also knows the very deepest corners of our hearts. Our Creator knows us inside and out-better than we know ourselves. He knows our hidden motivations. He knows what we're going to say even before we say it.
"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord" (Psalm 139:1-4). When we think of how vast and how intricate and how intelligent God's knowledge is, we should be overwhelmed.
David also praises God for His omnipresence. "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ... If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast" (Psalm 139:7, 9-10).
We cannot go anyplace where God is not already present-physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Even during our darkest days, we know that God is right there in the midst of our situation with us.
Our God is omnipotent, able to create life itself. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (Psalm 139:13-14). How amazing is our God who designed everything from the tiniest cell in our bodies to the grandest star in the universe!
David concludes his psalm by acknowledging God's perfect judgment. God loves His children enough to purify and to refine their hearts. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).
God Bless
Have you lost your wonder and awe of God? Do you take the intricacies of His Creation for granted? Do you gloss over His words when reading the Bible? Stop today and praise God for His amazing nature. Thank Him for caring for you through His knowledge, presence, power, and judgment. Write below how He manifests each of these qualities in your life.
Daily Devotionals March 17, 2009
Take One Step
READ: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Love the Lord your God, . . . obey His voice, and . . . cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days. -Deuteronomy 30:20
At a shopping mall in Coventry, England, researchers posted colorful signs along the steps of a staircase that said: "Taking the stairs protects your heart." Over a 6-week period, the number of people who chose to walk up the stairs instead of riding the adjacent escalator more than doubled. The researchers say that every step counts, and that long-term behavior will change only if the signs are seen regularly.
The Bible is filled with "signs" urging us to obey the Lord and follow Him wholeheartedly. Just before the Lord's people entered the Promised Land, He said to them: "I have set before you today life and good, death and evil . . . . Therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days" (Deut. 30:15,19-20).
So often we hope our lives will change through a giant leap of faith, a profound decision, or a significant act of service. In reality, the only way we change is one step at a time, and every step counts.
Today, let's heed the signs and take a step of heartfelt obedience toward the Lord. - David C. McCasland
It matters not the path on earth
My feet are made to trod;
It only matters how I live:
Obedient to God. -Clark
One small step of obedience is a giant step to blessing.
The Power of Proclamation
In our last few devotionals, we have seen we are to pray for the unsaved and live lives that shine the gospel.
But there does come a time to speak up. Look at Romans 10:13-14,
For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
When the time does come to speak up, a lot of Christians are like arctic rivers: frozen at the mouth. But someone must tell the story!
Pray for the unsaved, let your light shine, and when the time comes, tell them the gospel story. Paul said in Romans 1:16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
Through just a simple proclamation of the message, many people, when they hear it, will believe and be saved. The reason for that is found in Romans 10:17,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
A proclamation of the message causes faith to arise in people's hearts. Just simply tell them the gospel story: Mankind was separated from God, Jesus paid the price for their sins, He was raised from the dead, and if you put your trust in Him, you can be saved.
As well as opening your mouth to share the Good News, you might consider writing letters to your friends to simply and clearly share the gospel. Incorporate your own story if you feel it would be helpful.
It is easy to share the gospel if you just remember three things: our rebellion, our ransom, and our response. With those three things, you can share the gospel with anyone.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Receiving Bad News
By Os Hillman
"A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the sea. . . Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD. . ." (2 Chron 20:2-3).
Have you ever had someone bring you really bad news? It was so bad that when you heard it your stomach immediately became upset. You went into a crisis mode. I once received a letter that brought such fear upon me I could hardly stand up.
This was the situation for King Jehoshaphat. He had just been informed that his country was going to be attacked by an army much larger than his. However, instead of panicking, he immediately turned to the Lord by calling for a time of a fasting and prayer. The people from every town in Judah responded.
King Jehoshaphat prayed and reminded God of His promise to Israel. Then he asked God for strategy. "For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you." At the end of his prayer it says they waited on God's answer. It came through the prophet, Jahaziel son of Zechariah. He said, "Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's'" (2 Chron 20:15-16).
God supernaturally wiped out their enemies that day. They didn't even have to fight. God caused the enemy to fight themselves. However, the one thing they did do that began the ambush was when they began to praise God on the battlefield. "As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated" (2 Chron 20:22-23).
Jehoshaphat immediately did four things in response to bad news. He called for prayer, he called for fasting, he asked for God's strategy, and he began his battle by praising God in the midst of the battle.
Maybe you've just gotten some bad news. If so, follow the example of Jehoshaphat. Pray. Fast. Ask. Praise.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Integrity in the Workplace
Integrity in the Workplace:
Blueprint for Today's Business Success
This book provides a firm, Biblical blueprint for understanding and building integrity in the workplace. Using real world case study examples, and applying solid biblical principles, the book explores the components of true success, including: doing what you say you're going to do, delighting your customers, making ethical decisions, accepting responsibility for your actions, communicating honestly, and encouraging teamwork.
Learn More or Buy Now
The Servant's Primary Goal
We make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him -2 Corinthians 5:9
We make it our aim. . . ."
It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only "to be well pleasing to Him." It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the right goal. At least once a week examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you. Paul was like a musician who gives no thought to audience approval, if he can only catch a look of approval from his Conductor.
Any goal we have that diverts us even to the slightest degree from the central goal of being "approved to God" ( 2 Timothy 2:15 ) may result in our rejection from further service for Him. When you discern where the goal leads, you will understand why it is so necessary to keep "looking unto Jesus" ( Hebrews 12:2 ). Paul spoke of the importance of controlling his own body so that it would not take him in the wrong direction. He said, "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest . . . I myself should become disqualified" ( 1 Corinthians 9:27 ).
I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. My worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may sound?
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 18, 2009
What's In A Name?
READ: Acts 11:19-26
Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. -Ephesians 4:1
My Chinese family name sets me apart from others with different family names. It also confers on me a family responsibility. I am a member of the Hia family. As a member of the family, I am expected to carry on the Hia line and uphold the honor of my ancestors.
Believers who have been saved by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ have a spiritual family name. We are called "Christians."
In the New Testament, the name Christian was first given to the disciples in Antioch by those who noted their behavior (Acts 11:26). Two things defined these early believers. They talked about the good news of the Lord Jesus everywhere they went (v.20). And they eagerly learned the Scriptures as Barnabas and Saul taught them for a whole year (v.26).
The name Christian means an "adherent to Christ"-literally, one who "sticks" to Christ. Today many people call themselves Christians. But should they?
If you call yourself a Christian, does your life tell others who Jesus is? Are you hungry for God's Word? Do your actions bring honor or shame to Christ's name?
What's in a name? When the name is Christian, there is much indeed! - C. P. Hia
Teach us that name to own,
While waiting, Lord, for Thee,
Unholiness and sin to shun,
From all untruth to flee. -Cecil
A Christian reflects Jesus Christ.
Persuasion
Acts 28:23-24 provides us a great example of the next "P" of evangelism,
So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening. And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved.
Some people are going to need to be persuaded, they are going to need more than proclamation, because they are honestly grappling with questions that need to be dealt with. Those questions are like roadblocks in front of them that will need to be removed so they can advance and embrace the gospel.
They may have questions like, "Well, why can't other religions save? Why does Jesus have to be the only way?" Or, "What's this deal about the Jews? Why did the Savior have to come from the Jews?" Or it may be, "What about people who don't hear? How could it be fair that they would perish?"
When people have questions like these, they are genuinely seeking answers, so give them Biblical reasons. If you don't have an answer, tell them you don't know. Say, "You know what? That's a good question, and I don't know the answer. But I'm going to find one for you." Then go study your Bible and find the answer.
Or go to the Bible bookstore and find a book that deals with that subject. Or ask a Christian friend who knows more than you do and find an answer. Then go back to the person and give them an answer.
You will find that when you give people legitimate Scriptural answers, they will respond and often be saved.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Two Types of People
By Os Hillman
"O LORD, by your hand save me from such men, from men of this world whose reward is in this life" (Ps 17:14).
There are two types of people in the world. There are those whose activities are designed to generate a reward in this lifetime. And there are those who live to generate a reward when they meet our Lord in Heaven.
Not every Christian models the latter. How does one judge whether they are living for the future reward versus the earthly reward? There are several key indicators.
Future reward people tend to be givers. They make their time and resources available to be channeled for Kingdom purposes. They realize their sowing will ultimately be rewarded at the Judgment Seat of Christ where what they have done on earth will be judged and rewarded by God (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Future reward people live a life based upon obedience-based decisions. They don't make decisions based on their perceived outcome. They realize a decision based on obedience alone may not result in an immediate outcome. Jesus was obedient to the cross, but the immediate outcome was His own death on the cross.
Future reward situations show up in daily life in a number of ways. Perhaps a person has wronged you and God calls you to forgive and even bless that person without expectation of their response. Perhaps God calls you to sow money into a ministry or another person's life without expectation of return from them. Perhaps you are called to serve another person without expectation of any earthly reward. The situations we might encounter are unlimited.
Are you living a life based on a future reward, or short term reward? Today, evaluate how you make decisions and how you allocate resources. This will reveal whether you are a future reward Christian.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Integrity in the Workplace
Integrity in the Workplace:
Blueprint for Today's Business Success
This book provides a firm, Biblical blueprint for understanding and building integrity in the workplace. Using real world case study examples, and applying solid biblical principles, the book explores the components of true success, including: doing what you say you're going to do, delighting your customers, making ethical decisions, accepting responsibility for your actions, communicating honestly, and encouraging teamwork.
Learn More or Buy Now
Will I Bring Myself Up to This Level?
. . . perfecting holiness in the fear of God -2 Corinthians 7:1
Therefore, having these promises. . . ." I claim God's promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God's perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit," or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19 ). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19 ). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not "confer with flesh and blood," but cleanse yourself from it at once ( Galatians 1:16 ). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.
I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5 ). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived-a level of perfect submission to His Father's will- where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?
Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 19, 2009
A Heart Of Concern
READ: Philippians 2:1-11
Let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. -Philippians 2:3-4
Jason Ray was a ray of joy on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill. He performed as Rameses (the school mascot) for 3 years, hauling his giant ram's head costume to sporting events one day and children's hospitals the next. Then, in March 2007, while with his team for a basketball tournament, Jason was struck by a car. His family watched and waited at the hospital, but the 21-year-old succumbed to his injuries and died.
His story doesn't end there, however. Jason had filed paperwork two years earlier to donate organs and tissue upon his death-and that act of concern saved the lives of four people and helped dozens of others. A young man in the prime of his life, with everything to live for, was concerned for the well-being of others and acted on that concern. Those individuals who were helped, as well as their families, are deeply grateful for this young man who thought of others.
Jason's act echoes the heart of Paul's words in Philippians 2, as he called believers to look beyond themselves and their own interests, and to look to the interests of others. A heart that turns outward to others will be a healthy heart indeed. - Bill Crowder
Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty
To those who walk beside thee down life's road.
Make glad their days by little acts of beauty
And help them bear the burden of earth's load. -Wilcox
Looking to the needs of others honors Christ.
Power
In Acts 9:32-35, we are given the fifth and final "P" of evangelism, and that is power,
Now it came to pass, as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed." Then he arose immediately. So all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
Two entire cities turned to Christ because of one display of God's power! One man who had been paralyzed was healed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and two cities came to God.
We have the same gospel. It is the same Holy Spirit; we serve the same blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have to pray that God will, if necessary, do the miraculous to save people.
Paul, writing in the book of Romans, says he fully preached the gospel with miracles, signs, and wonders. People will respond today just like they did then. But we need to be bold, step out, and pray for things to happen.
When I was living in Oregon, there was an Indian girl who was very sick and actually at the point of death. The doctors told her she was going to die. She came to a small meeting one night and the evangelist prayed for her. She was healed and then gave her life to Christ. As a result, her dad, a famous rodeo rider, got saved, and her mom was saved also. Then a large group of people from her tribe came to Christ as well.
Evangelism through power. We need to trust God for the supernatural.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Hanging Out With Sinners
By Os Hillman
"When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.' So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner'" (Luke 19:5-7).
Jesus modeled four things when He lived on the earth that allowed Him to impact other people's lives. I call them the Four B's of transformation.
First, he built a relationship with them. In the marketplace it is rare that you can impact a person without building a relationship first. The old saying, "People don't care what you know until they know that you care" is especially true in the workplace. Jesus modeled this in His life every day of his public ministry.
The second thing Jesus did was he blessed them. He tried to meet a physical need they had. Many times he healed them first, then told them to go and sin no more. He listened to their concerns.
The third thing Jesus did was He began praying for them. He often prayed for deliverance for a person that was demon possessed. He prayed they would know the Father. He prayed for Lazarus to come back from the dead.
Finally, the fourth thing Jesus did was He Brought the Kingdom of God into their lives. He invited people to believe in Him as the Savior of the world and to partake of eternal life.
I decided to test this model with an acquaintance. I intentionally refused to talk about Jesus to this person until I had accomplished the first three steps in my relationship with him. After I had fulfilled the first three steps, I presented Christ to my friend. He received Christ immediately because the soil was prepared and he was ready to receive.
As you consider your ministry at work, consider these four stages of relationship building before you present Christ to others. You will find the fruit of this process will be great.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Integrity in the Workplace
Integrity in the Workplace:
Blueprint for Today's Business Success
This book provides a firm, Biblical blueprint for understanding and building integrity in the workplace. Using real world case study examples, and applying solid biblical principles, the book explores the components of true success, including: doing what you say you're going to do, delighting your customers, making ethical decisions, accepting responsibility for your actions, communicating honestly, and encouraging teamwork.
Learn More or Buy Now
Abraham's Life of Faith
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
In the Old Testament, a person's relationship with God was seen by the degree of separation in that person's life. This separation is exhibited in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and his family. When we think of separation today, we do not mean to be literally separated from those family members who do not have a personal relationship with God, but to be separated mentally and morally from their viewpoints. This is what Jesus Christ was referring to in Luke 14:26.
Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason-a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith-a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. "Abraham believed God. . ." (Romans 4:3).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 20, 2009
Never Too Old
READ: Genesis 18:1-15
Is anything too hard for the Lord? -Genesis 18:14
The women of Brown Manor had raised their families and retired from their careers. Now they could no longer live on their own, so they came to Brown Manor as a sort of "last stop before heaven." They enjoyed each other's company but often struggled with feelings of uselessness. Sometimes they even questioned why God was so slow in taking them to heaven.
One of the women, who had spent years as a pianist, often played hymns on the Manor's piano. Other women joined her, and together they lifted their voices in praise to God.
One day, a government auditor was conducting a routine inspection during one of their spontaneous worship services. When he heard them sing "What Will You Do With Jesus?" the Spirit of God moved his heart. He recalled the song from his childhood and knew that he had chosen to leave Jesus behind. That day, God spoke to him again and gave him another chance to answer the question differently. And he did.
Like the women of Brown Manor, Sarah thought she was too old to be used by God (Gen. 18:11). But God gave her a child in her old age who was the ancestor of Jesus (21:1-3; Matt. 1:2,17). Like Sarah and the women of Brown Manor, we're never too old for God to use us. - Julie Ackerman Link
The longer we live, the more that we know,
Old age is the time for wisdom to show;
Who knows how much good some word we might say
Could do for that one who's wandered away? -Bosch
God can use you at any age-if you are willing.
The Snare of Fear
Proverbs 29:25 tells us,
The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.
A snare is a noose used for catching an animal. Fear will cause you to be snared or trapped, just like an animal.
I have a friend in the church who has a very large nut tree in his yard, which the squirrels regularly raid. He put this big net over the tree, but it did not seem to deter the squirrels at all. So he finally got a trap and set it up on the roof right next to the nut tree. To date, he has caught about 120 squirrels.
When the squirrel is in the trap, it is totally at his mercy. It can't go anywhere. He happens to be a fairly merciful gentleman, so he takes them over to a local park and lets them go.
When fear gets a hold of your life, you become like one of those trapped squirrels-you are not going anywhere. You are at its mercy. You will not progress spiritually. It keeps you bound. The fear of man can keep you from obeying God; it will keep you from pleasing God. It will keep you from the joy you would experience when you trust God.
In fact, there is a contrast in our verse today. The man or woman who is bound by the fear of man, will not be trusting God in some area of his life. Look at the two parts of the verse together: The fear of man brings a snare, but... in contrast ...whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
Do not allow the fear of man to control your life. Instead, trust in the Lord.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Do Not Reach for the Power
By Os Hillman
"For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3).
A few years ago, I was asked by a large organization to meet with them about doing some cooperative projects in the faith at work area. I visited their headquarters and had several initial discussions. We concluded that we would proceed on a joint conference.
During my visit, I stayed overnight at the headquarters of this ministry. I was awakened at 5 A.M. and led to read Exodus 33:15. Moses said he could not go any further if God did not promise that His presence would go with him. I sensed this was to be our theme for the conference.
Later that morning, I shared that I had received this leading from the Lord regarding the theme of the conference with some of the people in the organization. However, when I shared this with the leader of the organization, he did not take it seriously. I was a bit irritated and my pride was hurt, but I decided to follow a principle that I had been walking in for a few years: act like you have the authority, but do not reach for the power. I realized that if God had truly spoken His words into my heart, I would not have to exercise my authority to make it happen. God would orchestrate it.
More discussion was given to the theme, but nothing was resolved. A few hours later, the conference theme came up again. I turned to a friend and read Exodus 33:15 aloud, and he got excited about using that verse as the possible theme of the event. The leader, to my amazement, chimed in as well and said, "Yes, that should be the theme of the conference." It was a big lesson for me.
Act like you have the authority, but do not reach for the power.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Integrity in the Workplace
Integrity in the Workplace:
Blueprint for Today's Business Success
This book provides a firm, Biblical blueprint for understanding and building integrity in the workplace. Using real world case study examples, and applying solid biblical principles, the book explores the components of true success, including: doing what you say you're going to do, delighting your customers, making ethical decisions, accepting responsibility for your actions, communicating honestly, and encouraging teamwork.
Learn More or Buy Now
Friendship with God
Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ? -Genesis 18:17
The Delights of His Friendship. Genesis 18 brings out the delight of true friendship with God, as compared with simply feeling His presence occasionally in prayer. This friendship means being so intimately in touch with God that you never even need to ask Him to show you His will. It is evidence of a level of intimacy which confirms that you are nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God's will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately.
The Difficulties of His Friendship. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He stopped because he still was lacking the level of intimacy in his relationship with God, which would enable him boldly to continue on with the Lord in prayer until his desire was granted. Whenever we stop short of our true desire in prayer and say, "Well, I don't know, maybe this is not God's will," then we still have another level to go. It shows that we are not as intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as Jesus would have us to be- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." ( John 17:22 ). Think of the last thing you prayed about-were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? "For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" ( Matthew 6:8 ). The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" ( Psalm 37:4 ). We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
GOD BLESS
From His Heart - Week of March 20
AHH. SO THAT IS WHY THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME
Have you ever had something very difficult, painful and heartbreaking come into your life. and the problem seemed to last for such a loooooong time?
Perhaps it is some illness like cancer that requires endless rounds of chemo and radiation.
Perhaps it is an ongoing drug problem with one of your children that tears at the marriage bonds and rocks the very foundation of the family.
Perhaps it is the pain of dealing with a bitter ex-spouse or controlling in-law.
Perhaps it is the care of a dying loved one who lingers in a debilitating state for years.
When we have ongoing problems like this, we naturally ask God, "WHY?!! Why won't you fix this, God? Why are you so long in answering my prayer? What is the purpose of this prolonged agony?!"
While God does not often answer the "why" questions, He does want to answer the "what is the purpose" question. Once you can see the purpose of it all, it changes your perspective and helps you to "consider it all joy when you encounter various trials."
LEARN FROM MOSES WITH PHARAOH
God met Moses at the burning bush and gave him an important assignment: deliver My people from Pharaoh. Although fearful and feeling SO INADEQUATE, Moses obeyed God's command and went to Pharaoh, King of Egypt, with the following message, "Thus says the LORD, 'Let My people go.'" Pharaoh replied, "No way, Jose! Who is the LORD that I (Mr. Big Shot, Pharaoh) should obey His voice? I do not know the LORD and neither shall I let His people go."
As a result of Moses' first encounter with Pharaoh, Pharaoh increased the hardship on the Jews and ceased providing straw for the bricks. Moses became greatly disliked among the Jews for causing their plight to worsen. And Moses said in exasperation, "WHY GOD?!!!! Why did you send me to Pharaoh? You told me that You would deliver Your people, but You didn't. I only made things worse. What gives, God?"
Moses did not understand what God was doing. If you are going to deliver, God, do it. Hit Pharaoh with your knockout punch and let's get outta here. That was not God's way because that would not have accomplished His purpose that way. Ten plagues and the Red Sea disaster were in Pharaoh's future. And why did God use that method and that drawn out plan? Look what He says:
For this time I will send all My plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth. For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. But, indeed, for this cause I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power, and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth. Exodus 9:14-16
Do you see it? God's purpose was to proclaim His name through the earth. A one shot knockout punch would not have accomplished His purpose like a drawn out, ten-plague assault did.
YOUR LIFE
Whatever problem you might be facing in life, realize that God wants to use it to show the world that He is the true God, and there is no one else like Him. While we want immediate deliverance from our troubles, God often waits to deliver. Understandably, He gets MORE glory when we face a problem with His supernatural joy and peace than He does by simply delivering us in a snap of the fingers.
Your lost friends, neighbors and loved ones see Christ in you more clearly when you go through a trial with a song in your heart. When they see that, they think, "If my Christian friend can face that great trial and still have joy and peace, there must be something to this thing called Christianity. I wish I had what they have."
PRAISE GOD
Will you take your problems and praise God for them? He wants to use the difficulties to proclaim His name through you. Will you choose to see your hardships as a test. a test to see if you will trust God regardless of the circumstances so that the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Jesus can seep from your life?
I love what one writer said, "Problems are not obstacles to faith, they are opportunities to show forth God's faithfulness." May it be so in you and me!
Love,
Jeff Schreve
Pastor
www.fromhisheart.org
jeff@fromhisheart.org
1-888-811-8203
Jeff Schreve is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Texas. He and his wife Debbie have been married for over 20 years and are blessed with three wonderful girls. Jeff began From His Heart Ministries, a radio and television ministry, in January of 2005. This ministry is completely listener/viewer supported. It continues only through the faithful and generous gifts of people like you. Pastor Jeff takes no salary from this ministry. All gifts go to further the broadcast.
Daily Devotionals March 21, 2009
Crooked House
READ: Revelation 3:14-20
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. -Revelation 3:19
When Robert Klose first moved into his 100-year-old house, its strange sounds were disconcerting. A carpenter told him the house was crooked. Klose admitted, "I could see it in the floors, the ceilings, the roofline, the door jambs, even the window frames. Drop a ball on the floor and it will roll away into oblivion." Seventeen years later, the house is still holding together and he has gotten used to it and even grown to love it.
In Revelation, Jesus confronted a church that had become accustomed to its crooked spirituality and had even grown to love its inconsistencies. Laodicea was a well-to-do city. Yet that very wealth led to its delusion of self-sufficiency. This had bled into the culture of the church and produced a crooked, "we don't need Jesus" type of spirituality. Therefore, Jesus rebuked these believers, calling them "lukewarm, . . . wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" (3:16-17). He rebuked them because He loved them and still wanted an ever-deepening communion with them. So He gave them opportunity to repent (v.19).
If self-sufficiency has skewed your fellowship with Jesus, you can straighten it through repentance and a renewal of intimate fellowship with Him. - Marvin Williams
Not to the world is the portion
Of fellowship sweet with God,
But to the humble believer
Who trusts in His faithful Word. -Anon.
Repentance is God's way of making the crooked straight.
Don't Lose Out
In 1 Samuel 15:18-19, 24-26, Samuel, the prophet, comes to King Saul, and this is what he says,
"Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"... Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel."
Saul disobeyed God and then lied about it, tried to cover it, and tried to shift the blame to the people. Did you notice that part? Why? Because he feared the people.
Because of the fear of man, Samuel said to him, "You have lost your place." Later on he says, "God has found a man better than you, a man after His own heart." And He chose David to replace Saul as the king of Israel.
I want you to think about this: God had promised Saul that his seed would sit on the throne, but it was a conditional promise God gave to him.
Saul lost out because of his disobedience caused by the fear of man, and so did his offspring! And David, a better man than Saul, ended up on the throne of Israel, through whom our Savior came.
If the fear of man can rob us of our destiny and affect our offspring, just think what faith in God can do!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Thinking Outside the Box
By Os Hillman
"But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do" (John 6:6).
Jesus and the disciples had just crossed the Sea of Galilee and multitudes followed Him because of the miracles they saw Him do. He was about to speak to them when Jesus realized it was dinner time and the people would be hungry. There were more than 5,000 people who needed to be fed.
Jesus already knew what He was going to do in this situation. However, He was testing the disciples to see if they would think beyond themselves to find a God-solution to the problem. They failed the test. They immediately thought like most of us would think. The disciples looked in their pocketbooks and realized they did not have adequate resources to purchase enough food for the crowd.
It is when we come to the end of our resources that God comes in with His resources.
When I first published volume one of TGIF in book form, I was required to order 1,000 copies from my publisher. We had very little distribution and sales of materials at that time. So, after a few months, we still had boxes and boxes of inventory in our basement. "These books are doing us, nor anyone else, any good in our basement," I said to my wife Angie. "I think we need to go downstairs and lay hands on the books and command them to leave our basement based on Mark 11:23 which says we can speak to the mountain and have it removed." We walked downstairs and prayed, "In the name of Jesus get out of the basement and go be a blessing to someone who can benefit from these books!" Feeling very foolish, I walked upstairs. Two hours later we received a call from a Texas-based workplace ministry. They ordered 300 books! Until then, we had never sold more than a few copies in one day!
When a problem arises in your work life do you think only the logical thought? Perhaps God has created this problem as an opportunity to reveal His glory in the situation. Next time, go outside the box and see the glory of God manifested in your problem!
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Integrity in the Workplace
Integrity in the Workplace:
Blueprint for Today's Business Success
This book provides a firm, Biblical blueprint for understanding and building integrity in the workplace. Using real world case study examples, and applying solid biblical principles, the book explores the components of true success, including: doing what you say you're going to do, delighting your customers, making ethical decisions, accepting responsibility for your actions, communicating honestly, and encouraging teamwork.
Learn More or Buy Now
Identified or Simply Interested?
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow Him"-but-"I have been identified with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
". . . it is no longer I who live . . . ." My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.
". . . and the life which I now live in the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see, "I live by faith in the Son of God . . . ." This faith was not Paul's own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8 ). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 22, 2009
Casting Shadows
READ: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
No flesh should glory in His presence. -1 Corinthians 1:29
Legend has it that Michelangelo painted with a brush in one hand and a candle in the other to prevent his shadow from covering his masterpiece in progress.
That's the kind of attitude we should adopt if we are serious about wanting to display the masterpiece of God's glory on the canvas of our lives. Unfortunately, we tend to live in a way that draws attention to ourselves-our cars, our clothes, our careers, our position, our cleverness, our success. And when life is all about us, it's hard for people to see Jesus in us. Jesus saved us to be reflections of His glory (Rom. 8:29), but when we live for ourselves, our shadow gets cast on the canvas of His presence in us.
When the believers in Corinth were feeling too full of themselves, Paul warned them "that no flesh should glory [boast] in His presence" (1 Cor. 1:29), and reminded them of what Jeremiah said, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord" (v.31; Jer. 9:24).
Think of your life as a canvas on which a picture is being painted. What would you rather have people see: the masterpiece of the presence of Jesus or the shadow of your own profile? Don't get in the way of a great painting in progress. Live to let others see Jesus in you. - Joe Stowell
My life is a painting created by God,
And as such I've nothing to boast;
Reflecting the image of Christ to the world
Is what I desire the most. -Sper
A Christian's life is the canvas on which others can see Jesus.
Stepping Up to God's Call
Has God ever called you to a difficult task? Maybe you were led to witness to a friend or family member who was resistant to the Gospel. Or perhaps God wanted you to lead a Bible study or small group. How did you feel? Were you frightened, nervous, hesitant-or all of the above? God knows that our human emotions can sometimes hold us back, and that is why our Great Provider gives us all the encouragement we need to do His work.
God will not give us an assignment and then just walk away to let us do the work alone. He provides the resources we need to get the job done. He walks with us every step of the way, guiding us and encouraging us. He will never abandon us when we allow Him to work through us. In the words of the psalmist, "You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel" (Psalm 73:23-24).
Read Joshua 1. In this passage, we see God encouraging Joshua just before he is about to cross the raging Jordan River into the Promised Land. As the new leader of the Israelites, Joshua was in need of some encouragement. Not just once, but three times, God strengthens Joshua.
First, God gave an encouraging promise to Joshua: "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them" (Joshua 1:6).
Joshua knew he would ultimately have victory because God promised the end result. When God makes a promise, we can be fully confident that He will never fail us. We can find comfort and strength in the promises of God: "I rejoice in your promise like one who finds great spoil" (Psalm 119:162). When we trust in the promises of God, we will have confidence to overcome any worry about the obstacles, rejections, or critics we will face.
After the promise, God encouraged Joshua through His Word: "Be strong and very courageous. ... Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful" (Joshua 1:7, 8).
True prosperity and success come from holding tenaciously to the Word of God. This doesn't mean we won't face setbacks or opposition in our work for the Lord. It doesn't mean that every person we share the Gospel with will want to listen. But ultimately we will be on the right path when we follow God's Word. As Scripture says: "Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble" (Psalm 119:165).
The third encouragement for Joshua came from the presence of God. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).
Even more than God's promises or His written Word, we have the presence of God. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me" (Psalm 23:4). When we make our relationship with God a daily priority, when we consistently seek and listen to His voice, when we trust in Him moment by moment, then God will give us the victory.
What witnessing opportunity has God called you to today? Is it your neighbor with the hardened heart? Or the colleague who thinks he doesn't need faith? What about the friend who is skeptical of a Creator? Write the name of that person below. Then write how God's promises, Word, and presence will lead you through the task.
***
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up running the race. Shore up your confidence in God, today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Team Building
By Os Hillman
"...you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Building a good team is key to the success of any enterprise. Jesus chose twelve unique individuals to build His world-changing enterprise. He intentionally chose several who had similar backgrounds-Peter, James, and John were fisherman. Matthew and Simon the Zealot came from opposing political views. Matthew came from an industry considered corrupt-he was a tax collector. It is clear Jesus chose those who had a skill set first, then changed the character of the individual. He mentored each one.
A good team needs to have team members with different viewpoints as well as those who are specialists in a particular area. It is noteworthy that Jesus chose someone expertise in handling money. Taking a team of twelve around the country required money and the ability to manage it. I'm sure Jesus spent a great deal of time with Matthew mentoring him on the proper use of money. He had to reshape his thinking about money.
Once the team was formed Jesus spent time molding His team into a cohesive unit to operate in unity. He corrected them when correction was needed. He taught them what it meant to love one another. He washed their feet. He taught and modeled servant leadership. Before you put a team together sit down and make a list of the skills you want represented on your team. Then recruit and invest spiritually into your team. Who knows, your team might just change the world, too!
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
You and I are living in the days of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke about when he taught us to pray by saying "Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!" The Kingdom is here. When we function by the principles of this Kingdom in our day to day lives, we will function on a higher level of anointing and productivity. Living in this Kingdom means living by the principles of the Kingdom Economy. In this book, discover secrets that will cause you to flourish in this Kingdom Economy. These secrets will move you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Also available as an eBook or as an audio book.
Click to Order or Learn More
The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us . . . ? -Luke 24:32
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart- a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart- unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don't allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the "mount of transfiguration," basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9 ). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 23, 2009
Crazy Horse
READ: 1 Samuel 7:3-12
Samuel took a stone . . . and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." -1 Samuel 7:12
In 1876, the Sioux leader Crazy Horse joined forces with Sitting Bull to defeat General Custer and his army at Little Bighorn. Not much later, though, starvation caused Crazy Horse to surrender to US troops. He was killed while trying to escape. Despite this sad conclusion to his life, he became a symbol of heroic leadership of a threatened people.
Today in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he is commemorated with a monument being carved into a mountain-the Crazy Horse Memorial. When complete, it will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. It will show Crazy Horse riding a galloping horse, pointing the way to his people.
Thousands of years ago, the prophet Samuel used a much smaller memorial stone in a significant way. In the midst of a crucial battle with the Philistines, Samuel called out to God on Israel's behalf. The Lord answered his prayer (1 Sam. 7:10). In gratitude, Samuel set up a stone "and called its name Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us'" (v.12).
Samuel has set an example for our spiritual journey. We too can use tangible reminders of God's faithfulness to help us worship and serve Him. It's good to remember "thus far the Lord has helped us." - Dennis Fisher
Putting It Into Practice
* Keep a spiritual journal and record God's blessings.
* Write answers to prayer in your journal.
* Tell a friend what God has done in your life.
Gratitude is the memory of a glad heart.
No Worries
I trust that these words from Isaiah will encourage you today. Read carefully what God has to say,
"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?... But I am the LORD your God, who divided the sea whose waves roared-the LORD of hosts is His name" (Isaiah 51:12-13 and 15).
God spans the heavens with the palm of His hand. The nations are as a drop in the bucket before Him. There is nothing too hard for Him, and nothing He cannot do.
A number of years ago, I had the chance to go elk hunting with a friend in Montana. We were lying outside under the stars, and I was unprepared for the glory I saw. I have never seen so many stars in my life! It took my breath away!
As we lay there, I said, "You know what? God spans the heavens with His hand, and you and I are worried about paying the rent!" It was just one of those moments. We both just cracked up at how ridiculous it was to worry when God was so big.
What are you worrying about today? Whatever it is, place it into God's hands. After all, His hand spans the entire universe!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Receiving Only What God Can Give
By Os Hillman
"A man can receive only what is given him from heaven" (John 3:27).
John the Baptist was in the business of bringing sinners to the place of repentance by baptizing them and teaching them about the coming Messiah. Over time, he had developed quite a customer base of disciples. Yet when the promised Messiah showed up-the fulfillment of John's business plan-true to form, his coworkers (or disciples) went to John to complain that the one he had testified about was stealing all of his customers. "Rabbi," they said, "that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan . . . well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him" (John 3:26). John's response showed clearly he understood his purpose and role in life in the above verse.
John understood that we receive by understanding our purpose and what God desires us to receive in light of our purpose. We need not worry about what others receive, only if we are receiving what God wants us to receive. Many of us try to receive things God never intended us to receive or be someone God never intended us to be.
A story is told about F. B. Meyer, the great Bible teacher and pastor who lived a century ago. He was pastoring a church when he began to notice that attendance was dropping. This continued until he finally asked some members of his congregation one Sunday morning why they thought this was happening. A member suggested, "It is because of the new church down the road. The young preacher has everyone talking and many are going to hear him speak." The young preacher's name was Charles Spurgeon.
Meyer, rather than seeking to discourage this development, exhorted his entire congregation to join him and go participate in seeing this "move of God," as he described it to them. "If this be happening, then God must be at work." Meyer, like John the Baptist, understood the principle of receiving from God and was not threatened by the new competition in town. Instead, he joined it.
Do you model a Kingdom mindset? Do you rejoice when others succeed? Are you receiving only what God desires you to receive?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
You and I are living in the days of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke about when he taught us to pray by saying "Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!" The Kingdom is here. When we function by the principles of this Kingdom in our day to day lives, we will function on a higher level of anointing and productivity. Living in this Kingdom means living by the principles of the Kingdom Economy. In this book, discover secrets that will cause you to flourish in this Kingdom Economy. These secrets will move you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Also available as an eBook or as an audio book.
Click to Order or Learn More
Am I Carnally Minded?
Where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal . . . ? -1 Corinthians 3:3
The natural man, or unbeliever, knows nothing about carnality. The desires of the flesh warring against the Spirit, and the Spirit warring against the flesh, which began at rebirth, are what produce carnality and the awareness of it. But Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" ( Galatians 5:16 ). In other words, carnality will disappear.
Are you quarrelsome and easily upset over small things? Do you think that no one who is a Christian is ever like that? Paul said they are, and he connected these attitudes with carnality. Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly awakens a spirit of malice or resentment in you? If so, that is proof that you are still carnal. If the process of sanctification is continuing in your life, there will be no trace of that kind of spirit remaining.
If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He doesn't ask you to make it right; He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right. A child of the light will confess sin instantly and stand completely open before God. But a child of the darkness will say, "Oh, I can explain that." When the light shines and the Spirit brings conviction of sin, be a child of the light. Confess your wrongdoing, and God will deal with it. If, however, you try to vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness.
What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone you will know it-it is the most real thing you can imagine. And God will see to it that you have a number of opportunities to prove to yourself the miracle of His grace. The proof is in a very practical test. You will find yourself saying, "If this had happened before, I would have had the spirit of resentment!" And you will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 24, 2009
Ordinary Days
READ: Luke 2:8-20
Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. -Luke 2:9
Writer Anita Brechbill observed in God's Revivalist magazine that "Most often the Word of the Lord comes to a soul in the ordinary duties of life." She cites the examples of Zacharias performing his duties as a priest, and the shepherds watching their flocks. They were at work as usual with no idea that they were about to receive a message from God.
Luke describes the ordinary days when these men received their message from God: "While [Zacharias] was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, . . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him" (1:8,11). While the shepherds were "living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night . . . an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them" (2:8-9).
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest said: "Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord's surprise visits."
On this ordinary day, the Lord may have a word of encouragement, guidance, or instruction for us, if we're listening and ready to obey. - David C. McCasland
I wonder what I did for God today:
How many times did I once pause and pray?
But I must find and serve Him in these ways,
For life is made of ordinary days. -Macbeth
God speaks to those who are quiet before Him
Your New Nature
As human beings, we are constantly confronted with opportunities to fear. People have fears concerning their health, their finances, terrorism, relationships, their jobs...the list is almost endless.
I want to challenge you with a thought today, and it is simply this: Realize who you are. If you are born again, you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, and it is not in your nature to be afraid.
Consider what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7,
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Which points to our problem with fear. We listen to our heads, and we listen to our flesh, rather than listening to our spirit. As a result, our lives can be overwhelmed with fear.
I want to challenge you today to listen to your spirit instead of your head. The real you on the inside is made after the image of God. Once you realize who you are and what you are made of, it will help deliver you from fear. Consider these verses that talk about the real you:
· Ephesians 4:24, And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
· 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
When you understand your true nature, that you are made after the image of God, you will know freedom from fear.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Mourning for Your City
By Os Hillman
"When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven" (Neh 1:4).
Nehemiah lived in the world of politics. He was a high ranking worker in the government of Babylon. His official title was cupbearer for King Artazerzes. He would be considered the modern-day U.S. Secret Service agent who made sure the King was safe from being poisoned.
Judah had been driven into exile and some of his friends had just returned with news about his fellow brothers and sisters in Jerusalem.
In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire" (Neh 1:1-3).
Nehemiah's response upon hearing the news is the kind of response that is necessary for a Christian leader to impact his or her city. He responded by weeping for the condition of his beloved city. He immediately went into prayer and asked for God's direction on how he could be a positive impact on his city. He developed a strategy to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. He accomplished the task in only fifty-two days.
Do you weep for your city? God is calling forth men and women from the marketplace today to be catalyst to impact their cities. Begin today to pray for your city and ask God how you can be a catalyst to rebuild the spiritual wall of your city.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
You and I are living in the days of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke about when he taught us to pray by saying "Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!" The Kingdom is here. When we function by the principles of this Kingdom in our day to day lives, we will function on a higher level of anointing and productivity. Living in this Kingdom means living by the principles of the Kingdom Economy. In this book, discover secrets that will cause you to flourish in this Kingdom Economy. These secrets will move you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Also available as an eBook or as an audio book.
Click to Order or Learn More
Decreasing for His Purpose
He must increase, but I must decrease -John 3:30
If you become a necessity to someone else's life, you are out of God's will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a "friend of the bridegroom" (John 3:29 ). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don't try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone's life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God's will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."
Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. ". . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" ( John 3:29-30 ). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness-at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.
Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34 ).
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 25, 2009
In All Kinds Of Weather
READ: Acts 18:9-11
Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. -Matthew 28:20
When Jesus sent His disciples out, He gave them this promise: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20). Literally, the word always means "all the days," according to Greek scholars Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown.
Jesus didn't simply say, "always," but "all the days." That takes into account all our various activities, the good and bad circumstances surrounding us, the varied responsibilities we have through the course of our days, the storm clouds and the sunshine.
Our Lord is present with us no matter what each day brings. It may be a day of joy or of sadness, of sickness or of health, of success or of failure. No matter what happens to us today, our Lord is walking beside us, strengthening us, loving us, filling us with faith, hope, and love. As He envelops us with quiet serenity and security, our foes, fears, afflictions, and doubts begin to recede. We can bear up in any setting and circumstance because we know the Lord is at hand, just as He told Paul in Acts 18:10, "I am with you."
Practice God's presence, stopping in the midst of your busy day to say to yourself, "The Lord is here." And pray that you will see Him who is invisible-and see Him everywhere. - David H. Roper
God's unseen presence comforts me,
I know He's always near;
And when life's storms besiege my soul,
He says, "My child, I'm here." -D. De Haan
Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. -Isaiah 55:6
He Has Said, So We May Say
In our last few devotionals, we have been talking about fear, and how to be free from it. Today, I want to give you a final thought to consider on fear. It is based on Hebrews 13:5-6,
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we may boldly say: "The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
I want you to notice what the Bible says, He Himself has said...So we may boldly say. God says something, so you can say something.
What does God say? He says He will never leave you. He says He will never forsake you. As a result you can say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
When you understand that God will never leave you or forsake you, you can live without fear. And that freedom from fear will be reflected in both your actions and in your speech.
What are you facing today? Would you be afraid if God was standing beside you saying, "It's alright. I am here"? Well He is with you! He said He would never leave you or abandon you! You may not see or feel Him, but He is with you-now and always.
It is time to start acting and speaking like you believe it.
Boldly say, "The Lord is helping me! I will not fear!"
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Thinking Big
By Os Hillman
"For nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:36-37).
It was 4:00 A.M. in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2000 when businessman Graham Power was awakened by a vision from God that came in three distinct parts. In the first part of the vision, God instructed Graham to rent the 45,000-seat Newlands rugby stadium in Cape Town for a day of repentance and prayer for that city. In the second part of the vision, he saw the prayer movement spreading to the rest of South Africa for a national day of prayer. In the final part of the vision, he saw the prayer effort spread to cover the rest of the continent.
It was only thirty days earlier that a man named Gunnar Olson stood in front of a podium at the conclusion of a marketplace conference in Johannesburg, South Africa and proclaimed Isaiah 60 which said to "Arise and shine" over the continent of Africa and that God was going to use Africa to bless the nations.
Graham was obedient to the vision, and on March 21, 2001, a capacity crowd gathered in the Newlands rugby stadium for prayer and repentance. Soon after, a notorious gangster in the city was saved. News of the first gathering spread quickly, and in 2002, eight cities in South Africa hosted a day of prayer. Leading up to the event, young people from all over the country took part in a "walk of hope" from Bloemfontein to the eight stadiums where the prayer meetings were to be held. The events were broadcast on television.
By June 2006, what began as Transformation Africa became the Global Day of Prayer with participation from 200 nations from seven continents around the world. And this prayer movement is still growing.
It all started from the obedience of one businessman. What might God want to do through your life? It begins with being obedient to the small things and exercising your faith to believe God can do it. Our part is obedience. His part is outcome.
Contact Os Hillman www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
You and I are living in the days of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke about when he taught us to pray by saying "Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!" The Kingdom is here. When we function by the principles of this Kingdom in our day to day lives, we will function on a higher level of anointing and productivity. Living in this Kingdom means living by the principles of the Kingdom Economy. In this book, discover secrets that will cause you to flourish in this Kingdom Economy. These secrets will move you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Also available as an eBook or as an audio book.
Maintaining the Proper Relationship
. . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . -John 3:29
Goodness and purity should never be traits that draw attention to themselves, but should simply be magnets that draw people to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing others to Him, it is not the right kind of holiness; it is only an influence which awakens undue emotions and evil desires in people and diverts them from heading in the right direction. A person who is a beautiful saint can be a hindrance in leading people to the Lord by presenting only what Christ has done for him, instead of presenting Jesus Christ Himself. Others will be left with this thought- "What a fine person that man is!" That is not being a true "friend of the bridegroom"- I am increasing all the time; He is not.
To maintain this friendship and faithfulness to the Bridegroom, we have to be more careful to have the moral and vital relationship to Him above everything else, including obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey and our only task is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ, seeing that nothing interferes with it. Only occasionally is it a matter of obedience. At those times when a crisis arises, we have to find out what God's will is. Yet most of our life is not spent in trying to be consciously obedient, but in maintaining this relationship- being the "friend of the bridegroom." Christian work can actually be a means of diverting a person's focus away from Jesus Christ. Instead of being friends "of the bridegroom," we may become amateur providences of God to someone else, working against Him while we use His weapons.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 26, 2009
Faithfulness In Everything
READ: Colossians 3:12-17
Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. -Colossians 3:17
In August 2007, a major bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people. In the weeks that followed, it was difficult for me not to think about that tragedy whenever crossing a bridge over a body of water.
Some time later, I was watching an episode of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Host Mike Rowe was talking to an industrial painter whose work he was trying to duplicate. "There's really no glory in what you do," he said. "No," the painter agreed, "but it's a job that needs to be done."
You see, that man paints the inside of the Mackinac Bridge towers in Northern Michigan. His unnoticed job is done to ensure that the steel of the magnificent suspended structure won't rust from the inside out, compromising the integrity of the bridge. Most of the 12,000 people who cross the Straits of Mackinac each day aren't even aware that they are depending on workers like this painter to faithfully do their jobs well.
God also sees our faithfulness in the things we do. Though we may think our deeds-big and small-sometimes go un-noticed, they are being observed by the One who matters most. Whatever our task today, let's "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Col. 3:17). - Cindy Hess Kasper
Whatever task you find to do,
Regardless if it's big or small,
Perform it well, with all your might,
Because there's One who sees it all. -Sper
Daily work takes on eternal value when it is done for God.
Life's Proper Focus
Read Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
This parable really helps us bring life into the right perspective. The rich man in this story failed to do three things.
He failed to realize that he was only a steward and not the owner of his goods.
He failed to have an eternal perspective.
He failed to consider how brief this earthly life can be.
How did he fail in these three areas? By not understanding just how short life is and where to place his focus.
He talked about building barns but instead he had a burial.
He said he had many years but God said "this night."
He thought he was wise, but God said he was a fool.
Let's learn from his mistakes and bring our life into proper focus.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity (1)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God -Matthew 5:8
Purity is not innocence- it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character- it is "the pure in heart " who "see God."
God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished. Not only must our "inner sanctuary" be kept right with God, but also the "outer courts" must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding is immediately blurred when our "outer court" is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.
A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, "That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!"
GOD BLESS
Hearing the Voice of God - Even on the Job
By Os Hillman
March 27
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. . . . My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:14,27).
Tom Fox is a successful financial investment manager who heads up a workplace ministry in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. He used to be troubled when he heard Christians say, "The Lord told me . . . " He certainly had never heard God speak to him like that. "What is different about those people and me?" he wondered. In the book of John, Tom had read that Jesus had said that His sheep hear His voice, but he didn't understand how they could do that. His pursuit to answer that question began his quest to discover how to hear God's voice himself.
Today, Tom realizes that God does speak and that we, as His children, can hear His voice. He has discovered how to hear God's words of guidance in his daily life, which includes the day-to-day operations of his business, and he is teaching others how to hear God's voice as well.
A friend of mine told me a story about an experience he had in Israel that demonstrates how sheep know their shepherd's voice. He and his wife were visiting some of the famous biblical sites when they saw a group of shepherds and their flocks. They watched as three different shepherds put their sheep in the same pen for the night, and they wondered how in the world the shepherds would separate their sheep the next day, since none of them had any identifying marks on them.
My friend got up early the next morning to watch the shepherds gather their sheep. The first shepherd went over to the pen and called out to his sheep. One by one, his sheep (and only his sheep) filed out to follow him. The same thing happened with the other two shepherds. My friend said it was amazing to watch how only the shepherd's sheep followed him while the others remained in the pen--and all because they recognized his voice. What a picture of Jesus' words spoken centuries earlier.
Ask God to help you hear the voice of God--even on the job.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
You and I are living in the days of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke about when he taught us to pray by saying "Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!" The Kingdom is here. When we function by the principles of this Kingdom in our day to day lives, we will function on a higher level of anointing and productivity. Living in this Kingdom means living by the principles of the Kingdom Economy. In this book, discover secrets that will cause you to flourish in this Kingdom Economy. These secrets will move you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Also available as an eBook or as an audio book.
Daily Devotionals March 28, 2009
I'm Innocent!
READ: James 1:19-25
Be doers of the Word. -James 1:22
All of the students at a school in Florida-2,550 in total-were in trouble. A message system notified every parent that their child (or children) had detention that weekend for bad behavior. Many kids pleaded their innocence, yet some parents meted out punishment anyway. One mother, Amy, admitted that she yelled at her son and made sure he showed up for his detention on Saturday.
To the relief of 2,534 kids, and to the embarrassment of some parents, they discovered that the automated message was sent in error to the entire student body when only 16 kids actually deserved detention! Amy felt so bad about not listening to and believing her son that she took him out for breakfast that Saturday morning.
We all have stories to tell about circumstances that have shown us our need to listen before we speak. We're naturally tempted to come to quick judgments and react angrily. The book of James gives us these three practical exhortations to deal with life's stressful situations: "Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (James 1:19).
In life's stresses, let's be "doers of the Word" (v.22), and take the time to listen and show restraint with our words and anger today. - Anne Cetas
A judgment made without the facts
Is sure to be unfair,
So always listen to both sides-
You'll find the answer there. -Branon
Listen to understand, then speak with love.
Who Made the Sun Shine?
Look again at Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Take a look at the few words that this man spoke. In his short declaration, he uses the word I six times and the word my five times!
His perspective was a very selfish one.
Here are a few questions to ponder:
· Who gave the rain that made his crops grow?
· Who made the soil out of which his crops grew?
· Who made the seed he planted?
· Who caused the sun to shine?
· Who gave him the physical strength to work the field?
· Who gave him his soul?
The answer to all of those is God. Yet he makes no acknowledgement of God in his speech, planning, or giving. He should have been thanking God for all His blessings and asking the Lord what He wanted done with His things.
Be faithful to acknowledge God and to ask Him what to do with His resources over which you are a steward.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Hearing the Voice of God - Even on the Job
By Os Hillman
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. . . . My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:14,27).
Tom Fox is a successful financial investment manager who heads up a workplace ministry in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. He used to be troubled when he heard Christians say, "The Lord told me . . . " He certainly had never heard God speak to him like that. "What is different about those people and me?" he wondered. In the book of John, Tom had read that Jesus had said that His sheep hear His voice, but he didn't understand how they could do that. His pursuit to answer that question began his quest to discover how to hear God's voice himself.
Today, Tom realizes that God does speak and that we, as His children, can hear His voice. He has discovered how to hear God's words of guidance in his daily life, which includes the day-to-day operations of his business, and he is teaching others how to hear God's voice as well.
A friend of mine told me a story about an experience he had in Israel that demonstrates how sheep know their shepherd's voice. He and his wife were visiting some of the famous biblical sites when they saw a group of shepherds and their flocks. They watched as three different shepherds put their sheep in the same pen for the night, and they wondered how in the world the shepherds would separate their sheep the next day, since none of them had any identifying marks on them.
My friend got up early the next morning to watch the shepherds gather their sheep. The first shepherd went over to the pen and called out to his sheep. One by one, his sheep (and only his sheep) filed out to follow him. The same thing happened with the other two shepherds. My friend said it was amazing to watch how only the shepherd's sheep followed him while the others remained in the pen--and all because they recognized his voice. What a picture of Jesus' words spoken centuries earlier.
Ask God to help you hear the voice of God--even on the job.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
Secrets of the Kingdom Economy
You and I are living in the days of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke about when he taught us to pray by saying "Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!" The Kingdom is here. When we function by the principles of this Kingdom in our day to day lives, we will function on a higher level of anointing and productivity. Living in this Kingdom means living by the principles of the Kingdom Economy. In this book, discover secrets that will cause you to flourish in this Kingdom Economy. These secrets will move you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Also available as an eBook or as an audio book.
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity (2)
Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place . . . -Revelation 4:1
A higher state of mind and spiritual vision can only be achieved through the higher practice of personal character. If you live up to the highest and best that you know in the outer level of your life, God will continually say to you, "Friend, come up even higher." There is also a continuing rule in temptation which calls you to go higher; but when you do, you only encounter other temptations and character traits. Both God and Satan use the strategy of elevation, but Satan uses it in temptation, and the effect is quite different. When the devil elevates you to a certain place, he causes you to fasten your idea of what holiness is far beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear or achieve. Your life becomes a spiritual acrobatic performance high atop a steeple. You cling to it, trying to maintain your balance and daring not to move. But when God elevates you by His grace into heavenly places, you find a vast plateau where you can move about with ease.
Compare this week in your spiritual life with the same week last year to see how God has called you to a higher level. We have all been brought to see from a higher viewpoint. Never allow God to show you a truth which you do not instantly begin to live up to, applying it to your life. Always work through it, staying in its light.
Your growth in grace is not measured by the fact that you haven't turned back, but that you have an insight and understanding into where you are spiritually. Have you heard God say, "Come up higher," not audibly on the outer level, but to the innermost part of your character?
"Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ?" (Genesis 18:17 ). God has to hide from us what He does, until, due to the growth of our personal character, we get to the level where He is then able to reveal it.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals March 29, 2009
Resolve
READ: Romans 14:1-13
Resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way. -Romans 14:13
I once decorated a notebook with definitions of the words idea, thought, opinion, preference, belief, and conviction to remind myself that they do not mean the same thing. The temptation to elevate an opinion to the level of a conviction can be strong, but doing so is wrong, as we learn from Romans 14.
In the first century, religious traditions based on the law were so important to religious leaders that they failed to recognize the One who personified the law, Jesus. They were so focused on minor matters that they neglected the important ones (Matt. 23:23).
Scripture says that we need to subjugate even our beliefs and convictions to the law of love (Rom. 13:8,10; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8), for love fulfills the law and leads to peace and mutual edification.
When opinions and preferences become more important to us than what God says is valuable to Him, we have made idols out of our own beliefs. Idolatry is a serious offense because it violates the first and most important command: "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Ex. 20:3).
Let's resolve not to elevate our own opinions above God's, lest they become a stumbling block and keep others from knowing the love of Jesus. - Julie Ackerman Link
A Prayer
Lord, help me not to elevate my opinions and
make others follow. You are the convicter of hearts.
May others learn of Your love through me.
The greatest force on earth is not the compulsion of law but the compassion of love.
Let God Do His Job
Philippians 2:8-11 shows us how humility precedes honor,
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If God's good pleasure and His plan are to be worked out in our lives, we must walk in humility. It is a prerequisite for us to pass the test of humility. As we see here, because Jesus humbled Himself, God highly exalted Him. And at that point, no demon in hell could do a thing to prevent it.
When God promotes you, no person, no demon, no ungodly system can hold you back. God's exalting power is irresistible. It is undeniable, and it is undefeatable.
But a humble heart must come first. It has been said that no man stands taller than when he is on his knees before God. Let us humble ourselves and be obedient to God in every area of our lives. If we will lower ourselves, God will lift us. God's job is to exalt us, and our job is to humble ourselves. If we try to do God's job for Him, He will have to do our job for us.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
Becoming the Head
By Os Hillman
"The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom" (Deut 28:13-14).
Coca-Cola, at this time of writing, has a 40% market share in the soft drink industry. It is the number one brand in the world. When Coke comes into a business environment, they have authority in that realm. They have great respect because of their position in business.
George Barna, the U.S. Christian researcher on Christian activity tells us that 35-45% of the U.S. population is born again. Based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in the year 2005, there were 149 million adult workers. Simply multiplying this figure by 40% would give you a figure of 59 million Christian adult workers. If this is so, why aren't we having more impact?
I would have to say the body of Christ in America is not the head, but is still the tail. Part of the reason for this is that we have not understood our biblical mandate to have dominion on the earth as was modeled in Genesis with Adam and Eve. When Jesus returned to earth He came to save that which was lost and restore this principle of dominion (Luke 19:10). When Jesus prayed in the Lord's prayer: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt 6:9-10), He was praying that His dominion would be restored on earth just as it is in Heaven.
However, we have given over this leadership to the ungodly in our societies. In order to restore this we must win the battle in seven key domains in society. These include 1) business, 2) government, 3) education, 4) arts and entertainment, 5) religion, 6) media and 7) the family.
This begins by affirming the calling of men and women in the workplace as having a holy calling. Realize that whatever work you are doing, God has called you to express His life in that arena in order to have His dominion over the earth.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Our Lord's Surprise Visits
You also be ready . . . -Luke 12:40
A Christian worker's greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not facing our beliefs or doctrines, or even facing the question of whether or not we are of any use to Him, but the need is to face Him.
Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord's surprise visits. This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle-we must be spiritually real.
If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today's world, and instead are "looking unto Jesus" ( Hebrews 12:2 ), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thoughts, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals April, 2009
Servant-Friendship
READ: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
We were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. -1 Thessalonians 2:7
Don Tack wanted to know what life was like for homeless people. So he concealed his identity and went to live on the streets of his city. He found out that food and shelter were offered by many organizations. At one shelter he could spend the night if he listened to a sermon beforehand. He appreciated the guest speaker's message and wanted to talk with him afterward. But as Don reached out to shake the man's hand and asked if he could talk with him, the speaker walked right past him as if he didn't exist.
Don learned that what was missing most in ministry to the homeless in his area were people who were willing to build relationships. So he began an organization called Servants Center to offer help through friendship.
What Don encountered at the shelter was the opposite of what the people who heard the apostle Paul experienced. When he shared the gospel, he gave himself too. He testified in his letter to the Thessalonians, "We were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us" (1 Thess. 2:8). He said, "We were gentle among you," like a mother (v.7).
In our service for the Lord, do we share not just our words or money but our time and friendship? - Anne Cetas
I want to do service for Christ while I live,
And comfort and cheer to poor lonely hearts give;
For this is the program approved by the Word,
To visit the needy and speak of the Lord. -Bosch
One measure of our likeness to Christ is our sensitivity to the suffering of others.
Not in the Abundance of Things
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:13-15).
Life is not about things and how much "stuff" you can accumulate. Your identity and value as a person should not be based on the abundance of your possessions.
If, however, your sense of value as a person is wrapped up in your things, what happens if you lose those things?
A relative of mine from a few generations back had all of his property confiscated by the government after the Civil War. He died a broken and bitter man. That is the end of someone whose identity and sense of worth are tied up in their things.
This man that came to Jesus to sort out his inheritance had the real treasure in front of him all the time, but he couldn't see it because "things" were in the way. The real treasure was his brother!
He was at odds with his brother. There was friction and tension between them over their inheritance. Apparently this man was willing to destroy his relationship with his brother for things!
Life does not consist in the abundance of things we possess, but in the riches of the relationships we have!
In tomorrow's devotional I want to share three relationships that make a person rich.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
The Spiritual Life is Caught, Not Taught
By Os Hillman
"Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah" (1 Kings 19:20).
There is a man in my life who I consider my mentor. He came into my life during a crisis period and helped me understand my situation. I have learned a great deal from him. I have rarely spent more than a few hours in his presence at any one time. However, I did not learn from him through a formal arrangement. I mostly caught what I have learned. He never took me through a Bible study. He never sent me articles or things to read. I learned by being around him.
One day I had a crisis situation arise. I remembered what my mentor did in a crisis in his life. I decided to apply the same faith principle to that issue. Amazingly, a miracle occurred because I appropriated faith, just as my mentor had, to my crisis. This is what I mean by catching the faith of another. Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning.
When Elijah handpicked Elisha as his successor, Elisha immediately killed his twelve set of oxen and ran after Elijah just to be with him. No doubt he knew what a great privilege it was to be selected by the great prophet. However, it was not enough for Elisha to be handpicked. He also wanted a double portion of Elijah's anointing. It appears that God answered this prayer.
If you want to grow in your Christian life, ask God to lead you to a man or woman who is far ahead of you spiritually and simply start hanging out with them. As you walk alongside them you will begin to catch what they have. You will begin appropriating the anointing that is on their lives that will mix perfectly with your unique gifting and talents.
We need more people today who are willing to run after their "Elijahs."
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
Helpful or Heartless Toward Others?
It is Christ . . . who also makes intercession for us. . . . the Spirit . . . makes intercession for the saints . . . -Romans 8:34, 27
Do we need any more arguments than these to become intercessors-that Christ "always lives to make intercession" ( Hebrews 7:25 ), and that the Holy Spirit "makes intercession for the saints"? Are we living in such a relationship with others that we do the work of intercession as a result of being the children of God who are taught by His Spirit? We should take a look at our current circumstances. Do crises which affect us or others in our home, business, country, or elsewhere, seem to be crushing in on us? Are we being pushed out of the presence of God and left with no time for worship? If so, we must put a stop to such distractions and get into such a living relationship with God that our relationship with others is maintained through the work of intercession, where God works His miracles.
Beware of getting ahead of God by your very desire to do His will. We run ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don't worship God, and we fail to intercede. If a burden and its resulting pressure come upon us while we are not in an attitude of worship, it will only produce a hardness toward God and despair in our own souls. God continually introduces us to people in whom we have no interest, and unless we are worshiping God the natural tendency is to be heartless toward them. We give them a quick verse of Scripture, like jabbing them with a spear, or leave them with a hurried, uncaring word of counsel before we go. A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord.
Are our lives in the proper place so that we may participate in the intercession of our Lord and the Holy Spirit?
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals April 2, 2009
His Part; Our Part
READ: Joshua 1:1-9
Arise, go over this Jordan . . . . I will not leave you nor forsake you. -Joshua 1:2,5
Whenever the Lord assigns us a difficult task, He gives us what we need to carry it out. John Wesley wrote, "Among the many difficulties of our early ministry, my brother Charles often said, 'If the Lord would give me wings, I'd fly.' I used to answer, 'If God bids me fly, I will trust Him for the wings.'"
Today's Scripture tells us that Joshua was thrust into a position of great responsibility. No doubt the enormity of the challenge before him made him tremble with fear. How could he ever follow such a great leader as Moses? In his own strength it would be impossible to lead the people into the Promised Land. But along with the marching orders, the Lord gave him an assuring promise: "I will not leave you nor forsake you" (Josh. 1:5). Then He said, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go" (v.9). Such reassurances were the backing Joshua needed.
If God has given you some special work to do that frightens you, it's your responsibility to jump at it. It's up to the Lord to see you through. As you faithfully do your part, He will do His part. - Richard De Haan
I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
O'er mountain or plain or sea;
I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,
I'll be what You want me to be. -Brown
Where God guides, God provides!
Three Relationships that Make Us Rich
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:13-15).
This man came to Jesus to get him to "sort his brother out" over the inheritance, not realizing that his brother was the real treasure in his life - not the things he might inherit.
Here are three relationships that make us rich:
1. Our relationship with God. To know God makes you rich, no matter what material resources you may or may not have.
Some of those that the world would call rich are actually bankrupt when it comes to the most important treasure of all.
2. Our relationship with others. People, not things, are the real treasures in life. I can honestly say that I am a rich man. I have family and friends that I love and that love me. Things lose their meaning, and serve as a very poor substitute for relationships with people.
3. Our relationship with our own heart. Commune with your own heart... declares the psalmist in Psalm 4:4 (KJV).
That means hold some serious communication with your heart-get acquainted with your heart. Don't let you and your own heart be strangers!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Speak to Your Mountain
By Os Hillman
"Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him (Mark 11:22-24).
I taught an all day training session at a church a few years ago. Several months later I received a letter from one of the participants sharing a testimony about the principle of using your authority to speak to your mountain in your workplace.
"I own a video company that shoots a variety of projects. One day, my editor discovered a videographer's worst nightmare - a garbled mess of video picture and little or no audio on tapes that I had shot the weekend before. Four tapes of raw footage from two separate events were ruined.
I prayed that God would restore my tapes. I got an odd sense of peace and knew God had answered my prayer. I relayed to the group that I believed God had told me that the tapes would be fine in a day. My associate challenged me to put in the tape anyway and not wait. I put a tape in the editing deck, and right before our eyes, the tape now had a perfectly clear picture and audio where there had been no sound moments before.
The next morning, I entered my editing room with great anticipation. I put in one of the remaining damaged tapes that contained footage from a wedding, but the video was still scrambled and there was no audio. My wife heard me and came in to look over my shoulder. I prayed out loud over the ruined footage and reassured my wife that God loves us and would take care of things. I kept praying as I watched the screen.
Then suddenly, before our eyes, the tape began to clear up. Just as the pastor announced how God intimately loves us, I turned to look at my wife and saw the tears streaming down her face. Apparently, God had rigged this moment to touch her deeply on issues that only the two of them knew about. Not only did God save my business, but He also ministered to my family through this crisis-fixing miracle."
What type of mountain might God want you to speak to today?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Living On The Third River
Living On The Third River
This unique "quick-read" book will quite likely create a major paradigm shift in your thinking about money, convict you about your current financial outlook, and free you to live in God's abundant provision. It begins as a story of three people living along three rivers who make very different choices about the water they each manage. The water represents their money and possessions, and the meaning of the story is unmistakably clear and powerfully effective, told in a way that even a child could understand. This is an ideal resource to purchase multiple copies and share with friends, co-workers, and family. Learn More or Order
The Glory That's Unsurpassed
READ:
. . . the Lord Jesus . . . has sent me that you may receive your sight . . . -Acts 9:17
When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ- "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" ( 1 Corinthians 2:2 ). Paul never again allowed anything to attract and hold the attention of his mind and soul except the face of Jesus Christ.
We must learn to maintain a strong degree of character in our lives, even to the level that has been revealed in our vision of Jesus Christ.
The lasting characteristic of a spiritual man is the ability to understand correctly the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, and the ability to explain the purposes of God to others. The overruling passion of his life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you see this quality in a person, you get the feeling that he is truly a man after God's own heart (see Acts 13:22 ).
Never allow anything to divert you from your insight into Jesus Christ. It is the true test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you. Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus, I've lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit's vision, Gazing on the Crucified.
GOD BLESS
Crosswalk the Devotional - Apr. 3, 2009
Let Go and Let God
by Laura MacCorkle, Crosswalk.com Senior Entertainment Editor
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 8:5-6, NIV
I know what you're thinking.
Really? Is this going to be a devotional based on the tired Christian cliché, "Let go and let God"?
Why yes, it is. Because, while it's certainly tired, it's absolutely true! When we don't let go of what we're gripping so tightly, then we are stuck. And we cannot move. And then what good are we to God and his plan for our lives?
In a lot of ways, we're like monkeys (who, incidentally, I don't believe are our ancestors) who won't let go when they're caught in a trap.
In order to catch them, cages are set up with something inside that is highly attractive to them (a banana, for example). A hole is constructed to be large enough for a monkey to fit in its hand. But after the monkey reaches inside the cage and clutches the banana, he cannot bring his hand back out of the hole, as it is not big enough to fit a fist that is now holding a banana.
So there the monkey sits, focused on its "prize" and refusing to let go. There is virtually no activity and a lot less living being done. And the monkey has no clue that destruction is on its way, namely in the form of a hunter who is ready to put the primate out of its misery. Forever. And ever. Amen.
Now monkeys are known to be a little quicker mentally than most of the other creatures of the animal kingdom. But in situations like this, they are as dumb as doorknobs. All it would take for a monkey to free itself would be to let go of the banana. But once it is in its grasp, a monkey will not let go of something it wants so desperately.
Hmmm. So, I guess we are a little more like monkeys than we might have first thought.
Think about what in your life causes you to cling so tightly. What is it that you will not let go of? Is it an object? A life-long dream? A secret desire? How about a job? Or a relationship? Maybe a church leadership position?
As the verse for today says, "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires."
Now, let's get really honest about that. What is your mind set on right now? Is it set on "what the Spirit desires?" And if so, is it "life and peace?" Or is there chaos and confusion. Fearfulness and pride. Stubbornness and disobedience.
Just the like monkey, when we refuse to let go, we are immobile and certainly not going anywhere on our spiritual journeys. Because we are not available, God is waiting on us to do what he wills in our lives. We have no clue what life and peace we are missing! No clue. We are fixated and trapped in our own selfish desires. And what we think is "the prize" is not even close to the blessings of a life spent following Christ.
Remember today that HE is the One from whom all blessings flow. And there is no earthly comparison worth holding in our grip.
Intersecting Faith & Life: Use Philippians 3:18-20 to check your heart's desires (and their proper placement) today: "... Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. ..."
Further Reading
Proverbs 29:25
Proverbs 3:5-6
Psalm 22:8
Daily Devotionals April 5, 2009
The Measure Of Mercy
READ: Philippians 2:5-11
You were not redeemed with corruptible things, . . . but with the precious blood of Christ. -1 Peter 1:18-19
What is the distance from God's throne of splendor down to the abyss of Calvary's cross? What is the measure of the Savior's love for us? In Paul's letter to the Philippians, he described Jesus' descent from the heights of glory to the depths of shame and agony and back again (2:5-11).
Christ is the eternal Creator and Lord of all existence, exalted infinitely above earth's foulness and decay. He is the source of life, with myriads of angels to sing His praises and do His bidding. Yet, motivated by love for our lost human race, "He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (v.8). He came to our puny planet, was born in a cavelike barn with its smells and filth, and was placed as a helpless baby in a feeding trough.
When He grew to manhood, He endured homelessness (Matt. 8:20). Thirsty, He asked an adulteress for water (John 4:7-9). Weary, He fell asleep in a boat on a storm-tossed sea (Mark 4:37-38). Sinless, He was adored by the multitudes one day (Matt. 21:9), and then condemned as a criminal and died on a Roman cross in excruciating pain.
That's the distance from God's throne down to Calvary! That's the measure of His mercy and grace! - Vernon C. Grounds
O the love that drew salvation's plan!
O the grace that brought it down to man!
O the mighty gulf that God did span
At Calvary! -Newell
God broke into human history to offer us the eternal gift of salvation.
Preparation for Promotion
It is easy for us to be impatient with God's timeline of blessing, or to wonder why God is not prospering us as we think we should be.
In 1 Samuel 22:1-2, we are given a snapshot of how God prepared David, a little shepherd boy, to be king,
David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him.
Just think how David must have felt. God tells Him, "David, you're going to be Israel's next king!" but Saul is chasing him across the countryside and the people who are following him are all the outcasts, the people with problems, the people who are unhappy, the people who don't have any money.
On top of that, the next few verses of this passage talk about how David had to move his family to a foreign country just to keep them safe. Some promotion!
But you know what? Through it all David was learning how to trust God and how to manage people. His character was being tested. He was being fitted by God to wear the garments of a king: the garment of mercy, fairness, and wisdom, the shoes of decisiveness, the belt of strength, covered with a robe of gentleness.
The fullness of his promotion came in due season, and so will yours. David was not ready to be king when he walked out of the field as a young shepherd boy, so do not be surprised if you also need to be prepared for your promotion!
4 Types of Christians
By Os Hillman
"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (Galatians 5:18).
In his book Anointed for Business, Ed Silvoso provides a thoughtful look at the four types of Christians in the workplace. The following four categories provide an excellent tool for self-assessment:
The Christian who is simply trying to survive.
The Christian who is living by Christian principles.
The Christian who is living by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Christian who is transforming his or her workplaces for Christ.*
Category #1: Christians who are simply trying to survive have no purpose or zeal for integrating their faith at work. They have not seen the power or presence of God in their work lives. Such Christians segment their faith life from their work life. They lack purpose and meaning and they have little direction
.
Category #2: The second type of Christian in the workplace includes those who are living by Christian principles. We participate in 12-step programs and read books with guaranteed formulas to help us lose weight or improve our marriages. This programmed teaching can be beneficial to change negative patterns in our lives. However, it is important to recognize that the root of this type of teaching comes largely from a Greek-based system for attaining knowledge, as compared to the early church Hebraic model of experiential learning.
Category #3: Christians who are living by the power of the Holy Spirit understand the importance of developing a heart toward God through prayer, study of the Word of God and obedience. They realize that these are the three core ingredients to experiencing the power of God in their lives.
Category #4: A wonderful byproduct of living by the power of the Holy Spirit is that you can transform your workplace for God. Christians who passionately seek the manifestation of God's kingdom here on earth will be able to realize this transformation in their workplaces. When the kingdom of God is demonstrated on Earth, it can transform the workplace and society.
Start asking God to help you see how to transform your workplace today.
* Ed Silvoso, Anointed for Business (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2002), p.123.
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . 'Stay here and watch with Me' -Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don't have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique- they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God- Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan's assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15 ). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation- ". . . the devil . . . departed from Him until an opportune time" ( Luke 4:13 ). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan's final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals April 2, 2009
Nothing Left But God
READ: 2 Chronicles 20:3-17
Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. -2 Chronicles 20:15
A wise Bible teacher once said, "Sooner or later God will bring self-sufficient people to the place where they have no resource but Him-no strength, no answers, nothing but Him. Without God's help, they're sunk."
He then told of a despairing man who confessed to his pastor, "My life is really in bad shape." "How bad?" the pastor inquired. Burying his head in his hands, he moaned, "I'll tell you how bad-all I've got left is God." The pastor's face lit up. "I'm happy to assure you that a person with nothing left but God has more than enough for great victory!"
In today's Bible reading, the people of Judah were also in trouble. They admitted their lack of power and wisdom to conquer their foes. All they had left was God! But King Jehoshaphat and the people saw this as reason for hope, not despair. "Our eyes are upon You," they declared to God (2 Chron. 20:12). And their hope was not disappointed as He fulfilled His promise: "The battle is not yours, but God's" (v.15).
Are you in a position where all self-sufficiency is gone? As you turn your eyes on the Lord and put your hope in Him, you have God's reassuring promise that you need nothing more. - Joanie Yoder
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace. -Lemmel
When all you have is God, you have all you need.
At Just the Right Time
It is easy for us to get anxious when it seems like God is moving more slowly than we would like. But Scripture is clear, God's purposes have their appointed times. They are fulfilled in their season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
And there is 1 Peter 5:6-7, which says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Humility and God's exalting of you are two things that are tied together. Perhaps you are feeling pretty frazzled, wondering, "God, when's it going to happen?" Just continue to cast your cares on Him. He will promote you in due time. Do not worry about it.
In fact, the phrase that says, that He may exalt you in due time, literally means "at the set time" or "at the time prearranged by God."
When your character has been shaped and molded enough, and when other events are ready and in their proper place, then God will promote and exalt you.
Think about Moses who had it in his heart to be a deliverer and a judge, but when he first acted on it he failed miserably. He was 40 years early! (See Acts 7:23-34). The Israelites were not ready to be delivered yet. God had to work at the other end of the line.
Remember, God may have put some things in your heart, but the timing may not be quite right. There may be some work He needs to do in your life, or there may be some other factors God is working on. Until those things come together, God will not push you into that position.
So, focus on being faithful and let God worry about just the right time.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
Asa, a Model King Until.
By Os Hillman
"Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand" (2 Chron 16:7).
Asa was a godly King of Judah. There were two kingdoms during his reign - Judah and Israel. Israel's king was Baasha, who was a wicked king. To the east of Judah was Damascus, whose king was Ben-Hadad. Asa was an amazingly faithful and righteous king for thirty-five years. He got rid of the idol worship, and even deposed his mother for idol worship. God blessed his rule by allowing peace in the land for thirty-five years.
When Asa came into power the nation was lost. There was no godly ruler. There were many wars and the people began to cry out to God for deliverance. God sent them Asa.
When Judah was attacked by Zerah the Cushite who marched against them with a vast army and three hundred chariots, Asa called upon the LORD and God answered his prayer and delivered them from a larger and stronger army than Judah's.
However, thirty-five years later, Asa began to move away from trusting God and decided he could buy the favor of his enemy, the King of Ben-Hadad. Asa sent gold and silver to him as a bribe asking Ben-Hadad to cancel his treaty with King Baasha and go to war on behalf of Asa and Judah. Asa's strategy worked and he defeated Israel. However, there was a cost.
"In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians. Then in the forty-first year of his reign Asa died and rested with his fathers" (2 Chron 16:12-14).
What we learn from Asa is that whenever we place our trust and obedience in the Lord, God becomes our source for security and prosperity. However, when we move away from trusting God, that security is removed and we fail to receive those things God intended us to have.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Making Godly Decisions
Making Godly Decisions
Through Scriptural teaching and his own years of many life and work experiences, Os Hillman provides a thorough look into Biblical principles of decision-making from a practical standpoint. This book is a priceless resource that will help you understand how to make Godly decisions
The Collision of God and Sin
READ:
. . . who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . . -1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God's judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross- He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus- He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" ( Revelation 13:8 ). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating "God was manifested in the flesh. . ." from ". . . He made Him. . . to be sin for us. . ." ( 1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21 ). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
GOD BLESS
April 7
Intimately Known by God
"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." Psalm 139:14
Ever feel like the little girl who was endeavoring to pray what we call "The Lord's Prayer?" She said, "Our Father which art in Heaven, how does He know my name?"
I have, but, friend, He does know our names. He knows me. He knows you.
But you say, "How could God be interested in me? The great God who made the universes – how could He be interested in me, like a fleck of spray in an ocean of existence?"
Well, He is interested in you. You are not an accident. You are intimately known by God.
Read what Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:30:
"But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."
What does this tell you about God?
What does this tell you about yourself?
GOD BLESS
April 8, 2009
I Am Pilate
by Katherine Britton, Crosswalk.com News & Culture Editor
"What is truth?" Pilate asked.
John 19:38
This week I met one of the most understandable yet guilty figures in the Bible. This man desperately tried to convince himself that he could control his circumstances. He had a vague intuition for what was right, but he was constantly torn between catering to the crowd and bullying them to show his power. He was overwhelmed by material consequences and implications. And in three simple words, he revealed the heart of his stubborn weakness.
As I again read Pontius Pilate's interview Jesus, I wondered how a man could stare the Son of God in the face, find Him not guilty, and yet condemn Him to death. Each Gospel offers some perspective on why. In reading their accounts, I found that Pilate's deep flaws were eerily similar to those I see in myself.
You see, I think Pilate had a modern mind. As a Roman, he wasn't very "into" religion. Belief in the gods -- and the emperor as a god -- were vestiges of an older system by his time, now adopted as a form of patriotism. His real religion would have been in the glorious Roman Empire, the unconquerable empire-without-end. This thoroughly material belief would have dominated the thoughts of a Roman procurator such as Pilate. He had no room in his world for the supernatural.
All that was called into question when they brought in Jesus. At that point, Pilate's religion showed its consequences in his character.
Demand for Material Answers
From first to last, Pilate's questions to Jesus involve politics and facts. Jesus' answers were unintelligible, because Pilate was asking the wrong questions. Pilate couldn't understand supernatural answers because he was thoroughly material. He thought the world could be interpreted through distinct movements and verifiable facts. He couldn't accept any mystery in faith, and so he rejected the Messiah as another man.
False Sense of Power
Pilate's religion of materialism forced him to rely on position. He told Jesus, "Don't you know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you?" (John 19:10) I'm sure he fully believed that authority was his. Jesus corrected Pilate by telling him that his power was given "from above," which probably shook Pilate just a little. I think at that point Pilate realized that control was slipping away from him, and he did everything he could to regain it.
Blinded by Consequences
Pilate wanted to pretend that he wasn't really responsible for Jesus' death. He made a few feeble attempts to stick up for Jesus before the crowd, which probably counted as a good deed in Pilate's mind. But he ultimately backed down and washed his hands of Jesus' fate, because he "wished to satisfy the crowd." (Mark 15:22) He proclaimed the truth as "not dangerous" but chose not to intervene when it was attacked.
Refusal to See Truth
I think Pilate's most telling statement of all came right in the middle of the dialogue. Jesus says, "For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world -- to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." (John 18:37) I can just see Pilate throwing up his hands in exasperation and asking a rhetorical question: "What is truth!" Face to face with the reality of Jesus, the Son of God, Pilate chose to keep his relativism. The great empire with its power was enough for Pilate. And so he refused the Gospel.
I Am Pilate
How many times have I refused to believe a biblical promise because I don't see how it applies to my worldly situation? How often do I refuse to surrender my circumstances to God's plan for me, pretending I'm in control? How often have I made benign comments when the Gospel is attacked and then retreated? How many times have I refused to draw lines for what is right or to recognize sin for what it is in my life?
Ultimately, these "character flaws"--really, sins--tempt us to believe that Truth isn't Truth. We are tempted to deny that Christ had to die to free us from ourselves. I know that acknowledging the Gospel means my life has to change, and my human nature doesn't want that. But the glory of the cross is that we are changed, and thrown into a life far bigger than anything on this earth -- Jesus' incredible love. That's what Pilate refused to see. That's what we can't afford to miss.
Intersection of Faith & Life: Christ went to the cross because of the sin of the world, including Pilate and you and me. How much pain do we bring Him when we refuse to believe? As you head toward Good Friday and Easter this week, consider how often you respond like Pilate. Let's use this season to repent and start with a new framework.
Further Reading:
John 18:28-19:16
Luke 23:1-25
Mark 15:1-15
Matthew 27:11-31
April 9, 2009
Killing Words
Mike Pohlman, Editor, Christianity.com
And their voices prevailed.
Luke 23:23 ESV
It's Maundy Thursday and four words are haunting me: "And their voices prevailed." With these four words Luke described the irreversible wave of fury that crashed on Jesus.
The multitudes had a choice. The crowd could have opted for Barabbas--the convicted insurrectionist and murderer. But instead they chose Jesus of Nazareth. Pilate's feeble attempts could not persuade the mob otherwise:
But they all cried out together, "Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas"--a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, "Crucify, crucify him!" A third time he said to them, "Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him." But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will (Luke 23:18-24).
It is easy for us to sit in judgment on those that cried out, "Crucify, crucify him!" We would like to think if we were there we would have acted differently. But honesty compels us to admit we would have done the same--by actively yelling or passively standing by and watching it happen. Either way we are complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus.
But Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are not the whole story. We look through these awful days to the hope of Resurrection Sunday. We gaze through the cross to the resurrection and see that even as the voices of the multitude prevailed, God was prevailing.
The Apostle Paul declares the victory accomplished at the cross:
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him (Colossians 2:13-15).
What looked like utter defeat was actually God's cosmic victory over sin, death, and the devil. At the cross sin was atoned for and God's holy law fulfilled--all in the person of Jesus Christ.
This victory finds its apex in the resurrection (and ascension) of Christ. Good Friday, thank God, gives way to Sunday. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead the Christian can sing with the apostle: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" It's gone because, "Death is swallowed up in victory!" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
Intersecting Faith & Life:
I've been challenged this week to focus on what Jesus endured on my behalf at the cross. I've been living in Luke 23. As a means of preparing for he joys of Sunday take some time today through Saturday to meditate on the cross and what the sufferings of Christ accomplished for you.
Further Reading
Luke 23
The Intensity of Christ's Love and the Intentionality of His Death, John Piper
I Am Pilate, Katherine Britton
April 10, 2009
Thank God it's Friday!
by Laura MacCorkle, Crosswalk.com Senior Entertainment Editor
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Romans 6:5-7, NIV
Last year on Good Friday, I attended a Tenebrae service at a small Lutheran church.
I am not a member of this congregation but had heard that its Good Friday service was very liturgical and solemn. And it was just what I was wanting to experience - something to help me remember what Christ did on the cross for us all.
As I sat in the service, I was taken to a dark place. Quite literally as the windows had been covered, and the lights had been dimmed. The robed ministers processed down the center aisle of the church, and I could see that a golden cross was being carried. But it was shrouded in a sheer black cloth.
The symbolism spoke volumes to me and helped to take me to a dark place internally as well. My heart was heavy as I reflected on my sins. They were why Jesus was nailed to the cross and crucified in my place.
During various Scripture readings, those in attendance were also reminded that because of the cross we are now set free. A way was made for us, because Christ died for us. He did what you and I could not do and cancelled payment for our sins with his life.
We then rejoiced that we need no longer fear the grave. We serve a Lord who conquered death through his crucifixion. His body was broken for you and me.
In the darkness of the sanctuary, it was this powerful message of the cross that shone so brightly in all of our hearts and minds. And at the end of our time together, still deep in reflection, we departed in silence.
While doing so, it was almost as if I could hear the pounding of the nails. And I quickly figured out that it wasn't just in my mind. It was actual pounding. I looked around and wondered where this noise was coming from. "What is that?" I whispered to my friend who had attended with me. Neither of us knew what to think.
When we reached the church's narthex, we saw what was causing the commotion. Somehow, on our way into the service, we had missed seeing a very large, wooden cross that was situated between the two doorways leading into the sanctuary. I then saw people of all ages, one by one, walking up to the cross and driving in nails with a hammer. What a powerful picture! And what a vivid display of what Good Friday should represent to all of us.
With a lump in my throat, I was greatly moved as I left the church building. I couldn't stop thinking about this cross. These are our sins - my sins - that have been nailed. They died with Christ. His blood has covered me and has washed me as white as snow. And now, because I have put my faith in our Savior and in what he has done, it is credited to me as righteousness.
If you have acknowledged your need for a Savior and have trusted in our risen Lord, won't you sincerely thank God it is Friday today? Thank him that it truly is a "Good Friday," because we are slaves no more and have been freed from the shackles and power of sin.
Thanks be to God who gives us the victory!
Intersecting Faith & Life: More than egg hunts, baskets of goodies and new Sunday suits or dresses, the real meaning of Easter is the reason you and I have hope in this world. A way was made for you and I to have eternal life! Have you accepted this free gift of salvation? If you would like to know more, please visit Crosswalk's "Who Is Jesus" section here. And make this Friday not only "good," but truly "life-changing."
Further Reading
Romans 6:23
1 Corinthians 15:56-57
Romans 6:10
April 11
Today's Reading: 1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 11:1-28
Today's Thoughts: Pray with Persistence
And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you'? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Luke 11:5-10
God tells us over and over in the Bible to pray. There are many reasons and advantages to praying: we develop a relationship with God, we know that God hears us, we can hear back from God, we can receive peace and we may receive what we want. God loves us and wants for us to tell Him all of our desires. The parable of Luke 11 gives us a different slant on prayer. Jesus is telling us "how" to pray, not "why" to pray. The key point in these verses is to be persistent in prayer and diligent to keep praying.
When my oldest child was a newborn, he would sleep all day. I would look at him and think such nice thoughts. I would have thoughts of unconditional love and dedication to commit my life to raising him. But as soon as all the lights were out in the house, he would wake me up by crying and screaming. My thoughts were not as nice then. I was tired from labor and my body did not want to get up to address his cries in a dark, quiet house leaving my soft, warm bed. If he had not screamed, I might have slept right through his cries. But because of his persistence, I got up and tried my hardest to meet his needs the fastest and easiest way possible. It was not always because I had a sacrificial love that I got up to meet his need, but often because of my need to get back to sleep. That is Jesus' point in Luke 11.
We all have those newborn cries and screams within us. The Lord tells us that He hears our prayers and will answer them according to His will and what is best for us. But sometimes we need to know the depths of our own desires, and we need to cry out to the Lord with an enduring persistence. Keep asking, keep seeking and keep knocking...the key is persistence. When we see God answer those prayers, our faith is increased to continue praying for other things as well. Through persistence, we are rewarded.
Our mission is to evangelize the lost and awaken the saved to live empowered lives by the Work of God and His Holy Spirit. Daily Disciples Ministries makes a difference for the kingdom of God by teaching and training believers how to be in God's Word, how to pray and how to walk with Jesus every day, as His daily disciple.
Daily Disciples Ministries, Inc.
GOD BLESS!
Devotionals April 11, 2009
The Day With No Name
READ: Romans 8:18-25
If we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. -Romans 8:25
In Louisiana, a woman lies buried beneath a grove of 150-year-old oak trees in the cemetery of an Episcopal church. Only one word is carved on her tombstone: "Waiting."
A friend of mine knows an elderly pastor who delivered a stirring Good Friday sermon titled "It's Friday, but Sunday's Comin'." In a cadence that increases in tempo and volume, his sermon contrasts how the world looked on Friday-when the forces of evil seemed to have triumphed-with how it looked on Sunday. The disciples who lived through both days never doubted God again. They learned that when God seems most absent, He may be closest of all.
The sermon skips one day, though-Saturday-the day with no name. What the disciples lived through in small scale, we now live through on cosmic scale. It's Saturday on planet earth; will Sunday ever come?
That dark, Golgothan Friday can only be called good because of what happened on Sunday. Easter opened up a crack in a universe winding down toward decay. And someday God will enlarge the miracle of Easter to cosmic scale.
Meanwhile, we wait in hopeful anticipation, living out our days on Saturday, the in-between day with no name.
It's Saturday. But Sunday's comin'. - Philip Yancey
Dark was the night-sin warred against us!
Heavy the load of sorrow we bore;
But now we see signs of His coming-
Our hearts glow within us, joy's cup runneth o'er! -Camp
© Renewal 1941 Norman Camp.
God took the worst deed of history and turned it into the greatest victory.
What's Your Motive?
The Bible says in James 4:3,
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James says that you ask, but you do not receive, because you ask amiss. The word amiss here comes from the Greek root word that means to harm or to injure. His point is: God will not grant you anything that is going to harm or injure your spiritual life, whether in the short term or in the long term.
When you pray, God is looking out for your best interests.
But then he also said, You ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. The word pleasures has the idea of sensuality, which means, if I am asking for something just to stroke my fleshly ego, then I short-circuit the prayer by my wrong motivation.
For example, it is great to pray for a car. I live in Southern California where we need a car to get around. And I think God will give you a car that you like. After all, the Bible says He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Jesus said, "Ask, that your joy might be full." So I think God wants us to be happy, and He generally has no problems granting your request for a car you would like.
Yet some people go a step beyond that, and their real motivation is, "Man, I want that car because I would look good in that car! If I came to work in that car, I would really show up so-and-so. People would think I'm pretty fine if I had that car. If I had that car, the chicks would dig me."
Be careful when you pray to not slip over into a motivation that is not really pure. Because you will short-circuit your faith and you will not receive an answer-except "no".
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Being Promoted Beyond Your Anointing
By Os Hillman
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'" (2 Cor 12:9).
Have you ever done a job so well that you were promoted outside your skill set? The exceptional salesman gets promoted to manager and fails as a manager. The secretary gets promoted to office manager but fails for lack of management skills. Understanding your anointing will enable you to know when you are moving in a direction away from that which God has intended for your life.
I have seen this principle happen a lot over the years. There is a paradox between these two concepts that cannot be ignored. Sometimes God will place you in situations in which you have no natural gifting. In these cases, God puts you there to experience His power in order to accomplish your tasks. My wife, Angie, is a good example of this. Before she came to work with me full-time, she was a marketing and advertising manager for a non-profit organization. This organization hired a career consulting company to take all their employees through a series of tests to determine if each employee fit into his or her proper job function.
When the results of Angie's test were shared with the rest of her team, her profile revealed that one of her greatest weaknesses was lack of organization and focus. Her boss took exception to the assessment and publicly acknowledged that Angie was the most detailed and organized individual on the entire team. "How could that be true?" he asked.
The consultant said, "Oh, I am glad you asked that. Angie is a perfect example of someone who has overcome her weakness, because even though she recognizes this is her natural bent, she has overcome this by learning to be focused and detailed." In essence, she has yielded this area to the Holy Spirit and God has worked through her weakness.
God sometimes moves us beyond our natural gifting and allows us operate in a place where our natural gifts do not fit the job. Other times He is teaching us to acquire a new skill set for the given situation.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Making Godly Decisions
Making Godly Decisions
Through Scriptural teaching and his own years of many life and work experiences, Os Hillman provides a thorough look into Biblical principles of decision-making from a practical standpoint. This book is a priceless resource that will help you understand how to make Godly decisions--
Complete and Effective Divinity
If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . -Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God- His complete and effective divinity- to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house- He invades all of it. And once I decide that my "old man" (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to "reckon" that I am actually "dead indeed to sin," because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time ( Romans 6:11 ). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness- the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.
GOD BLESS!
It's Bubbling In My Soul
READ: John 7:33-39
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. . . . Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. -John 7:37-38
Decades ago, I visited a ministry center in West Africa and saw a little girl climb onto a truck that had a public address system. Smiling, she began to sing over the microphone:
It's bubbling, it's bubbling,
it's bubbling in my soul;
I'm singing and laughing
since Jesus made me whole.
Since Jesus came within,
and cleansed my heart from sin,
It's bubbling, bubbling, bubbling,
bubbling, bubbling in my soul!
I heard her sing that song only once. But the joy in her voice was so evident and powerful that I remember the lyrics and tune to this day. The parallel in the song between water and spiritual refreshment is a biblical one. During the Feast of Tabernacles, a Levite priest would pour out water as a symbol of God providing water for Israel in the wilderness. During that feast, "Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'?" (John 7:37-38). Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit promised to those who would believe in Him (v.39). This thirst-quenching water is a picture of the spiritual satisfaction that only He can provide.
Perhaps you've lost that joy you first experienced at salvation. Confess all known sin right now (1 John 1:9). Be filled with God's Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18), and let Him provide you with a "bubbling in your soul." - Dennis Fisher
Christ departed so that the Holy Spirit could be imparted.
I believe the Bible teaches us that when we join together the impact is multiplied far beyond just the addition of those who join together. One plus one equals far more than two. Let me show you what I mean.
In Deuteronomy 32:30, it says,
How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had surrendered them?
While this verse deals with Israel's disobedience to God and subsequent retreat from their enemies, think of what might be possible when God's people obey Him! It says that one could chase a thousand, but two could put ten thousand to flight.
While one person can impact a thousand, two people can impact ten thousand. That is a ten-fold multiplied effect!
Leviticus 26:7-8, when God was giving promises to His people if they would walk in His ways, states this,
You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Notice God says five will chase a hundred, and a hundred will chase ten thousand. By increasing the number of people times 20, their effectiveness would increase times 100. Again, that is a multiplied effect.
You have probably heard of the Clydesdale horses, those big, strong workhorses that can pull a lot of weight. One horse by itself can pull two tons, but if you yoke two together they can pull 23 tons! That is incredible!
And that is how it works when we pray together with one another. When we join our forces in prayer and connect with heaven, that is what happens. There is a multiplied effect.
The Work-a-holic
By Os Hillman
"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship" (Romans 8:15).
Living a balanced life is evidence of a Spirit-led life. People work long hours for many reasons which can lead to significant problems in our lives.
One reason people over work is that they often think they must work longer hours to keep up with their workload. This is often the surface reason people give to the question of working long hours. Like any compulsive behavior, there is usually something beneath this behavior. As a former workaholic myself, I can tell you the root of overworking is often 1) a fear of loss, and 2) a need for self-acceptance created by performance.
The fear of loss issue can be a fear of what will happen if we don't work long hours. A fear that there may not be enough money if I don't work long hours can drive us to overwork. Often an inaccurate view of what is enough makes us drive ourselves to greater levels of achievement, believing a financial reward will insure us against potential financial disaster. This usually operates at a subconscious level. When one operates at this level you often find those around them will feel shamed if they do not work at the same level and can be intimidated by the unspoken or spoken directive that long hours are required. This leads to a whole new set of problems.
The second reason people work long hours is their need to gain self-acceptance and esteem from their jobs. It is rewarding to see something come from our efforts. However, when we begin to be driven to work, it becomes an unhealthy condition. We are looking to gain self-esteem needs from our performance instead of being secure in our position in Christ.
So, in order to avoid work becoming an idol and a compulsive behavior, we must maintain a balance that provides time to spend quality time with the Lord, our families and fellow believers. Sometimes the greatest exercise of faith is to work only forty hours a week. This insures that the outcome of our work is dependent upon God, nor our self-effort.
What To Do When Your Burden Is Overwhelming
Cast your burden on the Lord . . . -Psalm 55:22
We must recognize the difference between burdens that are right for us to bear and burdens that are wrong. We should never bear the burdens of sin or doubt, but there are some burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off. God wants us to roll them back on Him- to literally "cast your burden," which He has given you, "on the Lord . . . ." If we set out to serve God and do His work but get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility we feel will be overwhelming and defeating. But if we will only roll back on God the burdens He has placed on us, He will take away that immense feeling of responsibility, replacing it with an awareness and understanding of Himself and His presence.
Many servants set out to serve God with great courage and with the right motives. But with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, they are soon defeated. They do not know what to do with their burden, and it produces weariness in their lives. Others will see this and say, "What a sad end to something that had such a great beginning!"
"Cast your burden on the Lord . . . ." You have been bearing it all, but you need to deliberately place one end on God's shoulder. ". . . the government will be upon His shoulder" ( Isaiah 9:6 ). Commit to God whatever burden He has placed on you. Don't just cast it aside, but put it over onto Him and place yourself there with it. You will see that your burden is then lightened by the sense of companionship. But you should never try to separate yourself from your burden.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 14, 2009
God Remembers
READ: Genesis 8:1-17
God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. -Genesis 8:1
A Chinese festival called Qing Ming is a time to express grief for lost relatives. Customs include grooming gravesites and taking walks with loved ones in the countryside. Legend has it that it began when a youth's rude and foolish behavior resulted in the death of his mother. So he decided that henceforth he would visit her grave every year to remember what she had done for him. Sadly, it was only after her death that he remembered her.
How differently God deals with us! In Genesis, we read how the flood destroyed the world. Only those who were with Noah in the ark remained alive. But God remembered them (8:1) and sent a wind to dry the waters so that they could leave the ark.
God also remembered Hannah when she prayed for a son (1 Sam. 1:19). He gave her a child, Samuel.
Jesus remembered the dying thief who said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." Jesus replied, "Today You will be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:42-43).
God remembers us wherever we are. Our concerns are His concerns. Our pain is His pain. Commit your challenges and difficulties to Him. He is the all-seeing God who remembers us as a mother remembers her children, and He waits to meet our needs. - C. P. Hia
There is an Arm that never tires
When human strength gives way;
There is a Love that never fails
When earthly loves decay. -Wallace
To know that God sees us brings both conviction and comfort.
Unburdened
Philippians 4:6-7 promises,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
God is telling us not to freak out about anything. Anything! Can you think of anything that does not fit in "anything"? Instead of worrying-pray-about everything!
It is interesting that these verses do not promise God will answer your requests (though it is implied). Rather, what God does promise in these verses is this: If, when you are confronted with difficult things, you will pray rather than worry, God will give you peace. The stress will lift. The pressure will be broken.
In America, people spend millions of dollars visiting their therapists. They talk over all their problems with their therapists to try and relieve the stress and worries of life. I have a confession to make...I have a therapist. I talk to Him every single day. My therapist is my Father in heaven. I bring all my problems to Him. And I talk over everything with Him.
One of the keys in unburdening your heart when you pray is being completely honest. God knows what you are thinking, anyway. You may as well tell Him the truth about what is weighing you down.
It is no accident you are reading this today. Perhaps you are so filled with anxiety and stress that you are working on an ulcer right now. You don't sleep like you should. Your anxieties have robbed you of the quality of life God wants you to have.
God wants you free from your burdens. Take them to God today, and every day, and see how those burdens are lifted.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Closed on Sunday
By Os Hillman
"Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you" (Ex 31:14).
Can a business have a Christian testimony without ever saying a word? Absolutely.
Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A, Inc. is America's second-largest quick service chicken restaurant chain. The company's stated corporate purpose is "to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us, and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A." The company is a great example of a business that is modeling Christian values and producing a quality product in the competitive fast-food industry. Chick-fil-A is one of the fastest-growing chains nationally, currently with over two billion dollars in annual sales.
One of the defining distinctions of Chick-fil-A is that the restaurants are not open on Sundays. From the time Truett Cathy, the company's founder, started in the restaurant business in 1946, he believed that God wanted him to honor the Sabbath by keeping the stores closed on Sundays. Although he was challenged on this idea many times by shopping mall operators, Truett always held that "we will have more sales in six days than those who are open for seven." This has proven to be true, and today it is no longer an issue to fulfill the malls' requirement to remain open on Sunday.
When you go to a Chick-fil-A restaurant, you can tell something is different about the people and the atmosphere. The messages in the company's kids' meals always reinforce education, values, and integrity. Although the employees do not wear their faith on their sleeve, the fruit of the company is known by many - especially the many young restaurant employees who receive educational scholarships each year. The company also focuses on character-building programs for kids, foster homes, and other community services. I have spoken at Chick-fil-A's corporate headquarters several times and have met with Truett and his son, Dan. The appearance of their headquarters conveys their values - a sense of quality without extravagance.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith in the Halls of Power
Faith in the Halls of Power
How are key influencers living out their faith within the seven mountains of cultural influence? Within the pages of this book is an interesting and in-depth look into the lives of evangelical business leaders, politicians, industry leaders, and others who are in places of tremendous influence within our culture. This resource is helpful for understanding where God has placed his people in positions of influence, documenting their steps for how they are living out their faith in culture, and also a resource for reclaiming our culture for God at the highest levels.
Click Here To Learn More or Order
Inner Invincibility
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me . . . -Matthew 11:29
Whom the Lord loves He chastens . . ." ( Hebrews 12:6 ). How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us to the point where we can have fellowship with Him, only to hear us moan and groan, saying, "Oh Lord, just let me be like other people!" Jesus is asking us to get beside Him and take one end of the yoke, so that we can pull together. That's why Jesus says to us, "My yoke is easy and My burden is light" ( Matthew 11:30 ). Are you closely identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you will thank God when you feel the pressure of His hand upon you.
". . . to those who have no might He increases strength" (Isaiah 40:29 ). God comes and takes us out of our emotionalism, and then our complaining turns into a hymn of praise. The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and to learn from Him.
". . . the joy of the Lord is your strength" ( Nehemiah 8:10 ). Where do the saints get their joy? If we did not know some Christians well, we might think from just observing them that they have no burdens at all to bear. But we must lift the veil from our eyes. The fact that the peace, light, and joy of God is in them is proof that a burden is there as well. The burden that God places on us squeezes the grapes in our lives and produces the wine, but most of us see only the wine and not the burden. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God living within the human spirit; it creates an inner invincibility.
If your life is producing only a whine, instead of the wine, then ruthlessly kick it out. It is definitely a crime for a Christian to be weak in God's strength
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 15, 2009
Check Your Attitude
READ: John 3:22-31
He must increase, but I must decrease. -John 3:30
A music professor with a well-trained voice usually sang the major male solo parts in the choir of a large church. A young man named Bob who had no training sometimes took a few shorter solos. As the choir director prepared for the Christmas cantata, she felt that Bob's voice and style made him a natural for the lead role. However, she didn't know how she could give it to him without offending the older man.
Her anxiety was unnecessary. The professor had the same thoughts as she did, and he told her that Bob should take the part. He continued to sing faithfully in the chorus and was a source of much encouragement to Bob.
People who can set aside selfish ambition and genuinely seek the good of others have an attitude that pleases God. Do you remember how John the Baptist reacted when the crowds left him and began following Jesus? He said, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).
What did John the Baptist and the music professor have in common? They were able to set aside "selfish ambition." They were happy to see others elevated above themselves when it was for the common good. Can the same be said about us? - Herbert Vander Lugt
This is the highest learning,
The hardest and the best-
From self to keep still turning
And honor all the rest. -MacDonald
When we forget about ourselves, we do things others will remember.
Good...All the Time
John 10:10-11 gives us a great truth,
"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."
Is your concept of God that He is good sometimes, but not all the time? That sometimes He is blessing you; but other times, He is the source of your troubles? If so, I want to put that notion out of your heart and mind today.
Jesus came to give us abundant life, while the devil, the thief, wants to steal, kill, and destroy. God is always a good God, and the devil is always a bad devil.
I remember, as a young Christian, I ran into another new convert in the park one day. He looked troubled, so I asked him what was up. He told me he was sick and had just received some bad news as well. Then he went on to tell me that he was at a Bible study the day before and they told him that God was doing all of these things to him.
It had shaken him to think that God was the source of his troubles, and that He was responsible for all the troubles in his life.
A lot of people tend to think that way, but it is just wrong. God is good all the time. The Bible says in James 1:17,
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
There is not the slightest degree of variation in this. God is good. And the gifts He gives are good and perfect gifts. I am glad they don't just stay in heaven. God sees to it that they make their way down to you and me.
God is good...all the time.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
The Integrity Test
By Os Hillman
"Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place" (Ps 51:6).
Integrity is often defined by what we do in secret. Are our actions the same in public as what we do behind closed doors? Kenneth Lay was the chairman and CEO of Enron, a multi-billion dollar energy corporation that went bankrupt at the hands of its executives because of mismanagement and misrepresentation of its financial practices. Many people lost their retirement life savings as a result.
In 1996, Kenneth Lay made a comment in a book entitled, Business as Mission.
"In my own case I grew up the son of a Baptist minister. From this background, I was fully exposed to not only legal behavior but moral and ethical behavior and what that means from the standpoint of leading organizations and people. I was, and am, a strong believer that one of the most satisfying things in life is to create a highly moral and ethical environment in which every individual is allowed and encouraged to realize their God-given potential. There are few things more satisfying than to see individuals reach levels of performance that they would have thought was virtually impossible for themselves."
Something went very wrong from the time Kenneth Lay wrote those words and the time he was convicted June 6, 2006. Strangely, Lay never went to prison because he died suddenly of a heart attack a few months after being convicted.
No one is immune from starting well and ending badly. The scriptures are full of men and women who did great things for God but did not finish well toward the latter part of their lives. Success can often be the breeding ground for ethical failure. Oswald Chambers said, "Not every man can carry a full cup. Sudden elevation frequently leads to pride and a fall. The most exacting test of all to survive is prosperity."
Ask God today to protect you from pride that can lead to ethical failure.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith in the Halls of Power
Faith in the Halls of Power
How are key influencers living out their faith within the seven mountains of cultural influence? Within the pages of this book is an interesting and in-depth look into the lives of evangelical business leaders, politicians, industry leaders, and others who are in places of tremendous influence within our culture. This resource is helpful for understanding where God has placed his people in positions of influence, documenting their steps for how they are living out their faith in culture, and also a resource for reclaiming our culture for God at the highest levels.
Click Here To Learn More or Order
The Failure To Pay Close Attention
The high places were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was loyal all his days -2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa was not completely obedient in the outward, visible areas of his life. He was obedient in what he considered the most important areas, but he was not entirely right. Beware of ever thinking, "Oh, that thing in my life doesn't matter much." The fact that it doesn't matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God. Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God. How much longer are we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing? But He keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience. You say, "I know I am right with God"- yet the "high places" still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience. Do you protest that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life He causes you to doubt? Whenever God causes a doubt about something, stop it immediately, no matter what it may be. Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.
Are there some things regarding your physical or intellectual life to which you have been paying no attention at all? If so, you may think you are all correct in the important areas, but you are careless- you are failing to concentrate or to focus properly. You no more need a day off from spiritual concentration on matters in your life than your heart needs a day off from beating. As you cannot take a day off morally and remain moral, neither can you take a day off spiritually and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely His, and it requires paying close attention to keep yourself fit. It also takes a tremendous amount of time. Yet some of us expect to rise above all of our problems, going from one mountaintop experience to another, with only a few minutes' effort.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 17, 2009
The Bus Driver
READ: 1 John 4:7-12
Be imitators of God . . . and walk in love. -Ephesians 5:1-2
In the middle of carting 70 pieces of luggage, an electronic piano, and other equipment through airports and on and off a tour bus, it's easy to wonder, "Why are we doing this?"
Taking 28 teenagers on an 11-day ministry trip to a land across the ocean is not easy. But at the end of the trip our bus driver, who had carted us all over England and Scotland, grabbed the bus microphone and in tears thanked the kids for how wonderful they had been. Then after we got home, he e-mailed us to say how much he appreciated the thank you cards the kids had written to him-many of which contained the gospel.
Although the students ministered to hundreds through song during the trip, perhaps it was the bus driver who most benefited from their Christlikeness. In Ephesians we are told to be imitators of God and to walk in love (Eph. 5:1-2). Others see God in us when we show love to one another (1 John 4:12). The bus driver saw Jesus in the students and told them that they might just convert him to faith in Christ. Maybe it was for this man that we took that trip.
Why do you do what you do? Whose life are you affecting? Sometimes it's not our target audience that we impact most. Sometimes it's the bus drivers of the world. - Dave Branon
Lord, may I be a shining light
For all the world to see
Your goodness and Your love displayed
As You reach out through me. -Sper
Witnessing is not just something a Christian says, but what he is.
The First Step Toward Freedom
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:2-6).
Jesus asked this man a seemingly ridiculous question, "Do you want to be made well?" It's obvious isn't it? He is at the pool, isn't he? The only reason people went there was to be healed. What kind of a question is that to be asking? Of course, he wanted to be healed.
But Jesus was not convinced. This man had been stuck in his condition for a long time. He was not only lying down on the outside, he was lying down on the inside.
Sometimes people get used to living in their problems. While they may outwardly be going through the motions to get free (generally because they know that is what is expected of them), inwardly they have given up.
The first step toward getting free from your problems and that which binds and restricts your life is wanting it-really wanting it.
You have to stand up on the inside before you can ever stand up on the outside.
Let me be very bold and ask you: Do you want to be made well? Do you really want things to change? Or have you grown accustomed to living under the devil's heel?
If you are tired of defeat, mediocrity and bondage, then stand up on the inside and say, "Enough is enough!"
It is the first step toward freedom.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
City Transformation Begins in Two Places
By Os Hillman
"While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there" (Acts 17:16-18).
In order to transform a city or nation, it must take place in two areas; the marketplace and the local church. Paul was burdened for Athens when he saw all of the idols in his city. So, he began a strategy to win back his city by preaching in both the synagogue to the religious leaders and Jews and also in the marketplace every day.
The Old Testament records reveal that even at the time of the temple construction it was clear that foundations must be built through the marketplace and the synagogue. "He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz" (Chron 3:15-17). Jakin was a priest of the Lord that represented the spiritual foundation of the Church. Boaz represented the strength of the marketplace and its role to have impact on the society through workplace ministers, or kings.
God is moving today in cities across the world through collaborative coalitions made up of priests, kings and intercessors. This is a city transformation trinity that the Holy Spirit is forming to rid our cities of idols and to restore the spiritual foundations.
When we begin to equip and release those in the workplace to fulfill their godly roles in business, government, media, arts/entertainment, and education we will begin to see the idols in our cities removed. Pray that God raises up Godly workplace leaders who will lead with a biblical worldview.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith in the Halls of Power
Faith in the Halls of Power
How are key influencers living out their faith within the seven mountains of cultural influence? Within the pages of this book is an interesting and in-depth look into the lives of evangelical business leaders, politicians, industry leaders, and others who are in places of tremendous influence within our culture. This resource is helpful for understanding where God has placed his people in positions of influence, documenting their steps for how they are living out their faith in culture, and also a resource for reclaiming our culture for God at the highest levels.
Click Here To Learn More or Order
All or Nothing?
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment . . . and plunged into the sea -John 21:7
Have you ever had a crisis in your life in which you deliberately, earnestly, and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of the will. You may come to that point many times externally, but it will amount to nothing. The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of only external things may actually be an indication of your being in total bondage.
Have you deliberately committed your will to Jesus Christ? It is a transaction of the will, not of emotion; any positive emotion that results is simply a superficial blessing arising out of the transaction. If you focus your attention on the emotion, you will never make the transaction. Do not ask God what the transaction is to be, but make the determination to surrender your will regarding whatever you see, whether it is in the shallow or the deep, profound places internally.
If you have heard Jesus Christ's voice on the waves of the sea, you can let your convictions and your consistency take care of themselves by concentrating on maintaining your intimate relationship to Him.
GOD BLESS
Daily Devotionals April 18, 2009
What's Next?
READ: Philippians 3:7-16
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:14
In the television series The West Wing, fictional president Josiah Bartlet regularly ended staff meetings with two words-"What's next?" It was his way of signaling that he was finished with the issue at hand and ready to move on to other concerns. The pressures and responsibilities of life in the White House demanded that he not focus on what was in the rear-view mirror-he needed to keep his eyes ahead, moving forward to what was next.
In a sense, the apostle Paul had a similar perspective on life. He knew that he had not "arrived" spiritually, and that he had a long way to go in becoming like Christ. What could he do? He could either fixate on the past, with its failures, disappointments, struggles, and disputes, or he could learn from those things and move on to "what's next."
In Philippians 3, Paul tells us how he chose to live his life: "Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (vv.13-14). It's a perspective that speaks of moving on-of embracing what's next. It is where we too must focus as we seek to be shaped into the image of the Savior while we look forward to eternity with Him. - Bill Crowder
Onward and upward your course plan today,
Seeking new heights as you walk Jesus' way;
Heed not past failures, but strive for the prize,
Aiming for goals fit for His holy eyes. -Brandt
Keep your eyes fixed on the prize.
Stop Blaming and Rise Up
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me" (John 5:6-7).
This guy was basically saying, "It's not my fault. I'm in this condition because of what someone else won't do for me, and because of what someone else has done to me."
Think about it, "I have no man to put me in." Paraphrased that says, "I'm stuck because of what someone won't do for me." Or, "While I'm coming, another steps down before me," which paraphrased says, "I'm stuck because of what someone else has done to me." Either way, "It is not my fault."
After making up our minds that we want to be free, the next step is to stop shifting the blame to others.
A friend of mine migrated from Mexico to the U.S. many years ago. He didn't understand the culture or the language and seemed to be hopelessly locked into a dead end job.
His employer took advantage of him and it seemed like he had no way out. But instead of blaming others for his situation (which would have been easy for him to do), he decided to get unstuck and do something with his life.
It took several years, but today he has several businesses and is quite wealthy.
Do not get caught in the trap of blaming others. Instead, make the decision to rise up (something we will be talking about in our next devotional.)
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Beware of Unusual Circumstances
By Os Hillman
"Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit?" (1 Cor 12:7-9).
Whenever something unusual happens in daily life, these are often signs that God is up to something. We must have a heightened sense of awareness of what God may want to do in these situations. My mentor once shared how he was upgraded on an airline unexpectedly. A woman sat down next to him who was very troubled. He began to quietly pray for the woman and God gave him supernatural insights that her problem related to the fact that she had not forgiven her mother in a family-related issue. He decided to politely share his insight. The woman was shocked. My mentor began to minister to her on the airplane and ultimately led her to Christ.
God is raising the spiritual bar for Christians who want to impact the world for Christ today. He wants to break through into people's lives supernaturally by giving them insights into the needs of people in order to bring them to Christ.
Jesus often spoke supernaturally into the lives of others based on the circumstance of the moment. He often spoke of their current condition in life and invited them to make a change.
As you go about your day, there are situations that we can find ourselves in that are open doors for bringing Christ into the circumstance. In fact, He is the one orchestrating the circumstance!
Next time an unusual situation develops, be aware that God may be creating such a circumstance to bring His glory into the situation.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith in the Halls of Power
Faith in the Halls of Power
How are key influencers living out their faith within the seven mountains of cultural influence? Within the pages of this book is an interesting and in-depth look into the lives of evangelical business leaders, politicians, industry leaders, and others who are in places of tremendous influence within our culture. This resource is helpful for understanding where God has placed his people in positions of influence, documenting their steps for how they are living out their faith in culture, and also a resource for reclaiming our culture for God at the highest levels.
Readiness
God called to him . . . . And he said, 'Here I am' -Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses' reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, "Here I am." Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing- it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God's plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself, we hear God's voice as our Lord heard His Father's voice, and we are ready for it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us just as His Father did with Him. He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father. ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." ( John 17:22 ).
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready- he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 19, 2009
The Best Eraser
READ: Luke 16:19-31
I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions. -Isaiah 44:22
What is memory? What is this faculty that enables us to recall past feelings, sights, sounds, and experiences? By what process are events recorded, stored, and preserved in our brain to be brought back again and again? Much is still mystery.
We do know that memories can be blessings-full of comfort, assurance, and joy. Old age can be happy and satisfying if we have stored up memories of purity, faith, fellowship, and love. If a saint looks back on a life of Christian service and remembers the faithfulness of Him who promised: "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5), his or her sunset years can be the sweetest of all.
But memory can also be a curse and a tormentor. Many people as they approach the end of life would give all they possess to erase from their minds the past sins that haunt them. What can a person do who is plagued by such remembrances? Just one thing. He can take them to the One who is able to forgive them and blot them out forever. He's the One who said, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Heb. 10:17).
You may not be able to forget your past. But the Lord offers to blot out, "like a thick cloud, your transgressions" (Isa. 44:22). - M.R. De Haan
The deep remorse that's in the soul
No human eye may trace;
But Jesus sees the broken heart,
And can its woes erase. -Bosch
The best eraser is honest confession to God.
Obey and Get Unstuck
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk" (John 5:8).
These words were spoken to a man who had been sick for 38 years! His bed had been carrying him, and now Jesus was telling him to carry his bed!
We have discussed several keys to getting unstuck from your problems in our last devotions. First, we must genuinely want to be free, and second, we must stop shifting the blame for our problems to others.
The final key I want to share with you is found in the above verse. It is to obey what the Lord tells you. Whether it makes sense or not-obey!
To a man who had been carried by his bed for 38 years, rising up and carrying his bed must have seemed crazy! But the moment he began to obey, new life and strength began to flow into his previously paralyzed limbs.
Listen for the Lord's instructions in your heart. Search for them in His Word. There is no faith without action. There will be something that God will require you to do in order to release or express your faith.
It may make sense to you-or it may not. But to quote Mary, the mother of Jesus, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
After pastoring the same church for several decades, I have observed that many people remain stuck in their problems. Not because the Lord hasn't spoken to them, but because He has and they haven't obeyed.
If there is any unfilled obedience in your life, get busy and do what the Lord has told you to do. It is the only way to get unstuck.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Lydia, A Workplace Minister
By Os Hillman
"One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God" (Acts 16:14).
There was a business woman whom Paul encountered in Philippi named Lydia. She was an early church entrepreneur dealing in purple cloth, the most expensive type in the 1st century Middle East. Most accounts believe this was Paul's first known convert. I find it interesting that his first known convert was a woman and an entrepreneur.
"We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home" (Acts 16:13-15a).
This encounter with Lydia and her women associates ultimately opened the way for ministry in that region. God often worked in and through women in the early church. Lydia was an influential businesswoman, and the gospel was affecting all strata of society, just as it does today.
Lydia was a maker of beautiful cloth mainly used by members of the royal families and Roman senators who were required to have a purple band around the edge of their togas, or robes. Purple cloth was both valuable and expensive in the culture of the first century. It was often worn as a sign of nobility or royalty. Lydia's ministry would be to the upper class business community.
Evidence of her conversion was immediate. She told the men if they considered her a believer in the Lord, she would like for them to come and stay at her house. Evidently she had plenty of room to accommodate the four of them; Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke was with them also. She continued to urge them and they accepted her invitation and stayed at her house.
Lydia's heart was like the good soil in the parable of the sower. When she heard the word of God, she received it with joy and obeyed the words of the apostle.
Who are the "Lydias" God has placed in your circle of influence? Pray that you will be the instrument, like Paul, to bring the gospel to influential women entrepreneurs.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
When Heaven Invades Earth
God's Power Released Through You
The same supernatural power used by Jesus, the prophets, apostles, and New Testament disciples to perform signs and wonders is available to every Christian through the presence of Holy Spirit upon us. By laying a carefully-constructed Biblical foundation for walking in the supernatural power of God and sharing many miraculous stories from his own life and others, Bill Johnson provides in this book the equipping needed to experience signs and wonders today.
"I have added this book to my all-time 'Top 10' reading list!"
-- Os Hillman
Beware of the Least Likely Temptation
Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom -1 Kings 2:28
Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11-13 ). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.
We are apt to say, "It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world." Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials- now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.
". . . kept by the power of God . . ."- that is the only safety. ( 1 Peter 1:5 ).
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 20, 2009
Faithful Gaius
READ: 3 John
Beloved [Gaius], you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers. -3 John 1:5
Third John presents a sharp contrast between the way two members of the church welcomed believers who visited them. The letter is addressed to "the beloved" Gaius, whom John loved "in truth" (v.1). The truth was in him as he walked with God (v.3). Whatever he did for his "brethren"-itinerant missionaries and teachers such as Paul-he did it faithfully and with love (vv.5-6).
Diotrephes was another story. He was proud and domineering (v.9), and he spoke against those who came in the name of Christ (v.10), probably even Paul. In addition, he drove out of the church anyone who wanted to accept them. No doubt he did this to protect his position and self-interests and to keep the focus on himself.
My wife, Shirley, and I, along with our granddaughter Bree, recently visited a country once closed to the gospel. The believers welcomed us with trust, openness, hospitality, and genuine love. Though they had little, their generosity was astounding. What an encouragement to us! They truly followed the example of faithful Gaius.
May God give us a loving and faithful spirit that enables us to treat our fellow believers in "a manner worthy of God" (v.6). - David C. Egner
A time for fellowship that's sweet,
A time for sacred song;
But never is there time to treat
A human being wrong. -Isenhour
Christlike hospitality is an open heart and an open home.
Confounding the Wise
In 1 Corinthians 1:20, 27-29, the apostle Paul provides a very powerful word,
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
We are often enamored with what the world considers wise and mighty, but God isn't. In fact, He chooses things that are foolish and weak, things the world considers insignificant, and things the world even despises, to put to shame the things that people consider wise.
I really like the King James Version when it states that God does these things to confound the wise.
We need to understand that sometimes God turns human conventional wisdom on its head. And I believe Scripture shows us three ways in which He does that.
First, there are times that God turns conventional wisdom on its head with the people He chooses for His purposes. Second, He will confound human wisdom with the plans He unfolds. Whether they are for your deliverance, or plans to further His kingdom and expand His work.
And then, third, God will truly confound the wise of this world with the pardon that He provides.
Through people, plans, and pardon, God does confound the wise!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Can a Saint Falsely Accuse God?
All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . . -2 Corinthians 1:20
Jesus' parable of the talents recorded in Matthew 25:14-30 was a warning that it is possible for us to misjudge our capacities. This parable has nothing to do with natural gifts and abilities, but relates to the gift of the Holy Spirit as He was first given at Pentecost. We must never measure our spiritual capacity on the basis of our education or our intellect; our capacity in spiritual things is measured on the basis of the promises of God. If we get less than God wants us to have, we will falsely accuse Him as the servant falsely accused his master when he said, "You expect more of me than you gave me the power to do. You demand too much of me, and I cannot stand true to you here where you have placed me." When it is a question of God's Almighty Spirit, never say, "I can't." Never allow the limitation of your own natural ability to enter into the matter. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be exhibited in us.
The servant justified himself, while condemning his lord on every point, as if to say, "Your demand on me is way out of proportion to what you gave to me." Have we been falsely accusing God by daring to worry after He has said, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you"? ( Matthew 6:33 ). Worrying means exactly what this servant implied- "I know your intent is to leave me unprotected and vulnerable." A person who is lazy in the natural realm is always critical, saying, "I haven't had a decent chance," and someone who is lazy in the spiritual realm is critical of God. Lazy people always strike out at others in an independent way.
Never forget that our capacity and capability in spiritual matters is measured by, and based on, the promises of God. Is God able to fulfill His promises? Our answer depends on whether or not we have received the Holy Spirit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sitting at His Feet
By Os Hillman
"So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah" (Ruth 2:17-18).
The story of Ruth provides an excellent illustration of the connection between spending time in the presence of God and receiving physical provision. Naomi was married to Elimelech. They had two married sons. Elimelech died and ten years later both of the sons also died. Ruth was married to one of the sons.
The other daughter-in-law moved back to her family, but Ruth, in spite of Naomi's encouragement, insisted on staying with Naomi. The only way for the family line to continue would have been for Ruth to marry another son or direct relative. Now, through a custom known as the kinsman redeemer, Ruth could be married to a relative in the family line. Times were tough and most people made a living by farming. Naomi had a relative named Boaz who was a prominent land owner and farmer. She sent Ruth to glean in the fields of Boaz all day in hopes of picking up excess grain left behind by the harvesters.
Ruth stayed in the fields all day and yielded just one ephah of grain. It is a picture of sweat and toil for very little return. However, something happens later in the story. Naomi realized the only way Ruth was going to have any kind of future is if a kinsman redeemer came to her rescue. She instructed Ruth to go to the threshing floor where Boaz would be and to quietly sit at the feet of Boaz all night. This would be a sign of submitting her life to Boaz. He would have to exercise his right to be her kinsmen redeemer.
Later, Boaz sends Ruth home and takes the necessary steps to become her redeemer. But before he sends her home, he gives her six ephahs of barley - six times what she got spending all day in the fields.
Friend, if we are going to succeed in fulfilling God's destiny for our lives, we must have a life of intimate worship and devotion to Jesus. Why not start spending more time at the feet of Jesus.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
When Heaven Invades Earth
God's Power Released Through You
The same supernatural power used by Jesus, the prophets, apostles, and New Testament disciples to perform signs and wonders is available to every Christian through the presence of Holy Spirit upon us. By laying a carefully-constructed Biblical foundation for walking in the supernatural power of God and sharing many miraculous stories from his own life and others, Bill Johnson provides in this book the equipping needed to experience signs and wonders today.
"I have added this book to my all-time 'Top 10' reading list!"
-- Os Hillman
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 21, 2009
Thunderstorm Thoughts
READ: Matthew 8:23-27
The God of peace will be with you. -Philippians 4:9
I laugh every time I hear the radio commercial that has a woman shouting to her friend in conversation. She's trying to talk above the sounds of the thunderstorm in her own head. Ever since a storm damaged part of her home, that's all she hears because her insurance company isn't taking care of her claims.
I've heard thunderstorms in my head, and maybe you have too. It happens when a tragedy occurs-to us, to someone close to us, or to someone we hear about in the news. Our minds become a tempest of "what if" questions. We focus on all the possible bad outcomes. Our fear, worry, and trust in God fluctuate as we wait, we pray, we grieve, and we wonder what the Lord will do.
It's natural for us to be fearful in a storm (literal or figurative). The disciples had Jesus right there in the boat with them, yet they were afraid (Matt. 8:23-27). He used the calming of the storm as a lesson to show them who He was-a powerful God who also cares for them.
We wish that Jesus would always calm the storms of our life as He calmed the storm for the disciples that day. But we can find moments of peace when we're anchored to the truth that He's in the boat with us and He cares. - Anne Cetas
Fierce drives the storm, but wind and waves
Within His hand are held,
And trusting His omnipotence
My fears are sweetly quelled. -Brown
To realize the worth of the anchor, we need to feel the stress of the storm.
God's Choice of People
1 Corinthians 1:26 says,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
God does not call a lot of people who our world would consider wise, noble or mighty. He calls a few, but not many. The fact of the matter is, God will use anyone who will yield himself or herself to Him.
The idea Paul wants us to understand is that the vast majority of people God chooses are a surprise to everyone else. God's choices are generally not on our "A" list of people.
Think about the apostle Paul himself, who wrote these very words in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. And the next words out of his mouth are profound, But by the grace of God I am what I am.
Paul was a persecutor of Christians. In fact, he was so filled with hatred he even went to foreign cities to have believers arrested, families split apart, Christians jailed, beaten, and at times even executed. And yet, God chose Paul as His mouthpiece.
It was so astonishing to many in the church that they didn't want to receive Paul when he was first saved. They thought it was a trick. It took them a while to understand that God actually had saved him and was using him.
Paul would not have been one of their primary choices as a vessel for God. I love that about the Lord. He uses the unexpected and those we might pass over to carry out some of His most important work.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
What Is Your Promised Land?
By Os Hillman
"So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant" (Josh 24:13).
God called the people of Israel to leave Egypt and come out of slavery in order to enter their own Promised Land. It meant they had to change a way of life they had known their whole lives. Instead of being told what to do everyday by a taskmaster, they were now being led by the cloud of God that led them into the desert with the ultimate goal of entering their own Promised Land.
Every believer has a Promised Land in their lives. It is the place where you receive all God intended for you to receive. However, many of us are still living in Egypt where we sweat and toil in response to the taskmaster of production dictated by our workplaces and our lifestyles of busyness.
We will know when we are beginning to experience our Promised Land when we experience God's rest at the same time we are fulfilling our work life call. We will begin to give testimony to what Joshua says in the above verse. We will begin to receive things we never built or planted. We begin to experience a level of rest in our working lives that is not characterized by sweat and toil. Things become easier because we are receiving them as a fruit of our call instead of a goal.
I began to experience this new way of living as I began to be obedient to doing things based on His direction versus my perceived outcome. Provision began to follow obedience. Projects began to get done with little sweat. God brought the people to me to get things done. There was no longer a tendency to manipulate outcomes that I wanted to have happen. God was giving me my Promised Land as I yielded to Him.
Are you living in your Promised Land? If not, release the goals of your life to the Lord and simply be obedient to His voice. Ask Him for the steps you are to take to receive your Promised Land.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
When Heaven Invades Earth
God's Power Released Through You
The same supernatural power used by Jesus, the prophets, apostles, and New Testament disciples to perform signs and wonders is available to every Christian through the presence of Holy Spirit upon us. By laying a carefully-constructed Biblical foundation for walking in the supernatural power of God and sharing many miraculous stories from his own life and others, Bill Johnson provides in this book the equipping needed to experience signs and wonders today.
"I have added this book to my all-time 'Top 10' reading list!"
-- Os Hillman
Don't Hurt the Lord
Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? -John 14:9
Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us-astounded at how "un-simple" we are. It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time. Philip expected the future revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in Jesus, the Person he thought he already knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be-it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event. We have no reluctance to obey Jesus, but it is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask-"Lord, show us the Father . . ." (John 14:8 ). His response immediately comes back to us as He says, "Can't you see Him? He is always right here or He is nowhere to be found." We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself in His children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not. We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child.
"Let not your heart be troubled . . ." ( 14:1, 27 ). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? . If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 22, 2009
Too Old?
READ: Genesis 17:15-22
My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. -Genesis 17:4
When God promised Abraham and his wife Sarah that they would have a son, Abraham laughed in unbelief and replied, "Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" (Gen. 17:17).
Later, Sarah laughed for the same reason: "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" (18:12).
We too grow old and wonder if the Lord can fulfill His promises to us. We no longer have prominence or status. Our minds are not as nimble as they once were. We're hampered by physical problems that limit our mobility and keep us close to home. Every day we seem to lose more of the things we have spent a lifetime acquiring. Robert Frost underscores something that we sometimes ask ourselves: "The question . . . is what to make of a diminished thing."
Not much-if we are left to ourselves. But God is able to do more with us than we can imagine. He asks us, as He asked Sarah, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (18:14). Of course not!
We're never too old to be useful if we make ourselves available to God for His purposes. - David H. Roper
Growing old but not retiring,
For the battle still is on;
Going on without relenting
Till the final victory's won. -Anon.
As God adds years to your life, ask Him to add life to your years.
A Seedbed of Faith
In Judges 6:11-15, we read this about Gideon,
Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!" Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
We often think of Gideon as a great champion for Israel, and he was. But when he was chosen, we found him cowering in the winepress. He was hiding, he was fearful, he was negative, he was doubtful, and he was questioning.
While we might be critical of Gideon, I have found that the only people who never question are those who have been indoctrinated. Sometimes you need to doubt. Sometimes you need to question. In fact, a lot of times uncertainty is the seedbed from which faith grows.
If you are struggling with doubt today, if you have genuine questions, don't panic. If you are sincerely looking for answers, God will meet you, and faith will spring from the answers you find.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Hearing God on the Job
By Os Hillman
"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 Cor 1:26-27).
God is raising up a new kind of workplace believer who is experiencing the power of God in their daily work life. My friend, Emeka Nywankpa, was a barrister (lawyer) in Nigeria. Emeka spoke at a conference a few years ago on the subject of how the spiritual impacts the physical.
Emeka shared a story about arguing an important Supreme Court case in his country. There were five points to argue in the case. The morning the trial began, he prayed with his wife and junior lawyers in his chambers. During his prayer time, he sensed that the Holy Spirit was telling him, "Do not argue points one through four. Only argue point five." Imagine making such a change just before you are to argue a case before the Supreme Court!
In the courtroom, Emeka announced that he wished to drop points one through four and only wished to argue point five. The judge was shocked, but gave him permission to proceed. He argued point five and sat down. The other attorney got up, and then for twelve minutes stumbled around trying to defend his position, unable to get a coherent word out.
Finally, he approached the bench and said, "Your Lordship, it is unfortunate that my learned friend has dropped the first four points. I wish to yield the case." The other attorney had only prepared for the first four points. Emeka won the case. God had given him a strategy to win his case supernaturally. It made no sense to him, but he obeyed and God gave him victory in a very unusual way.
Isaiah 48:17 tells us "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: 'I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go.'"
When is the last time you allowed God to give you a strategy to be successful in your work life call and bring glory to His name? This is his desire for you.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
When Heaven Invades Earth
God's Power Released Through You
The same supernatural power used by Jesus, the prophets, apostles, and New Testament disciples to perform signs and wonders is available to every Christian through the presence of Holy Spirit upon us. By laying a carefully-constructed Biblical foundation for walking in the supernatural power of God and sharing many miraculous stories from his own life and others, Bill Johnson provides in this book the equipping needed to experience signs and wonders today.
"I have added this book to my all-time 'Top 10' reading list!"
-- Os Hillman
The Light That Never Fails
We all, with unveiled face, beholding . . . the glory of the Lord . . . -2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so very much alone that he never realizes he is alone. In the early stages of the Christian life, disappointments will come- people who used to be lights will flicker out, and those who used to stand with us will turn away. We have to get so used to it that we will not even realize we are standing alone. Paul said, ". . . no one stood with me, but all forsook me . . . . But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me . . ." (2 Timothy 4:16-17 ). We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails. When "important" individuals go away we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, so that only one thing is left for us to do- to look into the face of God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking with strong determination into the face of God regarding yourself and your doctrine. And every time you preach make sure you look God in the face about the message first, then the glory will remain through all of it. A Christian servant is one who perpetually looks into the face of God and then goes forth to talk to others. The ministry of Christ is characterized by an abiding glory of which the servant is totally unaware- ". . . Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him" ( Exodus 34:29 ).
We are never called on to display our doubts openly or to express the hidden joys and delights of our life with God. The secret of the servant's life is that he stays in tune with God all the time.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 23, 2009
Agreeing With God
READ: Matthew 15:1-9
These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. -Matthew 15:8
The caller to the radio program mentioned religion, so the radio talk show host began to rant about hypocrites. "I can't stand religious hypocrites," he said. "They talk about religion, but they're no better than I am. That's why I don't like all this religious stuff."
This man didn't realize it, but he was agreeing with God. God has made it clear that He can't stand hypocrisy either. It's ironic, though, that something God opposes is used by some people as an excuse not to seek Him.
Jesus said this about hypocrisy: "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (Matt. 15:8-9).
Notice what Jesus said to perhaps the biggest hypocrites of His day, the Pharisees. In Matthew 23, He called them hypocrites-not once, not twice, but seven times! They were religious people who were putting on a big show, but God knew their hearts. He knew they were far from Him.
Non-Christians who point out hypocrisy in us when they see it are right in doing so. They are agreeing with God, who also despises it. Our task is to make sure our lives honor the One who deserves our total dedication. - Dave Branon
Hypocrisy is a common sin
That grieves the Lord above;
He longs for those who'll worship Him
In faith and truth and love. -Bosch
The devil is content to let us profess Christianity as long as we do not practice it.
The Most Important Quality
In 1 Samuel 16:6-7, when Samuel came to Jesse's house to anoint the next king of Israel, we see the criteria God uses to choose people for service to Him,
So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him." But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
This is a fascinating story with a very strong lesson I want you to understand. Right after these verses, Jesse parades each of his sons before Samuel...except for David. Jesse knows why Samuel is there, but he doesn't even bother to get David.
David's own father had written him off. His own father didn't see enough potential in him to call him before Samuel.
But David was anointed king that day. Not based on what Jesse thought was important, but on what God thought was important...David's heart.
Maybe your own father has written you off. Maybe your parents said you would never amount to anything. Maybe your teacher said, "Look, you're not going to amount to much. You just better get yourself a minimum wage job."
Only God can see things in your heart that your father can't see, that your mother can't see, that your teachers didn't see, that your family doesn't see, that the people around you don't see.
It is not that God overlooks ability or talent or training. All of those things are important. But God looks first at the most important quality for service, and that is the heart.
Don't let someone else write your history before it happens.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
What's Your Brand?
By Os Hillman
"The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it" (1 Thess 5:24).
Coca-Cola is the number one "brand" in the world. Companies spend millions of dollars making their brands known in business. They want you to recognize their brand. When you think of their brand they hope you will have positive thoughts in hopes it will influence your next purchasing decision.
Every individual has a personal "brand" whether you want it or not. Cultures have a brand. Ethnic groups have a brand. Your brand is defined by your conduct. If you are always late, you'll soon develop a brand or reputation for being late. Others will even show up late because they know you will be late. If you are a person who exaggerates the truth, others will soon fail to take you serious.
However, the opposite can also be true. Your brand can be incredibly positive. By being a man or woman of your word, who is consistent in dealing fairly and honestly with others, your brand becomes known as someone who is faithful in all aspects of life.
One of God's most important characteristics is His faithfulness. Faithfulness means one is true to fulfilling their promises to others in the time which was committed. God is faithful to fulfill all His promises to His children.
Moses was also an example of faithfulness to his call. "Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house" (Heb 3:5-6).
What is your brand among your peers? Is it a positive brand or does it need improvement? Allowing the Lord to make us more like Jesus is the only way our brand becomes trustworthy.
Ask the Lord today to make you a faithful brand in which others can trust.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
When Heaven Invades Earth
God's Power Released Through You
The same supernatural power used by Jesus, the prophets, apostles, and New Testament disciples to perform signs and wonders is available to every Christian through the presence of Holy Spirit upon us. By laying a carefully-constructed Biblical foundation for walking in the supernatural power of God and sharing many miraculous stories from his own life and others, Bill Johnson provides in this book the equipping needed to experience signs and wonders today.
"I have added this book to my all-time 'Top 10' reading list!"
-- Os Hillman
Do You Worship The Work?
READ:
We are God's fellow workers . . . -1 Corinthians 3:9
Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God's blessing cannot rest on him.
But the opposite case is equally true--once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him. The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone. But be careful to remember that you have been freed for only one thing--to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.
We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might . . ." (Ecclesiastes 9:10 ).
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 24, 2009
The Father's Faithfulness
Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. . . . Great is Your faithfulness. -Lamentations 3:22-23
Hudson Taylor, the humble servant of God to China, demonstrated extraordinary trust in God's faithfulness. In his journal he wrote:
"Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning. . . . He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all. . . . Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply."
We may be faint and weary, but our heavenly Father is all-powerful. Our feelings may fluctuate, but He is unchangeable. Even creation itself is a record of His steadfastness. That's why we can sing these words from a hymn by Thomas Chisholm: "Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, sun, moon, and stars in their courses above join with all nature in manifold witness to Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love."
What an encouragement to live for Him! Our strength for the present and hope for the future are not based on the stability of our own perseverance but on the fidelity of God. No matter what our need, we can count on the Father's faithfulness. - Paul Van Gorder
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided-
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me! -Chisholm
© Renewal 1951 Hope Publishing.
He who abandons himself to God will never be abandoned by God.
When God's Plan Doesn't Make Sense
In Joshua 6:1-5 we find one of the most bizarre battle plans, but one with an important lesson for you and me,
Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him."
When you and I read that today it is easy for us to think, "Oh, that must have been pretty normal and natural to Joshua." But it wasn't. It did not make any more sense to him than it would have to you and me.
Imagine God taking Joshua aside and telling him that all they need to do is march around the city one time for six days. Then on the seventh day march around seven times and shout. It made no sense. Naturally speaking, it was ridiculous!
All of us will face our Jerichos, and sometimes God's plans won't seem to make sense. Our part is to listen and obey-even when God's instructions don't make sense to our natural minds. He has had a lot more experience winning battles than we have!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Faith is spelled R.I.S.K.
By Os Hillman
"Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!'" (Matt 14:29-30).
Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat. There is always a risk when we attempt something never done before. Naysayers seem to come out of the wood work. Why? Because it's not their vision, it's yours. Sometimes we fail the first time out. It's a fact that most entrepreneurs fail before they are really successful.
"Success," said Winston Churchill, "is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Everybody fails. It's part of the process that leads us to maturity and success. Most successful entrepreneurs don't think of their failures as defeats. They think of them as lessons.
If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures. In The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar, Orlando Magic executive Pat Williams observed, "Our experiences may not all be triumphs and successes, but so what? Failure is usually a far better teacher than success - if we are willing to learn the lessons. As Houston Astros pitcher Larry Dierker observed, 'Experience is the best teacher, but a hard grader. She gives the test first, the lesson later.'"*
God never gets mired in our past failures. He is constantly viewing our lives with future success in mind. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" (Isa. 43:19). Someone once said, "When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you're headed for the grave." God wants to give us new dreams that are bigger than anything that has ever happened to us in the past.
Don't let past failures keep you from future successes.
*Pat Williams and Jay Strack, The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 2004), p. 103.
The Warning Against Desiring Spiritual Success
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you . . . -Luke 10:20
Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go "outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Hebrews 13:13 ). In Luke 10:20 , Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view- we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God's grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others' lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God's testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that "is hidden with Christ in God" ( Colossians 3:3 ), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an "if," never with the forceful or dogmatic statement- "You must." Discipleship carries with it an option.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 26, 2009
Lip Service
READ: Mark 7:5-15
This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. -Mark 7:6
Smile," said Jay as we drove to church. "You look so unhappy." I wasn't; I was just thinking, and I can't do two things at once. But to make him happy, I smiled. "Not like that," he said. "I mean a real smile."
His comment got me thinking even more intently. Is it reasonable to expect a real smile from someone who's being issued a command? A real smile comes from inside; it's an expression of the heart, not of the face.
We settle for phony smiles in photographs. We're happy when everyone cooperates at the photographer's studio and we get at least one picture with everyone smiling. After all, we're creating an icon of happiness, so it doesn't have to be genuine.
But phoniness before God is unacceptable. Whether we're happy or sad or mad, honesty is essential. God doesn't want false expressions of worship any more than He wants false statements about people or circumstances (Mark 7:6).
Changing our facial expression is easier than changing our attitude, but true worship requires that all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength agree that God is worthy of praise. Even when our circumstances are sad, we can be grateful for God's mercy and compassion, which are worth more than the "lip service" of a phony smile. - Julie Ackerman Link
What a God we have to worship!
What a Son we have to praise!
What a future lies before us-
Everlasting, love-filled days! -Maynard
A song in the heart puts a smile on the face.
Winning an Offended Brother
Proverbs 18:19 tells us,
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a castle.
When this verse refers to a "strong city," it means a fortified or a guarded city. You cannot just waltz up to the gate of a fortified city and say "give up." It takes strategic planning to take such a city. You have to think things through and have a plan.
It also means there is going to be strenuous effort involved. And, more than likely, you will be in a vulnerable position. In fact, you don't take a strong city without taking risks, without becoming vulnerable.
The same things come into play when a brother is offended. It takes thoughtful planning, it takes effort, and sometimes you have to become vulnerable when you do not want to be.
Perhaps you are struggling with a damaged relationship today, and you haven't pursued healing this relationship because you don't know how to do it. It always starts with prayer. You talk to God about them and about yourself, and then you need to go and talk to them.
When you do, I want you to listen carefully, it should not be with a view to prove that you are right. Being right is not the goal. Peace is. Most of the time it is more important to be kind than it is to be right.
If you try to work something out, but only with the intention of having them understand your point of view so that you can prove you are right, you may win the argument, but you will never make peace.
So when you are endeavoring to win an offended brother, listen carefully to them, and endeavor to understand where they are coming from. Seek to hear and not just be heard. Though it may be difficult, you can win peace and see a broken relationship restored.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
He Did It Just For You
by Max Lucado
When God entered time and became a man, he who was boundless became bound. Imprisoned in flesh. Restricted by weary-prone muscles and eyelids. For more than three decades, his once limitless reach would be limited to the stretch of an arm, his speed checked to the pace of human feet.
I wonder, was he ever tempted to reclaim his boundlessness? In the middle of a long trip, did he ever consider transporting himself to the next city? When the rain chilled his bones, was he tempted to change the weather? When the heat parched his lips, did he give thought to popping over to the Caribbean for some refreshment?
If ever he entertained such thoughts, he never gave in to them. Not once. Stop and think about this. Not once did Christ use his supernatural powers for personal comfort. With one word he could've transformed the hard earth into a soft bed, but he didn't. With a wave of his hand, he could've boomeranged the spit of his accusers back into their faces, but he didn't. With an arch of his brow, he could've paralyzed the hand of the soldier as he braided the crown of thorns. But he didn't.
Want to know the coolest thing about the coming?
Not that he, in an instant, went from needing nothing to needing air, food, a tub of hot water and salts for his tired feet, and, more than anything, needing somebody-anybody-who was more concerned about where he would spend eternity than where he would spend Friday's paycheck.
Not that he kept his cool while the dozen best friends he ever had felt the heat and got out of the kitchen. Or that he gave no command to the angels who begged, "Just give the nod, Lord. One word and these demons will be deviled eggs."
Not that he refused to defend himself when blamed for every sin since Adam. Or that he stood silent as a million guilty verdicts echoed in the tribunal of heaven and the giver of light was left in the chill of a sinner's night.
Not even that after three days in a dark hole he stepped into the Easter sunrise with a smile and a swagger and a question for lowly Lucifer-"Is that your best punch?"
That was cool, incredibly cool.
But want to know the coolest thing about the One who gave up the crown of heaven for a crown of thorns?
He did it for you. Just for you.
From
His Name is Jesus
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2009) Max Lucado
The Supreme Climb
READ:
Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you -Genesis 22:2
A person's character determines how he interprets God's will (see Psalm 18:25-26 ). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this traditional belief behind through the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditional beliefs that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs which must be removed-for example, that God removes a child because his mother loves him too much. That is the devil's lie and a travesty on the true nature of God! If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of our wrong traditional beliefs about God, he will do so. But if we will stay true to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will serve to bring us into a better knowledge of Himself.
The great lesson to be learned from Abraham's faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter what contrary belief of his might be violated by his obedience. Abraham was not devoted to his own convictions or else he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was actually the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself. But you must always be willing to come to the point of giving up your own convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did that you are willing to do anything, even "to go . . . both to prison and to death" ( Luke 22:33 ). Abraham did not make any such statement- he simply remained true to God, and God purified his faith.
GOD BLESS!
First Things First
READ: Matthew 6:25-34
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. -Matthew 6:33
A seminar leader wanted to make an important point, so he took a wide-mouth jar and filled it with rocks. "Is the jar full?" he asked. "Yes," came a reply. "Oh, really?" he said. Then he poured smaller pebbles into the jar to fill the spaces between the rocks. "Is it full now?" "Yes," said someone else. "Oh, really?" He then filled the remaining spaces between the rocks and stones with sand. "Is it full now?" he asked. "Probably not," said another, to the amusement of the audience. Then he took a pitcher of water and poured it into the jar.
"What's the lesson we learn from this?" he asked. An eager participant spoke up, "No matter how full the jar is, there's always room for more." "Not quite," said the leader. "The lesson is: to get everything in the jar, you must always put the big things in first."
Jesus proclaimed a similar principle in the Sermon on the Mount. He knew that we waste our time worrying about the little things that seem so urgent but crowd out the big things of eternal value. "Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things," Jesus reminded His hearers. "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matt. 6:32-33).
What are you putting first in your life? - Dennis J. De Haan
Make It Practical
· Always pray before planning.
· Always love people more than things.
· Do all things to please God.
Those who lay up treasures in heaven are the richest people on earth.
Listen...to Understand
In Proverbs 18:2, we are given an important word of warning,
A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart.
It is so easy to play the role of such a fool when we are dealing with a strained or broken relationship. Rather than seeking to understand the other person, we will often feel the need to make the other person understand our hurt.
Like me, you have probably said, "You need to hear me. You need to understand why I'm hurt. You need to understand why I reacted the way I reacted. You need to see that I'm right. I need to convince you that I'm justified in the things I've said and the things I've done."
When we say those things, we are not interested in understanding the other person's point of view to reach a mutual peace. We just want to express our opinions, our hurt, and our reasons.
The Bible says that is the way a fool behaves. I am going to stand at the front of the line and say, "I've been that fool more than once." But we must learn to listen and understand.
Once you have listened and understood, here is an important phrase to learn, "I see what you're saying, and I'm sorry." That does not mean, "I see what you're saying, and I'm sorry you're such an idiot." That means, "I've listened to you, I've heard you, and I'm sorry." Period. "Forgive me."
It is amazing how some people choke on those words. In fact, it is shocking to realize how few people know how to give a proper apology. They offer the rose of an apology by handing it thorn-end first.
Don't play the fool. Listen...to understand.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Noah's Building Plan
By Os Hillman
"Noah did everything just as God commanded him" (Gen 6:22).
When God chooses to do something on the earth He uses a man or woman to accomplish it. It is a partnership that is very one sided. God got the worst part of the deal.
God got to a very bad place with the human race. He decided to start over. He was going wipe out the entire population and begin afresh. He chose one man to place His entire strategy around. Can you imagine that? God placed His entire plan around one man. Why? Because He could trust him. The Bible says Noah did everything just as God commanded him. He didn't argue with God. He didn't take short cuts. He listened and he obeyed.
Who was this man Noah? "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God" (Gen 6:9-10). When it came time to execute God's plan, He chose Noah to build a big boat. However, Noah had no idea what a boat was or how to build one. So, God told him how to build it. He gave him the dimensions; the height, width, space requirements - everything he needed to complete the task.
God will instruct us in performing our work too. God is in partnership with us in our working life. He has given us the tools, the creativity, and the drive to accomplish what He placed us on earth to do. That partnership requires us to listen to our senior partner though because He knows the exact way our project is to be done. And when you follow His direction that project will be excellent in every way.
"Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: 'I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go'" (Isaiah 48:17).
Do you need God to show you how to succeed in your call? Ask for His wisdom and understanding. God says he will give it generously (James 1:5).
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith & Work: Do They Mix?
What Do You Want?
Do you seek great things for yourself? -Jeremiah 45:5
Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts- He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental; it comes and it goes. But God never gives us anything incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you.
If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You have become a Christian based on your own terms. You protest, saying, "I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn't give me the rest and the peace I expected." And instantly God puts His finger on the reason-you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." ( Matthew 7:7 ). Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. "Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" ( Matthew 6:8 ). Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him.
Are you seeking great things for yourself? Have you said, "Oh, Lord, completely fill me with your Holy Spirit"? If God does not, it is because you are not totally surrendered to Him; there is something you still refuse to do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He's continually working out His ultimate perfection for you- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." ( John 17:22 ).
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 28, 2009
Slapton Sands
READ: 1 Peter 5:1-11
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. -1 Peter 5:8
On the southern shores of England is Slapton Sands. This beautiful beach area carries a tragic memory from its past.
On April 28, 1944, during World War II, Allied soldiers were engaged in Operation Tiger, a training exercise in amphibious beach landings in preparation for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Suddenly, enemy gunboats appeared and killed over 700 American servicemen in a surprise attack. Today, a monument stands on Slapton Sands to commemorate the sacrifice of those young men who died while training for battle but were never able to enter the conflict.
This tragedy is a metaphor that warns the believer in Christ. We too are involved in combat with an enemy who is powerful and deceptive. That is why the apostle Peter warned: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).
Like the soldiers on Slapton Sands, we face an enemy who desires our undoing. In the service of our King, we must be on the alert. The call to be effective in battle (2 Tim. 2:3-4) challenges us to be ready for the surprise attacks of our spiritual enemy-so that we can endure to serve another day. - Bill Crowder
The devil's tactic is surprise
To stop you in your tracks,
So keep on guard and trust God's Word;
Resist his strong attacks. -Branon
Satan's ploys are no match for the Savior's power.
The Power of a Gift
Proverbs 19:7 says,
All the brothers of the poor hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him! He may pursue them with words, yet they abandon him.
Sometimes just pursuing reconciliation with a person through communication is not enough. Sometimes you need to take it to another level. Look at Proverbs 18:16,
A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.
Sometimes it wouldn't hurt you to offer a gift to someone with whom you are seeking to reconcile. The New International Version says, A gift opens the way.
When a brother is offended and the contentions are like bars of iron with the gate shut tight, the thing that opens the way is a gift. The Living Bible says, A gift does wonders. The Scripture says in Proverbs 21:14,
A gift in secret pacifies anger.
It is important to understand that both Proverbs 18:16 and 21:14 are actually shared in a negative sense. They are talking about the power of a bribe. Proverbs is great that way because it gives us both the positive and negative perspectives. It's a truth (that I'm not saying is a good thing) that a bribe can open doors which may not be opened otherwise.
In a positive way, it is true that a gift can do wonders. Not that you are trying to buy someone's favor, but a sincere gift can be a powerful form of communication. The important thing is your motivation behind it.
A gift can say, "You're valuable enough to me that I took some of my hard-earned money and bought this for you." A gift has the power to take things to another level as you seek to make things right.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Prayer at Work
By Os Hillman
"Epaphras, who Paul states to the Colossians 'is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus. . . . He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured'" (Colossians 4:12).
Many of us have been entrenched in the "secular versus sacred" model for so long that it can be difficult for us to view our work as a ministry and workplace believers as missionaries in the 9 to 5 Window. However, God tells us clearly that we are to glorify God in all that we do (see Col. 3:17, 24). Having people pray for us to fulfill our purpose and calling in our workplaces is consistent with the will of God for every individual.
While the idea of a workplace intercessor may be a new concept for us, we need to remember the examples we find in the New Testament of believers praying for one another such as Epaphras in the scripture above.
Colin Ferreira is a friend, a board member for our ministry, and an owner of an optical business in Trinidad. I first met Colin in 2001 when he invited me to speak at a Caribbean workplace conference that he was organizing. I have watched Colin develop into a Kingdom business leader.
Through a series of struggles common to most businesses, Colin began to recognize the need for more prayer coverage. One of the organizations for which he had been supplying financial and leadership support maintained a prayer ministry. Colin asked the minister who headed the organization to intercede for him and his company on an ongoing basis, and she gladly agreed.
The two met periodically to discuss prayer needs and critical issues developing within the organization, which the minister then addressed discreetly in her intercessory group meetings. Often, this woman would recognize specific problems during these prayer meetings and know how to pray for them effectively.
Is prayer a regular part of your time with God? Are you in relationship with others who are praying for you?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith & Work: Do They Mix?
Do Your Faith and Work Mix?
When you go to work, do you take your faith with you? This valuable resource by Os Hillman will give you a greater understanding of of what God thinks about our work, how He calls us to our vocation, and how we can bring His presence and power into our work environment. Also available as an e-book.
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What You Will Get
I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go -Jeremiah 45:5
This is the firm and immovable secret of the Lord to those who trust Him- "I will give your life to you . . . ." What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. ". . . your life . . . as a prize . . ." means that wherever you may go, even if it is into hell, you will come out with your life and nothing can harm it. So many of us are caught up in exhibiting things for others to see, not showing off property and possessions, but our blessings. All these things that we so proudly show have to go. But there is something greater that can never go- the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" ( Colossians 3:3 ).
Are you prepared to let God take you into total oneness with Himself, paying no more attention to what you call the great things of life? Are you prepared to surrender totally and let go? The true test of abandonment or surrender is in refusing to say, "Well, what about this?" Beware of your own ideas and speculations. The moment you allow yourself to think, "What about this?" you show that you have not surrendered and that you do not really trust God. But once you do surrender, you will no longer think about what God is going to do. Abandonment means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you totally abandon yourself to God, He immediately says to you, "I will give your life to you as a prize . . . ." The reason people are tired of life is that God has not given them anything- they have not been given their life "as a prize." The way to get out of that condition is to abandon yourself to God. And once you do get to the point of total surrender to Him, you will be the most surprised and delighted person on earth. God will have you absolutely, without any limitations, and He will have given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience in your life or your refusal to be simple enough.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 29, 2009
Drifting Away
READ: Job 1:13-22
Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? -Job 2:10
Imagine relaxing on a rubber raft along the shore, eyes closed, soaking up the sun and listening to the gentle crash of waves. You don't have a care in the world-until you open your eyes! Suddenly the shore is alarmingly distant.
We tend to drift like that spiritually. It's subtle yet shocking when we suddenly realize how far we've drifted from God. The point of departure begins when Satan steals our affection for our loving Creator by putting a deceitful twist on our experiences and causing us to suspect God instead of trust Him.
Consider Job and his wife. Both had plenty of reasons to be mad at God. Their children were dead, their fortune lost, and Job's health destroyed. His wife told him, "Curse God and die!" But Job replied, "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and . . . not accept adversity?" (Job 2:9-10).
There are many attitudes that can set us adrift: believing that we need more than God to be happy; placing meaningful relationships above loyalty to God; thinking God should live up to our expectations; resisting His reproofs; turning a deaf ear when His Word is uncomfortable.
If you're beginning to drift, remember to stay close to the One who is the sole source of satisfaction. - Joe Stowell
Lord, help me to stay close to You
And trust You more each day,
So when the storms of life appear
I will not drift away. -Sper
To avoid drifting away from God, stay anchored to the Rock.
When Peace Isn't Possible
Romans 12:18 says,
If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
By implication, this verse is telling us that it is not possible to live peaceably with some people because they refuse to make peace. They take the posture of being an enemy, being an antagonist, and they refuse to shift from that position no matter what you do.
But as much as it depends on you, you must pursue the things that make for peace. You need to pray, you need to communicate, and if God leads you, you need to give a gift. And certainly with your actions, you need to express the fact that you want peace.
Sometimes somebody may not yield. They may not yield to the influence of God's Spirit; they may not yield to your endeavors. But once you have done all you can do, all you can do has been done.
Does that give you a license to be rude to them or to treat them unpleasantly? No. The next few verses address that. Look at Romans 12:19-21,
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Continue to extend the olive branch. If they never respond, at least you will have a clean conscience. God will deal with the things that you cannot deal with. Do not take matters into your own hands. "Vengeance is Mine," says the Lord.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Can a City Be Transformed?
By Os Hillman
"All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord." (emphasis mine Acts 9:35).
Can an entire city be transformed for Jesus Christ? The book of Acts reveals that at least one city was. There are four key ingredients required among its Christian leaders to see a city transformed. These include prayer, humility, unity, and knowledge of God's ways.
Prayer
In every city in which transformation has taken place, believers have come together to pray for their city. Prayer changes the spiritual climate of a city. Some of the main areas of influence that must be the focus of our prayers include churches and businesses; the legal, political, educational and medical fields; and the media/entertainment industry. Workplace leaders must be strategically aligned with intercessors to impact their city.
Humility
God uses men and women who recognize that they need each other and who do not seek glory for their work. "He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way" (Ps. 25:9). The workplace leaders that God is using today care little about being in the limelight.
Unity
Jesus said, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23). God calls each of us individually and corporately to represent Christ to the world, but our independence, pride and egos often prevent us from becoming unified in the purposes of Christ.
Knowledge of God's Ways
Sometimes leaders can move in presumption instead of in a faith that is rooted in knowledge of God's ways. Such was the case of David, who wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the city of Jerusalem. He was zealous for God and celebrated as he brought the Ark into the city. However, the ark was being carried into the city on a cart instead of by priests on poles, as God required. When a man named Uzzah reached out to catch the Ark when the oxen stumbled, he was immediately struck dead by God. David was devastated. He lacked a knowledge of God's ways.
Do you want to see your city transformed? Make sure the three ingredients of prayer, unity and knowledge of God's ways exist in your leadership team.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith & Work: Do They Mix?
Gracious Uncertainty
READ:
. . . it has not yet been revealed what we shall be . . . -1 John 3:2
Our natural inclination is to be so precise- trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next- that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we do not put down roots. Our common sense says, "Well, what if I were in that circumstance?" We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which we have never been.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life- gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God - it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." (Matthew 18:3 ). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, ". . . believe also in Me" (John 14:1 ), not, "Believe certain things about Me". Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in- but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.
Pray! Pray! Pray!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals April 30, 2009
I Will Never Leave You
READ: Deuteronomy 31:1-8
I am with you always, even to the end of the age. -Matthew 28:20
One of my earliest memories of hearing good music was when a male quartet rehearsed at our home. I was about 10 years old, and I was especially attentive to my dad, who sang first tenor. One of the quartet's favorites was titled, "I Am With You." Even at that tender age, I not only appreciated the music but I "got the message."
Those words of Jesus to His disciples just before He ascended-"I am with you always"-became precious to me as the quartet sang, "In the sunlight, in the shadow, I am with you where you go."
One of the first references to God's unfailing presence was spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 31:6-8, when he instructed his successor about leading God's people into the "land of promise." And Joshua himself heard the same word from the Lord, "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you" (Josh. 1:5).
That promise is repeated in the New Testament, where the writer of Hebrews gave this assurance: "He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'" (13:5).
Wherever you may be today, you are not alone. If you've placed your trust in Jesus for your eternal salvation, you can be certain that He will never leave you. - RBC Ministries
Jesus whispers "I am with you"
In the hour of deepest need;
When the way is dark and lonesome,
"I am with you, I will lead." -Morris
First make sure you are with Him, then you can be sure He'll be with you.
Seeing God Through Nature
Hosea 6:3 gives us something we should pursue every day of our lives,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.
What a great pursuit! When you pursue the knowledge of God, He will come to you. He will refresh you like the rain, like the early and the latter rain.
These rains would cause the crops to ripen and bear fruit. Scripture is seeking to tell us that when you seek the knowledge of God, a personal knowledge of God, it will cause your life to become abundantly fruitful. It will cause your life to prosper. It will bring refreshment into your life because God will come to you.
The question is: How do you pursue the knowledge of God?
One way is through nature. Psalm 19:1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Creation screams, "There must be a Creator! I'm too perfect, I'm too intricate, I'm too glorious to have just happened. There must be a Master Sculptor. There must be a Master Painter. There must be a Creator behind it all."
The stars in the heavens and the moon literally declare God's glory. When you look at the sunset over the Pacific ocean, or look at the mountains, or you look at the grass in your backyard, they scream that there is a Creator.
Take some time to pursue the knowledge of God this week by just observing nature. When you do, you will come to a deeper knowledge of God as you see and understand the beauty and majesty of Him in a fresh, new way.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
The Ultimate Performance Review
By Os Hillman
"If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward" (1 Cor 3:14).
Have you ever had a job performance review? If you are in the workplace, you will likely have had one. Employers want to see if you have done what was desired of you and whether you have done it in the prescribed way that has produced results. If you do well, you will be affirmed and may even get a pay raise. If you fail to live up to expectations, you could even get fired.
The Bible has its own performance review. It is called the Judgment Seat, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad" (2 Cor 5:10).
The generation that came out of Egypt with Moses is going to have a bad day at the Judgment Seat because we already know God's view on the matter. "That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways'" (Heb 3:10).
The Bible says there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end is death (Prov. 14:12). There is a way that God wants you and me to operate on the earth. He has given us His Word - our instruction manual - in order to know His ways of doing things.
How well do you know the instruction manual? Have you read only a few parts here and there? Are you well versed on the intricacies of His ways so that you will be able to have a glorious "performance review" when the time comes?
Take time every day to get your instructions for His ways of living your life. Your reward will be great.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith & Work: Do They Mix?
Do Your Faith and Work Mix?
When you go to work, do you take your faith with you? This valuable resource by Os Hillman will give you a greater understanding of of what God thinks about our work, how He calls us to our vocation, and how we can bring His presence and power into our work environment. Also available as an e-book.
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Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind . . . -1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated- it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul's description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, "Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe." No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don't deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it "has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." ( Romans 5:5 ).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don't love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
Pray! Pray! Pray!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 1, 2009
The Cheat Test
READ: Psalm 119:129-136
Direct my steps by Your Word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me. -Psalm 119:133
Dan Ariely, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted some tests on human behavior. In one experiment, the participants took an examination in which they would receive money for each correct answer. The participants didn't know, however, that Ariely was not testing their knowledge but whether they would cheat. He set up the test so that the groups thought it would be easy to get away with cheating.
Prior to taking the exam, one group was asked to write down as many of the Ten Commandments as they could remember. To Ariely's astonishment, none from this group cheated! But all the other groups did have those who cheated. Recalling a moral benchmark made the difference.
Centuries ago, the psalmist understood the need for a moral benchmark and asked for divine aid in following it. He prayed to the Lord, "Direct my steps by Your Word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me. . . . Teach me Your statutes" (Ps. 119:133-135).
Ariely's "cheat test" experiment illustrates our need for moral guidance. The Lord has given us His Word as a lamp for our feet and a light for our path (v.105) to direct us in our moral choices. - Dennis Fisher
How precious is the Book divine
By inspiration given!
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine,
To guide our souls to heaven. -Fawcett
Like a compass, the Bible always points us in the right direction.
Suppressing the Truth
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
A truth that is suppressed is a truth that has addressed itself to someone, but they do not want to be confronted by it. They do not want it to force them to change, so they keep it down and refuse to look at or deal with it.
What kind of a truth is it that men suppress? Romans 1:19 tells us,
Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
People are suppressing a knowledge or truth about God. Where did they learn that truth about God that they are suppressing? Verse 20 tells us,
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Creation speaks of a Creator. God is understood, it says, by the things that are made. There comes a point in every human's life as they observe nature, where a voice whispers to them, "This didn't just happen. There has to be a hand behind this."
At that point, each person has a choice: Whether or not to suppress that truth. If they do not suppress the truth, I believe God will move heaven and earth to get the knowledge of the gospel to that person.
This is so profound because even on Judgment Day no one is going to be able to stand and say, "Well, I never heard. I didn't have a chance." They will be without excuse, because God is going to take them right back to that experience where HeHeHH spoke to them through nature.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
A Mother's Work
By Os Hillman
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise - that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth" (Eph 6:1-3).
One of the great tragedies of society today is the minimizing of the work performed daily by stay-at-home moms. Women who decide to stay home to raise their kids are a rare breed indeed. They must overcome the stigma of comparison to others who pursue careers outside the home. They fail to get the feelings of accomplishment that can come from a career. They are the unseen missionaries of our day. There will be a special reward for these selfless servants.
Without the commitment of our stay-at-home moms we would not have some of our greatest leaders. "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother," said Abraham Lincoln.
Though poor, Ida Stover was determined to go to college. She scraped together enough money to attend Lane College in Lecompton, Kan., where she met fellow student David Eisenhower. She was known as a firm but gentle disciplinarian and was deeply religious. It is said she once won a prize for memorizing 1,365 Bible verses. As a pacifist, she was not in favor of her son attending West Point but decided to let him go. She was the mother of Dwight David Eisenhower, one of the greatest U.S. presidents.
Mary Litogot grew up on a farm, and met her future husband, William Ford, when he came to work on their farm. She was 12 and he was 26. They married nine years later. Mary was self-sufficient and a diligent worker. Henry later attributed his clean factories to her belief in cleanliness. She encouraged his interest in machines early on. He later said, "I have tried to live my life as my mother would have wished. I believe I have done, as far as I could, just what she hoped for me." She was the mother of Henry Ford.*
Has God called you to be a stay-at-home mom? Know that your obedience and sacrifice will be recognized by the Lord.
*Adapted from Source: "Mothers: 100 Mothers of the Famous and Infamous," edited by Richard Ehrlich; Paddington Press Ltd.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith & Work: Do They Mix?
Do Your Faith and Work Mix?
When you go to work, do you take your faith with you? This valuable resource by Os Hillman will give you a greater understanding of of what God thinks about our work, how He calls us to our vocation, and how we can bring His presence and power into our work environment. Also available as an e-book.
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Faith- Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight -2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God's concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to "walk by faith." How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, "I cannot do anything else until God appears to me"? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, "Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!" Never live for those exceptional moments- they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life- our work is our standard.
Pray! Pray! Pray!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 2, 2009
The Work Of Our Hands
READ: Psalm 112
The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance. -Psalm 112:6
One reason we're left here on earth and not taken to heaven immediately after trusting in Christ for salvation is that God has work for us to do. "Man is immortal," Augustine said, "until his work is done."
The time of our death is not determined by anyone or anything here on earth. That decision is made in the councils of heaven. When we have done all that God has in mind for us to do, then and only then will He take us home-and not one second before. As Paul put it, "David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep" (Acts 13:36).
In the meantime, until God takes us home, there's plenty to do. "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day," Jesus said. "Night is coming when no one can work" (John 9:4). Night is coming when we will once for all close our eyes on this world, or our Lord will return to take us to be with Him. Each day brings that time a little closer.
As long as we have the light of day, we must work-not to conquer, acquire, accumulate, and retire, but to make visible the invisible Christ by touching people with His love. We can then be confident that our "labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58). - David H. Roper
If you rely upon God's strength
And live a life that's true,
Then what you do in Jesus' name
Will be His work through you. -D. De Haan
In God's eyes, true greatness is serving others.
Pursue Hospitality
Romans 12:9-14 says,
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
At the end of verse 13, Paul says we are to be "given to hospitality." The word given is the Greek word translated "pursue" everywhere else in the New Testament. This could be translated "pursuing hospitality."
Hospitality is actually a compound word in the Greek language. The first part of the word means to be fond of. The second part means guests. So hospitality means to be friendly to strangers, to open your heart and open your home to others.
The Scripture is very strong when it says we are to pursue hospitality. It is one of the greatest ways in all the world to demonstrate the love of God to people who are in need.
I remember like it was yesterday a time I was preaching at a church. It was over 20 years ago, when I was a newlywed. After the service was done, Janet and I were standing around not knowing what to do. No one was speaking to us and the church had made no provision for our lodging or meals.
Just then an elderly couple came up to us and invited us to their home for lunch, which we gratefully accepted.
And you know what? I don't remember what I preached that day, but to this day I remember eating roast in that couple's home. I remember their graciousness, their hospitable spirit, and how much they made us feel welcome.
Pursue hospitality!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Uriah
By Os Hillman
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." (Matt 18:20).
My friend Rick Hereen shared a story about an encounter he had where prayer revealed an amazing insight into a business owner's problem. "A friend who is a pastor told me that a couple within his congregation were having financial trouble in their business. He asked me if I would pray for them. I agreed. The day came for me to meet the couple. I listened to their story for a while and then suggested that we begin to pray.
I waited for a few moments until a word popped into my mind. The word was "Uriah." I knew that Uriah was the husband of Bathsheba and that King David had had Uriah put in the front lines of a battle where there was a high likelihood that he would be killed. That is exactly what happened. Essentially David murdered Uriah so that he could take Bathsheba away from him. Wow! What did all this have to do with the couple who was seated in front of me?
I told the couple about the word that just popped into my mind. When I spoke that word, 'Uriah,' the wife immediately dissolved into tears. 'Oh Lord,' she cried, 'I knew that you were going to make me confess all of these sins.' She went on to describe how she had been married previously. At work she fell in love with another man (her current husband) and colluded with that man to extricate her from her marriage to her first husband. Once the first husband was out of the way (divorced not murdered), the two now in front of me were free to become husband and wife. They confessed all sorts of other sins that they had committed. In short, they didn't have a business problem - they had a sin problem!
Most marketplace Christians are unfamiliar with prayer. The idea that prayer is two-way communication with God is new for many. Receiving answers to prayer is not just for especially gifted Christians. Hearing from God is for every believer."*
Do you have a problem in your workplace? Ask God to show you the source of the problem.
*Rick Heeren, personal story shared with the author
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Faith & Work: Do They Mix?
Do Your Faith and Work Mix?
When you go to work, do you take your faith with you? This valuable resource by Os Hillman will give you a greater understanding of of what God thinks about our work, how He calls us to our vocation, and how we can bring His presence and power into our work environment. Also available as an e-book.
Order
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
READ:
Though it tarries, wait for it . . . -Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God's true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. ". . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27 ). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue- he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . . ." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, "What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . ." (Psalm 116:12-13 ). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, "Now I've got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . ." ( Philippians 3:12 ). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
Pray! Pray! Pray!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 3, 2009
Eliana Level
READ: Luke 22:7-20
Do this in remembrance of Me. -Luke 22:19
My wife babysits for our young granddaughter Eliana during the school year while her mom teaches. We do many things to make her feel at home. For example, we put pictures of her and her parents on our refrigerator at "Eliana level." That way she can see them or carry them around with her during the day. We want her to think of her mom and dad often throughout the day.
Why do this? Is there a chance she would forget them? Of course not. But it is comforting for her to have an ongoing remembrance of them.
Now think about this. Before Jesus was crucified, He created a remembrance of Himself. He told His disciples-and us by extension-to "do this [eat the bread and drink from the cup] in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22:19). Is this because we might forget Jesus? Of course not! How could we forget the One who died for our sins? Yet He started this way of remembrance-the Lord's Supper-as a comforting reminder of His great sacrifice, His presence, His power, and His promises.
Just as Eliana's photos remind her of her parents' love, so the celebration of communion provides a valuable reminder of the One who will come again to take us home.
Partake. And remember. - Dave Branon
But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away-
'Tis all that I can do. -Watts
Those who take their sin seriously remember Christ's cross gratefully.
The Power of the Cross
Throughout the Old Testament we see the Cross foreshadowed and foretold. But no message about the Cross is more poignant than the words of Jesus Himself. During His last Passover meal with His disciples, Jesus said, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (Luke 22:15).
Jesus was eager to eat that last Passover meal with them because He knew that the Cross would fulfill and complete the Passover. The Passover foreshadowed the Cross through its sacrificing of animal blood. Once the blood of Christ was shed, the Passover had finally found its true fulfillment.
In the first Passover, people placed the shed blood of animals on their doorposts, so that the angel of death would pass by their homes and their firstborns would live. In the final Passover, the angel of death will pass over and cannot touch any of those who are washed by the blood of the Lamb of God.
In the first Passover, people had to purchase their own animal sacrifices, whether they could afford it or not. But in the last Passover, Jesus paid the price in full.
The Cross established Christ's memorial in the form of Communion. As Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with His disciples, He also began Communion, the First Supper. Communion reminds us of the enormity of our sin, and the generosity of God's grace. Communion reminds us of the price that Jesus paid for the forgiveness of sins.
Whenever we receive Communion, we must do so in humility and brokenness before God. We must rejoice and be grateful and thankful for our salvation.
This Cross that fulfilled Passover and began Communion has power in our daily lives. When we live under the Cross of Christ, we can say to whatever guilt or shame plaguing us: "Jesus nailed it all to the Cross." When Satan accuses us and reminds us of past sins, we can say, "Jesus nailed it all to the Cross." When we are tempted to think of ourselves as failures, we can remind ourselves that Jesus made us victors when he nailed it to the Cross.
Only in the Cross of Christ will we receive power when we are powerless. We will find strength when we are weak. We will experience hope when our situation is hopeless. Only in the Cross is there peace for our troubled hearts.
*****
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Jesus Heals a Blind Man
by Max Lucado
"As [Jesus] passed by, He saw a man blind from birth"
(John 9:1).
This man has never seen a sunrise. Can't tell purple from pink. The disciples fault the family tree. "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" (v. 2).
Neither, the God-man replies. Trace this condition back to heaven. The reason the man was born sightless? So "the works of God might be displayed in him" (v. 3).
Talk about a thankless role. Selected to suffer. Some sing to God's glory. Others teach to God's glory. Who wants to be blind for God's glory? Which is tougher-the condition or discovering it was God's idea?
The cure proves to be as surprising as the cause. "[Jesus] spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes" (v. 6).
The world abounds with paintings of the God-man: in the arms of Mary, in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the Upper Room, in the darkened tomb. Jesus touching. Jesus weeping, laughing, teaching ... but I've never seen a painting of Jesus spitting.
Christ smacking his lips a time or two, gathering a mouth of saliva, working up a blob of drool, and letting it go. Down in the dirt. (Kids, next time your mother tells you not to spit, show her this passage.) Then he squats, stirs up a puddle of ... I don't know, what would you call it?
Holy putty? Spit therapy? Saliva solution? Whatever the name, he places a fingerful in his palm, and then, as calmly as a painter spackles a hole in the wall, Jesus streaks mud-miracle on the blind man's eyes. "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (v. 7).
The beggar feels his way to the pool, splashes water on his mud-streaked face, and rubs away the clay. The result is the first chapter of Genesis, just for him. Light where there was darkness. Virgin eyes focus, fuzzy figures become human beings, and John receives the Understatement of the Bible Award when he writes: "He ... came back seeing" (v. 7).
Come on, John! Running short of verbs? How about "he raced back seeing"? "He danced back seeing"? "He roared back whoopingand hollering."
From
His Name is Jesus
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2009) Max Lucado
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . -Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God's interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, "I will not allow that thing to happen." And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own "sad and pitiful self." You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God's interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 4, 2009
Connectors
READ: 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10
From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. -1 Thessalonians 1:8
Marketing professionals have known for years that a product recommendation from a friend is among the most effective means of advertising. That's why many large companies recruit consumers who receive free samples of their products along with the encouragement to recommend them to family and friends. One major US corporation regularly sends coupons and products to 725,000 selected people called "connectors," who spread the word to others.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is more than a product. It is God's great plan for bringing people into a living, vital relationship with Him. But the gospel is conveyed most effectively by example and by word of mouth. Paul commended the Christians at Thessalonica for their exemplary living and their effective witness: "From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth . . . . Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything" (1 Thess. 1:8). Because their lives had been radically changed (v.9), they found it impossible to keep silent about their faith.
A university professor who trains advertising professionals says, "It's human nature to talk about things that excite us." God's grace is all the incentive we need to recommend our Savior to a friend. - David C. McCasland
I'll tell the world how Jesus saved me
And how He gave me a life brand new;
And I know that if you trust Him
That all He gave me He'll give to you. -Fox
© 1963, Fox Music Publications.
If you want others to know what Christ will do for them, tell them what He has done for you.
A More Excellent Way
In 1 Corinthians 14:1, we are given a foundational truth,
Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
Notice that this verse leads off with a very direct command. We are to pursue love.
It is interesting that this command is given in the context of Paul's teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14 deal with the gifts of the Spirit: the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, the discerning of spirits, the gift of faith, the working of miracles, the gifts of healing, the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, and the gift of prophecy.
Chapter 12 gives us the definition of those gifts, chapter 13 teaches us the spirit that should characterize their use, and chapter 14 gives us guidelines for their functioning within the context of the local church.
When it comes to the operation of the gifts of the Spirit, Paul is very clear. He tells us, "Desire the gifts. Seek to have these things operating in your life and operating in the life of the local church, but they need to be practiced in love."
It is with that thought in mind that Paul writes 1 Corinthians 12:31. Here is what he says,
But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.
As we read the following verses we are told that the more excellent way is love. Again, Paul is giving us the spirit that should characterize the use of the gifts of the Spirit as they function within the context of the local church.
Desire the gifts. Earnestly covet them. But let them operate through a spirit of love.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Stop Living By Christian Principles
By Os Hillman
..."having a form of godliness but denying its power" (2 Tim 3:5).
God never called you to live by Christian principles. He calls you to live in relationship with the living God, Jesus Christ. One of the weaknesses of the Church today is that we teach people principles without the relationship.
The western church is big on ten step programs, "how-to" methods and acrostics to illustrate memorable ideas. There is a place for establishing principles to change negative behavior. However, we are not called to have a relationship with principles, but a living God.
Living by principles is the equivalent to living by the law in the Old Testament. It is rooted in the Greek system of learning and is dependent upon our strength instead of being led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Principle-based living is powerless living. This makes our Christian experience a religion instead of a relationship. "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law" (Gal 5:18).
We read about principle-based followers in the book of Acts, "The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people" (Acts 5:12-14). There was a group of followers who liked being taught but never entered the game.
The prophet Jeremiah tells us about the nature of God and His desire for every believer.
This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
Friend, have you been guilty of living a life based on principles instead of knowing the One who authored the principles? Invite Jesus to be Lord over your life and begin to spend time with Him every day. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you through every moment of your day.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order This
Vicarious Intercession
. . having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . -Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic "understanding" of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 5, 2009
Still Small Voice
READ: 1 Kings 19:11-18
Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! -Psalm 46:10
When God spoke to Elijah on Mount Horeb, He could have done so in the wind, earthquake, or fire. But He didn't. He spoke with a "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). God asked, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (v.13), as he hid from Jezebel who had threatened to kill him.
Elijah's reply revealed what God already knew-the depth of his fear and discouragement. He said, in effect, "Lord, I have been most zealous when others have forsaken You. What do I get for being the only one standing up for You?" (see v.14).
Was Elijah really the only one serving God? No. God had "seven thousand in Israel . . . whose knees have not bowed to Baal" (v.18).
In the depths of our fear or despair, we too may think we're the only one serving God. That may happen right after the height of a success, as it did for Elijah. Psalm 46:10 reminds us to "be still, and know" that He is God. The sooner we focus on Him and His power, the quicker we will see relief from our fear and self-pity.
Both the clashing cymbals of our failures and the loud trumpeting of our successes can drown out God's still small voice. It's time for us to quiet our hearts to listen for Him as we meditate on His Word. - Albert Lee
Keep listening for the "still small voice"
If you are weary on life's road;
The Lord will make your heart rejoice
If you will let Him take your load. -Hess
To tune in to God's voice we must tune out this world's noise.
Pursue Love!
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about how love is "the more excellent way." We are to pursue love, especially in how we practice the gifts of the Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul presses home the point of just how important love really is. Let's start with verse 1,
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
Paul does not say the gift of tongues isn't legitimate or genuine. But if there is not a heart of love behind it, it is just noise. You see, the water picks up the taste of the pipe that it flows through. If the pipe isn't clean, the water can pick up a pretty nasty taste, even though it is still genuinely water.
So also the gift can be genuine, but it is more noise than anything else to the hearts of the people who hear it if it is not accentuated by love.
Let's move to verse 2,
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Notice he did not say the gifts are nothing. The gifts are genuine. He says you are nothing. From heaven's point of view, you are defined by your character, not by your accomplishments. The world tends to define people by their accomplishments. In heaven's books, however, you are defined by your character.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (verse 2).
It does not say the poor won't profit, but you won't profit. You lose your reward if your heart is not right.
Pursue love!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Graduate Level Christianity
By Os Hillman
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44).
There was a man who had become a friend and mentor to me, but a conflict arose between us that we were unable to resolve. I never imagined that this man would go from being one of my best friends to an enemy. I asked God to show me how I should treat this man, and the words of Jesus came to mind, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
"Lord," I said, "surely you don't mean I'm to love this man! Not after the way he's hurt me and refused to reconcile!"
As I argued with God, I remembered that Jesus, before He was betrayed, got down on his knees and washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, His enemy. The moment that scene came to my mind, I knew what God was calling me to do. I had to wash the feet of my Judas.
This man who had been my friend and mentor had also been a client of my advertising agency. He was a Christian author and speaker, and I decided to bless this man by continuing to promote his ministry and his books.
Did he ever come back to me and reconcile? Yes, seven years later. But even if he had never reconciled with me, I knew that I did what God called me to do. I washed the feet of my Judas. I passed the test.
God doesn't promise that if we forgive there will be a happy ending. He doesn't promise that the man who refuses to pay a bill will suddenly write a check. He doesn't promise that the one who rejects reconciliation will instantly soften his heart. Jesus forgave his executioners, but that didn't keep them from nailing Him to the cross.
The Graduate Level Test is not about getting the results we want. It's about proving that we trust God enough to forgive our Judases. It's a graduate-level course in Christian obedience. But I believe that every leader whom God uses in a significant way must pass the Judas Test.
God wants to know if we are willing to be imitators of Jesus. How can we say we are followers of Christ if we won't wash the feet of our Judases?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order
Judgment and the Love of God
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God . . . -1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God's idea, not man's; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience- preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out- it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 6, 2009
At Just The Right Time
READ: Galatians 4:1-7
When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son. -Galatians 4:4
Why is being on time so challenging for some of us? Even when we start early, something inevitably gets in our way to make us late.
But here's the good news: God is always on time! Speaking of the arrival of Jesus, Paul said, "When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son" (Gal. 4:4). The long-awaited, promised Savior came at just the right time.
Jesus' arrival during the Roman Empire's Pax Romana (the peace of Rome) was perfect timing. The known world was united by one language of commerce. A network of global trade routes provided open access to the whole world. All of this guaranteed that the gospel could move rapidly in one tongue. No visas. No impenetrable borders. Only unhindered access to help spread the news of the Savior whose crucifixion fulfilled the prophecy of the Lamb who would be slain for our sins (Isa. 53). All in God's perfect timing!
All of this should remind us that the Lord knows what time is best for us as well. If you're waiting for answered prayer or the fulfillment of one of His promises, don't give up. If you think He has forgotten you, think again. When the fullness of time is right for you, He'll show up-and you'll be amazed by His brilliant timing! - Joe Stowell
Not ours to know the reason why
Unanswered is our prayer,
But ours to wait for God's own time
To lift the cross we bear. -Anon.
God's timing is always perfect.
Releasing God's Love
We have been talking about pursuing love in the last couple of devotionals. Today I want to go to a passage where Scripture gives us a snapshot of what God's love looks like. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8,
Love suffers long and is kind (a lot of people suffer long, but they are not very kind while they do it); love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own; is not provoked (it is not touchy or fretful or resentful); thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
What you just read about the love of God is already inside of you if you are a Christian. It is not something outside of you that you need to seek. It is something that is in you that needs to be released.
Romans 5:5 tells us,
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
God's love has already been poured into your heart! The ability to do everything in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is already in you. You have the ability to not be touchy, or fretful, or resentful, or seek your own or insist on your own rights; to suffer long and to be kind; to believe the best of every person.
The Bible is not talking about pursuing love as though it is something that is vacant from your life. Rather, you are to pursue the expression of that love purposely and let it work its way into your words and actions.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Why the Workplace?
By Os Hillman
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2).
If we are going to see the transformation of workplaces, cities and nations it will only happen if we equip, affirm, and release believers into their callings in the marketplace. The marketplace is the place where there is real authority - authority that can change society. We will not see change come through pastors and prayer alone. It will come through those who are in places of power who are also in relationship with pastors and intercessors who can make changes.
I often receive requests from the media for interviews about the faith at work movement. One day a writer from the New York Times magazine called. After several interviews, the reporter asked me, "Can you point me to someone who can demonstrate what this looks like in a daily workplace?" I told the writer to give my friend Chuck Ripka a call. Chuck was a banker in Elk River, Minnesota who is a great example of a Christian impacting his workplace and city for Christ.
I told Chuck that the reporter would be calling him and Chuck and I immediately began praying for the writer. A few days later, Chuck called me and said the Lord was going to use this article not only for the workplace movement, but also for this writer's life.
The writer visited Chuck and the bank for two days and attended community meetings, interviewed all the employees of the bank, and watched Chuck pray for many people at the bank.
At the end of the reporter's visit, Chuck asked the writer if he and a friend could pray for God's blessing on him. He agreed, and they prayed for God's blessing on his writing skills and for the New York Times. They prayed that God would help him write the article. The writer was touched by this. Afterward, Chuck asked him about his own relationship with God, which led to him praying to receive Christ. Two weeks later, photographers came to take pictures for the article, and they too prayed to receive Christ.
When the article was published it was one of the best, most extensive and balanced articles on the faith at work movement that has been written from a secular viewpoint.
How might God use you to impact your workplace?
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Handbook to Renewal
Set Your Mind on Biblical Truth
Designed to renew your mind on a daily basis, this beautiful leather-bound handbook is most effective when used just before going to sleep so that you set your mind on biblical truth for the rest of the night. Each night, the readings are structured around five kinds of affirmations from Scripture: The Attributes of God, The Works of God, My Relationship to God, The Character I Want to Cultivate, and My Relationship to Others. Order
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free . . . -Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand- "Believe this and that"; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40 ). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty- the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one true liberty- the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don't get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you- with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go . . . and make disciples. . ." ( Matthew 28:19 ), not, "Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions."
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 7, 2009
The Difference Prayer Makes
READ: Revelation 8:1-5
The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God. -Revelation 8:4
Does prayer have any real impact on our world? Or is it merely a private conversation with God?
When a New Jersey couple learned that a man had been released from prison and had moved into their area, they started praying for him. Then they paid him a visit and opened their home to a weekly breakfast for ex-offenders like him. Now, 22 years later, the area's most despised men have one place to go where they are welcomed and treated respectfully.
What would happen if we followed literally Jesus' command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? What if we became known for approaching heaven on behalf of outcasts and disagreeable people?
In a scene recorded in the book of Revelation, the apostle John foresees a direct linkage between the visible and invisible worlds. At a climactic moment in history, heaven is quiet. Seven angels stand with seven trumpets, waiting. Silence reigns, as if all heaven is listening on tiptoe. Then an angel collects the prayers of God's people on earth-all the accumulated prayers of praise, lament, abandonment, despair, petition-mixes them with incense, and presents them before the throne of God (8:1-4). The silence finally breaks when the fragrant prayers are hurled down to earth: setting off a storm of "thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake" (v.5).
The message is clear. The prayers are essential agents in the final victory over evil, suffering, and death. - Philip Yancey
God's work is done by those who pray.
Choose to Love
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust'" (Matthew 5:43-45).
These are not suggestions to be considered, they are commands to be obeyed. "A pretty tall order," you say. Perhaps, but definitely within the realm of possibility.
Jesus would never tell us to do something we could not do. That would be unjust. We can bless, we can do good, we can pray for and forgive those who have wronged us.
When people say, "I can't forgive," that generally means, "I won't forgive." The ability to love, bless and forgive is within us-because God is within us. Learn to let His nature of love dominate you. Choose to love. Let what God has put on the inside come out.
The world needs to see real love-the kind of unconditional love that brought us into God's family. And they need to see it in us. If we really are the children of God, then His nature should be displayed in us and through us. The most outstanding feature of God's nature is love. God is love.
One last thing. When you choose to love and forgive those who have wronged you, you set a prisoner free. The prisoner is you.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Witchcraft in the Workplace
By Os Hillman
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft."(Gal 5:19-20).
The envelope arrived in my mailbox with the exciting announcement on the outside: "You've just won $1 million dollars!" Of course, like you, I have gotten so many of these over the years that I automatically file it in my nearby deep file - the trash can. The sensational headline is used to get you to open the envelope, only to discover they are trying to sell you magazines with an opportunity to be entered into a sweepstakes drawing that could allow you to win a million dollars.
Everyday we are exposed to witchcraft in the workplace. Yes, I said witchcraft. For most of us we think of this ancient term of witchcraft as something that witches do with no relevance to modern society. However, this is not the case.
Whenever you do something that has the appearance of giving something for nothing with the intentional goal of coercing someone to take action through deceptive practices, you have engaged in witchcraft. You see this take place in advertising, marketing, and even Christian ministries.
In order to avoid engaging in witchcraft in the workplace, ask yourself if you are attempting to persuade others to buy your product by using deceptive practices. Make sure you are conveying truth about your product and what it professes to do. Don't use gimmicky sales approaches to engage others.
Perception is not always reality. However, when it comes to promoting a product or service, you want people's perception to match the realty of your advertising. Then you will avoid the sin of witchcraft.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Building For Eternity
Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it . . . -Luke 14:28
Our Lord was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, the unfathomable agony He experienced in Gethsemane, and the assault upon Him at Calvary- the central point upon which all of time and eternity turn. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. In the final analysis, people are not going to laugh at Him and say, "This man began to build and was not able to finish" ( Luke 14:30 ).
The conditions of discipleship given to us by our Lord in verses 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple " (Luke 14:26 ). This verse teaches us that the only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion- those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus? (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 ). We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 8, 2009
In Every Bad Experience
READ: 2 Kings 5:1-15
Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. -2 Kings 5:15
When I rear-ended a truck with my nearly new car, positive thoughts did not immediately come to mind. I was thinking primarily of the cost, the inconvenience, and the injury to my ego. But I did find some hope in this thought, which I often share with other writers: "In every bad experience, there's a good illustration."
Finding the good can be a challenge, but Scripture confirms that God uses bad circumstances for good purposes.
In 2 Kings 5, we find two people who had bad things happen to them. First is a young girl from Israel who was taken captive by the Syrian army. Second is Naaman, the commander of the army, who had leprosy. Even though the girl had good reason to desire bad things for her captors, she offered help instead. Israel's prophet Elisha, she said, could heal Naaman. Eager to be cured, Naaman went to Israel. However, he was reluctant to follow Elisha's humiliating directions. When he finally did, he was healed, which caused him to proclaim that Israel's God is the only God (v.15).
God used two bad things-a kidnapping and a deadly disease-to change Israel's enemy into a friend. Even when we don't know why something bad has happened, we know that God has the power to use it for good. - Julie Ackerman Link
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bad may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower. -Cowper
God is the master of turning burdens into blessings.
The Qualities of Love
For the last number of devotionals, we have focused our attention on how love is such a vital quality to the Christian life. We have seen that unless we love, any of the spiritual gifts are meaningless.
We have also seen that God has deposited His love in us already, and as a result, it is our responsibility to choose to express that love. It is not something we can put on God's shoulders. We must take on that obligation.
So what do those qualities of love really look like? I want to share with you 1 Corinthians 13 from theAmplified Bible, but I want to do it with a twist. I want to make it personal and show how, if we choose to love as God has asked us to love, it will look.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 from the Amplified Bible...personalized (read it out loud),
I endure long, and I am patient and kind. I am never envious or boil over with jealousy. I am not boastful or vainglorious. I do not display myself haughtily. I am not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride. I am not rude or unmannerly. I do not act unbecomingly. God's love in me does not insist on its own rights or its own way for I am not self-seeking. I am not touchy or fretful or resentful. I take no account of the evil done to me. I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail. I bear up under anything and everything that comes, and I am ever ready to believe the best of every person. My hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and I endure everything without weakening. God's love in me never fails.
I challenge you to read this out loud to yourself every day for a month, and see if it does not change your life!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Godly Forefathers
By Os Hillman
"The angel of the LORD gave this charge to Joshua: "This is what the LORD Almighty says: If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here'" (Zech 3:6-7).
On September 17th, 1796, George Washington said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." In His Prayer At Valley Forge, he entreated God: "Almighty and eternal Lord God, the great Creator of heaven and earth, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; look down from heaven in pity and compassion upon me Thy servant, who humbly prostrates myself before Thee."
On another occasion he said, "To the distinguished character of a patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian."
America was founded as a Christian nation. The founding fathers had a deep faith in Jesus Christ. Today, there is a movement designed to remove God from our history and our foundations. When we do this, America will no longer be good. And when America ceases to be good, we will cease to be great.
England also had a great Christian statesman in its early years. A man named William Wilberforce grew to prominence at an early age. At age 28 he came to faith in Christ and almost chose to give up politics to go into "the ministry." John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, convinced him to stay in politics. He would be credited with 69 world-changing initiatives, not the least of which was the abolishment of slavery after 50 years of work.
Pray that this generation might acknowledge and embrace their godly heritage and God will raise up other leaders who lead from a godly foundation.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
The Faith to Persevere
Because you have kept My command to persevere . . . -Revelation 3:10
Perseverance means more than endurance- more than simply holding on until the end. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, "I can't take any more." Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God's hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" ( Job 13:15 ).
Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life- throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.
God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet- places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ's life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, "This is eternal life, that they may know You . . ." ( John 17:3 ). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance- a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 9, 2009
Childlike Faith
READ: Matthew 8:5-10
The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. -Luke 18:27
On the way home from a family camping trip, 6-year-old Tanya and her dad were the only ones still awake in the car. As Tanya looked at the full moon through the car window, she asked, "Daddy, do you think I can touch the moon if I stand on my tiptoes?"
"No, I don't think so," he smiled.
"Can you reach it?"
"No, I don't think I can either."
She was quiet for a moment, then she said confidently, "Daddy, maybe if you hold me up on your shoulders?"
Faith? Yes-the childlike faith that daddies can do anything. True faith, though, has the written promise of God for its foundation. In Hebrews 11:1, we read, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Jesus talked a lot about faith, and throughout the Gospels we read of His response to those who had great faith.
When a paralyzed man's friends brought him to Jesus, He "saw their faith," forgave the man of his sins, and healed him (Matt. 9:2-6). When the centurion asked Jesus to "speak a word, and my servant will be healed" (8:8), Jesus "marveled" and said, "I have not found such great faith" (8:10).
When we have faith in God, we will find that all things are possible (Luke 18:27). - Cindy Hess Kasper
God, give me the faith of a little child
Who trusts so implicitly,
Who simply and gladly believes Thy Word,
And never would question Thee. -Showerman
A childlike faith unlocks the door to the kingdom of heaven.
Spiritual Metamorphosis
Romans 12:1-2 says this,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
First, notice that it is your responsibility to present your body to God. God will not do it for you. You have to do it. But Scripture doesn't leave us there. We are shown how we are to do that in verse 2 above.
First, when it says, Do not be conformed, that word conform means to be pressed into a mold by outward pressures. Instead of being conformed we are told to be transformed. That is actually the Greek word from which we get our English word metamorphosis. It means to let what is on the inside come to the outside.
One day many years ago, my kids came home from school with some silk worms. We were supposed to put them in a box and feed them mulberry leaves. I couldn't believe how many leaves these worms ate! They ate leaves until they turned a translucent green!
Then they wove cocoons and went through a metamorphosis. They went from being these ugly ol' fat green transparent worms, to the most beautiful fuzzy huge white moths. It was amazing to see!
My friend, you renew your mind by feeding on God's Word, the same way that those silk worms fed on the mulberry leaves. As you are filled with His truth, it causes a metamorphosis to take place. It brings what is on the inside-God's nature-to the outside.
So feed on God's Word and watch your life be transformed.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Our Reigning King
We imagine kings as powerful leaders, who are wise and just. They have wealth and riches. They have authority and influence. Yet, out of every king in history, none can compare to King Jesus. Our Messiah is different from any other king who ever lived.
Jesus is the only king whose scepter will never depart from Him: "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his" (Genesis 49:10).
He is the only king who is all-wise: "a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:5,6).
He is the only king who rules all the earth: "The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name" (Zechariah 14:9).
The book of Revelation tells us about Jesus, the glorified returning King. He will wear many crowns, which speaks of His conquering sin and Satan and his eternal monarchy. His diadems will testify that He has no rivals.
While many try to ignore Jesus, when He returns in power and might, this will be impossible.
Jesus' First Coming was in humility. His body was broken to save all who would believe in Him. But in His Second Coming, He will return in full splendor. At the Cross, He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. At His return, King Jesus will lead the victorious parade of His faithful soldiers. In His First Coming, He wore a crown of thorns. In His Second Coming, He will be crowned with many crowns.
Our Savior is the King of kings who reigns and rules the entire universe. He is superior in His nature, infinite in His wisdom, mighty in His reign and He is from everlasting to everlasting.
Have you forgotten who is King of all kings? What is taking your focus off of the sovereign leader of the universe? Is it your career, your portfolio, your hobbies?
Spend time in prayer today seeking King Jesus' forgiveness for the times when you have forgotten His majesty. Commit to Him now to daily give Him kingship over your life.
****
In a world gone mad with relativism and political correctness... What can we do to ignite spiritual renewal in our lives and in our churches? Read the passion Michael Youssef has for this subject in our free resource-"We Preach Christ." Download it today.
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Reaching Beyond Our Grasp
Where there is no revelation [or prophetic vision], the people cast off restraint . . . -Proverbs 29:18
There is a difference between holding on to a principle and having a vision. A principle does not come from moral inspiration, but a vision does. People who are totally consumed with idealistic principles rarely do anything. A person's own idea of God and His attributes may actually be used to justify and rationalize his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah tried to excuse his disobedience by saying to God, ". . . I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" ( Jonah 4:2 ). I too may have the right idea of God and His attributes, but that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of honesty and integrity, because the vision gives me the moral incentive.
Our own idealistic principles may actually lull us into ruin. Examine yourself spiritually to see if you have vision, or only principles.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
"Where there is no revelation [or prophetic vision]. . . ." Once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless. We cast off certain restraints from activities we know are wrong. We set prayer aside as well and cease having God's vision in the little things of life. We simply begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating only out of our own hand, and doing things solely on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on a downward path. We have lost the vision. Is our attitude today an attitude that flows from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done before? Is there a freshness and a vitality in our spiritual outlook?
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 10, 2009
Magnets And Mothers
READ: Proverbs 31:26-31
Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you. -Deuteronomy 5:16
A teacher gave her class of second-graders a lesson about the magnet and what it does. The next day, in a written test, she included this question: "My name has six letters. The first one is m. I pick up things. What am I?" When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word mother.
Yes, mothers do pick up things. But they are much more than "magnets," gathering up clothes and picking up toys around the house. As willing as many mothers are to do such chores, they have a higher calling than that.
A good mother loves her family and provides an atmosphere where each member can find acceptance, security, and understanding. She is there when the children need a listening ear, a comforting word, a warm hug, or a loving touch on a fevered brow. And for the Christian mother, her greatest joy is in teaching her children to trust and to love Jesus as their Savior.
That kind of mother deserves to be honored-not just on one special day a year but every day. And that recognition should involve more than words; it ought to be shown in respect, thoughtfulness, and loving deeds. - Richard De Haan
Of all the earthly things God gives,
There's one above all others:
It is the precious, priceless gift
Of loving Christian mothers. -Anon.
Godly mothers not only bring you up, they bring you to God.
The Love of Money
In 1 Timothy 6:9-11, Paul gives us a critical insight,
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
I want you to notice: Before Paul tells us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness, he says we must first flee the love of money. You have to be willing to flee the wrong things before you can pursue the right things, because you cannot go in two directions at once.
If you are pursuing riches, and the gaining of wealth and the achievement of success have become your number one priorities, pushing everything else, including God, to the side, then you are pursuing the wrong thing.
You may be thinking, "Well, that's great for some people, but that doesn't apply to me." You need to understand that you can be eaten up with the love of money and not have a dime in your pocket. All of us are subject to such a temptation and such a trap.
It's fascinating that Paul uses the word "drown" here. I live by the Pacific Ocean, and generally people who drown do so because, (a) they overestimate their own abilities as a swimmer; or (b) they underestimate the power of the ocean.
If you overestimate your ability to be free from this type of a temptation, or you underestimate the power of this type of a temptation, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
Flee the wrong and pursue the right. Stay on course with God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Week of May 8
Jesus Touched the Untouchables
by Max Lucado
When Jesus came down from the hill, great crowds followed him. Then a man with a skin disease came to Jesus. The man bowed down before him and said, "Lord, you can heal me if you will."
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, "I will. Be healed!" And immediately the man was healed from his disease.
Matthew 8:1-3
I wonder... about the man who felt Jesus' compassionate touch. He makes one appearance, has one request, and receives one touch. But that one touch changed his life forever....
I wonder about this man because in New Testament times leprosy was the most dreaded disease. The condition rendered the body a mass of ulcers and decay. Fingers would curl and gnarl. Blotches of skin would discolor and stink. Certain types of leprosy would numb nerve endings, leading to a loss of fingers, toes, even a whole foot or hand. Leprosy was death by inches.
The social consequences were as severe as the physical. Considered contagious, the leper was quarantined, banished to a leper colony.
In Scripture the leper is symbolic of the ultimate outcast: infected by a condition he did not seek, rejected by those he knew, avoided by people he did not know, condemned to a future he could not bear...
The touch did not heal the disease, you know. Matthew is careful to mention that it was the pronouncement and not the touch of Christ that cured the condition. "Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, 'I will. Be healed!' And immediately the man was healed from his disease" (Matt. 8:3).
The infection was banished by a word from Jesus.
The loneliness, however, was treated by a touch from Jesus.
Jesus touched the untouchables of the world.
From
His Name is Jesus
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2009) Max Lucado
Take the Initiative
. . . add to your faith virtue . . . -2 Peter 1:5
Add means that we have to do something. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves- God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We must "work out" our "own salvation" which God has worked in us ( Philippians 2:12 ). Add means that we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning- to instruct yourself in the way you must go.
Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative- stop hesitating- take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you stand. Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, "I will write that letter," or "I will pay that debt"; and then do it! Make it irrevocable.
We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we have not yet been.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 11, 2009
The World Is Watching
READ: John 13:31-35
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. -John 13:35
My friends were serving in a ministry that was directed mainly to Christians when an opportunity came for them to change jobs and touch the lives of thousands of nonbelievers. They decided to make what they believed to be an exciting change.
Many people, even some who didn't personally know them, were shocked and accused them of seeking fame and fortune in the world. But believing that Jesus came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10), they decided to pursue what they considered an even greater opportunity to serve the "lost" in their community.
They said later, "Some Christians were so cruel to us, and wrote hateful e-mails. Our new non-Christian friends were kinder to us than our fellow Christians. We didn't understand that, and were hurt deeply." They told me that their desire was to follow God's directive to be "salt" and "light" in the world (Matt. 5:13-14).
When someone we know is making a decision or change, it can be helpful to ask about his or her motives. But we can't fully know another's heart. We don't want to "bite and devour" our fellow Christians (Gal. 5:15), but instead to love them in a way that others will know we are Jesus' followers (John 13:35). The world is watching. - Anne Cetas
We join our hearts and hands together,
Faithful to the Lord's command:
We hold each other to God's standards-
All that truth and love demand. -D. De Haan
Only God sees the heart.
The Main Pursuit
Ezekiel 33:30-32 provides some pretty direct and challenging words from God,
"As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, 'Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them."
I think, for some people, church is almost like going to a concert, especially if the preacher is flashy and the music is great. They are not listening with a view to imbibe God's truth and then put it into practice in their lives.
What is the reason for this disconnect? People are pursuing something else in their hearts. Sure, they are showing up at church, they are listening, they are even saying "amen" at the right time, but they are not applying God's truth to their lives. Why? Because they are pursuing something else in their heart.
This is the same thing that Paul talked to Timothy about in yesterday's devotional. Remember? Like Ezekiel, he said, Their hearts pursue their own gain.
It is very simple: If your focus is on the pursuit of things, your focus will never be on the One who has created all things. It really boils down to this one question: What is the main pursuit of your life?
If it is not God, then your life is going in the wrong direction!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Are You Becoming Secularized?
By Os Hillman
"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen" (Rom 1:24-25).
There is a story told about a frog in a kettle. The frog is placed in a kettle of warm water. The frog does not notice that the water temperature is being turned up gradually until it is too late. He dies from the heat of the water not realizing the danger he was in.
Societies are suffering from the "frog in the kettle" analogy. They make decisions that seem innocent enough, only to realize later the impact these decisions bring to their society. Whether the issue is gay rights, abortion, euthanasia, or simply a lack of spiritual influence over society, the changes seem logical to the unregenerate mind but reveals the moral compass of the nation has been removed.
In 1945, a book was written about the spiritual condition of England. "We are convinced that England will never be converted until the laity use the opportunities daily afforded by their various professions, crafts and occupations."* During the time of this writing, 30% of England attended church. Today, less than 7% attend church in England. It has become a secularized nation.
During this same time more than 40% of America was attending church. Today, less than 30% attend church and it is rapidly declining. The reason is that more and more believers are seeing the local church as irrelevant to the world they live in. Surveys reveal that up to 90% of church members believe they are not being taught how to apply the Bible to the complex world of work where they spend 60-70% of their time. It is not a question of them being taught the Bible; it is a question of making it relevant to their world.
*"Towards the Conversion of England" (1945).
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF Bible Study
TGIF Bible Study
The popular TGIF Today God Is First daily devotional is now available as a 12-week group Bible study book. It is based on 12 key devotionals pertaining to your spiritual calling in the workplace. The book is ideal for church groups, for workplace groups that are just getting started, or for facilitators who want to try something new in a group setting. Also for individual study.
'Love One Another'
. . . add to your . . . brotherly kindness love -2 Peter 1:5, 7
Love is an indefinite thing to most of us; we don't know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26 ). Initially, when "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" ( Romans 5:5 ), it is easy to put Jesus first. But then we must practice the things mentioned in 2 Peter 1 to see them worked out in our lives.
The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He commands me to show the same love to others by saying, ". . . love one another as I have loved you" ( John 15:12 ). He is saying, "I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you." This kind of love is not a patronizing love for the unlovable- it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight. Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated.
"The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish . . ." ( 2 Peter 3:9 ). I should look within and remember how wonderfully He has dealt with me. The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor God's divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 12, 2009
Getting Better
READ: Philippians 1:19-26
I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. -Philippians 1:23
A popular song from the 1960s was titled "Getting Better." In it, the singer considers his young life and happily declares that he sees things "getting better all the time." It is a song of optimism but, unfortunately, without any real basis for that hope.
By contrast, the Bible warns us that we live in a world that in many ways is actually getting worse (2 Tim. 3:13). Daily we're faced with increasing evidence to support that contention. So how do we respond to the realities of life in such a badly marred world? With empty optimism? With hopeless discouragement? The apostle Paul shows us how.
While imprisoned in Rome, Paul wrote to the church at Philippi to offer them genuine hope in a broken world. He encouraged his readers by telling them that though life in this world is often hard and painful, for the Christian things will get better. He wrote, "I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil. 1:23). It is a reminder to us that we can face the difficulties of living for Christ now because one day we will be with Him in an eternal home of splendor and fullness.
Life can be hard, but one day when we see Christ it will truly get better! - Bill Crowder
To see His face, this is my goal,
The deepest longing of my soul;
Through storm and stress my path I'll trace
Till, satisfied, I see His face! -Chisholm
To be with Jesus forever is the sum of all happiness.
Sowing Righteousness
The Bible says in Galatians 6:7,
Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
And in Proverbs 11:18 it says,
The wicked man does deceptive work, but he who sows righteousness will have a sure reward.
The Bible teaches the law of the harvest, that what you sow, you will also reap. If you treat others fairly and uprightly, it will come back to you.
We live in a world that doesn't put much stock in integrity, fairness, uprightness, and righteousness. We must be careful to not give in to that influence. We need to be different.
How? By not cutting corners. By putting in an honest day's work. By giving people what they pay for and more. If you will pursue righteousness, it will come back to you.
You may remember a story back in the eighties about an armored car that crashed in Columbus, Ohio. Two million dollars in cash spilled out on the highway, and the motorists helped the armored car company gather all of its money.
But, when it was all said and done, only $400,000 of the $2 million made its way back to the armored car company. $1.6 million ended up in the pockets of the people who stopped along the highway to "help."
I'm sure they had every excuse under the sun. Some probably even said, "Well, I've been praying for God to meet my needs, and it was a miracle!" No, it was not a miracle. They were thieves!
You cannot make an excuse for that kind of thing. And yet that is the way the world thinks. There should be a difference between us and the world. We need to pursue uprightness, integrity, honesty, and godly character. They need to be hallmarks of our lives.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Two Grocers
By Os Hillman
"You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you" (Deut 25:15).
A few hundred years ago there were two Christian grocers in London. One of them said to the other, "You know, as Christians, we're supposed to have honest scales. It says so in the Bible. So how should we do that?" "Well, I'll tell you what, I'll come and check your scales on Wednesdays to make sure they're accurate and you come on Sundays and check mine. We'll make sure they're accurate." The two grocers developed a list of twelve principles that they felt should guide the way they were to do business.
People preferred to buy from them because they knew they would get a good product, at a fair price, with honest scales. Other grocers who were Christians decided to join in and they formed an association of Christian grocers. In those days it wasn't called exactly that, but was actually called the Most Worshipful Company of Livery Merchants. The name is very odd and peculiarly British.
This group led to other industries adopting a similar idealism known as Livery Companies in the City of London. There are now 300 companies in the City of London registered as Livery Companies. The latest one was the Most Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. Everybody that joins one of the companies in the City of London, even today, receives a list of the principles they have to agree to. The list contains 36 biblical principles to guide your life. And they call the book, Some Rules for the Conduct of Life to Which Are Added A Few Cautions.
The rulers of the nation in Britain began to see the affect of these companies and said 'What we need to do is make it a law for the whole nation. So instead of just these grocers having their honest scales, every scale in Britain needs to weigh accurately." The government Weights and Measures Department, which is in existence today, can trace its history back to the day when these two grocers decided to keep themselves accountable for biblical principles."*
Are you operating based on honest weights and measures?
*Article written by Mark Markiewicz provided to Os Hillman 2004
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF Bible Study
TGIF Bible Study
The popular TGIF Today God Is First daily devotional is now available as a 12-week group Bible study book. It is based on 12 key devotionals pertaining to your spiritual calling in the workplace. The book is ideal for church groups, for workplace groups that are just getting started, or for facilitators who want to try something new in a group setting. Also for individual study.
Order
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The Habit of Having No Habits
If these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful . . . -2 Peter 1:8
When we first begin to form a habit, we are fully aware of it. There are times when we are aware of becoming virtuous and godly, but this awareness should only be a stage we quickly pass through as we grow spiritually. If we stop at this stage, we will develop a sense of spiritual pride. The right thing to do with godly habits is to immerse them in the life of the Lord until they become such a spontaneous expression of our lives that we are no longer aware of them. Our spiritual life continually causes us to focus our attention inwardly for the determined purpose of self-examination, because each of us has some qualities we have not yet added to our lives.
Your god may be your little Christian habit- the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, "I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God." No, this is your time alone with your habit. There is a quality that is still lacking in you. Identify your shortcoming and then look for opportunities to work into your life that missing quality.
Love means that there are no visible habits- that your habits are so immersed in the Lord that you practice them without realizing it. If you are consciously aware of your own holiness, you place limitations on yourself from doing certain things- things God is not restricting you from at all. This means there is a missing quality that needs to be added to your life. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there someplace where you are not at home with God? Then allow God to work through whatever that particular circumstance may be until you increase in Him, adding His qualities. Your life will then become the simple life of a child
PRAY PRAY PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 13, 2009
Godly Sorrow
READ: 2 Corinthians 7:5-10
I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner. -2 Corinthians 7:9
Thieves stole nearly $5,000 in sound and office equipment from a church in West Virginia, only to break in the following night to return the items they had taken. Apparently, the guilt of stealing from a church weighed so heavily on their conscience that they felt the need to correct their criminal behavior of breaking the commandment: "You shall not steal" (Ex. 20:15). Their actions make me think about the differences between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.
Paul praised the Corinthians for understanding this difference. His first letter to them was biting, as he addressed issues of sin. His words caused sorrow among them, and because of this Paul rejoiced. Why? Their sorrow did not stop at just feeling sad about getting caught or suffering the unpleasant consequences of their sins. Their sorrow was godly sorrow, a genuine remorse for their sins. This led them to repentance-a change in their thinking that led to a renouncing of their sin and turning to God. Their repentance ultimately led to deliverance from their sinful habits.
Repentance is not something we can do unless we have the prompting of the Holy Spirit; it's a gift from God. Pray for repentance today (2 Tim. 2:24-26). - Marvin Williams
O Wind of God, come bend us, break us,
Till humbly we confess our need;
Then in Thy tenderness remake us,
Revive, restore-for this we plead. -Head
Repentance means hating sin enough to turn from it.
The Reward of Godliness
In today's devotional, I want to draw your attention to the importance of the pursuit of godliness. Let's look at 1 Timothy 6:6,
Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
What an incredible truth. Godliness coupled with contentment is great gain. Not just gain, GREAT gain!
Over and over in Scripture, God highlights the importance and reward of godliness. For instance, it says in Psalm 4:3, That the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly. 2 Peter says the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Those are great rewards!
But there is more. Look at 1 Timothy 4:7-8,
But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
It could not be more clear! There is profit in godliness, and that profit is not only in this life, but in the life that is to come. Godliness is going to pay off in both this life and into eternity!
So it makes sense to make this pursuit of godliness a priority! Even if people want to kick you every time you do something that is right, you need to stay with it.
Determine today to make godliness an everyday pursuit. If you do, you will reap the rewards of godliness, great gain and profit, not just in this life, but for eternity.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
David Fulfilled His Purpose
By Os Hillman
"For David...served the purpose of God in his own generation" (Acts 13:36 NASB)
Imagine for a moment that you have just died and you are about to come before the Judgment Seat of Christ. Jesus is speaking to his angel about you. He then says these words: "Janice served the purpose of my Heavenly Father for her generation."
Will God be able to say you served your purpose in your generation? Imagine being able to say that. God was able to say this about the life of David, even though David made some incredibly bad choices in his life that led to long term consequences. However, because David repented each time he erred, his purpose was accomplished on earth as God had designed it.
One of the prayers I often pray for people whenever I'm asked to pray for them is this; "Lord, may you fulfill every purpose for which you made them. May there be no inheritance left on the table that he/she is entitled to."
That is really the definition of success. Success is fulfilling the complete purpose for which God made you. It has nothing to do with wealth, accomplishments, stature in life, or standard of living. It has to do with living a life of obedience to the Father. And when we live a life of obedience to the Father, we will fulfill the purposes that God had in mind when he made you and me.
In 1924, Eric Liddle, a Scottish Olympic runner who's life was chronicled in a movie entitled Chariots of Fire, was challenged by his missionary sister to forego running in the Olympics in lieu of going to China with her as a missionary. He responded by saying, "When I run I feel His (God's) pleasure. I was made to run and I was made to be a missionary too." Eric understood his complete purpose for his generation. As a result, he brought glory to the Father through his running and his missionary service.
Today, ask God to fulfill His purposes for your life in your generation.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
TGIF Bible Study
TGIF Bible Study
The popular TGIF Today God Is First daily devotional is now available as a 12-week group Bible study book. It is based on 12 key devotionals pertaining to your spiritual calling in the workplace. The book is ideal for church groups, for workplace groups that are just getting started, or for facilitators who want to try something new in a group setting. Also for individual study.
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The Habit of Keeping a Clear Conscience
. . . strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men -Acts 24:16
God's commands to us are actually given to the life of His Son in us. Consequently, to our human nature in which God's Son has been formed (see Galatians 4:19 ), His commands are difficult. But they become divinely easy once we obey.
Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God's standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God's Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" ( Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23 ).
God always instructs us down to the last detail. Is my ear sensitive enough to hear even the softest whisper of the Spirit, so that I know what I should do? "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God . . ." ( Ephesians 4:30 ). He does not speak with a voice like thunder- His voice is so gentle that it is easy for us to ignore. And the only thing that keeps our conscience sensitive to Him is the habit of being open to God on the inside. When you begin to debate, stop immediately. Don't ask, "Why can't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There is no debating possible once your conscience speaks. Whatever it is- drop it, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 14, 2009
Making The Cut
READ: Matthew 4:18-22
[Jesus] said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." -Matthew 4:19
Every year, high-school seniors apply to their favorite universities and then watch the mailbox for the letter announcing their acceptance.
It was different for teens in New Testament times. Jewish boys would often attend rabbinical schools until age 13. Then only the best and brightest would be chosen to "follow" the local rabbi. This small, select group of disciples would go where he went and eat what he ate-modeling their lives after the rabbi. Those who didn't make the cut would pick up a trade like carpentry, sheep-herding, or fishing.
Guys like Simon, Andrew, James, and John hadn't made the cut. So instead of following the local rabbi, they were down by the docks, knee-deep in the family business. It's interesting that Jesus sought out the men the local rabbi had rejected. Instead of targeting the best and brightest, Jesus offered His invitation, "Follow Me," to ordinary run-of-the-mill fishermen. What an honor! They would become followers of the ultimate Rabbi.
Jesus extends the same honor to you and me-not because we are the best or brightest, but because He needs ordinary people like us to model His life and to lovingly rescue people on His behalf. So, follow Him and let Him make something of your life! - Joe Stowell
As followers of Jesus
Who love Him from the heart,
We may be ordinary,
But we've been set apart. -Sper
Even the ordinary and the outcast can make the cut to follow Jesus.
Strengthening Your Faith
Romans 10:17 is the verse I would like for you to read today. It says,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
To fully understand this verse, you need to know that if you are saved, faith has already been deposited in your heart. It is part of your spiritual DNA. Romans 12:3 says that, God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Faith is something He has already given.
It is up to you to develop that faith. It is up to you to do something with it. How do you develop it? You develop it first by hearing the Word of God.
The Bible-God's Word-is the food. As you feed upon it, your faith will be strengthened.
You know those body builders, men and women who are constantly pumping weights? Well, if you talk to any serious body builder, one of the first things they will refer to is diet. You have to eat the right kind of diet if you are going to build muscle mass. Usually, their diet is protein-rich.
They faithfully drink their protein shakes and eat their tuna fish sandwiches, which, when they are consumed and digested, become the raw materials that build muscle mass.
As you feed upon and digest God's Word, that truth becomes the raw material that will build faith. It is faith food.
Most people who struggle with their faith are feeding on the wrong things. Faith comes unconsciously when you feed upon God's Word.
So today, if you feel like you are struggling in your faith, then change your diet. Start feeding more on God's Word!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Freedom and Boundaries
By Os Hillman
"And the LORD God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die'" (Gen 2:16-17).
Everyone needs the gift of freedom and boundaries in their work to succeed. God set up the ultimate work environment in the Garden of Eden. He gave Adam and Eve responsibility to manage the animals, the agriculture and every activity. He gave them specific instructions as to how things were to be done but gave liberty of expression for fulfilling their tasks.
He also told them what was off limits. They could not eat from the tree of good and evil because He knew it would be bad for them. He was not trying to withhold from them; He was trying to protect them.
If you are a manager it is your responsibility to clearly define the job responsibilities of those under your care. They should know clearly what the freedoms and the boundaries are in carrying out their duties. They should be given adequate freedoms with authority to enforce their decisions that will impact whether they can be successful or not.
Once freedoms and boundaries are established, this allows a healthy accountability to take place between management and worker. Both can have healthy expectations of each other.
Do you have a clearly defined job description with measurable goals outlined? Are your freedom and boundaries clearly defined so you know what you can and cannot do within the scope of your job? If not, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Today, evaluate your job function and make sure you have clearly defined expectations and the way in which you are expected to accomplish your tasks.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.
Business Unlimited
Remarkable Workplace Stories of Faith
Read an encouraging first-hand account by Gunnar Olson as he shares personal stories of God's activity in his business life, including actual miracles and other supernatural events that he has experienced. Also in each chapter are insightful spiritual truths relavant to workplace believers and practical "real-world" wisdom. This modern-day "book of Acts" will encourage your confidence in God and raise your faith to a whole new level!
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The Habit of Enjoying Adversity
. . . that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body -2 Corinthians 4:10
We have to develop godly habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not just a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved so that "the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." And it is adversity that makes us exhibit His life in our mortal flesh. Is my life exhibiting the essence of the sweetness of the Son of God, or just the basic irritation of "myself" that I would have apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy adversity is the acute sense of eagerness of allowing the life of the Son of God to evidence itself in me. No matter how difficult something may be, I must say, "Lord, I am delighted to obey You in this." Instantly, the Son of God will move to the forefront of my life, and will manifest in my body that which glorifies Him.
You must not debate. The moment you obey the light of God, His Son shines through you in that very adversity; but if you debate with God, you grieve His Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30 ). You must keep yourself in the proper condition to allow the life of the Son of God to be manifested in you, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God's sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to "supply all your need" ( Philippians 4:19 ).
Keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on your memories of past experiences, but let the Word of God always be living and active in you.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 15, 2009
The Secret Is
READ: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages. -1 Corinthians 2:7
If you believe Rhonda Byrne, author of the bestselling book The Secret, "The shortcut to anything you want in your life is to be and feel happy now!" According to Byrne, this has to do with something called the law of attraction. If you think only about things that make you happy, she says, happy things will be attracted to you.
Sounds easy enough.
However, the Bible says that "the secret" to life is something very different. It has to do with "the law of the Spirit of life" that sets us free from "the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2), not with the "law of attraction."
According to the apostle Paul, the most important thing to know is "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). To those who are concerned with happiness now, this is indeed foolishness (v.14). They do not recognize the power of God in what appears to them as weakness.
The Lord created us with a desire to know what is secret. In His wisdom, He kept certain things hidden in mystery for a time (v.7). But now, through His Holy Spirit, He has made them known. And the secret He reveals has nothing to do with having happy thoughts in order to obtain happy things; it has to do with having the mind of Jesus Christ (v.16). - Julie Ackerman Link
There is a law that made us free-
In Romans 8 this truth is heard;
The secret is to walk with God
And daily lean upon His Word. -Hess
To know lasting happiness, we must get to know Jesus.
Exercising the Muscle of Faith
Yesterday we looked at the importance of God's Word to strengthen our faith. Yet there is something more we need to do to see our faith grow. We must use it.
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says this about faith,
Fight the good fight of faith.
Faith is made for conflict. It does not grow without conflict. It does not grow without pressure. You need to use it.
Remember our illustration of the body builders and how a proper diet is essential to building muscle mass? Well, they will also tell you that it is not enough to drink protein shakes and eat tuna fish, you have to work those muscles if they are going to grow. They work those weights every day in order to build their muscles.
The same thing is true when it comes to faith. Faith is a muscle that you have to use. It is not enough just to listen to your Bible teaching CDs all day long. Hearing alone is not enough to develop faith. You must use your faith muscle.
That is what the fight of faith is all about. You exercise your faith when you are standing in the midst of your storm, and you are assailed by temptations and every kind of trial that tells you you're not going to make it, that you are going down with the ship.
As you stand in the midst of your storm, and the wind is howling around you, and the lightning is flashing, and the waves are breaking over the bow of your little ship, stand up and say, "I believe God, that it is going to be just as it was told me." That is where the fight of faith comes in.
No matter what you may be going through today, exercise that muscle of faith. Trust God to do just as He has promised.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Peter 1:10-13
Even angels long to look into these things. - 1 Peter 1:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Betty Jane Narver Reading Room in Seattle's Central Library is named for a woman with a passion for education, reading, and civic service. She was known for working tirelessly and lobbying graciously to make the $165.5 million building an innovative place that informed, enlightened, and enriched the lives of the millions of people who would pass through its doors (and ride its shocking-yellow escalators). Unfortunately, Betty Jane Narver died three years before the completion of the library she so faithfully promoted.
When such people devote their lives to an objective that lies beyond their own death, the people who benefit from their work owe them a debt of honor. That is especially true when we consider the Old Testament prophets who foretold the coming Savior and longed to know more about Him. The source of their longing is one of two revelations you may find surprising in this passage. It is amazing to think that the Spirit of Christ Himself revealed His own sufferings to prophets who wouldn't even live to see His coming.
The second surprise is that yet another group cannot explore the mystery of salvation: angels. They couldn't appreciate the full weight of their message when they announced the conception (Matt. 1:20-21), the birth (Luke 2:11), and the resurrection (Matt. 28:6) of Jesus Christ! The purpose of these angels appears to have been centered on delivering the news about Jesus Christ, but like the prophets of the Old Testament their communication was not for their own understanding, but for ours.
Our privilege of knowing the mystery of salvation demands our humble obedience and gratitude. Great men of God and angels in heaven deeply desired to more fully understand the salvation about which we can study endlessly and experience personally. The most important mystery of all time has been revealed to us, which ought to compel us toward holiness and a greater understanding of the precious Word of God. Also note that the truth of salvation has always been a mystery to be revealed rather than an outcome yet to be decided. Our salvation is sure!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Peter stated the practical application of this passage directly in verse 13, but we can hope to follow his command to holiness only if we believe in the grace that awaits us in Jesus Christ. The comforts of our present life can lure our eyes away from the grace that has yet to come. Consider taking an extended break from all of the worldly distractions surrounding you and dedicate the time to prayer. Set your heart and mind on Christ and thank Him for disclosing His truth.
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Fixed Seasons by Mary Wilder Tileston
Trust in Him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.
PSALMS 62:8
FROM tedious toil, from anxious care,
Dear Lord, I turn again to Thee;
Thy presence and Thy smile to share
Makes every burden light to me.
RAY PALMER
IT is a good thing to have fixed seasons for lifting up the heart to God, not merely the appointed hours of prayer, but a momentary act before and after meals, beginning any occupation, entering into society, leaving the house, etc. Especially it is a help to make such brief acts after having said or done anything either wrong or foolish, after any trifling vexation or disappointment, when the spirit feels, it may be, wounded and desolate, or when one's vanity is annoyed at having been guilty of some little folly or unseemliness. Sometimes we are more really troubled and sore at trifles of this sort than at far weightier things. But if all such things were met with a momentary uplifting of the heart to God, all these little frailties and worries would tend to mould the character more and more to God's pattern, and they would assuredly lose their sting; for he who thinks much of God will daily think less of himself.
H. L. SIDNEY LEAR
PRAY PRAY PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 18, 2009
The Heavenly Alternative
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:1-11
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. -2 Corinthians 5:8
Recently, I wished a young friend "happy birthday" and asked him how it felt to be a year older. His playful response? "Well, I guess it's better than the alternative!"
We laughed together, but I later stopped to think-is it really? Don't misunderstand me. I'm happy to live as long as the Lord allows me to live and to watch my kids and grandkids grow and experience life. I'm not excited about the inevitability of death. But as a believer, the alternative to getting older is heaven-and that's not bad!
In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul talks about the reality of living with the aches and pains of our physical bodies, our "tents" of flesh. But we should not live in despair about aging. In fact, the apostle calls us to just the opposite. He wrote, "We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord" (v.8). Confident! Pleased! Why? Because our alternative to earthly life is that we will be present with the Lord-forever! The heavenly perspective of what awaits us can give us confidence for living now.
If you know Christ, His promise can give you what the hymnwriter called, "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow." What a great alternative! - Bill Crowder
He's gone "to prepare a place for you,"
That where He is, "there you may be."
Our death is not the end of life-
We'll be with Christ eternally! -Hess
Death is gain because it means heaven, holiness, and Him!
Read: Romans 3:21-31
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. - Romans 3:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Credit card owners, retail shoppers, sweepstakes contestants, mortgage customers, and even Web site visitors have all learned the same lesson, but Bishop Fulton Sheen summed it up most succinctly. He was reviewing a contract for a television deal when he said with a sigh, "The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away."
It's understandable when people unfamiliar with the Bible balk at the simple offer of salvation in verses like John 3:16-they want to know, where's the fine print? While the Bible does have more to say about salvation than simply, "believe and be saved," the terms of salvation outlined in the Bible don't constitute a complex web of misleading promises. If anything, Scripture reveals why the principle offer of salvation is so simple: Jesus Christ actually delivers on His promises.
Today's passage explains how faith in Christ is the decisive human component in salvation. It is the channel through which true righteousness is issued from God (v. 22), the atoning work of Christ's crucifixion is imparted, and the justification of our sins is received (v. 30). These overwhelming tasks need to be accomplished for us to have a relationship with God, and faith in Christ makes it possible.
All three of those results are woven together in Jesus Christ. Justification is a pardon from our sin. Despite our guilt, God views us as not guilty-He can do that because of Christ's atoning sacrifice, which propitiates or satisfies God's wrath against sin. We can be justified because God has meted out justice through the suffering of Christ (Isa. 53:12). In fact, Paul revealed that before Christ's death, the sins of the world had yet to be punished-truly we serve a patient God (v. 25)! But God doesn't merely wipe away the record of sin. He also provides the righteousness we are unable to manufacture through our own efforts. We'll explore this reality much further in the coming days: faith isn't just the means to earn a salvation merit badge.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you believe in the saving work of Jesus Christ? That kind of faith should result in humility and obedience. Righteousness comes from God, and it's a gift that doesn't allow us to look down on anyone. Spend time this week memorizing this passage if you can, or at least select a key verse. Recite it to yourself daily as a reminder that there is no room for arrogance in the body of Christ. And praise God for His patience, mercy, and grace that allow a sinner to receive righteousness!
God Does Care
In yesterday's devotional, I told you about the three levels of faith Jesus talks about. The first of these levels is found in Mark 4:37-40,
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?" Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?"
The first level of faith that Jesus speaks about is no faith. No faith believes God does not care. It is typified by the disciples who woke Jesus in the midst of the storm and said, "Lord, don't You care that we're perishing?"
Perhaps you are in a storm today; and, to you, it seems like God is asleep and that He doesn't even care. That He is aloof, disinterested, and disconnected from you. That you are going through hell and He doesn't care.
Do not believe that lie. If you buy into the lie that God does not care, it robs you of faith. And you cannot get any lower than that.
Do not believe the lie that God is detached and unconcerned. Don't think, "If God cares about me, why would this have happened? Why am I going through this storm? Why is this happening in my life? God doesn't care about me. He doesn't even know my name."
My friend, God does care. He is not going to let you perish. He is interested in even the smallest details of your life.
1 Peter 5:7 says, He cares for you!
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
War In Heaven
READ: Revelation 12:7-12
War broke out in heaven . . . . [And Satan] was cast to the earth. -Revelation 12:7-9
Philip Pullman is a gifted writer of fantasy books. His Dark Materials trilogy includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass and is very popular among young readers. But below the surface of these sympathetic characters and compelling subplots is a sinister purpose. The story culminates in a great war against God.
In these books, Pullman views the fall of Satan as a righteous cause for personal independence from God's "tyrannical" control. He implies that Satan's attempt to usurp the throne of God was the right thing to do!
In the book of Revelation, we read of the endtimes: "War broke out in heaven . . . . [And Satan] was cast to the earth" (Rev. 12:7-9). That future war is being preceded by an earthly conflict on the battlefield of our minds.
We must recognize Satan for what he is-a liar (John 8:44). His strategy is to take God's words out of context and twist them into falsehood (Gen. 3:1-7). Our best defense against him is to hold firmly to the truth of God's Word (Eph. 6:10-18).
Our loving heavenly Father is "not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9). But neither will He force our obedience. He leaves the choice to us. - Dennis Fisher
For Further Study
Want to learn more about spiritual warfare? Read
What In The World Is Satan Doing? on the Web at
www.discovery.series.org/q1001
When Satan strikes, strike back with the Word of God.
Little Faith
In our last devotional, we looked at the first level of faith: no faith. We learned that no faith is based on the belief that God does not care, and that such a belief is completely false. God does indeed care for you!
Today we are going to look at the second level of faith. It is found in what Jesus says in Matthew 6:30-34,
"Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
This second level of faith is little faith. As we see in this passage, little faith is a worried faith, worried about tomorrow and occupied with lack instead of being occupied with God.
While people with little faith believe God cares, their focus is wrong. They are concentrating on, "What am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? How am I going to get by?"
Now, those are all legitimate things; and your Father knows you have need of those things. So rather than focusing on your lack and being worried about tomorrow, pulling tomorrow's clouds over today's sunshine, let your focus be on God and His sufficiency, His care, and His abundant love.
Do not live a life of little faith.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 1:5-2:6
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
The topic of salvation requires that we first address the reality of sin. Most people don't like to discuss sin, especially their own. As Mark Twain put it, "A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out." Unfortunately for those of us who would like to pretend we're pristinely righteous while keeping our sins hidden, confession goes hand-in-hand with salvation.
In fact, confession of our sins is intertwined with our faith in Jesus. The word Paul used to describe a proclamation of belief in today's key verse is the same compound Greek word John used in reference to admission of sins (1:9). Translated in both places as "confess," the word is formed from the combination of the Greek words for "same" and "word." A confession is an acknowledgment of the truth, expressing words that match reality.
It is impossible, as John wrote, to have a truthful understanding of our holy God without acknowledging how sinful we are. And by John's reasoning, without confessing our sins, we can't hope to walk in righteousness, and neither can we enjoy a relationship with God. We have quite a lot riding on confession! The implication of not confessing is to accuse God of lying- not a wise decision. But the results of confession are extremely desirable: fellowship with each other and purification of sin by the blood of Jesus Christ (1:7).
John's goal was to help believers stop their sinful lifestyles (2:1), filling his simple statements with deep complexity. John rejoiced in the assurance that Jesus testifies in our favor before God (2:1). While God offered forgiveness for confessing sinners, John stressed God's divine priority on righteous living. Confession is not a means for getting off the hook-confession is a gateway to an intimate relationship with God and a true life in Him!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
All our thoughts about the legitimacy of our beliefs will go for naught if they don't appear in our actions and in our words. Pay close attention to confession today in two directions. Privately confess your sins to God and freely receive His forgiveness-and be specific in your confession so as to avoid an inward denial of certain sins. But also make it a point to confess the name of Jesus to those around you. Words have a powerful effect on our actions. See what a difference speaking the truth can make!
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals May 20, 2009
Restoring Spiritual Sight
READ: John 9:1-11
The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. -Psalm 119:130
Sanduk Ruit is a Nepalese doctor who has used his scalpel, microscope, and simplified cataract surgery technique to give sight to almost 70,000 people over the past 23 years. The poorest patients who visit his nonprofit eye center in Katmandu pay with just their gratitude.
Our Lord Jesus Christ healed many of physical blindness during His time on earth. But of greater concern to Him were the spiritually blind. Many of the religious authorities who investigated the healing of the blind man refused to believe that Jesus was not a sinner (John 9:13-34). This caused Jesus to say, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind" (v.39).
The apostle Paul wrote of this spiritual blindness when he said, "If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them" (2 Cor. 4:3-4).
The psalmist said, "The entrance of Your words gives light" (Ps. 119:130). God's Word is what will open our eyes and cure spiritual blindness. - C. P. Hia
Come to the Light, 'tis shining for thee!
Sweetly the Light has dawned upon me;
Once I was blind, but now I can see-
The Light of the world is Jesus. -Bliss
A world in darkness needs the light of Jesus.
Great Faith
In today's devotional, I want to look at the third level of faith. It is found in Matthew 8:5-10,
Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!"
We saw in previous devotionals that the first level of faith is no faith, the second is little faith, and now the third is great faith.
Great faith says, "Lord, Your word is enough." The centurion said, "Only speak a word." He understood the authority of Jesus' words. He said, "Jesus, all You have to do is say it. You don't even have to come into my house. I don't have to see anything. Your word is all the evidence I need."
That is what great faith says, "Lord, Your Word is all the evidence I need. Things don't have to look differently and I don't have to feel differently. Your Word is it. I don't need any other kind of confirmation. It doesn't matter what the circumstances say. Lord, Your Word settles the issue for me."
That is great faith, and that is what we should be pursuing.
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Ephesians 2:1-9
It is by grace you have been saved. - Ephesians 2:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
In ten major league seasons, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays finished at the very bottom of their division every year but one, when they climbed to second-to-last place. They never won more than 70 games in a season (and never lost fewer than 90). But after the 2007 season, the Devil Rays ceased to exist and the Tampa Bay Rays were born. They changed the team colors, the logo, and the mascot-a ray of light instead of a tropical fish. The biggest change, though, was winning. Their remarkable transformation culminated with an appearance in the 2008 World Series.
Paul told the Ephesians of a much more dramatic turnaround-their own. The narrative in Ephesians 2 is succinct and powerful, and it is the story of every believer in Christ. But Paul's story ventures into territory modern Christians rarely explore. Not many stories today begin with the focal character being dead, but Paul told the conversion experience from a spiritual perspective. Spiritually speaking, a person without faith is dead in sin. Such a person isn't merely dead, but also controlled by wicked forces, presumably under the authority and influence of Satan (v. 2). That dreadful background of sin, death, and wicked subservience is common to us all, and we all deserved destruction (v. 3).
The process from death to life isn't very complicated, according to Paul's telling of the story. According to Ephesians 2, the conversion story of believers is essentially as basic and glorious as Paul's was-God loved us, and in His mercy He gave us life. As we see it unfold, the details vary and the timeline can be extended. But from God's perspective, He has already raised us up and given us a heavenly seat next to Jesus (v. 6)!
From lowly beginning to exultant conclusion, the story of a believer's salvation is much bigger than we tend to realize, encompassing the reign of Satan and the conquering victory of Jesus Christ. And not a bit of that story has anything to do with our own merits. We are saved by the grace of God. We are living examples of God's loving-kindness at work.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It is relatively easy to think that God's grace is responsible for our salvation, but it is much more difficult to believe in our hearts and apply in our attitudes. Pride stirs within us waiting for an opportunity to erupt-the best way to defeat it is to praise God for what He has done. Verbally give Him credit for everything He has given you, especially your salvation. And don't just praise Him on Sunday mornings; incorporate praise of God into your everyday conversation.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 21, 2009
Is He Enough?
READ: Acts 3:1-10
Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. -Acts 3:6
Is Jesus enough? That's a question many Christians need to ask themselves. They have abundant material possessions. But do these believers depend on Jesus? Or on their stuff?
While having wealth is not condemned in Scripture as long as priorities are in order and the needs of others are addressed, those of us with relative wealth must remind ourselves that Jesus-not riches-sustains us.
The apostle Peter helps us with this in the story of the lame man begging at the temple gate in Jerusalem. This man asked Peter for money, but Peter replied, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk" (Acts 3:6).
The man lying at the gate thought the answer to his problems that day was money, but Peter showed him that the answer was Jesus. And He still is.
I read about a group of Chinese Christians who have much to teach us as they seek to spread the gospel in their homeland and beyond. These believers say, "We can't afford any big programs or fancy gospel presentations. All we have to give people is Jesus."
Jesus is enough for our brothers and sisters in China. He is enough for the poor. Is He enough for you? - Dave Branon
You may have much gold and grandeur,
Yet by God be reckoned poor;
He alone has riches truly
Who has Christ, though nothing more. -Anon.
Our greatest riches are the riches we have in Christ.
Your Purpose
Today I want to speak to you about your destiny and purpose. First, read Ephesians 2:10,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The word beforehand refers to before the foundation of the world. What the apostle Paul is saying in this verse is that before we were ever born, God prepared good works for us to walk in them. God decided that we would be doing certain things.
Listen to that same verse from the Knox Translation, We are His design. God has created us in Christ Jesus, pledged to such good actions as He has prepared beforehand to be the employment of our lives. I like that.
Paraphrased, "You were designed with a unique purpose, and that is what you should be doing with your life."
In Philippians 3:12, Paul also states,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
The phrase "I press on" literally means "I pursue." What is it that Paul states he is pursuing? He is pursuing his purpose.
On that Damascus road, Jesus laid hold of Saul of Tarsus, and He did it for a reason. There was a purpose involved. From the day that Jesus Christ laid hold of him, Paul's life became a progressive search to lay hold of the answer to the question, "God, why have You laid hold of me? What is my purpose?"
My point? You have a God-designed purpose in life! There is something that you are wired up to do as the employment of your life.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1941, the whooping crane was on the brink of extinction; a single migrating flock of 15 birds comprised the entire population of the species. To help introduce more flocks into the wild, a group called Operation Migration trains whooping cranes that have been raised in captivity to fly south for the winter using a human-guided aircraft. The birds trust one human alone, recognizing him as a parent from the moment they hatch. They will follow him and only him to a migration spot thousands of miles away-and after the winter, they return home.
The technique that is saving the whooping crane resembles, in a sense, Christ's method for leading us to our heavenly home. Jesus' message to the disciples in this passage begins with the thought of a home in heaven. He gave them assurance that He was going to prepare a heavenly residence where they would join the Father. But He mystified them with the notion that they already knew how to get there.
Christ's explanation was profound for His audience then and remains so today. He alone is the way to the Father; He alone portrays the truth of who the Father is; and He alone gives eternal life in communion with the Father. We may not be able to plot our eternal destiny on a map, but we know exactly how to get there-Jesus is the Way.
This passage refutes two common heresies. One is the belief that many paths will get to God. Jesus allowed for no such multiplicity (v. 6). He followed up His exclusive claim with an even bolder one: that seeing Him was tantamount to seeing the Father. This claim speaks against the heresy that Jesus merely has a close relationship with God but does not possess a divine nature. Philip missed the gravity of Jesus' statement, probably expecting Jesus to unveil the glory of the Father in a separate grand display. He echoed Moses' request in Exodus 33:18-23 when God told him, "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." But Jesus was the unveiling. They had seen God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Pondering the exclusive claims of Jesus triggers feelings of sorrow for those who have never heard His name or refuse to believe He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Sometimes this sorrow provokes our fears of being narrow-minded or cruel, but that's the wrong perspective. Look through the eyes of Christ, not through the darkness of this world. Introduce someone to Jesus today, and trust Him to open eyes. To do so is to reflect His compassion and love; it is not close-minded, but open-hearted.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 22, 2009
I'm Right; You Must Be Wrong
READ: Luke 6:37-42
Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. -Luke 6:37
My friend Ria admires the great blue heron's amazing 6-foot spread of wings and marvels at his majestic appearance. She welcomes the sight of him gliding in for a landing on a small island in the middle of the pond near her home.
Now, I can appreciate that the heron is a marvelous and unique creature. But I don't ever want to spot him in my backyard! That's because I know he won't be there just to admire the garden. No, this not-so-fine-feathered version of persona non grata (someone not welcome) will be checking out our pond for a take-out fish dinner!
So, am I right? Or is Ria? Why can't we agree? Different personalities, history, or knowledge can color people's views. It doesn't mean that one person is right and the other wrong, yet sometimes we can be unkind, rigid, and judgmental if there is not agreement. I'm not talking about sin-but just a difference in opinion or perspective. We need to take care in judging others' thinking, motives, and actions because we too desire that kind of benefit of the doubt (Luke 6:37).
Can we learn from someone who sees things with a different perspective? Do we need to practice a little patience and love? I'm so grateful that God is abundantly patient and loving with me. - Cindy Hess Kasper
You've been so patient with us, Lord,
Though we are slow to hear;
Give us the grace to show such love
To those we hold so dear. -K. De Haan
A little love can make a big difference.
The Place of Blessing
In Genesis 12:1-3 we read,
Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Notice how God says to Abram, "Abram, I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." But here is what I want you to see: Abram's being a blessing was tied to being in God's purpose. He could only become a great blessing if he followed God's calling.
You will never be the blessing God intends for you to be if you are not flowing in your purpose.
Was there risk involved for Abram? You bet! He had to leave everything that was familiar to him, all of his security, everything that was comfortable and familiar.
He left Ur of the Chaldeans, which history tells us was one of the most highly developed cities of the ancient world. They had cobblestone streets, an underground sewage system, and it was a place of world trade.
Abram left all of that and went out on an adventure by faith, pursuing the purpose that God had for his life. And in pursuing that purpose, God blessed him, and he became a blessing.
But think about this. What if he had stayed back? What if he had said, "I'm secure here; I have it made; I have a nice house and everything I need. I think I will stay put." We would not even know his name.
Pursue your purpose. That is the place of God's blessing.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Romans 5:1-11
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. - Romans 5:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Katherine Harmon's book, You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, differs greatly from a standard atlas. She compiled instead a great variety of essays, illustrations, and pictures that map out emotions, life stories, and philosophical concepts, including a "Geographical Guide to a Man's Heart with Obstacles and Entrances Clearly Marked."
In Romans 5, Paul gives readers another unconventional map: a "You Are Here" guide to the course of salvation. He reminds them about where their faith had taken them in the heavenly realms, where they stood in the grace of God, and where they were headed in eternal glory. It is a helpful resource for any believer who feels lost, confused, or discouraged by their current circumstances.
The first two verses give us a quick synopsis of past, present, and future salvation while the rest of the passage expounds upon those stages. The first point on the map was God's love for us, even while we were sinners (v. 8); indeed we were His enemies (v. 10)! Despite our lowly status, God gave His Son to die for the ungodly. Paul emphasized that it was God, and not us, who originated this journey. Then, at the moment we first believed in Christ, we were declared righteous in God's eyes. That path brought us into a state of peace with God as our relationship with Him was restored or reconciled.
Our current state of reconciliation with God was one reason Paul gave for us to rejoice right now (v. 11). The other cause for celebration in the here and now was actually our lack of peace with the world. Our present sufferings cause us to persevere toward the future, shaping us into the people God wants us to be and creating in us a longing for the glory that awaits (v. 4). We have a hope that is emboldened by the Spirit of God pouring the love of God straight into our hearts (v. 5)! Our hope points toward the ultimate destination on the salvation map: being spared from the wrath of God and sharing instead in His eternal glory (vv. 2, 9).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Why not spend some time today mapping out the course of your salvation? You don't need to draw out an actual map (although doing so would certainly make for an interesting illustration). At the very least, write down some of the key points in your journey of faith. Include among them God's love for you from the beginning, the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, and the eternal glory that awaits you in heaven. Be encouraged that your present situation is a part of that glorious path toward Christ!
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 23, 2009
Make Way
READ: Isaiah 40:3-5
Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. -Isaiah 40:3
Dwight D. Eisenhower was known for his courageous leadership during World War II. His battle-tested skill equipped the troops to reclaim Europe. Soon after returning to the US as a hero, he was elected president.
While in Europe, Eisenhower had experienced the danger and difficulty of navigating the twisting roads. So, for the sake of US national security, he commissioned a network of roads that became the nation's interstate highway system. Mountains were tunneled through and valleys were traversed by mammoth bridges.
In ancient times, conquering kings gained access to newly acquired territories through highways built for their troops. Isaiah had this in mind when he declared, "Make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isa. 40:3). And John the Baptist called people to repentance to "prepare the way" into their hearts for the arrival of King Jesus.
What preparation needs to be done to allow Jesus unhindered access to your own heart? Are there rough places of bitterness that need the bulldozer of forgiveness? Are there valleys of complaining that need to be filled with contentment? We can't afford to neglect this spiritual engineering. Let's prepare the way for the King! - Joe Stowell
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way;
He works in ways we cannot see,
He will make a way for me. -Moen
© 1990, Integrity's Hosanna! Music.
Repentance clears the way for our relationship with the King.
The Signpost of a Provoked Heart
Without a doubt, God has plans for you. Your life is no accident. You have a purpose. In today's devotional, we will discover an important key to help you understand your calling.
Let's look first at Acts 17:16-17,
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
The word provoked literally means that his spirit was deeply troubled, his spirit was grieved within him.
That gives us the first step in understanding your purpose. What grieves your heart? Paul was grieved about this city wholly given over to idols. And the next verse begins with the word therefore. He did something about it.
Generally, the things that grieve you in your heart are things that God has gifted you to change. They point you to your purpose.
For instance, in Job 30:25, Job said, "Has not my soul grieved for the poor?" If you read Job's story, a big part of his ministry had to do with helping the poor. It was tied to what caused his heart to grieve.
Then there was David who was grieved and provoked as Goliath was taunting the Israelites. Why? David was called to be a leader and a warrior in Israel. It was a signpost pointing to his calling.
What is it that provokes you in your heart? Whatever it is, do something about it.
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 10:22-30
They shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. - John 10:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
People suffering from hypochondria are overcome with fear that they have contracted a serious disease despite all assurances to the contrary. The stress and anxiety can be so acute that the fear of sickness can cause real symptoms such as heart palpitations, stomach pain, and tingling in the extremities. One of the only treatments for this irrational fear of disease is cognitive behavioral therapy, a process of reconfiguring the way people think about and act toward their health.
The question of eternal security can induce a form of spiritual hypochondria. When we concentrate on our sins rather than on our Savior, we can be overcome with fear about our eternal destiny. We begin to ask the question about ourselves or others, "Would a true believer really do that?" But sin is a condition that afflicts us all. For our spiritual health, we should turn our eyes to the One who can heal us.
The Jews in today's passage were asking the more appropriate question: Was Jesus the Christ? Unfortunately, they were oblivious to the answer. If they truly believed in who Jesus was, they would have recognized what His miraculous works had said about Him and followed Him-not just by following His example of righteousness, but with entirety of purpose. Those who are truly His sheep know His calling and would follow only Him. They are still vulnerable to wandering, as sheep are prone to do, but they never forget the Shepherd. What's more, He never forgets them (v. 27).
The process of salvation as Jesus described it is fascinating. The Father gives believers to Jesus, believers follow Him, and it is Jesus who gives them eternal life. The security of the believer then rests entirely in the almighty grip of Jesus and His Father, who are one in unity (while remaining distinct Persons). Jesus managed to give believers supreme hope that nothing could take their eternal life away while at the same time dashing the hopes of anyone who rejected Him. The Jews understood the implication of Jesus' statement, even though they didn't believe it. They tried to stone Him for blasphemy.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you believe your salvation in Christ is secure? Remember that your faith is not in the doctrine of eternal security-it's in the One from whose hand we can never be snatched! You are not saved by your lack of sin, your good works, or anything other than faith in Christ. If you truly believe in Christ, live for Him and obey Him. Instead of counting the sins of other believers, we should be more concerned with people who appear to do good but fail to recognize Christ as their Savior.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 24, 2009
The Witness Of Friends
READ: 1 John 1:1-7
We have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. -1 John 1:2
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam died in a traffic accident 5 months before the publication of his landmark book about the US war in Korea. In the days following the author's death, fellow writers and colleagues volunteered to conduct a national book tour on his behalf. During every engagement, they paid tribute to Halberstam by reading from his new book and offering personal recollections of their friend.
When it comes to conveying the essence and importance of a person, there's no substitute for a friend. After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, His followers began to tell others about the unique Person they had known. "We have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us" (1 John 1:2). Their purpose was that others might come to know God the Father and Christ His Son (v.3).
At times we may feel that witnessing to others about our faith in Christ is a frightening task or a burdensome duty. But talking about a Friend whose presence and influence have transformed our lives helps us see it in a new light.
The gospel of Christ has always been most powerfully presented by the witness of His friends. - David C. McCasland
Lord, help us see, through transformed eyes,
This world of people in despair;
We want to reach out with Your love
To tell them just how much You care. -Sper
The more you love Jesus, the more you'll talk about Him.
Intimacy with God
Paul, in Philippians 3:10-12, gives us the other principle for discovering your purpose,
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul said, "I am pursuing my purpose," but it was a purpose based on knowing God. Look at what he said in verse 10, That I may know Him.
The understanding of his purpose came out of that primary desire and pursuit of knowing God Himself and living in intimacy with Him.
Perhaps the most important thing you could do in your life right now is to just lock yourself away, grab your Bible, and go sit at the beach. Find that place of communion with God. As you get to know Him, you will also discover your own heart and the dreams and desires that God put within you.
They are there. They may be covered with debris, they may be covered with dust, but they are there. You can find out what they are if you will develop that intimate relationship with God.
It is in closeness with God that His breath blows the dust off of undiscerned and unrecognized purposes and dreams.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Romans 10:4-13
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. - Joel 2:32
TODAY IN THE WORD
In one of his final addresses to the people of Israel, Moses laid out before them a simple choice: life or death, blessing or curse, obedience or wickedness, loyalty or rebellion (Deut. 30:19). The Israelites could either remain with God and enjoy life or abandon Him and reap death. It wasn't a test of their abilities but a question of their will. Moses informed them that the Word was not out of their reach (Deut. 30:11-14) and that God would impart unto them the ability to obey it (Deut. 30:6).
Moses was speaking about the Word of God that was delivered to His people in the form of the law. In today's reading, Paul overlaid the image of Christ against the backdrop of Moses' well-known speech. He quoted the passage three times (vv. 6-8 use excerpts from Deut. 30:12-14) to draw a parallel between the written Word of God (the law) and the Word made flesh (Christ). Just as God had made His law available to the people, He also made His Son accessible.
No one needed to ascend to the heavens, because the Son of God was born on earth. And no one needed to cross over into the world of the dead, for Christ had risen! Believing in your heart in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to be saved, with Him and through Him, from death. It's a simple choice: life or death, Jesus or anything else. And believing in Jesus' true identity as the Son of God is equally important.
In his address in Deuteronomy 30, Moses used the word Lord or the Lord your God 15 times in 20 verses. Paul wasn't just drawing a connection between the law of the Old Testament and the Word of the New; he was identifying Jesus Christ with Yahweh, the Lord of Israel. To a Jewish audience, this was no small statement. Confessing with their mouths that Jesus is Lord was to acknowledge that He was more than just a man. Jesus the Nazarene was and is one with the God of Heaven. That confession, speaking the truth about who Jesus is, brings justification and permission to enter God's presence.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? If you are saying "yes" for the first time or the four hundredth time, you will find salvation through that belief. You are not on your own now to produce righteousness. Unlike physical birth, upon which a baby is separated from its mother, spiritual birth brings you into life in connection with Christ. Don't let a day go by without acknowledging that Jesus is Lord. Let that truth be the beginning of a day of serving Him in obedience.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 25, 2009
The Arlington Ladies
READ: Matthew 26:6-13
What this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her. -Matthew 26:13
In 1948, the US Air Force Chief of Staff noticed that no one attended the funeral of an airman at Arlington National Cemetery, and that deeply disturbed him. He talked with his wife about his concern that each soldier be honored at burial, and she began a group called the Arlington Ladies.
Someone from the group honors each deceased soldier by attending his or her funeral. The ladies also write personal notes of sympathy and speak words of gratitude to family members when they are present. If possible, a representative keeps in contact with the family for months afterward.
Margaret Mensch, an Arlington Lady, says, "The important thing is to be there for the families. . . . It's an honor to . . . pay tribute to the everyday heroes that make up the armed forces."
Jesus showed the importance of paying tribute. After a woman poured a costly, fragrant oil on His head, He said that she would be honored for years to come (Matt. 26:13). The disciples were indignant and thought her act was wasteful, but Jesus called it "a good work" (v.10) for which she would be remembered.
We know heroes who have given their lives in service to God and their country. Let's honor them today. - Anne Cetas
Lord, help us to appreciate
The work that others do,
The service given from their hearts,
Their sacrifice for You. -Sper
We honor God when we honor one another.
Weeping
In 1 Samuel 30:1-4 we read,
Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
David experienced the sudden loss of his family and it tore his heart out. Notice that David and his men lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
Feeling sorrow and anguish and expressing it is not wrong. In fact, it is normal, especially when you have experienced a sudden and personal loss.
Perhaps, like David, you have lost family members. Or maybe you have wayward children. They were brought up in the way of the Lord, but they are living a lifestyle that is diametrically opposed to the ways of God right now, and your heart is broken when you think about it.
Maybe you have experienced some other loss in your life, something of value, something that is important to you, something that has meaning to you. If so, it is okay to grieve!
God has wired us to be emotional beings. We are not robots. It is right for loss to affect us on a personal, emotional level. As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:4, there is a time to weep.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).
Sorrow has its place and its time, but there is also a time for it to end and to be replaced with something else.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Hebrews 5:1-10
Once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. - Hebrews 5:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
The word monopoly usually carries a negative connotation, but sometimes it's really a good thing. A patent is a sort of monopoly that protects an inventor from having his idea stolen and copied. Natural monopolies mean only one entity can provide goods or services. Typically public utilities have been natural monopolies, and some small towns might have only one doctor. In these cases, one option is better than none at all, especially when your well being is at stake.
Christians are often accused of unfairly believing that Jesus has a monopoly on salvation. But other objects of faith aren't able to give people access to heaven for the simple reason that they lack the power to do it. Jesus Christ has a supernatural monopoly on salvation because He alone has the unique capability to usher sinful people into communion with a holy God. The writer of Hebrews called Him "the source of eternal salvation," (v. 9) and explained how He is superior to every high priest before Him.
As a bridge between God and man, a high priest had to be connected to both. Despite his lofty position, a high priest was chosen from among the people and was guilty of sins just like they were. He needed to identify with the weaknesses of the people he was representing. His connection with God and the opportunity to intercede came not from his own merits but from the fact that God bestowed the honor upon him (v. 4). In that sense, Christ was no different.
Jesus didn't bypass the procedure for becoming high priest. He was born as a man. He was appointed by God. He endured the sufferings and weaknesses of human form, and although He never sinned, He was tempted as we are (Heb. 4:15). The One who needed no sacrifice became ours, and He who demands our obedience was obedient Himself. In so doing, He became the perfect High Priest who can both fully identify with our role as followers and yet perfectly commune with our Holy Father. Jesus is the sole source of salvation because He alone was able to pay the price (v. 9).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you believe that Jesus can completely identify with your sufferings? Do you really accept that He is also divine? And given those two amazing truths, do you also believe that He represents you before God? If so, things like worry, selfishness, and pride have no place in the equation. Respond to that truth in two ways. First, be humbled that you have a place in the divine plan; second, be empowered to serve Christ in whatever way He asks.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 26, 2009
Calling Evil Good
READ: Isaiah 5:18-23
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil! -Isaiah 5:20
The Wizard of Oz has remained popular for years. People of all ages have learned moral lessons from Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion as they traveled down the yellow brick road. Of course, in the plot line the great enemy to be overcome is the Wicked Witch of the West. Evil is clearly depicted and overcome by good.
A new Broadway musical, however, turns the moral sense of the original story on its head. In this rewriting of the story, the wicked witch is presented as a sympathetic character. Born with green skin, she feels like an outsider. Major characters, plot lines, roles, and other details are altered so that the wicked witch is really just a misunderstood person. The audience might come away with the idea that evil is good and good is evil.
During the ministry of the prophet Isaiah, a reversal of moral values took place in Israel. Some actually lifted up the evils of murder, idolatry, and adultery as good. In response, Isaiah gave a stern warning: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil!" (Isa. 5:20). In our relativistic world, popular culture constantly challenges biblical values. But studying, memorizing, and meditating on God's Word can ensure our discernment between good and evil. - Dennis Fisher
In our day-to-day existence,
Evil sometimes wears a mask;
Trust the Lord for true discernment-
He gives wisdom when we ask. -Hess
If we know the truth, we can discern what's false.
Taking Responsibility
In the devotional yesterday, we saw how it is okay when we experience loss to weep and to grieve. I want to point you to verse 6 of that same passage to learn another important lesson related to experiencing loss. 1 Samuel 30:6 says,
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him. David was not only grieving for the loss of his own family, but he was now being blamed for the whole thing. In fact, they were blaming him to the point that they wanted to take his life.
When you experience troubles, do not be someone who always wants to blame others. I know that it is human nature to want to point the finger and to lash out at somebody else when we are in trouble or when we have experienced loss.
In fact, I think blaming others is just part of our fallen fleshly DNA. Just take a look at what Adam and Eve did in the garden when they messed up. When God turned up and asked what happened, Adam said, "Well, it's the woman that You gave me. She gave me from the tree, and I ate."
And when God asked Eve what happened, she replied, "Well, it was the serpent. It was the snake."
So Adam blamed his wife, and blamed God who gave him his wife, and Eve blamed the snake. Neither Adam nor Eve took personal responsibility. It was somebody else's fault.
If the problems you are experiencing today are your fault, take responsibility, and do not blame others.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Ephesians 2:10-22
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. - Ephesians 2:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2003, representatives from the Hatfield and McCoy families signed a truce to put an official end to the feud that had ended practically a century ago. The once embattled relationship has now become the center of an annual co-family reunion with attendance in the thousands, echoing the prayer included in the treaty: "We ask by God's grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America." Israel might be known today for conflict with Palestinians, but in Paul's day a different division took center stage. Today's reading begins with the results of salvation for the individual, but it culminates in a much broader result of salvation: the unification of Israel and the church, two groups who have been divided by history, controversy, and a principal disagreement on the identity of Christ. As we begin studying the results of salvation, we see quickly that salvation leads to the impossible becoming not only possible but also expected. Before our salvation, doing good works to please God was futile (Isa. 64:6), but after salvation good works become our preordained purpose. We are also saved unto unity both with God and with other believers-most notably, God's chosen nation of Israel. In our current global climate, the heart of today's passage might still appear to be impossible. How could Jesus both divide and unite these two groups? But we mustn't make the mistake of confusing popular opinion with the will of God. The truth is, there are many people of Jewish descent who believe in Christ-Paul being a notable example. And through Christ we have all been brought near to God and together with each other. Now all who believe in the name of Christ are united under the same head and the same covenant. We are saved from division and are united in Christ, created unto good works and constantly being built together as one (v. 22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Upon the moment of faith, a believer is indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13), but the individual is not His only dwelling place. Paul also described the body of believers from all backgrounds as part of a holy temple being built together as His dwelling place. Unity is a must in the house of the Lord. Put aside any petty divisions both in your church and outside your denomination and long and pray to be united with all believers by the One who brings us peace, Jesus Christ.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 27, 2009
None So Blind
READ: Psalm 82
Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. -Matthew 25:40
Singer Ray Stevens is generally given credit for writing the phrase "There is none so blind as he who will not see," a line from the song "Everything Is Beautiful." But preacher Matthew Henry used the phrase 250 years ago when commenting on the lyrics of another songwriter, Asaph.
Asaph's lyrics were not as upbeat as those of Stevens. His song was a rebuke to the Israelites for failing to fulfill their God-given purpose. God had chosen them to show the world how to live right and judge justly, but they were failing miserably. Instead of defending the weak and fatherless, they were defending the unjust and showing partiality to the wicked (Ps. 82:2-3).
In his commentary on Psalm 82, Henry wrote: "A gift in secret blinds their eyes. They know not because they will not understand. None so blind as those that will not see. They have baffled their own consciences, and so they walk on in darkness."
Jesus confirmed God's interest in the weak and helpless. He explained that whatever is done for the "least of these" is done for Him (see Matt. 25:34-40). And He chided His disciples for keeping children away from Him (Luke 18:16).
Those who have eyes that see what God sees find ways to help the helpless. - Julie Ackerman Link
Love through me, Love of God,
There is no love in me;
O Fire of love, light Thou the love
That burns perpetually. -Carmichael
© Dohnavur Fellowship.
A test of true Christian love: Do you help those who can't help you in return?
Strengthen Yourself
For today's devotional, I would like you to read 1 Samuel 30:6 again as it contains another truth I want you to see,
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
Notice that this verse begins by saying, David was greatly distressed, but it ends this way, But David strengthened himself in the Lord.
It is all right to weep, but when you are done, you need to strengthen yourself. It is all right to grieve, it is all right to express those emotions, but when you are done, you need to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
You need to connect with God in whatever way you find is best for you. If it is lifting your hands and worshiping Him, then that is what you should do.
If it is getting into His Word (which I would suggest for everyone) and spending time feeding your spirit, then do that. If it is reminding yourself about how God has helped you in the past, you need to do that.
Personally I believe that is what David was doing when the Bible says he "strengthened himself in the Lord." I think David was reminding himself about:
· How God delivered him from the lion and the bear;
· How God delivered Goliath into his hands; and
· How God delivered him when Saul tried to kill him.
I am confident David was thinking, "You know, God hasn't delivered me so miraculously in my past to get to this point and to let go of my hand and abandon me. I know He is going to help me now."
David was strengthening himself in the Lord, and you need to learn to do the same thing.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: James 2:14-26
Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. - Philippians 2:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Near the end of the nineteenth century, a young doctor abandoned his general practice to specialize in ophthalmology. His status as an eye doctor, though, soon became a matter of philosophical debate: is a doctor with no patients really a doctor? Without any patients calling or visiting, the so-called doctor had plenty of spare time to focus on other things, like writing. And that is why the failed ophthalmologist, Arthur Conan Doyle, is better known as an author than a doctor.
Such is the problem of a Christian whose faith never results in good works-he is like a doctor who doesn't practice medicine. Just as Sir Conan Doyle was fully capable of treating patients, a believer is empowered by faith unto righteousness (Eph. 2:10). But without good works, our faith becomes little more than a work of fiction. James called that kind of faith useless and dead, asking rhetorically if such faith is truly saving faith (v. 14).
This passage is controversial in light of Paul's assertion that justification comes not by works but by faith. For the sake of argument, he presented faith and works as separate and distinct elements. The book of James makes an important clarification: practically, faith and works form a connection as vital as the spirit and the body. Just as the spirit departs when a body dies, the absence of good works signifies a dead faith.
James referred to the example of Abraham, who was commended for his faith-and his faith was substantiated by his actions. Imagine what the book of Genesis would look like had Abraham believed God but stayed home. A Christian who does no more good works than a demon can hardly take heart in the merit of their faith! Still, we must remember that faith is a prerequisite to doing anything pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6). Works without faith is like a doctor who has never attended medical school-without faith, we completely lack the qualifications for righteousness.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This topic has provoked difficult debate, but it's remarkably simple to live out. Doctors practice medicine. Lawyers practice law. Writers write. Builders build. In the same manner, Christians live like Christ. We shouldn't wonder how many good works we have to do or try to gauge the quality of other believers' good deeds. Focus instead on obeying God's Word. Following Christ is what you do. If you believe in Him, carry out the mission and the purpose He laid out for you. That's no mystery.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 28, 2009
Witnesses
READ: Acts 1:1-11
You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me . . . to the end of the earth. -Acts 1:8
In a criminal court case, witnesses provide vital information about a possible crime. Being a witness means telling the court the truth about what you know.
Just as the criminal justice system relies heavily on witnesses, Jesus uses bold, faithful, and credible witnesses to spread His Word and build His church.
Before Jesus ascended to His Father, He gave His disciples a final command-to launch a worldwide witnessing campaign. The Holy Spirit would come upon them and give them supernatural power to be His witnesses throughout the world (Acts 1:8).
Jesus called these early apostles to go into a world where people did not know about Him and to give a truthful account of what they had seen, heard, and experienced (Acts 4:19-20). Since they had witnessed His perfect life, teachings, suffering, death, burial, and resurrection (Luke 24:48; Acts 1-5), they were to go out and give a truthful testimony about Him.
In taking the gospel to the ends of the world, we are called to testify to the truth about Jesus and how He has changed our lives. "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" (Rom. 10:14). What are you doing to tell others? - Marvin Williams
Lord and Savior, Christ divine,
Reign within this heart of mine;
May my witness ever be
Always, only, Lord, for Thee. -Brandt
God has left us in the world to witness to the world.
Inquire of the Lord
1 Samuel 30:8 tells us what David did next as He sought to deal with the troubles that besieged him. After grieving and strengthening himself in the Lord, here is what he did,
So David inquired of the LORD, saying, "Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?" And He answered him, "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all."
David inquired of the Lord.
There is a story in the book of Joshua that shows the importance of inquiring of God, of seeking His guidance, no matter how things may seem.
The nation of Israel had entered the Promised Land and they were gaining great victories. One day a group of Gibeonites showed up. They had bags full of old moldy bread, their sandals were worn out, their water skins were cracked and old, and their clothing was old and worn.
They told Joshua and the leaders that they had come from a country far, far away. They went on to tell them they had heard about the great things God was doing through Israel, and they wanted to make sure they would not be attacked. So they had traveled from afar to make a covenant so that when Israel eventually reached them in the future, they wouldn't attack the Gibeonites.
The Bible says specifically that Joshua and the men did not inquire of the Lord. Rather, they looked at the people's provisions...the moldy bread, the old sandals, the old water skins...and they made a covenant with them.
It turns out they were the next door neighbors and Israel had been deceived. And it caused huge problems in Israel's future.
I am telling you, things are not always as they appear. It pays to inquire of the Lord when you are going through difficult times. He will lead you.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Ephesians 4:17-32
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. - Romans 12:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
There's an old saying about ideas that are straightforward to some people but incomprehensible to others: "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't understand, no explanation is possible." Many Bible passages fall into this category, as a lack of understanding often has to do more with the will than the intellect.
Today's passage is a good example. You could gain a lifetime's worth of wisdom by reading Paul's instructions to the Ephesians in these verses without additional commentary. The truth is easy to follow and simple to understand. Were it not for that matter of our old selves residing in our flesh, Paul's exhortation would be extremely easy to apply as well. But someone who doesn't believe that this is the Word of God might not understand this text.
The opening three verses read like a commentary on today's society. Paul put a particularly strong emphasis on the importance of the mind. The Gentile culture was so desensitized and steeped in spiritual ignorance that people had an insatiable addiction to gross sensual indulgence. Their minds were clouded and their hearts hardened. It's interesting that their downfall was mental and spiritual before the physical aspect ever came into play.
Believers were not immune to that same kind of lust-in fact, they were saved from it. Paul insisted on a simple internal adjustment that would result in a complete lifestyle transformation: cast aside the old self and put on the new by accepting a new, godly mindset. His portrait of what their new lives should look like is not the stuff of advanced theology. Any believer can understand these commandments. By God's grace we are saved from the darkness of a worldly mindset and the hardened hearts bred by skepticism and self-sufficiency. The new life God has for us is one of righteousness, holiness, and service that benefits others.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Don't ever believe the accusation that Christianity forbids thinking. A mind clouded in ignorance is just another feature of the old self that Paul insists we do away with. Today, try to make a connection between the things you do, feel, and say and the mindset behind each one of them. Are your activities based on biblical truth or personal desires? Is your conversation or emotional state fueled by anger or governed by the Word and Spirit of God? Ask God to renew your mind where it is most needed.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 29, 2009
Armed For The Fray
READ: Ephesians 6:10-18
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. -Ephesians 6:11
Paul the apostle, a spiritual warrior, testified as he came to the end of his embattled life: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7).
Years earlier, that valiant soldier of Jesus Christ had pleaded with his fellow Christians to put on the armor of God that would enable them to stand firm in their conflict with the powers of darkness. He knew the vital importance of donning that armor every day. In his service for Christ, Paul had been whipped, beaten, stoned, and imprisoned, and was often hungry, thirsty, cold, and weary (2 Cor. 11:22-28).
Strapping on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (God's Word) enabled Paul to "quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one" (Eph. 6:14-17). With God's armor we too are fully covered and prepared for battle.
The prince of darkness with his hosts of demonic helpers is an incredibly crafty foe. That's why we need to guard against his deceitful devices and put on the whole armor of God every day. When we do, like Paul when he was nearing the end of his days, we can be confident that we have "kept the faith." - Vernon C. Grounds
Sound the battle cry! See-the foe is nigh!
Raise the standard high for the Lord;
Gird your armor on, stand firm, everyone;
Rest your cause upon His holy Word. -Sherwin
God's armor is tailormade for you, but you must put it on.
Global Harvest
In Mark 16:15 Jesus said,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
In Matthew 13:38 He said,
"The field is the world..."
We need to lift up our eyes upon the harvest field "of the world."
It may sound crazy, but God is expecting us to do something about the salvation of the whole world!
In James chapter five, we are told that God is like a farmer waiting patiently for the precious fruit "of the earth." The implication there is that the Lord is coming, but there is a great global harvest coming first.
Here are some things you can do to be a part of reaching the world for Christ:
· Pray - Matthew 9:37-38 says, Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
· Give - Generously support ministries that are reaching the lost. Make the mission outreaches of your own church a priority.
· Go - Jesus' command to go is to all believers. At the very least, take a short term missions trip to share the Good News with others.
Remember, the only things we will take to heaven with us are the precious souls we have brought to Christ.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Corinthians 15:50-58
The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. - 1 Corinthians 15:42-43
TODAY IN THE WORD
To children familiar with the Bible, John 11:35 may be a helpful bit of trivia as the shortest verse in the Bible. But to anyone whose spirit is bending under the load of grief from losing a loved one, the two-word verse can be a source of immense encouragement. Because the death of a good friend, even one who would be raised to life in mere moments, deeply affected even our Lord and Savior. When He visited the grave of Lazarus, "Jesus wept."
As bottomless as our mourning over death may be, there is no limit to the joy of knowing that God gives us the ultimate victory over death through Jesus Christ (v. 57)! To capture the monumental significance of Jesus' power, Paul quoted from two Old Testament prophets. The first was Isaiah 25:8, which contains a promise of salvation; the second, Hosea 13:14, originally served as a proclamation of death and judgment. The ironic interplay of these passages shows how the fulfilled promise of grace ultimately absorbed and conquered the penalty of man's original sin, "You will surely die" (Gen. 2:17).
Every sickness, injury, and sign of aging we feel in our bones is a reminder of our mortality. Weakness and suffering have no place in the kingdom of God, and by His grace we will be free of all those impurities when we receive our inheritance, even the lethal impurity of sin (v. 56). Unlike the raising of Lazarus, we won't just return to life when the angelic trumpet calls us home (1 Thess. 4:16-17); rather, we will be changed into a incorruptible form superior to our fallen flesh.
Some may wonder if the promise of future glory makes our current struggles in this sinful world a moot point, but the exact opposite is true. While our work toward earthly goals may have little bearing in eternity, our service of Christ for the kingdom of God has effects that will last forever! We are working on the side of victory, and spiritual treasure is an investment that bears everlasting fruit.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 is filled with uplifting, challenging teaching about the resurrection in which we share through our faith in Christ. Read through the chapter and observe the dual purpose of Paul's exhortation to the church at Corinth, and indeed to all who believe. First, the teaching gives us peace of mind when circumstances might cause us grief or worry. But secondly, the truth of eternal resurrection dramatically affects the way we live-ask God for an eternal focus and the purity of heart that it demands.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals May 30, 2009
Wow!
READ: Romans 11:33-36
Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? -Exodus 15:11
One blustery day in June, our family, holidaying in the Canadian Rockies, went to a tourist site that was billed as a "must see." The cold wind made me reluctant to go on until I saw a group of people returning from the scenic spot. "Is it worth it?" I asked. "Definitely!" was their response. That gave us the incentive to go on. When we finally reached the spot, its beauty rendered us virtually speechless. "Wow!" was all we could manage.
Paul reached that point as he wrote about the work of God in saving Jew and Gentile in the book of Romans. Three things about God "wowed" him.
First, God is all-wise (11:33). His perfect plan of salvation shows that He has far better solutions to the problems of life than we are capable of devising.
Second, God is all-knowing. His knowledge is infinite. He needs no counselor (v.34) and nothing surprises Him!
Third, God is all-sufficient (v.35). No one can give to God what He has not first given to them. Nor can anyone ever repay Him for His goodness.
We can say with Moses, "Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?" (Ex. 15:11 ESV). What a marvelous God we serve! - C. P. Hia
By God's grace I stand on tiptoe,
Viewing all His wonders grand,
Praising Him who freely gave me
Simple faith to understand! -Bosch
In God's character and in His creation, we see His majesty.
Two Voices that Cry Out
Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (James 5:3-4).
These words are written to believers, to Christians who are hoarding up wealth rather than giving to support the spread of the gospel.
The reapers in verse 4 are those preaching and working out in the harvest fields of the world. Notice it says that the Lord has heard their cry. But if you read carefully, you will find that another cry has entered the Lord's ears as well.
"The wages" of the laborers cry out to God as well! The tithes and offerings that have been withheld cry out. Monies that should have been sown into the cause of Christ are raising their voices in a mighty chorus to heaven!
Large amounts of undesignated and unused funds that sit in bank vaults cry out. Funds God has graciously given to His people that have been withheld from their purpose-to bring a living Jesus to a dying world-cry out and cry out and cry out!
Are you sitting on a talking wallet today? Is your purse crying out to God? If you could hear their voice, what would they cry? "China! Europe! Africa! The Middle East!"??
Are you generously supporting the work of your own local church? Do not let your money testify against you! Give where, when, and how much God directs- consistently-into the work of His Kingdom.
If the precious fruit of the earth is going to be reaped, we have to support those who labor in the field.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Peter 1:14-25
"Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy." - Leviticus 19:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the third book in his series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams introduced a strategy for flying that just might be the definition of "easier said than done." He wrote that the knack of flight "lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Unfortunately for believers, sin often seems to be as irresistible a force as gravity. Yet Peter issued the simple command without reservation: be holy as God is holy. The holiness that Peter described was more than just living a life of good works, another product of our salvation. Peter was calling believers to be distinct or set apart from the world and the worldly desires that had dominated their lives. Rather than desiring to succeed in this material world, we should be looking to break free from it. Believers should live in this world as outsiders who fear the sovereign God more than the status quo (v. 17). But is that easier said than done?
It helps to remember that we have "outside" help, in that we were purchased with currency that is absolutely foreign to this world. In that sense, we already have been made strangers by faith in the perfect Lamb sent from heaven to redeem us (vv. 19-21). And we have been purified and reborn, not through our own ideas or the wisdom of this world, but instead by the Word of God. The lives left for us to live are the product of heavenly fruit, and remembering that truth can help us avoid falling into earthly temptation.
"Be holy, because I am holy," may seem at first glance as an oversimplified approach to life, but ultimately, it is a straightforward decision. With whom will we identify? With the world surrounding us, all the entertainment, possessions, and pleasures that it offers? Or will we identify with God, who bought us with the blood of Christ and gave us life through power of His Word? If our hearts truly long for Him instead of for the things of this world, holiness will be the end result. It is God's holiness that actually makes it possible for us, His followers, to follow in this way.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Practically speaking, it's important to recognize what holiness isn't. It isn't a life away from those below your superior qualifications. The main practical application of holiness given in this passage is love. If you believe God calls you to holiness, then you should follow God's example of holiness. Although He wanted no part of the world system, He loved the world so much that He would give the life of His Son to redeem us. Practice holiness today by loving people in an unlovely world, no matter the cost.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 1, 2009
Holy Fools
READ: Genesis 12:1-5
If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. -Mark 9:23
When God spoke to Abram, he obeyed at once, departing for an unknown land based only on a promise. Childless, he trusted God to make of him "a great nation" (Gen. 12:2).
God often does His work through "holy fools"-dreamers who strike out in ridiculous faith. Yet I tend to approach my decisions with calculation and restraint.
My church in Chicago once scheduled an all-night vigil of prayer during a major crisis. At length we discussed the practicality of the event before finally putting it on the calendar. The poorest members of the congregation, a group of senior citizens from a housing project, responded the most enthusiastically. I wondered how many of their prayers had gone unanswered over the years, yet they showed a childlike trust in the power of prayer. "How long do you want to stay-an hour or two?" we asked, thinking of van shuttles. "Oh, we'll stay all night," they replied.
One woman in her 90s explained, "We can pray. We got time, and we got faith. Some of us don't sleep much anyway. We can pray all night if needs be." And so they did.
Meanwhile, a bunch of yuppies in a downtown church learned an important lesson: Faith often appears where least expected and falters where it ought to thrive. - Philip Yancey
Faith looks across the storm-it does not doubt
Or stop to look at clouds and things without.
Faith does not question why when all His ways
Are hard to understand, but trusts and prays. -Anon.
Prayer is the voice of faith.
Through Kindness and Love
In Romans 12:20 we read a startling truth,
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head."
Our natural inclination is to hate our enemies, isn't it? But the Bible gives us a very different perspective and direction. We are to care for and love our enemies. In fact, some of the greatest antagonists to the gospel have been won through love.
We once had a neighbor next to our church building who was very set against us and very vocal against the church. He would voice his opinion in meetings at the city hall and, on occasion, he would even accost people as they were walking to church. He would shout things at them and harass them a bit from his front yard.
Well, we had one of our pastors go out of his way to show this guy love. He would compliment this man on how well he took care of his lawn, and he began to build a relationship with him. Then one day he actually led the man to Christ!
That same man who would yell at the church members as they walked by his house came into our auditorium and repented before me with tears in his eyes and apologized. He said he had lashed out because he was afraid. But now he had come to Christ, and he had been saved.
It is a glorious thing. He was won to the Lord through kindness and through love.
Think about God. I am so glad that He did not judge us and let the hammer fall on us because of our sins. Instead He extended kindness and mercy to us.
Win your enemy to Christ by showing him kindness and loving him today!
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 1:1-2
Hear, O peoples, all of you, listen, O earth, and all who are in it. - Micah 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some people tend to like their spirituality quick and easy. After all, there's work to do, places to go, people to see. Holiness? I'll listen to a podcast while I exercise. Servanthood? Our Sunday school class is doing a DVD series on that. Bible study? The One-Minute Bible-and yes, there really is such a thing-is a lifesaver. Patience? Who's got time for that? Products abound to feed us Christianity in bite-size servings, especially while we do other activities such as commuting, cooking, and answering e-mail.
Treating our faith as eat-and-run fast food does not do it justice, and certainly leaves no room for appreciating the "minor prophets." But Micah, Habakkuk, and Malachi, the three books we'll study this month, are "minor" only in the sense that they are short. In fact, they are as Spirit-inspired as every other book of the Bible. Micah's name means "Who is like the Lord?", a rhetorical question that indicates God's incomparable greatness. Micah prophesied during the same general period as Isaiah (v. 1). His themes include judgment, hope, salvation, idolatry, injustice, worship, covenant faithfulness, leadership, repentance, and the coming of the Messiah.
During his ministry, the kings were mostly disappointing-Jotham was weak, Ahaz was wicked, and only Hezekiah initiated spiritual reforms. Micah may not have seen these bear fruit, however, since it is believed he died early in Hezekiah's reign. Other than his hometown of Moresheth, a village 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem, nothing is known of his biography.
The summons to listen in verse 2 is repeated two other places in the book (3:1; 6:1). These calls serve to divide Micah into three main sections, each of which communicates a message built around the main themes of judgment and salvation. Interestingly, the call is to all the peoples of the world, not only Israel and Judah. "Holy temple" is a figurative expression for heaven and a reminder of the covenant. Through this book, heaven is calling earth to come and witness the justice of God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear" Jesus said (Luke 8:8). As we study Micah, Habakkuk, and Malachi this month, pray for ears to hear and a heart open to receive God's words as given through these three "minor prophets." God was speaking for the benefit not only of the original audience, but also to believers like us. Pray that the Holy Spirit will teach you key truths and show you how to apply them in your daily spiritual walk.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Pay It Forward
READ: John 13:3-15
I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. -John 13:15
Pay It Forward is a movie about a 12-year-old's plan to make a difference in the world. Motivated by a teacher at his school, Trevor invites a homeless man to sleep in his garage. Unaware of this arrangement, his mother awakens one evening to find the man working on her truck. Holding him at gunpoint, she asks him to explain himself. He shows her that he has successfully repaired her truck and tells her about Trevor's kindness. He says, "I'm just paying it forward."
I think this is what Jesus had in mind in one of His last conversations with His disciples. He wanted to show them the full extent of His love. So before their last meal together, He took off His outer garment, wrapped a towel around His waist, and began to wash His disciples' feet. This was shocking because only slaves washed feet. It was an act of servanthood and a symbol that pointed to Jesus' sacrifice, passion, and humiliation on the cross. His request to His disciples was: "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). They were to "pay it forward."
Imagine how different our world would look if we gave the kind of love to others that God has given us through Jesus. - Marvin Williams
Christ's example teaches us
That we should follow Him each day,
Meeting one another's needs,
Though humble service be the way. -Hess
To know love, open your heart to Jesus. To show love, open your heart to others.
Aiming at God's Pleasure
In John, chapter 8, Jesus made a statement that I wish I could make. He said, "I always do those things that please the Father." Wouldn't it be great if we could all say that?
Paul points us in that direction in 2 Corinthians 5:6-9,
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.
Whether we are still in this earthly body or we are standing before the Lord in heaven, he says, "We make it our aim to be well pleasing to Him."
But you know what? You cannot aim at a target that you can't see. You can't make it your aim to be well pleasing to Him if you don't know what pleases Him. And it is to your advantage to find out, as Paul points out in verse 10,
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
So let me ask you, what is your aim today? Are you aiming at what pleases God? My prayer is that you will come to truly know and understand what pleases God as you spend time each day with me in this devotional...and that you will make that your aim!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 1:3-16
The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope. - Micah 1:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A recent national survey reported that 71 percent of Americans believe in God and 58 percent pray daily. Only about 25 percent, however, attend religious services weekly. In addition, 74 percent of Americans believe in a heaven "where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded," while only 59 percent believe in a hell "where people who have led bad lives, and die without being sorry, are eternally punished." In other words, many conceive of God as a benevolent grandfather who rewards the righteous but doesn't have the heart to punish the wicked.
Such a belief is quite different from what Scripture tells us. God's justice certainly includes judgment on sin, as today's reading makes clear. The passage opens with an impressive picture of the Lord coming to render a guilty verdict (vv. 3-4). These images highlight His power and awesomeness and are meant to inspire fear in the hearts of evildoers. The judgment is then summarized-the people are guilty of idolatry, of worshiping false gods at "high places" rather than the true God at His temple (v. 5). Finally, sentence is passed (vv. 6-7). Israel's capital city of Samaria will be completely destroyed. The emptiness and impotence of the false gods will be clear for all to see.
Micah took no pleasure in delivering this grim message. Rather, he expressed extreme grief over the future of his country: "I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl" (v. 8). The places he lists, including his own hometown, represent the route a potential invader might take. Though it will seem that a foreign enemy is doing the conquering, it should not be forgotten that ultimately God is the one responsible (v. 15). He is the one who will send His people into exile (v. 16), an especially devastating punishment for the inheritors of the Promised Land. Implied in all this is a call to national repentance.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sin and its effects are pictured in at least two ways in today's reading-as prostitution (v. 7) and as a wound (v. 9). Additional Bible study in this area can help us understand what God thinks about sin. What images, metaphors, or other figures of speech does Scripture use to portray human sinfulness? Compile a list of other word pictures, and interpret each in terms of which dimensions or consequences of sin are emphasized or highlighted. Through your list, what can be learned about God's perspective on and response to sin?
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 3, 2009
The Lord Of Our Years
READ: Psalm 90
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. -Psalm 90:2
When the Concise Oxford English Dictionary announced in 2006 that the word time was the most-often used noun in the English language, it didn't seem surprising. We live in a world where people are obsessed with using days, saving minutes, and trying to find more hours in the day. Although each of us has all the time that there is, few of us think we have enough.
Perhaps that's why Psalm 90 is such a treasured passage. It shifts the focus from our time-bound lives to our eternal God. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God" (v.2).
A stanza in Matthew Bridges' well-known hymn "Crown Him With Many Crowns" begins: "Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time." A potentate is a sovereign, a monarch, an anointed majesty-one who does not seek appointment or run for election.
God created time. He rules and transcends it. When we feel frustrated by the calendar or captured by the clock, a quiet reading of Psalm 90 reminds us that our days and years are in the hands of our eternal God.
As we humbly bow before Him, we see time from a new perspective. - David C. McCasland
Crown Him the Lord of years,
The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime. -Bridges
We must have a right view of eternity to know the real value of time.
The Antidote to Fear
Have you ever driven down the highway and noticed the "check engine" light? Even if there was no strange engine noise or visible smoke, you knew the warning light meant something was wrong-and most likely you promptly took the car to a mechanic. Why? Because you knew that the warning light was connected to the engine-though you could not see the problem, you saw the warning message.
A similar connection occurs between fear and faith. We may think that our life is running fine, but then the red light of fear begins flashing. That fear signals that it is time to check our engines of faith. Most fears are based on the "what if's" we generate in our minds, which are often rooted in a distrust in God.
Jesus warned against worrying over these questions: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?...Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:25, 34).
Many people try to escape their fears through alcohol or medication or activity. These are temporary at best, and only compound the problem. The source of the fear remains. The antidote to fear is in the promises of God, not in escapism.
If we do not learn how to master our fears, our fears will master us. In order to conquer our fears, we must do two things: pray our fears out, while praying faith in; and claim the very power of God.
When we cry out to God, He will listen to us. God loves to hear the cries of His children who seek to grow in faith. The psalmist declared, "I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears" (Psalm 34:4). When we realize our own inadequacies and our total dependence on God, we take a first step in overcoming our fears. We can be confident that a prayer for faith is one that will be answered.
God will help us when we acknowledge our fears in prayer. He wants us to share with Him the cause of our concerns. Even when we don't know the source of our anxiety, the Holy Spirit will work on our behalf when we seek His help. We may fool the people around us with a brave face, but our masks never fool God. He knows what is in our hearts, and He wants us to confess those fears to Him.
Once you have confessed your fears out, begin praying faith in. Turn to the Word of God and incorporate His promises into your prayers. Draw strength from God's promises as Abraham did: "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:20,21).
Pray for God's power in your life. Part of the reason for Jesus' time here on earth was to demonstrate His power. He showed us that God's Messiah has power to redeem us from our sins, to heal diseases, and to still whatever storms we face in life. God wants to show us that power today. He waits until we run out of human solutions before manifesting His power to His children. When we try to draw on our own strength, peace and sufficiency instead of God's, we end up in the stormy waters. Only the power of God which sustains the universe can sustain us in every circumstance we face.
Are you trying to escape your fear, or conquer it through human methods? Or do you seek the power of God, the only One who gives victory over anxiety? Spend time in prayer today, sending fear out and faith in, and drawing upon the power of God.
*****
Don't be tempted to toss in the towel and give up running the race. Shore up your confidence in God, today. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Don't Lose Your Confidence." Download it today.
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Read: Micah 2:1-5
For you have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth. - Psalm 71:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
A small, remote-controlled spy plane is giving "foreknowledge" to American soldiers. Called the Raven, it weighs only four pounds and has a wingspan of just 4.5 feet. It has the ability to hover quietly 500 feet above the ground and transmit live video to troops on the ground. Commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to know if an ambush lies down the road or if enemy soldiers wait on the other side of a hill can use these tiny planes to find out. The same company that makes the Raven makes an even smaller one-pound model dubbed the Wasp.
As useful as such "foreknowledge" is, the sovereign knowledge of God is infinitely greater. Evildoers are mistaken if they believe that God does not know or cannot act against them. In today's reading, they are described as people who unjustly exercise their power and wealth to exploit the poor, for example, by seizing their homes or defrauding them of their inheritances (vv. 1-2). That they do so with intention and even premeditation shows their arrogance and disbelief in God's justice. They think they can get away with it! Such people are still around-corrupt politicians, landlords who overcharge rent to the poor, and financiers who run scams with other people's retirement money.
God's response is that judgment has been passed, justice will be restored, these oppressors will be punished, and their pride will be struck down (vv. 3-5). His righteous plan, as opposed to their plan to duck consequences, will surely come to pass. God is sovereign and has both the knowledge and the power to guarantee it. Instead of being in the driver's seat, they will be mocked and ridiculed. Instead of gaining land, they will lose it. Because God is God, His plan is certain and inevitable. The wicked won't be able to escape. "Many are the plans in a man's heart," Proverbs reminds us, "but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" (19:21).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Because of God's sovereignty, we would do well to include humility into every plan we make. James admonished: "You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that'" (4:14-15). Resolve to go through this week with this attitude, resisting frustration when things don't go your way. Praying over your calendar might be a good place to start!
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 4, 2009
The Circle Of Fear
READ: 1 John 2:1-11
If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. -1 John 2:1
When the popular band The Eagles prepares a new song for concert, they sit in a circle with acoustic guitars and unamplified voices and rehearse their intricate vocals. They call this exercise "The Circle of Fear" because there is no place to hide and no way to conceal any errors they might make in the harmonies. That sense of absolute exposure for their mistakes is what makes this drill so frightening to them.
Apart from Christ, we would suffer a far worse kind of exposure before the God of all justice. If we had no advocate and no escape, we would also have no hope. But in Christ, the believer has a Defender who stands before the Father on our behalf. First John 2:1 says, "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." With our failings exposed, He takes our defense. Our Defender carries our relationship with God beyond a "circle of fear" to a fellowship of grace and truth.
Our challenge is to live lives of purity and integrity that honor our heavenly Father. Yet, when we do fail, we do not need to fear abandonment or ridicule from our Father. We have an Advocate who will carry us through. - Bill Crowder
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail.
Thy mercies how tender! How firm to the end!
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend. -Grant
The One who died as our Substitute now lives as our Advocate.
The Nature of Faith
In our last devotional, we talked about how important faith is to pleasing God. It is not just important, it's essential, because without it, you and I cannot please God.
The natural question is, "What is faith?"
In Hebrews 11:1, the writer gives us the technical definition of biblical faith,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith deals with unseen reality. In fact, Weymouth's translation says, "Faith is a conviction of the reality of things we do not see."
You might think, "That's a nice definition, but what does that really mean?" That is a good question. And it is answered by the examples given in Hebrews 11, which show different ways people expressed their faith in God, because there is not just one way to demonstrate faith in God:
Abel shows us that faith is giving our best to God. He deserves our first and our best.
Enoch shows us that faith is walking with God. It is living a life in constant connection with God, even when you can't sense or feel Him.
Noah shows us that faith is making preparations as though Christ is coming back today, even when there is seemingly no evidence.
Abraham shows us that faith is obeying God, even though you may not know where He is leading you.
Sarah shows us that faith is receiving God's promise, even when public opinion says, "No way!"
Moses shows us that faith is living life in light of eternity, and allowing that focus to affect all of life's decisions.
Commit today to live this life of faith. If you do, you will truly please God!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 2:6-13
Do not my words do good to him whose ways are upright? - Micah 2:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
The world ended in a nuclear cataclysm on June 12, 2008. You hadn't heard? "Buffalo Bill" Hawkins, leader of a cult based in Abilene, Texas, prophesied that date as the end of history. His followers were urged to stock up on food and supplies from Life Nutrition Products, a company owned by Hawkins. Many were also persuaded to change their names, since the "prophet" said that God would save only people named "Hawkins." Obviously, he was wrong. What's worse, it was actually his second failed doomsday prediction-he'd previously tagged September 12, 2006, as the end of the world.
False prophets have never been in short supply. As Micah makes clear in today's reading, their falsehoods earn God's condemnation. Truth is indispensable, particularly when one holds a leadership position. As God's prophet, Micah was committed to proclaiming the truth. But the false prophets tried to discourage him from doing so (vv. 6-7a). Perhaps they were fearful, or perhaps they didn't really believe God would go so far as to carry out judgment on them. After all, weren't they the people of God? "Does he do such things?"
God replies: His words do good to the upright, implying the opposite as well, that His truth is bad news for the wicked (v. 7b). And the false prophets, despite their protests, acted in unrighteous ways. Whereas leaders should serve the people, the false prophets were the enemy of men, women, and children (vv. 8-9). The people weren't innocent, either, for they listened only to "prophets" who told them what they wanted to hear (v. 11). The Promised Land was "defiled" by such sinful behavior, and God would cleanse it by sending His people away (v. 10).
This would not be the end of the story, for God also promised a future day of deliverance for a faithful remnant (vv. 12-13). Israel would reap the consequences of breaking the covenant, but God Himself would still keep His promises.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What's the "truth quotient" in your media intake these days? Sometimes we think our books, music, movies, television shows, and video games are exempt from truth standards. "After all," we argue, "we're just relaxing; not everything is a sermon." But from God's perspective, all of life, including work and leisure, need to be evaluated from within a biblical worldview. In this light, review the ideas and influences you've been allowing into your mind recently and submit them to the criteria in Philippians 4:8.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 5, 2009
Adopted
READ: Colossians 3:1-12
Put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. -Colossians 3:5
In ancient Rome, adoption was occasionally used by the emperors to pass on succession to competent heirs. Augustus Caesar was adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar. Other notable adoptees include the emperors Tiberius, Trajan, and Hadrian. All of them proved to be strong rulers because each lived like a child of his adoptive father.
Every Christian is an adopted child of the King of kings. We are greatly indebted to Him for His favor. But God, who has everything, does not need us to repay Him.
What does God desire? He wants us to live in a way that befits His children. Activities and values that are not in keeping with our position as God's children must be done away with (Col. 3:5). Selfish and destructive ways are to be replaced by activities and values that showcase our gratitude and love for God and reflect our status as His children. Paul wrote, "Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering" (v.12).
Can others around you tell that you are indeed a child of the King? Ask the Holy Spirit what you need to put off and put on in your life so that you can reflect more truly your status as God's adopted child. - C. P. Hia
I once was an outcast stranger on earth,
A sinner by choice and an alien by birth;
But I've been adopted, my name's written down-An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown. -Buell
We honor God's name when we call Him our Father and live like His children.
Standing in the Gap
Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him (Isaiah 59:14-16).
God is not pleased at injustice nor when truth and righteousness do not prevail. When He sees those who turn from evil becoming a prey, He is not happy.
I remember a young man who an had lived a particularly sordid life. He heard the gospel and had an amazing conversion experience. Within a month or so of accepting Christ, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
What happened? He departed from evil and became a prey! God was not responsible for his situation, nor was He pleased.
Why did it happen? At least part of the answer is found in verse 16. There was no man serving as an intercessor. No one was keeping a hedge of protection around that young man through prayer.
Before and after people turn from evil we need to intercede to God on their behalf.
I challenge you today to be one of those who stands in the gap and makes up the hedge for new babes in Christ. May God find pleasure in you and me as we take our position as intercessors.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 3:1-12
Should you not know justice? - Micah 3:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the great injustices in American history was the government-authorized theft of Cherokee land in Georgia. Through previous treaties, the Cherokees had legal title to their land, a claim supported by a Supreme Court decision in their favor against the federal government. Nonetheless, in 1838 President Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court, seized the land, and ordered the Cherokees to move to Oklahoma. They were forced to leave their homes and businesses. Many died on the long and arduous journey, which we remember today as the "Trail of Tears."
In today's reading, Micah spoke out against leaders who were unfaithful to the Lord and who perverted justice. Like the false prophets who perverted truth, and whose evil deeds and impending punishment are described again in verses 5 through 7, these leaders failed to respect or obey the requirements of the covenant. Their basic sin was that they used their positions of power to oppress the people, a fact communicated through horrifying images of cannibalism (vv. 1-3).
Worldly leaders use their power to benefit themselves. Control or domination is the name of the game (Matt. 20:25-28). Godly leaders, on the other hand, should use their authority to serve God and His people. Micah himself was an excellent example of this kind of leader (v. 8). The Israelite leaders would be punished for their unfaithfulness to their calling, and God would not listen to their cries for help (v. 4).
Micah 3 closes with a summary indictment of the nation's bad leaders, false prophets, and faithless priests (vv. 9-12). They despised and distorted God's values, including justice, righteousness, service, and truth. They acted out of greed, yet hypocritically invoked the Lord's name. They exploited the poor and took God lightly. Because of them, judgment was coming. Righteous leaders would have seen spiritual realities more clearly and called the people back to God. As things stood, it was left to Micah to declare the word of the Lord.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
By the time bad leaders come under condemnation, as in today's passage, it's too late. This should spur us to pray for our own leaders, including political (local, state, and national), professional (workplace), and spiritual (church). Take some extra time today to pray for at least three leaders who hold authority over you, in obedience to Paul's instructions: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-for kings and all those in authority" (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 6, 2009
Day Of Days
READ: 2 Timothy 2:1-4
You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. -2 Timothy 2:3
In the television miniseries Band of Brothers, the 101st Airborne is flown over their drop zone during D-Day, the major offensive to liberate Europe from Nazi control. As the main character, Lt. Richard Winters, parachutes from the plane, the crack of antiaircraft and machine-gun fire fills the air.
Winters later reflected on his first day in combat: "That night, I took time to thank God for seeing me through that day of days . . . . And if somehow I manage to get home again, I promise God and myself that I would find a quiet piece of land someplace, and spend the rest of my life in peace." Winters knew he must endure until that day came.
The Bible tells us that believers are caught in a conflict initiated by Satan's rebellion against God. Because of this, we are challenged to "endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2:3). In Paul's day, the Roman legionnaires suffered in service for the emperor. As followers of Jesus, we may be called upon to do the same for the King of kings.
In heaven, we will no longer experience such difficulties but will enjoy lasting peace with the Savior. For now, we are to persevere by faith. - Dennis Fisher
Lord, the trials we face at times seem too much to bear. We're grateful, though, for the reminders in Your Word that You will stay by our side and help us endure till You call us Home. Amen.
Victory is sure for those who endure.
God's Pleasure...Your Blessing
In Psalm 35:27 we are told,
Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, "Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant."
This Psalm says it clearly-God is pleased when you are blessed. The Revised Standard Version translates this verse this way, God delights in the welfare of His servant.
In Luke 12, when talking about God meeting our practical, physical, and material needs, Jesus says, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
You do not need to somehow convince God to meet your needs. In fact, God desires to bless you.
It is like the son who felt his father had not provided for him when his dad passed away. His father left one sibling some property, another one some valuable stock, and all the son got was a box of what looked to him like junk.
One day, because of financial trouble, the son had to move out of his apartment. As he cleaned things out, he found the box of junk he had thrown in the back of a closet. Noticing there were some stamps and trading cards in the box, he decided to see if they were worth anything.
It turned out the trading card collection was filled with rare baseball cards in mint condition. And every one of the stamps was very rare-very valuable. The combined appraisal of the two collections was over $450,000!
His father had provided for him, but the son had lived far below those privileges because he didn't believe his father had blessed him!
Our heavenly Father delights in, He takes pleasure in, the prosperity of His servant. And that means you!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 4:1-5
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. - Micah 4:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
A nonprofit organization in northern California helps soldiers returning from war zones learn new job skills and find new places of employment. They recently reported helping at least 23 veterans a month, most of them in their early to mid-20s, and most of them lacking real-world job skills because they enlisted in the military immediately after leaving high school. The organization helps them prepare for new careers and find affordable housing. Appropriately enough, its name is Swords to Plowshares, a direct reference to today's verse.
"Swords to plowshares" summarizes Micah's awe-inspiring vision of the future. His prophecy of the mountain of the Lord is given in much the same words as those used by Isaiah (2:2-4). Though the near future held judgment, defeat, and exile, the prophets could see hope and victory in a more distant future. A mountain is a picture of grandeur and beauty and would also have reminded Micah's original listeners of Mount Sinai. Not just for Israel but for all the world, the "mountain of the Lord" will be a center for worship, a place from which the word of God will go out and to which the nations will come for instruction and truth (vv. 1-2; cf. Matt. 8:11).
Under the rule of God and His Messiah (vv. 3-4), there will be peace. Conflicts will be settled, rather than dragging on indefinitely as they often seem to in today's world. There will be order and justice in the solutions, rather than military force or clever politics. There will be no more war or even training for war. Weapons will be of such little use that they will be turned into farming implements. Finally, there will be prosperity and security, with people sitting under their vines and fig trees as a picture of peace and contentment. Given such a vision of the future, others can do whatever they like, but we choose to trust and follow the One who is bringing it to pass (v. 5).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The future spoken of by Micah, with the mountain of the Lord and worldwide peace, encourages us as believers that God has a plan for history and that His plan will in due course reach its perfect fulfillment. Our knowledge that God's plan cannot fail can give us peace that His plans for our lives are also perfect. If circumstances have filled you with worry, review Jeremiah 29:11-12. Take comfort that even though situations may seem bleak, our God sees our end and intends our good.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 7, 2009
Words And Numbers
READ: John 17:20-26
I and My Father are one. -John 10:30
My husband is a "numbers" person; I am a "word" person. When my incompetence with numbers gets the best of me, I try to boost my ego by reminding Jay that word people are superior because Jesus called Himself the Word, not the Number.
Instead of trying to defend himself, Jay just smiles and goes on about his business, which consists of much more important things than my silly arguments.
Since Jay will not defend himself, I feel compelled to do so. Although I am right about Jesus being the Word, I am wrong in saying that He didn't refer to Himself as a number. One of the most moving passages of Scripture is Christ's prayer just before His arrest and crucifixion. Facing death, Jesus prayed not only for Himself, but also for His disciples and for us. His most urgent request on our behalf involved a number: "[I pray] that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me" (John 17:21).
As people who live by the Word, we need to remember that "right words" sound hollow to the world unless we, being one in Christ, are glorifying God with one mind and one voice. - Julie Ackerman Link
Make us one, Lord, make us one;
Holy Spirit, make us one.
Let Your love flow so the world will know
We are one in You. -Cymbala
© 1991, Word Music. All rights reserved.
God calls His children to unity.
A Prosperous Attitude
In our previous devotional, we learned that God is pleased to bless us. But that prosperity must be accompanied by a special attitude...an attitude that is captured in 1 Kings 3.
This passage records God's appearance to Solomon in a dream at Gibeon. In the dream God said to Solomon, "Ask! What shall I give you?"
What an incredible statement, and question! Equally incredible is Solomon's response, which revealed the attitude of his heart, the attitude which must accompany our prosperity. That response is captured in verses 7-10,
"Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?" The speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.
God is pleased when, in our hearts, we put others before ourselves. God delights in prospering us when prosperity is not our chief aim. When we get it right, and in our hearts we do place others before ourselves, God can bless us beyond our wildest dreams.
God will give you everything you need to fulfill His plan for your life. He will give you richly all things to enjoy, as long as you have a prosperous attitude that puts His plans and His people first.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 4:6-13
They do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand his plan. - Micah 4:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
One key date in American history is October 19, 1781. That's the day British General Lord Cornwallis surrendered to American General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia. American and French armies pinned British and German forces against the sea, while French naval vessels blocked British ships bringing reinforcements. Cornwallis had little choice but to surrender, which effectively marked the end of the Revolutionary War. Peace negotiations began in 1782 and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. Today the National Park Service maintains the Yorktown battlefield as a national historic site.
Victory is sweet. When the Millennium arrives and God's rule is fully established, all the peoples of the earth will acknowledge the Messiah as their king. In today's reading, Micah envisions events following the Exile as foreshadowing that glorious day (vv. 6-8). First, the scattered will be gathered. The "lame" and the "exiles," who are lost and powerless on their own, will be gathered once more into a nation. Second, the weak will become powerful. This unpromising "remnant" will once again become a "strong nation" and "the former dominion will be restored." And third, kingship will come again to Israel. This is in keeping with God's covenant with David of an eternal kingship (2 Sam. 7:16). From our vantage point in history, we know this promise refers to the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
In the back-and-forth rhythm of Micah's prophecy, we find that embedded in this panoramic vision of the future are more reminders of impending judgment (vv. 9-13). Babylon is even specifically named as Judah's conqueror, an event that would occur in 586 B.C. The big picture, however, remains one of hope and victory. The coming defeat and exile can be compared to labor pains, as if all of history were giving birth to God's kingdom. His sovereign plan is beyond anyone's complete comprehension, but we can put our faith in the triumph of His justice, righteousness, and love.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God makes the weak strong, as in today's reading when the "lame" become a strong nation (v. 7). He also says that the last shall be first and the first last (Mark 9:35) and that as believers we must die in order to truly live (John 12:24-25). What other biblical paradoxes can you think of? Why do you think God uses paradoxes in Scripture? One reason might be to catch our attention, to force us to consider that God's ways are not our ways. You can record your thoughts and observations in your notes or journal.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 9, 2009
A Life Remembered
READ: Psalm 139:1-16
That we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. -2 Corinthians 1:4
Daddy, help me." Those were the last words Dianne and Gary Cronin heard their daughter say as she struggled to breathe. Kristin, 14 years old, died suddenly-just 2 days after saying she didn't feel well. A strep infection attacked her body on Thursday. By Saturday, she was pleading with her daddy to help her.
Before Kristin died, I was scheduled to speak at her family's church in Soldotna, Alaska. In God's timing, I stood before the congregation the day after her funeral.
Kristin was one of those vivacious teens who loved Jesus and lived for Him-and whose sudden death leaves us with a million questions.
Because I went through a similar loss of my own teenage daughter a few years ago, I was able to offer some advice to this stunned and grieving church. First, I said, we must recognize God's sovereignty. Psalm 139:16 reminds us that Kristin's life was the exact length God intended. Second, I asked the church never to forget her family. Whether it's 2 months or 5 years later, the family will never "get over" losing Kristin. They will never stop needing Christians who care and remember.
In times like this, don't forget that God is in control and that He wants us to be a comfort to others. - Dave Branon
When we sustain a heartbreaking loss,
When grief overwhelms our soul,
The Savior who gave Himself on the cross
Reminds us that He's in control. -D. De Haan
In every desert of despair God has an oasis of comfort.
Fitting into God's "Foolishness"
In 1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul gives us an interesting insight into how you and I please God.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
God's methods are astounding. To bring men and women into His family through the foolishness of preaching! When people hear the gospel preached and believe it, God is pleased.
Now how is the gospel preached? Through your life and mine. Every one of us has been entrusted by God with some gift to communicate the gospel. Perhaps you have been entrusted by God with unusual wealth. Or maybe a marvelous singing voice, or the ability to communicate, or perhaps the skill to assimilate facts.
Whatever it is, God has put something in each of us that somehow fits into His great master plan of winning this lost world to Jesus Christ.
God has chosen to use these weak, fallible vessels to share the simple gospel message that the world is separated from Him because of sin. In His mercy, God reached down to the human race when He sent His own Son, Who willingly gave up His life on the cross and died for our sins. The price was paid. God's eternal justice was satisfied. And the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
That is the message our world so desperately needs to hear today! God is pleased when you share that "foolishness." So however God has gifted you, use that gift today to present a living Jesus to our dying world!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 5:1-5a
He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. - Micah 5:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Long before Micah ministered, God made a special promise to King David. He said that He Himself would establish a house for David and that his son (Solomon) would be king after him and would build a temple to honor the Lord. Furthermore: "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever" (2 Sam. 7:16). This covenant was a tremendous encouragement to the people of Israel, especially as they faced tough times and saw their country fracture. The prophet Micah alluded to this covenant in today's passage.
In verse 4, "He" is the coming Messiah, whom we know is Jesus Christ, the ultimate fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. Following a reminder of the coming judgment (v. 1), verse 2 jumps ahead in time-to the Lord, time is not a primary factor (2 Peter 3:8)-to the birth of the Messiah. That His "origins are from of old" is a hint that His existence extends beyond a human lifespan. Despite the fact that the Messiah is a strong redeemer who comes to rescue His people, His arrival is mysteriously described as unexpected. Who would imagine a king being born in a small town like Bethlehem? The religious leaders of Jesus' day certainly didn't, even though they also interpreted Micah's words as literally indicating the Messiah's birthplace (Matt. 2:1-6).
God's plan is compared again to giving birth (v. 3). Everyone can see the signs that a baby is coming, but the identity of the newcomer remains hidden until the key moment. In the same way, God's plan to send His Son was both revealed and hidden by the prophets. And the fact that His advent would involve two comings was both revealed and hidden as well. When the labor pains of history are complete, all the world will see and worship the Shepherd who is also the King (vv. 4-5a). He will rule in the strength and majesty of God, because He is God!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In six months, we'll be celebrating the first coming of Christ. Today, spend some time reflecting on the Second Coming of our Lord. All around our world we can find examples of heartache. But we also have hope because we know that the Messiah will come to judge sin and ensure eternal peace. Some music that we associate with the first coming of Jesus actually has great resonance with His Second Coming; read or sing through "Joy to the World" or "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" as you pray, "Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20).
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 9, 2009
Risk
READ: Proverbs 6:16-19
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. -1 Peter 5:6
When our children were young, one of our favorite board games was Risk. World conquest was the objective. Each player mobilized his troops to take possession of countries and continents. It always amused me that the person who initially was leading the game seldom won. The reason is obvious. When other players sensed his mounting pride, they would join together against him.
Whether consciously or subconsciously, it is easy to dislike powerful people who have proud looks. Their very countenance seems to encourage others to throw obstacles in their paths or to be silent objectors.
In today's Bible reading, we are told that God hates seven things. Tellingly, the first is pride. When someone overvalues himself by undervaluing others, he inevitably reveals it with his proud look. Puffed up in self-conceit, he may also devise evil and sow discord. No wonder God hates proud looks.
Proud and powerful people may think they can disregard others' displeasure, but they cannot disregard God's opposition. Peter reminds us not to trust in ourselves but in the One who will exalt us "in due time" (1 Peter 5:6). As we submit to Him, we avoid the risk that pride brings to our character and we become thankful, humble servants of God. - Albert Lee
Naught have I gotten but what I received;
Grace hath bestowed it since I have believed;
Boasting excluded, pride I abase;
I'm only a sinner saved by grace! -Gray
No one can glorify self and Christ at the same time.
Pleasing God...Even in Your Sorrow
In Psalm 69, David shares his innermost thoughts as he cries out to God, afflicted, sorrowful, beaten down, and distressed. David felt like he was sinking in floodwaters, caught in the quicksand of difficulties.
If you are like me, I am sure you have been there too. In fact, you may feel like you are there right now. Floodwaters of trouble have come into your life. You are treading water, and it seems like you are about to go down for the third time.
For most of us, our response is to get down and depressed, to feel sorry for ourselves. And to hope we will receive comfort and encouragement from those around us.
David's reaction was different. And a model for how we should respond to those times of sorrow and trouble in a way that pleases God. In verses 30 and 31 of Psalm 69 he states,
I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull.
You know, anyone can sing when the sun is shining. It is easy to praise God and shout the victory when things are going your way. But to praise God when the chips are down...that brings pleasure to God.
To worship God, to magnify Him and to thank Him even when it looks like you are not going to make it, that pleases the heart of God. It shows Him something about you. It demonstrates that you have faith in Him, and it opens a way for Him to work in your life.
If your life feels full of sorrow and trouble, begin to praise God, and watch God work!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 5:5b-15
For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory. - Deuteronomy 20:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Revelation 18 celebrates the fall of Babylon in the end times. Though at one time it will be the wonder of the world and the seat of all earthly power, Babylon will be brought low: "Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!" (v. 10). The powerful will be rendered helpless, the wealthy will be ruined, and the mockers of God will be completely defeated. "Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you" (v. 20).
Today's reading offers another vivid picture of God's victory in history (vv. 9-15). Part of this passage focuses on the day that Assyria, the conqueror of Israel, will itself be defeated. Other parts have the Messiah in view, including both of His advents and the millennial kingdom. So time is fluid here and sometimes we're not sure which point in history the prophet has in mind. But the themes of God's triumphant holiness and justice hold it all together. Not only are enemies destroyed, so are witchcraft, idolatry, and disobedience. Those who have committed the blasphemous absurdity of bowing down to "gods" they themselves made will come under the righteous wrath of their Maker.
Two word pictures help us to understand God's victory (vv. 7-8). First, the animal simile seems clear enough: The faithful remnant will be "like a lion among the beasts of the forest," that is, God's people will be the king of the jungle, so to speak. They will have nothing to fear from their enemies. Second, the nature simile is less obvious but has a parallel point: The remnant will be "like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which do not wait for man or linger for mankind." God's sovereign plan and dew both occur on their own timetables, irrespective of human plans and actions. And like dew, God's plan is inevitable and inescapable- who can fight against it?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In response to today's reading, perhaps you could plan a special worship time for yourself, your family, or a small group of friends with the theme "God's victory." Try to include a good mix of hymns and choruses, including both familiar and unfamiliar songs. Scripture readings, responsive prayers and liturgies, and a time for personal testimonies might also be part of the plan. Let "shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: "˜The Lord's right hand has done mighty things!'" (Ps. 118:15).
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 10, 2009
Land Of Eternal Spring
I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken. -Psalm 37:25
The former president of Columbia Bible College in South Carolina, J. Robertson McQuilkin, pointed out that God has a wise purpose in letting us grow old and weak:
"I think God has planned the strength and beauty of youth to be physical. But the strength and beauty of age is spiritual. We gradually lose the strength and beauty that is temporary so we'll be sure to concentrate on the strength and beauty which is forever. And so we'll be eager to leave the temporary, deteriorating part of us and be truly homesick for our eternal home. If we stayed young and strong and beautiful, we might never want to leave."
When we are young, happily occupied with all our relationships and activities, we may not long for our celestial Home. But as time passes, we may find ourselves without family and friends, afflicted with dim vision and hearing difficulties, no longer able to relish food, or troubled by sleeplessness.
Here's the advice I give myself: Be grateful that, as the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:17, "God . . . gives us richly all things to enjoy" in life's summer and autumn. And rejoice too that with the onset of life's winter we can anticipate that we'll soon be living in the land of eternal spring. - Vernon C. Grounds
There's a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling-place there. -Bennett
The promise of heaven is our eternal hope.
Fearing God
In Psalm 147:10-11, David gives us insight into two things that please God-two things that may seem disconnected from each other.
He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
First, God delights in those who fear Him, those who have a reverential respect and awe for Him. Second, God is pleased with those who hope in His mercy.
In today's devotional, I want to focus on what it means to truly fear God. And, in tomorrow's devotional, we will look at what it means to hope in mercy, and how these two are connected.
Scripture constantly admonishes us to fear God. But how do you do that? I believe the Bible gives us at least four ways:
Through a hatred of evil. Proverbs 8:13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.
Through radical obedience. To fear the Lord means to radically obey Him, as Abraham did in Genesis 22 when he was willing to sacrifice his son.
With an awareness that God is always watching you. Scripture makes it clear there is nowhere you can go that God does not see.
With the knowledge that one day you will have to stand before God as your Judge. Jesus even tells us that one day, when we stand before Him, we will have to give an account of every idle word we have spoken.
Pray today that God will help you live your life by these four principles. Because God delights in those who fear Him.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 6:1-8
What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
God designed marriage to be an illustration and expression of His covenant faithfulness. As Gary Thomas wrote in Discipleship Journal : "The Bible uses marital metaphors to describe the story of God's relationship with Israel and Jesus' relationship with the church. Understanding these analogies is crucial, as they will help us construct the foundation upon which a truly Christian marriage is built . . . God's love for Israel and Christ's love for the church show us how our marriages can be transforming relationships of delight and reconciliation."
Faithfulness and love are at the heart of both marriage and our walk with the Lord. In His covenant with Israel, God was always faithful in unconditional love even when His people were not. Within the flow of history, He would act justly and judge Israel's sin in order to teach all nations about Himself and His worthiness to be worshiped. But in the end He would keep His promises and carry out His eternal plan of redemption regardless of His people's failures.
To grasp today's reading, let's imagine a courtroom. The Lord accused Israel and Judah of forsaking Him and of being unfaithful to the covenant (vv. 1-5). The evidence against them was overwhelming. He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai, provided godly leaders like Moses and Aaron, compelled the reluctant Balaam to prophesy a great future for them (Numbers 22-24), and in general shepherded and cared for them throughout four decades of desert wanderings.
To such an amazing and loving Lord, what kind of response would have been appropriate (vv. 6-8)? Not what they were doing! Perhaps they thought they could "keep the covenant" with quantity rather than quality. Their many sacrifices meant nothing because their hearts were empty and their obedience lacking (compare Rom. 12:1). Instead, they should have been acting justly, loving mercy (or kindness, ESV), and walking humbly with their God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you have never memorized Micah 6:8, make time to do so today. It's three-part "formula" for obeying God-acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly-can be a good way to remain focused on spiritual essentials. Scripture memorization is about genuinely committing words to heart and nourishing your soul with God's truth. Then you will say with the psalmist, "My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times" (Ps. 119:20).
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 11, 2009
Religious Nuts
READ: Matthew 10:16-22
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. -Colossians 4:6
I have a friend who was invited to a dinner party where he was seated next to a belligerent unbeliever who delighted in taunting Christians.
Throughout the evening, the man baited Matt mercilessly about the evils of Christendom throughout the ages. With each insult, my friend calmly replied, "That's an interesting point of view." And then he asked a question that revealed genuine interest in the man and deflected the discussion away from the issue that divided them.
As the two were walking out the door at the end of the evening, the man fired a final jab, at which point Matt put his arm around the other man's shoulders and chuckled. "My friend," he said, "all night long you've been trying to talk to me about religion. Are you a religious nut?"
The man's animosity dissolved in a burst of laughter and then in sobriety, for he was indeed a religious nut. All human beings are. We're insatiably and incurably religious-hounded by the relentless love of God, though we may try to keep Him away. Matt's kindness and deft humor awakened this man's heart so that he could be receptive to the gospel.
We are to be "wise as serpents" (Matt. 10:16) when dealing with non-Christians, speaking to them "with grace, seasoned with salt" (Col. 4:6). - David H. Roper
You have called us, Lord, to witness-
Called to speak the truth in love;
O how much we need Your guidance
And Your wisdom from above. -D. De Haan
As the "salt of the earth," Christians can make others thirsty for the Water of Life.
Hoping in God's Mercy
In our last devotional, Psalm 147:10-11 showed us how important fearing God is to pleasing Him.
He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
In today's devotional, I want to look at the second thing that pleases God, according to this psalm, those who hope in God's mercy.
You have to wonder why the Lord put those two things together, the fear of Him and hoping in His mercy. At first blush, they do not seem to go together, but they do.
They show how God truly understands our nature. That even those who reverence Him, and truly fear Him, and try to live for Him, sometimes fall short. And in those moments of failure, they need the mercy of God.
In fact, we are told in the Book of Proverbs that the righteous man falls seven times, but gets up again.
You know, I love God, and I do my best to serve Him and walk with Him. But I'm super grateful for His mercy! Thank God He is a merciful God! Because there are times when I so desperately need it, And I am sure you do, too!
My friend, if you have stumbled and today feel like you are a million miles away from God, do not despair. God finds pleasure in those who hope in His mercy. He is delighted when you ask for His mercy. He will not be angry.
Remember, only the guilty need mercy. And God finds pleasure when in your guilt you call out to Him, and hope in His mercy.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 6:9-16
Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights? - Micah 6:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
The worst weather disaster in American history was a hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900. Galveston is an island and leading commercial port city on the Gulf of Mexico. When the hurricane struck, storm tides between eight and sixteen feet completely covered the island, destroying homes and businesses and killing an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people (out of a total population of 40,000). Though U.S. Weather Service meteorologist Isaac Cline rode his horse up and down the beach to deliver urgent warnings, most people gave no heed and ended up paying with their lives.
No doubt Micah knew how Cline felt. He, too, was charged with delivering a message of impending disaster. He, too, met closed ears and hard hearts. God had long endured Judah's unfaithfulness and disobedience, and now judgment was imminent. In the context of the prophet's call to repentance (v. 9), the nation's sins are catalogued in verses 10-12: Their treasures were "ill-gotten," or obtained through crooked means. "Dishonest scales" and "false weights" were representative of unfair business practices. Violent rich men used their power to exploit the poor. This was not the kind of society God had in mind! He was righteously angry with this web of injustice and deceit.
Micah's description of the coming judgment is hyperbolic, that is, exaggerated for the literary purpose of making the point clearer and more urgent (vv. 13-15). The people would eat and yet remain hungry, store up and yet have nothing, plant without harvesting, press olives without getting any olive oil, and crush grapes without getting any wine. In short, the fruit of their labor would be given over to their conquerors. These verses convey images of being shamed and brought low, of ruin and destruction. Such consequences are to be expected when the God's people, following the bad example of such wicked kings as Omri and Ahab, worshiped idols instead of the one true God (v. 16).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The importance of spiritual faithfulness is clearly shown in today's reading. But just as in the case of Israel, we are surrounded with temptations to turn aside from God's path. In these battles, the truth of Scripture is our best ally. Write three helpful verses on index cards and carry them with you this week. Choose verses specific to temptations you face often, for example, Job 31:1 for lust, Luke 12:15 for greed, or Proverbs 16:18 for pride.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 12, 2009
A Fair Trade
READ: Psalm 119:161-168
I rejoice at Your Word as one who finds great treasure. -Psalm 119:162
Scott and Mary Crickmore poured 15 years of their lives into helping to translate the New Testament in the Maasina dialect. It was for the Fulani tribe in the West African nation of Mali.
After the initial draft, Mary visited nearby villages and read it to people. She sat in huts with a group of men or women listening to them discuss what they understood. That helped her to make sure the words they were using in the translation were accurate and clear.
Some people would think that the Crickmores' sacrifice was too great-giving up their comfortable lifestyle, changing their diet to mush and rice, and living in less-than-ideal circumstances for those 15 years. But the Crickmores say it was "a fair trade," because now the Fulani people have the Word of God in a language they can read.
The psalmist delighted in God's Word. He stood in awe of it, rejoiced over it, loved it, and obeyed it (Ps. 119:161-168). He found great peace and hope in the Word.
The Fulani people are now able to discover the "great treasure" (v.162) of God's Word. Would you agree with the Crickmores that any effort and sacrifice to get the Bible to others is "a fair trade"? - Anne Cetas
The Bible brings great hope and peace,
Beyond all earthly measure;
So we must share it with all those
Who don't possess this treasure. -Sper
One measure of our love for God is what we're willing to do to share His Word with others.
Rejoicing in God's Mercy
We all are familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son. After he had wasted his inheritance, he came to his senses and returned home, hoping he could just be a servant to his father.
His father wouldn't even consider it. He put the best robe on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and then had the fatted calf killed for a party. The father delighted in showing mercy to his son!
But what about the older brother? He stood outside the party and wouldn't come in to celebrate. He was so angry! He had never messed up and yet his father had never thrown him a party!
Sometimes, if we are not careful, we can have the attitude of that older son. We can look at the lives of others and think, "That is not fair. I know he's been messing up, and God is blessing him. What's up with that? I haven't been as bad as him!"
We need to remember that God delights in showing mercy to the guilty when, from a sincere heart, they seek that mercy. He delights when you and I ask for His mercy when we have blown it.
Micah 6:7-8 says,
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
God delights in showing mercy. So be a person of mercy, and rejoice when God shows mercy to someone who needs it.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 7:1-7
I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. - Micah 7:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," theologian Jonathan Edwards said: "Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy; but when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain . . . you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel but only to be filled full of wrath: God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that "˜tis said he will only laugh and mock, Prov. 1:25-32."
The glory of God's mercy is matched only by the fearsomeness of His judgment. And though His justice is a beautiful thing, judgment on sin is a necessity to be grieved, for it represents the doom that people bring on themselves by rebelling against God. That's why the tone of today's reading is a sad one. Micah was the speaker in these verses, and the "misery" (v. 1) was his. He felt like a man on an empty quest-godliness was "out of season." He got no pleasure from delivering bad news, even though his words were true and even though he did so in obedience to the Lord.
Micah brought dark news because he lived in dark days (vv. 2-6). They were characterized by a lack of righteous individuals. Generally, people acted in violent, greedy, and self-seeking ways. Close relationships meant nothing-friends and neighbors were not to be trusted. Family responsibilities were turned on their heads, as brother hunted brother and sons dishonored their fathers. Leaders didn't serve the people but rather were corrupted by bribes and power. Nothing was as it should have been. Sin and disorder often go hand in hand, and these people would reap what they had sown. Despite all, Micah did find one reason for hope-God Himself! (v. 7).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jonathan Edwards, quoted in today's illustration, was a profound Christian thinker who is part of a rich tradition. The works of many classic Christian writers are available free at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library Web site, www.ccel.org. You can subscribe to a free e-newsletter that highlights historical writers from the impressive archives. There are various "discussion rooms" and part of the CCEL is devoted to hymns. This resource can add much to your knowledge and understanding of Christian history and theology.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 13, 2009
Getting "In The Way"
READ: John 14:1-6
Jesus said . . . , "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." -John 14:6
The ancient Romans were known for their roads, which crisscrossed their empire with wide, heavily traveled highways. It's what Jesus' audience would have pictured when He claimed, "I am the way" in John 14:6.
While this verse indicates that He is the way to heaven, there's really more to His statement. Cutting through the underbrush of the dense jungle of our world, Jesus is our trail-guide who makes a new way for us to live. While many follow the way of the world by loving their friends and hating their enemies, Jesus carves out a new way: "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you" (Matt. 5:44). It's easy to judge and criticize others, but Jesus the Way-maker says to take the plank out of our own eye first (7:3-4). And He cuts a path for us to live with generosity instead of greed (Luke 12:13-34).
When Jesus said "I am the way," He was calling us to leave the old ways that lead to destruction and to follow Him in His new way for us to live. In fact, the word follow (Mark 8:34) literally means, "to be found in the way" with Him. You and I can make the choice to travel the familiar and ultimately destructive ways, or we can follow Him and be found in the way with the One who is the way! - Joe Stowell
As people of the Lord we're called
To follow in His way;
And though the world won't understand,
They'll see Him on display. -Sper
We don't need to see the way if we're following the One who is the Way.
Becoming a Person of Mercy
Luke 6:38 tells us,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
It is not unusual to hear this verse used in connection with giving money to the Lord's work. And while there is a principle concerning money embedded in this verse, Jesus was not talking about giving an offering when He made this statement. That was not the subject under discussion.
In order to understand what He was really talking about, you need to read verses 35-37,
"But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Jesus wanted to impress on us this truth: If you give forgiveness, and you give love, and you give mercy, they come back to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together.
He wanted us to understand that by the same measure you and I give these things, it will come back to us. But if you and I measure out judgment and condemnation, guess what gets measured back to us?
Make a commitment today to become a person of mercy, not seeking anything in return. Become known as someone who reflects our God of mercy to a broken and needy world.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Micah 7:8-13
Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. - Micah 7:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Inner City Impact (ICI) is an urban ministry that since 1972 has reached out to at-risk Chicago youth. ICI's mission is "to present the living Christ, primarily to unchurched inner city children and youth, discipling and integrating them into a local church." The focus is on winning kids to Christ, grounding them in the Word, and building discipling relationships so they can grow in their faith. Ministry activities include Bible studies, after-school clubs, summer and winter camp adventures, sports, tutoring, mentoring, and leadership development.
ICI faithfully proclaims God's hope in places where hope is sorely needed. The prophet Micah had the same privilege. After grieving the coming judgment, he-as the prophets so often did-turned the focus from people to God. In today's reading the speaker is both Micah and the entire nation, and the first thing he/they have to say is, "I will rise" (vv. 8-10). Disaster is coming-but there will be a turning point in this downward plot movement, not due to luck or heroism but because of the Lord's loving plan. Responsibility for sin is acknowledged; it is because of His righteousness, not theirs, that darkness will turn to light and those who have fallen will get up. Based on their disobedient behavior, they have no right to expect God to turn from accuser to defender, but they expect it anyway based on His covenant faithfulness.
The fact that God's name will again be glorified leads into a second message, "The day will come" (vv. 11-13). There will be a day when the exiles return home and the walls of Jerusalem are rebuilt. There will be a day for spiritual renewal and revival. There will be a day when all nations go up to the mountain of the Lord to worship (4:2). There will be a day when justice is done and sins are punished. This is hope, not in the sense of wishful thinking, but as a sure certainty in the promises of God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The prophets took no pleasure in speaking messages of judgment, but rather delighted in proclaiming the greatness of God and His redemptive plans. We are to proclaim the message of God in the same spirit. Though sin and the penalty of death are certainly part of the gospel message and must be communicated, the focus should be on life in Christ and His resurrection as our sure hope. Who in your life needs to hear the gospel? Pray for an opportunity to share it before the month is out.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals June 15, 2009
Meditate On These Things
READ: Psalm 119:89-105
I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. -Psalm 145:5
Some Christians get a little skeptical when you start talking about meditation-not seeing the huge distinction between biblical meditation and some types of mystical meditation. In mystical meditation, according to one explanation, "the rational mind is shifted into neutral . . . so that the psyche can take over." The focus is inward, and the aim is to "become one with God."
In contrast, biblical meditation focuses on the things of the Lord, and its purpose is to renew our minds (Rom. 12:2) so that we think and act more like Christ. Its objective is to reflect on what God has said and done (Ps. 77:12; 119:15-16,97) and on what He is like (48:9-14).
In Psalm 19:14, David wrote, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord." Other psalms reflect on God's love (48:9), His deeds (77:12), His law (119:97), and His testimonies (119:99).
Fill your mind with Scripture and focus on the Lord's commands and promises and goodness. And remember this: Whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, "if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things" (Phil. 4:8). - Cindy Hess Kasper
Of all God's creatures, only man
Can worship, meditate, and plan;
The gift of thought sets him apart
To love the Lord with all his heart. -D. De Haan
To become more like Christ, meditate on who He is.
Obedience and Respect
I am sure most Christian parents, at one time or another, have pointed their children to Colossians 3:20,
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Or to Ephesians 6:1-3,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
These two character qualities of obeying and honoring parents are vital to pleasing God. But it is important to understand that obedience has to do with an outward act, while honoring has to do with an inward attitude of the heart.
As parents, we all can remember those times when our children may have been outwardly obedient but were being inwardly disrespectful. You may have gotten them to sit down in the corner, but while they sat there, they were thinking, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"
If you are a parent, it is critical for you to deal just as swiftly with a disrespectful attitude as it is with a disobedient act. It is part of your God-given role of teaching your children obedience and respect for authority.
As your children learn how to obey and respect, you will not only bring them peace, they will experience God's blessing in their lives.
So as you work to raise your children to be the people God desires them to be, make a priority of teaching your children the qualities of respect for authority and obedience. Someday they will bless you for it!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Micah 7:14-20
You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us. - Micah 7:18-19
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1960, Ruby Bridges was a six-year-old girl who crossed barriers of racism and prejudice to integrate an elementary school in New Orleans. So many white parents pulled their children out of the school that she was the only child in her class. Each day, she entered the school escorted by federal marshals past crowds of angry protesters. Her teacher once asked her what she said to them. Raised in a strong Christian home, she replied, "I was praying. I was praying for them. Please, God, try to forgive those people. Because even if they say those bad things, they don't know what they are doing." Four decades later, Ruby wrote: "The things people yelled at me didn't seem to touch me. Prayer was my protection."
Forgiveness is one of God's key attributes. He delights in pardoning and showing mercy, even on the heels of His righteous anger. As the book of Micah draws to a close in today's reading, the phrase "Shepherd your people" is at the same time a prayer and an affirmation, a yearning for the covenant relationship to be restored (v. 14). God answers this heartfelt cry, promising that He will, as in the days when He freed Israel from slavery in Egypt and brought His people to the Promised Land, show them His wonders (v. 15). When His sovereign plan has been fully revealed and accomplished, the nations will be ashamed of their doubt and disobedience (vv. 16-17). Like Job, they will put their hands over their mouths with nothing to say. They will be humbled and turn to the Lord in holy fear.
The last few verses of Micah powerfully remind us that it's all about God (vv. 18-20). He is the one true God, worthy to be worshiped. He delights in mercy and forgiveness, not at all like the wrongly stereotyped "God of the Old Testament." His righteous anger is followed by His loving compassion. He is eager to forgive, to "tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." He keeps His promises because faithfulness is His essential character.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Can you identify three "takeaways" from the book of Micah? A "takeaway" is a spiritual truth or principle that really spoke to you. It's somewhat objective, because it's God's truth, and it's somewhat subjective, because it made a significant impact on you at this point in your life. Jot down three "takeaways" in your notes or spiritual journal so that you can refer back later to see what God has shown you from this book. If you're not sure, take some time to read back through Micah and the devotions of the last two weeks.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 16, 2009
Ongoing Encouragement
READ: Colossians 3:14-25
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. -Colossians 3:21
Father's Day is celebrated in many countries worldwide. Although the origins, activities, and actual day of observance differ widely, they all share the common thread of honoring fathers for their role as parents.
This year for Father's Day, I've decided to do something different. Instead of waiting to receive a card or phone call from my children, I'm sending words of appreciation to them and to my wife. After all, without them, I wouldn't be a dad.
Paul instructed fathers to be a positive part of their children's development rather than a source of anger and discouragement. He wrote, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged" (Col. 3:21). Both of these verses are embedded in passages about loving and honoring each other in family relationships.
The role of a father changes as children grow, but it doesn't end. Praise and encouragement are welcomed whether a child is 4 or 40. Prayer is always powerful. And it's never too soon to mend a broken relationship with a son or daughter.
Fathers, now is a good time to tell your children how much you love and appreciate them. - David C. McCasland
Our children need encouragement,
Expressions of our love and care;
Appreciation, when expressed,
Accentuates the bond we share. -Sper
The greatest gift a father can give to his children is himself.
Embracing the Blessings of God
Ephesians 1:3 is a verse that is often misunderstood. It tells us,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
I used to read that and wonder what in the world a spiritual blessing in a heavenly place in Christ really was! I truly believed that I had been blessed with it, but I didn't have a clue what it meant.
Then one day as I studied, I found out that the word spiritual literally means Holy Spirit-conferred. The Amplified Bible helps clarify the meaning when it says, He has blessed us with every Holy Spirit-given blessing.
What it means, literally, is that the blessings you and I enjoy as believers in Jesus Christ come from heaven's vast resources. And they have already been conferred on us. Isn't that awesome?!
But there is something more. These Holy Spirit-conferred blessings include any blessing and benefit we get from God, be it material, physical, emotional, or spiritual.
So, when God heals you, it is a blessing being conferred through the agency of His Spirit. When God brings peace to your troubled heart, that is a blessing from the Holy Spirit. And when God supernaturally supplies material needs, that is the Holy Spirit at work blessing you from the vast resources of heaven!
But here is what I really want you to grasp. Based on this verse, all those blessings have already been given. They have been issued. On God's side of the ledger, they are a done deal. He has already signed them and sent them.
So praise God for...and embrace...His blessings in your life!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Habakkuk 1:1-4
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? - Habakkuk 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
The "problem of evil" is a philosophical dilemma that has troubled believers throughout history. It goes something like this: If God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can evil, suffering, disaster, and death exist in the world? If He is all-loving, wouldn't He want to end these things? And if He is all-knowing, wouldn't He know how? And if He is all-powerful, wouldn't He be able to do so? If He really is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can we explain these things? But if He is not all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can He be God?
The problem of evil is not only an issue raised by unbelievers, for we find people wrestling with it in the pages of Scripture as well. The prophet Habakkuk was one of them. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah whose book seems to have been written just before 605 b.c., the date of Babylon's first invasion of Judah (see Jeremiah 46). This short book feels more like a psalm than a prophecy because it revolves around a dialogue with God rather than a message for the nation. Habakkuk's name means "embracer," which various commentators have interpreted to indicate his love for God, his love for the people, or God's love for him (a man embraced by God).
Habakkuk poses his essential question early in this book: Why does evil go unpunished? (v. 3). From a human perspective, God appears to be not listening, not paying attention, or not doing anything (v. 2). The prophet feels forced to watch things that God should not be allowing or tolerating. The sin he sees is that of his own people, and like the psalmists his words reflect anger, grief, and a desire for justice. Yet justice is not being done and is even being perverted or twisted out of shape (v. 4). Is God paralyzed? How can people sow sin and not reap judgment? Morally and spiritually, things are the opposite of what they should be.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The perversion of justice deeply bothered the prophet Habakkuk, and it should bother us as well. One suggestion for making a difference against contemporary social injustice is to purchase a worship CD entitled CompassionArt: Creating Freedom from Poverty. Some of the biggest names in Christian songwriting participated in a spiritual retreat, during which they wrote the songs for this album, with 100 percent of the royalties going to help those in need. More information is available at http://www.compassionart.tv.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 17, 2009
My Two Cents
READ: Acts 2:40-47
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. -Proverbs 3:27
Recently, our family had to change Internet cable services. Our former provider promised to send us a postage-paid box to mail their equipment back to them. We waited. No box came. I phoned. The promised box still did not arrive, but we did get a bill for the equipment!
Wanting to get this resolved, I decided to return it at my own expense. I sent several faxes asking if they received it-but no reply. Then I got a refund check of $.02 for the returned equipment! An experience like that can be frustrating. A simple transaction was complicated by poor communication.
Sadly, some people in our churches may encounter an impersonal response to their needs. Whether seeking marital counseling, childcare, guidance for a troubled teen, or a loving community, they come away feeling uncared for.
The first-century church was not perfect, but it faithfully helped others. The church at Jerusalem "divided [their goods] among all, as anyone had need" (Acts 2:45).
Good communication is the starting point for learning others' needs. This enables us to provide personal and practical help to people when they need it. Resources, both material and spiritual, can then be directed to each person as the object of God's personal love. - Dennis Fisher
All who serve within the church
Should show by word and deed
A sensitivity to those
Who have a special need. -D. De Haan
God cares for you-care for others.
Enjoying the Fullness of Your Inheritance
In Galatians 4:1-5, the apostle Paul helps us understand what it means to be part of God's family,
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Adoption in Roman society was very different from adoption today. When a flesh and blood son reached the age of maturity, he was "adopted" into his own family. Until that time, he was considered a child, and he was under the tutelage of a household slave.
We are heirs because of adoption. What does this mean? It means that God is well pleased when we assume our place as mature sons of God, exercising our authority and enjoying the fullness of our inheritance. But most Christians don't do this.
Not long ago, I learned about a particular website that can tell you if you have any money anywhere that you don't know about. There are literally hundreds of millions of dollars sitting unused in trust funds or accounts that people don't know about.
A lot of Christians operate this way. They have this incredible inheritance that belongs to them, this incredible authority that has been given to them, and they are unaware of it. And, friend, that does not bring pleasure to God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Habakkuk 1:5-11
I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. - Habakkuk 1:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Conrad Maier-Sogheg made a lot of money, enough to deposit $10,000 per day to his bank account in Georgia. How did an unemployed man manage this? It turns out he was literally making money, printing his own bills from inside a rented storage unit. He used laser templates, special paper, and a variety of chemicals, including baby powder, to create his counterfeits. Said one police officer: "It's the best counterfeit scheme I have seen in my law enforcement career. The bills look and feel real." How was he caught? He failed to pay the rent on his storage unit, and when workers went to empty it out they discovered the scam.
"You may be sure that your sin will find you out," the Bible warns (Num. 32:23). Justice is inevitable. That's exactly how God answered Habakkuk's first question. He told him that justice was about to be done, that the nation's punishment for sin and covenant-breaking was imminent. It would not be allowed to continue indefinitely. This was not a prophecy of the distant future, for God told the prophet it would happen "in your days" (v. 5).
What was He going to do? He planned to raise up the Babylonians and use them to conquer Judah. This is stunning in at least two ways-spiritually, in that a pagan nation would be used to judge God's people, and politically, in that the mighty Assyrians were about to be displaced as a world superpower. The imagery relates mostly to hunting and prey. Like a leopard or vulture, the Babylonians would descend upon their hapless victims. They would be as irresistible as a desert wind, defeating even those seemingly secure in fortified cities. But God was under no illusion about the Babylonians. He knew they were idolators. He knew they would be "ruthless" and portrayed them as typical conquerors (vv. 6-7), that is, as proud lovers of power and domination who would be dreaded by others and "whose own strength is their god" (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When reading biblical prophecy, it is helpful to have handy a timeline or chronology of events. Otherwise, we can get lost in the various historical episodes that are presented as past, present, and future from the prophet's perspective. If your Bible has such a timeline among its resources, we encourage you to study it along with this month's devotionals. If not, or if you're looking for something more in-depth, you can obtain a reference such as The Chronology of the Old Testament (book and CD-ROM), by Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 18, 2009
Passionate Boldness
READ: Acts 4:5-13
When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, . . . they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. -Acts 4:13
A young man was preaching to the passersby in Hounslow, on the outskirts of London, England. Most ignored him, a few ridiculed, and several stopped to listen. But regardless of the reaction of the people, he was undeterred. With a strong voice and clear resolve, he poured out his heart-not with the words of an angry prophet, but with deep concern for the men and women on that street. His eyes, facial expressions, and tone of voice revealed an attitude of compassion, not condemnation. In it all, he boldly shared the love and grace of Jesus Christ.
In Acts 4, when the church was still new, Peter and John also boldly addressed the people of their generation. The response of the leaders of their day? "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus" (v.13). That boldness was not the fruit of ministerial training but of much time spent in the presence of the Master. As a result, they had become passionate about what concerned Christ-the eternal destiny of men and women.
That same passionate boldness was on the face of the young man in Hounslow. Do people see it in us? - Bill Crowder
Will you be bold in your witness
By giving lost sinners God's Word?
Jesus will honor your service,
And sinners will surely be stirred. -Bosch
A Christian is an ambassador who speaks for the King of kings.
Blessed to Be a Blessing
Our capitalistic society is geared toward one purpose...people accumulating wealth. While there is nothing wrong with material abundance, many Christians today have lost sight of why God has blessed them with prosperity.
They believe it is for their own good and benefit, but God's perspective is quite different. For example, here is what the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 13:16,
But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Now the phrase "to share" means to share with others. One translation says, Share what you have. Another version translates this, Be generous. Another says, Contribute to the needy.
You see, God blesses us to make us a blessing! That ought to be the main motivation for desiring and praying for God's blessing in our lives. God told Abraham, "I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." God says the fringe benefit is that, "I will give you richly all things to enjoy." But the main flow of God's purpose in blessing us is so we can help other people.
It is also the reason we should desire the inheritance that Christ has given to us, all of those Holy Spirit-conferred blessings, which we discussed on day 14. Why? Because we can't give what we don't have. You can't bless someone if you don't have anything to bless them with!
God is well pleased to see us walk in our inheritance as sons, but He is also well pleased to see us share what He has blessed us with.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Habakkuk 2:2-11
Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of ruin! - Habakkuk 2:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
A skeptic once asked a minister if he really believed the Bible. Yes, he was told. "Is there anything you can't explain?" was the next question. Yes again-the minister even showed him the question marks in the margins of his Bible. Surprised, the skeptic asked, "What do you do with all the things you can't explain?" "Very simple," the minister replied. "I do the same thing I'm doing with this fish I'm eating. I eat the meat and push all the bones to the side of the plate, and then let any fool that wants to choke over them."
Our finite minds cannot fully comprehend the ways of our infinite God. Even so, He communicates and reveals Himself in ways that we can understand. So God answered Habakkuk's second question, at least as far as the prophet could understand the answer. As we see today and tomorrow, He assured him that the evil instrument of Judah's punishment would in turn be punished and that the scales of justice would balance in the end. Babylon would fall.
God certainly agreed with Habakkuk's moral estimate of the Babylonians (vv. 4-5). They were proud and lusted for power. "He is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied." This didn't square with the principle that the righteous live by faith (or faithfulness), a truth quoted in the New Testament in several places (such as Rom. 1:17).
That's why God pronounced five woes on the Babylonians. The first (vv. 6-8) said that the plunderers would become the plundered-unjust gains must be paid for. The second (vv. 9-11) indicated that the plotters of ruin would themselves be ruined and that no one is beyond the reach of God's sovereign hand. These "woes" are statements of judgment as well as "taunt songs"-a literary form in which losers are mocked. The wicked will receive justice from the hand of God in His due time. The basic idea is, "They finally got their just desserts, they had it coming."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Now that you've asked God your toughest questions (yesterday's "Today Along the Way"), the next step is another challenging assignment: Wait (v. 3). Wait patiently for His answer, whenever it comes, in whatever form it comes. Living by faith means waiting in hope for "that day" to arrive. As with the prophecies recorded by Habakkuk and others, it might be tomorrow, next year, next century, or even farther in the future. But God will answer, and our faith will be vindicated!
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 19, 2009
The Tempted Brothers
READ: Genesis 39:1-12
How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? -Genesis 39:9
Two brothers-both far from home -faced similar temptations. One, working away from the family, fell to the schemes of a younger woman. His sin led to embarrassment and family turmoil. The other, separated from loved ones because of family turmoil, resisted the advances of an older woman. His faithfulness led to rescue and renewal for the family.
Who are these brothers? Judah, who fell to the desperate scheme of his neglected daughter-in-law Tamar (Gen. 38). And Joseph, who ran from the arms of Potiphar's wife (Gen. 39). One chapter, an ugly story of irresponsibility and deception; the other, a beautiful chapter of faithfulness.
The stories of Judah and Joseph, presented back-to-back in the midst of "the history of Jacob" (37:2), show us that temptation itself is not the problem. Everybody faces temptation, even Jesus did (Matt. 4:1-11). But how do we face temptation? Do we demonstrate that faith in God can shield us from giving in to sin?
Joseph gave us one way of escape: Recognize sin as an affront to God and run from it. Jesus gave another: Answer temptation with truth from God's Word.
Facing temptation? See it as an opportunity to make God and His Word real in your life. Then run! - Dave Branon
For Further Study
To gain insight into how to say no to temptation, check out Resisting The Lure: Recognizing The Dangers Of Sexual Temptation at www.discoveryseries.org/q0707
We fall into temptation when we don't stand against it.
You Can't Out-Give God
Tucked away in the pages of the New Testament is a very powerful promise to those who are generous givers. It is found in Philippians 4:18-19,
Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The Philippian church had made the financial support of the apostle Paul a priority. In these verses Paul acknowledges their generosity and also states a vital principle for every believer to grasp...you can't out-give God!
Not too long ago I came across a letter from a lady who had sacrificially given to the work of God. Here is what she said in her letter:
"My husband and I were in dire straits. He is a Vietnam War veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange. Due to his benefit claims being denied and his being unemployed for three years, we lost nearly everything. We had to put our home up for sale, but nothing was happening. During this time, I gave every penny I could get my hands on and always prayed. So one miracle after another began to take place. First, we were able to move into my husband's deceased mother's home. Then we signed papers for the sale of our former home. Next, my husband's claim for benefits was approved and awarded, and the award was backdated three years. Then he found a job! Our income has tripled, and God continues to do miraculous things for us."
My friend, become a generous giver today. Because you can't out-give God!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Habakkuk 2:12-20
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. - Habakkuk 2:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the best-known statues in the world, found at many courthouses, features Lady Justice, often wearing a blindfold and holding a sword in one hand and balances in the other. This statue dates back to Greek and Roman times. The balances or scales represent impartiality or objectivity; the double-edged sword symbolizes the power wielded by judges and juries; and the blindfold indicates that justice does not play favorites based on status, wealth, or any other factor.
The scales of justice are divinely guaranteed to balance in the end, God told Habakkuk in today's reading. This is part two of His response to the prophet's second question, as well as the third, fourth, and fifth woes pronounced against the Babylonians. The third woe (vv. 12-14) focuses on the rotten foundations of the coming Babylonian empire. A city built on bloodshed cannot stand. A kingdom built on violence and military conquest will not endure. It is the plans of the sovereign God that prevail, not human endeavors and especially not wicked ones. Such things are merely "fuel for the fire," a chasing after the wind. In the end, history is about the earth being "filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord."
The fourth woe (vv. 15-17) addresses the issue of exploitation. Babylon will be like a person who gets someone else drunk in order to take advantage of them sexually. The picture here implies not just voyeurism but rape-a shameful, sinful, violent, and violating act. This is what it is like to conquer and plunder other nations, and this is why they'll reap what they sow. Just as they get others drunk, so to speak, so they themselves will drink the cup of God's wrath. The fifth and final woe (vv. 18-20) condemns idolatry. Instead of worshiping handmade "gods," people are created to worship their Creator. Idols are silent and powerless, but one day the whole earth will be silent before the power and majesty of the one true God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If the "problem of evil" is something you're interested in learning more about, several good books deal at length with this topic: How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, by D. A. Carson, which emphasizes theology; The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition: From the Book of Job to Modern Genetics, by Joseph F. Kelly, which has a more historical focus; and The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, by Brian Davies, which deals with these issues from a philosophical standpoint.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 20, 2009
A Happy Reunion
READ: Revelation 21:1-5
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. -Revelation 21:3
In 2002, Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her home in Utah. She lived a vagabond life in the constant presence of the couple accused of abducting her. However, 9 months after she was abducted she was found and returned home. It was the happy reunion her family had been longing for.
In the book of Revelation, John describes a vision of a new heaven and a new earth and our future reunion with the Lord (21:1-5). The context is not just geographic, but a context of life for God's people-a glorious reality of God and His people dwelling together for eternity.
John describes the benefits that come to God's people when He takes up His abode in their midst. Abolished forever are the debilitating consequences of sin. In John's vision, sorrow, death, pain, and separation are all part of the first things that are now gone. The old order gives way to the new and perfect order-a reunion of eternal blessedness. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. . . . He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new'?" (Rev. 21:3,5).
One day, we'll rejoice over a happy reunion in heaven with our heavenly Father. We cannot imagine what a day of rejoicing that will be! - Marvin Williams
Beyond the sunset, O glad reunion
With our dear loved ones who've gone before;
In that fair homeland we'll know no parting.
Beyond the sunset forevermore. -Brock
© Renewal 1964, The Rodeheaver Company.
Separation is the law of earth-reunion is the law of heaven.
The Priority of Purity
We live in a highly sexualized society. It is amazing the number of people, even pastors, who fall to sexual temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 we are told straight out,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
God expects for you and me to live in sexual purity. You need to know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor; otherwise your body will possess you.
God has created a strong sexual drive that is an awesome blessing in marriage! But, you know, it is so strong that sometimes it just wants to flow out of the banks and go somewhere it shouldn't go.
We must learn how to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, and live morally pure lives that bring pleasure to God. Here are three practical ways:
Avoid temptation. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, Flee youthful lusts. Avoid the very scenes of temptation. Stay away when you know you might get in trouble.
Feed your spirit, not your flesh. In Romans, we are told of the great war every Christian experiences, the war between our spirit and our flesh. Whatever you feed is going to be stronger, so make sure to feed your spirit.
Rely on the Holy Spirit and His power. If you will acknowledge Him and look to Him for strength, you will find He is a very present help in your time of need.
Make a commitment today to practice these three principles for purity. If you do, you will live in the sexual purity God desires.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Habakkuk 3:1-7
I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. - Habakkuk 3:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Keith and Kristyn Getty are a husband-and-wife team of Irish Christian songwriters who are committed to composing contemporary hymns. You may have sung some of their work in your church, including "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" and "In Christ Alone." Keith recently told an interviewer, "A song has to be easy and inspirational to sing, and lyrically it has to teach the truth of God in a way that is emotionally engaging and poetic." The Gettys also want their hymns to appeal to entire congregations: "We look for songs that bring all ages together because singing is an act of unity." They see worship as "singing with the generations that have gone before us, and we're singing as a foretaste of what will come after us."
The book of Habakkuk ends not with more questions, but with worship. The final chapter is a psalm of praise to the Lord! This is a helpful reminder: while we see the prophet can ask God tough questions, we also see that he knows when to stop. From a philosophical standpoint, the dialogue could continue, but theologically the time had come for a Job-like silence before the Lord (2:20). The key theme of this chapter, as one might expect, is justice, and the main point is that justice will be done, as guaranteed by the person and character of God. The opening invocation (v. 2) recalls His awesome deeds on Israel's behalf in history and pleads for a renewal of those inspiring days. Though wrath is coming, Habakkuk prayed and believed that mercy would win out.
Verses 3 through 7 present a poetic picture of God's coming. He is glorious, like the sunrise, with light flashing from His hand. He is powerful, as the earth shakes, the nations tremble, and the mountains crumble. If nature is brought low, fear and reverence by people is inevitable. "His ways are eternal"-nothing human, natural, or supernatural can stand against Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
he glory of God's coming in today's poetic reading should fill our hearts with joy and anticipation. Think of a time when He entered your life with just such power and awesomeness, a time when He made His love and presence known in unmistakable ways. Have you shared this story with your friends or family? God's work in our lives is not solely for our benefit; He gives us a story to tell in order to encourage others and bring glory to His name. If you have a testimony of His work, share it and praise Him!
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 21, 2009
Our Legacy
READ: Psalm 127
Children are a heritage from the Lord. -Psalm 127:3
A friend of mine wrote recently, "If we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family left behind would feel the loss for the rest of their lives. Why then do we invest so much in our work and so little in our children's lives?"
Why do we sometimes exhaust ourselves rising up early and going late to rest, "eating the bread of anxious toil" (Ps. 127:1-2 esv), busying ourselves to make our mark on this world, and overlooking the one investment that matters beyond everything else-our children?
Solomon declared, "Children are a heritage from the Lord"-an invaluable legacy He has bequeathed us. "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth" (v.4) is his striking simile. Nothing is more worthy of our energy and time.
There is no need for "anxious toil," working night and day, the wise man Solomon proclaimed, for the Lord does take care of us (Ps. 127:2). We can make time for our children and trust that the Lord will provide for all of our physical needs. Children, whether our own or those we disciple, are our lasting legacy-an investment we'll never regret. - David H. Roper
Our children are a heritage,
A blessing from the Lord;
They bring a richness to our lives-
In each, a treasure stored. -Fasick
Time spent with your children is time wisely invested.
Perfect and Complete
Your faith in God has incredible potential to make your life complete. To take you from the place of deficiency, to the place of being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James puts it this way in James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Faith in God can make you complete, but your faith will be contested. It will be opposed, even as we read here. Your faith will go through the fire of trial.
If you lack spiritually in your life, you can get to the place of holiness. If you are lacking materially, you can get to a place where your needs are met. Whatever your lack, your faith in God has the potential to take you from where you are, and where you are lacking, to this place that the Bible speaks of...being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
But, the path to that completeness is one of trial. Your faith will not get you there until it first goes through testing. You do have an adversary. You will be opposed. The Bible says, Your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
The devil knows what is at stake, and he will do all he can to keep you from trusting God. So as your faith encounters the turbulence of trials, do what James says, and count it all joy. You are on your way to becoming perfect and complete in Christ.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Habakkuk 3:8-15
Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear. - Habakkuk 3:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
The children are restless. They bounce from toy to toy, occasionally running to the front window to look out at the empty street. They are full of questions: "When are they coming?" "Did they forget?" "What time is it now?" "Are they driving fast enough?" At last the moment arrives. The sun flashes off the windshield of a familiar green sedan as it turns into the driveway. "They're here, they're here!" the kids shout. Grandma and Grandpa smile and wave as they step out of the car.
Waiting impatiently for important people to show up makes their coming all the sweeter. That's the background feeling for today's reading, in which God Almighty arrives in power to save His people. Pictured as a Warrior, He fights on their behalf and wins the victory, just as He did during the conquest of the Promised Land. Some of the pictures are military, such as God riding in a chariot or shooting a bow and arrows. Others are supernatural, such as God splitting the earth with rivers and using other elements of nature as weapons. And some can only be called sovereign, such as God threshing the nations like a farmer harvesting wheat.
Many commentators see specific historical references in these verses. For example, the mention of rivers (v. 8) alludes to when God turned the Nile to blood and later parted the Jordan so the Israelites could cross. The sun standing still (v. 11) recalls the victory at Gibeon. The sea (v. 15) brings to mind the miraculous parting of the Red Sea in the escape from Egypt. The verbs in this passage are powerful: God "rages" in righteous wrath in order to "deliver" or "save" His chosen people. He used a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to protect and guide them during the Exodus, and Habakkuk's continuing prayer is that those days would come again. His faith was strong-he believed that God would bring future restoration as surely He brought past deliverance!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The book of Habakkuk, like many of the Psalms, uses the history of God's work with His people to inspire praise and worship. Do you ever review God's work in your own life as a source of praise? You could compose your own hymn of praise that acknowledges God's character and work. If writing words or music doesn't seem like your strong suit, you can at least approach the praise time during the next church service with a fresh perspective on reasons to give praise to the Lord.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 22, 2009
Open Invitation
READ: Ephesians 2:14-22
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. -Hebrews 4:16
Versailles was made the capital of France by King Louis XIV in 1682 and remained the capital (except for a short time) until 1789 when it was moved back to Paris. The beautiful palace of Versailles included an opulent 241-foot-long Hall of Mirrors. When a visitor approached the king, he had to curtsy every five steps as he walked the entire distance to meet the king sitting on his dazzling silver throne!
Foreign emissaries to France submitted to that humiliating ritual to court the French monarch's favor toward their country. By contrast, our God, the King of kings, invites His people to come to His throne freely. We can come to Him anytime-no advance appointments and no bowing required!
How grateful we should be that our heavenly Father is so much more inviting! "Through [Christ] we . . . have access by one Spirit to the Father" (Eph. 2:18). Because of this, the writer of Hebrews urges us to "come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:16).
Have you responded to God's open invitation? Come in awe and gratitude, for the God of this universe is willing to hear your petitions anytime. - C. P. Hia
You need to talk with God today,
Your heart's bowed down with care;
Just speak the words you have to say-
He'll always hear your prayer. -Hess
Access to God's throne is always open.
Passing the Test of Your Faith
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how God desires for us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing; but the road to that is the testing of our faith.
The natural question is, "What does it take to succeed when the test comes?" There are two cooperating forces which must be at work. James 1:4-5 shows us what those two forces are,
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
The first force is patience. James' point is, "Don't quit before the answer comes. Let patience have full play, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
Hebrews 10:36, says it this way,
For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
You and I may actually have done the will of God, done what God wants us to do, but if we don't exercise endurance, we won't receive the promise. That is the importance of patience.
The second cooperating force at work to pass the test of your faith is wisdom. If you lack wisdom, if you can't see the forest for the trees in the midst of your trial, you can ask God and He will give it...liberally and without reproach.
God delights when you ask for wisdom. And He won't belittle you or find fault with you for asking.
So if you find your faith on trial, if you are being sorely tested, ask God for wisdom and patiently endure. Without these two forces, you will never know victory!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Habakkuk 3:16-19
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. - Habakkuk 3:17-18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Are you having trouble remembering things? Try some blueberries! Scientists at the University of Reading in England have found that adding blueberries to a regular diet helps improve memory. It increases memory capacity and can even reverse memory loss. The key is flavonoids, which are known to boost the part of the brain that controls learning and memory. The researchers are planning to investigate next whether these findings might help people with Alzheimer's disease.
The Israelites could have used some blueberries in their diet, at least to judge from how frequently they forgot about all the incredible things God had done for them. Habakkuk was so overcome by the memory that his heart pounded and his legs trembled (v. 16). This physical picture shows a combination of awe-God's deeds are amazing and overwhelming-and holy fear-God's power and wrath are about to punish Judah's sins in the same ways as described in this chapter-as well as eagerness for the day when the prophesied judgment would be past and God would gather and restore His people.
Verses 17 and 18 are perhaps the best-known and best-loved verses in the book, and seem more relevant than ever in these difficult economic times. They are an unequivocal statement of faith in God despite circumstances. Things are as bad as they can possibly be. The trees do not bud, the crops do not ripen, and the livestock are dead. A modern paraphrase might read: "Though the cupboard be bare, the bills coming due, my car repossessed, a pink slip in my hand, and no jobs in town, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior." To be clear: this isn't "grit your teeth and hang on" mentality, nor does it ignore the reality of the situation. Instead, this is joy! The bottom line is not circumstances but God (v. 19). He is our source of confidence and strength, the only Rock on which we can rely.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This kind of hope and joy and faith is supernatural; we cannot bring it up out of ourselves on our own. Are you struggling to rejoice in the Lord because your situation seems overwhelming? God doesn't promise to sweep our problems under the rug, nor does He promise "health and wealth" to His followers. But He does promise to be faithful, and He promises to be with us (see John 14). He has given us His Holy Spirit, who comforts us and enables us to look at the very real trials of life and still be joyful in God our Savior.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 23, 2009
A Powerful Message
READ: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The gospel of Christ . . . is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. -Romans 1:16
Bible teacher Lehman Strauss was brought to Christ through the power of the Word when he was young. At his girlfriend's suggestion, he read Romans 3:23, 5:8, and 10:13. As he did, he was convicted of his sin. He wept and believed.
When his son Richard was 7 years old, he asked his father how to be saved. Lehman used the same verses that his girlfriend (who was now his wife) had used years earlier. His son believed too, and eventually became a pastor.
God's Word has tremendous power! The first recorded time God spoke, He created light (Gen. 1:3). He spoke a promise to Abraham (17:15-19) and enabled his 90-year-old wife Sarah to bear a child (21:1-2). God still speaks with power today, and all who hear and believe the gospel are saved (Rom. 1:16).
Yes, the message of Christ and His saving work on the cross can change the direction of a person's life. It has the power to reach the heart of that person you love and have prayed for many times.
So don't give up in your witness. Be consistent in your daily walk. Keep praying and sharing the gospel with others. It's a powerful message! - David C. Egner
Sweetly echo the gospel call-
Wonderful words of life;
Offer pardon and peace to all-
Wonderful words of life. -Bliss
Our words have power to influence; God's words have power to save.
Gaining the Wisdom of God
I think every Christian desires wisdom from God. But they don't get it because they don't understand how to receive it.
In Psalm 51:6, we are told,
...in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
When God communicates His wisdom to us, He does it in that secret part. Whether it's as we read His Word and a Scripture speaks to us, or whether the Holy Spirit just whispers to us. As Proverbs 20:27 tells us, The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord. In other words, God illuminates us through our spirit.
For example, maybe you are in a difficult financial situation and you just don't know what to do. You are working, you are tithing, you are trusting God, you are doing all you need to do, but it seems like you can't make ends meet.
Maybe what you need is wisdom. If you ask for it, God may speak something as simple to your heart as, "Go talk to this person." Or, "Advertise in this magazine." Or, "Call so-and-so and ask them to forgive you for the way you treated them." Or He may just say, "Hold steady."
Shortly after I was saved, I developed a physical condition I could not get any relief from. So I went to God and I said, "God, give me wisdom." God spoke to me and said, "You need to stop drinking coffee."
Now I did not want to hear that because I was a big coffee drinker. But you know what? After obeying God in that, almost immediately, that condition cleared up, and it has never been back.
God's wisdom. He will speak to you. If you ask, He will make His wisdom known in the hidden part.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Malachi 1:1-5
"I have loved you," says the Lord. - Malachi 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
After 70 years in exile, many Jews returned to their homeland following the decree of Cyrus in 538 B.C. By 515 B.C., the second temple was completed. The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by about 443 B.C. under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, who also led a period of spiritual revival. But in 433 B.C., Nehemiah returned to his position as cupbearer for the emperor, and a time of national backsliding followed his departure. It was in this historical context that Malachi began his prophetic ministry, probably about 430 B.C. The spiritual laxness, disobedience, and specific sins he condemned were also observed by Nehemiah when he returned for a visit (see Neh. 13:6-31).
"Malachi" means "my messenger," so possibly this is a title rather than a proper name, but we'll assume it's an actual prophet's name. He is not, though, mentioned anywhere else in Scripture and nothing is known about his background, family, or hometown. The themes of this book, placed last in the Old Testament canon, include worship, repentance, obedience, faithfulness, hope, and justice.
Many of these ideas are developed by means of a question-and-answer structure. Biblical scholar Charles Ryrie has identified 23 questions in the book's four chapters, many of them satirical. Satire is "the use of ridicule, sarcasm, or irony to expose, attack, or deride vices, follies, and sins." The book can be divided into six sections, generally beginning with a statement or question to which the people respond, followed by God proving or explaining the charge of wrongdoing embedded in the original statement or question. (These sections begin at 1:2; 1:6; 2:10; 2:17; 3:7; and 3:13.)
"How have you loved us?" is the opening question, asked by the people to God. History is the answer, as the Lord cited His election of Jacob over Esau and the fate of Edom as reminders of the Israelites' reasons to praise and worship Him (cf. Rom. 9:10-13).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The four centuries that passed between Malachi and Matthew are sometimes called the "silent years." They were "silent" in the sense that God did not send new prophets to speak His inspired words, but God was still at work in the world and history was continuing to unfold. If you have time for additional study, find out more about that history. Bible handbooks, commentaries, and New Testament survey textbooks are good places to read up on what was happening as the "B.C. clock" wound down.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 24, 2009
Postponement Problems
READ: Romans 12:4-13
We have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. -Romans 12:4
Many of us struggle with them-postponement problems. A professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta studied the problem of procrastination for 5 years and reported that 95 percent of us put off doing one thing or another. One estimate showed that Americans lose approximately $400 million a year by putting off filing taxes! Because of fear of failure or other insecurities, we wait and wait before starting a project or making a decision.
Procrastination is a problem in the church too. Many of us postpone serving God. We know we should reach out to others, but we feel insecure or worried about what to do. Because we're unsure of our gifts or interests, we put off our involvement in the church. We worry, What if I do a poor job? What if I find out I can't even do it?
Romans 12 gives us some encouragement. Serving starts with presenting ourselves to God as "a living sacrifice" (v.1). Pray and give yourself anew to the Lord and His work. Then look around at what others are doing in your church and ask if you can join in. Start small if you need to, and try a number of things.
Your church needs you. Ask God to help you overcome your postponement problems.
- Anne Cetas
Don't put off for tomorrow
What you can do today;
Postponement may bring sorrow,
Prompt action is the way. -Hess
For a healthier church, exercise your spiritual gifts.
The Requirement for Receiving God's Wisdom
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about how, when you ask for God's wisdom, He reveals it in your spirit...that hidden place. But there is a critical requirement for God to reveal that wisdom to you. You have to ask for it in faith.
James 1:6-8 tells us,
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
You can't vacillate between two opinions. If you don't anchor yourself on God's promise that He will give you His wisdom, you will be blown about by the opinions of others, by your feelings, by the way the circumstances look, and you won't receive anything from God.
Not too long ago I went with some friends in a small boat to Catalina (an island 26 miles off the coast of Southern California). Just as we were arriving at about eight in the evening, the engine seized. We paddled in to a depth where we could drop the anchor.
After calling Vessel Assist, a storm came up and the wind began to blow and the rain began to fall. We had to wait a couple of hours before help arrived.
You know what? If we hadn't dropped anchor, the wind would have blown us somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
My friend, you have to drop your anchor. You have to ask in faith. You can't vacillate. You can't be double-minded if you are going to receive the wisdom of God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Malachi 1:6-14
When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands? - Malachi 1:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Brian Doerksen is a Christian songwriter who has penned such classics as "Refiner's Fire" and "Come, Now Is the Time to Worship." To him, worship is truly what it's all about. He recently told an interviewer: "When I first felt called to do this over twenty years ago, I wanted to perform music on big stages. But God quickly called me to be all about worship, which is really 'Notice God, don't notice me.' I feel incredibly comfortable in my own way trying to live out the whole John the Baptist thing ('He must become greater, I must become less') especially when I look at what it means to be a worship leader-an artist who creates a 'window' for people to look through and see someone greater."
The importance of worship is one of Malachi's themes as well. Our readings for today and tomorrow combine to form the second message out of the six found in this book. The key truth here, shown through metaphors of family and authority, is that honor and respect are the Lord's due (v. 6). The priests, however, had failed in this essential responsibility. Worship is about honoring God's name, but they showed contempt for it.
Instead of offering the best, they offered the worst, putting crippled, blind, and diseased animals on the altar (vv. 7-8). Such sacrifices were forbidden by the Mosaic Law (see Lev. 1:3). Did they think God was a doddering old fool? They never would have dared to pull a stunt like that on a human ruler! Did they really think their pious-sounding prayers would be granted in response to insincere and disdainful hearts (v. 9)? Rather than continue such a mockery of "worship," God would rather they shut the temple doors and stopped faking it (v. 10). Despite their attitudes and behavior, God's name will be lifted up among the nations and pure, right-hearted worship will be given Him throughout all the earth (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today, consider your attitude toward giving to God in light of Malachi's indictment of the Israelites. When they brought diseased and crippled animals as sacrifices, they showed profound disrespect for God. What about us? Instead of making giving to God a priority, do we "wait and see" what's left in the checkbook at the end of the month? Are we putting $20 in the offering plate every Sunday when our income indicates we could give much more? Being stingy with God is a sign of spiritual trouble in our hearts.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 26, 2009
Chimp Eden
READ: Numbers 14:1-10
If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us. -Numbers 14:8
Eugene Cussons rescues chimpanzees. Orphaned by those in the business of bush-meat trade and taken from the jungle as infants, many have lived their entire lives confined in a space smaller than a prison cell. When Cussons arrives to take them to the game reserve he calls "Chimp Eden," he often finds them hostile and untrusting.
"These chimps don't realize that I am one of the good guys," Cussons says. When he tries to put them into a smaller crate for the trip to their new home, they put up quite a fight. "They don't know that I'm going to take them back to Chimp Eden and give them a life so much better."
On a much grander scale, God's offer to liberate us from the slavery of sin is often met with resistance. When He rescued the children of Israel from Egypt, God took them through difficult places that caused them to doubt His good intentions. "Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" they cried (Num. 14:3).
On our journey of faith, there are times when the "freedom" of sin that we left behind is more appealing than the restrictions of faith that lie ahead. We must trust the protective boundaries found in God's Word as the only way to get to the place of ultimate freedom. - Julie Ackerman Link
Sin's lure may look like freedom
But in its grip we're bound;
It's when we're bound to Jesus
Real freedom will be found. -D. De Haan
Obedience to God is the key to freedom.
True Faith
James 2:14-20 tells us the substance of true faith,
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
My favorite translation of this last verse is, "Faith without actions thatcorrespondis dead." Faith must have actions that correspond with it.
You can talk about catching fish, about what lures you are going to use, and how you are going to cook them after you catch them, but if you never throw a line in the water, you are not going to catch a fish.
Or it's like the golfer who comes to a 3-par hole with a lake right in front of the green and says, "No problem, I can hit that green with my six iron." Then he digs out an old ratty golf ball. If he truly believes he can hit the green, he will hit his brand new $3 golf ball!
For faith to be genuine, it has to have corresponding actions.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Malachi 2:1-9
True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. - Malachi 2:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Books are important to rural communities in Venezuela. They're so important, in fact, that one university is running a special mobile library program featuring bibliomulas, or book mules. These mules help take library books to isolated groups living in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. The project leader said, "Spreading the joy of reading is our main aim." Both children and adults are often waiting to dive into the books as soon as they arrive. If only we as believers showed that much enthusiasm for reading God's Book!
In today's reading, Malachi was concerned about the careless teaching of Scripture. This is the second part of his second message, so it's the same priests who offered unacceptable sacrifices who are here condemned (vv. 1-2, 7-9). As spiritual leaders and guides for the nation, they were responsible to give instruction in the truths of Scripture and the knowledge of God. But they had neglected their duties and caused many to stumble. The term "partiality" indicates that their teachings were biased, self-serving, untrue, and/or unjust. This was a serious affront to God, and the Lord said they would be "despised and humiliated" for failing in this essential responsibility. The curse in store was shown in the shocking prediction that "offal" (guts) would be rubbed on their faces (v. 3). Both ceremonially unclean and disgusting, this is ironic justice-the priests would be defiled with the entrails of their own defiled sacrifices.
God's standard is covenant faithfulness, as exemplified in their forefather Levi (vv. 4-6). Historically, the Levites had earned the right to minister when rallied to God and stood for purity after the worship of the golden calf at Sinai (see Ex. 32:25-29; Num. 3:12-13). They understood that God's covenant was about life and peace and truth, and that the proper responses were awe, reverence, and personal holiness. Unlike their descendants here, they fulfilled their sacred responsibility of teaching covenant truths and calling the people to love and obey the Lord.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
An excellent tool for your library would be The Literary Study Bible, available in the English Standard Version (ESV) translation. Father-and-son team Leland and Philip Graham Ryken edited this unique resource, which focuses on highlighting and interpreting the literary features of Scripture, especially the literary forms and flow of individual books. Given the highly literary nature of the prophets we've been studying this month, and of the Bible in general, this tool can help provide you with a richer understanding of God's Word.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 27, 2009
The Song Of The Saints
READ: Revelation 15
Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. . . . Your judgments have been manifested. -Revelation 15:4
We've all heard the expression, "I don't get mad; I just get even." Reading about the judgments described in Revelation, one might assume that God will get "even" with sinners for their phenomenal offenses throughout the history of mankind.
The truth is that God's final judgment is a necessary expression of His holy justice. He can't turn a blind eye to sin. In fact, if He doesn't finally carry out justice as described in Revelation, it would be a denial of His holy character. That's why in the midst of His judgments, the saints will sing His praise: "Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. . . . Your judgments have been manifested" (15:4). Those who know God best do not judge Him for His judgments; rather, they worship and affirm His actions.
What should surprise us is not the massive scale of God's judgments, but that He's waiting so long! Desiring that none should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), God is now mercifully restraining His judgment and giving maximum space to His marvelous mercy and grace. Now is the time to repent and take advantage of His patient love. And when we do, we'll join the saints in praising Him for all eternity! - Joe Stowell
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure-
The saints' and angels' song. -Lehman
© Renewal 1945, Nazarene Publishing.
When God's justice is finally and fully revealed, His praises will resound!
The Motive of Faith
When speaking of faith, it is critical to talk about the motive of our faith. James 4:2-3 tells us what a wrong motive is,
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
God is very concerned about the "why" behind our prayers of faith. He is very interested in the state of our hearts. And I think it is good to check our motives from time to time.
Why do we want what we want? Is it ego driven? Am I asking for it because I want to impress someone? Are my motives right?
Now, you don't have to overdo it. You can overanalyze things to the point that you become spiritually frozen and don't do anything. I think if you will get honest and lay your heart out before God, He will very quickly put the spotlight on the things that should not be there.
Our dog always stands at the back door and scratches on the glass like he really loves us and wants to come in and be with us. But the moment you open the door he runs right by you into the kitchen looking for food.
Why do you want the thing you want? What is the purpose behind asking? Is it for the glory of God? Is it to help people? Is there a pure motive there?
When your motive is right, God will not be long in answering. But if your motive is not right, God won't answer until it gets right.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Malachi 2:10-16
Guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. - Malachi 2:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Internet is making divorce cheaper and easier. One Web site proclaims, "We are divorce specialists!" It claims over 250,000 satisfied users, gives step-by-step instructions for divorce in every state, and offers a money-back guarantee on court approval of documents prepared at the site. Another company advertises its low fees, convenience, free settlement agreement, and privacy guarantees. One customer boasted that the divorce took just three hours and $300. Some state governments have also set up popular do-it-yourself Web sites for legal matters, including divorce.
Like some Americans, the Israelites treated marriage and marital faithfulness with negligence. Today's reading is the third message in Malachi. Since the priests and Levites were condemned for covenant unfaithfulness, it makes sense that the prophet continued on this theme. The question was: "Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?" (v. 10).
Idolatry and dishonoring marriage are woven together in this passage. Idolatry is spiritual unfaithfulness; running after other gods is spiritual prostitution (vv. 11-13). The people of Judah were guilty of this detestable sin and deserved harsh punishment. Malachi mocked their tears and prayers as disingenuous and hypocritical . . . as if they didn't know their own guilt!
The commonness of divorce and marriage with unbelievers was a parallel form of covenant unfaithfulness; they took marriage lightly because they took God lightly (vv. 14-16). As the creation narrative reveals, God Himself instituted marriage and stands as witness to the marriage covenant (Gen. 2:24). The union of husband and wife is intended to reflect the spiritual union of God and His people. Faithful marriage goes hand-in-hand with faithful worship and obedience within God's family. In order not to break faith with one's spouse or with God, we must guard our hearts against temptation. If we are faithful to His purposes for us, He will be faithful to help us live righteously.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Marital unfaithfulness and sexual immorality are still with us today, over two thousand years after Malachi was written. These are not just social or political issues; as Malachi makes clear, these are spiritual and theological issues. How Christians behave sexually reflects how seriously we take our covenants with each other and with God. Commit your own purity and faithfulness again to the Lord, and pray that the people of God will live in a way that reflects Christ's love for the church.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 28, 2009
Advice For The Groom
READ: Proverbs 1:1-9
My son, hear the instruction of your father. -Proverbs 1:8
The custom of a bachelor party before a wedding is often characterized by drunkenness and carousing. The party-hearty attitude seems driven by the belief that the groom will soon be married and have to settle down to a life of domestic boredom.
Not long ago, one of my nephews got married. The best man planned a get-together for Joel, but with a refreshing difference. Those invited were asked to bring some thoughts to share that would help him in this new chapter of life.
When I arrived at the informal breakfast, I found a cheerful spirit of camaraderie. Fathers, uncles, brothers, and friends were animated in lively discussion. The father of the bride and the father of the groom were asked to share their advice on what they had learned in their own Christian marriage. Their thoughts were personal, realistic, and biblical.
The book of Proverbs mirrors this kind of mentoring in facing life's challenges and rewards. "My son, hear the instruction of your father . . . for [it] will be a graceful ornament on your head" (Prov. 1:8-9).
How God-honoring it would be if more couples began their marriage with an attitude that heeded the wisdom of those who walked the path before them. - Dennis Fisher
Lord, give us ears to hear advice
From loved ones wise and humble,
So when life's challenges appear
We will not have to stumble. -Sper
He is truly wise who gains his wisdom from the experience of others.
The Prayer of Faith
Over the last few devotionals, we have looked at faith-what true faith looks like, and the motive behind the faith that pleases God.
In James 5:15 we are told,
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Clearly, James wants us to know that when we pray a prayer of faith, God will answer it. In this passage, we are told that through that prayer God will indeed heal those who are sick, and raise them up.
So what is it that makes up the prayer of faith? There are three components, all of which we have touched on in the last few days.
The prayer of faith is a prayer that:
Does not waver. It doesn't vacillate, moving back and forth. It is anchored on the promise of God.
Is followed by corresponding actions.
Is prayed from right motives.
The example James cites of someone who prayed a prayer of faith is Elijah. I encourage you to read his story in 1 Kings 17. There you find that, through the prayer of faith, God shut up the heavens and there was no rain. And then, by another prayer of faith, the heavens were opened and rain came down.
Elijah expressed his faith when he said he heard the sound of abundance of rain. He made that statement before there was a cloud in the sky or before a drop of rain ever fell!
When you and I don't waver in our faith, when we show our faith by corresponding action, and when we pray with right motives, God will act. As surely as Elijah heard that rain by faith, you can hear the rain...whatever that represents in your life. That is the prayer of faith.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Malachi 2:17-3:5
Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire. - Malachi 3:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Last year, a man imprisoned for 27 years was freed by a DNA test showing he could not possibly have been guilty. James Lee Woodard, convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, was finally released from a Dallas prison. He had always maintained his innocence, and had even stopped going to parole hearings because he would have had to confess to the crime in order to be granted parole. He was the thirty-second person to have a conviction reversed in Texas.
While human justice can err, God's judgments are never wrong. Today's reading is the fourth message out of six in Malachi. The opening accusation, "You have wearied the Lord with your words," is somewhat unexpected and humorous. The response sounds like wide-eyed innocence, "How have we wearied him?" But the satire had already disrupted the leaders' pride and self-importance (2:17a). As the chuckling in the "courtroom" died down, so to speak, the accusation was elaborated by two specific charges: First, the leaders had dishonored God's moral standards by calling evil "good" and going so far as to assert that He was pleased with what He abhorred. Second, the leaders raised the question, "Where is the God of justice?" They implied that He's nowhere to be found, indicating unsubmissiveness and unbelief. They were slandering God's character!
God's response is personal (3:1-5). First, He would send a messenger, a prophecy fulfilled in John the Baptist. Second, He Himself would come-these verses conflate both His first and second comings. In hindsight it's clear this was a prophecy of Messiah and Incarnation. Though this was supposedly what the leaders wanted, it would not turn out the way they imagined. That day would come suddenly and unexpectedly. He would purify and cleanse the people and their worship practices like a fierce "refiner's fire" or a stinging "launderer's soap." Sins such as lying, adultery, witchcraft, and oppression would be rooted out, and justice and righteousness restored.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One way to explore a fully biblical concept of justice is to volunteer with a prison or community-transition ministry. Chaplains regularly conduct Bible studies in jails around the country, and they are often looking for more volunteers to get involved with discipling those who come to Christ. When these men and women are released, transition ministries and "halfway houses" help them learn how to live out their faith outside the walls. Pray about how you could step forward and join these godly efforts!
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 29, 2009
Are You Ready?
READ: Acts 13:1-5
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work." -Acts 13:2
Three months before a planned missions trip, a friend and I were talking about the upcoming event. He said to me, "If anyone can't go, I'd be willing to step in and join you." This was not going to be an easy 8 days, for we would be painting, repairing, and fixing stuff in the July heat of Jamaica. Yet my friend seemed eager to go.
About 6 weeks before we were scheduled to leave, there was an opening. I e-mailed my friend-whom I hadn't seen in the interim-and asked if he was still interested. He immediately responded, "Sure! And I got a passport just in case you asked." He had made sure he was ready-just in case he got the call to go.
My friend's preparation reminds me of what happened back in the first century at Antioch. Paul and Barnabas were among a number of people getting themselves ready spiritually for whatever God might ask them to do, or wherever He might send them. They didn't prepare by getting a passport, but they "ministered to the Lord and fasted" (Acts 13:2). And when the Holy Spirit said, "Separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work" (v.2), they were all set for the journey.
Are you preparing for what God might want you to do? When the Spirit says, "Go," will you be ready? - Dave Branon
Available for God to use me,
Available, if God should choose me;
Should it be here or there, it doesn't matter where;
My waiting heart prepare. -Anthony
© 1971, Dick Anthony.
Keep your tools ready-God will find work for you.
The Importance of Revival
Psalm 85:6 asks a powerful question,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
Notice that the psalmist says, "again." This tells me that the nation of Israel was once in a state of revival, but that had waned, it had declined, and they had come again to the place where they needed to be revived.
Perhaps today you are in a place where you need to be revived.
Revival has been described as the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. That is a good definition. Something needs to be revived when it is dying or when it has lost its strength or momentum.
Revival brings new life. It brings fresh vigor. It brings renewed momentum to that which is in a weakened or dying state.
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy, Stir up the gift of God which is in you. The word for stir up literally means to rekindle. In other words, a fire was there at one time, but it has begun to burn low. And now it needs to be refueled and tended to.
The Amplified Bible says, Rekindle the embers, fan the flame and keep burning the gracious gift of God, the inner fire.
Maybe you have felt spiritually flat lately. Maybe the fire that once burned white hot for God is now just a glowing ember. If so, it is time to rekindle those embers and fan to flame what He has put within you.
As God goes to work in your life, you will find that once again your life will be filled with purpose, and you will once again rejoice in God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Malachi 3:6-12
See if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. - Malachi 3:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
A new study has found that American Christians are quite stingy. In Passing the Plate, three sociologists reported that more than one in four American Protestants give absolutely nothing. The median gift is $200 per year, or about one-half of one percent of after-tax income. People who make less than $10,000 per year give an average of 2.3 percent of their income, while those who make more than $70,000 average just 1.2 percent. Among evangelicals, only 27 percent tithe (give 10 percent). The researchers estimated that even considering people who cannot give due to illness or unemployment, believers could or should be giving at least $85.5 billion per year more to ministry than we currently do.
As Malachi taught in today's reading, giving is a good indicator of the spiritual condition of our hearts. This is the fifth message out of six in the book, and opens with a familiar theme-God's covenant faithfulness despite Judah's history of disobedience (vv. 6-7). He exhorted the nation with a call to repentance: "Return to me, and I will return to you." This was not an indication that He had abandoned them, but rather showed His desire for a closer relationship than was possible while they continued to sin.
"How are we to return?" they asked, a question that "played dumb" because the obvious answer was obedience. So God answered their question with another, "Will a man rob God?" (v. 8). Such a thing sounds impossible, yet the Lord Himself asserted it was true. No doubt the tone of their second question was startled and shocked: "How do we rob you?"
In response, God identified a lack of giving as a key area of sin and covenant-breaking (vv. 9-12; cf. 2 Cor. 9:6-12). They had failed to bring the tithes and offerings required by the Law, some of which went to support the priests and Levites. Obedience in this area would call forth blessing, but as things stood they were cursed.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Several days ago, we invited you to consider your attitude toward giving to God. Today, examine your practice of giving to God. Perhaps we do enjoy giving to the Lord, but is our giving in proportion to our income? Get out a calculator and go through your checkbook to find the numbers. Compare these to a recent paycheck stub or last year's tax return and calculate your giving as a percentage of your income. If the Holy Spirit challenges you in this area, commit to obey Him in willing, cheerful, generous giving to His work.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals June 30, 2009
Macauley
READ: Isaiah 6:1-8
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me." -Isaiah 6:8
Macauley Rivera, one of my dearest friends in Bible college, had a passion for the Savior. His heart's desire was to graduate, marry his fiancée Sharon, return to the inner city of Washington, DC, and plant a church to reach his friends and family for Christ.
That dream ended, however, when Mac and Sharon were tragically killed in an accident, leaving the student body stunned at the loss. At Mac's memorial service, the challenge was issued: "Mac is gone. Who will serve in his place?" As evidence of the impact of Mac's example, more than 200 students stood to take up the mantle of Christ's fallen servant.
The response of those students echoes the commitment of Isaiah. In a time of fear and insecurity, the prophet was summoned into the throne room of God, where he heard Him say, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Isaiah responded, "Here am I! Send me" (Isa. 6:8).
God still calls men and women to be His ambassadors today. He challenges us to serve Him-sometimes close to home, sometimes in distant lands. The question for us is, How will we respond to His call? May God give us the courage to say, "Here am I! Send me." - Bill Crowder
Take the task He gives you gladly;
Let His work your pleasure be;
Answer quickly when He calleth,
"Here am I, send me, send me." -March
Whom God calls, He qualifies; whom He qualifies, He sends.
The Vital Sign of Joy
In yesterday's devotional, I challenged you to consider whether God needs to do a work in your life to revive you spiritually. Perhaps you feel it, but you just don't know what it is.
Over the next few days, I want to point you to the vital signs that may indicate the need for spiritual revival in your life. The first one we find in Psalm 85. It is lack of joy. Look at the language in verse 6,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
When a person is sullen and depressed spiritually, cheerless and despondent, it is a sure sign that they need revival.
You might say, "Well, you know, if my circumstances would just change, then I would rejoice." No. Joy is not dependent upon your circumstances. In fact, let me give you a great example.
2 Corinthians 8:1-2 states,
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.
Notice this language. The Macedonians were not in a little trial. They were in a "great trial of affliction." They were experiencing deep poverty, tremendous lack in their life, and yet they had abundant joy.
What was their secret? Living in the grace of God.
More than anything else, joy is dependent upon understanding the grace of God, knowing that God's grace is at work even in your affliction.
If you are joyless today, ask the Spirit of God to fill your heart. If you do, there will be a joy regardless of what you are facing.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Malachi 3:13-18
A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. - Malachi 3:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some of us are guilty of treating the Lord like some kind of divine candy machine. Insert money, push buttons, and out come the goodies-except in this case we think we can insert worship and service, pray for blessing, and out come the good times. But the problem is that selfishly motivated worship and service aren't genuine worship and service at all. This candy machine attitude further ignores the fact that Scripture says suffering and discipline are also part of the life of faith.
People in Malachi's day made the same mistake, concluding that worship and service were useless because they weren't receiving material benefits as a result (vv. 13-15). Today's reading begins the sixth message out of six in the book. As before, God brings an accusation: "You have said harsh things against me." The people respond with a question: "What have we said against you?" The people had two main problems. First, they had wrong motives. They understood that blessings flow from obedience (vv. 10-12), but they ignored or dishonored the fact that the context for such promises was a covenant relationship. God cannot be manipulated.
Second, they had wrong beliefs. They concluded from their experiences that God was sitting idly by and allowing the wicked to prosper, that worship made no difference, and that injustice had won. Such untruths were indeed "harsh things" to say against the God of all the earth!
By contrast, a believing remnant did fear the Lord and honor His name (vv. 16-18). What made the difference was genuine service. The distinction was "between those who serve God and those who do not." The true believers proved their hearts through their actions, not through empty words or sacrifices, much less selfish demands. God pledged to write their names on a scroll, treat them as a "treasured possession," and love them like His own children.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Theologically speaking, service means to fear the Lord with our actions. From that perspective, seek out a concrete, specific act of service for someone who needs it-and do it secretly or anonymously, if possible. For example, you might do a household chore that typically belongs to another family member, offer free babysitting to a harried mother, do yard work for a senior citizen in your church, or volunteer at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Many other acts of service are possible as well!
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 1, 2009
Search And Rescue
READ: Luke 19:1-10
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. -Luke 19:10
Almost every week we see news about a search-and-rescue mission. It may involve a child who wandered away from a family picnic and is lost, or a hiker stranded on a mountain, or people trapped in the rubble following an earthquake. In every case, the people at risk are unable to help themselves. Those who are found and saved usually have lasting gratitude for those who joined in the search and rescued them.
The account of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10 is a story of search and rescue. At first glance it may seem like a series of chance events-Jesus was passing through Jericho and a rich tax collector climbed a tree to catch a glimpse of the miracle-working teacher. But this encounter with Jesus was not a coincidence. At the end of the narrative, Luke deliberately included Jesus' words to Zacchaeus, "Today salvation has come to this house . . . ; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (vv.9-10).
Jesus began His search-and-rescue operation on earth by His life, death, and resurrection. He continues it today through the power of the Holy Spirit, and He graciously invites us to participate with Him by loving those who are lost. - David C. McCasland
People can't believe in Jesus
If the gospel they don't hear,
So we must proclaim its message
To the world-both far and near. -Sper
Those rescued from sin are best able to rescue those in sin.
The Vital Sign of Prayer
One of the truest indicators of whether an individual's spiritual life is progressing or declining is prayer. And if your prayer life is declining, it is a sure sign your spiritual life is in need of reviving.
Psalm 80:18 puts it this way,
Then we will not turn back from You; revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
Prayer is to the spiritual life what breathing is to the physical life. If your breathing is shallow and intermittent, something is wrong. It is a sign that there is a lack of health. If your breathing is deep and regular, it is a sign of health.
I once read a story about a World War II soldier who was called in before his commanding officer and accused of spying. The officer said, "You have been seen slipping off into a wooded area where we know enemy patrols have been seen, and we think you're passing information to them."
The commanding officer demanded, "Why did you go there?" and the soldier said, "I just slipped away for a quiet hour of prayer." The officer then commanded him to get on his knees and show him how he prayed.
So the soldier hit his knees, thinking he was likely to get executed for treason, and began to cry out to God. Immediately it was evident that he had an intimacy with God. The commanding officer stopped him and said, "That's enough. You can go." He turned to another officer and said, "No one could pray like that without a long apprenticeship."
Where are you when it comes to prayer? Is it deep and regular? Or is it shallow, sporadic, and intermittent? If it is shallow, it is a sign that your heart needs to be revived.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Malachi 4:1-6
For you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. - Malachi 4:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Many books and movies have imagined the end of the world. Some predict a nuclear apocalypse, with war and mushroom clouds of radiation bringing an end to life as we know it. Others picture a man-made environmental disaster or a natural event such as an asteroid striking our planet. Some see humans being conquered by our own technology, as robots and computers with artificial intelligence take over. Still others envision the end arriving in the form of a fast-spreading disease or plague, perhaps planted by terrorists.
As revealed in Scripture, the Day of the Lord is both an end and a beginning. "Day of the Lord" is a recurring phrase in the prophets for the coming of the Messiah and the culmination of God's plan for history. On that day, justice will be done against the wicked (v. 1). The fire of judgment will destroy their pride and evil deeds. By contrast, the fate of the righteous is one of life and joy; as today's key verse says, "The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings." The New Testament describes a similar process: "His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work" (see 1 Cor. 3:11-15). For those who truly believe and worship and obey God, His victory would be their victory (vv. 3-4).
The book of Malachi closes with a fascinating prophecy that Elijah would come again (vv. 5-6). In one sense, this was fulfilled in John the Baptist, who was said to have come as "Elijah" to prepare the way for the Lord (Matt. 11:7-15). Some interpreters believe Elijah will also return closer to Christ's Second Coming, perhaps as one of the "two witnesses" (see Rev. 11:1-12). What's important is that Elijah would do what all prophets do-work on people's hearts and call them back to the Lord.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you ready for the Day of the Lord? If not, we pray that today is the day your own heart turns to the Lord. We are all sinners, and the penalty for sin is death. But God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take our place and pay that penalty. Even better, He rose again and conquered death. Because of this, we can have eternal life by believing on His name (John 3:16). You can take this life-changing step of faith today!
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 2, 2009
The Reveal
READ: Luke 2:25-35
The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. -Isaiah 40:5
The room was a wreck. Mismatched furniture. Faded paint. Ugly light fixtures. Knick-knacks crammed into crowded spaces. The homeowners tried to make some improvements, but the room kept getting worse.
Thus begins a home-improvement TV program. After interviewing the owners, the designer draws a plan to maximize the room's potential. Program producers create suspense by building up to a moment referred to as "the reveal." Viewers watch the progress and ooh and aah with the homeowners when they see the new room.
Over time, the world has become like a neglected room. People bring in things that don't belong. They arrange priorities in ways that hinder potential. Lives become dull, overcrowded, and ineffective. Self-improvement projects offer little help.
The Bible is God's plan that shows the best way to live. God builds suspense throughout the Old Testament. Then, at the appointed time, comes the great reveal-Jesus! Upon seeing Him, Simeon exclaimed, "My eyes have seen Your salvation . . . , a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel" (Luke 2:30-32).
We become part of God's great "reveal" when we follow His design and Christ's example. - Julie Ackerman Link
O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me
That He may touch my eyes and make me see;
Show me the truth concealed within Thy Word,
And in Thy Book revealed I see Thee, Lord. -Lathbury
All that I am I owe to Jesus Christ, revealed to me in His divine Book.
The Vital Sign of Hunger for God's Word
It is not unusual for someone who becomes physically sick to lose their appetite. In fact, when a person is deathly ill, the doctor will often pull loved ones aside and say, "Try to get them to eat something. If they're going to recover, they have to eat."
The same is true when someone is sick spiritually. They lose their appetite for spiritual things. They lose their appetite for the Word of God. In fact, when you see a believer who has lost his or her hunger for God's Word, it is a sure sign that person needs to be revived.
At least three times in Psalm 119, the psalmist tells us that one of the ways God will revive you when you are spiritually weak is through His Word.
In verse 25 he says,
My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your word.
In verse 107 he says,
I am afflicted very much; revive me, O LORD, according to Your word.
And then in verse 154 he says it again,
Plead my cause and redeem me; revive me according to Your word.
If you are going to be revived, it will be in large part according to or through the Word of God. In fact, what the psalmist is literally saying is, "Give me life. Revive me through Your Word." The more you feed on God's Word, the more you hunger for it.
So a critical vital sign of the spiritual life is a hunger, an appetite, for God's Word. There is a renewed hunger for spiritual truth when you are revived. As you feed upon His Word, it will give you more life, it will give you more strength, and it will give you spiritual vitality.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 John 1:1-4
We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dialog in the Dark is not a typical exhibition. All the tour guides are visually impaired. All the visitors are in the dark-literally. Instead of relying on sight, visitors must use other senses as they navigate darkened galleries that replicate familiar environments like a grocery store. Wind, temperature, sounds, smells, and texture have increased importance for determining one's environment when sight can no longer be utilized.
Similarly, John awakens our senses and nudges our curiosity in the opening lines of his letter. He emphasizes his eyewitness testimony: he has heard, seen, and even touched the Word of Life "from the beginning" of Jesus' earthly ministry (v. 1). We reflect on another "beginning" when God spoke and it was; His word brought forth life; it was the word of life (Gen. 1:1ff). It is shocking to hear that this eternal Word of Life has appeared (v. 2); "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14).
Notice John mentions "seen," "looked at," and "appeared" five times in the first two verses. He is astonished that the Life is no longer simply a word to be heard, but now someone to be seen. Jesus Himself is the "Word of life" about which John writes. In his Gospel, John refers to Jesus as "the Word" (cf. John 1:1-2, 14), and Jesus Himself claims to be "the life" (John 14:6).
John's purpose for writing is to invite his readers into fellowship with the Word of life, with the Father and the Son whom He sent (v. 3). Like Paul, John connects his readers' well-being with his personal joy (v. 4; cf. Phil. 2:2). Both John and Paul know that relationships are three-way: you, the other, and God, and that joy cannot be complete if those "under your care" (cf. I Peter 5:2) are stagnant in fellowship with Christ. The "fellowship" mentioned in verse 3 is the intimate relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which is shared by believers in Jesus.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Did you notice that John's own experience hearing, seeing, and touching Life in Jesus compels this letter? Consider how many times John uses words like "proclaim" and "testify." In other words, John's mission is a natural and vibrant outflow of his personal encounter with Jesus. He is not merely proclaiming a message, but a person. Today, reflect on your personal relationship with Jesus and the joy it brings you to invite others into intimate fellowship with the Word of Life, Jesus Christ.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 3, 2009
The Choice
READ: Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-8
Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. -Genesis 2:16-17
I watched as a young mother tried to get her 2-year-old child to make a choice. "You can have fish or chicken," she told him. She limited his choice to just two because he was too young to understand beyond that. Choice often allows a wider variety of options, and it also must allow the person to reject the choices.
Adam and Eve were in the best possible environment. God had given them freedom to eat of all the trees in Eden. He drew the boundary lines around only one tree! They had a choice, and it should have been a no-brainer to choose wisely. But their choice was tragic.
Some blame God for what they see as His restrictions. They may even accuse Him of trying to control their lives. But God gives us a choice, just as He did Adam and Eve.
Yes, God draws boundary lines, but they are for our protection. David understood this. He wrote, "You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies . . . . I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your Word" (Ps. 119:98-101).
God cares so much about us that He gives us boundary lines so that we will choose what is right. - C. P. Hia
Lord, help us to obey Your Word,
To heed Your still, small voice;
And may we not be swayed by men,
But make Your will our choice. -D. De Haan
God's commandments were given to fulfill us, not to frustrate us.
The Vital Sign of Passion to Reach the Lost
One of the major signs that someone needs to be revived is a lack of concern for the lost. In David's psalm of repentance, Psalm 51:10-13, he says,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When David says, Renew a steadfast spirit in me...Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, he is saying, "God, revive me, restore me, renew me." One of the fruits we find in a heart that has been revived is a desire to see others converted. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When a person's spiritual life wanes, there is very little thought and very little action aimed at reaching the lost. Yet, someone who has been revived and is spiritually healthy will be actively engaged in the evangelization of the lost.
Read carefully these words from Elton Trueblood, a Quaker scholar. He said, "Evangelism occurs when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out."
When you are spiritually revived, you will think about the spiritual state of the people that you rub shoulders with every day. It is inevitable that when your heart is revived and close to God, you will have a concern for the lost.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 1:5-7
In him was life, and that life was the light of men. - John 1:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares seemingly unrelated subjects, drawing attention to the likeness or analogy between them. For example, Shakespeare said: "All the world's a stage." Scripture also employs metaphor. For instance, God is our husband (Hosea 2:16), and Jesus declared that He is the "bread of life" (John 6:35).
John utilizes metaphor in today's text: "God is light." John restates the theme from his Gospel, recounting that this metaphor comes from Jesus. This is not an assertion that God is electromagnetic radiation visible to the human eye; to say "God is light" is not to speak literally of God's physical makeup, but rather to describe God symbolically. The metaphor of light and darkness is used throughout the Bible in various ways (cf. Ps. 27:1; 36:9; John 1:4-5; 8:12; 12:46). In our passage today, it communicates that God is completely pure and holy, without sin or defect.
Three sentences beginning with "if we claim" follow verse 5 (vv. 6, 8, 10). The first clarifies how we have the fellowship with God mentioned in yesterday's passage. We cannot have fellowship with God and continue walking in darkness, the realm in which sinful behavior and attitudes prevail, the realm contrary to His holiness (v. 6). Verse 7 explodes in contrast to verse 6. John teaches that walking in the light not only confirms our fellowship with God but also our fellowship with one another. Implicitly, John pleads that if we claim to have fellowship with God, we will be reconciled to one another.
"How can unholy, sinful people walk in the light of God's presence?" John anticipates this question and points to Jesus' saving and transforming work on the cross (v. 7). Through the blood of Jesus we are purified and set free from the realm of darkness and welcomed into fellowship with God to walk in His glorious light.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In today's passage, claims to know God are examined against one's lifestyle. The problem of sin is more fundamental than a violation of any particular rule. Sin affects our entire nature and only through Jesus do we find spiritual health and life. Through Christ His Spirit lives in us. Therefore, let us rejoice and turn to the Spirit when we find ourselves tempted to walk in darkness. Through the Spirit's power we are transformed to be like Christ and to walk in His light.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals July 4, 2009
Dangerous Freedom
READ: Galatians 5:1-6,16-21
Do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. -Galatians 5:13
Freedom is dangerous in the hands of those who don't know how to use it. That's why criminals are confined in prisons with barbed wire, steel bars, and concrete barriers. Or consider a campfire that is allowed to spread in a dry forest. It quickly becomes a blazing inferno. Unchecked freedom can create chaos.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Christian life. Believers are free from the law's curse, its penalty, and its guilt-producing power. Fear, anxiety, and guilt are replaced by peace, forgiveness, and liberty. Who could be more free than one who is free in the depths of his soul? But here is where we often fail. We use freedom's luxury to live selfishly, or we claim ownership of what God has merely entrusted to us. We slip into patterns of self-indulgent living, especially in affluent societies.
The proper use of freedom is "faith working through love" to serve one another (Gal. 5:6,13). When we rely on the Spirit and expend our energies on loving God and helping others, the destructive works of the flesh will be restrained by God (vv.16-21). So let's always use our liberty to build up, not to tear down.
Like a raging fire, freedom without limits is dangerous. But when controlled, it is a blessing to all. - Dennis J. De Haan
Christ came to give us liberty
By dying in our place;
Now with new freedom we are bound
To share His love and grace. -D. De Haan
Freedom doesn't give us the right to do what we please, but to do what pleases God.
The Vital Sign of Pride
Pride and self-sufficiency are unmistakable signs of a heart that is in desperate need of reviving. Isaiah 57:15 tells us,
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
To have a contrite heart literally means you break easily. Even at the thought of grieving God's Spirit you break and repent very quickly. It means you walk softly in your heart before God.
God says He will revive those with a humble spirit and a contrite heart. But one of the great dangers among Christians today-especially for those living in the western world with all of its abundance-is a belief that we don't need anything.
More than ever we need to read the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:17,
"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
How can you be miserable and naked and not know it? It's obvious that Jesus is speaking of their inward, spiritual condition. Apparently, their outward wealth blinded them to their inward poverty. They fell into the trap of pride, which is one of the inherent dangers that comes with prosperity. As Christians living in a very prosperous western world, we need to heed this word!
At Disneyland there is a ride with cool little cars. I remember once seeing a little boy on the ride with his dad, and his feet didn't even reach the pedals! But Junior thought he was driving, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was actually driving the car and making it go.
We need to remember that our feet don't even reach the pedals, and that Daddy, our God, is the One who makes this thing go. We need to maintain a humble heart.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 2:1-2
He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. - Hebrews 9:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In April, pirates from Somalia attacked the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama. As trained, the crew was hiding, and the pirates demanded to know where they were. Captain Richard Phillips offered to go as the hostage if the pirates would leave the rest of the crew. Captain Phillips endured five days at sea with the pirates. After his rescue, first mate Shane Murphy said the crew had talked with Phillips by phone: "Everyone you see here today has Captain Phillips to thank for their lives and for their freedom."
We find an even greater act of sacrifice in our text today. John addresses his readers as "dear children," reflecting their close relationship. They are his spiritual children. Notice that John shifts from the first person plural "we" in chapter one to the first person singular "I" here. The content of today's passage is more direct and intimate. He articulates his purpose for writing this letter in verse 1. Knowing assuredly that his desire for the Christian community will never be fully met, he reminds his readers of the gospel, the great and precious promise from God.
What happens if anyone does sin? Two scenes illuminate John's answer: Jesus in a courtroom and Jesus in the temple. First, Jesus Christ, the One who has lived righteously, speaks to the Father on behalf of those who have not lived righteously. Jesus is not simply a defense attorney, however, as the second scene makes clear. Jesus is also the Righteous One, our great high priest. Moreover, Jesus-who is without sin-receives God's judgment in our place. He is the "atoning sacrifice" for our sins (v. 2); by His blood our guilt is removed and we are purified (cf. 1:7). In Him we receive forgiveness and purification.
Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (v. 2). Christ's death is sufficient to deal with the sin of every human being (cf. John 1:29). His atoning sacrifice becomes effective in our lives when we "receive him and believe in his name" (John 1:12).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today, spend time in prayerful and thankful reflection on the work of Christ on the cross and this tremendous demonstration of the Father's lavish love for us. Adopt Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus that you yourself would "have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" (Eph. 3:18). Praise God anew for your salvation in Christ by writing a poem, singing a song of worship, or meditating on Isaiah 53.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 5, 2009
Hopeful Praise
READ: Psalm 103:1-14
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. -Psalm 103:2
One of my friends was in tears on a beautiful summer day, unable to deal with life's difficulties. Another could not look beyond the life-altering sadnesses of her past. Still another struggled with the closing of the small church he had pastored faithfully. A fourth friend had lost his job at a local ministry.
What can our struggling friends-or any of us-do to find hope? Where do we turn when tomorrow offers no happy promises?
We can praise or "bless" the Lord, as David said in Psalm 103. In the middle of trouble, acknowledging God's role in our lives can redirect our thinking from the hurts of our hearts and force us to dwell instead on the greatness of our God. David knew trouble. He faced the threat of enemies, the consequences of his own sin, and the challenges of sorrow. Yet he also recognized the healing power of praise.
That's why in Psalm 103 he can list reasons to turn our attention to God, who gives us many benefits: He forgives us, heals us, redeems us, crowns us with love and compassion, satisfies our desires, and renews us. David reminds us that God provides justice and righteousness, and He is gracious and loving.
Take it from David: Praising God's greatness puts hope in our troubled hearts. - Dave Branon
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
To His feet thy tribute bring;
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Evermore His praises sing! -Lyte
Praise can lighten your heaviest burden.
View from the Top
I sometimes think Jesus views the Church much differently than we view the Church. In fact, there is a really alarming verse that points to this. It is Revelation 3:1,
"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, 'These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead."
WOW! That was written to a church that on the outside looked like they had it all together!
They had a reputation of being a living, vibrant church! People who saw them went to seminars to find out how they were doing it, and people applauded them for their success. But Jesus says, "You're dead!"
The Knox Bible puts it this way, How thou dost pass for a living man and all the while art a corpse. The Living Bible says, I know your reputation as a live and active church, but you're dead.
You see, activity is not synonymous with life. Sometimes people and churches that are decaying spiritually cover it up with activity. They are still "going through the motions," but there is really a spiritual decay eating away inside.
People think they are doing great, but Jesus sees right to the heart of the matter, both in our individual lives and in the Church.
May God keep you and me from being so mislead. May we look to Him always for our daily bread, recognizing and acknowledging that every blessing we possess, every stride of progress we make, is the result of His goodness and His grace alone.
He is the One whose view really matters!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 2:3-6
"Come, follow me," Jesus said. - Mark 1:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
What demonstrates your love for God most powerfully? Do you truly know God? When asked a similar question relating to how Christians could more faithfully witness about their faith in Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi said, "Live like Jesus did, and the world will listen."
John, concerned about believers' assurance in Christ and their relationship with God, broaches these kinds of questions in our passage today. How may we be certain that we know God the Father? Knowing Him includes more than believing facts about Him. Verse 3 teaches that having confidence that we know God depends upon continual obedience to His commands. When asked about such commands, Jesus claims that all the Law and Prophets derive from the two greatest commandments: love God wholeheartedly and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:34-40).
It is not a new idea to connect knowing God with obeying His commands. The prophet Jeremiah delivered the same message approximately 600 years before John wrote this letter. Jeremiah 31:31-34 anticipates the new covenant that Yahweh will make with His people, when His commands will be written on their hearts and consequently, His people will truly know Him. The new covenant comes through Jesus; the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts and empowers us to walk with God in obedience as He originally intended.
Some distort the truth by claiming that obedience to God enslaves us, but verse 5 turns this assumption upside down. God's love for us is made complete in us through our obedience; in living according to the boundaries God has set for us brings life and goodness that He intends. Also, as 1 John 5:3 teaches, our love for God is demonstrated in obedience.
Our passage concludes with the metaphor of walking (v. 6). When Jesus says, "Come, follow me," He invites us to live as He lived, do what He did, love as He loved, and so on (Mark 1:17). We cannot claim to know Jesus-and certainly not to love Jesus-if we are unwilling to walk like Jesus.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 4 exposes the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another. We cannot have an authentic relationship with God if we disobey His commands. John invites us to be people characterized by obedience, who have the desire to obey. Today, let the Holy Spirit search your heart for areas where you have been resistant, stubborn, or blatantly disobedient to His leading and God's Word. Repent and seek forgiveness, and invite the Spirit to transform your heart to an obedient posture as you grow in love for God and people.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals July 6, 2009
Bubbles On The Border
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:8-18
We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. -2 Corinthians 4:18
Stuck in a long line at the US-Canada border, Joel Schoon Tanis had to do something to lighten the mood! He reached for his bottles of bubble-making solution, bounded out of the car, and began blowing bubbles. He handed bottles to other drivers too, and he says that "soon there were bubbles everywhere. . . . It's amazing what bubbles do for people." The line didn't move any faster, but "suddenly everyone was happy," Joel says.
"What we see depends mainly on what we look for," said British statesman John Lubbock (1834-1913). A good attitude and the right focus help us to handle life joyfully, even though it doesn't change our circumstances.
Paul encouraged the Corinthians in their trials: "Do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18).
So what's unseen and eternal that we can look at? The character of God is an excellent place to focus. He is good (Ps. 25:8), He is just (Isa. 30:18), He is forgiving (1 John 1:9), and He is faithful (Deut. 7:9).
Pondering God's character can give us joy in the midst of our struggles. - Anne Cetas
The eyes of faith when fixed on Christ
Give hope for what's ahead;
But focus on life's obstacles,
And faith gives way to dread. -D. De Haan
When Christ is the center of your focus, all else will come into proper perspective.
The Slippery Spiritual Slope
The slippery slope to spiritual decline is one that is almost imperceptible. One day you are on fire for God, and then before you know it, you are dull and lethargic.
How does spiritual decline happen? I think there are at least four ways:
Through neglect. If you neglect a garden, the weeds grow. If you don't water the garden, it will eventually dry up. Sometimes we get into a state where we need to be revived due to neglect.
Through the storms of life. Life can sometimes beat you up. Some people have been so beaten up that they are just worn down; and when you couple that with neglect, it is a recipe for spiritual disaster.
Through the influence of wrong company or wrong relationships. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. ." And the very next word is awake. Awake to righteousness, and do not sin. Do not be deceived. Evil company, bad company, corrupts good habits.
Through willful disobedience. I don't know anyone who hasn't been guilty at one time or another of willful disobedience. And when that is not repented of, when it is not taken care of, it brings us into a state of spiritual decline that can be very dangerous.
So what do you do if you find yourself in spiritual decline? Let me leave you with this verse, Hosea 6:1,
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
The same Spirit that convicts also comforts. If you are convicted, repent. Repentance is an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. Return to the Lord and let Him heal you and bind you up.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 2:7-11
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. - John 13:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
Do you wonder how Grandma can say, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" and "Many hands make light work"? Do you understand your father who states, "Better safe than sorry," yet also charges, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." How can "The early bird gets the worm" and "The first bird out of the bush gets shot"? Today's passage wrestles with similar questions of seeming contradiction.
The readers have had the gospel message "since the beginning" (v. 7). "This old command" is Jesus' command to love one another (John 13:34). It is "old" in that John writes at least 50 years after Jesus' earthly ministry, and the Lord also gave it to His people during Moses' time (Lev. 19:18). Yet, Jesus and John call this command "new" (v. 8), because a new age of grace and power has appeared with Jesus. Jesus is the true king; He is the true light (v. 8). In Him, the evil age in which darkness reigns is passing away, and God is renewing all things.
How does this relate to the newness of the "old" command? To understand this, recall yesterday's reference to Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Jesus' lesson about wineskins (Mark 2:21-22). In Jesus, God is doing a new thing. The newness of the command is not the command itself, but that in Jesus, through His Spirit, God transforms our hearts to be able to obey the command (see John 3:5; Ezek. 36:25-27). Our hearts are new.
This introduces the necessary connection between living in the light and loving one another (vv. 9-11). One cannot claim to have intimacy with God and simultaneously treat brothers and sisters in Christ with animosity, contempt, or hatred (e.g. Matt. 5:21-22). Likewise, hatred and dissension toward fellow believers are evidence of living in darkness (v. 11). The one who hates a fellow believer does not simply visit this realm but establishes permanent residence there, and the darkness is completely blinding.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Satan attempts to derail Christ's work in our lives and discredit the gospel through division in Christ's body. Is your attitude or behavior toward fellow believers marked by hatred or love? Do you have unresolved conflict with a brother or sister in Christ? We are to reconcile with urgency (Matt. 5:23-24). Seek forgiveness and peace in broken relationships. This is your number one priority. The Bible instructs us on how to pursue such reconciliation (Matt. 18:15-20). If you need a mediator, seek out a pastor or counselor.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals July 7, 2009
Doing The Work Of God
READ: John 6:25-33
Our sufficiency is from God. -2 Corinthians 3:5
When I was a pastor I used to have a recurring nightmare. I would rise to preach on Sunday morning, look out at my congregation-and see no one in the pews!
It doesn't take a Daniel (Dan. 2:1,19) or a dream therapist to interpret the vision. It grew out of my belief that everything depended on me. I mistakenly believed that if I did not preach with power and persuasion, the congregation would fade away and the church would fold. I thought I was responsible for the results of God's work.
In the Gospels, we read that some people asked Jesus, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" (John 6:28). What audacity! Only God can do the works of God!
Jesus' answer instructs us all: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent" (v.29). Whatever we have to do, then, whether teaching a Sunday school class, leading a small group, telling the gospel story to our neighbor, or preaching to thousands, it must be done by faith. There is no other way to "work the works of God."
Our responsibility is to serve God faithfully, wherever He has placed us. Then we're to leave the results to Him. As Jesus reminded His disciples in John 15:5, "Without Me you can do nothing." - David H. Roper
The work of the Lord for us has been done-
Jesus has paid the supreme sacrifice;
Our service for God has only begun-
And nothing we do can help pay the price. -Hess
Christ's work on the cross equips us to do good works for Him.
Patience in Repentance
In yesterday's devotional, I mentioned Hosea 6:1 as a challenge to repent if indeed God is convicting you.
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
God is indeed a God of compassion Who wants you to return to Him. That is the nature of His grace!
It's not unusual to truly repent of a sin, to seek to return to God and walk with Him, but not feel anything right away. And perhaps, to get discouraged.
The verse that follows Hosea 6:1 gives us a good word as a clear encouragement. Here is what Hosea 6:2 says,
After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.
You need to understand that the evidence of revival may not be perceivable right away. That is why I believe Hosea says, After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up.
You need to be careful not to say, "Well, Lord, you have until lunchtime today to do something. And if it doesn't happen by then, I'm out."
God wants you to stick with your commitment to repent. He wants to know you are serious in your desire to walk with Him.
Remember the words of Zechariah 1:3, "Return to Me," says the Lord of hosts, and "I will return to you." Returning to God is something you can do. But only God can do God's part.
If you will return to Him, He will return to you.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 John 2:12-14
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. - Revelation 12:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages," shouts the ringmaster playfully as he welcomes visitors to the Greatest Show on Earth from underneath the stripes of his clownish top hat. This thunderous welcome address can be heard inside a three-ring circus as the ringmaster hopes to grab the attention of the entire audience. In today's passage, the author employs a similar rhetorical device, but this is no playful, clownish exhortation.
For the second time, the author of 1 John addresses his readers as "dear children" (cf. 2:1). He employs this affectionate term ten times throughout the letter. It refers to everyone in the congregation: men and women, young and old. It is important to note that the terms fathers and men do not exclude women. Rather, in the original language of the New Testament, masculine plural nouns like "brothers," "men," and "fathers" include both males and females. Just as we might hear "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls," verses 12 through 14 today might sound like: "Dear children: Fathers and mothers, young men and young women. Everyone, pay attention." Notice that these are titles for family members, reminding us that the body of Christ is a family of brothers and sisters, spiritual fathers and mothers, with Jesus our elder brother and God our father (cf. Heb. 2:11).
It's helpful at this point to re-read 1 John 1. How many echoes of chapter 1 do you hear in our passage today? The author reiterates the fundamentals of our identity to prepare us for the remainder of chapter 2. Verse 13, however, introduces a new idea: "You have overcome the evil one." Verse 14 includes enhancements: "You are strong and the word of God lives in you." In this immediate context, the word of God refers to the message heard from the beginning and the command to love one another. Therefore, standing strong means keeping the word of God fresh in our lives, and the consequence is victory over the Evil One (cf. Rev. 12:10-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's Word is powerful and effective. It pierces the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts (Heb. 4:12), guides our path (Ps. 119:105), and arms us against the Evil One (2 John 2:14; Eph. 6:17). Memorizing Scripture guards us from sin; its roots grow deep to teach, rebuke, correct, and train us in righteousness (Josh. 1:8; Ps. 119:11; 2 Tim. 3:16). Take the next step in the discipline of Scripture memory. If you need help, consider the Navigator's tool, Topical Memory System, found at www.navigators.org.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 9, 2009
Heaven's Greatest Delights
READ: Revelation 22:1-5
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard . . . the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. -1 Corinthians 2:9
What will be one of heaven's supreme joys?
Joni Eareckson Tada, disabled as a teenager in a diving accident, has been a paraplegic for over 40 years. One would imagine that her greatest longing would be the ability to walk, even run, free from the confinement of her wheelchair.
But Joni tells us that her greatest desire is to offer a "praise that is pure." She explains: "I won't be crippled by distractions, or disabled by insincerity. I won't be handicapped by a ho-hum half-heartedness. My heart will join with yours and bubble over with effervescent adoration. We will finally be able to fellowship fully with the Father and the Son. For me, this will be the best part of heaven."
How that speaks to my divided heart and grips my unfocused spirit! What a blessing to offer "a praise that is pure," with no wandering thoughts, no self-centered requests, no inability to soar above my earth-bound language!
In heaven, "there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him" (Rev. 22:3). May the prospect of heaven enable us to experience a foretaste of that God-glorifying worship even here and now. - Vernon C. Grounds
To be with Him will crown it all!
To see His face-before Him fall,
To feast within His banquet hall;
To be with Him will crown it all! -Peterson
© Renewal 1987, John W. Peterson Music Company.
To see Jesus will be heaven's greatest joy.
In the Pits?
There are times when each of us are in the pits, when life just seems to be upside down and nothing seems to be going right.
As you read the Psalms, you realize King David often felt this way. Take Psalm 88 for example. In verses 2-6 he says,
Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to the grave. I am counted with those who go down to the pit; I am like a man who has no strength, adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and who are cut off from Your hand. You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths.
Pretty descriptive of how you and I can sometimes feel, when our soul is full of troubles...like one who has no strength...adrift among the dead...whom You [God] remember no more.
When you are in the pits, it can often seem like there is no way out. Your soul is full of trouble, you are despondent, you are overwhelmed by the problems of life, you can almost feel like something has died inside of you, and you might feel totally cut off from God, like He has somehow forgotten you.
What I want you to see in today's Scripture is that you are not alone. Every one of us has gone through these difficult days. Even King David!
God knows your struggles. Like David, take time today to share with God all that is on your heart, and in the next few days, I will show you how you can get out of the pits!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 2:15-17
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. - Colossians 3:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Jesus says, "Come follow me," He invites us to believe in Him as our Savior and to obey Him as our Lord. Jesus is both Redeemer and King. When we follow Jesus, we leave one kingdom for another. John addresses this issue in today's passage.
To begin, we should clarify the definitions of some words in this text. Whereas love in 2:10 focuses on the well being of others, love in verse 15 refers to a desire to gratify oneself. World occurs 23 times in 1 John; its meaning varies based on the context. Here world refers to values, attitudes, and actions opposed to God.
Love for the world is incompatible with love for God (v. 16). Just as fresh water and salt water cannot flow from the same spring (Jas. 3:11), so likewise it is impossible to love God and simultaneously love the values, attitudes, and actions opposed to God. Note that this is not an issue of limited time and energy, but rather an issue of two different allegiances with two different masters (cf. Matt. 6:24).
John gives three broad categories of "everything in the world" (v. 16). First, the cravings of sinful people may refer to the desire to be successful according to the world's standards, longing for validation from others, fearful efforts to seize security, or simply greed. Second, the lust of the eyes may refer to the covetous desire to compete with others, lustful thoughts, promiscuity, or sexual infidelity. Third, the "boasting of what he has" may refer to pride in accomplishments, status, and possessions, attributing success to one's own efforts and abilities.
Verse 17 contrasts the world's desires and God's will. The things we covet are temporary, unsatisfying, and incomplete, whereas God's will is eternal, thirst-quenching, and perfect. Notice the connection between yesterday's passage and today's text. As one scholar says, "Only those whose sins are forgiven, who know Jesus and the Father, who have overcome the evil one, who are strong and have the Word of God abiding in them, are able to refuse the love of the world."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Whether living in the first century or the twenty-first century, when the king on the throne of our lives is our self and the values, attitudes, and actions of the world, we will insatiably seek our identity in achievements, possessions, and other people. We must learn to relinquish the false identities that are not deeply rooted in Christ and in turn serve Christ as King. This is a journey of deep discipleship. Consider reading Robert Mulholland's, The Deeper Journey, as you proceed on this path
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 10, 2009
Life, Love, Chocolate
READ: 1 John 3:16-23
Be imitators of God . . . . And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us. -Ephesians 5:1-2
An entry I read on a favorite blog caught my eye. It was the morning of his ninth wedding anniversary. Not having a lot of money, the writer ran out to get his wife, Heidi, their favorite French pastry-pain au chocolat. After sprinting several miles, he arrived home, exhausted, to find her in the kitchen just pulling a chocolate-filled croissant out of the oven. It was pain au chocolat.
That husband, Jeff, compared his life with Heidi to the lives of the people in O. Henry's short story "Gift of the Magi." It tells of a man who sold his lone possession of value-a pocket watch-to buy hair combs for his wife, who had sold her long, beautiful hair to buy a gold chain for his watch.
Having no money concerns would be great-but realizing the immeasurable value of the people we care about is more important. We sometimes need a reminder that acquiring "things" is not nearly as important as appreciating the people God has placed in our lives. When we practice putting others' interests before our own (Phil. 2:3-4), we learn what it means to love, serve, and sacrifice. In fact, that's how we pattern Christ in our relationships (Eph. 5:1-2).
Life, love, and chocolate taste better when shared with others. - Cindy Hess Kasper
I want to share with those I love
The highest joy I'm thinking of,
Not just what brightens all their days
But what will give God highest praise. -Hess
Love is never afraid of giving too much.
Waiting on God
To get out of a pit, it's really not complicated. Psalm 40:1-2 tells us the first step,
I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.
The first step in getting out of the pit of despair is to cry out to God. He will hear your cry, and He will bring you up and out.
But His answer is not always instant. Notice David said, I waited patiently for the Lord. The answer to his cry wasn't apparent for a while. If you've spent a long time getting yourself into a mess, it may take some time for your deliverance.
A number of years back I went hunting with a friend. I was to fly on a little plane into a meadow about 20 miles into the wilderness where he was going to meet me.
For a variety of reasons, I ended up being six hours late to the drop-off point. My friend wasn't there, so for 20 minutes the pilot of that little plane tried to convince me not to stay. He said there were mountain lions, grizzly bears, packs of wolves...I would get eaten alive!
He finally left, and at about two in the morning I heard a noise. It wasn't a grizzly bear; it was my friend with the horses!
I think the devil is like that airplane pilot. He is always trying to talk us into quitting and giving up. But we can miss the greatest blessings in our lives when we are not patient.
Cry out to God, He will answer you. Period! But be prepared to exercise patience.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 John 2:18-29
When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. - John 16:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Nicodemus encountered Jesus, Jesus compared the Holy Spirit to the wind: you can see the effects of the wind but cannot see the wind itself (John 3:8). The entire chapter of John 3 emphasizes rebirth through the Spirit. Scripture teaches that the Spirit is our counselor, guarantor, speaker, and power. The Holy Spirit is also our teacher, the role highlighted in today's passage (cf. John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13).
The word antichrist appears only four times in the New Testament, always in the letters of John (see 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7). The expectation of an evil figure opposed to God in the last days, however, exists elsewhere (cf. Mark 13:22; 2 Thess. 2:3-4; Rev. 20:7-8). Today's text mentions multiple antichrists, many deceivers and teachers who appear before the end of time, and says it is the "last hour." Clearly the first century was not the end of all time, but this marks a distinct phase in history between Christ's first and second comings.
Note words like lie, liar, denies, lead astray, and counterfeit. In the Garden, the serpent's primary tactic was deception, persuading Adam and Eve to believe that what God said was not true (Gen. 3:1-5). Similarly, these false teachers are deceivers. They deny Jesus as God's Messiah and refute the relationship between Father and Son (v. 22).
Verse 20 introduces a contrast to the deceivers that is grounded in the "anointing from the Holy One," Jesus Himself (cf. John 6:69). The anointing, the Holy Spirit, is referenced three more times. Here is our protection from false teachers and antichrists: the Holy Spirit abiding in us. On one hand, the text assures that the Spirit remains in us (v. 27a); on the other hand, it also urges us to remain in the Spirit (v. 27c). This verse captures the tension of our spiritual life. We have the assurance of God dwelling within us, and yet we are tempted to stray from the truth (v. 24). If we are to be confident and unashamed before Christ when He returns, we must abide in His Spirit and the true teaching about Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Throughout history, as the church faced those who denied various aspects of Jesus, many debates ensued about His true identity. The humanity of Jesus was one question plaguing John's readers. In a.d. 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, official Christian doctrine affirmed the truth that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Our Christian history is rich. Consider researching the seven ecumenical councils and memorizing at least one of the following ancient creeds: Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Creed, or Apostles' Creed.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
God BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 11, 2009
God's Masterpieces
READ: Ephesians 2:1-10
We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. -Ephesians 2:10
The Grand Rapids Art Museum has over 5,000 works of art, including 3,500 prints, drawings, and photographs; 1,000 works of design; and 700 paintings and sculptures. As I read about the new museum and anticipated visiting, I couldn't help but think about God's "museum."
God is an artist, and His creation is unspeakably magnificent. But it is not His greatest work! God's greatest work is His redemption of us. When we were still dead in our sins, He made us alive in His Son, Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:1,5). Paul reminded the Ephesians that they were God's "workmanship," or poiema (v.10), a Greek term that means "poem" or "work of art." God's art museum is the church, filled with millions of marvelous works-His people.
Being God's work of art, Paul said, should result in something from us. We are not supposed to sit silently in the museum of fellowship. Rather, we are to show God's love in practical ways through our good works. Jesus said these good works glorify our heavenly Father (Matt. 5:16).
God did not re-create us in His Son to be museum pieces. He redeemed us so that our good works would showcase the brilliant colors of His redemption and grace, and draw a world in darkness to the light of His love. - Marvin Williams
Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me;
On the cross He sealed my pardon,
Paid the debt and made me free. -Bliss
They witness best who witness with their lives.
Have You Dug a Pit for Others?
In order to get out of the pits, you need to make sure you haven't dug any pits for others. Psalm 7:14-16 tells us,
Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
Then there is Psalm 9:15-16,
The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The LORD is known by the judgment He executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
Finally, Psalm 57:6,
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me; into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.
When people dig a pit for somebody else, they end up falling into it themselves. In fact, Proverbs 26:27 says it most directly,
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.
Pretty plain, isn't it? If you are asking God to get you out of a pit, you need to take time to consider if it is a pit of your own construction. If you have done something to get someone else in trouble-even if you think you are justified in doing it because that person has hurt you-you need to repent. Until there is repentance, God will not intervene.
God is not going to get you out of your pit while you have a shovel in your hand.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 3:1-3
Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. - Romans 5:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Searching desperately for Sohrab, Amir visited a dilapidated orphanage in war-ravaged Afghanistan. Barefoot children in frayed sweaters played among steel-framed beds without mattresses. The orphanage director explained that there is "little shelter, almost no food, no clothes, and no clean water." Taliban leaders visited regularly to exploit the children in exchange for money; if he denied them one child, they would take ten. Yet the orphanage director continued to sacrifice everything to care for the children. When this scene from The Kite Runner ends, a tiny ray of hope flickers that one day redemption and healing will come to the children. Similar hope of renewal fills our passage today.
Chapter 3 erupts with celebration (v. 1). God, Creator and King, calls us His children; He is our Father. We are adopted into His family. The word lavished evokes images of royal hospitality extended toward a pauper. The Father's love is abundant, expansive, and immeasurable.
John illuminates the identity of God's children. Those who receive Jesus and believe in His name inherit this birthright (see John 1:12), not by natural birth, but through spiritual rebirth. Paul teaches that the Spirit testifies to our adoption and we are co-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:15-17; Gal. 4:6-7). God's children are united with Christ: just as the unbelieving world did not recognize Jesus as sent from God, it will not recognize us (v. 1).
Notice the present and future indicators (v. 2). We are now God's children; at Christ's return, we will be like Him in His purity, "for we shall see him as he is"-not as in His earthly ministry, not even by faith as we do now, but in the fullness of His heavenly glory (v. 3). The hope of becoming like Christ in the future ignites our desire to become like Him in the present. In response to God's love and this future hope, we obey Christ's commands and trust that presently God is transforming us into Christ's likeness through the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today, in response to God's lavish love for you in Christ, spend time in prayerful adoration and thanksgiving. Meditate on the Father's love for you, focusing on these passages: Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 124:1-8; Luke 15:11-32. If you feel like expressing your thoughts, you could write a poem or song of gratitude as you bask in the Father's love. Or sing "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" or another worship song that expresses your praise for God's love.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 12, 2009
Pioneer Of The Pioneers
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:12-21
I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation. -Romans 15:20
In the early 19th century, US President Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase, stretching the borders of the fledgling republic "from sea to shining sea."
The problem, however, was that no one really knew what was in that vast expanse of land. Maps would be needed, with clear instructions for the pioneers who would travel to the Pacific. Explorers Lewis and Clark became, in effect, the pioneers of the pioneers-preparing the way for the most massive land migration in US history. They cut a new trail that others would follow.
The apostle Paul's commitment to ministry was framed by a similar priority. In Romans 15:20, he wrote, "I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation." He wanted his efforts in ministry to cut a new trail-and others followed. Timothy, Titus, Mark, and Silas are just a few who followed the trail that Paul blazed.
Today that commitment is seen in Jesus' followers who take the message of the Savior to the uttermost parts of the world. As we pray today, let's ask for God's blessing on His Word as we, His "ambassadors," cut a new trail in our generation (2 Cor. 5:20). - Bill Crowder
Be this our common enterprise:
That truth be preached and prayer arise,
That each may seek the other's good
And live and love as Jesus would! -Brewster
© 1967, Singspiration.
God gave you a message to share; don't keep it to yourself.
Are You Rebelling Against Authority?
If you are in the pits, you need to make sure you are not in rebellion against God's established authority, or aligned with those who are.
In Numbers 16 there is an instructive story of Korah and his followers. They openly confronted Moses and Aaron, and challenged whether they were really God's ordained leaders.
Moses and Aaron were flawed and fallible just like every one of us, but Korah wanted to usurp authority that did not belong to him.
God had placed Moses and Aaron in their position of authority, but Korah tried to undermine that authority and lead people against them.
Look at the result of Korah's rebellion. Moses is speaking in verses 30 and 31,
"But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods.
Notice that it was not just Korah who was destroyed. All those who were aligned with him also went into the pit.
I don't think the ground is going to open up under you if you rebel against the authority that God has set up. But you may find yourself in an emotional, physical, or financial pit that you cannot get out of until you get the rebellion out of you.
If you are in a pit today, check your heart and make sure you are not in rebellion against God's ordained authority.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 3:4-6
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. - John 15:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Repentance is not simply being sorry for something you did. Repentance is being sorry that you are the kind of person who does what you did. Following Jesus is not simply about forgiveness; it is also about transformation, becoming like Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18). Yesterday we celebrated the Father's lavish love for us in Christ, but the author of 1 John does not leave us to cruise on autopilot. Our adoption into God's family comes with an imperative: we cannot live in Christ and continue to live in sin (v. 6).
Verse 4 parallels verse 3 from yesterday's passage. Both verses begin with "Everyone": everyone who is a child of God is moving along a trajectory of purity, becoming like Christ who is pure (v. 3); everyone who sins is on a trajectory of rebellion against God (v. 4). To sin is to break God's law. John explains that at its root, sin is a refusal to submit to God's lawful standards. It is a selfish flouting of God's moral guidelines, a refusal to live in accordance with love (2:3-11).
Verse 5 reminds us that Jesus is completely without sin (cf. 1 Peter 1:19; 2:22; Heb. 4:15). In order to live in Jesus, we who are sinful must be purified. Thus, verse 5 also reminds us that Jesus Christ came to take away our sins. Notice first that whereas verses 1 through 3 speak of Christ's Second Coming, here "appeared" refers to His Incarnation or first coming (v. 5).
Now, what does it mean to say that Jesus takes away our sins? It means that He has forgiven us and rescued us from spiritual death, the ultimate consequence of sin. Considering the exhortation in verse 6, it also means that Christ has freed us from the bondage of sin, so that we have the ability to become more like Him. We are empowered through the Spirit to discontinue our life characterized by sinful behavior and rebellion against God. If we live in Jesus, we cannot persist in ongoing sinfulness. We might still sin, but our response will be repentance and gratitude for forgiveness.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We must be vigilant against persistent, indwelling sin. Spend time in reflection, using the following prayer: "Merciful Father, I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart; I have not loved my neighbor as myself. Please forgive me, transform me into the likeness of your Son, and incline my heart to walk in your ways." Close by rejoicing in God's redemption (Rom. 8:1-4).
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 13, 2009
He Watches Me
READ: Matthew 10:16-31
Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. -Matthew 10:31
One Sunday morning at church, we sang "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" as a congregational hymn. It was a rare opportunity to give voice to a song usually performed by a soloist.
During the first chorus, I noticed a friend who was weeping so hard that he couldn't sing. Knowing a bit of what he had been through recently, I recognized his tears as ones of joy at realizing that, no matter what our situation, God sees, knows, and cares for us.
Jesus said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows" (Matt. 10:29-31). The Lord spoke these words to His 12 disciples as He sent them out to teach, heal, and bear witness of Him to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (v.6). He told them that even though they would face persecution for His sake, they should not be afraid, even of death (vv.22-26).
When threatening circumstances press us to lose hope, we can find encouragement in the words of this song: "I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free. For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." We are under His watchful care. - David C. McCasland
If God sees the sparrow's fall,
Paints the lilies short and tall,
Gives the skies their azure hue,
Will He not then care for you? -Anon.
When you put your cares in God's hands, He puts His peace in your heart.
Are You Obeying God's Warnings?
The third thing you should check in your life, if indeed you are in the pits, is to make sure you have obeyed God's warnings.
God does warn us, but we must listen to those warnings. As Job 33:14-18 says,
For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
God always tries to warn us to keep us out of the pits and to keep our lives from danger. And He speaks in many different ways. Sometimes, as we read here, God will speak to us even through a dream.
As I look at my own life, I can see that I have fallen into pits at various times because I did not listen to God's warnings. There have been times I have been too busy to perceive the fact that God was talking to me. It wasn't that God wasn't warning me. He was. I just had a bunch of other things going on in my life and was not taking time to listen to Him.
He is always faithful to warn us. It's just that we are not always faithful to listen. So if you find yourself in a pit today because you did not heed God's warning, just say, "God, I'm sorry." Repent. God will forgive you. And you will be in the position to receive His deliverance.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 3:7-10
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. - 1 John 3:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
"She called me chip o' block," the toddler cried, describing the affront by her cousin. The child's tears quickly dried as her aunt explained that "chip off the old block" in this case meant that the little girl resembled her mother, a compliment and not an insult. We all reflect our parents in some way, whether our physical appearance, personality, or preferences. In today's passage, children of God are compared with children of the devil, and the identifying markers are found in actions.
The author again warns of the deceivers that were referenced in 2:18-29 and gives another litmus test to distinguish these faulty trail guides. Verse 7 parallels verse 8. The letter repeats some earlier themes: John encourages us to do what is right, including walking in the light (1:7), obeying his word (2:4-6), and loving one another (2:9-11). When we do these, we are righteous, reflecting Christ, the Righteous One (2:1).
The contrast is doing what is sinful. There are no neutral origins; sinful actions are "of the devil." The echo of Genesis 3 and 4 recalls Satan's sin, lying about what God said to Adam and Eve and then crouching at Cain's door (cf. John 8:42-46). Followers of Jesus live under the influence of the Holy Spirit abiding in them. Those who do not follow Christ live under the influence of the Evil One and are seduced by him.
Do not miss the powerful ending of verse 8. Jesus came to take away our sins (v. 5) and to destroy the devil's work (v. 8). God came in the flesh to undo the work of the Evil One. Christ did not come only to stop the Devil from killing, stealing, and destroying, but also to adopt us into a new family-to redeem us from being the devil's children to being God's children. Our adoption was a rescue mission. Through Christ's death and resurrection, we have been given new birth from God and freedom from sin. This is why "no one born of God will continue to sin" (v. 9).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 7 sounds a warning. What leads you astray? Is it people (false teachers, deceivers, or divisive people) or things (consumerism, sexual misconduct, media, gossip, laziness, or lies)? Be vigilant; pray for protection from the Evil One. Christian musicians, Casting Crowns, capture how easily we can slip away from following Christ in their song "Slow Fade": "It's a slow fade, when you give yourself away, when black and white turn to gray; thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid; People never crumble in a day."
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
~
Daily Devotionals July 14, 2009
First Church Of The Lampstand
READ: Revelation 1:10-2:5
Repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand. - Revelation 2:5
I love it when churches have names like "King of Glory Lutheran Church" or "Alpha and Omega Missionary Baptist Church." If the church in Ephesus were still around, maybe we'd call them something nifty like "First Church of the Lampstand."
We often miss the significance of John's glorious vision in Revelation 1 of Jesus standing among the seven golden lampstands. These weren't just decorative candelabras but substantial sources of light. How significant, then, that the lampstands represent the seven churches who were called to bring the light of Jesus into a very dark world.
We live in a dark world that desperately needs the candlepower of Christ shining through us. Let's be careful, then, not to repeat the mistake of the Ephesians who "left [their] first love" (Rev. 2:4). Although praised for doing many things well, they had failed to keep Jesus in first place.
It's easy to let things crowd Jesus out until soon we're doing "church work" for all the wrong reasons. What then? We lose our impact. Jesus warned, "Repent and do the first works, or else I will . . . remove your lampstand from its place" (v.5). We can't afford to let that happen. Keep Jesus in first place so that His light will continue to shine brightly in this dark world. - Joe Stowell
Lord, help us always put You first
In everything we say and do
So that Your light will shine through us
And show the world their need of You. -Sper
Works that are done out of love for Jesus shine brightest in a dark world.
The Pit of Immorality
In the last several devotionals, we have discovered a variety of ways to get out of the pits. Today, I want you to focus on something that is an increasing problem in the Church today. Immorality.
Solomon tells us in Proverbs 22:14,
The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred by the LORD will fall there.
And he says in Proverbs 23:27,
For a harlot is a deep pit, and a seductress is a narrow well.
Immorality is a deep pit. A pit that is difficult to get out of once you have gotten yourself into it. Not only do you get physically involved with another, there is an emotional entanglement that is not that easy to get out of.
Solomon also says immorality is a narrow well. It is binding, restrictive, and it suffocates your spiritual life. If you are seeking God for deliverance while continuing to engage in immoral behavior, your effort is fruitless.
If you are in the pits today because of an immoral relationship, you must cut off that relationship before seeking God's deliverance. If you will ask God for help after you have repented and cut off that relationship, He will help you beyond anything you could imagine.
God is a merciful God. And He has the ability to work something for good even in a situation like this. If you are truly repentant and broken, God can do something good.
God is the only One who can break something and make it more valuable. I break things, and they lose their value. But when God breaks something, it becomes more valuable.
If you are in an immoral relationship, stop it, repent, and He will forgive you, and bring you out of your pit.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 3:11-18
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. - 1 John 3:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
The end of yesterday's passage anticipates the whole of today's study. Doing what is right generally is manifested in loving one another specifically. Genuine love for fellow believers is one of the identifying marks of God's children. Today's text depicts what loving one another is not (vv. 12-15), and then describes what loving one another is (vv. 16-18). Today we'll explore the remarkable contrast.
The opposite of loving one another is hatred, for which Cain is the prototype (see Gen. 4:1-25). The brewing jealousy in Cain's heart bloomed into murder. The author is not talking about "other people." We are not off the hook of this exhortation. The readers of 1 John 3 are to reflect on the murderous thoughts and intents of their own hearts.
v At first, verse 13 might seem misplaced, but Jesus' message to His disciples in the Upper Room clarifies the connection. Jesus' exhortation to love one another (John 15:9-17) is followed immediately by the lesson that the world will hate His followers (15:18-25). In order to face the inevitable hostilities and persecution of unbelievers, Jesus' followers must love one another.
Jesus Christ's sacrificial death on the cross is the prototype of loving one another and provides the absolute contrast to Cain. Hatred results in the death of others; love results in the death of self, the laying down of one's life (v. 16). Eternal life is not an infinite extension of life as we know it; it is new, resurrection life in Jesus. Our lives become newly defined by Christ and His love-we are not only reconciled to God, but also to one another (vv. 14-15).
Verses 17 and 18 apply the call to lay down our lives in very practical terms. We are invited to love generously, expending our resources to relieve the needs of others (cf. Deut. 15:7-9; James 2:15-16). This cannot be reduced to a metaphor for spiritual poverty. The passage is talking about material needs, and love ought to manifest "with actions and in truth" (v. 18).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The resounding message of today's text is that "we should love one another" (v. 11), "not with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth" (v. 18). The early church embodied Christ's love toward one another (see Acts 2:42-46). Is there a brother or sister in Christ you know who is in need? Pray and ask God how He is leading you to embody His love, and begin praying for Christ's generous, sacrificial love to characterize you more and more.
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PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 15, 2009
Love Is For Losers?
READ: 1 Corinthians 13
Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. -1 Corinthians 13:13
You can learn a lot about a person by what his or her T-shirt says. Recently, one of these messages caught my attention as I walked through a local shopping mall. A young woman wore a bright red T-shirt that said, "Love Is for Losers." Maybe she thought it was clever or provocative, even funny. Or perhaps she had been hurt by a relationship and had pulled away from others rather than risk being hurt again. Either way, the T-shirt got me thinking.
Is love for losers? The fact is, when we love, we take risks. People could very well hurt us, disappoint us, or even leave us. Love can lead to loss.
The Bible, though, challenges us to higher ground in loving others. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes what it means to live out God's kind of love. The person who exercises godly love doesn't do so for personal benefit or gain but rather "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (13:7). Why? Because godly love endures beyond life's hurts by pulling us relentlessly toward the never-diminishing care of the Father.
So, perhaps love is for losers-for it is in times of loss and disappointment that we need God the most. Even in our struggles, we know that "love never fails." - Bill Crowder
Unfailing is God's matchless love,
So kind, so pure, so true;
And those who draw upon that love
Show love in what they do. -D. De Haan
God's love never fails.
The Pit of Pride
The fifth and the final reason your life may be in the pits is pride. We always need to check our hearts for pride.
In Isaiah 14:13-15 we read,
For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.
This passage records God's rebuke of Satan when he was kicked out of heaven. Satan was talking real big with pride oozing from every word that he said.
But God said, "That's what you think. I'm going to throw you down to the pit." And because of the pride in his heart, Satan will indeed be thrown down to a pit for all eternity (read Revelation 20!).
Pride is a dangerous thing. In fact, so dangerous we are told in 1 Timothy 3:6 to not put a novice into a leadership role in the Church, lest being puffed up with pride, he or she falls into the same condemnation as the devil.
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride is a weird thing. It's like bad breath. Everybody seems to know you have it before you do! But pride will not only get you into a pit, it will destroy you.
I want to challenge you today. If your life is in the pits, check to see if it is because of your pride. If so, humble yourself, otherwise you are not going to get out!
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 3:19-24
God is greater than our hearts. - 1 John 3:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's story, The Tell-Tale Heart, murders his neighbor and hides the body under the floorboards. During police questioning, the narrator hears a faint noise growing progressively louder. He determines it is the heartbeat of the neighbor, still alive under the floorboards. Overcome by guilt and fear, he confesses to the murder and insists they remove the floorboards immediately, later realizing that the haunting sound was his own condemning heartbeat. Poe's gothic tale colorfully depicts the reality of our conscience-stricken hearts, which are also in view in today's passage.
John's message provides confidence for those times when our hearts condemn us with guilt, self-doubt, and self-recrimination. According to the context, condemnation arises from what others might say (v. 7) or even from lies within. Examples include instances when our thoughts suggest that a sacrifice of love for a fellow believer in need is unnecessary and avoidable, or when we believe lies that genuine love can exist without a costly surrender of life or material goods (vv. 17-18). God is greater than these thoughts, and His Spirit persuades our spirit that our sacrifice is required and good (vv. 20, 24).
When our hearts are at rest and we have confidence before God, we receive from God whatever we ask (vv. 21-22). Notice the word because; this is not a carte blanche for us to turn God into our personal vending machine. When we live in the path of God's commands, then we receive what we pray in accordance with His will and desire (cf. John 14:12-14).
The two commands referenced in verse 23 are to believe in the name of Jesus and to love one another. Belief in God's Son is belief in His saving work on the cross and in His resurrection. This belief requires total commitment and obedience to Him. These commands are inseparable: no valid faith exists apart from obedience, and obedience cannot exist apart from faith (see 1:6; 2:9-11). Finally, today's passage highlights another role of the Spirit; He is the guarantor that God in Christ abides in us (v. 24).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We are often persuaded by the selfishness in our hearts. We object to lavish generosity and costly demonstrations of helping our brothers and sisters in need. The confidence in our text today is found beyond ourselves. Instead, it is only in God and in His compassion and generosity, demonstrated most lavishly in the sacrificial gift of His Son. Through His Spirit, God transforms us to be generous and compassionate like himself. Consider reading Randy Alcorn's challenging book, The Treasure Principle for more insights into generosity.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals July 16, 2009
One Passion
READ: Luke 14:25-35
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. -Luke 14:26
Nechayev, a 19th-century disciple of Karl Marx who had a role in the assassination of Czar Alexander II, wrote: "The revolutionary man . . . has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for revolution." Although his motives and goals were wrong, Nechayev's statement shows the singlemindedness of commitment.
Jesus wanted true commitment from His disciples. In Luke 14, we read that large crowds joined Him as He traveled toward Jerusalem (v.25). Perhaps these casual followers considered themselves to be His true disciples, but Jesus taught that following Him was more than just knowing facts about Him. He explained what it really meant to be His disciple when He defined the cost of discipleship: Nothing, not love for father or mother or even one's own life, was to take precedence over loyalty to Jesus (vv.26-33). His disciples (then and now) must acknowledge that if God is to be primary in their lives, possessions and even social relationships have to be secondary.
Jesus calls His followers to be absorbed in a single, exclusive thought and passion-Him. - Marvin Williams
Set us afire, Lord, stir us we pray!
While the world perishes, we go our way
Purposeless, passionless, day after day;
Set us afire, Lord, stir us we pray! -Cushman
Our love for Jesus is the key to spiritual passion.
Avoiding the Pit
Over the last few days, we have looked at what it takes to get out of the pits-what to do when life seems to be turned upside down.
There is one pit, though, that every person is headed for except for the grace and provision of God. Some of the most marvelous verses of Scripture are found in Psalm 49:6-9. These verses point us to the one and only way to avoid the pit for eternity.
Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him-for the redemption of their souls is costly, and it shall cease forever-that he should continue to live eternally, and not see the Pit.
These are powerful words for our day and age. It is so easy for many to believe that their wealth, their power, and their goodness will someday be enough to save them.
But the only way to have eternal life and not see the pit of eternal destruction is to realize that you can do nothing and pay no amount to redeem your own soul. Why? Because the price of your soul is very costly-more than you could ever pay.
The purchase price was the shed blood of the Son of God upon Calvary's cross. Only through embracing His sacrifice can your soul be ransomed. No good works can do it. No personal sacrifice can do it. The price has been paid.
I trust you have accepted God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. If so, praise Him today for rescuing you from the pit of hell and for paying that high price for you.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 4:1-3
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. - 1 John 4:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the greatest struggles the early church faced was the threat posed by the Gnostic heresy. Charismatic teachers, such as Valentinus and Ptolemy, claimed access to secret knowledge, which they would share with only a few select "spiritual people." Given their belief that matter and the body are evil, some Gnostics denied that Jesus was truly human. Gnosticism not only threatened to divide Christians into two classes, but also endangered the doctrine of the humanity of Jesus.
Yesterday's passage ended with our confident assurance of knowing that Christ lives in us through the Spirit He gave us (3:24). In today's text, the author brings to our attention the many others who claim to have God's Spirit indwelling them, but in fact are "false prophets." We are urged to exercise discernment each time we encounter people who claim to speak in the name of God (4:1). John gives a straightforward measurement for testing the spirits and evaluating their messages carefully. The content of their teaching will determine whether they are truth or falsehood. The criterion of examination is spelled out in verse 2.
False prophets at first appear to be genuinely from God (cf. Matt. 7:15), but God had warned His people long before that many would try to distort God's Word, dilute the truth, and urge people to go after other gods (see Deut. 13:1-8). A proper belief regarding Jesus' Incarnation was the issue at hand for the original recipients of 1 John. To "acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God" affirms His humanity (v. 2). Belief that Jesus is not only fully God but also fully human is essential to our salvation as well as our transformation to become more like Him. Early church leaders fought relentlessly against those who would teach otherwise. The spirit of the antichrist is a spirit of deception and lies. In our context, the spirit of the antichrist deceives people by denying the truth about Jesus (v. 3).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul urged Timothy: "Watch your life and doctrine closely . . . if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim. 4:16). Whether you are a spiritual teacher, mentor, or student, you must be thoughtful and "test the spirits." Consider the influences and teachers in your life. Do you utilize spiritual discernment as you listen to their messages? The Bible is the ultimate litmus test to measure the content of what you hear and read. Be attentive to the Spirit so that you will not be led astray.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals July 17, 2009
Behind The Building
READ: 1 Peter 4:8-11
Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. -1 Corinthians 15:58
Where we were working was hot, dirty, and it smelled bad. We had traveled thousands of miles to do some work projects, and on this day we were painting the back of a classroom building at a school for the deaf. The only people who would ever see this part of the building would be the guy who cut the grass and any unfortunate person who would have to work on the septic pit.
Yet, as the young adults diligently painted away, one of the girls, Melissa, put it in perspective by saying, "Nobody will ever come back here to see this, but God will see it. So let's make it look nice." And so we did.
Sometimes we sit at our desk and think no one sees our work. Or we stand at a line assembling item after endless item. Perhaps we take care of crying babies in the church nursery. Or we live the best Christian life we can-without anyone noticing.
Often our work is "behind the building." But if that is what God has called us to do, we need to work with all our heart. As part of our calling to love others deeply (1 Peter 4:8), offer hospitality (v.9), and use our gifts to serve others (v.10), our task is to work with God's strength to bring praise and glory to God, not ourselves. The important thing is that God likes what He sees. - Dave Branon
Though others may not observe us
And see how we serve God today,
Our job as servants of Jesus
Is to please Him in every way. -Branon
No service for Christ goes unnoticed by Him.
Falling into Crisis
In 1 Kings we have the story of the prophet Elijah. In chapter 18, we see a great victory over the priests of Baal, an incredible victory that demonstrated the power of the one true God for all to see.
In the next chapter, we see Elijah on the run (1 Kings 19:1-3),
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
How could Elijah, a prophet of God who had been used in such a powerful way, now be on the run? (He eventually even became suicidal.) While there are a number of things we could look at, I want to give you one truth today to consider.
After any great spiritual victory, it is always wise to keep your armor on. Over and over, there are examples of tremendous trials and temptations after great victories.
King David, after God had supernaturally spoken to him, fell morally, and committed adultery with Bathsheba. Or there is Samson who, after God used him to bring great deliverance, got messed up with Delilah. Then there is Jesus who, after being with the Father on the mount of transfiguration, came to the bottom of the mountain and was met by a demon-possessed boy.
Sometimes we are the most vulnerable after the highest and brightest times we have with God. So today, let me encourage you to always keep your armor on (see Ephesians 6:11).
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 4:4-6
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world! - John 16:33
TODAY IN THE WORD
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus devoted much of his philosophy to the problem of death. His answer was to deny the existence of an afterlife. He argued that humans need never fear punishment nor anticipate reward from the divine after death. As Christians, we confidently reject Epicurus's answer to the problem of death, for Christ has overcome death through His resurrection. As today's passage teaches, in Christ we are also overcomers.
"Them" and "in the world" require us to review 1 John 4:1-3 in order to understand today's text (v. 4). John refers to "many false prophets" (v. 1). He confirms that his readers are God's children, and that through His Spirit they overcome false teachers by rejecting heretical teaching. "World" in verse 5 refers again to the unbelieving world and its accompanying values, attitudes, and actions (cf. 2:15-17). Just as the world does not know us because it did not know Jesus (1 John 3:1), so also the false prophets "from the world" are known by the world (v. 5). Audiences approve when their values, attitudes, and actions are validated. As Paul declared, "to suit their own desires" many will follow false teachers to hear "what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Tim. 4:3).
"You" of verse 5 changes to "we" and "us" in verse 6. John refers to himself alongside other true teachers, his fellow Apostles. At first, his statement may seem brash if not altogether arrogant (v. 6). The basis of his authority, however, is not his personal gifts, capabilities, or charisma. Rather, his authority is founded in his relationship with Jesus, the One he has known from the beginning, whom the eyewitnesses have heard, seen, and touched (1 John 1:1-3). John confidently makes this claim because persistent acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ confirms those who are from God. Likewise, persistent rejection of the gospel identifies those who are not from God. John concludes by reiterating that the Spirit bears witness to the truth about Jesus Christ (v. 6).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In this life, many people, circumstances, and influences threaten to destroy our relationship with God. Whether you or someone you love is being attacked, experiencing such times of despair and feeling separated from God, cling to the confident assurance of Romans 8:31-39: "We are more than conquerors through him who loved us . . . neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 18, 2009
When The Ground Shakes
READ: Psalm 18:1-6
In my distress, I called upon the Lord. -Psalm 18:6
Several days after a devastating earthquake in the San Francisco area, a young boy was seen rocking and swaying on the school playground. His principal asked him if he was okay, and the boy nodded yes and said, "I am moving like the earth, so if there's another earthquake I won't feel it." He wanted to prepare himself for another shaking of the ground.
Sometimes after a trauma, we brace ourselves for what might be coming next. If we've had a phone call that brought bad news, every time the phone rings we feel panicky and wonder, What has happened now?
The "ground was shaking" for the psalmist David after King Saul tried to kill him (1 Sam. 19:10). He ran and hid. He thought death was next and told his friend Jonathan, "There is but a step between me and death" (20:3). He wrote, "The pangs of death surrounded me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid" (Ps. 18:4).
David cried to the Lord in his distress (v.6) and found that He was a stabilizer, One he could trust would always be with him. He said, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; . . . my stronghold" (v.2). The Lord will be that for us also when the ground shakes under us. - Anne Cetas
The Lord's our Rock, in Him we hide,
A shelter in the time of storm;
Secure whatever ill betide,
A shelter in the time of storm. -Charlesworth
To survive the storms of life, be anchored to the Rock of Ages.
The Power of Zero
Perhaps you are in a very stressful time in your life right now, and you feel you can't go on. I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact, some of the greatest men and women of God have gone through what you are going through right now.
One of those individuals is the prophet Elijah whom I mentioned in yesterday's devotional. After a great spiritual victory over the priests of Baal, we find him on the run, wondering whether life is even worth it.
We catch the story in 1 Kings 19:4-6,
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Elijah had reached that "zero" place in his life. There was nothing left. He had given it all and the tank was empty.
Maybe that describes you right now, you are on the verge of quitting. You figure, "I've had enough. I'm done. Enough pressures, enough hassles, I cannot ride this thing out anymore. My strength is gone!"
Well, did you notice that when Elijah was at the end of his strength, that was when God intervened? Being out of strength, being at zero, is not a bad place to be. If you will look to God, He is prepared to meet you in your moment of need.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 4:7-10
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. - 1 John 4:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Like a child reaching to catch the stars, the religions of the world try to touch God. It is not so with Christianity. Missionary theologian Leslie Newbigin explains: "God's purpose for man is known not by the up-reach of human moral and intellectual striving, but by the down-reach of God's saving grace" in Jesus Christ. This is the message of today's passage, one of the most profound statements of God's love in the New Testament.
John returns to the theme of loving one another, illuminated in 3:11-24. "Dear friends" can also be translated "beloved ones" and is used repeatedly throughout this letter. This greeting anticipates the message of verses 7 through 21, the basis and power of our love. We love one another because we are loved by God first (vv. 7, 11, 19); we are His beloved ones.
In the Old Testament, God is known not merely by attributes, but ultimately by actions that reveal who He is. He is the God who made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, rescued His people from Egyptian bondage, and ushered His people into the Promised Land. Similarly here, we know what "God is love" means most precisely by God's action of sending His Son, which reveals the self-sacrificial nature of God and of His love (vv. 7-8).
Jesus Christ is the most tangible, powerful, and ultimate expression of God's great love (v. 9). Our knowledge of God's love is based upon His concrete, historical life, death, and resurrection. "One and only" emphasizes Jesus' uniqueness. He is not one among many, but God's one and only Son sent into the hostile, unbelieving world to give us life (v. 9; cf. John 17:3).
The quote from Newbigin echoes verse 10, which clarifies how Jesus secures life for us. Jesus is the "atoning sacrifice for our sins" (v. 10). His sacrificial death on the cross frees us from the obligation and consequence of our guilt before God because of sin. Jesus reckons with our sin that we might live with Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's initiative and self-sacrifice to love and redeem us is at the heart of our passage today. God's love is not an abstraction but tangible in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. So also must followers of Jesus love one another not merely in emotion or attitude but through meaningful deeds (v. 8; cf. 3:17-18). How might you embody God's sacrificial love to your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers? Pray that you would be God's tangible expression of love as He reveals Himself to them in Jesus
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals July 19, 2009
A Donkey In Lion's Clothing
READ: Matthew 7:15-23
Beware of false prophets . . . in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. -Matthew 7:15
In the final book of C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, a devious ape named Shift finds an old lion's skin and persuades a simpleminded donkey to put it on. Shift then claims that the disguised donkey is Aslan (the Lion who is the rightful king of Narnia) and forms an alliance with Narnia's enemies. Together they set out to control and enslave the subjects of Narnia. Young King Tirian, however, can't believe that Aslan would actually be involved with such brutal practices. So, with the help of the real Aslan, he defeats Shift and his counterfeit lion.
The Bible tells us that the devil is in the business of imitating God. His goal is "to be like the Most High" (Isa. 14:12-15). Through deception, Satan tries to replace Christ with a substitute. Jesus Himself warned us of false prophets and false christs: "Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many" (Matt. 24:4-5).
How can we tell the real Christ from the counterfeit? The only authentic Christ is the one described in Scripture. Anyone or anything that portrays a different Jesus than the One presented in the Bible is promoting "a donkey in lion's clothing." - Dennis Fisher
Beware of anyone who claims
To speak directly from the Lord
If what he says does not agree
With everything that's in God's Word. -Sper
God's Word gives wisdom to discern what is false.
Your Weakness, God's Power
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a powerful reminder of God's provision for you and me when we reach the end of our strength.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
When Paul wrote these words, he was being harassed everywhere he went by an evil spirit that he referred to as "a thorn in the flesh." It was a messenger sent from Satan to buffet him, to constantly harass him.
The constant harassment of this spirit finally got to him, and he begged God three times to take it away. Paul was clearly at the end of his rope.
But, even though Paul prayed for God's intervention three times, the spirit did not depart. And God's response to Paul was the verse we read above. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
What does perfect mean? It means that His power comes to full maturity...it blossoms...it is fully expressed in our weakness.
What was Paul's response? He went on to say in verses 9-10 of that same chapter,
Therefore most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
It seems that sometimes we have to get to the end of ourselves before we will look fully to God. But when we do, we find that He is more than enough. If you are there today or close to that point, take hold of God's strength.
Put your trust in Him. He will bring you to the place of your breakthrough, and you will find the strength and direction you need.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 4:11-16
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. - 1 John 4:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Thirty years ago many people worked with typewriters, and if they used a computer at all it might be to play Oregon Trail on green-screen Apple computer at school. Today, nearly everyone depends on computers in some way, whether for occupation, communication, or education. We rarely second-guess how the technology works or even if it will. We tacitly know and rely on computers as a backbone for society. Our text today reveals a greater, eternal foundation which we know and rely upon, not merely for a smoothly operating society but for all eternity.
From the point when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, God has made a way for His presence to dwell among His people, though in a limited sense (for example, the tabernacle and temple). Through Jesus, God has reconciled us to Himself so that He now dwells fully in us by His Spirit (see 1 Cor. 6:19). Loving one another is the sign that the invisible God lives in us and that His love is made complete in us (v. 12), for love for one another is the outgrowth of God's love for us (v. 11).
Verse 13 celebrates the reality of God dwelling in us through His gift of the Holy Spirit and serves as a hinge between verses 12 and 14: the Spirit effects our love for one another (v. 12), and the Spirit testifies to the truth about Jesus (v. 14). If we love one another, and if we believe in Jesus' true identity, God Himself lives in us. The indwelling of His Spirit provides the foundation for confidence in God's love (v. 16).
A true confession of Jesus' identity is indispensable (note 2:22-23; 4:1-3). Today's text expresses two truths about Jesus that must be acknowledged: He is Savior of the world (v. 14) and Son of God (v. 15). The emphasis is on Jesus as Savior because some among the original audience were claiming to be without sin, and they therefore didn't see their need for a Savior (cf. 1:16-2:2). "Son of God" recalls verses 9 and 10 from yesterday's text.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
First John is written to a community of Christ's followers, so let's not neglect application among the community of God's people. Often in local churches, right confession of truth might be present, yet accountability and reconciliation between people is lacking. Are there hostility, tension, power battles, unresolved issues, and unforgiven hurts among the body of Christ where you worship? Leaving sins unaddressed is not the way of God's love. Pray to be a minister of reconciliation and agent of God's love in your community.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!-
`
Daily Devotionals July 20, 2009
Till He Became Strong
READ: 2 Chronicles 26:3-15
His fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong. -2 Chronicles 26:15
In George MacDonald's fairy tale Lilith, giants live among normal people. These giants must conduct their daily affairs very carefully. When they sleep, their snoring is disruptive. When they turn over, houses may be crushed under their weight.
In the Bible, Uzziah became a "giant" of a man after becoming king at age 16. The keys to his success are recorded in 2 Chronicles 26. His father Amaziah set a good example for him (v.4). The prophet Zechariah instructed him (v.5). He had an army of fighting men and capable generals who helped him (vv.11-15). And God prospered him (v.5).
Clearly, King Uzziah became a "giant" through the Lord's blessing. But after attaining success, he grew careless and stumbled badly. The clue to his demise is found in the phrase "he was marvelously helped till he became strong" (v.15).
Those last four words serve as a dire warning to us all. Uzziah's "heart was lifted up, to his destruction" (v.16). He usurped the priestly duties and became leprous (vv.16-21).
We have all been marvelously helped-by our Lord God, by those He has given to set an example for us, and by those who serve alongside us. When we become strong, we must take heed, or we too will stumble. - Albert Lee
When all goes well and I feel strong,
Oh, help me, Lord, to see
That I must place my confidence
In You and not in me. -Anon.
I have never met a man who has given me as much trouble as myself. -D. L. Moody
Lightening the Load
When we get into the storms of life, it is often difficult to know what to do. It can feel like the noise of our troubles drowns out everything else.
In Acts 27 we find the apostle Paul caught in the midst of a horrible storm. The ship was being tossed all over the place, and the situation was becoming quite serious.
Embedded in this story is a spiritual truth that can guide you and me when we get caught in the storms of life. It is found in verses 18-19,
And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
Notice that when the storm got bad and threatened to capsize the ship, they lightened the load.
Sometimes in a storm you need to throw some things overboard. In fact, it is a great time to evaluate any baggage that you are carrying in your life. There are some things that may not be a sin to you, but they are a weight to you.
One of the things you need to carefully evaluate is your relationships. There are some relationships you need to cut loose because they are hanging you up, holding you back, and they are hindering you from getting to where God wants you to go.
Or maybe it's something as simple as too much TV. Watching TV may not be a sin, but it can sure be a weight! It can sure be a hindrance to you hearing from God, especially when you are in a time of crisis.
If you really want to hear from God and get yourself unstuck, lighten your ship.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 4:17-18
We . . . are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory. - 2 Corinthians 3:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
The context of today's text is the day of judgment (v. 17). The term "day of judgment" refers to the time when there will be a final and eternal judgment by God of all people (cf. Matt. 25:31-46; 2 Cor. 5:10). Our passage today speaks about having confidence on the day of judgment.
In 1 John 2:28, the author refers to confidence at Christ's coming that results from our loving relationship with God. In our passage today, the basis for assurance on the day of judgment is more specific. We have confidence because "love is made complete among us" (v. 17) and we are "made perfect in love" (v. 18). What does that mean? The answer lies in the last words of verse 17: "because in this world we are like him." God's love is made complete in us as we become like His Son, Jesus, and we are "being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). Because God has loved us perfectly in Christ and made us like Him, perfect in love, we do not fear punishment on the day of judgment.
Fear is a curious word in the Bible. On one hand, Proverbs 9:10 teaches that "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom"; on the other hand, verse 18 in our passage states that "perfect love drives out fear." Though seemingly different, "fear" in these two contexts is connected. As one New Testament scholar put it, "To fear God is to revere him and give him due respect and honor. Fear of God is linked to love of God and obedience to his commandments."
Our passage today addresses the fear of God's punishment that will be meted out to unrighteous unbelievers. As Christians, we fear God, the judge of the whole world, and we give Him all the reverence, respect, glory, and honor due Him. But since He has freed us from the punishment of sin through Christ, we do not fear His condemnation.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Many Christians live enslaved to fears. As Jesus sent out His twelve disciples, He addressed the topic of fear (Matt. 10:26-30). Similar to the disciples' evangelistic mission, fears can hinder us from sharing the gospel with friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. As Jesus instructed the Twelve, so also He exhorts us to throw off such fears for the sake of those who do not yet know Him. Today, pray for opportunities to courageously share the perfect love of God that drives out fear with those around you.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!-
Daily Devotionals July 21, 2009
Small Step-Giant Leap
READ: Ephesians 4:17-24
Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. -Ephesians 4:23
In July 1969, I was at Fort Benning, Georgia, training to become a US Army officer. Infantry Officer Candidate School was intense and highly regimented with only rare moments of free time. Surprisingly, on the evening of July 20, we were ordered to our company Day Room, seated in front of a flickering television set, and told simply, "This is history."
Amazed, we watched Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong become the first human to set foot on the moon as he said, "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." Our usual curfew was suspended and we talked late into the night-not only about what we had witnessed but about life, God, and eternity. Our demanding routine had been interrupted, and our attention was shifted to what truly matters.
All of us need to shift our focus on a daily basis. Maintaining a regular time alone with God allows us to step away from our demanding jobs, break the routine, and concentrate on Him through the Bible and prayer. Our thoughts and actions will change as we follow Paul's urging to "be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Eph. 4:23).
What may seem like a small step can be a giant leap each day in our life of faith in Christ. - David C. McCasland
A small step is a giant leap
In growth and faith each day
If this step is your time with God
To read His Word and pray. -Sper
Each small step of faith is a giant step of growth.
Rest
In the last several devotionals, we have looked at how we respond to the storms of life. Today and tomorrow we will look at two more principles for handling life when the storms hit.
Today, I want to go back to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. In verses 5-6 we read,
Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Notice that in the midst of his crisis, Elijah rested and ate. He took care of his body.
Some of the crises you experience come because you are sleep deprived and you don't eat right. And you know what? Your body, your soul, and your spirit are all tied together. What you do to one affects the other two. It affects the whole.
We are intricately woven together. And the wisest thing you can do when you get into a crisis is just give your body a rest, because it affects every other part of your life.
When you are exhausted and physically weak, it is easy for everything to be blown out of proportion. When you are tired, it can look like your whole world is falling apart when it really is not. It is like Mark Twain said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
You and I do need to rest. If you are in the midst of a storm today, make sure not to neglect the rest you need.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 4:19-21
We love because he first loved us. - 1 John 4:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Many people in our culture look to entertainment stars for guidance on how to live and love. They imbibe lessons like Tina Turner's infamous song, "What's Love Got to Do With It?" A New York Times article found that an astounding percentage of girls age 12 to 17 defended pop star Chris Brown after he beat up his girlfriend, fellow pop star Rihanna. Clearly, people are confused about the nature of true love, lost without the embrace of God's unconditional and unlimited love.
Verse 19 reiterates verse 7 through 12. We love because God first loved us. This absolutely contrasts the typical foundations and motivations of human "love." Because of the gift of God's love we have already been given, we love others. This is exactly opposite of "loving" in order to earn the imperfect gift of human love in return. The difference between the two is profoundly significant.
Verses 20 and 21 echo 1 John 3:11-16 and commend a practical and necessary consequence of understanding verse 19. John describes someone whom his readers may encounter: the person claims she loves God, yet simultaneously speaks and acts hatefully toward brothers and sisters (v. 20). She is a liar. To lie is to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive, to create a false or misleading impression. Her falsehood is exposed: this liar "cannot love God."
One theme common to John's Gospel and 1 John is the invisible or unseen God (v. 20; cf. John 1:18; 5:37; 6:46). This is an argument from lesser to greater. If the readers cannot fulfill the lesser requirement to love fellow believers who are highly visible, then they cannot fulfill the greater requirement to love God the Father whom they have never seen. Jesus uses a similar argument in the Parable of the Talents (see Matt. 25:14-30). He says, "You have been faithful with a few things [the lesser]; I will put you in charge of many things [the greater]" (vv. 21, 23). Jesus is also the command giver in our passage today (v. 21; cf. John 13:34).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In light of God's Word and through the Spirit's power, prayerfully evaluate your most significant relationships. With complete honesty, finish this sentence: "I love because. . ." 1 John 4:19 turns our defective motivations for love upside down. We do not love only when we feel like it or when it feels good, but rather because God first loved us. God's love transforms us, so that we love as generous givers instead of pining takers. Memorize 1 John 4:19 so that its truth may take deep root in your relationships.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 22, 2009
Eternity In Our Hearts
READ: Ecclesiastes 3:9-17
He has put eternity in their hearts. -Ecclesiastes 3:11
I once came across a scene of beauty outside Anchorage, Alaska. Against a slate-gray sky, the water of an ocean inlet had a slight greenish cast, interrupted by small whitecaps. Soon I saw these were not whitecaps at all but whales-silvery white beluga whales in a pod feeding no more than 50 feet offshore. I stood with other onlookers, listening to the rhythmic motion of the sea, following the graceful, ghostly crescents of surfacing whales. The crowd was hushed, even reverent. For just a moment, nothing else mattered.
The author of Ecclesiastes would have understood the crowd's response. He sees with dazzling clarity the beauty in the created world and that God "has put eternity in their hearts" (3:11). Such an elegant phrase applies to much in human experience. Surely it hints at a religious instinct. Our hearts perceive eternity in ways other than the religious.
Ecclesiastes presents both sides of life on this planet: the promise of pleasures so alluring that we may devote our lives to their pursuit, and the haunting realization that these pleasures ultimately do not satisfy. God's tantalizing world is too big for us. Unless we acknowledge our limits and subject ourselves to God's rule, unless we trust the Giver of all good gifts, we will end up in despair. - Philip Yancey
Amid the measured music
What watchful ear can hear
God's voice amidst the garden?
Yet hush! for He is here! -Charles
To make the most of today, keep eternity in mind.
The Still Small Voice
In the last three devotionals, we have looked at principles on how we should respond when our life is in crisis. The last principle is found in 1 Kings 19:11-12,
Then He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
If your life is in crisis today, you need to remind yourself how God leads. Do not look for it in outward, powerful manifestations-the strong wind, an earthquake, or fire.
Rather, listen for that "still small voice."
That is how Jesus speaks to us today. Read carefully the words of John 16:13,
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come."
God has given you and me His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. And, friend, when God leads you, it is going to be through the still small whisper of the Spirit in your heart.
Yet many people want more than that. Some people think, "I'm in a desperate situation. I need something more!" You and I need nothing more, because through the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have God on the inside.
So if God is going to guide you, He is going to do it from within...through that still small voice.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:1-5
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. - John 13:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
One leading reason missionaries return home prematurely is team strife. The pressures of cross-cultural living and decision-making with people who disagree about ministry and life philosophy germinate conflict. Team dysfunction also hinders work in local churches and other ministries, and it is often left unresolved until it becomes fatally cancerous. Today's passage inextricably connects love for fellow believers with love for God.
At first, John seems to suggest that whoever loves God the Father loves His Son, Jesus (v. 1). Closer reading clarifies that "his child" refers to the children of God, our fellow believers. The phrase "this is how we know" occurs seven times in 1 John, including in verse 2 (cf. 2:5, 18; 3:10, 16, 19, 24). John persists in reassuring his readers regarding their relationship with God. In this case, John sets up the relationship differently: rather than knowing we love God because we love our fellow believers (2:3-11), here we know we love fellow believers because we love God and obey Him (v. 2). Taken together, it's clear that love for God and love for fellow believers cannot be separated.
Obeying God's commands is not burdensome, because through spiritual rebirth we overcome the world, the values, attitudes, and actions opposed to God. The epicenter of this faith that overcomes is the belief that Jesus Christ is God's Son. One theme of 1 John is Jesus' identity. Our text today begins and ends with two confessions about Jesus. First, Jesus is the Christ. "Christ" is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew word Messiah or "Anointed One," who God promised would bring hope and deliverance to His people (see Jer. 23:5-6). Second, Jesus is the Son of God. He is almighty and eternally divine.
Another predominant theme of 1 John is our love for God. Christians often focus on pleasing God, serving God, and like the eldest son in Luke 15, slaving for God, yet not as frequently on loving God first and foremost. John continuously raises this topic because of its centrality for the life of faith.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you volunteer or serve full-time on a ministry team? Do you recognize the devastating effects of team disunity? The Evil One delights to bring destruction through division among servant leaders. Loving one another on your ministry team is the unshakable foundation for unleashing the Spirit's work, yet it is impossible apart from God's indwelling love in each of us. Pray regularly for team unity and commit to resolving conflict quickly (see John 17:20-23; Rom. 15:5-6; Eph. 4:2-3; Col. 3:12-13).
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
'
Daily Devotionals July 23, 2009
Who Is Deaf?
READ: Isaiah 42:1-4,23-25
The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save . . . . [But] your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. -Isaiah 59:1-2
A man told his doctor that he thought his wife was going deaf. The doctor told him to conduct a simple test. When the man reached the front door of his home, he called out, "Darling, is dinner ready?" Hearing no response, he walked inside and repeated himself. Still no reply. On the third try, when he was just behind her, he finally heard her say, "For the third time, yes!"
Similarly, the ancient Israelites thought God was deaf when the problem was actually with them. Isaiah was a prophet sent to warn God's people about impending judgment, but his message fell on deaf ears. Instead of being God's covenant people, who were to bring light to those in darkness and release them from the dungeons of sin (42:7), they refused to hear Him. "They would not walk in His ways, nor were they obedient to His law" (v.24).
The prophet explained why their prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears: "The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God" (Isa. 59:1-2). One reason for not receiving answers from God is that sin may be blocking our hearing. Let's examine ourselves carefully.
Our God isn't hard of hearing. - C. P. Hia
Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
Naught of this world's delusive dream;
I have renounced all sinful pleasure,
Jesus is mine; there's nothing between. -Tindley
God speaks through His Word to those who listen with their heart.
PRAISE: The First Step in Effective Prayer
Praying consistently will change your life. In fact, many of the blessings God wants you to enjoy will never be realized unless you pray.
I think all Christians know they are supposed to pray, and all Christians want to pray. But many of God's people, if they are completely frank and transparent about the issue, would have to admit their prayer life is somewhere between mediocre and non-existent.
Over the next few devotionals, I want to share with you four simple points which I have put into an acronym: P-R-A-Y. If you can spell the word pray, hopefully you will be able to remember how to make your prayer life more effective, and you will be inspired to pray more consistently.
Psalm 100 helps us understand the first letter, "P", in the word P-R-A-Y, which stands for praise. Psalm 100:1-4 states it well,
Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
Verse 2 tells us, Come before His presence with singing. And in verse 4 notice the words "enter into." In other words, praise is how you are to enter God's presence. It is the best way to begin your prayer.
When you want to come to God, you start with thanksgiving. You start with singing. You start with praise. Or, as The Message says, Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Today, and every day, make praise the starting point of every conversation with God!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:6-13
I write these things to you who believe . . . so that you many know that you have eternal life. - 1 John 5:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Imagine a familiar scene from the middle of the week at a Christian summer camp. Emily is an awkward but lively twelve-year-old with braces, French braids, and denim shorts. For the first time she hears the compelling gospel message. Without hesitation, Emily accepts the promise of eternal life through faith in Jesus. Now think ahead many years. How does Emily know that what happened that July evening at summer camp still means anything? Emily's confidence has been sealed with the promises of today's text. This same assurance of God's gift of eternal life is for you today.
The word testimony and its derivatives occur eight times within eight verses, revealing the unmistakable theme of our passage. Earlier, the human testimony of the eyewitnesses is highlighted (see 1:2; 4:14), but the ultimate testimony about Jesus is revealed in verse 9. In both Old and New Testament times, important issues were decided with the testimony of two or three witnesses (cf. Deut. 17:6; John 8:17-18). John accordingly presents three witnesses: water, blood, and the Spirit (v. 7). As 1 John teaches, one of the primary roles of the Spirit is to testify to the truth about Jesus. Water refers to the baptism of Jesus by John, particularly that God the Father testifies at Jesus' baptism (see Mark 1:9-11). Blood refers to Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross. All three witnesses are tangible.
Verses 10 and 11 mention two gifts from God: first, the testimony about His Son, and second, that through Him God gives eternal life. The theme of life is central to all of John's writing, including his Gospel and his letters, and life is always identified with Jesus. Jesus Himself is the life (cf. 1 John 5:20; John 14:6). The one who "has the Son" has life (v. 12). To "have Jesus" is to be indwelt by His Spirit, for God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to make their home in you (John 14:23).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Every follower of Jesus endures times of doubt, periods when we question the certainty of eternal life in Jesus. John writes to establish unquestionable confidence: "So that you may know that you have eternal life" (v. 13). This assurance does not come from a feeling or state of being, but results from belief in the reality of God's gift in Jesus, confirmed in His life, death, and resurrection and guaranteed by His Spirit. Let us rest and rejoice in God's unshakable promise of eternal life in Christ.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 24, 2009
Ready To Speak
READ: 1 Peter 3:13-22
Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. -1 Peter 3:15
Lee Eclov and his wife were at a coffee shop in Estes Park, Colorado. At another table sat four men, one of whom was mocking Christianity and the resurrection of Jesus.
Lee could sense the Lord telling him to respond. But his fear kept him from doing so. Finally, he knew he had to make a stand. So he walked over to the men and began giving historical evidence for the resurrection.
How do we respond when we're in a similar situation? The apostle Peter encouraged his readers to make a commitment to stand up for Jesus, especially during extreme suffering. This commitment meant not remaining speechless when circumstances warranted them to defend their faith. He said, "Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15). Their readiness to answer required them to know God's Word. They were to respond in godly meekness and fear, so that their persecutors would be ashamed of their own conduct.
Had Lee Eclov remained silent or responded rudely, the cause of Christ would have suffered. Lee later wrote, "God has a way of flushing us out of our quiet little places, and when He does we must be ready to speak for Him." - Marvin Williams
When people wonder about our faith,
What answer will we give?
We'll tell of Jesus who bore our sins
And shows us how to live. -Fitzhugh
To be silent about the Savior and His salvation is a dreadful sin of omission.
REPENT: The Second Step in Effective Prayer
Yesterday we began to look at what makes for effective prayer by using the acronym P-R-A-Y. The first step is praise. Today, I want to focus on the second letter of our acronym, "R", which stands for repent.
By repentance in prayer, I mean taking the time before God to search your heart and repent of anything that has come between you and Him. Psalm 19:12-13 expresses it well,
Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Verse 12 begins with the question, "Who can understand his errors?" The psalmist is telling us, "You will not always know when you do something wrong. You will not always know when you get into an area that is not right."
What David is pointing to are the secret faults and presumptuous sins which can still have dominion over you-even though you may not be aware that what you did was wrong.
For example, sometimes we can allow attitudes to get into our hearts that we don't realize are inconsistent with God's character. Or sometimes we can do and say things that are detrimental, not only to us, but to others, and not really understand the damage we have done.
How do you deal with these sins? You come before God and say, "God, put the spotlight on anything in my life that has raised a barrier between You and me, and I will repent of it."
So when you pray, ask God to reveal any sin in your life you may be overlooking. God will honor your heart of repentance.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:14-17
If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. - 1 John 5:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
Before Jesus died on the cross, God's people experienced daily, tangible reminders that they were separated from Him. The only access to Him had to be mediated through priests and sacrifices. Consider the numerous temple courts, from the outer courts of the Gentiles all the way into the Holy of Holies, where the high priest could enter only once a year. Do you ever stop to think that our "easy" access and confidence before God through Jesus is incredible? Now, through Christ, our Great High Priest, "the curtain of the temple was torn" (Mark 15:38), and we approach God's throne of grace with confidence (Heb. 4:14-16). This is the background of today's passage.
In addition to the assurance of eternal life (v. 13), there is confidence in prayer (vv. 14-15). This passage celebrates our confidence not only in Christ's victory to bring us into God's presence, but also confidence that God hears us when we beseech Him according to His will. "He hears us" is repeated twice and suggests a positive response. Jesus similarly promises answered prayer while sharing the Passover meal with His disciples (John 16:23).
Verse 16 offers an example of praying according to God's will. Previously, John outlines what to do when you yourself sin (1:9). Here he teaches that we need to pray for fellow believers who fall into sin. The "sin that does not lead to death" includes those sins committed by believers in Jesus. Forgiveness is offered by Christ's atoning sacrifice. To pray with confidence for our fellow believer who is trapped in sin is to pray that God would grant him life. This is in accord with God's will.
The "sin that leads to death" is all sin committed apart from belief in Jesus. This sin leads to spiritual death (Rom. 6:23). The unbeliever who denies Jesus and His essential, atoning death does not have the remedy for sin and the sin nature, and therefore without belief he cannot experience life.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage emphasizes confidence in prayer and the prayer of Christians for fellow believers. Praying according to God's will may seem intimidating. How do we know God's will? We know His will first and foremost in the person of Jesus Christ and as it's revealed in the Scriptures. Today, pray the prayer Jesus taught His disciples as a template for praying according to God's will (Matt. 6:9-13). For a deeper study of this prayer, read The Lord and His Prayer by N. T. Wright or Praying the Lord's Prayer by J. I. Packer.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY1
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 25, 2009
Walk The Walk
READ: 1 Timothy 4:6-16
Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. -1 Timothy 4:12
The preacher was speaking tongue-in-cheek when he complained, "My wife is absolutely unreasonable. She actually expects me to live everything I preach!" It's so much easier to tell someone what is right than to practice it personally.
When my son and I play golf together, I can tell him exactly how to play the hole and hit the shots. But my own ability to hit those shots is sadly limited. I suppose this is what is meant when we refer to athletes who "talk the talk, but don't walk the walk." Anyone can talk a good game, but actually performing well is far more difficult.
This is particularly true in the challenge of following Jesus Christ. It is not enough for us to talk about faith-we must live out our faith. Perhaps that is why Paul, after giving instructions to his young protégé Timothy about how to preach, included this reminder: "Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. . . . Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them" (1 Tim. 4:12,15).
As Christ's followers, we do not have the luxury of just talking a good game-we must live lives of exemplary faith in Jesus Christ. We must walk the walk. - Bill Crowder
Do others know from how we act
At home, at work, at play,
That we have Jesus in our heart
And live for Him each day? -D. De Haan
We please God when our walk matches our talk.
ASK: The Third Step in Effective Prayer
So far we have discovered that praise and repentance are the first two steps to effective prayer. Today I want to show you the very important third step of asking.
Yesterday we talked about how repentance is searching your own heart and asking God to put the spotlight on it, and then repenting of anything that He shows you. When your heart is clean, you can have confidence before God when you ask. As 1 John 3:21-22 says,
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus tells us,
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
Pretty clear, isn't it? God loves you and wants the very best for you. Be careful not to water down the words of Jesus, or somehow try and explain them away or complicate them. He meant just what He said.
But there are some conditions. And tomorrow we will look at those conditions for receiving what you ask God for.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:18
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? - Romans 6:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
For the next three days, we will study the end of chapter 5, summarizing key points of John's letter. Yesterday's passage addressed brothers and sisters in Christ who commit a sin that does not lead to death, acknowledging that God's children are not sinless. Today's verse teaches the other side of this lesson: children of God do not continue to sin. They do not prolong sinful behavior without interruption, without the intention of stopping, or without an attitude of repentance. Persistence in sin does not characterize those born of God and in whom His Spirit lives. Paul makes a similar point: "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Rom. 6:2).
The second half of verse 18 begins with a reference to Jesus. Though the letter has not previously referred to Jesus as "the one born of God," Jesus has been called God's "one and only Son" (4:9). There is no doubt; Jesus is "the one" who provides security. This protection is offered to "anyone born of God."
To understand the second half of verse 18, we must recognize the implied "because" connecting the two sentences. In 1 John 3:9, the reason that children of God do not continue to sin is because God's seed, His Spirit, is in them. Here, a second reason is given: No one born of God continues to sin because Jesus keeps him or her safe. From what does Jesus keep them safe? Jesus protects those born of God from the Evil One (cf. John 17:15). "Evil one" is used interchangeably with "the devil" in 1 John (see 2:13-14; 3:8, 10, 12).
Also, in the context of John's letter, this safety and protection that Jesus provides to those born of God is most closely linked to protection against false teachers and from being led astray. Recall that the nucleus of the devil's work is deception and leading God's people astray, which he has been doing from the beginning.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As we begin the conclusion to 1 John, take some time to review the key themes of this book. What promises have been outlined? What assurances are here for believers? What are some key words and verses? How does this letter challenge your relationship with God and other believers? If God has impressed something on your heart, record that in your spiritual journal or place where you keep notes. In your prayer time, thank God for His promises and assurances, and for His help to live out the exhortations in 1 John.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY1
GOD BLESS!
`-
Daily Devotionals July 26, 2009
Change Your Mind
READ: Acts 26:12-23
. . . repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance. -Acts 26:20
One of my favorite Peanuts comic strips features Charlie Brown saying to Snoopy, "I hear you're writing a book on theology. I hope you have a good title." Snoopy responds, "I have the perfect title: Has It Ever Occurred To You That You Might Be Wrong?"
Snoopy's title reminds us that our understanding of God and what He requires of us is sometimes twisted. Because our wrong beliefs lead to wrong behavior, we need to "repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance" (Acts 26:20).
The Greek word translated "repent" is metanoeo, which means "change your mind." As Paul indicated, repentance does not mean just nodding in polite agreement with God, and continuing the same way we were going. When we turn our thoughts toward God-when we truly agree with Him about what is right-our behavior will follow. Like a car, we go in the direction we are pointed. So, when we truly turn our minds and hearts toward God, our actions change accordingly.
Instead of going happily along, assuming that our choices are right, we need to regularly stop and ask ourselves Snoopy's question. As Paul taught, it is only when we are willing to admit being wrong that we can be certain of being right with God. - Julie Ackerman Link
We must acknowledge when we're wrong,
Confessing it as sin,
If we would know God's power to heal
And cleanse us from within. -Fasick
Either we conform our desires to the truth or we conform the truth to our desires. -Os Guinness
The Conditions for Answered Prayer
Yesterday we talked about the "A" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, which is our way of understanding the steps in effective prayer. That "A" stands for ask, and I have come to believe that too many Christians don't believe that God wants them to ask.
God wants you to ask. He really does. But there are some conditions He gives in order to answer your requests. In John chapters 14-16 we find a number of these conditions.
We need to remember that these are Jesus' last hours with the disciples; and He wants them to understand how prayer really works. Over and over He emphasizes the need to ask, but His answers will be based on three conditions.
First, in John 14:13, Jesus says your request must glorify God,
"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."
Second, in John 15:7, He says your request must be consistent and in harmony with His Word,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
And finally, in John 16:23-24, Jesus sets the condition that your request bring you joy,
"And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
Over and over, Jesus commands you to ask. But when you ask, make sure your request will glorify God, that it is consistent with His Word, and that it will bring you joy.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:19
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. - Ephesians 6:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
In C. S. Lewis's book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy visits Narnia through a wardrobe and learns from Mr. Tumnus that the White Witch "has got all Narnia under her thumb. It's she that makes it always winter and never Christmas." The so-called Queen put an enchantment over Narnia to keep it forever in winter, but never Christmas. Yet Mr. Beaver announces, "Aslan is on the move. He's the King. He's the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here . . . the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He'll settle the White Queen all right." Similarly, the prince of this world and his imminent defeat is the focus of today's passage.
When studying God's Word, noting comparisons and contrasts is a helpful tool for interpreting the text. Notice the connection between today's verse and yesterday's. Also, observe the contrast between God's children and the Satan-dominated "world," which, as we have seen before, is a familiar theme in 1 John (cf. 2:15-17; 3:10; 4:5-6). John compares the position of God's children to the position of the unbelieving world: the former belong to God while the latter lives under the authority and power of the Evil One. Believers in Jesus Christ are no longer under the Evil One's control, and no longer slaves to sin; sin is not their master. God our Father "has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves" (Col. 1:13).
The children of God inherit victory over the devil because Christ came to destroy his work (1 John 3:8). Jesus has pronounced judgment on the world, and the prince of this world has been driven out. But a tension exists: although the devil has been defeated once for all through Christ's death and resurrection (see Col. 2:13-15), the unbelieving world is still under his control until he is finally bound and dethroned forever (Rev. 20:1-3, 7-10).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Ephesians makes clear that until Christ returns, we will battle against "the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (6:12). In order to stand strong against "the devil's schemes," such as lying, lust, covetousness, injustice, and general spiritual attack, let us put on the full armor of God (6:11-18). The LifeGuide Bible Study Spiritual Warfare by Jack Kuhatschek is an excellent workbook for individuals or groups seeking to stand in the midst of spiritual struggle.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 27, 2009
Role Models
READ: Philippians 2:12-18
Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault. -Philippians 2:14-15
During a summer of international sports scandals involving gambling and substance abuse, two athletes were applauded for their character as much as their professional accomplishments. A record crowd of 75,000 cheered Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn during their 2007 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. "Whether we like it or not," Ripken said, "as big leaguers, we are role models. The only question is, will it be positive or will it be negative?"
Gwynn echoed the sentiment: "There's more than just playing the game of baseball. . . . You're responsible, you've got to make good decisions and show people how things are supposed to be done."
Every day, people are watching us. As followers of Christ, we are guided by Paul's challenge to "become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world" (Phil. 2:15).
Compromise causes others to become disillusioned, while character fosters hope. As the life of our Savior flows out from us, we can encourage others and point them to Him.
What kind of role model will we be for someone watching today? - David C. McCasland
Guard well your life, to the Savior be true;
Many are watching each deed that you do;
Hence if you stumble and fall in deep sin,
It will prove harder lost souls here to win. -Bosch
The best role models model Christ.
YIELD: The Fourth Step in Effective Prayer
Psalm 37:4 provides us the "Y" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, the four elements to effective prayer we have been discussing over the last few devotionals.
Here is what Psalm 37:4 says,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Now the Hebrew word for delight in this verse literally means to become soft or pliable. This means that "delighting" in the Lord is assuming a yielded posture before God.
So the "Y" in P-R-A-Y stands for yield. The question is: How do you practice yielding to God when you pray? Yielding is when you stop talking, and you wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.
In my own practice of prayer, I will often bow before God and ask Him, "God, is there anything You want to say to me? Do You have any instructions for me? Is there anything You want me to change?"
Then I silently wait for Him to speak to me.
As you assume this posture of being yielded and waiting quietly before Him, you will be surprised at some of the things that come to your attention: "You need to spend more time with your daughter," "Take your wife out on a date," "Bake your neighbor a pie and build a bridge over which the ospel can travel," "Spend more time praising Me," "Show your gratitude and appreciation for those who have been helping you in your life."
You will indeed hear from God if you ask Him to speak into your heart, and wait silently before Him.
That is the last element of effective prayer: praise, repent, ask, yield. Your prayers can indeed be effective if you commit to these four principles. That is how to P-R-A-Y.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:20
He is the true God and eternal life. - 1 John 5:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2008, Minnesota Public Radio aired Nikki Tundel's story, "Societies Create Jesus in Their Own Image," describing how artistic renderings of Jesus throughout the centuries depict Him in the likeness of their own experiences and cultural attributes: "Christians simply relate better to a savior who looks like them." Rather than cultural expectations or assumptions that He is like us, though, God's Word should shape our portrait of Jesus. Today's passage paints a triumphant picture of Christ.
Three consecutive verses begin with "we know" (vv. 18-20). In fact, the word know occurs twenty-seven times in 1 John. John strengthens readers' confidence in Jesus and their relationship with Him. Our knowledge is not mere whimsical hope; it is sturdy assurance built on the indestructible foundation of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.
John highlights two aspects of Christ's work: Jesus "came," leaving His glory with the Father to take on human flesh (cf. Phil. 2:6-8); and He gave understanding of His Father to believers (see John 14:6-9). "So that we may know him" implies that we know God not by striving to reach Him, but by God revealing Himself to us.
"Him who is true" is God the Father, whose Son is Jesus Christ. We are "in him" because we are in His Son (cf. 1 John 2:24); we cannot be in God without being in His Son. Our mutual indwelling with the Father and Son, which is effected through the Spirit, is a prominent theme in 1 John.
Does "he" in the last phrase of verse 20 refer to the Father or His Son? Three indicators point to Jesus: Jesus is the nearest noun referenced; Jesus is the acting subject of verse 20; and eternal life is connected with Jesus in 1 John (1:1-2; 5:11-13). What an exultant ending to John's letter! New Testament scholar Rudolph Schnackenburg declares: "Here the full identity of Jesus with God is recognized without reserve."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you ever surprised by Jesus when you encounter Him in the Scriptures? Is your understanding of Him shaped by God's Word and your personal relationship with Him or by your expectations, experiences, and prejudices? We should always submit our notion of Jesus and who He is to the truth revealed in Scripture. If you ever find yourself explaining away something about Jesus in the Bible, prayerfully ask God to help you understand His Son as shown in His Word.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS
``
Daily Devotionals July 28, 2009
God's Heart Revealed
READ: Revelation 3:14-22
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. -Revelation 3:19
It's easy to think of God as a divine fly-swatter, just waiting for you to land so that-whap-He can nail you for your sins. But that's not what we see in Revelation 2-3 in His letters to the seven churches. The pattern of the letters demonstrates God's loving heart for wayward people.
Jesus began many of these letters by affirming the good things His people had done. This shows us that when we do what is good and right, the Lord is pleased.
But Jesus is also concerned about the faults in our lives. His commendation in these letters was often followed by clear words of reproof. And while it's not comfortable to hear Him say, "Nevertheless I have this against you" (2:4; see vv.14,20), He reveals what needs to be changed in our lives to keep us from self-deceit.
This moves us to the real heart of the matter-repentance. When the Lord told these churches to repent, He was revealing His love for wayward saints. His goal was not to condemn but to restore them to intimate fellowship with Him.
And don't miss the fact that each letter ends with a specific promise for the "overcomers." Clearly God desires to reward those who live lives that are pleasing to Him.
What's He saying to you today? - Joe Stowell
To live a life that pleases Christ,
It's crucial to obey His voice;
When He reveals our sin to us,
Repentance is the wisest choice. -Sper
Repentance restores and renews our intimacy with the Lord.
Pressing On
In Philippians 3:12, Paul says,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul's challenge in this verse is for you and me to press on, to keep growing. I believe one of the greatest assets in life that you and I have is the capacity to grow and change. We have the capacity to press on.
One of the first steps in pressing on is to realize that you have not yet arrived. Even the apostle Paul acknowledged and recognized that he had not yet arrived. He said, Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected.
Paul understood that he had a lot of room for growth. And if he did, so do we.
If you have grown stagnant in your spiritual life, you need to ask the question, "Why?" Why is your spiritual life stunted? Why are you not growing? Why are you stymied in your spiritual progress? What are your barriers to growth?
I believe that if we are willing to admit that we need to grow, then identify the barriers that are keeping a lid on our spiritual lives, and finally, by the grace of God, deal with those barriers and remove them, we will begin to press on and grow.
If you were to take a catfish and put it in a small fish tank, that fish would only grow to be 12 inches long and it might weigh a quarter of a pound. But if you took that identical catfish and placed it into a lake, it might grow to be three feet long and weigh 60 pounds.
What was the barrier to its growth? The tank kept it contained. It grew to the limit that the environment allowed.
Remove the barriers to your spiritual growth and press on!
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 John 5:21
Watch your life and doctrine closely. - 1 Timothy 4:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
When navigating a ship, an error of one degree seems miniscule, but continued travel in an errant direction will lead the vessel miles off course. Similarly, false belief about Jesus, even if seemingly slight, has increasingly deleterious effects upon orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice). Today's text warns against such false belief leading to idolatry.
Nothing in 1 John readies us for 5:21, as nothing explicit is said about idols up to this point in John's letter, though he does call Jesus "true God" (v. 20). John may be speaking of the actual idolatry of his day (cf. Acts 17:23; 1 Thess. 1:9), but it is more likely that the "idols" are those conjured by the false teachers. Idolatry is the worship of false gods. The antichrists' false claims about Jesus are idolatrous, because false belief leads to worship of something that is not God. In contrast, John exhorts us to maintain right belief about Jesus, "the true God and eternal life" (v. 20). Those who truly know Jesus completely avoid idols and those who endorse them.
First John 5:18-21 summarize John's major themes. As our study of 1 John ends, let's review one edifying thread woven through John's letter: assurance for believers in Jesus Christ, God's Son. First, assurance is grounded in obedience to the command to love and live like Jesus (2:3-6; 3:14). Second, confidence on the day of judgment is based on righteous living and loving in Christ (2:28-29; 4:17).
Third, certainty in prayer results from living and praying according to God's will (3:21-22; 5:14). Fourth, God's testimony about Jesus resides in our hearts (5:9-13). Lastly, all assurance is guaranteed through God's Spirit living in us (3:23-24; 4:13). As one New Testament scholar states: "The grounds of assurance are ethical, not emotional; objective, not subjective; plain and tangible, not microscopic and elusive."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sometimes Christians read God's Word piecemeal, one verse or passage at a time, often without connecting the small portion to the larger context, namely, the chapter, book, Testament, and Bible as a whole. Today, take time to read 1 John in its entirety. This is a good practice for any Bible study: at the end of a study, take some time to re-read the entire book. If you need a resource to encourage you, read Gordon Fee's How to Read the Bible Book by Book.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 29, 2009
The Value Of Friends
READ: 1 Samuel 20:12-17
Jonathan . . . loved [David] as he loved his own soul. -1 Samuel 20:17
John Chrysostom (347-407) was one of the great preachers in the early church. He was given the name Chrysostom, which means "golden-mouthed," because of his eloquent sermons.
Here is one of his insights on the value of friends: "Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as . . . flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. . . . It would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends."
The story of Jonathan and David illustrates the value of friendship. Though David was hunted by the demented King Saul, he drew encouragement from his friendship with Saul's son. "Jonathan . . . loved [David] as he loved his own soul" (1 Sam. 20:17). Their relationship was characterized by trust, understanding, and encouragement. How difficult it would have been for David to endure this unjust persecution without the nourishment of friendship based in the Lord (v.42).
The ancient voice of Chrysostom and the witness of David and Jonathan are reminders of the need to nurture the friendships God has given us. - Dennis Fisher
Since I have no gold to give,
And love alone must make amends,
My daily prayer is while I live-
"God, make me worthy of my friends." -Sherman
A friend is the first person who comes in when the whole world has gone out.
Growing Up
The Scripture says in Ephesians 4:15 that we should grow in all things. In today's and tomorrow's devotionals, I want to give you ten areas in which the Bible teaches us we should grow. I hope you will take time to read each passage and answer the question of whether you are growing as you should in each of these areas.
1. In Colossians 1:10 we are told we should increase in the knowledge of God. You ought to know more about God and His Kingdom this week than you did last week.
2. Psalm 71:21 tells us we are to be growing in our influence. I hope I have not reached the pinnacle in my life when it comes to the influence I have for good in the lives of others. If you call yourself a leader and no one is following you, then you are not influencing them, you are just taking a walk. You and I need to grow in influence.
3. In Proverbs 13:11 it says we are to be growing and increasing materially. I don't know of many who couldn't grow in this area!
4. Isaiah 29:19 speaks of increasing in joy. From appearances, some people seem to grow more and more sour as the days go by and have less and less of a sense of humor. Listen, the more you advance in age, the more your capacity to laugh at life's ups and downs should grow.
5. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 teaches us that we should grow in faith. Now faith certainly touches all areas of life; and, hopefully, today you don't freak out like you used to when you are faced with a trial, because your faith has grown and you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
In tomorrow's devotion we will complete this list.
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 John 1-13
Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." - 1 Corinthians 15:33
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the quest to be new or cutting-edge, some artists can simply create absurdity. From Project Runway avant-garde fashions to Iron Chef culinary confections to American Idol melodies, the judges love to say, "Don't mess with a classic." Today's passage hails the foundational teaching about Jesus, a true unchangeable constant.
Important questions to ask about 2 John concern the identity of these characters. Who is the elder, the chosen lady and her children, and her chosen sister (vv. 1, 13)? "Elder" likely does not refer to a church officer, since that office is usually indicated in the New Testament by the plural "elders" (see Acts 15). Rather, the writer of 2 John is a spiritual father to his readers. Most scholars consider "the chosen lady and her children" to be a metaphorical address to a local church and its members. Consequently, "her chosen sister" is the elder's church community.
Numerous echoes from 1 John are identifiable: truth; a new command, love one another; Jesus is God's Son; deceivers; world; and others. Alternatively, one new admonition stands out (vv. 8-9). When viewed in parallel, "what you have worked for" is the true "teaching of Christ": the reward is having God. Jesus' words also illuminate today's text: "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:29). The author contrasts running ahead with continuing in the teaching of Christ (v. 9). Truly, the mature believers graduate from spiritual milk to solid food (cf. Heb. 5:11-14)-but this is not what the elder has in mind in this passage. Verse 9 warns against accepting seemingly enlightened ideas, which when exposed turn out to be counterfeit. In the present context, the deceiver and antichrist denies the humanity of Jesus (v. 7).
The elder prescribes practical ways to resist the false teachers, namely deny them hospitality (vv. 10-11). In the ancient world this meant to refuse the itinerants lodging in one's home and a speaking platform in the church assembly. To welcome them in these ways would be to condone their wicked work.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's text warns us of perilous associations and influences. Do not give false teaching a listening ear, for this kind of hospitality can contaminate us. In our culture that promotes tolerance, it can be challenging to stand for truth. Allow the Holy Spirit to identify any toxic conversations or wayward advisors in your life, and prayerfully resolve to avoid them. Ask the Lord for strength to stand for Him and His Word when confronted with false teaching.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 30, 2009
Homecoming
READ: Psalm 73:21-28
You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. -Psalm 73:24
One of my favorite pastimes as a boy was walking the creek behind our home. Those walks were high adventure for me: rocks to skip, birds to watch, dams to build, animal tracks to follow. And if I made it to the mouth of the creek, my dog and I would sit and share lunch while we watched the biplanes land across the lake.
We'd linger as long as we could, but only so long, for my father wanted me home before sunset. The shadows grew long and the hollows got dark fast in the woods. I'd be wishing along the way that I was already home.
Our house sat on a hill behind some trees, but the light was always on until all the family was in. Often my father would be sitting on the back porch, reading the paper, waiting for me. "How did it go?" he would ask. "Pretty good," I'd say. "But it sure is good to be home."
Those memories of walking that creek make me think of another journey-the one I'm making now. It isn't always easy, but I know at the end of it there's a caring Father and my eternal home. I can hardly wait to get there.
I'm expected there. The light is on and my heavenly Father is waiting for me. I suppose He'll ask, just like my father used to, "How did it go?" "Pretty good," I'll say. "But it sure is good to be Home." - David H. Roper
He will be waiting for me-
Jesus so kind and true;
On His beautiful throne He will welcome me home-
After the day is through. -Vandall
© Renewal 1962, N. B. Vandall.
For the Christian, heaven is spelled H-O-M-E.
Growing Up-Part 2
Yesterday we began a list of ten areas in which Scripture says we should be growing. In today's devotional, I want to complete that list for you.
1. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 teach us that we should grow in our love for others. I would hate to think that I have plumbed the depths of love for my wife, for my children, for my friends, or for God.
2. Ephesians 2:21 speaks to us of growing in unity. You and I ought to grow better and better at getting along with other believers, especially those in our church.
3. Luke 2:52 speaks of growing in wisdom. God is so anxious to provide you and me with His wisdom, but it is something we need to seek. Are you growing in wisdom?
4. Luke 2:52 also speaks of growing in favor. Are you obnoxious and hard to get along with? Do you find it difficult to get along with others? I challenge you, if that is true, to consider the model of Jesus for our lives. He grew in favor with both God and men.
5. 2 Peter 3:18 says that we can grow in grace. I don't know about you, but I am deeply grateful for God's grace in my life. And for those who extend me grace when I blow it. Is grace a hallmark of your life?
According to Scripture, these ten areas-the five from yesterday and the five today-are vital areas in which you and I are to grow. I challenge you to read each Scripture and take each area before the Lord and ask Him to reveal where you need to grow.
You will be amazed at the change for good that will come about in your life!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 3 John 1-14
Be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. - Romans 16:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Kudzu was introduced into the United States from Japan in 1876 as an ornamental vine to help prevent erosion. But in the American South, kudzu has near-perfect conditions for growth and no natural predators, and it is now changed from ornamental to obnoxious. It spreads like cancer, up to one foot per day, destroying valuable forests by preventing trees from receiving sunlight. Slander and gossip are like kudzu. Such "godless chatter" is often overlooked or justified, but overnight it inflicts destruction. Today's text strongly condemns malicious talk that ravages Christian community.
Third John is one of two personal letters in the New Testament (the other is Philemon); Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus contain a personal address, but are intended to guide the larger church body. The elder begins this letter with a prayer for his "dear friend," which mirrors 2 John 1:4 (v. 2); he commends Gaius not only for his orthodoxy, but also for his orthopraxy (v. 3). Then the author praises Gaius for his warm hospitality toward the traveling missionaries, his fellow workers for the gospel who did not accept pay from those they were trying to reach (v. 7).
Next, the elder draws attention to a toxic, kudzu-like presence among the Christian community (vv. 9-10). He accuses a certain Diotrephes of three offenses: gossiping maliciously; refusing the missionaries hospitality; and further, preventing others from extending such courtesy. These misdeeds stem from Diotrephes's original rejection of the elder's authority. The central issue of 3 John is authority. Who shepherds the church in doctrine and discipline? Who is granted authority to teach and to determine truth from falsehood? Common manifestations of this dispute are slander and power struggles. The author ends his letter with a stark contrast to Diotrephes: Demetrius, who imitates what is good and maintains an honorable reputation among Christ's followers (vv. 11-12; cf. Rom. 16:19).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Gossip is spreading personal or spectacular information about another; slander is speaking maliciously about others to blemish their reputation. Christ's followers should "avoid every kind of evil," including "godless chatter" (1 Thess. 5:22; 1 Tim. 5:13). In Woman of Influence, Pam Farrel suggests three questions as criteria to escape gossip: Would I say this if the person were here with me?; Do I have permission to share this?; Can the listener change the situation? If "yes" is not the answer to every question, do not speak.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals July 31, 2009
Getting Involved
READ: Luke 10:30-37
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. -Psalm 111:4
Isn't anybody going to help that poor guy?" Fred exclaimed as he and my husband, Tom, realized what had been causing traffic to creep down the busy five-lane road. A man lay sprawled between the lanes, bicycle on top of him, as vehicles simply drove around him. Fred turned on the warning flashers and blocked traffic with his car. Then both guys jumped out to help the shaken man.
Fred and Tom got involved, as did the Samaritan man in Jesus' story in Luke 10. Like him, they overcame any reluctance they might have had to reach out to a man in distress. The Samaritan also had to overcome racial and cultural prejudice. The people we would have expected to help showed indifference to the injured man's plight.
It's easy to find reasons not to get involved. Busyness, indifference, and fear often top the list. Yet as we seek to follow our Lord faithfully, we will become more aware of opportunities to show the kind of compassion He showed (Matt. 14:14; 15:32; Mark 6:34).
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus commended the man who had acted out of compassion even though it was inconvenient, difficult, and costly to do so. Then, to us He says, "Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). - Cindy Hess Kasper
When we share another's burden,
We display God's love and care,
Offering relief and comfort
When life seems too much to bear. -Sper
True compassion puts love into action.
Focus
In Philippians 3:13, Paul says,
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The phrase I want to direct you to today is Paul's statement, One thing I do. These are echoes of words King David spoke when he said, "One thing I desire," and Jesus, who said to the rich young ruler, "There is one thing you lack."
Then there is the blind man, who had been blind from birth, whom Jesus healed. When he was questioned, he said, "There is one thing I know: I was blind, now I see." One thing I do; one thing I desire; one thing you lack; one thing I know.
Each of these statements points to a vital thing needed if you are to grow in your spiritual life: FOCUS.
The problem with many people is they are far too scattered. They are trying to do everything and be everything. They try to be a jack-of-all-trades and end up being a master of none.
If that describes you today, let me ask you a question: What is the one main thing that should be the focus of your life?
I have a very gifted friend who drives me crazy. We can spend an hour in the car; and, in that hour, he has shared 21 new ideas with me. He is trying to be so many things and do so many things that he is not as effective as he could be at anything!
My question to you is this: If you died and stood before God today, what is the one thing He is going to ask you about? Paul said, "One thing I do." What is that one thing for you?
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Jude 1-16
Fight the good fight of the faith. - 1 Timothy 6:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Midrash is a Hebrew term literally meaning "to investigate" or "to study." Midrash is an ancient method of interpreting biblical texts whereby examples from Scripture are interpreted to reflect and apply to contemporary situations. Jude employs the technique of midrash to address the situation facing his readers. His prevalent use of this Jewish tradition suggests that he and probably even his original readers were Jewish Christians (vv. 5-15).
Most New Testament scholars identify Jude as the brother of Jesus, pointing to the author's self-designation as "a brother of James" (v. 1; cf. Matt. 13:55). Jude was not a follower of Jesus during his brother's lifetime, but like James joined the Christian movement after Christ's resurrection. Verses 3 and 4 announce the purpose for Jude's letter: to expose the false teachers in their midst and to urge his readers to fight for the faith. The shepherding imagery of verse 12 identifies the "godless men" as false teachers (cf. Ezek. 34:1-10). "Faith" here is used as a synonym for the gospel of Jesus Christ; it is also depicted as something one must fight for in order to maintain.
The ungodly men who "secretly slipped among" them distort God's grace and reject Christ's lordship in exchange for immoral living (vv. 4, 8). Jude describes and condemns the false teachers (vv. 5-19). He uses numerous illustrations to thoroughly convince his readers of the threat posed by the infiltrators. Jude's point is clear: in the same way the Old Testament exemplars such as Sodom and Gomorrah and Balaam faced judgment, so too will these wicked, poisonous men. They will be like condemned creation, purposeless and unproductive. "The Lord is coming . . . to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way" (vv. 14-15).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between "cheap" and "costly" grace: "Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without discipline, communion without confession." Jude says it is changing God's grace "into a license for immorality" (v. 4). Costly grace demands repentance that leads to transformation. Bonhoeffer said, "It is costly because it compels one to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him." Let's daily count the cost of discipleship and receive God's grace.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 1, 2009
The Only Place To Start
READ: Galatians 1:6-12
If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. -Galatians 1:9
When a publishing company asked me to write an endorsement for a new book, I said I'd be glad to. It appeared to be a helpful effort directed to young people, challenging them to live for God in a changing world. But as I read the book, something troubled me. Although it had lots of Scripture and great spiritual advice, it didn't explain that the starting point for any relationship with God is salvation through Jesus Christ.
The writer seemed to imply that the essence of living spiritually in modern society is based totally on action-good deeds-and not on saving faith in Christ. I didn't write the endorsement.
The culture of the church is changing rapidly. Often left behind in the rush to find exciting new ideas is the essential nature of the gospel. The apostle Paul was astonished that people so readily embraced a "different gospel" (Gal. 1:6). What he preached was not from man, but a direct revelation from Jesus Himself (vv.11-12).
We must never let go of that true gospel: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again for our justification, declaring us righteous before God (Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:3-4). This alone offers the "power of God to salvation for everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16). If we want to live for God, this is the only place to start. - Dave Branon
No one can say he doesn't need
Forgiveness for his sin,
For all must come to Christ by faith
To have new life within. -Branon
Faith is the hand that must take God's gift of salvation.
Forgetting the Past
Yesterday we looked at Philippians 3:13. I want to draw our attention to this verse again today, but for another reason.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The key word I want to have you focus on today is forgetting. I want you to understand the importance of forgetting the past so you can move forward.
Some people-perhaps you-cannot reach forward because they are continually looking backwards. Their focus is on their past sins, their past mistakes, their past failures, their past hurts.
God does not want you to live in the past, but rather focus on the future.
A while back I was visiting a friend who had a great impact on my life as a young believer. As I was sitting at a meal with him and his wife, he began to share with me a great personal failure.
About ten years earlier, when he was pioneering a church, he fell into an adulterous relationship. It rocked the foundation of his marriage; but he repented, got out of the relationship, and over time, God healed his marriage. But he has not been in ministry since.
As he told me, tears began to stream down his face. He got up from the table, went to the bathroom, and his wife looked at me and said, "Bayless, if you can help him, please do. My husband has lived a holy life for the last ten years. God has forgiven him, I have forgiven him, but he hasn't forgiven himself."
This man chained himself to this one past failure, and he can't get on with what God had called him to do.
Bury your past so you can uncover your future.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Jude 17-25
Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Jude 21
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Let the Nations Be Glad, John Piper contends, "Life is war because the maintenance of our faith and the laying hold of eternal life is a constant fight." This echoes yesterday's discussion about the fight of faith and reflects Jude's closing remarks (vv. 20-21, 24). In order to live in light of eternity, we must, through regularly practiced exercises, maintain spiritual fitness for present wartime conditions.
Verses 20 through 23 instruct readers on how to "contend for the faith" (v. 3). First, Christ's followers must maintain and "build up" their own relationship with God (vv. 20-21). This includes praying according to God's will in fellowship with His Spirit and living in light of the Lord's return. Second, Jude urges his readers to "be merciful" to those contaminated by the false teachers (v. 22), which entails saving them from deception's snare. These traps of lies will lead to eternal judgment (v. 23). This smaller-scale rescue mission reflects God's large-scale mission to save His people (cf. John 3:16-17). The last phrase of verse 23 warns the readers to make every effort to avoid being corrupted themselves.
Jude concludes his letter with a doxology or short song of praise to God (vv. 24-25). He reassures his readers that God Himself will protect and preserve them through their present trials until Christ returns, at which point they will stand blameless and joyful before their Creator and King. Jude's heartening words are not uncommon to the New Testament. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul teaches that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose," and that no trial or adversary can separate believers from God's love in Christ (8:28, 31-39). The author of Hebrews prays: "May the God of peace . . . equip you with everything good for doing his will" (13:20-21).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jude ends looking forward to Christ's return (vv. 21, 24). The spirit of anticipation for Christ's return was prevalent among the early church. The term Maranatha! or "Come, Lord Jesus!" reflects this spirit (1 Cor. 16:22; cf. Rev. 22:20). Expecting and anticipating Christ's return causes us to live as disciplined, watchful stewards of God's kingdom. Is your life characterized by a longing for Christ's return? Today, reflect on the potential effects of such longing in your family, work, and relationships.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 2, 2009
Biography Of God
READ: Romans 1:16-20
Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen . . . even His eternal power and Godhead. -Romans 1:20
Let's say you were really famous. People would want to know all kinds of things about you. Then let's say you called me up and asked, "How'd you like to write my biography?" Let's say I agreed. I would be all over you like a moth on a streetlight, buzzing around trying to find out all I could about you. I'd ask you a thousand questions. I would ask for your list of contacts and call everyone on it to find out more about you. Then I would ask you to hand over anything related to your life. Papers. Pictures. The works.
I would look for three components, which are the secret to getting to know someone: What you say about yourself, what others say about you, and what you've done. Now think of what this means as you seek to know God: What does He say about Himself, what do others say about Him, and what has He done?
To know God in a vibrant, new way, ask all three. Read the Bible to find out what God says about Himself (Ex. 34:6-7; Lev. 19:2; Jer. 32:27). Then find out what the writers say about Him and His remarkable attributes (Ps. 19:1-4; Rom. 1:16-20; 1 John 4:8-10). Finally, take a look at the amazing things God has done (Gen. 1:1; Ex. 14:10-31; John 3:16).
Get to know God. Be His biographer. It will teach you more about Him than you ever thought possible. - Dave Branon
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious-Thy great name we praise. -Smith
The God who created the universe is the God you can know.
Running Inside the Lines
In Philippians 3:14, Paul provides a powerful insight into his passion. Here is what he says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul clearly had a goal in mind, a sense of his destiny. And he was undaunted in seeking to reach it.
In fact, the phrase "I press toward the goal" could literally be translated from the Greek text this way, "I run within the lines." It paints the picture of a runner, running down a track, staying in his lane.
He is not overreaching his bounds, running in someone else's lane. Rather, as he goes for the goal, he is running within the lines with the goal in mind.
In a little mission in Medford, Oregon, many years ago, there was a young man with a terrible drug and alcohol problem. One night God got a hold of his life. It was a truly dramatic conversion.
I was that young man. And for several decades now, I have been seeking to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me. I knew that night that God had a destiny for my life. And that is the goal I strive and press forward to achieve.
God has a destiny for your life, too. God laid hold of your life just like He did mine, for a purpose. If you have not already done so, you must understand and press forward to fulfill the destiny God has for your life.
If you don't know what that might be, then start asking God to reveal that to you. Ask Him to show you the lane you are to run in.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Mark 10:13-31
I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. - Luke 18:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
Exclusive country clubs won't let just anyone join. Initiation fees can cost $100,000 or more, with additional monthly dues that exceed $10,000. Other clubs insist on a referral from an existing member. Entrance into these clubs requires certain qualifications.
Today we begin a study that examines the stories of children in the Bible. We will focus on what they reveal about God and His relationship to us, as well as lessons from these children that apply to us all, whether young or old. In the story of Jesus welcoming the little children, we discover that the qualifications for entering the kingdom of God do not include riches or popularity.
This story appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (cf. Matt. 19:13-15; Luke 18:15-17). People brought young children to Jesus for His prayers and blessings, and the disciples demonstrated their frustration by rebuking these people. To understand the perspective of the disciples, it's helpful to remember that in that culture children had very little status or rights. The disciples were trying to protect Jesus' time and energy and guard His status.
Jesus, though, welcomed the little children; verse 16 gives the warm description that "he took the children in his arms." Jesus was not too busy to extend love and value even to those disregarded by the rest of society. He then made a point about the kingdom of God: one must be like a little child in order to enter it (v. 15). Jesus was outlining the qualifications required: acknowledging that we have no spiritual status or rights and recognizing that we need Jesus.
In all three Gospels, this story is immediately followed by the story of the Rich Young Man (vv. 17-22). He sought to enter the kingdom of God, but he wanted to rely on his wealth and status. He was unwilling to become like a little child, totally dependent and in need of a Savior. The little children received a blessing from Jesus, but the Rich Young Man went away sad.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you understand what is required to enter the kingdom of God, the way to "inherit eternal life?" (v. 17). God does not screen out people on the basis of wealth or status. He welcomes all those who recognize that apart from Jesus, they have no hope of salvation. If you have never acknowledged your need for Jesus, let today be the day when you come to Him as a humble child and trust Him to save you. If you would like to talk to someone about salvation, you can call 1-800-NEED HIM.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 3, 2009
Best Friends
READ: 1 Samuel 20:30-42
The righteous should choose his friends carefully. -Proverbs 12:26
When I signed up for a popular Internet social network, I was shocked to be greeted with the words, "You have no friends." Although I knew it was untrue, I still felt sad for a moment. The idea that anyone, even an impersonal Web site, would call me friendless was upsetting. Friends are essential for our emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.
Friends listen to our heartaches without blaming us for having problems. They defend us when we're under attack. They are happy when we succeed and sad when we fail. They give us wise counsel to keep us from making foolish choices. They even risk making us angry for the sake of making us right. My friends have done all of this and more for me.
Perhaps the best-known friendship in the Bible is that of Jonathan and David. Jonathan was heir to the throne of his father Saul. But he knew that the Lord had chosen David for that role, so he risked his own life to save his friend (1 Sam. 20).
As the Bible shows us, we need to choose friends carefully (Prov. 12:26). The very best friends are those who are friends with God and who strengthen our relationship with Him (1 Sam. 23:16). - Julie Ackerman Link
I do not ask for many friends,
But give me, Lord, the few
Whose loyalty and faithfulness
Are first of all to You. -Meadows
True friends are like diamonds-precious and rare.
Your Lane
Yesterday we discovered that God has given each of us a call...a destiny designed by God for His glory.
In Philippians 3:12, Paul gives us some additional insight into that call,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul-when he was still an unbeliever and on the road to Damascus-had an encounter with Jesus. Our Lord laid hold of him and Paul realized God had not only put a call on his life, but that the call was unique.
He was driven to fulfill that call. He states it this way, "Since that day, I have been trying to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me."
You also have a unique call. And whatever it is, you need to stop comparing yourself to others and competing with others. That is a terrible way to live. Find out what your lane is, what your gifting is, your calling, and run in that lane.
You are unique! God has not called anyone else to do exactly what you do. Find out who you are and forget about what anybody else thinks. God is not comparing you to another person. You do not have to compete with anyone or be compared to anyone. Just do what He has asked you to do.
That is running in your lane. Do not run in somebody else's lane. Now you can certainly learn from others, but you don't want to copy them. You were born an original; you don't want to die a copy.
Determine God's unique design for your life and run in the lane of that design. That is when you will know satisfaction, blessing, and contentment.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Genesis 21:8-21
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. - Psalm 116:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to a report released in May by the National Center on Family Homelessness, nearly 1.2 million U.S. children have "precarious" living arrangements, meaning that they share housing with friends or relatives, or live in a family who pays an extremely high percentage of income for housing. Another 330,000 children are completely homeless, living either in shelters or on the street. Our story today examines a child whose precarious living arrangement became homelessness. His story becomes a story of God's incredible grace.
Ishmael was surrounded by circumstances beyond his control. He was half-Egyptian, and he and his mother, the slave Hagar, lived with his father Abraham. His family could certainly be described as dysfunctional; Abraham's wife Sarah had a history of mistreating Hagar (see Genesis 16). Once Sarah's own son, Isaac, was born, she hated the idea that Ishmael might share in the inheritance, and she ordered Abraham to send away both him and Hagar. Ishmael became homeless, a victim of jealousy and power.
Ishmael was not the child that God had promised to Abraham, yet God extended grace to him (vv. 12-13). As Hagar and Ishmael wandered in the desert, all hope seemed lost. Hagar's pain in verse 16 is heart-wrenching; she sobbed in grief, expecting her son to die. But God heard his cry and responded, keeping His promise both to Hagar (Gen. 16:10) and to Abraham (v. 13). God repeated His promise again to Hagar, telling her that Ishmael would not only survive this desert experience, but also become a great nation (v. 18). Ishmael's name means, "God hears," and God proved He was still the "God who sees me," still hearing the cry of those in desperate circumstances (cf. Gen. 16:13). God's faithfulness was evident in the life of Ishmael. As he grew into adulthood, God was with him (v. 20). God had chosen Isaac as the son of Abraham that would be the son of promise, but He extended His grace outside the chosen line to preserve, protect, and prosper Ishmael, the other son of Abraham.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Children in need fill our neighborhoods and communities. Some need food, some need academic help, and some need loving adult mentors. Consider how you might extend the love and grace of God to them. You could volunteer at a local food pantry or tutor some children at the library. You might assist an afterschool program with adult leadership or even just with snacks. God cares for the children who appear to fall through the cracks, and we can show them His love.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals August 4, 2009
Being Glad
READ: Psalm 30
This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. -Psalm 118:24
One of my favorite childhood books was Pollyanna, the story of the optimistic young girl who always found something to be glad about-even when bad things happened.
I was reminded recently of that literary friend when my real-life friend fell and broke her arm while riding her bicycle. Marianne told me how thankful she was that she was able to ride all the way back home and how grateful she was that she wouldn't need to have surgery. It was her left arm (she's right-handed), she said, so she would still be able to work. And wasn't it great, she marveled, that she has good bones, so her arm should heal fine! And wasn't it wonderful that it hadn't been any worse!
Whew! Marianne is an example of someone who has learned to rejoice in spite of trouble. She has a confidence that God will care for her-no matter what.
Suffering eventually touches us all. And in times of difficulty, thankfulness is usually not our first response. But I think God looks at us with pleasure when we find reasons to be thankful (1 Thess. 5:16-18). As we realistically look for the good despite our bad circumstances, we can be grateful that God is holding us close. It is when we trust in His goodness that we find gladness. - Cindy Hess Kasper
Under His wings, what a refuge in sorrow!
How the heart yearningly turns to His rest!
Often when earth has no balm for my healing,
There I find comfort, and there I am blessed. -Cushing
Thankfulness finds something good in every circumstance.
The Prize
If you have read the last couple of days' devotionals, you know we have been focusing on Philippians 3:12-14. Today I want to give you one final truth from this passage of Scripture.
It is found in verse 14 where Paul says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
What I want to focus our thoughts on today is the prize. According to this passage, there is a reward for finishing, a reward that will be given openly to all those who are faithful.
In fact, the Greek word translated prize literally means a reward that is given publicly. This is not something that is given in private.
In 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Paul says,
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
This crown of righteousness is synonymous with the "prize." Paul said, "It will be given to me on that Day." Not the day Paul died, but rather on a day that has yet to arrive, when we are gathered before God's throne.
On that day, everyone will be there. King David, Samuel the prophet, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Moses, the apostle Paul, Peter...every saint who has lived for God in every generation since the Resurrection.
On that day, we are going to be standing before God giving an account of our lives. We are going to be rewarded publicly if we have fulfilled our job description and run within the lines of our calling while on this earth.
I urge you to prepare for that day!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Kings 17:7-24
Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth. - 1 Kings 17:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
Few things are more excruciating than the grief of a parent who experiences the death of a child. It wrenches the natural order-parents expect their children to outlive them. According to The Mother's Report, published by Save the Children, every day 26,000 children die around the world, many from malnutrition and its accompanying diseases.
The mother in our passage today knew the piercing pain of losing a child. The widow of Zarephath was not an Israelite, yet she was the one chosen by God to provide for His prophet, Elijah (v. 9). In return, God miraculously provided food for her and her son during the famine. She was not among the chosen people of God, yet she gave generously in obedience to God's command.
And then tragedy struck. Her only son stopped breathing and died (v. 17). She poured out her grief in an interrogation of Elijah: "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?" (v. 18). Like those in sorrow before and after her, she begged to know, "Why?" Elijah's prayer revealed his own confusion. This woman had been obedient and generous. Why had God allowed this to happen (v. 20)?
God responded to Elijah's cry and restored life to the boy. The prophet carried him to his mother: "Look, your son is alive!" (v. 23). This amazing event confirmed Elijah's identity for the widow, and she recognized the truth from the Lord that he represented. Interestingly, God did not explicitly answer the questions of Elijah and the mother. He raised the boy to life, but He did not explain why all this happened.
A few principles emerge from this story. First, God cares about the suffering of mothers over the death of their children. He is not emotionally aloof. Second, the miracle of restored life confirmed the identity of Elijah, God's prophet, and the truth that he spoke. Although Elijah and the widow didn't know it, there is more to this story, which we'll see in the coming days.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed when we hear a statistic that 26,000 children die each day. Though we might not be in a position to dramatically reduce that number, we can each do something to reach out to children and their families who are suffering. Some ideas include sending cards to children in hospitals, volunteering and visiting children, and financially giving to hospitals who provide specialized care for sick children. And all of us can intercede in prayer as Elijah did, asking God to do a mighty work of healing.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 5, 2009
Our Moral Compass
READ: 2 Chronicles 7:1-14
If My people . . . turn from their wicked ways, then I will . . . forgive their sin and heal their land. -2 Chronicles 7:14
When Abraham Lincoln was introduced to author Harriet Beecher Stowe, he reportedly said that she was "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."
Although President Lincoln's comment wasn't entirely serious, Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was instrumental in abolishing slavery in the US. Its graphic depiction of racism and the injustice of slavery helped lead to the start of civil war. Ultimately, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declared that all slaves "shall be free." Thus, Stowe's novel helped to change a nation's moral compass.
Centuries earlier, King Solomon was told about what would change the moral compass of God's people Israel. It was to start with humility and confession. The Lord told Solomon: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Chron. 7:14).
As a Christian community, we should first take an inventory of our own personal lives. As we humbly seek God in prayer and repentance of sin, changes begin in our lives. God may then use us to change a nation's moral compass. - Dennis Fisher
Revive us again,
Fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above. -Mackay
Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong. -Lincoln
Your Three-Way Calling
In Jude 1, we read the following greeting,
Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.
The Greek word for called here is used in three different ways. As believers in Jesus Christ, this word tells us we are called to three things:
1. It is used for those who are summoned to an office, duty, or a responsibility. Friend, every believer has been called. You have a duty, you have an office, and you have a responsibility. We have all been called to do something for Christ. We are ambassadors for Christ, and we need to represent Him to a lost and dying world.
2. The word called is also used in the Greek language to summon someone to a feast or a festival. And you know what? You have been called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and you will sit down one day to enjoy all the things God has planned for eternity.
3. Finally, the word translated called in this passage is used to summon someone into court to give an account for themselves, or to summon them to judgment. One day we will have to give an account of our lives. One day every one of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the works done in the body.
You have a responsibility to represent Christ to our dying world, to someday celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to ultimately give an account of your life.
I pray you will embrace and fulfill your calling today!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 Kings 4:8-37; 8:1-6
Because you have seen me, you have believed. - John 20:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
Proof is a concept we can understand. We say, "The proof is in the pudding." We respond when asked for proof of identification or proof of insurance. We believe that deeds will prove whether words were true. Proof gives us confidence that we aren't falling for a scam.
The story of the son of the Shunammite Woman ends with dramatic proof. This story contains some parallels to our reading yesterday of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. In this passage, the prophet Elisha was offered hospitality by a wealthy woman in the town of Shunem. This town in the tribal area of Issachar was situated near a major thoroughfare and would have been a convenient place to stay as Elisha traveled about the country in his ministry. The Shunammite, recognizing that Elisha was a man of God, went beyond providing meals; she and her husband built an addition to their home for him!
In response to her generosity, Elisha offered to help the woman in some way.
Realizing that she had no children, he told her that she would have a son in the next year. The promised son was born-but then as a child, he suddenly died (4:20). The Shunammite immediately went to Elisha, who came to the boy. Elisha prayed and stretched himself over the boy, and life returned to him. In a manner similar to the story yesterday, Elisha returned the boy to his mother.
Later, Elisha warned the woman and her family to leave the area during a severe famine (8:1). Seven years later, the woman returned, and she sought to regain the land and house that she had left. This scene was beautifully orchestrated: God had Elisha's servant, Gehazi, at the right place at the right time. He was in the middle of describing the powerful works of Elisha. Just as he said that Elisha had restored the dead to life, the Shunammite entered. Gehazi pointed to her-and her son, who had been dead but who was now standing there very much alive-as proof of Elisha's ministry. Amazed, the king granted the woman's request and more.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As we saw yesterday, God's restoration of life to this son was proof of His power. This story provides a foretaste of the resurrection of God's Son, Jesus, whose living flesh was proof of His claims and evidence that God had provided salvation for all who believe. If you have time for additional reading this week, read through John 20: "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31).
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals August 6, 2009
Matters Of The Heart
READ: Matthew 13:10-15
The hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. -Matthew 13:15
At the beginning of a spiritual retreat, our speaker Matt Heard asked, "How's your heart?" It stunned me, because I tend to focus on believing with my mind and working with my hands. In the activity of thinking and serving, my heart is pushed to the side. As we were led through the Bible's repeated emphasis on this crucial center of our lives, I began to grasp his premise that belief and service are, more than anything else, matters of the heart.
When Jesus told a story to illustrate how people receive and respond to His teaching (Matt. 13:1-9), His disciples asked, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" (v.10). In reply, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah: "For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them" (v.15; Isa. 6:10).
How dangerously easy it is to neglect our hearts. If we become callous, we find no joy in living or serving; and life seems hollow. But when our hearts are tender toward God, understanding and gratefulness flow through us to others.
So, how's your heart? - David C. McCasland
Our service for the Lord becomes
A duty that is hollow
If we neglect our heart for God
And Him we do not follow. -Sper
We can become so busy doing good that we lose our heart for God.
Your Calling to Judgment
One of the three ways in which we are called as believers, which we looked at in yesterday's devotional, is a call or summons to judgment. And frankly, the thought of it unsettles me.
In fact, when I read what the apostle Paul says about the judgment seat of Christ, it is very sobering. He tells us that someday we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the works done in the body. In 2 Corinthians 5:11, he states this about that day,
Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
Think about that for a moment. Isn't that unsettling to you?
The apostle Paul who wrote the great majority of the New Testament, who walked the known world three times to establish churches and to preach the gospel where it had been previously unpreached, who gave his life, and according to church history, was even martyred for the cause of Christ, refers to the judgment seat of Christ as "the terror of the Lord."
Wow! That is just unnerving.
Someday I really want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I'm taking God's call seriously. Now, I am enjoying life to the max, but there is always that serious edge knowing that I am going to have to stand before Jesus someday.
My prayer for you today is that you, too, would take your call before the judgment seat of Christ seriously. Someday you will stand before our Lord and give an account of every part of your life.
May you hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Luke 7:11-22
The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. - Luke 7:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
From age 16 to 18, Frank Abagnale flew over one million miles to 26 countries-for free. He would dress in an airline pilot's uniform, carry false identity papers, and go through the crew entrance, saying that he needed to "deadhead" (the term for flights that crew make when they are not on duty) to another city. He would present forged payroll checks to support his lavish lifestyle. Frank looked and sounded the part, but he was not who he claimed to be.
The question of identity appears in our reading today as well. Over the past few days, we've seen that God cares about the plight of children, even rescuing them from death. In the stories of the sons of the widow of Zarephath and the Shunammite woman, we also see that God used these events to confirm the identity of His prophets, Elijah and Elisha.
The parallels of those accounts and our story today are striking. The only son of a widow had died (v. 12). Jesus was moved by compassion and touched the coffin. The son sat up and began to talk. In a phrase almost identical to those in our stories the past two days, Luke says that "Jesus gave him back to his mother" (v. 15). Finally, the crowd responded with recognition that this miracle echoed the healings of the great prophets.
The crowd was right-to a point. The Gospel of Luke clearly establishes this miracle as something that puts Jesus in the line of Elijah and Elisha. Yet it doesn't stop there. As word spread, followers of John the Baptist asked Jesus, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (v. 20). The crowd had been content to call Jesus a great prophet, but John the Baptist wanted to know the real identity of Jesus. Are you the Messiah, the Christ? Jesus responded by quoting from Isaiah 61. This work substantiated His claim. He was no impostor. He was Christ the Lord.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The stories from the past few days of these sons who die before having life restored can help give us a measure of comfort during our grief. First, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus all recognized the grief as legitimate. They responded to the mothers with compassion. Second, as readers of Scripture we see some of God's great work through these events, even if the mothers and sons themselves never knew how God was using their lives to point forward to Jesus. We may not know "why" on this earth, but we do know "Who" is in control.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals August 7, 2009
Breath Mint, Anyone?
READ: Galatians 6:1-5
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. -Galatians 6:2
A new Web site helps you tell a co-worker what you're afraid to say in person. Comments like: "A breath mint would be beneficial today" or "Your cell phone ringer is very loud today" or "Your perfume/cologne is very strong on a regular basis." You confront issues anonymously by having the Web site send an e-mail message for you.
It's understandable that we're cautious in talking to others about something that bothers us. But when it comes to confronting fellow believers about their sin, that's serious. We might wish we could do it anonymously, yet we have to do it face to face.
Galatians 6:1-5 offers some guidelines for confronting a fellow Christian who is living a sinful lifestyle. The first requirement is that we're close to the Lord ourselves, and that we don't exalt ourselves as superior to the one who is sinning. Then we are to look at the situation as restoring the person, not bringing condemnation. We're to have "a spirit of gentleness," all the while keeping in mind that we too may be tempted. Jesus also gave instructions that can help us with issues of sin against us personally (Matt. 7:1-5; 18:15-20).
With God's enablement we can courageously and sensitively confront and restore others. - Anne Cetas
Lord, give us courage to confront
Believers who have strayed,
And then with gentleness restore
By coming to their aid. -Sper
To help people get back on the right path, walk with them and show them the way.
No Plan B
Have you ever thought of the fact that in eternity past God planned for you, me, and every other believer to be His Plan "A" to take His salvation to the world?
Read the words of Jude 1:3,
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
In this verse, Jude is telling those to whom he is writing, "I have written to exhort you, to call you near to God, and that you might contend (literally fight) for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."
He is referring to the doctrine of Jesus Christ: His crucifixion, His suffering for our sins, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and His imminent return.
Notice his words, though, that it "was once for all delivered." In other words, God is not changing His plan now. It was delivered to us to both defend and to declare, once and for all. There is no Plan B. We are it.
This means the gospel has literally been entrusted to you and to me as the Church...the body of Christ. God has chosen that through the foolishness of preaching men would be saved.
The good news of Jesus Christ, God's only method of bringing salvation to a lost and dying world, the only method of changing men and women's eternal destination, has been delivered to us.
Isn't that an awesome thought? That is why my passion is to bring a living Jesus to a dying world. Because there is no Plan B.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Mark 5:21-43
Don't be afraid; just believe. - Mark 5:36
TODAY IN THE WORD
Parents use a time-honored technique to get their hesitant children into the swimming pool for the first time. Dad stands a few yards from the edge, opens his arms, and says, "Jump to me!" The idea, of course, is that the fearful child will not focus on the unknown depth of the water or the scary notion of going under the water-or even the water at all. The child will focus on the secure arms of Dad, and jump to him.
This principle of trust seems simple when we think of young children jumping into a pool. It can be far more challenging for us when we are jumping into life's deep end, and we struggle to fixate on the strong arms of our Father instead of the unknown depth. In our reading today, Jesus encountered a desperate father with a gravely ill daughter, and we see more of what it means to trust God.
The father, Jairus, begged Jesus to heal his dying daughter, and Jesus agreed to go with him. But as they made their way to Jairus's home, Jesus was interrupted by a suffering woman who longed to be healed. She believed that even a touch of His clothes could heal her. But Jesus stopped His procession after sensing that something had happened (v. 30). When she came forward, Jesus acknowledged her great faith and sent her on her way, free from her anguish. Imagine how Jairus felt during this exchange! He knew his daughter didn't have much time. Jesus had agreed to come, and now He was having a conversation with someone else! His worst fears were realized when he got word that indeed, his daughter had died. Jesus was too late.
Jesus responded to Jairus and this news in an interesting way. He didn't make an excuse or an argument or an explanation. He simply told Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe" (v. 36). By the time they reached the home, the grieving rituals were in full swing. Jesus entered the house, took the girl's hand, and instructed her to get up. And immediately she did, fully healed and restored to her parents.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you or someone you love is struggling with the depth of life's difficulties. Jesus doesn't ask us to pretend that these circumstances aren't real or hard. But He does ask us to trust Him. If you are struggling to hold on to God's strong arms at this time, spend time reading the Psalms that capture honest crying out to God. It might be helpful to memorize some psalms to help you keep your focus on the Lord. Psalm 40 is a good place to start, and you can find other psalms that directly apply to your struggles.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals August 8, 2009
Subtle Wisdom
READ: Mark 8:34-38
If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. -John 12:26
When I was in college, my co-worker Bud, a fork-truck driver, often enriched my life with his pithy wisdom. We were eating lunch one day, sitting on the back of his fork truck, when I announced that I was transferring to another school.
"Why?" he asked.
"All my friends are transferring," I answered.
Bud chewed his sandwich for a moment and then replied quietly and with subtle irony, "I guess that's one way to pick a school."
His words struck me with rare force. Of course, I thought. But is this the only way to choose a school? Will I follow my friends for the rest of my days, or will I follow Jesus? Will I seek His face and His will and go where He wants me to go?
Twenty-five times in the New Testament, Jesus said to His disciples, "Follow Me." In Mark 8:34, He said, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." No matter what others do or what direction their lives may take, we must do what He asks us to do.
The words of an old song come to mind: "My Lord knows the way through the wilderness; all I have to do is follow!" - David H. Roper
As I walk along life's pathway,
Though the way I cannot see,
I shall follow in Christ's footsteps,
For He has a plan for me. -Thiesen
To find your way through life, follow Jesus.
The Entrance of Error
Jude 4 gives us an ominous warning,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude is giving us an idea of how the devil brings error into a church. The key phrase is men have crept in unnoticed. That phrase literally means to come alongside by stealth. It pictures someone creeping in and coming alongside, like coming in through a side door.
The folks Jude is talking about look like everyone else, they talk like everyone else, but they are not like everyone else.
That is the way the devil brings error and false doctrine into the Church. It looks like the truth, sounds good, seems like the truth, and it may even be partially true. But there is enough poison in it to kill you.
It's like the guy who wanted to break into a used car lot to steal a bunch of auto parts. The only problem was the two guard dogs. So for the next week he showed up every night with some pieces of meat.
At first the dogs would bark like crazy, but after the man left, they would eat the meat. By the end of the week, they didn't bark at all, they just wanted the meat. So, having become familiar with the dogs, knowing that they wouldn't "sound the alarm," he approached them one last time-with poisoned meat. The dogs ate, and he was able to get into the lot and steal all he wanted.
That is the way the devil does it a lot of times. He sends someone among the believers in order to distract and detour them from the truth. But it is calculated and happens by degrees. Do not let your "inner alarm system" go silent through familiarity.
Beware of those who would move you away, even subtly, from the clearly revealed truth of God's Word.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Acts 16:16-34
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. - John 8:32
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to a 2004 report from the U.S. State Department, human trafficking is the third most profitable criminal activity. Each year, around 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked-and 50 percent of those are children. Sometimes children are kidnapped; others are lured with false promises of lucrative work. Instead, they become indentured servants in mines, sex workers, child soldiers, or sweatshop slaves.
Exploiting children for profit is not new, and our reading today includes the story of a slave girl whose owners were making a great deal of money from her demon-possessed powers.
As the book of Acts recounts how Paul and Silas started the church in Philippi, we are introduced to a diverse assortment of people. First was Lydia, the wealthy woman who believed the gospel and opened her home to the missionaries; second was the slave girl, who could not have been more opposite to Lydia. She had no control over the fortune she was producing, and no status in the city. The work of God in both Lydia and the slave girl reminds us that the gospel can transform anyone, whether rich or poor, slave or free.
The spirit that controlled this girl was known as a truth-telling spirit, and her owners used her to tell fortunes. But this spirit also began proclaiming the truth about Paul and Silas; day after day the girl would follow Paul and his companions shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved" (v. 17).
This was, in fact, the truth. But Paul was not content to let the truth about him and his mission be proclaimed as a means to support evil and to profit from this girl's slavery. In the name of Jesus, he commanded the spirit to leave her, freeing her from her demon-possession. But freeing her from the spirit also meant depriving her owners of their profits. Furious, they brought legal charges against Paul and Silas. They valued greed over deliverance.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul understood the value of this girl's life-not just her profits. Will we stand for the value of life, even when others profit from its abuse and destruction? Abortion destroys thousands of lives every day in the United States, and many people profit from it, whether financially, socially, or politically. We certainly need to be prayer warriors on this issue. Perhaps you could also support a crisis pregnancy center in your area by volunteering, donating needed supplies, or giving financially.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 9, 2009
Granville Sharp
READ: James 1:19-27
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. -James 1:22
When I was a Bible college student, a name occasionally mentioned in Greek class was that of Granville Sharp. He was a renowned Greek scholar (1735-1813) whose studies resulted in principles of biblical interpretation that continue to guide our understanding of the original language of the New Testament.
To study the Scriptures and learn the powerful truths they contain is a noble exercise but, no matter how deeply we study, it is not enough. James challenged us to understand this when he wrote: "But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was" (James 1:22-24).
Granville Sharp understood this and put his faith into practice. In addition to being a biblical scholar, he also fought to eradicate slavery in England. Sharp said, "A toleration of slavery is, in effect, a toleration of inhumanity." His biblical understanding of the worth of a human soul and the justice of a holy God compelled him to act on his beliefs.
We can benefit from Sharp's passion for the Word-and for living out the truth that Word contains. - Bill Crowder
It is God's will that we should read
His Word from day to day,
Not just for knowledge, but much more-
To love Him and obey. -Hess
We don't really know the Bible unless we obey the Bible.
The True Grace of God
Yesterday we read Jude 4 which states,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we move away from this verse, I want to point out a phrase that I believe is very dangerous ground for the Church in America today. It is the phrase, "Ungodlymen, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness."
Lewdness literally means unrestrained lust, wickedness, and immorality. These people believed that once you were saved, you could live however you wanted.
There are people in the Church today with this type of thinking. They believe that if you are saved by grace, and good works do not merit salvation, then you can do whatever you want.
You can sleep around, commit adultery, get drunk, the sky's the limit. It's grace, baby! Your works don't have anything to do with it. You can live however you want!
One of the things that I have heard throughout the years is, "Hey, it doesn't matter. It's grace. God will forgive me, so I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway."
You do not want to live that way. Believe me, something begins to break down inside of you, and you will pay the piper eventually.
If you are turning the grace of God into lewdness through immorality, or any other sin, I challenge you to stop today. Confess your sin to God, turn from whatever it is that you have been doing, and ask God to help you live for Him. If you do, you will experience the true grace of God, which teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Judges 11:29-40
When a man makes a vow to the Lord . . . he must not break his word but must do everything he said. - Numbers 30:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2004, an outbreak of polio swept through children in northern Nigeria. Vaccinations are used worldwide, and the disease has largely been eradicated. But in the Nigerian state of Kano, rumors spread that the polio vaccine was intended to make the children sterile or even give them AIDS. Despite pleas from neighboring countries and world health leaders, several Nigerian states boycotted the vaccine for several years. Thousands of children paid the price, becoming crippled or even dying from polio.
For the past several days, we've examined stories of children in the Bible that demonstrate God's care for children, especially those in distress, and we've seen how we can trust our God to be faithful. Today we turn to look at several stories that illustrate ways that children pay the price of their parents' decisions.
In today's reading, Jephthah prayed to the Lord to ask for victory in battle over the Ammonites. So far, so good: Jephthah acknowledged his need for divine assistance in defeating these oppressors of Israel. Then Jephthah made a vow to God-if given the military victory, he would offer "whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me" as a burnt offering (v. 31). While this might seem generous, it was unnecessary; the Law didn't require any burnt offering for such an occasion.
Tragically, the first thing from his house to meet Jephthah was his daughter, his only child (v. 34). The price of his impetuous promise would be paid by this young girl. Jephthah's daughter did not argue or beg him to go back on his word to the Lord. She demonstrated understanding that a vow to God is a sacred commitment; God had fulfilled Jephthah's request, and now he had to follow through (v. 36).
Jephthah's daughter paid the price for his unwise oath. But in the larger context, the book of Judges depicts a culture spiraling out of control, becoming increasingly evil, and devastating those who are most helpless, like the young daughter of Jephthah.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The choices made by parents have consequences for their children. Even if you have no children of your own or your children are grown, each of us faces choices that impact the culture around us, sometimes in ways we might not realize. Are we living in a way that promotes spiritual health and life for the children around us? Do we acknowledge our dependence on the Lord? Do we make rash commitments without counting the cost? Ask God to make you a source of spiritual blessing for the children in your life.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 9, 2009
Granville Sharp
READ: James 1:19-27
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. -James 1:22
When I was a Bible college student, a name occasionally mentioned in Greek class was that of Granville Sharp. He was a renowned Greek scholar (1735-1813) whose studies resulted in principles of biblical interpretation that continue to guide our understanding of the original language of the New Testament.
To study the Scriptures and learn the powerful truths they contain is a noble exercise but, no matter how deeply we study, it is not enough. James challenged us to understand this when he wrote: "But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was" (James 1:22-24).
Granville Sharp understood this and put his faith into practice. In addition to being a biblical scholar, he also fought to eradicate slavery in England. Sharp said, "A toleration of slavery is, in effect, a toleration of inhumanity." His biblical understanding of the worth of a human soul and the justice of a holy God compelled him to act on his beliefs.
We can benefit from Sharp's passion for the Word-and for living out the truth that Word contains. - Bill Crowder
It is God's will that we should read
His Word from day to day,
Not just for knowledge, but much more-
To love Him and obey. -Hess
We don't really know the Bible unless we obey the Bible.
The True Grace of God
Yesterday we read Jude 4 which states,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we move away from this verse, I want to point out a phrase that I believe is very dangerous ground for the Church in America today. It is the phrase, "Ungodlymen, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness."
Lewdness literally means unrestrained lust, wickedness, and immorality. These people believed that once you were saved, you could live however you wanted.
There are people in the Church today with this type of thinking. They believe that if you are saved by grace, and good works do not merit salvation, then you can do whatever you want.
You can sleep around, commit adultery, get drunk, the sky's the limit. It's grace, baby! Your works don't have anything to do with it. You can live however you want!
One of the things that I have heard throughout the years is, "Hey, it doesn't matter. It's grace. God will forgive me, so I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway."
You do not want to live that way. Believe me, something begins to break down inside of you, and you will pay the piper eventually.
If you are turning the grace of God into lewdness through immorality, or any other sin, I challenge you to stop today. Confess your sin to God, turn from whatever it is that you have been doing, and ask God to help you live for Him. If you do, you will experience the true grace of God, which teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read: Judges 11:29-40
When a man makes a vow to the Lord . . . he must not break his word but must do everything he said. - Numbers 30:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2004, an outbreak of polio swept through children in northern Nigeria. Vaccinations are used worldwide, and the disease has largely been eradicated. But in the Nigerian state of Kano, rumors spread that the polio vaccine was intended to make the children sterile or even give them AIDS. Despite pleas from neighboring countries and world health leaders, several Nigerian states boycotted the vaccine for several years. Thousands of children paid the price, becoming crippled or even dying from polio.
For the past several days, we've examined stories of children in the Bible that demonstrate God's care for children, especially those in distress, and we've seen how we can trust our God to be faithful. Today we turn to look at several stories that illustrate ways that children pay the price of their parents' decisions.
In today's reading, Jephthah prayed to the Lord to ask for victory in battle over the Ammonites. So far, so good: Jephthah acknowledged his need for divine assistance in defeating these oppressors of Israel. Then Jephthah made a vow to God-if given the military victory, he would offer "whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me" as a burnt offering (v. 31). While this might seem generous, it was unnecessary; the Law didn't require any burnt offering for such an occasion.
Tragically, the first thing from his house to meet Jephthah was his daughter, his only child (v. 34). The price of his impetuous promise would be paid by this young girl. Jephthah's daughter did not argue or beg him to go back on his word to the Lord. She demonstrated understanding that a vow to God is a sacred commitment; God had fulfilled Jephthah's request, and now he had to follow through (v. 36).
Jephthah's daughter paid the price for his unwise oath. But in the larger context, the book of Judges depicts a culture spiraling out of control, becoming increasingly evil, and devastating those who are most helpless, like the young daughter of Jephthah.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The choices made by parents have consequences for their children. Even if you have no children of your own or your children are grown, each of us faces choices that impact the culture around us, sometimes in ways we might not realize. Are we living in a way that promotes spiritual health and life for the children around us? Do we acknowledge our dependence on the Lord? Do we make rash commitments without counting the cost? Ask God to make you a source of spiritual blessing for the children in your life.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 10, 2009
Yeah, But . . .
READ: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
They will turn their ears away from the truth. -2 Timothy 4:4
Grading university papers is full of surprises. Sometimes, one of my students will successfully handle a subject and display good writing style, and I feel as if my instruction was worthwhile.
Other surprises aren't so pleasant. Like the paper in which a student wrote, "The Bible says, 'Thou shalt not ____.'?" He filled in the blank with the activity he was writing about-even though Scripture does not contain such a verse. I thought his biggest problem was not knowing Scripture, until he concluded, "Although the Bible says this is wrong, I don't see why, so I think it's okay."
It's dangerous and the worst kind of arrogance to think we know more about an issue than God does. Scripture predicted this kind of thinking. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4: "They will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires . . . they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth" (vv.3-4). This points to people who set aside the inspired Word of God (3:16) in order to accept teaching they think is "okay."
When the Bible clearly spells out a principle, we honor
God by obeying Him. For believers, there's no room for "Yeah, but . . ." responses to Scripture. - Dave Branon
God who formed worlds by the power of His Word
Speaks through the Scriptures His truth to be heard;
And if we read with the will to obey,
He by His Spirit will show us His way. -D. De Haan
The Bible: Read it, believe it, obey it!
Six Times We Should Seek God
But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).
In today's devotional, I want to show you the first three of six times we should seek the Lord:
1. When we have sinned.
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
If you sin, do not run from God, run to Him. Do not allow shame to keep you away.
2. When we are feeling dry spiritually.
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).
When you sense a distance between you and God, or if you feel dry spiritually, do not delay! Seek Him early.
When my potted plants feel dry, I water them. I do not wait until they turn brown and are almost dead. If the soil is dry and the leaves begin to droop, they are in need of water right then, and so it is when you are feeling spiritually dry.
One of the keys to keeping potted plants-and our spiritual lives-healthy is to tend to them early.
3. When we are fearful.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).
When you are fearful or anxious, it is time to seek the Lord. When you seek Him you can expect to be delivered from all of your fears!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Mark 6:14-29
If anyone causes one of these little ones . . . to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned. - Matthew 18:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Last year, police in Philadelphia arrested a man who used his 6-year-old nephew to steal from student backpacks at the University of Pennsylvania. The police noted that it was the third time in six months that they had apprehended thieves who used children as pickpockets.
Today's reading presents a chilling account of a parent willfully encouraging a child to do evil. Herodias used her daughter to accomplish the fate she wanted to befall John the Baptist.
The daughter of Herodias lived in a toxic family environment. Her uncle, Herod, had married her mother. John the Baptist had denounced the illicit marriage for the adulterous union that it was. His courageous stand for truth outraged Herodias; she "nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him" (v. 19). Herod was willing to placate her by imprisoning John. But Herod was also afraid of John and refused to have him executed. This daughter lived in a household comprised of a seething, plotting wife and a weak-willed, intemperate husband.
When Herodias saw her chance to take advantage of her husband's ego (and likely drunkenness), she had no qualms about using her daughter to get what she wanted (v. 24). Her daughter could get away with doing what she couldn't. Not only did Herodias want vengeance on the prophet who had dared to question her moral conduct, she also implicated her daughter in the plot to destroy him.
Sadly, the daughter of Herodias willingly complied with the scheme. As instructed, she asked for John's head on a platter, "right now" (v. 25). The trap for Herod worked; he didn't want to be embarrassed in front of his guests. He knew that John was "a righteous and holy man," but in the battle between saving face and saving John, his pride won (v. 20). The daughter of Herodias achieved her mother's evil intentions and delivered the proof of John's death.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our hearts should be grieved whenever children are exploited for evil ends. Prayer is one of our greatest weapons against Satan's desire to cause a little one to sin. Moms in Touch is a network of mothers who meet weekly to pray for the schools their children attend. Some churches do regular prayer walks through their community, praying for the families and children who live there. Spend time today praying for the children in your family, church, and community, that they would be protected from evil influences.
PRAY, PRAY AND PRAY SOME
MORE!
`
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals August 11, 2009
The Heart Of The Gospel
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed. -2 Corinthians 3:18
When E. Stanley Jones, well-known missionary to India, had the opportunity to meet with Mahatma Gandhi, he asked a searching question of India's revered leader: "How can Christianity make a stronger impact on your country?" Gandhi very thoughtfully replied that three things would be required.
First, Christians must begin to live more like Jesus. Second, the Christian faith should be presented without any adulteration. Third, Christians should emphasize love, which is at the heart of the gospel.
These insightful suggestions are the key to effective evangelism around the world. As messengers of God's love, we are to be human mirrors who reflect without distortion a growing likeness to our Lord; we are not to walk in "craftiness" (2 Cor. 4:2). If our lives reflect an image that is spiritually blurred, the truth of saving grace may not be clearly communicated (vv.3-5). We are also to share the biblical essentials of our faith clearly. We must not handle the Word of God "deceitfully" (v.2). And our lives are to be marked by love for God and others (1 John 5:1-2).
Let's be sure that we reflect a clear image of Jesus' likeness, the truth of God, and love. - Vernon C. Grounds
Called to be salt and light in this world,
Called to preserve and to shine,
Called to reflect the glory of God-
Oh, what a calling is mine! -Fitzhugh
The primary reason for living in this world is to reflect the likeness of Christ.
Six Times We Should Seek God (Part Two)
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at three times we should seek God. Today we will look at three more:
4. When we are in trouble.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:2).
In Hosea 5:15 the Lord says, "...in their affliction they will earnestly seek me."
I don't like to admit it, but the truth is that at times I have sought God more earnestly when I have been in trouble. Problems have a way of getting us on our knees. If you are in trouble today - seek Him!
5. When all is well.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore! (Psalm 105:4).
If you will carefully read the preceding verses of this psalm, you will find that the context is one of blessing and not trouble.
This may be the most important time of all to seek Him. May we never become smug and think that we do not need God when all is well.
6. Continually.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!
(1 Chronicles 16:11).
The word evermore in this verse means continually or at all times.
When you have sinned, when you are dry, when you are afraid, when you are in trouble, when all is well, and in any other situation - you need to seek God!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Genesis 27:1-28:5
"First sell me your birthright." "What good is the birthright to me?" - Genesis 25:31-32
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jan Dahlin Geiger, a financial planner in Texas, says that the average inheritance is spent within five years. This makes sense with smaller amounts of money that people use to pay off a car loan or mortgage. But some beneficiaries of large bequests manage to spend even vast sums quickly. John Harvey, seventh Marquess of Bristol, died at the age of 44 after spending about $70 million on drugs and parties.
In our reading today, we discover another young man who didn't value his inheritance and gave it up. The story of Jacob and Esau demonstrates that our choices reflect our values.
Jacob and Esau were conceived as God's answer to the prayer of their father, Isaac (Gen. 25:21). Tension flared between the brothers from the very beginning, even before birth. Esau reflected the preferences of his father; Jacob was Rebekah's favorite, and he mirrored her activities and interests. Genesis 25:29-34 describes the fateful exchange that revealed the priorities of the two brothers. Esau, tired and hungry, demanded some stew from Jacob. Jacob, seeing an opportunity to manipulate his brother, insisted that Esau trade his birthright for stew. The birthright was more than just a financial inheritance. It included spiritual blessings and the designation as the favored son through whose line the blessings would flow. Esau was willing to sacrifice long-term blessing for short-term satisfaction. He valued material things like stew over spiritual blessings.
The events in our passage today happened some years later. It seems that Esau had forgotten about his oath to trade his birthright for lentils, and now desired the blessing of his father (v. 39). But Jacob and Rebekah had not forgotten, and they enacted a scheme to deceive Isaac and ensure that Jacob received the blessing of the birthright. The Bible doesn't candy-coat the methods used by Jacob and his mother. Later in life, Jacob was painfully deceived by his own sons (see Gen. 37:29-35). Despite his lies and deceit, though, God honored the blessing given by Isaac, and Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
You might be worried about what sort of legacy you will leave your children and grandchildren. Perhaps you've seen your 401K or other investments plummet in the last year, and you fear you won't have the financial resources you expected. A financial inheritance can be a blessing, and we should exercise wisdom with our financial planning. But even greater is a legacy of spiritual values and priorities. All of us can strive to pass that along to our loved ones, no matter the state of the stock market.
PRAY, PRAY AND PRAY SOME MORE!
GOD BLESS YOU!
`
Daily Devotionals August 12, 2009
GAD Or God?
READ: 1 Peter 5:6-11
Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. -1 Peter 5:7
Are you a chronic worrier? Do you worry about bills, the future, health, debt, marriage issues? Has worry so consumed you that you have become "a fret machine"? If this describes you, perhaps you have generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD-a condition marked by a perpetual state of worry about most aspects of life. According to David Barlow, professor of psychology at Boston University, "the key psychological feature of GAD is a state of chronic, uncontrollable worry." A little anxiety is normal, but constant worry is not.
Overwhelmed by suffering and persecution, the first-century Christians were driven out of Jerusalem and scattered throughout Asia (1 Peter 1:1-7). Many of these Jesus-followers were experiencing feelings of distress because of possible danger or misfortune. Peter encouraged these believers not to be filled with anxiety but to cast all their worries upon God (5:7). He wanted them to realize that it made very little sense for them to carry their worries when they could cast them on God who cared deeply about what happened to them.
Are you a chronic worrier? Let God be responsible for your anxieties. Stop worrying and start trusting Him completely. - Marvin Williams
When every worry, every care
To God in faith is brought,
We have no place whereon to found
One single anxious thought. -Anon.
Worry is a burden God never intended us to bear.
True Satisfaction
Isaiah 14:12-15 records the fall of Satan. Created as God's archangel, we read about the dissatisfaction that got him in trouble,
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit."
Clearly his problem was pride. "I will, I will, I will...I am going to be like God." He wasn't satisfied with being the archangel that God had created him to be. He wanted to take God's place.
The root of Satan's pride was his discontent with the post and station that the supreme Monarch of the universe had assigned and allotted him. He thought he deserved better.
We all have our sphere of influence, and we all have our gifting from God. Your sphere of influence and gifting are different than mine, and mine are different than yours. It is unwise to desire something that someone else has rather than exploring what God has given you and developing that to its highest potential.
When you look over the fence, it looks like the grass is greener on the other side, but when you hop over, you find out it is spray-painted!
You will only be satisfied if you will develop what God has put inside of you and take that to its highest level possible. That is what you will be rewarded for.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Genesis 4:1-26
By their fruit you will recognize them. - Matthew 7:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Pauline and Esther Friedman were identical twins. Growing up in Sioux City, Iowa, the two girls were inseparable. They played together, went to college together, and even had a double wedding. But then their relationship hit a nearly insurmountable obstacle. Esther became an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Three months later, Pauline started her own advice column-and she offered it to the Sioux City Journal at a reduced rate if they would agree not to run her sister's column. The two sisters, better known by their pen names of Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren, began a feud that lasted at least a decade. They never regained their close relationship.
Our reading today contains the story of the first children in the Bible. Sadly, the account of Cain and Abel is not a happy tale. The setting for the conflict occurred when they each brought a sacrifice to the Lord. The text emphasizes that Abel gave generously: he offered the "fat portions" from some of his "firstborn" animals (v. 4). Cain, on the other hand, offered merely "fruits" (v. 3).
Cain reacted to God's evaluation of the offerings with anger and pouting (v. 5). At this point, God graciously confronted Cain about his offering and his attitude and warned him to battle the sin that threatened to overtake him. Cain's fate was not decided; he had a choice to repent and turn from his sinful actions and attitudes. Instead of repentance, though, Cain chose revenge.
After his lackluster sacrifice and anger, Cain compounded his sin with premeditated murder and then lying to God. The Lord responded to these choices with judgment: Cain was exiled from that place and from God's favor (v. 14). Even in judgment, though, God showed mercy by protecting Cain's life. Cain apparently passed along his disregard for God to the rest of his family (vv. 23-24). The chapter ends with a final note of grace, as God allowed Adam and Eve to have another son, and a spiritual revival ensued (v. 26).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Cain persisted in sinful choices; God persisted in mercy. God allows us to suffer the consequences of our sin, but even in this dark story of conflict and rivalry and murder, God continued to show His boundless grace: He warned Cain, protected Cain, and gave Adam and Eve another son. If you are battling sin today, you do have another option. Confess it to the Lord and rely on His power and forgiveness. Ask Him to help you turn from that path and choose to do what is right. God delights to shower grace on His people.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals August 13, 2009
He Is Enough
READ: Matthew 14:22-33
Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." -Matthew 14:27
Sometimes we are overwhelmed by life. The crushing waves of disappointment, endless debt, debilitating illness, or trouble with people can cause hopelessness, depression, or despair. It happened to Jesus' disciples. And it has happened to me.
Three statements by the Lord beginning with the words "It is . . ." offer us comfort, reassurance, and hope that Jesus is enough. The first is in Matthew 4 and is repeated three times: "It is written" (vv.4,7,10). In responding to the three temptations of Satan, Jesus gave us proof enough that the Word of God is true and overcomes the most powerful forms of temptation and pressure.
The second statement, "It is I" (Matt. 14:27), was spoken when Jesus told His terrified disciples that He Himself was presence enough to stop the howling storm and calm the raging seas.
Jesus spoke the third "It is" from the cross: "It is finished!" (John 19:30). He assured us that His death was provision enough to pay the debt for our sins and set us free.
Whatever our circumstances, Jesus is present with His love, compassion, and grace. He is proof, presence, and provision enough to carry us safely through. - David C. Egner
When trials overwhelm our souls
And tempt us to despair,
We need to reach out to the Lord
And trust His tender care. -Sper
God's love does not keep us from trials; it helps us get through them.
True Redemption
The passage of Scripture I want to call your attention to today is Ephesians 4:8-10,
Therefore He says: "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men." (Now this, "He ascended"-what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
Before Jesus ascended, what did He do? He descended. I didn't write that. The Bible says that. And when He descended, what did He do? He led captivity captive. That refers to the Old Testament saints who were in what is called "Abraham's bosom" or Paradise.
Jesus went down there. They were in captivity in the sense that they could not go to heaven until Christ's sacrifice. But after Christ died, having paid the price for our sins, He went and emptied Paradise and He led captivity captive. He brought those saints up to heaven.
Here is what I want you to picture. Jesus, through His death and resurrection, defeated hell and death. He took the keys away from the devil, stripped him of his power and his authority, and won redemption for the human race. Then He went to Paradise and there He saw Abraham, David, Moses, Ezekiel, Joshua, Esther, Ruth-all of the people who served the Lord under the Old Covenant.
He threw the door open and said, "Hey, guys! Time to come home! It's been done! The thing the prophets prophesied about, here I am! I am the reality. Time to leave this place and come to heaven with me!"
Then He who descended, ascended, leading all of those Old Testament saints to heaven with Him! And He sent back the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to empower us to tell the story of His resurrection and His victory.
Let us make that our passion! To proclaim the resurrected Jesus who has paid the price for our redemption.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 Samuel 13:1-39
A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. - Proverbs 12:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dave Cullen's book Columbine seeks to explain the truth about what had really happened during the tragic school shooting. Based on diaries and other evidence, he concluded that one of the killers, Dylan Klebold, was a depressed teenage boy, while the other killer, Eric Harris, was a manipulative psychopath who wanted to destroy all humans. Eric could manipulate Dylan into helping to plan the massacre, and Dylan could feel important by being part of a grand plan. Their friendship was a lethal combination.
The adage, Choose your friends wisely!, should have been heeded by Amnon in our reading today. He began to swoon over his beautiful half-sister, Tamar, to the point that he became lovesick. If only the story had stopped there, with a smitten young man in love with a beautiful girl. But the text tells us the critical turning point: "Now Amnon had a friend . . ." (v. 3).
Amnon's friend was his cousin, Jonadab. He played on Amnon's sense of entitlement as the son of King David, suggesting that Amnon just take what he wanted. His plan was disgusting, both its deceit and its violation of Tamar, but Amnon willingly agreed to follow it. His destruction began when he decided to follow the bad advice of his friend.
We don't know much about Jonadab, but we do know that he was allowed to be in the presence of King David (v. 32). Instead of suggesting his vile scheme, he could have suggested that Amnon ask the king for permission to marry Tamar. He could have used his influence in a positive way, but chose not to.
Amnon discovered that what he thought he wanted didn't satisfy him after all (v. 15). He compounded the sin of raping Tamar by refusing to then stay with her (v. 16). Scripture says that David was furious but records no effort on his part to punish Amnon. Tamar's brother, Absalom, bided his time until he had the opportunity to kill Amnon and unleash destruction on David's entire kingdom.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our children today are surrounded by messages like those from Jonadab: "Take what you want!" "You deserve it!" "Sex is no big deal!" "Who cares what anyone else thinks?" "Sometimes you have to lie and cheat to get ahead!" David appeared oblivious to the destructive influences in his family-are you so involved in the lives of your children or grandchildren that you know their friends? Don't be afraid to give them wise counsel and encourage them to do what's right. And pray for their protection from bad friends.
PRAY, PRAY PRAY
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 14, 2009
The Love Of Rules
READ: Romans 13:1-10
Love is the fulfillment of the law. -Romans 13:10
When I teach writing, I explain that it's generally better to use short words or phrases first in a series, as in "arts and letters" and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Early in my career, I explained to authors that it just sounds better this way, but then I discovered a "rule" about this. And I learned that authors are more likely to accept editorial changes when I can point them to a rule than when I just say, "Trust me."
This is typical of human nature. We have a love/hate relationship with rules. We don't like rules, but we're unsure how to determine right from wrong without them.
God had a relationship with Adam and Eve that was based on loving trust. The only rule necessary was one that protected them from knowledge that would end in death. But when disobedience broke the trusting relationship, God added more rules to protect the wayward couple and their offspring.
In Christ, God proclaimed once more that the good life He wants for us is not about rules but a relationship. As Paul wrote, all the commandments can be summarized in one word: love. Because we are "in Christ," we can enjoy peace with God and others-not because there's a rule, but because there is love. - Julie Ackerman Link
Though freed from the law with its stern commands-
No longer ruled by its harsh demands-
I'm bound by Christ's love and am only free
To live and to act responsibly. -D. De Haan
The greatest force on earth is not the compulsion of law but the compassion of love.
Search the Scriptures
After Paul preached the gospel to the Bereans, they did something that others had not done-they searched the Scriptures.
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so (Acts 17:11).
According to the next verse, the result of their search was that many of them believed.
Jesus said in John 5:39, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me."
I once heard a Jewish believer share his testimony. His daughter, who had become a Christian, challenged him to read through the New Testament.
He began in Matthew and was astonished to find so many Old Testament references to the Messiah being fulfilled by Jesus.
His initial reason for searching the Scriptures was to prove that his daughter was wrong, but instead, he ended up giving his heart to Christ. The Scriptures testified of Jesus!
Look for Him as you read the Holy Scriptures, and encourage others to do the same.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 2 Chronicles 24:1-27
Keep my commandments in your heart, for they will . . . bring you prosperity. - Proverbs 3:1-2
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1853, Charles Loring Brace was shocked to see gangs of children roaming the streets in New York City, some selling rags or matches, many orphaned or abandoned. He founded the Children's Aid Society to place the children with rural farming families. Between 1854 and 1929, more than 100,000 children were sent by train to a new life. Two of these orphaned boys, Andrew Burke and John Brady, became the governors of North Dakota and Alaska.
Joash didn't seem to have a promising start in life. His family was plagued by violence; his own grandmother wanted to kill him as a baby in order to gain control of the kingdom of Judah (see 2 Chronicles 22). He survived due to the quick thinking of his aunt and uncle who hid him in the temple.
His uncle, Jehoida, was a priest who had a heart for God (see 2 Chron. 23:3). His courage led to the installation of Joash as the rightful king of Israel at the age of seven. Joash followed the wise counsel and spiritual instruction of Jehoida, and initiated a much needed restoration of the temple (v. 4). It included physical repairs to the structure, but it was more than just a building project. His grandmother, Athaliah, had permitted Baal worship to flourish, and the restoration of the temple was a spiritual undertaking as well (v. 7).
Joash instructed the people to give money to the temple project, which was an act of spiritual obedience to God (v. 9). As money came in, Joash ensured that skilled craftsmen performed the highest quality work. As long as Jehoida lived, the temple was a place to worship and honor the Lord (v. 14).
After Jehoida died, however, Joash began to listen to other advice. The temple was again abandoned and Baal worship resumed. The Lord even sent a prophet to warn Joash; he responded by ordering the prophet-the son of his mentor Jehoida!-to be assassinated in the courtyard of the temple. For that sin, God brought judgment and death to Joash (v. 24).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God cares less about our biological biography than our spiritual heart for Him. If you had a loving family who guided you in the things of the Lord, thank Him for that blessing. But perhaps your spiritual mentors were outside your family-a Sunday school teacher, a friend, or a neighbor. Thank God that He put people in your life to give you wise counsel and godly instruction. If possible, send these individuals a note of thanks for the way that they helped to shape you.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals August 15, 2009
The Deadliest Disease
READ: Joshua 7:1,19-26
[Jesus] was wounded for our transgressions, . . . and by His stripes we are healed. -Isaiah 53:5
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was identified in 2003 in Vietnam. By the time it was brought under control, SARS had spread globally and killed nearly 800 people. One reason for the high mortality rate was that the virus was not recognized initially. But once recognized and understood, SARS was contained.
An even more dangerous disease is on the loose in our world-sin. It too is difficult to bring under control because many people do not recognize its deadliness. And many dispute the Bible's diagnosis of sin.
In Joshua 7, we read the tragic story of Achan. We may recoil at the extreme way God dealt with him. Against God's command, he had taken some of the spoils from Jericho and hid them in his tent (v.21). He and his entire family paid with their lives (v.25).
Thankfully, God does not deal with us in that way. If He did, none of us would remain alive. Yet we must never underestimate sin's deadliness. It sent Christ to the cross for us.
Like SARS, the first step to deal with sin is to recognize it for what it is. Receive with gratitude the gift of eternal life. Then "put to death your members which are on the earth"-the selfish things that displease God (Col. 3:5). That's the way to deal with our deadliest disease. - C. P. Hia
The Remedy for Sin
Have you received Christ's gift of salvation? He died for your sins and rose from the dead. He offers forgiveness to all who believe in Him (Rom. 10:9).
Sin is a heart disease that can be cured only by the Great Physician.
God in Nature
God has made Himself known to mankind in a powerful way people often ignore...His creation. Romans 1:18-20 tells us,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God speaks to people through nature...through His creation. I am confident that there is a point in every person's life where there comes an awareness of God. Whether it is looking at a shooting star, or at a sunset, or at a blade of grass, the thought occurs to them, "This didn't just get here. This didn't just happen. There must be a God."
Creation speaks to us of the Godhead. It is a revelation of God. The book of Psalms says, Night unto night shows forth knowledge. And it says the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. Creation speaks to us of God.
But notice what this passage says. This revelation of God has come to men, but some have wanted to suppress it. They came to that point and thought, "You know what? If I find out about this, then I'm going to become responsible. So I don't think I want to know."
The natural bent of men and women is to suppress the truth, but God is speaking loudly and clearly of His greatness and reality through His creation. Praise Him today for revealing His beauty and power through nature, and use it to point people to Him.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 Chronicles 34:1-33
While he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. - 2 Chronicles 34:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Yesterday we studied the story of Joash, and at first the story of Josiah in our reading seems like an echo: a father is a disastrous king and is killed, his young son becomes king, and he starts his reign committed to God. But although they had similar dysfunctional family backgrounds and tremendous responsibility as a child, the story of Josiah takes some significantly different turns.
Josiah's biography reads like an account of spiritual milestones. When he was eight years old, he became king. At age 16, he began to seek God. At age 20, he began to destroy the entrenched centers of Baal worship throughout the nation. At age 26, he launched repairs of the temple. His life was described by this stirring spiritual commendation: "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left" (v. 2).
The most dramatic event occurred during the restoration of the temple. The Book of the Law was found-which immediately signaled the serious state of spiritual decline in the nation. The Law had been given to Moses and was the foundation of their identity as God's people-how had it been lost to begin with? And how had no one realized that it was lost before this?
Josiah demonstrated the reality of his heart for God. When he heard the Law read to him, he reacted with repentance and alarm that the people had strayed so far from the Lord (v. 19). He was spiritually perceptive enough to know that the people deserved God's judgment, and indeed the prophetess Huldah confirmed that God would fulfill His word and bring destruction on the nation of Judah for their spiritual rebellion and idolatry.
God would keep His promises to judge persistent sin, but He also extended grace to Josiah for his humility and responsive heart (v. 27). The destruction would not come until after the death of Josiah. He led the nation in renewing their covenant with the Lord, and they followed God for the rest of Josiah's rule.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Josiah's story shows us the importance of leadership-and that a spiritually sensitive and perceptive heart can be nurtured even in young people. You might be young, or just young at heart, but all of us can seek God, respond to His Word, and repent of our sin. Even if you aren't the leader of a nation, you are surrounded by people in your family, church, and community who can be inspired by your heart for God.
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GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals August 16, 2009
Running Every Day
READ: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Run in such a way that you may obtain [the prize]. -1 Corinthians 9:24
The Pikes Peak Ascent is a challenging mountain foot race, covering 13.32 miles while gaining 7,815 feet in altitude. My good friend Don Wallace ran it 20 times. In his final race, he crossed the finish line one week before his 67th birthday! Instead of training just before a race, Don ran 6 miles a day, year round, with rare exceptions, wherever he happened to be. He's done that for most of his adult life and continues to this day.
In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul uses running as a picture of his own discipline as a Christian in the race of life. He ran with purpose and discipline to win an eternal crown, and he encouraged others to do the same: "Run in such a way that you may obtain [the prize]" (v.24).
The word temperate in verse 25 carries the meaning of self-control practiced by athletes who train to win the prize. As a consistent habit of life, regular discipline is of far greater value to any athlete than last-minute preparation.
Are we approaching "the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1) with a hit-or-miss spiritual regimen or with purpose and discipline born from a desire to please God?
The key to going the distance is the discipline of running every day. - David C. McCasland
Run the straight race through God's good grace,
Lift up thine eyes and seek His face;
Life with its way before us lies,
Christ is the path and Christ the prize. -Monsell
Running the Christian race takes dedication and discipline.
No Unbelievers in Hell
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a very sobering story,
"The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom... Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment'" (Luke 16:22b-23 and 27-28).
Everyone in hell believes in evangelism. They are crying out lest their loved ones end up with them.
Two thousand years have passed and this rich man has had no relief. A billion years from now he will just be getting started in his torment and pain. Listen to his cry, "My brothers! Send someone to my family!"
Hell is for unbelievers but there are no unbelievers in hell!
Several years ago a man came weeping to the altar of our church. A message had been preached that night from these very Scriptures. After giving his heart to Christ (and after a long time of almost uncontrollable weeping), he told us this story:
He said, "I died twice on the operating table during heart surgery. Each time I died, I left my body and went to hell. It was so horrifying that I tried to put it out of my mind. As the message was preached tonight, all the details of my experience came flooding back into my mind."
He did not need to be convinced that hell was real. That night he accepted Christ and was liberated from the fear of returning to that place of torment.
Jesus alone can rescue us from the terrors of hell and bring us safely to heaven. Shouldn't we be telling people there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? Shouldn't we be warning them and encouraging them to accept Christ-while there is still time?!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Acts 13:4-13; 15:36-41
Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. - 2 Timothy 4:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
At the age of 22, Franklin Graham was drinking, partying, and smoking marijuana and had been expelled from a Christian school and college. His father, Billy Graham, confronted him, "I want you to know that your mother and I sense there is a struggle for the soul of your life, and you're going to have to make a choice." After re-reading the Gospel of John, Franklin committed his life to Christ. Today he heads Samaritan's Purse, an international relief organization, as well as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Thankfully, a slow start to our spiritual journey doesn't end the story. Today we're studying the story of John Mark, whose first foray into ministry didn't go well.
John Mark grew up in a home of Christ-followers (see Acts 12:12). He accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey as a helper and stayed with them through their time in Cyprus, but then left to return home to Jerusalem (13:13). We aren't told specifically why he quit and failed to continue on in this ministry (15:38).
When Paul and Barnabas decided to embark on another trip, Barnabas suggested taking John Mark along again. But Paul had no interest in another repeat of John Mark's desertion. They decided to part ways; Barnabas took his cousin John Mark and followed the original plan to visit the places from their first journey, and Paul took Silas and went to Syria.
The willingness of Barnabas to give him another chance bore fruit in John Mark's growth in ministry. In Paul's letters, references to John Mark grow increasingly warm. He sent greetings and instructions to the church in Colossae to welcome him (Col. 4:10); he identified John Mark as a fellow worker (Philem. 24); and at the end of his life he requested that John Mark visit him, because "he is helpful to me in my ministry" (2 Tim. 4:11). John Mark was also close to the apostle Peter-many scholars believe this enabled him to write the Gospel of Mark (see 1 Peter 5:13).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Barnabas was known as a great encourager (see Acts 4:36; 11:22). His willingness to encourage and mentor John Mark helped to transform him from spiritual failure to spiritually fruitful. Is there a young person in your life who needs encouragement? Can you extend a second chance to someone who feels rejected or worthless? Rather than pointing out the flaws and weaknesses, try to help someone see his or her strengths and potential for Christian service. Willingness to invest in someone's life will pay spiritual dividends.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals August 17, 2009
Royalty Recognized
READ: Philippians 2:5-11
At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, . . . [and] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. -Philippians 2:10-11
As a kid, I loved watching the film Little Lord Fauntleroy. The story focuses on Cedric, a boy growing up in a poor home with his mother in Brooklyn. He discovers the stunning news that he is actually the direct descendant of the Earl of Dorincourt and the heir of a vast fortune. One day he's a nobody playing "kick the can" on the streets of New York, and then suddenly he's traveling through an English town to the cries of "Your lordship!" from adoring villagers.
If you had seen Jesus playing in the streets of Nazareth as a boy, you wouldn't have taken any special notice of Him (except that He probably wasn't playing "kick the can"). If you had seen Him in the carpentry shop, you wouldn't have had a clue about His deity. And if you had seen Him hanging on the cross, that horrific scene wouldn't have enticed your heart to adore Him if you didn't know what was behind it.
But in His resurrection, Jesus revealed His true identity. He is the conquering King-ultimate royalty! Since "God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9), how much more should we adoringly worship Him who, in such surrendered humility, died so that He could become our victorious King! - Joe Stowell
Behold Him there! The risen Lamb!
My perfect, spotless righteousness;
The great, unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace. -Bancroft
Recognize and respond to the royalty of God-worship Him!
Inwardly Compelled
It was love that motivated the Father to send His Son Jesus to redeem mankind. That same love has been poured out into the heart of every believer.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
God's love in us calls and compels us to do something about the plight of lost people. Even as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, For the love of Christ compels us.
A few years ago, late at night I would hear what seemed to be a very faint chime or bell. Several times I got out of bed to try and find the source of the sound, but it always stopped before I could discover it.
Finally, one evening, I found out what it was. It was an old watch I had, tucked away in a drawer under some junk. Every evening, the alarm would go off at the same time.
The call of God's love in your heart can be like that. Sounding regularly but seldom heard. Buried under personal ambitions, cares and problems, daily routines and the general busyness of life. But it is unmistakably there!
The same love that moved Jesus to heal the sick and minister God's life to broken people is in you! Listen to it. Get in touch with it and express it to someone in need.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Genesis 37:1-36
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. - Genesis 37:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to homicide investigators, jealousy is one of the leading motives behind murder. Scripture certainly doesn't omit examples of people driven to dastardly deeds by the sin of jealousy, and today's story presents another account of the seed of jealousy bearing fruit in attempted murder and deception. So far this month we've seen how God cares for children, how parents can impact children, and also how choices reflect values. In our reading today about Joseph, his father Jacob, and his brothers we see all of these issues in one story.
Joseph was born into a family filled with unhealthy relationships. His father's two wives had been competitors for his affections, with jealousy becoming the dominant emotion in their relationship (see Gen. 30:1-24). Each had given Jacob her maidservant to sleep with in the escalating race of who could bear more children. The jealousy and favoritism filtered down to the children. Just as Rachel was Jacob's favorite wife, her son Joseph was his favorite (v. 3). Just as Leah was jealous of Rachel, all of Joseph's brothers hated him for his privileged status (v. 4).
When Joseph revealed his dreams to his family, no one was spiritually perceptive enough to realize that God had blessed Joseph with great insight (see Genesis 40-41). They could only perceive what he said through the lens of their jealousy and hatred. Jacob also put Joseph in the position of reporting on his brothers, and this only gave them more reason to resent Joseph. Finally they decided to get rid of him.
Through the intervention of the oldest brother, Reuben, they didn't kill Joseph immediately. Judah revealed his values when he suggested that they might as well profit off Joseph rather than just kill him-for twenty shekels of silver, he sold his brother as a slave (v. 26). Jacob, whose life had been characterized by numerous episodes of manipulation and deceit, now suffered the deception of his own sons. For years, he would believe that his beloved son Joseph was dead.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Judah valued money, revealed in his choice to sell his brother as a slave. As we'll see more tomorrow, Joseph would choose to do right rather than profit from sin. Ultimately, this story reminds us of God's sovereign care and plan, even when life appears to be falling apart. If you need to be reminded of God's work to redeem the details of our lives into something that brings Him glory, take some time to read the rest of the story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50).
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals August 28, 2009
Light As A Feather
READ: 2 Samuel 6:12-23
A merry heart does good, like medicine. -Proverbs 17:22
We Christians can sometimes be a joyless lot, preoccupied with maintaining our dignity. That's an odd attitude, though, since we're joined to a God who has given us His wonderful gift of joy and laughter.
It's okay to have fun! Each family expresses it in different ways, of course. I'm thankful that our house has been a house of laughter. Water fights, good-natured (albeit stiff) competition, gentle ribbing, and hilarity came easily to us. Laughter has been a gift of God's goodness that carried us through some of life's darkest days. The joy of the Lord has often been our refuge (Neh. 8:10).
When King David brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem from the house of Obed-Edom, he danced "with all his might" before the Lord (2 Sam. 6:14). The Hebrew word has the idea of joyful exuberance and is akin to our expression "kick up your heels." In fact, in verse 16 it says that David was "leaping and whirling." Michal, David's wife, felt that his antics were unbecoming to the dignity of a king and reacted with stern severity. David's response was to announce that he would become even more "undignified" (v.22). His spirit was buoyant and he felt "as light as a feather."
Take time to laugh! (Eccl. 3:4). - David H. Roper
A merry heart is like a medicine-
It's soothing for your sadness, gives you joy;
So lift your voice and let your spirit soar-
True happiness is yours without alloy. -Hess
Wholesome laughter has great face value.
The Prayer of Faith
Yesterday we learned about the prayer of dedication. Today I want to help you understand the prayer of faith. This kind of prayer is found in Mark 11:22-24,
So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
With the prayer of faith, at the moment you pray you are to believe that you receive what you pray for. Not when the circumstances look different, not at some point in the future, but when you pray. The Amplified Bible says, Believe that it is granted to you.
When you pray, believe that God hears you and that He has sent the answer, whether you feel differently or not. Before you ever get up off your knees, believe that heaven has sent the answer.
1 John 5:14-15 says it this way,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
The prayer of faith is prayed when you know and understand God's will. Friend, the Bible is a revelation of the will of God. Prayer will not reach beyond the will of God, and God's Word reveals His will to us.
So pray the prayer of faith according to His will, and you can be assured He hears you and heaven has sent the answer to your prayer.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Acts 16:1-5; Philippians 2:19-24
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. - Philippians 2:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Amy Carmichael was devoted to caring for the young women on the margins of society. In her native Belfast, she organized a Sunday school for "shawlies," poor girls who worked in the mills. From there, she went to work with mill girls in Manchester, England, before following a call to serve God as a missionary. Though initially rejected as a missionary candidate because of her poor health, she ended up serving in India for over 50 years without a furlough, primarily rescuing young girls from temple prostitution. Her biography quotes her as saying, "One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving."
Our reading today depicts a young man who also embodied sacrificial love for others. Timothy was reared by godly women, his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois (2 Tim. 1:5). We've seen examples this month of parents whose ungodly lives or unwise decisions had a negative impact on their child; here is an example of a godly heritage bearing fruit in a young man who desired to serve the Lord.
Paul met Timothy while on a missionary journey. He had a good reputation among the believers in that region, and he was willing to serve with Paul even though it meant undergoing circumcision (v. 3). Timothy put the needs of others above his own comfort and prerogative. Through his work with Paul, the "churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers" (v. 5).
Paul's letters to Timothy contain references to his character and service, but one of the most striking descriptions comes from Paul's letter to the church in Philippi. In chapter two, Paul urged the church to follow the selfless example of Jesus, who was willing to be humbled as a servant and even die in obedience to God (Phil. 2:4-8). He then gave the church an example of someone they knew who had the attitude of Christ Jesus, putting the interests of others first: Timothy (vv. 21-22). His willingness to serve others led Paul to exhort him: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers" (1 Tim. 4:12).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Timothy followed the example of Jesus and embraced selfless service. How can we put the interests of others first? It requires a willingness to sacrifice our own comfort and our own preferences. It requires a commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ as our motivation. All of us, from the oldest to the youngest, are capable of obeying the Word of God on this point-if we are willing to put aside self. Would someone describe you like Timothy, expressing a genuine interest in the welfare of others?
GOD BLESS!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daily Devotionals August 29, 2009
"Cast Down" Sheep
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READ: Psalm 23
He restores my soul. -Psalm 23:3
In his classic book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, W. Phillip Keller gives a striking picture of the care and gentleness of a shepherd. In verse 3 when David says, "He restores my soul," he uses language every shepherd would understand.
Sheep are built in such a way that if they fall over on their side and then onto their back, it is very difficult for them to get up again. They flail their legs in the air, bleat, and cry. After a few hours on their backs, gas begins to collect in their stomachs, the stomach hardens, the air passage is cut off, and the sheep will eventually suffocate. This is referred to as a "cast down" position.
When a shepherd restores a cast down sheep, he reassures it, massages its legs to restore circulation, gently turns the sheep over, lifts it up, and holds it so it can regain its equilibrium.
What a picture of what God wants to do for us! When we are on our backs, flailing because of guilt, grief, or grudges, our loving Shepherd reassures us with His grace, lifts us up, and holds us until we've gained our spiritual equilibrium.
If you've been cast down for any reason, God is the only one who can help you get on your feet again. He will restore your confidence, joy, and strength. - Marvin Williams
This Shepherd of mine knows each trial, each snare,
And at just the right moment my Lord will be there,
On His shoulders to carry each burden for me-
Yes, the Lord is my Shepherd, and always shall be. -Henry
The weak and the helpless are in the Good Shepherd's special care.
The Prayer of Agreement
This prayer is found in Matthew 18:19, where Jesus says,
"Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven."
When I pray with other people, nine times out of ten this is the prayer that I pray with them. And most of the time I will quote this verse to them.
I remember working for a ministry years ago and praying with the folks who called on the phone. When I prayed with someone, I would walk them through this verse before we prayed.
The steps I pointed out were simple:
There needs to be at least two of us praying.
We need to agree.
We need to be on earth (I usually got a laugh out of this one).
What we are asking God for needs to come under the category of "anything" (which their request always did).
God will do it.
The only part people ever got hung up on was the agreement. "What does it mean to agree?" they would ask. I would say, "Simple, to agree means to agree." Don't over-spiritualize it. If we decide to get lunch together at a certain time at a certain place, and you say, "Ok, see you there," we have just agreed.
To agree in prayer is no different.
Read this verse again. Look at it step by step, and follow it-in all its simplicity. If we do our part, God will do His.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Proverbs 1:1-19
Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it. - Proverbs 22:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bill Gates is mainly known as the founder of Microsoft and wealthiest man in the world. The entrepreneur resigned from Microsoft last year in order to focus all his attention on his philanthropic work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This move would have been shocking a decade ago; Bill Gates reportedly considered himself too busy to get involved with philanthropy. Both of his parents had been involved with charitable organizations for years and were quietly pushing him to spend some energy giving money and not just making it. With the support of his father, Bill finally agreed in 1994 to set up a structure for charitable giving.
Bill Gates followed the example of his parents, and as believers we have a tremendous responsibility to instill truth into the children in our lives and live as examples for them to follow. We'll spend our last few days this month looking at some specific Scriptures addressed to young people-but they also contain an exhortation for those of us who are not so young.
The book of Proverbs begins as instruction to young people on the best way to live. It acknowledges that a sinful lifestyle can be enticing; greed and even violence look appealing or fun, especially when accompanied by peer pressure (v. 10). But no matter how much pleasure, profit, or popularity is advertised by wickedness, the consequence is death and destruction.
Obeying the Lord and seeking wisdom leads to knowledge and life. Knowing God is the first step toward a life that is "right and just and fair" (v. 3). Only a fool would reject this path of wisdom and discipline for the enticements of sin (v. 7).
Note that this instruction to young people contains an implied exhortation to parents: for a son to listen to his father's instruction, the father must speak truth. For a son to cling to his mother's teaching, she must be imparting wisdom. Sin offers young people the flash of fitting in and getting stuff; parents must offer the wisdom of seeking wisdom and finding life.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you're a parent or grandparent, are you committed to seeking wisdom in your own life so that you can provide an example and instruction for your children? And if you're a young person, are you choosing spiritual priorities over sinful enticements? Even if you're not a parent or grandparent, there are many children who need the influence of godly believers. Consider helping with the Sunday school program at your church, or volunteering as a Big Brother/Big Sister in your community.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals August 30, 2009
The Power Of Love
READ: Zephaniah 3:14-20
The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love. -Zephaniah 3:17
The documentary film Young@Heart gives a rollicking look at a senior chorus of 24 singers whose average age is 80. Filled with humor and poignant moments, the film includes this remarkable singing group's deeply moving performance at a New England prison. When the concert concludes, the singers walk into the audience, greeting the surprised prisoners with handshakes and hugs.
The inmates' unexpected amazement at this personal touch reminds me of the book of Zephaniah in which the prophet brings a powerful message of God's presence and love to His people during a dark time: "The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing" (3:17).
According to Bible teacher Henrietta Mears, Zephaniah "begins with sorrow but ends with singing. The first of the book is full of sadness and gloom, but the last contains one of the sweetest songs of love in the Old Testament."
God's love for us is always astonishing, especially when it touches us at a low ebb of life. During our darkest times, the Lord comes to us with His joy, His love, and His song. - David C. McCasland
If your heart is filled with sadness,
Or you struggle with despair,
Turn to God, who'll bring you gladness
When you sense His love and care. -Sper
In God's garden of love, you are His forget-me-not.
Read: Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:14
Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. - Ecclesiastes 12:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
From 2003 to 2005, 180 people died in Japan in 61 separate instances of group suicides. What makes these cases particularly disturbing is that the people, most of whom were young, apparently didn't know each other before meeting to die together. In a typical case, five or six people in their 20s would be found asphyxiated in a car.
Many people question, "What's the point of life?" Some struggle to find an answer, and since death will come to everyone at some point, why bother waiting? Yesterday we saw some instruction for young people that came from early in Solomon's life. Today's reading comes from the book of Ecclesiastes, written late in Solomon's life, after he had pursued everything life had to offer and then reflected on this question: What's the point of life if death is coming?
Earlier in this book Solomon had examined the value of pleasure, work, popularity, and wealth, and found that none of them provided an answer to his question.
Now he offers a word to young people. Enjoy your youth-but have an eternal context (11:9). Be happy-but know that judgment will come on the decisions that you make. Don't spend time burdened by anxiety and worry-but don't place your hope in youth or strength (11:10). Make God a priority now-because old age and death will come, and then it will be difficult or even too late to change (12:1).
We live in a culture that idolizes youth and fears aging and death, but the words of Ecclesiastes remind us about eternal priorities. Youth is a time to enjoy the blessings of life but also to remember the Source of those blessings. Youth is not a time to idolize or cling to, because it will end and then be considered worthless (v. 8).
Finally, Ecclesiastes provides the answer to its central question: "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (12:13). Death is not the end of the story; in light of eternity, only obedience to the will of God matters.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Is God the top priority in your life? What does your checkbook reveal? How about your daily planner? Are you more focused on knowing and obeying God, or on pursuing wealth, popularity, pleasure, or work? If you need to surrender some aspect of your life to the Lord, take the time to pray through that issue today, and resolve with the help of the Holy Spirit to live with eternal priorities.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 31, 2009
Like A Diamond In The Sky
READ: Psalm 8
You have crowned him with glory and honor. -Psalm 8:5
Astronomers discovered a star in the sky that has cooled and compressed into a giant diamond. The largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found on Earth is the Cullinan Diamond-at over 3,100 carats. So how many carats are in the cosmic diamond?-10 billion trillion trillion carats!
In our world, diamonds are prized for their rarity, beauty, and durability, and we often hear it said, "Diamonds are forever." But God isn't enamored with diamonds. To Him there is something far more precious.
Thousands of years ago, David marveled at the great value God had set on human beings: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor" (Ps. 8:4-5).
In fact, God placed such a high value on us that it cost Him dearly to buy our redemption. The purchase price was the precious blood of His Son, Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19).
If God places such a high value on us, we should also place a high value on the people He has brought into our lives. Bring them before the Lord in prayer. Ask Him to show you how each is more priceless than the most costly jewel in the universe. - Dennis Fisher
Oh, teach me what it cost Thee
To make a sinner whole;
And teach me, Savior, teach me
The value of a soul! -Bennett
We are more precious to Jesus than the costliest diamond.
Kindness
While traveling from one city to the next, a man was overtaken by robbers. Taking his clothes and possessions, they left him badly beaten. Not long after the attack, a priest traveled the same road. He passed by without stopping. Then another traveler saw the man but did not offer to help.
Finally, someone stopped-a Samaritan. He put bandages on the man's wounds and took him to an inn for the night. The next day he gave the innkeeper money and instructions to take care of the wounded man.
The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 is a wonderful example of godly kindness. It also demonstrates that kindness often requires something of us-time, plans, privacy, and desires. The Good Samaritan interrupted his travel plans to help a stranger. What better example to follow than that of Christ? He gave us the ultimate gift of kindness-He died that we might live.
However, we cannot learn to be kind simply by disciplining ourselves. Kindness can be hard work, and from time to time, this may mean that we have to face difficult situations that drain us emotionally and physically.
Often kindness cannot grow apart from conflict and strife. We learn to be kind through the kindness of others, but we also learn a greater kindness when we are called to be kind and caring in difficult situations.
A disagreement with a co-worker, spouse, friend, or family member can tempt us to be abrupt or uncaring. Circumstances appear out of focus and God's fruit of kindness becomes lost in the battle. However, through the power of Christ we are able to act in kindness even toward those who hurt us. Is there someone who needs your kindness today?
Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble (1 Peter 3:8).
The Holy Spirit possesses a dynamite-like power that works within a believer to blast out anything that is unlike God. Michael Youssef explores this topic in our free resource this month-"Dynamite Power." Download it today.
By Passionately Proclaiming Uncompromising Truth, Leading The Way is revolutionizing lives at home and around the world. Discover more at www.leadingtheway.org.
Read: Ephesians 6:1-4
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. - Colossians 3:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Civil rights leaders had planned a march in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The sheriff, Bull Conner, was legendary for his brutal methods, and few people at the organizing meeting were volunteering-until the children stood. When some said they were too young, Rev. James Bevel asked, "Are they too young to go to segregated schools? Are they too young to be kept out of amusement parks? Are they too young to be refused a hamburger in a restaurant? Then they are not too young to want their freedom." Over one thousand children marched in Birmingham, facing fire hoses, police dogs, and imprisonment. Their courage was captured by television cameras and began to reshape national views on civil rights.
In our reading, Paul was giving instructions to the church in Ephesus on how to live together as the body of Christ. And he included children in his discussion of Christian relationships. Children are not too young to receive instructions about holy living, nor should they be excluded from life in the church.
This teaching would have been rather revolutionary at the time. First, for children to be addressed at all was shocking, since they had no rights or privileges in society. Second, the book of Ephesians instructs children to obey their parents, but the command includes the provision "in the Lord." This obedience doesn't stem from the parents' "ownership" of the child, but rather because this obedience brings glory to God. He ordains the structure and relationships of the family, and obedience is ultimately an act of submission to Him.
Next, Paul connected this command back to the Law given by God to Moses (see Deut. 5:16). Obedience is connected to being blessed by God and being in a position for Him to work through us. Finally, Paul addressed fathers with an exhortation on parenthood. Parents have authority, but the point is not to browbeat or "exasperate" their children. It is to "bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (v. 4).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you came from a godly home, these verses may bring warm, comforting memories. But if you didn't-or currently live in a dysfunctional family-you might feel frustrated knowing that your family doesn't measure up to these standards. We've seen unhealthy families throughout our study, and one thing is consistent: God works despite our failures. He cares about families, and He has the power to heal bruised and broken relationships. You can trust Him to heal the pain of your past or repair the damage in your present family.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 1, 2009
Reminders Of Love
READ: John 19:1-7, 16-18
God is love. -1 John 4:8
After the US entered World War II in 1941, Estelle tried to talk her boyfriend Sidney out of joining the Army. But he enlisted and began his training in April of the following year. For the next 3 years he wrote her love letters-525 in all. Then in March 1945, she learned that her beloved fiancé had been killed in combat.
Although Estelle did eventually marry, the memories of her first love lived in her heart. To honor that love, she published a book of Sidney's wartime correspondence more than 60 years later.
Like those letters, the Lord has left us with reminders of His love-the Scriptures. He says: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you" (Jer. 31:3).
"As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love" (John 15:9).
The Bible also tells us that "Christ . . . loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Eph. 5:25).
"[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us" (Titus 2:14).
"God is love" (1 John 4:8).
Read God's Word often and be reminded that Jesus loves you and died for you. - Anne Cetas
With lovingkindness I have drawn you,
Proving that My love is true;
Do not neglect to read of that love,
Written in My Word for you. -Verway
Nothing can compare to the love of God.
The Prayer of Intercession
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of intercession...the sixth and last of the kinds of prayer we have been covering over the last week of devotionals.
1 Timothy 2:1 points us to this type of prayer,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.
Intercession, as we find it here, is a technical term for approaching a king on behalf of another. In a general sense, related to prayer, intercession is seeking God on the behalf of others. But, more specifically, it is coming to God for one who has no standing with Him.
A number of years ago, I was ministering in Nigeria, speaking at a large conference in the city of Onitsha. While there, we were invited to go meet the king of Onitsha.
It was pretty exciting driving in a motorcade with little flags on all the cars. I felt like a big shot! But when we got to the palace, we had to have someone go on our behalf in order to meet with the king. I had no standing with the king, and neither did anyone else in our party.
The person who brought us to the king of Onitsha was an intercessor. And that is the idea of this word intercession. You are coming to the King of kings on the behalf of someone who presently has no standing with Him.
Do you remember when Abraham went before God for the city of Sodom-desiring that God would spare Sodom? What was Abraham doing? He was acting as an intercessor. He was coming between God and someone who had no standing with God.
We all should be praying prayers of intercession. You and I are to make intercession for the lost.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Matthew 18:1-10
See that you don't look down on one of these little ones. - Matthew 18:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
A beautiful old hymn declared, "When He cometh, when He cometh to gather His jewels / all His jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own. / Like the stars of the morning, His bright crown adorning / they shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown. Little children, little children, who love their Redeemer / are the jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own."
Throughout our study this month we have seen how God uses the stories of children in the Bible to reveal truth to all of us about Himself and the way He works. As we conclude this study, our passage today captures the heart of God's desire for children: to love Him and be saved.
The disciples were arguing about who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and they asked Jesus to settle the dispute. He did-though not in the way they expected. He brought a little child into the midst of the disciples, and informed them that this child provided the model for greatness in the kingdom (v. 3). This should cause us to recall the first day of our study, for Jesus again instructed His followers that humility is valued above status in the heavenly economy (v. 4; cf. Matt. 19:14).
Additionally, Jesus here affirmed the worth and value of little children. Children are welcome in the kingdom of God, and as followers of Jesus we are to welcome children too. This command has both a positive and negative component: the positive side tells us to extend an invitation of faith and love to children; the negative side warns that leading a child astray will result in judgment (v. 6).
Sin is destructive and deadly, and Jesus took the time to declare a significant warning against permitting the influences of sin to go unchecked. It is better to sacrifice something dear to us than to let that lead us into sin. Our humility, willingness to embrace children into faith, and resistance to sin are all marks of the followers of Jesus.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you have time for additional study this week, review what we have studied this past month and reflect on what God has taught you from this series on stories of young people in the Bible. Pray that the children in your life will be filled with faith in Jesus and will love Him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. And pray that your life will be characterized by humility, repentance, and a desire to welcome children into life with Christ.
PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals August 1, 2009
Running A Marathon
READ: Philippians 3:12-21
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:14
The Comrades Marathon, which began in 1921, is the oldest ultra-marathon. Covering 90 km (56 miles), it is held annually in South Africa. Bruce Fordyce completely dominated this marathon in the 1980s, winning it nine times between 1981 and 1990. His 1986 record of 5 hours 24 minutes and 7 seconds stood for 21 years before it was finally broken in 2007. It's amazing to me that he has continued to run in this race every year.
In a sense, we as Christians are all in a marathon. It takes endurance to run and finish the race of life. When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, he spoke of how he was "reaching forward to those things which are ahead" (3:13) and pressing on "toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (v.14).
Our Lord Jesus has set an example of how to run life's marathon. The Bible tells us that Jesus "for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:2). Despite "hostility from sinners," He completed His race (v.3).
The secret to finishing well is to look forward to the joy that awaits us after life's race-eternal life with Him. - C. P. Hia
I ran to meet Him when I heard His call-
The Savior's arms were open to receive;
And I'm still running since I gave my all,
Inviting others also to believe. -Hess
The Christian's race is not a competitive event but an endurance run.
Regaining Your Cutting Edge
Over the next several devotionals, I want to focus your attention on something that affects every Christian at one time or another: Losing our spiritual edge.
God wants us to stay spiritually sharp. Consider Ecclesiastes 10:10,
If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but wisdom brings success.
God is using this analogy to illustrate a very important truth: If you lose your edge spiritually, you lose your effectiveness as well.
Maybe you feel that way today. Though you are exerting strenuous effort, you are making little progress in your spiritual life. God wants you to go forward. He wants you to progress and not become stagnant in your spiritual life.
I have a friend whose father was a logger many years ago. It was a time when they cut all the timber by hand with just an ax.
One day his father shared about the way he would operate. After he chopped down a tree, he would sit on the stump of the tree he had just chopped down, take out a file he kept on his belt, and he would sharpen the edge of the ax. He would sit there until the ax was very sharp again, then he would go after the next tree.
Each time he chopped down a tree he would do exactly the same thing. But he said most of the other guys didt do that. They just wanted to keep going, never stopping to sharpen their axes.
Without fail, he said, he always got more done than they did, and he used a lot less effort. They had to exercise more strength, yet they got less done.
Over the next several days, we will look at what it takes to regain that spiritual edge.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Proverbs 8:1-36
For whoever finds [wisdom] finds life and receives favor from the Lord. - Proverbs 8:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
In a musical stage production, the overture is the orchestral introduction to the upcoming performance, typically occurring before the musical itself begins. In the case of Broadway musicals, the overture often highlights musical themes from prominent songs in the upcoming production. This way, the audience is given a musical foretaste of what is to come.
This month's study is on the book of 1 Kings, but we start today with an overture from Proverbs that highlights the themes of the book: wisdom and folly. According to Proverbs, wisdom is a way of life. The one who possesses wisdom fears the Lord and hates evil (v. 13), which leads to great blessing: wealth, prosperity, power, and life (vv. 14, 18, 21, 34-35). Wisdom is beyond compare, more precious than silver, gold, and rubies (vv. 10-11, 19). Conversely, lack of wisdom finds expression in pride, arrogance, evil behavior, and perverse speech (v. 13); eventually it leads to death (v. 36).
Wisdom doesn't come magically, nor do we possess it as an inherent birthright. Rather, Scripture tells us we must seek it (v. 17), we must respond to its call (vv. 1-6, 32-36). Moreover, wisdom belongs to God (vv. 22-31) and accordingly must be sought from Him. Today's overture from Proverbs presents two paths: the way of wisdom which leads to life, and the way of foolishness which leads to death.
Scripture specifically mentions that by wisdom, kings and princes will rule well (vv. 15-16). And so the exhortations and warnings in Proverbs 8 stand as a signpost for the book of 1 Kings. Wisdom and folly are both at play in the chapters to come. Wise kings will obtain incredible wealth, power, and life; foolish kings will receive prophetical rebukes, destruction of their kingdoms, and death. As we embark on this month's study of 1 Kings, train your mind and heart to be attuned to the appearance of wisdom and folly, that you too may learn and know the blessing of God's wisdom.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Proverbs 8:35 states that "whoever finds me [wisdom] finds life and receives favor from the Lord." Do you believe the truth of these words? Do you value wisdom as life-giving favor from the Lord? As we begin our study of 1 Kings, pray that God would show you in His Word both the way of wisdom (that you might follow in it) and the way of foolishness (that you might avoid it), so that the words of Proverbs 8:35 would ring true in your own life this month
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 3, 2009
Patience In Prison
READ: Genesis 40:1-14,23
[God] Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." -Hebrews 13:5
Have you ever noticed that other people's forgetfulness can try your patience? As a college professor, I find my patience stretched when a student forgets to do an assignment that's clearly spelled out in the syllabus.
In the Old Testament story of Joseph, we see a far worse example of forgetfulness-and we can only imagine how he struggled to be patient as a result.
While in prison, Joseph interpreted a dream of the king's butler, which led to the man's release. Joseph told him, "Remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house" (Gen. 40:14). It would seem that after Joseph had helped the butler gain freedom, remembering him would have been high on his "to do" list. But it was 2 years before the butler spoke to Pharaoh about Joseph (41:9). Finally, Joseph was freed.
Imagine the impatience Joseph felt as he waited each day in that dungeon (40:15)-perhaps thinking his only chance at freedom had passed. Yet Joseph had a resource: He had God's presence (39:21), as do we (Heb. 13:5). When you're feeling impatient, lean on the God who is always with you. He'll turn your impatience into patient trust. - Dave Branon
Tune your anxious heart to patience,
Walk by faith where sight is dim;
Loving God, be calm and trustful
And leave everything to Him. -Chambers
Patience means awaiting God's time without doubting God's love.
Are You Listening?
Yesterday we began a series of devotionals focusing on how you can regain your spiritual edge. As we think about how to do that, it is important to consider those things that would indicate we have become spiritually dull.
I believe the number one characteristic you find in someone who has lost their cutting edge spiritually is that the voice of the Holy Spirit is no longer recognized. Those impressions that the Spirit makes upon your heart, through which He guides you, are no longer clear.
In Matthew 13:14-15, Jesus talks about this in a pretty plain way,
"And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.'"
This concern is echoed in Hebrews 5:11, where the writer, in talking about the priesthood of Christ, says,
Of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Have you lost the edge? Have you lost that sensitivity to the voice of God? Hearing with the physical ears, but not understanding in the heart; seeing with the physical eyes, but not perceiving what God is doing?
Jesus said that happens when the heart becomes dull. When someone loses that edge spiritually, it results is an insensitivity to the voice of God.
If this describes you today, ask God to open your eyes to see and your ears to hear. Begin now to regain your spiritual edge.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 1:1-53
I will raise up your offspring to succeed you . . . and I will establish his kingdom. - 2 Samuel 7:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Nearly a year ago, the United States had a presidential election. Like so many before it, the months leading up to Election Day were filled with emotional words and strong opinions from all sides around the nation. Yet, as the election and then inauguration came and went, a remarkably peaceful exchange of power happened. No mass riots, no violent subterfuge, no civil war. Such peaceful transitions of power were not always the norm in the nations' histories.
The opening chapter of 1 Kings presents us with a kingdom in transitional crisis. King David was old and feeble, yet as he neared death he was remarkably unconcerned about the future of his kingdom. Seizing the moment, David's son Adonijah took matters into his own hands and declared himself the new king. Scripture gives an ironic description of Adonijah's qualifications-he was "very handsome" (v. 6)-and details the growing division in the priestly and military ranks (vv. 7-8). The kingdom was experiencing a crisis of leadership.
In stepped the prophet Nathan. While the kingdom teetered on the edge of disaster, Nathan informed Bathsheba of the situation and devised a plan to rouse David from his indifference. Informing David of the breaking news and reminding him of his promise to Solomon, Nathan and Bathsheba called David to action. The weak and silent David depicted in the first half of the chapter now issued a cascade of commands (vv. 28-37). Solomon was anointed king, the city rejoiced, and Adonijah and his cohort submitted to Solomon's reign. Disaster averted.
From one perspective, the fate of the Davidic kingdom hinged on Nathan; God seemed out of sight. But as we often find in Scripture, when God is not out in the open, He is often working behind the scenes. Recall that 1 Kings follows directly the events of 2 Samuel, and there God had promised that He would establish David's kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:12-13). In 1 Kings 1, Nathan acted, but the broader context of Scripture tells us that God was at work fulfilling His promises.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you are tempted to look at the world around you and despair that all seems moving toward godlessness. Let the message of today's passage remind you that God is still in control, and that no act of prayerful and godly faithfulness goes unused in the promise of God's kingdom. Pray the Lord's Prayer today, focusing especially upon the first three petitions that God would be honored, that His kingdom would come, and that His will would be done in your life and in the world.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 4, 2009
Journeys
READ: Philippians 1:8-18
I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. -Philippians 1:12
On a map in the back of my Bible, each of Paul's missionary journeys is shown by a colored line with arrows indicating his direction of travel. On the first three, the arrows lead away from his place of departure and back to a point of return. On the fourth journey, however, Paul was traveling as a prisoner, bound for trial before Caesar, and the arrows point only one direction, ending in Rome.
We might be tempted to call this an unfortunate time in Paul's life, if it were not for his view that God was leading and using him just as much on this journey as He did on the previous three.
He wrote: "I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the Word without fear" (Phil. 1:12-14).
Even when our journey in life is marked by confinement and limitations, we can be sure that the Lord will encourage others through us as we speak His Word and trust in Him. - David C. McCasland
The journeys that we take in life,
Though unexpected they may be,
If we commit to follow Christ,
His work through us the world will see. -Sper
For the Christian, what looks like a detour may actually be a new road to blessing.
Instruments in the Hands of God
Yesterday we saw that the first sign a person has lost their spiritual edge is that he or she no longer recognizes the voice of the Holy Spirit and His leading.
The second characteristic of someone who has lost their edge spiritually is they lose their usefulness as an instrument in the hands of God.
Revelation 14:14-16 tells us,
Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
The One sitting on the cloud with a crown on His head is the Lord Jesus Christ. The harvest on the earth is the salvation of lost humanity, men and women who do not yet have a relationship with God.
Then what is the sharp sickle? It is the Church. It is you. It is me. If God is going to reap the harvest of lost humanity, it is going to be through His people.
You and I are to be a sharp sickle in God's hand in His great plan of mankind's redemption. That means the housewife, the doctor, the businessman, the student, the truck driver...every one of us. We are to be setting our hand to whatever practical work we have been gifted to do to see people being saved and being discipled.
Let us determine to be an effective instrument-a sharp sickle-in the hand of our God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 2:1-12
Observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands. - 1 Kings 2:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Many universities have a tradition called the "Last Lecture." A professor, usually near retirement, is asked to prepare a lecture guided by the question: "If it were your last chance to give a talk to your students, what would you say?" Naturally, the topics vary, but typically professors focus on those themes from their life and work that they find most important and enduring, and which they want others to embrace as well.
David's parting words to Solomon are a kind of "Last Lecture." Scripture tells us, "When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son" (v. 1). What can we learn from David's last words to his son? Notice first the point of emphasis: "Observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways" (v. 3). Above all, David instructed Solomon in obedience to God and His Word. Next, note the implicit assumption that Solomon was already a man of faith; David personalized things by saying, "the Lord your God." Since Solomon was a man of faith, David called him to act upon that faith in obedience.
Moreover, today's passage teaches us two important lessons about God's "way." First, God's way is clear. David referred Solomon to God's commands "as written in the Law of Moses" (v. 3). We do not have to guess how God wants us to live; He has already given us instructions in His Word. How important it is, then, to study and know God's Scripture to us!
Second, we see that God's Word is beneficial. After exhorting Solomon to obedience, David explained: "So that you may prosper . . . and that the Lord may keep his promise to me" (vv. 3-4). God's commands are for our own good. Obedience is part of finding enjoyment and blessing in God. David's instructions do not neglect the nitty-gritty of kingdom politics (vv. 5-12), but the emphasis is clear: faithful obedience to God's Word is central to Solomon's security and blessing.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps today's emphasis upon obedience seems unusual. Does not God grant His favor unconditionally? Indeed, He does. But Jesus reminds us that the Christian life must include obedience. The wise man not only hears His words, but "puts them into practice" (Matt. 7:24). Only then will one enjoy the security and blessing of a sure foundation in times of trouble. Ask God today for a renewed heart of obedience to His Word, that you may know the joy and blessing of walking in the way of your God.
GOD BLESS!`
Daily Devotionals September 5, 2009
Einstein's God
READ: Psalm 19:1-6
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. -Psalm 19:1
When the great physicist Albert Einstein was asked if he believed in God, he responded: "We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. . . . That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human beings toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws." Although Einstein marveled at the design he saw in nature, he did not believe in a personal Creator.
The psalmist shared Einstein's sense of awe about nature but took the next step and believed in the Designer behind the design: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork" (Ps. 19:1).
The wonder we feel as we behold our universe should serve as a road sign pointing to the One who created it. The Scriptures tell us, "All things were made through [Christ], and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:3).
Are you struggling in your beliefs? Look up at the stars tonight. In the sky is crafted an amazing road sign pointing to the Designer behind the design. - Dennis Fisher
God wrote His autograph
Upon the sky last night,
In the stars I never saw
A signature so bright! -Schoeberlein
Creation's design points to the Master Designer.
Read: 1 Kings 2:13-46
The kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon's hands. - 1 Kings 2:46
TODAY IN THE WORD
With the recent economic downturn, many people are worrying about their financial security. Americans are becoming careful about how they spend money, where they invest, and whom they trust with their resources. Even established institutions once thought to be pillars of security no longer appear impervious to financial tumult.
The topic of security is central in today's passage, not economic security but rather political stability for God's kingdom. Indeed, the Hebrew word for "establish/make secure" is used four separate times in 1 Kings 2 (vv. 12, 24, 45, 46). Underlying the seemingly ruthless reign of Solomon's first days in office lies the central theological concern: to "establish" Solomon's throne "securely" (v. 24).
Seen in the context of 1 Kings 2:5-9, today's passage also demonstrates the outworking of David's call for Solomon to use his wisdom in dealing with kingdom enemies. Adonijah's seemingly innocuous request for Abishag as his wife was, in the ancient world, tantamount to a play for the royal throne. Solomon's response explicitly referenced the establishment of his throne and his dynasty by God, and the subsequent need to protect them from usurpers (v. 24).
Likewise, in Solomon's dealings with Abiathar, Joab, and Shimei, either Solomon or the narrator of the passage mentioned fulfilling God's promise (v. 27), peace for the kingdom (v. 33), or the eternal "security" of David's throne before the Lord (v. 45). Scripture ends the chapter with a summary of the preceding violence: "The kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon's hands" (v. 46).
This chapter may seem bloodthirsty, and Solomon might appear ruthless and politically calculating. The theological indications in the text suggest something else. This was part of what it meant for God to secure His kingdom for Solomon: to eliminate all threats to its peace and security, using violent means if needed. God will go to great lengths to protect His people.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's text paints a picture, not just of Solomon's earthly kingdom, but also of God's eternal kingdom on the Judgment Day. In Matthew 13, for example, Jesus describes the end as a day when "everything that causes sin and all who do evil" will be uprooted and cast into the fire (Matt. 13:40-43). Only then will peace and security be established forever in God's kingdom. Given the description of God's zeal for establishing His kingdom, our only true security is to submit to the true King, Jesus. Will you do that today?
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals September 6, 2009
Life Is Good
READ: Romans 8:31-39
I am persuaded that [nothing] shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:38-39
While shopping in a nearby tourist town, I wandered into a small store stuffed with clothing and other items all marked with the slogan "Life is good." Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of that simple truth.
When the work of earning a living, raising a family, maintaining health and fitness, and managing relationships starts to overwhelm us, it's good to think about how small our part in the universe really is. While we obsess over our work, God quietly does His. He keeps the earth rotating, the planets revolving, and the seasons changing. Without any help from us, He makes the sun rise every morning and set every evening. Every night He changes the pattern of lights in the sky. He turns out the light so we can sleep, and turns it on again so we can see to work and play. Without lifting a finger, we get to enjoy sunrises and sunsets. Every year the seasons change on schedule. We don't need to pray about it or tell God that it's time to send spring. All that He does reminds us He is good (Acts 14:17).
Life will at times be difficult, often it is painful, and for now it is imperfect. But still it is good, for in all these things nothing can separate us from God's lavish expressions of love (Rom. 8:39). - Julie Ackerman Link
Thank You, loving Father, for the good gift of life. Forgive me for making it complicated for myself and others. I thank You and praise You for all You do so that I can enjoy so much. Amen.
God's grace is immeasurable; His mercy inexhaustible; His peace inexpressible.
No Exemption
2 Kings 6:1-7 gives us some important insight into how to regain our spiritual edge,
And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, "See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. Please, let us go to the Jordan, and let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell." So he answered, "Go." Then one said, "Please consent to go with your servants." And he answered, "I will go." So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed." So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float. Therefore he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.
There are a number of principles I want to draw from this story.
Although we will be focusing on the one man who experienced the loss of his ax head, for today's devotion I want to draw your attention to the majority.
As we see from this Scripture, this school for the prophets was needing to expand, to build a bigger building. And notice that everyone had a part to play in what God was doing. It says "Let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell."
In God's Kingdom plan, being spiritually sharp is not for just a few people. We all have a responsibility to grow. There is no exemption.
God has a role for you to play. You have not been given an exemption from being a part of God's kingdom plan. He has a part for you to play in His great plan to reach the world!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Kings 3:1-2
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all. - James 1:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Ever since the 1960s sitcom, "I Dream of Jeannie," countless kids in America have imagined an encounter with a magic genie who grants one wish to the lucky finder. Numerous hours have been spent discussing the best wish: to have lots of money! to be invisible! to live forever! to travel in time! to have as many wishes as I want! Whether discussed by children or adults, what we would wish for reveals a lot about our heart.
King Solomon was given something like a one-wish opportunity, not by an imaginary genie, but by God Himself. A man who "showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the statutes of his father David" (v. 3), God responded by appearing to Solomon in a dream and saying, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you" (v. 5). Here was the chance of a lifetime. But God's question was also a test that revealed Solomon's true character. Given that Scripture tells us that "the Lord was pleased" with Solomon's request (v. 10), today's passage can be read as biblical instructions in prayer.
First, notice where Solomon began: not with his request, but by recounting God's activity. He referenced God's faithfulness both to David (v. 6) and to Abraham (consider his description of a nation "too numerous to count" [v. 8]). Scripture calls us to begin our prayer to God by focusing less on our own needs and more on what God has already done for us.
Second, consider Solomon's humility. Admitting his own inability to govern such a large nation (vv. 7, 9), Solomon recognized his need for divine aid. He requested wisdom: "a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong" (v. 9). Solomon's request was for God's help in the task of leadership, not for glory or honor for himself.
Finally, notice Solomon's outward focus. His request was not a selfish one; rather, he wanted wisdom so he could rule his people rightly. How much of our prayer time is focused on ourselves rather than the needs of others?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
After Solomon's request for wisdom, Scripture recounts the famous story of two women bickering over a child (vv. 16-22). Solomon's incisive response brought forth the truth and rendered justice (vv. 23-27). Scripture summarizes it well: all Israel "saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice" (v. 28). In the words of our key verse, God's promise of wisdom is for more than just Solomon-He will give it to each of us. Today, approach God as the generous, giving God that He is.
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals September 7, 2009
Prelude Of Praise
READ: Psalm 150
I will sing praise to Your name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. -Psalm 61:8
We enter a concert hall, find our seats, and listen with anticipation as the members of the orchestra tune their instruments. The sound is discordant, not melodic. But the tuning is simply a prelude to the symphony.
C. S. Lewis suggested that's how it is with our devotional practices and even our worship services. Sometimes they sound discordant, but God hears our prayers and praises with fatherly delight. We are really preparing for participation in the glorious symphony of heaven. Now we are making a minuscule contribution to the harmonies of angelic and redeemed hosts. But our adoration, though feeble, pleases the heart of the Divine Listener more than the finest rendition of earth's greatest orchestra.
Are we eagerly awaiting our participation in heaven's symphony of praise? Are we joyfully participating in the adoration that delights the heart of God? Or do we regard devotion as more of a discipline than a delight?
Our attitudes will be transformed when we realize that praise delights God's heart. Praise helps us to tune our lives to heavenly harmonies.
Praise is an indispensable preparation for the worship that will be our eternal joy. "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Ps. 150:6). - Vernon C. Grounds
Joyfully, heartily resounding,
Let every instrument and voice
Peal out the praise of grace abounding,
Calling the whole world to rejoice. -Routley
The heart filled with praise brings pleasure to God.
Are You Just Swinging the Handle?
As you look at your life today in honesty and transparency, perhaps you would have to say that you have lost that edge, that excitement, that zeal, that spiritual passion you once had.
If indeed you have lost your edge, how can you get it back? Over the next seven days, I will help you understand how to regain your spiritual edge based on 2 Kings 6.
The first principle I want to focus on is based on the man who lost his ax head, as we learn in 2 Kings 6:4-5,
...when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water.
Now, it would have been senseless for him to have kept chopping with a wooden handle with no ax head on it, wouldn't it?! He would make no progress.
And yet that is what a lot of Christians do today. They have lost their cutting edge, and they are just going through the motions, making no progress at all.
They are chopping away with just a wooden handle!
They think, "Well, I know I'm supposed to go to church, so I will go. As long as I keep busy, maybe nobody's going to know the state of my heart." And they will do this not just for weeks or months, but some people have been doing this for years.
No progress, no growth. They are just swinging that handle without an ax head.
If this is you, do not just keep swinging the ax handle. If you are not making progress, admit it. Until you are willing to face up to the fact that you have not been growing, you can never regain your spiritual edge.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 4:1-34
God gave Solomon wisdom . . . as measureless as the sand on the seashore. - 1 Kings 4:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
One evening, a mother and child began preparing a recipe that called for a number of spices. Checking the pantry and finding none of them, the woman decided to use some substitutes, assuming the difference would not matter. After a painfully unappetizing dinner in which the flavors of the meal were all wrong, the precocious child noted: "I guess the details matter after all!
The same can be said for today's reading. The previous chapter demonstrated God's gift of wisdom. Today's reading ends with an explicit return to the wisdom motif (vv. 29-34 mention wisdom seven times). These literary bookends suggest that the intervening verses are also about Solomon's practice of wisdom. From this perspective, the otherwise tedious details of the first part of this chapter become important lessons about both the practice of wisdom and about God's faithfulness to His promises.
Our text begins with a detailed list of "officials," "secretaries," and "governors" working under Solomon. Why? In short, such a list demonstrates Solomon's wisdom in managing a vast kingdom (note especially the daily provisions for Solomon's court in vv. 22-23). The results underscore that wisdom was exercised: the kingdom enjoyed a long period of peace and security, and the people found abundance and happiness. Biblical wisdom impacts not only morals and justice, but also the practical, administrative ordering of our world.
First Kings 4 also demonstrates the faithfulness of God to His promises. In the description of Solomon's kingdom, Scripture uses language that echoes the promises God made long ago. The people are "as numerous as the sand on the seashore" (v. 20), echoing God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 22:17. The vast borders of the kingdom resonate with God's promise of land in Genesis 15:18-21. Finally, the abundance, peace, and exaltation of Israel recall God's promises to Israel in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. For readers keeping in mind God's earlier activity and promise, 1 Kings 4 shines as a banner of God's faithfulnes
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If 1 Kings 4:1-31 gives us a picture of wise administration, 1 Kings 4:32-34 gives us a picture of wise learning. In addition to his proverbs and songs, Solomon was also renowned for his knowledge of trees, animals, birds, reptiles and fish. Biblical wisdom can also entail a love for God's natural world. Spend time this Sunday enjoying God's creation. Perhaps take a walk in the woods, visit the zoo, or simply explore your backyard, thanking God for the ability to know His world and its magnificent order.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 9, 2009
Unanswered Prayers
READ: Luke 7:1-10
[Jesus said], "I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!" -Luke 7:9
An explanation we often hear for "unanswered" prayers is that we don't have enough faith. But Jesus said in Luke 17:6 that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can command a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea and it will obey us. In other words, the effectiveness of our prayers depends not on how much faith we have but on whether we even have faith.
Luke tells of a Roman centurion with "great faith" (7:9). His faith was expressed first as an appeal to Jesus to heal his dying servant. Then it was expressed as an acknowledgment that Jesus could heal his servant anytime, anywhere. The centurion did not ask Jesus to do things his way.
Faith has been described as "trusting God's heart and trusting God's power." Some prayers that seem to go unanswered are simply instances in which God has lovingly overruled our wishes. He knows that what we have asked for is not best. Or it may be that our timing is not His timing, or He has some far greater purpose in mind. Let us remember, even Jesus prayed to His heavenly Father, "Nevertheless not My will, but Yours" (Luke 22:42).
Do we have the centurion's great faith-a faith that trusts God to do His work, in His way? - C. P. Hia
Unanswered prayers are answered still
As part of God's great master plan;
They help to carry out His will
To demonstrate God's love for man. -D. De Haan
God's answers are wiser than our prayers.
Looking to the Master
In 2 Kings 6:5, we read the second in our series of seven principles to regain our spiritual edge. It is the response of the man who lost his cutting edge,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
When this man lost his ax head and it fell into the water, he cried out and said, "Alas, master!" He went to the prophet.
The prophet was God's representative in that day. He was the mouthpiece of God. If you wanted to hear from God, you went to the prophet, and the prophet would give a word from God.
Today, thank goodness, we have direct access to God as individuals. We can go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Master. And that is the second principle to regaining your spiritual edge. You need to realize the only One who can restore your edge once it is lost, is the Lord Jesus Himself.
You need to get your eyes off of men and get your eyes on the Master. Some people make a great mistake because they have their eyes on men. You will always be disappointed if your eyes are on men instead of on the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is only One who can help you regain your spiritual edge, and that is Jesus Christ. No man or woman can take His place.
So today, put your eyes on the Master. Cry out to Him to help you regain your spiritual edge.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 5:1-18
The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. - 1 Kings 5:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
The word fulcrum has two interestingly related meanings. Most basically, a fulcrum is a point on which a lever pivots. In anatomical references, however, the fulcrum is the connective tissue supporting the eye. Without a proper fulcrum, things either go out of balance, or one cannot see.
Without properly understanding the fulcrum in today's passage, we would be left with an imbalanced reading and an inability to see the theological point. Placed in the center of the chapter, verse 12 reads: "The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him." Everything else balances around that verse. Although some scholars question Solomon's alliance with Hiram (vv. 1-12) and his choice of labor acquisition (vv. 13-18), Scripture summarizes Solomon's activity with a focus on God's gift of wisdom.
What, then, does Scripture teach us through Solomon's wisdom concerning the temple preparations? First, Solomon's project was wisely grounded in the peace of God (vv. 4-5). He did not claim credit for himself, but recognized that building success was only possible in the context of peace from God.
Second, Solomon's idea for a temple was founded on God's promise to David. Earlier, God had promised that David's son would sit on the throne and "build a house for my Name" (2 Sam. 7:13). Solomon's construction project wasn't grounded in his own vision.
Finally, Solomon's project was directed to the purposes of God. Notice who was enlisted to help with the construction of God's holy house: the king of Tyre (v. 10), Sidonian loggers (v. 6), and Gebalite craftsmen (v. 18). In other words, Gentiles were an integral part of the building of God's house, foreshadowing the words of Jesus: "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations" (Mark 11:17; cf. Isa. 56:7). Though starting with Israel, God's kingdom would eventually include non-Jews as well. Today's passage hints at the expansive purpose of God for His people.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Solomon's preparations for building God's house were centered on God's peace, God's promise, and God's purpose. Without them, his project was doomed to failure. There's a lesson here for all Christian ministries trying to "build" programs and visions. The words of the psalmist echo this message: "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain" (Ps. 127:1). Spend time praying for your church and other ministries you support, that they would be grounded in God's peace and promise, and guided by God's purpose.
GOD BLESS!`
Daily Devotionals September 9, 2009
Comforted To Comfort
READ: 2 Corinthians 1:3-11
[God] comforts us . . . that we may be able to comfort [others] with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. -2 Corinthians 1:4
While speaking to a group of Christian athletes, I asked them how they normally responded to hardships. Their responses included fear, anger, self-pity, aggression, despair, abusive behavior, apathy, and turning to God. I encouraged them to trust that God would comfort them and then use them to comfort others.
Just as I encouraged those athletes, Paul encouraged a group of believers in a town called Corinth. He reminded them that afflictions were inevitable for the follower of Jesus. Many were being persecuted, imprisoned, and oppressed-all because of their relationship with Jesus. Paul wanted the Corinthians to know that in the midst of their trouble God was their source of help. He would come to their side and help them to have godly responses. Then Paul gave one of the reasons God allowed suffering and brought divine comfort-so that the Corinthians might have the empathy to enter into other people's sorrow and comfort them (2 Cor. 1:4).
When we suffer, let us remember that God will bring comfort to us through His Word, by the Holy Spirit, and through fellow believers. God does not comfort us so that we'll be comfortable; we are comforted by God so that we might be comforters. - Marvin Williams
When you receive God's comfort,
Be sure to pass it on,
Then give to God the glory
From whom the comfort's drawn. -Hess
When God permits trials, He also provides comfort.
Taking Responsibility
Today we are on the third key to regaining your cutting edge. The first was to admit you have lost your edge, and the second was to put your eyes on the Master. The third is to take responsibility if you have lost your spiritual edge.
I want to take you back to 2 Kings 6:5,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
It is important to understand that ax heads do not just fall off. They fall off because they are not properly maintained.
I have spent endless hours chopping wood, and I have owned a number of fine axes in my time. But in all the years I have chopped firewood, I have never had an ax head fly off.
The only reason an ax head would fly off is if the one using the ax has not been taking care of it. This must have been the case for the guy in 2 Kings 6 who lost the ax head. He was responsible to make sure the ax head would stay on.
The point is this: If you have lost your cutting edge, you need to take responsibility. If it is something that you did, or neglected to do, repent. Take responsibility and stop blaming other people.
As much as you might like to point the finger at the last church you went to, or your spouse, or your boss, or whatever it might be, no one can take your cutting edge away from you. Only you can cause it to be lost.
Stop blaming others, and take responsibility if you have lost your edge. It is a necessary step toward regaining your spiritual sharpness.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 6:1-38
One thing I ask of the Lord . . . to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. - Psalm 27:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A young married couple spent two hours being led through a home. All manner of details about the home's construction were pointed out to them: the style of house, the type of shingles on the roof, the kind of windows installed, and the way the appliances worked. Normally, the couple would be uninterested in such details, but this was different: they were preparing to buy this home.
It is tempting to pass over today's text with a yawn of indifference. Details about cubits, construction materials, and floor plans do not normally excite us. But consider for a moment whose house is being described! Although it's a dense chapter, we can learn two important lessons about our God from these verses.
First, Scripture's description of the temple reveals God's glory. Compared to the earlier Mosaic tabernacle, the temple was vast in design. Whereas the tabernacle was roughly 675 square feet (see Exodus 26), the temple was 2,700 square feet (v. 2): four times as big! And while the tabernacle was mostly curtains and dirt floor, the temple was covered in costly material. Scripture is careful to give us a full description of the beauty of the temple. The floors, walls, and ceilings were covered with cedar, pine, and gold; the temple was decorated with gold-covered cherubim, and the walls were carved with images of cherubim, palm trees, and flowers. In short, the description of the temple tells us that God loves beauty and design. He is a God of splendor and glory.
Second, God used the temple to reveal His purpose: "As for this temple you are building . . . I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel" (vv. 11-13). God intended to dwell with His people, foreshadowing that day when He would take up residence with us in the fullest way possible: "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14). Although God cannot be contained by our finite space, that does not stop Him from drawing near with His radiant presence.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In light of God's splendor and glory, many psalms call for a response such as Psalm 96:9: "Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness." Psalm 27:4, in particular, reflects on the longing "to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple." Keeping in mind today's reading about the temple, read one of these psalms in full, asking God that you might catch a glimpse of the worship-inspiring beauty of His majesty.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 10, 2009
How To Become Rich
READ: Luke 12:13-21
Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. -Luke 12:15
I find it interesting that Jesus taught more about money than anything else. And He wasn't trying to ratchet up the treasury. As far as we know, He never even asked for an offering. The reason He taught extensively on the subject is that nothing clogs our spiritual arteries more quickly than money-either working to have a lot of it or wishing that we had.
Think of the man who brazenly asked Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me" (Luke 12:13). Amazing! He had an opportunity to "go deep" with Jesus, but instead he wanted deep pockets.
Jesus responded with a stunning, counterintuitive statement: "Beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (v.15). He then went on to tell the parable of a rich man who was wildly successful from a worldly standpoint-having so many crops that he had to keep building bigger barns-but who, in God's eyes, was actually a "fool." Not because he was rich, but because he was not rich toward God.
You'll hear a lot of advice about how to become rich. But only Jesus tells it to us straight. It's not about the money. It's about the richness of our relationship with Him and the joy of turning our greed into generosity. - Joe Stowell
The riches of this world are vain,
They vanish in a day;
But sweet the treasures of God's love-
They never pass away. -Bosch
Learning how to be rich toward God yields eternal dividends.
Where Did it Fall?
The fourth key to regaining your cutting edge is found in verse 6 of 2 Kings 6,
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
The words I want you to focus on are, Where did it fall? That is quite a question. And look at the response, And he showed him the place.
That is the fourth key, to know where you lost your cutting edge. Unless you go back to that place, you cannot retrieve it; and unless you are willing to deal with whatever issue caused you to lose your cutting edge, you will never regain it.
Did you notice that the man knew right where he lost his cutting edge? If you will be honest, you can probably point right to the time you lost, or began to lose, your edge spiritually.
Perhaps it was when you became offended because of what someone did. Or maybe it was when you started watching too much television, or when you began hanging around with a certain person.
If when asked, "Where did it fall?" you cannot immediately point to the place, take some time to commune with your own heart and be still. It won't be long before your answer comes.
This is essential because if you are to regain your edge, you need to start where you lost it.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 7:1-51
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. - Psalm 29:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
A man was driving along a number of unfamiliar roads on a long trip one evening. Due to the lack of explicit signage and his wandering thoughts, the man suddenly realized that he was not on the right road. Somewhere along the way, he had missed a turn and now needed to backtrack to find the missed road.
Scripture does not always provide explicit signage for turns in the text either! Today's passage begins with a description of Solomon's house, but then moves into a fuller description of the temple furnishings. The switch in verse 13 is not wholly obvious, however, until verses 40 and 45, which indicate that the entire preceding description was really about "the temple of the Lord." What do we learn from these two sections of chapter 7?
First, note the emphasis of the chapter. Scripture allots the first twelve verses to Solomon's palace, but spends the next thirty-nine verses on the temple. Although starting with Solomon, it is as if the narrator could not help but shift our attention back to the splendor and glory of God in the temple. Solomon's palace was splendid indeed, but God's splendor is where the true focus lies in today's text.
Second, some scholars have suggested that this text presents a negative image of Solomon. He spends twice as long to build a palace twice as big as the temple (vv. 1-2). True-yet Scripture never comments on these facts in a negative way. The glory of Solomon's palace seems to suggest an even greater glory for Solomon's God. Moreover, notice the similarities between temple and palace, both in the three-part structure (vv. 3-8) and in the materials used for each (vv. 9-12). This similarity shows that Solomon's reign was connected with divine sanction. The king's house was like God's house, and the connection between kingly glory and divine splendor and approval is underscored. As is so often the case, God chooses to use His servant to reflect His own glory.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's reading teaches us about the centrality of God's glory, but also about the way our own "glory" can point others to God's majesty. Make a list of your own talents, abilities, and accomplishments in life, recalling some of the "glory" you may have experienced from others as a result. Now take time throughout the day either to thank God that He glorifies Himself through us, or to use those gifts and abilities to point others to the source of true Glory.
GOD BLESS!`
Daily Devotionals September 11, 2009
Untended Places
READ: Psalm 119:9-16
Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. -Psalm 119:11
Our family had just arrived at the lake cottage we had rented for a week of much-anticipated vacation when my wife discovered the unmistakable evidence of spiders and mice in the house. It wasn't that we had never encountered such things, but that we had expected the cottage to be cleaned and prepared for our stay there. Instead, the counters, cabinets, and beds were littered with the residue of infestation, requiring much cleaning before we settled in. It wasn't a bad house; it had just been left untended.
We might be guilty of dealing with our hearts the way that cottage was managed. Our "untended places" can become breeding grounds for infestations of wrong thinking, poor attitudes, or sinful behavior-creating problems that require significant attention to correct. The wise path is to recognize our need to tend our hearts by staying in God's Word and embracing its truths.
In Psalm 119:11, King David recognized the danger of not building our lives on the Scriptures. He said, "Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You."
With a focus on the Word, we can build strong spiritual lives that will help us avoid the dangers that inevitably grow in untended places. - Bill Crowder
Give me, O Lord, a strong desire
To look within Your Word each day;
Help me to hide it in my heart,
Lest from its truth my feet would stray. -Branon
To grow spiritually strong, read the Word.
The Cross is Enough
Key number five to regaining your spiritual edge is also found in 2 Kings 6:6,
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Why a stick? What does a piece of wood have to do with it?
Please remember that this story is in here for our benefit, and every part of it is significant. I believe this piece of wood is a type of, or points to, another piece of wood where something happened that is very significant to us.
I believe it points to the cross, that piece of wood where Christ was crucified for you and for me, and that God wants us to realize that Jesus' sacrifice at Calvary was enough to take care of all our problems, and restore us no matter our spiritual state.
It is enough to cleanse us and restore our spiritual edge. In fact, it is the only thing that has the power to do it.
If you have lost your zeal for God and you have become spiritually dull, repent and say, "Jesus, I believe that Your work on the cross was enough to restore me."
If you apply what He did on that piece of wood, it is enough to restore you, no matter how far you have fallen away from where you should be. He took your failure, and He nailed it to that cross. He rose from the dead victorious on the third day, and He offers that victory to you!
If you have lost your cutting edge, the cross of Christ and the blood shed upon that cross are enough to take care of everything.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 8:1-21
Praise be to the Lord . . . who with his own hand has fulfilled what he has promised with his own mouth. - 1 Kings 8:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Whenever a public building project is begun, there is usually a ground-breaking ceremony to inaugurate the forthcoming labor. Likewise, once that building is completed-whether a library, a playground, or even a church building-another assembly is typically held: the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Speeches are made recognizing the financial donors and anticipating the benefits to the community. The ribbon is cut, and a celebratory party ensues.
The dedication of God's temple in 1 Kings 8 is something like a ribbon-cutting event, with one notable distinction: the occupant of the building shows up and steals the show! Scripture tells us that Solomon gathered the leaders of Israel at Jerusalem to bring the ark of the covenant into the temple (vv. 1-2). In fact, the ark's centrality is underscored by its eight references in just nine verses. This dedication party was ostensibly about the temple, but Scripture makes it clear that it was really about God's presence. Lest the reader wonder about this emphasis, the centerpiece of the passage describes the climax: the priests withdrew, the cloud descended, and "the glory of the Lord filled his temple" (vv. 10-11). So overwhelming was God's presence that "the priests could not perform their service" (v. 11). As promised, God had come in glory to dwell with His people.
If the first half of today's reading is about God's glorious presence with His people, the second half focuses on God's character. Solomon's speech to the assembly emphasized God's fulfillment of His promises to David. Just as God had said that it would not be David, but David's son, who would "build the temple for my Name" (v. 19), so it had happened. Solomon summarized it simply, but accurately: "The Lord has kept the promise he made" (v. 20). God does what He says He will do; that is the thrust of Solomon's speech to Israel.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What promises of God do you struggle to believe? That He cares for you more than the sparrows (Matt. 6:26) and will turn all things to your good (Rom. 8:28)? That He will not abandon you (Heb. 13:5)? That He will one day come again in glory to claim His own (1 Thess. 4:13-18)? Take a hard, honest look at your own heart today to see where you might not be trusting in God's word of promise. Ask Him for forgiveness and for the grace to start living with trust in His faithfulness.
GOD BLESS!`
Daily Devotionals September 12, 2009
How Honest Are You?
READ: Acts 5:1-11
Those who deal truthfully are [God's] delight. -Proverbs 12:22
Woman's Day magazine surveyed more than 2,000 people to check out their honesty level. When asked, "How honest are you?" 48 percent said very honest, 50 percent said somewhat honest, and the other 2 percent said not very honest.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents confessed that they had taken office supplies from their job for personal use. And 40 percent admitted that they would cheat on their taxes if they knew they wouldn't get caught.
Ananias and Sapphira must have thought they could get away with lying (Acts 5:1-11). But they quickly found out differently when Peter confronted them and told them that they had lied to the Holy Spirit. Immediately they were struck dead (vv.5,10).
The Lord's desire was to keep His new church pure so He could use the believers in the lives of others. As Bible teacher G. Campbell Morgan says, "The church pure is the church powerful. . . . The only power [able to make] a church pure is that of the indwelling Spirit of God." The purity of the church led to their testimony spreading, and "believers were increasingly added to the Lord" (v.14).
Let's be the kind of people who "deal truthfully" (Prov. 12:22) so we can be used by the Lord. - Anne Cetas
Lord, by Your Spirit grant that we
In word and deed may honest be;
All falsehood we would cast aside,
From You, O Lord, we cannot hide. -D. De Haan
There are no degrees of honesty.
A Miracle-Working God
Once again I want to take us back to 2 Kings 6:6, which provides for us the sixth key to regaining your cutting edge.
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Perhaps you are wondering just what other principle for regaining your spiritual edge can come from this verse. Well, there is one more, and it is critical to understand because it points to God's part in the process of restoration.
I want you to look at the words,"And he made the iron float."
I don't know about you, but I have never seen an iron ax head float. Clearly this was a miracle. God worked a miracle when the man did his part, looking to the master, taking responsibility, and going to the place where the ax head was lost.
You do your part; God does His part. I like the King James Version as it says, ...the iron did swim. It was against that ax head's nature to swim, but God made it swim.
God brings the restoration. He brings the healing. He brings back that sensitivity and usefulness to Him. I pray that right now God is at work in your heart, and you are responding, making adjustments...regaining your cutting edge.
As you admit to those areas where you have lost your spiritual edge, God is going to restore it. God's part is to make that ax head float once you have admitted where you have failed!
He can restore what has been lost, even if it takes His miracle power to do it.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Kings 8:22-66
May your eyes be open to your servant's plea and to the plea of your people Israel. - 1 Kings 8:52
TODAY IN THE WORD
Eight years ago, on September 11, 2001, the nation was sent into shock and mourning with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was a day of fear and confusion for all Americans, and a time of profound sadness for families who lost loved ones. Around the country and the world, news videos captured countless assemblies of people joined in prayer for the nation and its families. On that day, and the days to follow, this nation lifted up its pleading cry to God.
Today's reading brings us to another assembly of people pleading to God for their country, but it was a celebratory rather than mournful occasion. And although no one should equate America with "God's nation," we can learn lessons about praying for a nation. Notice the kinds of things Solomon raised in his prayer for the people.
First, as already seen earlier, Solomon highlighted the recurring theme of God's faithfulness to His promises (vv. 22-26). Next, Solomon confessed the unworthiness of any people or nation to contain the creator God (vv. 27-30), and then he pleaded for true justice in the land (vv. 31-32). His prayer also asked that God's glory might be known throughout the world (vv. 41-43, 60), even as he requested God's assistance in conflict (vv. 44-45). All of these petitions should inform everyone's prayers for the people of their nation.
Yet, the clear emphasis in Solomon's prayer was the need for God's forgiveness. Such petitions occupied sixteen verses, and two separate spaces in his dedication prayer (vv. 33-40, 46-53). Scripture has taken pains to highlight this important aspect of our need for forgiveness. Note especially Solomon's three-fold assumption. God's people will sin: "For there is no one who does not sin" (v. 46); God's forgiveness, truly sought, will never fail (vv. 34, 36, 46-53); and renewed obedience is essential to being a forgiven child of God (vv. 56-61). This is truly a model of how to pray on behalf of others and ourselves.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's dedication prayer has much theology, but the chapter ends with an important reminder about practice as well. The whole scene was set in the context of a joyful worship celebration! Confronted with the glory of God's presence and the promise of forgiveness, Solomon offered an immense display of sacrificial gratitude. Offer God your own sacrifice of thanksgiving for His promise of forgiveness this week, in giving your time serving your church, providing financially to a gospel-centered ministry, or in some other way.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 13, 2009
Lateral Violence
READ: Matthew 20:20-28
Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. -Matthew 20:26
An intriguing article in Michigan Nurse magazine called attention to "nursing's dirty little secret"-the incivility and verbal abuse that occurs among some nurses. This peer-level bullying (also known as lateral violence) takes the form of back-stabbing, innuendo, infighting, sabotage, verbal affronts, failure to respect privacy, and others.
Not only is lateral violence occurring among nurses, it's a growing problem in a host of other work environments. This bullying always includes an imbalance of power, an intent to harm, and the threat of further aggression.
Of course, this would never occur in the church-or would it? Think about the personal interaction in deacon and elder boards, church office staffs, Bible-study groups, and youth ministries. Are they ever marked by the kinds of behavior that harm, denigrate, or intimidate others? And what about in our families?
When the disciples were jockeying for position in the coming kingdom, Jesus rebuked them and said, "Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant" (Matt. 20:26). With that attitude in all our relationships, bullying will never be found among us. - David C. Egner
Lord, may we have a servant's heart
In all we say and do
By placing others' needs above
What we want to pursue. -Sper
Only the one who serves is qualified to lead.
Take It!
The seventh and final key to regaining your cutting edge is found in verse 7 of 2 Kings 6, the passage we have been looking at over the last several days. Here is what that verse says,
Therefore he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.
The sixth key was something that only God could do, and that is to make the ax head float; that is, to restore your cutting edge.
Now we see what we must do in response. You and I must receive what God is offering. Unless you take hold of what God is offering, your spiritual edge will never be restored.
Perhaps over the last several days, as we have looked at how to restore your spiritual edge, God has been speaking to you. Maybe you have come to realize that you are not where you should be in your relationship with God.
Maybe you have lost that sensitivity. Maybe you have lost your cutting edge. I am telling you, you can reach out and take what God is doing to restore your cutting edge.
I want to challenge you to take some time today to search your heart. If you have lost your cutting edge, stop swinging an empty handle and just going through the motions.
Be honest and admit you have lost that edge, determine where it fell, look to the Master, listen to His voice, take responsibility, know that the cross of Christ is completely sufficient to restore you, and then take hold of what God is doing to restore your edge.
God can work that miracle in your life if you will only do your part!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 9:1-28
If you or your sons turn away from me . . . and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land. - 1 Kings 9:6-7
TODAY IN THE WORD
Author Steve Farrar tells of a boyhood memory when he and his father visited the Grand Canyon. As they stood looking over the impressive ravine, young Steve suddenly grabbed the railing and swung his feet over the precipice. His alarmed father quickly grabbed his son, drew him back, and scolded him for his impulsive action.
While Steve's boyhood folly might be innocent, King Solomon had no excuse, for God gave clear instructions about living a godly life and avoiding apostasy. Having consecrated the temple and promised His presence, God then offered blessing and security for Solomon if he lived a life like David. Notice that the exhortation here is not for a sinless life, but a life with "integrity of heart and uprightness" (v. 4). A life pleasing to God is a life oriented toward Him, humble before His commands, and repentant over sin (see 2 Samuel 12; Psalm 51).
But the crux of God's exhortation came when He warned against "turning" from worship of God toward idolatry. The command is clear: stay true to your God. The consequences of disobedience are dire: Israel will be "cut off" from the land, the temple will be ruined, and Israel will become a "byword and an object of ridicule" (v. 7). Notice that as the king goes, so go the people. Here is a clarion call for a faithful leader of God's people. The future well-being of the people will be determined by the wisdom or folly of their king.
These warnings must be kept in mind as we come to the rest of the chapter. We learn of Solomon's continued kingly duties: his diplomatic activity (vv. 10-14), defensive building preparations (vv. 15-24), religious observance (v. 25), and commercial trade activity (vv. 26-28). Some scholars see hints of Solomon's demise in these verses; others argue that these are normal kingly activities. Either way, the earlier warnings loom over the entire chapter. Will Solomon pursue his kingly activities with a God-ward orientation? We will see as we continue our study.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We are reminded today of the interconnectedness of godly leadership and blessing for the people. Although God's exhortations are directed toward Solomon, the consequences of blessing or curse affect the people as a whole. Who are the leaders of your church and your government? (You can find your federal and state elected officials by entering your zip code here: www.congress.org.) Spend time praying for all of these leaders today, asking God to fill them with a love of truth, righteousness, and the strength to do His will.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 14, 2009
Mell's Smiley Face
READ: Romans 5:1-5
We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance. -Romans 5:3
Some people think you shouldn't draw in your Bible, but I'm glad my daughter Melissa drew in hers. In the margin next to Romans 5, she used a green ink pen to draw a small, simple smiley face, and circled verse 3.
How could she have known that her family and friends would need this passage when she left us so suddenly in a car accident at age 17? How could she know that these verses would tell her story, while guiding our lives and the lives of others over the past 7 years?
Romans 5 begins by explaining our justification through faith, which gives us peace with God through Jesus (v.1). Melissa had that peace. And right now she is enjoying the fruits of her faith, as verse 2 describes: We "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Imagine the smiley face she could draw now!
And then there's the rest of us-all of us left behind when loved ones precede us in death. Somehow, we "rejoice in our sufferings." Why? Our suffering brings perseverance, which brings character, which brings us hope (vv.3-4).
We feel helpless in times of tragedy, but we are never hopeless. God pours His love into our hearts-and with it the great hope of His glory. It's all part of God's mysterious yet marvelous plan. - Dave Branon
For Further Study
If you have lost a loved one and want to learn more
about heaven, read the online publication Our Eternal Home at www.discoveryseries.org/rd911
God often digs wells of joy with the spade of sorrow.
Created for a Purpose
Many Christians today are not living the successful life God intends because they have missed the purpose for which they were born.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
If you are going to live successfully, you have to know what you are all about. Any tool that is used for something other than what it was created for will not be effective. And it is liable to get damaged.
At times I have needed a hammer to pound in a nail, but I have been too lazy to go out in the garage to get one (don't get too self-righteous, you've done it too!). So I have ended up using whatever I had handy, like a wrench.
Well, you can get the nail in, but you are not going to be very effective. You are liable to dent the wall, and you are liable to damage the wrench.
Too many Christians today are not functioning or flowing in the thing they were created for, and consequently, they are not effective. And sometimes they get hurt and damaged.
You do have a purpose. In fact, the word in Ephesians 2:10 translated workmanship literally means you are handcrafted by God. The Greek word is the same word we derive our English word poem from.
In other words, your life is not to be without order or symmetry or rhyme or reason. God has some specific things mapped out for your life. You are not an accident. You are not excess baggage. You have a purpose.
Ask God today to show you that purpose, and then develop the gifts God has given you to fulfill that purpose.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 10:1-29
King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings. - 1 Kings 10:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, is one of the most impressive examples of Gothic architecture. Taking over 180 years to complete, it boasts two large towers, three organs (one of which holds 8,000 pipes), and a number of paintings, statues, and bells. Its most famous feature is its circular stained-glass window displaying 84 panes of brilliantly colored glass; the Rose Window has a dia-meter of 42 feet. None who see it leaves unimpressed.
First Kings 10 presents a biblical version of impressive splendor. From the Queen of Sheba's visit to the description of Solomon's kingdom, Scripture highlights the glory of Solomon's kingdom. What can we take away from today's display of grandeur?
First, consider the source of blessing. Solomon's kingdom was filled with spices, precious stones, an impressive throne, happy servants, and lots of gold (mentioned ten separate times)! All of this is given a positive spin. The Queen of Sheba remarked that all she had seen was a demonstration of God's "delight" and "love" for Solomon and Israel (v. 9). Scripture then follows with its own summary: "King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart" (vv. 23-24). Don't miss the emphasis here. Solomon's blessings come from God and the wisdom He gave. Even verse 1 implies that Solomon's fame was only in connection with "the name of the Lord." Any blessing we experience in life comes from our giving God.
Second, we are given a picture of God's eschatological kingdom. The present picture of Solomon's kingdom and the promised vision of God's eternal kingdom in Isaiah 60:1-7 overlap. Both portray a secure, joyful, and prosperous kingdom which will draw to it a multitude of nations praising the Lord. That kingdom has yet to be fully realized, but as Jesus Himself declared: "Now one greater than Solomon is here" (Matt. 12:42). Solomon is only a shadow of the splendor of God's kingdom.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus referenced Solomon's splendor on another occasion as well. When exhorting His disciples to seek the kingdom of God rather than worry about life, He pointed to the beauty of the lilies and remarked: "Not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these" (Matt. 6:29). In a way, Solomon's impressive splendor reminds us that God cares for all our needs. Perhaps you struggle to trust God with your everyday needs. Make a commitment today to seek His kingdom, and let God take care of the rest.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 15, 2009
Leaving A Legacy
READ: Deuteronomy 6:4-9
You shall teach them diligently to your children . . . when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way. -Deuteronomy 6:7
Recently my grandson Alex accompanied me as I ran errands. Unexpectedly he asked, "So, Grandpa, how did you receive Christ as your Savior?" Touched, I told him about my childhood conversion. Alex was still interested, so I described how his great-grandfather had come to faith. This included a brief overview of how he survived World War II, his initial resistance to the gospel, and how his life changed after becoming a Christian.
Later I was reminded of our conversation when I read a Bible passage that spoke of faith being passed down through the generations. In Deuteronomy, Moses instructed the Israelites to take to heart God's truths and share them with the next generation as a way of life: "These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up" (6:6-7).
Biblical parenting is not a guarantee of having godly offspring. But when we see spiritual interest in the next generation, we can cultivate vital conversations about God's Word. This can be one of a parent's, or grandparent's, greatest legacies. - Dennis Fisher
God gives us children for a time,
To train them in His way,
To love them and to teach them how
To follow and obey. -Sper
The richest legacy a parent can leave a child is a godly example.
Keeping Your Focus
Yesterday we discovered that God does have a purpose for each of our lives. Yet even once we discover our purpose, we must remain focused. Luke 4:42-44 says,
Now when it was day, He departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; but He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent." And He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.
I want you to notice that statement of Jesus, "For this purpose I have been sent." Jesus knew His purpose. He said, "I must preach the kingdom." But notice the people tried to distract Him from that purpose.
I am sure the people meant well, but they were trying to divert Jesus from His purpose. But Jesus knew His purpose; therefore, He did not stay.
People will innocently divert you from doing what God has called you to do. It is only when you know your purpose that you will not be sidetracked, and you will not be distracted from what you are supposed to do.
The apostle Paul knew his purpose. In fact, he said this in 1 Corinthians 9:26, "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step" (The Living Bible). He was not about to get distracted from God's purpose for his life.
Our lives are not to be aimless, but they are to have purpose and direction, and we are to stay focused on that purpose, running straight at that goal. Keep focused on the purpose for which God has created you.
Be able to say like Paul, "I am running straight to the goal with purpose in every step."
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 11:1-13
Solomon held fast to [his foreign wives] in love. - 1 Kings 11:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
The great nineteenth-century British preacher C. H. Spurgeon once said: "A stony heart may be turned to flesh, but turn a divided heart into whatsoever you please, so long as it is divided, all is ill. . . . A united heart is life to a man, but if the heart be cut in twain, in the highest, deepest, and most spiritual sense, he dies."
No better words summarize Solomon's downward turn recorded in 1 Kings 11. After all the praise, admiration, and grandeur of the first ten chapters, today's reading begins with an ominous "however" (v. 1). By explicitly disobeying God's commands about taking wives from the surrounding pagan regions (see Deut. 7:3-4), a slow change occurs. Solomon was turned "after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God" (v. 4).
In fact, the language of Scripture is carefully chosen. Verse 1 tells us that Solomon "loved many foreign women," and goes on to record that "Solomon held fast [literally "clung"] to them in love" (v. 2). These are the same Hebrew words used in Deuteronomy to prescribe the loyalty a human should have toward God. Deuteronomy 11:22, for example, calls for us "to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to hold fast to him" (see Deut. 6:5; 10:20).
Solomon did not simply wake up and decide out of the blue to do "evil in the eyes of the Lord" and build high places for foreign gods (vv. 6-8). Rather, his singular love for God was slowly replaced with other loves. A heart once devoted to the Lord had become a divided heart.
God's response underscores this change in Solomon. His anger was precisely because Solomon's heart "had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel" (v. 9). Although there was an element of mercy in the judgment against Solomon (vv. 12-13), Solomon's failure to heed God's explicit commands resulted in a divided heart and, eventually, a divided kingdom (vv. 10-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Of course, God gives us many loves and delights in life, but today's passage reminds us that when an earthly love replaces our love for God, and we find ourselves "clinging" to other things for our full satisfaction, we have erected an idol in our life. Make a list of the things you may be "clinging" to above God in your life, such as a job, human praise, or a hobby. Now take this list before God and ask Him to re-prioritize your life in a way that gives Him your entire heart.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 16, 2009
Letting Go
READ: Philippians 3:3-11
What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. -Philippians 3:7
It has been said that "one person's junk is another's treasure." When David Dudley tried to help his parents clear their house of "unnecessary items" before moving to a smaller home, he found it very difficult. He was often angered by his parents' refusal to part with things they had not used for decades. Finally, David's father helped him understand that even the worn-out, useless items were tied to close friends and important events. Clearing the clutter felt like throwing away their very lives.
A spiritual parallel to our reluctance to let go of the clutter in our homes may be our inability to clear our hearts of the attitudes that weigh us down.
For many years, Saul of Tarsus clung to the "righteousness" he had earned by obeying God's law. His pedigree and performance were prized possessions until he encountered Jesus in a blinding moment on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:1-8). Face to face with the risen Savior, he let go of his cherished self-effort and later wrote, "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ" (Phil. 3:7).
When the Holy Spirit urges us to release our grip on any attitude that keeps us from following Christ, we find true freedom in letting go. - David C. McCasland
Speak to us, Lord, till shamed by Thy great giving
Our hands unclasp to set our treasures free;
Our wills, our love, our dear ones, our possessions,
All gladly yielded, gracious Lord, to Thee. -Anon.
Through Christ we have the freedom to let go.
Living with Passion
I want to focus your attention today on two passages. The first is Ecclesiastes 9:10,
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
The second passage is Colossians 3:23,
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.
Do you see the common theme? God desires us to live our lives full out, with passion. Whether you are a preacher, a writer, a teacher, or a singer, whatever you do, you are to do it with passion. You are to throw yourself into it.
People are attracted to passion. They want to see someone who is burning with a fiery zeal for whatever they do!
In my opinion, the greatest example of a passionate person is Jesus. Remember the story when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple? That was a passionate act. In fact, the end of that passage says, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up."
Zeal is just another word for passion. "Passion for Your house has eaten Me up!" Have you ever tried to imagine Jesus doing that? I have a very clear image of what that must have been like.
He is whipping these guys and they are running, covering their heads. He is throwing over these big tables and the disciples are watching with their mouths wide open, when they remember the verse, "Zeal (passion) for Your house has eaten Me up."
Let me ask you a question: When is the last time you were eaten up with zeal for anything? When is the last time you were utterly passionate about anything?
Don't just sleepwalk through life. You need to decide you are going to live!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 11:14-43
I will humble David's descendants for this, but not forever. - 1 Kings 11:39
TODAY IN THE WORD
The opening chapters of the book of Job give a unique glimpse into the heavenly court where Satan (literally "the adversary") received God's permission to test Job. The rest of the book details all the suffering, loss, and misery Job experienced at the direction of Satan. And although Job never learned why he had to suffer, Scripture makes it clear that not even Satan can act without God's permission.
This theme of God's sovereignty (even in adversity) lies at the heart of today's reading as well. This time another set of "adversaries" came on the scene. First, Scripture tells us expressly that God Himself raised up "Hadad the Edomite" (vv. 14-22) and "Rezon son of Eliada" (vv. 23-25) as "adversaries" who troubled the king "as long as Solomon lived" (v. 24). In addition to this outside turmoil, next came the Israelite "Jeroboam son of Nebat" who posed a serious threat to Solomon's throne. Although never designated an "adversary," Jeroboam's conversation with the prophet Ahijah makes it clear that God's hand was behind this troublemaker as well (vv. 29-39).
From Solomon's perspective, Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam were each the proverbial thorn in the flesh. These men all posed a significant threat to Solomon's kingdom, and Solomon even tried to kill Jeroboam (v. 40). Yet from the perspective of Scripture, God was still in control, using these ostensibly human activities to further His own purposes. Even in adversity, God remains sovereign.
This leads to a second important lesson in today's reading: God's loving discipline. Second Samuel 7:14 stands as an important text behind our passage. There, God had promised to punish the king who turned from Him; 1 Kings 11 records this particular instance of God's faithfulness to His word. Yet in today's passage we also find God's offer of love and commitment that was promised in 2 Samuel 7:15-16. God will take away the kingdom, but not all of it (vv. 32-36), and not forever (v. 39). Don't miss the hidden promise: God's discipline of Solomon left room for the Davidic line to be restored one day. According to the royal genealogy of Matthew 1, that day has come.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sometimes adversity stems from our own sin (as in today's passage), and sometimes not (as with Job). Either way, Scripture declares that God has not lost control. Perhaps you know someone who faces a life of difficulty and suffering. Without being glib or insensitive, comfort that person with today's lesson. Remind your loved one that even in difficult times, when God seems distant or removed, He has not forgotten us. His plan of love for us will still be completed, even through adversity. We can trust His faithfulness.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 17, 2009
Things Said In Secret
READ: Ephesians 4:25-32
The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious. -Ecclesiastes 10:12
Some say that anonymity is the last refuge for cowards. Judging from mail and comments I've read that have been submitted anonymously, I would agree. People hiding behind the screen of anonymity or a false identity feel the freedom to launch angry, hurtful tirades. Anonymity allows them to be unkind without having to take responsibility for their words.
Whenever I am tempted to write something anonymously because I don't want to be identified with my own words, I stop and reconsider. If I don't want my name attached to it, I probably shouldn't be saying it. Then I do one of two things: I either toss it out or I rewrite it in a way that makes it helpful rather than hurtful.
According to Ephesians, our words should edify and impart grace (4:29). If I'm unwilling to use my name, there's reason to believe that my motive is to hurt, not to help.
Whenever you're tempted to say something in secret-perhaps to a family member, co-worker, or your pastor-consider why you don't want your name to be identified with your words. After all, if you don't want to be identified with your words, God probably doesn't either. He is gracious and slow to anger (Ex. 34:6), and we should be the same. - Julie Ackerman Link
O Lord, help us to turn aside
From words that spring from selfish pride,
For You would have Your children one
In praise and love for Your dear Son. -D. De Haan
Anonymity can be a coward's way of hiding behind hurtful words.
Contagious!
In yesterday's devotional, I challenged you to live life with passion. Today I want to give you one other perspective on that.
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 9:2 where Paul writes these words,
For I know your willingness, about which I boast of you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal has stirred up the majority.
Did you notice those last eight words, and your zeal has stirred up the majority? Passion is contagious.
What do you think might happen if a community saw a church that was utterly on fire? Where all the members in that church were passionate about their worship, passionate about their relationship with God, passionate about serving one another, passionate about real deal Christianity where the rubber meets the road?
I believe there is a divine attraction to that! And I believe that it would transform a community.
Sadly, most communities witness just the opposite-compromise, apathy, and boredom-not passion.
Now, rather than complain, I want to challenge you to live life with real passion. Go all out for God. It only takes one person to ignite the fire of passion in others.
I heard the story of a man who came to hear D. L. Moody preach. While sitting there the man next to him asked, "Do you come out here because you believe the things he's preaching?"
His response was, "No. I come out because he believes it."
Passion is contagious! Are people catching it from you? Is your zeal for Christ stirring up those who come in contact with you? If not, ask God to put that passion into your heart today and watch what happens!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Kings 12:1-24
So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord. - 1 Kings 12:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Every student of U.S. history examines the catastrophic Civil War. Historians analyze the causes, battle strategies, and legacies-but no one denies the impact of the Civil War on our history. Today, we are the United States, but that unity came at the terrible price of more than half a million dead soldiers and countless more displaced and injured people.
In today's passage, we read about another civil war as a national consequence of folly. Rehoboam took the throne after his father's death, but was quickly threatened by the return of Jeroboam son of Nebat. Jeroboam gathered a group of malcontents and demanded that the new king lighten the yoke of their civic burdens. What followed was a series of foolish choices by Rehoboam. First, he rejected the wiser counsel of his father's elders and followed the guidance of his peers. This led to the northern tribes breaking away from his leadership. Next, he sent his official Adoniram on a mission to secure the people's will by force, which only resulted in the death of Adoniram and the near escape of Rehoboam himself. Finally, Rehoboam mustered his armies "to make war against the house of Israel" (v. 21). He quickly found himself opposed by God Himself.
The theme of folly is strong in today's text, but it is not the only theme. Notice carefully both the underlying commentary of Scripture and then the way the passage ends. Although Rehoboam's foolishness was apparent, twice Scripture echoes this refrain: "This turn of events was from the Lord" (vv. 15, 24). Poor leadership? Certainly. But a God no longer in control? Absolutely not! God was still at work with His people.
Finally, note the hopeful ending. After all the poor choices by Rehoboam, he was faced with God's command not to fight his own people. The response: "So they obeyed the word of the Lord and went home again, as the Lord had ordered" (v. 24). Our chapter is filled with folly, but underneath still lie flickers of encouragement. God is still in control, and glimmers of wisdom still remain in Judah.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Like Solomon's kingdom, Christ's church today is extremely divided. One set of data estimates over 33,000 different denominations! Much is at stake, theologically and practically, but we know Christ's will was for the unity of His body (see John 17). Spend time praying today first thanking God that He is still in control, and then asking Him to work in your life and the lives of church members around the world to submit to His Word, that Jesus' prayer for unity might be fulfilled.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 18, 2009
The Thinking Christian
READ: 2 Cor. 10:1-11
Casting down arguments and . . . bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. -2 Corinthians 10:5
David McCullough's biography of John Adams, one of America's founding fathers and early presidents, describes him as "both a devout Christian and an independent thinker, and he saw no conflict in that." I am struck by that statement, for it carries a note of surprise, suggesting that Christians are somehow naïve or unenlightened, and that the idea of a "thinking Christian" is a contradiction.
Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the great benefits of salvation is that it causes the believer's mind to be guarded by the peace of God (Phil. 4:7), which can foster clear thinking, discernment, and wisdom. Paul described this in his second letter to Corinth when he wrote that in Christ we are equipped for "casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).
To sift through an argument wisely, to embrace the clarity of the knowledge of God, and to align our thinking with the mind of Christ are valuable skills when living in a world lacking in discernment. These skills enable us to use our minds to represent Christ. Every Christian should be a thinking Christian. Are you? - Bill Crowder
If you grasp the message of God's Word,
If you've learned to think things through,
Then you can defend the Christian faith
With wise words both clear and true. -Branon
Faith was never intended as a substitute for intelligence.
Peace
One of the great truths of the Christian life is that you and I can know the peace of God in our lives because we have peace with God. As believers, we need not live our lives without God's peace.
Are you worried right now about anything? Finances? Kids? Marriage? Job security? Your health? What somebody said about you? How a situation is going to turn out?
If you are worried about anything, here are some instructions for you found in Philippians 4:6-7,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything [that means in every circumstance] by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Talk to the Lord about your problems, offering thanks along with your requests. He promises to give you peace if you will.
Let me leave you with these words from Dr. Stanley Jones:
"I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil.... A Johns Hopkins University doctor says, 'We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than non-worriers, but that is a fact.' But I who am simple of mind think I know; We are inwardly constructed...for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality."
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 12:25-33
You shall have no other gods before me. - Exodus 20:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
The popular slogan declares, "The family that prays together stays together." In today's passage, Jeroboam seemed to think that the northern kingdom would stay together if they prayed together. He recognized one major threat: if the people continued to worship in Jerusalem, they would reunite with Rehoboam (v. 27). He needed the bonding glue of corporate worship. There was a big problem-his prescribed form of worship was fundamentally flawed.
First, Jeroboam violated the divinely commanded form of worship. Whereas God had specifically forbidden the worship of other gods in the form of idols (Ex. 20:3-5), Jeroboam created two golden calves for his people to worship. Notice how his call to worship echoes Israel's earlier sin of idolatry: "Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt" (v. 28; cf. Ex. 32:4).
Next, Jeroboam violated the divinely prescribed place of worship. God had ordered the building of His tabernacle (Exodus 35-40) and later consecrated Solomon's temple in Jerusalem as the true place of worship. Dan and Bethel, Jeroboam's newly sanctioned places of worship, were far more accessible for the northern tribes, and even had a veneer of piety in their connection with the patriarchs Abraham, Jacob, and Moses (Gen. 12:8; 28:10-23; Judges 18:29-31), but they were not divinely sanctioned places of worship.
Finally, Jeroboam violated the divinely appointed leaders and times of worship. Rather than the explicitly chosen Levites (Ex. 32:27-29), Jeroboam chose his priests from "all sorts of people" (v. 31). And rather than following the prescribed worship calendar, Jeroboam created a new festival on "a month of his own choosing" (vv. 32-33).
Scripture's commentary is clear: "And this thing became a sin" (v. 30). God will only accept worship in the way He prescribes. A self-made religion such as Jeroboam's, however convenient or sensible in our own eyes, is only idolatry and false worship.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Examine your own life of worship today, both private and corporate, to see whether any idols lurk. Do you have any self-made ideas of what God should be like, perhaps preferring your own constructs of His character to Scripture's portrayal? Have you or your church slipped into worship practices that privilege convenience over principle? Take time to genuinely explore this question today, asking God for a restored desire to worship Him the way He commands to be worshiped.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals September 19, 2009
Later On
READ: Genesis 13:10-18
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. -
Romans 8:18
It seems there are two kinds of people in this world: those who have an eternal perspective and those who are preoccupied with the present.
One is absorbed with the permanent; the other with the passing. One stores up treasure in heaven; the other accumulates it here on earth. One stays with a challenging marriage because this isn't all there is; another looks for happiness in another mate, believing this life is all there is. One is willing to suffer poverty, hunger, indignity, and shame because of "the glory which shall be revealed" (Rom. 8:18); another believes that happiness is being rich and famous. It's all a matter of perspective.
Abraham had an "other world" perspective. That's what enabled him to give up a piece of well-watered land by the Jordan (Gen. 13). He knew that God had something better for him later on. The Lord told him to look in every direction as far as he could see and then said that his family would someday have it all. What a land grant! And God promised that his descendants would be as numerous "as the dust" (v.16).
That's an outlook many people can't understand. They go for all the gusto right now. But God's people have another point of view. They know that God has something better later on! - David H. Roper
I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I'd rather be His than have riches untold;
I'd rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today. -Miller
Live for Jesus, and you'll live for eternity.
The Value of Play
I think we would all agree that the Christian life is one to be taken seriously. But in our desire to go all out for Christ, we can get to a place where we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained.
God does not intend for us to live our lives that way. In fact, in 1 Timothy 6:17, Paul tells us,
God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
You and I need to take time to enjoy the things God gives us. In fact, Jesus said this to His disciples in Mark 6:31, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."
It is so easy to live our lives believing that somehow it is more spiritual to be on the edge of exhaustion all the time. But God clearly tells us that we are to take time to rejuvenate and to enjoy the things He has put into our lives.
When I was a young minister, I had the chance to meet with a seasoned minister who had literally changed the world for Christ. I thought, "Man, this is my golden opportunity. I'm going to ask him some questions."
So I said to him, "Look, I'm a young man in ministry. You have had decades more experience than me. You have impacted the world. What is the best advice you could give me as a young minister?"
And he said, "Well, Bayless, you have a nice golf swing. My advice is that you get some lessons. And whatever it costs you, join a country club and play golf regularly." Then he looked at me and said, "Golf is the only thing that's kept me alive."
It was some of the best advice I had ever received.
You need to make sure you live a balanced life. Take time for rest and for play. Recharge your batteries. You are in this thing for the long haul.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Kings 13:1-34
The man of God interceded with the Lord, and the king's hand was restored. - 1 Kings 13:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Anyone who has spent time around toddlers knows about that unending question: "Why?" No matter what explanation of the world one might give, the young child can always ask "Why?" again, driving some parents finally to respond in exasperation: "Just because!"
Today's text is a goldmine for raising the question "Why?". Why does the man of God prophesy against the altar and not Jeroboam? Why are Jeroboam and the old prophet of Bethel so intent on inviting the man of God to dinner? Why is this chapter full of splitting altars, withered hands, tame lions, and unnamed characters? One commentator called this the strangest narrative passage in the Old Testament.
Unfortunately, the text gives no answers to many of our questions. But the central emphasis is clear: this chapter is about the "word of the Lord" (a phrase used nine different times). The "word of the Lord" came to Jeroboam about his false religion (vv. 1-3), to the man of God about his conduct in Bethel (vv. 8-10, 17), and to the old prophet about the fate of the man of God (vv. 20-22).
And this message is equally clear: disobedience to God's word is disastrous. Although given ample proof of both the destructive and restorative power of God's word (vv. 5-6), Jeroboam refused to heed God's warning, sinking even deeper into his idolatrous ways, and bringing ultimate destruction to his kingdom (vv. 33-34). Likewise, the man of God failed to obey God's word. Commanded not to stay in Bethel, he first resisted Jeroboam's temptation (vv. 7-10), but in the end, yielded to the old prophet's entreaties (vv. 15-19). His end was death by mauling and a burial away from home (vv. 24-30).
Disobedience to God's word is costly, but there are bright spots as well. God's sending of a prophet to Jeroboam, His healing of the king's withered hand, and the surety of God's word provide hope. God does not leave us to wallow in our sin, but in His mercy calls us with His certain word, offering restoration if we return to Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jeroboam and the man of God remind us of the cost of disobedience, but we also have a message of the promise of restoration for those who repent. Perhaps you know a loved one, neighbor, or coworker who has strayed from the Lord and needs to hear the call to return. Consider speaking kindly to this person, or writing a gracious letter, reminding of God's willingness to forgive and His power to restore, if only we come to Him in repentance.
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals September 20, 2009
A Much Greater Plan
READ: Luke 5:1-11
Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." -Luke 5:10
Recently our family was in Erie, Pennsylvania, visiting a relative. While there, we had a chance to swim in the community swimming pool. It was fun, but our host wanted to take us to Lake Erie to enjoy the sandy beaches, the cresting waves, and the beauty of the setting sun. My children protested because they wanted to swim in the pool. But I tried to get them to see that going to the beaches of Presque Isle would be a much greater plan.
I believe Jesus wanted Simon Peter to see He had something much greater in mind for him-he would "catch men" (Luke 5:10) instead of fish. Jesus told Peter to go to the deeper water and let down his nets for a catch (v.4). Peter had just returned from an unsuccessful night of fishing, but at Jesus' command he obeyed and said, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net" (v.5). Humbled by the miraculous catch of fish, Peter bowed in awe before the Lord, who then told him that from that point on He wanted him to fish for men. Peter left everything and followed Him.
God's greater plan for us may not be to leave our occupation. But it's His plan that we use our time, resources, and careers to bring others into the kingdom. - Marvin Williams
For Further Study
To learn how to share Jesus' love with others,
read the online booklet The Compassion of Jesus
at www.discoveryseries.org/q0208
The next person you meet may need to meet Christ.
The Ten Commandments of Marriage
Good marriages don't just happen. It is not just because you married the right person and got lucky. Good marriages are built on more than passion. They are built on principle.
In the Scriptures, we find the best guidelines and principles for a healthy marriage. God's words and God's principles are never ever outdated...never! They are just as applicable today as they were to ancient Jews living in Israel.
What I want to do over the next couple of weeks of devotionals is point us to principles God has given us in a place you might not think was intended for marriage. That place is the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20.
Today, let me give you those Ten Commandments. What I would like you to do is spend time reading these carefully, and then take time to pray over each one. Ask God to begin to open your heart to see how these commands could be looked at as principles for marriage. I had a friend who challenged me to do the same, and I was amazed at what I discovered.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image...
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain...
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 14:1-20
You have made for yourself other gods . . . you have provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back. - 1 Kings 14:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Two hikers walking in the woods came upon a fork in the path, but were unsure where to go. One path led home; the other took them far into the wilderness. Unfamiliar with the terrain, and without a map, the hikers chose the wrong path. Four hours later, darkness descended upon them as they huddled together, cold, tired, hungry, and without water. They eventually perished-their doom was sealed the moment they chose the wrong path.
Like the two hikers, Jeroboam's earlier choices led him to this dark point in the story. His son grew deathly ill, and he sent his wife to the prophet Ahijah to discover the boy's fate. The last two chapters have just detailed Jeroboam's wanton wickedness; yet, here he hoped to trick or bribe Ahijah into offering a good word (vv. 1-4). But Scripture shows us that God cannot be tricked. No disguise can cover the pretentious heart (v. 5). God is not swayed by superstition, nor is He some trinket that we rub when we are in trouble. He calls for a relationship of faithful obedience and repentance from sin, not gimmicks and quick fixes. Jeroboam learned that lesson all too well.
The thrust of our text, however, is on Ahijah's prophecy and God's word of judgment. And at the heart of that prophecy is the declaration against idolatry. Jeroboam's fate is disastrous: his child will die, all male descendants will be cut off, his dynasty will be destroyed, his house utterly burned, and all of Israel will be taken into exile (vv. 6-16). Although God had shown Jeroboam great grace in raising him up and giving him a kingdom, the stinging pronouncement is this: "You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods . . . you have provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back" (v. 9). Jeroboam may have had lots of military and political accomplishments (v. 19), but Scripture's assessment is clear: Jeroboam was an utter failure where it counted most. His early choice of idolatry ruined everything.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Consider Scripture's evaluation of Jeroboam's life: twenty-two years trying to make something of himself and his kingdom (v. 20), but in the end it was all misguided. What truly mattered, his walk with God, was neglected. Where do your priorities lie? Do you spend more time and energy on your work and personal advancement than you do seeking to grow in God's grace and walking in His ways? If so, make today the day you rearrange your priorities, stripping your life of idols, and turning back to the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotionals September 21, 2009
The Others
READ: Hebrews 11:32-40
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. . . . Great is your reward in heaven. -Matthew 5:11-12
When I was growing up, I often spent a week each summer with my grandparents. Many afternoons I would lie in the backyard hammock and read books I found in Grandpa's bookcase. One was Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It was heavy reading for a young girl, but I was absorbed by the detailed accounts of Christian martyrs, believers who were told to deny their faith in Christ but refused-thus suffering horrific deaths.
Hebrews 11 tells similar stories. After listing the familiar names of those who demonstrated immense faith in God, the chapter tells of the torture and death of people referred to simply as "others" (vv.35-36). While their names are not mentioned, verse 38 pays them this tribute: "The world was not worthy" of them. They died boldly for their faith in Jesus.
Today, we hear of persecuted Christians around the world, yet many of us have not been tested to that extent. When I examine my own faith, I wonder how I would respond to the prospect of martyrdom. I hope I would have the attitude of Paul, who said that although "chains and tribulations" awaited him (Acts 20:23), he looked forward to finishing life's race "with joy" (v.24). Are we facing life with that kind of trusting attitude? - Cindy Hess Kasper
When pressures mount because we walk
The path of truth and right,
We can rejoice to know that we
Are pleasing in God's sight. -D. De Haan
The way to have joy in persecution is to find your joy in Jesus.
The First Commandment of Marriage: Exclusivity
The first of the Ten Commandments is simply this, as found in Exodus 20:3,
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
What is God saying in this commandment? That He wants to have an exclusive relationship with you. He wants to be your one and only. He will not settle for flavor of the month.
And how appropriate in marriage as well. We are to have an exclusive relationship with our spouse.
It's been said that Henry Ford, on his golden wedding anniversary...50 years of marriage...was asked, "What's the secret of your success in marriage?" And he said, "The secret of my successful marriage is the same secret that I have in business: I stick to the same model."
In traditional wedding vows, the man and woman pledge their devotion until death parts them. For life. There is no competition.
My wife has no competition. I am not shopping for a new model. I do not want to trade in the old model. I will not be shopping in the future. One is all I need.
When God made man, He said it is good. But then He said, "It is not good that he is alone. I am going to make a helper suitable for him." And the Bible says God took one of Adam's ribs, and He formed a woman, Eve, and brought her to the man.
God did not take four or five ribs and say, "Okay, Adam, here is Eve, and here is Lois, and here is Samantha, and here is Rachel." No, it was just one. And to have a healthy marriage relationship, that is it.
I am committed for life. An exclusive relationship. I am not shopping, not even window-shopping. One God. One wife. That is enough.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Kings 14:21-15:24
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Psalm 51:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Charles Dickens's novel, A Tale of Two Cities, opens with famous lines describing the scene in England and France prior to the French Revolution: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness."
Dickens portrayed a tale of two cities; today's passage is a tale of three kings of Judah, with similar dichotomies: wisdom and foolishness, belief and disbelief, light and darkness. Central to the reigns of Rehoboam, Abijah, and Asa, however, was the issue of the heart. Under Rehoboam, Judah took a turn for the worse. Idolatry ran rampant (14:22-24) and the temple was plundered of its treasures (14:25-28). But note how Rehoboam continued to keep up religious appearances. The end had not yet come, but Rehoboam's heart that feigned worship pointed the trajectory already.
The second king, Abijah, continued in the sins of his fathers, and the kingdom experienced continual war (15:6-8). Scripture highlights the fundamental problem: "his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been" (15:3). This heart focus is so important that David's God-oriented heart is further underscored (15:4-5).
If the first two kings represent folly, disbelief, and darkness, the third king, Asa, represents wisdom, belief, and light. In fact, Scripture calls Asa a "lamp in Jerusalem" (15:4). Asa was not perfect. He did not remove every high place, and his political dealings with foreign aid were not commendable (see 2 Chron. 16:1-10). But overall, he did what was right, like David. He rid the nation of idols, removed the shrine prostitutes, deposed his wicked grandmother from office, and returned silver and gold to the temple (15:11-15). The core issue is repeated: "Asa's heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life" (15:14). Three different kings, each moving toward light or darkness-the heart is what mattered most.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage highlights the importance of a heart committed to the Lord, what Scripture sometimes calls a pure heart. None of us is without sin; even David failed miserably. But is your heart oriented toward God in humility, repentance, and a desire for obedience? Or is it turned to idolatry and personal pleasures? Take a moment today to search your own heart; then make Psalm 51:10 your prayer: "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals September 22, 2009
Whitewashed Tombs
READ: Matthew 23:1-15
You . . . have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. -Matthew 23:23
As I study the life of Jesus, one fact consistently surprises me: the group that made Jesus angriest was one that He outwardly resembled. Jesus obeyed the Mosaic Law and quoted leading Pharisees (Mark 9:11-12; 12:28-34). Yet He singled out the Pharisees for His strongest attacks. He called them serpents, a brood of vipers, fools, and hypocrites (Matt. 23:13-33).
What provoked such outbursts? The Pharisees devoted their lives to following God, gave away an exact tithe (v.23), obeyed every law in the Torah, and sent out missionaries to gain new converts (v.15). Against the relativists and secularists of the first century, they held firm to traditional values.
Yet Jesus' fierce denunciations of the Pharisees show how seriously He viewed the toxic threat of legalism. Its dangers are elusive, slippery, hard to pin down. I believe these dangers remain a great threat today.
Jesus condemned the emphasis on externals: "You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence" (v.25). Expressions of love for God had become ways to impress others.
The proof of spiritual maturity is not how "pure" you are but your awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to God's grace. - Philip Yancey
Thinking It Through
According to Romans 7:18-24, what is the
apostle Paul's view of his own spiritual condition?
What did Paul say is the answer? (Rom. 7:25-8:4).
Legalism destroys our loving relationship with God.
The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute
In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Don not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."
Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.
Love your husband only. Love your wife only. Do not look for fulfillment in some other relationship or in some other thing. Find your fulfillment in that relationship.
Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.
Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 15:25-16:34
Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. - Ezekiel 18:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
In many pieces of music or poetry, the term refrain describes the melody or group of lines that recur throughout the composition. Typically occurring at the end of each verse or division, the refrain brings completion to the trajectory of the piece, as well as cohesion to the work as a whole.
Today's text offers a dark refrain, summarizing the recurring motif of the passage. Scripture punctuates this narrative with the cascading repetition that each Israelite king "did evil in the eyes of the Lord," provoking Him to anger (15:26, 30, 34; 16:2, 7, 13, 19, 25, 26, 30, 33). Life in Israel was full of betrayal, idolatry, rival temples, and accumulating evil. It almost seems that Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, and Ahab were each trying to outdo the wickedness of the previous generation (see especially 16:25, 30).
These were dark times for the northern kingdom, and we might be tempted to pass over such passages quickly, hoping for more encouraging words. But the narrator of our text wants us to see more, quietly but clearly pointing to God's continued control, even in dark times. Three different times, Scripture reports that what was happening was "in accordance with the word of the Lord" (15:29, 16:12, 16:34). God did not approve of the ongoing wickedness, but it did not take Him by surprise; in fact, He was the one who had predicted it in the first place, and He was using it to accomplish His purposes anyway (cf. 14:10-11). The text reminds us that evil may run rampant, but we can be sure that God has lost neither sight nor control of the situation.
The second underlying message is that sin does not go unpunished. In fact, sin becomes its own punishment. Look at the results of doing evil for these kings: constant war, numerous plotting and betrayal, rivalry, insecurity, even murder. Evil begets more evil. Any promise of happiness or pleasure is shattered by the choice to engage in wickedness. Today's text provides a powerful example that the choice to sin so often leads only to further sin.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage warns of the spiraling entanglement of sin, but its dark portrait also calls us to turn from those disastrous ways. Such a turn is not always easy, for it means exposing our deeds to the light (John 3:20); but no other option can bring true happiness. Ask God for the courage today to expose your own sin to His healing light, making a list of those words, deeds, and attitudes that violate His commands. Then pray over that list, asking God for forgiveness and strength from His Spirit to turn from those sins.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 23, 2009
Everyone Sings!
READ: Revelation 5:8-14
Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever! -Revelation 5:13
Each summer I enjoy attending many of the free outdoor concerts presented in our city. During one performance by a brass band, several of the members briefly introduced themselves and told how much they enjoyed practicing and playing together.
The pleasure of sharing music in community has drawn people together for centuries. As followers of Christ, whether we are in small groups, choirs, or congregations, bringing praise to God is one of the key elements in our own expression of faith. And one day, we'll be singing in a concert that defies imagination.
In a sweeping vision of the tumultuous events at the end of time, John records a chorus of praise that begins with a few and swells to a company beyond number. In honor of the Lamb of God, who with His blood has redeemed people from every tribe and nation (Rev. 5:9), the song begins at the throne of God, is joined by multiplied thousands of angels, and finally includes every creature in heaven, earth, and sea. Together we will sing, "Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!" (v.13).
What a choir! What a concert! What a privilege to start rehearsing today! - David C. McCasland
Give me a spirit of praise, dear Lord,
That I may adore Your name,
Sing praises from a grateful heart
To the One who is always the same. -Dawe
Those who know Christ now will sing His praise forever.
The Third Commandment of Marriage: Speak Well of Your Mate
Exodus 20:7 gives us our third commandment of marriage,
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
Many misunderstand the term, in vain. It means empty, meaningless, insincere, not showing due respect.
When we speak flippantly or lightly about someone, we erode our respect for that person. Some people are just far too casual in the way they speak of their spouse, and it erodes your respect for him or her.
In marriage, few things can affect the relationship like words. Words are containers. They can contain love; they can contain hate; they can contain joy; they can contain bitterness.
The book of James says that our tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It will send the ship of your marriage in whatever direction your words go. Some people are on the brink of divorce because they talk divorce. Just listen to the words they say. Are they negative or positive? Critical or encouraging?
One night I was out with a couple of friends diving for lobster. Some guys were out in one of those big, long speedboats drinking and zooming back and forth at 60 miles an hour. All of a sudden, BANG! The boat hit the rocks.
But it did not hit the rocks by itself. It was steered into the rocks. Just like the driver of that boat, some people are steering their marriage into the rocks of divorce, into the rocks of heartache, by the words they speak.
Think about what you say. Are you building up your partner? Learn to speak well of your mate. Build them up with your words. Be lavish with your praise. You will be pleased with where those words will take your relationship.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 17:1-16
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. - 1 Kings 17:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
In ancient Canaanite religion, Baal was the fertility god who provided rain necessary for crops. One Canaanite poem emphasizes Baal's power this way: "Now Baal will begin the rainy season / the season of wadis in flood; / and he will sound his voice in the clouds, / flash his lightning to the earth."
Baal's presence in Israel (see 1 Kings 16:29-33) is now juxtaposed with the sudden emergence of the prophet Elijah. Where the previous chapter seemed to indicate Baal's dominance, Elijah's prediction of drought was a direct challenge to Baal's power (v. 1). That Elijah's word held true (v. 7) underscores the power of the true God over any rival deity. And note, too, the suddenness of Elijah's arrival. Without introduction, Elijah simply appeared on the scene. Just when it looked like Ahab's wicked ways would prevail, God had other plans. Isn't this the way of our sovereign God? The rise of evil is only temporary compared to God's eternal wisdom.
With a prophet raised up, Scripture reports the unexpected provision of God. With a drought at hand and Elijah's life at stake (cf. 18:4), God was sure to provide for Elijah's needs. But note the unusual way He did so. First, God used ravens to bring Elijah his necessary food. Aside from the unexpectedness of this provision, God had earlier declared the raven an "unclean" animal (see Lev. 11:15). Yet God used an otherwise rejected bird to provide for His prophet.
Next, God sent Elijah out of Israel to a foreigner, a widow in Sidon. Don't miss the strangeness of the event. In the ancient world, a widow was commonly a poor and needy woman. That's clearly the case here (v. 12). But this was also a woman living in the land of Jezebel the Baal worshiper (note 16:31). Of all the places to go, why choose a poor woman in an idolatrous country? Perhaps God chose to highlight His creative powers of provision! God can use whomever and whatever means He wants to care for His people.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In addition to God's creativity, today's passage also depicts true faith in action. Asked to use her last flour and oil for Elijah with the promise of continued provision, this widow "went away and did as Elijah had told her" (v. 15). This was a shining example of faith, an act of daily trust in God's word. Scripture calls us to similar acts of faith. Do you acknowledge God's provision for something so seemingly simple as your food each day? Whether through dramatic or mundane means, all our needs are met by God.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotionals September 23,2009
Julie's Prayer
READ: John 14:12-14
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. -John 14:13
In 2008, the Day of Discovery film crew traveled to China on a special assignment-to retrace the life of missionary Eric Liddell, the 1924 Olympic gold medalist whose story was told in the movie Chariots of Fire. The crew took with them Eric's three daughters, Patricia, Heather, and Maureen-allowing them to revisit some of the places where the two older sisters had lived in China. Also along on the trip was their elderly Aunt Louise.
On one occasion, after the entourage had arrived in Beijing, they had to walk quite a distance with their luggage. As they did, Aunt Louise grew short of breath. Julie Richardson, a Day of Discovery crew member, sat down beside her, put her hand on her knee, and prayed simply, "Dear Jesus, help Aunt Louise to breathe." Immediately, she began to catch her breath.
Later, Heather retold the story and shared that Julie's prayer had rekindled her faith. Julie's simple act of faith reminded Heather of the continual connection we have with Jesus-a reality she had set aside in her life.
Sometimes we need reminders that God is near. When trials come and God seems far away, remember Julie's prayer and the truth that we are just one prayer from connecting with the God of the universe (John 14:13). - Dave Branon
God answers prayer, it is His sovereign way
To freely give His blessings day by day;
One earnest plea and lo! from heaven's throne
The answer comes, for God has heard His own. -Anon.
God delights in the earnest prayers of His people.
The Fourth Commandment of Marriage: Spend Exclusive Time Together
Over the last few devotionals, we have been working through the principles behind the Ten Commandments...and how they form the basis for a strong and vibrant marriage. Today we come to the fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20:8-11,
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Sabbath means an intermission. It means to put down your work and rest. Take a break. And holy means separate to the Lord. "If you want a long-term relationship with Me," God says, "We have to have time together. I want special time, exclusive time. I want a whole day."
In the same way, in order to have a healthy, growing marriage, husbands and wives need time together...special time, exclusive time, sometimes extravagant time. And I think we all know that if we do not schedule it, it will not happen.
My wife, Janet, once did a little research. She found that surveys showed the average couple spends 37 minutes or less in face-to-face conversation every week. I bet before you were married you spent a lot more time together in a week, didn't you?
If your marriage is to thrive, you need to spend exclusive time together. You can't build a relationship and not spend time together. It is just not possible.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 17:17-24
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. - Lamentations 3:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Thomas Chisholm wrote more than 1,200 poems about his personal experience of God's goodness and care. Although many of these poems became hymns, one in particular has become world famous. The familiar chorus declares: "Great is Thy faithfulness! / Great is Thy faithfulness! / Morning by morning new mercies I see. / All I have needed Thy hand hath provided; / Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"
As we have already seen, the widow of Sidon would have agreed with these words. Morning by morning, she found new flour and oil to provide for her needs. Yet her experience of God's faithfulness soon came under fire. Her son became ill and eventually died (v. 17). The text does not tell us why God allowed such disaster. Even Elijah seemed distressed at this turn of events (v. 20).
Elijah then turned to God in prayer, both crying out in anguish and pleading with the Lord for healing. And then the pivotal moment: "The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived" (v. 22). Initially, it seemed that God's earlier word of provision to the widow was being called into question. But the widow's own confession at the end of the passage emphasized the faithfulness of God's word: "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth" (v. 24). Scripture clarifies the purpose of these trying circumstances: so that this widow of Sidon-and we the readers-might know the trustworthiness of God's word.
Yesterday's passage demonstrated God's power over rain and famine; today's reading illustrates His power over death. It's one thing to provide for the living; it's quite another to conquer death itself. This miraculous healing is a foretaste of the future when we will all sing: "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). In the end, death will not have the final say.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you know of someone who has struggled to believe the trustworthiness of God's promises to His people. The struggle might be the result of hardship or even death itself. Our passage today shows us that grief and anguish are normal reactions to the pain of suffering and death. But they are not the end of the story. We have the promise that one day God will wipe away every tear and destroy death forever (Rev. 21:4).
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 25, 2009
Contentment
READ: Matthew 6:24-34
No one can serve two masters. -Matthew 6:24
A gripping photograph of an old woman sitting in a pile of garbage made me ponder. She was smiling as she ate a packet of food she had foraged from the garbage dump. It took so little for the woman to be satisfied.
There is much talk about a struggling economy and the cost of living going higher. And many are getting increasingly anxious about their livelihood. Is it possible to heed our Lord Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6:25, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on"?
Our Lord was not saying that we don't need to work, that we don't need to eat, or that we shouldn't bother about how we dress. He was warning against those things becoming so important that we become slaves of money instead of trusting Him. "No one can serve two masters," He said (v.24).
Seeking first "the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (v.33) is recognizing that no matter how much effort we expend to make a better life for ourselves and our families, ultimately it is the Lord who takes care of our needs. And since God is our heavenly Father, we will have enough. - C. P. Hia
Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there. -Havergal
Money serves us well if we receive it as God's provision.
The Fifth Commandment of Marriage: Honor Your Spouse by Showing How Grateful You Are
The fifth commandment gives us our next principle for a healthy and vibrant marriage. It is found in Exodus 20:12,
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."
Among other things, God is saying we must be grateful. Generally, parents spend a lot of time, labor, and money...sometimes to the point of radical sacrifice...to give their kids an edge in life.
And it is a tragedy when a child is ungrateful or unthankful. William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It is very difficult to have a relationship with an ungrateful, selfish person.
"Thank you" are important words to your parents, and an incredibly important phrase in marriage. It is difficult to live with someone who takes you and all of your efforts for granted.
You may be thinking, "I don't say it, but I am grateful in my heart. I truly am!" Well, hooray for you. You are blessed because in your heart you know you are grateful. But it does your spouse no good if you do not vocalize it.
If you do not demonstrate your gratitude, I doubt if you are really grateful because Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If it is not being expressed, chances are it is not truly there.
Maybe you think you don't have a lot to be grateful for. But there must be something you can say "thank you" for. There is something you can praise your mate for. Look for those things, and accentuate the positive.
Take time today to express thanks to your spouse in some way...through an action, through a card, through words. That is how you honor your mate.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 18:1-40
O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again. - 1 Kings 18:37
TODAY IN THE WORD
On July 21, 1865, the first recorded example of a classic western showdown took place. After a dispute over women and money, Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt agreed to a duel. A crowd gathered as the two gunmen approached each other from opposite sides of town. Tutt's shot went wide, but Hickok hit the mark with a single shot, leaving him the only man standing in the end.
Scripture recounts another classic showdown, but this one was between Baal and the true God. After three years of drought, God called Elijah to return to Israel. Elijah was brought before King Ahab, and the duel was set. A crowd gathered to watch 450 prophets of Baal attempt to goad their god into lighting an altar. After their lack of success (and no shortage of taunting by Elijah), Elijah carefully prepared his altar with wood, placed a bull on it, then shockingly drenched it with water three times!
Then without the ostentatious methods of the Baal prophets, Elijah uttered a short prayer-and God responded immediately with fire from heaven. The people acknowledged who the true God was. The showdown in today's reading leaves no doubt that Baal was a farce and Yahweh had the true power. The numerous verses devoted to the details of the showdown emphasize this very point.
There is, however, a subtler yet equally important message here about God's mercy. The chapter opens with no signs of repentance. Yahweh's prophets were being slaughtered (vv. 4, 13), Ahab continued his defiance (vv. 16-18), and the people waffled in their religious loyalty (v. 21). Yet observe God's activity: it was His choice to end the drought (v. 2); it was His work to preserve faithful servants in the land (vv. 3-4); and it was His mercy to "turn the hearts" of the people back to Himself (v. 37) and bring about the confession of verse 39. Even without signs of repentance, God was at work in His mercy to preserve and to bless His people.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What a picture of both God's power and His mercy towards His people! In what ways has God shown you His strength and power in your life? How has He shown you His mercy and tenderness? What better response than the one given by the Israelites: to fall down in worship, repeatedly crying, "The Lord-he is God!" (v. 39). Meditate on these simple but profound words today, making them your own prayer in response to God's power and mercy in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals September 26, 2009
The Teacher As A Midwife
READ: Galatians 4:12-20
My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you. -Galatians 4:19
The mother of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was a midwife. So Socrates grew up observing that she assisted women in bringing new life into the world. This experience later influenced his teaching method. Socrates said, "My art of midwifery is in general like theirs; the only difference is that my patients are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of birth."
Instead of just passing information on to his students, Socrates used the sometimes painful process of asking probing questions to help them arrive at their own conclusions. Teaching them to think seemed at times like the travail of childbirth.
Paul expressed a similar idea in discipling believers in the faith when he said, "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). Paul was concerned that each believer grow to spiritual maturity in Christlikeness (Eph. 4:13).
Becoming like Christ is a lifelong experience; therefore, we need patience with others and ourselves. All of us will have challenges and disappointments along the way. But if we put our trust in Him, we'll grow spiritually and have character qualities that will radiate new life. - Dennis Fisher
Lord, help us see how much we need each other
As we walk along the Christian way;
In fellowship with sister and with brother,
You will keep us growing day by day. -Hess
Conversion is the miracle of a moment; maturing takes a lifetime.
The Sixth Commandment of Marriage: Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle
Today we are going to look at the sixth commandment of marriage, based on the sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."
While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!
Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered...who are violent or have an explosive temper...destroy relationships.
If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.
Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.
Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold...using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.
If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 18:41-46
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. - James 5:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Three Gospels describe the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain. In that moment of glory, when Jesus' face and clothes shone like the sun, two other figures appeared with Him: Moses and Elijah. Jewish tradition regards Moses and Elijah as the two most important prophets of God, honored and revered by all.
Our study of 1 Kings is beginning to show just why Elijah was considered such an important, powerful man of God. Here was a man who had been fed by ravens, who raised a widow's son to life, and called fire down from heaven. In the immediately preceding passage, Elijah had issued commands to Ahab, to the Baal prophets, and to the people of Israel. Elijah was, seemingly, a man in control. Yet, lest we think Elijah's power came somehow magically from himself, today's text instructs us otherwise.
The great showdown was over. Ahab headed off to feasting, but Elijah returned to the mountain and bowed his head in prayer. God's demonstration of power in 18:16-40 was impressive, but His promise in 18:1 ("I will send rain on the land") had yet to happen. Still, Elijah responded with confident prayer. Even after repeated reports of no evidence for coming rain, Elijah continued in prayer. He remembered God's earlier word, and believed what God had promised. In other words, this powerful prophet of God relied not on his own strength or ability, but on the ability of God (consider also Elijah's miraculous feat of the feet in v. 46).
Finally, on the seventh look, Elijah's servant reported a change: "A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea" (v. 44). Soon a full storm broke forth, and the promise of God was fulfilled. What an important lesson about God's ways! In one instance, Elijah's prayer was answered immediately (18:36-38); in another, he had to pray over and over again until God responded. God does not always follow human expectations, but He does always keep His word.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
James 5:16-18 refers to 1 Kings 18 and encourages us to emulate Elijah: "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16). But the righteousness of Elijah in today's passage is nothing less than an orientation toward God and patient prayer in response to God's promises. That's the kind of righteousness God is looking for. How might today's message about "righteous prayer" change the way you pray? Let the humble, yet confident, example of Elijah stir you to a new attitude in your own approach to God today.
GOD BLESS!
`
Daily Devotionals September 27, 2009
Love Believes All Things
READ: 1 Corinthians 13
Love believes all things, hopes all things. -1 Corinthians 13:7
It was 40 years ago or more that I observed a friend of mine showing great affection for someone I considered unworthy of love. I thought my friend was being taken in, and I was afraid he would be disillusioned and saddened in the end.
When I expressed my concern, he replied, "When I stand before my Lord, I hope He'll say of me that I've loved too many, rather than too few." I've never forgotten his words.
Paul insists that "love believes all things" (1 Cor. 13:7). Love "believes" in people. It can see the potential in them. It believes that God can take the most unattractive and unworthy individual and turn that person into a masterpiece of beauty and grace. If love errs, it must err in the way of trustfulness and hopefulness.
Certainly, we must be aware of danger when we see it coming, and become "as wise as serpents" (Matt. 10:16). Tough love may be the best response to irresponsible and foolish people, but we can be too guarded, too wary and distrustful.
It doesn't do us any real harm to be hoodwinked and defrauded (Matt. 5:38-48). It's better to believe in someone and have your heart broken than to have no heart at all. British poet Alfred Tennyson wrote, "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I agree. - David H. Roper
Lord, help us to believe in people
And all that in them You can do,
So we can say we've loved too many,
Rather than too few. -Sper
Love looks beyond what people are to what they can become.
The Seventh Commandment of Marriage: Do Not Commit Adultery
The seventh commandment brings us to one of the most vital principles of having the marriage God intends. Exodus 20:14 simply says,
"You shall not commit adultery."
In a marriage, you would be hard pressed to imagine anything more damaging than your spouse being unfaithful. But being faithful is not only being faithful in action, but also in thought.
Again, Jesus expanded on this in Matthew 5, and I want you to read these words very carefully. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Having a lustful, exploitive disposition has no place in marriage. Love gives; lust takes. Love serves; lust demands. Love nourishes; lust chokes.
What a wonderful gift God has given us in this thing called sex. It was His idea. It is just as holy as when you lift your hands in church and worship Him. It is God's idea within the context and the confines of marriage. It should be enjoyed.
But lust has no place in marriage. It is a poison that will destroy the fabric of your relationship with your spouse.
Men, do not even entertain the thought of allowing pornography into your life. It can destroy your marriage. You are committing heart-adultery when you look at pornographic images and lust after another woman. Do not let the devil have that ground in your heart and life.
This is such a vital command, over the next few devotionals we are going to stay on this subject. I will share with you three ways to affair-proof your marriage.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 19:1-21
I reserve seven thousand in Israel-all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal. - 1 Kings 19:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
The literary technique known as parallelism repeats similar words, phrases, or ideas in two or more subsequent clauses of text. The later clauses will cause the reader to recall former clauses by the use of this rhetorical echo. On a broader scale, narrative parallelism takes features from an episode and repeats them later, intentionally reminding the reader of the earlier event.
Today's account of Elijah provides us with a striking example of narrative parallelism, using the life of Moses. Both Elijah and Moses confronted a wicked ruler (18:18-19; Exodus 3-5), both gave tangible demonstrations of God's power over other deities (18:22-40; Exodus 7-11), both received supernatural sustenance on a wilderness journey (vv. 3-9; Exodus 16), both arrived at Mt. Horeb (Sinai) where they experienced a profound encounter with God (vv. 11-13; Exodus 33), and both appointed a successor to take their place (vv. 19-21; Deut. 34:9).
The author intends us to see the Moses-Elijah parallel, highlighting similarity after similarity between the two prophets. Yet having noticed the parallelism, what strikes us in today's passage is a major difference. Moses met with God after a covenant breach (Exodus 32), and then interceded for the people. Elijah met with God after a covenant renewal, and then accused the people of utter disloyalty (vv. 10, 14).
God's response to Elijah included both judgment and mercy. First, He agreed with Elijah and commanded him to anoint Hazael and Jehu as instruments of judgment on apostate Israel. God's patience, though long, does not extend forever. Ahab would soon find that out.
Second, God disagreed with Elijah and spoke to his fear. When Elijah despaired that he was the only one left who served God, God indicated that 7,000 people still remained faithful. Our chapter ends with the call of Elisha, a demonstration of God's ongoing provision for the people's need for His word. Israel might have fallen deep into idolatry, but God had not given up. His call for repentance would continue.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Underlying today's reading is the real threat of persecution that God's faithful followers experience in a world bent on rebellion against His ways. Persecution continues today as Christians around the world undergo suffering and death in the name of Jesus. The Christian ministry "Voice of the Martyrs" offers countless reminders of such persecution, but also provides suggestions for ways to support and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ. Consider visiting their site this week (www.persecution.com).
GOD BLESS!!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals September 28, 2009
Nailed To The Cross
READ: Colossians 2:9-17
[Jesus] has made [you] alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. -Colossians 2:13
It was a touching church service. Our pastor talked about Jesus taking our sins upon Himself and dying in our place to take our punishment. He asked if anyone still felt guilt over confessed sins and was therefore not enjoying the forgiveness of God.
We were to write the sin or sins on a piece of paper, walk to the front of the church, and nail the paper to the cross that was placed there. Many went forward, and you could hear the pounding of nails for several minutes. That act didn't give us forgiveness, of course, but it was a physical reminder that Jesus had already taken those sins on Himself as He hung on the cross and died.
That's what the apostle Paul taught the church at Colosse. The people were being influenced by false teachers who presented Christ as less than adequate for their needs. But Paul explained that Jesus paid the price for our sins. He said, "The handwriting of requirements that was against us, . . . He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross" (Col. 2:14).
If we confess our sin to God, seeking His cleansing, He will forgive (1 John 1:9). We don't need to hold on to the guilt. Our sins have been nailed to the cross; they've been taken away. Jesus has forgiven them all. - Anne Cetas
Lord, give me courage to confess,
To bare my sinful heart to Thee;
Thy full forgiveness I would know
And from this weight of guilt be free. -D. De Haan
Guilt is a burden God never intended His children to bear.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Positive Affirmation
The first way to affair-proof your marriage is to season your marriage with affirming communication.
In Song of Solomon 7:1-6 we read of how Solomon affirmed his bride,
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your navel is a rounded goblet; it lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple; a king is held captive by your tresses. How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
Solomon knew it was vital for him to compliment his bride's body, because, as you read in chapter 1, it is evident that it was an area of insecurity for her.
This Shulamite was a country girl. She said, "Do not look on me for I am dark." She was tan from working out in the vineyards. And compared with the fair-skinned, pampered ladies of the court, she felt very insecure.
So Solomon very wisely builds her up in the area where she feels most insecure.
Speak affirming words to your mate rather than tear him or her down. If your spouse is starved for positive affirmation, and it does not come from you, it opens a door of temptation. The devil will send someone to give insincere compliments, and if a person is starved for it, they gravitate towards it.
Praise one another lavishly. It is an important thing to do.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 20:1-43
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. - Ezekiel 33:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
One morning, after a night of heavy wind, a young boy discovered a fallen baby bird in the backyard. That day his family stayed clear, hoping the mother bird would come to the rescue. As the day wore on, however, and no mother bird appeared, the baby bird grew lethargic and quiet. The boy's parents warned that this night would likely be the bird's last. Yet in the morning, the family was surprised to see an adult bird tending to the fledgling. Expected doom had been averted!
The theme of judgment was clear at the end of chapter 19. So when we begin reading in chapter 20 about the Aramean king mustering his army and making belittling claims against Israel, we might reasonably expect that the end was near for Ahab. Yet as we read on, we are met with a surprise. Twice (and at impossible odds) God granted victory to Ahab and his army (vv. 13-21, 26-30). Moreover, God continued to send His prophets to speak God's word to Ahab.
Scripture tells us that God did this for a particular reason: so that "you will know that I am the Lord" (vv. 13, 28). Do you see the mercy and goodness of God, extended even to a wicked and rebellious king? God's offer of restoration and relationship remains far longer than we might expect! Rather than utterly destroy Ahab, God offered yet another chance for repentance.
Yet in the end, the judgment theme sounds again (vv. 35-43). God had given ample opportunities for Ahab to turn in repentance and humility toward God, but instead, Ahab refused to humble himself before the Lord and made a treaty with Ben-Hadad in violation of God's commands (see Deut. 20:10-20). While God continued to send prophets to Ahab, not once did Ahab seek out God's wisdom and guidance. Ahab's life would end in destruction as God promised, but his downfall was not because of an unmerciful God, but rather because of his own unrepentant heart.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is your image of God? Do you see Him as an angry judge eager to condemn, hesitant to forgive? If so, face the challenge of today's reading which shows Him as a patient God who takes "no pleasure in the death of the wicked," but desires to grant life and forgiveness (Ezek. 33:11). If God continued to extend His call for relationship with Ahab, surely He does the same for you. Make today the day you come humbly before God, asking for forgiveness for your sin, trusting in the work of Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals September 29, 2009
Beware Of Jumping To Conclusions
READ: Joshua 22:10-34
Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. -Ecclesiastes 7:9
The e-mail contained nothing but Bible verses, and it came from someone I didn't know very well at a time when there was disagreement among members of a church committee I was on. I assumed that the verses were aimed at me in an accusing way, and I was angry that someone who didn't know all the issues involved would use Scripture to attack me.
Before I could retaliate, my husband, Jay, suggested I give her the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming the worst. "Perhaps there's an innocent explanation," he said. I couldn't imagine what it would be, but I followed his advice and called. "Thank you so much for calling," she said. "My computer has a virus and it spewed out e-mails using pieces of our Sunday school lesson to random people in my address book." Gulp. I'm thankful that God used Jay to keep me from creating a problem where none existed.
By jumping to a conclusion that was logical but untrue, I came dangerously close to unnecessary conflict. The Israelites did the same thing. They were ready to go to war because they wrongly assumed that the altar built by their brothers was a sign of rebellion against God (Josh. 22:9-34). To avoid making wrong judgments, we must be careful to get the facts right. - Julie Ackerman Link
When you're forming your opinions,
Do it carefully-go slow;
Hasty judgments oft are followed
By regretting-that I know. -Anon.
To avoid an embarrassing fall, don't jump to a wrong conclusion.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Companionship
Today I want to give you the second way to affair-proof your marriage. And that is by being a companion to your spouse, spending time together just enjoying each other's company.
Back in Song of Solomon 7 we read this in verses 10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Notice that Solomon and his bride just hung out together. It was a vital part of their relationship. And so must it be for any thriving marriage.
If you have drifted apart, I suggest you each make a list of things you like to do, or things that you might like to try. It could be anything from antique hunting, going to garage sales, taking walks, bicycling, fishing, going to museums, watching football, shopping, gardening, snorkeling, reading, sky diving, cooking, hiking, puzzles, photography, whatever.
Once you have made your lists, compare them and see where things overlap. Then find two or three things, and endeavor to do those things together. Have fun together.
Set time apart to do at least one activity together every couple of weeks. If you have kids, get a babysitter so it is just the two of you. It will be the best gift you could give your children.
If you do not do things together, you will find yourselves drifting apart.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 21:1-29
Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. - 1 Peter 4:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Anyone who has observed children playing has seen this typical scene: one child has a toy that another child wants; if the first child won't share, the second child either takes the toy by force or retreats to a corner to covet and sulk until he gets his way.
It's not an attractive picture, but it's what we see from Ahab in today's reading: a childish response of covetousness and sulking over a vineyard he wanted but couldn't have. Only in this case, the miffed Ahab and Jezebel exercise lethal force to take what they want. An innocent man is murdered just so that Ahab can have his vineyard. Naboth is an example of the injustice that God's people often face. Naboth was not simply being bull-headed by refusing to sell or trade his vineyard to Ahab. There was a divine command about not parting with one's inheritance except under extreme circumstances (Num. 36:7-9). Naboth stood for God's word and received gross injustice: a false accusation of blasphemy and a painful death. It's a foreshadowing of Jesus, who Himself experienced the greatest injustice of all, and warned that His loyal followers would experience persecution as well (Mark 13:9-13).
But this is not where today's passage ends. Naboth was dead and Ahab happily occupied his new vineyard-and then God's word arrived. Elijah was sent to deliver the news: God had seen everything. Twice Ahab's life and actions were summarized as one who had "sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord" (vv. 20, 25). As a result, gruesome disaster would be Ahab's punishment.
God sees the injustice of our world and He does not turn His back. The wicked may try to hide their deeds or make them appear just, but our omniscient God is not fooled, and His justice will ultimately prevail. True believers can expect injustice, but they can also trust that God will one day set it all right.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It's a common objection: How could a good God let evil things happen in the world? Though a difficult question to answer in full, Scripture does show us that God is not ignorant of the world's evil, and through Christ's own suffering the injustice of the world will eventually be remedied in full. Look up 1 Peter 4:12-13 to see God's further encouragement that our hardships are in fact a way that we participate in Christ's suffering. Then write out those verses on an index card and commit them to memory this week.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals September 30, 2009
Struggling To Kneel
READ: Colossians 4:1-12
Always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. -Col. 4:12
Just before John Ashcroft was being sworn in as a US senator, he met with family and friends for prayer. As they gathered around him, he saw his dad trying to get up from the couch where he sat. Since his father was in frail health, Ashcroft told him, "That's okay, Dad. You don't have to stand up to pray for me." His father replied, "I'm not struggling to stand up. I'm struggling to kneel."
His father's effort reminds me of the exertion it sometimes takes to intercede for a fellow believer. In Colossians, Paul refers to Epaphras as a bondservant who is "always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God" (Col. 4:12). "Laboring fervently" is the translation of a Greek word from which we get our word agony. It was used of wrestlers who in the Greek gymnastic games strained to overcome an opponent.
Epaphras interceded for other believers to become mature in their walk with the Savior. Asking God to overcome obstacles to spiritual growth in the lives of others requires our concentration and discipline. Are we willing to labor "fervently" in prayer to ask God to meet the needs of our loved ones? - Dennis Fisher
There's a holy, high vocation
Needing workers everywhere;
'Tis the highest form of service,
'Tis the ministry of prayer. -Woodworth
Intercessory prayer is life's real work.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy
In the last two devotionals, we have learned that we can affair-proof our marriages through positive affirmation and companionship. The third way to affair-proof your marriage is by making intimacy a priority.
Let me take you back to the Scripture we read yesterday, Song of Solomon 7:10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
These verses paint a beautiful picture of intimacy between a husband and wife. Couples need to have physical intimacy. In fact, the New Testament commands the husband and wife not to deprive one another except by mutual consent, and then only if they are going to fast and pray.
So how do you create an atmosphere of intimacy? It starts with affirming your spouse. Notice that Solomon has been affirming his wife, complimenting her, building her up.
Now guys, you need to understand that women are wired differently than you. In order for a woman to be intimate, she needs to speak and be spoken to. You have to create an atmosphere for intimacy.
For most husbands, they just catch a glimpse of their wife in the shower and they are ready to go. But for women, it starts differently than that. She is aroused by words, sincere words, and it usually starts around breakfast time.
Take time today to create an atmosphere of intimacy. If you do, you will be on your way to experiencing true intimacy, as we will see in tomorrow's devotional.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 22:1-40
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. - Isaiah 40:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
A wise man, dispensing advice about financial investing, once said: "The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging." King Ahab may not have been looking for financial counsel, but he should have heeded this advice. Today's passage presents Ahab in a hole of another sort: the continual rejection of God's word.
Joined by King Jehoshaphat from Judah, Ahab asked for assistance with a military campaign against Ramoth-Gilead. Jehoshaphat initially agreed to help, but then wisely asked for "the counsel of the Lord" (v. 5). Ahab's court prophets offered sycophantic support, telling Ahab what he wanted to hear. Jehoshaphat wasn't fooled by this charade and called for a "prophet of the Lord" (v. 6). The remainder of the passage offers a number of lessons about God's word as the true prophet Micaiah is juxtaposed with the false prophets of Ahab's court.
First, a misapplication of God's word will not convey truth. Zedekiah's enacted parable about the "goring" of the Arameans (vv. 10-11) was likely based on God's earlier promise in Deuteronomy 33:17. Nevertheless, this misapplication of God's word did not make it an accurate prophecy.
Second, we see the assumption that we control God's word corrected. Some characters in the text presumed that a prophet was free to offer whatever word he wanted (vv. 8, 13). But Micaiah's response set the matter straight: "As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me" (v. 14). A true word of God comes from God alone, not from human ideas and desires.
Third, God's word is unfailing. Everything Micaiah had predicted came true (v. 38). Ahab tried to avoid his predicted death via a clever disguise, but a "random" arrow found its way to Ahab nonetheless. Fourth, opposing God's word leads to destruction. Ahab was given ample disclosure about God's intentions and his imminent destruction if he went to battle. In a profound act of folly, Ahab continued to pursue his own plan-and was killed.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The need for a true word of God, along with a humble acceptance of it, is a prominent topic in today's reading. Pray today for the leaders of your church to preach God's word in its fullness, neither domesticating its message nor manipulating it for personal gain. Pray also for your congregation, that together you would respond to God's word in true obedience. Then send an encouraging note to your pastor telling him that you are praying for him, that God's word would be truthfully and fully spoken through his ministry.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 1, 2009
The Measure Of Love
READ: John 15:9-17
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. -John 15:13
On October 2, 1954, First Lieutenant James O. Conway was taking off from Boston Logan Airport, flying a plane that carried a load of munitions. When his plane became airborne, he suddenly lost power over Boston's bay. In an instant, Conway faced a brutal choice-eject from the plane and save his own life, or crash the plane into the bay causing his own death.
If he ejected, however, the plane would crash into an East Boston neighborhood filled with homes and families. Amazingly, Conway chose to crash the plane into the bay-giving his life for the lives of others.
In John 15:13, Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." The willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect others shows a heart that cares more about the needs of others than the needs of one's self. Someone once said that "the measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it." God the Father loved so much that He gave up His Son. Christ loved so much that He gave up His life-even taking our sins on Himself and dying in our place.
The measure of God's love for you is great. Have you accepted His love personally? - Bill Crowder
When Jesus gave His life for me,
Enduring all the agony
Upon the cross of Calvary,
He showed the love of God. -Sper
Nothing speaks more clearly of God's love than the cross of Christ.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy-Part 2
Yesterday we learned the first step in experiencing intimacy in marriage...by creating an atmosphere for that intimacy. Today, I want us to see the results of that deliberate effort.
As we mentioned yesterday, Solomon has been complimenting his wife and affirming her. Look at her response to that affirmation in Song of Solomon 7:10,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
She is digging it! She is saying, "He really loves me!" Solomon's affirmation of his bride has created this atmosphere of intimacy. And look what she says next in verse 11,
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.
She is grabbing Solomon's hand and saying, "Let's get a hotel room!" Then there are verses 12-13,
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Friend, catch what is going on. Solomon has affirmed his wife saying, "Honey, you are beautiful! I am so glad I married you. I married out of my league. You are wonderful. Your body is great. I am so happy!"
Her response? "Wow, he loves me. I'll tell you what, let's go away and have a little love vacation. Let's take a few days off." That is enough to get any husband inspired to rent a hotel room!
If you want to affair-proof your marriage, make intimacy a priority!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Kings 22:41-53
There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. - Proverbs 16:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the ancient world, writing of any length was done not in books but on scrolls of parchment which could be rolled up for storage and unrolled for reading. Consequently, there was usually a limit to how many lines of text could fit on a single scroll. If an author needed more space, a second scroll was used.
Coming to the end of 1 Kings, it's important to recognize that this book marks the end of a scroll, not the story (2 Kings will continue the tale). Nevertheless, the ending of 1 Kings provides an apt summary of the wisdom and the folly of the entire book by offering concluding remarks on two final kings, Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah.
After studying the abysmal life of Ahab since 1 Kings 15:35, the report on Jehoshaphat is refreshing: "In everything he walked in the ways of his father Asa and did not stray from them; he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (v. 43). Jehoshaphat even removed the shrine prostitutes left over from previous regimes. Finally, we say, some wisdom after all the folly of Ahab!
Not so fast. Although Jehoshaphat got high marks, not all was well. The high places were not totally removed, and an attempt at a new shipping enterprise ended in disaster (cf. Solomon's fleet in 1 Kings 9:26-28).
Finally, there's Jehoshaphat's peace with Israel. It may seem innocuous enough, but the broader context shows that peace with Israel meant a marriage alliance between Ahab's daughter and Jehoshaphat's son (2 Kings 8:18). That marriage nearly ended the southern kingdom (see 2 Kings 11). Godliness was there in Jehoshaphat, but so was foolish compromise.
Then there was Ahaziah, Ahab's son. The book of 1 Kings ends on a bleak note: "he did evil in the eyes of the Lord," provoking God to anger (vv. 52-53). Two kings, each tripped up by the folly of either compromise or idolatry. One might wish for a happier ending, but God was not done with His people. It will take another book, though, to finish the tale.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Take the opportunity to review the lessons you have learned from 1 Kings. What has God revealed to you this month about His ways or character? What new insights have you learned about yourself or the way God is calling you to live? Jot some of these down in a place you can return to over the years, then take a moment to offer a prayer of thanks for God's revealing Word, asking for the desire and strength to live out these new truths in your own life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 2, 2009
Expectancy
READ: Matthew 7:7-11
If you . . . know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! -Matthew 7:11
With a handful of Cheerios, I tip-toed across the deck in my backyard trying to sneak up on the fish in the pond. Perhaps it was my shadow on the water . . . or maybe I wasn't as sneaky as I thought. As I approached the railing, 15 enormous goldfish raced toward me, their large mouths frantically opening and closing in eager anticipation of an expected treat.
So, why did the fish so furiously flap their fins? Because my mere presence set off a conditioned response in their tiny fish brains that told them I had something special to give them.
If only we always had such a response to God and His desire to give us good gifts-a response based on our past experience with Him that flows from a deep-seated knowledge of His character.
Missionary William Carey stated: "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." God desires to equip us perfectly for what He wants us to do, and He invites us to "come boldly" to find mercy and grace in time of need (Heb. 4:16).
When we as God's children are living in faith, we can have an exciting expectancy and a quiet confidence that God will give us exactly what we need, when we need it (Matt. 7:8-11). - Cindy Hess Kasper
When with expectancy we pray
According to God's will,
We'll see Him working in our lives
His purpose to fulfill. -Sper
Prayer without expectancy is unbelief in disguise.
The Eighth Commandment of Marriage: Be a Person of Integrity
Exodus 20:15 gives us the eighth commandment for marriage,
You shall not steal.
You may be wondering how stealing applies to marriage. Simple. Not to steal is to be a person of integrity.
If you are always cheating or cutting corners, it will be hard for your spouse to respect you. Your uprightness should make your marriage partner feel proud. Your spouse and your family ought to testify of your integrity. This is really one of the things at the heart of a good marriage.
If you are married to somebody, and you know they cheat their customers, it is just hard to respect that person. You cannot respect someone who does not have integrity.
This is a big issue that many people fly right by. But it is vital to a healthy and vibrant marriage because it is hard to fully give yourself to someone who does not have integrity.
If you find that your spouse is holding back, if you feel like he or she does not respect you, take a look inside and see if you are compromising with your integrity. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you tell that "little white lie" to protect yourself or gain an advantage?
Do you represent yourself one way, when in fact in your heart you believe something totally different? Are you like the man Solomon speaks of in Proverbs 23:7?
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
If this is an issue in your life, take it to God today. He will help you become the person of integrity He desires you to be. And when you do, you will find your spouse will come to respect you, and your marriage will be strengthened!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Psalm 86
All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name. - Psalm 86:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
One music professor described Johann Sebastian Bach as "arguably the greatest composer in the history of Western music and a man whose staunch Lutheran faith informed his life, his career, and his view of music. He believed that music was a 'refreshment of spirit,' as some of the title pages of his works stated. He believed that music was a powerful tool for the proclamation of the gospel, as his cantatas, Passions, organ chorales, and other compositions clearly show. And ultimately, he believed that music brought glory to God, as the initials SDG (Soli Deo Gloria, 'To God alone be glory') at the end of most of his scores bear witness."
Soli Deo Gloria. Giving God glory is at the center of the worship-filled life. A familiar statement of faith reminds us that the purpose of humanity is "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." But what does this really mean? How can we bring glory to the One who is already infinitely glorious? The goal in our study this month is to deepen our understanding of what it means to glorify God and to motivate us toward more disciplined and passionate living for His glory. The devotions are divided into three main sections. Initially, we'll consider biblical passages on praise and worship, since exalting God's name is certainly one way to bring Him glory. Second, we'll take a look at what kinds of actions glorify the Lord and why. Finally, we'll examine passages from the Gospel of John for lessons from the life of Christ about what it means to glorify God.
In Psalm 86, the writer is weak, trusting, in trouble, and needs mercy, while God is forgiving, loving, compassionate, patient, and faithful. David longed for the joy, strength, and mercy that only God can give. At the very center of the psalm (vv. 8-10), we find His transcendence, incomparable greatness, and right to universal worship. "I will glorify your name forever" is the only possible response (v. 12)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In order to pray as David did in today's psalm, we need to cultivate a knowledge and appreciation of God's attributes and character. David's praise flowed from a deep knowledge of Scripture and a deep love for the Lord. If God is indeed to be glorified in our lives, we need to pursue the same spiritual unity of head and heart found in the psalms of David. One way to unite your Bible study and prayer time is to pray through this psalm, using the words of Scripture to express the desires of your heart.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 3, 2009
Music Of The Soul
READ: Ephesians 5:15-21
Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. -Ephesians 5:19
In his book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Oliver Sacks devotes a chapter to the therapeutic role of music with people suffering from Alzheimer's. He writes of watching people with advanced dementia respond to songs that bring back memories that had seemed lost to them: "Faces assume expression as the old music is recognized and its emotional power felt. One or two people, perhaps, start to sing along, others join them and soon the entire group-many of them virtually speechless before-is singing together, as much as they are able."
I have seen this occur at Sunday morning services in the Alzheimer's care facility where my wife's mother lives. Perhaps you've experienced it with a loved one whose mind is clouded, and a song calls forth an awareness from deep within.
Paul encouraged the Christians in Ephesus to "be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Eph. 5:18-19). Songs that glorify God can reach the deepest level where the meaning never fades. More than words, harmony, or conscious thought, such music is good for the heart and soul. - David C. McCasland
There's wondrous music in my soul
Since Jesus' blood has made me whole;
Now my heart sings His songs of praise
For all His blessings all my days. -Hess
A heart in tune with God can't help but sing His praise.
The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful
The ninth commandment for marriage speaks to the heart of any marriage, trust. It is found in Exodus 20:16,
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Someone who would lie about their neighbor, for whatever reason, is not going to make a good marriage partner. Honesty and trust are at the heart of a good marriage.
If you take advantage of people for your own gain, speaking untruthfully to get ahead, you are not a person to be trusted. And you ultimately are the loser.
I am reminded of the guy who was in a fender bender, and he feigned an injury, pretended like he hurt his arm and his shoulder. As a result, the poor little lady who had run into his car was subjected to a truly horrible situation. She was grilled by attorneys, had to give depositions, and ended up in court.
But this guy continued trying to take her for all she was worth. He didn't care because he knew she had money. He didn't care if she had to give up her house. He was looking at an opportunity to get rich.
The attorney for the lady's insurance company put him on the stand and said, "I would like to know, since the accident, since you injured your arm and your shoulder, how far can you now raise your arm?"
With great pain etched on his face, he said, "Well...'bout here. That's it. Just to here." Then the attorney asked, "Well, how far could you lift it before the accident?" The guy responded, raising his arm with ease, "I could lift it up to here."
Needless to say, he lost.
Anyone who is not truthful will ultimately lose. And if your spouse will lie to someone else, he or she will lie to you.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: 1 Chronicles 16:23-36
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name . . . Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. - 1 Chronicles 16:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
The second half of Romans 1 describes the progressive effects of sin on human thought and action and the growing moral corruption and degradation that follows from a refusal to worship the Creator (Rom. 1:18-32). Based on the natural world alone, people should know enough to seek Him and are "without excuse" for their rejection and suppression of the truth. How did Paul describe the root sin? "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened . . . [They] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images" or idols.
To glorify God, then, is to recognize His worthiness to be worshiped-and to fail to glorify God is to worship something else, which is sure to be wrong. Today's reading, a psalm of David composed for the occasion of the return of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem (parts of this song are found in Psalms 96, 105, and 106), shows us the proper recognition that God is worthy and the proper response of worshiping and giving glory to God. Everything that He is and does calls forth praise, so much so that only willful sin can blind us to His incomparable greatness.
The key verse in the passage reads: "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name" (v. 29). "Ascribe" basically means to recognize the truth of something, to name it for what it is, and the truth is that honor and glory and worship are "due his name." We are to see and proclaim the truth of who God is-His strength, splendor, holiness, and lovingkindness. "The Lord reigns," pure and simple (v. 31). The destiny of history is for all nations to praise Him (vv. 23-28), eagerly joined by all of creation (vv. 30-33; cf. Rom. 8:19-22). God is the Creator, the King, the Everlasting One. His love endures forever, and His justice and power will carry the day.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Joy stands out clearly in today's reading as a quality closely associated with God's glory. He is joy, and when we glorify Him we feel joyful. We are glad, we rejoice, we give thanks, we cry out our praises, we fall on our faces, we dance like David, we raise our hands. The nations sing, the seas resound, and the fields are jubilant. Are God's power, wisdom, and love just dry theological facts for you? The poetry of Scripture, especially the Psalms, can help infuse these facts with joy!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 4, 2009
Distortion
READ: 1 Corinthians 2
Your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. -1 Corinthians 2:5
Cartographers (mapmakers) deal with the problem of distortion when they display the round shape of the earth on the flat surface of a map. Since there is no perfect way to do this, some world maps depict Greenland as larger than Australia.
Christians have to deal with the problem of distortion as well. When we try to understand the spiritual realm within the limitations of the physical world, we can end up exaggerating minor things and minimizing important things.
The New Testament often addresses the distortion that results when the ideas of popular teachers become more important to us than what God says. God's purpose, said the apostle Paul, is "love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith" (1 Tim. 1:5). Sound teaching does not distort God's Word or divide the church. Rather, it unites believers and builds up the body of Christ to care for one another and to do the work of God in the world (1 Cor. 12:25).
All human attempts to explain God are inadequate, and can even distort our priorities, confuse our thinking, and flatten our understanding of the spiritual life. To keep from distorting God's truth, we must rely on God's power rather than man's wisdom (1 Cor. 2:5). - Julie Ackerman Link
This mortal life is far too brief,
Eternity too vast,
To follow human sophistries
And lose the soul at last. -Clayburn
To detect error, expose it to the light of God's truth.
The Tenth Commandment of Marriage: Be Content with What You Have
Today we come to the final commandment for marriage. That commandment is based on the tenth commandment given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 20:17,
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
This command is very direct. Do not covet. Don't be discontent with what you have. Do not make what you don't have the focus of your life. Accentuate what you do have and what God has blessed you and your spouse with.
You do this by celebrating your husband's or wife's strengths and giftings rather than thinking, "Oh, I wish he was this way," or, "I wish she had that."
If Janet compared me to her brothers, I would be in big trouble. Her brothers are these "Mr. Fix-It" guys who can do anything mechanical. If you are with me and our car breaks down on a desolate road, we are going to be in some serious trouble. I can pray, but do not expect me to fix the car.
Her brothers are another story. One just built a house from the ground up; and if anything mechanical breaks down, he can fix it.
While I am not a Mr. Fix-It, there are other things I am good at. I am so grateful that Janet wants to pull those out of me and give wings to those gifts. And I want to do the same thing for her.
You will always get into trouble if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Just water your own grass. Because on the other side of the fence, it's just Astroturf anyway.
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Psalm 69:30-36
I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. - Psalm 69:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
Musician Israel Houghton has a passion for worship that is visible throughout his work as a church worship leader and Grammy Award-winning recording artist. He recently told an interviewer: "I believe I am existing in this generation to help the church worldwide see that we don't have to wall ourselves off and say, 'This is how we do it, so we're just going to do it like this.' Worship is not for us. It's not about, 'What can I get out of this moment?' It's about offering. It's about sacrifice." His recent album, The Power of One, clearly shows this vision, including the idea that worshiping God goes hand in hand with seeking justice and caring for people.
Giving glory to God is often accomplished in music. Psalms like Psalm 69 might start with questions, complaints, or cries for help, but they always end with praise, expressions of faith, and descriptions of God's greatness. Very often these are framed as praise for acts of God not yet done, but treated as if they were already accomplished. That's exactly the sort of thing going on in today's reading, providing the rich background for David's declaration: "I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving" (v. 30).
We see here at least four results from a God-glorifying attitude of faith and praise. First, God is pleased (v. 31). It might have been possible for the Israelites to offer insincere animal sacrifices, but insincere praise is a contradiction in terms. True praise comes from our hearts and gladdens the heart of God. Second, the poor are encouraged (v. 32). The word "poor" here means spiritually needy-and we are all spiritually needy! What makes us glad, or, what do we "see"? God's deliverance and people's praise. Third, prayers are answered (vv. 33, 35-36). God faithfully hears and responds to our petitions and intercessions. Fourth and finally, nature joins in with our praise (v. 34). The entire earth is waiting to be called to worship!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What are your favorite hymns and songs of praise? Perhaps some were sung in your church last Sunday; perhaps some are playing on your CD player right now. No doubt the words of these songs, like David's, are filled with affirmations of our neediness and God's greatness. No doubt the music of these songs lifts up our hearts to our loving "Abba" and strengthens our faith. As your heart joins in with the spirit and truth of the words and music in these songs, God is pleased and glorified.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 5, 2009
Goats For Jesus
READ: 1 John 3:16-20
Whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? -1 John 3:17
When Dave and Joy Mueller felt God prompting them to move to Sudan as missionaries, all they knew was that they would be helping to build a hospital in that war-ravaged land. How could they know that goats would be in their future?
As Joy began working with the women, she discovered that many were widows because of the devastating civil war and had no way to earn a living. So Joy had an idea. If she could provide just one pregnant goat to a woman, that person would have milk and a source of income. To keep the program going, the woman would give the newborn kid back to Joy-but all other products from the goat would be used to support the woman's family. The baby goat would eventually go to another family. The gift of goats given in Jesus' name would change the life of numerous Sudanese women-and open the door for Joy to explain the gospel.
What is your equivalent to goats? What can you give a neighbor, a friend, or even someone you don't know? Is it a ride? An offer to do yardwork? A gift of material resources?
As believers in Christ, we have the responsibility to care for the needs of others (1 John 3:17). Our acts of love reveal that Jesus resides in our hearts, and giving to those in need may help us tell others about Him. - Dave Branon
O Lord, my heart is filled with love
For others who have urgent needs
So help me share in every way
What I can give through words and deeds. -Hess
God gives us all we need, so let's give to others in their need.
God's Eyes
In Hebrews 4:13, there is a powerful statement concerning God,
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
In this verse, we are taught that God sees what we do, and He sees the intent of what we do. That leads to one thing: total accountability.
There is no getting out of giving an account for our lives before God. We will all stand before Him. And at that time, there will be no shifting; there will be no saying one thing and thinking something else inside. Everything will be laid bare.
God sees everything all the time. Everything is open and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. You just can't get away from God.
The Scripture says in Proverbs 15:3, The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
But God also sees the very intent of our heart. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint a new king over Israel, and he was at the house of Jesse, Jesse had his big strapping son pass by. As Samuel looked at this guy he thought, "Surely this is the Lord's anointed."
But God said, "I rejected this one. For the Lord does not see as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance. But the Lord looks upon the heart."
Our intent can be right, but we can really mess up. God looks on our heart, and if our intent is right, He judges us according to our intent, not according to the mistakes we may have made. But, if the intent of our heart was not pure, God judges us according to that.
Live today...and every day...knowing that the Lord looks on the heart.
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Isaiah 24
From the ends of the earth we hear singing: "Glory to the Righteous One." - Isaiah 24:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Every day, President Barack Obama is handed a purple folder with ten letters written by ordinary Americans. Many of the letters deal with the current economic downturn and the struggles people are experiencing. A small business owner wrote of his fears that he would be forced to lay off employees. A homeowner described her family's difficulties in making mortgage payments after her husband lost his job and had to accept one that paid much less. The White House press secretary said, "They help him focus on the real problems people are facing."
What a privilege to have the attention of one of the most powerful men in the world! Do we hold our access to the Lord in such high esteem? What an incredible honor to have a personal relationship with the Sovereign God! When the story of history has been fully unfolded, the ends of the earth will be singing His praises, "Glory to the Righteous One" (v. 16).
In Isaiah 24, we see that fulfilling God's promises and establishing His kingdom include the necessity of judgment on sin. Because He is powerful, it will be done, and nothing can stop it. Because He is just, He will not show favoritism based on social position or economic status (v. 2). And because He is holy, sin and disobedience will result in punishment (vv. 5-6). Such things cannot simply be passed over-the guilt of human rebellion against Him is very real (vv. 20-22). The judgment is vividly described with images of burning, withering, destruction, and desolation (vv. 7-13).
Even in the midst of this, a faithful remnant of God's followers exists, shouting for joy and acclaiming His majesty (vv. 14-16). Shouldn't they be weeping over such terrible events? No, they rejoice because sin is defeated. They rejoice in the accomplishment of God's justice and the triumph of His holiness.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Enmeshed as we are in the day-to-day events of history, it's sometimes hard to keep the big picture in mind. Sometimes it looks as though injustice is winning the day or unrighteousness has the upper hand in our nation or in the world. But it isn't so! Whether we can understand it or not, God's sovereign will for history is being done and His victory is guaranteed. The "end of the story" is never in doubt. Amen!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 6, 2009
Worth Dying For
READ: Philippians 1:19-26
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -Philippians 1:21
Sophie Scholl was a young German woman during the 1940s. She saw the deterioration of her country under the iron rule of the Nazi regime, and she determined to make a difference. She and her brother, with a small group of friends, began to peacefully protest not only the actions but the values that the Nazis had forced upon the nation.
Sophie and others were arrested and executed for speaking out against the evil in their land. Although she wasn't anxious to die, she saw that the conditions in her country had to be addressed-even if it meant her death.
Sophie's story raises a critical question for us as well. What would we be willing to die for? Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian, and Ed McCully gave their lives in the jungles of South America because they were committed to spreading the gospel. Elliot revealed the heart that drove such sacrifice when he wrote, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." The apostle Paul put it this way: "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21).
Some things really are worth dying for-and in them we gain the reward of the One who declares, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21,23) - Bill Crowder
Forbid it, Lord, that I should be
Afraid of persecution's frown;
For You have promised faithful ones
That they shall wear the victor's crown. -Bosch
Those who faithfully bear the cross in this life will wear the crown in the life to come.
God's Heart
It is easy for us to think of Christ as this majestic, powerful figure in the heavens, unfazed by what is going on in our lives. But Hebrews 4:15 paints a very different picture,
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus sympathizes with you? The King James Version says He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. God is not aloof, distant, and unconcerned, and He does not look at you through some clinical, cold eye. He is moved; He is touched!
I want to show you a verse that, to me, is quite amazing. It is Isaiah 63:9, and it is talking about God and His people. It says,
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old.
When you suffer, God suffers. He is not untouched; He is not unmoved; He is not unsympathetic.
Then there is Jeremiah 31 where God says (speaking of Israel as one single person), I earnestly remember him still; therefore My heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
Finally, look at Psalm 145:8-9,
The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
God feels and sympathizes. He is moved and touched and afflicted as you walk through the difficulties of life. He understands. And He yearns to give you tender mercy.
That is the compassionate and gracious heart of God!
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Psalm 63:1-8
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you. - Psalm 63:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
There is a worldwide water crisis, and it's growing. According to the United Nations, about 3.9 billion people, or nearly half the world's population, will be experiencing severe fresh water shortages by the year 2030. Even now, the majority of diseases in developing countries are linked to an insufficient supply of clean water, with children as the group hit hardest.
Water is life, meaning that thirst is a desire for life (v. 1). Earthly things are a dry and empty desert, unable to provide any spiritual fulfillment. David was lost in a "dry and weary land" from which it seemed God was absent. God's presence was the water and meaning and joy of David's life. Indeed, God's love was valued as "better than life."
David remembered what it was like to worship the Lord in the sanctuary (vv. 2-5). He knew well that God is powerful, glorious, and loving. Though spiritually thirsty and missing His presence, he affirmed that this delight would be renewed: "My lips will glorify you . . . My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods."
The vow to praise and glorify God was not just for public worship, but for the psalmist's private life as well (vv. 6-8). Whether singing in congregational worship or awake in the depths of the night, David's faith was the same. He knew God would help, protect, and uphold him. Like a mother bird, He would keep David safe under His wings (v. 7; cf. Matt. 23:37).
By recalling these key spiritual truths, the king could rekindle a spirit of faith and praise, even when he was going through tough times and God had not yet restored a refreshing sense of His presence. David understood that to know who God is means to enjoy who He is, and to enjoy who He is means to bring Him glory. "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever" turn out to be not two actions, but one.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Desiring the presence of God in our lives, and expressing that desire, is one way to bring Him glory. Why? Because expressing a longing for God's presence shows that we value it above all else in our lives-to us He is the "pearl of great price" (Matt. 13:45-46). This desire also glorifies God because it is a desire born of faith. To long for His presence even when it feels as though He is absent shows our bedrock belief in His faithful lovingkindness.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct. 7, 2009
Are You Distracted?
READ: Luke 10:38-42
Martha was distracted with much serving. -Luke 10:40
In data collected from over 20,000 Christians in 139 countries, The Obstacles to Growth Survey found that, on average, more than 40 percent of Christians around the world say they "often" or "always" rush from task to task. About 60 percent of Christians say that it's "often" or "always" true that the busyness of life gets in the way of developing their relationship with God. It's clear that busyness does distract us from our fellowship with Him.
It seems that Martha too allowed busyness to distract her from spending time with Jesus. When she welcomed Him and His disciples into her home, she was occupied with preparing the food, washing their feet, and making sure they were comfortable. All of these things had to be done, but Luke seems to intimate that Martha's busyness in preparation degenerated into busywork that distracted her from reflecting on Jesus' words and enjoying time with Him (Luke 10:38-42).
What about us? Are we rushing from task to task, allowing the busyness of life and even work for Jesus to distract us from enjoying sweet fellowship with Him? Let's ask God to help us diminish our distractions by making Jesus our focus. - Marvin Williams
Lord, I don't want to miss out on moments of intimacy with You. Help me not to be so busy
that I fail to devote time each day to prayer
and reading Your Word. Amen.
If you are too busy for God, you are too busy.
God's Provision for Your Failure
Psalm 37:23-24 states,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.
When you first read these verses, it is easy to focus on the truth that God orders the steps of a good man, someone who is following God. That is certainly a comforting, motivating, and powerful truth.
But I want to point you to the second sentence, Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.
What an amazing statement! Even when your steps are being ordered by the Lord, you can still goof up! God affirms that you may be seeking to walk with Him and you can still mess up, there is always that human factor.
Our flesh gets in the way. Sometimes we make wrong decisions. Sometimes we can be a bit stubborn. And sometimes we blow it, even when that is the last thing we want to do!
Here is what I want you to grasp today: Even if you mess things up, even if you stumble and fall, God will not utterly abandon you. He will support you, and He will lift you up with His hand.
The Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy that God is our refuge and our strength and that underneath us are His everlasting arms. That brings me a lot of comfort.
You and I may stumble, you and I may fall, but we are not going to stay down, because God's arms and His hands are underneath us, and they will uphold us.
Thank God for that!
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Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Revelation 4
You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. - Revelation 4:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
The popular praise song, "Mighty to Save" (a phrase from Zephaniah 3:17) begins: "Everyone needs compassion / A love that's never failing / Let mercy fall on me / Everyone needs forgiveness / The kindness of a Savior / The hope of nations / Savior, He can move the mountains / My God is mighty to save / He is mighty to save / Forever, Author of salvation / He rose and conquered the grave / Jesus conquered the grave."
Our Sovereign Lord is all-powerful over life, death, and everything in between! When we acknowledge His sovereignty, we bring Him glory. As Paul wrote: "At the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:10-11). At the start of John's vision, as seen in today's reading, he found himself in the throne room of heaven. He described what he saw with images and symbols, including a rainbow, jewels, lightning flashes, thunder crashes, blazing lamps, and a crystal sea. The general impression is one of incredible light and beauty and power.
Circling God's throne are twenty-four elders seated on twenty-four smaller thrones. These seem to be representatives of believing humanity. Their white robes indicate that they have been forgiven and cleansed in Christ (as in Rev. 7:14), while their golden crowns symbolize rewards received for obedience and perseverance (as in James 1:12). Also around God's throne are four living creatures, probably angelic beings. Their many eyes represent their attentiveness, vigilance, and God-given knowledge of all things. Both the elders and the living creatures praise the Lord, giving Him glory as the Ruler and Sovereign of everything that exists. The four living creatures exalt His holiness, power, and eternality (v. 8), while the twenty-four elders take as their theme His worthiness to be worshiped and His work of creation (v. 11). He is the focal point of history!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One day the climax of history will arrive and everyone on earth, indeed the earth itself, will worship the Lord: "Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth-to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, 'Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water' " (Rev. 14:6-7).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct. 8, 2009
Understand One Another
READ: Proverbs 16:16-22
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. -Proverbs 20:5
One of the best ways for a man to love his wife is to understand her. Peter explains that it is imperative for a husband to "dwell with [his wife] with understanding" (1 Peter 3:7).
This principle works both ways. Husbands want to be understood as well. Actually, we all do. Everyone, married or not, longs to be understood by others at the deepest possible level. We're born with that need, and we never seem to outgrow it.
It's feeble avoidance to say we can't understand one another. We can and we must. It takes time-time spent in one another's presence asking questions, listening intently, then asking again. It's as simple and as difficult as that. No one, of course, can fully plumb the mystery of another person's heart, but we can learn something new every day. The wise man of Proverbs called understanding "a wellspring of life" (16:22), a deep source of wisdom to all who seek it.
Again, I say, understanding takes time-one of the most precious gifts we can give to others. How we choose to spend our time is the surest indicator of how much we care for those we love.
Ask the Lord today to give you the grace to take the time to understand the important people in your life. - David H. Roper
To those whose lives we touch in life,
To whom our love we would impart,
The greatest gift that we can give
May be an understanding heart. -Branon
Listening is an open door to understanding.
The Source of Your Success
There is no question we live in one of the most prosperous of ages. And many Christians today live in tremendous prosperity.
It is pretty easy to look at all we have accomplished, and the wealth we have accumulated, and feel pretty good about ourselves.
Today, I want you to read Psalm 44:1-3. It contains a powerful truth and reminder,
We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, the deeds You did in their days, in days of old: You drove out the nations with Your hand, but them You planted; You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out. For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them; but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, because You favored them.
Any good thing that you and I possess is the result of God's hand and nothing less. It is not because we are something special or because we are so intelligent.
When everything is said and done, we are not going to be able to point to our own arm or our own intelligence or our own ability. We will only be able to stand back and say, "Look what the Lord has done."
If you are prosperous today, I want you to know that it is the result of God's hand and God's arm working on your behalf.
As you look to the future, if you are going to experience the fullness of what He has for you, it will indeed be the result of the power of His Spirit working in your life. Not your ingenuity, not your human striving, not the power of your flesh, but the power of His Spirit.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Psalm 96
Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. - Psalm 96:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma organized the Silk Road Project as a way for different cultures to share their musical traditions. Centuries ago, the 5,000-mile-long Silk Road connected Europe and Asia, allowing not only trade but also art and culture to move and mingle. Ma recruited musicians from around the world to create an orchestra that would retrace that route, explore a variety of music, play original and established works, and promote community-based cultural and educational arts events. Said Ma: "I think every member of the ensemble feels that they're better at their own tradition after they've opened up into something else."
From something old comes something new. We find the same in today's reading-from the ancient, timeless themes of God's love and faithfulness, the psalmist leads the congregation in singing a new song before the Lord. How can the songs be new when the themes are old? Because, though the truths remain the same, they can and must be framed in new artistic forms, incarnated in fresh "packaging" for different cultures and different generations.
What are good topics for praise? God's name, salvation, glory, marvelous deeds, greatness, creation, majesty, strength, holiness, sovereignty, judgment, justice, righteousness, and truth are all mentioned in this relatively brief psalm. What actions are involved in praise? The verbs here include singing, declaring, coming into His courts (presence), bringing an offering, rejoicing, being jubilant, fearing, trembling, and spreading the word to the nations (v. 10).
Praise that brings glory to God is both new and old, as described above. It is universal, with all nations and all creation joining in. It sees God for who He is and worships Him alone (vv. 4-5). This praise is public, with God's character being proclaimed far and wide. It is reverent and awe-inspired as well as full of joy and gladness (vv. 9-13). And this praise is ongoing, offered to the Lord day after day as a habit of the heart (v. 2).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If we were writing this psalm, it's unlikely that we would center the final verse around justice and judgment (v. 13). To some modern ears, these difficult concepts sound harsh- occasions for theological analysis, perhaps, but not for joyful praise and worship. But the fact is that we should be rejoicing in God's justice as much as we rejoice in His love. Love, righteousness, truth, and justice all go hand-in-hand, and each of them should be part of how we glorify the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct. 9, 2009
Déjà Vu All Over Again
READ: John 21:1-14
After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. -John 21:1
Baseball legend Yogi Berra is known for his oft-repeated quips like, "It ain't over till it's over" and "It's like déjà vu all over again!"
I wonder if the disciples felt déjà vu when they saw Jesus standing by the shore (John 21). Discouraged and distracted by their own needs in the shadow of Peter's denial and their desertion of Jesus, they had abandoned their calling to follow Jesus and returned to their previous occupation-fishing.
Then, after a fruitless night of fishing, a voice from the shore called out, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some" (John 21:6). When they did, the nets were so full that they couldn't be dragged in. No doubt their minds raced back to their first encounter with Jesus-when He showed up on the shore of their careers and, after another miraculous catch of fish, called them to leave their nets and follow Him (Luke 5:1-11).
Like the disciples, we may want to return to our own agendas when we get discouraged in our walk with Jesus. But then Jesus shows up again on the shore of our lives to extend forgiveness and to draw us back to those moments when He first called us.
It's like déjà vu all over again! - Joe Stowell
Son of the living God! Oh, call us
Once and again to follow Thee;
And give us strength, whate'er befall us,
Thy true disciples still to be. -Martin
Jesus calls us to follow Him- and repeats His call when necessary.
Gaining the Victory
We live in a society of addictions, of bondage to so many things. Maybe you are in bondage to cigarettes, or alcohol, or pornography, or anger, or any number of other things.
Whatever the condition that has you in bondage today, God's hand and God's arm can lift you up and untangle you and set you free. In Psalm 98:1 we are told,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
We find repeatedly throughout the Old Testament how, through God's mighty hand and His outstretched arm, He redeemed His people out of slavery and out of bondage.
Now here is the question. Does it just sort of randomly happen? Do we have to wait and see if we are one of the lucky ones God will choose to extend His mighty arm to help? Or, is there anything that we can do to cooperate with God to see His arm extended in our behalf?
The answer is yes, we can, and we must cooperate with God.
In Isaiah 51:5 God tells us,
"My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust."
The way we cooperate with God is to trust in His arm; not in our own arm, but in His. If you want to see God's mighty arm move on your behalf, then trust Him alone! Do not trust your intelligence, your ingenuity, your education, your status in life, your wealth, or any other thing.
Trust in God alone. And you will have the victory.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Philippians 2:5-11
Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
A recent movie by Iranian director Nader Talebzadeh, The Messiah, depicts the life of Christ from a Muslim perspective. In this version, Jesus is not the Son of God, but a "beautiful prophet." He was not crucified, but ascended to heaven on the night of the Last Supper. The person who was actually crucified was His betrayer. A miracle-worker and teacher, Jesus is said to have prophesied many times the coming of the final prophet, Mohammad.
As a gesture of respect for Christian tradition, Talebzadeh included alternate endings for the movie, one from the Koran and one from the Bible. Nonetheless, Christians committed to truth know that the Christ in his movie is a lie. Jesus was indeed the Son of God who brought redemption, and His death and resurrection were the turning point of history.
As seen in today's reading, it was all part of God's master plan of redemption. In this passage, glory and glorifying come into the picture in verses 10 and 11, when God exalts His risen Son and every knee bows and every tongue confesses "that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (see Rev. 16:1-9). As believers, we've got an early start on this glorious activity!
Who is Christ? He is the Son of God who obeyed His Father perfectly, humbling Himself by being born as a human being and coming to earth to die for the sins of the world. He gave up the heights of heaven for the depths of death.
We can hardly grasp what He did for us-the enormous gap between His rightful glory and His guilt-bearing mission of redemption. Where are we in this picture? None of this depends on us. God the Father and God the Son are the ones who do it; we are involved "only" as worshipers. That is, we cannot add to the reality or truth of God's plan, but we do have the privilege of confessing and declaring the glory of it.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Those with power tend to flaunt it-it's just human nature (Luke 22:24-27). The more they have, the more they strut and preen, so to speak. Yet Jesus, "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Col. 1:15), with legions of angels at His command, chose to walk around in human flesh, getting tired and hungry and insulted and misunderstood-for us. His incredible love and humility should call forth the same from us as we follow Him each day.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 10, 2009
Sorry About The Tears
READ: John 11:32-44
[Jesus] groaned in the spirit and was troubled. -John 11:33
My friend was making a major change in her life-she was leaving her employer of 50 years for a new venture. She cried when she said her goodbyes. And as she did, she frequently said, "Sorry about the tears."
Why do we sometimes feel the need to apologize for crying? Perhaps we look at tears as showing a weakness in our character or a vulnerability we don't like. Maybe we're uncomfortable or think our tears are making others uncomfortable.
Our emotions, however, are God-given. They're a characteristic of our having been made in God's image (Gen. 1:27). He grieves. In Genesis 6:6-7, He was sorrowful and angry about His people's sin and the separation it caused between Him and them. Jesus, God in the flesh, joined His friends Mary and Martha in grieving over the loss of their brother Lazarus (John 11:28-44). "He groaned in the spirit and was troubled" (v.33). He "wept" (v.35). "Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb" (v.38). I doubt that He apologized.
Someday when we get to heaven, there will be no more sorrow or separation or pain, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:4). In the meantime, the tears may flow. No apologies needed. - Anne Cetas
He knows our burdens and our crosses,
Those things that hurt, our trials and losses,
He cares for every soul that cries,
God wipes the tears from weeping eyes. -Brandt
If you doubt that Jesus cares, remember His tears.
T-R-U-S-T
In our last devotional, we talked about the need to trust God. You may wonder, what does trust really mean? Let me help you understand by using the word T-R-U-S-T as an acronym.
"T" stands for trust...which means that if you are going to trust Him, you have to take Him at His word. Even if it seems like it is not true, you take Him at His word. If we will take Him at His word, He will guide us through the course of life and bring us across the finish line safely.
"R" stands for rest. The Bible tells us to rest in the Lord. 1 Peter 5:7 says, Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Do not worry. Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but you don't get anywhere.
"U" stands for understanding. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. Sometimes things just won't make sense to your understanding.
"S" stands for speech. Our speech is an expression of our faith. In Mark 11, Jesus said, "Have faith in God." And then the very next thing Jesus said is, "Whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says." Our faith in God is expressed through our speech.
The final "T" stands for thanksgiving. We offer thanks to God in advance. Philippians 4:6 says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. When we offer thanks to God, it is an expression of our faith.
That's T-R-U-S-T!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Daniel 4:28-37
Everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. - Daniel 4:37
TODAY IN THE WORD
"Pride is a vice," said eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson, "which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself." Another anonymous saying warns: "Temper gets you into trouble. Pride keeps you there." Author and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis observed: "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you."
These observations describe well the sin for which Nebuchadnezzar was judged in Daniel 4. He ruled Babylon, the military superpower and leading culture of its day, and was therefore the most powerful man on earth. When his pride grew, God sent him a dream as a warning. The dream was about a strong tree that got chopped down. Even an emperor should not imagine he is beyond the reach of God's justice and power, for the Lord has a habit of humbling the proud (James 4:6).
This warning was even more specific: Nebuchadnezzar would not just be defeated in battle or suffer a political setback-he would be personally shamed and humiliated. Daniel explicitly told the king that the purpose would be to demonstrate God's sovereignty over all human kingdoms (v. 17). Although God had shown mercy by putting Daniel in position to interpret the dream and urge a repentant response, everything happened exactly as foretold. Nebuchadnezzar made a prideful statement about his own power and glory (v. 30), triggering judgment. For seven years-too long to keep it hushed up-he was out of his mind and lived like an animal.
The king was released from this embarrassing affliction only when he publicly acknowledged the one true God's eternality, power, righteousness, justice, and supremacy. Nebuchadnezzar brought glory to God for who He is and what He has done. Sin seeks glory for self, but worship gives glory to whom it is due.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you think you're beyond God's reach? Think again! "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18). He can take away any part of your life, and He can give it back again, not arbitrarily but as part of His divine plan. How should we respond? Like Job: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised" (Job 1:21).
GOD BLESS! :angel:
Daily Devotionals October 11, 2009
Speaking The Truth
READ: 2 Chron. 24:15-22
He sent prophets to them, . . . but they would not listen. -2 Chronicles 24:19
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is a respected small-town lawyer in the segregated South during the 1930s. When he takes on a case that pits an innocent black man against two dishonest white people, Atticus knows he will face terrible prejudice from the jury. But his conscience compels him to speak the truth boldly in the face of opposition.
The Old Testament prophets were often sent to preach the truth to a stubborn people. "[God] sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the Lord; and they testified against them, but they would not listen" (2 Chron. 24:19). Their message often resulted in persecution and sometimes even death (Heb. 11:32-38).
During Christ's ministry on earth, His message also resulted in angry opposition (Luke 4:21-30). Yet, in the sovereignty of God, the terrible miscarriage of justice that sentenced Jesus to death on the cross purchased our redemption. Now, as representatives of the risen Christ in this world, we are to promote reconciliation, justice, and integrity (Mic. 6:8; 2 Cor. 5:18-21). And in so doing, this may mean speaking the truth in the face of opposition. This is the charge to every believer until that day when Christ sets all things right (Rev. 20:11-15). - Dennis Fisher
The life that counts must toil and fight,
Must hate the wrong and love the right;
Must stand for truth, by day, by night-
This is the life that counts. -Anon.
It's better to declare the truth and be rejected than to withhold the truth just to be accepted.
The Power of Humility
One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is spiritual arrogance.
When pride wells up in our heart, it can absolutely take our spiritual legs out from under us, and keep the strong arm of the Lord from being revealed in our lives.
In 1 Peter 5:6, we are given the antidote to pride. It says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
It is unfortunate, but there are some who emphasize the message of faith that at times do so with a touch of arrogance rather than humility. The result is that it has really turned some people off to the whole message of faith.
Our faith always needs to be coupled with humility.
There are only two people in the Bible Jesus said had great faith. One of them was the Roman centurion whom we find in Luke 7. When you study his story, you find that because of his good works, the elders of the Jews said he deserved Jesus' help. But the centurion had a far different view of himself. He said he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof.
The other person that Jesus said had great faith was the woman with the possessed daughter in Matthew 15. Two elements stand out about her as we read her story. She was persistent and she was humble.
Great faith cannot be divorced from great humility. Humility is a necessary ingredient for the soil of our heart, without which a healthy faith cannot grow.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Revelation 19:1-9
Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! - Revelation 19:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dating and courtship are a rough business in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Many marriages in that country are a result of a traditional though illegal custom called ala kachuu, or "grab and run." Sometimes this is a mutually agreed upon elopement, but more often it is a kind of kidnapping. The woman is abducted and taken to the man's home. By the next morning, she is a "ruined woman" unless she marries him. Surveys indicate that currently at least a third of Kyrgyz brides are wed in this manner.
Thank God that the Wedding Supper of the Lamb will be an entirely different kind of event! As seen in today's reading, it is a celebratory feast. God will condemn and destroy the "great prostitute" Babylon, then the Lamb and Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, will officially take His bride, the church (v. 7). The "wedding DJ" will be the Holy Spirit, the favorite musical theme will be: "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God" (v. 1). Judging by these verses, it will be a pretty noisy wedding! There's "the roar of a great multitude" and shouting "like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder." We might picture a stadium full of cheering fans roaring as the clock winds down on a championship victory.
It's interesting that the pinnacle event of history is a Wedding. Throughout Scripture, God is pictured as a husband and His people as a wife, although that wife is sometimes spiritually unfaithful (as in the book of Hosea). At this feast, she wears a special wedding dress made of fine linen, symbolizing righteous acts, which has been "given her to wear" (v. 8). She didn't earn it, for salvation is God's gift. Even so, the bride has taken care to make herself ready, which is to say, believers need to do the good deeds God has prepared for us to do (Eph. 2:10). Then we'll be ready to join in the chorus of glory!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Marriage is not just a metaphor. Our marriages are to be living illustrations of God's love (see Eph. 5:25). Many resources are available for those of us who need help along the way. You might be interested in reading The Marriage You've Always Wanted, by Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages. Two other good recent books are by John Piper: This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence and Velvet Steel: The Joy of Being Married to You: Selections from the Poems of John Piper.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 12, 2009
www.thegospelhiway.org (In case you wish to look up more from this site, here is the address for them. Forgive me
www.fellowship-katy.org for not listing it. This is a special program and I benefit from it, and I know you will too. )
Go Beyond Reading
READ: Colossians 3:12-17
As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness . . . longsuffering. -Colossians 3:12
Pastor, where are the Our Daily Bread devotionals?" The words came harshly-almost in anger. The latest edition had not yet been placed in the rack outside the church auditorium. This led at least one reader to confront the pastor about their absence. Although it was not his responsibility to distribute the booklets, he felt terrible about the way this parishioner had reprimanded him for not making sure the devotional guides were there on time.
When I heard this, I was struck by the irony of this situation. Devotional booklets are meant to encourage Christian growth and godly grace. And as followers of Christ who read devotional materials, we hope we are moving toward spiritual maturity that leads to "tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering"-qualities Paul says we should "put on" (Col. 3:12).
Our spiritual disciplines-reading God's Word along with accompanying study or devotional materials, prayer, and worshiping together-should not be ends in themselves. Instead, those actions are means to becoming more Christlike, more godly, more Spirit-led. Our spiritual practice should lead to having the "Word of Christ dwell in [us] richly" (3:16). That will show in everything we do and say. - Dave Branon
I want my heart to be in tune with God,
In every stage of life may it ring true;
I want my thoughts and words to honor Him,
Exalting Him in everything I do. -Hess
Bible study is not merely to inform us- it's meant to transform us.
The Face of God
The psalmist says in Psalm 30:7,
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.
One thing we should never want to experience is for God to hide His face, because the face of God represents His favor, friendship, and fellowship.
Now there is only one thing that causes God to hide His face from us. It is found in Isaiah 59:1-2,
Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Sin is the one thing that causes God's face to be hidden. The Bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, which means the sin of mankind had hidden God's face.
But that is not the end of the story, thank goodness! In Isaiah 50:6 we are told,
"I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting."
Because Jesus did not hide His face from shame and spitting, because He took your place and died for your sins, God's face can shine upon you.
He could have hidden His face; He could have avoided the whole crucifixion, but He didn't. He bore a shame that was not His as God the Father laid the sin of the world on Him.
Because Jesus did not hide His face, the face of God need not be hidden from any of us. The light of God's countenance can shine upon every one of us, and we can indeed be the friends of God.
Thank you, Jesus, for what you did!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Romans 4:18-25
He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God. - Romans 4:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
In a recent graduation address, Wheaton College president Duane Litfin spoke of discipleship: "These hard words [Luke 14:26-27] are designed to remind us that serving Christ costs us everything. Compared to our allegiance to Him, all other allegiances, no matter how important, pale into the background. They're like stars in the daytime, outshone by a far brighter thing. When you set out to follow Jesus Christ, there was no fallback plan, no parachute clause-all other bridges were burned. In fact, Jesus says, without that, you cannot be His disciple. Nothing less will do. No half-heartedness, no competing allegiances. With Jesus, it's all or nothing."
Faithful discipleship brings glory to God. Our key verse today describes Abraham's commitment to obedience to God. Specifically, he believed God would give him a son, just as He said He would. From a human perspective, such faith was "against all hope" and reason, for Abraham was 100 years old, "his body was as good as dead," and "Sarah's womb was also dead" (vv. 18-19). He knew and faced these facts, but as discouraging as they were, they didn't weaken his faith in God as a sure promise keeper (v. 21).
Abraham was even "strengthened in his faith" by God Himself. Saying he "gave glory to God" means that he thanked God ahead of time for keeping His promise. When God keeps any promise, but especially one that is humanly impossible, we see clearly why He deserves all our praise and glory.
In what he did, Abraham modeled discipleship. The lives of all who follow the Lord should through faith bring God glory, just as Abraham did by trusting Him completely. Furthermore, our faith is a gift of God. Just as He strengthened Abraham's faith, He strengthens ours-we cannot boast in it. As Dr. Litfin said: "No halfheartedness, no competing allegiances. With Jesus, it's all or nothing."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
To believe God will keep His promises is to give Him glory. Reason says, "Sit back; wait and see; the proof is in the pudding." But faith says, "Take a stand, take a risk, follow Christ into the unknown, for He has said He will never leave you or forsake you" (see Heb. 13:5-6). Whatever you do, God will keep His promises and His name will be glorified, but you have a choice about how to respond to this spiritual truth. Choose faith!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
www.thegospelhiway.org
www.fellowship-katy.org
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 13, 2009
Details, Details
READ: Philemon 1:4-16
In everything give thanks. -1 Thessalonians 5:18
Details make a difference. Ask the man from Germany who planned to visit his fiancée for Christmas but ended up in snowy Sidney, Montana, instead of sunny Sydney, Australia.
Prepositions in our language seem like insignificant details, but they can make a big difference. The words "in" and "for" are an example.
The apostle Paul wrote, "In everything give thanks" (1 Thess. 5:18). That doesn't mean we have to be thankful for everything. We need not be thankful for the bad choices someone makes, but we can be thankful in the circumstances because the Lord can use the resulting difficulties for good.
The letter to Philemon illustrates this idea. Paul was imprisoned with Onesimus, a runaway slave. He certainly didn't have to give thanks for his bad situation. Yet his letter is full of gratitude because he knew that God was using it for good. Onesimus had become something more than a slave; he was now a beloved brother in the Lord (v.16).
Knowing that God can use all things for good is more than enough reason to give thanks in everything. Giving thanks in difficult circumstances is a small detail that makes a big difference. - Julie Ackerman Link
Father, thank You that in every trial, challenge, and difficulty, You are behind the scenes working things out for our good. Help us to see Your hand in everything. Amen.
God has not promised to keep us from life's storms, but He will keep us through them.
Showers of Blessings
In Ezekiel 34:26, God is speaking, and He says,
"I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."
In this passage, God is certainly speaking of natural rain when He talks about the showers He will send. Those are rains He promised to Israel which would water the land and cause it to increase and be fruitful and bring an abundant harvest.
But, more than that, when God says there will be showers of blessing, He is talking about bringing blessings into the lives of His people. The rain is symbolic of more than just the rain that falls to the earth. It symbolizes the good things that God wants to bring into the lives of those who serve Him.
God wants to bring showers of blessings into your life. Not just a blessing or two, but showers of blessings. An abundance of blessings.
You may feel like you are in a season of drought rather than experiencing showers of blessings. So over the next few devotionals, I will help you understand:
The three ways God brings blessing into the lives of people
The things that can cause a spiritual drought
How you can break such a drought in your life
For today, what I want you to begin to see is God's desire to rain blessings into your life. If you are feeling a spiritual drought, I pray God will use the coming devotionals to help you break that drought, and experience the refreshing rains of His blessing.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Psalm 34:1-10
Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together. - Psalm 34:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
In God's Book: The Power and Pleasure of Praying the Psalms, campus pastor Ben Patterson portrays the psalms as lessons in prayer, "learning to desire the things God wants to give, and then asking him for them." He wrote: "The Psalms can help us pour out our hearts to God. All the joys, pleasures, hopes, fears, despairs, doubts, heartaches, terrors, and longings of which we are capable are mirrored, clarified, sanctified, and transformed in the Psalms, as are all the ways we may pray: supplication, intercession, praise, thanks, lament, and meditation."
Psalm 34 is one of these marvelous lessons in prayer and faith. The bottom line is much the same as in yesterday's devotion-trusting in the Lord brings Him glory. But notice the curious occasion: David wrote this psalm while on the run from Saul, after pretending to be insane before the Philistines in order to defuse their suspicions.
As with Abraham and the idea of two elderly people having a baby, this was a "messy," real-world story, not an inspirational wall poster with butterflies and waterfalls. Faith that brings God glory is often "messy" and real-world in the same way in our lives. We're called to trust Him in the midst of gritty, complicated, and difficult realities.
As verse 3 makes clear, God is glorified when we persist in faith in the midst of such realities and call others to do the same, exalting His name together.
In this psalm, David spoke specifically of faith that God saves and delivers (vv. 4-7). David knew this not only personally, since he was running from Saul, but also from history. The radiant face of Moses and the protective presence of the angel of the Lord reminded him of God's covenant love and faithfulness.
Ultimately, this kind of faith savors and delights in God (vv. 8-10). Trust is more about the relationship and His presence than about what He does for us, though actually the two cannot be separated.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Imagine if you frequently read restaurant reviews, had a shelf full of cookbooks, and enjoyed looking at full-color photos of delicious dishes . . . but never actually ventured to cook or eat any of these meals for yourself. What a waste! In the same way, faith that knows many truths about God but never acts on them is bland and tasteless. The relationship isn't worth much. Want more of God? Take David's advice: "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (v. 8).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 14, 2009
Olympic Extravaganza
READ: 1 Kings 10:4-10
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. -Matthew 5:16
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics on August 8, 2008, impressed the world. I saw it on TV as more than 90,000 people watched it live in the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing. It was inspiring to hear about China's 5,000 years of history and the inventions she had contributed to the world: paper-making, movable-type printing, the compass, and fireworks.
The Queen of Sheba was greatly impressed by what she saw during her visit with Solomon (1 Kings 10:4-5). The sights of Jerusalem so overwhelmed her that she exclaimed, "The half was not told me" (v.7). Above all, she was impressed with Solomon's wisdom (vv.6-7). She was convinced that the subjects of Solomon were happy because they continually stood before him and heard his wisdom (v.8). She concluded by praising Solomon's Lord for making him king so he would "do justice and righteousness" (v.9).
Solomon's impact on his people made me wonder about our contribution to the world. We're not concerned about impressing others with our possessions or abilities, but we all should want to make a difference in the lives of people. What if there was one thing each of us did today that caused people to praise the Lord? - C. P. Hia
This is the wish I always wish,
The prayer I always pray:
Lord, may my life help others
It touches on the way. -Anon.
Christians are windows through which Jesus can shine.
The Blessing of God's Spiritual Influence
In the beginning of Isaiah 55, God invites His people to come to Him and fellowship with Him. In verses 3 and 6 God says,
"Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live.... Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near."
In verses 10-11, we are told what happens to those who respond to this invitation, to God's call to come and seek Him and listen to Him,
"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."
In the same way rain brings blessing when it waters the earth (causing it to bring a bountiful harvest and fruitfulness into the lives of the people), so God's spiritual influence brings refreshment and fruitfulness to our lives.
What is God's spiritual influence? It is the impact of His Word and His Spirit upon the hearts of His children.
When you come to God, when you respond to His call to seek Him and incline your ear, He will speak to you. And the effect His Word has when He speaks it into your life, into your heart, is the same effect that rain has on the earth.
His Word, as it penetrates your heart, will bring refreshment, enlightenment, and ultimately, fruitfulness. It will bring revival into your heart causing spiritual growth and progress.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Jeremiah 13:15-25
Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. - Jeremiah 13:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
As he recounted in Discipleship Journal, Scott Morton once called a friend to complain about all the stress in his life. "Got a verse for you," the friend responded. "Oh great," thought Scott, "a Bible verse to patch up my shattered nerves." Aloud he said, "Go ahead. What's the verse?" "First John 1:9," his friend replied, referring to the well-known verse ex-horting believers to confess their sins. Shocked, Scott realized he'd been neglecting his relationship with God. The greatest barrier in this relationship is sin, but the solution of confession is always available.
Confessing sin brings God glory! At the start of today's reading, the prophet Jeremiah called the people to humble themselves and hear the word of the Lord (v. 15). The phrase "Give glory to the Lord your God" is a follow-up call to confession and repentance, for people cannot truly worship with unconfessed sin in their hearts. The main barrier to confession is pride. The consequences of failing to confess were first given in metaphorical terms-they would experience darkness rather than light, they would stumble rather than stand firm (v. 16).
It gave Jeremiah no pleasure to deliver this message. If the warning was fulfilled, he would "weep bitterly" (v. 17). The passage then goes on to make explicit the consequences of continuing pride and unrepentant hearts (vv. 18-25). God's people would be conquered and led into exile, a future they thought was impossible due to their status as "God's people." Their main sin was idolatry; their worship at high places was like sexual immorality. Your wicked actions are habitual, said the prophet: You "are accustomed to doing evil" (v. 23).
Confession and repentance include the idea of turning from sin to righteousness, and God is pleased to strengthen us to do it. This process is founded on His mercy, grace, and holiness at work in our lives, and His name is glorified when we confess our sins.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
First John 1:9, mentioned in today's illustration, encourages us: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Though our sins might be different from those of the Israelites, and though military conquest and exile might not be at stake, the fact remains that sin has negative consequences in our lives while righteousness is how God created us to live. Confession is a wonderful way to restore a close relationship with Him.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
www.thegospelhiway.org (In case you wish to look up more from this site, here is the address for them. Forgive me
www.fellowship-katy.org for not listing it. This is a special program and I benefit from it, and I know you will too. )
Daily Devotionals October 15,2009
Be Still
READ: Psalm 46
Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! -Psalm 46:10
As I sat in the dentist's chair, I braced myself for the drilling that would begin my root canal. I was ready for the worst, and my body language and facial expression exposed my sense of dread. The dentist looked at me and smiled, saying, "It's okay, Bill. Try to relax."
That isn't easy to do. It is actually very difficult to try (requiring effort and exertion) to relax (requiring an absence of effort and exertion). Try and relax just don't seem to fit together-not only in the dentist's chair, but in the spiritual realm as well.
Far too often I don't limit my efforts of resistance to visits at the dentist's office. In my relationship with Christ, I find myself not pressing for God's purposes but for my own interests. In those moments, the hardest thing for me to do is "try to relax" and genuinely trust God for the outcome of life's trials.
In Psalm 46:10, we read, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" In the moments when my heart is anxious, this verse reminds me to "be still, and know." Now, if I can only put that into practice and rest confidently in His care, I'll be at peace. - Bill Crowder
Lord, we know that true rest can be found only in You. Help us to end our striving and to trust that You will provide. In Your loving arms we find rest. Amen.
God knows the future, so we are safe in His hands.
God's Plentiful Rain
Psalm 68:6-10 says,
God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. O God, when You went out before Your people, when You marched through the wilderness, the earth shook; the heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God; Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. You, O God, sent a plentiful rain, whereby You confirmed Your inheritance, when it was weary. Your congregation dwelt in it; You, O God, provided from Your goodness for the poor.
When you read various Bible commentators, you will find they agree that this refers to a tremendous rain. The language the psalmist uses refers back to the manna God provided for His children as they wandered in the wilderness.
God sustained them supernaturally. He gave them supernatural provision. He brought them out of bondage into prosperity, and He sent a plentiful rain symbolizing His extravagant blessing on their life.
God, out of His goodness, met the needs of those who previously had been poor. And in the same way, He pours blessings into our life. He sustains us, He takes care of us, and He meets our needs.
Take time today to praise Him for His provision and blessing in your life.
Now, if there is a drought in your life in any of these areas, there is a reason for it. In the next few devotionals, I want to talk to you about some potential causes for that drought, and suggest some things you can do to cause the drought to break and bring the rain of God's blessing to fall in your life once again.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Isaiah 6:1-8
See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. - Isaiah 6:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
One day in 1956, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. received news that his Montgomery, Alabama, home had been bombed. He returned home and found his family safe, but violence was in the air. A crowd was gathering; rage was rising. From the front porch, King spoke these words: "If you have weapons, take them home; if you do not have them, please do not seek to get them. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Remember the words of Jesus: "˜He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword' . . . Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: "˜Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that despitefully use you.' This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love."
Forgiveness can be both strong and painful, as Isaiah also discovered in today's reading. This classic passage on the calling and commissioning of the prophet teaches us that while sin brings shame, confession of sin is cause for rejoicing because of the greatness of God's forgiveness. From the perspective of our month's topic of glorifying God, this happened to Isaiah in a context where, not by accident, God's glory is paramount. The images are stunning and awe-inspiring-a throne in heaven, the temple, the train of God's robe filling the temple, thunder, smoke, and angels proclaiming His holiness: "The whole earth is full of his glory" (v. 3).
Seeing a glorious vision of the glory of God in which God was being glorified, Isaiah was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of his personal sin and the nation's sinfulness (v. 5). God offered forgiveness in the form of a hot coal touched to the prophet's lips, a symbol of his calling (v. 7; cf. Jer. 1:9; Dan. 10:16). Divine forgiveness is a powerful, painful, cleansing reality, and the first step in His plans to use us for His purposes (v. 8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In your daily devotions, one of your main goals is no doubt simply to meet with God, to sense His presence as you begin your day. But there's nothing simple about it! All it took to spur Isaiah's agonized cry, "Woe is me!" (v. 5), was a realistic sense of God's presence. We're not suggesting you cry, "Woe is me!" over your morning coffee, but you could praise God and ask Him to reveal to you more fully the purifying effect of His presence in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
www.thegospelhiway.org (In case you wish to look up more from this site, here is the address for them. Forgive me
www.fellowship-katy.org for not listing it. This is a special program and I benefit from it, and I know you will too. )
Daily Devotionals October 16, 2009
Conflict Resolution
READ: Philippians 4:1-9
I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. -Philippians 4:2
Today is observed in many countries as International Conflict Resolution Day. Its purpose is to encourage people to use mediation and arbitration rather than the legal system to settle their differences. Because we as followers of Christ are not immune to conflict, we need to learn how to resolve our disagreements in ways that honor the Lord.
It has been said that "church fights are the worst fights," perhaps because they break out among people who profess to believe in unity and love. Many Christians have been so hurt by a fellow believer that they walk away from the church and never return.
Euodia and Syntyche are mentioned by name in the Bible and urged to resolve their differences: "Be of the same mind in the Lord" (Phil. 4:2). Instead of leaving them alone to settle their dispute, Paul appealed to a trusted fellow worker to "help these women who labored with me in the gospel" (v.3). In this same context, Paul urged the Philippians to bring their requests to God, noting that prayer brings the peace of God (v.7) and a sense of His abiding presence (v.9).
Fractured relationships in a Christian community are a community responsibility. In the midst of hurts and differences, we can encourage, listen, and pray. - David C. McCasland
For Further Study
For biblical advice on reconciling relationships, read What Do You Do With A Broken Relationship? on the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/q0703
Forgiveness is the glue that repairs broken relationships.
The Number One Cause for Spiritual Drought
By far the Scriptures teach that the number one cause for spiritual drought is sin. And the number one cure for drought, according to the Scriptures, is repentance.
In 2 Chronicles 6:26-27, King Solomon is clear in this prayer,
When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.
Notice that the heavens were shut up, there was no rain, because of sin. But when the people confessed God's name and turned and repented, Solomon prayed, "God, hear and open the heavens once again and send rain."
This prayer is particularly significant because Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple. Scripture declares to us in 2 Corinthians 6:16, You are the temple of the living God.
The Old Testament temple was just a type and a shadow pointing to better things-to the era in which God would no longer dwell in buildings made with mortar and stone, but take up residence in human hearts.
That's you and me! As 1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are not our own. We have been bought with a price, and God's expectation is that we glorify Him in our bodies. You and I are God's temple.
If there is sin in your life, turn from it and turn to God, so that you can experience the refreshing rain of God's blessing in your life.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: Joshua 7
My son, give glory to the Lord . . . Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me. - Joshua 7:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the beginning days of the early church, Barnabas sold some land and gave the money to the Apostles. Perhaps noticing how much praise he'd received for his sacrificial generosity, a couple named Ananias and Sapphira decided to do the same . . . almost. They kept part of the money for themselves, but told Peter they were donating the full price from their land sale. God knew, of course, and for lying to Him they were both struck dead. "Great fear seized the whole church," as well it should have (Acts 4:32-5:11). Lying to the Lord is a blasphemous and terrible thing.
Telling the truth, by contrast, brings Him glory. We see this clearly in the story of Achan. During the epic victory at Jericho, Achan had stolen a robe, silver, and gold and hidden them for himself. Since he was a soldier on the winning side, why were these things not considered spoils of war? Because they had been dedicated to the Lord (v. 11), who had given Israel the victory in a miraculous way. When Achan stole these items, he was actually trying to steal glory from God! When the Israelites suffered defeat at Ai, he had to have known that his actions were the reason, yet he didn't step forward. When Joshua, at the Lord's command, ordered a national consecration and assembly, Achan again had to have known that his sin was the reason, yet again he didn't step forward. Not even when the narrowing process was taking place, from tribe to clan to family, did he step forward. Only when Joshua charged him directly did Achan confess.
Joshua's charge to tell the truth is interestingly phrased: "Give glory to the Lord . . . and give him the praise" (v. 19). Though Achan had been caught in a heinous sin and faced capital punishment and enduring infamy, it was still an occasion for praise at the national level because sin was being rooted out of God's holy people and the covenant was being honored.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do we have a price? Achan's seemed rather low. With God's glory, the covenant, military victory, and the Promised Land at stake, he sold his righteousness and integrity for a handful of valuables he could hide under his tent. In the choices we make every day, God's glory and the gospel witness are at stake, yet sometimes we trade them for lesser things-a pay raise? Our own convenience? Avoiding ridicule? Only God knows. And since He does know, why not always and uncompromisingly put His glory first?
GOD BLESS!
www.thegospelhiway.org (In case you wish to look up more from this site, here is the address for them. Forgive me
www.fellowship-katy.org for not listing it. This is a special program and I benefit from it, and I know you will too. )
Daily Devotionals October 17, 2009
The Defeat Of Death
READ: 1 Thess. 4:15-18
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. -1 Corinthians 15:57
Christian faith ought to make a difference in how we live from day to day. But the final test of our trust in the gospel is how we react in the face of death. When we attend a memorial service for a departed friend who loved the Lord Jesus, we gather to honor a believer whose stalwart trust has richly blessed the lives of those who knew him. The words spoken are more an expression of praise to God than a tribute to an admired fellow pilgrim. The service is a God-glorifying testimony to our Savior's victory over death and the grave (1 Cor. 15:54-57).
How different from the funeral service of Charles Bradlaugh, a belligerent British atheist. Writer Arthur Porritt recalls: "No prayer was said at the grave. Indeed, not a single word was uttered. The remains, placed in a light coffin, were lowered into the earth in a quite unceremonious fashion as if carrion were being hustled out of sight. . . . I came away heart-frozen. It only then dawned on me that loss of faith in the continuity of human personality after death gives death an appalling victory."
Christians, however, believe in a face-to-face fellowship with our Lord after death and the eventual resurrection of our bodies (1 Cor. 15:42-55; 1 Thess. 4:15-18). Does your faith rejoice in victory over death? - Vernon C. Grounds
From earth's wide bounds and ocean's farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl stream in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost- Alleluia! Alleluia! -How
Because Christ is alive, we too shall live.
The Cure for the Drought Brought by Sin
In our last devotional, we talked about sin being the number one cause for spiritual drought. The natural question is, "What is the cure, how do I end that drought?"
One word: repentance.
In addition to the passage we read yesterday, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is clear and instructive,
"When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
True repentance literally means an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. If there is no outward change of direction, then it is not true repentance.
There is no real repentance even if you are feeling emotional and weeping over your sin. That is not repentance. Feeling sorry is not repentance.
Repentance is the change of heart that results in a change of lifestyle, a change of direction, a turning. So I have a word for you: If there is known sin in your life, repent.
King David gives us a great example in Psalm 32:4-5 when he said,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD...."
If, because of sin, you are in a drought spiritually, repent. If you do, your drought can be broken and you can experience the blessings of God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
God . . . made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. - 2 Corinthians 4:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Several years ago, fishing in the Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois, Tim Pruitt landed a 124-pound blue catfish. It took Pruitt more than half an hour to land the giant fish, which measured 58 inches long and 44 inches around. About as large as a sixth-grader, it broke the world record by two-and-a-half pounds and the state record by nearly twenty pounds. The huge catfish was kept alive, put on display at a Cabela's Outfitter store in Kansas City, and later returned to the river.
Jesus said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matt 4:19). As we also see in today's reading, God is glorified when we share the light of the gospel with those living in darkness. When Paul wrote, "we have this ministry," he meant all believers (v. 1; see 3:18) and the new covenant (see 3:6). That means we are all responsible for spreading the good news.
The basis for our calling is not our own abilities or effectiveness but God's mercy. Our evangelistic "method" is simple-"setting forth the truth plainly" (v. 2). We do not need deceptions, distortions, or marketing tricks.
In fact, we cannot "convert" anyone. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, with the ultimate choice between the individual and God. Because unbelievers are spiritually blind, the gospel is veiled or concealed from their understanding (vv. 3-4). In addition, Satan takes an active role in further blinding their hearts and minds to the "light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
God's hand is needed for any evangelism to be successful. This is why our goal in witnessing can only be to "commend ourselves to every man's conscience" (v. 2). Therefore, while we're passionate about sharing the good news, we need not fret about unbelievers' unresponsiveness. It's not about us (v. 5). God is the source of spiritual light and power in our witness, and He is the One who gives life (v. 6).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have you caught any fish lately? Have you been baiting your hook well? Do the fish even know you're there? These questions aren't really about fishing, of course, but about evangelism. While God is the only One who can awaken belief in spiritually dead hearts, we have been commanded to be part of this process by sharing the gospel (Matt. 28:19-20). God is pleased to use us as His children to tell others of the good news of salvation in Christ. What a privilege!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 18, 2009
On Shoulders Of Giants
READ: Joshua 1:1-9
As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. -Joshua 1:5
Giants hold a special place in our lore-both historical and literary. From the real giant Goliath to the fictional giant of Jack and the Beanstalk fame, we are fascinated by these larger-than-life characters.
Sometimes we use the word giant to honor ordinary-size people who have done extraordinary things. One example is the 17th-century physicist Sir Isaac Newton. A committed Christian, he credited his success to other "giants" who had gone before. "If I have seen a little further," he said, "it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Indeed, Newton became a giant on whose shoulders later scientists stood-even as they used his observations in the conquest of space flight.
When God commanded Joshua to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, Joshua certainly had a giant's shoulders to stand on. He had watched Moses' leadership for 40 years, and now he would put what he had learned into action.
Joshua had another advantage-his walk with God sustained his life's mission. Therefore, he had both Moses' example and God's promised presence as he led Israel.
Looking for help as you face the future? Look for a giant to follow. And never underestimate the importance of your walk with God. - Dennis Fisher
There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone;
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own. -Markham
A good example is someone who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
Idolatry
The most predominant sin we find in the Bible that stopped the rain of God's blessing from falling was idolatry. Maybe you are thinking, "Well, that's great, but it doesn't really apply. I'm not tempted to go to the nearest pagan shrine and bow down and worship a carved image."
Hold on, though. As you read the New Testament you begin to realize it has a lot to say to us about idolatry. For example, 1 Corinthians 10:14 says, Flee from idolatry, and 1 John 5:21 says, Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Wycliffe in his commentary says, "An idol is anything which occupies the place due to God." An idol is anything in your life that competes with God.
Colossians 3:5 says, ...covetousness, which is idolatry. In other words, your stuff can become an idol. Greed can become an idol; money can become your idol. If anything becomes the main pursuit of your life, other than God, then that thing becomes an idol.
It can be your job, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your husband, your wife, or even a child. It can be a sport, a hobby, fame, anything that comes before God in your life.
I once saw an interview of one of my favorite golfers. He was a brilliant golfer who had won major tournaments. In the interview he said, "I've had a love affair with the game of golf. But I want to tell you, it cost me my marriage. It's cost me my relationship with my kids. Golf has been my god."
The interviewer asked him, "If you had all of it to do over again, what would you do differently?" He said, "Nothing. I'd do it all the same."
You will never experience God's blessing if there is an idol in your life. Is there?
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Romans 15:14-22
Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. - Romans 15:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
NightLight is a ministry in Bangkok, Thailand, that helps prostitutes escape sexual slavery. The vision is "to share the Light of the world in both word and deed to those who live in darkness." NightLight helps women and children in the Bangkok sex industry get off the streets, learn English and skills such as jewelry-making, and recover physically, emotionally, and spiritually from their ordeals. Many of these women were young girls who came to the big city looking for jobs so they could send money back to their poverty-stricken families. But they were tricked or coerced into prostitution and trapped there until NightLight opened a door to freedom. Service and witness like this glorify our Lord.
In today's reading Paul wanted to encourage the Roman believers, even though he had written boldly on some points, for their own good and on the basis of his apostolic authority. He said they were "full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another" (v. 14).
The purpose of his ministry to them and other Gentiles was not just conversion-the journey is one of discipleship, toward becoming pleasing offerings and trophies of sanctification (vv. 15-16). That's why Paul assumed that belief and obedience go hand in hand (v. 18).
About his own service and witness, Paul said, "I glory" (v. 17). He boasted of his accomplishments only insofar as they had been done in, through, and for Christ. To revel in God's work in us is another way to bring Him glory. Though Paul's ministry had involved signs, miracles, and other evidence of the Spirit's power (v. 19), to him these were merely supports, not the main event. The main event was clearly the work God does in people's lives.
This work brings glory to God. It caused Paul to rejoice and framed his future ambitions. His goal was to bring God glory by proclaiming Christ to those who had never heard about Him (vv. 20-22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Most readers of Today in the Word live in North America, very far from Bangkok. But thanks to modern technology, it's possible to learn more about the service and witness of the NightLight ministry highlighted in today's illustration. It takes about $250 per worker per month to keep NightLight going. The ministry has a Web site, www.nightlightbangkok.com, which accepts donations and sells jewelry and jewelry kits made by the women. A DVD about NightLight is included with each kit.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 19, 2009
Teach Your Children Well
READ: Deuteronomy 11:13-21
You shall teach [God's Word] to your children . . . when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. -Deut. 11:19
The Sleeping Beauty Waltz, the 1812 Overture, and The Nutcracker Suite were all part of the music of my childhood.
Sometimes a narrator told stories or-as in the case of Tubby the Tuba and Peter and the Wolf-introduced my sisters and me to the sounds of different instruments. In their desire to pass on their love for music, my parents used this method as a teaching tool. It worked! Weaving the classic tales with classical tunes made a powerful impact on us.
When an adult wants to impart important information to a child, it's often best related in a story because it is more easily understood and enjoyed. Telling children the stories in God's Word is especially crucial because the Bible's enduring truth can shape character and show consequences of actions (1 Cor. 10:11). Tiny seeds of faith can be cultivated in fertile soil and help children to see how God has worked in the lives of His followers throughout history. Bible stories also show how God is intimately involved in our lives.
What we have seen God do for us and what He has done for His people throughout history must be passed on to the next generation (Deut. 11:1-21). Their future depends on it. Teach your children well. - Cindy Hess Kasper
Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard! -Crosby
The character of your children tomorrow depends on what you put into their hearts today
Selfish?
Over the last several devotionals, we have been looking at the cause of spiritual drought. In today's devotional, I want to look at selfishness as a cause of spiritual drought.
Selfishness is where I am focused on my own interests rather than the needs of others or of furthering God's Kingdom.
In Haggai 1:4-6, 9-11, God says,
"Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes... You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands."
They were investing everything in themselves and their homes, but not a thought was given to God's house or God's Kingdom.
Friend, if you want the rain to fall, you need to think about God and His house first, others second, and yourself third. It is like the old saying, "If you want joy, j-o-y, it's Jesus, others, and then you."
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: Romans 15:5-13
So that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Romans 15:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1968, a Boston firefighter doing his job made headlines. Crawling through a burning apartment, he found a diaper-clad baby unconscious in her crib. She had no pulse. He picked her up and breathed into her mouth as he ran outside. A photographer captured the moment-the image of a white firefighter with his face pressed against that of a black child. News filled with race riots was for a moment transcended by this picture that touched the heart of the nation and made racial reconciliation seem more possible.
Unity in Christ by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual reality that bridges differences and brings God glory. Today's reading is phrased to remind us that unity is also a blessing (vv. 5-6, 13). What is unity? It involves at least three dimensions-God as source, Christ as leader, and us as worshipers. God is the architect and engine of spiritual unity in the church. Christ is the head of the church-we obey His commands and follow His example. And we are His people, "with one heart and mouth" praising and glorifying God for who He is and what He has done.
How is unity manifested in action in the body of Christ (vv. 7-12)? It sounds kind of abstract-what are we to do? "Accept one another" doesn't sound like much, but "just as Christ accepted you" puts matters into perspective. He loved us and sacrificed Himself for us when we were still His enemies, then welcomed us into His family as a free gift of faith. Another way of looking at it is to recognize that Christ the Jewish Messiah accepted the Gentiles, too, just as He had long promised, even though they (we) were "outsiders."
Imagine what the church would be like if we lived out the truth of spiritual unity (see John 17:20-23)! Acting toward one another as Christ did toward us would unite brothers and sisters across barriers of ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The words of Psalm 133 celebrate the spiritual unity of God's people. To close today's devotion, reflect on the words of this beautiful poem: "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 20, 2009
Retirement Time
READ: Matthew 16:24-28
Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. -Matthew 16:25
After working for 40 years as a teacher, Jane Hanson retired. She and her husband were looking forward to the arrival of their first grandchild.
Retirement is that time of life when many people simply relax, travel, or enjoy hobbies. But Jane heard about a ministry to at-risk youth in a city near her home, and she knew she had to get involved. "I realized there are kids just waiting, and I could make a difference," she said. She began teaching English to a young Liberian man who had been forced to flee his home country because of civil war. Though he was in a safe environment, he didn't understand the new language. Of this ministry opportunity, Jane said with a smile, "I could just go shopping to stay busy, but what fun would that be?"
Jane is making a difference. Perhaps she has learned a little of what Jesus meant when He said, "Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matt. 16:25). Giving ourselves to the Lord through helping others takes self-denial, yet one day Jesus will reward that effort (v.27).
Let's follow Jane's example of love for God and others-no matter what our stage of life may be. - Anne Cetas
Oh, let us be faithful to Jesus,
The faith we confessed let's renew,
And ask Him this question each morning:
"Lord, what will You have me to do?" -Pangborn
Work for the Lord-His retirement plan is out of this world.
Rx for Depression
Isaiah 58:10-11 gives you and me a powerful prescription for depression. It says,
If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Take a moment to think about what God is saying. Think about the promise: If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, God will satisfy your soul in drought.
If you are a person who is given to depression and you feel like you have this big empty void in your life, I have a prescription for you based on this passage. Are you ready?
Go help somebody else. In fact, find a place in your church, local rescue mission, or The Salvation Army where you can minister to folks who are going through a rough patch. Donate a couple of days a week, and help other folks who are going through a rough time.
God promises that if you will draw out your soul to the hungry and if you will minister to the afflicted soul, He will satisfy your soul in drought.
Rather than being so inwardly focused..."my problems, and I'm so depressed, and why aren't things going right for me?", go help somebody else. Get things in perspective. There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you are, and you will find that God will bring the rain into your life when you change your focus.
If your soul is dry, the way to get it watered is to go help someone else. The sooner the better.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Peter 2:9-17
Live such good lives among the pagans that . . . they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. - 1 Peter 2:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Schindler's list was recently found at a library in Australia. Viewers of the Oscar-winning movie, Schindler's List, know that in the waning days of World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler typed a list of 801 Jewish names, people he then saved from the Nazi gas chambers. The actual list was rediscovered this April among the research notes of Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark, the book that was the basis for the movie. "It's an incredibly moving piece of history," said a librarian about the 13-page document. As one of the characters in the movie said, "The list is life."
God keeps an even more important list, the Lamb's Book of Life, and His list means eternal life (Rev. 21:27). Those who receive eternal life as His gift are empowered to live righteously. And as today's reading reminds us, righteous lives bring glory to God because He is absolutely righteous and holy. This is our identity in Christ-"a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation" (vv. 9-10). For what purpose do we belong to Him? To declare His praises. What did He do for us? He called us out darkness into light and gave us mercy. These spiritual facts constitute our identity as believers.
The main implication of this identity, as we've said, is to be righteous, which is here described as abstaining from sinful desires and living good lives (vv. 11-12). Such life makes us "aliens and strangers in the world," which is not characterized by holiness. We benefit because, while sin wars against our souls, righteousness spiritually nourishes them. Unbelievers benefit, because our good deeds are a witness. And God benefits, because through our good lives He receives glory from both believers and unbelievers. Specific examples of righteous living include submission to authority, respect for people, reverence for God, and love for the church (vv. 13-17).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Part of how our righteousness brings glory to God is our freedom in Christ. But Peter warned: "Do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God" (v. 16). Sometimes we tend to think of freedom as the license to do whatever we like. Genuine freedom, however, might be defined as the freedom to do whatever God likes. Freedom can be found in obedience and service, because God created us for a purpose and knows best how this purpose is to be fulfilled.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 21, 2009
How To Help Those Who Hurt
READ: 1 Corinthians 13
Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. -1 Corinthians 13:13
When I have asked suffering people, "Who helped you?" not one person has mentioned a PhD from a prestigious seminary or a famous philosopher. All of us have the same capacity to help those who hurt.
No one can package or bottle the "appropriate" response to suffering. If you go to the sufferers themselves, some will recall a friend who cheerily helped distract them from their illness. Others think such an approach insulting. Some want honest, straightforward talk; others find such discussion unbearably depressing.
There is no magic cure for a person in pain. Mainly, such a person needs love, for love instinctively detects what is needed. Jean Vanier, who founded the L'Arche movement for the developmentally disabled, says: "Wounded people who have been broken by suffering and sickness ask for only one thing: a heart that loves and commits itself to them, a heart full of hope for them."
Such a love may be painful for us. But real love, the apostle Paul reminds us, "Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor. 13:7).
As is so often His pattern, God uses very ordinary people to bring about His healing. Those who suffer don't need our knowledge and wisdom, they need our love. - Philip Yancey
O brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother!
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. -Whittier
They do not truly love who do not show their love. -Shakespeare
The Blessing of God's Spiritual Influence
Perhaps today you are honestly doing all you know to do, but it seems like you are in this season of drought. God's blessing has seemingly dried up in your life.
Let me point you to 2 Samuel 21:1-3,
Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, "It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. Therefore David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?"
There was a famine in the land because there had been no rain for three years. So David inquired of the Lord, and God spoke to him. If you read to the end of the story, you see the rain finally did fall, the drought was broken, and the famine was over.
But here is the point. It says, David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered him.
If there is a drought in your life, ask God why. God will talk to you. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice." If you in earnestness will seek God and ask Him why, God will speak to you.
Be willing to take responsibility for whatever He shows you. There just may be something in the past that needs to be corrected.
Just ask. Then act on what He reveals.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. - 2 Corinthians 4:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Future Grace, John Piper wrote: "[T]he greatest grace in world history is now past. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come into the world. In a sense we could say that God's grace has come in person and done such a decisive work of grace that all other experiences of grace depend on it . . . He came for the sake of future grace. From the time of Christ onwards, every look back should include a look to Jesus. Without him there would be no future grace."
We live our spiritual lives within the abundant grace of which Piper spoke. God's grace in our lives is best shown, in a humbling way, through our weaknesses, for it is through our weaknesses that God is glorified.
This point sounds counterintuitive. Wouldn't God be more glorified by our accomplishments and achievements, by giving us the ability to do great things for Him? Perhaps, if power were the only issue at stake. But God is so much more than all-powerful-He's also all-loving, all-wise, perfectly faithful, and more. So when we are weak, He continues to use us to fulfill His purposes and proves all of these things. One would think the King could afford to use vessels made exclusively of gold and silver, but it is to His greater glory to work with "jars of clay" filled with the "treasure" of the gospel (v. 7).
For a clay pot to contain the truth and power of redemption, it means that we carry Christ's death in our own bodies, in the sense that we, too, experience trials and troubles (vv. 8-12). Just as death was not the end for Him, so also are we hard pressed but not crushed, struck down but not destroyed. Jesus' death preceded the victory of the Resurrection, and in the same way our present sufferings reveal the life of Jesus. This is the foundation for sharing the gospel (vv. 13-15).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The divine irony that God is glorified in our weakness reminds us that an eternal perspective transcends all. Eternal or spiritual things are far more important and valuable than temporal or earthly things. As an old song says, "Only one life, t'will soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last." Thus, we are encouraged to choose the things of God: "Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (v. 17).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals Oct 22, 2009
Who Goes There?
READ: John 10:1-6
When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him. -John 10:4
Last fall my wife, Carolyn, and I were driving up a winding mountain road near our home in Idaho when we came across a large flock of sheep moving down the road toward us. A lone shepherd with his dogs was in the vanguard, leading his flock out of summer pasture into the lowlands and winter quarters.
We pulled to the side of the road and waited while the flock swirled around us. We watched them until they were out of sight, then I wondered: Do sheep fear change, movement, new places?
Like most older folks, I like the "fold"-the old, familiar places. But all is shifting and changing these days; I'm being led out, away from familiar surroundings and into a vast unknown. What new limits will overtake me in the coming days? What nameless fears will awaken? Jesus' words from John 10 come to mind: "When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them" (v.4).
We may well be dismayed at what life has for us this year and next, but our Shepherd knows the way we're taking. And He goes before. He will not lead us down paths too dangerous or too arduous where He cannot help us. He knows our limits. He knows the way to green pasture and good water; all we have to do is follow. - David H. Roper
Child of My love, fear not the unknown morrow,
Dread not the new demand life makes of thee;
Thy ignorance doth hold no cause for sorrow
Since what thou knowest not is known to Me. -Exley
Our unknown future is secure in the hands of our all-knowing God.
Praying for the Rain
For the past week we have been seeking to understand what causes a spiritual drought, and then how we can break that drought if indeed we are in one.
Here is what I want you to understand. Even if you earnestly seek God and repent of sin in your life, or you shift your focus and say, "God, I'm putting Your house first, and I'm going to put other people before myself," or perhaps God leads you to do something of a personal nature, you still need to pray for the rain.
Do not just assume God's blessing will automatically fall. You still need to ask for it. Zechariah 10:1 teaches us this truth,
Ask the LORD for rain In the time of the latter rain. The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone.
I used to read that and wonder, "God, I don't understand. If it is the time of the latter rain, if it is rainy season, why ask for rain? Won't it just fall automatically?" If it is rainy season, why pray for rain?"
Because you cannot assume that it is automatically going to fall.
In James 5:17-18 there is a story about Elijah from 1 Kings 18. James gives us the very, very, very short version. But it tells us something significant,
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
What caused the rain to stop? His prayer. What caused the rain to fall again? His prayer.
Ask God today for the blessing of His rain in your life!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed. - 2 Timothy 4:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life revealed that when Americans give up religious faith, it's more often a gradual process than the result of sharp conflict or disillusionment. The study surveyed former Catholics and Protestants who are not now affiliated with any religion. Nearly three-quarters said they had "just gradually drifted away" from the church. Half of the former Protestants said their belief in Christian teaching or doctrine had simply eroded or disappeared over time.
In other words, many American believers drift spiritually instead of running the race of the Christian life in such a way as to win. Discipleship, like a race, requires all-out effort.
As Paul assessed himself in today's reading, he identified at least six features that characterized his life as a follower of Christ: (1) Righteousness, for which he knew he'd receive a crown of righteousness from our perfect Judge. (2) A longing for Christ to return (v. 8). (3) Steadfastness, including perseverance and courage to stand for faith even when standing alone. (4) A spirit of forgiveness. He held no grudges against those who should have stood with him (v. 16). (5) Total dependence on God as his source of strength and rescue. (6) A heart for evangelism and a dedication to his calling to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles (vv. 17-18).
In this self-assessment, Paul used several word-pictures. One is of his life as a drink offering, a sacrifice poured out in worship to God. Another is of death as a departure, not an ending. He would be leaving for his true home, Christ's "heavenly kingdom." A third image is of his life as a fight or battle. He knew well that doing God's work involves spiritual warfare. A fourth metaphor is of his life as a race, in which the prize of victory is Christ Himself (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24-27). The glory for all of this belongs to the Lord (v. 18)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"Running the race" is a biblical image of perseverance and sacrifice-living in this way brings glory to God. He has a different way than the world of evaluating achievements. He measures success in different terms. In other words, the world encourages us to run one kind of race; God demands another. It takes courage and strength that only God can give to run a race the world doesn't recognize, for a prize it doesn't value, but this is what it means to be a disciple of Christ!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 23, 2009
Failing Memory
READ: Psalm 119:33-40
Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way. -Psalm 119:37
A New York Times article linked the increase of computer storage with the decrease of data in the human mind. Our electronic aids now remember phone numbers, driving directions, and other information we used to learn by repeated use. In schools, memorization and oral recitation are disappearing from the curriculum. We have become, according to the Times, "products of a culture that does not enforce the development of memory skills."
Yet never have we as followers of Christ been in greater need of hiding God's Word in our hearts (Ps. 119:9-11). Scripture memory is more than a helpful mental exercise. The goal is to saturate our minds with God's truth so that our lives will conform to His ways. The psalmist wrote: "Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. . . . Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way" (Ps. 119:33,37).
Why not begin committing Scripture to memory? Daily consistency and review are keys to success. And just like physical exercise, this spiritual discipline is enhanced when done with a small group or with a friend.
Let's not forget to remember and follow the life-giving wisdom of God's Word. - David C. McCasland
God's Word will change your life
If you will do your part
To read, to study, and obey,
And hide it in your heart. -Sper
Let the Bible fill your mind, rule your heart, and guide your life.
It's Never Too Late
As we wrap up our series of devotionals on how to break a spiritual drought, I want to focus our attention on Psalm 72:6. This verse contains a very powerful truth that I want to leave with you. It says,
He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass. (KJV)
I remember when I was first saved and read this passage, I would picture somebody out there with a lawnmower. But of course, they didn't have lawnmowers back then!
This verse refers to a field that has been eaten over by locusts, a plague of locusts that has come through and just devoured a field. And God gives a wonderful promise: He will come down like the rain on the mown grass, to revive and to restore that which the locusts have eaten.
Today, as you read this devotional, you may feel like a swarm of locusts has come over your life and eaten your blessing. I think if you seek God and earnestly pray and ask Him to send the rain, you will have an encounter with God beyond anything you could have imagined.
He can restore what the enemy has stolen in your life. You can indeed experience the freshness and revival and fruitfulness in your life again. It is never too late to pray for God's blessing.
No matter the situation, seek God today. Ask, and He will send the rain down on whatever part of your life has been mowed over by the locusts. And you will experience the blessing God desires for you.
Remember, it is never too late.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: 1 Peter 4:7-11
So that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. - 1 Peter 4:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Educational researchers have long investigated what motivates learners in the classroom. Some students are spurred on by extrinsic rewards, such as grades or gold stars. Others are more motivated by personal interest or curiosity. Some look to the past and a particular person or event that inspired them in certain directions. Others look to the future and their desire to enter a certain profession. Collectively, studies on motivation tell us that one key factor is a teacher's moral character. That is, does a teacher show respect and care for all the learners in his or her classroom? If students know the answer is yes, their motivation and success in learning are greater.
For the believer, God's glory is our total and complete motivation. The opening premise in today's reading is that the "end of all things is near" (v. 7). The New Testament teaches that the "last days" began after Christ's first coming, and we are to be vigilantly watching for His imminent Second Coming. "Therefore," Peter argued, "be clear minded and self-controlled." One study Bible explains: "Christians are to be characterized by reason; are to make wise, mature decisions; and are to have a clearly defined, decisive purpose in life."
One of the results of this spiritual mindset is prayer. Another is love, a deep and sincere love for our fellow believers (v. 8; John 13:34-35). To say "love covers over a multitude of sins" is an exhortation for us to forgive one another as Christ forgave us (Col. 3:13). A third result is hospitality (v. 9), an important spiritual practice. True hospitality is characterized by a spirit of generosity and open-heartedness. A fourth result is the use of spiritual gifts for service (v. 10). Spiritual gifts are a means of grace and an expression of faithfulness. In summary, our words and actions are to be full of God, empowered by God, and to the praise and glory of God (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Prayer as a result of a clear mind and self-control doesn't sound very dramatic. What about life-changing decisions and actions? If prayer somehow doesn't sound like "enough," it's only because we don't properly value prayer in the Christian life. It's not just about grace over meals or a laundry list of petitions. Prayer is a state of mind in which we are walking with God at all times. "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer" (1 Peter 3:12).
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God bless !
Kim, Otis and Walter
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www.fellowship-katy.org
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Daily Devotionals Oct 24, 2009
Close On His Heels
READ: Matthew 4:18-25
Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. -Matthew 4:19
Stan and Jennifer were speaking at a mission conference in Marion, North Carolina, after their first term of service on the field.
Jennifer told of a Bible study she had held with one woman. The two were discussing Matthew 4:19, and the woman told Jennifer about a word in her native language, which means follow. She said, "It is the word for following closely, not at a distance."
To illustrate, Jennifer held up slippers used by the native women, showing one far behind the other. Then she moved one slipper right up against the back of the other one, and said that the word means "to follow right on one's heels." It suggests that we are to follow Jesus as closely as possible.
Later, when Jennifer was reading over the journal she had been keeping, she was surprised to see that she had often questioned, "Is Jesus enough?" She had been working her way through culture shock, loneliness, illness, and childlessness. At times she had felt far from Christ. But when through prayer and faith she had drawn as close to Him as she could, walking "right on His heels," He had calmed her soul, restored her strength, and given her peace.
Are you feeling far from the Lord-empty, weak, and afraid? It's time to follow close on His heels. - David C. Egner
God, give me the faith of a little child!
A faith that will look to Thee-
That never will falter and never fail,
But follow Thee trustingly. -Showerman
The closer we walk with God, the clearer we see His guidance.
Obedience
To God, obedience is a big deal. And one of the best ways to see just how importantly He regards it is to learn from those who disobeyed.
One of those is King Saul. When he was told by God to make an end of the Amalekites and to destroy all of their property, he did not do it.
Instead of obeying God, he saved the oxen and the sheep, along with some other things, and then claimed he had obeyed God. But when Samuel heard the oxen and the sheep, Saul knew he had been caught. So he changed his story. He said, "Well, these things are just a sacrifice to God."
In response to this act of disobedience, this is what Samuel, the prophet, said. We find it in 1 Samuel 15:22,
So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."
God does not want religious lip service. He wants obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice. One reason for that is because you cannot make up by sacrifice what you lose through disobedience.
Another reason why obedience is better than sacrifice is because it is preventative. In Saul's day, sacrifices were made to cover sin, but if he had obeyed, there would have been no need for sacrifice. Obedience would have prevented his sin.
So do what God desires. Obey what He commands. It is always better.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 8:48-59
My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. - John 8:54
TODAY IN THE WORD
Donating blood can get you tax deductions in Poland. Blood banks issue a receipt for every donation, and donors can then write off about $50 per receipt from their tax bills. Said one man: "I learned about it from an accountant friend and started to give blood last year. I have only done it three times, but already it has been worth it."
Paying part of one's taxes with a blood donation might sound impressive, but it's nothing compared to what Christ did. He paid for the sins of the whole world with His blood, shed on the cross.
The final main section in this month's study on glorifying God is lessons from the Gospel of John. Focusing on the life of Christ highlights key themes, as we might expect, since Christ's life brought more glory to God more perfectly than any person before or since. In today's reading, Jesus told a group of hostile Jews that He was not seeking glory for Himself (v. 50), as they apparently expected would be the case for a popular, miracle-working new rabbi. Jesus did, though, expect to receive glory from God for completing His mission of redemption (v. 54). This is a beautiful insight into the Trinity. Jesus submitted to and obeyed His Father, seeking His glory, who in response would exalt and glorify His Son for His perfect obedience and atonement for sin.
Jesus calls all who hear to believe in Him. Even in this conversation, He gave His enemies a chance to believe. Though they had started with racial ("Samaritan") and spiritual ("demon-possessed") insults, He tried to explain who He was and what He was doing. They couldn't grasp the Father-Son relationship, so He framed belief in terms of eternal life (v. 51). They seized on this, which gave Jesus one more opportunity to try to shake them out of their pride and complacency and to reveal Himself as the great "I am" (v. 58).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
For Jesus, the key to bringing God glory was His relationship with the Father. We would do well to follow His example. Bringing glory to God is not first and foremost a matter of deeds or actions, though these will follow. Glorifying God is first and foremost a matter of our relationship with Him. Do we love Him? Enough to trust Him? To surrender all control and lay aside our pride? To begin here is to lay the foundations of a life that brings great glory to the Lord.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
Daily Devotionals October 25, 2009
Secrets Exposed
READ: Psalm 32:1-7
I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. . . . And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. -Psalm 32:5
For many years, Lake Okeechobee hid its secrets in thick waters and layers of muck. But in 2007, drought shrank the Florida lake to its lowest level since officials began keeping records in 1932, unveiling hundreds of years of history. Raking through the bottom of the lake, archaeologists found artifacts, pottery, human bone fragments, and even boats.
After King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and planned the death of her husband, Uriah, he covered his sins by denying them and not confessing them. He probably went many months conducting business as usual, even performing religious duties. As long as David cloaked his sinful secrets, he experienced God's crushing finger of conviction and his strength evaporated like water in the heat of summer (Ps. 32:3-4).
When the prophet Nathan confronted David about his sin, God's conviction was so great that David confessed his sins to God and turned away from them. Immediately the Lord forgave David and he experienced His mercy and grace (2 Sam. 12:13; Ps. 32:5; Ps. 51).
Let's be careful not to hide our sin. When we uncover our sins by confessing them to God, we are covered with His forgiveness. - Marvin Williams
Lord, help me to expose my sin,
Those secret faults that lurk within;
I would confess them all to Thee;
Transparent I would always be. -D. De Haan
Give God what He desires most- a broken and repentant heart.
Obey and Honor
Yesterday's devotional helped us understand the importance of obedience. Over the next few devotionals, I want to focus on three areas I believe are critical for you and me to ensure we are obedient.
The first is found in Ephesians 6:1-3. This first category of obedience has to do with family, something God teaches very specifically in His Word. It says,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
As long as a child is under his parents' roof and under his parents' direct authority, he needs to obey. But throughout your entire life you need to honor your parents.
One time I had a dear lady come to me after a service when I preached on this command and say, "Pastor, I just have to tell you. I just felt I needed to make things right with my dad. I went home that night and called him and said, 'Dad, you need to forgive me because I've been bitter against you for all these years. I'm sorry, and I want you to know that I forgive you for all the past.'"
Then she said, "Pastor, you need to understand, I've had a migraine headache for 15 years, 24 hours a day. I take piles of medication. I go to bed with a migraine, and I wake up with one, but the morning after I made things right with my dad, I woke up, and I had no headache." And she started to cry.
I am telling you, this promise is full of power! It is better to obey and honor your parents!
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 11:1-6, 25-44
This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that Gods Son may be glorified through it. - John 11:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Motivated by the knowledge that about two billion people in the world have no access to electricity, Florida State University researcher Anjaneyulu Krothapalli and his colleagues have been working to develop simple, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly new technologies for generating electricity. "The principles are really very simple," he said. "We are exploring ways to combine existing technologies to convert solar radiation to heat; to use that heat to produce steam to run a low-cost, highly efficient turbine; and then to use the power generated by that turbine to run a small electric generator. Individual homes could be equipped with these technologies."
Energy and power are perennial human concerns. God's power, on the other hand, never runs out. When we bear witness to His power, we bring Him glory. Today's reading narrates the start and finish of one of Jesus' most eye-opening and powerful miracles, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The key truth is that the entire situation happened for God's glory (vv. 4, 40). We know from this that God's glory is worth suffering and death; that events that bring Him glory may be beyond human comprehension; that miracles and acts of power glorify God; that God's glory is about life, not death; and that God redeems all things for His own glory.
Significantly, this miracle didn't take place out among the crowds following Him, but in the context of a close friendship between Jesus and the siblings Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. It is certain Jesus loved them, but it is even more certain He loved God and His glory more. In responding to the request to heal Lazarus, He marched not to the drum of human urgency but followed the beat of God's timetable. In the end, the miracle created a tremendous opportunity to reveal and proclaim Jesus' identity as "the resurrection and the life" (v. 25). It's not just that Christ brought life-He is life! It's not just that He can resurrect a dead man-He is the resurrection!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus offers eternal life to those who believe in Him: "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Martha, despite the fact that she didn't see her brother's resurrection coming, responded with a heartfelt affirmation of faith: "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world" (vv. 25-27; cf. John 1:12). Have you trusted Him as Savior?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 26, 2009
Five People You Meet In Heaven
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:6-11
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. -2 Corinthians 5:10
Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, said that he got the idea for his book when he speculated: What would heaven be like if it were a place where some of the people you impacted on earth explained your life when you met them in heaven?
Albom's book does give insight into how we unintentionally affect others' lives. But for the Christian, our ultimate joy in eternity does not stem from other people but from our Lord and Savior. Heaven is a real place that Jesus is now preparing for us. And when we get there, we'll rejoice to meet the living Christ (John 14:2-3; 2 Peter 3:13).
This encounter with Jesus, however, will also include accountability for the life we lived on earth. Believers are told: "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10). His wise and just evaluation will show us how well we have loved God and our neighbor (Matt. 22:37-40).
We don't know who will be the first five people we meet in heaven. But we do know who the first One will be-the Lord Jesus. - Dennis Fisher
When we stand with Christ in glory,
Looking o'er life's finished story,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know-
Not till then-how much I owe. -McCheyne
To be with Jesus forever is the sum of all happiness.
Obedience in Marriage
Ephesians 5:22-24 gives an important area of obedience. While this is not popular in our society today, it is biblical, but is also often misunderstood.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
It is important to make clear that before God there is an absolute equality between men and women, between husbands and wives. In fact, this passage does not say, "Women submit to men." It is purely a domestic situation.
Even with that understanding, the Bible says that husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life. There is an equality before God between men and women and husband and wife.
What this passage teaches is that God has set up a system of authority in the home that needs to be followed, if it is going to be well with us. In fact, this is even a military term. To submit or to obey means to put yourself in rank under.
Friend, we are in a spiritual warfare, and there are spiritual forces that have been unleashed against homes and against marriages that would love to tear marriages apart.
God has designed a way for the home to function, and that is for the man to take the responsibility of leadership and for the wife to come under that authority. When a husband truly loves his wife, and cares for her like Christ does the church, and the wife respects her husband, things will be well in the home. That couple and that family will be magnets for the blessings of God.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 12:20-33
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. - John 12:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
In an ancient battle between Burma (now Myanmar) and Thailand, the kings, princes, and top generals from both armies rode out on elephants for personal combat. The military principle stated that by defeating the leader, his nation would be defeated and the war would be over. The Thai king and the Burmese general charged head-on at one another, with the general gaining the advantage. When Queen Srisuriyothai of Thailand, who was present in disguise, saw what was happening, she drove her elephant between the two men and received the fatal blow meant for the king. She sacrificed her life for her husband, king, and country, and to this day she is honored as a national heroine in Thailand.
In the same way, though on a far greater scale, Christ willingly sacrificed His life within the Father's plan of redemption (vv. 27-28; cf. Acts 2:23-24). Jesus' obedience unto death brought glory to God, who in turn glorified and exalted the One who won so great a salvation (cf. John 13:31-32).
By God's grace, we are not merely spectators in this incredible drama, but participants. Jesus' word-picture of a kernel of wheat falling into the ground applies to Himself and to us (v. 24). The death of a seed results in the life of a plant; the death of the only perfect human being who has ever lived resulted in eternal and abundant life for all who believe (vv. 31-32). The death-to-self of His followers results in the work of the gospel going forward in and through our lives.
The metaphors of seed and sacrifice capture many of the paradoxes of the Christian life (vv. 25-26). To die is to live. To lose is to gain. To be last is to be first. To love the wrong thing is to lose all. To hate the temporal is to gain the eternal. To serve is to be honored. To die to self is to gain the world.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What does it mean to die to self? Does it mean we should pay no attention to our own needs and desires? Does it mean we should always speak self-deprecatingly of our abilities and accomplishments? Does it mean all pleasures are suspect? According to Scripture, it means that self ceases to occupy the central place in our universe. Pride no longer rules us. To be a child of God means that Christ occupies the central place. We are to be ruled by His love and His glory.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 27, 2009
Is That Jesus?
READ: Romans 8:26-29
Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. -Romans 8:29
As I walked into church one Sunday morning, a little boy looked at me and said to his mother, "Mom, is that Jesus?" Needless to say, I was curious to hear her response. "No," she said, "that's our pastor."
I knew she would say no, of course, but I still wished she could have added something like, "No, that's our pastor, but he reminds us a lot of Jesus."
Being like Jesus is the purpose of life for those of us who are called to follow Him. In fact, as John Stott notes, it is the all-consuming goal of our past, our present, and our future. Romans 8:29 tells us that in the past we were "predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son." In the present, we "are being transformed into the same image" (the likeness of Christ), as we grow from "glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). And, in the future, "we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).
Being like Jesus is not about keeping the rules, going to church, and tithing. It's about knowing His forgiveness, and committing acts of grace and mercy on a consistent basis. It's about living a life that values all people. And it's about having a heart of full surrender to the will of our Father.
Be like Jesus. You were saved for it! - Joe Stowell
Be like Jesus-this my song-
In the home and in the throng;
Be like Jesus all day long!
I would be like Jesus. -Rowe
Live in such a way that others see Jesus in you
An Enemy to Your Enemies
Exodus 23:20-22 says,
"Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries."
Israel's success in possessing the promised land lay in their obedience. The same is true for us as we endeavor to possess the things promised to us by God.
I like the thought of God being an enemy to my enemies and an adversary to my adversaries, but that hinges on obedience as well.
The difficult thing about obeying God is that it always requires faith. He asks us to do things that sometimes make no sense. Other times He demands that we face seemingly impossible situations armed with nothing but His Word.
But He is faithful. He keeps His promises. And He can be absolutely trusted-in everything and with everything.
So today if you are desiring to enter some aspect of your "promised land", or if you are faced with difficult or seemingly insurmountable obstacles, listen for His voice, search His Word for instructions, and then obey.
He will be an enemy to your enemies, and you will possess the promises.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 14:5-14
I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. - John 14:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Alvin J. Vander Griend wrote about the power of prayer: "God gave us intercessory prayer so we could partner with Him in transforming society, saving the lost, and establishing His kingdom . . . n His sovereign good pleasure, He has chosen to involve us, through our prayers, in accomplishing His will. Our intercessory prayers are important to God; they should also be important to us . . . Prayer can move mountains. It can change human hearts, families, neighborhoods, cities, and nations. It's the ultimate source of power because it is, in reality, the power of Almighty God."
Answered prayer brings glory to God. In today's reading, Jesus taught this truth while trying to overcome the confusion of His disciples. In response to Jesus' prediction of His death, Thomas had asked where Jesus was going and how to get there. We might be tempted to label him a "slow learner" and say with exasperation, "I'm returning to heaven!" But Jesus took pity on the disciples and put things in terms of their relationship with Him (vv. 6-7). Whatever they lacked in understanding, Jesus is their all-in-all. He is the way, the truth, and the life. To know Him is to know the Father. Following another clueless interjection, this time by Philip, Jesus further explained, "It is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work" (v. 10).
The critical point is that the same divine power that was at work in Christ's life and miracles is available to us by faith (v. 12). This is where prayer comes in. Jesus exhorted His followers to ask for anything-anything! Dream big, pray boldly! "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (vv. 13-14). This is not an invitation to treat Jesus like a genie who grants our every wish, but rather an invitation to participate in the Son's glorifying of the Father.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Prayer is a powerful resource in the Christian life. Jesus said to ask for anything in His name, but what does that mean? To pray in His name means to pray in line with His will. And what does that mean? It means to pray in line with His redemptive purposes. We might ask ourselves, "Does my prayer contribute to the spread of the gospel and the glory of God?" When we truly understand that prayer is for God's glory, we won't ask for frivolous and selfish things.
:angel:
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 28, 2009
"Light" Of Creation
READ: Job 37:1-18
[God] does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. -Job 5:9
Among the wonders of Jamaica is a body of water called Luminous Lagoon. By day, it is a nondescript bay on the country's northern coast. By night, it is a marvel of nature.
If you visit there after dark, you notice that the water is filled with millions of phosphorescent organisms. Whenever there is movement, the water and the creatures in the bay glow. When fish swim past your boat, for example, they light up like waterborne fireflies. As the boat glides through the water, the wake shines brightly.
The wonder of God's creation leaves us speechless, and this is just a small part of the total mystery package of God's awesome handiwork as spelled out in Job 37 and 38. Listen to what the Lord's role is in nature's majesty: "Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes His lightning flash?" (37:15 niv); "What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?" (38:19 niv). God's majestic creations-whether dazzling lightning or glowing fish-are mysteries to us. But as God reminded Job, all of the wonders of our world are His creative handiwork.
When we observe God's amazing creation, our only response can be that of Job: These are "things too wonderful for me" (42:3). - Dave Branon
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful;
The Lord God made them all. -Alexander
When we cease to wonder, we cease to worship.
Obeying Civil Authority
In Romans 13:1-3, the apostle Paul gives us some clear instruction on how we are to relate to our civil authorities,
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
I remember the days before I was saved. If I saw a police car when looking in my rearview mirror, I was struck with instant paranoia. There was a good reason for my fear.
At that time in my life, I would have gotten in a lot of trouble if I had been pulled over. I was constantly high on drugs and alcohol, and there were rarely times I was completely sober.
Thank God I have been saved! Today if I look in my rearview mirror and I see a police car, I may slow down a little bit; but I am not gripped with this feeling of paranoia because I live within the parameters of the laws of the land. And if I do break a law, it is going to be out of ignorance and not out of willful rebellion.
If you live your life in fear of civil authority, it is time to check out why. If you search your heart and find that you are not subject to the laws of the land as you should be, I encourage you to make that change today.
You will be able to live your life without fear, and honor God in the process.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 16:5-15
He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. - John 16:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
Scientists at a Scottish university are working on a new means for preserving old books. They've revived a technique called TVA used in polymer research in the 1960s and are applying it in a new way. For 24 to 48 hours, books are placed in a special chamber, and during that time the TVA system chemically "sniffs" the books for signs of aging and decay. TVA can actually identify the chemical components of that musty smell one sometimes notices around old books. Problems such as dampness, mold, and poor storage conditions might be detected and addressed in this way.
Preserving a decaying book is not a problem when it comes to the Bible, for the Holy Spirit has supernaturally inspired and preserved God's Word. In today's reading, Jesus again spoke of His impending departure for heaven, this time focusing on the ministry of the Holy Spirit (vv. 5-7). When He left, Jesus would send His Spirit, who would reveal truth and remind the disciples of what they had seen and heard (vv. 12-15). This process would bring God glory and give us the New Testament. The Spirit is no freelancer. He would speak only what He heard and what belonged to the Father and the Son. God would be glorified because His truth would be made known.
At the heart of God's truth is the gospel, the full sweep and scope of the history of God's plan of redemption. To put it simply, the gospel is about moving from death to life, a rebirth that cannot take place without God. This is another aspect of the ministry of the Holy Spirit-He convicts people of guilt and sin (vv. 8-11). Without knowing we're sinners, we don't know we need righteousness. Without knowing we're dead, we don't know we need life. The Spirit tells us the victory has been won! The gospel is not a cold process or doctrinal fact, but a breathtaking and glorious testimony to the love and faithfulness of God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Since the Holy Spirit brings glory to God by making known God's truth, it stands to reason that we can also bring glory to God by receiving, honoring, studying, and making known God's truth. The inspired writing process is complete, and we're blessed to have the entire Bible available to us in multiple translations. Are we spending time daily reading and studying it? Do we honor it by obeying how it teaches us to live? Are we spreading its good news through our words and actions?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 29, 2009
Almost-Perfect Disguise
READ: Revelation 12:7-12
The accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. -Revelation 12:10
Radovan Karadzic, once the leader of the Bosnian Serbs and accused of genocide, had been one of the most wanted men in the world. By growing a long, white beard, carrying false papers, and practicing alternative medicine, he fooled everyone-for a while. After 13 years in hiding, he was finally arrested.
The Bible tells us that Satan is also in the business of fooling people with disguises. Right from the beginning of human history, he pretended to be an enlightened advisor, telling Eve that God was not honest with her (Gen. 3:4). He "masquerades as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14 NIV), but the Lord Jesus Christ has unmasked him as "a liar and the father of it" (John 8:44).
People often err at two extremes in their view of Satan. Some dismiss him while others attribute more power to him than he deserves. Let us not be deceived. Satan is powerful as the "god of this age" (2 Cor. 4:4). But Christians need not cower before him in fear, because "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). The day is coming when Satan will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).
Until that day, let's not be deceived but rather live godly lives that reflect the image of Christ, for He is "a man of truth; there is nothing false about Him" (John 7:18 NIV). - C. P. Hia
In our day-to-day existence,
Evil often wears a mask;
Trust the Lord for true discernment-
He gives wisdom when we ask. -Hess
Satan offers nothing but tricks and deceit.
Pay Your Taxes!
Yesterday we learned from Romans 13:1-3 that we need to submit ourselves to the laws of the land if we want to live lives free from fear. I want to focus your attention today on the remainder of that passage, Romans 13:4-7,
For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
What I want to address today is the need to pay our taxes with honesty, not trying to dodge our responsibility. It is a critical part of obeying the laws of the land as we discussed yesterday.
While I do not like working hard and in the end sending a large portion of every dollar to support the government, it is the right thing to do. I am absolutely amazed when I learn of Christians who try to dodge their responsibility to pay taxes.
Friend, you must be honest and pay your taxes. Certainly take advantage of all that the law allows, and do not pay more than you need to, but don't hide anything. You need to make sure you do this because when you do, you are being obedient to God.
And there are always blessings tied to obedience-even if it is obeying God by paying your taxes!
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Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
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Read: John 17:1-5
Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. - John 17:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Puritan pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards argued that discipleship is all about our "religious affections": "[E]veryone that has the power of godliness in his heart, has his inclinations and heart exercised towards God and divine things, with such strength and vigor, that these holy exercises do prevail in him above all carnal or natural affections, and are effectual to overcome them: for every true disciple of Christ, loves him above father or mother, wife and children, brethren and sisters, houses and lands; yea, than his own life." He called these inclinations or exercises of the heart and will "the affections of the soul."
Discipleship and obedience bring glory to God. Yesterday, we saw that the Spirit glorifies God by revealing truth, so it makes sense that obedience to truth would have the same result. We've also seen on previous days that Christ's perfect obedience brought glory to God, so it makes sense that our obedience would have the same result. Today's reading demonstrates this idea in the context of Jesus' "high priestly prayer." Since He was standing on the brink of Golgotha, it was a bold and faith-filled prayer! Christ knew that by completing the work God had given Him, He was about to glorify God (v. 4). Because of His mission of redemption, the gift of eternal life is available to all whom God has given Him (v. 2). Christ knew further that when He completed this work, God would glorify Him. Following the Son's death and resurrection, the Father would welcome Him home in triumph (vv. 1, 5).
This mutuality of the Trinity is part of God's glory, shared from eternity past. The Father glorifies the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. The Father gave the Son authority; the Son used that authority to give life. The Father sent the Son to redeem, and the Son obeyed and sacrificed His life to save us. Once again, we see the gospel as the glory of God extended to humanity (v. 3).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How can we follow in the footsteps of Jesus? We can ask God what work He has for us to do, and then do it. We can give thanks for the gift of eternal life and live as people who have Christ in us. We can yearn for the day of His return, when every knee will bow and "every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. 2:10-11). We can train the "affections of the soul" in the direction of passionate discipleship and the glory of God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals October 30, 2009
Lost And Found
READ: Luke 15:4-24
This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. -Luke 15:24
A Wall Street Journal article by Jennifer Saranow chronicled the extraordinary efforts of middle-aged American men who are trying to find the favorite car they once owned and loved, but lost. They are searching on-line car ads, phoning junkyards, and even hiring specialists who charge $400 an hour to help them search for an automobile that once symbolized their youth. These men want the actual car they owned, not one just like it.
Some would call their efforts frivolous-a waste of time and money. But the value of a car, like many things, is in the eye of the beholder.
In Luke 15, people who were despised by their society came to hear Jesus. But some religious leaders complained, "This Man receives sinners and eats with them" (v.2). To affirm how valuable these "sinners" are to God, Jesus told three memorable stories about a lost sheep (vv.4-7), a lost coin (vv.8-10), and a lost son (vv.11-32). Each parable records the anguish of losing, the effort of searching, and the joy of finding something of great worth. In every story, we see a picture of God, the loving Father, who rejoices over every lost soul who is found.
Even if you feel far from God today, you are highly valued by Him. He's searching for you. - David C. McCasland
I once was lost, but now I'm found;
Praise God! Christ died for me;
He valued me, redeemed my soul;
From sin, He set me free. -Sper
Those who have been found should seek the lost.
Respecting Your Boss
In Titus 2:9-10, Paul writes a very interesting and important command,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
In our society, it is important to understand that this passage is giving us instructions as employers and employees. And simply stated, as an employee, you are to be obedient to your boss.
One of the ways you do that is by not answering back. It might be hard at times to hold your tongue, but you must. It's not okay when you get to the water cooler to talk to the other employees like, "This idiot that we work for doesn't have a clue what's going on here." I think that comes under the category of answering back.
And pilfering means stealing items of small value. I remember this guy I knew in Oregon who did not like the place he worked. In fact, he had a government job, and he would come home quite often with something he had stolen from his office.
Nearly every day he would rip off some small office supply like a stapler, or pens, or a hole punch. While they were always things of small value, he would just keep stealing things.
The Bible says don't do that. And you shouldn't steal time from your employer either by making personal phone calls during office hours. Your employer is not paying you to take care of your business at the office. That is stealing.
I believe that, as Christians, we ought to be the best employees in the world. We should work so hard and bring such a good attitude into the workplace that we set the example to everyone with whom we work.
Visit the Answers with Bayless Conley website for more ways to Connect with God
and
click here to listen to Bayless Conley at OnePlace.com.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Godly Wisdom for a Great Marriage
Although it's God's plan for husband and wife to flourish in their marriage, it won't happen by accident. A great marriage takes work. In this 4-part series, Bayless and Janet explore God's Word relating to marriage and share personal insight from over 25 years of experience. You will learn about the specific roles that God gives to both husbands and wives along with how God's commandments can be applied to strengthen and improve your marriage, and much more!
Read: John 21:15-19
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." - John 21:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
A funeral sermon by the Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks reminds us: "Death is a change of our imperfect and incomplete enjoyments of God, for a more complete and perfect enjoyment of him . . . Death is another Moses: it delivers believers out of bondage, and from making bricks in Egypt. It is a day or year of jubilee to a gracious spirit-the year wherein he goes out free from all those cruel taskmasters which it had long groaned under . . . [Y]our dying-day shall be to you as the day of harvest to the farmer, as the day of deliverance to the prisoner, as the day of coronation to the king, and as the day of marriage to the bride. Your dying-day shall be a day of triumph and exaltation, a day of freedom and consolation, a day of rest and satisfaction!"
Today's reading teaches that death by martyrdom glorifies God. Believers of old used to long and pray for this kind of death. They didn't manipulate circumstances or act with foolhardy bravado and jump into death, but the fact is that Scripture says the world will respond to us as it did to Christ-with hostility, persecution, and sometimes murder (Luke 21:12-19; 1 Peter 4:12-19). The Beatitudes include a blessing on those who are persecuted for His sake (Matt. 5:11-12). Paul counted suffering for Him to be a privilege (Phil. 1:29). And Peter knew from the beginning of his apostolic ministry that he would die a martyr.
The scene was the conversation between Jesus and Peter over breakfast. Jesus reinstated Peter, the impetuous disciple who had disgraced himself by denying his Lord three times on the eve of the Crucifixion. As part of the dialogue, Jesus told Peter three things. First, "Feed my sheep," which was his calling to ministry (v. 17). Second, that he would die a martyr, which tradition tells us happened through an upside-down crucifixion (v. 18). Third, "Follow me," a command that encompassed Peter's overall identity as a believer (v. 19).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We've mentioned several times this month that Jesus' obedience unto death brought glory to God. In our Western society, where it's easy to get attached to modern comforts and conveniences, we might loose sight of the reality of Christ's death. His death was not a metaphor. It was a real and agonizingly painful event-He was led as the Lamb of God to an actual slaughter (Isa. 53:7). Even now, there are believers around the world suffering and dying for the name of Jesus. Their steadfastness glorifies the Lord!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 2, 2009
Connectors
From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. -1 Thessalonians 1:8
Marketing professionals have known for years that a product recommendation from a friend is among the most effective means of advertising. That's why many large companies recruit consumers who receive free samples of their products along with the encouragement to recommend them to family and friends. One major US corporation regularly sends coupons and products to 725,000 selected people called "connectors," who spread the word to others.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is more than a product. It is God's great plan for bringing people into a living, vital relationship with Him. But the gospel is conveyed most effectively by example and by word of mouth. Paul commended the Christians at Thessalonica for their exemplary living and their effective witness: "From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth . . . . Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything" (1 Thess. 1:8). Because their lives had been radically changed (v.9), they found it impossible to keep silent about their faith.
A university professor who trains advertising professionals says, "It's human nature to talk about things that excite us." God's grace is all the incentive we need to recommend our Savior to a friend. - David C. McCasland
I'll tell the world how Jesus saved me
And how He gave me a life brand new;
And I know that if you trust Him
That all He gave me He'll give to you. -Fox
© 1963, Fox Music Publications.
If you want others to know what Christ will do for them, tell them what He has done for you.
Contagious!
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 9:2 where Paul writes these words,
For I know your willingness, about which I boast of you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal has stirred up the majority.
Did you notice those last eight words, and your zeal has stirred up the majority? Passion is contagious.
What do you think might happen if a community saw a church that was utterly on fire? Where all the members in that church were passionate about their worship, passionate about their relationship with God, passionate about serving one another, passionate about real deal Christianity where the rubber meets the road?
I believe there is a divine attraction to that! And I believe that it would transform a community.
Sadly, most communities witness just the opposite-compromise, apathy, and boredom-not passion.
Now, rather than complain, I want to challenge you to live life with real passion. Go all out for God. It only takes one person to ignite the fire of passion in others.
I heard the story of a man who came to hear D. L. Moody preach. While sitting there the man next to him asked, "Do you come out here because you believe the things he's preaching?"
His response was, "No. I come out because he believes it."
Passion is contagious! Are people catching it from you? Is your zeal for Christ stirring up those who come in contact with you? If not, ask God to put that passion into your heart today and watch what happens!
Read: John 21:1-22
You must follow me. - John 21:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
We know Peter as the disciple whom Jesus called a "rock" and who confessed Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God." But we also know him as the disciple who crashed in grand style when he came under pressure. How badly did Peter act? When Judas arrived with soldiers to arrest Jesus, Peter made a fool of himself with his sword and was rebuked by the Lord. Then he ran away in fear with the other disciples. Then he denied Christ three times, even after Jesus' direct warning that he would do so (see John 18). From a human point of view, we'd say Jesus had the right to end His friendship with Peter. But that's not what Jesus did. He forgave Peter and called him anew to discipleship. Jesus and Peter may have spoken privately before today's reading; after all, Christ had appeared many times since His Resurrection. Peter may have already known he was forgiven. In any case, Jesus publicly reaffirmed Peter here as His disciple, in effect re-calling him to ministry. His question to Peter, "Do you truly love me more than these?" stressed again the necessity of total commitment (v. 15). "More than these" might refer to the fishing gear-had Peter really left his old way of life?-or to the other disciples, in which case Jesus' question may have been meant to humble him in light of his past boasts (see Mark 14:29). Jesus promised that following Him would bring disgrace and suffering, and tradition has long interpreted verse 18 as a prophecy of Peter's crucifixion. He was not to worry about or be distracted by the fates of the other disciples, but to keep his eyes firmly fixed on Christ alone (vv. 21-22).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Peter could have used his failure as an excuse to give up on discipleship and return to an "ordinary life." What excuses do you make for not following Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 3, 2009
Calling Evil Good
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil! -Isaiah 5:20
The Wizard of Oz has remained popular for years. People of all ages have learned moral lessons from Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion as they traveled down the yellow brick road. Of course, in the plot line the great enemy to be overcome is the Wicked Witch of the West. Evil is clearly depicted and overcome by good.
A new Broadway musical, however, turns the moral sense of the original story on its head. In this rewriting of the story, the wicked witch is presented as a sympathetic character. Born with green skin, she feels like an outsider. Major characters, plot lines, roles, and other details are altered so that the wicked witch is really just a misunderstood person. The audience might come away with the idea that evil is good and good is evil.
During the ministry of the prophet Isaiah, a reversal of moral values took place in Israel. Some actually lifted up the evils of murder, idolatry, and adultery as good. In response, Isaiah gave a stern warning: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil!" (Isa. 5:20). In our relativistic world, popular culture constantly challenges biblical values. But studying, memorizing, and meditating on God's Word can ensure our discernment between good and evil. - Dennis Fisher
In our day-to-day existence,
Evil sometimes wears a mask;
Trust the Lord for true discernment-
He gives wisdom when we ask. -Hess
If we know the truth, we can discern what's false.
What's Your Measure?
In Luke 6:38, Jesus said these words,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
That is a promise of Jesus that you can stake your life on. Give, and what happens? It will be given to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!
But notice that He also added this, "The same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." If you take a serving spoon, and that is what you measure out your giving with, you will get an overflowing serving spoon. It comes back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing from a serving spoon.
The measure you use is what is measured back to you. If you use a shovel, and that is what you measure it out with, that is how it comes back to you.
Wouldn't you rather have a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shovel as opposed to a serving spoon? The measure you use, Jesus said, that is what is used to measure back to you.
I believe many people are using a teaspoon and yet they are praying, "God bless me. I have big needs." I am sure God is saying, "I'm doing all I can. You know, I'm pressing it down as much as I can press it down. It is running over. But a running over teaspoon is just not that much."
Are you using a teaspoon or a shovel? Whatever you use is what comes back multiplied, but it is only according to the measure you use.
Read: Philippians 1:3-6
I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel. - Philippians 1:4-5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Missouri Southern Baptists decided in 1993 to start a missions partnership with Baptists in the republic of Belarus in the former USSR. After decades of persecution, the churches of Belarus were enjoying new freedoms but also facing new challenges. The Missouri Baptists committed to provide finances, leadership training, construction help, and other resources. Since then, hundreds of volunteers and thousands of dollars have helped build churches, support pastors, and purchase curriculum. One project was a fundraiser to keep open a Christian children's camp; the goal now is to make repairs and improvements as funds and volunteers become available. Missions and church partnerships have existed since the days of the apostles. The close partnership between Paul and the Philippian church gave him joy and gratitude. (We'll learn more about the specifics of their relationship later in the month.) Paul's prayer life is an important background for our study. No doubt the Philippians felt encouraged by Paul's words of praise, and even more so by the fact that their "spiritual father" was continuing to pray for them (v. 4). Another essential background is the history that Paul and this church shared. The Philippians had supported him and the work of the gospel from day one (v. 5). So Paul's love for this church sprang from their shared experiences as well as from his prayers. The foundation for their partnership and for Paul's feelings is found in verse six--Christ's redemptive work. This is the reason Paul was confident of the Philippians' continued growth and ministry with him. God will not leave His work half-done or His people half-sanctified! Paul's glowing statements were intended to encourage the Philippians, not to make them prideful. His faith and hope for the future were based on God, not on himself or on the Philippians. He looked forward to an ongoing partnership, but knew that whatever might happen to him, God would keep working in them.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's verses show the thankfulness Paul had for the Philippians and the joy he felt when he thought about them.
Idolatry in Sex Addiction
Isaiah 44:18-22
18 They do not know nor understand; For He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, And their hearts, so that they cannot understand. 19 And no one considers in his heart, Nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, "I have burned half of it in the fire, Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals; I have roasted meat and eaten it; And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" 20 He feeds on ashes; A deceived heart has turned him aside; And he cannot deliver his soul, Nor say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" 21 "Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! 22I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you." Isaiah 44:18-22 NKJV
Idolatry is sometimes the less-recognized sin involved in pornography addiction. The combination of sex and idol worship was often a diversion for the Israelites during their journey from Egypt and habitation of the Promised Land. God was greatly angered and grieved by their actions. He repeatedly warned them of the consequences of their sin.
Pornography today offers a similar powerful draw to people. Sex and bodies are glorified, displayed and enhanced so people can fantasize to their heart's content. As a result, sex addicts give thoughts of sex a "high place" in their minds, which is just like the altars for idol worship that the Israelites made throughout their land. The sacrifices sex addicts make on these mental altars include time, talent, sleep, money and family relationships.
Make no mistake, this "mental idolatry" of sex is just as serious as worshiping carved idols. God has called us to worship and serve Him only; not things that he has created. When we rebel by worshipping sex, our life begins to decay from within. We grieve the Holy Spirit by our repeated disobedience, and his power evaporates from us. Our conscience of sin becomes dull and we become easy prey for further deception. The above passage gives additional details:
God shuts our eyes and heart so that we cannot understand the truth
We lose the ability to reason rationally. The example Isaiah uses is a man worshiping a block of wood. We are turned aside by our own deceitful heart, and cannot find deliverance on our own, nor recognize the lies we have believed.
If any of these symptoms are familiar to you, there is still hope! God reveals the way back to Him and the new life that Christ bought you in verses 21-22:
21 "Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! 22I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you."
The steps to regain spiritual vision and clear conscience are: Remember that God made you, you are His servant and He will never forget you. Next, you must know that He has blotted out your sins through Jesus Christ. He has redeemed your life from the pit of hell and has broken your bondage to sin, so that you can now serve Him in spirit and truth. Finally, return to God by embracing His commandments for healthy living.
I encourage you to go through our study Freedom Journey for specifics. The benefits of living for God will far outweigh any pleasure you ever had in sin. Consider the psalmist's words:
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." Psalm 103:2-5 NKJV
Questions for further thought:
· What did God use to blot out the sins of Israel and all who would place faith in Jesus?
· What are some practical ways to keep your mind from idolizing sexual thoughts? (2 Corinthians 10:5; Colossians 3:1-2; Philippians 4:8)
· How is pornography degrading to God? (Genesis 1:27)
Prayer:
"Heavenly Father, Thank you for creating me. Thank you for the wonderful gift of sexuality. I confess that I have idolized sex and lusted about people sexually. Please forgive me for these sins by the blood of Jesus. Please help me destroy any altar or high place I have created in my mind for sexual idolatry. Please teach me through the Holy Spirit how to keep my mind from idolizing sex. I commit to learning about your commands for healthy living and following them each day as I walk forward. Thank you, Lord! In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 4, 2009
Titles And Responsibilities
READ: John 13:3-16
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. -John 13:14
Research conducted by a leading compensation technology firm found that among employees planning to leave their companies, a majority felt they were underpaid. Fewer than 20 percent of them, however, were receiving less than the industry standard for their duties.
Bill Coleman, of Salary.com, believes that many unhappy workers are overtitled rather than underpaid. Some companies give employees lofty titles even though their job responsibilities have not increased. In time, employees feel they deserve more money than their actual duties merit. "When it comes to salary," Coleman says, "it's what you do, not what you're called, that counts."
It's interesting how Jesus dealt with the issue of titles and responsibilities. During the Last Supper, He performed the task of a lowly servant by washing His disciples' feet, setting the stage for His astonishing statement about humility: "You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:13-14).
Christ the Lord set the example for all who would follow Him, confirming that it's not what we're called, but what we do that counts. - David C. McCasland
When Jesus took a servant's towel-
His honor set aside-
He humbly showed us how to serve,
And how to conquer pride. -Sper
The more we serve Christ, the less we will serve self.
Living for Whom?
Today I want us to return to Luke 12, but focus on verses 16-19,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."'"
This guy is classic! While he was rich, he was only rich toward himself. He did not have any thoughts about being rich toward the Kingdom of God. He was totally self-centered.
In fact, in the few short verses where this man speaks, verses 17, 18, and 19, he uses six "I"s, five "my"s, and four "I will"s. He says, "My crops, my barns, my goods, my soul." Pretty self-centered!
Yes, his land brought forth an incredible harvest, but who provided the fertile soil? Who provided the rain? Who provided the sunshine? Who gave him his health? Who gave him the ability to think and plan? In fact, for that matter, who gave him his soul?
In Ezekiel 18:4 God says, "All souls are Mine."
This man totally left God out of his plans. Everything he did, he did for himself. And God said he was a fool. On the very same day he made his boast, his soul was required of him.
Instead of a barn, he had a burial; instead of living in the lap of luxury, he had to stand before God and give an account of his life.
Read: Philippians 1:9-11
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. - Proverbs 11:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
We often think that prayer is merely talking to God, but it would be more accurate to see prayer as God's tool to change us. Henry Blackaby and Claude King explain this in Experiencing God,"Prayer is a relationship, not just a religious activity. Prayer is designed more to adjust you to God than to adjust God to you. God does not need your prayers, but He wants you to pray. You need to pray because of what God wants to do in and through your life during your praying. . . . Prayer is a relationship to a Person. It is a two-way communication with the God of the universe." In today's reading, then, it is especially appropriate that Paul prayed for positive spiritual change in the lives of the Philippians. His prayer naturally followed what we learned yesterday--that true Christian love is both an emotion and a spiritual reality. When Paul prayed that their "love may abound" (v. 9; cf. 1 Thess. 3:12), he had in mind primarily God's love at work in them. What will this love look like? Paul associated it with such qualities as knowledge, insight, and discernment. In other words, love sees as God sees, and understands His will. And the apostle didn't stop there. The Greek word translated here as "discern" was also used when discussing testing coins and metals for purity, so it makes sense that Paul next allied love with purity and blamelessness (Phil. 1:10). Additionally, love does as God does by following and obeying His will. In short, Paul wanted the Philippians to be "filled with the fruit of righteousness" (v. 11; cf. Gal. 5:22-23). Who can answer such an ambitious prayer? Only Christ can be the source of such love and holiness. How can believers grow in these godly traits? The secret is to abide in Christ (see John 15:1-17).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How's your prayer life these days? In effect, Philippians 1:3-11 is a prayer by Paul, beginning with thankfulness and ending with a petition. With this example in mind, we encourage you to pick one concrete way to improve your prayer life this month. Here are some ideas: (1) Make a two-column prayer list, one column for requests and the other for answers. (2) Read a book about prayer, such as one by E. M. Bounds. (3) Start a prayer journal.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 5, 2009
The Cheat Test
READ: Psalm 119:129-136
Direct my steps by Your Word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me. -Psalm 119:133
Dan Ariely, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted some tests on human behavior. In one experiment, the participants took an examination in which they would receive money for each correct answer. The participants didn't know, however, that Ariely was not testing their knowledge but whether they would cheat. He set up the test so that the groups thought it would be easy to get away with cheating.
Prior to taking the exam, one group was asked to write down as many of the Ten Commandments as they could remember. To Ariely's astonishment, none from this group cheated! But all the other groups did have those who cheated. Recalling a moral benchmark made the difference.
Centuries ago, the psalmist understood the need for a moral benchmark and asked for divine aid in following it. He prayed to the Lord, "Direct my steps by Your Word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me. . . . Teach me Your statutes" (Ps. 119:133-135).
Ariely's "cheat test" experiment illustrates our need for moral guidance. The Lord has given us His Word as a lamp for our feet and a light for our path (v.105) to direct us in our moral choices. - Dennis Fisher
How precious is the Book divine
By inspiration given!
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine,
To guide our souls to heaven. -Fawcett
Like a compass, the Bible always points us in the right direction.
Giving When No One Sees
Matthew 6:1-4
gives some important insight into giving,
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly." Jesus points us to a truth that is vital to us as Christians: Giving is an issue of the heart.
God will not honor your giving if, when you give, your heart is saying, "I want everyone to know what I'm doing. I want to be noticed when I give. I want everyone to know just how generous and kind I am and what a benevolent heart I have."
We should give with a pure motive. When we give with the right motive, not to be seen by men but out of a right heart, God will reward us openly. That may not exactly translate into dollars and cents, but it will translate into tangible blessings, things that people can see.
If nobody else knows you kicked in the extra hundred bucks, don't worry about it. God sees, and He has a way of rewarding you openly. Everyone will recognize the hand of God is on you. God's blessings will come into your life.
So when you give, check your heart to make sure you are giving with the right motive.
Read: Philippians 1:12-14
Join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life. - 2 Timothy 1:8-9
TODAY IN THE WORD
On March 28, 1997, pastor Eugenio Nij of San Raymundo, Guatemala, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of assault and attempted murder. The charges were completely false--no evidence was produced. Yet Eugenio remained in prison despite petitions signed by hundreds of townspeople. In jail Eugenio continued to minister. He told Pulsemagazine: "I've preached thirty or forty times in the fifty days I've been here. . . . I've also been able to comfort fellow prisoners, some of whom have confessed their crimes to me while others are innocent. There have been twenty to thirty conversions. . . . As a minister, I find this a special experience from God." The apostle Paul had a similar experience as Eugenio. Far from thwarting him, his imprisonment actually served to advance the gospel (v. 12). We know that after more than two years of imprisonment, Paul had exercised his right as a Roman citizen and appealed to Caesar for justice. After a journey that included a shipwreck, he ended up in Rome under house arrest, awaiting trial (see Acts 24-28). This is the circumstance in which he wrote the letter to the Philippians. A lack of freedom didn't mean a lack of ministry, though. Paul's witness for Christ was stronger than ever! How? First, there was word of mouth. It had become clear that Paul was a religious prisoner, not some political rebel or common criminal (Phil. 1:13). The way he endured persecution for his faith spoke volumes to those guarding him. The "palace guard" Paul mentioned was likely the famous "Praetorian Guard," possibly numbering as many as 9,000 soldiers. It's easy to picture a soldier, after spending the day chained to the apostle, heading back to the barracks and telling his friends about this amazing prisoner. What an outreach!
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Suffering is not an easy subject to think about, yet the Scriptures tell us that God uses suffering in many ways in the lives of His children. In His ultimate plan, suffering is for our benefit and to His glory.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 6, 2009
Serve Or Die
READ: Mark 10:35-45
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. -Mark 10:45
Dr. Paul Brand told me of a memorable Frenchman named Pierre, who had served in Parliament until he became disillusioned with the slow pace of political change. During a harsh winter, many Parisian beggars froze to death. In desperation, Pierre became a friar to work among them and organize the beggars themselves.
They divided into teams to scour the city for bottles. Next, he led them to build a warehouse out of discarded bricks and start a business processing the bottles. Finally, he gave each beggar responsibility to help another poorer than himself. The project caught on. In a few years he founded the charitable organization Emmaus.
Eventually, there were few beggars to be found in Paris. So Pierre went to India. "If I don't find people worse off than my beggars," he said, "this movement could turn inward. They'll become a powerful, rich organization, and the whole spiritual impact will be lost. They'll have no one to serve."
At a leprosy colony in India, Pierre met patients worse off than his former beggars. Returning to France, he mobilized the beggars to build a leprosy ward at a hospital in India.
"It is you who have saved us," he told the grateful patients. "We must serve or we die." - Philip Yancey
THINKING IT THROUGH
In Mark 10:35-37, what did James and John seek?
What did Jesus say about the world's authority? (v.42).
How are followers of Christ to be different? (vv.43-45).
If you want a field of service, look around you.
Character Counts
So far we have learned about the first three "Cs" of soul winning in the last few devotionals. Today let me share the fourth "C"-character. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, particularly verse 27, tells us the importance of character in witnessing to others,
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
Paul said he was temperate in all things, that he disciplined his body. He would bring it into subjection, meaning he had problems keeping his body in subjection, just like you and I do.
Every one of us has a propensity toward certain sins. It is important, though, that we rein in our flesh and that we are temperate in all things because our lifestyle affects our message.
Take just a moment and do the following exercise. Imagine you are an employer. If you wanted to hire an efficient, competent, trustworthy employee, would you hire yourself at your present salary?
Or let's say that you were going to have to spend the rest of your life with someone just like you. Would you look forward to it as a great opportunity and privilege? Or not?
If your character is out of whack, people are going to have a hard time hearing what you have to say. Character counts!
Read: Exodus 15:1-21
The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. - Exodus 15:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African-American scholar to earn a degree from Harvard, studied the experience of black slaves in America. He wrote about the impact of the spirituals, calling them "Sorrow Songs" and describing them as "the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side of the seas . . . the greatest gift of the Negro people." Just as it did for the African slaves, music expresses hope in times of despair; music can also declare most eloquently our greatest joys. The hymn of Exodus 15 is the loud and jubilant chorus of an enslaved people who have been delivered. Verse one tells us that Moses and the Israelites sang this song after the spectacular rescue in chapter 14. The theological content given in this passage may be the hymn that develops later, in the days and weeks to come, from the original refrain of verse 21. Miriam sang this chorus on the banks of the Red Sea, using her tambourine as accompaniment. Perhaps as the freed slaves marched toward the Promised Land, they added verses to the this glorious refrain, "The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea." However the song was composed, the hymn has been preserved for us as a theological reservoir for discovering truths about God. All this "wisdom" about God comes from seeing Him in action. The Israelites did not enjoy the privilege of studying a sacred text about God. At that time, there were no worship services or ministry of preaching as we know it. What they knew of God was what had been revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and what they had witnessed of His mighty deeds. This hymn expresses these new discoveries about their God. The strength of God is unrivaled; He easily defeats His enemies. The love of God is undeniable; He rescues the people of His promise. This hymn is a cry of confidence in God; He will lead them. They have nothing and no one to fear.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Music has significant power to focus our minds and hearts on God and His Word. Music was an important part of Jewish worship. The book of Psalms is actually a hymnal! In Christian tradition, music has also played an important role. How can you incorporate more music into your personal devotions? Into your family devotions? Even if your church sings contemporary worship music, invest in owning your own traditional hymnal to learn and to teach your children hymns of the faith.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 9, 2009
Flawed And Frail
READ: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. -1 Corinthians 1:27
One of my boyhood heroes was Davy Crockett, the "King of the Wild Frontier." I looked up to him, admiring his courage and exploits.
Years later, my brother gave me a book that traced the experiences of the real-life David Crockett. I was surprised by his humanness. The real Davy Crockett made mistakes and had serious personal problems. The book depicted him as both flawed and frail.
This was both disappointing and reassuring to me. It was disappointing because he was less than I had come to believe, but reassuring because that reality made Crockett more accessible to me-and even more of a hero.
In the Bible we see that God consistently used people who were far less than perfect. That shouldn't surprise us. God is glorified by showing Himself strong through our weaknesses. It shows us that He desires to work through our lives not because we are perfect but because He is. And since He uses weak and foolish things (1 Cor. 1:27), it means you and I are prime candidates for His work.
The Lord isn't looking for superheroes. He uses those of us who are flawed and frail, so that He can show His strength and grace. He wants those with a willing and available heart. - Bill Crowder
It's not in the flash of the style that you hone,
Nor all the degrees you've compiled;
The Savior is looking for servants who own
The warm, willing heart of a child. -Gustafson
In God's service, our greatest ability is our availability.
God's Guidance System
In Matthew 6:22-24, Jesus tells us the impact when God has our whole heart,
"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
While it may not seem like it, Jesus is talking about the heart.
As we learned in our previous devotionals, if you give to God, and give for the right reasons, God has your heart. Your heart belongs to Him. When God has your heart, He can lead you; because that is how God leads, He leads through your heart.
That's really what this illustration is about. That is what He means by, "The lamp of the body is the eye."
Think about the difference light makes when trying to walk on a narrow, craggy path. When light comes into your eye, you can see your way. Your eyes, when the light is able to come in, are a built-in guidance system, aren't they?
Well, you know what? You have a guidance system God uses to lead you. That guidance system is called your heart. If God has your treasure, He has your heart. But God can't lead you through your heart if He doesn't have your heart.
If God has your heart, then He can begin to lead you. You can go anywhere He tells you to go. And interestingly enough, the loyalty of our heart is expressed through our giving. Giving and guidance tied together? According to Jesus...definitely!
Read: Philippians 2:1-4
In humility consider others better than yourselves. - Philippians 2:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
What might the world have to say in response to the humility described in today's reading? Several recent book titles give us the general idea: Promoting Yourself: 52 Lessons for Getting to the Top . . . and Staying There; Promoting Yourself: 50 Ways to Increase Your Prestige, Power, and Paycheck; 101 Ways to Promote Yourself: Tricks of the Trade for Taking Charge of Your Own Success; Selling Yourself: Be the Competent, Confident Person You Really Are! In other words, the answer to the question is "me, me, me" and more "me"! The world revolves around self. Self must go out and get the best possible life for self that self can get. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, taught otherwise. The "if" that begins these verses is not a conditional or "maybe" statement, but rather an assumption about what is true. What is true is that we have multiple benefits from our salvation in and union with Christ, including encouragement, comfort, fellowship, tenderness, and compassion. Two main behaviors should flow from these benefits: unity and humility. "Unity" is described as being like-minded, being in one accord in spirit and purpose, and living in harmony with one another. "Humility" means considering others better than oneself and not acting out of pride or selfish ambition. What does this mean? We should treat people as created in the image of God, and we should love them as He does. Looking for others' benefit in this way is antithetical to the "looking out for #1" motto of the world. The foundation for all of this is Christ. Because of our spiritual union with Him, because of His love for us, and because He sent His Holy Spirit, we are able to aspire to unity and humility. As we saw yesterday, humility requires a rest-filled faith in God, that is, a confidence in who we are in Christ. Just as confidence in His Father's love and power freed Jesus to do a servant's action, being encouraged and comforted in Him frees us to act humbly.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Please read Philippians 2:3-4 one more time. When is the last specific time you can remember obeying this command? If you're not sure, or if the time you think of is embarrassingly far back, choose a specific person and action and carry out these verses before the week is done. We're asking you to choose not in order to eliminate spontaneity, but because we assume you probably already know of a specific situation in which you can put another person first and please the Lord through your obedience.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 10, 2009
Gossip-Free Zone
READ: Proverbs 25:8-18
A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow.
In some offices, you can get fired for gossiping. According to a 2002 survey, the average employee gossips 65 hours a year. One Chicago firm decided to become a "gossip-free zone." They require that employees never talk badly about co-workers behind their backs. If you're caught, you lose your job.
A ministry for people in the entertainment industry takes a refreshing alternative to gossip. They combat it with prayer. Instead of putting down famous people who get in trouble with bad choices, they encourage people to pray for them.
Among God's commands to His people is "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Ex. 20:16). While this may be talking primarily about lying at judicial proceedings, gossip could also be included in the command because it violates the law of love toward our neighbor. Proverbs uses strong language to describe this use of our words. It's like "a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow" against others (25:18).
Gossip feeds into our natural desires to feel superior to others and to belong or fit in, so combating it in our personal lives can be a challenge. But if we choose to love through prayer, our lives can be a gossip-free zone. - Anne Cetas
Lord, forgive us for speaking carelessly
about others to make ourselves look better.
Help us to think before we speak. Teach us
to be loving with our words. Amen.
You can never justify gossip.
For Just a Little While
Today's Scripture will start with the very last word of 1 Peter 1:4, just so you know who it is talking about, and go through verse 7,
...you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Notice in verse 6 it says, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. That phrase "a little while" literally means a season. The King James Version says, Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
I like the phrase "a little while". That tells me the season is going to end. It is not forever. Every season ends. Winter ends. Spring ends. Summer ends. Fall ends. Every season has a beginning, and every season has an end.
If you are in a trial right now and feeling the weight of it, you are grieved because of it, I have good news. It will not be forever. Things are going to change. It may not seem like it, but that season will come to an end.
Even if you are not experiencing a trial today, I am confident you have gone through such a season, and it is likely that you will probably experience such a season again.
When you do, or if you are today, be encouraged. God's Word wants you-and me-to remember it is for just a little while.
Read: Matthew 5:1-12
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. - Matthew 5:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to tradition, apostles and brothers Peter and Andrew died similar martyrs' deaths. In both cases, their enemies intended to crucify them on a Roman cross, but both asked their captors to change its shape out of deference to the Cross of their Lord. They felt unworthy to die in the same way that He had. So they turned Peter's cross upside down, while Andrew's they altered to be X-shaped. Today, both the upside-down cross and the X-shaped "St. Andrew's Cross" (called a "saltire" and sometimes referred to as the "Burgundy Cross") are historical symbols of Christian humility. "If anyone would come after me," Jesus said, "he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Our devotional topic for this first month of 2008 is humility and simplicity, two intertwined virtues that are essential for everyday discipleship. They are also prominent among the Beatitudes in our passage today. These "Blessed are" statements could easily be translated as "Happy are"-but not happiness in a merely emotional sense. Instead, spiritual happiness is the joy and contentment of redeemed people. Humility and simplicity appear at least four times in today's reading. First, "poor in spirit" (v. 3) is a metaphor for humility or lack of pride. People who are poor in spirit know their need for God and plead for His grace in their lives. In response, He gives them the kingdom of heaven as a gift. Second, "meek" (v. 5), also translated "gentle" (NASB), indicates humility before God as well as the resulting humility in relations with others. God blesses them with a rich inheritance. Third, "pure in heart" (v. 8), which literally means "clean" or "uncorrupted," includes simplicity, wholeheartedness, and a pure dedication to the Lord. Such people will be overjoyed to receive their reward, which is to see Him! Finally, enduring persecution (vv. 10-12) also requires humility. Standing firm under insults, slander, and suffering cannot be done in pride.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
A good way to begin 2008 would be with an earnest prayer to develop more fully the virtues of humility and simplicity in your life. You might already have made such a resolution, but New Year's resolutions tend to be try-your-best and grit-your-teeth affairs, whereas spiritual qualities cannot be achieved through merely human effort. Taking the need for grace as your starting point, pray for the Lord to do whatever it takes in your life this year to give you a spirit of humility and simplicity.
I guess this is a reprint from 2008. I think there is trouble on the site I get this devotion from. The message is still good. Just bear with me and sooner or later it will get worked out, or not. God is directing us all.
Judy
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals November 11, 2009
No Greater Love
READ: John 15:9-17
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. -John 15:13.
Melbourne, Australia, is home to the Shrine of Remembrance, a war memorial honoring those who died for their country. Built following World War I, it has since been expanded to honor those who served in subsequent conflicts.
It's a beautiful place, with reminders of courage and devotion, but the highlight of the shrine is a hall containing a carved stone that simply reads, "Greater Love Hath No Man." Every year on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:00 a.m., a mirror reflects the sun's light onto the stone to spotlight the word love. It is a poignant tribute to those who gave their lives.
We honor the memory of those who paid the ultimate price for freedom. Yet the words on that stone carry a far greater meaning. Jesus spoke them the night before He died on the cross for the sins of a needy world (John 15:13). His death was not for freedom from political tyranny but freedom from the penalty of sin. His death was not just to give us a better life, but to give us eternal life.
It is important to remember those who have given their lives for their country-but may we never forget to praise and honor the Christ who died for a dying world. Truly, there is no greater love than this. - Bill Crowder
There is no greater love than that of Christ above,
That made Him stoop to earth, become a Man,
And by His death provide redemption's plan;
There is no greater love. -Peterson
© Renewal 1983, John W. Peterson Music Company.
The cross of Jesus is the supreme evidence of the love of God.
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Removed, Not Just Covered
Today I want to give you another reason why the new covenant is better than the old covenant. I want you to read Hebrews 10:11 first, then Hebrews 9:25-26,
And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
And then talking about Jesus,
Not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another-He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Under the old covenant, sins were merely covered. In the new covenant, Jesus removes our sin. In fact, John the Baptist declared, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Jesus doesn't just cover it, He takes it away!
I want to tell you, friend, we are not just some patched up old sinners. We have been made new creations in Christ Jesus.
I know a horse trainer who trains beautiful thoroughbred horses. If I took a mule over to this guy and said, "Look, I want this mule to run with the thoroughbreds," he could feed it, brush its coat every day, and trim its tail and ears to look like a quarter horse. But when the gun fires and the gates go up and the horses start to run, it is just a mule. That is all it is!
Religion dresses up the mule, but God changes the mule into a thoroughbred. He takes away your sin and makes you a new creature in Christ Jesus when you embrace salvation.
Our sin is not just covered, it is gone, and we have been made into new people
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Read: Matthew 23:1-12
The greatest among you will be your servant. - Matthew 23:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
"They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long," Jesus said of the Pharisees (v. 5). Phylacteries, called "tephillin" by modern Jews, are small leather boxes or pouches attached by straps to one's arm or forehead. They contain several texts from the Pentateuch, including Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The tassels were found on prayer shawls and alluded to the Tent of Meeting from the days of the Exodus. They also served as reminders of the Law's commands. Phylacteries and tassels ideally symbolized true faith and devotion, but the Pharisees used them to parade their "faith and devotion" in front of others. The pride and hypocrisy of these religious leaders illuminate, by contrast, the virtue of humility. The hypocrisy consisted in the fact that they didn't practice what they preached (v. 3). As we might say today, "They talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk." This hypocrisy was caused by pride. They did their religious duties to be seen and praised by others. For example, they flaunted their phylacteries and tassels, as described above. They vied for the best seats at banquets (see Jan. 5), as well as for the special bench in front of the cabinet where the scrolls of the Law were kept in synagogues. They craved public recognition. Jesus said, "They have received their reward in full" (Matt. 6:5). In contrast to human hierarchy, Jesus taught true equality (vv. 8-10). Before the Lord, titles are meaningless. God alone can be considered our true Master, Father, and Teacher, a truth leading to humility (vv. 11-12). Amazingly, Jesus had begun all this by saying that people should still obey the Pharisees. Why? Because they sat "in Moses' seat," meaning that their authority ultimately resided not in them personally, but in the Scriptures (the Law of Moses) which they taught (vv. 2-3). "Do as they say, not as they do," Jesus was essentially saying, as well as showing us that others' pride is no reason to be proud ourselves.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What's your definition of "humility"? Consider answering this question by writing another spiritual journal entry, perhaps one that builds on or continues your journal entry from yesterday. Don't just answer off the top of your head. Review the Scripture passages and devotional readings, make notes, pray, and discuss your ideas with fellow believers. Then you'll be able to write an explanation that is accurate, godly, and challenging. Seeing our target clearly is a prerequisite to hitting it!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 12, 2009
Out Of Obscurity
READ: 2 Kings 22:3-11
I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord. -2 Kings 22:8
In an old house close to a Civil War battleground in Virginia, workers are painstakingly restoring graffiti. Unsightly scribbling similar to what we scrub from public view is considered a clue to knowledge of the past. Workers are ecstatic when a new letter or word emerges from obscurity to provide information that has remained hidden for over 145 years.
The story brings to mind a scene in ancient Israel when Hilkiah the priest found the long lost book of the law in the temple of the Lord. The very words of God, entrusted to the nation of Israel, had been ignored, forgotten, and eventually lost. But King Josiah was determined to follow the Lord, so he instructed the priest to restore worship in the temple. In the process, the Law of Moses was discovered.
But an even greater discovery was yet to be made. Many years later, after meeting Jesus, Philip reported to his friend Nathanael: "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law" (John 1:45 NIV).
People today get excited about discovering the scribbles of Civil War soldiers. How much more exciting it is to discover the words of Almighty God expressed in the Word made flesh, Jesus the Messiah. - Julie Ackerman Link
The treasures of the Word of God
Are great beyond compare;
But if we do not search them out,
We cannot use what's there. -Sper
The Bible is old, but its truths are always new
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Your Real Adversary
As we continue to think about the reality of trials in our lives, and the challenge it is to handle those trials, I want to point you to another important teaching about trials in today's devotional.
You need to realize who your adversary is. It is not God; it is the devil. Look at 1 Peter 5:8-9,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Some of the trials and sufferings that we experience are the direct result of the adversary's work.
Some people want to blame God for everything, but the Bible says it is the thief- the devil-who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came to give us life and more abundantly.
Peter makes this even clearer in verse 10,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Our God is the God of grace. The devil is seeking to devour.
Frankly, I hate the middle part of this verse, After you have suffered for a while.... Clearly, God wants us to understand that suffering is going to happen. Trials are going to happen. No matter how much you may say, "I don't receive it!", it is still there! You are going to go through difficult times. It is part of the human experience.
But when you go through that time of trial, remember not to blame God. It is the devil who is your adversary!
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Read: Numbers 12:1-15
Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. - Numbers 12:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Today's verse might come as a surprise, because we don't tend to picture Moses as a humble man. This might be due to how he's depicted in movies such as The Ten Commandments. As Charlton Heston, for example, calls down the ten plagues, thunders "Let my people go!", or raises his staff to divide the Red Sea, the words "humble" and "meek" don't exactly spring to mind! A strong leader who is also humble is a rare combination. But Scripture declares Moses to have been "more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" (v. 3). As a national leader and prophet, Moses had reasons to be proud, but he hadn't given in to the temptation. This is clear in today's reading, when his own brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, attacked him. They did so through gossip, condemning the fact that he had a "Cushite wife." Their real problem, however, was jealousy over his special relationship with the Lord. God had empowered him to face down a king and do awesome miracles. God had given him the Law on Mount Sinai. And Moses' face shone from meeting with God, who often filled him with His Spirit. Aaron and Miriam might also have felt that the recent appointment of seventy elders (11:10-25) diluted their own leadership positions. Whatever the impetus for their attack, they were the ones guilty of the self-seeking arrogance with which they charged Moses. Moses did nothing-God Himself defended His humble servant. The three of them were summoned to the Tent of Meeting, where the Lord rebuked Miriam and Aaron in words (vv. 6-8) and with a judgment of leprosy on Miriam, probably indicating she had instigated the complaint. Moses' prayer brought healing and mercy, but her seven-day quarantine outside the camp was a public, humbling reminder of how God deals with those who try to exalt themselves.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Part of the problem in today's reading was gossip. It's quite possible that gossip is a problem in your church as well-snide remarks about what qualities someone lacks, or "prayer requests" that are actually juicy tidbits about others. Resolve today to have no part in such talk! Gossip tears down rather than builds up, and makes the teller feel selfishly important and powerful. Remember what Proverbs says: "A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends" (16:28).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 13, 2009
Whom Will You Trust?
READ: Philippians 3:1-11
By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. -Ephesians 2:8
Ayn Rand, an American philosopher who died in 1982, gathered a sizable following who read her books and attended her lectures. An avid individualist, she had this to say: "Now I see the free face of god and I raise this god over all the earth, this god who men have sought since men came into being, the god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word, I." When asked if she believed in God, she answered, "This god is myself, I." Egotism-faith in oneself-that's what this philosopher believed in.
The apostle Paul bore witness to a trust that is exactly the opposite of that misplaced self-confidence. He declared, "[We] worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3). He put his trust solely in Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, the true God of love and mercy.
We read in the book of Ephesians, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (2:8).
Are we embracing the philosophy of egotism, which is really a confidence that will prove eternally self-destructive? Or have we, like Paul, embraced the self-sacrificing grace of Jesus Christ? - Vernon C. Grounds
By grace now I'm saved-Hallelujah!
Praise God, and through faith it's been done;
Naught of myself, but believing
In the finished work of His Son. -Gladwin
We are saved not by what we do but by trusting what Christ has done
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The Path to Maturity
1 Peter 5:10 provides a very critical principle for those times when we are going through trials, a principle that is easy to miss,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
You need to realize that even though God did not initiate your trouble, He can still use it to work something good in you. What the devil means for evil, God can turn into something good.
Even though the devil's purpose is to destroy you, if you will respond correctly, God can work good things. Notice the verse says after you have suffered a short season, God will perfect. It brings maturity to you.
While we might hate it, how we respond in times of trial makes us who we are-and it fits us to accomplish God's will. I hate some of the things I have gone through! But you know what? I would not be who I am had I not experienced those things. It has fitted me to do the will of God.
And while it may not seem like it, your present difficulty may be instrumental in your future success.
It reminds me of the guy who was shipwrecked on a deserted island. One day he decided to go across the island for food. When he got to the other side he looked back and saw a plume of smoke in the sky. He ran back only to find that his shack burnt to the ground!
It stung him to the core! Except the next morning a ship arrived and rescued him. When he asked the sailors, "How'd you know I was here?" they said, "We saw your smoke signal."
Your present trials just may be fitting you for something you would never expect!
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Read: Philippians 2:12-13
We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. - Ephesians 2:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Daniel did his job so well as a civil official in the Persian Empire that the other administrators were jealous. They watched him carefully, looking for a "skeleton in his closet" so they could run to King Darius and tattle. But Daniel, dedicated to his God, lived blamelessly. His rivals could find nothing wrong. That didn't stop them, however, from concocting a plot leading to the famous story of Daniel in the lions' den, which you can read in Daniel 6. Daniel lived a godly life, being light in a dark, paganenvironment. In today's reading, Paul wanted the Philippians to be "Daniels" and "christs" to the world around them. Paul's exhortation here was a follow-up to his earlier command to imitate Christ (v. 5). The intervening verses are an inspiring "detour," but they also form the foundation for Paul's teachings that follow. How can believers have the same attitude as Christ? Through obedience and blameless living (v. 12; cf. Phil. 1:10). Living this way honors the salvation Christ has won. That's what it means to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" --not to be afraid or fearful, but to cooperate in reverence and awe with God's sanctifying work in your life. Salvation is not by works. It is wholly by God's grace, and we have a part to play after we are saved (Eph. 2:8-10). That's why Paul immediately balanced "work out your salvation" with "for it is God who works in you" (Phil. 2:13). We are never on our own. We don't have to complete what God started. The strength in which we live out our faith comes from God. He is always working in us for our benefit and for His glory.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One clear theme in Philippians is the importance of witnessing the gospel. Paul was in prison for the sake of the gospel, and he rejoiced that it was being preached even if some people had bad motives.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 16, 2009
"I Did Not Know It"
READ: Genesis 28:10-16
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." -Genesis 28:16
As Jacob did in Genesis 28, I like to remind myself each morning when I awaken that God is here, "in this place," present with me (v.16). As I spend time with Him each morning, reading His Word and responding in prayer, it reinforces my sense of His presence-that He is near. Although we do not see Him, Peter reminds us that we can love Him and rejoice in His love for us with "inexpressible," glorious joy (1 Peter 1:8).
We take the Lord's presence with us all through the day, blending work and play with prayer. He is our teacher, our philosopher, our companion-our gentle, kind, and very best friend.
God is with us wherever we go. He is in the commonplace, whether we know it or not. "Surely the Lord is in this place," Jacob said of a most unlikely spot, "and I did not know it" (Gen. 28:16). We may not realize He is close by. We may feel lonely and sad. Our day may seem bleak and dreary without a visible ray of hope-yet He is present.
Amid all the clamor and din of this visible and audible world, listen carefully for God's quiet voice. Listen to Him in the Bible. Talk to Him frequently in prayer. Look for Him in your circumstances. Seek Him. He is with you wherever you go! - David H. Roper
Oh, how oft I wake and find
I have been forgetting Thee!
I am never from Thy mind;
Thou it is that wakest me. -MacDonald
Our greatest privilege is to enjoy God's presence.
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Real Treasure
Proverbs 15:6 says,
In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.
Notice that this verse does not just declare there is treasure in the house of the righteous. It says there is much treasure in the house of the righteous.
You can also find treasure in the house of the wicked, but Solomon says it is laced with trouble. The income of the wicked has a bunch of trouble with it.
But the same is not true for those who are right with God. When the treasure is found in their house, it does not have the same trouble that it does when it is found in the house of the wicked.
If you read on, the Lord shares two things that must accompany this treasure if it is going to be enjoyed. First, you must have a right relationship with God. Proverbs 15:16 says, Better is a little with the fear of the LORD, than great treasure with trouble.
It is better to have almost nothing and have a right relationship with God than to have everything money can buy and not have a relationship with God. We must get our priorities right.
The second thing we need to have is a right relationship with people, lest the treasure become hollow and become a curse. Proverbs 15:17says, Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred.
Some people have more prosperity than they know what to do with, but all of their relationships fail. They do not have love. Consequently, there is a vacuum they can never fill with things, that they can never fill by accumulating more possessions.
Pursue your relationship with God, and a right relationship with people. Then you will enjoy the treasure God gives you!
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Read: Philippians 2:25-30
Welcome [Epaphroditus] in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him. - Philippians 2:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
Edward Kimball is a name you should know. One day in Boston, Kimball passed the shoe store where one of his Sunday School students worked. He wanted to share the gospel with him, but wasn't sure if he should bother him during working hours. He decided to enter the store. Despite what Kimball thought was a weak gospel presentation, that young shoe salesman trusted Christ. His name was D. L. Moody, the great evangelist and founder of Moody Bible Institute. Because Edward Kimball shared the gospel with one man, D. L. Moody preached Christ to tens of millions of people! That qualifies Kimball as an "unsung hero"--a hidden part of a spectacular work of God. Epaphroditus is another such "unsung hero," earning high praise from the apostle Paul in today's reading. He had been sent to minister to Paul as a personal representative from the church in Philippi. In Rome, he had fallen seriously ill and nearly died. Paul put death in this case on a par with a martyr's death (v. 30), since Epaphroditus would have died "in the line of duty." But now Paul was glad to be able to send Epaphroditus back to the Philippians. They had been worried because of his sickness. He also had been anxious, knowing that they were worried. And Paul had been troubled that a mission of love and care might have been the cause of sorrow and grief. He was not speaking of sinful anxiety or worry (cf. Phil. 4:6), but of natural human anxiety prompted by the emotions and close relationships involved. After all, Christians are not stoics! The Philippians were told to esteem Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:29), who may very well have been the original bearer of this letter. If so, they could have immediately obeyed the instructions to rejoice and honor him.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God has always used "unsung heroes" to accomplish His purposes, men and women whose faith and obedience are mostly "behind the scenes."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 17, 2009
Your Children Will Ask
READ: Exodus 12:13-17,25-27
When your children say to you, "What do you mean by this service?" . . . you shall say, "It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord." -Exodus 12:26-27
One of the most important events in Jewish history is the exodus, when God freed His people from the bondage of Egypt. Prior to leaving Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to eat a special meal called the Passover. As an act of judgment upon the Egyptians, God said that He would strike down every firstborn son, but He would pass over the houses that had the blood of a lamb on the top and sides of the door frame (Ex. 12).
To commemorate this act of judgment and grace, God's people would share in the Passover meal. God said that one day their children would ask: "What do you mean by this?" They were then responsible to retell the story of the exodus and God's salvation. God did not want the story of His great salvation to get lost in one generation.
When our children ask us about our values, lifestyle, prayer in decision-making, Bible-reading, church attendance, and worship, we have a responsibility to answer them. We are followers of Jesus. We must retell the story of how He became our Passover Lamb. His blood is the marker over our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin but are free to serve the Eternal One of heaven.
What are you teaching the children? - Marvin Williams
How great, O God, Your acts of love!
Your saving deeds would proclaim
That generations yet to come
May set their hope in Your great name. -D. De Haan
A parent's life is a child's guidebook.
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Overrated
We read in Proverbs 23:4,
Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!
First, I want you to notice that this verse does not say don't work. And it does not say don't work hard. It says don't overwork.
There are some people in God's family who are not led, they are driven. They are so focused on reaching their goals and achieving whatever level of success they are going after, that they are making a lot of sacrifices along the way.
But they are making the wrong sacrifices. They are sacrificing their marriage and they are sacrificing their relationship with their kids. Why? Because they overwork. And, friend, that is not healthy.
In fact, I would say that overworking is as unhealthy as not working. You miss out on the grand things in life, the important things in life. With some people, even their relationship with God gets squeezed out because they overwork.
You need to be motivated; you need to work hard; but you don't want to overdo it to the point that you don't have time for your children. You don't want to work so hard that you don't have time for your spouse. And you don't want to so overwork that you don't have time for your God.
You are missing life if you are just after possessions, and you are sacrificing the more important things along the way.
How does your work life measure up today? Are you overworking at the expense of your marriage, your family, and your relationship with God? If so, determine today to get your life back in balance.
Overworking is overrated!
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Read: Philippians 3:1
I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O Lord, I will sing praise. - Psalm 101:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Kathy Thibodeaux leaps, spins and twirls for the Lord. She is a professional ballet dancer who sees her art as an offering of praise to God. At the 1982 International Ballet Competition she danced to a worship song, "We Shall Behold Him," and won the silver medal despite the fact that some of the judges were from communist-ruled nations. After her conversion, Kathy left a promising career with Ballet Mississippi to found a Christian dance company, Ballet Magnificat!, which in 1997 celebrated its tenth anniversary. Ballet Magnificat! presents about one hundred shows a year in churches and schools, incorporating many music and dance styles into the performances. What motivates Kathy? She told Christianity Today,"Dance is from God and was meant to worship and glorify Him." Her attitude and art exemplify the praise-filled heart that Paul speaks of at the beginning of Philippians 3. With "finally," Paul signals that he is moving from one section to another in the epistle. The focus of this chapter is "knowing Christ." Flowing logically from the last chapter's topic of "imitation," the book now turns from the practice of following Christ to the motivation for doing so--love for the Savior and an overpowering desire to know Him. It's appropriate that Paul started this section with a reminder to rejoice. This is a central theme in his letter, especially necessary since the church in Philippi was going through a time of struggle. "Rejoice in the Lord" was far more fruitful advice for them than "grin and bear it." And it had a special credibility coming from Paul the prisoner! Why is this exhortation a "safeguard" for the Philippians? A joyful spirit would protect them from discouragement and losing faith in God. God would be faithful to them, as He had been to Paul, and worship was the best way to keep that spiritual truth uppermost in their minds and hearts (cf. Eph. 5:19-20; Col. 3:16).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you remember the list of themes in Philippians we encouraged you to make (see November 1)? Since Paul spoke often of "joy" or "rejoicing," one or both probably made your list!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 18, 2009
Cooler Heads
READ: Proverbs 17:22-28
A man of understanding is of a calm spirit. -Proverbs 17:27
A Christian I know was angry with someone at his workplace over a perceived injustice. A colleague listened to his grievance and sensed that his temper still ran high. He gave him this wise advice to consider before confronting those involved: "Cooler heads prevail."
As we interact with others, disagreements are inevitable. The discerning believer understands his own heart and takes steps to deal with conflict diplomatically.
Proverbs 17:27 tells us: "He who has knowledge spares his words." This means keeping in check a multitude of opinions that could ignite further anger in others. Someone who displays wisdom will think before speaking, and then will share only insights likely to be helpful.
The Proverbs also give us wise counsel on the emotional side of controlling our frustrations. "A man of understanding is of a calm spirit." A mature person exhibits understanding by keeping cool in conflict. Problem-solving is enhanced by an even-tempered approach.
The next time you become angry, stop and prayerfully reflect for a moment. Ask God for a calm spirit and the right words to say.
Remember, cooler heads prevail. - Dennis Fisher
For Further Study
It's important to handle anger in constructive ways.
Visit www.discoveryseries.org/cb942 on the Web
and read When Anger Burns.
The best time to stop an argument is before it starts.
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Only Temporary
In our last devotional, we looked at Proverbs 23:4. Today I want us to look at the next verse. I will bet you can relate to it. Verse 5 says,
Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Does it ever seem to you that your money has wings? That it just flies off more quickly than you would have ever imagined?!
Money can be very temporary, very transitory in nature. Proverbs 27:24 reinforces that truth when it tells us,
For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
You need to understand that wealth is temporary just like our time here is temporary. What are the implications for how we live our lives? As believers, it is so important for us to have a pilgrim mindset and realize that we are just passing through.
This world is not our home. This life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. If you begin to think that somehow things are permanent, and you plan as if it is all permanent, you are going to get off course in your life with God.
Moses is a great example of someone who made a choice to live life with the right priorities. You can read about it in Hebrews 11. In that chapter, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy all the riches of Egypt.
Moses had everything at his fingertips, but he made the right choice. He said, "You know what? There are more important things. My priorities are different than this." And his lifestyle changed pretty radically in a hurry.
But looking back, it's obvious that Moses made the right choice isn't it? He changed the world and right now he is in heaven enjoying the presence of God.
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Read: Philippians 3:2-6
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. - Romans 3:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
All-Star baseball player Brett Butler put up some impressive numbers in his career. Playing for several teams over a fifteen-year period, he posted a .291 batting average with over 2,200 hits and more than 500 stolen bases. But the most important moment of Brett's life has nothing to do with baseball. That was the evening he accepted Christ after a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting at his high school. He was deeply bothered by the speaker's question: "If you were to die tonight and stand before God, would you go to heaven?" Brett listened to the explanation that salvation is found in Christ alone. That night he got down on his knees in his room and trusted Him as Savior. The core of the gospel--grace not works, Christ not Paul--was what Paul is driving at in today's reading. Just as Brett might have put his confidence in his sports achievements, so Paul might have placed his faith in his excellent religious credentials. The context for Paul's recollection and testimony (cf. Acts 9:1-19; Gal. 1:13-24; 1 Tim. 1:12-16) was his warning to keep the gospel pure. Some were teaching legalism, specifically circumcision, adding human "merit" to Christ's gospel. Paul reacted strongly, calling such teachers several nasty names. Why? Because of what's at stake--the truth of the gospel (Gal. 2:16). Devout Jews called Gentiles "dogs," making Paul's use of the term doubly insulting (Phil. 3:2). "Men who do evil" is direct, and the startling "mutilators of the flesh" tells us that the issue was circumcision (cf. Gal. 5:11-12). The truth is that "we . . . are the circumcision" (Phil. 3:3). True godliness has always been internal: "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts . . . so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut. 30:6). Paul proclaimed grace despite the fact that he had every legalistic cause for boasting. From a Jewish point of view, he not only had the right pedigree, he also had a zealous record of keeping the Pharisaic law (Phil. 3:4-6).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Considering Paul's reflection on his past, this is a good time to reflect on your testimony. Paul gave a "resume" of his earthly (Jewish) credentials, reasons he had to put his confidence in himself. But since his encounter with Jesus, he put his confidence in Christ alone.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 19, 2009
Out Of Options?
READ: 2 Kings 5:1-3,9-15
Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. -2 Kings 5:15
As ancient Syria's mightiest military commander, General Naaman had all the benefits the empire could offer: influence, affluence, and power. All, that is, except for health! Naaman was a leper (2 Kings 5:1-3).
In contrast, the servant girl in the general's household had no options or power at all. As a captive from an army raid, she had been forced into a lifetime of slavery (v.2). But she did not permit herself to be overcome by despair and bitterness. Rather, she rose above her no-option estate to serve wholeheartedly the best interests of her master.
This servant girl didn't see her master's leprosy as God's punishment but as an opportunity to point Naaman to God's prophet in Samaria (v.3). Her recommendation led to Naaman's complete healing. He declared, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel" (v.15).
Today, many people have abundant options. Others, however, have their choices curtailed by poverty, poor health, or other adverse circumstances. When a crisis comes, even their limited options evaporate.
Yet one choice always remains. Like Naaman's servant girl, we can still choose to serve God and point others to Him-regardless of our limited circumstances. - Albert Lee
'Tis mine to choose if self shall die
And never rise again;
'Tis mine to yield the throne to Christ
And bid Him rule and reign. -Christiansen
Facing an impossibility gives us the opportunity to trust God.
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Untrustworthy
Proverbs 11:28 uncovers a powerful truth,
He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage.
Solomon is giving us an important warning: He who trusts in his riches will fall. Why does he tell us this? Because it is our natural tendency, when prosperity comes, to trust in that prosperity and to have that become our source of security.
As Psalm 62:10 says, If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them. There is a tendency in every human heart to do just that, and that is why God warns us. If the blessing comes, if prosperity comes, if you achieve a degree of success, do not set your heart on the wealth.
Instead, make sure your trust remains in God because riches are not trustworthy. In fact, if you trust in your wealth, you will fall!
The New Testament echoes this same truth in 1 Timothy 6:17. In this passage, Paul is writing to his son in the faith, Timothy. He is giving him some instructions to pass along to other believers,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Like Solomon, Paul is warning us that riches are uncertain. Do not put your trust in them. Instead, make sure your trust is in God. If riches increase, do not set your heart on them. And I like the last part. He said to put your trust in God, Who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Where is your trust today? Are you trusting in your money and wealth? Or is the object of your trust God? I hope you will answer honestly. If you find yourself trusting in riches, just remember, they are untrustworthy!
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Read: Philippians 3:7-9
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. - Philippians 3:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
After two thousand years, Jesus is still big news. In recent years He has made the cover of most of the country's major news magazines and Christian periodicals. One researcher says that four new books about Jesus are published every day! Why? It's all part of a new "quest for the historical Jesus"--a tag line for academic debate about the Gospels and the life of Christ. While many theologians are defending the biblical, orthodox view, other groups such as the notorious "Jesus Seminar" have rejected as not factual everything from the Resurrection to Judas's kiss. Jesus' identity is not just an academic question, but an issue that vitally concerns every person on earth. We must be as convinced as Paul that salvation rests in Christ alone. In yesterday's reading Paul detailed the reasons he had to put his confidence in his own merit and works. But compared to knowing Christ, these things were worthless (v. 7). In fact, by comparison all else was "rubbish" (v. 8)! This term communicated total, vehement rejection, since to a Jew that word would signify uncleanness in God's sight. Paul's expression "consider loss" suggests an economic metaphor. Like the merchant who sold all to obtain the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45-46), Paul had cast aside human "treasures" to take hold of God's priceless grace. What, or rather, whom, had he "traded it all in for"? "The surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (cf. Phil. 1:21). He had gained eternal salvation in Christ! Positionally, in God's eyes he possessed Christ's righteousness. The gospel is presented here in a nutshell: not human righteousness but Christ's, not works but faith (Phil. 3:9). Christ's redemptive work (Phil. 2:6-11) deserves our wholehearted acceptance. We dare not attribute any part of salvation to our own credit! Faith in anything less than Christ is worthless.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The tremendous truth of salvation in Christ filled Paul's heart as he wrote his letter to the Philippians.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 20, 2009
Life's Surprises
READ: 1 Samuel 16:1-7
The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. -1 Samuel 16:7
No one watching Britain's Got Talent (a popular televised talent show) expected much when mobile phone salesman Paul Potts took the stage. The judges looked skeptically at one another when the nervous, unassuming, ordinary-looking chap announced he would sing opera-until Potts opened his mouth.
He began to sing Puccini's "Nessun Dorma"-and it was magical! The crowd roared and stood in amazement while the judges sat stunned in tearful silence. It was one of the greatest surprises any such television program has ever had, in large part because it came wrapped in such an ordinary package.
In the Old Testament, the rescuer of Israel arrived at the battlefield in a most unlikely form-a young shepherd boy (1 Sam. 17). King Saul and his entire army were surprised when David defeated Goliath and won the day. They needed to learn the way that God looks at people. He said to the prophet Samuel, "The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (16:7).
If we judge others only by their outer appearance, we might miss the wonderful surprise of what's in their heart. - Bill Crowder
O Lord, we are so quick to judge,
Though much is veiled from sight;
Lord, may we see how just You are
To guide us in what's right. -D. De Haan
It's what's in the heart that counts.
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The Right Perspective
Yesterday's devotional showed us how money, riches, and wealth are untrustworthy. So the natural question is, "Is wealth a bad thing?"
Let's go back to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 for our answer,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I believe God makes it clear that if you are in a position where He has blessed you, you should enjoy it. And do it guilt-free. If you can take the whole family on a 30-day vacation to Europe, go for it.
Just make sure you pay your tithes first. Make sure you are generous to the work of God, but enjoy what God gives you. It is a gift of God to be able to enjoy the fruit of the work of your hands.
God is all for us enjoying whatever measure of prosperity we have. He just wants us to be generous in proportion to our prosperity. He wants us to be ready and willing to give big. To be sowing extravagantly into the gospel and thereby laying up treasure in heaven.
The point is this: Do not just live with your eye on this world. Rather, live with your eye on the world to come. If you do, you will truly be able to enjoy the wealth God gives you.
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Read: Philippians 3:10-11
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. - Philippians 3:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The apostle Paul revealed his heartbeat in today's verses. To be a Christian is to know Christ, pure and simple. The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon described it this way: "The best enjoyments of Christ on earth are but as the dipping of our finger in water for the cooling of our thirst; but Heaven is bathing in seas of bliss. . . . How sweet it will be to be married to the Lord Jesus, and to enjoy forever, and without any interruption, the heavenly delights of His society! Surely, if a glimpse of Him melteth our soul, the full fruition of Him will be enough to burn up with affection. It is well that we shall have more noble frames in Heaven than we have here, otherwise we should die of love in the very land of life." This joyful motivation and desire consumed Paul as he finished a train of thought that started with condemning legalists and extended through this defining statement of the gospel and of Paul's life purpose (v. 10). So what exactly did Paul want? First, he wanted the person of Christ. Second, he wanted the power of His resurrection--the power that defeated death (cf. Eph. 1:17-23; 1 Cor. 15). We can all get excited about tapping into that kind of power! Third, and equally important, Paul wanted the "fellowship of sharing in His sufferings." When we suffer in Christ's name and for His sake, we are following His example and becoming more like Him (cf. Rom. 8:17; 1 Peter 4:12-14). After reading of Christ's life and death in the "hymn" of Philippians 2, we should expect that pursuing His way will involve suffering and sacrifice. Christlikeness is Paul's ultimate goal (Phil. 3:11)--living to die, dying to live--the Christian paradox of a seed falling into the ground, dying and producing life (John 12:24-25).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"To know Christ" (v. 10) is an excellent three-word purpose statement for every Christian life!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 21, 2009
Off Track
READ: 2 Samuel 12:1-13
Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? -2 Samuel 12:9
When I sat in my car at the start of the automatic car wash, I didn't know that my left front tire was not properly lined up with the track. The car wash started but my car wasn't moving, so I accelerated. That caused my tire to jump the track.
Now I was stuck-I couldn't move forward or backward. The car wash continued through its cycle without my car. Meanwhile, cars began lining up and waiting for me. I was glad when two workers at the station helped me get my car back on the track.
Sometimes in our Christian lives we get off track too. King David did in a big way. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and later ordered that her husband be put "in the forefront of the hottest battle" and left there to be killed (2 Sam. 11:3-4,15-17). David's actions were way out of line with how God wanted him to behave as His chosen king.
David needed help to get back on track. The Bible says that "the Lord sent Nathan to David" (12:1). He confronted him about stealing another man's wife, and David wisely repented (v.13). Nathan took a risk to help David get right with God, even though his sin still had dire consequences.
Does someone you know need your help to get back on track? - Anne Cetas
Fellowship with other Christians
Strengthens us when we are weak,
Reprimands when we are sinning,
Helps us when God's will we seek. -Sper
True love dares to confront.
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It's All About Him
I want us to look again at the last two verses from our last devotional, 1 Timothy 6:18-19,
Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I think it is beautiful the way verse 19 ends, ...that they may lay hold on eternal life. Paul is writing to believers here, and he is not saying they must do this so that they can get saved.
Rather, I think he is saying that when they are rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, then they will lay hold on what eternal life is all about. It is not about the things you possess; it is not about the blessings God gives you. It is about a relationship with Him. Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
If you are blessed, realize the main thing is not your riches and wealth. They can be very transitory.
I have a friend who, years ago, migrated from a country in Central America that had experienced a military coop. Her family was quite well off, having property and wealth that had been passed down through several generations. But after the coop, the new government seized all of the families properties and wealth. All was lost overnight.
This story could have turned out badly except that this woman is an exceptional Christian with a great attitude. She has built a successful life here in the U. S and has chosen not to be bitter or resentful over the past. She has kept her trust in God, realizing that no matter what happens if she still has Him she will be alright.
Friend, keep your eyes on God and keep your trust anchored in Him. He is what life-real life-eternal life is all about!
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Read: Philippians 3:12-14
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, an Ethiopian runner won the 26-mile marathon. But an athlete from Tanzania won a personal contest in courage and perseverance. Early in the marathon, John Stephen Akhwari stumbled and fell, severely injuring his knee and ankle. But determined to finish, he kept running. By the time he arrived in the stadium at the course's end, only a few thousand spectators were left, and all the other competitors were long gone. His leg wrapped in a bloody bandage, Akhwari limped around the track as those present cheered him on. "Why did you do it?" someone asked later. He replied, "My country did not send me seven thousand miles to begin a race; they sent me to finish the race." That Olympic spirit is what Paul had in mind in today's reading. After expressing his heart's desire in yesterday's reading, he then recognized what it would take to pursue it actively in everyday life. Even after about thirty years as a believer in Christ, Paul did not consider himself to have "arrived." Although an apostle as well as a veteran missionary and pastor, he was in process, just like the Philippians and ourselves. Paul pictured the Christian life as a race (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24-27; Heb. 12:1-2). What does this suggest? Determination, self-discipline, strong exertion, giving all you've got, and a desire to win. Just as an Olympic athlete would be called to the judges' stand to receive a wreath in Paul's day, so the apostle had been called heavenward (Phil. 3:14). The prize is Christ--one day we will be with Him! Running the race well has two dimensions (v. 13). We must forget what is past--in other words, leave behind sin and confidence in works. And we must also strain forward, desiring and following Christ with intensity and perseverance.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In today's reading, Paul compared our Christian lives to a race. Let's get creative! Can you think of your own simile for the Christian life? Just fill in the blanks of this sentence: "The Christian life is like a _________ because __________."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 22, 2009
Serve Or Die
READ: Mark 10:35-45
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. -Mark 10:45
Dr. Paul Brand told me of a memorable Frenchman named Pierre, who had served in Parliament until he became disillusioned with the slow pace of political change. During a harsh winter, many Parisian beggars froze to death. In desperation, Pierre became a friar to work among them and organize the beggars themselves.
They divided into teams to scour the city for bottles. Next, he led them to build a warehouse out of discarded bricks and start a business processing the bottles. Finally, he gave each beggar responsibility to help another poorer than himself. The project caught on. In a few years he founded the charitable organization Emmaus.
Eventually, there were few beggars to be found in Paris. So Pierre went to India. "If I don't find people worse off than my beggars," he said, "this movement could turn inward. They'll become a powerful, rich organization, and the whole spiritual impact will be lost. They'll have no one to serve."
At a leprosy colony in India, Pierre met patients worse off than his former beggars. Returning to France, he mobilized the beggars to build a leprosy ward at a hospital in India.
"It is you who have saved us," he told the grateful patients. "We must serve or we die." - Philip Yancey
THINKING IT THROUGH
In Mark 10:35-37, what did James and John seek?
What did Jesus say about the world's authority? (v.42).
How are followers of Christ to be different? (vv.43-45).
If you want a field of service, look around you.
His Stuff
You have probably noticed that over the last few days of devotionals, we have been focusing on material blessings and how we should view those blessings.
1 Chronicles 29:14-16 is very helpful to see God's perspective,
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. "O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own."
In these verses, King David is actually talking to the Lord as an offering is being received, and resources are being collected for the building of the temple (something his son Solomon is going to achieve).
We see that David recognized that everything he had, everything the people had, literally belonged to God. They were just giving God back something that belonged to Him in the first place.
I am going to let you in on a little secret: You and I are just stewards, and one day the Owner will call us into account for how we handled His stuff. Every one of us will give an account for our stewardship of His possessions.
While He gives us richly all things to enjoy, He is going to ask you if you did what He told you to do with His stuff. It is not our stuff.
Material treasure is a stewardship, and we must do what the Owner wants with it. This means we have a responsibility to be listening for the Owner's voice and following His instructions with His goods.
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Read: Philippians 3:15-16We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way. - Colossians 1:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jonathan Edwards was one of America's greatest pastors, philosophers, and theologians. Part of his greatness sprang from an early commitment of his life to Christian service. In 1722, when he was about nineteen years old, he sat down and wrote out 21 resolutions declaring how and why he intended to live for God. These included the following: Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life." That spirit of all-out dedication to the Lord is what Paul exhorted every believer to strive for. After rejecting legalism and upholding the pure gospel, he had been speaking in the first person to describe knowing and following Christ. He then made it clear that this was not merely about him--all believers should similarly think and act. Desiring the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, and running like an Olympic athlete, are not characteristics only of "super-Christians" like Paul--they should be characteristics of all of us! To live in this fashion is a mark of maturity (v. 15). What about those who did not uphold this standard? They were wrong, but Paul was confident that God would show them the truth. This was definitely not tolerance on Paul's part, which he willingly showed on issues of freedom (for example, saying that believers are permitted to eat meat offered to idols). He was saying that such people were immature and would grow into agreement with his understanding. This was not arrogance on Paul's part, but a recognition of the importance of the issues involved. Salvation and knowing Christ are not optional or peripheral!
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul's words in this chapter are convicting and challenging. Let's keep running the race!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 23, 2009
How Great Is Our God!
READ: Job 38:31-41;42:5-6
Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? -Job 38:31
A team of astronomers from the University of Minnesota say they have found a giant hole in the universe. The void they've discovered is in a region of sky southwest of Orion. The mysterious empty place has no galaxies, stars, or even dark matter. One of the astronomers said that the hole in the heavens is a billion light-years across.
When I try to capture the meaning of such immensity, something happens to me. The fight goes out of me. I don't know what to do with my thoughts. Who can relate to the magnitude of such emptiness?
Then I remember what the Lord did with Job. He drew His suffering servant's attention to the same part of the night sky. Using the region of the constellation Orion along with the wonders of the weather and the natural world, the Lord brought Job to the end of his reasonings and arguments (Job 38:31; 42:5-6).
In the presence of such wonder, I want to join Job in collapsing before the Lord in surrender to His inexpressible power and wisdom. I want to let go of my anxiety, my anger, and my resistance to the mysterious leading of God. I want to claim my only confidence as being in the immeasurable greatness of our God. - Mart De Haan
For Further Study
To increase your appreciation for the Creator,
read the online resource Celebrating The Wonder
Of Creation at discoveryseries.org/q1108
The wonders of the universe compel us to worship our wonderful God.
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Spiritual Treasure
In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul tells us,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
If you look at this chapter, Paul helps us understand that this treasure is ministry, the gospel, the Word of God, and the light and the glory of God, God's presence.
Paul wants us to understand that God has placed in us an incredible spiritual treasure...a treasure residing in these earthen vessels...our bodies. The treasure is in you and me!
But that treasure needs to be poured out.
I can't help but think that Paul was thinking of two particular earthen vessels that were used in his day. One was the vessel of mercy and the other the vessel of honor.
One place you would find the vessel of honor was around the home. People would use the water to wash their feet after traveling the dusty roads before they would enter your house, or they would use the water to quench their thirst. Like the vessel of honor, we are to wash the feet of our family, to humbly serve them and to help quench their thirst for more of God.
The vessel of mercy looked identical to the vessel of honor, but it was located in public places like the town square, so that any traveler coming through that arid land would be guaranteed to find a fresh drink of water. It was placed where the needs were. We need to take mercy where mercy is needed most-out onto the highways of humanity.
You are an earthen vessel filled with His spiritual treasure, so start pouring it out-in your home and out where the people are.
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Read: Philippians 3:17-19
Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. - Colossians 3:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Today's reading well describes the character and behavior of Dmitri Karamazov in the novel The Brothers Karamazov.The author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a Russian Christian of the last century, portrayed Dmitri as a slave to his appetites and passions. If he wanted a woman, he pursued her shamelessly. If he had money, he spent it on pleasures. He loved fine clothes and the best food, parties and entertainment, and did whatever it took to get them.
Thankfully, Dmitri changes for the better as the novel progresses. But some people never learn, just as some vices are timeless. The spirit of Dmitri Karamazov is alive and well in our modern materialistic culture.
Paul warned against this very mindset in Philippians 3. The Philippians (v. 16) may have been asking themselves, "How can we live up to what we know?" Verse 17 answers that question by referring to a theme earlier in the epistle: imitation.
Who should they imitate? Paul. Was this a prideful command on his part? No--we have already seen his humility (v. 12). He was primarily concerned with a Christlike pattern of living, and in fact the Philippians should imitate anyone who lived in the way Paul described.
Then came the warning, given with strong emotion (vv. 18-19). Many did not live by the pattern and were bad examples for believers. Opposing Paul's life purpose (v. 10), they were "enemies of the cross of Christ." Their eternal destiny of "destruction" (separation from God) should have been a red flag to the Philippians not to follow in their footsteps. "Destruction" is the opposite of salvation and definitely not the "prize" for which Christians were called (v. 14).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Is your mind on earthly things these days? Even the best of us can fall into this error, at times becoming short-sighted and failing to see with eyes of faith.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
November 24, 2009
Impossible Itokawa
READ: Matthew 19:16-26
With God all things are possible. -Matthew 19:26
In 2005, Japan's unmanned Haya-busa spacecraft visited an "impossible" asteroid. Images and data indicate that the asteroid, named Itokawa, is twice as porous as loose sand. This has astonished scientists, who believe that asteroids make repeated impacts with other space rocks and hence should be very dense. As they make additional discoveries, scientists may learn why Itokawa is different. But for now, we have an asteroid that challenges scientific understanding.
Two thousand years ago, a young ruler asked Jesus an "impossible" question: "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" (Matt. 19:16). After an intriguing exchange, the man "went away sorrowful" (v.22) when he realized he would have to give up his wealth-the very thing he valued more than a relationship with Jesus.
This upright man had kept the letter of the law, yet had fallen short. "Who then can be saved?" asked the astonished disciples (v.25). Jesus answered, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (v.26).
The One who created this universe out of nothing has a history of accomplishing the impossible. When we forsake what this life has to offer and follow Him, He does the impossible once again-He gives us eternal life! - C. P. Hia
It took a miracle to put the stars in place,
It took a miracle to hang the world in space;
But when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole,
It took a miracle of love and grace! -Peterson
© Renewal 1976, John W. Peterson Music Company.
Our limited ability accents God's limitless power.
You're Not Stuck
1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
The word temptation in this verse also means test or trial. With that in mind, here are a couple of thoughts to encourage you today.
1. Whatever test, trial, or temptation you are facing today, it is "common to man." That means that you are not the only one who has gone through whatever you are facing.
It is comforting to know that others have faced similar problems before us and made it through!
2. God makes a way of escape with the trial or temptation. That means you're not stuck! Before your difficulty ever arose, God designed a way of escape. And that means of escape comes with the problem. So if you find yourself embroiled in trials, tests, or temptations today, start looking for God's way of escape-it exists. Trust Him to guide you safely through and out of your difficulties!
Read: Philippians 3:20-21
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. - Colossians 3:2-3
TODAY IN THE WORD
When an American citizen travels abroad, he or she must carry a passport. Inside the passport is printed the following: "The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/ national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection."
In other words, wherever a person goes, a passport symbolizes the rights and privileges of American citizenship. All the power and protection the United States can offer stands behind its people when they are abroad.
If a U.S. passport carries such great weight, imagine the eternal power behind our heavenly citizenship!
That's the metaphor in today's reading, one that the Philippians would have particularly understood. Philippi was a Roman colony, and the people of Philippi had the full rights of Roman citizenship, including being exempt from taxes. They lived in one city but were citizens of another, just as believers live on earth but are citizens of heaven (v. 20).
Actually, Paul had already suggested this metaphor earlier in his letter. The Greek word for "conduct" (Phil. 1:27) was a political term meaning "live as citizens." Living worthy of the gospel is a right and responsibility of our heavenly citizenship (cf. John 17:14; 1 Peter 2:11-12).
What does that citizenship entail? We should behave differently. If others' minds are on earthly things, contrast suggests that our minds are to be on heavenly things. And at the center of heaven we find Christ, the focus of Paul's thinking in this chapter. What is our great hope and the end of our salvation? His Second Coming!
What will this mean for us? Christ will transform our earthly bodies into spiritual ones (Phil. 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:20-26, 42-44). With the power we have already read about (Phil. 2:9-11), our Lord will raise and transform believers (3:11) and complete His great work of salvation (1:6).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
To get a better grasp of the idea of "heavenly citizenship" versus "earthly citizenship," you might try this exercise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 25, 2009
Holding Your Hand
READ: Psalm 73
Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. -Psalm 73:23
One of the joys of being with kids is holding their hands. We do it to keep them safe while crossing the street, or to keep them from getting lost in a crowd. And whenever they stumble and lose their footing, we grab their little hands tighter to keep them from falling.
That's what God does for us. Inevitably there are stones and cracks that trip us up on the sidewalks of life. That's why it's easy to identify with the psalmist, who said, "My steps had nearly slipped" (Ps. 73:2).
We all face a variety of issues that threaten to make us stumble. For the psalmist Asaph, seeing the prosperity of the wicked caused him to question the goodness of God. But God squeezed his hand and reassured him that, given the judgment of God, the wicked do not really prosper. True prosperity, the psalmist discovered, was found in the fact that God was always with him: "You hold me by my right hand" (v.23). And just for good measure, God reminded him that He would also guide him through life and ultimately welcome him home to heaven (v.24). How good is that!
So, next time you stumble, remember that the powerful hand of God is holding your hand and walking you through life-all the way home! - Joe Stowell
Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand;
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand. -Stanphill
© Renewal 1978, Singspiration.
Let God do the holding and you do the trusting.
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Agreeing With God's Word
When the twelve spies returned from searching the promised land, they said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we" (Numbers 13:31).
That was the report they brought back-at least ten of them that is. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, had this to say,
"Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them" (Numbers 14:9).
They all saw the same things in the land of Canaan, but only Joshua and Caleb chose to agree with God. The Lord had previously told them that He would give them victory and that they would be able to drive out the inhabitants of the land.
The ten spies (along with all Israel) died without ever possessing what God had promised. Only two men from that generation entered into Canaan and possessed the land. I think you can guess who they were-Joshua and Caleb. The only two who agreed with the declarations of God.
Check out what you have been saying. Do your words agree with God or not?
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Read: Philippians 4:1-3
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. - Ephesians 4:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
American inventor and diplomat Benjamin Franklin played a key role in the struggle for independence. He is the only person to sign all four documents on which the United States was founded: the Declaration of Independence, the alliance treaty with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution.
As he and other leaders prepared to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Franklin joked, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately."
His humor had a serious message--without unity, they could not hope to defeat the military might of England. Paul had a similar message in today's reading. Unity can and must characterize the church if we are to be effective spiritually.
"Therefore" in verse 1 signals another section transition. Notice how Paul didn't just say, "So do it." He first expressed his personal love for the Philippians and his joy in their faith, then he exhorted, "That is how you should stand firm" (v. 1).
But what is "that"? He was referring to the letter so far, especially chapters 2-3. The believer's life should consist of imitating Christ (and anyone who imitates Him), hoping and rejoicing in Him, desiring to share in His sufferings and resurrection, holding onto the pure gospel and witnessing it to the world, and living out our God-guaranteed destiny with Christ. That's a lifetime assignment!
The various exhortations and messages of this last chapter of Philippians flow from these attitudes and priorities. Paul first urged two women to "agree with each other in the Lord" (v. 2). Evidently they had a quarrel or a difference to settle.
Notice two facts. First, these were not a pair of "crabs." Euodia and Syntyche had worked faithfully at Paul's side in the cause of the gospel. The lesson? Even the best of us can fail to practice Christlike unity.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Of what does Christian unity consist? Writer and preacher John Stott offers several insights linking unity and God's Word. "True unity will always be unity in truth, and truth means biblical truth." "Since Christian love is founded upon Christian truth, we shall not increase the love which exists between us by diminishing the truth which we hold in common."
GOD BLESS! :angel:
November 26
Gladly!
READ: Psalm 100
Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! -Psalm 100:1
Psalm 100 is one of the great songs of thanksgiving in the Bible. It calls us to realize that we belong to God our Maker (vv.3-4), and to praise Him for His goodness, mercy, and truth (v.5).
During a recent reading, however, I was struck by a phrase that speaks of expressing thanks in a tangible, willing way: "Serve the Lord with gladness" (v.2). Many times my service to God is more grudging than glad. I do what I consider my duty, but I'm not happy about it.
Oswald Chambers put his finger on my unthankful attitude when he said: "The will of God is the gladdest, brightest, most bountiful thing possible to conceive, and yet some of us talk of the will of God with a terrific sigh-'Oh well, I suppose it is the will of God,' as if His will were the most calamitous thing that could befall us. . . . We become spiritual whiners and talk pathetically about 'suffering the will of the Lord.' Where is the majestic vitality and might of the Son of God about that!"
True thankfulness is more than being grateful for what we possess. It's an attitude that permeates our relationship with the Lord so that we may serve Him with gladness and joy. - David C. McCasland
Then let us adore and give Him His right,
All glory and power, all wisdom and might,
All honor and blessing, with angels above,
And thanks never ceasing for infinite love. -Wesley
For the Christian, thanksgiving is not just a day but a way of life.
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The Road to Perfect and Complete
I want us to focus our attention today on James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What I want to look at today is how God seeks to bring us to maturity by building patience into our lives. If there is one thing I have learned in my Christian walk, it is that God is not in as much of a hurry as I am!
Now, what is patience? Patience is the long-lasting quality of your faith. If you let go of your patience, your faith falls to the floor.
The end result God is looking for is that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The word perfect here means mature. God is developing maturity in us by working on our patience.
I have a dear friend who has a great church. They endeavored to build another building on their property and it ended up being a major undertaking. In fact, it turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done. I mean, it took a strip out of his hide.
Eventually it got built, but you know what my friend says about it? He says, "You see that building? I didn't build that building. It built me."
Going through those trials, facing those difficulties, having his faith tested, having to trust God when it seemed like there was a lack of finances, having to hold onto God's Word when he was a laughing stock with some people, all of that built character in him as he stood the test.
I have a question for you: Has anything been building you lately? If so, rejoice, because God is working maturity in you!
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Read: Colossians 1:9-14; 2:6-7
I will give you thanks forever. - Psalm 30:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Over 147 years ago, on October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln stated: "The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added . . . They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God . . . It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."
Although Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday, the practice of setting aside a day of thanks was a longstanding tradition in the United States. Moreover, Lincoln's writings, as well as those of other American leaders long before him, frequently reflect a deep sense of gratitude to God, both for His providence in national matters and in their own lives and families. It's evident that thanksgiving extended beyond a national holiday to lives that were characterized by gratitude to God.
Thanksgiving as a lifestyle has been a recurring theme in our study this month. This is particularly evident in Colossians. In Colossians 1:9-14, Paul indicates that he is praying that the Colossians would be filled with God's knowledge, so that they might live lives worthy of the Lord. Then he lists four characteristics of such a life: believers are to be fruitful, maturing, empowered, and thankful. The order of this list suggests that the more we progress in our walk of faith the more thankful we become. This is repeated in Colossians 2, where Paul links spiritual growth with overflowing thankfulness.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Bible scholar David Pao writes, "Thanksgiving becomes an essential part of the day to day living of believers. To live a life worthy of the Lord is to live with the constant awareness of God's grace." As you give thanks today for family, friends, and a special meal, pray that you will grow in gratitude throughout the upcoming year. Both of today's passages also link thankfulness with growing in the essentials of our faith. If you aren't already attending a Bible study, commit to making that a priority as well.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 27, 2009
Sin Crouches At The Door
READ: Genesis 4:1-16
Sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. -Genesis 4:7
The award-winning author John Steinbeck often used biblical themes in his novels. In his book East of Eden, he describes characters who illustrate the conflict of jealousy and revenge reflected in the story of Cain and Abel. Steinbeck shows how an angry heart burning with revenge doesn't have to act a certain way. There's always a choice.
When Abel's animal sacrifice received divine favor and Cain's offering of fruit was rejected, Cain burned with anger (Gen. 4:1-6). But the Lord admonished him, "Sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it" (Gen. 4:7). The original Hebrew words paint the picture of an animal crouching, ready to devour its prey. Cain's anger and jealousy, if not brought under control, would "eat him up" and spill out in destructive behavior. Tragically, Cain gave in to his evil desires. It resulted in the first homicide and his departure from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:8-16).
Do you have feelings of jealousy or anger toward someone? If so, you have a choice. If you ignore the internal struggle, it will only get worse and control you. But if you bring your anger to the Lord and ask for His help, in His strength you will have victory. - Dennis Fisher
When faced with trials from without
Or tempted from within,
Rely upon the Lord for strength
To turn away from sin. -Sper
Control your anger, or it will control you.
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It Will All Work Out
Ephesians 1:11 is a powerful verse with a vital lesson,
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Over the 30 years of my Christian life, I have come to have great confidence in God's ability to work things out. No matter what is going on or how obscured my understanding of a situation is, I believe God is always working things according to His great sovereign plan.
It is as if there is this giant tapestry that God is weaving, and my life is a part of it. I sometimes get caught up with the temporal things and the stuff that is happening, but God reminds me, "Hey, nothing is taking Me by surprise. I'm weaving all of these things into this great pattern. Your mistakes, the stuff that happens to you, it is all going to turn out alright!"
Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God? The thing you are embroiled in right now did not take God by surprise. He did not look at your situation and say, "Oh no! I didn't figure on that! Gabriel, do you have any suggestions? What are we going to do?"
I know that sometimes in my microscopic view of things I have said, "Lord, such and such has got to happen." And God has replied, "Well, you don't have the big picture." Then, as time went on, God pulled the camera back, and I got the wide view, and I realized God was up to something very cool-totally apart from what I thought "had to happen."
Whatever your situation, you can rest assured that God has plans to work things out. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So relax! Even if your present circumstances have totally taken you by surprise, God saw it coming and made provision far ahead of time.
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Read: Ephesians 1:3-14
Now it is God who . . . has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. - 2 Corinthians 5:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Most people are fairly familiar with the concept of a deposit-a sum of money that is paid guaranteeing full payment. Realtors, for example, typically require at least a ten-percent deposit, or down payment, from homebuyers. From this, regular payments are established so that the full price of the house is received.
Although many of us understand this concept applied to houses, we may not understand it as well regarding the single most important "down payment" of our lives-the "deposit guaranteeing our inheritance," that is, the Holy Spirit.
Today's passage praises God the Father for His marvelous deeds in Christ Jesus. First Paul thanks God for "every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). One way to understand this is that all that is necessary for life is ours through the Holy Spirit. Although the full expression of this awaits us in heaven, we experience these spiritual blessings here and now. We looked at one of the blessings yesterday-the Spirit of sonship, or adoption (Rom. 8:15). Another blessing is redemption (Eph. 1:7), which we looked at two days ago.
Today's passage shows us that we have been redeemed and adopted so that we might be "holy and blameless in his sight" (v. 4). Because we are now in Christ, our lives are completely different than they were apart from Christ.
In Christ, we receive knowledge of God's good purposes for life-the knowledge that all things will be brought under Christ's rule (v. 10). In the New Testament, mysteryrefers to something hidden that God has revealed. Unlike our use of this word, mystery here does not describe something that is unknowable.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sometimes "spiritual blessings" seem very far removed from "here and now." One way to link the "now" with the "not yet" is to understand that these blessings are partly evident now, but will be fully manifest in heaven.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 30, 2009
God's Love Story
READ: Hosea 11
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? . . . My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. -Hosea 11:8
Is there any human feeling more powerful than that of betrayal? Ask a high school girl whose boyfriend has dumped her for a pretty cheerleader. Or tune your radio to a country-western station and listen to the lyrics of infidelity. Or check out the murders reported in the daily newspaper, an amazing number of which trace back to a quarrel with an estranged lover.
In the Old Testament, God through Hosea's marriage demonstrates in living color exactly what it is like to love someone desperately and get nothing in return. Not even God, with all His power, will force a human being to love Him.
Many people think of God as an impersonal force, something akin to the law of gravity. The book of Hosea portrays almost the opposite: a God of passion and fury and tears and love. A God in mourning over Israel's rejection of Him (11:8).
God the lover does not desire to share His bride with anyone else. Yet, amazingly, when Israel turned her back on God, He stuck with her. He was willing to suffer, in hope that someday she would return to Him.
Hosea, and later Jesus, prove that God longs not to punish but to love. In fact, He loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us! - Philip Yancey
Love sent the Savior to die in my stead.
Why should He love me so?
Meekly to Calvary's cross He was led.
Why should He love me so? -Harkness
God loved us so much, He sent His only Son.
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Under Control
In today's devotional I want to follow up on the passage we looked at yesterday, 1 Corinthians 7:7-9,
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
What I want to focus on is verse 9, especially the part about burning with passion. There are way too many young Christians who are out of control in their physical relationship with the opposite sex.
So, mom or dad, here is something you can share with your kids in connection with relating to the opposite sex. Be prepared, I am going to be blunt.
1. Any body part they have that you don't have, don't touch it. Any equipment they have that you don't have, it is hands off!
2. Do not put any part of your body into any part of their body.
3. Do not get horizontal. Don't even sit on the couch watching TV, and lay down in one another's arms. If you do, you know where that can lead.
4. If you are going to kiss, let it be short and meaningful. Don't allow yourselves to get into a wrestling match. Again, it is hard to find the switch to turn it off once you get going.
5. Finally, let things like holding hands or putting your arm around your boyfriend or girlfriend actually be meaningful.
If you are single, apply these rules, and they could save you a lot of grief!
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Read: Philippians 4:8-9
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord. - Psalm 19:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
A short saying you may have heard shows the importance of our thought life to who we are and what we do for the Lord. One of its variations reads as follows:
Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a heart.
Sow a heart, reap a life.
In this light, the smallest thought can lead to tremendous consequences. Consider Paul's instructions, for instance, in verse 8 of today's reading.
He had been going through a series of short exhortations as he prepared to close his letter. Yesterday we read that if we turn our burdens over to the Lord in prayer, His divine peace will guard our hearts and minds.
It makes sense that Paul next turned to the mind and the believer's thought life. What are we to think about? Whatever is true, remembering that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). Whatever is noble, or of high reputation. Whatever is right, or just. Whatever is pure, or righteous. Whatever is lovely, or beautiful in God's eyes, and whatever is admirable.
Is this list restrictive or limiting? Not at all! Notice that it is stated positively--"think about" rather than "don't think about." In fact, we should think about anything that is excellent or praiseworthy. This tells us that God's wisdom and discipline can be present in and rule our thought lives without a spirit of fear or negativity. That's faith!
Centering our thoughts on subjects with these characteristics will enable us to obey Paul's other exhortations in this epistle. How? Thoughts become deeds. Considering godly examples such as Timothy and Epaphroditus leads to godly actions. Desiring to know Christ cultivates Christlikeness. That which is inside a person's mind and heart promotes God's changing, sanctifying work.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul made several memorable statements about why he lives and how the Philippians should live. It is important for us to think through our purpose as a Christian. You may want to plan some additional time, perhaps this weekend, to study Paul's thoughts on this subject in Philippians. Ask yourself what purpose your life is following.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 01, 2009
The Best Of Gifts
READ: John 1:10-13
Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! -2 Corinthians 9:15
Having trouble selecting that perfect gift for someone? A friend shared with me a few suggestions:
· The gift of listening. No interrupting, no planning your response. Just listening.
· The gift of affection. Being generous with appropriate hugs, kisses, and pats on the back.
· The gift of laughter. Sharing funny stories and jokes. Your gift will say, "I love to laugh with you."
· The gift of a written note. Expressing in a brief, handwritten note your appreciation or affection.
· The gift of a compliment. Sincerely saying, "You look great today" or "You are special" can bring a smile.
But as we begin this special month of celebration, why not pass on the best gift you've ever received? Share the fact that "the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6:23). Or share this verse from John 1:12, "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name." Remind others that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
The best gift of all is Jesus Christ. "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" (2 Cor. 9:15). - Cindy Hess Kasper
The greatest Gift that has ever been given
Is Jesus Christ who was sent down from heaven.
This Gift can be yours if you will believe;
Trust Him as Savior, and new life receive. -Hess
The best gift was found in a manger.
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Dealing with Sin
I want to follow up on yesterday's devotional by pointing you to 1 Peter 2:18-23,
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.
The Goodspeed translation says, "He committed His cause to Him who judges righteously." Now these verses are pretty clear: God is a righteous judge. And even if you are being mistreated for doing right, if you will commit things to God, He has a marvelous way of turning the tables in your favor.
You have to maintain three things if God is, indeed, going to use you in such a situation.
1. You have to maintain a right spirit. You have to keep a good attitude. You cannot get bitter. You have to stay kind.
2. You have to keep right speech. Do not dish out the same kind of abuse. Do not start saying things that are going to create division.
3. You have to maintain right service. Even if you are being mistreated, continue working hard for the Lord. Do not sabotage things.
If you will do these three things, just watch what God does through your difficulties!
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Read: Luke 5:1-11
So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. - Luke 5:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Behavioral experts tell us that when we encounter someone new, first impressions are made within the first three seconds. In that short time, even before you have spoken, someone has already formed an opinion about you based on your clothes, body language, mannerisms, or even fashion accessories like your watch or purse. Right or wrong, that first impression is often a lasting one, and very difficult to change-all the more reason, say employment counselors, to make sure that your first impression is your best impression.
This month we will be studying the epistles of the apostle Simon Peter, but today we get the opportunity to form a first impression about our author. Luke 5 records Peter's call to apostleship. What do we learn about the man Simon?
First, we discover that he was a trusting man. Although Simon had just spent a long, fruitless night fishing on the lake, and was packing away his nets, Jesus told Simon to push out to deeper water and try again. Peter could have easily refused this request as naïve nonsense. Instead, Peter displayed an incredible amount of trust in this new teacher, and did as He requested.
Next, we also discover that Simon was a humble man. After the catch of fish-complete with tearing nets and sinking boats-Peter recognized that he was in the presence of holiness. Falling at Jesus' knees, Peter urged Him, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man" (v. 8). His astonishment led to recognition, and his recognition led to humility.
Finally, we discover that Simon was a wholly obedient man. When Jesus responded that "from now on you will catch men" (v. 10), Scripture tells us that Peter, along with the other disciples, "pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him" (v. 11). This is no half-hearted gesture, but a full commitment. In this entire passage, we see no pride or pretense in Simon, only a trusting, humble, and wholly obedient man, leaving all to follow his new master.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Simon Peter clearly displays admirable characteristics worthy of imitation. If people were to make first impressions of you, what do you think they would say? Do you display the heart of a trusting, humble, obedient follower of Christ, or someone full of suspicion, pride, and self-assertion? Pray to God for the honesty to look into your own heart, asking Him to help you respond to His Word this month with the same response we see in Peter.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 02, 2009
He Doesn't Stand A Chance
READ: Ephesians 6:10-18
He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. -1 John 4:4
In 2004, Josh Hamilton was an outstanding pro baseball prospect, but he was suspended because of drug abuse. Then one night Josh had a life-changing dream. He was fighting the devil. "I had a stick," he said, "and every time I hit him, he'd fall and get back up. I hit him until I was exhausted, and he was still standing."
After that nightmare, Hamilton vowed to stay clean. The dream returned, but with an important difference. "I would hit [the devil] and he would bounce back," said Josh. But this time Josh was not alone. He said, "I turned my head and Jesus was battling alongside me. We kept fighting, and I was filled with strength. The devil didn't stand a chance."
The Bible says that the devil doesn't stand a chance because the Spirit, who is in us, is greater than he is (1 John 4:4). Christ came to destroy the works of the devil through His life, ministry, and sacrifice (3:8). At the cross, He disarmed and triumphed over the devil (Col. 1:13-14; 2:15).
Though defeated by the cross, the devil remains active in this world. But his final defeat is certain (Rev. 20:7-10). Until then, we take up the whole armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18), standing firm against him by Jesus' blood and His Word. He doesn't stand a chance. - Marvin Williams
And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us. -Luther
The devil is a defeated foe.
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What Do You Value?
Psalm 119:72 says,
The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
We understand "the law of Your mouth" to be God's Word. And what the psalmist is saying is, "Lord, Your word is better to me than a pile of silver or a pile of gold."
Let's say you are offered a position at a particular company-offered a great job, great increase of pay, and maybe the housing in that area is less. It is your dream job! But you investigate things, and you find out there is not a good spirit-filled Bible teaching church in that town where the job is. But you can make a lot more money! Do you go? It depends on how much you value God's Word.
One gentleman who was very involved in my church came to me one day and announced that he was moving. I asked him, "Did you find a church there?" He replied, "No, no. There's not a good church in the town at all. But I'm going to be making a lot more money. We can get a bigger house. It's going to be great."
A year later his teenage daughter was pregnant, his boy was in juvenile hall, he and his wife were getting a divorce, and he was back on drugs. But, hey! He was making a lot more money.
In our society, it is so easy to make decisions based solely on money. And sadly, it is the ruin of many a family and relationship. Value first God's Word. Value it more than anything our world can give you.
If you do, you will never be disappointed.
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Read: John 21:15-19
Simon son of John, do you love me? . . . Feed my sheep. - John 21:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
As the ancient church began to face serious persecution in the third century, leaders had to wrestle with this troubling question: What do we do with Christians who renounced Christ under threat of death but later wished to return to the church? Some said that their denial of Christ made remittance impossible. But others argued-successfully-that with true repentance and humility, such members should be received back into the church. Today's record of Peter's reinstatement by Christ was an important text in guiding early Christian leaders to think about forgiveness in the church. The context is important. Just a few chapters earlier, Peter had three times denied that he ever knew Jesus (John 18:15-27). Under threat of ridicule and harm, Peter had caved. But then, after the resurrection, Jesus stood before Peter and offered a second chance to proclaim his love for Christ. Three times Jesus asked Peter: "Do you love me?" matching the three denials earlier. In each instance, Peter declared his love for Christ (vv. 15-17).
From his reaction after the third round of questioning, we see that Peter was quite aware of Jesus' intentions, and it pained him deeply. Here in the final chapter of John we see a humbled Peter, fully cognizant of his sin against Christ. Yet, look now at Jesus' response. After each of Peter's declarations of love, Jesus commanded him to "Feed my sheep" (vv. 15-17). Peter may have publicly denied Jesus in the temple courtyard, and that was a serious sin, but Christ here extended an incredibly generous grace and forgiveness to Peter.
Not only did Jesus consider Peter a forgiven follower, He also gave Peter the important (and costly) task of leadership over His people (vv. 18-19). Here is a marvelous picture of Christ's love, forgiveness, and deep concern about His flock. As we will see in the coming study of his epistles, Peter too was captivated by both Christ's uniting love and His call to guard and protect Christ's church. Watch for those themes in the days to come.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We have all fallen in our walk with Christ, and we likely all know of others who have fallen as well. For some of us it may seem like our sins or the sins of others are just too big to overcome. But today's passage encourages us with the clear message that with repentance and humility, Christ is ready to forgive and restore. Can you think of someone you know (perhaps yourself) who needs to be reminded of Christ's readiness to offer forgiveness? Deliver that message today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 03, 2009
Finding Jesus
READ: Romans 8:27-39
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? -Romans 8:32
After someone stole a valuable ceramic figurine of Baby Jesus from a nativity scene in Wellington, Florida, officials took action to keep thieves from succeeding again. An Associated Press report described how they placed a GPS tracking device inside the replacement figurine. When Baby Jesus disappeared again the next Christmas, sheriff's deputies were led by the signal to the thief's apartment.
There are times when difficult circumstances or personal loss can cause us to feel that Christ has been stolen from our Christmas. How can we find Jesus when life seems to be working against us?
Like a spiritual GPS, Romans 8 guides us to God's never-failing love and presence with us. We read that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses and intercedes for us (v.27). We know that God is for us (v.31). And we have this grand assurance: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (v.32). Finally, we are reminded that nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus (vv.38-39).
Look for Jesus in the manger, on the cross, risen from the dead, and in our hearts. That's where we can find Jesus at Christmas. - David C. McCasland
But what to those who find? Ah, this
Nor tongue nor pen can show,
The love of Jesus, what it is
None but His loved ones know. -Bernard of Clairvaux
If we focus only on Christmas, we might lose sight of Christ.
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Do You Cherish God's Word?
Psalm 107:20 says,
He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
God has given us His Word for our benefit, and yet so many Christians ignore it to their hurt.
It is like the story of the woman a preacher went to visit one day. She lived in a dilapidated house. As long as he had known her, she had struggled with poverty. Twenty years earlier she had been the housekeeper for the wealthiest woman in town, but the wealthy woman had died. So this housekeeper moved into an old shack.
As the pastor was visiting her, he noticed a document framed on the wall. He said, "Do you mind if I borrow this for a few days?" She replied, "Well, you can borrow it, but please bring it back. Although I can't read, it is very important to me. It is the only thing that the lady left me when she died. It is very valuable to me. It reminds me of her. So make sure you bring it back."
He took it and had it investigated and authenticated. It was the will of the woman who had died, and in the will she left her housekeeper a fortune. The housekeeper could have had any house she wanted in the whole city and had servants of her own, but due to her ignorance, she lived in poverty and had a rough go of it all those years.
That woman reminds me of a lot of Christians. They don't read their Bible, but they admire it because it reminds them of God. They haven't taken time to find out the inheritance that belongs to them as believers.
God's Word is a light to our path. It is our guidebook for life. It is bread for our spirit. It is our strength. It is our refuge in troubled times.
Cherish God's Word.
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Read: 1 Peter 1:1-2
To God's elect . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. - 1 Peter 1:1-2
TODAY IN THE WORD
The ritual of naming in the Native American tradition conveys an understanding of the power and expectations in the name a person receives. Whether named for a particular virtue, part of nature, or an innate talent, names form an integral part of identity in this culture.
Peter understood much about identity, and today's reading focuses on that theme in two ways. First, notice how Peter identified himself: he is not "Simon," his birth name, but "Peter," the name given him by Christ Himself (cf. Matt. 16:18). The self-description he gave is also important: "an apostle of Jesus Christ" (v. 1). The Greek word apostle means "sent one." In other words, Peter identified himself as one who is sent; his identity was linked with his calling as an apostle. But his calling was further linked with someone in particular: Jesus! Peter's identity was intricately attached to his relationship with and calling by Christ.
Second, notice that Peter spent even more time identifying his audience. They are "God's elect, strangers in the world . . . who have been chosen" by God (vv. 1-2). Don't miss the subtle significance of these designations. For any first-century Jew, calling someone "chosen" by God, or a "stranger" in the land would quite obviously refer to Israel, God's chosen people (cf. Deut. 32:8-9).
But most of the initial readers of 1 Peter likely consisted of Gentiles. Peter was emphasizing their new identity. They may have been idolaters and pagans in the past (cf. 1:18; 4:3), but Peter designated them as the true people of God.
Finally, notice the Trinitarian shape of their identity. They have been chosen by the Father, through the work of the Spirit, for obedience to and participation with the Son (v. 2). What makes Peter's audience God's people is not an act of self-determination, but a gracious work of the Triune God Himself. As with Peter, so with followers of Christ: who we are is determined by whom we belong to. Our relationship with God determines our identity as His people.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Who are you? How would you identify yourself to others? Today's passage encourages us to think theologically about our identity. We may perform many tasks, experience many rejections, or wrestle with past sins; but 1 Peter reminds us that our identity is grounded in our calling and acceptance by God. Take time to pray before God about how you see yourself, asking Him to shape your self-identity around the truths He presents to you in His Word. You may find that keeping a spiritual journal will help you in this process.
GOD BLESS!
:) :angel:
December 04, 2009
What You Can Do
READ: Ephesians 3:14-21
[I pray that] He would grant you . . . to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. -Ephesians 3:16
Are you getting what you want out of life? Or do you feel that the economy, your government, your circumstances, or other outside factors are robbing you of value and joy?
Recently, a polling agency asked 1,000 people what they most desired in their lives. One fascinating result was that 90 percent of Bible-believing Christians said that they wanted these outcomes: a close relationship with God, a clear purpose in life, a high degree of integrity, and a deep commitment to the faith.
Notice that these heartfelt desires are all things we as individuals can do something about without outside human help. No government program will assist here, and tough economic times cannot steal these ideals. These life goals are achieved as we allow God's Word to rule in our hearts and as we receive the Spirit's strength to build up "the inner man" (Eph. 3:16), resulting in true joy.
In our complicated world, it's tempting to put our quest for what we desire into the hands of others-to expect an outside entity to fulfill our desires. While we sometimes need help, and we cannot live in isolation, it's not outside sources that provide true happiness. That comes from within-from letting Christ be at home in our hearts (v.17). - Dave Branon
Holy Spirit, all divine,
Dwell within this heart of mine;
Cast down every idol throne,
Reign supreme and reign alone. -Reed
If a troubled world gets you down, look up to Jesus.
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Whom Do You Trust?
In Psalm 118:8-9, we are told this,
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
There are a lot of applications to this passage, but let me talk to you about just one. And that is this: You do not want to trust the state of your eternal soul to any man.
Ma'am, maybe your husband prays. Maybe he has a "real deal" relationship with God. Do not expect that to gain you any merit or to somehow get you to heaven. You have to have a relationship with the Lord yourself.
Sir, perhaps you have a praying wife. She is on fire for God. Do not expect that to get you a seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb. You must be born again. You have to be trusting in the Lord yourself. You have to have your own living, breathing, walking, talking, relationship with the Savior, or you will not get in!
When I was in my early twenties, there was a plethora of gurus and eastern mystics people were following. Some of my friends gave up all of their earthly possessions and became disciples of certain "holy" men.
But you know what? If you follow a man, when he perishes, you will perish just like him.
Psalm 146:3-4 says,
Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish.
If you put your trust in men, you will perish just like they do. But if you put your trust in God through His Son, Jesus Christ, you will gain eternal life.
Put your trust in God alone!
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Read: 1 Peter 1:3-7
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. - Romans 8:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
From the beginning, Christians were viewed with suspicion and hostility. Their refusal to sacrifice to pagan gods and their claim that Jesus is Lord earned them the reputation of being dangerous, disloyal citizens. Their gatherings evoked rumors of unspeakable immorality. Physical persecution often resulted.
While more widespread, systematic persecution would come a few years later, Peter's audience was already experiencing the trial and suffering that accompanied being a follower of Jesus. Into this context, Peter spoke a word of hope.
This reading begins with a description of our "new birth into a living hope," anchored by "the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (v. 3). Christ's resurrection secured for us something we could never attain on our own: true hope in a fallen world. This biblical hope is more than just "I hope so"; it is confidence in the promise of God. This, says Scripture, is what God, in His mercy, has "given us. "Scripture also reminds us that we are born into a heavenly inheritance (v. 4). Because of Jesus' resurrection, and our faith in Him, we are now children of God and inheritors of all that is His (see Rom. 8:14-17). And not only are we heirs of this coming salvation, we are protected heirs-shielded from our enemies by the power of God (v. 5). Thus, the "living hope" of verse 3 is linked with God's promise of protection in verse 5.
Finally, lest the reader assume that Scripture promises an easy life, we are reminded of the suffering, grief, and trials in life (v. 6). Scripture doesn't deny our suffering; it is real, and it will be part of all Christian living (cf. John 16:33). But we are pointed to something else: the final outcome of our suffering. Just as gold is refined by fire, so too our faith is refined-or proved genuine-by suffering. In the end, when Christ is fully revealed, our perseverance in faith will be rewarded with "praise, glory and honor" (v. 7). In the meantime, Scripture offers this "living hope" amidst our suffering.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In addition to the important reminder about our "living hope," Scripture also exhorts us to the proper response to God's sure promises: joy (v. 6)! Clearly, biblical joy is not determined by earthly circumstances; it's rooted in something much deeper: knowledge of God's love and protection. Can you truly say that this is your response to suffering and trial? It may be difficult to transform your attitude overnight, but ask God for strength to respond to this week's trials and difficulties with today's picture of biblical joy.
GOD BLESS!
:) :angel: :)
December 05, 2009
Presents Or Presence?
READ: 1 John 2:24-29
In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. -Psalm 16:11
Oswald Chambers once wrote: "It is not God's promises we need, it is [God] Himself."
At Christmastime we often say, "God's presence is more important than presents." But the amount of time and effort we spend on shopping for gifts may indicate otherwise.
In certain parts of the world, people give gifts on December 6. By doing so, they have the rest of the month to focus on Jesus and the wonder of His birth, God's perfect gift to us.
When we say we want God's presence more than presents from others, perhaps we're being truthful. But how many of us can honestly say that we want God's presence more than His presents?
Often we want gifts from God more than we want God Himself. We want health, wealth, knowledge, a better job, a better place to live. God may indeed want to give us these things, but we can't have them apart from Him. As David said, "In Your presence is fullness of joy" (Ps. 16:11). Presents may make us happy for a time; earthly gifts from God may make us happy temporarily, but fullness of joy comes only when we remain in a right relationship with God.
So, what would Christmas be like if we truly celebrated God's presence? -
Lord, we want to remember You and Your coming in special ways this Christmas. Give us creativity and thoughtfulness in our planning. Help us to focus on Your presence and not on what we hope to give or receive.
God's presence with us is one of His greatest presents to us.
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What's Your Motive?
The Bible says in James 4:3,
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James says that you ask, but you do not receive, because you ask amiss. The word amiss here comes from the Greek root word that means to harm or to injure. His point is: God will not grant you anything that is going to harm or injure your spiritual life, whether in the short term or in the long term.
When you pray, God is looking out for your best interests.
But then he also said, You ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. The word pleasures has the idea of sensuality, which means, if I am asking for something just to stroke my fleshly ego, then I short-circuit the prayer by my wrong motivation.
For example, it is great to pray for a car. I live in Southern California where we need a car to get around. And I think God will give you a car that you like. After all, the Bible says He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Jesus said, "Ask, that your joy might be full." So I think God wants us to be happy, and He generally has no problems granting your request for a car you would like.
Yet some people go a step beyond that, and their real motivation is, "Man, I want that car because I would look good in that car! If I came to work in that car, I would really show up so-and-so. People would think I'm pretty fine if I had that car. If I had that car, the chicks would dig me."
Be careful when you pray to not slip over into a motivation that is not really pure. Because you will short-circuit your faith and you will not receive an answer-except "no".
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Read: 1 Peter 1:8-9
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. - John 20:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his treatise, Faith in the Unseen, the fourth-century bishop Augustine of Hippo challenged the idea that nothing should be believed if it cannot be seen or verified physically. Instead, argued Augustine, nearly all of life requires trust, or belief, in things we cannot see: the will of our friends, the love of our parents, the existence of a foreign country. In short, said Augustine, if we refuse to believe what we cannot see, "nothing would remain stable in human society." Today's reading emphasizes this fundamental call to believe in Jesus, whom we have not seen. Peter, of course, had seen Jesus. He could call to mind any number of scenes where Jesus healed, taught, prayed, received abuse at the hands of Roman soldiers, died on the cross, or appeared alive again. For Peter, his love for Jesus could easily be linked with his witness of Jesus' love and power during His earthly ministry.
But Peter's audience didn't have that advantage. Here was a group living in northern Asia Minor, some years after Jesus' life on earth. They had never seen Jesus with their physical eyes, and yet they loved Him and believed in Him (v. 8). Perhaps Peter had in mind Jesus' words to Thomas: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). None of us have seen Jesus, yet our encounter with Him and love for Him is real thanks to God's Word, the testimony of others' experience, and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Although we do not see Jesus now with our physical eyes, Scripture encourages us with the reminder that we will see Him in the future when our salvation is obtained in full (vv. 7, 9; cf. 1 Cor. 13:12). Notice, however, that while our full salvation is something yet to come, the Christian life is a present reality. The love, faith, and "inexpressible and glorious joy" that Peter speaks of is all in the present tense. We may wait in eager anticipation of that glorious day, but true love and joy is ours even now.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you struggle with the reality that you cannot see and touch Jesus? Or perhaps you know of someone who resists faith in Christ because they cannot see Him with their eyes? In many ways, God calls us to be His tangible body to those who need the physical presence of God. Be that "visible Jesus" for someone today. Consider visiting a sick person in the hospital or their home, or simply give a hug to someone who needs to know God's love in a physical way.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 06, 2009
The Best Of Gifts
READ: John 1:10-13
Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! -2 Corinthians 9:15
Having trouble selecting that perfect gift for someone? A friend shared with me a few suggestions:
· The gift of listening. No interrupting, no planning your response. Just listening.
· The gift of affection. Being generous with appropriate hugs, kisses, and pats on the back.
· The gift of laughter. Sharing funny stories and jokes. Your gift will say, "I love to laugh with you."
· The gift of a written note. Expressing in a brief, handwritten note your appreciation or affection.
· The gift of a compliment. Sincerely saying, "You look great today" or "You are special" can bring a smile.
But as we begin this special month of celebration, why not pass on the best gift you've ever received? Share the fact that "the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6:23). Or share this verse from John 1:12, "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name." Remind others that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
The best gift of all is Jesus Christ. "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" (2 Cor. 9:15).
The greatest Gift that has ever been given
Is Jesus Christ who was sent down from heaven.
This Gift can be yours if you will believe;
Trust Him as Savior, and new life receive. -Hess
The best gift was found in a manger.
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Faithfulness and Open Doors
In 1 Timothy 1:12 Paul writes,
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.
According to Paul, Jesus did three things. First, He enabled him, which means Jesus is the One who puts the gifting in you. He is the One who gives you talent. He is the One who gives you the ability.
Second, Paul says that Jesus counted him faithful. Apparently, Jesus is watching and He expects you and me to be faithful.
Third, Paul says that Jesus put him into the ministry. In other words, Jesus opens doors when we are faithful, doors that no man can shut. When the way seems blocked, Jesus can make a way where there is no way.
Here is the point. It is not enough just to be enabled. Some of the greatest, most gifted, and talented people in the world are living far, far below their potential. While the enablement is there, Jesus has not found them faithful yet, and so certain doors of opportunity remain shut.
Having the gifting is not enough. You need to have both the gifting and be faithful. When both are there, Jesus opens doors.
Recognize and develop the gifting God has given you, but focus on being faithful so that God can open doors in your life.
Here are a few other verses that also make it clear that faithfulness is the road between enablement and open doors,
A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20).
"His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord'" (Matthew 25:21).
Read: 1 Peter 1:10-12
Even the angels long to look into these things. - 1 Peter 1:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
For the second-century here-tic Marcion, the Jewish God of the Old Testament was different than the Christian God of the New Testament. The lesser god of violence and law had been replaced by the superior God of love and grace. Thus, according to his thinking, Christians should have nothing to do with the stories and teaching of the Bible of the Jews. Although written prior to Marcion, today's passage speaks firmly against a Marcionite concept of God and the Bible, as Peter discusses the salvation that has come in Christ. First, Scripture presents the unchanging God of our salvation. Nothing that happened with Christ, His death, His resurrection, and the subsequent grace given to the church was without anticipation. The Spirit of Christ predicted these things through the Old Testament prophets (vv. 10-12). The Spirit who led the old prophets was the same as the one preaching the gospel. The salvation now enjoyed by Jews and Gentiles alike was part of God's plan and purpose from the beginning.
Second, Scripture reveals the preciousness of salvation. So significant was this promised salvation that the prophets who predicted Christ's coming eagerly tried to discover when and how these events would come about. Moreover, even the angels in heaven "long to look into these things" (v. 12). In other words, the gift of salvation in Christ was so important that it got the attention of Old Testament saints and heavenly beings alike.
Finally, Scripture indicates the surprising pattern of salvation. Many first-century Jews anticipated a kingly Messiah who would vindicate Israel and free them from oppression. Most expected glory; few anticipated a suffering Messiah. Yet Scripture declares both: the events predicted by the prophets included both "the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow" (v. 10). For Peter's readers, this is a subtle reminder that their sufferings are following the pattern of Christ, and their end will be the same as His: glory. But this should be no surprise; it's all been predicted beforehand.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today marks the second Sunday in Advent, that season of reflection on the first and second comings of Christ. What a perfect occasion to appreciate the wonder and significance of what God has done for you in Christ. Spend time meditating on several Old Testament passages, such as Psalm 110, Isaiah 53, or Psalm 22, that foretell the suffering and the glory of the Christ who brings us salvation. Then thank God that in His unending love He had planned a way for our restoration and renewal in His Son, Jesus Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:D :angel: :angel: :D
December 07, 2009
War . . . Then Peace
READ: Luke 23:32-43
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:7
On December 7, 1941, a Japanese war plane piloted by Mitsuo Fuchida took off from the aircraft carrier Akagi. Fuchida led the surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Through the war years to follow, Fuchida continued to fly-often narrowly escaping death. At war's end, he was disillusioned and bitter.
A few years later, he heard a story that piqued his spiritual curiosity: A Christian young woman whose parents had been killed by the Japanese during the war decided to minister to Japanese prisoners. Impressed, Fuchida began reading the Bible.
As he read Jesus' words from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34), he understood how that woman could show kindness to her enemies. That day Fuchida gave his heart to Christ.
Becoming a lay preacher and evangelist to his fellow citizens, this former warrior demonstrated "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding" (Phil. 4:7)-a peace enjoyed by those who have trusted Christ and who "let [their] requests be made known to God" (v.6).
Have you found this peace? No matter what you have gone through, God makes it available to you. - Dennis Fisher
There is peace in midst of turmoil,
There is joy when eyes are dim,
There is perfect understanding
When we leave it all to Him. -Brown
True peace is not the absence of war; it is the presence of God. -Loveless
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Key #1 to Effective Prayer - Being Specific
Over the next number of devotionals, I want to walk you through the keys to effective prayer. To start, I want to focus today's devotional on Mark 10:46-52 where we find a very intriguing story.
Now they came to Jericho. As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then many warned him to be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, "Be of good cheer. Rise, He is calling you." And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" The blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, that I may receive my sight." Then Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.
The question Jesus asked, "What do you want Me to do for you?", seemed obvious, didn't it? Everybody present knew Bartimaeus needed his eyes to be healed. Why would Jesus ask this question?
He wanted us to understand how important it is to be specific when we ask something of God. Bartimaeus' faith had to become specific before it made him well. It was after he said, "Lord, that I might receive my sight," that Jesus said, "Your faith has made you well."
Being specific in what you request of God is the first key to effective prayer.
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Read: 1 Peter 1:13-16
Therefore . . . be holy in all you do. - 1 Peter 1:13, 15
TODAY IN THE WORD
When interpreting the Bible, scholars observe something called "the indicative and imperative." In Scripture, the "indicative" tells us who we are and what God has done-it tells us what is true. The "imperative" tells us how we should act as the people of God that we are-it tells us what to do. In short, the indicative and imperative in Scripture tells us what is true and what to do. When we come to the "Therefore" of verse 13 in today's reading, we are shifting from the "what is true" into the "what to do." Because God has chosen you (vv. 1-2) and given you a living hope and a new inheritance (vv. 3-4), and because of the promise of salvation and glory yet to come (vv. 7-9), therefore, says Scripture, we must live a certain way.
First, we are called to self-control (v. 13), to engage our minds in thinking about how we live and making sure it's in accord with who we are. Next, we are called to set our hope on the grace to come; that is, we should live our lives in light of the sure expectation of Christ's return. Third, we are exhorted not to conform to the evil desires of our past (v. 14). This implies a change has taken place from one way of life-ignorance and disobedience-to another-knowledge and obedience (see v. 2). Finally, we are called to "be holy in all you do" (v. 15).
Simply put, holiness is being set apart for and to God. In fact, God Himself became the basis and pattern for our holiness: "Be holy, because I am holy" (v. 16). Peter is quoting a refrain that occurs several times in Leviticus and was first given to the nation of Israel (see Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7). This call to total holiness ("in all you do") may seem like an impossible task, but remember, you have the Holy One Himself working in you and through you. The question is, will you give yourself to your holy Father?
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's call is a daunting one, but Scripture's order is essential: the indicative first, then the imperative. We live with self-control, resist evil desires, and act in holiness not so that God may grant us grace, but precisely the opposite. Because God has done those things, therefore we live like the people God has already declared us to be. As you attempt to "be holy in all you do" today, ask God for strength to live in a manner indicative of who you already are in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:) :angel: :)
December 08, 2009
A Legacy Of Repentance
READ: Psalm 51
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. -Psalm 51:17
All nations have heroes, but Israel may be alone in making epic literature about its greatest hero's failings (Ps. 51). This eloquent psalm shows that Israel ultimately remembered David more for his devotion to God than for his political achievements.
Step-by-step, the psalm takes the reader through the stages of repentance. It describes the constant mental replays, the gnawing guilt, the shame, and finally the hope of a new beginning that springs from true repentance.
In a remarkable way, Psalm 51 reveals the true nature of sin as a broken relationship with God. David cries out, "Against You, You only, have I sinned" (v.4). He sees that the sacrifices God wants are "a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart" (v.17). Those, David has.
In his prayer, David looks for possible good that might come out of his tragedy and sees a glimmer of light. Perhaps by reading this story of sin others might avoid the same pitfalls, or by reading his confession they might gain hope in forgiveness. David's prayer is answered and becomes his greatest legacy as king. The best king of Israel has fallen the farthest. But neither he, nor anyone, can fall beyond the reach of God's love and forgiveness. - Philip Yancey
How blest is he whose trespass
Has freely been forgiven,
Whose sin is wholly covered
Before the sight of heaven. -Psalter
Repentance is the soil in which forgiveness flourishes.
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Key #3 to Effective Prayer - Praying From the Heart
Today we will look at the third key to effective prayer. This key is found in Romans 10:9-10 where it says,
If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Prayer must come from the heart. These verses in particular teach us that if a person is going to pray a prayer of salvation, the heart and the mouth must get together. It is not good enough to just have the words. Your heart and mouth must be in agreement.
I believe this truth applies to every kind of prayer. It is not good enough to just use eloquent words. There has to be heart behind them if you are going to realize results from your prayers.
I think only those things that burn brightly within our hearts truly touch the heart of God.
When I was young, I would go fishing with my cousins. At night, the bats would come out and my cousins would take a lure, and they would cast it up in the air. Every once in a great while one of the bats would hit the lure and get snagged.
I think when we pray, it is like casting lines up into the heavens. But it is only the prayers that come from our heart that ever hook onto anything in heaven.
Effective prayer comes from your heart.
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Read: 1 Peter 1:17-21
The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him. - Psalm 34:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the Roman Empire, the common word redemption referred to the process whereby a slave could be released from bondage through some form of payment to the slave's master. That payment, made either by the slave or by someone else, would buy the slave's freedom. A new life was the result.
This theme of redemption is central to today's reading. First, Peter declares the method of payment for our redemption: it did not come through the typical means of silver or gold (v. 18). Rather, we were redeemed with something far more valuable: "the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect" (v. 19). The reference here, of course, evokes the Old Testament command for a sacrificial animal that was perfect and without defect (see Lev. 22:17-25). Christ, in His sinlessness, was that perfect sacrifice.
Notice too, that we were not the ones making this payment. It was the work of God Himself, who chose Christ "before the creation of the world" (v. 20), raised Him from the dead, and glorified Him (v. 21). This was no afterthought; God had planned our redemption from the very beginning. Even before we existed, we were already thought of by our loving God.
The imagery of redemption implies freedom from slavery, but to what were we enslaved? Peter calls it an "empty way of life" (v. 18), a phrase commonly used for idolatry and rebellion against God (see Jer. 16:19). Without Christ, we have only the vanity which the world has to offer.
What does our freedom from such a life entail? Scripture declares that through Christ we gain faith and hope in God. Recall from previous days what that hope means. We also have a new relationship with God-He is not just an impartial judge, but a Father we can call upon. And we have a new home; no longer enslaved to emptiness, we live a life of "reverent fear" (v. 17). Strangers in this world, we are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20). Our redemption in Christ accomplished it all.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We all revere our fathers in some way, whether earthly, national, or ideological. But today's reading challenges us to value one Father above all, and to live in reverence of Him (vv. 17, 18). Make a list of the influential figures in your own life, and then ask yourself: Does following the footsteps of these figures lead to a life of holiness and reverence for God the Father? If so, thank Him for such godly influences. If not, ask God for wisdom to re-prioritize the "fatherly" figures in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 09, 2009
When Life Is Too Big
READ: 1 Kings 3:4-14
As a young man, Jimmy Carter was a junior officer in the US Navy. He was deeply impacted by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the mastermind of the US nuclear submarine fleet.
Shortly after Carter's inauguration as President, he invited Rickover to the White House for lunch, where the admiral presented Carter with a plaque that read, "O, God, Thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small." That prayer is a useful perspective on the size and complexity of life and our inability to manage it on our own.
Solomon too knew that life could be overwhelming. When he succeeded his father, David, as king of Israel, he confessed his weakness to God, saying, "O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in" (1 Kings 3:7). As a result, he asked for the wisdom to lead in a way that would please God and help others (v.9).
Is life feeling too big for you? There may not be easy answers to the challenges you are facing, but God promises that, if you ask for wisdom, He will grant it (James 1:5). You don't have to face the overwhelming challenges of life alone. - Bill Crowder
Each day we learn from yesterday
Of God's great love and care;
And every burden we must face
He'll surely help us bear. -D. De Haan
Recognizing our own smallness can cause us to embrace God's greatness.
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By Janet Conley
Key #4 to Effective Prayer - Consistent with God's Will
In order for your prayers to be effective, they need to be in line with God's Word and will. That is the fourth key to effective prayer.
This means you must have knowledge of God's Word. In John 15:7, Jesus says,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
If you abide in God and His words abide in you, your desires will line up with His will. How important it is for us to know the Word of God!
As Hebrews 4 reminds us, the Word of God is living and active and powerful. It is spirit; it is life. It's not just pages on a piece of paper. And as you are in the Word of God, I believe the Holy Spirit will paint heaven's pictures, heaven's thoughts, and heaven's ideas on the canvas of your heart and your mind.
As you read the Word of God, you will have confidence in your prayers because you will have God's heart. And when you have God's heart, He is going to answer your prayers because that is what He desires.
I also want to point you to 1 John 5:14 which says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
His will, of course, is His Word. So if you ask anything according to His Word, He will hear you. And if you know that He hears whatever you ask, you know you have the petitions you have asked of Him.
This means you and I need to know what the Bible says so that our prayers will be answered. Effective prayers are those that are in line with God's Word and will.
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Read: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. - 1 Peter 2:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
The word love is common today. From glib declarations in a Hallmark card to the newest pop song's promise, "I will love U 4ever," the idea of love has become devoid of meaning. A mere sentimentality, contemporary notions of love often express infatuation, lust, or need-driven feelings. So when we come to the call in today's passage to "love one another," it's easy to miss the challenge in Peter's exhortation.
Earlier, holiness was urged through self-control over evil desires (1 Peter 1:13-16). Now the exhortation to holiness continues with a call to love. The Christian life is not just internal; it is also about relationships with others. The call is explicit: "love one another deeply, from the heart" (1:22). And it's worth noting that the word "deeply" might better be translated "extensively" or "earnestly." It's the same word used to describe Jesus' longing prayer in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44).
This positive call to relational love is then repeated from the negative side in 2:1. All the named vices that we are called to extinguish from our lives are nothing less than attitudes and behaviors that lack love. Where there is "malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander," there can be no love in the community (2:2). This is no superficial call to niceness or civility, but rather to an earnest, sincere attitude and action of care among the Christian family.
Scripture also reveals the foundation of this new life of love. Our reading begins with a reminder that we have been purified already through obedience to the truth (1:22). The remainder of our passage makes it clear that the obedience Peter has in mind is the believer's faithful response to the gospel proclamation, the "word that was preached to you" (1:25). Compared to all other living things, which eventually wither and die, God's word is "living and enduring" (1:23). That creative, life-giving word of God which brought all things into existence is the same word now in us. It purifies, renews, and empowers us to live a life of true love.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The call to love is not static; it requires attitude and action. But today's passage adds another ingredient necessary for Christian growth: nourishment, what Peter calls "pure spiritual milk" (2:2). So important is this spiritual food that he compares us to a hungry infant craving to be fed. Do you see the growth of true love in your own spiritual life? If not, perhaps you need to recommit yourself to the regular spiritual nourishment of God's Word. Don't just taste it; feed on it, and grow!
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :angel: :) :angel: :angel:
December 10, 2009
A Mere Happening?
READ: Ruth 2:1-12
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. -Proverbs 3:6
Huang, a nonbeliever, was a visiting scientist at the University of Minnesota in 1994. While there, he met some Christians and enjoyed their fellowship. So when they learned he would be returning to Beijing, they gave him the name of a Christian to contact who was also moving there.
On the flight back to Beijing, the plane encountered engine trouble and stopped in Seattle overnight. The airline placed Huang in the same room with the very person he was to contact! Once they arrived in Beijing, the two began meeting weekly for a Bible study, and a year later Huang gave his life to Christ. This was not just a mere happening; it was by God's arrangement.
In Ruth 2, we read that Ruth came "to the part of the field belonging to Boaz" (v.3). Boaz asked his servants who she was (v.5), which prompted his special consideration toward her. When Ruth asked him the reason for such kindness, Boaz replied, "It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law . . . . The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you" (vv.11-12).
Did the events in the lives of Ruth and Huang just happen? No, for none of God's people can escape God's plans to guide and to provide. - Albert Lee
I know who holds the future,
And I know who holds my hand;
With God things don't just happen-
Everything by Him is planned. -Smith
A "mere happening" may be God's design.
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Key #5 to Effective Prayer-Endurance
The next key to effective prayer is the need to be patient. You need to be willing to endure.
Hebrews 6:11-15 says,
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you." And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Do you realize that once God gave Abraham and Sarah the promise of having a child, it was 25 years before Isaac was born? There was some patient enduring that took place before they obtained the reality of God's promise in their lives. And so it must be with us.
Perhaps you have been praying for things in your life, and you are getting discouraged. You must remember that God does not always work things on our timetable. He works according to His.
I just want to encourage you today: Be patient. Patience is that long-lasting quality of your faith.
A number of years ago I heard one person say that faith is like your hand and patience is like your arm. When you exercise faith, it is like holding up your hand against the problem, and as you do, things are being worked out. But if you take your patience down, your faith comes down with it.
Patience is the thing that keeps your faith applied until the answer comes.
Patience is a critical key to effective prayer. Whatever you are praying for, patiently endure.
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Read: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. - 1 Peter 2:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
The word love is common today. From glib declarations in a Hallmark card to the newest pop song's promise, "I will love U 4ever," the idea of love has become devoid of meaning. A mere sentimentality, contemporary notions of love often express infatuation, lust, or need-driven feelings. So when we come to the call in today's passage to "love one another," it's easy to miss the challenge in Peter's exhortation. Earlier, holiness was urged through self-control over evil desires (1 Peter 1:13-16). Now the exhortation to holiness continues with a call to love. The Christian life is not just internal; it is also about relationships with others. The call is explicit: "love one another deeply, from the heart" (1:22). And it's worth noting that the word "deeply" might better be translated "extensively" or "earnestly." It's the same word used to describe Jesus' longing prayer in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44).
This positive call to relational love is then repeated from the negative side in 2:1. All the named vices that we are called to extinguish from our lives are nothing less than attitudes and behaviors that lack love. Where there is "malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander," there can be no love in the community (2:2). This is no superficial call to niceness or civility, but rather to an earnest, sincere attitude and action of care among the Christian family.
Scripture also reveals the foundation of this new life of love. Our reading begins with a reminder that we have been purified already through obedience to the truth (1:22). The remainder of our passage makes it clear that the obedience Peter has in mind is the believer's faithful response to the gospel proclamation, the "word that was preached to you" (1:25). Compared to all other living things, which eventually wither and die, God's word is "living and enduring" (1:23). That creative, life-giving word of God which brought all things into existence is the same word now in us. It purifies, renews, and empowers us to live a life of true love.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The call to love is not static; it requires attitude and action. But today's passage adds another ingredient necessary for Christian growth: nourishment, what Peter calls "pure spiritual milk" (2:2). So important is this spiritual food that he compares us to a hungry infant craving to be fed. Do you see the growth of true love in your own spiritual life? If not, perhaps you need to recommit yourself to the regular spiritual nourishment of God's Word. Don't just taste it; feed on it, and grow!
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :angel:
December 11, 2009
Tears Of Repentance
READ: Luke 22:54-62
Peter went out and wept bitterly. -Luke 22:62
My husband, a self-proclaimed computer illiterate, purchased a computer to help him with his business. After giving him a few pointers, I left him alone to do some experimenting. It wasn't long, however, before I heard a slightly panicked voice from the office: "Hey, where's that 'uh-oh' button?"
What he had been looking for, of course, was the "undo" key that lets you backtrack when you've made a mistake. Have you ever wished for one of those in life? A provision to reverse, repair, or restore what's been broken or damaged by sin?
After Jesus' arrest, Peter, one of His beloved disciples, denied three times that he knew Him. Then, we read, "the Lord turned" and simply "looked at" him. Peter "went out and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:61-62). His tears were most likely tears of shame and repentance. No doubt he wished he could undo his actions. But Peter wasn't left in his misery. After Jesus' resurrection, He restored Peter, giving him opportunity to reaffirm his love (John 21:15-17).
When you sorrow over sin in your life, remember that God has provided a method of restoration. "If we confess our sins," He will "forgive us" and "cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). - Cindy Hess Kasper
We're thankful, Lord, that when we fall
We can begin anew
If humbly we confess our sin,
Then turn and follow You. -Sper
The way back to God begins with a broken heart.
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Key #6 to Effective Prayer-Humility
Humility is a very important key to effective prayer. In 1 Peter 5:5-6 we read this,
Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble." Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble.
Humility, more than anything else, is an attitude of the heart that says, "I recognize I am not self-sufficient. I am open, I am teachable, I am thankful. God, I am willing to bow my heart before You and confess that I am in utter need of Your assistance."
Contrary to what some people say and think, humility is not to be equated with lack of courage. In fact, it takes great courage for a person to admit they have need. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is a sign of strength.
King David said in Psalm 18:35, Your gentleness (or Your meekness) has made me great. Moses was called the meekest or the humblest man on the face of the earth, and yet we don't think of him as a weak person. He is one of the greatest leaders to ever step out of the pages of the Bible, and very few people in history have had power with God in the place of prayer like Moses did.
Jesus, our Savior, said, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart" (KJV). Friend, that ought to be one of the hallmark qualities of our lives- especially when we are praying. It is a key to effective prayer.
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Read: 1 Peter 2:4-12
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. - 1 Peter 2:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
In both ancient and modern buildings, the cornerstone is the key piece of architecture. The first stone put in place, it anchors the whole building. Because the rest of the structure is built on it, a weak or faulty cornerstone will result in instability. But a strong and level cornerstone will produce a stable building. Using this metaphor of a building, Peter describes Christ as the cornerstone, and the church as God's house. But this is no inanimate structure. Both Christ and the church are "living" stones (vv. 4-5). Though rejected by men, Christ the cornerstone is chosen by God and has become the foundation of the church. Notice that Peter (who was himself named a "Rock" by Christ [Matt. 16:18]) draws our attention away from himself and places it upon Christ the "Stone." Jesus, not human leaders, is the true foundation of Christ's church.
So what does all this foundation talk lead to? A new identity. Built on the sure foundation of Christ, we are a "spiritual house," a "royal priesthood," a "chosen people," a "holy nation," and a "people belonging to God." All are wonderful descriptions of our new status before God, but don't miss the clear evocations for Peter's first readers: these are Old Testament descriptions of Israel (e.g. Ex. 19:6)! Gentiles, once "not a people," are now part of the family of God. God's love and protection shown to Israel in the Old Testament now belongs also to Christians. And this new identity, says Peter, all rests on our foundation stone, Christ.
Finally, Scripture points us to the purpose of our new identity and the reason God has shown us His mercy: the glory and praise of God. Part of being brought from darkness into His "wonderful light" should include telling others about God's mercy. We are also called to live in a way that compels unbelievers to "glorify God on the day he visits us" (v. 12). Whether through voice or action, our goal should be the praise and glory of our merciful God.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Edward Mote, a nineteenth-century English preacher, understood the security that comes with Christ as our sure foundation. The refrain of his now famous hymn echoes this theme from today's reading: "On Christ the solid Rock I stand / All other ground is sinking sand; / All other ground is sinking sand." Find the full words to this hymn in a hymnal or online, and sing them privately or with your family today to "declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (v. 9).
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :angel: :D :angel: :angel:
December 12, 2009
Sowing Seed With Tears
READ: Ephesians 4:17-24
I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. -Romans 9:2
In our Bible-study class, we were reading Ephesians 4:17-24 out loud when Alyssa began to cry. Most of us were wondering why, when she quietly said, "I'm crying because hearing this passage read out loud makes me see the condition that lost people are in. They're separated from God and are blind to it! That breaks my heart."
One person in the class admitted later that he was embarrassed he had never felt that sad about nonbelievers and had in the past even talked excitedly about the judgment they would receive one day from God.
The apostle Paul laid out the condition of the lost with these words: "[They have] their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God . . . because of the blindness of their heart" (Eph. 4:18). He testified that he had "great sorrow and continual grief in [his] heart" because his fellow countrymen had not yet come to know the love of Christ (Rom. 9:1-3).
As we think about the condition of nonbelievers, we can remember God's heart toward them: "The Lord is . . . longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). When we share the Word of God and pray earnestly for others, eyes will be opened to His love. - Anne Cetas
Oh, give me, Lord, Thy love for souls,
For lost and wandering sheep,
That I may see the multitudes
And weep as Thou didst weep. -Harrison
Open your heart to the Lord, and He will open your eyes to the lost.
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Key #7 to Effective Prayer - The Holy Spirit's Help
Today I want to talk to you about another key to effective prayer, and that is the help of the Holy Spirit. I am so glad we have the Holy Spirit to help us, aren't you?
In John 16, Jesus is talking to His disciples, and He is trying to prepare them and let them know that He is going away. In John 16:7 He tells them,
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."
Do you know who the Helper is? It is the Holy Spirit. Earlier in John 14:26 he had told His disciples this,
"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."
The Helper, the Holy Spirit, has been sent to come alongside and teach us all things. He will teach you how to pray; He will teach you things about prayer. The Holy Spirit will help you in that way.
Then He said, "[He will] bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." The Holy Spirit will help us remember the promises. The things that God has taught us He will bring to our remembrance, so we can pray effectively.
The Holy Spirit is like having a personal assistant. A personal assistant will help you remember your appointments or show you something you do not know. Every moment of every day He is there for us.
Take time to praise God today for His provision of the Holy Spirit. And remember He is there to help you in prayer.
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Read: 1 Peter 2:18-25
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example. - 1 Peter 2:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the 1982 blockbuster film, Rambo: First Blood, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo wandered into a town where he was mistreated by local authorities. Tension escalated when Rambo escaped and armed with military weapons and Green-Beret smarts, showed the full force of his anger and retaliation at the injustice he experienced. When asked to turn himself in, Rambo refused saying, "They drew first blood." For the thousands of viewers that made Rambo such a popular film, something felt satisfying about seeing a man exact revenge in the face of clear injustice. But today's reading calls us to consider a different response. Continuing yesterday's theme of submission, Scripture teaches us what submission in an unjust world may cost: suffering (vv. 18-19). However, not only is suffering for doing good "commendable before God," Peter tells us that this is part of the Christian calling (vv. 19-21). If we are Christ-followers, then we should expect to follow Christ's suffering.
Look then at Christ's example. Quoting or alluding to Isaiah 53, Scripture presents Christ's response to the injustice He experienced. Without sin or deceit, Christ did not retaliate or hurl threats. Instead, He maintained a quiet confidence in the One who judges justly, God the Father (vv. 22-23). Confidence in a just Father is key! Christian suffering is more than grinning and bearing it; we take our suffering to God, trusting that His perfect justice will prevail in the end.
Scripture presents the salvific purpose of Christ's suffering. Through Christ's pain, we die to sin, live for righteousness, are made whole again, and are restored to our loving Shepherd (vv. 24-25). In other words, Peter reminds us that all injustice is a demonstration of our fallen world's need of Christ's redemptive healing. Rather than focus on the injustice we experience, we are called to see those who harm us as sinners in need of Christ's redemption. Only He can bring true healing and justice to our world.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY Today's passage is challenging if taken seriously. We have all experienced suffering, injustice, and the temptation to seek personal vengeance in some way. What situations do you face this week-in your workplace, neighborhood, or among family members-where you experience suffering and injustice, perhaps even because you're a Christian? Ask God's Spirit to let the focus of today's passage change the way you view your situation, that you may entrust your suffering to the just Judge and pray for those who harm you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :angel: :) :angel: :angel:
December 13, 2009
A Time For Readjustment
READ: Leviticus 25:1-7
In the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land. -Leviticus 25:4
The earth's solar orbit takes 365 and a quarter days. Because of this, every 4 years an extra day is added to the calendar so we don't fall behind in the natural cycle of things. Each leap year we add that day onto the end of February. In this way, the calendar is readjusted to the astronomical timetable.
In the calendar of ancient Israel, God set up a remarkable means of readjusting things. Just as mankind was commanded to rest every seventh day (Ex. 20:8-10), so the land was to be allowed to rest during the seventh year (Lev. 25:4). This sabbatical year allowed the farmland to replenish for greater fertility. In addition, debts were canceled (Deut. 15:1-11) and Hebrew slaves were set free (vv.12-18).
With our busy schedules and our hectic pace of life, we too need readjustment.
Demands of work, family, and church can require reevaluation. One way we do that is by observing the sabbath principle-making sure to set aside time to rest and prayerfully refocus our priorities. Jesus, for example, went "to a solitary place; and there He prayed" (Mark 1:35).
When can you pull aside from your activities and prayerfully ask God to reset your spiritual calendar to His Word and His will? Is it time for a readjustment? - Dennis Fisher
To face life's many challenges
And overcome each test,
The Lord tells us to take the time
To stop, to pray, to rest. -Sper
To make the most of your time, take time to pray.
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Key #8 to Effective Prayer-Forgiveness
An important key to effective prayer is your relationship with others. In Mark 11:24-26 Jesus says,
"Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."
Pretty strong, isn't it? Jesus cited unforgiveness as the number one reason for unanswered prayer. If my prayers were not being answered, this would be the first place I would look-into my own heart, to see whether I had allowed bitterness toward another human being to reside there. Whether I was harboring a grudge or had strife in my heart toward anyone else.
Jesus said if you have anything against anyone, anything-big or small, new or old-or anyone-yourself, your husband, your wife, a family member, a loved one, a neighbor, a co-worker, a relative, an enemy-if you have anything against anyone, it will lead to unanswered prayer.
Sometimes people hold things against themselves. They do not forgive themselves, even after God has forgiven them and after others have forgiven them. They just want to whip themselves for their stupidity for falling into the same stupid sin again, or for whatever they have done, and they don't release themselves!
There are others too, including those closest to us, whom we must forgive. If your prayers are not being answered, then look there.
Perhaps you have searched the Scriptures, filled your heart with the Word, you are praying from the bottom of your heart, and you are expectant of answers; but before you can partake of the fruit of your prayers, you must forgive if you have anything against anyone!
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Read: 1 Peter 2:18-25
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example. - 1 Peter 2:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
The philosopher Plutarch argued that wives should submit to their husbands, and husbands should exercise control over their wives. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, family stability was equivalent to civil stability. Anything that jeopardized the family structure was considered subversive and dangerous to the order of the state. At first glance, Peter's words would have appeared quite sensible to his contemporaries. Upon closer examination, however, we discover that Peter's exhortations on marriage roles offer something uniquely Christian. The key lies in the words, "in the same way" (vv. 1, 7). Peter is continuing his discourse on godly submission begun in 2:13 and continued through Christ's sacrificial suffering in 2:25. When we hear in today's passage the call for wives to submit to their husbands "in the same way," we must remember the context. Just as Christ humbly submitted Himself with the goal of our salvation, so wives are called to follow that example in submitting themselves to their husbands. Christian submission is another way of following Christ's example.
In particular, though, Peter has in mind a marriage in which the husband is not a believer (v. 1). Into that context, Scripture calls for wives to imitate godly women of old, like Sarah, and to exhibit "purity," "reverence," a "gentle and quiet spirit," and a focus on the inward beauty of the heart rather than mere outward appearances (vv. 2-6). And just as Christ's expression of humility and submission brought our salvation, so too a wife's humility may win over the husband to Christ (v. 1).
One might then anticipate Scripture calling husbands to exercise their authority in marriage or to demand submission from their wives. But instead, Peter calls husbands also to imitate Christ's humility (note "in the same way" of verse 7). Husbands are called to treat their wives with respect and consideration of their needs, all the time remembering that the wife's role in marriage in no way diminishes her exalted status as a co-heir of eternal life (v. 7). A differentiation of roles need not indicate an inequality of status and worth.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today marks the third Sunday in the Advent season, and it's appropriate to consider our passage in light of the Christ's submission and humility at His first coming. As you reflect on your own marriage (or the marriages of those you know), do you see in these relationships an attempt to imitate Christ's example of humility and service? What would change if you approached all relationships this way, choosing self-giving and sacrifice over self-assertion? Choose to perform one action today that will reflect Christ's humility.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :angel: :D :angel: :angel:
December 14, 2009
Warning Lights
READ: Joel 2:12-17
"Now, therefore," says the Lord, "Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." -Joel 2:12
I didn't think that the hesitation in my car engine and that little yellow "check engine" light on my dashboard really needed my immediate attention. I sang it away, saying that I would get to it tomorrow. However, the next morning when I turned the key to start my car, it wouldn't start. My first reaction was frustration, knowing that this would mean money, time, and inconvenience. My second thought was more of a resolution: I need to pay attention to warning lights that are trying to get my attention-they can mean something is wrong.
In Joel 2:12-17, we read that God used the prophet Joel to encourage His people to pay attention to the warning light on their spiritual dashboard. Prosperity had caused them to become complacent and negligent in their commitment to the Lord. Their faith had degenerated into empty formalism and their lives into moral bankruptcy. So God sent a locust plague to ruin crops in order to get His people's attention, causing them to change their behavior and turn to Him with their whole heart.
What warning lights are flashing in your life? What needs to be tuned up or repaired through confession and repentance? - Marvin Williams
God's love is not some fuzzy thing
That lets us do what we think best;
It guides and warns, and shows the way,
And always puts us to the test. -D. De Haan
Conviction is God's warning light.
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Hindered Prayers 1 Peter 3:7 says,
Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
Notice it says, "Husbands, likewise," which means, gals, you are not off the hook. The following truth applies to you as much as it does to the boys.
That truth is simply this: If there is bitterness or unforgiveness in your heart toward your spouse, your prayers will be hindered. That word hindered literally means to be cut down in the same way one would cut down a tree.
I once had this incredible tree called a cherimoya tree. One of the things about a cherimoya tree is that it is not indigenous to our country, and the insects that pollinate it do not exist here.
In order for the tree to bear fruit, I needed to pollinate it by hand with my little artist paintbrush. I would get pollen on the brush from one flower and pollinate other flowers.
Eventually the little buds I had pollinated began to turn into fruit. I was so excited! They were getting close to the time to be harvested. Then I came home one afternoon to find my whole tree hacked to pieces. Every branch and piece of fruit was in the trash. The gardener had cut my tree down!
I believe that can happen with our prayers. You can be intensely committed spiritually, searching the Scriptures, filling your heart with the Word, praying from the bottom of your heart, but if you are not honoring your spouse or you are treating them in a bad way, the devil has the authority to waltz right in and chop your prayer tree down.
Let's keep the ax out of the devil's hand by honoring and forgiving and valuing our marriage partner.
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Read: 1 Peter 3:8-12
Whoever would love life and see good days . . . must turn from evil and do good. - 1 Peter 3:10-11
TODAY IN THE WORD
A nutritional health supplement called "Good Days Positive Mood Formula" boasts the ability to calm the mind and body while energizing you for the day. In its online ad, "Good Days" promises to "increase your confidence" and give you a "healthier, happier way of living." In fact, the makers of "Good Days" are so confident in its promise, you can receive a 30-day trial absolutely free! By the world's standards, "good days" mean strong self-esteem, bubbly happiness, and lots of energy. But Scripture provides an alternative for those who "would love life and see good days" (v. 10). Indeed, today's entire passage is a kind of biblical prescription for a life of blessing. Earlier, Peter reminded his readers that they were called to follow Christ's example of suffering (2:21); paradoxically, he now declares that those same readers are called to a life of blessing (v. 9).
What does this look like? First it entails a life that blesses others. Scripture calls us to a life concerned with the well-being of others. Our lives should exhibit peace and harmony, sympathy toward others, love for our new family in Christ, compassion, humility, honest speech, and a biblical response to sin in which we repay evil not with more evil, but with blessing (vv. 8-11). Speaking of this life of blessing to others, Peter declares, "to this you were called" (v. 10).
A life of blessing means more than blessing others; it also means we "inherit a blessing" as well (v. 9). Given Peter's earlier exhortations about suffering, he clearly recognizes that the Christian life may be full of pain. Nonetheless, such suffering does not negate the gift of blessing. For one reason, such blessing is an "inheritance" from God (v. 9). It is His gift to us that cannot be taken away, no matter what our earthly circumstances may bring. But also, because true blessing means having a God who truly cares for us (v. 12). A biblical life of blessing has more to do with our relationship with God than with what the world might deem "good days."
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
A large part of today's reading emphasized our calling to be a blessing to others, both to our siblings in Christ and to those who may intend our harm. How will you bless others today? Perhaps you might give a tangible gift to someone in need? Or present an encouraging word to a struggling friend? Or even offer your forgiveness over a painful insult? As you go about your day today, seek for ways to offer blessing in someone's life, knowing that "to this you were called" (v. 9).
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 15, 2009
God's Remarkable Word
READ: Psalm 119:89-96
Forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven. -Psalm 119:89
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 has been called the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century. The ancient manuscripts hidden in the caves near Qumran are the oldest known copies of key Old Testament books. In 2007, the San Diego Natural History Museum hosted an exhibition featuring 24 of these scrolls. One often-repeated theme in the exhibit was that during the past 2,000 years the text of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) has remained virtually unchanged.
Followers of Christ who believe that the Bible is the eternal, unchanging Word of God find more than coincidence in this remarkable preservation. The psalmist wrote: "Forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations" (119:89-90). Jesus said: "My words will by no means pass away" (Matt. 24:35).
The Bible is more than a historical relic. It is the living, powerful Word of God (Heb. 4:12), in which we encounter the Lord and discover how to live for Him and honor Him. "I will never forget Your precepts," the psalmist concluded, "for by them You have given me life" (119:93).
What a privilege we have each day to seek God in His remarkable Word! - David C. McCasland
I have a companion, a wonderful guide,
A solace and comfort whatever betide;
A friend never-failing when others pass by,
Oh, blessed communion, my Bible and I. -Knobloch
To know Christ, the Living Word, is to love the Bible, the written Word.
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The Power to Forgive
There are times when we need to forgive someone for something they have done. On occasion it can seem so difficult...almost impossible.
But forgiveness is not an option for you and me as followers of Jesus Christ.
Forgiveness is an act of the will. You can forgive. In fact, Jesus said that we even need to love our enemies, those who may not want peace with us.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:44,
"Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
How can you do that? Because God has done the same thing for you. In Romans 5:10 it says,
When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
When you and I embrace salvation through Jesus Christ, that same love of God is poured out in our hearts. (See Romans 5:1 and 5). As a result, we can forgive those who have wronged us.
Once you have forgiven someone, it can still affect your emotions. I like what Corrie ten Boom shared. She went through several sleepless weeks over something that someone had done to her. She tried to forgive the person; but, still, when she would think about it, she would respond emotionally.
When she shared this with her pastor, he had her look up at the bell tower of the church. He reminded her that the bell would continue to ring even after the person ringing it had let go of the rope. But given a little time, the bell would slow down until it was silent.
It may take time for your emotions to settle even when you have let go of the rope. Just let go of the rope and forgive. You can do it!
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Read: 1 Peter 3:13-17
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks. - 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the United States, Good Samaritan laws provide protection from lawsuits against individuals who attempt to assist someone suffering a medical emergency. The aim of such laws is to encourage passersby to help someone in need without fear of being sued for unintentional injury or wrongful death. In other words, those who try to help someone else are protected by law in the event an unintended injury may result from the aid offered. The idea that someone who does good should be protected from harm is found in today's reading as well (v. 13); yet, Peter quickly admits that this principle is not always followed. As Christians, we will sometimes suffer for doing what is right (v. 14). And this brings us back to a running theme in our study: how should Christians respond to suffering and persecution?
First, Scripture encourages us to have the right attitude. Persecution is not the opposite of blessing (v. 14a). Jesus said as much in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). Another aspect of a biblical attitude includes exchanging fear for boldness (v. 14b). We need not fear what humans can do to us; instead, we reserve reverence for God, and Peter cites Isaiah 8 to make his point. Rather than fear human persecution, we are called "to honor Christ the Lord as holy" (v. 15, ESV). If we regard Christ alone as truly holy, then we live in hope rather than in fear.
Second, because we live with hope in Christ, our suffering may become an opportunity for witness. To those who inquire about our response to suffering, we are called to give a gentle answer, grounded in our "fear" or reverence of Christ, a more accurate translation than the NIV's "respect" (v. 15b). And when we have no opportunity to speak, Scripture reminds us that our behavior provides a witness to Christ as well (v. 16-17). A consistent witness of word and deed, especially in moments of persecution, brings glory to God and is faithful to His good will.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you believe that persecution and blessing can exist side by side? Are you able to rejoice at your suffering and to use it as an opportunity for witness the way Peter did in Acts 5:41-42? These are not easy words, and they require God's grace in us to respond this way. Ask God for a renewed attitude toward suffering in your own life, and commit to use those moments as faithful and consistent witness for Christ in both word and deed.
GOD BLESS
:angel: :angel: ;) :angel: :angel:
December 16, 2009
Becoming Whole
READ: Romans 7:13-25
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. -Philippians 2:12-13
When a friend fell off her bike and suffered a severe brain injury, doctors weren't sure she would survive. For several days she remained suspended between life and death.
The first good news came when she opened her eyes. Then she responded to simple voice commands. But with every small improvement, anxiety remained. How far would she progress?
After one difficult day of therapy, her husband was discouraged. But the very next morning he shared these welcome words: "Sandy's back!" Physically, emotionally, psychologically, and mentally, Sandy was becoming the "self" who we knew and loved.
Sandy's fall reminds me of what theologians refer to as "the fall" of mankind (Gen. 3). And her struggle to recover parallels our struggle to overcome the brokenness of sin (Rom. 7:18). If only her body healed, recovery would be incomplete. The same would be true if her brain worked but her body didn't. Wholeness means that all parts work together for one purpose.
God is the one healing Sandy, but she has to work hard in therapy to improve. The same is true of us spiritually. After God saves us through Christ, we must "work out" our salvation (Phil. 2:12)-not to earn it but to bring our thoughts and actions into agreement with His purpose. - Julie Ackerman Link
More like the Master I would ever be,
More of His meekness, more humility;
More zeal to labor, more courage to be true,
More consecration for work He bids me do. -Gabriel
To become whole, keep yielding to the Holy Spirit.
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Do You Really Believe It?
Ephesians 2:4-7 says,
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
There was a time in my wife's life when nothing was going right. It was before we were married while she was attending Bible school. Things were so bad that she was ready to drop out, and she wondered where God was in her life.
It was then that she attended a seminar where a woman was teaching on this passage. As my wife read this, and heard it taught, she saw that God loved her in an amazing way. That He loves everybody so much He sent Jesus Christ, so that He could make us a showpiece of His great love.
She realized He wanted to make her life beautiful and full. He wanted to make it good. He wanted to do things in her life so that she would be a showpiece for Him, and other people would look and say, "What is it about you?" and she could tell them that God made the difference in her life. Since that truth dawned on Janet's heart, she has never been the same.
1 John 4:16 says,
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.
Do you really believe that God loves you and has good things in store for you? You have heard about God's love, but do you really know it? Are you really believing the love that God has for you?
Well He does love you, and when you believe it, you will never be the same!
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Read: 1 Peter 3:18-22
He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit. - 1 Peter 3:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some things just go together. In an exercise for youngsters, the teacher gives one word and the students respond with the appropriate match: peanut butter and jelly; lock and key; ball and glove; Bert and Ernie. These words seem incomplete without the other. This is true when we speak of our redemption in Christ. Today's reading portrays Christ's death and resurrection as the basis of our response to persecution. Whatever the difficulties we may face for Christ's sake, Scripture reminds us of what Christ has already accomplished. He died "for our sins" in order to "bring you to God" (v. 18). But Christ's death alone is incomplete. We also need Christ's victorious resurrection. He was "made alive by the Spirit" (v. 18) and has ascended to God's right hand (v. 22). If Christ's suffering gives an example of patience and humility, Christ's resurrection gives us courage because we know the triumph we share with Christ.
How then do verses 19 through 21 fit into this encouraging picture? Commentators disagree over the meaning of these verses. Some argue that the "spirits in prison" (v. 19) are fallen angels held until the day of judgment. Early Jewish tradition, as well as passages like 2 Peter 2:4-5 and Jude 6, support this view. If correct, Christ became a herald of victory over death, and is an encouraging picture of the victory we share with Him. Others argue that the "spirits" are disobedient men during the time of the Flood who refused the Spirit's call for repentance through Noah (see 2 Peter 2:5 for support).
Either way, Peter uses the days of Noah as an example of when wickedness flourished, yet in the end, God's judgment and vindication conquered. Noah being saved through the waters of the Flood becomes a "symbol" of Christian salvation through baptism (vv. 20-21). But how does baptism save? Through its connection with Christ's resurrection (v. 21b; cf. Rom. 6:1-11). We face suffering in a fallen world, but we do so with hope because our glorious end is already revealed in the resurrection of Christ.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage reminds us that we need both Christ's death and resurrection, not only to accomplish redemption, but to provide a Christian response to suffering in a fallen world. Which might you need to focus on? Christ's patient and humble death which brings us to God, or His glorious resurrection which promises us triumph over sin and death? Meditate on one or the other today (or both!) as you consider your own response to the suffering and injustice of a fallen world.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 17, 2009
The King Of Fruits
READ: Luke 19:12-26 Present your bodies a living sacrifice, . . . which is your reasonable service. -Romans 12:1
The durian, a tropical fruit, is often called The King of Fruits. Either you love it or you hate it. Those who love it will do almost anything to get it. Those who hate it won't get near it because of its pungent smell. My wife loves it. Recently, a friend, who was grateful for what my wife had done for her, sent her a box of the finest quality durians. She took great pains to ensure that they were the best.
I asked myself, "If we can give the best to a friend, how can we do less for our Lord who gave His very life for us?"
The nobleman in Jesus' parable in Luke 19 wanted the best from 10 servants to whom he gave money, saying, "Do business till I come" (v.13). When he returned and asked for an account, he gave the same commendation "Well done!" to all those who had done what they could with the money entrusted to them. But he called "wicked" (v.22) the one who did nothing with his money.
The primary meaning of this story is stewardship of what we've been given. To be faithful with what God has given to us is to give Him our best in return. As the master gave money to the servants in the parable, so God has given us gifts to serve Him. It is we who will lose out if we fail to give Him our best. - C. P. Hia
Give of your best to the Master,
Give Him first place in your heart;
Give Him first place in your service,
Consecrate every part. -Grose
We are at our best when we serve God by serving others.
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The Reality of the Battle
Ephesians 6:10-13 provides for us a sober warning,
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Conflict with the enemy is unavoidable. These verses make that eminently clear. There will be a battle if you are part of God's family. We do have a spiritual adversary.
The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:8-9,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
We do have an enemy and we are involved in a spiritual battle. But don't you think if you knew when the devil was going to attack you, that it might give you a bit of an advantage? Well, over the next few devotionals I want to share with you three times that the devil is very likely to bring the battle to your front door.
We are going to find that as we look at the life of Jesus, this pattern was in His life. There were three times that the devil in particular brought the battle to His front door, as it were. And I believe we can expect spiritual battle at the same three times in our lives.
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Read: 1 Peter 4:1-6
But they will have to give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. - 1 Peter 4:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
During the Watergate scandal and trials, one of President Nixon's top aides, Charles Colson, became a Christian. When word broke, numerous reporters ridiculed Colson's conversion. Through articles and cartoons, Colson was depicted as a joke, a cover-up artist seeking a reduced sentence. Now years later, Colson continues his witness for Christ and is responsible for Prison Fellowship Ministries, one of the most successful ministries to prisoners, ex-convicts, and their families. Colson understood the ridicule and abuse today's passage warns that Christians may face (v. 4). Yet in the midst of this derisive response to our faith, Scripture calls us to stand firm in our Christian life. Peter begins our text with a reminder of Christ's suffering, and that the one "who has suffered in the body is done with sin" (v. 1). This doesn't mean that those who suffer no longer sin; rather, now that Christ has "died for our sins once for all" (2:18), the power of sin is over. We are no longer enslaved to that way of life.
Instead, Christians are called to put away "evil human desires" and live for "the will of God" (v. 2). And there's no point in wasting time about it. The life of perversion, intemperance, and idolatry should be a thing of the past (v. 3). And although the world may think our new lifestyle in Christ is a strange, even laughable thing (v. 4), our new identity means a new life.
Finally, if a reminder of the work of Christ is not enough, Peter adds that every person, believer and unbeliever, will one day give an account to the judge of "the living and the dead" (v. 5). Again, verse 6 presents interpretive difficulties, but the context of the passage suggests that the meaning is this: by human appearances, believers who have died have faced the judgment of death without vindication, but the reality is that in the eyes of God, those who responded to the good news are in fact alive. No amount of ridicule or mockery can take away the resurrection life we have in Christ.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you ever look around and wonder why the wicked seem to prosper while God's children suffer? Peter's answer to that query instructs us to take the long view: in the end, the Judge will set it all right. Faithfully serving Christ on earth can be a difficult challenge, especially when the world around us laughs and beckons us to something else. Try meditating on Psalm 73 today which wrestles honestly with these issues, but ultimately reminds us of God's constant presence and prevailing judgment in the end.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: ;) :angel:
December 18, 2009
Jehovah-Jireh
READ: Matthew 6:5-15
Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. -Matthew 6:8
In my early years as a pastor, I served in small churches where finances were often tight. Sometimes our family finances felt the weight of that pressure. On one occasion, we were down to the last of our food and payday was still several days away. While my wife and I fretted about how we would feed our kids in the next few days, our doorbell rang. When we opened the door, we discovered two bags of groceries. We had not told anyone of our plight, yet our provider God had led someone to meet that need.
This reminds me of the Old Testament account of Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. At just the right moment, God provided a ram instead. Abraham called this place Jehovah-Jireh, "The-Lord-Will-Provide" (Gen. 22:14). He is the One who still cares deeply for His children.
Jesus said, "Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matt. 6:8). He is constantly caring for and seeking the best for us-a reminder that in times of hardship, need, and fear, we have Someone who cares. Peter wrote that we can cast all our cares upon Jesus, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We can turn to Him in our time of need. - Bill Crowder
I know not by what methods rare
The Lord provides for me;
I only know that all my needs
He meets so graciously. -Adams
What God promises, God will provide.
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Where Satan Will Attack
First Yesterday we began a series of devotionals looking at when we can expect Satan to attack us. Revelation 12:1-5 provides insight into the first time he will attack,
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.
The child in this passage is the Lord Jesus Christ, the woman represents the nation of Israel, and the dragon that wanted to devour the Child as soon as He was born is our adversary the devil.
It was the devil who was behind King Herod commanding that all of the male children two years old and younger be slaughtered. It was only because Joseph was warned by God in a dream that he, Mary, and Jesus escaped from Herod's clutches.
What I want you to see here is that the battle came to Jesus as soon as He was born. And I think we should expect battle as soon as a person is born again, as soon as someone comes into God's family.
We need to be prepared to help protect and defend those who are new babes in Christ.
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Read: 1 Peter 4:7-11
The end of all things is near . . .To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. - 1 Peter 4:7, 11
TODAY IN THE WORD
A man looks into the camera and shouts, "They're coming! The end is here!" The shot then pans to the streets where space ships in the sky shoot laser beams into skyscrapers, and local citizens run screaming through the streets like madmen. Such scenes are the stuff of classic B-movie science fiction films about the invasion of outer-space aliens.
For many people, mentioning that the end is near often evokes such movie scenes, or perhaps images of disheveled crazies thrusting signs into people's faces on the streets. But this is where our passage begins today: "The end of all things is near" (v. 7). Unlike movie images of mayhem and hysteria, however, Peter explains that knowledge that the end is imminent should lead instead to clear thinking and self-control. For Christians, knowing the brevity of life should not cause panic but prayerfulness for ourselves and our world. Sometimes a serious illness or loss of a loved one can remind us of that brevity; Scripture calls us to live all of life prayerfully with that knowledge.
What does a Christian life, lived with the end in sight, look like? It's a life of service. Scripture calls us to a life of deep love for others. Rather than seeking to expose the faults of others, we should strive to cover those faults with a generous forgiveness and a welcoming hospitality (vv. 8-9). Knowing we are loved and welcomed by God, we should in turn offer love and welcome to others.
Love is more than just feelings and forgiveness; it involves tangible actions as well. Whatever gifts we've been given (and Scripture says that each of us has some gift), we are to use it to serve others. Whether speaking or serving in some other way, all of life should be an act of service that operates out of God's strength and for His glory (vv. 10-11). So while the end may be near, that knowledge should sharpen our focus on the things that matter most: honoring God by loving and serving one another.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How will you live with the "end of all things" in view and for the glory of God? How will you manifest a life of love and service to others? Try making a list of personal service commitments, and post them where you will see them regularly: on a bathroom mirror, near the kitchen sink, on the dashboard of your car. Let them be a daily reminder of the focus of our living on what matters most: to Christ be "the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen" (v. 11).
GOD BLESS!
:angel: ;) :angel:
December 19, 2009
No Cause For Alarm
READ: Ephesians 4:25-32
"Be angry, and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath. -Ephesians 4:26
The sound of the alarm blaring from inside the church struck panic in my heart. I had arrived at church early one Sunday morning, planning to spend a little time in peace and quiet before the congregation arrived. But I forgot to disarm the burglar alarm. As I turned the key, the disruptive and annoying blasting of the alarm filled the building-and no doubt the bedrooms of sleeping neighbors.
Anger is a lot like that. In the midst of our peaceful lives, something turns a key in our spirit and triggers the alarm. And our internal peace-not to mention the tranquillity of those around us-is interrupted by the disruptive force of our exploding emotions.
Sometimes anger appropriately calls our attention to an injustice that needs to be addressed, and we are spurred to righteous action. Most of the time, however, our anger is selfishly ignited by the violation of our expectations, rights, and privileges. In any case, it's important to know why the alarm is sounding and to respond in a godly way. But one thing is sure, anger was never intended to continue unchecked.
It's no wonder that Paul reminds us of the psalmist's warning: "'Be angry, and do not sin'; do not let the sun go down on your wrath" (Eph. 4:26; Ps. 4:4). - Joe Stowell
Spirit of God, please change my heart
And give me a new desire;
Help me to be a man of peace
Who's not controlled by anger's fire. -K. De Haan
Anger left unchecked is cause for alarm.
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Protecting New Believers
We have been talking about the devil's attack on newborn babes in Christ. This is something we can expect. But what are the reasons for it?
Look at Isaiah 59:15-16, as it provides us with a clue,
So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
I want you to think about that. Truth fails, and the person who departs from evil makes himself a prey, in the same way that a lion looks at a wounded gazelle as prey.
To me this is a picture of what happens to some new believers. They depart from evil (get saved) and suddenly it seems like everything is going wrong for them. And God is not pleased about it!
Where it says He "wondered " literally means He was astonished that there was no intercessor. This means that there was no one praying. That is why they became prey!
If we do not pray for those who turn from evil, then they will become the prey of the devil. We have a responsibility to intercede for people who come to Christ. It puts up a barrier of protection around them.
Paul wrote to the Colossians about this when he said, Praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ. Paul didn't just pray for them before they were saved, he also prayed for them after they were saved.
Oh, may God not wonder in our day, "Where is the intercessor who should be praying for the new babes in Christ?"
Let's take our responsibility seriously and pray for those who have newly come to the faith.
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Read: 1 Peter 4:12-19
Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering . . . But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ. - 1 Peter 4:12-13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Around the year A.D. 200, a pregnant woman named Felicity was arrested in North Africa on charges of being a Christian; she was sentenced to death in the arena. During her stay in prison, she went into labor and cried out in pain. In response one of the guards mocked: "If you complain now, what will you do when you're thrown to the beasts?" But Felicity responded: "I myself now suffer that which I suffer, but in the arena another shall be in me One who shall suffer for me, because I am to suffer for Him." This young woman certainly knew something of what Peter describes in today's passage. Suffering for being a Christian is rarely understood by those who live in a culture that demands convenience and comfort at every turn. Perhaps Peter's audience were also puzzled by the "painful trial" they were experiencing. But Peter argues that we should not be surprised at such trials (v. 12). What should our response be?
Scripture is clear in its description of Christian suffering. This is not an unusual experience, nor an indication that God has abandoned us, nor something we need to be ashamed of. Rather, suffering for the name of Christ carries the encouragement that we are "blessed" and the "Spirit of glory and of God rests" on us (v. 14). Our suffering brings us closer to our Lord and Savior who already suffered for us. For that, we can rejoice and praise God that we bear His name, knowing that our "faithful Creator" has not forgotten us (vv. 13, 16, 19).
In addition to the individual blessing that comes with suffering for Christ, Scripture also issues a warning for the church in general. As Peter says, judgment "begins with the family of God." Sometimes trials can winnow and refine Christ's church, weeding out those who do not "obey the gospel" (vv. 17-18). Like a refining fire, suffering reveals those who are truly committed to our faithful God.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In the last two thousand years, scholars estimate that 70 million Christians have died for Christ. Of these, 45 million (65 percent) were in the last century! The experience of worldwide Christian suffering is a reality. You may feel like you don't face extreme suffering in your own life, but thousands of Christians around the world do. Will you pray for them today, asking God to give them strength to stand, and the encouragement of knowing that in suffering for Christ, their union with Him is brought ever closer?
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 20, 2009
Make A Joyful Shout
READ: Psalm 100
Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! -Psalm 100:1Duke University's basketball fans are known as "Cameron Crazies." When Duke plays archrival North Carolina, the Crazies are given these instructions: "This is the game you've been waiting for. No excuses. Give everything you've got. Cameron [Stadium] should never be less than painfully loud tonight." Clearly, Duke fans take allegiance seriously.
The songwriter of Psalm 100 took his allegiance to the Lord seriously and wanted others to do the same. "Make a joyful shout to the Lord!" he exclaimed (v.1). His people were to freely express their praise to Him because He was the covenant God of Israel, the God over all other so-called gods. They were called to focus all their energies on Him and His goodness.
God's goodness and grace should motivate us to freely express our love and allegiance to Him with shouts of joy. This may mean that those who are more reserved must push back the boundaries of restraint and learn what it means to be expressive in their praise to God. Those who are so expressive that they miss the beauty of silence may need to learn from those whose style is more reflective.
Worship is a time to focus on our Creator, Redeemer, and Shepherd, and celebrate what He has done. - Marvin Williams
Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing
Power and majesty, praise to the King;
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name. -Zschech
Our thoughts about God should lead us to joyful praise.
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Read: 1 Peter 4:7-11
The end of all things is near . . .To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. - 1 Peter 4:7, 11
TODAY IN THE WORD
A man looks into the camera and shouts, "They're coming! The end is here!" The shot then pans to the streets where space ships in the sky shoot laser beams into skyscrapers, and local citizens run screaming through the streets like madmen. Such scenes are the stuff of classic B-movie science fiction films about the invasion of outer-space aliens. For many people, mentioning that the end is near often evokes such movie scenes, or perhaps images of disheveled crazies thrusting signs into people's faces on the streets. But this is where our passage begins today: "The end of all things is near" (v. 7). Unlike movie images of mayhem and hysteria, however, Peter explains that knowledge that the end is imminent should lead instead to clear thinking and self-control. For Christians, knowing the brevity of life should not cause panic but prayerfulness for ourselves and our world. Sometimes a serious illness or loss of a loved one can remind us of that brevity; Scripture calls us to live all of life prayerfully with that knowledge.
What does a Christian life, lived with the end in sight, look like? It's a life of service. Scripture calls us to a life of deep love for others. Rather than seeking to expose the faults of others, we should strive to cover those faults with a generous forgiveness and a welcoming hospitality (vv. 8-9). Knowing we are loved and welcomed by God, we should in turn offer love and welcome to others.
Love is more than just feelings and forgiveness; it involves tangible actions as well. Whatever gifts we've been given (and Scripture says that each of us has some gift), we are to use it to serve others. Whether speaking or serving in some other way, all of life should be an act of service that operates out of God's strength and for His glory (vv. 10-11). So while the end may be near, that knowledge should sharpen our focus on the things that matter most: honoring God by loving and serving one another.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How will you live with the "end of all things" in view and for the glory of God? How will you manifest a life of love and service to others? Try making a list of personal service commitments, and post them where you will see them regularly: on a bathroom mirror, near the kitchen sink, on the dashboard of your car. Let them be a daily reminder of the focus of our living on what matters most: to Christ be "the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen" (v. 11).
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 21, 2009
God Alone
READ: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
On May 29, 1953, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, became the first people to reach the peak of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Since Tenzing did not know how to use the camera, Edmund took a photo of Tenzing as evidence that they did reach the top.
Later, journalists repeatedly asked who had reached the summit first. The expedition leader, John Hunt, replied, "They reached it together, as a team." They were united by a common goal, and neither was concerned who should get the greater credit.
It is counterproductive to try to determine who deserves the most credit when something is done well. The church at Corinth was split into two factions-those who followed Paul, and those who followed Apollos. The apostle Paul told them, "I planted, Apollos watered . . . . Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters" (1 Cor. 3:7). He reminded them that they were "God's fellow workers" (v.9), and it is God who gives the increase in ministry (v.7).
Our concern about who deserves the credit serves only to take away the honor and glory that belong to the Lord Jesus alone. - C. P. Hia
Let others have the honors,
The glory, and the fame;
I seek to follow Jesus
And glory in His name. -Horton
Jesus must increase; I must decrease.
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Read: 1 Peter 5:5-7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. - 1 Peter 5:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
A famous bumper sticker, begun in the 1970s, quips: "Question Authority." Often attributed to Timothy Leary, one of the leaders of American counter-culture, this slogan of skepticism and suspicion of all forms of authority has permeated contemporary culture, including the church. In many denominations today, the spiritual authority of the Bible and the Christian tradition have consistently been undermined by an aggressive assertion of individualism. No one has a right to tell anyone what to believe or how to act. Today's passage challenges this call to "question authority," with an exhortation to submission and humility. Yet, as we saw in yesterday's reading, the authority that we are called to submit to is not authoritarian or tyrannical leadership, but a leadership of love, care, and humility. In the face of this kind of leadership Peter calls on "young men" and "all of you" alike to "clothe yourselves with humility toward one another" (v. 5). Why?
Earlier in our study of 1 Peter, we've been given the example of Christ as the ground and foundation of Christian humility. Today we are offered an additional reason: our attitude of humility or pride does something to our relationship with God Himself. God "opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (v. 5, quoting Prov. 3:34). Humility before our leaders and one another, says Scripture, expresses our humility "under God's mighty hand" (v. 6). So while our humility toward one another may place us in lower positions, in the end, God honors that Christ-like attitude by lifting us up (v. 6). And that God-given exaltation, rather than our self-exaltation, will be much more valuable.
Finally, our text teaches us that Christian humility enables you to "cast all your anxiety on Him" (v. 7). The proud person refuses help from anyone else. The humble person is able to seek help from another. The humility that Peter calls for here allows us to come to God with all our cares and worries in life, and to entrust them to Him, confident in His care.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage begins by urging an attitude of humility among all Christians, but ends by reminding us that such humility carries over into our relationship with God. Only the humble person can truly bring cares to God in full confidence. Do you have concerns or anxieties that you are not bringing to God but trying to "solve" by your own power? Perhaps you can find time today to list such concerns on paper, and then entrust them to God, resting in the assurance that He truly cares for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: ;) :angel:
December 22, 2009
The Star Shepherd
READ: Isaiah 40:25-27
Some night when you're away from city lights, "lift up your eyes on high" (Isa. 40:26). There in the heavens you'll see a luminous band of stars stretching from horizon to horizon-our galaxy.
If you have good eyes, you can see about 5,000 stars, according to astronomer Simon Driver. There are, however, far more that you cannot see with the naked eye. In 1995, the Hubble Deep Field Study space probe concluded that there are billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars. By one estimate, there are more than 10 stars in the universe for every grain of sand on the earth.
Yet each night, without fail, God "brings out their host by number; . . . by the greatness of His might . . . ; not one is missing" (v.26).
Why then do people say, "My way is hidden from the Lord"? (v.27). Yes, billions of individuals inhabit this globe, but no one has been forgotten by God. He knows "those who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). If He can bring out the incalculable hosts of heaven each night one by one, He can bring you into His light. He does so by "the strength of His power" (v.26)-the power He showed when He raised Jesus from the dead.
Are the stars out tonight? Rejoice! God cares for you. - David H. Roper
The God who made the firmament,
Who made the deepest sea,
The God who put the stars in place
Is the God who cares for me. -Berg
We see the power of God's creation; we feel the power of His love.
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Attack at the Point of Spiritual Breakthrough
We have seen in previous devotionals how Satan will attack when a person comes to Christ, when they are a babe in their faith. I believe Scripture shows us that the devil will also attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough, or at a time of important transition. This is the second battle we must fight.
In Matthew 3, we find Jesus at an absolutely critical time of transition in His life. We have not heard from Him since He was 12 years old. There has been about 30 quiet, unnoticed years where He presumably was working in His father's carpentry shop.
That is when we read in Matthew 3:16-4:1,
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus is about to enter public ministry. The sick will be healed; the poor will have the gospel preached to them; miracles will be worked; the Father will be revealed. So from this point, the battle is on. And we are given a bird's-eye view of the conflict that occurs between Christ and the devil, which we will look at in more detail in the next several devotionals.
But I want to submit something to you today. If it seems that all hell has broken loose in your life, maybe, just maybe, it's because you are on the verge of a breakthrough in your life.
Maybe it's a time of very important transition where God wants to lift you into a place where there is going to be greater influence and greater impact through your life.
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Read: 1 Peter 5:8-11
And the God of all grace . . . will himself restore you and make you strong. - 1 Peter 5:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
In her book on suffering, Affliction, Edith Schaeffer proposes thinking of our response to suffering as a way to participate in God's victory over the Devil. When we respond to suffering by cursing or blaming God, we add to a larger spiritual tapestry that Satan delights in. However, when we respond to suffering with faith and trust in our loving God, we participate in a victorious tapestry of Satan's defeat. Schaeffer suggests that from an earthly perspective, our suffering may not make sense, but from a heavenly one, God can make it into something beautiful and glorious. Schaeffer's tapestry illustration fits well with today's exhortation about standing firm in the face of suffering. Scripture tells us that vigilance is needed for the Christian life; much is at stake, not only the physical suffering we may endure, but spiritual danger as well. Peter says, "Your enemy the devil prowls around . . . looking for someone to devour" (v. 8). In other words, the trial of suffering brings not only the challenge of facing physical or social pain, but also the danger of letting suffering turn you from God Himself. Nothing would please the Devil more than to have Christians curse God in their suffering.
With that in mind, then, Peter urges us: "Resist him, standing firm in the faith" (v. 9). How do we do that? Scripture offers two suggestions. First, remember that you are not alone. Your experience of suffering for Christ is not unique. Rather, you are part of a large family that suffers as well, and that prays for you in your time of need (v. 9).
Second, God Himself will support you. He is the "God of all grace;" He has "called you to His eternal glory," and He Himself "will restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast" (v. 10a). The world may seem to have all the power, but in the end, it is God who has "the power for ever and ever. Amen" (v. 10b). Rest in that assurance.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you know someone who needs to hear these words today. In addition to comforting them over their physical or social pain, use today's reading to encourage them about the spiritual reality of suffering. Remind them that our suffering carries spiritual implications, either bringing pleasure to the Devil who delights to devour us, or bringing God glory and honor. Finally, remind this loved one that the "God of all grace" will never abandon us, but will make us strong and one day bring us to His eternal glory.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :) :angel:
December 23, 2009
Can You Spare A Dime?
READ:2 Corinthians 9:6-15
He who has mercy on the poor, happy is he. -Proverbs 14:21
In her insightful book The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes provides fascinating stories about what life was like during the Great Depression in the US. At the center of that economic drama was "the forgotten man," a term used for the countless individuals who were thrown out of work.
A popular Depression-era song poignantly expresses their story:
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
As the lyrics remind us, an economic downturn changes everything for hard-working people who lose their jobs. When that happens, we as Christians should do what we can for people in need.
In Galatians 2, Paul and Barnabas were reminded to evangelize and to "remember the poor" (v.10). We can see that Paul did just that-preaching the gospel and encouraging financial aid to those in need (Acts 11:29-30; 1 Cor. 16:1-3).
During tough economic times, we too should help people in need-spiritually and physically. A dime doesn't go far these days, but a generous attitude does. - Dennis Fisher
The poor and needy everywhere
Are objects of God's love and care,
But they will always know despair
Unless His love with them we share. -D. De Haan
Good exercise for the heart is to bend down and help another person up.
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The Devil's Seeds of Doubt
As we saw yesterday, Satan will seek to attack when we are on the verge of a major breakthrough. I believe there are three distinct areas of attack in this battle. Today I want to cover the first with you. It is found in Matthew 4:3-4,
Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
The devil's first area of attack will be to try to get you to doubt your calling.
Notice that just prior to this encounter the voice of God the Father said to Jesus, "This is My beloved Son!" And that is the first thing the devil challenges, "Well, if youare the Son of God...."
He will do the same thing to you.
What is it that God has spoken to you about that He wants you to do with your life? Has He told you that He wants to use you to funnel vast resources into the gospel? Or maybe God said you are to be a teacher, or that you are going to impact the entertainment industry, or that you are going to be a prayer warrior and tip the spiritual scales in critical times.
Whatever it is, the devil will saddle up next to you and say, "Who do you think you are? What God has told you is just a pipe dream. It's just your own head speaking to you." He will try and get you to doubt what God has said to you and to doubt what God has called you to do.
When that happens, you need to go back to that word that God has spoken to you in order to keep your focus and direction right.
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Read: 1 Peter 5:12-14
I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. - 1 Peter 5:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Because of the quality of ink, pens, and parchment in the ancient world, letter writing was no easy task. Even the highly educated often required the help of an amanuensis, or secretary, in drafting an epistle. If an amanuensis was used, it was not uncommon for the "sender" to attach a brief greeting at the end of the letter in his or her own hand. Letter writing was not a solitary affair, but often involved several people working together. When we come to the end of 1 Peter, we likely have an example of this joint effort for letter writing in antiquity. Peter tells us that "with the help of Silas . . . I have written to you briefly" (v. 12a). Not only did Silas help to pen the letter, many commentators also think that he was probably the letter-bearer to the churches in Asia Minor. In other words, without the help of his "faithful brother" Silas, Peter could not carry out his ministry and care for the churches. Such a picture of joint effort is an apt portrait of the communal life in Christ depicted in the final words of 1 Peter.
This care for the broader church community is expressed again in Peter's explanation for his writing: to encourage them and to testify that "this is the true grace of God" (v. 12b). In the painful trials this community faced, Peter sends a word of hope, encouraging them to "stand fast" in the faith (v. 12c).
Christ's church, though separated by miles, can still encourage one another. Writing all the way from Rome (the typical referent behind "Babylon" in v. 13), Peter reminds his audience that they stand together, both being chosen by God. Peter also reminds them that the Christians in Rome have not forgotten their brothers and sisters across the Mediterranean, but wish them Christ's peace. In turn, Peter exhorts his audience to extend the same kind of encouragement and love to one another with the "kiss of love" (v. 14). What a picture of the unity of Christ's church!
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
With the fast-paced world of cell phones, e-mails and text messaging, the age-old activity of letter writing has fallen out of fashion. Yet who of us doesn't delight to receive in the mail a hand-written letter from a dear friend? Find time this week to sit down and hand-write a letter to a friend, family member, or church leader and let them know that you are thinking of them. Express your love and care for them, encouraging them to "stand fast" in the "true grace of God."
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 24, 2009
God's Special Place
READ: Luke 2:1-7
[Mary] brought forth her firstborn Son, . . . and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. -Luke 2:7
As a young girl in the late 1920s, Grace Ditmanson Adams often traveled with her missionary parents through inland China. Later, she wrote about those trips and the crowded places where they stayed overnight-village inns full of people coughing, sneezing, and smoking, while babies cried and children complained. Her family put their bedrolls on board-covered trestles in a large room with everyone else.
One snowy night, they arrived at an inn to find it packed full. The innkeeper expressed his regret, then paused and said, "Follow me." He led them to a side room used to store straw and farm equipment. There they slept in a quiet place of their own.
After that, whenever Grace read that Mary "brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7), she saw the event differently. While some described the innkeeper as an example of uncaring, sinful mankind who rejected the Savior, Grace said, "I truly believe that Almighty God used the innkeeper as the arranger for a healthier place than the crowded inn-a place of privacy."
Through eyes of faith, we see God's provision for Mary. Look for the ways He provides for you. - David C. McCasland
Wait on the Lord from day to day,
Strength He provides in His own way;
There's no need for worry, no need to fear,
He is our God who is always near. -Fortna
Those who let God provide will be satisfied.
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Where Satan Will Attack Second
Yesterday we saw the first area the devil will attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough or in a time of important transition. Today, I want to show you the second area, the area of pride.
We pick up the drama of Satan's attack of Christ in Matthew 4:6,
"If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"
I believe the devil was appealing to Jesus' pride at this point. He realized Jesus was solid in His own heart about who He was and what He was to do.
So the devil took Him to the most public of all places, and told Him, "Now, hey, You need to prove this to everybody else. If You cast Yourself down, You will have a soft landing because the angels will catch You, and everyone will know that You're the Son of God."
Pride will cause us to do things recklessly, and Satan was doing all he could to get Jesus to act recklessly. But Jesus answered perfectly, "You shall not tempt the LORD your God."
By the way, the verse Satan quoted to Jesus about the angels catching Him had an ending, which he failed to include. It says, "To keep you in all your ways." The Amplified Bible says, "In all your ways of obedience and service."
In other words, you can't do some reckless thing to prove a point to other people and expect God to save you. Don't let your pride get you out on a limb. Instead, resist Satan's attack in the area of pride. Realize it for what it is; it's his temptation to get you to fall!
If you are secure in who you are, you don't have to prove anything to anyone.
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Read: 2 Peter 1:1-4
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. - 2 Peter 3:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
A study done at one renowned evangelical college in America discovered a problem. Many otherwise bright students, with deep personal commitments to Christ, displayed an appalling lack of biblical knowledge. For example, when asked to put biblical books in the right order, or whether the apostle Paul believed in the resurrection of the body, most students could not answer correctly! One commentator on this study concluded that these students loved Jesus, but had never become familiar with the basic tenets of the Christian faith. In other words, their knowledge was only half complete. As we turn to the book of 2 Peter, we find that the topic of "knowledge" is especially important, and it stands central to today's reading. After the opening introductions, Peter wishes his readers blessing "through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord" (v. 2). In the very next verse, Peter declares that we are completely equipped for the Christian life "through our knowledge of him who called us" (v. 3).
Knowledge of our God brings the abundant blessing of grace and peace, His equipping power in our lives, His "very great and precious promises," and the ability to "participate in the divine nature" and "escape the corruption in the world" (v. 4b). These last two items describe the spiritual blessing that comes with knowledge of God; our very lives can now reflect the character of God rather than the character of the world's "evil desires."
The Bible often uses the term knowledge to speak of an intimate relationship with another, and this is certainly part of what Peter has in mind as he describes our participation in God's life. But biblical knowledge also includes intellectual understanding, and this notion of knowledge will be central in the rest of Peter's letter as he warns against a variety of false teaching. The Christian faith is more than a warming of the heart; it's also a transforming of the mind. Look for this theme in the days to come.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Which kind of "knowledge" of Christ do you need to grow in: your intimate participation in the godly life He calls you to, or your understanding of the faith you've received from Him? If the first, recommit to a life of prayer and godly integrity today. If the second, perhaps you can find a local Bible study, Sunday school class, or online Bible course that will help you grow in your understanding of the Christian faith. Either way, ask God to use the remainder of this month's study to help you grow in knowledge of Him.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: ;) :angel:
December 25, 2009
Mary's Christmas
READ: Luke 1:26-33; 2:4-7
Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. -Luke 2:19
It was anything but an idyllic, silent night on that cool Bethlehem evening when a scared teenager gave birth to the King of kings. Mary endured the pain of her baby's arrival without the aid of anything more than the carpentry-roughened hands of Joseph, her betrothed. Shepherds may have been serenaded in nearby fields by angels singing praises to the Baby, but all Mary and Joseph heard were the sounds of animals, birth agony, and the first cries of God in baby form. A high-magnitude star shone in the night sky above the outbuilding, but the manger scene was a dreary place for these two out-of-town visitors.
As Joseph laid the infant in Mary's arms, a combination of wonder, pain, fear, and joy must have coursed through her heart. She knew, because of an angel's promise, that this tiny bundle was "the Son of the Highest" (Luke 1:32). As she peered through the semidarkness into His eyes and then into Joseph's, she must have wondered how she was going to mother this One whose kingdom would never end.
Mary had much to ponder in her heart on that special night. Now, over 2,000 years later, each of us needs to consider the importance of Jesus' birth and His subsequent death, resurrection, and promise to return. - Dave Branon
Almighty God became a man
By lowly, humble birth;
And Mary treasured in her heart
This Gift of boundless worth. -Sper
God came to live with us so that we could live with Him.
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Compromise
Today, I want to highlight for you the third area where the devil will seek to cause you to fail when you are on the verge of a breakthrough. It is found in Matthew 4:8-11,
Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'" Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
If you think about it, the devil offered Jesus exactly what He had come to this world to obtain. Jesus came to win the kingdoms of this world to our God.
And the devil is saying, "Hey, You can take a shortcut. I will give You what You want. You don't have to do it God's way. You may have to compromise Your integrity, but think of how quickly You will succeed! You can even avoid the whole sacrifice thing! You don't have to do it God's way."
Listen, anytime God has set a goal for you, and you are going to obtain something, the devil will always come and try to get you to compromise and offer you substitutes.
He will tempt you by saying things like, "You can get what you want without living by all those narrow, restrictive rules that God puts on people's lives. You can be dishonest; you can be unfaithful; you can compromise; and you can still be blessed, and you can still be happy."
Do not believe him for a moment. His way of compromise leads only to ruin!
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Read: 2 Peter 1:5-11
Be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. - 2 Peter 1:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Today is Christmas. And amidst all the presents, decorations, food, and family visits, Christmas marks the Christian celebration of the day when the God who became flesh was born into our world. It's one of the amazing paradoxes of the Christian faith: that the baby born to Mary was both fully human and fully divine. We may not understand how it can be, but we affirm its truthfulness as necessary to God's act of redemption. Today's passage has an equally important paradox of the Christian faith: that Christian living requires both the work of God in us, and great effort on our part. Yesterday's reading emphasized the divine power equipping us for "everything we need for life and godliness" (v. 3); today's passage emphasizes our need to "make every effort" (v. 5) and to "be all the more eager" (v. 10) to live the Christian life. We need both truths: God is at work in us, and we are responsible to be earnest in our Christian living.
According to Scripture, the Christian life is an active life of growth, not an idle existence of spiritual complacency. Peter begins by urging our efforts toward an impressive list of virtues: "faith," "goodness," "knowledge," "self-control," "perseverance," "godliness," "brotherly kindness," and "love" (vv. 5-7). Not only are these qualities important in the Christian life, they must be found "in increasing measure" (v. 8). Only with such growth, says Scripture, can we avoid an "ineffective and unproductive" Christian life (v. 8). On the flip side, the one who lacks such qualities "has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sin" (v. 9).
There is no middle ground for the Christian, no neutral stance. Either one is growing in godly virtue, thereby making your "calling and election sure" (v. 10) and moving toward a "rich welcome" in Christ's kingdom (v. 11), or one is living in contradiction to our reality in Christ and in danger of "falling" (v. 10). A stagnant Christian is not motionless; by not moving forward in Christian growth, he or she is falling behind, moving in the wrong direction.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
For some, today's reading may hit close to home. But remember that the biblical call to work hard at the Christian life can never be divorced from the work that God does as well. So as you celebrate today the birth of the God-man Jesus, recall first that God's work of redemption in Christ enables you to live for Him. And second, that you need to respond to that enabling power with your own effort. What specific and practical things will you begin doing to start your Christian growth today?
GOD BLESS!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
:angel: :D :angel:
December 26, 2009
The Hope That Banishes Hopelessness
READ: Philippians 2:5-11
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. -Galatians 6:14
When atheistic communism was a world-menacing power, it proclaimed that there is no God and that faith in any future life is a deceptive illusion. Leonid Brezhnev had been the Soviet dictator, the embodiment of Marxist unbelief. But something happened at his funeral that contradicted atheism. George H. W. Bush, then vice president of the US, was the country's official representative at the solemn, formal ceremony.
He reported that while the casket was still open, Brezhnev's widow stared motionless at her husband's body. And just before the soldiers were about to close the lid, she reached inside and made the sign of the cross over his chest. What a desperate and significant gesture! That widow evidently hoped that what her husband had vehemently denied might somehow be true.
Thankfully, we can have hope beyond this earthly life! All we need to do is embrace by faith the saving message of the cross: Jesus died for our sins and rose again so that we might live eternally with Him. Do you believe? Then join with the apostle Paul in affirming that "we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe" (1 Tim. 4:10). - Vernon C. Grounds
The cross is my hope for eternity-
No merit have I of my own;
The shed blood of Christ my only plea-
My trust is in Jesus alone. -Christiansen
Calvary's cross is the only bridge to eternal life.
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Sacrifice?
Matthew 16:21-25 shows us another time in our lives when we can expect the devil to strike, or the third battle we must fight,
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."
The cross is a place of sacrifice. It is a place where you die. In this passage Jesus is talking about the sacrifice that He is going to give, laying down His life for our sins.
Peter is being manipulated by the devil to challenge Jesus. The devil is speaking through Peter, telling Christ to back off a bit, that He doesn't need to sacrifice, that He doesn't need to give that much, or to lay His life down.
Friend, when God is leading you to sacrifice for the sake of His kingdom, count on the devil to be right there doing all He can to stop you. He will make you believe you should let your temperature cool down a little bit, that you shouldn't be so on fire for God. That you shouldn't be that sold out!
Do not listen. Instead, heed God's call to sacrifice. You will not regret it!
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Read: 2 Peter 1:12-18
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about . . . our Lord Jesus Christ. - 2 Peter 1:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
John Ramsay ministered among slaves in the Caribbean islands, where he witnessed the horrific treatment they endured. Ramsay later returned to England and penned an important treatise against the slave trade. By persuading the bishop of London, the Prime Minister, and politicians such as William Wilberforce, John Ramsay is said to have influenced the abolition of slavery in Britain more than anyone else. Ramsay's personal experience with slaves left a lasting impression that motivated him to life-long action. In today's reading, we discover that Peter also witnessed an event that left an equally lasting impression: the Transfiguration of Christ. In that mountain-top experience, Peter witnessed the revelation of Jesus' glory and majesty before his eyes. He may have been at a loss for words in the moment (cf. Mark 9:6), but it made a lasting impression that motivated him to life-long action.
From today's reading we see that Peter never forgot what he saw. He still remembered the words spoken from the "Majestic Glory" about Jesus (v. 17-18; cf. Matt. 17:5). And look at the barrage of language Peter uses to describe that event. He speaks of Jesus' "power," His "majesty," His "honor," and His "glory" (vv. 16-17). It's almost as if Peter can't find the words to describe what he saw, but it's clear that what he witnessed was incredible and life-changing.
So life-changing, in fact, that Peter had become a life-long witness of Jesus. And it doesn't matter if his audience had already heard it before; Peter will "always remind you of these things" (v. 12). He wanted to "refresh your memory" as long as he lived (v. 13). Peter wanted to ensure that they "will always be able to remember these things," even after he died (v. 15). Why is this so important? Because it's true! Christ's glory and majesty aren't "invented stories" (v. 16). Peter was there to see and hear it, and it's so important that he wanted to make sure others know it too.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you're not familiar with the Transfiguration story, take time to read it today (Matthew 17; Mark 9; or Luke 9). Consider Peter's response at the time of the event, and his words in today's passage. Has the glory and wonder of Christ captured your whole being the way it has Peter? Are you compelled to tell others of Christ's glory and power over and over again? Pray that God would capture your heart with such a strong impression of Him that you are motivated to life-long love and service.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 27, 2009
Good Riddance!
READ: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
My grace is sufficient for you. -2 Corinthians 12:9
A shredder ate hundreds of pieces of paper and other items in New York City on December 28 last year. Organizers of the second annual "Good Riddance Day" encouraged people to bring to Times Square their bad memories and suffering of 2008 and feed them into the industrial-strength shredder or toss them into an extra-large dumpster.
Some participants shredded pieces of paper with the words "the stock market" or "cancer." Others destroyed bank statements, and one person shredded a printed e-mail from a boyfriend who broke up with her.
We long to "shred" memories of bad things that others have done to us or difficult circumstances we're going through. The apostle Paul wanted relief from his present suffering, an infirmity that made him feel weak (2 Cor. 12:7-10). But God said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." God didn't take away the problem. Instead, He gave Paul the grace to live with it.
Difficulties burden us as we mull them over in our minds, affecting our relationships and our outlook on life. We as believers in Christ have a place to take these burdens. First Peter 5:7 tells us, "[Cast] all your care upon [the Lord], for He cares for you." - Anne Cetas
Whenever life's burdens oppress you
And trials seem too much to face,
Remember God's strength in your weakness;
He'll give you His power and grace. -Sper
God gives enough grace for whatever we face.
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The Impact of Sacrifice
Yesterday we saw how Jesus calls us to sacrifice, and how the devil will do all he can to keep us from that. Read again Jesus' words,
"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 16:24-25).
The devil will fight to keep you from sacrifice because he knows several things.
1. He understands that sacrifice brings the presence of God. Throughout the Old and New Testaments you will find that whenever men and women sacrificed, God's presence came. The devil doesn't want more of the presence of God in your life. He would love for you to live a mediocre, half-hearted life. But to follow Jesus means self-denial. When Jesus leads you to sacrifice, it will always bring a greater measure of His life and His presence into your life. And the devil understands that.
2. He understands that sacrifice opens a great channel of blessing that otherwise we will not experience. Paul wrote to the Philippians, "I've received your gift. It is a sacrifice, a sweet-smelling aroma to God, and my God will supply all of your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." That promise of needs being met according to a heavenly standard was directly linked to sacrificial giving.
3. He understands that those who have changed the world were always men and women who sacrificed. You will not find anyone who has changed the world for good that has not been a person of great sacrifice. The devil knows that is true!
Don't let Satan keep you from the sacrifice God is calling you to make.
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Read:2 Peter 1:19-21
Prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. - 2 Peter 1:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
Every year polls are conducted to determine American confidence in the economy, health care, politicians (including the President), the military, and even "religion." A running Gallup poll from 2005 through 2009, for example, has shown a downward trend in American belief that religion is able to solve life's problems. This poll concluded that American confidence in religion was on the demise. We may find many of these polls insignificant, or even inaccurate, but they do point to important questions: Whom do we really trust? What gives us confidence? Today's reading highlights something we can all find confidence in: God's Word. Yesterday, Peter emphasized the apostles' testimony about Christ; today, he underscores the prophetic testimony of Christ which was "made more certain" (v. 19). The apostolic witness and God's Word go hand-in-hand to establish a sure and confident witness to God's redemption in Christ. As Peter says, we would "do well to pay attention to it" (v. 19)! Why?
First, Scripture declares that God's prophetic word is like a "light shining in a dark place" (v. 19). As we await the "day" (a typical biblical reference to Christ's return), confusion and darkness fills our world. But Peter reminds us that we can have confidence in God's Word to lead us. In particular, Peter may be thinking of the years to come when the eyewitnesses of Christ's glory will be gone (see v. 15). Even so, we will still have the witness of God's Word.
Second, we can have confidence in God's prophetic word because of its divine character and quality. No prophecy is merely human interpretation (v. 20); rather, these men "spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (v. 21). For example, God declared about Jeremiah: "I have put my words in your mouth" (Jer. 1:9). God may have used human instruments (including their various personalities), but His word through them is still His word. Confidence in our God means we can be confident in His word as well.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Psalm 119:105 reflects well the message of today's passage: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." See if you can find Fanny Crosby's hymn, "Thy Word Is a Lamp," online or in a hymnbook. The refrain, which captures so well the sentiments of today's passage that God's trustworthy Word lights our way, is worth memorizing: "O wonderful, wonderful Word, / My treasure, my hope, and my stay; / Each promise recorded delights my soul, / And brightens each step of my way."
GOD BLESS
:angel:
December 28, 2009
Power To Persevere
READ: James 5:1-11
You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord-that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. -James 5:11
Professional golfer Paula Creamer had worked all year long to earn a berth in the 2008 ADT Championship, the year's final tournament on the LPGA tour. When the event began, however, Creamer was suffering from peritonitis, a painful inflammation of the abdominal wall. Throughout the four days of the tournament, she was in constant pain and unable to eat. She even spent a night in the hospital because of the condition. Still, she persevered to the end and, amazingly, she finished third. Her determination earned her many new fans.
The challenges and crises of life can tax us to the very end of our strength, and in such times it is easy to want to give up. But James offers followers of Christ another perspective. He says that while life is a battle, it is also a blessing: "Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord-that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful" (James 5:11).
In Job's example, we find encouragement and the power to persevere in life's darkest hours-power rooted in God, who is compassionate and merciful. Even when life is painful and hard, we can persevere because God is there. His mercy endures forever (Ps. 136). - Bill Crowder
I searched with all my heart to know
If God was really there;
He graciously revealed Himself,
His mercy, love, and care. -Cetas
God provides the power we need to persevere.
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Samson and Jesus-Part 1
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS... And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:31 & 35).
There are some striking similarities between Samson the Nazarite and Jesus the Nazarine. Here are a few of them.
· Both the birth of Samson and the birth of Christ were announced through angelic messengers.
· Samson's father said, "Let your words come to pass." Mary, the mother of Jesus, said, "Let it be unto me according to your word."
· Samson was born to deliver the Israelites who were in bondage to and oppressed by the Philistines. Jesus was born to deliver the world that was in bondage to and oppressed by Satan.
· The Spirit moved upon Samson. The Spirit descended upon and anointed Jesus.
· Samson was a thorn in the Philistines' side, going about destroying their yoke over Israel.
Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil and thereby destroying Satan's yoke of bondage.
· Samson's own people rejected him and turned him over to the Philistines. Jesus' own people (the Jews) rejected Him and turned Him over to the Romans.
These similarities between Samson and Jesus are not coincidental. Samson's story is meant to point the way to Jesus. God wants people to know about the blessed Savior. You can point the way to Him as well. Tell someone today about Jesus!
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Read: 2 Peter 2:1-12
There were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. - 2 Peter 2:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
The health of a tree faces two significant dangers. On the one hand, a tree can be severely damaged from external forces: wind, hail, lightning, and ice can all injure or kill a growing tree. On the other hand, a tree that looks perfectly healthy from the outside may in fact be dead or dying on the inside from a festering disease in its roots or trunk. A good gardener will be cautious and proactive about both dangers. In this month's study, we have seen much pastoral wisdom and encouragement about the external dangers the Christian community faces in trials and sufferings. In today's study, Peter turns his attention to the internal danger: false teachers. Just as the people of God in the past had their false prophets, so should the Christian community beware of false teachers (v. 1). Peter spends some time detailing their characteristics.
First, their teaching is false. They introduce "destructive heresies" (v. 1), proclaim invented stories, and even speak of things they do not understand. In essence, they reject God and His redemption offered in Christ. Second, their conduct is false. Their ways are "shameful" (v. 2),and instead of living in godly obedience, they "follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature" (v. 10). Third, their motives and attitudes are false. They are motivated by greed, "despise authority" (v. 10), and carry an attitude of arrogance. We don't get much specificity about the identity of these particular teachers, but one thing is clear: everything about them mars the gospel message.
Peter also wants his audience to be confident about the final outcome: "condemnation" and "destruction" (vv. 3, 12). Peter gives a series of biblical examples where disobedience finally met its judgment: fallen angels, Noah's flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Conversely, Peter reminds us of Lot as an example of God's rescue of the righteous. It may appear that the false teachers and disobedience prevail, but in the end, God will set it right.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's message calls us to a two-fold response. First, given Scripture's seriousness about false teaching in the church, we pray for our church leaders. Pray today that they would stand firm for the truth of Christ and avoid false teaching. Second, Scripture encourages those who may find themselves in churches (or denominations) into which false teaching has infiltrated. Scripture urges these people to stand firm, confident that all-seeing God will one day set it right, judging the disobedient and rescuing the righteous.
GOD BLESS!
.
December 29, 2009
In Which Realm Do You Live?
READ: Romans 8:1-10 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. -Romans 8:2
I was working with a petroleum company in Singapore when an inspector from another country visited. He came to check on a cargo of oil destined for his country, which was at war. When he heard the shriek of fighter planes overhead, he instinctively ran for cover. Embarrassed, he explained, "Sorry, I thought I was back home." He did what he would have done had he been in his war-torn country.
For the Christian, it's easy to dive back into old ways of sin out of sheer habit because of the many temptations in this world. Even though we are "in Christ Jesus" as Romans 8:1 says, we sometimes live as if we are "in sin."
God paid a very heavy price to take us out of the realm of sin. He did so by "sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering" (v.3 niv). We are now to be governed by "the law of the Spirit of life," not by "the law of sin and death" (v.2). The apostle Paul urges us to "set" our mind according to "the things of the Spirit" (v.5). This means that we take our direction from God's Word as guided by His Spirit.
When you're tempted to dive back into old sinful ways, will you instead allow the Holy Spirit who resides in you to help you live more consistently with your standing "in Christ"? - C. P. Hia
Born of the flesh, conceived in sin,
Then born of the Spirit, new life to begin;
I've been washed in Christ's blood and this will suffice,
Praise God I'm His child, I've been born twice! -Brandt
When you are born again, you become a citizen of heaven.
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Samson and Jesus-Part 2
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS (Luke 1:31).
In yesterday's devotional we examined some amazing similarities between Samson and Jesus.
Here are a few more parallels to ponder:
· Samson was betrayed by Delilah. Jesus was betrayed by Judas.
· Samson was taken prisoner and tortured by the Philistines. Jesus was taken prisoner and tortured by the Romans.
· Samson, while being mocked in Dagon's temple, wrought his greatest victory and gave the Philistines their worst defeat-the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life. Jesus, while being mocked on the cross by his persecutors, wrought His greatest victory and handed hell its ultimate defeat. And He did it through His death.
It is said that Samson "began to deliver Israel," indicating that his work was to be carried on by others. Jesus has left the work of evangelism to us. Though He paid the price, we are to carry the good news of His victory to the ends of the earth.
As you think about these similarities, I want you to especially consider the last one I presented. Once we receive the gospel, we are then to be carriers of the gospel. Tell someone about Jesus and what He has done for them-today!
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Read: 2 Peter 2:13-22
Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." - 2 Peter 2:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
We all have pet peeves, minor annoyances at people who drive poorly, mispronounce words, or always forget to close the door. But what really gets us upset? What motivates us to say or do something in objection to something we think is wrong? Many of us are irritated by silly and inconsequential annoyances rather than by the things that truly matter.
Today's reading continues with yesterday's theme on false teachers, and one thing becomes glaringly clear: Peter is extremely upset by these teachers. So far in our study, we have seen Peter's concern about trials and persecution, and have read his constant encouragement to those who suffer. But throughout, Peter has remained calm. Now, however, it's different. In the face of false teaching in the church, Peter is angry, and he wants his readers to be aware of their danger!
As in yesterday's passage, Peter again highlights the dangerous and improper behavior and teaching of these false instructors. They revel in pleasures and lusts; they are full of adultery, and "never stop sinning" (v. 14). Peter describes them as "slaves of depravity," entangled in a life of sin (v. 19). Likewise, their teaching is empty and boastful, it works only to entice young Christians away from the truth. Perhaps worst of all, these teachers were in the church. They knew of Jesus Christ, but they have "left the straight way and wandered off" (v. 15).
Notice also the way Peter describes these teachers in animalistic terms. He references the Old Testament account of Balaam and the donkey. When Balaam tried to gain profit and curse God's people, he had to be corrected by a donkey (see Numbers 22)! Peter's point: these false teachers are lower than brute beasts. Again, at the end, Peter describes their activity in terms of a dog returning to its vomit and a pig returning to the mud. The possible destruction of Christ's church moves Peter to extreme action.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps the harshness of Peter's language shocks or offends you. Is this really a Christian attitude? It's useful to remember Christ's commission to Peter to "feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17). Peter is acting to protect Christ's flock, and he wants us to be clear about the danger of false teaching in the church. Do you have the same zeal for the gospel truth? Is God perhaps calling you to stand publicly against those who wish to devour the church? Pray for the courage to speak against false teaching when called to do so.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
December 30, 2009
Bad Idea?
READ: Hebrews 10:22-39
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. -Hebrews 10:22
The former athlete had neglected his body for too long, so he began an exercise routine. The first day, he did several push-ups and went for a light jog. The next day, more push-ups, a few sit-ups, and a longer run. Day 3: exercises and a mile-and-a-half run. On Day 4, our ex-athlete in re-training woke up with a sore throat.
Then he did one more exercise: He jumped to the conclusion that exercising was a bad idea. If all he got out of his huffing and puffing was sickness, it wasn't for him.
Let's examine another scenario. A Christian, realizing he has neglected his relationship with God, begins a new spiritual routine of Bible-reading and prayer. But after just a few days, some problems arise in his life. What does he conclude? Like the ex-athlete, should he decide that his spiritual quest was a bad idea and that it didn't do any good? Certainly not.
We don't pray and read the Bible to get a perfect, trouble-free life. Pursuing God is not cause and effect. We do it because it draws us closer in our relationship with the One who is perfect. The pursuit of godliness will not exempt us from trouble (2 Tim. 3:12). But a life dedicated to loving and pursuing God (Heb. 10:22) is always a good idea-no matter what happens. - Dave Branon
The time we spend with God each day
Through prayer and reading of His Word
Will help us face what comes our way
And draw us closer to the Lord. -Sper
The roots of stability come from being grounded in God's Word and prayer.
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Prosperity
In Luke 12, Jesus has some very direct and clear teaching on prosperity. For instance, take a look at Luke 12:13-15,
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses." It's easy to read these verses and believe that God is against prosperity. But if you look at what I call the Genesis Principle, I think you can see that prosperity is God's will.
When God created man, He gave him abundance. You can't read the story in the Garden of Eden and think that Adam lacked for anything. And God's plan, His idea, His heart for humanity has never changed.
But God did not give Adam all that abundance so that the abundance itself would be the focus of his life. His focus was to be his relationship with the Father as they walked and talked in the garden. His life did not consist in the abundance of things, but in his relationship to his Creator.
So what is abundance? Abundance, or prosperity, is having all that you need to meet any circumstance, with enough left over to give wherever God might direct you.
Jesus certainly is not against prosperity. In fact, prosperity is what I believe is God's will for all of His children. I don't think God wants any of His kids to be in poverty. Poverty is not a virtue unless you choose it for some reason.
God wants you to be prosperous, but there are some principles to properly understand prosperity, which we will discover in the next few devotionals.
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Read: 2 Peter 3:1-10
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. - 2 Peter 3:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
The church today witnesses no shortage of opponents who vehemently attack traditional Christianity and the notion of God's existence. For example, Richard Dawkins's 2006 work, The God Delusion, which attacks the idea of a supernatural Being, reached #2 on the Amazon.com bestseller list and #4 on the New York Times list. Likewise, Christopher Hitchens's recent book, God is Not Great, reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Both authors have enjoyed huge success from their scathing critique and mockery of religion in general and Christianity in particular.
In light of today's passage, figures like Dawkins and Hitchens should come as no surprise. Peter declares that "in the last days scoffers will come" (v. 3). In particular, Peter mentions those who mock Christians because of the seeming delay in Christ's return. "Where is this "˜coming' he promised?" Everything continues as it was since the creation of the world, they say (v. 4). In short, they ridicule the Christian hope and declare God a liar.
Peter responds with a clear message: don't forget God's word through the prophets and Christ; it really is trustworthy. Just as God's word was powerful to create the world and then send the flood of judgment, that same word is powerful to one day bring judgment on the "ungodly" (v. 7). God's Word is true; the world has not simply gone on the same since creation. God both sees and acts in due time.
In fact, says Peter, it's important to remember that God's time is not our time. Echoing Psalm 90:4, Peter reminds us that "with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day" (v. 8). What may seem like slowness on God's part is in fact a demonstration of His patience and merciful desire to see more people come to repentance (v. 9). But make no mistake, that day will come. And when it does, like a thief without warning, there will be a universal upheaval, and everything will be laid bare before the judgment of God (v. 10).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Notice that Scripture avoids two common responses to Christ's seeming "delay": to either become obsessed with trying to predict when exactly He will come or to waste that time by selfish living. How will you use this time? Will you pursue hedonistic pleasures or use it to develop "wholesome thinking" and living (v. 1)? Will you grow impatient and suspicious of God's timing or use it to speak to others of God's mercy? Reflect on these questions; then commit to use God's gift of time to serve Him and others today.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
December 31, 2009
Point Of No Return
READ: Deut. 11:7-12
The eyes of the Lord your God are always on [the land], from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. -Deuteronomy 11:12
Longtime California pastor Ray Stedman once told his congregation: "On New Year's Eve we realize more than at any other time in our lives that we can never go back in time. . . . We can look back and remember, but we cannot retrace a single moment of the year that is past."
Stedman then referred to the Israelites as they stood on the edge of a new opportunity. After four decades of desert wanderings by their people, this new generation may have wondered if they had the faith and fortitude to possess the Promised Land.
Their leader, Moses, reminded them that they had seen "every great act of the Lord which He did" (Deut. 11:7) and that their destination was "a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year" (v.12).
On New Year's Eve, we may fear the future because of events in the past. But we need not remain chained to our old memories because we can move ahead focused on God. Just as the Lord watched over the land and His people, so His eyes will be upon us.
God's faithful care will extend to every day of the new year. We can count on that promise. - David C. McCasland
God holds the future in His hands
With grace sufficient day by day;
Through good or ill He gently leads,
If we but let Him have His way. -Rohrs
The "what" of our future is determined by the "Who" of eternity.
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The Seduction of Covetousness
One of the verses we read in our last devotional was Luke 12:15, which says,
And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses."
Jesus begins His teaching regarding prosperity in this passage by saying, "Beware of covetousness." In our society, even in the Church, there are a lot of people whose lives are tied up in "things." The focus of their life is their stuff, and doing whatever they can to acquire even more things.
It is what the Bible calls covetousness.
I want to ask you today, is your heart filled with covetousness? Do you find yourself thinking, "I know the missing ingredient in my life, I just need a little more. If I could just get a little more, I would be happy. If I could just build a bigger house and fill it with a little more stuff...if I could get a nicer car...if I could upgrade...then I would be happy, and then I would be successful."?
A little more, a little more, a little more.
The problem is, however, that desire for more never stops. In fact, as we will see in our next devotional, God called a man a fool because he never realized that riches are only temporary.
If you find your life driven by the need for more things, if you are consumed with stuff, if you define your success by what you have (or do not have), then you have been seduced by covetousness, and you will never find the happiness you are looking for.
Do not be a fool seeking after things. Instead, make the passion of your life seeking after God.
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Read: 2 Peter 3:11-18
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? - 2 Peter 3:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
As the man drove away from a refreshing week-long vacation in the Rocky Mountains, he found himself constantly glancing up at the mountains in his rearview mirror, and then down at his lap where the panoramic pictures of his trip now lay. The only problem was that with all his backward and downward gazing, he didn't see the car ahead of him that had come to a full stop. The subsequent accident was the inevitable result of his failure to look ahead. Today's reading also admonishes us to continue looking ahead. In fact, three different times Peter urges his audience to "look forward." The future is so important because we are awaiting the "day of God" when we will enjoy "a new heaven and a new earth" (vv. 12-14). Troubles may lie around us in the form of suffering and false teaching; but Peter reminds us where we are headed: that cosmic end when God will establish our "home of righteousness" (v. 13). There should be great comfort in reflecting on the promises that await us in the end. Yet, Peter's concern moves beyond comfort and encouragement to the pressing exhortation toward proper living in the here and now. Peter suggests that knowledge of the coming end should affect the way we live today, or as Peter says: "what kind of people ought you to be" (v. 11). On the one hand, echoing yesterday's message, God's patience in delaying the end allows for the salvation of more people (v. 15). Yet the primary focus here is the opportunity for growth in holiness and godliness. Peter urges us "to live holy and godly lives" (v. 11), "to make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with him" (v. 14), and to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (v. 18).
Knowing that the end is coming means we can guard against false teaching not so that we can remain stagnant, but precisely so that we can continue to grow in our relationship with Christ. That's true living with the end in mind.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As we come to the end of our study of 1 and 2 Peter, and to the beginning of a new calendar year, what better time to spend a moment "looking forward" and taking steps to live in response to Christ's imminent return. Whether or not you typically make New Year's resolutions, take time to make a list of spiritual goals for the coming year, and consider the appropriate spiritual disciplines to help you live as the kind of person you ought to be, awaiting that future day of glory!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
JANUARY 2
Setting Sail for a New Year
"...which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast...even Jesus." Hebrews 6:19-20
A New Year is like an ocean. There will be untested winds and waves. We'll meet ships we never knew, and we'll have all kinds of opportunities as we sail into an uncharted sea. In our quest to discover the good life this year, we must be careful that we do not drift into an aimless life.
The worst thing that could happen to us this coming year is that we just let this year happen to us rather than charting a course and getting into God's appointed harbor. More than likely, you won't decide to drift. It'll just happen. You'll be coasting along at a good clip, and then, before you know it, you're drifting away. . . that is, unless you have an anchor.
Take a few minutes to reflect on this past year. What were some things you did right? What were some things you would do differently this next year? :angel:
Daily Devotional
January 03, 2010
Widening Your Perspective
READ: Matthew 28:16-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. -Matthew 28:19
A missionary and I were invited to lunch with David, a man in his late seventies who generously supported the missionary's ministry. David was not able to visit the missionary's country, but as he gave thanks for the food, he prayed with complete ease for the people, places, and situations there. Having prayed regularly for that ministry, he had no trouble mentioning specifics. David had a perspective on missions that extended beyond his own country of Singapore.
Our Lord Jesus commanded us to have a worldwide perspective on missions. When He said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, . . . teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19-20), He was not asking us to buy an around-the-world ticket to do His bidding. We may not have the opportunity to travel much beyond our own birthplace, but we can be involved with what's going on in the world without leaving our hometown.
But how? Is there an international student living near you? A family from another country who is trying to cope with life in a new country? Or just a lonely person whom you can cheer up? Sharing Jesus' love with them is your way of crossing the oceans with the gospel. - C. P. Hia
A Prayer: Lord, widen my world. I want to be a part of the work You are doing. Give me eyes to see as You see, hands to serve others, and a heart to share Your gospel. Amen.
If you look through the eyes of Jesus, you'll see a needy world.
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Compromise
As we continue our consideration of prosperity, I want to turn your attention to Luke 12:31,
"But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
This is a simple but powerful principle for life: We have to put God's Kingdom first if we are to realize God's prosperity.
A lot of Christians get caught up in the drive for prosperity and forget that God's greatest desire is for us to pursue His Kingdom. In fact, I think some of God's children today are frustrated as they are endeavoring to prosper. They can see the promise of prosperity in the Word, yet they are coming up short, and they are asking, "God, what's up?"
I really think this is an issue of the heart. God is not prospering them because they may not be mature enough spiritually to handle the degree of prosperity they are seeking. It might do them harm.
This brings to mind a young coworker of mine from a number of years ago. He was a believer but was struggling financially. One night we were in a restaurant after work when he shared a difficult struggle he was going through.
We prayed that God would do something supernatural to help him in his time of need. Two days later, he got an unexpected inheritance. It was huge! And you know what? The next week he wasn't at work. Instead he was out partying. All of a sudden, his church life stopped and he walked away from his relationship with God. He didn't have the maturity to handle the success.
I think success has ruined more people than failure. It has been said that money is the most dangerous thing God can put into your trust.
Seek after God. And when He prospers you, keep seeking after Him!
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Read: Romans 5:12-21
Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men. - Romans 5:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Approximately 90 percent of an iceberg is submerged under-water and invisible to the naked eye. If the effects of sin were an iceberg, yesterday's reading about the immediate results-Adam and Eve's shame and fear-would have represented a few cubes above the surface. The rest of Genesis 3 detailed the curse pronounced against the serpent, Adam, Eve, and their offspring. But even beyond what was presented in Genesis, the effects of that initial sin are buried in the icy waters of sin and death imputed to future generations. Adam introduced sin and death to all of his descendants, even those who had not yet been given any direct command to break. Such people sinned and died all the same. Was it fair that people with no explicit law or command still died? As a matter of fact, it didn't improve matters when God gave His Law; it amplified the sin reigning in the flesh of those who heard it (v. 20). There's nothing fair or just about sin.
What a beautiful expression of grace it is that God would provide an act of righteousness that could bring life to all! And it's important to note that the grace of God through the righteousness imparted by Christ's sacrifice isn't merely equal to the burden of sin-the gift is not like the trespass (v. 15). It is, in fact, much greater. Grace versus sin is not a fair fight but a lopsided victory.
This will be a pattern throughout our study this month: the command of God, the sin of man, the consequences of rebellion, and the forgiveness that comes by God's gift of grace in Jesus Christ. While most of the effects of sin come as the practical extension of the sinful act itself, forgiveness and redemption come as the logical conclusion of God's love. As criminals against God's nature and His commands, we deserve much worse than we get. By His love and through His Son, we are permitted to escape the penalty to which we are entitled.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
People can spend their whole lives disputing the theoretical implications of imputed sin and death (and many have done just that). But for all the knowledge of good and evil imparted by the tree to Adam and Eve, there is still much we don't understand. To get lost in those discussions is to sit in the shadow of the wrong tree. Instead, we should pay the bulk of our attention to the tree of life, the saving work of Jesus Christ provided for us at Calvary.
GOD BLESS!
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Daily Devotional
January 04, 2010
The Review
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:1-11
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done. -2 Corinthians 5:10
Imagine going to work one day and being greeted by your boss, who says, "Come by my office at 9:30. I'd like to talk to you about how you're doing on the job."
This could be a nervous time for you as you think about what your supervisor might say. You wonder, How does my boss think I've been doing? Could there be a promotion with a pay increase? Or could I lose my job? Am I going to hear, "Well done" or "You're done"?
As important as this kind of meeting is, the Bible speaks of another, far more significant review. After this life is past, we will stand before our Lord. Paul wrote, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10). We will not enter that future evaluation fearful of losing our salvation, nor will we desire personal benefit or human approval. Instead, we will be eager to hear the Master say, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21).
The challenge before us as followers of Christ is to serve Him with excellence now so that we can hear His words, "Well done" then. Based on the way I am living today, what kind of review will I get when I see the Savior? - Bill Crowder
The day will come when we will stand
Before our Judge, God's Son;
Have we so lived that He will say,
"Well done, My child, well done"? -Sper
Service done well here on earth will receive a "Well done" in heaven.
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The Secret to God's Provision
In Luke 12:31-32 Jesus tells us,
"But seek the kingdom of God...." (In Matthew 6:33, He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God...and all these things shall be added to you.") "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
The secret to receiving God's provision is to put God's Kingdom first, then everything else will be added to you. That includes all the things you worry about and strive after. God promises He will add them to you.
I know for some people it is just too simplistic. It is just a childish notion to be brushed aside. But, to do so is a grave mistake. Never underestimate the power of obedience. When we obey God and get our priorities in line, it unlocks and releases incredible blessings in our life.
When we put the spiritual above the material, when we put the cause and the mission of God's Kingdom before our own personal desires, it will cause things to be added to our lives.
I remember reading about J.L. Kraft. He began his business by selling cheese on the streets in Chicago, but failed miserably. One day a Christian friend told him, "J.L., you don't have God first in your life, or in your business. Put Him first in all things you do, and you will see a different outcome."
From that day on, he put God's Kingdom first in every way and he built the largest cheese empire in the world.
First things first. Jesus said, "Do not worry. Just get your priorities in line, and God will take care of you."
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Read: Genesis 9:1-7
You shall not murder. - Exodus 20:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Derrion Albert, an honor-roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School in Chicago, was killed just outside the Agape Community Center on the city's south side. As inexplicable and deplorable as all such tragedies are, this particular murder triggered national outrage and disgust because the brutality was captured on video and shown on countless newscasts for all to see. Seeing lethal violence with our own eyes-not dramatized or glorified in an action film-disturbs us to the very core of our being. We may grow callous to news reports and statistics, but we mustn't lose our appreciation for the value of a human life. We all bear the image of our Creator.
God delivered this message denouncing murder after annihilating all of humanity, with the exception of Noah's family. The Flood was not an endorsement of violent vindication; rather, it was the punishment for such acts. The level of violence on the earth had increased to such a wicked state that it grieved the heart of God (Gen. 6:6,13). As Noah and his family left the ark, God presented them with a new world order where violence was expressly prohibited and the punishment for murder was clear (v. 6).
Verses 4 and 5 make for a somewhat cumbersome direct translation from Hebrew, but all translations carry the same basic meaning that God was keeping account of every individual life. Couched in this warning is an encouraging truth: God values everything that breathes, especially the life of people, all of whom are related to each other and all of whom are made in God's image. There is no such thing as a worthless life.
God's warning to Moses may have been a new proclamation against bloodshed, but that doesn't mean God's hatred of violence was a new development. The commandment to preserve life was an expression of the eternal righteousness of God, and mankind bore His image from the moment God formed Adam and breathed life into him.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Refraining from murder is one thing-ridding our hearts of hate is not so easy. But according to God's Word, harboring inward hate is equivalent to outwardly taking a life (1 John 3:15). We live in a world where physical violence is still less prevalent than divisive speech and hateful attitudes, so we need to remember that if we are guilty of hatred toward anyone we are guilty of ignoring the image of God imprinted on another human being. In prayer, commit your heart to loving those you find less than lovely.
GOD BLESS!
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January 05, 2010
Locked In
READ: 2 Timothy 2:1-10
I suffer trouble . . . even to the point of chains; but the Word of God is not chained. -2 Timothy 2:9
Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, describes his life after a massive stroke left him with a condition called "Locked-In Syndrome." Although he was almost completely paralyzed, Bauby was able to write his book by blinking his left eyelid. An aide would recite a coded alphabet, until Bauby blinked to choose the letter of a word he was dictating. The book required about 200,000 blinks to write. Bauby used the only physical ability left him to communicate with others.
In 2 Timothy we read of Paul experiencing a different kind of "locked-in syndrome." Under house arrest, the apostle learned that his execution might be imminent. With this in view, he told Timothy: "I suffer trouble . . . even to the point of chains; but the Word of God is not chained" (2 Tim. 2:9). In spite of his isolation, Paul welcomed visitors, wrote letters of encouragement, and rejoiced at the spread of God's Word.
For some of us, circumstances may have isolated us from others. Lying in a hospital bed, serving time in a prison, or being a shut-in can make us feel that we are experiencing our own "locked-in syndrome." If this is true for you, why not prayerfully reflect on some ways you can still reach out to others. - Dennis Fisher
Give me to serve in humble sphere,
I ask not aught beside!
Content to fill a little place,
If God be glorified. -Anon.
No deed is too small when done for Christ.
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What Has You?
In Mark 10:17-22, this is what we read,
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.'" And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
This is an interesting passage, isn't it?! I think verse 22 could probably be read as "great possessions had him," and we wouldn't do too much damage to the text. Possessions possessed him, and he went away from his conversation with Jesus sorrowful.
When Jesus met this guy, He was able to cut right to the heart issue, what controlled his life. Verse 21 could be paraphrased, "Okay, you really want it? Here's your roadblock, baby." It was the guy's attitude toward his stuff.
This man loved possessions, wealth, and the things of this life more than he loved Jesus.
Where are you today, my friend? Have you allowed our world to con you into believing that you should base your life on the stuff you accumulate? Or do you love God the most?
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Read: Genesis 4:1-16; Exodus 2:11-15
Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. - Genesis 4:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
Off the shore of San Francisco, Alcatraz Island offers a stunning panorama of the city, the bay, and all the natural and cultural beauty surrounding it. But when Alcatraz was used as a prison, it was the proximity to civilization that made it so torturous. Inmates could hear the sounds of music and parties and fun just beyond their prison walls, but steel bars and icy, swirling waters kept them hopelessly separated from the merriment that taunted them. Cain and Moses knew that suffering all too well. They aren't traditionally considered as a tandem-Cain was the jealous murderer who killed his brother over the matter of a sacrifice; Moses was the vaunted spiritual leader of Israel who delivered his people from Egypt and to the doorstep of the Promised Land. But both committed murder, and both were exiled after their crimes were discovered.
The circumstances surrounding the two murders were quite different. Cain premeditated his assault on Abel, stewing over the favor given to his brother's sacrifice and denied for his own. Moses acted in the heat of the moment, retaliating against an Egyptian for beating one of Moses' own people. God warned Cain not to let his anger consume him and gave him the opportunity to do what was right for acceptance and freedom (Gen. 4:6). Moses, however, thought no one was watching and acted without anyone's counsel (Ex. 2:12). But both of them violated the will of God, and both of them were forced to flee.
It's also interesting that neither Cain nor Moses paid for their bloodshed with their own lives. God protected Cain, and Moses escaped formal punishment as well (Moses outlived the men who wanted to kill him; see Ex. 4:19). The price of their sin was separation from the societies in which they had lived. This penalty, while harsh, still represented God's tremendous grace. In tomorrow's reading we'll see that God does not always withhold His wrath, but it is worth noting just how willing God is to give His people second chances to obey Him
.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God is much more gracious than society. We can ask forgiveness from God, but we can't escape the reality that sin separates us from the people we love. This is especially true when we commit sins of anger, hatred, or violence. We can all relate to God's warning to Cain-when we are angry, sin is crouching with desire at the door to our hearts. How can we master it? Do what is right and seek acceptance from the Lord. If He'll show grace to a murderer, how much more will He give to those who obey?
GOD BLESS!
January 06, 2010
Ordinances Of Heaven
READ: Psalm 19:1-7
If I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will cast away the descendants of Jacob and David. -Jeremiah 33:25-26
Mark your calendar now if you want to see the next celestial convergence of Venus, Jupiter, and the moon. On November 18, 2052, you'll be able to peer through the evening darkness as those solar system neighbors "gather" in a tiny area of the sky. That remarkable juxtaposition of reflective spheres last sparkled the night sky on December 1, 2008, and it will happen again 4 decades from now.
This predictability, as well as things such as eclipses and the return of Halley's Comet (July 28, 2061), prove the orderliness of the universe. If no fixed set of laws governed the movement of everything in the universe, such predictions could not be made.
Are these set rules more than random standards? Can we see God's hand in these celestial certainties? Look at Jeremiah 33:25-26. God has in view the covenantal relationship between Himself and His people, and He uses a scientific fact in the analogy. In effect, God says that His fixed universal laws, "the ordinances of heaven and earth," have the same certainty as His promises to His covenant people.
God's laws have governed the universe since its creation-and continue to do so with astounding predictability. So mark your calendar, and be amazed by God's unchanging control. - Dave Branon
A Prayer: Dear Lord, I marvel at the wonders of Your creation. You are such a great and awesome God who does not change. As I place my life in Your hands, I will trust You to be faithful. Amen.
The wonders of creation reveal God at work.
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The Vital Sign of Pride
Pride and self-sufficiency are unmistakable signs of a heart that is in desperate need of reviving. Isaiah 57:15 tells us,
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
To have a contrite heart literally means you break easily. Even at the thought of grieving God's Spirit you break and repent very quickly. It means you walk softly in your heart before God.
God says He will revive those with a humble spirit and a contrite heart. But one of the great dangers among Christians today-especially for those living in the western world with all of its abundance-is a belief that we don't need anything.
More than ever we need to read the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:17,
"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
How can you be miserable and naked and not know it? It's obvious that Jesus is speaking of their inward, spiritual condition. Apparently, their outward wealth blinded them to their inward poverty. They fell into the trap of pride, which is one of the inherent dangers that comes with prosperity. As Christians living in a very prosperous western world, we need to heed this word!
At Disneyland there is a ride with cool little cars. I remember once seeing a little boy on the ride with his dad, and his feet didn't even reach the pedals! But Junior thought he was driving, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was actually driving the car and making it go.
We need to remember that our feet don't even reach the pedals, and that Daddy, our God, is the One who makes this thing go. We need to maintain a humble heart.
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Read: Judges 9:1-24
Do not set foot on their paths; for their feet rush into sin, they are swift to shed blood. - Proverbs 1:15-16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Gideon is known mostly for his service as a judge over Israel. He tore down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah, a wooden idol representing a female deity the Midianites worshiped (Judges 6:26-27) which earned him the name Jerub-Baal, meaning "Let Baal contend against him" (Judges 6:32). He defeated the Midianites with his army of 300 men (Judges 7-8). Gideon's legacy to Israel was his belief that God, not man, should reign as King over Israel (Judges 8:23).
But Gideon's legacy was short-lived. He had over 70 sons, only two of which survived. Abimelech, the son of Gideon by a concubine, rallied his mother's relatives in the city of Shechem to make him their king and then slaughtered the sons of Gideon by execution (v. 5) Only Jotham, Gideon's youngest son, escaped the scourge. This wasn't a crime of passion or an angry outburst. Abimelech used selfishness, hatred, fear, and division to manipulate people and to seize power for himself. And God used those same qualities to exact His wrath upon Abimelech and the entire city of Shechem. The sword by which he lived would become the sword by which he died.
It's disconcerting to read about God sending an evil spirit or demon to invoke His will (v. 23). But it reminds us that even evil spirits cannot elude God's sovereignty. Everything is under His control, and He can direct as He pleases. Secondly, God wasn't turning anyone against the desires of their heart or the nature of their wills. He was provoking their wickedness to avenge sins they had already committed.
The rest of the chapter chronicles the rebellion of Shechem, Abimelech's destruction of the city, and the woman who crushed Abimelech's head with a millstone. But the lesson of the passage goes beyond the details of the battles. God administered His justice by allowing Abimelech's thirst for violence and power to destroy him and his collaborators. Abimelech's crimes brought natural consequences in the hands of a supernatural Lord..
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
For the rest of this day (or in any day) reconsider the word natural. Remember that God created this world, and nothing in it is independent of His control. The systems, rules, and results that are so familiar within the natural world are still the handiwork of our Lord. The food we eat, the warmth of the sun, and the practical consequences of our actions don't come from "Mother Nature." They come from God. Praise Him for the wonders big and small that He provides in every moment.
GOD BLESS!
January 07, 2010
God Loveth Adverbs
READ: Colossians 3:8-17
But we have the mind of Christ. -1 Corinthians 2:16
The Puritans wisely sought to connect all of life to its source in God, bringing the two worlds together rather than dividing them into sacred and secular. They had a saying, "God loveth adverbs; and careth not how good, but how well." Adverbs describe verbs-our words of action and activity. The proverb implies that God cares more about the spirit in which we live than the concrete results.
Pleasing God doesn't mean that we must busy ourselves with a new set of "spiritual" activities. As the Puritans said, whether cleaning house or preaching sermons, shoeing horses or translating the Bible, any human activity may constitute an offering to God.
We spend much time immersed in the mundane. "But we have the mind of Christ," Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 2:16). That truth is to guide everything we do. Caring for an elderly parent. Cleaning up after a child. Sitting on a porch with a neighbor. Fielding a customer's complaint. Filling out patient charts at a nurses' station. Sitting in traffic. Sawing lumber. Reporting tips. Shopping for groceries.
We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks. - Philip Yancey
In the common round of duty
Lift thy heart in praise;
For the Lord hath surely promised
Strength for all thy days. -Tovey
The world crowns success; God crowns faithfulness!
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A Matter of the Heart
God cares deeply about the motivations of our hearts. Yesterday, we saw that the heart is what matters most in giving. In Matthew 6:6, 17-18, we are shown just how important the heart is to God.
First Jesus deals with our heart when we pray,
"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Next He deals with our heart when fasting,
"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Jesus wants you and me to pray with the right heart, not seeking the praise of others. And the same is true with fasting. When you fast, you are not supposed to let everybody know.
When you fast, if somebody says, "Hey, would you like to go to lunch today?" and you reply, "I can't. I'm fasting," they may think, "Wow, he's spiritual!" but that is all the reward you get, right there, so you better enjoy it.
What is Jesus' point? When we give to the poor, when we pray, when we fast, we do not do it to get the applause or recognition of men. We do it out of obedience to God, out of love for our fellow men, and just wanting to help somebody else who is trying to make it through the day on this planet.
That is why we should do it. That is the right motivation of the heart.
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Read: Isaiah 9:1-7
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. - 2 Peter 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
On Christmas Eve in 1914, German and British soldiers on opposite sides of the fields of Flanders during World War I received a surprise in their trenches-Christmas gift boxes from their respective governments. Some German soldiers erected small Christmas trees, lit candles, and sang carols. The British soldiers joined in the celebration. They celebrated Christmas with gifts, camaraderie, and impromptu soccer matches-and without violence. The Great War raged on for four more years, but in that moment those men understood the true meaning of peace.
Isaiah's messianic announcement came during a time of great trouble for Israel. The Northern Kingdom had been conquered by Assyria, and Judah would later be taken captive by Babylon. Peace was an unrealistic expectation at that time, and no one knew that better than Isaiah (39:6). Yet today's passage speaks of a king who reigns in peace with justice and righteousness forever-as if His rule had already begun. The great light in the darkness had been seen, the child had been born, and the source of peace had arrived.
But the birth of Christ was still about seven centuries away. Isaiah was speaking prophetically, and the assurance of a coming Savior brought hope and peace to the hearts of God's people. Political peace was a far-off wish and peace with God wasn't imminent either-Isaiah devotes much of his prophecy to proclaiming judgment against the faithlessness of Judah. Such was the product of a world that ignored God's standards of love and obedience. But the coming peace didn't depend on the hearts of men or the mercy of foreign kings; it would be delivered by God.
For all the military imagery in the passage, the focal point is the birth of a child who didn't become a soldier, hold a sword, or command an army. And though He would commit no crime, He would take the punishment a violent world deserved and bring peace everlasting..
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Isaiah looked ahead from a troubled time to the birth of the Prince of Peace. Even thousands of years after that miraculous event, the climate of unrest in our world hasn't changed much. We still look forward to seeing Christ eradicate all violence from the earth. But we can glimpse His kingdom. By the power of His Holy Spirit, His peace reigns in our hearts and in our relationships. Whatever battles rage around us, the end to crimes of violence and hatred begins with the peace we have in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:.
January 07, 2010
God Loveth Adverbs
READ: Colossians 3:8-17
But we have the mind of Christ. -1 Corinthians 2:16
The Puritans wisely sought to connect all of life to its source in God, bringing the two worlds together rather than dividing them into sacred and secular. They had a saying, "God loveth adverbs; and careth not how good, but how well." Adverbs describe verbs-our words of action and activity. The proverb implies that God cares more about the spirit in which we live than the concrete results.
Pleasing God doesn't mean that we must busy ourselves with a new set of "spiritual" activities. As the Puritans said, whether cleaning house or preaching sermons, shoeing horses or translating the Bible, any human activity may constitute an offering to God.
We spend much time immersed in the mundane. "But we have the mind of Christ," Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 2:16). That truth is to guide everything we do. Caring for an elderly parent. Cleaning up after a child. Sitting on a porch with a neighbor. Fielding a customer's complaint. Filling out patient charts at a nurses' station. Sitting in traffic. Sawing lumber. Reporting tips. Shopping for groceries.
We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks. - Philip Yancey
In the common round of duty
Lift thy heart in praise;
For the Lord hath surely promised
Strength for all thy days. -Tovey
The world crowns success; God crowns faithfulness!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Matter of the Heart
God cares deeply about the motivations of our hearts. Yesterday, we saw that the heart is what matters most in giving. In Matthew 6:6, 17-18, we are shown just how important the heart is to God.
First Jesus deals with our heart when we pray,
"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Next He deals with our heart when fasting,
"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Jesus wants you and me to pray with the right heart, not seeking the praise of others. And the same is true with fasting. When you fast, you are not supposed to let everybody know.
When you fast, if somebody says, "Hey, would you like to go to lunch today?" and you reply, "I can't. I'm fasting," they may think, "Wow, he's spiritual!" but that is all the reward you get, right there, so you better enjoy it.
What is Jesus' point? When we give to the poor, when we pray, when we fast, we do not do it to get the applause or recognition of men. We do it out of obedience to God, out of love for our fellow men, and just wanting to help somebody else who is trying to make it through the day on this planet.
That is why we should do it. That is the right motivation of the heart.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read: Isaiah 9:1-7
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. - 2 Peter 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
On Christmas Eve in 1914, German and British soldiers on opposite sides of the fields of Flanders during World War I received a surprise in their trenches-Christmas gift boxes from their respective governments. Some German soldiers erected small Christmas trees, lit candles, and sang carols. The British soldiers joined in the celebration. They celebrated Christmas with gifts, camaraderie, and impromptu soccer matches-and without violence. The Great War raged on for four more years, but in that moment those men understood the true meaning of peace.
Isaiah's messianic announcement came during a time of great trouble for Israel. The Northern Kingdom had been conquered by Assyria, and Judah would later be taken captive by Babylon. Peace was an unrealistic expectation at that time, and no one knew that better than Isaiah (39:6). Yet today's passage speaks of a king who reigns in peace with justice and righteousness forever-as if His rule had already begun. The great light in the darkness had been seen, the child had been born, and the source of peace had arrived.
But the birth of Christ was still about seven centuries away. Isaiah was speaking prophetically, and the assurance of a coming Savior brought hope and peace to the hearts of God's people. Political peace was a far-off wish and peace with God wasn't imminent either-Isaiah devotes much of his prophecy to proclaiming judgment against the faithlessness of Judah. Such was the product of a world that ignored God's standards of love and obedience. But the coming peace didn't depend on the hearts of men or the mercy of foreign kings; it would be delivered by God.
For all the military imagery in the passage, the focal point is the birth of a child who didn't become a soldier, hold a sword, or command an army. And though He would commit no crime, He would take the punishment a violent world deserved and bring peace everlasting..
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Isaiah looked ahead from a troubled time to the birth of the Prince of Peace. Even thousands of years after that miraculous event, the climate of unrest in our world hasn't changed much. We still look forward to seeing Christ eradicate all violence from the earth. But we can glimpse His kingdom. By the power of His Holy Spirit, His peace reigns in our hearts and in our relationships. Whatever battles rage around us, the end to crimes of violence and hatred begins with the peace we have in Christ.
God Bless! :angel:
Daily Devotional
January 08, 2010
The Final Opening Ceremony
READ: Revelation 15
All nations shall come and worship before You, for Your judgments have been manifested. -Revelation 15:4
Some words used to describe the opening ceremony of the 2008 summer Olympics were awesome, breathtaking, and extravagant. One commentator observed, "This shows what happens when you give an artist an unlimited budget."
When I heard this, I thought, That's what God did at creation! He held nothing back. The resulting universe is stunning in beauty, staggering in complexity, extravagant in all regards.
The Olympic ceremony was perfect in its precision; but if just one drummer or dancer had decided to alter the artist's vision, the whole ceremony would have been flawed.
That's what happened shortly after creation. Unlike the Olympic producer, God allowed free choice, and His work of art was marred by Adam and Eve's idea of a better way. In Isaiah's words, "We have turned, every one, to his own way" (53:6).
God's solution to our waywardness was unimaginable: The Artist paid the price to recreate what we ruined. One day, there will be another opening ceremony, and everyone in heaven and on earth will bow at the name of Jesus (Phil. 2:10). And those from every nation who have accepted God's plan in Christ will worship together in the flawless New Jerusalem (Rev. 15:4). - Julie Ackerman Link
Yes, God was so great in creation,
But greater, much greater in grace!
For when man had sinned and had grieved Him,
He sent Christ to die in his place! -Bennard
We have all eternity to praise God-begin today.
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The Heart of the Issue
Over the last few devotionals, we have learned just how important our heart motivation is in giving, praying, and fasting. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus continues to deal with matters of the heart,
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
How do you lay up treasures in heaven? Jesus told the rich young ruler, "Sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." So giving to help people, giving to the poor, giving to ministry, giving to God's work instead of hoarding it up, giving to God-that is the way you lay treasure up in heaven.
But notice that Jesus goes on to say, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus hasn't really changed the subject. The heart of the issue is the heart. That is the theme of Jesus' teaching.
A right heart attitude-a proper heart motive-is what God cares about most. That is true whether you are giving, you are praying, or you are fasting. He wants you to do these things for the right reasons.
Those right reasons include your desire to help people. Your desire to express your love for God and His Kingdom. Those are the right reasons.
Jesus said, when you are motivated by the right reasons, you are laying up treasure in heaven. He says, "Where your treasure is (in heaven with God), there your heart will be also."
His point? The heart of the issue is your heart.
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Read: Numbers 15:38-41
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Psalm 51:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Human minds and moods are greatly affected by visual cues. A restaurant decorated with bright colors can raise diners' energy levels and shorten their visits, while more subdued colors and softer textures promote relaxation and the desire to stay put. Decreased exposure to sunlight can cause Seasonal Anxiety Disorder in many people, while the display of festive Christmas decorations can lift people's spirits. What we see dramatically affects how we feel and what we think.
God was not unsympathetic to the plight of the Israelites and their need for visual reminders of a God they could not see. To remind them of His guidance, He led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21). To remind them of His presence and holiness, He instructed them to make a tabernacle where He would dwell (Ex. 25:8). To remind them of His provision and protection, He had them celebrate three annual festivals (Ex. 23:14-16). And, as we read today, He told them to stitch reminders of His commands into the very fabric of their clothes.
The logistics were fairly simple. A blue cord on the corner of their garments would remind them of God's commandments. But the importance of this custom had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with the spiritual well-being of God's people. One of the most dangerous threats to Israel lay in their own desires that would lead them into unfaithfulness. God didn't want them to do whatever they felt was right in their hearts (see Judges 21:25). He wanted them to remain pure.
And purity was not without reward. By obeying God's commandments, Israel would be consecrated unto God, His holy people (v. 40). God's demand for faithfulness showed the significance of Israel's relationship with Him. It was more than an example of God saying, "Obey, because I said so." It was based on relationship: "Obey, because you are my people, and I am your God."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you keep visual reminders of God's Word around you at all times? It helps to have Bible verses posted where you can see them, to carry around a packet of Scripture references, or (for those who spend a lot of time on the computer) on your desktop. Even a more subtle cue (like the once popular What Would Jesus Do? bracelets) can be extremely helpful in reminding us that we belong to God and we need to obey Him, especially when our eyes and hearts are tempted by worldly desires.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 09, 2010
Fear Of The Unknown
READ: Hebrews 11:8-12
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called . . . . And he went out, not knowing where he was going. -Hebrews 11:8
Has God ever asked you to do something that seemed unreasonable? Something that took you into the territory of the unknown? What if He asked you to refuse a long-awaited promotion or resist a longed-for relationship? What if He called you to a remote part of the world or asked you to release your children to serve Him in a faraway place?
The unknown is full of haunting "what ifs." Yet God often calls us to chart unknown territory as we follow Him. Obeying His commands to forgive, to give away our treasures, or to give up things that provide security and pleasure often leave us in the scary territory of unknown outcomes.
Imagine how Abraham felt when God asked him to move his whole family without telling him where they were going (Gen. 12:1-3). God also asked Abraham to persevere-to stay in an unknown land even when the lure of past comforts may have threatened to seduce him and his family back to their comfort zone in Ur.
Entering a new year is like entering uncharted territory. The fear of the unknown could cripple our capacity to follow God's leading through the days ahead. Yet, like Abraham, when we cling to the One who knows all things, we're in good hands-regardless of where He leads. - Joe Stowell
Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand;
But I know who holds tomorrow,
And I know who holds my hand. -Stanphill
Never be afraid to entrust the unknown future to the all-knowing God.
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God's Guidance System
In Matthew 6:22-24, Jesus tells us the impact when God has our whole heart,
"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
While it may not seem like it, Jesus is talking about the heart.
As we learned in our previous devotionals, if you give to God, and give for the right reasons, God has your heart. Your heart belongs to Him. When God has your heart, He can lead you; because that is how God leads, He leads through your heart.
That's really what this illustration is about. That is what He means by, "The lamp of the body is the eye."
Think about the difference light makes when trying to walk on a narrow, craggy path. When light comes into your eye, you can see your way. Your eyes, when the light is able to come in, are a built-in guidance system, aren't they?
Well, you know what? You have a guidance system God uses to lead you. That guidance system is called your heart. If God has your treasure, He has your heart. But God can't lead you through your heart if He doesn't have your heart.
If God has your heart, then He can begin to lead you. You can go anywhere He tells you to go. And interestingly enough, the loyalty of our heart is expressed through our giving. Giving and guidance tied together? According to Jesus...definitely!
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Read: Genesis 19:30-38
For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery. - Mark 7:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
A survey in the United Kingdom showed that 66 percent of adults thought the morality of children had declined from previous generations. Bob Reitemeier, the chief executive of the Children's Society that conducted the study, found that such opinions can be part of the problem. "It is easier to criticize children than to invest in them," he said, adding, "We reap what we sow when it comes to teaching children values."
Proactive involvement in the personal morality of younger generations should be paramount. Today's reading begins where the existence of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had ended. Despite the judgment of wrath God delivered to that wicked civilization and the demise of Lot's wife after looking back (v. 26), Lot's daughters continued the legacy of immorality.
Lot and his daughters fled to the same mountains the angels had recommended as a retreat (v. 17). He had been afraid of them initially, but he grew even more frightened by the town of Zoar, his first choice (v. 20). Lot's fears were probably justified, since his choices in neighborhoods generally led him to frightening places. Unfortunately, he didn't realize he wasn't even safe with his own daughters.
The motivation behind the daughters' plot was to preserve their family line, but their understanding of family was depraved. They bemoaned not the absence of suitable husbands and fathers, but rather the lack of men who could get them pregnant (v. 31). Their coarse language reveals that they were products of their culture rather than disciples of the faith of Abraham. They may have preserved their physical family line, but they abandoned their spiritual roots.
The two nations born to those women would be thorns in the side of Israel. Moab and Ben-Ammi's names suggest the incest that preceded them ("from father," and "son of my people," respectively). Given the family history and example of their parents, their level of morality is not surprising.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Lot's daughters are the extreme case of a common occurrence. Without intervention, solid relationships, or a community with strong moral values, children are likely to make poor or even wicked choices in their lives. The crime in today's reading rested on a deep foundation of sin. When we neglect God's wisdom, we lower the standards of those who observe us. Just as a love for the Word can be passed down to generations, so too can our sin. We owe it to each other-and to God-to stay pure.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
Daily Devotional
January 10, 2010
Register Rock
READ: Hebrews 11:32-40
We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. -Hebrews 12:1
Along the old Oregon Trail in Idaho there is a marker-a giant lava boulder known locally as Register Rock. It's located in an area which was one of the favorite overnight camping areas for westbound immigrants who traveled the trail in the 19th century.
Travelers often inscribed their names on the rock as a memorial to their passage. Register Rock stands as a monument to their courage and tenacity.
When I think of Register Rock, I think of other pilgrims who have passed by us on their journey. Hebrews 11 lists some of those hardy souls-Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel, to name a few.
But there are other more recent pilgrims: my mother and father, my fifth-grade Sunday school teacher Mrs. Lincoln, my youth leader John Richards, my mentors Ray Stedman and Howard Hendricks, and a host of others I could name. They may not have inscribed their names on rocks, but they're written in my memory.
The author of Hebrews reminds us to remember "pilgrims" who have gone before us, especially those "who have spoken the Word of God" to us and to consider "the outcome of their conduct" (Heb. 13:7). And, most important, he encourages us to follow their faith. - David H. Roper
The paths of leadership are trod
By those who fix their eyes on God;
Their steadfast spirit points the way
For us to follow day by day. -D. De Haan
People who follow Christ lead others in the right direction.
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When God Has Our Hearts
In Matthew 6:25-26, Jesus applies all we have covered over the last few days,
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Given the context of the preceding verses, Jesus is telling us that if God is first in our giving, then He indeed has our heart. If He has our hearts, He can guide us and meet our needs, and we have no need to worry about provision for our life.
He feeds the birds. He will take care of you. Do not worry. Obey Him, trust Him, and look to Him for your daily bread.
Matthew 6:33 says,
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
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Read: Amos 1:13-2:2
No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD. - Deuteronomy 23:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
When the H1N1 virus began spreading across North America, public fear and panic spread even faster. But it wasn't long before scientists had engineered a vaccine. Despite all the apprehension about the virus itself, many parents were just as concerned about the safety of the vaccines. With the disease and the proposed cure being so new, patients were fearful about the unforeseen long-term effects.
If only we could be so cautious toward sin. Today we read about the long-term effects of the unthinkable actions taken by Lot's daughters, nearly one thousand years after they occurred. It is obvious that the sins of both the Ammonites and the Moabites were many, and God's judgment against them was decisive. Amos wasn't the only prophet to deliver such a harsh message. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all pronounced some sort of judgment over both nations, and Zephaniah prophesied that their doom would be like Sodom and Gomorrah's, the culmination of centuries of animosity.
Because of their descent from Lot, God extended considerable grace and leniency toward Moab and Ammon, forbidding Israel to attack them and granting them their own land (Deut. 2:9, 19). That grace was repaid with guile in the time of Israel's wanderings (Numbers 22), in the Promised Land (Judges 10-12), in the days of Saul (1 Sam. 14:47) and David (2 Sam. 8:2) and in almost every chapter of Israel's Old Testament history. Lot's daughters' acts were evil from the start, but who could have predicted how widespread the effect of their crimes would prove to be?
Even more unpredictable was the single most important bright spot through it all. Ruth, the great-grandmother of David and ancestor of Jesus' earthly father Joseph, was a Moabite who married into an Israelite family and wholeheartedly accepted faith in the one true God. In the Lord's infinite wisdom and boundless grace, He saw fit to include a descendant of Lot in the line of Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When the so-called natural repercussions of our sins entangle us, God often extends a hand of grace more readily than He strikes with judgment. As His treatment of the Moabites and Ammonites proves, this is nothing new but rather an eternal attribute of His divine love. While one sin can have far-reaching effects, God's grace is always available to us. There is hope for you today, whatever your sins may be. With it comes great responsibility to obey.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
January 11, 2010
Following Our Example
READ: 1 Timothy 4:12-16
Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers. -1 Timothy 4:12
Alyssa, who is 6 and just learning to read, often saw her parents and grandparents reading their Bibles in the morning. Early one day, she woke up before everyone else. Grandma found her sitting on the couch, with her Bible and a devotional booklet on her lap. She wanted to follow the example of spending time with God at the beginning of the day.
Timothy, a young pastor, faced heavy responsibilities in the church at Ephesus-training believers, leading in worship, countering false doctrine. The older, experienced apostle Paul gave him instruction on leading the church in these areas, but he also mentioned the importance of personal conduct. He said, "Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity" (1 Tim. 4:12).
Paul challenged Timothy: "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine" (v.16). If he paid attention to his own spiritual life and to solid doctrine, he would be a godly example to the church family.
We all have others who are observing us. Even little Alyssa has younger siblings watching her. Let's live our lives in such a way that those who follow our example will help others in their walk with God. - Anne Cetas
Lord, help me live a godly life
Of faith and love and purity
So those who follow what I do
Will grow in their maturity. -Sper
A good example has more value than good advice
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Go Fish
Over the next seven devotionals, I want to talk to you about the number one business of the Church: the business of winning souls. It is what I call "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning."
The first "C"-commission-is found in Mark 16:15. These are some of the last words Jesus spoke before He ascended into heaven,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Could it be any clearer? Jesus said, "Go." Dare we say, "No"? He said, "Go."
That is the opposite of "stay," isn't it? G G-O.
God wants you and me to take the Gospel to Others.
You and I need to get out into the world! Jesus was not crucified between two candles on a church altar. He was crucified out in the byways and highways of humanity, and that is where we must take the message.
Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." That is a promise. But you know what? You have to get to the water if you are going to catch fish. You have to get out of the four church walls, out to where hurting humanity is, and engage them with the gospel.
A while back, I went backpacking with my two sons in a very remote area. We found a pristine lake where just about every time we would put a line in the water, we would catch a fish.
We also had this incredible camp. But you know what? If we wanted to catch fish, we had to go down to the water. No one could catch a fish sitting in camp.
A lot of Christians just hang around the camp. They form fishing clubs and talk about how important it is to fish. But they don't fish.
God wants us to go fish!
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Read: 2 Samuel 11:1-27
The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast. - Proverbs 5:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein first met at a New York City cafe. Neither woman left her seat for hours, because they were so fascinated to learn as much as they could about each other. You would be too if you had to wait 35 years to meet your identical twin. The women discovered they had been part of a psychological study about the effects of nature versus nurture, a study so controversial that the results have been sealed until 2066. But the women knew right away that, despite being raised in completely different circumstances, they shared a deep connection.
The nurturing that David received in his life could not have been more different from that of Lot's daughters, David's distant ancestors. Whereas they had been raised in one of the most immoral communities of all time, David grew up in a family that worshiped the true God, developing into a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22). But what David did in today's reading is evidence that no amountof positive nurturing can eliminate the depraved sin nature inherited by us all.
Just about all of David's decisions in this passage were wrong. By staying behind while his armies fought, David diverged from doing what was right and opened the door for impurity to take hold of his heart. Adultery, murder, deceit, and treachery were all rooted in that one nearly negligible act of selfishness. And it took almost no time for David's sins to manifest in one dire consequence after another. By the time David learned the results of his actions, he had become more concerned about hiding his sin than the death of his people (v. 25).
By contrast, Uriah's deeds were honorable, and that's the injustice of sin. Even the righteous suffer the consequences of other people's crimes. Uriah and other men died. Bathsheba lost her husband. Joab was made an unwitting instrument of sin. And, above all, the Lord was displeased with David. The consequences had only begun to unfold.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Staying pure and holy to God is more than just avoiding sexual sins like David's. The slippery slope of sin began with a failure to fulfill his responsibilities as God's servant. Being holy to God involves staying away from sin and being devoted to what He has for us to do. Think about what tasks God has assigned you, and then do them wholeheartedly. Thank Him for giving you a purpose and an escape from sins of selfishness. Doing whatever your own heart desires apart from God is vastly overrated.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 12, 2010
Finishers
READ: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. -2 Timothy 4:7
When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a black belt in karate. Several years ago, I began training and came close to fulfilling that goal. However, two belts away from my goal, I quit. There were two reasons-my teacher changed styles in the middle of my training, and I got so busy that I could not devote adequate time for training.
Almost every week, I am nagged by the thought that God wants me to be a finisher in all aspects of my life-but especially in my service for Him.
As Paul spoke of the conclusion of his life, he did not have any nagging thoughts of unfinished business about his ministry. In this final farewell (2Tim. 4:7), Paul used imagery-rich words to talk about finishing his service for Christ. He described his life and ministry in terms of a fight: "I have fought the good fight." The fight was good because he had engaged in it for God and the gospel. Then he used the imagery of a race as synonymous with his ministry: "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." Paul affirmed that by God's grace he had finished all that God had given him to do.
As followers of Jesus, let us strive to be finishers, persevering in our service for Jesus Christ. - Marvin Williams
For every follower of Christ
There is a race to run;
And when we cross the finish line,
We'll be with Christ, God's Son. -Fitzhugh
Run the race with eternity in view.
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Compassion for the Lost
Yesterday we started a series of devotionals I am calling "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning." Today I want to point you to the second "C"-compassion. In Mark 16:16 Jesus said,
"He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Now, condemned is a pretty soft word in the English language. I actually like the King James Version, where it says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
Condemned or damned, it means eternally separated from God with no opportunity of rescue or retrieval. Forever lost. Think about it!
Do you recall the story Jesus told of the rich man who died? It ought to send a shudder through the heart of even the most brazen sinner.
Jesus tells us that the rich man died and was in torment, in flame. Jesus goes on to say that the rich man lifted up his eyes, and begged for mercy. But no mercy came, even as it says in Revelation 14:11, "The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever."
I know it is not a popular subject in the Church to talk about hell, but Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven. It is a very real place. If we would consider just for a moment the end of the man or woman who rejects Christ, it ought to cause our hearts to be stirred with compassion.
When was the last time you and I shed a tear over lost humanity? When was the last time you and I were truly broken with the things that break the heart of God?
Our compassion for the lost ought to move us to do all we can to share Christ with them!
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Read: 2 Samuel 12:1-14
Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? - 2 Samuel 12:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the most difficult decisions facing a defense attorney is the choice of whether to allow the defendant to testify on his or her own behalf. A convincing testimony can help a jury identify with the person on trial, making the claims of innocence more believable. On the other hand, if the defendant appears abrasive, deceitful, or cold, the decision to take the stand can backfire very quickly, especially if the prosecuting attorney is armed with condemning ammunition.
If he had been on trial today, King David should have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, because his response to the prophet Nathan was a self-incriminating testimony if ever there was one. His anger over the loss of one poor man's lamb was indicative of his true personality, but it lay in stark contrast to the indifference he showed toward Uriah's death. Sin has a way of warping us to the point we no longer resemble the image of God created in us.
The account of 2 Samuel 12 probably occurred many months after Uriah's death, since Bathsheba had already given birth to David's son. Enough time had passed that David didn't see the correlation between Nathan's story and his own wicked deeds. But once confronted with his sin, David was immediately repentant. He received forgiveness and escaped the death penalty he had recommended for himself (v. 13), but God did not erase the consequences (v. 14).
The most immediate punishment was levied on another innocent victim: David's son. He was struck with an illness and died a week later (v. 18). In general, David's family became increasingly dysfunctional from that point forward. But Nathan's specific prophecy was fulfilled in the wickedness of David's son, Absalom (16:21-22). What David had done in secret was repaid to him, shamefully, for his kingdom to see. The punishment fit the crime, and it was an embarrassment for Israel, David's family, and the testimony of the Lord's people.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Impure pleasure almost always leads to shame. What we think is protected by privacy cannot be hidden from God's sight, nor can the consequences be prevented. For David, one short period of snowballing indiscretion caused an otherwise righteous life to unravel. We need to stay constantly vigilant to stay pure, serve God, and flee from temptation. Live this day and every day as if your life were an open book that anyone could read, and ask the Lord for the help only He can give.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
Daily Devotional
January 13, 2010
Credibility
READ: 1 Peter 2:11-21
[Have] your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that . . . they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God. -1 Peter 2:12
The recent global financial crisis caused people to pay closer attention to their credit report. When credit was easy to get, some people became careless about how they used it. They didn't bother to save for what they wanted; they just borrowed. Being in debt was no big deal. But in a crisis, that is no longer the case. Having good credit is suddenly very important.
After an advertisement for a credit repair service, a local newscaster said, "Credit repair isn't something you can buy; it's something you have to work for."
The same principle applies to the credibility of our lives. We can't buy it; it's something we have to work for. We may be able to "borrow" credibility for a while by associating ourselves with credible people, but sooner or later we will need our own.
Credibility has to do with the ability to elicit belief. The reason it's essential for Christians is that our lives affect God's reputation (1 Peter 2:12). When we call ourselves by Christ's name, His reputation is tied to ours. If people have reason not to believe us, they may not believe God.
The way to earn credibility is to live honorably. Then others will believe and glorify God. - Julie Ackerman Link
For Further Study
Look at these Scriptures about Christ's life: Matthew 9:10-13; 20:28; Luke 6:12. How can you live the way He did?
If we take care of our character, our reputation will take care of itself.
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Common Ground
The next "C" of "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning" is common ground. We need to endeavor to find common ground with people. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-24, Paul says,
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
In this passage, Paul is talking about the way he ran-the method he used-to reach people for Christ. Verse 22 in The Living Bible puts it this way, Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone so that I might bring them to Christ.
Paul didn't run aimlessly. And like Paul, you have to find a point to relate to people so that you can build a bridge over which the gospel can come.
I encourage you today to find a common area of interest, a common ground, to relate to people in order to share Christ with them.
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Read: Hebrews 9:11-28
TestHe has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. - Hebrews 9:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the best-selling toys is a collection of nameless stuffed animals-nameless, that is, until their new child owners supply them each a name along with the appropriate six-digit code on Webkinz.com. The popular children's social network allows kids to create a virtual room for a digital version of their plush pals where they can decorate, furnish, and add rooms as well as feed, dress, and interact with their pets. Children love the idea that the toys they hold in their arms are just copies of something much grander.
The tabernacle was a physical representation of something far greater outside of the natural realm. In Hebrews 9, the author of Hebrews introduces this extraordinary concept that true, heavenly realities exist, corresponding to earthly objects incorporated into Israel's worship of God. Being heavenly, they required a better sacrifice that could transcend the divide between the world we see with our eyes and the world we see by faith alone. That sacrifice came in the person of Jesus Christ, and the purification He accomplished was true, perfect, and final.
These past several days have taught us that sin is ingrained in our nature, no matter how righteous we may try to be on our own. But the blood of Christ can cleanse even our consciences, making these earthly vessels suitable for heavenly service (v. 14). The ways of worship assigned by God to His people had been an amazing object lesson of His plan of redemption and purification through the blood of His Son.
The crimes of impurity committed by mankind deserve a punishment of judgment and death. Ultimately, however, Jesus Christ took that punishment upon Himself not only paying for our sins but taking them away as well. We deserved condemnation, but through Christ we receive salvation. Our purity isn't ceremonial, virtual, or imagined. Because of Jesus, it is heavenly.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Isn't it encouraging to know that there is more to our lives than what we see before us? There is much more to you than what you see in a mirror. In Christ, we are written into the new covenant established by His death and resurrection, and our inheritance is eternal life. From a heavenly perspective, our sins have been washed away. There is no reason to stay in sin! Yes, the penalty for sin is severe, but look instead today on the opportunity to serve in purity afforded you by Jesus Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 14, 2010
The Sin Buildup
READ: 1 John 1:5-10
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. -2 Corinthians 4:7
For hundreds of years, windmills around the world have been used to pump water and to process grains. But in the last few decades, as wind turbines producing electricity have become more prevalent, a "fly in the ointment" unexpectedly occurred.
Researchers discovered that windpower generators worked fine at slow speeds, but at high-wind velocity, bugs on the blades reduced power output. Operators found that it was necessary to regularly wash off the buildup of dead insects to avoid having them slowly decrease the turbine's power.
A buildup of sin in a Christian's life can be a problem as well. God has provided a way to clear the accumulation of sins from our lives. First John 1:9 reminds us: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But unless we do that often, we'll be running on diminished power. That's because the power for living comes from God and not us (2 Cor. 4:7). When we try to live the Christian life in our own strength, we'll feel defeated-like windmills robbed of their energy.
God's power can be more easily seen and experienced in our lives when we get rid of sin's buildup every day. - Cindy Hess Kasper
The power in our Christian life
Will be diminished by our sin;
Confession will restore our strength-
When we're forgiven, cleansed within. -Sper
Sin drains our spiritual power; confession restores it.
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Character Counts
So far we have learned about the first three "Cs" of soul winning in the last few devotionals. Today let me share the fourth "C"-character. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, particularly verse 27, tells us the importance of character in witnessing to others,
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
Paul said he was temperate in all things, that he disciplined his body. He would bring it into subjection, meaning he had problems keeping his body in subjection, just like you and I do.
Every one of us has a propensity toward certain sins. It is important, though, that we rein in our flesh and that we are temperate in all things because our lifestyle affects our message.
Take just a moment and do the following exercise. Imagine you are an employer. If you wanted to hire an efficient, competent, trustworthy employee, would you hire yourself at your present salary?
Or let's say that you were going to have to spend the rest of your life with someone just like you. Would you look forward to it as a great opportunity and privilege? Or not?
If your character is out of whack, people are going to have a hard time hearing what you have to say. Character counts!
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Read: Exodus 5:22-6:11
I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. - Exodus 6:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Political leaders are notorious for their promises. Very rarely can an elected official fulfill every goal laid out on the campaign trail-some don't manage to live up to any. Plans for resurrecting an economy or cleaning up the political system are usually beyond the power of any one person, so it's easy to blame an opponent for failure. But when plans succeed, most politicians are quick to take the credit and watch their popularity skyrocket.
God's promise to Israel was loftier than any human leader could guarantee. And unlike the flimsy plans of men, God's prediction didn't contain the word if. His superiority was definite, and the deliverance of His children was a statement of fact. But the certainty of God's acts wasn't the only notable thing about this promise.
At this point, God didn't even ask the people of Israel to believe Him. He was making an unconditional promise that required no action from them. He would do all the work. He would bring them out. He would free them. He would redeem them. He would take them as His people and be their God. And He would bring them to the land of promise.
The only action ascribed to Israel was knowledge: they would know that the Lord was God and that He alone delivered them out of slavery in Egypt (v. 7). At the time, they dismissed the message Moses carried to them because to them those promises were just loud words from a strange man who had made their workload even harder. Without proof, they would never believe.
The chapters that follow tell the rest of the story. God gave Israel all the proof they needed and more. He demonstrated His power over Pharaoh's false gods, and He showed His mercy to those who believed in Him and followed His instructions. To ignore what He had done would be nothing short of criminal.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you having trouble believing in the power of God to rescue you from any hardship or to provide you with whatever you might need? That could be because you have forgotten what He has done in the past. Take some time to write down the ways God has helped you in the past, beginning with His gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. There is no greater feat nor deeper love than the redemption of a sinner. Thank God for all He has done and praise Him for His ability to continually meet your needs.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
January 15, 2010
A Second Chance
READ: Lamentations 3:22-33
His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. -Lamentations 3:22-23
A year ago today, 155 people on US Airways Flight 1549 thought they were going to die. During take-off from New York City, their plane struck a flock of geese, disabling both engines. In a powerless glide, the captain maneuvered over the densely populated area, then announced: "Brace for impact." Less than 90 seconds later, the crippled plane made a water landing in the frigid Hudson River, where boats and ferries quickly arrived to rescue the passengers and crew, all of whom survived. People called it the "miracle on the Hudson" and praised the pilot and crew. One grateful passenger said simply, "We have a second chance in life."
In times of crisis, we grasp the importance of every hour. During our ordinary routine, however, we often forget that each day is a second chance. "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I hope in Him!' " (Lam. 3:22-24).
We can choose to live with thankfulness for God's mercy and grace, with confidence in His faithful care, and with hope because He is with us forever. Today, God offers us a second chance in life. Let's make the most of it! - David C. McCasland
As shadows of night give way to dawn's light,
God opens the door to a brand-new day;
And with it come mercies from His gracious hand
For giving new mercies is always His way. -D. De Haan
Our God is a God of second chances.
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The Comforter
Today we are going to look at the fifth "C" of soul winning, and that is the Comforter. Many times when Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit, He referred to Him as the Comforter.
In Acts 1:4-5, after the resurrection, Jesus said something to the disciples that was very intriguing,
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
He had already told them to go into all the world, but then He said, "Hey, you need to wait for something. There's some equipment you need before you go. Don't go start a Bible study, don't go pass out a tract, don't do anything. You need something first. You need to be baptized with the Spirit."
Then look at what He said in verse 8,
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
The Holy Spirit gives us power to be a witness. There is something beyond even living a life of integrity. There is a supernatural, captivating element when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit that makes the witness of the gospel even more inescapable.
Jesus was so strong on it He said, "Look, don't leave Jerusalem without it." God has given us His Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to empower us to reach our generation for Christ.
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Read: Exodus 5:22-6:11
I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. - Exodus 6:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Political leaders are notorious for their promises. Very rarely can an elected official fulfill every goal laid out on the campaign trail-some don't manage to live up to any. Plans for resurrecting an economy or cleaning up the political system are usually beyond the power of any one person, so it's easy to blame an opponent for failure. But when plans succeed, most politicians are quick to take the credit and watch their popularity skyrocket.
God's promise to Israel was loftier than any human leader could guarantee. And unlike the flimsy plans of men, God's prediction didn't contain the word if. His superiority was definite, and the deliverance of His children was a statement of fact. But the certainty of God's acts wasn't the only notable thing about this promise.
At this point, God didn't even ask the people of Israel to believe Him. He was making an unconditional promise that required no action from them. He would do all the work. He would bring them out. He would free them. He would redeem them. He would take them as His people and be their God. And He would bring them to the land of promise.
The only action ascribed to Israel was knowledge: they would know that the Lord was God and that He alone delivered them out of slavery in Egypt (v. 7). At the time, they dismissed the message Moses carried to them because to them those promises were just loud words from a strange man who had made their workload even harder. Without proof, they would never believe.
The chapters that follow tell the rest of the story. God gave Israel all the proof they needed and more. He demonstrated His power over Pharaoh's false gods, and He showed His mercy to those who believed in Him and followed His instructions. To ignore what He had done would be nothing short of criminal.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you having trouble believing in the power of God to rescue you from any hardship or to provide you with whatever you might need? That could be because you have forgotten what He has done in the past. Take some time to write down the ways God has helped you in the past, beginning with His gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. There is no greater feat nor deeper love than the redemption of a sinner. Thank God for all He has done and praise Him for His ability to continually meet your needs.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 16, 2010
Glory Deflectors
READ: Acts 14:8-18
I will not give My glory to another. -Isaiah 48:11
Barbara Mertz has a complaint about Egypt's Pharaoh Ramses. In her book Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs, archaeologist Mertz writes, "One gets so tired of Ramses; his face, his figure, and/or his name are plastered over half the wall surfaces still standing in Egypt-at least it seems that way." Insatiably thirsty for glory, Ramses reveled in Egyptian religion, which taught that the pharaoh was divine.
Contrast Ramses' desire for glory with the attitude of Paul and Barnabas. On one of their missionary journeys, they faced a situation during which they refused to accept vainglory. When a crowd in the idolatrous city of Lystra saw them heal a crippled man, the people exclaimed, "The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!" (Acts 14:11). They immediately prepared animals to sacrifice in honor of Paul and Barnabas. But the two quickly objected, saying, "We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God" (v.15).
We do not rival the apostles in our accomplishments for God, but we all have things we do for Him. It's then that we must be "glory deflectors," making sure God gets all the glory for everything we have done. - Dennis Fisher
May everything we do-
By word or deed or story-
Be done to please the Lord;
To Him be all the glory. -Roworth
Man's greatest goal: Bringing glory to God.
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Convicting and Convincing
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about the fifth "C" of soul winning-the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is such an important part in witnessing I want to take you to another passage today to help you understand His role more clearly.
The passage is John 16:7-9. Here Jesus is talking to the disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me."
Jesus is not telling us that we need to pray, "Holy Spirit, go convict this person." Rather, the foundation from which He is speaking is found in John 14. In that passage He says, "When the Holy Spirit comes, He will no longer just be with you, but He will be in you."
In the following verses, He then talks about all the things the Holy Spirit does within us. And here, when He talks about the Holy Spirit convicting people of sin (and, as the Amplified Bible says, convicting and convincing the world of sin), He does that work when we engage them with the gospel.
When we talk to people about Christ, the Holy Spirit then goes to work.
I think about that little boy who told me about Jesus-a Spirit-filled 12-year-old. I had never heard the gospel in my life, yet there was something so captivating, so arresting about him, I could not get him out of my mind.
It was the power of the Holy Spirit working through him. And He wants to work through you as well.
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Read: Numbers 14:11-44
How long will they refuse to believe in me? - Numbers 14:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Moses was with the Lord on Mount Sinai and the rest of Israel had crafted the golden calf as their new object of worship, God expressed His desire to destroy the people and to make a new nation from Moses and his descendants. Moses pleaded with the Lord to relent, citing the negative image it would leave in the minds of foreign nations and recalling His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 32). God had mercy on His rebellious children.
A little over a year later, Moses found himself in an almost identical situation. We read yesterday about Israel's mutinous reaction to the plan for entering Canaan. Today's passage begins with God's furious response, renewing His intentions to destroy the rebellious people and start anew with Moses. Once again, Moses asked forgiveness for His people, and once again the Lord answered his request. However, Israel would not go unpunished.
All the Israelites who were at least twenty years old were sentenced to die in the wilderness, a result of protracted wandering over forty years. The spies who had given bad reports because they were more afraid of the Canaanites than of God were all killed immediately with a plague. Of the adults, only Caleb and Joshua were permitted to enter the Promised Land, but even they had to wait forty years before it happened. The punishment for Israel's crime this time came directly from God. He withheld the benefits of His special promise from those who refused to trust Him.
Ironically, Moses' pleas for mercy may have indirectly prevented him from entering the Promised Land. Many leaders would have seized the opportunity to become the father of a new nation, but Moses acted unselfishly. Yet later in the book of Numbers, Moses' frustrations with these same people incited him to disrespect God's commands, and his penalty was God's ban on leading the people into Canaan (20:9-12). A wicked people can create the conditions for the downfall of their own leaders.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Failure to trust in God will always lead us to miss out on blessings He intends for us. You might not see your rebellion or the cost as specifically as Israel did in the wilderness, but you may very well spend decades wandering aimlessly with little reward. When God asks you to trust in Him, obey without hesitation-though you should take the time to ensure you are acting on faith in His true will and not selfish impulse. Be willing today to do what is right, no matter how difficult it may seem.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 17, 2010
Respect For Life
READ: Psalm 139:13-16
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. -Psalm 139:14
In Psalm 139, David describes God as fashioning his tiny body together in the darkness of his mother's womb. God loved David before he ever existed.
God designed the person David was to be, and He brought that person into being according to His predetermined plan. In this psalm, David used the intriguing metaphor of a journal in which God first wrote His plan and then brought that plan into fruition through His handiwork in the womb: "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written" (v.16).
Put another way, David was shaped by his heavenly Father's love into a unique creation. He came from the inventive heart and hand of God. What was true of David is true of you. You are special-along with everyone else in the world.
This being true, we must be pro-life in the purest sense of the word. We are to respect and cherish all human life: the born and those still in the womb; winsome children and weary seniors; the wealthy executive and the financially destitute. All persons are unique productions of our Creator's genius. With David, let's exclaim: "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (139:14). - David H. Roper
By God's wise designing
We are wonderfully made,
Every part essential
And in perfect balance laid. -Anon.
All life is created by God and bears His autograph.
All life is created by God and bears His autograph.
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The Priority of Purity
We live in a highly sexualized society. It is amazing the number of people, even pastors, who fall to sexual temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 we are told straight out,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
God expects for you and me to live in sexual purity. You need to know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor; otherwise your body will possess you.
God has created a strong sexual drive that is an awesome blessing in marriage! But, you know, it is so strong that sometimes it just wants to flow out of the banks and go somewhere it shouldn't go.
We must learn how to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, and live morally pure lives that bring pleasure to God. Here are three practical ways:
Avoid temptation. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, Flee youthful lusts. Avoid the very scenes of temptation. Stay away when you know you might get in trouble.
Feed your spirit, not your flesh. In Romans, we are told of the great war every Christian experiences, the war between our spirit and our flesh. Whatever you feed is going to be stronger, so make sure to feed your spirit.
Rely on the Holy Spirit and His power. If you will acknowledge Him and look to Him for strength, you will find He is a very present help in your time of need.
Make a commitment today to practice these three principles for purity. If you do, you will live in the sexual purity God desires.
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Read: Deuteronomy 6:1-25
Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you. - Deuteronomy 6:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Certain events in popular culture capture the public's attention and dominate the conversation-they become known as water-cooler moments. It could be celebrity gossip, sporting events, a television show, or (especially in corporate culture) the latest office rumors. What we talk about in those moments when we have nothing else to discuss says a lot about what is most important to us as individuals and as a society.
It is telling, then, that the subject of God and His Word are more often taboo than the topic of our water-cooler discussions. God instructed Israel to do the opposite. He wanted to be at the forefront of Israel's conversation. And it made perfect sense, especially if there had been no official written copy of God's Word prior to God inscribing the Law or Moses recording the Pentateuch. If God's Word wasn't on their lips, it was unlikely to be on their hearts.
Today's passage is one of those chapters that uplifts the spirits of the reader. Israel was being encouraged, not scolded. The Lord spoke reassuringly and with certainty of the victory they were about to enjoy and the relationship of righteousness they would encounter with Him. He did include a warning about the consequences of disobedience, and it stands out in the middle of this passage (vv. 14-16). God was not only jealous, but He was also dwelling among the people of Israel (v. 15). For them to assume that He could not see their actions would certainly be a terrible mistake.
The overall tone of the passage is very positive and reassuring. Even so, God anticipated the skeptical question that would come from the next generation: Why do we have all these rules (v. 20)? The answer had nothing to do with joyless restrictions. God rescued His people from slavery, and He wanted them to prosper and to preserve their legacy as people of faith in the Lord their God. Their obedience to the Law demonstrated the reality of their relationship. True obedience could never be independent of their faith in Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Try reading this passage as God's exhortation to you with some New Testament substitutions. Instead of bondage in Egypt, think of how God freed you from slavery to sin. Instead of the inheritance of the Promised Land, consider your eternal inheritance. And when you reach the final verse, read Philippians 3:9 in its place: "And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
Read: Numbers 14:11-44
How long will they refuse to believe in me? - Numbers 14:11
GOD BLESS! :angel:
18, 2010
It Is My Business
READ: Leviticus 19:11-18
You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge . . . , but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. -Leviticus 19:18
In 1955, when the South was still highly segregated, Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, visited relatives in Mississippi. After Emmett "dared" to talk to a white woman, two white men brutally murdered him. An all-white, male jury found the two "not guilty"-after deliberating for barely an hour. The two men later confessed to the crime in a Life magazine article.
Following the verdict, Emmett's mother said, "Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to Negroes in the South, I said, 'That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all."
Making another's concerns our own is what Leviticus 19:18 calls us to do: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus quotes this verse and interprets it as not placing any limitations on loving those around us (Matt. 22:39; Luke 10:25-37). Our neighbor doesn't just mean someone close by; it's anyone who has a need. We are to care for others as we care for ourselves.
To love our neighbor means to make the persecution, suffering, and injustice of our fellow human beings our own. It is the business of all who follow Christ. - Marvin Williams
For Further Thought
How can we be a good neighbor? Be respectful to all. Lend a hand. Volunteer. Join a neighborhood association. Speak up when others are treated unjustly.
Compassion puts love into action.
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Are You Rebelling Against Authority?
If you are in the pits, you need to make sure you are not in rebellion against God's established authority, or aligned with those who are.
In Numbers 16 there is an instructive story of Korah and his followers. They openly confronted Moses and Aaron, and challenged whether they were really God's ordained leaders.
Moses and Aaron were flawed and fallible just like every one of us, but Korah wanted to usurp authority that did not belong to him.
God had placed Moses and Aaron in their position of authority, but Korah tried to undermine that authority and lead people against them.
Look at the result of Korah's rebellion. Moses is speaking in verses 30 and 31,
"But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods.
Notice that it was not just Korah who was destroyed. All those who were aligned with him also went into the pit.
I don't think the ground is going to open up under you if you rebel against the authority that God has set up. But you may find yourself in an emotional, physical, or financial pit that you cannot get out of until you get the rebellion out of you.
If you are in a pit today, check your heart and make sure you are not in rebellion against God's ordained authority.
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Read: Judges 6:1-40
Men cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful. - Job 35:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
The decorated war hero and controversial Army general George S. Patton knew more about bravery than most people can imagine. But he also knew plenty about fear. He said, "Courage is fear holding on a minute longer."
As we discussed at the beginning of our January 6 study, Gideon's accomplishments in battle empowered by the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Lord were quite remarkable. We'll study his bravery in more detail tomorrow, but today will show that Gideon was also considerably plagued by fear. The cause of his fear was not his own sin, but the wickedness of his family and his community. The Israelites had done evil in the eyes of the Lord.
The exact nature of that evil reveals itself through the discourse in today's passage. The Israelites had been oppressed by the Midianites and Amelekites and other people groups in the land they had come to occupy, but they had also grown quite comfortable worshiping the false gods. Gideon's initial fears may have been directed toward the invading foreigners, but his fears over destroying the Asherah pole and altar to Baal stemmed from his own family (v. 27).
Gideon did eventually obey-after several rounds of testing. He needed proof that the angel was of the Lord, which also frightened him (possibly because of the warning in Ex. 33:20). Then he needed proof not once but twice that Israel would be saved by his hand (vv. 36-39). Gideon's problem wasn't an unwillingness to obey, but rather a surplus of fear.
The wickedness of worshiping foreign gods had infested the Israelites, making them vulnerable both to the wrath of God and the oppression of foreign people. But the fear was compounded within their own ranks. All the evidence points to Gideon being a man of faith and obedience, but a community overrun with sin and spiritual infidelity had created an environment of fear for those who truly loved God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Does this description sound at all familiar in today's culture? When sinful practices abound and biblical beliefs are ridiculed, believers naturally feel threatened. On one hand, Gideon's story should encourage you to stand against the current of popular thought. But on the other hand, we must all recognize the warning that our sins are not only personal-they contribute to an atmosphere in which people are afraid to live righteously. Our sins weigh on the consciences of those around us. Remember that today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 19, 2010
Never Satisfied But Always Content
READ: Philippians 3:7-14
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:14
Tiger Woods is clearly the greatest golfer of his generation. His ability to perform under pressure and win is becoming legendary. Yet what motivates Woods is not just winning, it's his passion for excellence. Despite his great success, Tiger has repeatedly refined his swing in an ongoing effort to improve his game and be a better golfer. His desire for excellence leaves him never satisfied.
The apostle Paul was also driven by a desire for excellence-but in his relationship with Christ. Paul, however, taught that we're to have balance. While we're never to be satisfied with our spiritual progress, we're always to be content in Christ.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul expressed both realities. While writing from prison, he declared his contentment with life's circumstances, entrusting them to God's care (Phil. 4:11). Nevertheless, he refused to be satisfied with his own spiritual progress. He did not count himself to have "apprehended" (to have arrived and achieved it all). Instead, he was committed to pressing on toward the goal (3:13-14).
Learning to balance contentment with a desire for excellence may be the forgotten key to our ongoing spiritual growth and advancement. - Bill Crowder
I give my life to You, O Lord,
To follow and obey;
Grant me contentment as I strive
For excellence each day. -Sper
Godliness with contentment is great gain. -1 Timothy 6:6
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Worry About Work
In 2 Corinthians 11:28, the apostle Paul says something very interesting,
Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
You may be wondering, "Bayless, what does this have to do with my life?" Let me show you.
The phrase "deep concern" literally means anxiety and worry. And that phrase "to come upon"in the original language literally means "it conspires against me in order to overthrow me."
The apostle Paul's job was to oversee the churches that God had used him to establish, and in this verse he is confessing, "I daily have to battle with worry over these churches. How are they doing? Are they being misled by false prophets? Are they staying true to good doctrine?"
He was dealing with worry about those churches. Every day he grappled with that worry, and he had to throw it down.
It is easy for all of us to worry about our job. Some people, even though they are at home, never leave their job. They carry the burden around with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
They are always worrying about the job, even when they are home with their family. "How are things going at work? I wonder what they're saying. I wonder about the competition. What about sales? What about my job security? What's going to happen tomorrow?"
Consequently, when they get home from work, they are carrying this burden of work around with them, and they are robbing their family. Their own spiritual life is robbed, many times almost to the point of bankruptcy.
Do not let your family be robbed. Do not let your own personal and spiritual life be robbed because you carry the care of your job around with you. Instead, give it to God.
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Read: Judges 7:1-25
Who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised. - Judges 7:1-25
TODAY IN THE WORD
One clinical approach to addressing fear, anxiety, and phobias is exposure therapy. By forcing patients to face their fears, even in a controlled environment, psychologists can teach them that they are capable of coping. They see that being paralyzed by fear is actually worse than addressing the threat head on. As Helen Keller put it, "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
If Gideon had any fear remaining in his heart, God forced him to face those fears to the extreme. The Midianites and their allies swarmed the valley where they camped, and even their camels were innumerable. The next chapter states that 15,000 men survived the battle, which claimed the lives of 120,000 swordsmen (8:10). Whatever the number of opposing soldiers, Gideon probably didn't share the Lord's assessment that his own army of 32,000 soldiers was too large. The prospect of fighting with only 300 men was unthinkable.
That's exactly what God wanted Gideon to do. Was he afraid? Verses 10 through 12 indicate as much, but the Lord didn't criticize Gideon's fear, He erased it by allowing him to hear the enemy express fear not only of the Lord but also of the army that Gideon commanded. Gideon's response was uncharacteristic of his usual hesitant approach. The time for testing was over. He was emboldened by the fears of his enemies and the assurance of His God; he acted immediately and rallied his brave, wise, but very small army.
Once the ingenious plan to surround the enemy, manipulate their fears, and allow the Lord to confuse them further unfolded, the size of Gideon's army increased dramatically. He quickly called for the men from the tribe of Ephraim to join in the fight and apprehend the leaders of the Midianite army. By obeying and trusting in God, Gideon saw the force of his efforts multiply and the threat of his enemies dwindle before his eyes. His fear was replaced with boldness, his inaction with mighty works.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sometimes it may feel like life would be easier if all the directions and orders for our life were spoken directly to us by the angel of the Lord. But while we may not receive specific verbal instructions, we also don't often face pagan armies while outnumbered three hundred to one. One battle we do wage is the battle within, the struggle against the lure of this world system. Are you longing for material possessions and pleasure? Ask God for the courage to seek instead after His kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 20, 2010
Redirected
READ: Genesis 39:1-10
The Lord was with Joseph. -Genesis 39:2
At the age of 16, pianist Leon Fleisher made his formal debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic. He went on to win prestigious international competitions and played in the world's finest concert halls. But at the age of 37, Fleisher was struck with dystonia, a neurological condition that crippled his right hand. After a period of despondency and withdrawal, he turned to teaching and conducting, because, as he said, he loved music more than he loved the piano.
When our dreams are shattered, how do we react? After Joseph, the favored son of Jacob, was sold as a slave by his brothers (Gen. 37:12-36), he could have given in to self-pity and self-indulgence. Instead, Joseph remained true to the Lord. Four times in Genesis 39, we read that "the Lord was with" Joseph (vv.2-3,21,23), and his actions revealed his own faithfulness to God. By his exemplary life, those he served in Egypt recognized God's presence with him.
Do we love God more than our own dreams? Although Joseph must have grieved the loss of his past and what his life could have been, the Lord led him to a calling he had never imagined. Today, the Lord longs to lead us. Are we willing to be redirected by Him? - David C. McCasland
My cherished plans may go astray,
My hopes may fade away;
But still I'll trust my Lord to lead,
For He doth know the way. -Overton
A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. -Proverbs 16:9
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An Original
1 Samuel 15:19 and 24 provide us with real insight into an area of anxiety for many people. One that may control your life today.
This is Samuel talking to Saul,
"Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"
Saul gives his answer in verse 24,
Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice."
Hmmm! "I feared the people and obeyed their voice." Saul confessed that he was worried about what other people thought of him and what other people would say about him. As a result, he made a horrible decision that was counter to what God wanted.
Too many people, even good Christians, are eaten up with worry over what other people think and say about them. Let me tell you, the worst place to have your peace is in somebody else's head. As Proverbs 29:25 says, The fear of man brings a snare.
Saul is a perfect example. He never fulfilled his destiny, he never fulfilled his purpose in life, because he was too worried about what people thought about him even though God chose him to be king.
Someone wisely said this:
"It is not what I think I am that molds me and drives me, and it is not what you think I am that molds me and drives me. It is what I think that you think I am that molds me and drives me."
Is that your concern today? If so, let me give you some advice: Be yourself. You were created by God as an original, and it would be a shame if you died a copy.
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Read: Judges 7:1-25
Who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised. - Judges 7:1-25
TODAY IN THE WORD
One clinical approach to addressing fear, anxiety, and phobias is exposure therapy. By forcing patients to face their fears, even in a controlled environment, psychologists can teach them that they are capable of coping. They see that being paralyzed by fear is actually worse than addressing the threat head on. As Helen Keller put it, "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
If Gideon had any fear remaining in his heart, God forced him to face those fears to the extreme. The Midianites and their allies swarmed the valley where they camped, and even their camels were innumerable. The next chapter states that 15,000 men survived the battle, which claimed the lives of 120,000 swordsmen (8:10). Whatever the number of opposing soldiers, Gideon probably didn't share the Lord's assessment that his own army of 32,000 soldiers was too large. The prospect of fighting with only 300 men was unthinkable.
That's exactly what God wanted Gideon to do. Was he afraid? Verses 10 through 12 indicate as much, but the Lord didn't criticize Gideon's fear, He erased it by allowing him to hear the enemy express fear not only of the Lord but also of the army that Gideon commanded. Gideon's response was uncharacteristic of his usual hesitant approach. The time for testing was over. He was emboldened by the fears of his enemies and the assurance of His God; he acted immediately and rallied his brave, wise, but very small army.
Once the ingenious plan to surround the enemy, manipulate their fears, and allow the Lord to confuse them further unfolded, the size of Gideon's army increased dramatically. He quickly called for the men from the tribe of Ephraim to join in the fight and apprehend the leaders of the Midianite army. By obeying and trusting in God, Gideon saw the force of his efforts multiply and the threat of his enemies dwindle before his eyes. His fear was replaced with boldness, his inaction with mighty works.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sometimes it may feel like life would be easier if all the directions and orders for our life were spoken directly to us by the angel of the Lord. But while we may not receive specific verbal instructions, we also don't often face pagan armies while outnumbered three hundred to one. One battle we do wage is the battle within, the struggle against the lure of this world system. Are you longing for material possessions and pleasure? Ask God for the courage to seek instead after His kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 21, 2010
A Mutual Friend
READ: John 15:9-17
I have called you friends. -John 15:15
Imagine being a visitor in a foreign land, showing up unannounced at a gathering of people you have never met and who have never heard of you-and then being allowed to address that group just a few minutes later. That can happen only if something breaks down barriers- something like mutual friends.
It happened when I took a missions team to a church service in Discovery Bay, Jamaica. Before we left the US, my friend Dorant Brown, a Jamaican pastor, recommended a church to attend. So when we arrived at the church, and I mentioned Pastor Brown, we were not only welcomed, but I was also asked to speak briefly and our team was asked to sing.
While sharing Dorant's name was vital, I really don't think it was that mutual friend who got us such a warm welcome. I think it was our shared Friend and Savior Jesus who opened our Jamaican friends' hearts to our visit.
Have you experienced a connection with someone you just met when you tell them you too know Jesus? He's a friend who laid down His life for us (John 15:13), and He makes brothers and sisters of all who believe (1 Peter 2:17).
Jesus. Our Savior. Our mutual Friend. He joins hearts around the world under the banner of His love. - Dave Branon
Join hands, then, brothers of the faith,
Whate'er your race may be;
Who serves my Father as a son
Is surely kin to me. -Oxenham
Those who are drawn to Christ are drawn to each other.
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The Power of a Word
Proverbs 12:18 gives us some valuable advice,
There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health.
Did you ever know someone who is good at making cutting remarks? They spoke like the piercings of a sword?
Over twenty years ago I was at the house of some friends. We were all just kind of hanging out and I made a comment to one of the brothers in the family. It was a clever little comment and was basically meant to take a jab at him.
A couple of the family members heard it and snickered and said, "Oh, way to go, Bayless! You got him!" But as soon as I said it, his countenance fell, and my heart just sank. While I looked for an opportunity to apologize to him that night, I didn't do it because he ended up leaving early.
I've regretted that comment ever since. I repented, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed me from that sin. But you know what? Those words were out, and I couldn't get them back.
Shortly after that night, he went feet first into a very destructive lifestyle involving his sexuality. I have to think that quite possibly my words pushed him away from God. It may have been that little jab of the sword that pushed him off the edge.
The New Testament says in Ephesians 4:29, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but only that which is good for edification or for building up that it may minister grace to the hearers.
Are your words ministering grace to those who hear them? Are they building up? Or are they tearing down?
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Read: 1 Kings 12:16-33
Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. - 1 Kings 12:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
Adam and Eve broke the one command given in Eden. Cain, Moses, and Abimelech violated God's hatred of violence. Lot's daughters and David and Bathsheba taught us of the monumental consequences for sinning against God's standards of purity. And as they stood at the threshold of the Promised Land, Israel committed the deadly crime of refusing to trust God. These sins represent specific actions, violations at key moments in people's lives.
But the crime we're currently examining is one that dominated the history of Israel in a chronic cycle. It's the sin of rebellion against, departure from, and unfaithfulness toward the Lord God of Israel. This crime is more of a lifestyle than a single act or decision, and it produces many sins and broad consequences. It is, in a sense, its own punishment. In general, the time between the death of Solomon and the birth of Christ was a dark period in Israel's history, but it holds powerful lessons for the believer.
Today's reading follows the aftermath of Rehoboam's cruel treatment of Jeroboam. The insurrection was immediate. One of Rehoboam's officials was killed (v. 18). Jeroboam was swiftly made king over the Northern Kingdom (all tribes except Judah and the bulk of the divided tribe of Benjamin). Had God not spoken through His prophet Shemaiah, a civil war would have followed (v. 24).
Jeroboam's first major act as king of Israel was despicable. To prevent the affections of the people from swaying back to the line of their greatest king, Jeroboam simply created a new form of worship and a revised history of their nation. He made a cheap knock-off of the Hebrew faith, complete with places to worship and falsified festivals. The instruction to select priests from the tribe of Levi was thrown out as well. In Jeroboam's court, anyone could become a priest (13:33). These were God's chosen people, but under the people's chosen king they no longer served the one true God. The Northern Kingdom's legacy of evil had begun.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Not every conflict has a bad guy and a good guy. Both Rehoboam and Jeroboam reigned in times of great evil. There's a lesson there for us when we find ourselves in conflict with someone we know is in the wrong. Have you ever used someone else's blatant sin as proof that your actions are right? It isn't enough to oppose the wicked if we aren't truly following God in what we do. If you (or someone close to you) are engaged in a dispute, seek godly advice and avoid the consequence of perpetual sin.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 22, 2010
Neighborly Love
READ: Luke 10:29-37
You shall love the Lord your God . . . and your neighbor as yourself. -Luke 10:27
It would have been simpler just to buy a new hair dryer. But determined to save a buck, I decided to fix it myself. In order to loosen the screw that was buried deep in the handle, I took out the ultimate handyman's helper-my pocket knife. As I put pressure on the knife to turn the screw, the blade folded back-on my finger.
I learned a lesson that day: I love myself. And I am urgent about meeting my needs. There was no thought of, "Well, I don't really have time to stop the bleeding now. I'll get to it later." Also, there was a tenderness about how the need was met. I instructed my first-aid team (my wife and kids) to wash my finger gently and then to put the bandage on in a way that would avoid having the hairs on my finger pulled up when it was removed. My thoughts, words, and actions were driven by my love for myself.
To love "your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27) requires the same urgent kind of love. It's a love that notices the need of another person and won't rest until it's been met. It's a gentle, tender love that thinks and acts carefully. It's the sacrificial and compassionate love that a nameless Samaritan had for a fallen traveler. It's the kind of love God wants to share with your neighbors through you. - Joe Stowell
Lord, help me see the heartfelt needs
Of those within my care,
And grant that through my words and deeds
Your love with them I'll share. -D. De Haan
You cannot touch your neighbor's heart with anything less than your own.
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No Fear
People tend to worry in these days about world events. In Matthew 24:6-7, Jesus tells us this,
"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places."
Jesus said, "When these things happen, don't be troubled. Don't worry. They must come to pass." Think about some of those things.
Earthquakes in various places. I have been told that around the world earthquakes are increasing both in frequency and in size. They are happening more and more, and they are getting worse and worse. It is a sign, my friend.
Jesus mentions pestilences-diseases without cures. Ring any bells? There are certain nations where it is reported that 50 percent of the population is infected with AIDS. It is rampant in many countries of the world. It is an incredible problem even in our own country.
Jesus points to famines. There is drought, which is causing famines, which is causing starvation around the world.
Then Jesus talks about wars, rumors of wars, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. You can't turn on the news without hearing about some terrorist attack. There are countries today aggressively pursuing nuclear capabilities. Nations are poised against one another.
The leaders of our nation and other nations make decisions that affect literally the whole world. It seems like the world is on fire! Things are hanging in the balance.
Our response? It should not be fear, but rather recognition that these things must come to pass before Christ returns!
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Read: 1 Kings 16:29-33
There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD. - 1 Kings 21:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
Mario Mendoza was known for his defensive skills on the baseball diamond-and his lack of prowess with the bat. In his nine-year career, he hit a total of four home runs, and his low batting averages became the standard for judging poor hitting-a .200 average is known as the Mendoza line.
In the annals of Israel's kings, Ahab set the standard for wickedness. He is known almost entirely for worshiping foreign gods, oppressing his people, and persecuting the prophets of God (especially Elijah). If Jeroboam had initially appeared to be the very worst king imaginable, Ahab crossed new frontiers of evil. The worship practices instituted by his predecessor were tame compared to the depths to which Ahab stooped. He adopted the Baal worship and Asherah poles that Gideon had torn down so long before because, like Solomon had done, he married the daughter of a foreign king.
Baal worship dominated Ahab's rule, as evidenced by the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal (see 1 Kings 18). He built a temple and altar to this false god and essentially turned Israel into a pagan nation. Were it not for the prophets who spoke the truth about God, Ahab would have eliminated true worship if he had gotten his way. The major consequence of his actions was simple: the Lord was very angry.
But as awful a king as Ahab was and as many wicked things he did toward God and against the people he ruled, even Ahab became the recipient of God's grace. Near the end of his rule, Ahab was confronted a final time by Elijah with a stern rebuke of condemnation. When Ahab heard it, he mourned and fasted and humbled himself before God (1 Kings 21:29). Despite the fact that in 22 years of ruling Israel he had unceasingly provoked God to anger, Ahab garnered God's compassion because of one moment of humility. He still paid for his crimes, but even Israel's wickedest king was a candidate for mercy.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you are feeling guilt or shame over something you have done or are doing, don't think for a moment that God won't forgive you. Nothing in your past can compare with the crimes of Ahab, nor can any sin run deeper than the forgiveness found through the blood of Christ. What you must do, however, is humble your heart. If you are harboring sin, pride is at work. Confess it and feel the relief of having your burdens lifted by the One who gave His life for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 23, 2010
Giving Up?
READ: 1 Kings 19:11-18
I alone am left; and they seek to take my life. -1 Kings 19:10
Have you ever felt like giving up? Elijah did. The Lord had just used him to show the nation of Israel that the Lord is God (1 Kings 18). Yet, the threats of Queen Jezebel so alarmed him that he ran to Beersheba, 100 miles south (19:3). Then he walked another 150 miles south to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Twice God asked Elijah what he was doing there (vv.9,13). Both times he answered with identical words-"I alone am left; and they seek to take my life" (vv.10,14). He had become so preoccupied with his own fears that he had forgotten what God had done through him at Mount Carmel. Despite his great victory, Elijah plunged into the depths of discouragement. How easy it is for us to do the same.
God did not accept Elijah's notice that he was quitting. Instead, He commissioned his tired servant to handle three major tasks (vv.15-17). And by the way, Elijah was wrong when he said he was the only faithful one left. God had 7,000 others who had not bowed to Baal (v.18).
Perhaps, like Elijah, you are despairing at the circumstances in your life. Let God speak to you (v.12). Instead of allowing you to quit, He will show you what you can do through His strength. - C. P. Hia
Our strength and hope is in the Lord-
We rest secure in His sure Word;
And though we're tempted to despair
We know we're kept within His care. -D. De Haan
When you're working for Jesus, it's always too soon to quit.
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Could It Be Today?
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at Matthew 24 and some of the things people worry about today that are going on in our world-earthquakes, famine, pestilence, war, and rumors of war.
Now, it is easy to be concerned about these things, but earlier in that passage-in verse 3-we find out why we should not worry,
Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
Jesus was answering the question about the signs of His return, and what will point to the end of the age. That is why He said, "When you see these things begin to come to pass, it is not time to start worrying."
It is time to lift up your head because He is coming soon! Hallelujah!
Think about it. When you open up the paper today and read about the things happening in the Middle East, it seems like Bible prophecy is being fulfilled almost on a weekly basis. What a time we are living in!
Beloved, Christ is going to return, and from the way things are shaping up, it is not far off at all. I want to live like He is coming back today, and I want to plan and work like He won't be back for a hundred years.
But it could be any day.
Jesus is coming soon. Are you ready to meet Him? Think about it. Are you living in a way that you know when Jesus Christ comes, you won't be ashamed at His coming? I pray you will be able to look up with a joyful face and heart and say, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
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Read: 1 Kings 22:1-40
They delight the king with their wickedness, the princes with their lies. - Hosea 7:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the film, Finding Neverland, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies is found to have a serious illness, but she has no desire whatsoever to learn more. When she finally agrees to further medical examination, she tells her friend, the playwright J. M. Barrie, to allow her to pretend that she's alright: "I'll have the examination, and I'll take whatever medications they advise. But I don't want to know what they're for." She preferred her imagination to the truth she couldn't escape.
King Ahab (along with Jehoshaphat, Ahab's royal counterpart in Judah) took a similar approach to his affliction with sin. He didn't want to know the truth. But Jehoshaphat didn't feel secure in the twisted version of reality supplied by the 400 prophets. He recognized a twist in their word choice. Depending on which Bible version you're using, you may notice that in verse 6, the word Lord looks different than the LORD used in verses 5, 7, and 8. The second style indicates the name of Yahweh. The prophets used the word adonai, meaning lord or master. Jehoshaphat demanded a prophecy from Yahweh, and Ahab, begrudgingly, knew where to find it.
Micaiah's first message (v. 15) and his narrative about God and the heavenly host (vv. 19-23) seem troubling. Micaiah's initial statement was a carbon copy of the false report from the other prophets-it may have been sarcastic or otherwise unbelievable, for Ahab didn't accept it. The king was equally dismissive of the second, conflicting report (vv. 17-18). But no one, even we as readers, expected the news that God was intentionally luring Ahab to his doom and that He would use a deceiving spirit to do so.
God did not violate His character. He cannot lie (Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2). The deceitful message came from a spirit under the dominion of God-as all beings are. The message that came directly from the Lord was the truth. Ahab weighed what he wanted to hear against what he suspected to be true and proceeded into battle based on the lie. His death was a picture of his life. He refused to follow the truth and paid the price.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God always makes the truth available to His people, but He will not shield you from lies that you long to believe. If you feel convicted about something in your life that you suspect might be sin, don't consult people you know who will say anything to make you feel better. Find a friend or some godly leader who will give you the truth. When one person says "no" and four hundred say "yes," don't let the popular vote outweigh your conscience and the testimony of God's Word. Choose to obey, and choose life.
GOD BLESS!
Daily Devotional
January 24, 2010
A Powerful Word
READ: Hebrews 4:12-13
The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. -Hebrews 4:12
When a teenager named Poh Fang learned about Jesus' love for her and received Him as her Savior, her parents weren't sure about the merits of Christianity. So they sent her older sister with her to church to keep an eye on her. But something happened that they didn't expect. The powerful Word of God penetrated the heart of the older sister, and she accepted Jesus as her Savior as well.
The psalmist said of the Word of God, "Your precepts . . . have given me life" (Ps. 119:93). That's the testimony of Poh Fang and her sister and of all who know Christ as Savior. His Word is "powerful . . . and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12).
God's Word shows us our sin and its consequences: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23); "the wages of sin is death" (6:23). It tells us of God's love and salvation: "God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, . . . made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Eph. 2:4-5). And it gives wisdom for daily living: "Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105).
Thank You, Lord, for Your powerful Word, which gives us life and direction for daily living. - Anne Cetas
The Bible stands like a rock undaunted
'Mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal,
And they glow with a light sublime. -Lillenas
Many books inform, but only one transforms- the Bible.
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Wise Counsel
Our testimony is powerful and should be shared. But even though that may move people and influence people, folks need to know they are anchoring their trust in the promises of God. Not just in a feeling they have gotten, not just because they feel influenced and moved-even if that is by the Holy Spirit.
Why? Because feelings change. Our feelings can go up and down like a rollercoaster. You may be feeling God today, and tomorrow feel like He is nowhere around. Ever felt that way?
I have had days when I have woken up and not felt God at all, even though I had experienced a good time with Him the night before. In those times, if I would have gone by my feelings, I would have said, "God, You have deserted me this morning."
But I know He hasn't because God's Word makes it clear that He never leaves us nor forsakes us. When a person is saved, they need to be anchoring their faith on the promises of God, not on their feelings.
Promises like Romans 10:9-10,
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
So when we witness to people, we need to give them the counsel, the promises of the Word of God.
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Read: 2 Chronicles 24:1-19
As long as Jehoiada lived, burnt offerings were presented continually in the temple of the LORD. - 2 Chronicles 24:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
Mike Tyson never had a model life. His father abandoned the family. His mother died when Tyson was only 16. His boxing manager Cus D'Amato became his legal guardian and was a father figure for the talented boxer. But the mentor died in 1985 when Tyson was only 19. Within a few years he fired his trainer, came under contract with the notorious promoter Don King, and his personal and professional life went into a tailspin from which he never recovered.
As the young king of Judah, Joash looked like he would reign as a godly king, but as it turned out, he was simply a king with a godly advisor. His efforts to restore the Lord's temple were an extension of the covenant Jehoiada made with the people of Judah and the king: they were committed to being the Lord's people (23:16).
Joash's ascension to the throne was the final blow in the process of eliminating Ahab's descendants from reigning over Israel. Athaliah, Ahab's daughter, had seized rule over Judah and attempted to kill all the heirs to the throne. But Joash was hidden from her (by Jehoiada's wife, who was Athaliah's sister) and kept safe for six years until assuming power (2 Chron. 22:10-12). The renewal of the temple, the instruments of worship, and the tithe of the people to the service of God were all gestures of the good faith of Jehoiada.
But when Jehoiada died, everything changed, most importantly Joash's circle of trust. After years of rebuilding, the temple was abandoned in an instant, along with the covenant to follow God. It is like a broken record in the chronicles of Israel. Again and again they reject the ways of the Lord and follow foreign gods that bring them nothing but trouble, war, and subservience to other nations. Apparently, the roots of Joash's faith were extremely shallow. It wasn't that Joash no longer heard the truth-God sent prophets to ensure that he did. But Joash and the people who followed him had no interest in the Word. They followed pagan gods that encouraged them to feed the desires of their flesh.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It is of utmost importance that young people who grow up in the faith mature to the point where they can make the faith their own. They need to grow to the point where they make decisions out of a desire to obey and not just a compulsion to please their mentors or parents. But making your faith your own does not mean you need to be left alone. We are called to be disciples, not loners. If you see a young believer in need of guidance, don't critique them harshly. Help them and teach them the ways of God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
January 25, 2010
Deadly Sins
READ: John 16:17-24
You now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you. -John 16:22
You may be familiar with the list of seven deadly sins that was formulated during the sixth century: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, vengeance, envy, and pride. But you may not know that the original list compiled during the fourth century also included the sin of sadness. Over the years, that emotion was omitted from the inventory.
Some people are blessed with a cheerful disposition. They always seem to be happy. They wear a perpetual smile almost as if they were advertising toothpaste. But then there are others who seem to be chronically sad. They continually complain about life and its burdens. And who can deny that afflictions are discouraging?
While we acknowledge that not everybody is blessed with a bright outlook on life, we need to remember that joy is one of the gifts Jesus promised to His followers. And we need to resist any tendency to let sadness dominate our emotional lives.
Jesus promised His disciples on the night Judas betrayed Him, "Your joy no one will take from you" (John 16:22). Remember that joy is the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Let's ask the Lord to help us look beyond our sorrowful circumstances and encourage our hearts by the vision of joy that awaits us (Heb. 12:2). - Vernon C. Grounds
You alone, Lord Jesus, can true joy impart,
For You know the sorrow of the human heart;
You came here from glory many hearts to win
And in love for sinners suffered once for sin. -Anon.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit that's always in season.
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The Coming Reward
Let me quote to you from Daniel 12:3, which says,
"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever."
There is a coming reward for those who turn people to righteousness.
The dearest thing to God's heart is winning humanity and bringing them into His family. Nothing is more important to God. He bankrupted heaven and gave His only begotten Son to save humanity.
The Bible teaches us that there will be a reward, my friend: authority in heaven, a place in heaven, honor in heaven.
In addition to that, I want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Someday there is going to be a joy and a fullness in heaven, but there are some who will not experience that level of joy.
The story is told that Cyrus, the king of Persia who had defeated Babylon and set the captive Jews at liberty, was walking through his garden one day with a visitor. The visitor was looking at all of the beautiful trees and shrubs and exclaimed how much pleasure the garden was giving him.
Cyrus said, "Not nearly the pleasure it gives to me for, you see, I have planted every one of these trees myself."
I think there is going to be something about being in heaven and seeing your fingerprints on people who are there because you shared, because you gave, and because you prayed. I believe there is going to be a greater joy for some because they did more for heaven while on earth than others.
There is a coming reward!
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Read: 2 Chronicles 24:20-27
The Righteous One takes note of the house of the wicked and brings the wicked to ruin. - Proverbs 21:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
George Santayana said it best: "When experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The leadership of the divided kingdom of Israel evidently had no concept of the history of their nation, the faith or sins of their forefathers, or the mighty works of their God. Joash failed to remember even the most recent history in his life, let alone that of his nation. As a result, his reign came to a swift and shameful end.
Joash forgot the faith and kindness of Jehoiada, his foremost advisor. He had already rejected the covenant to remain faithful to God, but he didn't even have the decency to pay respect to Jehoiada's son, Zechariah. When Zechariah chastised him for his wickedness, he had him stoned in the courtyard of the temple, desecrating what should have been a holy place. Ironically, Zechariah's father had spared Athaliah (Joash's childhood attacker) the same indignity when he was ushering Joash to the throne (2 Chron. 23:14).
It didn't take long for Joash to experience the penalty for his wickedness, and the form of retribution was reminiscent of the stories we've studied so far. The Aramean army resembled the army of Gideon, but this time it was the large army of Judah that was overtaken by a much smaller one. Just as Joash had conspired against Zechariah, his own officials turned to conspire against him. But the identity of the conspirators reminds us of yet another grievous deed: they were the sons of a Moabite woman and an Ammonite woman, descendants of the daughters of Lot.
The consequences of the sins of God's people had a way of revisiting generation after generation of Israelites. The quantity and quality of faith appeared to be dwindling, and the magnitude of their sins grew exponentially. Clearly, Israel needed a better plan, a better ruler, and a better way to preserve their faith in the one true God. Tomorrow we will examine that coming hope in the King of Kings.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The more we study the effects of sin, the more reasons we have to stay pure and true in obedience to God. Sin multiplies the more we engage in it, and time alone never heals the wounds it causes. On the contrary, the punishment for sin grows in severity and scope the longer we wait to confess and repent. Ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of any sin abiding in your heart. Don't wait another day to turn your heart toward Him. We have seen how merciful God is. Sin, however, is relentless.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
January 26, 2010
Delayed Consequences
READ: Ezekiel 12:21-28
Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. -Joel 2:13
As a child, I learned to behave properly when adults rewarded my good behavior and punished my bad behavior. This worked pretty well because the reward or punishment generally came quickly after the behavior, making the relationship between the cause and effect unmistakable. When I became an adult, however, life got more complex, and the consequences of my actions were not always immediate. When I behaved badly without getting in trouble for it, I began to think that it didn't matter to God what I did.
Something similar happened to the children of Israel. When they disobeyed God and didn't suffer any bad consequences right away, they said, "The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!" (Ezek. 9:9), indicating their belief that God had lost interest in them and didn't care about their bad behavior. But they were wrong. Weary of their waywardness, God finally said, "None of My words will be delayed any longer; whatever I say will be fulfilled" (12:28 niv).
When God delays discipline, it's not due to indifference; it's due to His very nature-He is gracious and slow to anger. Some see that as permission to sin, but God intends it to be an invitation to repent (Rom. 2:4). - Julie Ackerman Link
A Prayer: Lord, thank You for being slow to anger and filled with compassion. May I not presume upon Your mercy by assuming that there will be no consequences to my sin. Help me instead to confess it. Amen.
The only way to make things right is to admit you've been wrong.
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Promises, Promises
God has given us His promises because He wants to fulfill them. Be they promises of peace, restoration, healing, or for material supply, we must keep in mind that the Lord would not have made the promise if He did not want to do it.
Here are four thoughts to help you when it comes to experiencing the benefit of God's promises:
1. Find a promise from the Bible that covers your need. Faith begins here.
2. Consider the promises.
Hebrews 10:23 says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
And Hebrews 11:11 says, By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
3. Act on the promise, fulfilling all necessary conditions. God is not a respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of conditions.
4. Start thanking God and exercising patience.
Hebrews 10:36 says, For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
And Hebrews 6:12 says, That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
If you will do these four things, you are on your way to experiencing the fulfillment of God's promises in your life.
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Read: Revelation 7:9-17
Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. - Revelation 7:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The eye of a hurricane is one of the most intriguing phenomena in nature. It can measure anywhere from a few miles to over one hundred miles across. No matter how large, inside the eye, the winds are low, precipitation is not a factor, and in some cases the sky above it is completely clear. But the boundary of the eye (the eyewall) features the most intense wind and powerful storms in the entire hurricane.
In the book of Revelation, today's passage is like the eye of the storm. The chapters before and after this describe the great turmoil of the end times, but this passage is serene and joyful. The calamity being poured out upon the earth had no place in the throne room of the Lamb, before whom an adoring multitude from around the world worshiped. In the context of the book, this passage is an oasis of peace.
We have seen the recurring failures of the leadership of Israel, but here is the perfect leader. Jesus Christ is symbolized as the Lamb, because He was sacrificed like a lamb on behalf of us all. Yet He is also the shepherd of the people He saved from tribulation (v. 17). Revelation itself is the culmination of the history of sin building into an intense torrent of destruction and suffering. Jesus Christ is the one who brings it to an abrupt end.
The multitudes dressed in white robes had a purpose: to serve the Lord continuously. The benefits were eternal. Gone was their hunger. Gone was their thirst. Gone were the wearying effects of natural effort and trials. Their tears didn't just vanish, either. God Himself wiped them from their very eyes. And the Lamb, Jesus Christ, led them to drink from the waters of everlasting life.
As we have been studying the crimes of man and the unending consequences building over time, this scene gives us a cleansing breath of hope. The failures of thousands of years will be washed from the robes of God's children, and the suffering of mankind will come to an end. Truly, He is worthy of our praise!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Be encouraged in the storms of life. On this earth, no matter how righteous our own hearts and actions may or may not be, with Jesus Christ at the center of our lives, we will always have a harbor of peace. Depression, fear, anger, hostility-they can't touch our Savior. In our worship of Him at the foot of His throne, we find calm reassurance of exactly who is in charge. Be sure to take time today simply to praise the Lord for all that He is and all that He has done.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 27, 2010
The First English Samurai
READ: Neh. 1:11-2:5
For I was the king's cupbearer. -Nehemiah 1:11
William Adams (1564-1620) is believed to be the first Englishman to reach Japan. Taking a liking to Adams, the ruling Japanese shogun made him his interpreter and personal advisor concerning the Western powers. Eventually, Adams was presented with two swords with rank of a Samurai. This showed just how much the Japanese revered Adams. Because William Adams served his foreign king well, he was also rewarded with greater opportunity for influence.
Centuries earlier, another man in a foreign country also had great influence over his king. Nehemiah was a cupbearer to Persian King Artaxerxes (Neh. 1:11). In the royal court, the cupbearer would test the wine before it was given to the king to protect him from poisoning. But this position also meant he had the king's ear as a trusted advisor. Nehemiah's integrity, administrative gifts, and wisdom made him a confidant to his ruler, which paved the way for the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
Like Nehemiah, each of us has been given a unique sphere of influence. Raising children, church or community work, and employment all provide a platform where we can have a beneficial effect on others. Has the Lord placed someone in your life upon whom you can have an influence? - Dennis Fisher
When we live with integrity,
We please our God above
And influence society
With truthfulness and love. -Sper
Even a little example can be a big influence for Christ.
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Builder and Protector
Psalm 127:1-2 says,
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.
These verses have been favorites of mine for a long time.
If ever I am tempted to worry about the Church, I remember that it is His house and ultimately only He can build it. My efforts, by themselves, are in vain.
He is not only the builder of the Church, He is the protector of it as well. These truths take a lot of weight off of my shoulders and help me sleep well at night. And I believe that is the way God wants it.
Too many of God's children sit up late, worrying and eating the bread of sorrows. Whether you are a pastor or a business owner or a stay-at-home mom, learn the secret of casting your cares on God.
He is the builder and protector of your life, and He knows the battles you face. Trust Him today and sleep well tonight!
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Read: Revelation 7:9-17
Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. - Revelation 7:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The eye of a hurricane is one of the most intriguing phenomena in nature. It can measure anywhere from a few miles to over one hundred miles across. No matter how large, inside the eye, the winds are low, precipitation is not a factor, and in some cases the sky above it is completely clear. But the boundary of the eye (the eyewall) features the most intense wind and powerful storms in the entire hurricane.
In the book of Revelation, today's passage is like the eye of the storm. The chapters before and after this describe the great turmoil of the end times, but this passage is serene and joyful. The calamity being poured out upon the earth had no place in the throne room of the Lamb, before whom an adoring multitude from around the world worshiped. In the context of the book, this passage is an oasis of peace.
We have seen the recurring failures of the leadership of Israel, but here is the perfect leader. Jesus Christ is symbolized as the Lamb, because He was sacrificed like a lamb on behalf of us all. Yet He is also the shepherd of the people He saved from tribulation (v. 17). Revelation itself is the culmination of the history of sin building into an intense torrent of destruction and suffering. Jesus Christ is the one who brings it to an abrupt end.
The multitudes dressed in white robes had a purpose: to serve the Lord continuously. The benefits were eternal. Gone was their hunger. Gone was their thirst. Gone were the wearying effects of natural effort and trials. Their tears didn't just vanish, either. God Himself wiped them from their very eyes. And the Lamb, Jesus Christ, led them to drink from the waters of everlasting life.
As we have been studying the crimes of man and the unending consequences building over time, this scene gives us a cleansing breath of hope. The failures of thousands of years will be washed from the robes of God's children, and the suffering of mankind will come to an end. Truly, He is worthy of our praise!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Be encouraged in the storms of life. On this earth, no matter how righteous our own hearts and actions may or may not be, with Jesus Christ at the center of our lives, we will always have a harbor of peace. Depression, fear, anger, hostility-they can't touch our Savior. In our worship of Him at the foot of His throne, we find calm reassurance of exactly who is in charge. Be sure to take time today simply to praise the Lord for all that He is and all that He has done.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 28, 2010
Quiet Time With God
READ: Psalm 23
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. -Psalm 23:2
The word connected captures our contemporary experience of life. Many people rarely go anywhere without a cell phone, iPod, laptop, or pager. We have become accessible 24 hours a day. Some psychologists see this craving to stay connected as an addiction. Yet a growing number of people are deliberately limiting their use of technology. Being a "tech-no" is their way of preserving times of quiet, while limiting the flow of information into their lives.
Many followers of Christ find that a daily time of Bible reading and prayer is essential in their walk of faith. This "quiet time" is a disconnection from external distractions in order to connect with God. The "green pastures" and "still waters" of Psalm 23:2 are more than an idyllic country scene. They speak of our communion with God whereby He restores our souls and leads us in His paths (v.3).
All of us can make time to meet with God, but do we? In Robert Foster's booklet "7 Minutes With God," he suggests a way to begin: Start with a brief prayer for guidance, then read the Bible for a few minutes, and close with a short time of prayer that includes adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication for others. It's vital to take time today to connect with the Lord, who is our life. - David C. McCasland
We need to set aside the time
To read God's Word and pray,
And listen for the Spirit's voice
To guide us in His way. -Sper
Time spent with God is time well spent.
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God Can Build The Family
Earlier we have looked atPsalm 127:1-2 which says,
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.
The Hebrew word for house in verse one can actually be translated family. That is one reason why the next few verses (3-5) read like this,
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
If you have sat up late, worrying about your children or your family, you need to know that God can turn things around.
Trust Him to build and protect your family. Do your part, but look to Him for guidance and strength. And trust Him to do what you cannot do.
He can cause your "arrows" to be effective against the enemy instead of wounding your own heart.
May you be happy with your quiver of "arrows," and may God be glorified in your family.
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Read: Matthew 27:1-5
My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. - Psalm 38:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bernie Madoff enacted an enormous Ponzi scheme, an investment fraud that affected more people and lasted longer than any other such scam in history. His crime affected the sensibilities of the public especially acutely because it came to light during a major, global economic downturn. He was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison, and his response to the news showed unbearable remorse: "I live in a tormented state now, knowing of all the pain and suffering that I have created."
The perpetrator of the crime we studied yesterday did not receive his sentence in the courts of men, but he did buckle under the weight of unimaginable guilt. Judas could not live with what he had done. The Bible doesn't definitively state Judas's reasoning for betraying Jesus. We established yesterday that he had been greedily stealing from the disciples' treasury, and to some extent Satan influenced his actions (see John 13:2). But when Jesus was sentenced to be crucified, not even Judas could explain or defend what he had done.
Judas hoped returning the money would alleviate his guilt, but the payment for his betrayal could not be refunded. Judas refused to hold on to the money, and then he lost the will to live. The weight of his sin never fully crossed his mind until it was much too late.
Obviously, betraying the Messiah to the point of death was an evil and inexcusable act, but the chief priests and elders who wanted Jesus dead very likely would have found another way to apprehend Him. And Jesus certainly had the power to escape at any moment. It wasn't the end that made the means employed by Judas so despicable.
No, the thing that made Judas's sin even more appalling was that when Jesus was showing the greatest love the world had ever known, Judas was rejecting Him. Jesus would have given up His life with or without Judas, but the betrayal was a slap in the face of God. Thirty pieces of silver was nothing; when he realized his sin, Judas deemed his very life to be worthless.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Every sin is, in a sense, a betrayal against God and against His Son-and for believers, sin grieves the Holy Spirit within us. From the fruit of the forbidden tree to the wrongdoings we commit today, every violation of God's commands and God's character carries a death sentence (Rom. 6:23). Jesus Christ paid that sentence. In the face of what Christ did for us, how can we choose to serve our own desires instead of the will of God? Let us never take lightly our duty to obey the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 29, 2010
Running The Race
READ: 1 Cor. 9:19-27
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. -1 Corinthians 9:24
Spiridon Louis isn't well known around the world, but he is in Greece. That's because of what happened in 1896 when the Olympic Games were revived in Athens.
During the competition that year, the Greeks did quite well-winning the most medals of any nation. But the event that became a source of true Greek pride was the first-ever marathon. Seventeen athletes competed in this race of 40 kilometers (24.8 miles), but it was won by Louis-a common laborer. For his efforts, Louis was honored by king and country, and he became a national hero.
The apostle Paul used running a race as a picture of the Christian life. In 1 Corinthians 9:24, he challenged us not just to run but to run to win, saying, "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." Not only did Paul teach this but he lived it out. In his final epistle, he said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2Tim. 4:7). Having finished his race, Paul joyfully anticipated receiving the victory crown from the King of heaven.
Like Paul, run your earthly race to win-and to please your King. - Bill Crowder
As we run in this race-
As our best effort we bring-
We are spurred on by the fact
That we must win for the King. -Branon
The Christian's race is not a sprint-it's a marathon.
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Tithing
In Matthew 23:23, Jesus speaks about the issue of tithing in this way,
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone."
Jesus tells us, "These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone." Yes, they should tithe, but the things He lists are the most important issues.
While we will touch on these issues in later devotionals, I want to point out the fact that Jesus does say we should tithe.
The Living Bible paraphrase of this verse is helpful, "For you tithe down to the last mint leaf in your garden, and ignore the important things-justice and mercy and faith. Yes, you should tithe, but you shouldn't leave the more important things undone."
You should tithe. The first ten percent of your income, or the first ten percent of the increase that God brings to you, is called a tithe. The Bible says in the last chapter of Leviticus that the tithe is holy, and it belongs to the Lord.
So you should tithe. That is very important. In fact, I believe it is the first step in getting God involved in your finances, and an important step in you getting control of your finances.
If you are not tithing, I want to encourage you to open your heart to God's Word in this area and consider the possibilities that He sets before you.
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Read: Acts 5:1-11
You have not lied to men but to God. - Acts 5:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the Philippines, gift giving is extremely popular regardless of the occasion, and it has very little to do with materialism or monetary value. In fact, it is customary for the recipient of the gift to wait until the giver has left before opening the present, and discussing the cost of a gift is considered extremely rude. The Filipino culture simply values gift giving as a way to express a single thought of appreciation.
In terms of financial value, the gift that Ananias laid at Peter's feet was quite generous. But the thought behind the contribution from him and his wife Sapphira was more self-serving than selfless. The text doesn't describe the motives of Ananias and Sapphira at any length, but we can judge by the results that they weren't pure.
The gift in question was given in the context of an intertwined, supportive community among the believers in Jerusalem. No one was required to forfeit their possessions, but the general spirit among them was that ownership didn't matter. They placed a priority on sharing everything they had (Acts 4:32). On occasion, landowners would sell their real estate and bring the proceeds to the apostles for distribution to the needy. Land ownership wasn't forbidden or even frowned upon-lying, however, was another matter.
When giving is discussed in church, today's believers hear the term "ten percent" quite frequently, and businesses frequently promise to give "a portion of the proceeds" to charity. There's nothing wrong with giving any percentage to God, but Peter knew that was not the message Ananias and Sapphira were trying to send. The gesture of laying the gift at the apostles' feet rather than giving in private may have been understood to signify a total release of a piece of property's sale. Sapphira, at least, verbalized the lie, claiming that the gift represented the entire profit.
For Ananias and Sapphira, the consequence of their crime-lying to God, particularly the Holy Spirit-was immediate death. But the additional result was the spread of fear throughout the church.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Undoubtedly some believers in Jerusalem had nothing to give. Others gave all they had. The amount given by a believer does not represent a scale of righteousness. We should be very careful when giving based on percentages to do so honestly and generously and without regard to who knows or how much. It is better not to give at all than to give out of selfish motives. Humble yourself before God and ask Him to make your giving selfless, generous, and true.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
January 30, 2010
Behind The Parted Curtain
READ: Luke 23:39-43
Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." -Luke 23:43
Pastor and author Erwin Lutzer wrote: "One minute after you slip behind the parted curtain, you will either be enjoying a personal welcome from Christ or catching your first glimpse of gloom as you have never known it. Either way, your future will be irrevocably fixed and eternally unchangeable."
Luke recorded a short yet powerful narrative that pictures two men about to go behind that curtain of death. When Jesus was being crucified, two thieves hung alongside Him. According to Mark, both men hurled insults at Jesus (15:32).
One of the thieves, however, had a change of heart as he realized Jesus' innocence, his own sin, and his destiny. He rebuked the other thief and asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom. These words were a sign of repentance and simple faith. Jesus responded, "I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). Salvation for the man was immediate. He knew that day where he would spend eternity.
Realizing that we are sinners and placing our trust in Jesus' death and resurrection assures us that we can immediately know where we will spend our eternal tomorrows when we slip behind the parted curtain. - Marvin Williams
Oh, why not turn while y
et you may;
Too late, it soon will be-
A glorious life you may possess
Throughout eternity. -Anon.
To prepare for tomorrow, trust Jesus today.
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Tithing Today?
In Malachi 3:10-11, God says,
"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," says the LORD of hosts.
Those are pretty amazing promises! God says when we bring the first tenth to Him, He will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing we cannot contain. He even invites us to test Him in this area! (As far as I know there is no other place in the Bible where God does that.)
Notice, too, that He says He will rebuke the devourer. While this was written to an agrarian society whose prosperity was measured in vineyards, crops, and their livestock, you can transpose this principle right into the era in which we live. God will still bless us, and He will still rebuke the devourer for our sakes.
Years ago, in a small church in Mexico, a friend of mine was teaching on tithing. A poor man in the church got angry and stormed out. Later that day, he read the verses from Malachi again and decided to put God to the test. "Could God fulfill His promise-even in my circumstance?" he thought.
That poor villager later testified-interrupting a service and demanding that tithing needed to be taught again-"because these people need it!" He told how he had been blessed like never before since he started giving one-tenth of his earnings to the church.
God is not limited by the circumstances that surround us. He can bless us no matter where we are if we will "try Him" and bring all the tithe into His storehouse.
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Read: Matthew 27:1-5
My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. - Psalm 38:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bernie Madoff enacted an enormous Ponzi scheme, an investment fraud that affected more people and lasted longer than any other such scam in history. His crime affected the sensibilities of the public especially acutely because it came to light during a major, global economic downturn. He was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison, and his response to the news showed unbearable remorse: "I live in a tormented state now, knowing of all the pain and suffering that I have created."
The perpetrator of the crime we studied yesterday did not receive his sentence in the courts of men, but he did buckle under the weight of unimaginable guilt. Judas could not live with what he had done. The Bible doesn't definitively state Judas's reasoning for betraying Jesus. We established yesterday that he had been greedily stealing from the disciples' treasury, and to some extent Satan influenced his actions (see John 13:2). But when Jesus was sentenced to be crucified, not even Judas could explain or defend what he had done.
Judas hoped returning the money would alleviate his guilt, but the payment for his betrayal could not be refunded. Judas refused to hold on to the money, and then he lost the will to live. The weight of his sin never fully crossed his mind until it was much too late.
Obviously, betraying the Messiah to the point of death was an evil and inexcusable act, but the chief priests and elders who wanted Jesus dead very likely would have found another way to apprehend Him. And Jesus certainly had the power to escape at any moment. It wasn't the end that made the means employed by Judas so despicable.
No, the thing that made Judas's sin even more appalling was that when Jesus was showing the greatest love the world had ever known, Judas was rejecting Him. Jesus would have given up His life with or without Judas, but the betrayal was a slap in the face of God. Thirty pieces of silver was nothing; when he realized his sin, Judas deemed his very life to be worthless.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Every sin is, in a sense, a betrayal against God and against His Son-and for believers, sin grieves the Holy Spirit within us. From the fruit of the forbidden tree to the wrongdoings we commit today, every violation of God's commands and God's character carries a death sentence (Rom. 6:23). Jesus Christ paid that sentence. In the face of what Christ did for us, how can we choose to serve our own desires instead of the will of God? Let us never take lightly our duty to obey the Lord.
GOD BLESS! :angel:
January 31, 2010
Be The Light!
READ: Ephesians 5:8-14
You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. -Ephesians 5:8
A friend of mine has the opportunity each winter to attend the Super Bowl as a journalist. His job is to garner interviews with Christian athletes and National Football League personnel for a faith-based radio program.
When he first started covering the big game a few years ago, he grew disillusioned with the self-serving, pleasure-seeking atmosphere during Super Bowl week. "I found it to be a very dark place," he says.
One day he told a former NFL player, a Christian, how he was feeling. The athlete looked at my friend and said, "Brother, you are being light in this dark place." That comment reminded my friend why he was there, and it helped renew his excitement for serving God in a place where the light of the gospel is needed. It spurred him to shine his light.
Perhaps you work in a setting where God is not acknowledged, faith is mocked, and godless living is applauded. Maybe you feel that you are going into "a very dark place."
Why not be a light (Eph. 5:8)-through your smiles, kind words and deeds, and diligent work. Ask God to bring opportunities to share the good news of Jesus Christ. You may be the only light a co-worker sees today. - Dave Branon
God put us in this darkened world
To shine as sons of light;
So, help us, Lord, to spread Your Word
And keep our witness bright. -D. De Haan
Our witness for Christ is a light in a dark world.
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Guarding Your Ways
In Psalm 39:1, we are given an important warning,
I said, "I will guard my ways, Lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, While the wicked are before me."
The Hebrew word translated "ways" in this passage literally means a well-trodden path. It paints the picture of a pathway that has been walked down so many times that a groove has been worn in that path.
The psalmist is drawing our attention to something that has been repeated again and again, a response that has been so often repeated that it has become engrained in our behavior-a habit.
You have probably heard the saying, "He's set in his ways," meaning it is not likely you are going to change the way a person acts in certain instances. The "ways" are habits, attitudes, and responses that aren't likely to change without a very powerful motivation or without some sort of an encounter with God.
I think virtually every habit we have initially began with a thought. Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an action; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny. It all goes back to a thought that perhaps should have been dealt with, but wasn't.
Take some time today to consider your thoughts. Are you giving way to thoughts that will lead to ungodly habits? If so, give those thoughts to God and ask Him to help you think the thoughts that will lead to godly habits.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. - 1 Corinthians 15:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dostoevsky wrote, "The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith." The final focal point of our study on crime and punishment in the Bible is the one who committed no crime and who rose victorious over all punishment, for He is the central figure in the destruction of sin and the end of death. The discussion of sin cannot be complete without considering the resurrection of Christ.
Most of the consequences we've studied have been natural repercussions of ungodly actions, the act that dealt a death blow to sin was entirely supernatural. Today's key verse speaks not only to the miraculous nature of the resurrection of Christ, but also to the hope that those who have died will follow Him back to life. Jesus is the undoing of the curse of Adam's original sin.
To our great anxiety, the progression is not immediate. We wait and serve patiently until Christ's return. It's encouraging to know that the problems that plague followers of Christ, which have been the product of thousands of years of disobedience, will be overthrown by the hand of Christ. Jesus will reign over all. The philosophical questions such as "Why does God allow evil?" or "Why is there suffering in the world?" will be answered once and for all when it all is subject to the rule of Christ and the dominion of God.
There is a perfect completion in God's plan through Jesus Christ. God has given His Son the authority to rule and judge (John 5:27) over that which God already had sovereign power on a supernatural level. By inserting His Son into the realm of creation, sending His Spirit to indwell the hearts of believers, and establishing His reign within that realm as well, God has become all in all. He is not merely ruling over us, He reigns within us as well. We long for that day when there is no crime and no punishment, only a perfect relationship with God in the service of His Son, Jesus Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The promise of the resurrection gives us reason to live holy lives in God's service. Death is not the finish line but a milestone along the eternal road. Later in this chapter, Paul exhorted his readers to "come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning" (v. 34). We are approaching a day when all of creation lives happily under the reign of Christ-why delay that reality in our hearts? There is so much pain that erupts from sin and so much promise ahead in Christ. Recommit your heart to obedience.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 01, 2010
The Written Word
READ: Romans 15:4-13
Whatever things were written before were written . . . that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. -Romans 15:4
v
Last January, ESPN television ran a compelling feature about Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, who had just been named the NFL's Most Valuable Player. But the feature was not about football. Instead, it explained that for several years, when certain competitors Manning admired were retiring from the NFL, he took time to handwrite a note to them, congratulating them on their careers and their character.
Each recipient who was interviewed expressed deep appreciation that one of the greatest players of all time would do that. It was a great reminder of the power of the written word.
While a written note from a respected athlete such as Peyton Manning has much value, no human's words can compare with the written Word we have from God in Scripture. Paul wrote, "Whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15:4). In the life-changing wisdom of the Bible, we have a personal message that tells us what God desires for us to be and what He desires to be for us. He has given us His written Word so we "might have hope" as we face the issues of life. Out of gratitude, let's read God's written message-and watch it change our lives. - Bill Crowder
Cling to the Bible; this jewel and treasure
Brings life eternal and saves fallen man;
Surely its value no mortal can measure;
Seek for its blessing, O soul, while you can. -Anon.
God speaks through His Word to those who listen with their heart.
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Uniquely You
Each of us possesses strengths which God has given us. Psalm 18:32 says,
It is God who arms me with strength.
And in Philippians 4:13,
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And King David said this in 1 Chronicles 29:12,
...in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
God gives us all strength, yet I believe there are specific things He gives each of us that make you and me strong individually. The book of Psalms says in 33:14-15, From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually. In the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 12:27 it says, Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
We are collectively the body of Christ, but God has wired us each differently. God has formed our hearts individually. He has put certain deposits in one person that may not be in another person. He has given one person a certain kind of strength that may not be another person's strength.
Here is what I am getting at. I believe there is something uniquely you that gives you strength and character and presence, something that makes you a person to be reckoned with, something that God has put in you. It is a foundation, a seat of strength that He wants to move through in order to influence and to bless others.
Rather than coveting someone else's unique giftings and strength, discover and develop your own. Remember, God individually fashioned you. There is something wonderfully unique about you, through which God wants to bring blessing to others.
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Read: Acts 5:1-11
You have not lied to men but to God. - Acts 5:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the Philippines, gift giving is extremely popular regardless of the occasion, and it has very little to do with materialism or monetary value. In fact, it is customary for the recipient of the gift to wait until the giver has left before opening the present, and discussing the cost of a gift is considered extremely rude. The Filipino culture simply values gift giving as a way to express a single thought of appreciation.
In terms of financial value, the gift that Ananias laid at Peter's feet was quite generous. But the thought behind the contribution from him and his wife Sapphira was more self-serving than selfless. The text doesn't describe the motives of Ananias and Sapphira at any length, but we can judge by the results that they weren't pure.
The gift in question was given in the context of an intertwined, supportive community among the believers in Jerusalem. No one was required to forfeit their possessions, but the general spirit among them was that ownership didn't matter. They placed a priority on sharing everything they had (Acts 4:32). On occasion, landowners would sell their real estate and bring the proceeds to the apostles for distribution to the needy. Land ownership wasn't forbidden or even frowned upon-lying, however, was another matter.
When giving is discussed in church, today's believers hear the term "ten percent" quite frequently, and businesses frequently promise to give "a portion of the proceeds" to charity. There's nothing wrong with giving any percentage to God, but Peter knew that was not the message Ananias and Sapphira were trying to send. The gesture of laying the gift at the apostles' feet rather than giving in private may have been understood to signify a total release of a piece of property's sale. Sapphira, at least, verbalized the lie, claiming that the gift represented the entire profit.
For Ananias and Sapphira, the consequence of their crime-lying to God, particularly the Holy Spirit-was immediate death. But the additional result was the spread of fear throughout the church.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Undoubtedly some believers in Jerusalem had nothing to give. Others gave all they had. The amount given by a believer does not represent a scale of righteousness. We should be very careful when giving based on percentages to do so honestly and generously and without regard to who knows or how much. It is better not to give at all than to give out of selfish motives. Humble yourself before God and ask Him to make your giving selfless, generous, and true.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 02, 2010
Time For A Change
READ: Luke 7:37-49
This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner. -Luke 7:39
A friend once told me, "In my lifetime I've seen a lot of things change, and I've been against them all!" Perhaps he overstated the point, but many of us would agree that we don't like change-especially if it involves altering our habits and attitudes.
That's one reason Jesus was so unpopular among the Pharisees. He challenged their long-established system of good works and self-righteous living. Consider the incident when the town "sinner" entered the home of the town "saint" in Luke 7. Simon the Pharisee wasn't impressed with the woman's lavish display of affection for Jesus. Reading Simon's self-righteous thoughts, Jesus immediately challenged his flawed perception of his own goodness by telling the story of two debtors-one who owed much to his master and one who owed less. "Which of them will love him more?" Jesus asked (v.42). Obviously, the one who had been forgiven more. Speaking to Simon's I-feel-pretty-good-about-myself attitude, Jesus said, "to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little" (v.47).
The challenge is clear. Lulled into thinking how good we are, our love for Jesus wanes because we have forgotten that we too are among the ones "forgiven much." And when that happens, ready or not, it's time for a change! - Joe Stowell
Forgive us, Lord, for failures past,
Then help us start anew
With strength and courage to obey
And closely follow You. -Sper
When God starts changing things, He usually begins with changing us.
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Giving to Get?
Any time I give, I expect a blessing to return. It is a law that we find in Scripture. It is a promise of Jesus.
But you know what? That is not my main motivation for giving. And that should not be our heart for giving. Jesus says in Luke 6:32-38,
"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you."
What is the heart of this whole thing? Jesus said, "Don't love just to get love back; don't do good just so that good might be done back to you; don't lend just hoping to get something back."
He makes it clear that if you do those things for the right motivation, it will come back to you. Your reward will be great.
Do not give with the motivation of just getting something back. Non-Christians have that motivation! How does that set you apart from them? Give out of a higher motivation.
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Read: Psalm 94
When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul. - Psalm 94:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the closing days of World War II, a trainload of 2,500 Jews, many of them children, were en route from Bergen-Belsen to another Nazi concentration camp for "termination." Fortunately for them, the U.S. Army's 30th Infantry Division found the train, rescued the starving prisoners, and evacuated them to safety. This stirring episode was forgotten until a few years ago, when a high school history teacher sent his students to interview World War II veterans for an oral history project. When the class posted their project on the Internet, including photos taken by the soldiers, the survivors from that train contacted the school and arranged for a reunion with their rescuers. The long-delayed reunion took place at the high school.
Rescue and justice inspire great joy, as Psalm 94 also shows. The psalmist was experiencing a discouraging situation. The wicked seemed to be getting off scot-free! They spoke and acted arrogantly, using their power to exploit and oppress others and boasting they had pulled the wool over God's eyes (vv. 4-7). How long would He wait to punish them? When would justice be restored (v. 2)? Why did He not come to help those who were obedient and faithful?
No matter how long the delay, the psalmist knew, God would not be mocked. He sees all, knows all, and will certainly act with righteousness and justice (vv. 8-11; Gal. 6:7). From the perspective of those who love Him, such actions are a blessing, even when it means discipline for them (v. 12). God delights in instructing those with teachable hearts how better to obey. For the wicked, though, His actions are a judgment on their pride. Today, believers can still relate to this "anxiety"-that the wicked are triumphing and the righteous are failing. But there is "consolation"-that God cannot be corrupted or fooled and never forsakes His people. These truths bring joy to our hearts (v. 19; see Prov. 21:15)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What truths about God bring joy to your heart and soul? Is it His power and awesomeness? His perfect justice and pure holiness? His sweet mercy and lovingkindness? Where would we be without His greatness and goodness in our lives? Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in circumstances and our own shortsightedness and forget who God is and all He's done for us. Restoring our joy, then, can be a matter of refocusing on truths that endure, rather than fixating on how things seem at the moment.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 03, 2010
What Will I Do?
READ: James 1:21-25
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. -James 1:22
A man who has been my mentor and friend for many years often says that his goal in studying the Bible is always personal application. I appreciate his emphasis on putting learning into practice, because it's too easy for those of us who study, discuss, teach, and write about the Bible to take a merely intellectual approach to the Word.
Oswald Chambers said: "There is a danger with the children of God of getting too familiar with sublime things. We talk so much about these wonderful realities, and forget that we have to exhibit them in our lives. It is perilously possible to mistake the exposition of the truth for the truth; to run away with the idea that because we are able to expound these things, we are living them too."
James reminds us that the person "who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does" (1:25). The key issue is not what is preached or written, but what is done.
When I study God's Word, my first question should not be, "What am I going to say about this?" but "What am I going to do about this?" - David C. McCasland
We take delight to teach God's Word,
We say, "Amen, it's true!"
But it's of little use to us
Unless His will we do. -D. De Haan
One step forward in obedience is worth years of study about it. -Chambers
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The Right Motivation
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how we should not give just to get. That should not be our sole motivation. So the question is, "What is the right motivation?"
All we need to do is look at what motivated God to give. It is found in John 3:16,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God so loved that He gave. And, yes, God certainly did reap a harvest when He gave His Son. He reaped a harvest of sons and daughters.
You should give out of love and devotion for God. Give because you do not want people to go into an eternity without God, because you love humanity, because you have mercy and compassion for broken, dying people.
That is the right motivation for giving. When you give with that motivation, your reward will be great. God will see that it comes back to you multiplied.
That is a far cry from what many emphasize when it comes to giving today. It appears to me that a lot of people, when they teach on giving, are just pushing people's greed buttons. It seems that the main motivation that some leaders are teaching for people to give is, "Hey, give because God will bless you." And there is no doubt that God blesses those who give. The scriptural promises are clear.
But what about the weightier matters? Remember how Jesus rebuked the Jewish leadership in Matthew 23:23 because they, "Neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith"?
God looks at the heart. Our hearts ought to be like that of our heavenly Father, who is merciful, kind, loving, and generous, even to the most thankless and evil among us. That is the right motivation.
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Read: Psalm 30
You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. - Psalm 30:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
For many high school students, prom is a special event, second only to graduation. But for low-income girls who cannot afford a prom dress, it can be a painful reminder that they don't have the resources enjoyed by their classmates. For ten years, the Glass Slipper Project in Chicago has stepped forward to offer free prom dresses to girls who could not otherwise afford to go. Deserving students with valid high school IDs come to "Boutique Days" at designated locations and take home dresses, shoes, purses, and cosmetics. Volunteers help the girls find just the right gowns and accessories.
With even greater generosity, God steps forward to clothe us with His joy. In our own strength and with our own resources, genuine joy is out of reach, but God delights to clothe us from the riches of His wardrobe (v. 11; see Gal. 3:27). Today's reading is a psalm of thanksgiving for this gift of joy.
How was David doing on his own? He was in the depths, and his enemies were gloating. We don't know if the pictures of being sick and near death are literal or metaphors for desperation, but either way the situation was hopeless, humanly speaking. He felt far from the Lord even as he prayed for His help and mercy (vv. 7-8). What did God do? He stepped in and lifted the psalmist out of the depths, silenced his enemies, healed him, and saved his life. For this, David determined to exalt and rejoice in theLord (vv. 1-3, 12).
Even more, the psalmist called on the congregation of the faithful to join him in praise and worship. It's not just about one specific act of rescue. It's about the bedrock reality of God's faithfulness and love for His people. Based on this, we can say that "weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (v. 5). God's work in our lives leads to wailing being transformed into dancing and sorrow into joy.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Embedded in this psalm is an excellent model for an effective narrative hook in a personal testimony. Verses 6-7a are the before, when David was standing firm and things were going well. Verses 7b-10 are the during, when he was dismayed and depressed, praying but feeling on the verge of death. Verses 11-12 are the after, when the climax of God's deliverance turns night into day and spurs fervent rejoicing. Do you have a personal testimony that could be narrated in this way?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 04, 2010
A Question Of Values
READ: Colossians 3:1-11
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. -Colossians 3:2
On a trip through Chicago, I saw a poster advertising a business management seminar. The poster's message was intriguing: The Value of a Leader Is Directly Proportional to That Leader's Values. The accuracy of that statement struck me. What we value shapes our character-and will ultimately define how we lead, or whether we can lead at all. This does not apply only to leaders, however.
For the follower of Christ, values are even more significant. When Paul wrote to the believers at Colosse, he said, "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:2). His point is that only as we allow our values to be motivated and shaped by the eternal (not the temporal) will we be effective ambassadors of Christ in the world. It is in the understanding that we are pilgrims in this world, not tourists, that we can keep a clear perspective and an undistracted heart-and can more effectively serve the Savior.
It has been said that we live in a world that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. In this world of the "here and now," however, followers of Christ are called to build our values around what lasts forever. To say it another way: The Effectiveness of a Believer Is Directly Proportional to That Believer's Values. - Bill Crowder
O Lord, You see what's in the heart-
There's nothing hid from You,
So help us live the kind of life
That's honest, good, and true. -D. De Haan
Hold tightly to what is eternal, but loosely to what is temporal.
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Where's Your Heart?
I want to have you read and think about Mark 12:41-44 today,
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
That is quite a picture, isn't it? Jesus sitting opposite the treasury, watching what people put in and how they put it in. I believe Jesus still watches during offering time. He watches how we give, what we give, and why we give. He said, "Where your treasure is, that is where your heart is also."
Notice He calls His disciples over and says, "This poor widow has put in more than everyone else." Why? Because He wanted them to understand that God measures your gift based on what you have.
Some people could give $1,000, and there is really no sacrifice at all. It never touches their life, never causes any kind of change of priorities. While for other people, $10 or $15 is a great sacrifice.
I believe some of the rich people Jesus points to in this passage were giving out of their abundance, but from heaven's viewpoint, they were putting it in with a teaspoon. But this little widow, who put in less than a penny, walked up with a shovelful-everything she had. It got heaven's attention.
Where is your heart when it comes to giving?
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Read: Isaiah 12
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you. - Isaiah 12:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
The book of Esther contains one of many great rescue stories in the Bible. A prideful official in the imperial Persian court plotted the murder of all Jews. God, however, had placed a Jewish woman named Esther in the position of queen, though no one at court was aware of her ethnic identity. At a key moment, in a daring step of faith, Esther revealed her identity and the evil plot against her people to the king, who issued decrees encouraging the Jews to defend themselves. A day of intended genocide became instead a day of salvation, joy, feasting, and celebration (Esther 8:15-17; 9:16-28). Known as Purim, it remains a festive celebration to this day.
Joy is found in God's rescue and deliverance, as we've seen already this month. That's what the prophet Isaiah wrote about in today's reading as well. These two short psalms (vv. 1-3 and 4-6) are seen by many commentators as a worshipful conclusion to Isaiah 7 through 11. These chapters deal with God's protection of Israel based on His covenant with David, as well as His judgments on the sin of Israel and Assyria and the coming of His kingdom. The overall themes are God's just and loving control of history and His care for His people.
Specifically, the first psalm acknowledges the justice of God's judgment, but even more, Isaiah rejoiced in the miracle of God's forgiveness and the restoration of the covenant relationship. The core truth is that God is our salvation, strength, and song (v. 2; see Ex. 15:2). The core response is fearless trust. The core image is "wells of salvation," from which we draw spiritual life and rejoice in His goodness to us (v. 3; cf. John 4:10-14).
The second psalm is essentially a list of actions, framed as imperative verbs. That is, hearers are called to give thanks, to worship, to pray, and to witness. God's character and actions fill our hearts to overflowing with joy-we cannot help but sing and shout!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you have a personal hymnbook? A personal collection of favorite Christian songs might be low-tech-a three-ring binder full of photocopied pages. It might be high-tech-a special playlist on your mp3 player. It might be personal, music for you and God alone. It might be a group compilation done by your family or small group. In any case, the purpose of a personal hymnbook is to "Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world" (v. 5).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 05, 2010
Like A Tree
READ: Ephesians 4:11-16
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. -Psalm 1:3
In the quietness of my final years I plan to watch a tree grow-a birch tree I planted as a tiny sapling over 30 years ago. It stands now in mature splendor, just outside our picture window-beautiful in every season of the year.
So it is with our spiritual endeavors: We may have planted, watered, and fussed over our "saplings" (those we've mentored) for a time, but only God can make a "tree."
Occasionally I hear from those I ministered to years ago, and discover to my delight that they have grown to maturity and have been greatly used of God-with no help from me. It's a gentle reminder that I plant and water for a while, and help others "grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ" (Eph. 4:15). But only God "gives the increase" (1 Cor. 3:6-7).
German theologian Helmut Thielicke writes, "The man who doesn't know how to let go, who is a stranger to quiet, confident joy in Him who carries out His purposes without us (or also through us or in spite of us), in Him who makes the trees grow . . . that man will become nothing but a miserable creature in his old age."
So, at my age, I may yet tend a sapling or two, but mostly I will let go and watch them grow. - David H. Roper
A Prayer: Lord, I want to be used by You in others' lives. Teach me from Your Word so that I can help others follow You. And enable me to let go and trust You to work in them. Amen.
Those who follow Christ can help others follow Him too.
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Rich or Poor
It is interesting that Jesus, in our devotional yesterday, did not try to keep the widow from giving all she had. It is especially interesting considering what He said a little earlier in Mark 12:38-40,
Then He said to them in His teaching, "Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."
You can hear the protection of God for widows in the voice of Jesus. You can hear His concern, and you can hear the judgment of God on those who manipulate, abuse, and take advantage of defenseless people and widows.
Yet, right on the heels of saying that, this widow gave all she had, which means she probably didn't even have anything left to buy food for a meal that night. With her gift of less than one penny, she had nothing left. And yet, Jesus said she gave more than everybody else.
Jesus did not give the slightest indication that she shouldn't have given an offering. He didn't run after her and say, "Now wait a minute, Ma'am! You shouldn't be doing this. You're a widow. God doesn't want this." On the contrary, it seems that He commended her for it, even calling her gift to the attention of the disciples.
Why do you suppose this lady would have given like that-all she had? I reckon because of her love for God and her love for the work of God.
Which is what Jesus looks for when we give, whether we are rich or poor.
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Read: Lamentations 5
Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. - Lamentations 5:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Horatio Spafford was a wealthy Chicago lawyer. A family man with a wife and children, he was also a strong supporter of D. L. Moody's evangelistic campaigns. In 1870, his only son died of scarlet fever at age four. Then in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, he was financially devastated. Did he lose faith? No. Instead, in 1873 he decided to go with his family to Great Britain to join Moody for one of his crusades. Detained by business, he sent his family ahead. Their ship collided with another ship, and 226 people were drowned, including all four of Spafford's daughters. Although devastated by grief, amazingly, he still did not lose faith. He penned the classic hymn, "It Is Well wth My Soul," to express steadfast trust in God's goodness.
This hymn story echoes the heart of the prophet Jeremiah in today's reading. How can we pray when the joy is gone? It's only possible by taking comfort in God's greatness and love, even-or especially-when we wrestle with grief and pain. The book of Lamentations was written about the conquest of Jerusalem, including the destruction of Solomon's temple and the exile of the Israelites. Jeremiah wrote five lament poems about this devastating chapter in national history. Judah had brought disaster on itself by sinning and incurring God's just judgment, but this fifth lament contains the cry of a faithful remnant who acknowledged national responsibility and prayed for forgiveness (vv. 7, 16).
The prophet's picture of his people's sorrow and desperation is moving. The Promised Land, their inheritance from the Lord, "has been turned over to aliens, our homes to foreigners" (v. 2). Losing the land feels like losing family (v. 3); the land and the people have been brutalized and humiliated (v. 11). They scrape along as a homeless and devastated people, suffering from physical need, illness, and crushed spirits. "Joy is gone from our hearts" (v. 15). Despite the situation, they have faith that God can restore the relationship and renew their joy (vv. 19-22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jeremiah's poem shows us how to pray when the joy is gone, especially when it's our fault. As with the Israelites, our sin can lead God to discipline us, allowing us to experience the consequences of our choices. We reap what we sow. In such cases, our prayers or personal laments can imitate the heart of the prophet by including two main ingredients: (1) Full expression of grief and desperation. Sin cuts us off from the Lord and ruins our lives. (2) Plea for forgiveness. This includes taking responsibility and vowing to change.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 06, 2010
Charlie's Walk On The Moon
READ: Genesis 5:21-32
Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. -Genesis 5:24
The documentary In the Shadow of the Moon includes the story of Charlie Duke, one of the Apollo 16 astronauts launched to the moon in 1972. While the command ship orbited the moon, Duke and another astronaut landed the lunar module Orion on the moon's surface. After 3 days of running experiments and collecting lunar rocks, the Apollo 16 crew safely returned to earth.
Later, Charlie had a spiritual transformation. He said it began when his friend invited him to a Bible study. After the meeting, Charlie prayed to Christ, "I give You my life, and if You're real come into my life." He then experienced an indescribable peace. It was so profound that he began to share his story with others. Charlie told them, "My walk on the moon lasted 3 days and it was a great adventure, but my walk with God lasts forever."
The Bible tells us of another man who walked with God. "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (Gen. 5:24). His spiritual walk with God was so close that God took him directly into eternity (see Heb. 11:5).
We can learn a lesson from Charlie and Enoch. For believers, no matter where our journey leads, our walk with God will last for eternity! - Dennis Fisher
Let me walk with You, dear Savior,
Side by side and hand in hand;
Keep me clean and pure and faithful
Till I reach the heavenly land. -Hess
Keep eternity's goal in sight by walking daily in God's light.
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The Core Motivation for Giving
I want to return one last time to Mark 12:41-44 and have you consider one final thought about giving,
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
In Phillips' translation of these verses, it says that Jesus sat opposite the temple alms box. In other words, where people gave their gifts for the poor. This courtyard area, referred to as the treasury, actually contained thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles for giving. Some of them were for specifically designated purposes, and one of them was for giving alms to the poor.
If the Phillips translation is right, it makes the story all the more amazing. This poor widow, with less than a penny, put it in to help the poor.
She gave it to touch the life of another. Which is why I hope you will give.
Heaven is too real, hell is too hot, eternity is too long, people are too lost, and life is just too short for us not to be actively engaged-through our giving as well as other means-in reaching people. The only thing we take to heaven with us are the precious souls we reach for Christ.
That ought to be the core motivation for us to give to God's work.
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Read: Acts 13:42-52
The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. - Acts 13:52
TODAY IN THE WORD
For more than a decade, a radical Hindu group has been persecuting Christians in India, aiming to destroy the church there. Its members target poor believers and threaten them with the loss of their homes if they do not convert to Hinduism. Visits and leaflets are followed by warnings of violence and death. The group calls its campaign "homecoming" and holds reconversion ceremonies at which people burn their Bibles and vow to pray only to Hindu gods. Last year it claimed to have converted 50,000 Christians in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone and plans to push out all pastors there within the next five years.
Keeping the faith in the midst of persecution is a formidable challenge. Even in the midst of suffering, however, believers can experience joy as a gift from the Holy Spirit. Today's reading is from Paul's first missionary journey. He and Barnabas had stopped at Pisidian Antioch, a Roman colony and crossroads city. He preached an evangelistic sermon at the local synagogue, and the results were positive. Many were interested in discussing the gospel, and Paul was invited to preach again the following week. Paul's desire was for the Jews to know that their Messiah had come (v. 43).
By the next week, however, the Jews felt such hatred for Paul that they drove him out of the city as a heretic. What had changed? The missionaries had shared the good news of Jesus with the Gentiles as well. Many were attracted to the gospel, and the Jews felt jealous. Just as the Pharisees condemned Jesus for associating with tax collectors and prostitutes, so these Jews abused Paul and opposed his message. This attitude prompted him to point out that God loved the Gentiles as well, as Scripture itself made clear (vv. 46-48). When push came to shove and Paul and Barnabas were sent on their way, they were "filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit" because the word of the Lord was taking root in new soil (v. 52).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In our hands, verse 52 might read differently. The two missionaries were exhausted, no doubt; faithful, definitely; courageous, certainly. Those qualities are easy to see. But "filled with joy"? What an unexpected phrase! Of course they didn't like being persecuted, but there was no greater joy than the spread of the gospel and the gift of life to those who were spiritually dead. The world does not understand our joy. Our joy is not a natural response to circumstances but rather a supernatural celebration of God's work.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:[
February 07, 2010
Distracted
READ: Luke 10:38-42
Martha was distracted with much serving. -Luke 10:40
The university where I teach as an adjunct professor provides laptop computers for its students. While this can be an aid to the students in many ways, I have discovered one way it hinders learning: The laptops can become a distraction during class.
Because the students take notes on their laptops, they have them open on their desks during class. The problem is that they find texting their friends, visiting Facebook, or checking things on the Internet more interesting than my lectures.
A laptop loses value in the learning environment if it becomes a distraction-even if what the students are doing is positive.
Good things can do that. Things that have value can draw our attention away from what we should be paying attention to. This was true for Martha. Luke 10:40 says she was "distracted with much serving," which took her away from spending time with Jesus. In the same way, a good hobby can have value in and of itself. But if it distracts you from your family responsibilities or relationship with God, some changes are needed.
Are life's good options distracting you from what your primary priorities should be? Return, as Jesus told Martha, to what "is needed." - Dave Branon
A Prayer: Help me, Lord, to make and to keep right priorities. To put You and time with You first. Give me discernment and the willingness to obey You today. Amen.
We were created to glorify God.
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Robbing God-of What?
Malachi 3:8-9 gives us a sober warning,
"Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation."
Now if you think about this statement, you have to ask, "How do you rob God? I mean, really, what does that mean?"
There are two ways we rob God when we refuse to tithe:
1. We rob God of honor that is due Him. In Proverbs 3:9 it says to, Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase. By giving God the first part of our income, we are honoring Him as being first in our lives. We demonstrate faith in His promise to supply our needs as well-and God is honored by our faith.
2. We rob God of the opportunity to bless us. In Malachi 3:10, God promises to bless us if we bring Him the first tenth of our income (the tithe).
The promise in Proverbs is that our barns will be filled with plenty if we will honor the Lord with our firstfruits (Proverbs 3:9-10).
He can bless us. He desires to bless us. Let us not rob Him of the opportunity to do so, nor of the honor that is due Him.
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Read: Hebrews 12:1-11
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. - Hebrews 12:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
For the ancient church, the anchor symbolized hope. Archaeologists have found depictions of anchors on believers' graves as far back as the late first century. The writer of Hebrews said of God's redemptive purposes, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Heb. 6:17-20). There is also a story from about A.D. 100 about an early church martyr, Clement, whom the Roman emperor Trajan ordered to be executed by tying him to an anchor and throwing him into the sea. According to legend, the water receded to reveal Clement's tomb, built by angels. The anchor was thus transmuted from an instrument of death into a symbol of hope and joy.
Joy motivates us, as it did Christ Himself, to endure suffering and discipline. Today's verse is the key: The focus of our faith is Jesus, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross" (v. 2). What was the "joy set before him"? It was the joy of obedience and subsequent vindication by God. Sent by the Father, He perfectly completed His mission of redemption. He submitted unto death and then triumphed over it, undoing and transcending the Fall. Upon completing His atoning work, He now sits at God's right hand as our great High Priest and Savior forever. There is no pretense that the cross was anything but shame and suffering, but it was not the end of the story. His suffering pales in comparison to the glorious salvation He accomplished through His obedience. The "joy set before him" was and is a joy rooted in eternal life and love!
Given that Jesus was the Son of God on a unique mission of salvation, how can we imitate His example? What is the joy set before us? It is the joy of His work of redemption being fulfilled in our lives. One day, because of what He did, we will be made perfect! It is the joy of our own obedience in the face of suffering. Our impurities are being purged and our shape hammered into what He intends (vv. 5-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Based on Hebrews 12, what are the characteristics of believers who imitate Christ? First, we have a sense of history and of the "great cloud of witnesses" who have gone before us. Second, we pursue holiness and struggle against sin. Third, we have perseverance; we're in it for the long haul. Fourth, we exercise all-out effort-there are no cruise control settings in the Christian life. Fifth, in faith, we need to fix our eyes on Christ. And sixth, we have a close relationship with God, our loving Father who guides our every step.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 08, 2010
In Praise Of Slowness
READ: 2 Peter 3:1-9
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness. -2 Peter 3:9
If there were a contest for most popular virtue, I suspect that "fast" would beat "best." Many parts of the world seem to be obsessed with speed. The "fast" craze, however, is getting us nowhere-fast.
"The time has come to challenge our obsession with doing everything more quickly," says Carl Honoré in his book In Praise of Slowness. "Speed is not always the best policy."
According to the Bible, he's right. Peter warned that in the last days people would doubt God because it seems He is slow ("slack") in fulfilling His promise to return. Peter pointed out, however, that this seeming slowness is a good thing. God is actually demonstrating His patience by giving people more time to repent (2 Peter 3:9), and also being true to His character, as in patient or slow to anger (Ex. 34:6).
We too must be slow to become angry-and slow to speak (James 1:19). According to James, "quickness" is reserved for our ears. We're supposed to be quick to listen. Think about how much trouble we could avoid if we learned to listen-really listen, not just stop talking-before we speak.
In our rush to meet goals and deadlines, let's remember to speed up our listening and to slow down our tempers and our tongues. - Julie Ackerman Link
Dear heart, let perfect patience be thy goal;
It is the way earth's noblest souls have trod.
'Tis just a calm adjustment of the soul
In all things to the perfect will of God. -Hayward
When you're tempted to lose patience with another, think how patient God has been with you.
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What's Your Measure?
In Luke 6:38, Jesus said these words,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
That is a promise of Jesus that you can stake your life on. Give, and what happens? It will be given to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!
But notice that He also added this, "The same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." If you take a serving spoon, and that is what you measure out your giving with, you will get an overflowing serving spoon. It comes back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing from a serving spoon.
The measure you use is what is measured back to you. If you use a shovel, and that is what you measure it out with, that is how it comes back to you.
Wouldn't you rather have a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shovel as opposed to a serving spoon? The measure you use, Jesus said, that is what is used to measure back to you.
I believe many people are using a teaspoon and yet they are praying, "God bless me. I have big needs." I am sure God is saying, "I'm doing all I can. You know, I'm pressing it down as much as I can press it down. It is running over. But a running over teaspoon is just not that much."
Are you using a teaspoon or a shovel? Whatever you use is what comes back multiplied, but it is only according to the measure you use.
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Read: James 1:2-8
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.
- James 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Death Valley, California, is one of the hottest, most barren places on earth; it averages less than two inches of rain per year. In the spring of 2005, a once-in-a-lifetime event happened-six inches of rain fell! The result was astonishing. Colorful wildflowers-pink, purple, orange, white, blue, and golden-bloomed in the desert. Where there had been only sand, salt flats, and black basalt mountainsides, there sprang up a kaleidoscopic rush of blossoms. These flowers' seeds have coatings so thick they can lie dormant for decades, waiting patiently for enough moisture to grow. When they do, for a few months Death Valley becomes a showcase for the beauty of God's creation.
What a striking picture of today's reading! Christians who "consider it pure joy" in the midst of trials and sufferings are, from the world's perspective, as unexpected as flowers in the desert. James's instructions go against all reason and emotion.
How and why are we supposed to do this? To "consider" or "count" (ESV) is like putting a label on something. We're not being told to fake a feeling, but rather to rejoice in the results of a spiritual process. As with yesterday's reading, when Christ endured the cross for "the joy set before him" (Heb. 12:2), we are to count trials as "pure joy"-uncorrupted by cynicism or doubt-because testing develops perseverance and perseverance leads to maturity (vv. 3-4). The experience doesn't feel pleasant, and it might even involve shame and suffering, but the spiritual outcome can transcend the feelings and inspire present joy.
In this reading, James has two other pieces of advice for getting through trials. One is to ask God for wisdom (v. 5). Wisdom is practical knowledge about how to live in godly ways, especially under difficult circumstances. The other is to "believe and not doubt" (v. 6). Affirming what we know to be true about God is faith, a rock that cannot be moved by any storm of life.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you undergoing trials and suffering? It need not be as dramatic as the persecution recounted at the beginning of the devotion two days ago. It might be a neighbor who spreads the word to stay away from the "crazy religious person" next door. It might be malicious workplace gossip prompted by resentment of your integrity. It might be a child who is straying from the Lord. To be able to consider such things "pure joy" goes against our grain and requires complete dependence on the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 09, 2010
God Incidents
READ: Hebrews 11:1-10
In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. -Philippians 4:6
In the normal course of providence, God works in and through creation, not despite it. For this reason, some answers to prayer are difficult to prove with certainty.
"Only faith vouches for the connection," C. S. Lewis writes. "No empirical proof could establish it." We believe a prayer has been answered not because of any scientific criteria proving it, but because we have faith.
Most of the ways we encounter God-nature, the Bible, the Lord's Supper, the church, other people-include things we can touch. God's own state, though, is the realm of spirit. Prayer reflects that difference between us.
Although we may ask God to intervene directly, it should not surprise us if He responds in a more hidden way in cooperation with our own choices. An alcoholic prays, "Lord, keep me from drink today." The answer to that prayer will likely come from the inside-from a stiffening resolve or a cry for help to a loyal friend-rather than from some marvel like the magical disappearance of liquor bottles from a cabinet.
Whether God supernaturally intervenes or is giving us the power to obey Him, we trust His character. We see a true partnership, intimate and intertwined. - Philip Yancey
Help me to walk aright,
More by faith, less by sight;
Lead me with heavenly light-
Teach me Thy way. -Ramsey
An important part of praying is a willingness to be part of the answer.
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For Just a Little While
Today's Scripture will start with the very last word of 1 Peter 1:4, just so you know who it is talking about, and go through verse 7,
...you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Notice in verse 6 it says, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. That phrase "a little while" literally means a season. The King James Version says, Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
I like the phrase "a little while". That tells me the season is going to end. It is not forever. Every season ends. Winter ends. Spring ends. Summer ends. Fall ends. Every season has a beginning, and every season has an end.
If you are in a trial right now and feeling the weight of it, you are grieved because of it, I have good news. It will not be forever. Things are going to change. It may not seem like it, but that season will come to an end.
Even if you are not experiencing a trial today, I am confident you have gone through such a season, and it is likely that you will probably experience such a season again.
When you do, or if you are today, be encouraged. God's Word wants you-and me-to remember it is for just a little while.
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Read: Nehemiah 8:5-18
The joy of the Lord is your strength. - Nehemiah 8:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the movie Chariots of Fire, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell was asked to run a race scheduled for a Sunday. This would have been a violation of his Christian convictions and he refused, even though he was under tremendous pressure as a representative of his country in the 1924 Olympics. But what mattered most to Liddell was God's approval. He ran, as he said, because God made him fast. "When I run, I feel His pleasure." How could he dishonor God by working on the day set aside to worship the Lord?
The joy of the Lord was Eric Liddell's strength, empowering him to stand firm in his convictions. The same faith and joy empowered Nehemiah in today's reading. Under his leadership, Israelites had returned from Babylon and completed rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. To honor the occasion, the leaders organized a public reading of Scripture. Ezra the priest stood on an elevated wooden platform, not unlike a pulpit in that it helped with visibility and audibility. The people stood for the reading of God's Word, a custom still practiced in some synagogues and churches today. The reading was no mere formality, but a time of teaching and instruction. In the absence of multimedia technology, Levites scattered throughout the crowd, "making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read" (vv. 7-8).
Though it was a joyful occasion, the people wept. Why? Because the Word showed them their sinfulness. They grieved at how they had grieved the Lord. Though the time for repentance would come (Nehemiah 9), on this day the leaders commanded the people to cease weeping and celebrate instead. God had brought them home from exile! The walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt! They were to rejoice in God's presence, His many blessings, and this day of sacred national worship (v. 12). Their celebration developed into the rediscovered Feast of Booths (vv. 13-18). How they rejoiced to be able to put God's commands into practice!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The body language in today's reading maybe caught your attention. People stood up to show respect for the Law. They lifted their hands. They said, "Amen." They bowed down with their faces to the ground. They said with verbal and nonverbal language what their hearts were feeling. We are familiar with actions such as bowing our heads, kneeling to pray, and clapping for joy. In your times of worship, how does your body language say what your heart is feeling? God is glorified by our full-body responses to His Word and work.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 10, 2010
Rich Toward God
READ: Luke 12:13-21
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. -Luke 12:34
I watch the fluctuations of the stock market and reflect on the effects of fear and greed. A character in a 1980s movie had this philosophy: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right! Greed works! . . . Greed [will] save . . . the USA!" What foolish thinking!
I think of that occasion when a man asked Jesus to serve as an arbiter and make his brother share their inheritance. Jesus refused the request but went on to do the man a greater kindness. He pointed out the motive behind the man's request and its consequences: "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:15).
Then Jesus told a parable about a man who harvested a bumper crop and began to make plans to increase and enjoy his riches. He concluded: "God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (vv.20-21).
The trouble with greed is that ultimately our goods go. But worse-we go. Better to store up treasure in heaven, invest in spiritual riches, and become "rich toward God." - David H. Roper
The treasures of earth do not last,
But God has prepared us a place
Where someday with Him we will dwell,
Enjoying the riches of grace. -Branon
Our real wealth is what we invest for eternity.
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Keep Trusting
In the passage we looked at yesterday, Peter encouraged us to see the trials we face as temporary, something that only lasts for a while. I want you to read that passage again today, and then I want to point your attention to another truth that is vital to enduring through whatever trial you may be facing.
It says in 1 Peter 1:5-7,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
One of the critical things you and I need to do when faced with trials is continue to trust God in the midst of those trials.
No matter how difficult, do not unplug your faith, even when things get rough. Keep trusting God and His promises. Why? Well, look at what verse 5 says: We are "kept by the power of God through faith."
When you keep your faith plugged in, you are then kept by God's power.
That word keep means to preserve. It means to protect, to guard. It is used elsewhere in Scripture of a garrison of soldiers protecting something. When you are going through a trial, God will protect you through His power when you trust Him.
That word power is the same word in the Bible translated miracle. I take it to mean this: When you or I are in a season of trial, if God has to work a miracle to keep us and protect us, He will do it.
Whatever your trial...keep trusting.
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Restore to me the joy of your salvation. - Psalm 51:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Michael Wong, a chemical engineer at Rice University, has discovered a new way to clean up toxic waste-with gold dust. He combined gold with the metal palladium, then used the mixture to dust toxic chemicals. The dust broke down the chemicals into a gas that's not harmful to the environment. His "gold detergent dust" could be used to clean up cancer-causing waste at 27,000 toxic sites nationwide at costs much lower than other methods. One day it might even be used to provide purified drinking water in developing nations that do not have enough.
Just as Wong's gold dust cleans up toxic chemicals, in the same way God's forgiveness purifies sin in our life. You might be surprised that Psalm 51, David's well known confession of adultery with Bathsheba, is part of this month's study. It teaches lessons about sin, repentance, and getting our hearts right with God . . . but joy?
The key is verse 12, which shows that confession of sin is all about restoring the joy of our salvation. In New Testament terms, we were filled with joy the day we trusted Christ and were saved from our sins. But when we sinned again and offended the very God who had saved us, joy dimmed, as well it should. Only confession and repentance can restore that joy.
In this psalm David prayed for his relationship with God to be restored. He had sinned-only God could give him a clean heart. He had yielded to temptation and disobeyed-only God could renew a steadfast spirit within him. He deserved to be cast from God's presence, but pleaded for mercy. He had offended God and deserved punishment, but he put his hope in God's unfailing love to forgive him (v. 1; see Isa. 43:25). As a forgiven sinner, he would be the best evidence and testimony for God's lovingkindness. He would be a joyful messenger calling others to repent, be forgiven, and have the joy of their salvation restored as well.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God knew we would struggle with sin in the course of our Christian lives. Until He returns and we dwell with Him forever, it's inevitable. He's provided confession as a type of prayer and spiritual discipline by which we can repent, seek forgiveness, and enjoy a restored relationship with Him. Without Him, we would still be lost and spiritually dead. With Him, we have life and hope and joy, even when we mess up and think, say, or do things that anger Him. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift" (2 Cor. 9:15)!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 11, 2010
The Other Side
READ: James 4:13-17
What is your life? It is even a vapor. -James 4:14
When someone said to my friend, "See you in a year," it sounded odd when he replied, "Yes, see you on the other side." He meant that he'd see him on the other side of a one-year deployment for the US Navy. But because the phrase is often used of heaven, it made me think about the uncertainty of life. I wondered, Who will be here in another year? Who might by then be on the other side-in heaven?
We certainly don't know what the next year-or hour-will bring. In his epistle, James wrote about this uncertainty. He rebuked the greedy merchants for boasting about what they would do that day, the next day, or even the next year (4:13). Their sin wasn't that they were making plans; it was forgetting God and arrogantly boasting about those business plans.
James reminded them: "What is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away" (v.14). Commentator Peter Davids says that James was pointing out their foolishness and saying, in essence, "Come now, you who make plans-you don't even understand how little control you have over life itself."
No part of life is outside the control of God. So when we make plans, we need to remember, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that" (v.15). - Anne Cetas
Tomorrow's plans I do not know,
I only know this minute;
But He will say, "This is the way,
By faith now walk ye in it." -Ryberg
Write your plans in pencil and let God have the eraser.
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Keep Laughing
I want to head back to 1 Peter 1:5-7 again today. Something tells me we could all continue to use the encouragement of Peter's words, especially the advice I want you to focus on today.
1 Peter 1:5-7,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Regardless of what you may be going through today, you need to rejoice. Peter says in verse 6, In this you greatly rejoice, even if for a season you are experiencing various trials.
Friend, keep your sense of humor. It will help you outlast your trials.
I read a story once about a guy parachuting when the wind blew him onto a track where they were racing cars...not a good place to land in a parachute. He was trying to get his parachute off when another gust of wind came and started dragging him face first down the track.
He finally got the parachute off and stood up only to see a car racing towards him. He quickly jumped out of the way and said to himself, "Man, I'm glad that's over!" and turned to get off the track. As he did, he stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle.
That was just too much! Even in his pain, he just started laughing!
Keep your sense of humor. Even if you are going through the roughest patch you have ever been through.
Do not let your trials rob you of your joy.
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Read: Deuteronomy 16:1-17
The Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. - Deuteronomy 16:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Chicago is the American city most in need of joy, at least according to a recent, unscientific online survey. Taken by the Mars Candy Company, the survey of nearly 350 American cities placed Chicago first, followed by New York, Houston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. As a result, Mars-maker of M&Ms, Snickers, Milky Way, Twix, Dove, and Three Musketeers candy bars-in an effort to spread more joy, gave away 50,000 free samples of their candy bars on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on October 1, 2009. That induced smiles!
In today's reading, the people of Israel received instructions to joyfully celebrate God's blessings to them in three sacred festivals: Passover (vv. 1-8), the Feast of Weeks (vv. 9-12), and the Feast of Tabernacles (vv. 13-17). Passover celebrates the nation's deliverance from slavery in Egypt. No yeast is permitted in the Passover meal as a symbolic reminder of Israel's hurried departure. The Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost, marked the firstfruits of the wheat harvest and was a holiday of thankfulness for God's provision and blessing. The Feast of Tabernacles was another harvest festival commemorating the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan. The people lived in small booths in order to remember and honor God's provision during their long journey in the wilderness.
Specific historical events and the people's overall relationship with God were involved in these joyful occasions. These were national feasts, not individual choices or even family traditions. All of God's people were to gather together in obedience to His command. These were also times for worship and offerings, not just pleasure or leisure (though those were included). No work was permitted to be done, as that would have been a distraction. Celebrating was intended to draw the community's attention to their blessings and the Giver of these good things. This completed the circle and so made their joy "complete" (v. 15; see John 16:24).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How can "celebrate," "rejoice," and "be joyful" be obeyed as biblical commands? We're so used to thinking of joy only as a spontaneous emotion that it might sound as if we're being told to force or fake a feeling. Instead, we're being given a godly understanding of joy. Joy begins with obedience. And when we stop in obedience to count our blessings, like the Israelites in today's reading, we realize that the Giver of blessings is also the Giver of joy. In this case, feelings follow actions!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 12, 2010
Send The Light
READ: Philippians 2:12-18
Become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. -Philippians 2:15
American businessman Mark Bent has spent $250,000 to develop and manufacture an affordable solar-powered flashlight. Thousands have been distributed free or at low cost to people living in African refugee camps. One daily solar charge provides 7 hours of life-giving illumination for people in homes, schools, and medical clinics where darkness had encouraged crime and violence.
The contrast between darkness and light is a prominent image in the Bible's presentation of Jesus the Messiah. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined" (Isa. 9:2). "In [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (John 1:4-5).
It's our privilege as followers of Jesus to be His light-bearers today. Paul urged the Christians in Philippi to become "blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world" (Phil. 2:15).
Instead of being afraid or oppressed by the spiritual darkness around us, we can rely on the grace that God gives His children to shine for Him. - David C. McCasland
Lord, may I be a shining light
For all the world to see
Your goodness and Your love displayed
As You reach out through me. -Sper
Jesus came to give light to a dark world.
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Stop the Worry
Over the last few devotionals, we have been talking about trials and how we should respond. Today I have a simple but important word for you directly from God's Word: Don't worry.
1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Jesus said, "Don't take an anxious thought for tomorrow. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." When we worry about tomorrow, we pull tomorrow's clouds over today's sunshine.
I have shared many times in my ministry about the incredible truth of Jesus' command, "Do not worry about tomorrow." It is like we have this 24-hour fuse. We are wired up to deal with the stresses of life one day at a time.
If you worry about tomorrow today, you are putting a 48-hour load on a 24-hour fuse, and something is going to give somewhere.
Some people don't just worry about tomorrow, they worry about next week and next month. No wonder the fuse is blowing!
You see, what the mind cannot contain, it will impose upon the body. If your health is breaking down, worry may just be the problem. The Bible says to cast all of your care, the whole of your care, all your anxieties, on Him, once and for all.
Roll your burden on the Lord. The Bible says be anxious for nothing. And that means nothing. Do not worry about your children, do not worry about your money, do not worry about your future, do not worry about anything.
Your Heavenly Father does care for you, and it is His good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
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Read: Deuteronomy 16:1-17
The Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. - Deuteronomy 16:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Chicago is the American city most in need of joy, at least according to a recent, unscientific online survey. Taken by the Mars Candy Company, the survey of nearly 350 American cities placed Chicago first, followed by New York, Houston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. As a result, Mars-maker of M&Ms, Snickers, Milky Way, Twix, Dove, and Three Musketeers candy bars-in an effort to spread more joy, gave away 50,000 free samples of their candy bars on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on October 1, 2009. That induced smiles!
In today's reading, the people of Israel received instructions to joyfully celebrate God's blessings to them in three sacred festivals: Passover (vv. 1-8), the Feast of Weeks (vv. 9-12), and the Feast of Tabernacles (vv. 13-17). Passover celebrates the nation's deliverance from slavery in Egypt. No yeast is permitted in the Passover meal as a symbolic reminder of Israel's hurried departure. The Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost, marked the firstfruits of the wheat harvest and was a holiday of thankfulness for God's provision and blessing. The Feast of Tabernacles was another harvest festival commemorating the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan. The people lived in small booths in order to remember and honor God's provision during their long journey in the wilderness.
Specific historical events and the people's overall relationship with God were involved in these joyful occasions. These were national feasts, not individual choices or even family traditions. All of God's people were to gather together in obedience to His command. These were also times for worship and offerings, not just pleasure or leisure (though those were included). No work was permitted to be done, as that would have been a distraction. Celebrating was intended to draw the community's attention to their blessings and the Giver of these good things. This completed the circle and so made their joy "complete" (v. 15; see John 16:24).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How can "celebrate," "rejoice," and "be joyful" be obeyed as biblical commands? We're so used to thinking of joy only as a spontaneous emotion that it might sound as if we're being told to force or fake a feeling. Instead, we're being given a godly understanding of joy. Joy begins with obedience. And when we stop in obedience to count our blessings, like the Israelites in today's reading, we realize that the Giver of blessings is also the Giver of joy. In this case, feelings follow actions!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 13, 2010
Reunion Dinner
READ: Revelation 19:1-9
Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! -Revelation 19:9
Many Chinese go to great lengths to attend a traditional annual reunion dinner with their families. Held on the eve of the Lunar New Year, the reunion dinner usually takes place at the home of their parents or eldest sibling.
Chinese working overseas have to arrange their travel bookings early to ensure they have tickets for the heavily booked airline flights and bus journeys. To fail to book early is to risk missing out on the family reunion.
The Bible tells of an even more important reunion dinner in heaven. Revelation 19:9 calls it "the marriage supper of the Lamb." Unlike the Lunar New Year reunion dinner, however, no one knows the date for this event except God (Matt. 24:36). Nor do we have to worry about making travel arrangements.
Who is invited to this heavenly reunion dinner? All those who belong to God's family will be there, "those who believe in [Jesus'] name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13).
Will you be at the reunion dinner in heaven? You can secure your place at the heavenly banquet by trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today. - C. P. Hia
How Can You Have The Assurance Of Heaven?
Recognize your sinfulness (Rom. 3:23); believe Jesus died for you (Acts 16:31); receive Him as Savior (John 1:12); trust His promise (John 20:31).
Christ believed is salvation received and heaven assured.
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Your Real Adversary
As we continue to think about the reality of trials in our lives, and the challenge it is to handle those trials, I want to point you to another important teaching about trials in today's devotional.
You need to realize who your adversary is. It is not God; it is the devil. Look at 1 Peter 5:8-9,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Some of the trials and sufferings that we experience are the direct result of the adversary's work.
Some people want to blame God for everything, but the Bible says it is the thief- the devil-who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came to give us life and more abundantly.
Peter makes this even clearer in verse 10,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Our God is the God of grace. The devil is seeking to devour.
Frankly, I hate the middle part of this verse, After you have suffered for a while.... Clearly, God wants us to understand that suffering is going to happen. Trials are going to happen. No matter how much you may say, "I don't receive it!", it is still there! You are going to go through difficult times. It is part of the human experience.
But when you go through that time of trial, remember not to blame God. It is the devil who is your adversary!
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Read: Ezra 6:13-22
Then the people of Israel . . . celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. - Ezra 6:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Construction engineers in Warsaw, Poland, recently built a railway tunnel that was too small for trains to fit. This expensive and embarrassing mistake was discovered by building inspectors, whose measurements revealed that the roof was too low for real trains to pass through. Apparently, the fiasco was the result of a lack of communication between workers building the tunnel and other workers laying new track.
Thankfully, Nehemiah and his team were better engineers than that! For them and for all the people, completing their construction project within God's sovereign plan brought great joy. While rebuilding the temple had been an obvious priority upon the Jews' return to their homeland, they had also been preoccupied with survival issues, such as setting up homes and farms and raising crops. They had faced opposition or at least nosy oversight from governor Tattenai and the local bureaucracy, until Darius's confirmation of the original decree opened the door to finishing the temple rebuilding project (v. 13). To tell the truth, the people had also been guilty of putting their own interests first, ahead of God's commands, and this had earned them a famine (see Haggai 1).
But now, under the leadership of Nehemiah and others, the rebuilt temple was at last completed, and the people responded with joy (v. 16). Finishing the new house of God symbolized to them that He was again present with His people and that the covenant relationship had been restored. They were once again His consecrated, set-apart people. God had decreed and arranged it all, from the Exile that was His judgment on their sin to the imperial decrees that enabled their homecoming. Human kings thought they held the power, but it was God who ordered events and changed hearts to accomplish His will. The dedication ceremony included worship, sacrifices, instruction from Scripture, reestablishment of the ministry of the priests and Levites, and a celebration of the Passover feast. "The Lord had filled them with joy" (v. 22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Committing our plans and projects to the Lord and seeking His gift of joy in their completion is always a good idea. According to Proverbs 19:21, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Encouragingly, " 'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future' " (Jer. 29:11). Our response: "My heart is glad and my tongue rejoices" (Acts 2:26).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 14, 2010
Showing Real Love
READ: John 13:1-5,33-35
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. -John 13:35
Chinese New Year happens to fall on the same day as Valentine's Day in 2010. While these two festivals have very different origins, there are some similarities in how they are celebrated. In both cases, loved ones give gifts to express love for one another. Whether it is giving roses to your beloved on Valentine's Day or hong bao (red packets with money) to family and friends on Chinese New Year, they represent tokens of love.
Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His disciples to "love one another," because "by this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
The love that our Lord wants His disciples to have for one another is different from the romantic kind displayed between loving couples and the brotherly kind shown between friends or family. It's an unselfish love. The Greek word John used in Jesus' command is agape-God's kind of love that expects nothing in return. That was what Jesus showed to His disciples when He "poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet" (v.5). That is the kind of love He displayed when He went to the cross for us.
Today, look for someone to whom you can show such unselfish love. - C. P. Hia
Lord, teach us the secret of loving,
The love You are asking today;
Then help us to love one another;
For this we most earnestly pray. -Anon.
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. -Galatians 6:2
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The Right Word at the Right Time
Proverbs 15:23 contains a powerful truth,
A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!
Notice that this verse talks about not just a word spoken, but a word spoken in due season-at the proper time. How good it is!
It is critical for words of encouragement, words of comfort, words of counsel, words of wisdom, and even words of correction to be spoken in due season. Timing is just as important as content.
I read once about a lady who invited family and friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. When they received the invitation, they let her know that they were going to come. In fact, they were looking forward to the day.
She really put on quite a spread. She baked pies and bread; she cooked a turkey with all of the trimmings-an incredible meal. When the time came for her guests to arrive, she lit candles and put the finishing touches on decorating the house.
The only problem was, no one showed up.
Then she remembered the calendar she had picked up from a local business. On that calendar it said that Thanksgiving was on the 21st rather than on the last Thursday of the month as it normally is every year. At the time she thought it was strange, but she figured that they must have moved the holiday.
She had prepared her sumptuous banquet a week early! The content was great but the timing was not so great.
So it is with our words. They can be just the right words, perfect for the need of the person, but if not delivered at the right time, they can fall short.
Be sensitive to pick the right time to speak as well as the right words to say.
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Read: Philippians 2:1-4
Then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. - Philippians 2:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Everyone in China has a file of documents that comprises their official identity. They include university diplomas, grades, test scores, and work evaluations. Because of their value, they are locked up tight in government offices. But two years ago, the documents belonging to Xue Longlong "vanished," supposedly lost when files were moved from one floor of a government building to another. He believes that corrupt officials sold the files to people looking for fresh starts and better jobs. Without a file, he has only been able to get positions serving drinks and selling real estate door-to-door. His fiancée left him, and his mother had a nervous breakdown. Many such cases of identity theft have been reported across China.
Fortunately for us, our identity in Christ is in safer hands, a truth undergirding today's reading from Philippians, often called the "epistle of joy." The "if" phrases in verse 1 are not really conditionals, because the conditions are not uncertain. "If" here serves as rhetorical device, more like "since" or "because." We don't need to think about whether or not we have "any encouragement from being united with Christ" or "any comfort from his love"-we know we do!
We also have fellowship with His Holy Spirit and a Christ-like ability to show compassion. Because we are united with Christ, we should be united in Christ, demonstrating a oneness of love, spirit, and purpose. We should not live based on pride and selfish ambition, but rather within the body of Christ we should be humbly putting His glory and others' needs ahead of our own (vv. 2-4).
The hinge phrase is "make my joy complete" (v. 2). By living in a manner worthy of the gospel, the Philippians could bring joy to the Lord as well as to Paul. Their unity, humility, and selflessness would stimulate or fill up his joy, representing a kind of completion of his efforts to plant a church and disciple them as new believers.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Valentine's Day is about love, which the world often represents as chubby cupids shooting arrows of romance into lucky people's hearts. Love from a Christian perspective, however, is all about the humility and attitude of service found in today's passage. What if we as believers made this holiday a day for expressing our love in Christ for one another? Perhaps one or more of our Valentine's Day cards could be a "timely word" (Prov. 15:23) to a fellow believer who could use some encouragement.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 15, 2010
Defining Failure
READ: Hebrews 11:24-34
Who through faith . . . out of weakness were made strong. -Hebrews 11:33-34
During the Great Depression, many people in the US lived in shantytowns made up of plywood, tarps, and blankets. These decrepit dwellings, known as "Hoovervilles," housed those who had been evicted from their homes. Many blamed President Herbert Hoover for the economic woes.
Ironically, Hoover's apparent ineffectiveness as a leader was in sharp contrast to his previous record. Earlier, Hoover's expertise in geological engineering led to successful mining projects in Australia and China. He also effectively spearheaded humanitarian efforts. But when the stock market crashed in October 1929, President Hoover was in circumstances beyond his control. He would be forever tied with the economic depression of the 1930s.
One major fiasco, however, does not mean one's whole life is a failure. What if we remembered Abraham only as a deceiver (Gen. 12:10-20), Moses as disobedient to God (Num. 20:1-13), or David as a murderer? (2 Sam. 11). Despite their sins, these men are remembered for their persevering faith: "who through faith . . . out of weakness were made strong" (Heb. 11:33-34).
Our life is not a failure if we've repented of our sins. God can still use us to serve Him. - Dennis Fisher
The lessons we learn from our failures
Are lessons that help us succeed,
And if we are wise and we heed them,
Then failure is just what we need. -D. De Haan
Success often rises out of the ashes of failure.
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A Word of Encouragement
I want you to look today at a passage of Scripture that helps guide us in what to say, who to say it to, and when and how to say it. Isaiah 50:4-5,
"The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away."
First, we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He will teach us how to speak a word in season to the person who is weary. As it says, He will awaken our ear.
Jesus made it very clear in Matthew, chapter 10 verses 19-20, that the Holy Spirit is quite able to give us the right words to say at the right time. In Isaiah 51:16, God says, "I have put My words in your mouth." In Isaiah 57:19, He says, "I create the fruit of the lips."
Chances are there is someone in your world today who needs to be given a word of encouragement. The key is being sensitive and available. Sometimes we are so embroiled in our own struggles that we don't even give a thought to the fact that there may be someone around us who needs encouragement...a coworker, a neighbor, your spouse, your child.
I personally think our children need to be given encouragement every day. Like the little boy said, "Daddy, let's play darts. I'll throw, and you say 'Wonderful!'" Children crave affirmation and encouragement.
There is someone who you either have contact with now, or you will have contact with, who needs encouragement. And you are God's messenger.
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Read: James 1:2-8
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. - James 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Death Valley, California, is one of the hottest, most barren places on earth; it averages less than two inches of rain per year. In the spring of 2005, a once-in-a-lifetime event happened-six inches of rain fell! The result was astonishing. Colorful wildflowers-pink, purple, orange, white, blue, and golden-bloomed in the desert. Where there had been only sand, salt flats, and black basalt mountainsides, there sprang up a kaleidoscopic rush of blossoms. These flowers' seeds have coatings so thick they can lie dormant for decades, waiting patiently for enough moisture to grow. When they do, for a few months Death Valley becomes a showcase for the beauty of God's creation.
What a striking picture of today's reading! Christians who "consider it pure joy" in the midst of trials and sufferings are, from the world's perspective, as unexpected as flowers in the desert. James's instructions go against all reason and emotion.
How and why are we supposed to do this? To "consider" or "count" (ESV) is like putting a label on something. We're not being told to fake a feeling, but rather to rejoice in the results of a spiritual process. As with yesterday's reading, when Christ endured the cross for "the joy set before him" (Heb. 12:2), we are to count trials as "pure joy"-uncorrupted by cynicism or doubt-because testing develops perseverance and perseverance leads to maturity (vv. 3-4). The experience doesn't feel pleasant, and it might even involve shame and suffering, but the spiritual outcome can transcend the feelings and inspire present joy.
In this reading, James has two other pieces of advice for getting through trials. One is to ask God for wisdom (v. 5). Wisdom is practical knowledge about how to live in godly ways, especially under difficult circumstances. The other is to "believe and not doubt" (v. 6). Affirming what we know to be true about God is faith, a rock that cannot be moved by any storm of life.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you undergoing trials and suffering? It need not be as dramatic as the persecution recounted at the beginning of the devotion two days ago. It might be a neighbor who spreads the word to stay away from the "crazy religious person" next door. It might be malicious workplace gossip prompted by resentment of your integrity. It might be a child who is straying from the Lord. To be able to consider such things "pure joy" goes against our grain and requires complete dependence on the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 16, 2010
Detecting Toxins
READ: Galatians 1:3-10
There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. -Galatians 1:7
San Francisco and New York City are using bluegill fish to check for the presence of toxins in their water supply, which could be a possible target for a terrorist attack. A small number of bluegills are kept in a tank at the bottom of some water treatment plants because the fish are sensitive to chemical imbalances in their environment. When a disturb-ance is present in the water, the bluegills react against it.
Like these bluegills, Paul wanted the Galatians to beware of and react against any toxic disturbance in the "true gospel" that was being preached. The toxin was defined as the false principle that God grants acceptance to people and considers them righteous on the basis of their obedience to a set of rules (especially circumcision and dietary laws). In short, obedience to the law was needed, apart from faith in Jesus. This false teaching was a toxic disturbance of the truth and the Galatians were told to react strongly against it. Paul said that anyone preaching a gospel that is not based on grace through faith in Christ alone should be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9).
Let's faithfully study the Scriptures so we can detect the toxins of false teaching and proclaim the truth of God's wonderful salvation through faith in Jesus. - Marvin Williams
Lord, teach us from Your holy Word
All error to discern,
And by Your Spirit's light help us
From Satan's snares to turn. -Bosch
If you know the truth, you can discern what's false.
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Sow Good...Reap Blessing
As I mentioned in yesterday's devotional, God wants to bless your life, and the richer, more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. We find that thing in Galatians 6:9-10,
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
The seasons of blessing come due more often to those who consistently sow, to those who seize opportunities that are afforded them to do good. Notice again in verse 9, Let us not grow weary while doing good. Verse 10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all.
This same truth is reinforced by verse 7, which states,
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
If we sow good, we will reap good. A season of blessing will come.
What many Christians tend to do is stand before a field in which they planted no seed, and pray, "God, give me a miracle harvest."
Now, God is God, and He certainly can do things out of the ordinary. But He also works according to laws and principles that He has set into motion. One of those laws is the law of sowing and reaping.
Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Therefore, do not grow weary while doing good. In due season, you will reap, if you do not faint. When you have opportunity, do good. Get some seed in the ground.
Because the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who sow good.
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Read: Psalm 4
You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. - Psalm 4:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
Eighth-century missionary Boniface prayed: "Eternal God, the refuge of all your children, in our weakness you are our strength, in our darkness our light, in our sorrow our comfort and peace. May we always live in your presence, and serve you in our daily lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord." Amen.
This is the prayer of a man who delighted in the Lord. David was such a man as well, and in Psalm 4 he taught us that joy is to be a constant dimension of the life of faith. How is this possible? Joy is not primarily a feeling we muster up, but rather it flows naturally from dwelling in God's presence. In other words, cultivating a close relationship with the Lord brings joy, because He is the source and giver of all true joy.
In Psalm 4, David was in trouble, as seen in the four requests embedded in his invocation: "answer me," "give me relief," "be merciful to me," and "hear my prayer" (v. 1). He looked to God for help, not because he deserved it but on the basis of God's mercy and faithfulness. He knew that God does indeed answer prayer (vv. 2-3). No matter how far away He might seem, there is no excuse for turning to false gods. We must remain faithful (vv. 4-5).
In private, we should search our hearts and discipline our thoughts to follow truth. In public, we should keep trusting and not give up fulfilling our religious duties. Waiting for God to answer and act is difficult, but it's no excuse for faithlessness. Doubt may be natural, but His blessing is supernatural and sure (vv. 6-7). The light of God's face will shine on us again.
David spoke of joy filling his heart as if it were an accomplished fact, so much so that he closed his psalm with an announcement that he was going to bed (v. 8)! Because of God's presence in his life, he wouldn't lose any sleep over his troubles.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If we asked you for a mental picture for joy, probably the first picture that would spring to mind is not one of someone sleeping peacefully. But since that's the picture David left us with, it's worth our consideration. Hard-working Americans like to put up verse plaques in their homes that begin, "Unless the Lord builds the house . . ." But the very next verse reads: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-for he grants sleep to those he loves" (Ps. 127:1-2).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 17, 2010
In The Car Wash
READ: Isaiah 43:1-13
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. -Isaiah 43:2
I'll never forget my first experience using an automatic car wash. Approaching it with the dread of going to the dentist, I pushed the money into the slot, nervously checked and rechecked my windows, eased the car up to the line, and waited. Powers beyond my control began moving my car forward as if on a conveyor belt. There I was, cocooned inside, when a thunderous rush of water, soap, and brushes hit my car from all directions. What if I get stuck in here or water crashes in? I thought irrationally. Suddenly the waters ceased. After a blow-dry, my car was propelled into the outside world again, clean and polished.
In the midst of all this, I remembered stormy times in my life when it seemed I was on a conveyor belt, a victim of forces beyond my control. "Car-wash experiences," I now call them. I remembered that whenever I passed through deep waters my Redeemer had been with me, sheltering me against the rising tide (Isa. 43:2). When I came out on the other side, which I always did, I was able to say with joy and confidence, "He is a faithful God!"
Are you in the middle of a car-wash experience? Trust God to bring you through to the other side. You'll then be a shining testimony of His keeping power. - Joanie Yoder
How wonderful to know that He
Who watches from above
Will always keep us sheltered in
His ever-present love! -King
A tunnel of testing can produce a shining testimony.
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Real Treasure
Proverbs 15:6 says,
In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.
Notice that this verse does not just declare there is treasure in the house of the righteous. It says there is much treasure in the house of the righteous.
You can also find treasure in the house of the wicked, but Solomon says it is laced with trouble. The income of the wicked has a bunch of trouble with it.
But the same is not true for those who are right with God. When the treasure is found in their house, it does not have the same trouble that it does when it is found in the house of the wicked.
If you read on, the Lord shares two things that must accompany this treasure if it is going to be enjoyed. First, you must have a right relationship with God. Proverbs 15:16says, Better is a little with the fear of the LORD, than great treasure with trouble.
It is better to have almost nothing and have a right relationship with God than to have everything money can buy and not have a relationship with God. We must get our priorities right.
The second thing we need to have is a right relationship with people, lest the treasure become hollow and become a curse. Proverbs 15:17says, Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred.
Some people have more prosperity than they know what to do with, but all of their relationships fail. They do not have love. Consequently, there is a vacuum they can never fill with things, that they can never fill by accumulating more possessions.
Pursue your relationship with God, and a right relationship with people. Then you will enjoy the treasure God gives you!
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Read: John 15:1-15
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. - John 15:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Americans have religious faith . . . sort of. A 2009 survey by Parade magazine found that 69 percent of Americans believe in God, 77 percent pray outside of religious services, and 75 percent believe parents should give children a religious upbringing. But 50 percent rarely or never attend worship services, and 24 percent labeled themselves "spiritual but not religious." Only 12 percent identified their own religion as the one true faith, while 59 percent said all religions are valid.
Many Americans seem to be confused. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). And according to today's reading, no one lives a joyful life of faith and obedience except by abiding in Him. Jesus taught this to His disciples "so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" (v. 11). When we abide in Christ, joy also abides-His joy and our joy intermingle. How incredible that the very joy of Christ Himself can be experienced by us in our relationship with Him! Just as Christ's joy flowed from obedience to His Father's will, so too does our joy flow from obedience to Christ's commands (v. 10).
Spiritual abiding is conveyed mainly through the metaphor of a vineyard (vv. 1-8). The gardener (God the Father) tends the vine branches, a care that includes pruning and cutting. How does He choose what to do? The criterion is fruitfulness, not in a business sense of profit, but in a spiritual sense of virtue and godliness. The vine (God the Son) is the source of that spiritual fruitfulness and life. The branches (believers) have only one function, to bear fruit, and only one way to do that, by abiding in the vine. If we are attentive to Christ's words, they take root in our hearts and bring forth obedient prayers and other actions (v. 7). One specific and the supreme example of this kind of obedience is sacrificial love (vv. 12-13).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Those of us familiar with gardening know there's a lot of hard work involved. One doesn't plant squash and walk away, or smile at beans and tomatoes in passing, and expect fresh vegetables to grow. A garden needs water. It needs good soil. It needs us to get down on our hands and knees and pull some weeds. It needs us to keep an eye out for pests and take steps if any are found. Abiding in Christ likewise hard work takes commitment in order to cultivate this relationship.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 18, 2010
Tell It All
READ: Psalm 62
Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. -Psalm 62:8
A clerk who helped me purchase a small digital voice recorder told me that he kept one just like it in his car when he worked in California. "When I began driving home after work I switched it on," he said, "and I talked about everything that happened that day on the job, good and bad. When I pulled into my driveway, I hit the erase button." Then he smiled. After telling everything to his voice recorder, he apparently had no need to go over the day's problems with his wife or family.
It reminded me of how often I needlessly rehearse my disappointments and problems to others instead of telling them to God. The psalmist wrote: "Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us" (Ps. 62:8). Twice he spoke of waiting silently for God, his rock and salvation (vv.1-2,5-7).
While there is great comfort in sharing our difficulties with a friend, we miss the greatest help if we fail to bring them to the Lord. Joseph Scriven said it so well:
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer! - David C. McCasland
No matter where we are, Jesus is only a prayer away.
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Overrated
We read in Proverbs 23:4,
Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!
First, I want you to notice that this verse does not say don't work. And it does not say don't work hard. It says don't overwork.
There are some people in God's family who are not led, they are driven. They are so focused on reaching their goals and achieving whatever level of success they are going after, that they are making a lot of sacrifices along the way.
But they are making the wrong sacrifices. They are sacrificing their marriage and they are sacrificing their relationship with their kids. Why? Because they overwork. And, friend, that is not healthy.
In fact, I would say that overworking is as unhealthy as not working. You miss out on the grand things in life, the important things in life. With some people, even their relationship with God gets squeezed out because they overwork.
You need to be motivated; you need to work hard; but you don't want to overdo it to the point that you don't have time for your children. You don't want to work so hard that you don't have time for your spouse. And you don't want to so overwork that you don't have time for your God.
You are missing life if you are just after possessions, and you are sacrificing the more important things along the way.
How does your work life measure up today? Are you overworking at the expense of your marriage, your family, and your relationship with God? If so, determine today to get your life back in balance.
Overworking is overrated!
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Read: Psalm 20
We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. - Psalm 20:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
In A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, author Paul Miller offers six cures for cynicism in prayer. One is to "cultivate a childlike spirit": "Cry out for grace like a hungry child. As soon as I begin simply asking for help, I have become like a little child again. I've stopped becoming cynical. Oddly enough, my prayer is answered almost immediately because in the act of praying I've become like a child. . . . Instead of critiquing others' stories, watch the story our Father is weaving." He goes on to identify a childlike spirit as one that interprets life through the lens of Psalm 23 and our Good Shepherd's care for us.
In the life of the believer, answered prayer is a source of joy. Formally, Psalm 20 is a prayer of the king on the eve of battle, but more generally we can understand it as a petition that prayers for help to be answered. Like David, we can pray for God's name to protect us, for Him to grant us support, for Him to remember our worship and come to our aid, and for Him to give us the desires of our heart and make our plans succeed (vv. 1-5; cf. Ps. 37:4). The assumption is that God is great, we are in distress, we need His help, and that He will give it. When He does so-given the occasion, the picture is of a battle won and victory banners raised-we will shout for joy!
When it comes to war, some trust in horses, chariots, military armaments, and the size of the army. Humanly speaking, victory depends on abilities and resources. But we don't put our faith in such things. We trust in the Lord, who is sure to answer our prayers and save us. In the end, those who trust in chariots and horses end up on their knees, defeated and humbled, while we "rise up and stand firm" (vv. 6-9). The joy of answered prayer is joy in God's power and love.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
There are many good books available at bookstores or online to assist us with the spiritual discipline of prayer. One is the recent release mentioned in today's devotion, A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Other excellent resources include A Journey to Victorious Praying: Finding Discipline and Delight in Your Prayer Life by Bill Thrasher, and Hearing God's Voice by Henry and Richard Blackaby. Those with a more historical bent might prefer The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 19, 2010
If Day
READ: James 1:1-11
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. -James 1:2-3
February 19, 1942, was a fascinating day for Canada. It was "If Day"-a World War II staging of a fake Nazi invasion of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The intent was to show what it would be like "if" Canada fell under the harsh occupation of Nazi forces, and so that Canadians would support the war effort more fully.
As one person described the event: "If Day brought home the reality of Nazi occupation. Manitobans got a very bitter taste of nearly every aspect of Nazi brutality." The key word there is nearly. While "If Day" was a valiant attempt to educate people about danger in the world, it could not begin to recreate the actual suffering that was sweeping Europe.
Real trials in life are not ifs-they are whens. In fact, life's most profound lessons cannot simply be observed, they must be experienced. It is there, in actual seasons of heartache and loss, that we gain greater insights into life, faith, and our need of God. To that end, James wrote, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience" (James 1:2-3).
Trials come because we live in a broken world, but we decide if we will learn the lessons taught. There are no "ifs" about it-it is an important way to grow. - Bill Crowder
Though you cannot see the outcome,
Trust the Lord-He knows what's best;
Be assured He sees your trial,
And He's with you in your test. -Hess
Tough times can teach us to trust.
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Only Temporary
In our last devotional, we looked at Proverbs 23:4. Today I want us to look at the next verse. I will bet you can relate to it. Verse 5 says,
Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Does it ever seem to you that your money has wings? That it just flies off more quickly than you would have ever imagined?!
Money can be very temporary, very transitory in nature. Proverbs 27:24 reinforces that truth when it tells us,
For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
You need to understand that wealth is temporary just like our time here is temporary. What are the implications for how we live our lives? As believers, it is so important for us to have a pilgrim mindset and realize that we are just passing through.
This world is not our home. This life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. If you begin to think that somehow things are permanent, and you plan as if it is all permanent, you are going to get off course in your life with God.
Moses is a great example of someone who made a choice to live life with the right priorities. You can read about it in Hebrews 11. In that chapter, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy all the riches of Egypt.
Moses had everything at his fingertips, but he made the right choice. He said, "You know what? There are more important things. My priorities are different than this." And his lifestyle changed pretty radically in a hurry.
But looking back, it's obvious that Moses made the right choice isn't it? He changed the world and right now he is in heaven enjoying the presence of God.
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Read: Psalm 98
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music. - Psalm 98:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Central and South America today, one of the most popular hymns among evangelical Christians is "No Hay Dios tan Grande," or "There's No God as Great." The music features a Hispanic folk tune, while the lyrics celebrate the "mighty wonders" God accomplishes in guiding His church. "Not by our weapons, nor by our power, but by your Spirit we are led." This song of joyous confidence is often accompanied not only by piano and guitars, but also by rhythm instruments including maracas and castanets.
In countless languages and circumstances around the globe, we Christians love to express our joy in the Lord through worship and singing! "Sing to the Lord a new song" has been the motto of generations of Christian musicians. The reason for our joy is God's salvation (vv. 1-3). He comes to our rescue to demonstrate His power, reveal His righteousness, and reaffirm His love. "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" (v. 3).
The sound of our joy is exuberant praise (vv. 4-6). Take a look at all the action verbs in this short psalm-sing, shout, burst into jubilant song, make music, shout for joy, resound, clap hands, sing together, sing before the Lord. Several musical instruments are also summoned, including harp, trumpets, and ram's horn. We are given a mental picture of a congregation or mass choir, along with a worship band or orchestra, joyfully and energetically making music.
The scope of our joyful song is worldwide (vv. 7-9). In the psalmist's vivid imagery, we see not only all nations joining together to praise the Lord but also all nature. The seas roar, the rivers clap their hands, and the mountains sing to honor their Creator. The power, righteousness, love, and justice of our God demand no less. As another psalm puts it: "Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. How awesome is the LORD Most High, the great King over all the earth!" (Ps. 47:1-2).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Making music before the Lord comes in many forms. Talented musicians audition for the choir or worship band. Others of us just put on a good CD and sing "joyful noises" in the shower. Gifted singers sing parts, the musical lines appropriate to their voices. Others of us just sing into the hymnbook so as not to throw our neighbor out of tune. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of talent, all of us can lift our voices to God, and He is honored and delighted by our joyful praises.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 20, 2010
Parked For Now
READ: Numbers 9:19-23
I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. -Psalm 40:1
Parking my car has been a lifelong problem for me. It really wasn't a high priority with my driving instructor, so I never learned to back up into a parking space until many years later. He also skipped the parallel parking lesson, and I still avoid that unless there's enough space for two or three cars.
I've also struggled to understand a statement I heard when I was a young Christian: "God can't steer a parked car." I took that as a challenge to shift my life into motion, and along the way God would guide me in the right direction. It's an interesting thought, but it's not always the way God works. Occasionally, God does want us to "stay parked" for a while.
At times, when Moses was in the wilderness, God kept the Israelites in one place. He led them by a cloud, and when it stayed still for many days, "the children of Israel . . . did not journey" (Num. 9:19). Waiting isn't always easy, but sometimes God wants us to stay right where He has put us. The psalmist reminds us, "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart" (27:14).
You may feel that you're stuck and just spinning your wheels in your service for God. But keep your heart open to God's leading. Then you'll be ready to shift gears when you hear God say, "Let's go this way." - Cindy Hess Kasper
Praying, resting, waiting, trusting-
These are words that tell a story;
As we wait for God to lead us,
He responds, "Just seek My glory." -Hess
God orders our stops as well as our steps.
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Untrustworthy
Proverbs 11:28 uncovers a powerful truth,
He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage.
Solomon is giving us an important warning: He who trusts in his riches will fall. Why does he tell us this? Because it is our natural tendency, when prosperity comes, to trust in that prosperity and to have that become our source of security.
As Psalm 62:10 says, If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them. There is a tendency in every human heart to do just that, and that is why God warns us. If the blessing comes, if prosperity comes, if you achieve a degree of success, do not set your heart on the wealth.
Instead, make sure your trust remains in God because riches are not trustworthy. In fact, if you trust in your wealth, you will fall!
The New Testament echoes this same truth in 1 Timothy 6:17. In this passage, Paul is writing to his son in the faith, Timothy. He is giving him some instructions to pass along to other believers,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Like Solomon, Paul is warning us that riches are uncertain. Do not put your trust in them. Instead, make sure your trust is in God. If riches increase, do not set your heart on them. And I like the last part. He said to put your trust in God, Who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Where is your trust today? Are you trusting in your money and wealth? Or is the object of your trust God? I hope you will answer honestly. If you find yourself trusting in riches, just remember, they are untrustworthy!
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Read: Psalm 119:105-112
Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. - Psalm 119:111
TODAY IN THE WORD
Two years ago, the classic children's book, The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, celebrated its 100th birthday. The four friends in the book, Mole, Water Rat, Badger, and Toad, launch and experience whimsical and creative adventures in lyrical prose that has appealed to generations of readers. Many illustrators have done their part in literally hundreds of editions to bring these characters and their stories to life for us.
Among classic books, the Bible as God's Word is of course in a category by itself. Do you open it expecting to find joy? The writer of Psalm 119 did. His joy in Scripture is quieter but no less powerful than the joy in Psalm 98 (see February 19).
The key is verse 111: "Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart." In the psalm's poetic parallelism, joy is connected with the idea of "heritage" or inheritance (NASB). The Bible is God's gift that incorporates and also transcends tradition and history, recorded for us by believers of old and divinely preserved by the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, it is God's revelation to us of what He has said and done for His people.
Paul saw it in the same terms when he commended the Ephesian elders "to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified" (Acts 20:32). Because Scripture is the inspired written record of God's redemptive work in the world, it is indeed the joy of our hearts!
Today's reading also captures other truths of God's Word and our relationship to it. The Word guides us like a lamp along the path of righteousness. It preserves our life. We are called upon to honor it, obey it, and set our hearts upon it. But biblical truths aren't absorbed by osmosis. We have an ongoing responsibility to teach and learn them, as well as to obey them in the face of temptation and opposition.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart," wrote David. "They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb" (Ps. 19:7-14). If joy is found in God's Word, it can also be found in the discipline of Scripture memorization. Rather than thinking of it as a chore, consider it a taste of honey or the pursuit of joy. You can choose a verse or passage from this month's study to commit to memory as a way to keep the theme of joy in your heart and mind for days and weeks to come.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 21, 2010
Running In The Right Direction
READ: John 6:53-69
Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." -John 6:68
One of the most difficult experiences in my years as a pastor was telling a member of our church that her husband, her son, and her father-in-law had all drowned in a boating accident. I knew the news would shatter her life.
In the days following their tragic loss, I was amazed as she and her family responded with unusual faith. Sure, there was deep brokenness, haunting doubt, and confusion. But when nothing else made sense, they still had Jesus. Rather than deserting Him in the midst of their desperately difficult days, they ran to Him as the only source of hope and confidence.
This reminds me of the reaction of the disciples to Jesus. After some of them "went back and walked with Him no more" because He was hard to understand (John 6:66), Jesus turned to His inner circle, and asked, "Do you also want to go away?" (v.67). Peter got it right when he responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (v.68).
Whatever you face today, be encouraged by the words of Peter and by the example of a family who went through the fire with their faith intact. As long as you're running in the right direction-to Jesus-you'll find the grace and strength you will need. - Joe Stowell
Jesus is the One to run to
When our lives bring grief and pain;
He provides His strength and guidance
With a peace we can't explain. -Sper
When all is lost, remember that you haven't lost Jesus. Run to Him.
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The Path to Maturity
1 Peter 5:10 provides a very critical principle for those times when we are going through trials, a principle that is easy to miss,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
You need to realize that even though God did not initiate your trouble, He can still use it to work something good in you. What the devil means for evil, God can turn into something good.
Even though the devil's purpose is to destroy you, if you will respond correctly, God can work good things. Notice the verse saysafter you have suffered a short season, God will perfect. It brings maturity to you.
While we might hate it, how we respond in times of trial makes us who we are-and it fits us to accomplish God's will. I hate some of the things I have gone through! But you know what? I would not be who I am had I not experienced those things. It has fitted me to do the will of God.
And while it may not seem like it, your present difficulty may be instrumental in your future success.
It reminds me of the guy who was shipwrecked on a deserted island. One day he decided to go across the island for food. When he got to the other side he looked back and saw a plume of smoke in the sky. He ran back only to find that his shack burnt to the ground!
It stung him to the core! Except the next morning a ship arrived and rescued him. When he asked the sailors, "How'd you know I was here?" they said, "We saw your smoke signal."
Your present trials just may be fitting you for something you would never expect!
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Read: Galatians 5:16-26
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. - Galatians 5:22-23
TODAY IN THE WORD
Urban farmer Will Allen works to provide healthy foods to underserved populations in Chicago and Milwaukee. Co-founder and CEO of Growing Power, Allen and his staff run innovative farms and gardens, make bulk food purchases through a national cooperative, and teach inner-city young people about organic food and the business of agriculture. One of his farms combines fish and vegetable farming, called "aquaponics." Allen was honored for his work in 2008 with a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."
Like fresh fruits and vegetables, the gardens of our spiritual lives require care and cultivation. In today's reading, we find the roots of godly joy-God Himself. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to cultivate joy. This passage is built around a contrast between, as it were, two gardens. One garden (vv. 19-21) is filled with "acts of the sinful nature," or things God hates. It is clear that these sins oppose joy. For some items, such as "fits of rage," this is plain, while for others it is not as obvious. For example, the world tends to encourage "selfish ambition" as a key to success, and sexual immorality provides a kind of happiness and immediate gratification that not everyone recognizes as counterfeit or false. But the truth is that all of these are sworn enemies to godly joy.
The second garden (vv. 22-26) is filled with the "fruit of the Spirit," or things God loves. Together these qualities go a long way toward describing a godly character. How do we get there? "Keep in step with the Spirit"; live as people who have crucified the sinful nature; and take joy in obedience. Joy is second only to love on this classic list. The Greek term, chara, includes the feeling of gladness, the act of rejoicing, and the cause or occasion of joy. The cause or occasion can be a person, bringing us full circle back to God Himself.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Genuine joy has deeper roots than appearances or external behaviors. We see a sobering example of inauthentic joy in the parable of the seeds (Luke 8:13). The seeds that landed on rock at first received the word with joy, but without roots they withered when tested. In theological terms, there are people who hear the gospel with great enthusiasm, but when tested they fall away and it turns out they were not true believers after all. Godly joy is much more lasting than a momentary feeling.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 22, 2010
Short-Timers
READ: Romans 5:1-5
Hope does not disappoint. -Romans 5:5
I served in the Armed Forces many years ago and have always been thankful that I was able to give those years to my country. I must say, however, that my most memorable time in the service was the brief interval when I was a "short-timer."
Short-timers are soldiers who have but a few weeks before discharge. They spend their last days "mustering out"-visiting the commissary and the quartermaster's office to clear accounts and return equipment. What I remember most about that period was my jaunty pace and the happy, carefree spirit with which I carried out my tasks. I had duties but few worries, for I knew I was going home.
Now that I'm an "old-timer," once again I'm a short-timer. It won't be long before I'm discharged from my duty here. Again, my pace is jaunty and my spirit is light for I know that very soon I'll be going home. That's the outlook that Jesus and His apostles called "hope" (Acts 24:15; Rom. 5:2,5).
Hope, in the biblical sense, means certainty and assurance. It is the firm, unshakable, indomitable belief that we will be raised from the dead (as Jesus was) and will be welcomed into our eternal home. That's enough to put joy in our heart and a spring in our step this day! - David H. Roper
God has given us a life abundant
As we serve Him in this world below;
Though our time on earth is surely fleeting,
Hope of heaven makes our pathway glow. -Hess
The risen Christ will come from heaven to take His own to heaven.
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Rich Blessings
Let me ask you a question. Do you believe God wants to bless you? You may say, "Yes," but in your heart do you really believe this to be true?
Take a moment to read Ezekiel 34:26,
"...I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."
I believe the Bible teaches us that just like there are seasons of trial, there are seasons of exceptional blessing that come from God. And those seasons of exceptional blessing should not be taken for granted. We should capitalize on them and seize the momentum when those seasons come.
Don't get me wrong, God is good all the time, and He is good to all. His tender mercies are over all His works. He causes His sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The fact of the matter is, God is good even to people who are not good because it is His nature.
However, there are richer, more frequent blessings that come from the hand of God. And they come to those who do a particular thing.
Tomorrow I want you to look with me in the book of Galatians. As we look at these verses, we will find that though God is good to all, the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. Together we will see what that thing is.
Today, I just want you to grasp the truth that God does want to bless your life in an extraordinary way.
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Read: Philippians 1:18b-30
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. - 3 John 4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, says that the kind of religious faith found most often among American youth is "moral therapeutic deism." As he explains in his book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Life of American Teenagers, this basically means, "God created and watches over the world but otherwise is only to be called upon to solve problems." What about obeying His commands? "All He requires is that people be nice and fair to each other." And the purpose of life? "To be happy and to feel good about oneself."
When Jesus Christ becomes merely a means to the end of personal happiness, discipleship is dead. Ironically, the pursuit of this kind of happiness can never lead to true joy, for as today's reading teaches, it requires real discipleship to progress in joy in the faith. Paul exhorted the Philippians to stand firm, be unified, and contend without fear for the sake of the gospel, even in the face of suffering and persecution (vv. 27-30).
Paul was rejoicing even in the face of the suffering experienced by both him and the Philippian church. He understood "what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance" (v. 19). Although he was under house arrest at the time he wrote this epistle, he knew he would be released. But the joy he felt wasn't primarily about his physical circumstances; it was mostly the spiritual reality of bringing glory to God (v. 20).
Paul's greatest desire was to be with Christ, the One whom he loved and served (vv. 21-23). On the one hand, death would bring him into Jesus' presence. On the other hand, to live was also Christ, and God had shown him that his service was not yet completed. Work yet remained to be done. "Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me" (vv. 25-26).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have you been tempted by "moral therapeutic deism," seeing God as a beneficent force who can give you what you want if you're a good person? This will never lead to joy. Instead, joy comes from the desire for Christ's presence above all else. In your prayer time today, first repent of any desires that you've placed before Christ. Then commit yourself to the discipline of following Jesus and seeing your circumstances as an opportunity for joy. Finally, ask the Holy Spirit to enable your life to bear the fruit of joy.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 23, 2010
Foreign Worship
READ: Acts 17:16-31
"[Paul] seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus. -Acts 17:18
During a trip to the Far East, I visited an unusual shrine made up of hundreds of statues. According to our guide, worshipers would pick the statue that looked the most like an ancestor and pray to it.
A few years ago, I read about a student named Le Thai. An ancestor worshiper, he found great comfort in praying to his deceased grandmother. Because he was praying to someone he knew and loved, he found this to be personal and intimate.
But when he came from Vietnam to the US to study, Le Thai was introduced to Christianity. It sounded like a fairy tale based on American thinking. To him, it was the worship of a foreign God (see Acts 17:18).
Then a Christian friend invited him to visit his home on Christmas. He saw a Christian family in action and heard again the story of Jesus. Le Thai listened. He read John 3 about being "born again" and asked questions. He began to feel the pull of the Holy Spirit. Finally, he realized that Christianity was true. He trusted Jesus as his personal Savior.
When friends see Christianity as foreign worship, we need to respect their heritage while sharing the gospel graciously and giving them time to explore Christianity. And then trust the Spirit to do His work. - Dave Branon
Man gropes his way through life's dark maze,
To gods unknown he often prays,
Until one day he meets God's Son-
At last he's found the Living One! -D. De Haan
God is the only true God.
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His Stuff
You have probably noticed that over the last few days of devotionals, we have been focusing on material blessings and how we should view those blessings.
1 Chronicles 29:14-16 is very helpful to see God's perspective,
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. "O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own."
In these verses, King David is actually talking to the Lord as an offering is being received, and resources are being collected for the building of the temple (something his son Solomon is going to achieve).
We see that David recognized that everything he had, everything the people had, literally belonged to God. They were just giving God back something that belonged to Him in the first place.
I am going to let you in on a little secret: You and I are just stewards, and one day the Owner will call us into account for how we handled His stuff. Every one of us will give an account for our stewardship of His possessions.
While He gives us richly all things to enjoy, He is going to ask you if you did what He told you to do with His stuff. It is not our stuff.
Material treasure is a stewardship, and we must do what the Owner wants with it. This means we have a responsibility to be listening for the Owner's voice and following His instructions with His goods.
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Read: Luke 2:1-20
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. - Luke 2:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Fyodor Dostoevsky and two fellow prisoners had been sentenced to death. Last rites had been offered. A firing squad stood ready to execute the condemned men. At that dramatic moment, a messenger from the Russian Tsar appeared with a pardon. Their lives had been spared! Apparently this had been the plan all along-the mock execution was conducted only to teach them an unforgettable lesson. The other two men immediately went insane. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, went on to become a great novelist who wrote such books as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. He never forgot the power of grace and forgiveness.
Like the messenger who brought good news to Dostoevsky, the angels in today's reading made a dramatic announcement that brought good news for all humanity. The Christmas story is a vital part of our study on joy. Throughout this month we've seen that joy is a result of God's power and presence, and the Incarnation is the ultimate example of both. The first announcement of His birth was delivered to shepherds, perhaps a symbolic nod to David, the shepherd-king who had received a promise that his throne would endure forever (2 Sam. 7:16). The shepherds were faithful to believe the message, find the child, and spread the word (vv. 15-20).
The birth announcement itself is familiar: "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (vv. 10-11). The phrase "Christ the Lord" clearly identifies the baby as both God and Messiah, an amazing and almost incomprehensible truth. God became a man!
Theologians are still searching for words adequate to this mystery. Furthermore, the Messiah had come not just for the Jews, but for "all the people." To God's glory, His plan of redemption was unequivocally revealed as worldwide in scope. "Glory to God in the highest" (v. 14)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sharing the gospel of Christ is all about joy. The angels took great joy in sharing the good news with the shepherds. The shepherds in turn took great joy in sharing their experience with all who would listen. Sometimes we get sidetracked on evangelistic methods-the right number of steps, the right questions in the right order, or a personal testimony with the right ingredients. What if we put it more in terms of joy? Like Dostoevsky, we've received a pardon and want to shout it from the rooftops!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 24, 2010
Being Real
READ: 2 Corinthians 6:3-11
In all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses. -2 Corinthians 6:4
An antique dealer thought the wrinkled old baseball card she found might be worth $10. After posting it on eBay, she began to wonder if it might be more valuable than she had thought. She removed the posting and consulted a professional evaluator who confirmed that the photo on the 1869 card showed the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team in the US. The card sold for more than $75,000.
Mike Osegueda's article in The Fresno Bee said that even though the card was creased and discolored, the most important thing was its authenticity-it was real.
Paul and his companions suffered greatly while spreading the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 6, he listed their outward trials, their inward traits, and their spiritual resources (vv.4-7). Try to imagine the circumstances in which all these things interacted-beatings, patience, prison, kindness, distresses, love. Although broken physically, depleted emotionally, and tested spiritually, the authenticity of their faith in Christ clearly shone through. "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things" (v.10).
In our walk with Christ, there's no substitute for spiritual authenticity-being real. - David C. McCasland
O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee,
Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart. -Chisholm
There's no substitute for being real.
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Spiritual Treasure
In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul tells us,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
If you look at this chapter, Paul helps us understand that this treasure is ministry, the gospel, the Word of God, and the light and the glory of God, God's presence.
Paul wants us to understand that God has placed in us an incredible spiritual treasure...a treasure residing in these earthen vessels...our bodies. The treasure is in you and me!
But that treasure needs to be poured out.
I can't help but think that Paul was thinking of two particular earthen vessels that were used in his day. One was the vessel of mercy and the other the vessel of honor.
One place you would find the vessel of honor was around the home. People would use the water to wash their feet after traveling the dusty roads before they would enter your house, or they would use the water to quench their thirst. Like the vessel of honor, we are to wash the feet of our family, to humbly serve them and to help quench their thirst for more of God.
The vessel of mercy looked identical to the vessel of honor, but it was located in public places like the town square, so that any traveler coming through that arid land would be guaranteed to find a fresh drink of water. It was placed where the needs were. We need to take mercy where mercy is needed most-out onto the highways of humanity.
You are an earthen vessel filled with His spiritual treasure, so start pouring it out-in your home and out where the people are.
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Read: Acts 16:16-34
He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God-he and his whole family. - Acts 16:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
One spring evening in Chicago, choir director Joseph Richardson was taking a walk with his four-year-old daughter, Kaniyah. Suddenly, a red Chevy Cavalier jumped the curb and hurtled toward them, speeding out of control with a drunk driver at the wheel. The father had only a split second to react. Richardson grabbed his daughter and lifted her out of the way, just before the car pinned him against an iron fence. He was killed-Kaniyah was injured, but she lived. Richardson made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his own life to save the life of his daughter.
Christ loved each of us that much. When the force of this truth hits us, we cannot help but respond with heartfelt joy-whether tears of joy or shouts of joy, it is deep, powerful joy.
In today's reading, Paul and Silas had been carrying out a successful ministry in Philippi, and the church there grew to a size that "disturbed" the city. The trouble began when Paul cast out a demonic spirit from a slave girl who had been following them around, calling out that these men knew the truth (see James 2:19). Since her owners had profited from her fortunetelling abilities and lost out economically from her liberation, they took revenge by dragging the missionaries into court on trumped-up charges.
Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, and imprisoned. They responded by singing hymns (v. 25). For them, faith was not simply the absence of discouragement, or the courage to pray for release, but the presence of godly joy. They felt so secure in Christ that when an earthquake hit and the prison doors sprang open, they felt no need to run. They sensed a greater work of God taking place, and indeed the jailer and his entire household were ripe for saving faith. Within a single, roller-coaster ride of a night, this jailer went from suicidal (because he assumed the prisoners had escaped) to offering hospitality to two former inmates and receiving the joy of eternal life (v. 34).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The Philippian jailer asked one of the most significant questions in Scripture: "What must I do to be saved?" And Paul and Silas gave one of the most significant replies: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (vv. 30-31). It is the prayer of all of us at Today in the Word that all of our readers trust in Christ for salvation (John 1:12). If you have never been delivered from sin and experienced the joy of faith in Christ, we pray that you will trust the saving work of Jesus today!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 25, 2010
Imagine That!
READ: 2 Peter 1:16-21
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, . . . rightly dividing the Word of truth. -2 Timothy 2:15
My friends and I were anticipating a contemplative time looking at a collection of artwork about the prodigal son who returned home to a forgiving father (Luke 15). When we arrived at the information table, we noticed the brochures, books, and a sign pointing to the artwork.
Also on the table was a dinner plate with bread, a napkin, and a glass. Each of us privately pondered what the significance of the plate could be. We wondered if it represented communion fellowship between the prodigal son and his father when he returned home. But as we examined it more closely, we realized simultaneously: Someone had left a dirty plate on the display table. And it wasn't bread, but leftover cookie bars! Our imaginations had been wrong.
We had a good laugh, but then it made me think about how sometimes we imagine more than what's really there while reading the Bible. Rather than assuming that our speculation is correct, however, we need to be sure our interpretation fits with the whole of Scripture. Peter said that "no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20). As we depend on the Spirit's instruction, a careful study of the context, and the wisdom of respected Bible teachers, we'll avoid seeing things in the Word that aren't really there. - Anne Cetas
We must correctly hear God's Word,
Or we will be misled;
We must give careful thought and prayer
To what the Author said. -Hess
A text out of context is often a dangerous pretext.
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You're Not Stuck
1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
The word temptation in this verse also means test or trial. With that in mind, here are a couple of thoughts to encourage you today.
1. Whatever test, trial, or temptation you are facing today, it is "common to man." That means that you are not the only one who has gone through whatever you are facing.
It is comforting to know that others have faced similar problems before us and made it through!
2. God makes a way of escape with the trial or temptation. That means you're not stuck! Before your difficulty ever arose, God designed a way of escape. And that means of escape comes with the problem.
So if you find yourself embroiled in trials, tests, or temptations today, start looking for God's way of escape-it exists. Trust Him to guide you safely through and out of your difficulties!
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Read: John 3:22-36
The friend who attends the bridegroom . . . is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. - John 3:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
During an exam at Bijelo Polje University in Montenegro, one student was so bored that he interrupted the test to ask his girlfriend to marry him. The examiners gave Edin Smailovic permission to speak because they thought he had a question about the exam. Instead, he got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend, Edita Bikic, who was also taking the test. He had planned to ask her during a holiday in Egypt after the semester finished, but he said he was too excited to wait. Happily, Edita said yes.
The joy of marriage is reflected in the words of John the Baptist in today's reading. Throughout the Gospels, whenever Christ is recognized for who He is, the person blessed with eyes to see responds with joy.
When the ministry of Jesus began to surpass that of John the Baptist, John's followers were tense and confused. What was going on here? Who was greater? John didn't hesitate-he had the privilege of being the best man, but the Bridegroom was Christ Himself (v. 29). One key to joy is knowing our identity in relation to Christ, and John had that joy in abundance.
He even had the faith to rejoice in a decreased ministry (v. 30). He knew his ministry's success and power came from heaven, not himself. He knew he was a forerunner to a greater One who had now come. The waiting was over; the time of joy had arrived. "That joy is mine, and it is now complete." The Bridegroom had entered the scene and great events were about to unfold.
Who is Jesus and how could He inspire such faith and joy? He is God. While John's message came from heaven, Jesus Himself came from heaven. He testified from direct experience. (vv. 31-32). He didn't just talk about truth and life, He is truth and life. Our eternal destiny and joy are wrapped up in how we respond to these ideas. Who do you say that He is?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If one key to joy is to know who we are in relation to Christ, then who are we? We are His children. We are His friends. We are His disciples. We are His worshipers. We are people who live because He died, and who shall live because He rose again. We are trophies of His grace. We are His messengers to the world. We are guests invited to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!" (Rev. 19:7).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 26, 2010
Under New Orders
READ: Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. -Matthew 22:37
Herman Wouk's thrilling World War II novel The Caine Mutiny contains an excellent illustration of what happens when someone becomes a follower of God.
In the novel, a young man from an influential family has enlisted in the Navy. On the day of his induction, his mother drops him off in her fancy car and then kisses him goodbye. He shakes hands with the guard as he enters the building, and the door closes behind him.
His mother, suddenly worried that he might not have enough money, rushes up to the door. But the guard politely stops her. When she demands entrance, he refuses to let her in. She can see her son standing inside the door, so she reaches for the doorknob. "He's my son!" she cries. The guard gently removes her hand from the knob and says softly, "I know, Ma'am, but he belongs to Uncle Sam now. He's a sailor."
When we believe in Jesus Christ and become His followers, we are under new authority. We are subject to new commands. Now we belong to Him. What was once important to us loses its significance. We evaluate things differently. Our new desire is to love and serve the Lord with all our heart (Deut. 6:5-6). Have you joined His ranks? - David C. Egner
Jesus my Lord will love me forever,
From Him no power of evil can sever;
He gave His life to ransom my soul-
Now I belong to Him! -Clayton
Followers of Christ get their marching orders from Him.
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Agreeing With God's Word
When the twelve spies returned from searching the promised land, they said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we" (Numbers 13:31).
That was the report they brought back-at least ten of them that is. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, had this to say,
"Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them" (Numbers 14:9).
They all saw the same things in the land of Canaan, but only Joshua and Caleb chose to agree with God. The Lord had previously told them that He would give them victory and that they would be able to drive out the inhabitants of the land.
The ten spies (along with all Israel) died without ever possessing what God had promised. Only two men from that generation entered into Canaan and possessed the land. I think you can guess who they were-Joshua and Caleb. The only two who agreed with the declarations of God.
Check out what you have been saying. Do your words agree with God or not?
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Read: Isaiah 35
The ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. - Isaiah 35:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Assault on Eden, writer Virginia Stem Owens chronicles an experiment in communal living. About a dozen people, including she and her family, set up a farm in New Mexico in the early 1970s, seeking to escape the "rat race" of modern materialism and live in pursuit of deeper spiritual realities. They were, in essence, seeking to return to the Garden of Eden, as it was before Adam and Eve made the fateful choice that brought sin and death into the world. Closing her narrative, Owens reflects: "We are all of us somewhere on that long road that runs from the gate of Eden, closed forever to human habitation, to the gate of the New Jerusalem that stands perpetually open to receive the glory and honor of nations. And along each part of the road wander pilgrims."
Today's reading captures the joy of redemption and the coming of God's kingdom. Isaiah 35 puts the focus on "that day"-the future time when Zion will be restored and the glory of the Lord will be fully revealed. What will "that day" be like? It will be like flowers blooming in the desert or water flowing in the wilderness. It will be a time of miracles and power-the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the "mute tongue [will] shout for joy," the lame will walk and run and jump. The barrenness of history will be transformed to beauty, its apparent randomness revealed as God's master plan (vv. 1-2, 5-7). The "Way of Holiness" is a picture of the divine righteousness, justice, and peace (safety) that will rule in that day (vv. 8-9).
Most of all, "that day" will be a day of joy: "The ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads" (v. 10; cf Isa. 51:11). The troubles of this present world will slide from our shoulders, for the exiles will at last be home!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"Sounds great," the thought might have crossed your mind. "But what do we do until then?" Isaiah answered that perfectly human and reasonable question with an exhortation to keep the faith, relying not on our human weakness but on God's strength and faithful lovingkindness (vv. 3-4). "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come." In the words of the psalmist: "He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him" (Ps. 126:6).
GOD BLESS!
February 27, 2010
Strength In Weakness
READ: Matthew 20:20-28
Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. -Matthew 20:26
No one wants to be weak, so we find ways to appear strong. Some of us use the force of our emotions to manipulate people. Others use the force of personality to control people, and some use intellect to intimidate. Although these create an illusion of strength, they are signs of weakness.
When we are truly strong, we have the courage to admit our limitations and to acknowledge our dependence on God. As a result, true strength often looks a lot like weakness. When the apostle Paul prayed that an affliction would be taken from him, God answered, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). Paul responded with these troubling words: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (v.10).
Toward the end of Jesus' earthly ministry, some of His disciples were striving for positions of prominence. Jesus used their argument as an opportunity to teach them that in His kingdom things are different: greatness comes when we willingly assume positions of weakness (Matt. 20:26).
This is a hard truth. I prefer the illusion of strength to the reality of weakness. But God wants us to realize that true strength comes when we stop trying to control people and start serving them instead. - Julie Ackerman Link
The life that we live for God's glory,
Let's live it in biblical light:
God's strength is made perfect in weakness;
He alone controls power and might. -Branon
God's greatest power can be displayed in our biggest weakness.
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Unlikely Vessels
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 says,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
God delights in calling and using those the world passes by and counts as nothing. One old preacher said, "God isn't looking for golden vessels, God isn't looking for silver vessels, God is looking for yielded vessels." I think that is true.
It is amazing what God can do through someone's life who doesn't have to have the credit.
You may feel like you do not have much to offer. If that is the case, then you are perfect! When God does great things through you, then He will get the credit. People will know it was Him and not you!
God is looking for yielded vessels that He can use in a dynamic, community-altering way.
Why not say today, "Here I am Lord, use me;" and after praying that simple prayer, get ready. God may bring some amazing opportunities your way to step out and be used for His glory.
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Read: Matthew 13:44
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. - Matthew 13:44-45
TODAY IN THE WORD
Browsing a rural Ontario yard sale one summer, art collector Paul Martin could not believe his eyes. A large landscape painting depicting Lake Okanagan was available for only $200. It turned out that the painting was by Canadian artist E. J. Hughes, and rare enough to be valued at about $120,000! Martin has made a career out of searching flea markets, thrift shops, and yard sales for art treasures. He finds them to be good investments, and plans to use the money from auctioning off the Hughes painting to pay for his child's college education.
Both literally and figuratively, discovering hidden treasure brings great joy to the finder. Both verses in today's reading are a simile or comparison emphasizing the all-surpassing value of the kingdom of heaven, and both highlight the joy of the seeker in finding and sacrificing all to attain it. We can understand the "kingdom of heaven" (this exact phrase is found only in Matthew) to be the "reign of the Messiah." As one theological reference work clarifies, the phrase "signifies God's sovereign, dynamic and eschatological rule."
How is God's kingdom like a treasure hidden in a field? One part of the answer is the similarity between buried treasure and the truth that the rule of God in this present world is not obvious-it requires effort to discover and recognize. The man who found the treasure had to dig it up. The merchant who found the "pearl of great price" (KJV) had to learn how to tell it from other pearls on the market.
A second part of the answer is that possessing it costs everything we have. Both men had to sell all they owned in order to obtain the treasure. In the same way, the kingdom of God is an all-or-nothing commitment. It must be chosen with undivided passion and joy, and that choice governs all that follows (Phil. 3:7-11)
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Christ commanded us to count the cost of discipleship . . . and the cost is everything. Have we "sold all" for this treasure, this spiritual journey? Or are we hedging our bets and holding back? It won't work. We can value nothing-not even our own families-that's in competition to our love for God's kingdom. We are to be willing to carry a cross, appearing to the world as a condemned criminal. "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-33).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 28, 2010
The Country Of Old Age
READ: Mark 7:1-13
If anyone does not provide for his own, . . . [he] is worse than an unbeliever. -1 Timothy 5:8
In the book Another Country, author Mary Pipher met with people in their seventies, eighties, and nineties who were confronting many different life situations.
"I wanted . . . to understand the country of old age," Pipher writes. "We are not organized in a way that makes aging easy." The root problem, she observed, is that young and old have become segregated, to the detriment of both groups.
This social trend is not necessarily intentional. But many people do ignore and shirk their responsibilities for the elderly. In Jesus' day, the Pharisees found creative ways to avoid their family duties. In Mark 7:9-13, Jesus rebuked their common practice of dedicating their material possessions to God (declaring them as Corban) rather than using their assets to provide for their parents. Their tradition had violated the commandment to honor their father and their mother.
Our children, work, and church activities can pull us in many directions. But that doesn't excuse us from honoring our aging parents by making provision for their needs, as much as we are able (1 Tim. 5:8). When the time comes for us to enter the country of old age, let's hope we've set the right example for our own children to follow. - Dennis Fisher
Providing for our parents' needs
With loving words and selfless deeds
Is what the Lord expects of those
Who try to follow where He leads. -Sper
Honoring our parents is learned by example.
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The Right Perspective
Yesterday's devotional showed us how money, riches, and wealth are untrustworthy. So the natural question is, "Is wealth a bad thing?"
Let's go back to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 for our answer,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I believe God makes it clear that if you are in a position where He has blessed you, you should enjoy it. And do it guilt-free. If you can take the whole family on a 30-day vacation to Europe, go for it.
Just make sure you pay your tithes first. Make sure you are generous to the work of God, but enjoy what God gives you. It is a gift of God to be able to enjoy the fruit of the work of your hands.
God is all for us enjoying whatever measure of prosperity we have. He just wants us to be generous in proportion to our prosperity. He wants us to be ready and willing to give big. To be sowing extravagantly into the gospel and thereby laying up treasure in heaven.
The point is this: Do not just live with your eye on this world. Rather, live with your eye on the world to come. If you do, you will truly be able to enjoy the wealth God gives you.
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Read: 1 Peter 1:3-12
You believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. - 1 Peter 1:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Pilgrimages to the Holy Land were quite popular in the fourth century A.D. One of the pilgrims was a nun from Spain named Egeria. Traveling on foot or by mule, Egeria seems to have been the leader of her pilgrimage group and the one financing their three-year trip. At the various holy sites they visited, they read Scripture, sang psalms, and celebrated communion. Especially meaningful were their visits in and around Jerusalem to the sites of Christ's Passion, including Golgotha, the Mount of Olives, and the empty tomb. Egeria described how the Jerusalem Christians worshiped during Easter by literally following Jesus' footsteps around the city as Holy Week unfolded.
This is the "inexpressible and glorious joy" which Peter wrote about in today's reading-the joy of Christ's death and resurrection that accomplished God's purpose of redemption. Verses 8 and 9 are the key: "Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." Faith means to believe in the One we have not seen and to love Him. The "inexpressible and glorious joy" that such faith inspires is justified because we are on the way to Him-our souls are in the process of being fit to spend eternity with Him.
The foundation stones of our faith are God's mercy, the gift of spiritual rebirth, the resurrection of Christ, the resulting hope that we don't deserve but that He freely gives, and the eternal inheritance awaiting us (vv. 3-5). Our present sufferings are nothing by comparison, and in fact they have the purpose of refining and enriching our faith (vv. 6-7). We even have the privilege of knowing more of God's plan of redemption than the prophets did (vv. 10-12). All of this has been done, is being done, and is guaranteed by God's power. Our faith is sure, and joy is our response.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What key truths and principles have you learned from Scripture this month about godly joy? What might be different about your joy in the month to come? We conclude this month's study with a benediction from Jude 24-25: "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 01, 2010
The Fairest
READ: Revelation 5:8-14
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain! -Revelation 5:12
When I first became a Christian and started attending church at age 19, I immediately fell in love with singing the great hymns of the faith. My heart overflowed with joy and thanksgiving as we sang of God's love for us in Christ. Soon one of my favorite hymns (from the late 1600s) became "Fairest Lord Jesus!" I love the simplicity of the melody and the awesomeness of the One exalted in these words:
Fair is the sunshine,
fairer still the moonlight,
and all the twinkling starry host: Jesus shines brighter,
Jesus shines purer than all the angels heaven can boast.
Beautiful Savior!
Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration
now and forevermore be Thine!
God's Son, whom we sing about in this song, came to this earth, lived a perfect life, and gave Himself for us on the cross (Luke 23:33). He arose from the grave (Luke 24:6) and is now seated at God's right hand (Heb. 1:3). One day we'll join in worship with thousands upon thousands and say: "Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!" (Rev. 5:13). Maybe we'll sing "Fairest Lord Jesus!" too.
Until then, let's allow Jesus to be "the fairest" above all in our personal lives by seeking wisdom from His Word and following in His ways. - Anne Cetas
We can never praise Jesus too much.
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It's All About Him
I want us to look again at the last two verses from our last devotional, 1 Timothy 6:18-19,
Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I think it is beautiful the way verse 19 ends, ...that they may lay hold on eternal life. Paul is writing to believers here, and he is not saying they must do this so that they can get saved.
Rather, I think he is saying that when they are rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, then they will lay hold on what eternal life is all about. It is not about the things you possess; it is not about the blessings God gives you. It is about a relationship with Him. Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
If you are blessed, realize the main thing is not your riches and wealth. They can be very transitory.
I have a friend who, years ago, migrated from a country in Central America that had experienced a military coop. Her family was quite well off, having property and wealth that had been passed down through several generations.
But after the coop, the new government seized all of the families properties and wealth. All was lost overnight.
This story could have turned out badly except that this woman is an exceptional Christian with a great attitude. She has built a successful life here in the U. S and has chosen not to be bitter or resentful over the past. She has kept her trust in God, realizing that no matter what happens if she still has Him she will be alright.
Friend, keep your eyes on God and keep your trust anchored in Him. He is what life-real life-eternal life is all about!
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Read: Genesis 1:26-31; Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
There is a time for everything . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh. - Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4
TODAY IN THE WORD
One popular stereotype of Christians portrays them as dour grumps with no sense of humor. This is actually an extension of how many people view God, thinking of Him as a giant killjoy who doesn't want people to have fun or laugh or tell a good joke. After all, there's nothing funny in the Bible, is there?
We'll spend the next month answering this question, studying Scripture to see how God uses humor perfectly and purposefully in His Word. We'll learn how God uses humor to teach us about ourselves, to emphasize His own character and works, and to delight His people. Our study will include the godly place for humor and an exploration of the great divine comedy of our redemption.
The human capacity to laugh, to tell a joke, and to delight in what is funny must be traced back to the very origin of humanity. Genesis 1 describes the creation of the first man and woman as representatives of God's image on the newly created earth. The full deity participated in the decision to create humanity and to endow them with purpose-note the plural pronouns in verse 26: "Let us make man in our image." God concludes His assessment of His creation by describing the man and woman as "very good" (v. 31). This man and woman were created to manifest the full image of the Godhead.
Of course, after the Fall, humanity had marred the ability to perfectly reflect the image of God. Sin permeated every aspect of human existence. Activities that once were pure became tainted with wrong motives, inappropriate applications, and selfish ends. This includes the appreciation of humor and the ability to laugh. Delight in the comedies of life became twisted, and humans didn't know when to laugh or what was funny.
The words of Ecclesiastes remind us that God's people are not called to abandon laughter, but rather to learn its proper time and application. It is folly to laugh when we should mourn; it is wise to know the time for embracing laughter and mirth.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
James 1:5 reminds us, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously." As we begin our study this month, spend time in prayer asking God for His wisdom to know when to laugh. Followers of God are not called to a life of grim existence, but we must guard against inappropriate humor. Ask the Lord to use His Word to shape your heart-and your sense of humor-to conform to His image.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 02, 2010
God Is Here
READ: Luke 4:16-21
[The Lord] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. -Psalm 147:3
Leslie and her two daughters were about to be evicted from their home. Although Leslie believed that God could help, so far He hadn't given a clue as to how. She wondered, Where is God? As she drove to the courthouse, she prayed for God's intervention. Then she heard a song on the radio proclaiming, "God is here! Let the brokenhearted rejoice." Could this be the assurance from God that she was longing to hear?
Inside the courtroom, Leslie stood before the judge, heard his decision, and signed the legal documents, but still God had not given her an answer.
As Leslie was walking to her car, a truck pulled up beside her. "Ma'am," said the driver, "I heard your testimony inside the courtroom, and I believe God wants me to help you." And he did. Gary helped Leslie get in contact with a woman from a local church who was able to work with the parties involved to reverse the process so that she and her girls could stay in their home.
When people ask, "Where is God?" the answer is, "Right here." One way God is at work is through Christians like Gary who are continuing the work Jesus started-healing the brokenhearted and binding up their wounds (Ps. 147:3). - Julie Ackerman Link
God is here; He stands beside you.
God is here; He wants to guide you.
God is here and He will help you,
So do not fear-Your God is near. -D. De Haan
When we love God, we will serve people.
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The Remnant
Today, I want you to read Romans 11:2-5,
God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
When Elijah pleads with God, he is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Jezebel is after his head and he has run into the wilderness. He is sitting down under a tree, and he is crying to God, "I'm the only one. Nobody else is serving You."
But God says, "Hey, wait a minute, Tiger. I have seven thousand more who haven't bowed their knee to the false idol. You're not the only one."
God is saying, "I have a remnant." And then Paul brings it right into present day, and says, "Just like God had a remnant then, God has a remnant today."
A remnant is a small group that has remained. That is where the word remnant comes from. It comes from the root "to remain." God always has a remnant. A remnant that remains faithful, committed, on course, obedient to God. That does not get discouraged, quit, or give up because of life's many turns.
Life has its share of setbacks and unexpected turns, and many people give up because of those setbacks. But those who stay on course and remain faithful will experience God's richer blessings.
God blesses all of His children. But those who stay the course are rewarded for their faithfulness.
So stay on track, hold course, stay steady, and remain faithful. Be a part of the remnant.
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Read: Proverbs 26:13-19
The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth. - Proverbs 26:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
The characters in Flannery O'Connor's stories are often described as grotesque, but O'Connor explained that they are intended to highlight the spiritual condition of modern humanity: "The novelist with Christian concerns will find modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; . . . to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures."
For the next few days we'll see how God uses grotesque exaggerations to teach His people the truth and to combat a distorted sense of what is natural. Our passage today presents three darkly comedic characters: the sluggard, the meddler, and the joker.
The sluggard is characterized by making excuses. In verse 13, the excuse is exaggerated to reveal the preposterous situation of someone too lazy to engage his responsibilities. Is it possible that a lion might be in the street? Yes . . . but it's also extremely improbable. A sluggard will seize on any remotely plausible excuse to shirk his task.
Likewise, the sluggard can't make any progress in life; he is like a door that can only turn from side to side. It's as if this lazy person is tethered to the bed, unwilling-and therefore unable-to get anything done. In fact, a sluggard can't even accomplish the basic necessities of life (v. 15). Laziness will impair our ability to function at even the most fundamental level.
The meddler has no more sense than someone who provokes a dog. Inserting yourself in the affairs of others is hazardous to your own well-being (v. 17)! The final character in our passage depicts the dangerous consequences of inappropriate joking. This person deceives others and then attempts to gloss over the situation by claiming, "I was only joking!" The devastation caused by such deceit is compared to a madman wildly shooting flaming arrows. Humor is never an excuse for lies, manipulation, or deceit.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Modern sensibilities encourage joking at the expense of others and justifying deceit with the excuse of humor. In fact, it's a natural human tendency-even little children will make a cruel remark and then say, "I was only joking!" The reality is that such jokes are not funny; they are as dangerous as lobbing firebombs into the lives of others. If you struggle with these comments, reflect on Colossians 4:6: "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 03, 2010
A Mighty Stream
READ: Amos 5:21-27
Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. -Amos 5:24
When I was a young teenager, my dad, uncles, cousins, and I went trout fishing at the head waters of the Sacramento River in California. The source of the river is melted snow, so the water was swift, clear, cold, and refreshing. My cousins and I couldn't resist stepping into the cool current while angling for rainbow trout.
On the way home, we stopped for a dip in a pond that was far different. The pond water was warm, and it smelled stagnant. It contrasted greatly with that swiftly flowing, invigorating stream.
The prophet Amos used the metaphor of a stream to illustrate the transforming power of righteousness. Appalled at Israel's dead religious ritual and their exploitation of the poor (Amos 2:6-8; 5:21-27), he called for justice and righteousness to prevail. He saw that God's people were stuck in the stagnant pond of injustice toward others when what they needed was a life marked by "righteousness like a mighty stream."
Likewise, God desires for us to allow justice to "run down like water" from our lives. One way that can happen is to strive for just laws and to champion loving care for the poor. May we seek to be a part of God's mighty stream of His righteousness until Christ returns. - Dennis Fisher
Justice is the clarion call for Christians-
We cannot step aside from what God said;
He has told us how to treat our neighbor,
And we must follow on the path He's led. -Hess
Righteousness follows when truth springs into action.
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Not There Yet
In Philippians 3:12-13, Paul gives us an important insight into becoming complete or mature in Christ,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected (or complete); but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
As believers, we must realize that we have a way to go. We have not arrived. There are still some things ahead. We still must press on.
But some people have the idea they have arrived. They don't need to grow anymore; they don't need to study anymore; they don't need to increase anymore.
It is like the true story of a young neighbor who was talking to Albert Einstein at a dinner party. She asked, "What is it exactly that you do as a profession?" Einstein looked at her and said, "I've devoted myself to the study of physics." And in shock she replied, "Studying physics at your age? I finished my studies a year ago!"
Unfortunately, that is the attitude many Christians have today about their spiritual growth. They think they have finished. Instead, our attitude should be like 95-year-old Pablo Casals, considered to be the greatest cellist that the world has ever known.
A young reporter asked him one day, "You're 95. The world considers you to be its greatest cellist; and still, at 95, you practice six hours a day. Why?" To which he responded, "Because I think I'm making progress."
Friend, you have not arrived. Set your goal to be making progress every day. That is how you will become mature in Christ.
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Read: Matthew 7:1-5
All the time there is a plank in your own eye. - Matthew 7:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Over twenty years ago, Os Guinness asked, "How do we speak to an age made spiritually deaf by its skepticism and morally color-blind by its relativism? . . . One contribution must surely come from a wide rediscovery of the prophetic fool making of the divine subversive." Jesus embodied this divine subversive more fully than anyone, as He shocked His audience into seeing the true reality.
Today's passage is one example of Jesus' use of exaggeration and humor to make a point about the way we should interact with each other. The context of these verses is the Sermon on the Mount, which includes the Lord's Prayer in the previous chapter. Jesus had already instructed His followers to link the divine forgiveness they receive from God with their own extension of forgiveness to others (see Matt. 6:12). Here He addressed the foolishness of passing judgment on others without acknowledging the truth about ourselves.
This text is frequently misapplied as an excuse not to make any value claims or to assess the actions of others. Given the whole counsel of Scripture, this interpretation doesn't make sense (see Prov. 1:31; Isa. 3:10), and a few verses later Jesus described the process for evaluating people's claims of truth and the rightness of their actions (vv. 15-23). Instead, Jesus was challenging the human tendency to find fault with others without examining our own lives before God.
The image is purposely exaggerated and quite funny. Here is someone worried about the tiny speck of dust-something practically invisible!-in a brother's eye, all the time ignoring the massive plank-like a telephone pole!-blocking his own vision.
Jesus' words remind us that we need to acknowledge and address our own shortcomings, both their existence and magnitude, before we can turn to point out the flaws of others. This doesn't excuse tolerating the presence of even sawdust or small failings in our lives. Rather, it emphasizes that it is foolish to try to correct others when our sin looms large and we persistently ignore it.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 04, 2010
What Brings Happiness?
READ: Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
All was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. -Ecclesiastes 2:11
After studying the effect of the post-World War II economic boom in Japan, Richard Easterlin concluded that monetary growth does not always bring more satisfaction. More recently, economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers conducted surveys in more than 100 nations and concluded that life satisfaction is highest in the richest countries.
So who's right? Let's check with the writer of Ecclesiastes. He should know! He was a truly rich man (2:8). He had the means to try everything in this world-and he did! He gave himself to pleasure (vv.1-3), grand projects (vv.4-8), entertainment (v.8), and hard work (vv.10-11). But he concluded that it was all "vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun" (v.11).
Lasting satisfaction doesn't come from possessing tangible things like savings accounts and material goods. Recent events have shown that these things can suddenly lose value. To find true happiness, we have to find it in Someone who is not from "under the sun." And that is our Savior, Jesus.
Hymnwriter Floyd Hawkins wrote: "I've discovered the way of gladness, I've discovered the way of joy, I've discovered relief from sadness. . . . When I found Jesus, my Lord." Only He can give joy that is full (John 15:11). - C. P. Hia
Take the world, but give me Jesus,
All its joys are but a name;
But His love abideth ever,
Through eternal years the same. -Crosby
To know happiness, get to know Jesus.
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Prayers and Preaching
Yesterday we talked about how progressing towards spiritual maturity is a process that will never end in this life. There are two things I want to focus your attention on today that will help you in that effort.
The first is found in Colossians 4:12,
Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
If you are going to be complete or mature in Christ, you need the prayers of others. In the long haul, I am convinced none of us make it across the finish line without the prayers of other Christians.
The second is found in Colossians 1:27-28,
...Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
In addition to the prayers of others, you need to be under good preaching and teaching to become complete in Christ. Preaching promotes change while teaching promotes growth, and you need both of them.
Looking back at my Christian life, I can still remember messages that literally shook my world and changed me. I remember one in particular when I had been saved less than a month.
Some new Christian friends took me to hear an evangelist preach. I was blessed so I decided to go back the next night. That night I heard a message that changed my life. It was a message on the parable of the sower, and that night I fell in love with the Word of God. It absolutely shaped me.
To become mature in your faith, make sure you are under solid biblical preaching and teaching, and develop the prayer habit as well as soliciting the prayers of others.
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Read: Matthew 7:1-5
All the time there is a plank in your own eye. - Matthew 7:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Over twenty years ago, Os Guinness asked, "How do we speak to an age made spiritually deaf by its skepticism and morally color-blind by its relativism? . . . One contribution must surely come from a wide rediscovery of the prophetic fool making of the divine subversive." Jesus embodied this divine subversive more fully than anyone, as He shocked His audience into seeing the true reality.
Today's passage is one example of Jesus' use of exaggeration and humor to make a point about the way we should interact with each other. The context of these verses is the Sermon on the Mount, which includes the Lord's Prayer in the previous chapter. Jesus had already instructed His followers to link the divine forgiveness they receive from God with their own extension of forgiveness to others (see Matt. 6:12). Here He addressed the foolishness of passing judgment on others without acknowledging the truth about ourselves.
This text is frequently misapplied as an excuse not to make any value claims or to assess the actions of others. Given the whole counsel of Scripture, this interpretation doesn't make sense (see Prov. 1:31; Isa. 3:10), and a few verses later Jesus described the process for evaluating people's claims of truth and the rightness of their actions (vv. 15-23). Instead, Jesus was challenging the human tendency to find fault with others without examining our own lives before God.
The image is purposely exaggerated and quite funny. Here is someone worried about the tiny speck of dust-something practically invisible!-in a brother's eye, all the time ignoring the massive plank-like a telephone pole!-blocking his own vision.
Jesus' words remind us that we need to acknowledge and address our own shortcomings, both their existence and magnitude, before we can turn to point out the flaws of others. This doesn't excuse tolerating the presence of even sawdust or small failings in our lives. Rather, it emphasizes that it is foolish to try to correct others when our sin looms large and we persistently ignore it.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you have a telephone pole stuck in your eye, clogging your vision? Do you find it easier to criticize people around you rather than hear the conviction of the Holy Spirit? In order for God to use us to help others deal with their sawdust, we must first be willing to let go of our planks. If the Lord is convicting you of some blind spots in your life or of some tendencies that you're reluctant to release, give those things to God. Ask Him to prepare you to encourage, not criticize, others on their Christian journey.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 05, 2010
The Right Information
READ: 1 Thess. 4:13-18
I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. -1 Thessalonians 4:13
Our flight had been airborne about 15 minutes when the pilot announced that the aircraft had a serious problem the crew was trying to analyze. A few minutes later, he announced that it was a vibration and that we would have to return to the airport. Then the flight attendants made a series of step-by-step announcements explaining what was going on and what would happen once we were on the ground. In an event that could have been terrifying, the fears of the passengers were relieved because we were given the right information.
In the first century, a group of believers in Thessalonica were afraid that their believing loved ones who had died were gone forever and would miss out on the second coming of Christ. For that reason, Paul wrote, "I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13). Paul's words of comfort were intended to soften their fears by giving them the right information, which made all the difference in the world. While grieving their loss, they could still have hope of a coming reunion with those who were in Christ.
In seasons of loss, we too can find comfort and hope because the Bible has given us the right information. - Bill Crowder
He's coming back! The dead shall rise,
Caught up to meet Him in the skies.
Upon that hope my soul relies;
He's coming back! -Sherbert
Death is not a period-it's only a comma.
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Bearing One Another's Burdens
In Galatians 6:1-2, Paul admonishes us,
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
We need to bear one another's burdens. Paul, in this passage, gives us some keen insight into what that looks like.
First, the word overtaken means to be taken by surprise, to suddenly fall into. In other words, the sin Paul is referring to is not a premeditated sin, but rather a temptation that suddenly came up, the person stumbled in, and now they are having trouble getting out.
Notice Paul also says, "If you're spiritual, restore that one." The word restore actually brings with it the thought of setting a dislocated limb. The role of the spiritually mature person is to skillfully and gently relocate the "limb" that has been knocked out of its socket.
I think this happens most often to baby Christians. They are suddenly invaded, they give in to some temptation, and they feel awful. Then the devil goes to work on them, "Some Christian you are! You hypocrite! You better never go back to church again! You're so wicked. You're probably not even saved."
They do not know how to pull themselves out, and you and I need to help them get back in right relationship with God and the Church.
I had a friend who dislocated a shoulder one time. It took him 45 minutes to work it back in by himself. It would have been easier to have someone help him.
And, that is true for us as Christians. We need to be there to help restore that brother or sister whose spiritual life has been dislocated.
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Read: Matthew 23:1-39
You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. - Matthew 23:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the joys of spending time with young children is seeing the world from their perspective-especially seeing them laugh. After watching I Love Lucy with her children, one mom said, "I forgot how funny this show is until I saw my kids laughing hysterically!"
The overall message of our passage today is deadly serious, but even in the middle of Jesus' rebuke of the Pharisees, He embeds a humorous, grotesque exaggeration. If you don't find verses 23 through 25 comical, read them to an 8-year-old boy!
Two themes emerge from our reading: backward priorities revealed as hypocrisy and the reversal of privilege in God's kingdom. First, Jesus targeted the Pharisees for not practicing what they preached (v. 3). It's important to remember that the Pharisees were deeply concerned with keeping pure in order to be in a right relationship with God. But they missed the point: it wasn't about their strict dietary observance or dress code or tithing. The end result of these exertions was not to please God, but rather to receive the admiration of others (v. 7). The consequences of their hypocrisy went beyond their own failure to please God; they also burdened others and kept them from understanding how to please God (v. 15).
In God's kingdom, those who seek their own advancement will find themselves last in line (vv. 11-12). The images that Jesus used to depict the reality of the Pharisees' spiritual preening should shock us: blind leaders, whitewashed graves, and snakes who cause the death and destruction of the righteous prophets of God. In their dedication to the smallest matter of ritual purity-straining out the gnat-they are willing to engage in the grossest perversions of God's desire. Their path to righteousness is as absurd and ridiculous as swallowing a camel.
If we're familiar with this text, it's easy to skim right past this simile. But Jesus is being deliberately provocative here. It's an image intended to make us smile and then make us think. Trying to stuff a camel in one's mouth is crazy-and deadly. So too is trying to please God on our own terms.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Children can help us adjust our perspective in marvelous ways. They can puncture our pride, reveal hypocrisy, and make us laugh at silly posturing. Thank God for His grace in this way if you have children in your life. If not, consider working in a Sunday school class, nursery, or other children's ministry in your church. As you spend time with children, ask God to root out any deadly hypocrisy in your life. Instead of swallowing camels, seek to be a servant in God's kingdom who points others to life in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
March 06, 2010
Is It Well?
READ: Philippians 4:4-7
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:7
As the high school chorale prepared to sing Horatio G. Spafford's classic hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul," a teen stepped forward to tell the song's familiar history. Spafford wrote the song while on a ship that was near the spot at sea where his four daughters perished.
As I listened to that introduction and then the words sung by the teenagers, a flood of emotions washed over me. "Where his four daughters perished" were hard words to grasp as I listened again to Spafford's words of faith. Having lost one daughter suddenly, I find the idea of losing four unfathomable.
How could it be "well" for Spafford in his grief? I hear the words "When peace like a river attendeth my way" and remember where peace can be found. Paul says in Philippians 4 that it can be found as our heart-prayers are voiced to God (v.6). By trustful praying, we unburden our hearts, divest our anxieties, and release the grip on our grief. And we can gain "the peace of God" (v.7)-an inexplicable, divine calmness of spirit. This peace supersedes our ability to understand our circumstances (v.7), and it is a guard on our heart, through Jesus, that protects us enough to allow us to whisper, even in the pain, "It is well with my soul." - Dave Branon
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll-
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul. -Spafford
Jesus never makes a mistake.
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God's GPS
Hebrews 13:20-21 are two verses that give me great encouragement,
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
These verses teach us that God is working in us all the time to bring us to maturity-our destiny in Christ.
A friend of mine shared a brilliant illustration of this one time. He likened God's guidance to that of the Global Positioning System (GPS), one of those systems they now have in cars that guides you to your destination.
A GPS system uses a satellite to give an aerial view, and its sole function is to get you to your destination, your "destiny."
As you travel to your destination, you have a map on the screen, and this little annoying voice talking to you through the whole trip, "Left turn a quarter mile ahead; left turn 150 feet ahead; left turn 50 feet ahead."
If you miss your turn, it immediately computes a new course for you so you can get back to where you are supposed to be. And if you mess up on those directions, it then computes another new course.
In the same way, God has a destiny for us to fulfill, something that fits into His great master plan. By His grace, He is guiding us all the way, even when we get off track. God just readjusts and says, "This is the next thing you need to do to get back into My plan."
Through His "GPS," He is always working to get us where we need to be. Praise God!
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Read: 1 Kings 18:16-40
O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God. - 1 Kings 18:37
TODAY IN THE WORD
If you've ever lived in a home with a teenager, you've probably experienced sarcasm. Requests to do chores are met with, "Sure, Mom, I'd LOVE to take out the trash [huff, huff, eye roll]." When queried whether homework has been completed, the little darling says, "Of COURSE, Dad, I'm not STUPID!"
Scripture contains descriptions of ungodly people using sarcasm, but you might be surprised to find accounts of sarcasm from saints like Paul and Elijah and even God Himself. For the next few days we'll explore occasions when sarcasm is used to make a redemptive point.
Today's passage opens with Ahab's inverted view of reality. He addressed the prophet Elijah as the "troubler of Israel," yet from the litany of sins committed and endorsed by Ahab, he himself was the source of much of Israel's misery (vv. 17-18). He not only tolerated the worship of false gods in Israel, but he also actively promoted the cult of Baal and supported its prophets (see 1 Kings 16:29-33).
Elijah confronted the people of Israel with the choice between serving God and Baal (v. 21). Yet the people refused to choose the Lord, so Elijah prepared a dramatic demonstration of the difference. He stacked the deck in favor of Baal: Baal had 450 prophets; God had one. Baal had a dry altar; God had an altar that was completely drenched with water.
Even with these advantages, the prophets of Baal failed to produce fire. Elijah taunted them: "Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened" (v. 27). This egged the prophets of Baal to further exertion, and it contrasted Baal with the Lord who never sleeps and who is always present with His people (v. 36; see Ps. 121:4).
There was no answer from Baal, but there were consequences from Jehovah (v. 40). Ultimately, though, Elijah's sarcasm was intended to provoke the people of Israel to repentance by revealing the ridiculousness of Baal worship. His sarcasm challenged evil in order to turn the people back to reality.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Elijah's sarcasm toward the prophets of Baal contrasts with his sober prayer to the Lord in verses 36 and 37. Elijah was not flippant when it came to the worship of God. Is your own worship characterized by ridiculous posturing and exertions to no effect? Or do you come before the Lord humbly and prayerfully, expecting Him to work in accord with His Word and character? The pretension and presumptuousness of sin should be scorned, but the worship of our holy God demands our offering of praise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 07, 2010
God's Helpers
READ: Psalm 103:19-22
Bless the Lord, you His angels. -Psalm 103:20
I was having a conversation with some children about God and superheroes when Tobias asked a question. An imaginative, curious 5-year-old, he asked anyone listening: "Does God have a sidekick like Hercules does?" His wiser, older brother, age 7, quickly responded: "Yes, He has thousands of them-they're His angels."
Angels are a popular topic of discussion, and people believe a number of myths about them. For instance, some people pray to angels, thinking they are on the same level as God Himself. And some believe that people become angels when they die. But here's what the Bible, our authority, teaches:
· God created angels (Col. 1:15-17).
· Angels worship God (Neh. 9:6), and are known by these terms: archangels (Jude 1:9), cherubim (2 Kings 19:15), and seraphim (Isa. 6:1-3).
· They minister to God's people (Heb. 1:13-14) by guarding and protecting them (Ps. 91:9-12).
· They are given special assignments by God (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:26).
· God's angels rejoice when we repent of sin and turn to Christ for salvation (Luke 15:7,10).
Only God deserves our worship. So let's join the angels in singing His praises! - Anne Cetas
All hail the power of Jesus' name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all. -Perronet
Angels are God's special helpers.
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The Road to Perfect and Complete
I want us to focus our attention today on James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What I want to look at today is how God seeks to bring us to maturity by building patience into our lives. If there is one thing I have learned in my Christian walk, it is that God is not in as much of a hurry as I am!
Now, what is patience? Patience is the long-lasting quality of your faith. If you let go of your patience, your faith falls to the floor.
The end result God is looking for is that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The word perfect here means mature. God is developing maturity in us by working on our patience.
I have a dear friend who has a great church. They endeavored to build another building on their property and it ended up being a major undertaking. In fact, it turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done. I mean, it took a strip out of his hide.
Eventually it got built, but you know what my friend says about it? He says, "You see that building? I didn't build that building. It built me."
Going through those trials, facing those difficulties, having his faith tested, having to trust God when it seemed like there was a lack of finances, having to hold onto God's Word when he was a laughing stock with some people, all of that built character in him as he stood the test.
I have a question for you: Has anything been building you lately? If so, rejoice, because God is working maturity in you!
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Read: 2 Corinthians 11:6-12:19
Everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. - 2 Corinthians 12:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Essayists James and Kate Williams reflected on humor and Christians: "The best humor, seen among both believers and unbelievers, is redemptive in orientation. . . . In an argument, humor can gently or uproariously sweep away the sinful battlements built by pride, which desires always to be taken seriously."
In our passage, Paul pleaded with the church in Corinth and used sarcasm and pointed humor to sweep away their foolish pride. We can identify parallels between Elijah's taunts designed to provoke the Israelites to choose God and Paul's sarcastic rhetoric intended to prod the Corinthians to identify with Christ.
First, just as Ahab had originally labeled Elijah as the troublemaker, the Corinthians had treated Paul as a fool. This church found itself enthralled by false apostles who used the latest and greatest rhetorical techniques to convince the Corinthians that they had a "new and improved" gospel. Paul was depicted as a bumpkin, in part because he didn't demand a fee for his preaching services (see 2 Cor. 11:1-15).
Second, like Elijah had done with Ahab, Paul understood that his beloved church had inverted reality. To shock them into recognizing their dangerous error, he declared, "You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise!" (11:19)-and then proceeded to outline exactly what their so-called wisdom looked like: they embraced preachers who manipulated, abused, and exploited them! In contrast, Paul loved them.
The charge that Paul was an unworthy apostle because he had not taken their money sounds absurd: "I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!" (12:13). The pointed edge of Paul's cry should have prompted the Corinthians to realize that they were wrong, not Paul.
Paul did not use sarcasm in this letter to score rhetorical points with the Corinthians or to demonstrate his superiority and put them in their place. Rather, he longed for the Corinthians to see the truth of their situation so that they would stand strong for Christ (see 12:20-21). By exposing their folly, he wanted to renew their faith.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sometimes someone we love embraces a lie and declares that it is truth. Our study yesterday and today can help us think about how to respond. We might need to use sarcasm to puncture the delusion and to provoke a return to reality.
But more importantly, like both Elijah and Paul, we must be willing to humble ourselves before God, and then seek the restoration of our loved one (see 2 Cor. 12:9-10, 19).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 08, 2010
To The Rescue
READ: Luke 15:1-7
There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. -Luke 15:7
Martie and I recently traveled to some major cities in several countries. We were struck with how lost our world is and grieved over the millions who have never heard the message of the saving grace of Jesus. The thought of reaching our world for Christ felt overwhelming.
Until I remembered the story of the boy walking on a beach. Encountering hundreds of starfish dying under the heat of the burning sun, he started throwing them back into the sea. A passerby asked, "What are you doing?" "Saving their lives," the boy replied. "Forget it," the man said. "You can't possibly save all these starfish." "Right," replied the boy, "but it makes a big difference to each one I do save."
I love the boy's perspective. When the wave of sin threw us onto the shore to die, God sent His Son to walk on the beach to rescue all who would repent. And, as Jesus told His listeners in Luke 15, each time someone is rescued, heaven throws a party. "I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:7).
Has heaven rejoiced over your rescue? If so, join the ranks of those who reach other lost souls with the rescuing grace of Jesus. - Joe Stowell
Your love, O God, would spare no pain
To conquer death and win;
You sent Your only Son to die
To rescue us from sin. -M. Gustafson
When you've been rescued, you'll want to rescue others.
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It Will All Work Out
Ephesians 1:11 is a powerful verse with a vital lesson,
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Over the 30 years of my Christian life, I have come to have great confidence in God's ability to work things out. No matter what is going on or how obscured my understanding of a situation is, I believe God is always working things according to His great sovereign plan.
It is as if there is this giant tapestry that God is weaving, and my life is a part of it. I sometimes get caught up with the temporal things and the stuff that is happening, but God reminds me, "Hey, nothing is taking Me by surprise. I'm weaving all of these things into this great pattern. Your mistakes, the stuff that happens to you, it is all going to turn out alright!"
Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God? The thing you are embroiled in right now did not take God by surprise. He did not look at your situation and say, "Oh no! I didn't figure on that! Gabriel, do you have any suggestions? What are we going to do?"
I know that sometimes in my microscopic view of things I have said, "Lord, such and such has got to happen." And God has replied, "Well, you don't have the big picture." Then, as time went on, God pulled the camera back, and I got the wide view, and I realized God was up to something very cool-totally apart from what I thought "had to happen."
Whatever your situation, you can rest assured that God has plans to work things out. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So relax! Even if your present circumstances have totally taken you by surprise, God saw it coming and made provision far ahead of time.
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Read: John 1:43-51
You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. - John 1:49
TODAY IN THE WORD
American television shows are frequently exported to other countries with subtitled dialogue. Some hospital-based comedies have encountered difficulty; American medical jargon doesn't always have an equivalent, which makes the subtitles confusing and therefore not funny.
We might have a similar reaction to our passage. We miss some of the puns present in the original language, and the context is foreign to us. When we dig into this story, however, we see how Jesus used humor and gentle sarcasm to reveal the truth to Nathanael.
When Nathanael first heard the news about Jesus, he was unimpressed, based on Jesus' town of origin: "Can anything good come from there?" (v. 46). Jesus knew Nathanael's dismissive prejudice and accompanying self-importance. His first statement to Nathanael contains several layers of humor. First, He illustrated that not only was Nathanael eager to criticize others, he was also equally ready to accept credit for himself. Jesus seemingly gave Nathanael a compliment, and Nathanael responded, "How do you know me?" (v. 48)-in other words, Yep, that's me, an upstanding Israelite!
The compliment itself contains a subtle sarcasm that doesn't translate in English. It's a play on the name of Jacob, or Israel. Jacob means, "deceiver," and Jesus was saying in effect: "Here comes the first honest son of Deceit!" Jesus revealed the reality of Nathanael's own origin and misplaced self-importance.
Next, Jesus informed Nathanael that He saw him under the fig tree, often associated with a place where Jews would sit to study and reflect on Scripture. Nathanael, who just moments before had dismissed anyone from Nazareth, now enthusiastically declared, "You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel" (v. 49). Jesus' words and tone convey the sense of, "Is that all it took to convince you-that I saw you under a tree? It's going to get a lot more impressive than that!" Now Jesus revealed the truth about His own divine power and important mission ahead (v. 51).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Before his encounter with Jesus, Nathanael had a rigid view of who was good and who was not. Part of the grace Jesus extended to him was seeing who was truly good-Jesus, the Son of God. Do you suffer from the same problem as Nathanael? Do you write off people because they're from the wrong side of the tracks, wrong denomination, or wrong age group? Do you eagerly take credit for your own piety? Ask the Lord to adjust your perspective so that your focus is on His goodness and grace.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 09, 2010
Don't Forget
READ: Deut. 8:1-2,10-18
Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments. -Deuteronomy 8:11
One of my favorite Far Side cartoons is captioned "Superman in his later years." It shows the elderly Man of Steel perched on a window ledge, ready to leap, as he looks back and says, "Now where was I going?"
Forgetfulness happens to us all, and while our occasional lapses may be amusing or annoying, a lack of memory toward God can be disastrous.
With the people of Israel poised to enter the Promised Land, Moses challenged them to "remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness" (Deut. 8:2) and to "beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments" (v.11).
Forgetting God can spring from: Testing (vv.2-4). God allowed His people to hunger and then provided manna. When we lack the necessities of life, it's easy to feel that God has somehow forgotten us. Satisfaction (vv.10-11). Abundance or need may produce spiritual amnesia because both cause us to focus on ourselves, not on God who provides. Pride (vv.12-16). If prosperity brings a feeling of self-accomplishment, then we have forgotten God.
Humility, obedience, and praise help us remember God's faithful provision and care. Let's not forget to thank Him today for all He's done. - David C. McCasland
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget Thine agony,
Lest I forget Thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary. -Hussey
Never let the abundance of God's gifts cause you to forget the Giver.
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Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises
2 Peter 1:2-4 says,
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I want to draw your attention to verse 4 where the Scripture states that through the promises we partake of God's nature.
The promise is the connector, it is the pipeline through which God's nature flows to us.
"What is God's nature?" you might ask. It is the answer to everything you need! His nature is life, it is health, it is peace, it is wisdom, it is abundance. There is an answer in God's nature for every one of mankind's needs.
That is why the promises are called "exceedingly great and precious." Without a promise, there is no pipeline. Without a promise, we cannot partake.
But when you take a promise-an exceedingly great and precious promise-and act upon it in faith, God's nature is released into your situation.
Thank God for His promises!
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Read: Philemon 1-25
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. - Proverbs 15:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Have you ever heard anyone start off a complaint: "I'm not going to complain, but . . ."? Or deliver a piece of news about someone by saying, "I'm not naming names, but . . ."? In our passage, Paul deploys a similar rhetorical technique in his comments to Philemon. Paul used this gentle sarcasm in order to restore a fractured relationship and highlight that spiritual obligations trump legal ones.
Philemon had a slave named Onesimus who had run away (vv. 1-2, 15-16). Onesimus had encountered Paul and embraced the gospel. Paul was now sending him back to fulfill his obligation to Philemon, and Paul wrote this letter to help explain the situation to Philemon and also to smooth possible tensions.
While Paul believed that Onesimus had a responsibility to return, he also subtly undermined the master-slave dynamic. First, he noted his wish that Onesimus could stay with him, for he had been helpful and Paul loved him (vv. 11-13). Paul hinted that perhaps as a favor to him, Philemon would release Onesimus to return to Paul, freed from his slave obligations (v. 14). Second, Paul acknowledged the legal reality of master-slave relationships but noted that Onesimus had become "better than a slave-as a dear brother" (v. 16). He appealed to Philemon's own status in Christ to position Onesimus as a "brother in the Lord." The spiritual relationship was more important than the legal one.
Third, Paul knew that financial restitution might be in order, and he asked Philemon to send any bill to him. In case Philemon was tempted to be too angry or harsh in reclaiming his debt, Paul gently reminded Philemon of his own spiritual debt to Paul. He said in effect, "I won't even mention the fact that you owe me your entire life!" (v. 19). Note the number of requests that Paul made of Philemon in verses 20 through 22. Philemon might have had a legal claim over Onesimus, but Paul had a spiritual claim over him in the Lord-a much stronger basis for his decision about treating his slave and new brother in Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you identify with Onesimus, struggling with a difficult boss or shirking a responsibility. As a follower of Jesus, your responsibility is to render honest service and make restitution as necessary. Perhaps you identify with Philemon, demanding your rights and repayment without regard for the spiritual reality and relationships. As a believer, our spiritual obligations trump our legal privileges. Our Savior has provided us with the ultimate generosity, grace, and forgiveness; and His Spirit empowers us to offer that to others.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 10, 2010
Reminders
READ: 2 Peter 1:5-15
I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things. -2 Peter 1:12
Jill Price has an extraordinary memory that has stunned scientists. In 2006, her overdeveloped memory was described in a scientific journal article, "A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering." Price has no special aptitude for memorizing lists of words, numbers, facts, or languages. But she does remember what happened to her on any given day over the last 30 years. Name any date and Price will tell you what day of the week it was, the weather, what she had for breakfast, the TV programs she watched, and the people she spoke with.
Few of us have a memory like that. That's why we need reminders to complete simple tasks and keep our appointments. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual truth. The apostle Peter showed he understood the need of spiritual reminders when he wrote: "I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things . . . . Yes, I think it is right . . . to stir you up by reminding you . . . . Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things" (2 Peter 1:12-15).
No matter what kind of memory we have, we need to be reminded of biblical principles. Daily Bible reading, small group studies, and involvement in a local church can all help us to remember God's vital truths. - Dennis Fisher
Remembering the Word of God
Does not come naturally;
We need reminders to fulfill
What God wants us to be. -Sper
Let God's Word fill your memory, rule your heart, and guide your steps.
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Richer Blessings
Jeremiah 23:3-4 says,
"But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking," says the LORD.
As we discovered in one of our earlier devotionals, God gives richer blessings to these who remain faithful (the remnant). A good question to ask is, "What are the blessings for those who remain faithful?"
Jeremiah gives us a good clue,
They will have no fear.
They will lack for nothing.
They will be fruitful.
They will increase.
Are you interested in increasing? In fruitfulness? In not being afraid? God says those are things that happen to the remnant. These are the rich blessings you will receive if you stay faithful, committed, and obedient.
I once read a story about an old member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a pitcher named Harry Hartman. In 1918, he was called up from the minors to pitch against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was his dream come true! On his first pitch, the batter hit a single. No big deal.
The next batter hit a triple. Harry walked the next guy on four consecutive pitches. The next batter hit a single. Harry Hartman walked off the mound, went into the locker room, showered, put on his street clothes, went to a local naval recruiting office, and enlisted. The next day he was in uniform and was never seen again in professional baseball. He got discouraged and quit.
No matter what, do not give up! Remain faithful, because God promises great blessings to those who stay the course.
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Read: Job 38:1-21; 42:1-3
Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? - Romans 9:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
As a young teenager, Ashley believed she was fat, ugly, and worthless, and she developed anorexia. She recorded in her journal, "Has God given up on me? . . . Why did God make me like this?" At a Christian camp, a counselor told Ashley how to view herself as wonderfully made by God, and she embraced Christ and began to submit her eating to the Lord. Instead of questioning God, she now praises Him for His work in her life.
We all have moments when our hearts cry out, "Why, God? What are You doing?" Jesus himself cried on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; cf. Ps. 22:1). The book of Job provides one of God's longest answers to this plea.
Our passage follows Job's suffering and the vastly unhelpful speeches of his friends. In chapter 9, Job acknowledged the challenge of bringing his complaint before God: "Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason" (9:16-17; see Job 9:1-10:22).
God did respond, and in Job 38 through 41, He referred back to Job's earlier laments (see 9:9; 38:31), demonstrating that He had heard Job's cries. Ultimately, though, God answered Job by saying, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?" (38:4). Or, When you create your own world, get back to me with your questions! In comparison to the eternal Creator of the world, Job didn't have much life experience, as God sarcastically noted: "Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!" (38:21).
What do we make of this response to Job's pain? First, God didn't give Job an explanation, but He did provide a context for prayer: God is God, and we are not. But though He is the all-powerful Creator, He also has compassion. Unlike Job's assumption, God did not crush him or multiply his wounds. Rather, He restored his wealth and relationships. Even in the darkest trial, He is still full of compassion (see Lam. 3:22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We cannot command God to stoop to our demands and give an account of Himself. But we can bring our pain and problems before Him in submission to His perfect plan. God doesn't promise us answers, but He does promise His unending love, compassion, faithfulness, and salvation. To remind yourself of our great and good God, sing the beautiful hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness" as part of your devotional time. Even in our darkest sorrow, "morning by morning, new mercies" we see from His loving hand.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 11, 2010
God's Mercies
READ: Genesis 32:3-13
I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies. -Genesis 32:10
Less than the least of all God's mercies." This was the motto 17th-century English poet and clergyman George Herbert engraved on his signet ring, and it was the phrase with which he signed his letters and books. Jacob had spoken these words when he pondered God's goodness despite his own sin and shame: "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant" (Gen. 32:10).
The word "mercies" is from the Hebrew word chesed, meaning "God's enduring love." I think it is significant that it rose from the heart of one who saw himself as utterly unworthy.
Relying solely on God's faithful love, Jacob cries out: "Deliver me!" What an odd combination of thoughts: "I am not worthy . . . . Deliver me" (vv.10-11). Unlike some who seem to have it all together, Jacob knew that everything he brought to God had been ruined by sin. He thought of himself as a man undeserving of God's grace. But his hope lay not in his worth but in the promise of God to look with favor on those who throw themselves on His mercy. Humility and contrition are the keys that open the heart of God.
As He did with Jacob, God hears us when we humbly cry out to Him for mercy. - David H. Roper
For mercies so great, what return can I make?
For mercies so constant and sure?
I'll love Him, I'll serve Him with all that I have
As long as my life shall endure. -Chisholm
Mercy is an unearned blessing bestowed by God on an unworthy recipient.
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Liberty!
Look at Isaiah 30:21,
Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.
The idea this verse is conveying is that if you get off-course with God, He is going to let you know you are making a wrong decision or a wrong turn.
The Living Bible puts it this way, And if you leave God's paths and go astray, you will hear a voice behind you say, "Not this way. Walk here."
What I have come to realize is that you and I have far greater liberty within the parameters of God's will than I previously thought.
It is important that you stay open and keep things laid out before God. But I have discovered, as I said, that we have far greater liberty than I previously thought. Let me give you an example.
Not long ago, my wife and I were very seriously considering selling our house and moving. Real estate had gone up so much that the equity in our house had more than doubled since we bought it. So we got to thinking that it might be a good time for us to move.
I did not have a word from God about moving. But I just know God well enough to know that I could make a decision like that. If I was getting into an area where we were going to make a mistake, God would let me know!
Some people get so uptight about everything. But as long as you stay open to God, you can make those kinds of decisions, because He will be there to direct you if indeed you are making a mistake.
That is true liberty!
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Read: Numbers 22:1-35
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. - 1 Corinthians 1:27
TODAY IN THE WORD
The popular 1960s television show, Mister Ed, featured a horse who could talk. But Mister Ed would only talk to his owner, often putting the long-suffering Wilbur in embarrassing situations. A talking animal in Scripture also embarrassed her owner. The story of Balaam and his donkey will begin several days of looking at comic characters in the Bible.
The Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, and their numbers threatened the Moabites. Their king sent emissaries to Balaam to ask him to cast an evil spell on Israel. Balaam was a spiritual hired gun-willing to bless or curse for a fee. And Balak was offering quite a hefty payment! (v. 17).
Balaam had access to hear a word from God, but he was unwilling to obey what he had heard. His repeated attempts to "find out what else the Lord" would say-after God had clearly told him not to go with Balak's men-angered God (vv. 19, 22). Balaam knew that his power was constrained by God, but he really wanted to find out a way to get the wealth offered by the Moabite king (see 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11).
Balaam wouldn't listen to God, so the Lord put him in the position of listening to a donkey. First, his donkey charged off into a field, then she crushed him against a wall, and finally she just lay down in the middle of the path. Balaam, the powerful sorcerer, was being completely humiliated by this animal (v. 29)! And then, the donkey opened her mouth and spoke to Balaam; her words of truth challenged his actions and attitude. In case he had any doubt about who was actually in the right, he or his donkey, the angel of the Lord made it perfectly clear (v. 33).
Balaam thought he was wise; his donkey proved him a fool. He wanted great wealth; he received the wages of sin (see Josh. 13:22). He was willing to curse Israel; God turned his words into blessing (see Numbers 23-24).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Each of us has access to hear the word of the Lord today, through reading and studying Scripture. For us, like Balaam, the question is whether we will obey what we have heard. What distractions or temptations challenge your obedience? For Balaam it was a love of money; for us it might be a desire for an inappropriate relationship, a selfish use of our time, or reluctance to give up a habit. Rather than acting like spiritual fools, let's resolve to obey the word the Lord has given.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 12, 2010
United Goal
READ: 1 Cor. 1:10-17
I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you. -1 Corinthians 1:10
The spotted owl has been disappearing in the US. Originally it was believed that old growth logging was its greatest threat. But research shows that one of the owl's relatives may be the problem. For the past 15 years, the barred owl has been rapidly migrating westward. Barred owls, which used to live exclusively east of the Mississippi, compete for the same food as spotted owls but are more aggressive and adaptable.
In a similar way, our greatest spiritual conflict often comes not from outside the church, but from other Christians. This was happening in the church of Corinth, and Paul took some time to address the divisive spirit that had grown in this congregation. This spirit threatened the unity of the church. Paul, with a pastoral nudge, encouraged the Corinthians to agree on the essentials and not be divided over the nonessentials. People were quarreling because they were aligning themselves with different Christian leaders-Paul, Apollos, Peter, and even Christ. In creating these divisions, they were valuing their favorite leader above unity in Christ.
Paul said the one essential that should unify the church is preaching the good news. That should be our united goal as well. - Marvin Williams
Lord, bless our congregation,
We humbly ask of Thee,
That we may walk together
In perfect unity. -Fennema
A united church is a strong church.
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Amazed
1 Corinthians 8:2 is a short verse, but one that has come to have real meaning in my life,
And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
Here is what this verse has come to mean to me: The more I realize of God, the more I realize how little I know of God.
It is almost as if God is represented by this enormous mountain, and it is shrouded in fog. As the fog retreats, I can see how vast this mountain is and how little I have really seen, how little I have explored, how little I have experienced. I am in awe as I look at this enormous mountain.
I once thought, "I'm really mature in God. I've learned so much. Look at these gems I've dug out! And I've experienced this, and I've climbed here, and I've looked from the heights." Then the fog began to roll away, and I realized I hadn't even gotten out of the foothills yet.
God just really amazes me.
Think about God. He merely spoke and created the universe. I read an article not too long ago where scientists now think that perhaps there is not just a "universe" but there is really a "multiverse," or multiple universes.
Whether it is one that spans millions of light years, or multiple universes spanning even greater distances, God made it all just by saying something.
And that is what I mean. The more I learn of God, the more I am amazed at just how little I really know of Him. I hope you too will be amazed, and let that wonder and amazement bring you into the worship of our great and awesome God!
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Read: Judges 3:12-30
You, O Lord, laugh at them; you scoff at all those nations. - Psalm 59:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Alfred North Whitehead declared that the Old Testament didn't contain anything funny: "The total absence of humour from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all of literature." Given our story today, one doubts that Whitehead read much of the book of Judges!
Our passage opens with Israel again doing evil and the Lord delivering them into the hands of Eglon, the king of Moab. After eighteen years, God provided a deliverer, Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin (see 20:16). God wasn't satisfied with just a boring, ho-hum mode of deliverance. Instead, He used Ehud for one of the funniest overthrows of an oppressor recorded in Scripture.
The plot to assassinate Eglon included Ehud leading a group to bring tribute to the king. Presumably the Moabite guards checked the Israelites for weapons, but since Ehud had strapped his sword to the right thigh instead of the customary left, it went undetected. After the presentation of tribute, Ehud offered a secret message to Eglon. The Hebrew word for "message" here, dvar, can refer either to a word or a thing. Ehud had a secret dvar from God for Eglon, all right-only it was message by sword (cf. Heb. 4:12).
The story contains details that demonstrate God's mockery of Eglon and his power. His name means "young bull," but instead, he became like a fatted calf slaughtered to deliver Israel. His immense girth became instrumental in his demise (v. 22).
As attendants waited, the stench of Eglon's eviscerated intestines wafted out. Assuming that the king must be relieving himself, his servants stayed outside the door to give him privacy. Not only was it embarrassing that the king was engaged in his toilet . . . but it was taking a really long time (v. 25). Not content to simply remove King Eglon from the scene, God allowed him to suffer humiliation even in the eyes of his own attendants. While Eglon lay dead, Ehud escaped and rallied the Israelite troops. God had defeated Eglon, and now it was their turn to flush the Moabite troops from stronghold into subjection (vv. 28-30).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God is not impressed by the power of petty dictators, the clout of criminals, or the strongholds of Satan. He will have the final victory and exercise judgment-sometimes with a hilarious dose of humiliation-over all of them. Do we cower when we should rally? Do we give evil more credit than it deserves? The story of Eglon should remind us that our Father is in control, and He laughs at evildoers. No matter what we are going through, God can provide deliverance.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 13, 2010
A Safe Pair Of Hands
READ: Psalm 138
Your right hand will save me. -Psalm 138:7
Edwin van der Sar, goalkeeper for the Manchester United soccer team, had a "safe" pair of hands. He kept the ball from entering his team's goal for 1,302 minutes, a world record in one season! That means that for almost 15 games of 90 minutes each, no one was able to score even one goal against his team while he was guarding the goalposts. But one goal by an opposing team in March 2009 ended his record.
The psalmist David found comfort in the safest pair of hands-God's hands. He wrote of God's protection in Psalm 138, "You will stretch out Your hand . . . and Your right hand will save me" (v.7). Like David, we can look to God's safe hands to keep us from spiritual danger and defeat.
Another assurance from God's Word for followers of Christ is Jude 1:24-25: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." That doesn't mean we'll never stumble. But it does mean we won't stumble so badly that God cannot pick us up.
God's safe pair of hands can never fail-ever! - C. P. Hia
From Him, who loves me now so well,
What power my soul can sever?
Shall life or death, or earth or hell?
No-I am His forever. -Small
No place is more secure than to be in God's hands.
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God's Priority
In Matthew 28:18-20, we have the top priority on God's list,
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Just imagine after the Resurrection that an angel comes up to Jesus and says, "Jesus, this is wonderful! You have paid the price for mankind's sin. What are You going to do to let the whole world know that they can be saved and they won't have to perish and spend an eternity without God? What is Your plan? How are You going to do it?"
And Jesus replies by saying, "Well, My few disciples are going to tell people, who in turn will tell other people, who are going to tell other people, who are going to tell other people."
Puzzled, the angel then asks, "Well, do You have a backup plan?" And Jesus says, "No." Still confused, the angel asks, "Well, no offense, Lord, but what if they fail?" Jesus replies by saying, "I have confidence in them."
My friend, there is no Plan B. God has no backup plan. You and I are it! We are Plan A! The problem is, too many Christians today do not have God's priority as their priority.
Over the next few devotionals, I am going to share with you what I call the five "P"s of evangelism. I pray they will encourage you to actively share the Good News of our risen Savior!
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Read: Exodus 3:9-4:17
I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you. - Exodus 3:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
The phrase, It's not you-it's me, has been used to end countless relationships. Today we'll see God repeat, It's not about you-it's about Me, to start a relationship with Moses.
As the story begins, we know three facts: Moses identified with his people (see 2:11); he knew about God (3:6); and God shared his concern about Egyptian oppression of the Israelites (3:7). Here God dramatically and miraculously revealed Himself to Moses. God had a mission: rescue the people of Israel. He had an end: lead them to a wonderful land. He had a means: Moses.
This should have been exactly what Moses wanted! But he was less than enthusiastic. And thus began a dialogue between Moses and God: "Who am I?" (v. 11). God replied, "I will be with you"; in other words, It's not about you, Moses. It's about Me. Moses asked, "What if they ask me for your name?" God replied, "I am has sent you"; It's not about you, Moses. It's about Me. God connected His name with His promises and His very character, and He even added signs to provide additional assurance (vv. 14-22).
It's like the Lord Almighty leading a pep rally for the greatest deliverance in history-and the star player still refuses to take the field. Moses protested, "What if they don't believe me?" God gave him three signs to verify the mission and messenger. Undeterred, Moses complained, "I can't speak!" God reminded him, "I made your mouth, and I will help you"; It's not about you, Moses! It's about Me! Surely Moses had run out of excuses! And he had. He finally got to the truth: "Please send someone else." Moses had the opportunity to be the spokesman for Creator God, to overthrow the yoke of the most powerful ruler in the world, to lead his people to a beautiful land. And he didn't want it.
God had patiently met each objection, but finally He was angry. If Moses was unwilling to let God be enough, then he could deal with his brother.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Bible teacher Beth Moore has said, "God is going to do things His way, or He'll do things His way! The question is how much time we want to waste kicking and screaming in between." It's not about our objections or our limitations. It's all about God. It's His call, His provision, His goal, His assurance, His promises, and His character. How foolish to resist an offer to participate in any mission with such a God. If He is for us, who can be against us?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 14, 2010
Unique Privileges
READ: Romans 8:12-17
Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. -Ephesians 1:5
In Forever Young: My Friendship with John F. Kennedy, Jr., Billy Noonan recalls the life experiences he shared with the son of President John Kennedy.
In 1980, as one of the stories goes, John Jr. and Billy were invited aboard the USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier. On a guided tour of the ship, the two young men and their guide inadvertently entered a restricted area. When an officer stopped them, the guide pointed to John and said, "This is his father's ship." Snapping to attention, the officer saluted John. He explained his understanding that when a US Navy ship is named for someone, it is considered that person's ship. Thus, as the son of the man for whom the ship was named, John Jr. had unique privileges.
This illustrates a vital spiritual principle. As adopted children in God's family, we who have been saved possess the position of sonship. Paul wrote that as believers we are "predestined . . . to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself" (Eph. 1:5). By virtue of this sonship, we have the unique privileges that belong to the children of the King of kings.
In life's challenging voyage, we can take courage that our "Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15) owns the ship and shares all with us. Praise God, we are joint-heirs with Christ! - Dennis Fisher
The wealth of God is ours to share
Through Jesus Christ the Lord,
Joint-heirs with Him we claim it, then,
According to His Word. -Sherbert
A Christian's inheritance is guaranteed forever!
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An Encouraging Word
A while back I ran into a woman who I hadn't seen in quite some time. Being my friendly self I said, "Hi!"
The moment I said that she replied, "Oh, Bayless!" and proceeded to open her purse and pull out a letter I had written to encourage her three years earlier. She said, "I take this with me everywhere I go."
I wanted to cry! I mean, I was touched. But then I thought, "Is there no one else who comforts you? Is there no one else who speaks encouraging words into your life?" And I wonder the same about you.
Are you needing some encouragement today? I don't know what you may be faced with, but I personally find comfort and encouragement in the following passage. It is 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11,
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
Think about this for a moment. As you look into eternity, which is what ultimately matters, you and I are not appointed to wrath! That is good news! That is great news! That is encouraging news! And that is great comfort!
God is storing up wrath against the ungodly. But, just like in ancient Egypt when the death angel passed over every home where the blood of the Lamb was, I thank God the wrath of God passes over us!
It is being stored up, but not for me or for you. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have escaped the wrath of God.
Thank you, Jesus!
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Read: Exodus 32:1-35
I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf. - Exodus 32:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
When called to come for dinner, three-year-old Cole immediately declared, "I can't! I don't have a mouth!" Four-year-old Drew was told to pick up his toys. Without missing a beat he noted: "But the dinosaur in the toy box will eat me!" When preschoolers tell a big whopper of a lie, it can be a humorous attempt to avoid mealtime or chores. They need to be taught that such extravagant excuses don't exempt them from the consequences of disobedience.
In our passage today, Aaron-a grown man!-delivers an even bigger lie. This story, while containing some of the funniest moments in Scripture, also reveals the deadly consequences of defying divine instructions.
While Moses was on the mountain meeting with the Lord, the Israelites grew tired of waiting. They asked Aaron to make some gods to lead them, since "as for this fellow Moses . . . we don't know what has happened to him" (v. 1). There's no record that Aaron made the slightest protest at this demand. Instead, he gathered their gold and shaped it into a calf; Scripture notes the care and intentional craftsmanship of Aaron (v. 4). Then he declared that this idol had delivered Israel from Egypt, he built an altar, and he initiated a festival of worship and celebration of the golden calf!
When Moses returned to the camp, he angrily confronted his brother: "What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?" (v. 21). Aaron recounted what happened, and all the details were correct . . . until he announced that he threw the gold into the fire and-vóila! Out came this calf! God had already told Moses what had happened, but Aaron still didn't admit his full complicity in the idolatry (v. 8).
Note God's reaction to this sin. He angrily called them "your people" and offered to destroy them and start over to make a great nation from Moses (v. 10). But Moses had learned the lesson from the burning bush: he knew it was really all about God. The people were a laughingstock (v. 25)-but they were God's people. His character and reputation and promises were at stake.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
None of us enjoy being confronted about our sin. Aaron illustrates the wrong way to respond; excuses or outright lies make us look absurd. Besides, God knows the truth anyway. Instead, when brought face to face with our sin, we should follow the example of David (see 2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51). Acknowledge the truth about our transgression, repent before God, and seek a restored relationship. God doesn't promise to spare us from consequences, but He does promise forgiveness. He will not violate His own character.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 15, 2010
Last Line Of Defense
READ: Romans 8:31-39
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. -Romans 8:37
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the site of a battle that turned the tide of America's Civil War. One of the focal points of the conflict was a rocky knoll called Little Round Top where Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the men of the 20th Maine Infantry stood their ground. Had the Confederate troops gotten past Chamberlain's men, some historians believe the Union army would have been surrounded-possibly leading to the loss of the war. The "20th Maine" was the last line of defense.
Followers of Christ are also engaged in a vital war. As we battle "the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11), we are called to wear the armor of God and to stand firm in the conflict (vv.10-18).
And like the Gettysburg soldiers, we have a "last line of defense." For us, though, this defense is greater than any human force. In Romans 8:31-39, Paul says that our ultimate confidence is in the undying love of Christ. So complete is our protection that nothing can "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (v.39).
When the enemy seems overwhelming and all seems lost, remember, we have an unbeatable last line of defense: "We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (v.37). - Bill Crowder
We are more than conquerors
Through Him who loved us so;
The Christ who dwells within us
Is the greatest power we know. -Carmichael
God's plan always leads to victory.
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Forever With Him
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 gives us powerful prophetic words,
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Jesus Christ will return, and the church will be caught away! We will meet the Lord in the clouds and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. From that moment on, we will always be with the Lord.
Maybe you are going through a rough patch right now. If so, let me remind you that this earthly life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. But we have eternity in store. Thank God we will ever be with the Lord!
If He tarries and we die before He returns, we get to go to heaven. But I have a feeling, with the way things are shaping up, that we will be the generation that sees His return.
Have you noticed how the eyes of the world are on the Middle East? This is all end times stuff. Also, one of the things that Jesus said would be a precursor to the end is that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to every nation, literally, to every language group.
And you know what? That will be completed in our generation.
So keep your eyes fixed on His return, and that day you will meet Him in the air and be with Him forever!
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Read: Judges 6:11-40
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the Lord Almighty. - Zechariah 4:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In November 2006, a 9-year-old girl in Las Vegas ran out into a busy boulevard and was hit by a Cadillac. A group of homeless men were sitting and drinking across the street when one of them, a one-eyed alcoholic named Stanford, saw the little girl trapped under the car. The men ran over and miraculously lifted the 5,000-pound car, saving the girl's life. Even the police spokesman called the rescue "incredible."
From what we know about Gideon, his selection to be the deliverer of Israel was equally incredible. In his first appearance in Scripture, he was hiding in a winepress to keep his wheat a secret from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared and addressed him as a "mighty warrior"-hardly the address we would expect given Gideon's location and actions (v. 12).
Gideon's response didn't sound very mighty. Essentially he asked, "Where is God?" Given the situation of God's people, there didn't seem to be much evidence of God's presence. The Lord responded to both issues implied in the question. First, He was selecting Gideon to deliver the people. Second, as to His whereabouts, He was right there, present with Gideon (v. 14). But Gideon was locked into his defeated viewpoint. He didn't even recognize the Lord, complaining, "I can't do it! My clan is weak! I'm weak!" Notice that this wasn't untrue from a human perspective. But God was offering Gideon a divine perspective.
Gideon did finally recognize, worship, and obey God-but he was still plagued by fear (vv. 22, 24, 27). When the men of the town threatened him for destroying their idolatrous altars, Gideon's father defended him-and included a subtle mockery of Baal (v. 31). Gideon had obeyed, however tentatively, and God's Spirit came upon him to empower him for his calling (v. 34). The Lord remained patient with Gideon as he requested yet additional confirmation that God's promised deliverance would come. Whether Gideon believed it himself, God would use him to be a mighty warrior in a legendary defeat of Midian.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What do you believe as truth about yourself? Do you think too highly of yourself, falling into the trap of the Pharisees? Or do you think you're too weak, too young or old, or too limited in some way to be effective? God determines the truth about us. Begin with the truth about your creation in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Then remember your identity in Christ as a redeemed, loved child of God (Rom. 1:7). And finally, remember that the Holy Spirit fills and equips us for what He has called us to do (Eph. 2:10).
GOD BLESS!
March 16, 2010
The Real Hero
READ: John 3:22-30
He must increase, but I must decrease. -John 3:30
Louis B. Neumiller was known for his humility, integrity, and commitment to quality. As president of the Caterpillar Tractor Company from 1941-54, he led the manufacturer of earth-moving equipment through the challenges of World War II into global expansion. In the book In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century, authors Mayo and Nohria describe Neumiller's leadership as "success without fanfare." His mark of greatness, they note, was that he took his identity out of the business and "let his company become a hero instead of himself."
We see the same quality of selflessness in John the Baptist, the dynamic preacher who repeatedly affirmed his mission of paving the way for the Messiah. When John's followers became concerned that Jesus was baptizing people and crowds were following Him, John replied: "You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent before Him.' . . . He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:28,30).
As followers of Christ, are we lifting Him up instead of seeking honor for ourselves? Rather than being disappointed when our contribution is unnoticed, we should be glad because our highest privilege is to magnify the Lord. He's the hero!
Honoring Him is the mark of greatness. - David C. McCasland
A Prayer: Lord, teach us to be humble. May our desire be that You be known, honored, loved, and exalted in every thought and action-above ourselves. Amen.
The great Christian is one who is small enough to let God be great in his life.
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How to Pray for the Unsaved
In the last two devotionals, I have stressed the importance of praying for the unsaved people in our lives to be saved. Today, I want to give you four ways you can pray for them:
1. Pray for openness and understanding. Acts 16:14 says the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to heed the things spoken by Paul. Paul was speaking the gospel. And if the Lord can open Lydia's heart, He can open your Aunt Mildred's heart.
2. Pray that God would send laborers to them. In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." I am confident that God will answer any prayer He has commanded us to pray, and this prayer is not a suggestion. Jesus commanded us to pray that God would send out laborers into the harvest.
3. Pray that God will visit them and reveal Himself to them. I do not know of a specific promise in the Bible where it says God is going to visit someone in a dream or give them a vision. But I do see in Scripture where God reveals Himself to people in such ways, like Saul of Tarsus, who, on the Damascus Road, had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved.
4. Pray for personal direction and for personal opportunities to share. Jesus, in Luke 10:2 said, "The harvest is great, laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest." In the next verse Jesus said, "Behold, I send you." You can become the answer to your own prayer!
So pray for the unsaved people in your life, and do not stop praying until they get saved.
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Read: Jonah 3:1-4:10
The Lord replied, "Have you any right to be angry?" - Jonah 4:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Assyrian empire was one of the most brutal regimes in human history. As one scholar catalogued their cruelty, the Assyrians made pyramids of human heads, left bodies to rot and be ravaged by dogs outside the city gates, and impaled women and children around the city walls when they conquered an area. They were perhaps best known for showing no mercy to their opponents, whether king or infant. The Assyrians had oppressed Israel for decades, finally causing the defeat of the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C. (see 2 Kings 15-19). Nineveh was their capital, and Jonah had been sent by God to preach there.
Our passage today starts after Jonah's famous encounter with the great fish. God told Jonah again, "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you" (3:2). Jonah finally obeyed, and his worst nightmare came true: his mission was successful. Nineveh repented, and God relented. Jonah was furious (4:1). His complaint was rooted in the very gracious and loving character of God. The irony is that Jonah had experienced God's mercy firsthand when he was delivered from the fish, but he was unwilling for his enemies to participate in redemption.
So Jonah pouted. His huffing and puffing is comical in itself, and it's even more ridiculous given the situation. God gave Jonah an object lesson in compassion, first providing him with a vine for shade and then taking it away. Upon the loss of the vine, Jonah declared that he wanted to die (v. 8). For the second time, God challenged Jonah's right to be angry, noting that Jonah had more concern about the life of a vine than about an entire city of people created by God. Ultimately, Jonah was concerned only for himself.
Jonah thought that God's mercy toward the Assyrians was foolish, though he himself had benefited from God's deliverance. God revealed that Jonah's resistance to grace demonstrated true foolishness and that His abundant, lavish, incomprehensible love could pour out on anyone who would call on His name.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In his book, And God Created Laughter, Conrad Hyers observes: "When we look at the figure of Jonah, his self-centeredness and narrow-mindedness, his extreme behavior, his self-contradictions, we laugh at him, and, as we laugh, realize that we are laughing at ourselves." Jonah challenges us to follow Christ's command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44). Will we rejoice when a sinner comes to salvation? Or will we pout when our enemies enjoy God's redemption and blessing?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
March 17, 2010
A Good God
READ: Psalm 46
The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. -Psalm 9:9
When my brother-in-law was a missionary in Mali, West Africa, he was involved in a traffic accident. A man had wandered into the road in front of Chuck's motorcycle. The cycle struck the man and sent Chuck and the bike sliding along the ground for more than 200 feet. Shortly after Chuck regained consciousness in the hospital, his doctor told him he had been "really lucky." Chuck smiled and replied, "God is good."
Later he thought about the day's events. The man who was struck hadn't received any permanent injuries, and Chuck would also recover from his injuries. But what if one of them had been killed? He thought, God would be no less good.
When we experience tragedy, we may wonder about God's goodness. Is God always good? Yes, He is. He doesn't promise that bad things will never happen to us, but He does promise to be "our refuge and strength" (Ps. 46:1). He doesn't promise that we will never walk through heart-wrenching circumstances, but He promises that we won't be alone (23:4).
God is good-no matter what suffering we are experiencing. Even when we don't understand, we can say with Habakkuk, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (3:18). - Cindy Hess Kasper
O taste and see that God is good
To all who seek His face;
Yea, blest the one who trusts in Him,
Confiding in His grace. -Psalter
God tests our faith so that we may trust His faithfulness.
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The Power of Your Presence
Jesus said in Matthew 5:16,
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
The way you let your light shine is just being yourself around people. Witness everywhere you go through your life, and use words, if necessary.
You can sow seeds just by showing people that you are real. Some people call it friendship evangelism: being a genuine friend, touchable, genuinely caring for people, just letting your light shine.
Jesus also said you are a city set on a hill. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nobody lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. You and I are to live a life that brightly shines the gospel to the unsaved.
I read a story years ago about a guy who had his doorbell hooked up to a big buzzer in the back room. The buzzer was really loud. He wanted to change it and put a light there instead that would illuminate when somebody pushed the doorbell. So he rigged it up to do just that.
The problem was the light would barely illuminate. He could not figure out what was wrong, so he called an electrician friend. His friend looked at it and told him, "Oh, you don't understand. It takes more power to shine than it does to make noise."
That is very true. Jesus said, "Let your light shine." Without having to necessarily confront people, they will just notice something different about you. If you are walking with God, it is reflected in your attitude, your work ethic, and your countenance. It is a discernable difference that will lead some people to ask about your faith. You will be able to sow seeds just with your presence.
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Read: Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7
God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me. - Genesis 21:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
The highlight of the Hudson family reunion in North Carolina occurs after the casseroles and pies have been eaten. That's when the older generation of cousins pull out worn photo albums and sit telling stories about their childhood in the rural foothills. Lots of laughter and knee-slapping ensues as they tell about the time six-year-old Ida wanted to baptize the cats, when little Clyde tried to scare away his older sister's boyfriend, or when Uncle Elmer would organize all the kids to play baseball.
In our reading today, Sarah understood the bond of laughter in a more profound way than most people. The Lord had promised Abraham that he would become a great nation, but thus far all that had happened was Sarah's ill-fated plan for Abraham to have a son with her servant Hagar. At this point, Sarah and Abraham were both old and "worn out" (18:12). When she heard the Lord say that within a year she would have a son, Sarah laughed at the preposterous notion.
Her laughter didn't go unchallenged by the Lord. Although she denied it, He knew both that she did laugh and why she laughed. In response, He repeated the promise that she would bear a son within the year-for "is anything too hard for the Lord?" (18:13). God was gracious and faithful and true; He "did for Sarah what he had promised" (21:1). He always fulfills His promises in His way and at His time.
Abraham named his son Isaac, which means "laughter." What a perfect name for this child! When his impending conception was announced, his mother laughed at the hilarious impossibility of the idea. Later, as she held her infant, Sarah could testify, "God has brought me laughter"-meaning both her son Isaac, who was "laughter," and the laughter of great joy-"and everyone who hears this will laugh with me" (21:6). The birth of this child was a reason to laugh: laughing with delight at the mystery and power of God's ways, laughing with remembrance of Sarah's doubt, and laughing with joy at the presence of a baby boy.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sharing laughter with our family and friends is a great way to remember how God has worked in our lives. Spend some time with loved ones exchanging stories about the funny things your kids did when they were little. Have coffee with a friend and laugh together about the funny outfits you used to wear years ago. Share with your Sunday school class or Bible study group a way that God worked in your life that filled you with amazement and delight. Let's laugh together as we rejoice in what God has done!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 18, 2010
Who Are You?
READ: Matthew 4:18-25
Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. -Matthew 4:19
If someone were to ask, "Who are you?" my guess is that you would tell a little about yourself and what you do-"I'm an electrician" or "I'm a nurse." But that's not really who you are-it's what you do. Which leads to the question, If what you do is who you are, who will you be when you stop doing what you're doing?!
Who you are is found in your relationship to Jesus. And this sense of identity will drive your behavior. Take Matthew, for example. As a tax collector during the reign of the Roman Empire, his life was driven by greed. But everything changed the day Jesus showed up and invited Matthew to follow Him (Matt. 9:9). Suddenly Matthew had a whole new identity as a follower of Christ! And he wasn't the only one. We also read about four fishermen in Matthew 4:18-25, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who left their nets to follow Him.
Jesus is a compelling Person, and He is still looking for followers. He wants to make something of your life by giving you the identity of a follower of Jesus. It doesn't mean giving up your career, but it does mean that you will do your work-and all of life-according to His will and ways.
So next time someone asks, "Who are you?" I hope you'll answer, "I'm a follower of Jesus"! - Joe Stowell
For Further Study Read about 10 perspectives that should form our attitudes and actions as followers of Jesus in Kingdom Living at www.discoveryseries.org/hp092
If you are a follower of Jesus, that's all the identity you need.
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The Power of Proclamation
In our last few devotionals, we have seen we are to pray for the unsaved and live lives that shine the gospel.
But there does come a time to speak up. Look at Romans 10:13-14,
For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
When the time does come to speak up, a lot of Christians are like arctic rivers: frozen at the mouth. But someone must tell the story!
Pray for the unsaved, let your light shine, and when the time comes, tell them the gospel story. Paul said in Romans 1:16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
Through just a simple proclamation of the message, many people, when they hear it, will believe and be saved. The reason for that is found in Romans 10:17,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
A proclamation of the message causes faith to arise in people's hearts. Just simply tell them the gospel story: Mankind was separated from God, Jesus paid the price for their sins, He was raised from the dead, and if you put your trust in Him, you can be saved.
As well as opening your mouth to share the Good News, you might consider writing letters to your friends to simply and clearly share the gospel. Incorporate your own story if you feel it would be helpful.
It is easy to share the gospel if you just remember three things: our rebellion, our ransom, and our response. With those three things, you can share the gospel with anyone.
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Read: Exodus 8:1-15
I am the Lord, and there is no other. - Isaiah 45:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
On November 30, 2009, a man in Kingsport, Tennessee, went to Krispy Kreme and ordered a doughnut for $1.49-which he paid for with a $100 bill. Suspicious employees called the police, who confirmed that the bill was counterfeit and arrested the man. As it turned out, his wife had been arrested the week before for the same crime.
We might understand the impulse to counterfeit money, even though it's illegal. In today's story, however, we see Pharaoh's magicians duplicating something unpleasant, which served only to magnify the plagues God had sent upon them. Like a classic screwball comedy, the magicians thought they were standing up to Moses and his God, when in fact they were only hurting the Egyptians and making themselves look foolish.
Today's passage introduces the third attempt by the sorcerers of Egypt to replicate a miraculous plague from God. In chapter 7, they turned their staffs into snakes-which were promptly devoured by Aaron's staff-turned-snake. They also turned water into blood, as the Lord had done. A week later, Moses again confronted Pharaoh with an ultimatum from God: "Let my people go. . . . If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs" (vv. 1-2).
Pharaoh refused. God sent frogs. To be sure we understand how completely the frogs overran Egypt, Scripture paints the picture of frogs on the bed and frogs in the oven. The frogs even jumped into their food while they tried to cook (v. 3). From Pharaoh to peasant, the land and the people were covered with frogs.
The sorcerers of Egypt appeared. And to prove their power they brought still more frogs on the land (v. 7)-the last thing Egypt needed at that moment! Even Pharaoh seemed to understand the limited helpfulness of his own magicians; when he asked for relief from the plague of frogs, he beseeched Moses and Aaron to intercede before God rather than request the magic of Egypt. The sorcerers could only produce counterfeit power. They could not deliver the land from the plague.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do we ever settle for a spiritual counterfeit rather than seek the blessing and power of God? Spiritual counterfeits include trusting in your own goodness rather than the person and work of Jesus Christ, seeking an emotional experience rather than a spiritual transformation, or focusing on the good gifts rather than on God the Giver. "There is no one like the Lord our God" (v. 10)-we should trust, worship, and praise Him alone!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 19, 2010
Authentic Beauty
READ: Proverbs 31:21-31
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. -Proverbs 31:30
I often take a moment as I wait at our grocery store checkout stand to scan the covers of the magazines displayed there. It seems that if they aren't about sex and money, they're about diet, fitness, health, and outward beauty. There's nothing there for the soul.
The problem is that people read the wrong magazines-those that are full of lies that fixate on beauty of face and form as though that's all there is. This can lead to comparison and terrible despair.
Some years ago, a friend of mine told of a conversation he had with a lovely, self-assured teenager. "You're very self-confident," he observed. "Can you tell me why?" "Yes," the young woman answered. "It's because I'm so pretty." "Oh, I'm sorry," he said with extraordinary wisdom. "Why?" she asked in surprise. "Because," he replied, "you may not always be pretty."
"Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing" is the wisdom we read in Proverbs 31. Physical beauty all too quickly fades away; all one's efforts to keep it are doomed to fail. But there is an inner beauty-authentic beauty that will endure forever-in the one "who fears the Lord" (v.30). - David H. Roper
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me-
All His wonderful passion and purity!
O Thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. -Orsborn
Righteousness in the heart produces beauty in the character.
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Persuasion
Acts 28:23-24 provides us a great example of the next "P" of evangelism,
So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening. And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved.
Some people are going to need to be persuaded, they are going to need more than proclamation, because they are honestly grappling with questions that need to be dealt with. Those questions are like roadblocks in front of them that will need to be removed so they can advance and embrace the gospel.
They may have questions like, "Well, why can't other religions save? Why does Jesus have to be the only way?" Or, "What's this deal about the Jews? Why did the Savior have to come from the Jews?" Or it may be, "What about people who don't hear? How could it be fair that they would perish?"
When people have questions like these, they are genuinely seeking answers, so give them Biblical reasons. If you don't have an answer, tell them you don't know. Say, "You know what? That's a good question, and I don't know the answer. But I'm going to find one for you." Then go study your Bible and find the answer.
Or go to the Bible bookstore and find a book that deals with that subject. Or ask a Christian friend who knows more than you do and find an answer. Then go back to the person and give them an answer.
You will find that when you give people legitimate Scriptural answers, they will respond and often be saved.
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Read: 1 Samuel 5:1-12
You shall have no other gods before me. - Exodus 20:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
The ark of the covenant was the most sacred part of Israel's identity. It had been crafted according to the precise instructions given by God (see Ex. 25:1-22; 37:1-9), and the glory of God's presence rested above the atonement cover (see Lev. 16:2; Num. 7:89). Through His presence over the ark, God led His people; it represented His power, protection, guidance, and holiness. Most importantly, it embodied Israel's relationship to God, their identity as His people.
But by the time of our passage, the Israelites had come to view the ark as little more than a lucky charm, a totem they could trot on to the battlefield whenever they wanted success (1 Sam. 4:1-11). God's power and presence can never be treated like a rabbit's foot. The Israelites were routed in battle, and the Philistines captured the ark.
This hardly seems like the setup for a funny story! But in the middle of these dark days for Israel, God had a joke to play on the false gods of the Philistines and a lesson to teach about divine power. Pleased with their victory, the Philistines installed the ark of God in the temple of their god, Dagon. Capturing an enemy's god was considered proof that the god of the victorious nation was superior.
But the next morning, Dagon-supposedly triumphant on the battlefield-was found lying facedown before the ark! Scripture makes sure we don't miss the humorous fact that Dagon couldn't even pick himself back up-his priests had to stand him in his place. The next day things got worse for Dagon. The idol was found facedown before the ark, with his head and hands broken off.
The Lord wasn't done making his point about the powerlessness of idols. The Philistines became afflicted with tumors, sometimes translated as tumors in the groin. The location is significant-Dagon was a Baal or fertility god. These tumors were a further demonstration of Dagon's complete failure as a god. The Philistines now couldn't wait to send the ark of the Lord back to Israel.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The Israelites believed that God was powerful but thought they could manipulate that power in whatever way they chose. The Philistines believed God was powerless and thought they could make Him subservient to their own idolatrous agenda. Ultimately, both thought they could dictate terms to God. We who have access to the throne of grace must never presume to manipulate or minimize God. He is our loving Father and also the Holy Judge, the almighty Creator, and the Alpha and Omega.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 20, 2010
Marriage God's Way
READ: Genesis 2:18-25
A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. -Genesis 2:24
The movie The Princess Bride has a wedding scene in which the marrying minister says, "Marriage . . . is what brings us together today."
Sometimes it is good to remind ourselves of the grand plan for marriage spelled out in Scripture.
Marriage creates one new family out of two: Adam said, " 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh . . . .' Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife" (Gen. 2:23-24).
It provides a pure outlet for a divinely designed desire: "Because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband" (1 Cor. 7:2).
It forms a mutually helpful team: "The heart of her husband safely trusts her . . . . She does him good and not evil all the days of her life" (Prov. 31:11-12).
Marriage God's way brings a man and a woman together to honor Him and help society. Celebrate marriage for the ways it brings us together in God's name. - Dave Branon
If men and women yield to God
And of His love partake,
The marriage bond that joins two hearts
No power on earth can break. -D. De Haan
God created husband and wife to complement each other.
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Power
In Acts 9:32-35, we are given the fifth and final "P" of evangelism, and that is power,
Now it came to pass, as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed." Then he arose immediately. So all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
Two entire cities turned to Christ because of one display of God's power! One man who had been paralyzed was healed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and two cities came to God.
We have the same gospel. It is the same Holy Spirit; we serve the same blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have to pray that God will, if necessary, do the miraculous to save people.
Paul, writing in the book of Romans, says he fully preached the gospel with miracles, signs, and wonders. People will respond today just like they did then. But we need to be bold, step out, and pray for things to happen.
When I was living in Oregon, there was an Indian girl who was very sick and actually at the point of death. The doctors told her she was going to die. She came to a small meeting one night and the evangelist prayed for her. She was healed and then gave her life to Christ. As a result, her dad, a famous rodeo rider, got saved, and her mom was saved also. Then a large group of people from her tribe came to Christ as well.
Evangelism through power. We need to trust God for the supernatural.
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Read: Luke 1:5-25, 57-80
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. - Luke 1:68
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bill Lear, founder of the Lear Jet Corporation, named his daughter Shanda. The actor Rob Morrow gave his daughter the name Tu. And the daughter of the former governor of Texas had the name Ima Hogg. Our passage today includes questions about what to name a baby. This beautiful, humorous story also underscores God's great work of provision and delight.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were from the priestly line of Aaron, and they were obedient to God (v. 6). Yet they had both grown old without the blessing of children. As Zechariah fulfilled his priestly duty (likely the only time in his life that he would have been selected to offer incense), the angel Gabriel appeared to him with a promise.
Look at God's tenderness revealed in this extended announcement: Zechariah and Elizabeth were to have a son, and he would be a joy and delight to them. But not just to them-many would rejoice because of him. Notice all the specifics Zechariah is told about his life and ministry (vv. 14-17). Elizabeth and Zechariah were old and unlikely to see their son's adulthood, so God gave them the comfort of knowing their son's future even before he was born.
After this, Zechariah replied, "How can I be sure?" After all, Lord, we're really old! Gabriel's response says, You just heard a message directly from Gabriel, an angel from the presence of God-and you still want a sign? Zechariah got a sign-he was struck mute.
God was faithful to His promise; Elizabeth had a son, and her friends and relatives were overjoyed for her (v. 58). One can imagine the well-meaning family members, so confident that tradition would be followed and the infant would be given a family name. Elizabeth announced that the name would in fact be John. When the family protested, they asked Zechariah, who wrote clearly: "His name is John" (v. 63). Immediately he regained his speech, and his first words after months of silence were filled with praise to God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How do we respond to God's promises in our lives? Do we detail all the problems and objections? Or do we give Him praise and glory? In your prayer time today, pray through the words of Zechariah in verses 68 through 79. As you pray, note all the attributes of God's character and work that are praised. You might even want to keep a list of these attributes and compose your own prayers of praise. This also provides a helpful pattern for praising God for His works of mercy and provision in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 21, 2010
Pure Milk
READ: Acts 15:1-11,19-21
As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby. -1 Peter 2:2
Recently it was discovered that some milk producers in China had been diluting cow's milk and adding the industrial chemical Melamine. This chemical was added because it artificially enhanced protein readings. Several infants died and others became seriously ill. Such adulteration is not new. Other countries have been adding Melamine to animal feed for at least 40 years for the same purpose, resulting in the death of animals.
Another kind of adulteration is when people add to God's Word, "the pure milk of the Word" as Peter described it (1 Peter 2:2). The word pure means "unadulterated" or "uncontaminated." The early church had to deal with those who considered circumcision necessary for salvation (Acts 15:1). That idea was rejected because it was not in accordance with the Word of God, which says that salvation is by grace alone. Peter encouraged his brethren in the Lord: "Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples? . . . We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved" (Acts 15:10-11).
Examine carefully any teaching that asks you to do anything more than what is in God's Word. Otherwise it can be deadly to your spiritual well-being. - C. P. Hia
The Lord has given man His Word,
His will He has made known;
Let man not try to change that Word
With words that are his own. -D. De Haan
God's Word needs no additions or subtractions.
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The Prerequisite of Prayer
In yesterday's devotional, I shared that God's priority is to see people come to know Him. Today, I want to give you the first of the five "P"s of evangelism, which I hope will encourage you as you seek to share your faith.
The Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:1-6,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
I want you to notice verse 4 in particular: God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants them saved and discipled.
As Jesus said, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all nations." Those are our two main jobs. Proclaim the gospel to see people get saved, and then disciple them. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
But did you notice that verse 1 preceded verse 4? Verse 1 says, Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Verse 4 will not and cannot happen until verse 1 happens. First there is prayer, then comes sharing the plan of salvation.
We must first talk to God about men before we talk to men about God. We cannot be successful unless we talk to God about men first.
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Read: Acts 12:1-19
O God, you who have done great things. Who, O God, is like you? - Psalm 71:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Waiting for Godot, the play by Samuel Beckett, two characters wait for Godot to arrive. Day after day, they anticipate his coming, and day after day he does not appear. The play ends with frustrated anticipation-they will return the next day, but the audience has the distinct unease that Godot will not show up.
In contrast, our story today depicts a group who hopes for someone to show up, but when he does, they don't believe it's really him!
King Herod realized that his popularity rating went up when he persecuted the followers of Jesus. He had executed James and intended to kill Peter after Passover. In response, "the church was earnestly praying to God for him" (v. 5). The night before the trial, an angel of God appeared to Peter and miraculously delivered him from Herod's maximum-security prison.
We've seen dramatic announcements by the Lord or an angelic messenger several times in our study this month. Unlike others, though, Peter didn't question or object. He first thought he was having a vision; when he was outside the prison walls alone, he realized that his body-not just his mind-had been freed (v. 11). He immediately went to the house of Mary, where he knew the church would be gathered to pray.
What follows is one of the great comic moments in the book of Acts. The servant girl, Rhoda, recognized Peter's voice-but was so excited that she forgot to open the door! When she told the believers that their prayers were answered, they first accused her of being delusional and then concluded that perhaps Peter's ghost was there following his execution.
Peter, who had just escaped from Herod's prison, can't get anyone to let him into Mary's house! He continued knocking, and finally those assembled must have decided that either a ghost wouldn't knock that loudly or that they couldn't all be hearing things. They opened the door to find Peter standing there, their prayers answered in a way they had barely believed possible.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Zechariah prayed for years before God granted his request. Today we saw the church praying for Peter's release, and their request was granted before their prayer meeting had even finished. We don't know when God will resolve our requests or grant our petitions. We do know that His timing is perfect. He loves His people, and He hears the prayers of the righteous. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Phil. 4:6; see Eph. 6:18).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 22, 2010
Texting God
READ: Colossians 1:3-12
[We] do not cease to pray for you. -Colossians 1:9
An article in The Washington Post told about a 15-year-old girl who sent and received 6,473 cell phone text messages in a single month. She says about her constant communication with friends, "I would die without it." And she is not alone. Researchers say that US teens with cell phones average more than 2,200 text messages a month.
To me, this ongoing digital conversation offers a remarkable illustration of what prayer could and should be like for every follower of Christ. Paul seemed to be constantly in an attitude of prayer for others: "[We] do not cease to pray for you" (Col. 1:9). "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:18). "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). But how can we possibly do that?
Missionary Frank Laubach described his habit of "shooting" prayers at people as he encountered them during the course of each day. In a sense, he was "texting" God on their behalf, staying in constant communication with the Father. Laubach believed that prayer is the mightiest force in the world, and said: "My part is to live in this hour in continuous inner conversation with God and in perfect responsiveness to His will."
Pray without ceasing. Perhaps what Paul urged us to do can be done. - David C. McCasland
Give me a spirit of prayer, dear Lord,
That I may commune with Thee
As I travel along life's rugged road,
In Thy company always to be. -Dawe
Prayer should become as natural as breathing.
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Turning Desire into Prayer
I want to follow up yesterday's devotional by turning your attention to something I believe is very profound. It is Romans 10:1, where Paul states,
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
It is important to pray that people be saved. In fact, I want you to notice how Paul turned his desire into a prayer.
I think if I were to ask any believer, "Do you desire your family to be saved?" they would say yes. Or, "Do you desire your friends to be saved?" they would answer yes. Or, "Do you desire your coworkers to be saved?" they would reply yes.
Well, that is great. That is to be commended, but it is not enough. Your desire must be turned into a prayer. It is not enough just to have a desire that they be saved. That desire has to translate into prayer. Prayer that they may be saved.
It's all right to pray generally, but it is better to pray specifically. I encourage you to make a list of every unsaved person in your life. Start with the network of relationships that already exist in your life. Make a list of family members, friends, and associates who are not saved, and then do your best to pray for the people on that list every day.
Most Christians genuinely desire for folks to be saved, but not all Christians pray for the salvation of people that they love. And even fewer pray for the salvation of folks that they work with.
Turn your desire for the unsaved people in your life to be saved into prayer for their salvation. And start today.
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Read: Numbers 11:4-34
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts. - Romans 1:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the most memorable episodes of I Love Lucy is "Job Switching," in which Lucy and Ethel decide to prove they could handle jobs and Ricky and Fred think they can manage the cooking. They all get what they want-only things don't go so well when Lucy's job wrapping chocolates turns into a high-speed race to get candies off the conveyor belt. The men don't fare much better when Ricky asked Fred if he knew anything about rice. Fred replied, "Well, I had it thrown at me on one of the darkest days of my life!" They proceed to attempt to cook several pounds of rice for dinner!
As Lucy frequently discovered, getting what you want isn't always so great. The Israelites found this out in today's passage, which introduces several days where we'll examine the use of irony in Scripture.
The language used at the beginning of the story immediately alerts us to the comic elements: the people were "wailing" about their boring diet (v. 4). They romanticized their life in Egypt-conveniently no mention is made of the forced labor and slave drivers and infanticide as they wax nostalgic about cucumbers! They insisted that they were sick of manna, which the text takes care to describe as rather tasty (vv. 7-8).
Moses was exasperated by the wailing and begged God to do something. Fed up with the moaning and complaining, the Lord announced: "Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it" (v. 19)! He would give them what they wanted-and they would regret it. They would eat it until "it comes out your nostrils and you loathe it" (v. 20).
In a dramatic display, God provided quail in the middle of the desert. And as promised, they were nearly drowning in meat-the birds were piled three feet high all around the camp (v. 31). But while the people were still in the act of eating, the Lord sent a plague as punishment for their complaint. Their wailing was not just about food preferences, it was about a lack of gratitude for God's provision and deliverance.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This text exhorts us to be careful about what we ask from God-we might get it, but it might not be best for us. How can you know whether your prayers are in line? First, ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Are you ungrateful for any of God's provision? Are your requests motivated by envy of what someone else has? Second, delight in the Lord through Scripture and praise. As we know the Lord more deeply, our desires become conformed to His (see Ps. 37:4; 40:8).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 23, 2010
Signature Scent
READ: 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Through us [God] diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. -2 Corinthians 2:14
You can't see it, hear it, or touch it, but scent is powerful. The smell of things like crayons, petunias, and colognes evoke memories that transport me to the past and bring to mind people and places I might not otherwise recall.
Some celebrities have fragrances named after them. Fans can identify with an actress or singer by dabbing on the scent bearing her name. Along those lines, Ladies Home Journal published a quiz to help readers determine the perfect fragrance for them. The idea is that every woman, to be memorable, should have a specific scent associated with her.
The idea of a signature scent is not new. God introduced it as part of worship. In the tabernacle, a certain scent was to be associated with the Lord (Ex. 30:34-35). The people were forbidden to use this fragrance for anything but worship (vv.37-38).
This idea continues under the new covenant, but with a stunning difference. Instead of using incense to make people think of Him, God uses Christians as His "signature scent" to the world (2 Cor. 2:14-15). The fact that God identifies Himself with us in such a powerful way is a truly humbling thought, and causes me to ask, "What do people think about God as a result of being around me?" - Julie Ackerman Link
When we've been alone with Jesus,
There's a difference others know;
And to them it's like a fragrance
That we leave where'er we go. -Hess
A life lived for God has a pleasing aroma.
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Not Ashamed
I have a question to ask you today. Has there ever been a time when you were afraid to confess the name of Jesus? In John 9:20-23, we have the example of the parents whose son had been born blind but was healed by Jesus.
Look at their response when asked who healed their son,
His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself." His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
How many Christians have held their tongue when they should have been giving praise to the name of Jesus? Praise for answered prayer, for the miracles He has done, but they were intimidated by unbelievers?
I was coming back from Africa when a Muslim man on the plane put a blanket on the floor, got down on his face and began to pray. This man was not ashamed at all about kneeling down on the plane in front of everyone.
I thought, "Oh, Jesus! How many times have Your people kept silent because they were afraid of what someone might think of them?"
Throw off the shackles of fear and timidity, and boldly take your stand for Christ!
Proverbs 28:1 says, The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
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Read: Judges 4:17-22; 5:24-31
The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. - Zephaniah 3:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
On February 21, 1980, New York Times columnist Dave Anderson wrote, "Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle . . . the Russians are expected to easily win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments." On February 22, 1980, the U.S. Olympic hockey team-comprised mainly of college students-defeated the mighty Soviet hockey juggernaut. As sportscaster Al Michaels called the final seconds of the game, he exclaimed, "Do you believe in miracles? YES!"
If Dave Anderson had been writing about the chances for Israel to defeat Sisera, he probably would have described it as an easy win for the Canaanites. And if Al Michaels were calling the play-by-play on the battle, he might have declared Israel's victory a miracle. Scripture notes the great power and military prowess of Sisera (4:3). But this oppressive general wasn't slaughtered on the field of battle or overpowered in a duel with another soldier. God had a far more deliciously poetic justice in store.
As Sisera's army was routed by Barak, he fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of a nomad who had a friendly relationship with the Canaanite king. She offered him milk and then delivered a mallet, driving a tent peg through his skull. Sisera's death was God's judgment for his tyranny over Israel; the means of Sisera's death was God's judgment on Barak for his lack of faith (4:9).
Deborah's song of victory and praise to the Lord highlights the irony of Sisera's demise. As his mother waited for the "clatter of his chariots," the symbols of his brutality, her servants assured her that he was likely delayed by enjoying the spoils of victory and ravishing the women (vv. 28-30). But in fact, Sisera was destroyed by a woman who spoiled his victory. The dramatic downfall of Sisera revealed the miracle of God's deliverance. He rescued His people, and He used surprising means to do it. He is a God who works miracles.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you feel overwhelmed by the challenges facing you? Perhaps temptation seems too strong to resist, or a long season of suffering feels like it will never end. You might endure opposition from colleagues or loved ones or face obstacles that threaten to smother your joy in Christ. God has not changed-He still works miracles on behalf of His people. He still defeats mighty strongholds of sin and oppression. He tells us, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 4:9; see 1 Cor. 1:26-31).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 24, 2010
Worst Possible Scenario!
READ: Job 1:13-22
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. -Job 23:10
When I used to teach at a Bible college in a large city, I sometimes graded papers at a food court while waiting for a commuter train. One day, I accidentally bumped my large cup of coffee. Its entire contents emptied into my open briefcase.
In most cities, there is a quiet reserve on the part of commuters. However, the coffee splash was so dramatic that it could not be ignored. A man sitting nearby said aloud, "Worst possible scenario!"
That comment was obviously an overstatement. But each of us dreads the thought of something in particular: financial loss, the death of a child or spouse, cancer, or another loss or hardship.
The book of Job is a case study in worst possible scenarios. Yet Job wisely assessed God's role in trying circumstances of loss and poor health: "He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10). From this wise statement we can learn two valuable lessons: One is that what we dread most can be used to test our character and make us stronger. The other is that God will provide the strength and comfort to see us through.
Cling to God. He has promised to work on our behalf, even in the worst possible scenario. - Dennis Fisher
God often sends me joy through pain,
Through bitter loss, divinest gain;
Yet through it all-dark days or bright-
I know my Father leads aright. -Conklin
The living God can take the fear out of living.
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No Worries
I trust that these words from Isaiah will encourage you today. Read carefully what God has to say,
"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?... But I am the LORD your God, who divided the sea whose waves roared-the LORD of hosts is His name" (Isaiah 51:12-13 and 15).
God spans the heavens with the palm of His hand. The nations are as a drop in the bucket before Him. There is nothing too hard for Him, and nothing He cannot do.
A number of years ago, I had the chance to go elk hunting with a friend in Montana. We were lying outside under the stars, and I was unprepared for the glory I saw. I have never seen so many stars in my life! It took my breath away!
As we lay there, I said, "You know what? God spans the heavens with His hand, and you and I are worried about paying the rent!" It was just one of those moments. We both just cracked up at how ridiculous it was to worry when God was so big.
What are you worrying about today? Whatever it is, place it into God's hands. After all, His hand spans the entire universe!
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Read: Numbers 12:1-15
Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. - Hebrews 13:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina ran for President in 1948 as the candidate for the States Rights Democratic Party on a segregationist platform. In 1957, he launched the longest filibuster by a single Senator in history-clocking in at over 24 hours-in an attempt to defeat the Civil Rights Act. So many were surprised when after Thurmond's death it was revealed that he had fathered a daughter with a black maid. While neither of them acknowledged the relationship while he was alive, Thurmond had supported his daughter financially for many years, and she had visited him in Washington, D.C.
Our passage contains irony related to skin color. But the ultimate issue was not black or white skin, but whether Aaron and Miriam would demonstrate appropriate respect for God's appointed leader.
Miriam and Aaron began to complain about Moses' dark-skinned wife from the land of Cush (v. 1). Whatever their complaint about Moses and his wife, the core issue was that Miriam and Aaron were jealous of Moses' authority. Each of them had been granted special positions of responsibility, but they weren't content with those roles (see Ex. 15:20; 28:1). Moses didn't defend himself, but God did. The three siblings were summoned to appear before the Lord.
God detailed His special relationship with Moses. Unlike prophets, to whom He spoke in visions and dreams, Moses heard from the Lord face to face. He had seen the very form of the Lord (v. 8; see Ex. 33:12-23; 34:29). His face glowed with the radiance of God. How could Miriam and Aaron even conceive of challenging the position and authority of Moses? They were really challenging the authority of the Lord.
Miriam had complained about her dark-skinned sister-in-law, and in judgment God turned her own skin deadly white-with leprosy. Devastated, Aaron begged Moses for forgiveness, and Moses begged God for healing for his sister. The Lord agreed, but Miriam still suffered exile from the camp for seven days.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
During your prayer time today, spend extra time praying for your pastor and leaders in your church. Pray that they would seek the face of the Lord and that God would bless them with wisdom. Pray that they would lead your church to growth in unity and love in Christ. Pray that the church would be strengthened for service through their ministry. Thank the Lord for providing His people to do His work, and thank Him for the gifts that you have been given to support your church (see 1 Corinthians 12).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 25, 2010
Far Better
READ: Revelation 21:1-4
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. -Revelation 21:4
Having suffered greatly-first from cancer, and then from the grueling medical regimen-pastor Dan Cummings was tired. After 2 weeks of treatment in Texas, he was looking forward to going back home to Michigan. In a post on his blog, he wrote: "Today is far better . . . amazing what some hydration will do. . . . Will fly home on the weekend to continue treatment at home."
Dan did return to Michigan, but several days later, his journey on earth ended. He went home to be with his God-whom he loved with every bit of his weakened body but mighty spirit.
When I viewed his blog a few days later, his words "Today is far better" jumped out at me. I smiled through my tears in the knowledge that Dan was now experiencing a life that is truly "far better" (Phil. 1:23).
Someday we who claim the name of Jesus will also go to that place where there is "no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying." It's a place where there is no more pain and where a loving Father promises to "wipe away every tear from [our] eyes" (Rev. 21:4).
The life we have here isn't all there is. There is a far, far better place that Jesus is preparing for those who love Him (John 14:2-3). - Cindy Hess Kasper
When our life on earth has ended
We will feel God's warm embrace;
There will be no pain or sorrow
In that far, far better place. -Sper
Heaven-no pain, no night, no death, no tears.
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Your New Nature
As human beings, we are constantly confronted with opportunities to fear. People have fears concerning their health, their finances, terrorism, relationships, their jobs...the list is almost endless.
I want to challenge you with a thought today, and it is simply this: Realize who you are. If you are born again, you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, and it is not in your nature to be afraid.
Consider what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7,
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Which points to our problem with fear. We listen to our heads, and we listen to our flesh, rather than listening to our spirit. As a result, our lives can be overwhelmed with fear.
I want to challenge you today to listen to your spirit instead of your head. The real you on the inside is made after the image of God. Once you realize who you are and what you are made of, it will help deliver you from fear. Consider these verses that talk about the real you:
· Ephesians 4:24, And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
· 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
When you understand your true nature, that you are made after the image of God, you will know freedom from fear.
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Read: Genesis 27:35; 29:23; 37:26-27; 38:11-26
Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law. - Psalm 119:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
Boomerangs were used in ancient European and aboriginal Australian cultures, and a collection of boomerangs was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Today a World Cup for boomerang is held every two years in which throwers compete in contests like Accuracy, Endurance, Fast Catch, and Maximal Time Aloft (MTA). The current world record for MTA is 104.87 seconds.
Our final study today on irony in Scripture traces the boomerang path of deceit in Jacob's family. Just as a boomerang will return back to the thrower, deceit invariably ends up deployed against the deceiver.
Jacob, whose name means "deceiver," was willing to deceive his father in order to procure the birthright from his brother Esau (27:35). He successfully executed the deception but then had to flee for his life. His uncle Laban offered him a home, a job, and a wife-but when the time came to marry his beloved Rachel, Laban deceived Jacob and gave him his daughter Leah instead (28:23-25). Laban himself was tricked by his daughter Rachel when she took his household idols (31:19-35).
The legacy of deceit continued with Jacob's sons. Jealous of Joseph, his brothers decided to sell him into slavery and tell Jacob that he had been eaten by a wild animal (37:26-35). Judah had come up with this plan, and in the next chapter he became the victim of a deceitful plan.
In violation of his promise to Tamar, Judah had not given her his son as a husband. Much time had passed, and Tamar decided to use some creative initiative to force Judah to acknowledge his responsibility (38:12). Deceiving Judah into thinking that she was a shrine prostitute, Tamar requested his personal seal as a pledge of his payment. When Judah heard that his daughter-in-law was pregnant as a result of prostitution, he demanded that she be executed-until he discovered that he was the father of her child (38:26). The strategy of deceit always rebounds back with consequences beyond what could be imagined.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our culture subtly endorses deceit. Millions of people cheat in school, cut corners on their taxes, commit adultery, and tell lies in the workplace or neighborhood. Deceit is an issue that begins in the heart (Jer. 17:9), and only when our hearts are transformed by the Word of God and the work of Christ can we be free from its boomerang effects. If you struggle with this insidious sin, read the following verses: Job 27:4; Psalm 32:2; Psalm 101:7; 1 Peter 2:1; 1 Peter 3:10; and Revelation 21:27.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 26, 2010
Worthy Of Respect
READ: Philippians 2:19-30
Receive [Epaphroditus] therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem. -Phil. 2:29
Just before kickoff at Super Bowl XLIII, Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals received the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award-a tribute given to the player who had best combined on-field excellence with off-field community service. "I am humbled the Lord has given me such an amazing life to impact others," said Warner, a dedicated Christian. "Of all the awards given to NFL athletes, [this one] stands out . . . because of what it represents." It represents a commitment to giving and sacrificing for others.
Paying homage to those who serve is not a new concept. Paul spoke of it when he reminded the Philippians to honor those who gave themselves in serving Christ. He told them of their friend Epaphroditus, who had nearly died (Phil. 2:30) because of his efforts for Christ in ministering to others-including the people at Philippi. How should they respond? Paul said, "Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem" (v.29). Clearly, when we think of those who sacrifice in serving the Savior, they are worthy of our respect and appreciation.
Why not look for ways to show gratitude to those who have served you spiritually. Give them the honor they deserve. - Bill Crowder
To honor is to show respect,
To meet another's need,
To give someone encouragement,
To love in word and deed. -Sper
We honor God when we honor those who serve God.
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He Has Said, So We May Say
In our last few devotionals, we have been talking about fear, and how to be free from it. Today, I want to give you a final thought to consider on fear. It is based on Hebrews 13:5-6,
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we may boldly say: "The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
I want you to notice what the Bible says, He Himself has said...So we may boldly say. God says something, so you can say something.
What does God say? He says He will never leave you. He says He will never forsake you. As a result you can say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
When you understand that God will never leave you or forsake you, you can live without fear. And that freedom from fear will be reflected in both your actions and in your speech.
What are you facing today? Would you be afraid if God was standing beside you saying, "It's alright. I am here"? Well He is with you! He said He would never leave you or abandon you! You may not see or feel Him, but He is with you-now and always.
It is time to start acting and speaking like you believe it.
Boldly say, "The Lord is helping me! I will not fear!"
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Read: Genesis 27:35; 29:23; 37:26-27; 38:11-26
Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law. - Psalm 119:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
Boomerangs were used in ancient European and aboriginal Australian cultures, and a collection of boomerangs was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Today a World Cup for boomerang is held every two years in which throwers compete in contests like Accuracy, Endurance, Fast Catch, and Maximal Time Aloft (MTA). The current world record for MTA is 104.87 seconds.
Our final study today on irony in Scripture traces the boomerang path of deceit in Jacob's family. Just as a boomerang will return back to the thrower, deceit invariably ends up deployed against the deceiver.
Jacob, whose name means "deceiver," was willing to deceive his father in order to procure the birthright from his brother Esau (27:35). He successfully executed the deception but then had to flee for his life. His uncle Laban offered him a home, a job, and a wife-but when the time came to marry his beloved Rachel, Laban deceived Jacob and gave him his daughter Leah instead (28:23-25). Laban himself was tricked by his daughter Rachel when she took his household idols (31:19-35).
The legacy of deceit continued with Jacob's sons. Jealous of Joseph, his brothers decided to sell him into slavery and tell Jacob that he had been eaten by a wild animal (37:26-35). Judah had come up with this plan, and in the next chapter he became the victim of a deceitful plan.
In violation of his promise to Tamar, Judah had not given her his son as a husband. Much time had passed, and Tamar decided to use some creative initiative to force Judah to acknowledge his responsibility (38:12). Deceiving Judah into thinking that she was a shrine prostitute, Tamar requested his personal seal as a pledge of his payment. When Judah heard that his daughter-in-law was pregnant as a result of prostitution, he demanded that she be executed-until he discovered that he was the father of her child (38:26). The strategy of deceit always rebounds back with consequences beyond what could be imagined.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our culture subtly endorses deceit. Millions of people cheat in school, cut corners on their taxes, commit adultery, and tell lies in the workplace or neighborhood. Deceit is an issue that begins in the heart (Jer. 17:9), and only when our hearts are transformed by the Word of God and the work of Christ can we be free from its boomerang effects. If you struggle with this insidious sin, read the following verses: Job 27:4; Psalm 32:2; Psalm 101:7; 1 Peter 2:1; 1 Peter 3:10; and Revelation 21:27.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 27, 2010
Loving God
READ: 1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. -1 John 4:11
Early in our marriage, I thought I knew the ultimate shortcut to my wife's heart. I arrived home one night with a bouquet of a dozen red roses behind my back. When I presented the flowers to Martie, she thanked me graciously, sniffed the flowers, and then took them into the kitchen. Not quite the response I had expected.
It was an introductory lesson in the reality that flowers are not my wife's primary language of love. While she appreciated the gesture, she was mentally calculating the cost of an expensive bouquet of flowers-a budget breaker for a young couple in seminary! And as I've discovered through the years, she is far more interested in my time and attention. When I devote myself to her in an uninterrupted and attentive way, that's when she really feels loved.
Did you ever wonder how God wants us to show that we love Him? We get a clue when we read, "He who loves God must love his brother also" (1 John 4:21). It's that simple. One of the primary ways we show our love for God is by loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we genuinely love each other, it brings pleasure to our heavenly Father.
So watch for opportunities to tell Jesus that you love Him. He's infinitely worth whatever it costs. - Joe Stowell
All those who say they love the Lord
But don't love one another,
Should question the relationship
They have with God the Father. -Sper
To show your love for God, share your love with others.
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Life's Proper Focus
Read Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
This parable really helps us bring life into the right perspective. The rich man in this story failed to do three things.
He failed to realize that he was only a steward and not the owner of his goods.
He failed to have an eternal perspective.
He failed to consider how brief this earthly life can be.
How did he fail in these three areas? By not understanding just how short life is and where to place his focus.
He talked about building barns but instead he had a burial.
He said he had many years but God said "this night."
He thought he was wise, but God said he was a fool.
Let's learn from his mistakes and bring our life into proper focus.
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Read: 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. - Colossians 3:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to data from the Unity Marketing Group in Stevens, Pennsylvania, Americans spent almost $706 billion on entertainment in 2004. As company president Pam Danziger explained, "Recreation and entertainment are purely discretionary and emotionally driven."
As we continue to study holiness and humor in Scripture, we must reckon with our own choices in entertainment, recreation, and humor. Our passage provides a strong warning about our priorities.
This letter from Paul to Timothy was the last missive written by the aging apostle. Throughout the letter, his passion for the gospel, sense of urgency, and commission to Timothy permeate each sentence. He knew his own days on earth were numbered, and he wanted to be sure to communicate each exhortation that the next generation needed to hear.
Our text warns of the traits that will be seen and celebrated in the last days. We might expect to read about shocking or barbaric attitudes and actions to be catalogued here; it's sobering to consider how unshocking most of us would find these descriptions. Lovers of money? Proud? Disobedient to parents? Unforgiving? Rash? If we were making a list of behaviors that signal the apocalypse, would we include these? Paul describes them as "terrible" (v. 1).
Included in the list is "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (v. 4). This sums up the root of all these sins. Rather than place God at the top of all priorities, people have placed themselves there. Rather than follow God's instructions for relationships, people follow their own agenda. When self is on the throne, terrible things will follow.
These sinful priorities can infiltrate our attempts to worship. When we value self-actualization above Scripture, seek pleasure above discipleship, promote profit above praise, or want entertainment above worship, we deny the power of the gospel (v. 5). The corrective is to measure our actions, attitude, and priorities against the truth of God in Scripture (vv. 14-17).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some ascetics have used these verses to claim that all pleasure or entertainment is sinful, but that view isn't supported here. Pleasure isn't inherently sinful, but it must be subordinated to God. Saturation in Scripture is one of the best ways to help keep our priorities and pursuits in line. You can supplement your daily Bible reading with a Scripture memory plan, reviewing note cards with verses throughout the day, or listening to music that uses Scripture as lyrics.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 28, 2010
God Needs You!
READ: Mark 11:1-7
If anyone says to you, "Why are you doing this?" say, "The Lord has need of it." -Mark 11:3
For His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus chose a donkey to serve as His royal transportation. His disciples were instructed to say, "The Lord has need of it" (Mark 11:3). Isn't it astounding that the Son of God should use such lowly means to accomplish His purposes? Alexander MacLaren commented on this: "Christ comes to us in like fashion, and brushes aside all our convenient excuses. He says, 'I want you, and that is enough.' "
Think of it! The Creator of the universe needs us and desires to fit us into His eternal design! Though all-powerful and not dependent on any creature, He has chosen to carry out His plans through lowly human instruments. If this were not so, He would have taken us to heaven as soon as He saved us by His grace.
Someone once asked Francis of Assisi how he was able to accomplish so much. He replied, "This may be why: The Lord looked down from heaven and said, 'Where can I find the weakest, littlest man on earth?' Then He saw me and said, 'I've found him. I will work through him, and he won't be proud of it. He'll see that I am only using him because of his insignificance.' "
You may be small in your own eyes, but God has need of you! - Paul Van Gorder
Yours is a mission you alone can fill,
Whether it be to build or teach or till;
Your goal may still be hidden from your view,
But somewhere God has urgent need of you. -Thayer
God is looking for ordinary people for extraordinary work.
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The Snare of Fear
Proverbs 29:25 tells us,
The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.
A snare is a noose used for catching an animal. Fear will cause you to be snared or trapped, just like an animal.
I have a friend in the church who has a very large nut tree in his yard, which the squirrels regularly raid. He put this big net over the tree, but it did not seem to deter the squirrels at all. So he finally got a trap and set it up on the roof right next to the nut tree. To date, he has caught about 120 squirrels.
When the squirrel is in the trap, it is totally at his mercy. It can't go anywhere. He happens to be a fairly merciful gentleman, so he takes them over to a local park and lets them go.
When fear gets a hold of your life, you become like one of those trapped squirrels-you are not going anywhere. You are at its mercy. You will not progress spiritually. It keeps you bound. The fear of man can keep you from obeying God; it will keep you from pleasing God. It will keep you from the joy you would experience when you trust God.
In fact, there is a contrast in our verse today. The man or woman who is bound by the fear of man, will not be trusting God in some area of his life. Look at the two parts of the verse together: The fear of man brings a snare, but... in contrast ...whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
Do not allow the fear of man to control your life. Instead, trust in the Lord.
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Read: Philippians 4:1-9
If anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. - Philippians 4:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
In The Magician's Nephew, part of the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, Aslan reassures the talking animals that he has created the legitimacy of laughter: "Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech."
Yesterday's passage gave a list of negative behaviors and attitudes to avoid; today's passage provides positive actions and perspectives to embrace. The apostle Paul calls us to rejoice! This is more than simply feeling merry or having a good time. The root of our rejoicing is in the Lord. Based on what our Lord has done for us, our joy does not depend on circumstances but on our situation in Christ (see Phil. 2:1-9).
We can also be free from worry, for we have access to God Himself in prayer (v. 6). By recognizing that His sovereign control is combined with His vast love for us, we can have peace that defies logical explanation.
Finally, Paul makes a list of qualities to inform our thoughts and attitudes-and yes, our sense of humor and comedy as well. The construction of this list hints at its unlimited nature; Paul recommends whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable . . . and then as if he knows he could keep going forever, he wraps up by saying, "if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things" (v. 8). Far from limiting us, God expands our horizon of things to enjoy and celebrate!
When it comes to making decisions about humor, we have a helpful guideline in these verses. Throughout this month, we've seen various examples of humor in Scripture, from comical characters to funny situations to absurd descriptions, so humor can be enjoyed by the people of God. The key is holding our humor to the standard described here. We should never compromise our holiness for the sake of humor. Humor that points to truth, a satire that pokes fun at evil, or a comedy that is well-done and lovely are all appropriate for believers.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It's probably easy to think of humor in our culture that doesn't meet the standards set in our passage. Can you think of examples that do? Mark Lowry, Dennis Swanberg, and Anita Renfroe all combine side-splitting comedy with a commitment to Christ. Writers like C. S. Lewis, Jerry Jenkins, John Koessler, and Marilynne Robinson weave humor throughout their writing. Veggie Tales are delightful cartoons that children (and adults!) enjoy. Even our sense of humor can be consistent with the guidelines in Philippians 4:8.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 29, 2010
Thanks, God!
READ: Psalm 105:1-5
Oh, give thanks to the Lord! -Psalm 105:1
At RBC Ministries, our human resources team has developed an effective and encouraging program that centers around gratefulness.
When an employee notices something good another employee does here at the office, he or she can take a special "Thank You" card provided by human resources and write a note of appreciation. It's a good feeling to walk into your office and find one of those cards on your desk.
Isn't it great to be thanked for a job well done? Doesn't a good, hearty "thank you" brighten your day? And doesn't it make your relationships a little more special-just to know that your work is not being taken for granted?
Everybody loves to be thanked. Even God. Our heavenly Father finds pleasure in our expression of thanks to Him. It's His will that we tell Him "Thank You." "Give thanks in all circumstances," Paul said, "for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess. 5:18 niv). The writer of Hebrews took it a step further by saying, "Let us be thankful, and so worship God" (12:28 niv).
Keep looking for ways to improve your relationship with God. Don't forget what may be the most basic way to worship and honor Him: Tell Him "Thanks." - Dave Branon
Then let us adore and give Him His right,
All glory and power, all wisdom and might,
All honor and blessing, with angels above,
And thanks never ceasing for infinite love. -Wesley
The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful heart.
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Don't Lose Out
In 1 Samuel 15:18-19, 24-26, Samuel, the prophet, comes to King Saul, and this is what he says,
"Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"... Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel."
Saul disobeyed God and then lied about it, tried to cover it, and tried to shift the blame to the people. Did you notice that part? Why? Because he feared the people.
Because of the fear of man, Samuel said to him, "You have lost your place." Later on he says, "God has found a man better than you, a man after His own heart." And He chose David to replace Saul as the king of Israel.
I want you to think about this: God had promised Saul that his seed would sit on the throne, but it was a conditional promise God gave to him.
Saul lost out because of his disobedience caused by the fear of man, and so did his offspring! And David, a better man than Saul, ended up on the throne of Israel, through whom our Savior came.
If the fear of man can rob us of our destiny and affect our offspring, just think what faith in God can do!
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Read: Ruth 1:1-22; 4:13-17
Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. - Ruth 4:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
Literary scholars define comedy as a narrative that begins with things going well before the characters encounter obstacles of some sort. The story resolves with a reversal of bad fortune and ensuing happiness for the characters. Sometimes described as the U-shaped narrative, it contrasts with tragedy, in which the obstacles prove too difficult to overcome.
Both secular literary scholars and biblical commentators have described the book of Ruth as an example of comedy. For the last few days of this month, we'll examine comedies of redemption in Scripture, beginning with this lovely little book.
The early days of happiness are briefly alluded to in the beginning of the book; Naomi had a husband and two sons and a life in Bethlehem, but famine struck and the family moved to Moab. There, Naomi's life fell apart, as first her husband and then both her sons died. Left with two daughters-in-law, Naomi decided to return to her hometown. Upon her return she declared, "Don't call me Naomi. . . . Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty" (1:20).
Chapters 2 and 3 contain a romantic comedy, in which Boaz and Ruth met, expressed interest in each other, and then had to overcome the hurdle that the nearest relative posed for their relationship. Once Boaz had been approved to exercise the rights and privileges of the kinsman-redeemer, he married Ruth.
This book is more than just a romantic comedy or a story with a happy ending. In addition to its theological themes about God's lovingkindness and care for His people, Ruth also serves as comedy of redemption. Notice the language at the end of the book. Naomi, who thought she had lost everything, heard this from her friends: "Praise to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. . . . He will renew your life" (vv. 14-15). Redemption is more than a feel-good tale-it means restoring hope from despair and bringing life from death.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have you experienced redemption? The world tells us to pursue romance and happiness, but God offers so much more-forgiveness of sin, peace with God, and a transformation from spiritual death to eternal life. This redemption is available to all who trust in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. He died as the punishment for our sin and was raised from the dead as the firstfruit of our own resurrection. If you want to be reconciled to God and receive redemption, call 1-800-NEED HIM, or talk with a trusted Christian friend.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 30, 2010
The Kingdom Of Me?
READ: 1 Peter 3:8-17
Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. -1 Peter 3:15
In 1977, 15-year-old Kevin Baugh and a teenage friend decided to create their own country, just for fun. The Republic of Molossia began as they drew a map, created paper money, and made a flag. Today, Mr. Baugh continues his micro-nation the same way it began-just for fun. When Chicago Tribune reporter Colleen Mastony toured his 1.3 acre kingdom in the Nevada desert, Baugh assured her he still pays US taxes, which he calls "foreign aid."
"It's always tongue-in-cheek," Baugh admits. "I'm doing this for the pleasure and enjoyment of having my own country."
Not many of us will create our own nation, but we all have a kingdom of the heart where we decide who will rule. The apostle Peter wrote: "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" (1 Peter 3:15). "Sanctify" means to set apart Christ as Lord or Ruler of our life.
There is something within each of us that longs to be in control of our lives. It may be only a small corner where we assert our spiritual independence and answer to no one but ourselves.
But true freedom comes when we allow Christ to rule our hearts. - David C. McCasland
'Tis mine to choose if self shall die
And never rise again;
'Tis mine to yield the throne to Christ
And bid Him rule and reign. -Christiansen
When Christ rules in our heart, our feet will walk in His ways.
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Let God Do His Job
Philippians 2:8-11 shows us how humility precedes honor,
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If God's good pleasure and His plan are to be worked out in our lives, we must walk in humility. It is a prerequisite for us to pass the test of humility. As we see here, because Jesus humbled Himself, God highly exalted Him. And at that point, no demon in hell could do a thing to prevent it.
When God promotes you, no person, no demon, no ungodly system can hold you back. God's exalting power is irresistible. It is undeniable, and it is undefeatable.
But a humble heart must come first. It has been said that no man stands taller than when he is on his knees before God. Let us humble ourselves and be obedient to God in every area of our lives. If we will lower ourselves, God will lift us. God's job is to exalt us, and our job is to humble ourselves. If we try to do God's job for Him, He will have to do our job for us.
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Read: Esther 3:8-15; 7:1-8:15
It was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor. - Esther 8:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
The festival of Purim is still celebrated in Judaism to commemorate the deliverance in the book of Esther. God's people were threatened with annihilation, but through a series of reversals of fortune, hidden identity, and Esther's courage, they triumphed over their tormentor. The comedic elements of this book have long been recognized, and accordingly, the celebration of Purim is a time of fun and merriment. Noisemakers are used during the public reading of Esther any time Haman's name is mentioned in order to signal disrespect for him, and delicious foods are shared with friends and family.
The book of Esther contains various forms of comedy, particularly relating to the fate of Haman. His dramatic reversal-he thinks he will be grandly honored by the king only to find that his elaborate plans for recognition are bestowed upon his arch-enemy Mordecai-is a classic version of comic misunderstanding (see Esther 6). Our focus today lies on the way the entire story of Esther dramatizes the comedy of redemption. Haman magnified a personal slight from Mordecai into a vendetta against all the Jews (3:6). The text implies that Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman because Jews reserved such devotion for God alone (see Daniel 3). By manipulating the king, Haman was able to procure an order to destroy all the Jews in Persia on one day (3:13).
Only Esther was in a position to intervene, but it involved risking her own life. With the spiritual support of her cousin Mordecai and the Jewish community, she agreed to plead with the king (4:16). Her ingenuity revealed the true nature of Haman's plot, and Haman was hanged on the gallows where he had intended to kill Mordecai (7:10).
Although Haman had been executed, the order against the Jews was irrevocable. Esther again beseeched the king to protect her people, and Mordecai was given the opportunity to issue a decree in the king's name empowering the Jews to resist any attack. What once appeared to be certain annihilation ended as a day of celebration.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The observance of Purim usually involves four elements: listening to the book of Esther read aloud; sending gifts of food to friends; giving food to the poor; and eating a festive meal. As part of reflecting on and celebrating our own great redemption, consider incorporating these into your schedule soon. Read the entire book of Esther, either on your own or with others, share food with friends and with those in need, and enjoy a meal together with loved ones. We can celebrate being delivered from certain death into abundant life!
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"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
- Matthew 5:3-9
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 31, 2010
The Beauty Of Forgiveness
READ: Luke 15:11-24
When he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran . . . and kissed him. -Luke 15:20
What started out as a collection has grown into a ministry opportunity for Larry and Mary Gerbens. For the past 10 years they've been collecting artistic works based on the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15. Their collection includes a painting by Rembrandt and a number of items by other artists depicting this story.
The Gerbens wanted to share their collection, so they put it on display at a local college. Larry said, "The artists have ministered to us, and we hope their work will minister to others."
As I wandered through the displays, I was touched by the deep need of the prodigal, his honest repentance, and the beautiful forgiveness of the father portrayed in the variety of art pieces-paintings, etchings, engravings, glasswork, sketches, and silk screens.
We have all been like the son in this story, who had other plans for his life than what his father had for him. We have all run away from our heavenly Father (Rom. 3:10-12). But He welcomes us when we come to Him.
You too will see the beauty of forgiveness in your heavenly Father's face when you cry out to Him, "Father, I have sinned . . ." (Luke 15:18). If you're away from Him, head home now and experience His love. - Anne Cetas
O Lord, I now admit my guilt,
And I accept Your grace;
Transform my life and help me grow
Until I see Your face. -Hess
When God forgives, He removes the sin and restores the soul.
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Humpty Dumpty?
Proverbs 27:2 gives us very wise words of advice,
Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth.
There are so many people, including Christians, who think God cannot get along without them. They think they are the reason they experience so much success.
It has been said that a man wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package.
When God grants you success and blesses you, you have to remain humble if you are going to retain your usefulness to God. The Scripture says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
There are plenty of men and women who at one time or another were on top, but today are on the bottom. I know examples inside and outside ministry. One story in particular comes to mind when I think of this principle.
There was a minister who once said, while making a plea for money, "No one is doing what we're doing throughout the world, and God needs us to carry on this work. The world cannot be reached without our ministry."
Granted, he was doing an incredible work in a lot of different countries. But the moment he said, "God can't get along without me," I thought of Humpty Dumpty. I just thought, "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!" I knew he was headed for a fall!
And you know what? That man is no longer in the position of prominence that he once was. And God seems to have gotten along fine without him.
Do not sing your own praises. Let others congratulate you if they will, but at the end of the day offer those praises to the One who really deserves it-the Lord.
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Read: Matthew 28:1-15
Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? - 1 Corinthians 15:55
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dante's epic Divine Comedy has often confused readers by its name. What could be funny about an epic journey through hell (Inferno), purgatory, (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso)? Using the classic literary model of comedy, however, Dante gave this title to his work because it is a work of hope, not despair. He believed that a true happy ending was possible only with the existence of the Divine who orders all things to an ultimate good. The Divine Comedy ends on the highest possible note with the vision of God.
As we conclude our study this month of humor in Scripture, we end with the highest note in the comedy of redemption: the story of God's saving work for His people. As one scholar noted, all other comedies found in the Bible rest on the foundation of the plot of salvation history itself, the U-shaped comedy of creation, fall, and redemption.
Jesus Himself embodied this perfectly. He was born as a baby, somehow encapsulating the mystery of being fully God and also fully human. He proclaimed the good news of repentance and reconciliation with God, yet was opposed and eventually executed.
If the story ended at the crucifixion, all of Scripture would be a tragedy. God would be defeated. Jesus would be pathetic. But in the greatest reversal in all of history, the death of the Son of God was not history itself, the U-shaped comedy of creation, fall, and redemption.
Jesus Himself embodied this perfectly. He was born as a baby, somehow encapsulating the mystery of being fully God and also fully human. He proclaimed the good news of repentance and reconciliation with God, yet was opposed and eventually executed.
If the story ended at the crucifixion, all of Scripture would be a tragedy. God would be defeated. Jesus would be pathetic. But in the greatest reversal in all of history, the death of the Son of God was not the hour of defeat, but rather the moment of victory! Jesus accomplished our salvation, and God raised Him from the dead.
The comedy of the resurrection has implications for us. First, it makes grace, the reversal of the penalty we deserve, possible. Second, it makes our own resurrection from the dead possible (see 1 Cor. 15). Finally, God's triumph over sin and death means that we who have been redeemed get to participate in rejoicing and worship for all eternity (see Rev. 21:3). God created humanity to dwell with Him, but the fall imposed separation. Jesus Christ has made a way for us to live with God. That "happy ending" will be just the beginning!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We see two different reactions to the resurrection of Jesus. The guards were afraid, and, in order to cover their own incompetence and protect the reputation of their employers, they were willing to accept bribes and spread lies (vv. 4, 12-15). The women were also afraid but responded with joy, obedience, and worship (vv. 8-9). Not everyone can appreciate the greatest comedy! How will you respond to Jesus? Will you try to hide your failings, or will you respond with joy, obedience, and worship before the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer?
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"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
To Speak Or Not To Speak
READ: Mark 14:53-65
[Jesus] kept silent and answered nothing. -Mark 14:61
Sometimes silence is the best response to a false charge. At other times we must speak up.
When false witnesses accused Jesus as He stood before the Sanhedrin, He "kept silent" (Mark 14:53-61). Defending Himself would have been useless. Furthermore, He was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 53:7. But earlier in His ministry, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, challenging them to prove that He sinned (John 8:13-59).
A pastor resigned from his church because a few members made untrue statements about him. He thought it unchristian to defend himself, and in some instances it is. But in this case, the troublemakers needed to be confronted and their false charges refuted. He should have urged them to repent or face church discipline.
Saying nothing may allow wrongdoers to go unchallenged in their evil ways. But if God's Spirit leads us to remain silent, or if we want merely to try to salvage our wounded pride, then we should hold our tongue.
Are you being falsely accused? If you discern that it's futile to argue, or if your pride has been hurt, ask God for grace to say nothing. But if you feel concern for the wrongdoers and want to see justice done, speak up! - Herbert Vander Lugt
Lord, give us wisdom to discern
When what is false must be revealed
Or if we need Your grace and strength
To close our lips and keep them sealed. -D. De Haan
Silence can be valuable; don't break it unless you can improve on it.
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Faithfulness and Open Doors
In 1 Timothy 1:12 Paul writes,
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.
According to Paul, Jesus did three things. First, He enabled him, which means Jesus is the One who puts the gifting in you. He is the One who gives you talent. He is the One who gives you the ability.
Second, Paul says that Jesus counted him faithful. Apparently, Jesus is watching and He expects you and me to be faithful.
Third, Paul says that Jesus put him into the ministry. In other words, Jesus opens doors when we are faithful, doors that no man can shut. When the way seems blocked, Jesus can make a way where there is no way.
Here is the point. It is not enough just to be enabled. Some of the greatest, most gifted, and talented people in the world are living far, far below their potential. While the enablement is there, Jesus has not found them faithful yet, and so certain doors of opportunity remain shut.
Having the gifting is not enough. You need to have both the gifting and be faithful. When both are there, Jesus opens doors.
Recognize and develop the gifting God has given you, but focus on being faithful so that God can open doors in your life.
Here are a few other verses that also make it clear that faithfulness is the road between enablement and open doors,
A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20).
"His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord'" (Matthew 25:21).
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How priceless is your unfailing love! - Psalm 36:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
An American poet once claimed: "If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel." This same sense of the power of poetry reverberates through the Psalms as the Hebrew poets awaken our slumbering eyes and restless hearts to God's indescribable love. This month we will explore the vast expanse of the love of God; today we begin our study with praise and adoration through the words of one of the Bible's most prolific poets, King David.
The Psalms were originally written in Hebrew, and because words and word order are extremely significant in poetry, let us consider these details in our study. In Hebrew, verse 5 of today's passage begins with "LORD," and verse 6 ends with "LORD." This is the same name that God declared to Moses in Exodus 34, which we'll look at tomorrow. This name carries great meaning, and its placement in Psalm 36:5-6 reflects God's immeasurable and inexpressible character like the arrows at the ends of a number line, indicating infinity. In between the name of God, the poet paints four images that characterize God's love, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice as never-ending, vast, immovable, and mysterious. Verses 5 and 6 certainly deliver us from the limited ways we see and feel God.
Notice that the word love is repeated three times in only 6 verses. The Hebrew word is hesed or loyal lovingkindness. More specifically, hesed refers to lovingkindness that is unelicited and often undeserved. The end of verse 7 reminds us that God's love is a haven of protection to all people.
Tucked inside Psalm 36 are verses 8 and 9. Even more subtle are four words within these two verses: "your house" and "with you." God's house is His temple, the place where His glory dwells (Ps. 26:8), His presence among His people. Throughout the Bible, God promises to be with us, to go with His people. David recalls that in God's presence, there is the fullness of His love; when we are with God, we find His life and His light.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's love is not something we merely study with our minds, holding the topic at arm's length. As you sing this psalm with King David today, purposefully place yourself into God's presence. James 4:8 encourages us that if we come near to God, He will come near to us. Try using your imagination as you rest in God's love and presence today. Picture yourself sitting peacefully at Jesus' feet as Mary did (Luke 10:39) or entering God's temple as Isaiah and the psalmists did (Isa. 6:1-8; Psalm 84).
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"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
- Matthew 5:3-9
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 02, 2010
Like A Lamb
READ: John 15:9-17
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. -Isaiah 53:7
In 1602, Italian artist Caravaggio produced a painting called The Taking of Christ. This work, an early example of the Baroque style, is compelling. Created in dark hues, it allows the viewer to contemplate Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. Two main elements of the scene depicted in the painting demand the observer's attention. The first is Judas as he delivers the traitor's kiss. Immediately, however, the viewer's focus is drawn toward Jesus' hands, which are passively clasped together to show that He offered no resistance to this injustice. Although He possessed the power to create a universe, Christ gave Himself up voluntarily to His captors and to the waiting cross.
Long before this scene took place, Jesus told His listeners that no one could take His life from Him-He would lay it down willingly (John 10:18). This heart of voluntary surrender was prophesied by Isaiah, who wrote, "He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth" (Isa. 53:7).
Christ's lamblike self-sacrifice is a grand indicator of His powerful love. "Greater love has no one than this," He explained, "than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13). Think of it. Jesus loved you that much! - Bill Crowder
Love sent the Savior to die in my stead.
Why should He love me so?
Meekly to Calvary's cross He was led.
Why should He love me so? -Harkness
The nail-pierced hands of Jesus reveal the love-filled heart of God.
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Not in the Abundance of Things
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:13-15).
Life is not about things and how much "stuff" you can accumulate. Your identity and value as a person should not be based on the abundance of your possessions.
If, however, your sense of value as a person is wrapped up in your things, what happens if you lose those things?
A relative of mine from a few generations back had all of his property confiscated by the government after the Civil War. He died a broken and bitter man. That is the end of someone whose identity and sense of worth are tied up in their things.
This man that came to Jesus to sort out his inheritance had the real treasure in front of him all the time, but he couldn't see it because "things" were in the way. The real treasure was his brother!
He was at odds with his brother. There was friction and tension between them over their inheritance. Apparently this man was willing to destroy his relationship with his brother for things!
Life does not consist in the abundance of things we possess, but in the riches of the relationships we have!
In tomorrow's devotional I want to share three relationships that make a person rich.
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Read: Exodus 34:4-7
I the LORD do not change. - Malachi 3:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In ancient Hebrew culture, the function of a name was not simply to distinguish one person from another. A name signified a person's character, reputation, authority, and will. Our passage today records God's declaration of His own name, and from it we see important things about God more clearly.
The phrase "like the first ones" should intrigue us and cause us to look back in Exodus to understand the history of today's passage (v. 4). While Moses was with God on Mount Sinai, God inscribed His law on the first two stone tablets (Ex. 24:12-18; 31:18), but the people quickly grew impatient, for Moses was on the mountain for forty days and nights. With the help of Aaron, the people erected an idol, worshiped, and sacrificed to this golden calf (Exodus 32). When Moses descended from the mountain and saw the people's idolatry, he broke the original two tablets in anger (v. 19). The people had already betrayed God and broken the first commandment.
The golden calf episode illuminates the quickness of God's people to turn their hearts to worship false gods. Our passage today illustrates the depth of God's love and forgiveness. When God proclaims His name, He is not exclusively announcing His response to the Israelites' unfaithfulness at Mount Sinai. He is declaring who He is eternally as our covenant God. His name signifies who He is: He is always gracious and compassionate, always slow to anger, always abounding in love and faithfulness.
The people are confident that God's declaration is trustworthy, because God confirms it by His actions. Israel completely betrayed their covenant relationship with God. But even after the Israelites' idolatrous hearts worshiped other gods, the LORD demonstrates unimaginable grace, patience, and forgiveness by inviting Moses back to the mountain to rewrite the words that were on the first tablets (34:1-2). It is crucial, however, that we fully understand what God is saying. He also says that He "does not leave the guilty unpunished" (v. 7), and He confirms this promise by His actions too (32:33-35).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The greatest manifestation of the LORD's name is the word made flesh, Jesus Christ. In fact, John declares that "grace and truth" came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). In the original language, John uses the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew words used for "love and faithfulness" from our passage today to connect Jesus with the LORD himself. Today, praise God for His eternal grace and compassion and abounding love and faithfulness to you through Christ. Let Psalm 145 guide your prayers and praise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 03, 2010
A New Normal
READ: Romans 6:1-11
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. -Romans 6:4
After my doctor announced that I had cancer, I tried to listen to what he said, but I couldn't. I went home, pulled a blanket over my head, and fell asleep on the couch, as if sleeping could change the diagnosis.
When I finally gained enough strength to tell my loved ones, my friend Judy Schreur said something especially memorable. After expressing her sympathy, she said, "This is what will happen. You will feel really bad for 3 days. Then you will get up, figure out what you have to do, and get on with your life." Then she added, "I think it has to do with death, burial, and resurrection."
At the time, I didn't believe it. I was sure that life as I knew it was over. Nothing would ever be the same. I couldn't imagine feeling normal again. But she was right. Three days later I woke up and realized I didn't feel quite so bad. And little by little, despite the physical misery of chemotherapy treatments, my emotional and spiritual condition improved significantly. I "died" to my old reality and was "raised" to a new normal.
Thankfully, God is in the business of resurrection. For those who have died in Christ, the death of one reality means resurrection to a new, glorious normal so that we can "walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). - Julie Ackerman Link
Jesus redeemed us and died in our stead;
In Him we died and rose from the dead.
No longer is death a thing that we dread;
The old is behind us, the new is ahead. -D. De Haan
To be "in Christ" is to share in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection.
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Three Relationships that Make Us Rich
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:13-15).
This man came to Jesus to get him to "sort his brother out" over the inheritance, not realizing that his brother was the real treasure in his life - not the things he might inherit.
Here are three relationships that make us rich:
1. Our relationship with God. To know God makes you rich, no matter what material resources you may or may not have.
Some of those that the world would call rich are actually bankrupt when it comes to the most important treasure of all.
2. Our relationship with others. People, not things, are the real treasures in life. I can honestly say that I am a rich man. I have family and friends that I love and that love me. Things lose their meaning, and serve as a very poor substitute for relationships with people.
3. Our relationship with our own heart. Commune with your own heart... declares the psalmist in Psalm 4:4 (KJV).
That means hold some serious communication with your heart-get acquainted with your heart. Don't let you and your own heart be strangers!
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Read: Hosea 2:2-23; 11:1-9
I have loved you with an everlasting love. - Jeremiaha 31:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
God as husband and God as father are two biblical metaphors that enlarge our understanding of God's love. They reveal that our Sovereign Creator is not distant or indifferent, and they illustrate the intimacy of our relationship with God, as well as His eternal fidelity and compassion. For the next few days, we will focus on God as husband and God as father; today's passages are driven by these metaphors. First, Hosea 2:2-23 envisions God as Israel's husband, and Israel as an adulterous wife. Hosea 11:1-9 pictures God as Israel's compassionate father, and Israel as a rebellious child.
Hosea prophesied in the 8th century B.C., until the fall of Israel's northern kingdom to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. His primary indictment against God's people is summarized in 4:1-2. Like at Sinai, God's people rebelled and turned to idolatry. The astonishing message that Hosea brings is one of God's everlasting love. Despite the Israelites' unfaithfulness, the LORD loves them.
Hosea 2:2-13 reeks of disenchantment. The love relationship between God and His people has soured subsequent to Israel's unfaithfulness. Israel is under God's curse. The sweet aroma of verses 14 through 23, however, overpowers the curse with a picture of blessing and renewed relationship. "Betroth" appears three times in two verses (vv. 19-20). In the original Hebrew version of this poetry, verses 19 and 20 are three lines that each begin with "I will betroth you." This is the language of a marriage covenant and is used figuratively to represent the LORD's covenant mercy and unbreakable love. Notice the five strong words that describe the LORD's betrothal: righteousness, justice, love, compassion, and faithfulness.
Hosea 11:1-7 bears the weight of a parent's broken heart. The father loves, nurtures, teaches, and feeds the child, but the child scorns this sacrificial love only to effectively call another "daddy." Our passage uncovers something distinct about God's love: "for I am God, and not man" (v. 9). This declaration forever distinguishes God's love from human love.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The Bible commonly refers to God as husband and father. The closeness of relationship between God and His people is not something to overlook or take for granted. In fact, among the world's religions, our intimate and loving relationship with God in Christ is the unique and distinctive element of Christianity. If you wish to broaden your understanding of the various pictures of God in the Bible, including husband and father, Dale and Sandy Larsen's ten-week Bible study, Images of God, is an excellent guide.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 04, 2010
Many People
READ: Acts 18:1-11
I have many people in this city. -Acts 18:10
New York City. Easter Sunday, 7:30 a.m. I was the only customer at Jimmy's Diner in East Harlem when a man entered and approached my table. He said, "Good morning, and God bless you," left a gospel tract, and quickly walked out. I smiled, appreciating his witness and realizing that God has His people everywhere. That night I attended church with our daughter Debbie, joining an enthusiastic congregation of 300 people, most in their twenties and thirties. Their infectious love for Christ and others was a bright light in a city that is often considered spiritually dark.
In the first century, Paul visited the Greek city of Corinth, which was known for its immorality and corruption. When he faced opposition for presenting Jesus as Messiah, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city" (Acts 18:9-10).
No matter where we go, the Lord's people are there. The risen Christ is powerfully present in and through all who know Him. The Lord has His people where you are today. Look for them. Join them.
Christ is risen indeed! - David C. McCasland
When Christians join in blessed fellowship
Commemorating Jesus' resurrection,
They sense a common bond of unity-
Their mutual faith in Him the true connection. -Hess
God has His people where you are today.
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Who Made the Sun Shine?
Look again at Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Take a look at the few words that this man spoke. In his short declaration, he uses the word I six times and the word my five times!
His perspective was a very selfish one.
Here are a few questions to ponder:
· Who gave the rain that made his crops grow?
· Who made the soil out of which his crops grew?
· Who made the seed he planted?
· Who caused the sun to shine?
· Who gave him the physical strength to work the field?
· Who gave him his soul?
The answer to all of those is God. Yet he makes no acknowledgement of God in his speech, planning, or giving. He should have been thanking God for all His blessings and asking the Lord what He wanted done with His things.
Be faithful to acknowledge God and to ask Him what to do with His resources over which you are a steward.
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Read: Isaiah 54:1-10
Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. - Psalm 30:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Jewish calendar includes a period of mourning to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. The three-week period of sorrow culminates in a day of fasting. On the Sabbath following the fast, Isaiah's prophecy of consolation is read aloud, inaugurating a time of rejoicing. The time of grief and despair in Israel's history was not short-lived. And as we take time to understand the heartache, we will increasingly identify with the hope and expectancy of today's passage.
Under Babylonian captivity, God's people despaired. Jerusalem was desolate, the Temple was destroyed, and they were in exile. We can hear the people's pain and resignation during this oppression in Psalm 137. Judah fell to Babylonian captivity around 586 B.C. There was no hope of redemption until 539 B.C. when Cyrus, King of Persia, rose to power and defeated the Babylonians. Then the LORD began to work through Persian emperors to restore His people, Jerusalem, and the Temple. Isaiah 40 is a proclamation like a peaceful dawn after a turbulent night. God declares that the time in exile is over; He is making a way for the people's return; and His glory will be revealed once more (vv. 1-11). Isaiah 54:1-10 is part of this long-awaited message of hope of God's redemption.
Jerusalem is the barren woman (v. 1). Verses 2 and 3 invite the city to expand to make room for the people who will return. God is bringing renewal. Jerusalem will no longer be deserted in shame and dishonor; the future will make the people forget the former days (v. 4). Why? God the Creator is also the husband who redeems (v. 5).
The Lord's compassion is cited three times (vv. 7, 10). Then God references His promise to Noah (Gen. 9:8-17), once again making an eternal covenant with His people. He calls it a "covenant of peace" and binds Himself to His people in "unfailing love" (vv. 9-10). God is the perfect, faithful husband. His covenant love is unshakable and immovable.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have you ever felt as if God was very far off or abandoned by Him? God's people certainly felt forsaken while in exile. King David also cried out in loneliness and despair: "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?" (Psalm 13). The great news of today's passage is that God has forever promised His unfailing love; He sealed this oath in Jesus' death and resurrection (Heb. 13:5-6). Pray for eyes to discern God's presence in your circumstances. Know that Christ is with you even in the darkest days.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
He is Risen! Let's praise His name!
Happy Easter!
Daily Devotional
April 05, 2010
The Power Of Praise
READ: Isaiah 61:1-3
The Lord has anointed Me . . . to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning. -Isaiah 61:1,3
Praise is powerful! When Scottish pastor Robert Murray McCheyne was troubled with a coldness of heart toward the things of the Lord, he would sing the praises of God until he felt revived in his spirit. Those in his household were often able to tell what hour he awoke because he began the day with a psalm of praise.
One day, while he was trying to prepare his heart for preaching, he wrote in his journal: "Is it the desire of my heart to be made altogether holy? . . . Lord, You know all things . . . . I've felt so much deadness and grief that I cannot grieve for this deadness. Toward evening I revived. Got a calm spirit through [singing psalms] and prayer." McCheyne had been uplifted by praising God.
Perhaps you feel as if you are mired in what John Bunyan called the "slough of despond." Lift a song of praise to the Lord. The psalmist said, "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever" (89:1). When we do that, the praise will flow not only from our lips but also from our heart. The Lord delights to give "the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness" (Isa. 61:3).
Yes, "it is good to sing praises to our God"-at all times (Ps. 147:1). - Paul Van Gorder
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
To His feet your tribute bring;
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Evermore His praises sing. -Lyte
If you find yourself wearing a spirit of heaviness, try on a garment of praise.
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It's All Mapped Out
One of the great truths revealed in Scripture is that the end is determined from the beginning. What I mean by that is God sees the end from the beginning. He already has a plan for you. He has already got the whole thing worked out.
Consider what God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."
Before Jeremiah was ever born, God had his destiny, a plan for his life, all worked out. That truth applies to you and me, and that helps me rest at night. It is great to know I do not have to figure this whole thing out. Sometimes we see through a glass darkly. But you know what? God sees everything perfectly.
This same truth is echoed in Ephesians 1:4,
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Did you know you were chosen before God laid the foundation for this world? That was a long time ago. God knew you before you ever existed. He knew you before the world was here. You were chosen in Him. You were not an accident. God knew you.
Again, this truth is affirmed in Ephesians 2:10,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The beforehand is before the foundation of the world. Just like God knew you, He prepared specific good works for you that you should walk in them long before you ever came into existence.
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Read: Numbers 14:1-45
How long will they refuse to believe in me? - Numbers 14:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
After fleeing from Egypt, God's people encamped in the Desert of Paran. The Lord commanded Moses to send twelve men to explore the Promised Land of Canaan (Numbers 13). The scouting trip lasted forty days. The explorers returned with a mixed report (13:27-28). They roused the whole Israelite community to fear the people in the land and distrust the Lord. Only two men, Joshua and Caleb, sustained confidence in the Lord's plan. This is the context of our passage today.
Verses 1 through 12 recount the heightening tension between the people and the four faithful men (Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua). Notice the emphasis that everyone is grumbling and rebelling: "all," "whole," and "entire" are used seven times (vv. 1-10). The people speculate about alternatives (vv. 2-3; cf. Gen. 3:1-6). They question God's trustworthiness and take matters into their own hands. Despite Joshua and Caleb's attempt to change their hearts, the Israelites remain obstinate, and the Lord intervenes (vv. 10-12).
Moses mediates and seeks God's restraint (Ex. 32:11-13). First, he appeals to God's reputation among the Egyptians (vv. 13-16). Then, he evokes the Lord's promise by referencing the declaration of his name (vv. 17-19; Ex. 34:4-7). The Lord is gracious and compassionate and forgives them (v. 20). Yet, He does not leave the guilty unpunished (vv. 21-35). God declares that everyone who is 20 years old or older and grumbled against Him will die in the desert and not see the Promised Land; the scouts who kindled the rebellion are killed immediately. This passage also illuminates what it means that the Lord punishes the children for the sin of the fathers (v. 33).
When the people realize that their heavenly Father is serious and true to His name, they change their tune. They try to repent, but it is too late (vv. 40-41). Moses warns them that the Lord will not go with them (vv. 42-43), but "in their presumption" they attempt to redeem what they have broken-and are defeated (v. 45).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
At the heart of the people's contempt was their refusal to believe God (v. 11), to trust that He knows best, and to surrender to His plan, despite perceived difficulties along the way. Have you ever thought, "Isn't there a better way, Lord?" or "I know where you are calling me, but it is dangerous with potential for failure and suffering." Let the Spirit search your heart for these kinds of thoughts in your current circumstances. Repent and ask the Lord to quicken your heart to trust Him like Joshua and Caleb did.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 05, 2010
For This I Have Jesus
READ: Psalm 66:1-15
I will never leave you nor forsake you. -Hebrews 13:5
In an evangelistic meeting in Ireland, the speaker was explaining what it means to abide in Christ and to trust Him completely in every trial. Concluding his message, he repeated several times, "It means that in every circumstance you can keep on saying, 'For this I have Jesus.' "
The meeting was then opened for testimonies. One young woman said, "Just a few minutes ago I was handed this telegram. It reads, 'Mother is very ill; take train home immediately.' When I saw those words, I knew that tonight's message was meant just for me. My heart looked up and said, 'For this I have Jesus.' Instantly a peace and strength flooded my soul."
Three or four weeks later the evangelist received a letter from this woman. It read, "Thank you again for the message you gave that day. Life has become an uninterrupted psalm of victory, for I have come to realize that no matter what life brings, for this I have Jesus."
That believer in Christ had found in her Savior the One who would be with her "through fire and through water," and who would bring her "out to rich fulfillment" (Ps. 66:12).
If you are enduring a great trial of affliction, remember-for this you have Jesus! - Henry G. Bosch
I've found a refuge from life's care in Jesus,
I am hiding in His love divine;
He fully understands my soul's deep longing,
And He whispers softly, "Thou art Mine." -Christiansen
If every circumstance finds us abiding in Christ, we will find Christ abiding with us in every circumstance.
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Preparation for Promotion
It is easy for us to be impatient with God's timeline of blessing, or to wonder why God is not prospering us as we think we should be.
In 1 Samuel 22:1-2, we are given a snapshot of how God prepared David, a little shepherd boy, to be king,
David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him.
Just think how David must have felt. God tells Him, "David, you're going to be Israel's next king!" but Saul is chasing him across the countryside and the people who are following him are all the outcasts, the people with problems, the people who are unhappy, the people who don't have any money.
On top of that, the next few verses of this passage talk about how David had to move his family to a foreign country just to keep them safe. Some promotion!
But you know what? Through it all David was learning how to trust God and how to manage people. His character was being tested. He was being fitted by God to wear the garments of a king: the garment of mercy, fairness, and wisdom, the shoes of decisiveness, the belt of strength, covered with a robe of gentleness.
The fullness of his promotion came in due season, and so will yours. David was not ready to be king when he walked out of the field as a young shepherd boy, so do not be surprised if you also need to be prepared for your promotion!
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Read: Matthew 7:7-12
Yet not as I will, but as you will. - Matthew 26:39
TODAY IN THE WORD
It was a sticky August day as the Johnsons waited in helmets and life jackets, paddles in hand. As their whitewater rafting guide, Steve, described the Class 4 rapids of the Upper Ocoee River, Deborah began to have second thoughts. How could she possibly survive hydraulics with names like "Godzilla" and "Roach Motel"? Terrified, Deborah announced she would not be joining the family, when Steve addressed her directly: "Don't worry! I'm an expert guide; if you do everything I say, you will be fine. In fact, you can sit close to me, and I will always have my eye on you."
This story echoes the context of today's reading. The Sermon on the Mount begins in Matthew 5. Jesus invites His disciples to embark on a perilous mission full of persecution, reconciliation, love of enemies, prayerfulness, and peace. The journey seems impossible, yet Jesus anchors hope for survival in the goodness of our heavenly Father.
Verse 7 presents the main idea of today's passage. "Ask" occurs five times in five verses. "Ask," "seek," and "knock" all refer to prayer. Jesus' message is that when His disciples beseech the Father through prayer, they will receive "good gifts" (v. 11).
Two illustrations shape the context of prayer and clarify the essence of Jesus' words. The context is a loving relationship between God the Father and his children. Prayer is not a fanciful cry to a capricious or disdainful deity, but rather intimate communication with our heavenly Father. Jesus juxtaposes an earthly father and God the Father. If earthly fathers are sinful, yet respond to their children's requests with good things, "how much more" will God-who is holy, righteous, and loving-do the same.
Today's passage is about God's love as a good Father. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount reveals the difficult life of a faithful disciple. But His message here is one of encouragement. God the Father cares for His children, and He will give all that is needed for this journey to all who rely on Him through prayer.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage heartens us, yet we cannot help but wonder about unanswered prayer. New Testament scholar Dale Allison reminds us that Jesus experienced a divergent answer to His prayer in Gethsemane: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me" (Matt. 26:39). This teaches us two points about prayer. First, prayers will be answered only in accordance with God's will. Second, all prayers must be offered with the same qualification Jesus prays: "yet not as I will, but as you will."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 07, 2010
Our Only Hope
READ: 1 Thess. 4:13-18
We should live . . . godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope. -Titus 2:12-13
An anonymous author wrote, "When I was first converted, and for some years afterward, the second coming of Christ was a thrilling idea, a blessed hope, a glorious promise, the theme of some of the most inspiring songs of the church.
"Later it became an accepted tenet of faith, a cardinal doctrine, a kind of invisible trademark of my ministry. It was the favorite arena of my theological discussions, in the pulpit and in print. Now suddenly the second coming means something more to me. Paul called it 'the blessed hope.' But today it appears as the only hope of the world."
From the human standpoint, there is no solution for the struggles of the world. Leaders are naturally frustrated in trying to deal with the increasing problems in society. The only complete and permanent solution is found in the return of Christ to earth. When He comes, He will set up His kingdom. He will rule the nations in righteousness, and "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Hab. 2:14).
As we await our Savior's return, let us keep on praying, working, and watching, while "looking for the blessed hope"-our only hope for this world. - Richard De Haan
And for the hope of His return,
Dear Lord, Your name we praise;
With longing hearts we watch and wait
For that great day of days! -Sherwood
As this world gets darker, the promised return of God's Son gets brighter.
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At Just the Right Time
It is easy for us to get anxious when it seems like God is moving more slowly than we would like. But Scripture is clear, God's purposes have their appointed times. They are fulfilled in their season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
And there is 1 Peter 5:6-7, which says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Humility and God's exalting of you are two things that are tied together. Perhaps you are feeling pretty frazzled, wondering, "God, when's it going to happen?" Just continue to cast your cares on Him. He will promote you in due time. Do not worry about it.
In fact, the phrase that says, that He may exalt you in due time, literally means "at the set time" or "at the time prearranged by God."
When your character has been shaped and molded enough, and when other events are ready and in their proper place, then God will promote and exalt you.
Think about Moses who had it in his heart to be a deliverer and a judge, but when he first acted on it he failed miserably. He was 40 years early! (See Acts 7:23-34). The Israelites were not ready to be delivered yet. God had to work at the other end of the line.
Remember, God may have put some things in your heart, but the timing may not be quite right. There may be some work He needs to do in your life, or there may be some other factors God is working on. Until those things come together, God will not push you into that position.
So, focus on being faithful and let God worry about just the right time.
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Read: 1 John 3:1-2
To know this love that surpasses knowledge. - Ephesians 3:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Basil Pennington, in his work True Self/False Self, suggests that the false self is an identity based on what you have, what you do, and what others think about you. In stark contrast to this is the true self in Christ, which is who we are before God and in God-Christ living in us, as Paul put it to the churches in Galatia (Gal. 2:20). Our passage today sheds light on the core of our identity before God and in God, which is anchored in His lavish love for us.
In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the first word of verse 1 is an exhortation. Some translations reflect this word as "see" or "behold." The author is trying to grab our attention in order to say: fix your eyes on this-the Father's extravagant love.
The most powerful manifestation of God's love is our adoption into the family of God. As John clarifies in his Gospel, children of God are "born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God," that is, born of the Spirit (John 1:13). Paul also speaks about spiritual adoption in Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 3:26-4:7.
Through God's love in Christ, we are children of God. This new identity speaks not only to God's personal and intimate nature, but also redefines our own disposition and future. Our relationship to the world reflects God's relationship to the world (v. 1).
Also, "we shall be like him" (v. 2); we are being transformed into the likeness of God's Son, Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). Each day we are being changed by God's Spirit. One day, though, we will be wholly renewed. Verse 2 describes the sequence of events resulting in the completion of this transformation: Christ will appear, referring to His second coming; we will see Him as He is; and then we will be like Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We think and speak, act and react, love and receive love, give and forgive out of our understanding of our identity. Although we know in our heads that we are God's children, often this reality gets tangled up and distorted in our hearts. Today's passage challenges us to know that we are deeply loved by God. To the extent we know this reality, we will truly love God, others, and ourselves. Join Paul in the prayer of Ephesians 3:14-17; ask the Holy Spirit to impress on your heart an understanding of God's lavish love for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 08, 2010
Clean Up The Environment
READ: Ephesians 4:17-32
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. -Ephesians 4:29
What a frustrating problem pollution is! Everybody suffers with it, yet everybody contributes to it.
Pollution takes many forms, but one type is often overlooked. Charles Swindoll calls it "verbal pollution," passed around by grumblers, complainers, and criticizers. "The poison of pessimism," Swindoll writes, "creates an atmosphere of wholesale negativism where nothing but the bad side of everything is emphasized."
A group of Christian friends became concerned about this form of pollution and their personal part in it. So they made a pact to avoid critical words for a whole week. They were surprised to find how little they spoke! As they continued the experiment, they actually had to relearn conversation skills.
In Ephesians 4, Paul called believers to that sort of decisive action. He said we are to "put off" the old self and its conduct that grieves the Holy Spirit (vv.22,30) and "put on" the new self that builds up others (v.24). As we rely on the help of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16), we can make those changes in our conduct, our thinking, and our speaking.
If we want to be rid of verbal pollution, we must choose to change and ask for God's help. It's a great way to start cleaning up our spiritual environment. - Joanie Yoder
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Attractive...or Unattractive?
Titus 2:9-10 says this,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
Let's focus on that phrase at the end, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. We adorn the gospel. We dress it up in clothes, as it were.
The New International Version says this, And not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. We make the gospel attractive or unattractive.
I was returning from Europe one time when, just before they closed the door of the plane, a woman rushed in and sat next to me. She was wearing a baggy wool cap pulled down low, a pair of glasses sticking out from underneath the cap, a big baggy woolen sweater, and a bright orange sweat suit.
When we took off, I closed my eyes and took a little snooze. When I opened my eyes and looked at her, I was startled because there was this beautiful woman sitting next to me. I was really shocked.
She turned out to be an actress who, I guess, was traveling incognito. There was this amazing lady hidden under all this frumpy stuff. Sometimes we take this amazing gospel that we have, and we adorn it in such a way that it is unattractive.
We must be careful to make the gospel attractive. But in order to do that, I believe it is important to see how we make the gospel unattractive first.
Our next few devotionals will deal with that subject.
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Read: 1 John 3:1-2
To know this love that surpasses knowledge. - Ephesians 3:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Basil Pennington, in his work True Self/False Self, suggests that the false self is an identity based on what you have, what you do, and what others think about you. In stark contrast to this is the true self in Christ, which is who we are before God and in God-Christ living in us, as Paul put it to the churches in Galatia (Gal. 2:20). Our passage today sheds light on the core of our identity before God and in God, which is anchored in His lavish love for us.
In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the first word of verse 1 is an exhortation. Some translations reflect this word as "see" or "behold." The author is trying to grab our attention in order to say: fix your eyes on this-the Father's extravagant love.
The most powerful manifestation of God's love is our adoption into the family of God. As John clarifies in his Gospel, children of God are "born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God," that is, born of the Spirit (John 1:13). Paul also speaks about spiritual adoption in Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 3:26-4:7.
Through God's love in Christ, we are children of God. This new identity speaks not only to God's personal and intimate nature, but also redefines our own disposition and future. Our relationship to the world reflects God's relationship to the world (v. 1).
Also, "we shall be like him" (v. 2); we are being transformed into the likeness of God's Son, Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). Each day we are being changed by God's Spirit. One day, though, we will be wholly renewed. Verse 2 describes the sequence of events resulting in the completion of this transformation: Christ will appear, referring to His second coming; we will see Him as He is; and then we will be like Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We think and speak, act and react, love and receive love, give and forgive out of our understanding of our identity. Although we know in our heads that we are God's children, often this reality gets tangled up and distorted in our hearts. Today's passage challenges us to know that we are deeply loved by God. To the extent we know this reality, we will truly love God, others, and ourselves. Join Paul in the prayer of Ephesians 3:14-17; ask the Holy Spirit to impress on your heart an understanding of God's lavish love for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 09, 2010
The Fear Of Falling
READ: Psalm 46
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. -Deuteronomy 33:27
Have you ever dreamed that you were falling out of bed or from some great height, and you awoke in fright? I remember that as a boy I would often be awakened by such a terrifying feeling.
I heard about a man who had this sensation as soon as he slipped into sleep. He was so rudely awakened by his sense of falling that he was afraid to go back to sleep. He feared he would die, and he imagined he was falling into a bottomless pit.
Then one evening as he was strolling through a cemetery, he saw this phrase engraved on a tombstone:
Underneath Are The Everlasting Arms
These words reminded him that when believers die, they are safely carried by the Lord to their home in heaven. He recalled the assurance of the psalmist, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me" (Ps. 23:4).
The once-fearful man realized that in life and in death- and even in sleep-the "everlasting arms" of our loving Lord are there to catch and hold us. That night he was able to sing what he was taught in childhood, "Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed!" At last he could fall asleep without fear. - M.R. De Haan
I can trust my loving Savior
When I fear the world's alarms;
There's no safer place of resting
Than His everlasting arms. -Hess
You can trust God in the dark as well as in the light.
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Double Standard
I would like for you to read again the Scripture we read yesterday, Titus 2:9-10,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
We make the gospel unattractive when we live contrary to our beliefs. The gospel becomes unsavory and unattractive to those outside the church when our lives do not match up to what we say we believe.
Take the verses we read here. Paul says, in effect, that we make the gospel unsavory when we pilfer (which means stealing items of small value) or talk back to our boss.
You do not adorn the gospel when you show lack of respect for your boss, rip the company off, use the phones and computers at your job for personal business, take extra long lunch breaks, steal paper, take staplers, steal pens, or whatever you can get your hands on.
You should not dress the gospel in rags and then pass out tracts to all your coworkers or invite your boss to church.
This truth does not just apply to work. Do not live contrary to your beliefs anywhere. Do not live a double standard at home. If you do, it will turn your kids away from wanting to serve Christ. If you are into sports and you curse a lot, cheat, or have a bad temper, you dress the gospel in rags.
In 2 Corinthians 3:2 Paul states that, You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men.
The truth is, we are the only Bible some people will ever read. They are looking at our lives.
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Read: 1 John 4:8-10
Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love. - Psalm 48:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
We need not look far to find portraits of love in movies, television shows, books, music, and visual art. The prospect of instruction on true love, however, is far more scarce. The media have distorted and disfigured our expectations of being loved and the ways we attempt to love others. The message of our reading today offers a radical alternative and reveals something extraordinary that goes beyond what we have learned about God's love thus far.
"God is love" (v. 8). We have seen that God loves, but this phrase is saying more than that. One New Testament professor asserts that claiming "God is love" is to insist that love is not simply one of God's attributes, but that all of God's activity is loving.
Verses 9 and 10 point toward Christ as God's ultimate self-disclosure of love. This demonstration of God's love teaches us what true love is. First, it is sacrificial: God sent His only Son into the world that was hostile toward Him. Second, love is life-giving: verse 9 says "that we might live through him." Third, love originates in God. He loved us first, we love as a response to His love (v. 10). Fourth, God's love is redemptive: Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for our sins makes possible our reconciled relationship with God. Lastly, today's passage confirms that love is not simply an attitude or warm, fuzzy feeling. Love is active and practical, and it is defined in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Take a look at the verses before and after today's text. God is the source of all love, and as we enter into a loving relationship with Him through Jesus, His love transforms us to embody His love toward one another. Notice the phrase, "everyone who loves has been born of God" (v. 7). That is, children of God ought to bear the image of their heavenly Father in love. In summary, God is love, and therefore He defines love. He loves us in Christ, and in turn, we are empowered to love like He does.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In our own strength we are incapable of loving like God. In fact, we tend toward the opposite: "love" that is selfish, life-thwarting, and destructive. As we absorb God's love, it flows out of us. We soak up God's love as we cultivate our relationship with Him through prayer, study of His Word, fellowship, and outreach. If one of these areas of spiritual sustenance is depleted, prayerfully consider ways it may be enhanced. One suggestion is to work through The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 11, 2010
A Memorial
READ: 1 Cor. 11:23-30
As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. -1 Corinthians 11:26
The Taj Mahal in India is a magnificent mausoleum. Built entirely of white marble, it was commissioned by the Emperor Shah Jehan in memory of his wife, who died suddenly. It took 22 years to complete. Millions of tourists visit this memorial annually in order to see this grand structure the emperor ordered to be built in memory of the woman he loved.
Millions of people also throng to Jerusalem to look at another site-a tomb that some say may have been where Jesus was buried. No matter what tomb He lay in, Jesus occupied it for only a few days. It has been empty for 2,000 years.
Jesus doesn't need us to build a memorial to Him. Instead, He gave us the Lord's Supper (communion) as a memorial to remember Him. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took bread and the cup and gave thanks to His Father before offering them to His disciples (Luke 22:14-21). Each time we partake of those elements in church, we are first to examine ourselves and our relationship with God (1 Cor. 11:28). "As often as [we] eat this bread and drink this cup" we are to do so in remembrance of the One we love, till He comes (vv.25-26).
The Lord has given us an enduring memorial to remind us of what He has done for us. - C. P. Hia
I'll take the bread and cup, dear Lord,
That speak of love sublime,
And give myself afresh to Thee.
My life, my all is Thine! -Anon.
The Lord's Supper-Christ's memorial that He left for us.
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Faithful to Another
Jesus, in Luke 16:12, makes a very interesting statement...one that provides a perspective on faithfulness you would not expect,
"And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?"
Jesus makes it clear. You have to be faithful in something that is someone else's before He will fulfill your dream or open doors for you.
God gives each of us opportunities to help others. And He looks for us to faithfully help others before He blesses us. For example, Joseph had to help Pharaoh with his dream, before God allowed Joseph's dream to come to pass.
Maybe you have a dream to be super rich for the purpose of spreading the gospel. You would like to see the gospel go around the world. Or you would like to pay off the debt on your church's building. Or you would like to fund a certain missions organization.
I think the Kingdom could use a multitude of very wealthy people who have a heart for the lost and a desire to see God's work succeed and expand.
But first you need to be faithful working for that person who has hired you. You have to be faithful in that which is another man's. God is not going to open a door for you to fulfill the dream you have if you do not show up for work on time, or if you do not put in a full day's work. Why would God open the door for you to lead your own successful business if you have not been faithful working for someone else?
You must serve that other person with all of your heart, or that other company you are working for first, before God will prosper you. It is a Kingdom principle.
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Read: John 13:1-17
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. - 1 John 3:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
After graduating from seminary, Janine encountered difficulty getting a job in full-time ministry. She shared with a friend that the daily grind of her current job was "seemingly meaningless," but that she was "being very humbled in learning to serve others through what appears insignificant and menial." This view sees all work-not just so-called professional ministry-as an opportunity to respond to Jesus' call to His disciples in today's passage.
The opening of chapter 13 sets the context and portrays the foot washing as a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrificial death as the Passover Lamb of God (v. 1; cf. John 1:29). Verse 1 also describes Jesus' action as a symbolic demonstration of "the full extent of his love." The word "so" at the beginning of verse 4 illuminates the foundation of Jesus' action. Jesus was secure in His identity and confident in His relationship with God the Father. He, then, was willing to humble Himself and perform a task normally reserved for household servants (cf. Phil. 2:6-7). Jesus displays His love not by exploiting His power and status, but rather through an act of complete self-abasement. This anticipates the cross on which Jesus laid down His life. God's love symbolized in the foot washing is sacrificial and humble; it serves to give others life.
Even after following Jesus for three years, Peter could not fathom Him performing this kind of action. He was so aghast that he refused Jesus. The Lord quickly clarified that anyone who wants a relationship with Him must be cleansed by Him. Jesus' statement indicates the cleansing nature of the Cross (cf. 1 John 1:7). Unless the Lamb of God takes away your sin, you are still marred by sin and alienated from God.
Jesus calls His disciples to join Him in His mission by following His example: "You also should wash one another's feet" (vv. 14-15). Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus' message is this: Do not simply believe something about Me, but follow Me, do what I do, be as I am, and know God as your Father (cf. Luke 9:23; John 17:18).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus' disciples are invited to embody God's self-sacrificial, humble love in everyday relationships and everyday tasks. Just as Jesus' act of washing feet pointed to His death, so our symbolic acts of foot-washing point to God's love poured out on the cross. What are opportunities in your day-to-day life and relationships that resemble the foot washing of the first century? Ask God to give you eyes to see and a heart like Jesus to surrender yourself to these opportunities so that you may witness to God's love in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 12, 2010
The Wrong Stuff
READ: John 14:1-6
There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. -Acts 4:12
It was a simple task, but I was in over my head. One of the items on the grocery list was soy. Problem was, I didn't know what kind of soy my wife, Sue, had in mind when she made the list. After searching the aisles and asking the advice of a worker who was stacking soup cans, I grabbed a bottle of soy sauce, placed it in the cart, and went on my way.
Only after I unloaded my bags at home did I discover that Sue didn't want soy sauce. She wanted soy milk for our granddaughter Eliana. I was sincere in my search. I even asked for help and confidently pulled my selection off the shelf. But it didn't do me (or Eliana) any good. I had the wrong stuff.
Sadly, some people are walking through the grocery store of life with "heaven" on their list, but they are not getting what they need. Despite their sincerity and the intended help of others, they grab something that won't get them to heaven because they find a "different gospel" (2 Cor. 11:4).
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). And Peter said, "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Trust Jesus. Don't settle for the wrong gospel. - Dave Branon
Not all roads lead to God,
As many people claim;
There's only one true way-
Christ Jesus is His name. -Sper
Christ is the only door into heaven.
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The Way Up May Be Down
It is not unusual for God's promotion to look like a demotion at first, to feel like you are going backward rather than forward.
There are a couple of great examples of this in the Bible. For instance, do you remember how Joseph in Genesis 37 dreamt he would one day rule over his brothers? That God was going to promote him to a place of prominence?
So what happened? His brothers threw him into a pit, he was sold to Midianite traders as a slave, and then he was put on the auction block and sold again in Egypt. On top of that, he ended up in prison on false charges and spent several years there, seemingly forgotten.
But without those experiences, Joseph would have never been ready to rule. Preparation comes before promotion. The way up may go down for awhile at first.
David is another example of how God will "demote" in order to promote. Do you remember in 1 Samuel 16:12-13 how David was anointed king while still just a shepherd?
Now he [David] was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!" Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
This is a pretty big promotion for a shepherd boy, don't you think? But for years, David lived a fugitive's life-moving from place to place, living in caves, being hunted. He was separated from everyone and all the things that he loved.
His promotion ended up looking more like a demotion, which is often the way God works. In the process of your promotion, He will take you through difficult times to prepare you for that promotion.
Just remember, the way up is often down.
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Read: Romans 5:1-11
May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance. - 2 Thessalonians 3:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Christian hope is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis calls hope a theological virtue: "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next." Christ's resurrection is the foundation of our hope, grounded upon God's love as demonstrated by the Cross.
Verse 1 begins with "therefore," which requires that we look back to Romans 4:23-25. There we learn that we have been "justified" or made right with God through Christ's death and resurrection (4:25; 5:9-10). Once we were God's enemies, but through Christ, our relationship with God is restored, and now there is peace between us.
Then Paul distinguishes God's love from human love (vv. 6-8). He suggests that for humans, only very rarely would someone die for another virtuous human. This reality highlights the "outrageous generosity of God," as one New Testament professor describes it. Christ did not die for the righteous, but rather for us when we were "powerless" and "sinners."
As another theologian explains, today's passage insists that "if God loves sinners enough for the Son to die for them, God will surely complete what was begun at such a cost." Note the "how much more" language (vv. 9-10). Assurance results in our hope and rejoicing, even in the midst of trials and sufferings. First, we "hope in the glory of God" (v. 2). What was lost with Adam and Eve is restored in Christ: God's image in us and His uninhibited presence with us.
Second, the Holy Spirit is a sign and guarantee of the new creation to come, beginning with God giving us new hearts filled with His love (v. 5). Third, suffering that produces perseverance, then character, and then hope reflects the experience of Israel in the wilderness and in exile, as well as Christ and the Cross. Hope in a final resurrection and new creation does not let us down because it has been initiated in Christ's resurrection and confirmed in the Holy Spirit (v. 5).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you notice how deeply personal the description of our relationship with God is in today's passage? Following Jesus is distinct from other religions because it is more than believing certain things about God. It is about being in a reconciled relationship with Him, initiated by God and made possible only through God's gift of His Son, Jesus. Praise God for this indescribable gift (2 Cor. 9:15), and reflect on the kind of hope in the midst of suffering that does not disappoint us.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 13, 2010
He Never Sleeps
READ: Psalm 121
He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. -Psalm 121:3
Giraffes have the shortest sleep cycle of any mammal. They sleep only between 10 minutes and 2 hours in a 24-hour period and average just 1.9 hours of sleep per day. Seemingly always awake, the giraffe has nothing much in common with most humans in that regard. If we had so little sleep, it would probably mean we had some form of insomnia. But for giraffes, it's not a sleep disorder that keeps them awake. It's just the way God has made them.
If you think 1.9 hours a day is not much sleep, consider this fact about the Creator of our tall animal friends: Our heavenly Father never sleeps.
Describing God's continual concern for us, the psalmist declares, "He who keeps you will not slumber" (Ps. 121:3). In the context of this psalm, the writer makes it clear that God's sleepless vigilance is for our good. Verse 5 says, "The Lord is your keeper." God keeps us, protects us, and cares for us-with no need for refreshing. Our Protector is constantly seeking our good. As one song puts it: "He never sleeps, He never slumbers. He watches me both night and day."
Are you facing difficulties? Turn to the One who never sleeps. Each second of each day, let Him "preserve your going out and your coming in" (v.8). - Bill Crowder
The Rock of Ages stands secure,
He always will be there;
He watches over all His own
To calm their anxious care. -Keith
The One who upholds the universe will never let you down.
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Overcoming Barrenness
I Samuel 1:10-11 says,
And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head."
These words are written about Hannah, who was barren. But God answered her prayer by giving her a son, and he became one of the most prominent figures in Biblical history-Samuel.
Perhaps there is a "barrenness" in some area of your life, and like Hannah, who was tormented by her adversary-so it is with you. Prayer can change things. It did in Hannah's life, and it can in yours. But there are several things about Hannah's prayer that we need to consider:
1. Hannah's prayer was not casual. It was heartfelt and deep. Too much of our praying is "skin deep." Only prayers that originate from deep within us get God's attention. James 5:16 declares that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
2. Hannah's prayer was specific. She asked for a male child. Too much of our praying is too general. Don't be afraid to be specific in your requests.
3. Hannah wanted the answer to her prayer to glorify God. Her boy would be dedicated to God's service. When our prayers take on the purpose of glorifying God, we have moved into a higher realm.
If you are experiencing a barrenness in any arena of life, pray. And let your prayers be heartfelt, specific, and for the glory of God.
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Read: Ephesians 2:1-10
Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. - Romans 6:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
In C. S. Lewis's book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan's resurrection transforms all things: Edmund is released from bondage to temptation and debt to the White Witch; Aslan revives all the Narnians petrified by the Witch; and the four Pevensie children are made kings and queens of Narnia. Perhaps Lewis was inspired by the realities described in Ephesians 2.
The structure of today's passage draws attention to God's love. Verses 1 through 3 develop our identity as dead in our transgressions, verses 5 through 10 elaborate on our status as alive in Christ. In the middle, verse 4 explodes with the powerful theme: God's great love for us.
Notice the words that describe our condition apart from Christ (vv. 1-3). From birth we are alienated from God and bear responsibility for sinfulness that began with Adam and Eve. Radical change in our status is initiated by God and effected only by His grace through Christ's resurrection (vv. 4-6).
Paul highlights three significant reversals as a result of our salvation, all indicated by the word "with" (vv. 5-6). First, we move from death to life, becoming "alive with Christ." Second, God "raised us up with Christ," so that we are no longer enslaved to the cravings of our sinful nature. Third, God "seated us with him in the heavenly realms" where Christ rules. We are no longer subject to the "ruler of the kingdom of the air" (v. 2). All of this demonstrates the richness of God's love, grace, and mercy.
Verses 8 and 9 reemphasize verse 5: "it is by grace you have been saved." We receive God's gift of life not through obedience to the law or "works," but only through faith, so that no one can take pride in their efforts, but rather recognize complete dependence on God's grace. The power of God is necessary to destroy our deadly sin nature; God's power is also imperative to sustain new life in Him. Verse 10 reminds us that God created us to glorify Him, not gratify the desires of our sinful nature.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 2 mentions the influence of "the ruler of the kingdom of the air." The author of Ephesians is well aware of the spiritual battles waged for our devotion. Ephesians 6:10-18 reveals our adversaries: the authorities of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Let us not be naive: spiritual warfare is real. As we seek to live out our new life in Christ, we must put on the full armor of God daily to win these battles (6:13).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 14, 2010
Unseen Workers
READ: Romans 12:1-10
We have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. -Romans 12:4
As I was giving myself a manicure, I started feeling sorry for my right hand. It does the most work, but my left hand gets the most attention. My right hand applies nail polish smoothly to my left-hand nails, but my left hand, lacking skill and coordination, does not return the favor. The polish on my right hand is always smeared and messy. One hand does the better work, but the other hand gets all the attention and honor.
As I worked on my fingernails, my thoughts turned toward something much more important-the people in my church, many of whom are highly skilled at tasks that make others look good. These hardworking folks, however, seldom get noticed, because their work puts the attention on someone else. It seems unfair that those who do such good work get little appreciation.
Truly servant-minded believers, though, don't see it that way. They give preference to others (Rom. 12:10) because they know that God sees what others do not-and that He will reward those whose work is unseen by others (Matt. 6:4,6,18; 1 Cor. 12:24).
Is someone else reaping the benefit of your hard work? Be encouraged. God rewards those who work "invisibly" to make Christ visible to the world. - Julie Ackerman Link
The service that we do for God
May go unpraised by men;
But when we stand before the Lord,
He will reward us then. -Sper
No service for Christ goes unnoticed by Him.
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Power in Numbers
I believe the Bible teaches us that when we join together the impact is multiplied far beyond just the addition of those who join together. One plus one equals far more than two. Let me show you what I mean.
In Deuteronomy 32:30, it says,
How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had surrendered them?
While this verse deals with Israel's disobedience to God and subsequent retreat from their enemies, think of what might be possible when God's people obey Him! It says that one could chase a thousand, but two could put ten thousand to flight.
While one person can impact a thousand, two people can impact ten thousand. That is a ten-fold multiplied effect!
Leviticus 26:7-8, when God was giving promises to His people if they would walk in His ways, states this,
You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Notice God says five will chase a hundred, and a hundred will chase ten thousand. By increasing the number of people times 20, their effectiveness would increase times 100. Again, that is a multiplied effect.
You have probably heard of the Clydesdale horses, those big, strong workhorses that can pull a lot of weight. One horse by itself can pull two tons, but if you yoke two together they can pull 23 tons! That is incredible!
And that is how it works when we pray together with one another. When we join our forces in prayer and connect with heaven, that is what happens. There is a multiplied effect.
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Read: Psalm 103:1-22
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. - Psalm 63:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
When the Reverend Richard Crocker, chaplain of Dartmouth College, was diagnosed with cancer, he also "resolved to read and think about one Psalm each day as a way of keeping track of the days . . . in the hope of deriving strength in a time of need." Psalm 103 strengthened him to remember God's love and challenged him to praise God throughout a very difficult season. As we near the middle of our month's study, let us take time to join the psalmist in praise of God's love-no matter what our life's situation.
Praise frames Psalm 103 (vv. 1-2, 20-22). There are four sections of the song; the first three all spotlight God's love and compassion (vv. 4, 8, 11, 17). The first section opens with attention on the individual, his innermost person glorifying God, rehearsing God's acts of forgiveness, healing, redemption, crowning, provision, and renewal (vv. 1-5). The repetition of "all" emphasizes completeness. Do you hear the echo of Exodus 34 in the second section (vv. 6-10)? The psalmist praises the Lord that from Moses to the time of David, He is always loving and always compassionate.
The word "for" introduces the third section, spelling out why the Lord "does not treat us as our sins deserve" (vv. 11-13). The poet employs two images to illustrate God's love "for those who fear him": the immeasurable and infinite distance between east and west helps us grasp how far God has removed our sins from us; a father's compassion toward his son corresponds to God's love for His children. Section four crescendos with a contrast between the short-lived human life and God's eternal love, between brief human existence and God's permanent throne (vv. 14-19).
After rehearsing these great truths of God's love, the psalmist exhorts the whole universe to join him: angels, heavenly hosts, every creature everywhere "Praise the LORD" (vv. 20-22). Today's psalm ends just how it began. The psalmist effectively declares that praise will not simply be external, but something deeply personal rising up from the inmost being.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
To praise the Lord is to remember and celebrate: "forget not" (v. 2). It is easy in the midst of our circumstances to forget the Lord's goodness, to find ourselves complaining or impatient with Him. Scripture memory is a powerful way to combat these thoughts and attitudes. One effective method for memorization is to write the first letter of every word on a notecard to jog your memory. Endeavor to memorize Psalm 103:1-5 and repeat it throughout the day, particularly when you need a reminder to praise the Lord no matter your circumstance.
GOD BLESS
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 15, 2010
Agents Of Change
READ: 2 Timothy 2:19-26
If anyone cleanses himself . . . , he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. -2 Timothy 2:21
With 4 years of seminary under my belt, I walked into my first ministry with a long agenda. As a new pastor, I thought I was there to change that place. Instead, God used that place to change me.
The board members were supportive, but they relentlessly kept my feet to the fire in administrative details. I needed to learn how to work with lay leadership, how to be careful in my work, and how to dream with others.
We often think God has assigned us to change the world around us when in reality He is interested in changing us. Why? To make each of us "a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work" (2 Tim. 2:21). God often uses the most unlikely people in the most unlikely places to teach us some of life's most difficult lessons. And just when we think we've arrived, He is instructing us further.
Not long ago I entered a new season of ministry. I may be a "seasoned veteran," but I'm still learning, still growing, and still amazed at how God continues to shape this vessel for His noble purposes.
If you want to be an agent of change, don't resist the true Agent of Change. He has your best interest-and His-at heart! - Joe Stowell
What changes we would love to make
In others' lives, for Jesus' sake!
But first we must learn at His feet
The things that will make us complete. -Branon
Only when we are changed can we be agents of change.
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Unburdened
Philippians 4:6-7 promises,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
God is telling us not to freak out about anything. Anything! Can you think of anything that does not fit in "anything"? Instead of worrying-pray-about everything!
It is interesting that these verses do not promise God will answer your requests (though it is implied). Rather, what God does promise in these verses is this: If, when you are confronted with difficult things, you will pray rather than worry, God will give you peace. The stress will lift. The pressure will be broken.
In America, people spend millions of dollars visiting their therapists. They talk over all their problems with their therapists to try and relieve the stress and worries of life. I have a confession to make...I have a therapist. I talk to Him every single day. My therapist is my Father in heaven. I bring all my problems to Him. And I talk over everything with Him.
One of the keys in unburdening your heart when you pray is being completely honest. God knows what you are thinking, anyway. You may as well tell Him the truth about what is weighing you down.
It is no accident you are reading this today. Perhaps you are so filled with anxiety and stress that you are working on an ulcer right now. You don't sleep like you should. Your anxieties have robbed you of the quality of life God wants you to have.
God wants you free from your burdens. Take them to God today, and every day, and see how those burdens are lifted.
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Read: Psalm 27:1-14
With you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. - Psalm 36:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his book, Just Courage, International Justice Mission president Gary Haugen describes his family's ritual, "Charge the Darkness." When his children were young and afraid of the dark, he would invite them into the hallway to watch him run into the darkness of their bedrooms and return unscathed. In their dad's presence, the children's fears melted away. Similarly, the Lord is our light and salvation; in His love, our fears dissipate.
Psalm 27 begins and ends with unshakable confidence in God's love even among the threat of opposition (vv. 1-3, 11-13). The contrasts are stark. Light and salvation are compared with the darkness and destruction of fear and enemy attacks; the enemies will stumble and fall, yet the one who loves God will stand confident.
In the middle of this song we discover the poet's intimacy with God. In the context of a loving relationship with God, His love calms our fears. The psalmist encourages
an active, concentrated pursuit of God's presence in the midst of fears (vv. 4, 7-8). Verse 4 communicates the desire to be in God's presence. God's house and His temple are one in the same, namely His presence among His people prior to Jesus. Now God's presence dwells in us by His Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5; 1 Cor. 3:16-17). God's presence, referred to as "tabernacle," is likened to a high rock (vv. 5-6). It is a place of safety, shelter, and refuge.
Verses 7 through 12 include ten requests the psalmist makes of the Lord. The first is "hear me" (v. 7); the last is "do not turn me over" (v. 12). The poet assertively beseeches the Lord precisely because he is near to God and confident of His redeeming love. The psalmist reasserts his deep conviction that in the end, there will be victory over enemies, and he will forever rest with God (v. 13). In the interim, the author invites everyone to exhort ourselves and one another to wait with courage of heart for the LORD (v. 14). To wait is to renew and persevere in unwavering trust.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our trust in God and courage in the midst of fear and opposition is directly correlated with the extent to which we live close to God, constantly dwelling in His presence. Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century lay brother, penned a tiny treasure known as The Practice of the Presence of Godin which he explains how to continually walk with God as a way of life-even when washing dishes!-available to anyone following Christ. As you go through the details of your day, you can grow in continuously living in God's presence.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 16, 2010
The Treasure And The Pots
READ: 2 Corinthians 4:1-11
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. -2 Corinthians 4:7
It has been said that the Roman Empire ran on olive oil. It was used in cooking, bathing, medicine, ceremonies, lamps, and cosmetics. For decades, olive oil from southern Spain was shipped to Rome in large clay jugs called amphorae. Those jugs, not worth sending back, were discarded in a growing heap of broken shards known as Monte Testaccio. The fragments of an estimated 25 million amphorae created that man-made hill, which stands today on the bank of the Tiber River in Rome. In the ancient world, the value of those pots was not their beauty but their contents.
Because of this, the first-century followers of Christ would have clearly understood Paul's illustration of the life of Jesus in every believer. "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us" (2 Cor. 4:7).
Our bodies, like amphorae, are temporary, fragile, and expendable. In our modern world that highly values outward beauty, we would be wise to remember that our greatest treasure is the life of Jesus within us. By God's grace and power, may we live so that others can see Christ in us.
We are just the clay pots. Jesus is the true treasure within us. - David C. McCasland
Although my outward shell decays,
I'm inwardly renewed each day,
Because the life and power of Christ
Indwells this fragile jar of clay. -Sper
Christ is seen most clearly when we remain in the background.
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Good...All the Time
John 10:10-11 gives us a great truth,
"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."
Is your concept of God that He is good sometimes, but not all the time? That sometimes He is blessing you; but other times, He is the source of your troubles? If so, I want to put that notion out of your heart and mind today.
Jesus came to give us abundant life, while the devil, the thief, wants to steal, kill, and destroy. God is always a good God, and the devil is always a bad devil.
I remember, as a young Christian, I ran into another new convert in the park one day. He looked troubled, so I asked him what was up. He told me he was sick and had just received some bad news as well. Then he went on to tell me that he was at a Bible study the day before and they told him that God was doing all of these things to him.
It had shaken him to think that God was the source of his troubles, and that He was responsible for all the troubles in his life.
A lot of people tend to think that way, but it is just wrong. God is good all the time. The Bible says in James 1:17,
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
There is not the slightest degree of variation in this. God is good. And the gifts He gives are good and perfect gifts. I am glad they don't just stay in heaven. God sees to it that they make their way down to you and me.
God is good...all the time.
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Read: Psalm 34:1-22
Let all those who fear the Lord say: "His love endures forever." - Psalm 118:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
James Tissot was a French artist of the late 19th century known for a series of 700 watercolor paintings illustrating the life of Christ and the Old Testament. One piece from this series is titled "God Is Near the Afflicted," a promise embedded in Psalm 34. Tissot depicts a despairing soul in a haggard man, doubled over on the end of a disheveled bed, his face permanently furrowed by life's sorrows. His blank stare and bare feet accentuate despondency. Then there is God in the form of a man comforting the man in despair, like a warm blanket. With one hand on the man's head and another on his shoulder, God draws near, His face resting against the man's head. God's eyes are closed, and there is a translucent shawl draped over both men signifying God's nearness and consolation. Tissot illustrates what Psalm 34 promises: in love, "the LORD is close to the brokenhearted" (v. 18).
Psalm 34 is a song of praise (v. 1) and a testimony for the afflicted (v. 2). The psalm is divided into two parts: praise and thanksgiving (vv. 1-11), wisdom and reflection (vv. 12-22). The psalmist worships God for his salvation and deliverance throughout the song (vv. 4-7, 17-19). Another prominent theme is fear of the Lord (vv. 7, 9, 11). The Lord protects and provides for those who fear Him.
The writer beckons his readers to learn about the fear of the Lord, which is manifested in righteous speech, actions, and pursuit of peace (vv. 13-14). Elsewhere in the Psalms, the fear of the Lord is pictured as supreme reverence (96:4; 102:15) and obedience to His commands (111:10; 112:1).
Let's return to the promise of verses 17 through 22. The poet recognizes that those who fear God are not exempt from troubles (v. 19), but he also affirms that God saves those who cry out to Him for deliverance from affliction. To "taste and see that the Lord is good" (v. 8) is to fear God, seek Him, and find refuge in Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you (or someone close to you) brokenhearted or crushed in spirit? "Let the afflicted hear and rejoice" (v. 2). The Lord wants you to discover afresh His promise to you today from Psalm 34. He is very near to you to give refuge, comfort, and deliverance. Rest in Him. Perhaps you have a testimony of God's deliverance that you could share as a word of encouragement to someone in despair and hopelessness. Witness to God's love and share the good news of Psalm 34.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 17, 2010
Helping Love Grow
READ: 1 Corinthians 13
[Love] does not seek its own. -1 Corinthians 13
A young man told his father, "Dad, I'm going to get married."
"How do you know you're ready to get married, Ron?" asked the father. "Are you in love?"
"I sure am!" he replied.
The father then asked, "Ron, how do you know you're in love?"
"Last night as I was kissing my girlfriend goodnight, her dog bit me and I didn't feel the pain until I got home!"
Ron has got that loving feeling, but he has a lot of growing to do. Vernon Grounds, a former writer for Our Daily Bread, who has been married for more than 70 years, shares these points about how to grow in love:
Ponder God's love in Christ. Take time to reflect on how He gave His life for you. Read about Him in the Gospels, and thank Him.
Pray for the love of God. Ask Him to give you an understanding of His love and to teach you how to live that out in your relationships with your spouse and others (1 Cor. 13).
Practice the love of God. Give of yourself. A newlywed told me he thinks love is practical. He said, "My responsibility is to make life easier for my spouse." The other, tougher side of love is to challenge each other to act in godly ways.
Love will grow when we ponder love, pray for love, and practice love. - Anne Cetas
This is my prayer, kind Father,
So direct me from above
That I may live a life for You
And reflect my Savior's love. -Messenger
As Christ's love grows in us, His love flows from us.
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Real Goodness
Romans 2:4 declares,
The goodness of God leads you to repentance.
Ephesians 2:4-6 says,
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
God is not holding your sins against you. He sent His Son to pay a debt that had to be paid in order to liberate you from sin. God extends His mercy and forgiveness to you and me even when we do not deserve it.
It was His goodness that arrested my attention and that brought me to the foot of the cross, even when I was in my darkest sin, doing terrible things, abusing my body with drugs and alcohol, and doing things that should have put me in an early grave. In fact, a number of times I nearly died. But God loved me right in the middle of all of that.
I want to tell you, wherever you are right now, God loves you. You may be in the depths of the darkest sin you have ever been involved in, you just feel wretched, but God loves you right where you are.
He loves you so much He doesn't want to leave you there. His grace can reach you, change you and lift you out of any sin or situation if you will turn to Him with all of your heart.
There is no reason to fear or hesitate. Entrust yourself to the goodness of God and say yes to Him today.
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Read: Psalm 40:1-17
He rescued me because he delighted in me. - Psalm 18:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
For the last few days, we have read the Psalms to expand our understanding of God's love. Psalm 27 teaches that in love, God calms our fears; Psalm 34 reminds us that in love, God is close to the brokenhearted. Today's passage, Psalm 40, also fortifies our hearts to face challenging times. We learn that in love, God hears our cries and lifts us out of the pit.
Psalm 40 opens with the closing theme of Psalm 27: waiting patiently for the Lord. After a period of anticipation, the psalmist declares that God did hear and answer his cries. The poet employs two images to describe how the Lord responded. First, the Lord rescued him from a swampy pit and restored him to solid ground (v. 2). Second, the Lord replaced his cries with a song of praise (v. 3). The result of redemption is not exclusively individualistic. The psalmist's salvation is a witness that leads others to trust in the Lord, and those who trust the Lord are blessed.
Verses 6 through 8 confirm that hunger to do God's will trumps mere sacrifice and ritual. Old Testament scholar Konrad Schaefer clarifies that "ritual is worthwhile only insofar as it expresses the inner disposition," that is, desire to do God's will and keep His law within one's heart (v. 8).
Psalm 40 then returns to the theme of testimony. God in His love hears our cries and redeems us from the pit. This must be proclaimed, celebrated, and shared with others (vv. 9-10). Just as the psalmist refuses to keep his mouth closed about God's salvation, he also asks God not to withhold His mercy. The author knows he is desperately dependent on God; without God's deliverance, he will be overcome. His troubles are not all external, however. He confesses to God that he is drowning in his own sin, which blinds him. "Come quickly," Lord; "do not delay," he cries, for he trusts in God's love and mercy for help and deliverance (vv. 13, 17).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire" (v. 6) is a theme woven throughout the Scriptures. God rejected Saul as king because he sacrificed but disobeyed (1 Sam. 15:22); David recognized God's preference for a penitent heart over ritual (Ps. 51:16-17); and God accused the people for similar offenses (Hosea 6:6). Contemplate this message in Isaiah 1:11-20. Invite the Holy Spirit to expose areas in your life where you are simply going through the motions, or where your worship does not align with your lifestyle.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 18, 2010
A Wrong Reading
READ: 1 Timothy 1:18-20
Wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, . . . have suffered shipwreck. -1 Tim. 1:18-19
William Scoresby was a British seafaring explorer in the 19th century who responded to God's call to the ministry. An interest in the workings of navigational compasses stayed with him during his work as a clergyman. His research led to the discovery that all newly built iron ships had their own magnetic influence on compasses. This influence would change at sea for various reasons-leading crews to read the compass incorrectly. Often this led to disaster.
There is a striking parallel between the misread compass and false biblical teaching. In 1 Timothy 1, Paul warned against "fables and endless genealogies" (v.4)--man-made changes in the doctrines of God's Word. People who teach false doctrines "have suffered shipwreck," Paul concludes (v.19). Two people who opposed the Word of God by placing false teaching in its place, and who thus faced spiritual shipwreck, were Alexander and Hymenaeus (v.20).
Biblical truth is being questioned and in some cases even replaced in the church today. Our opinions must never replace the truth of God's Word. The Bible, not man's erroneous opinions about it, is the ultimate guide for our conscience in navigating life's changing seas. Beware of wrong readings. - Dennis Fisher
God's words of pure, eternal truth
Shall yet unshaken stay,
When all that man has thought or planned,
Like chaff has passed away. -Anon.
The first point of wisdom is to know the truth; the second, to discern what is false.
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Remember
Titus 3:1-7 says,
Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Paul tells us to remember where we have come from. Notice he said to show humility to all men and speak evil of no one. Why? Because we also used to be foolish and deceived and disobedient.
I thank God I am a new creation in Christ, but I still blush when I think about some of the stuff I got involved in before I was saved! Disobedient? Been there. Serving various lusts and pleasures? Up to my eyeballs! Plus all the other things Paul mentions in this passage and a few more!
It is amazing how people in the church forget what they were like before the grace of God came into their life. When that happens they tend to get very haughty and judgmental towards those still lost in their sin. A harsh, judgmental church that lacks humility while verbally lashing out at sinners is one of the ugliest garments you can dress the beautiful gospel in.
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Read: Psalm 145:1-21
For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise. - Psalm 47:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
We need not look far to find presidents, kings, prime ministers, and other rulers abusing power, exploiting the poor, and reinforcing injustice. One such leader was Idi Amin, military dictator and President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin was infamous for his human rights violations, ethnic persecution, political oppression, and economic delinquency. The estimated number of people killed, tortured, or imprisoned during his reign is between 100,000 and 500,000. As day is to night, the description of God the King in today's passage is the complete antithesis of human rulers such as Idi Amin. The LORD, "rich in love," reigns with abundant goodness, righteousness, and compassion. Psalm 145 celebrates the way God's love shapes His sovereignty.
Abundant praise and worship rush out of the opening lines of Psalm 145. "Every day" and "forever" God the King is to be exalted (vv. 1-3). This King is so admired that His people testify about Him from generation to generation. The psalmist's description goes on and on characterizing the ways of God the King: unfathomable greatness (v. 3), majestic (v. 5), powerful works (vv. 4-6), good and righteous (v. 7). Again we discover a reference to Exodus 34:4-7 (v. 8). God is loving and compassionate toward His whole creation (vv. 9, 13, 17), He follows through with His promises (v. 13), He restores the defenseless and lowly (v. 14). More specifically, for those who call on God, fear Him, and love Him, He grants His presence, provision, protection, and salvation (vv. 18-20). In a single breath, the wicked are destroyed (v. 20).
There is an emphasis on testifying to the King's love and goodness (vv. 4-7, 11-12). Why? Verse 12 explains, "so that all may know" about the King's actions and His kingdom. Psalm 145 ends how it begins: praise to God "forever and ever" (vv. 1-2, 21). The subject of verses 1 and 2 is singular "I." The subject of verse 21 is all-inclusive: "every creature." The loving God is the King of the whole world and worthy of all praise.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God is a missionary God. His ultimate act was sending His only Son for our salvation. God calls us into mission, too. Paul and Barnabas preach: "For this is what the Lord has commanded us: 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth'" (Acts 13:47). Psalm 145 encourages us to join the psalmist in witnessing to God's greatness and love. Consider with whom you can share this news! What other ways are there for you to be involved in God's mission?
GOD BLESS!
April 19, 2010
The Secret Chamber
READ: Isaiah 50:4-5
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light. -Matthew 10:27
People have some needs that are excruciatingly deep. Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, "Never morning wore to evening, but some heart did break."
We find ourselves in conversation at times with heartbroken friends and may feel at an utter loss to know what to say. How can we "speak a word in season to him who is weary," as it says in Isaiah 50:4?
Telling people what human teachers have taught us may have some impact on them. But the most helpful or persuasive words are spoken by those who are taught by the Lord Himself.
That's why it's essential for us to sit at Jesus' feet and learn from Him. The more we receive from Him, the more we have to give to others. George MacDonald pictures this time with the Lord as having "a chamber in God Himself." He continues: "Out of [that] chamber . . . man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made."
It's through our thoughtful and prayerful Bible study, reading, and quiet meditation that God speaks to our hearts. He gives us "the tongue of the learned" (Isa. 50:4) so that we have something to share with those who are in the depths of despair. - David H. Roper
The comfort God has given us
He wants us all to share
With others who, with broken hearts,
Are caught in deep despair. -Sper
Listen to God's heart, then speak from your heart to others.
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What's Your Motive?
The Bible says in James 4:3,
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James says that you ask, but you do not receive, because you ask amiss. The word amiss here comes from the Greek root word that means to harm or to injure. His point is: God will not grant you anything that is going to harm or injure your spiritual life, whether in the short term or in the long term.
When you pray, God is looking out for your best interests.
But then he also said, You ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. The word pleasures has the idea of sensuality, which means, if I am asking for something just to stroke my fleshly ego, then I short-circuit the prayer by my wrong motivation.
For example, it is great to pray for a car. I live in Southern California where we need a car to get around. And I think God will give you a car that you like. After all, the Bible says He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Jesus said, "Ask, that your joy might be full." So I think God wants us to be happy, and He generally has no problems granting your request for a car you would like.
Yet some people go a step beyond that, and their real motivation is, "Man, I want that car because I would look good in that car! If I came to work in that car, I would really show up so-and-so. People would think I'm pretty fine if I had that car. If I had that car, the chicks would dig me."
Be careful when you pray to not slip over into a motivation that is not really pure. Because you will short-circuit your faith and you will not receive an answer-except "no".
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Read: Lamentations 3:19-32
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed. - Lamentations 3:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Joanne sat listless. As she reflected on the last year, her heart felt like it would implode. She rehearsed Jeremiah's words in a faint whisper: "I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken" (Lam. 2:11, NLT). Joanne had just heard that her sister, Brenda, had filed for divorce. After decades of emotional abuse and her husband's refusal to participate in counseling, Brenda was half the woman she was when she married and was now too tired to keep trying to salvage her painful marriage. What a devastating severance. Joanne's mind wandered. It had only been one month since her best friend, Elaine, lost her short battle with brain cancer, and only ten months since another close friend passed away from ALS. The pain felt unbearable.
The prophet Jeremiah endured a season of lament after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Jeremiah mourned the destruction of the city and the exile of God's people. The tragedy was deeply personal and spiritual for him and all God's people. The book of Lamentations describes this great sorrow, and today's passage is like a lighthouse of hope.
Just as Joanne sat reflecting, so also Jeremiah remembers his suffering (vv. 19-20). "Yet" bursts off the page (v. 21); even in the midst of anguish, Jeremiah says, "I have hope." His is not a false hope. It is grounded in the Lord's great love.
Listen to echoes of Exodus 34:4-7. The LORD is always compassionate, ever faithful, and committed to His people. We are not consumed, destroyed, or overcome by our pain precisely because of God's love. Our Father's mercies are new for us every morning. Two words weave through verses 21 through 29: "hope" and "wait." Jeremiah knows that joy does not come instantly; to hope is to wait. At least 40 years passed before God began to redeem His people from exile and restore Jerusalem and the temple. Only a robust confidence in the Lord could sustain such a long season of lament and waiting.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Many of us can easily relate to Joanne and connect with Jeremiah's feelings: "my soul is downcast within me" (v. 20). Remember, "the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Ps. 34:18). Jesus Himself faced death, pain, and agonizing abandonment from God the Father. He surrendered Himself to God (Matt. 26:42; Luke 23:46), and God raised Him from the dead (Acts 2:24). Today, trust in God's compassion and faithfulness to minister to your tender heart and bring you hope.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 20, 2010
Poor Examples
READ: Matthew 23:1-13
Whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. -Matthew 23:3
A woman in Oregon was caught driving 103 miles per hour with her 10-year-old grandson in the car. When she was stopped by the police, she told them that she was only trying to teach him never to drive that fast. I suppose she wanted him to do as she said, not as she did.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law seemed to have a similar problem. Jesus had a scathing assessment of them: They were spiritually bankrupt. He held these two groups directly responsible for this sad spiritual condition. As the successors of the lawgiver Moses, they were responsible for expounding the law so that people would walk in God's ways and have a genuine and vibrant relationship with the Lord (Deut. 10:12-13). But their personal interpretation and application of the law became more important than God's law. They did not practice what they preached. What they did observe was done not to bring glory to God but to honor themselves. Jesus exposed who they were-image managers, posers, and hypocrites.
The test of the effectiveness of following Jesus is not just in what we say but in how we live. Are we telling others God's Word and doing what it says? Let's model by words and actions what it means to follow Him. - Marvin Williams
Christians, remember you bear His dear name,
Your lives are for others to view;
You are living examples-men praise you or blame,
And measure your Savior by you. -Anon.
A good example preaches a powerful sermon.
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Obey and Get Unstuck
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk" (John 5:8).
These words were spoken to a man who had been sick for 38 years! His bed had been carrying him, and now Jesus was telling him to carry his bed!
We have discussed several keys to getting unstuck from your problems in our last devotions. First, we must genuinely want to be free, and second, we must stop shifting the blame for our problems to others.
The final key I want to share with you is found in the above verse. It is to obey what the Lord tells you. Whether it makes sense or not-obey!
To a man who had been carried by his bed for 38 years, rising up and carrying his bed must have seemed crazy! But the moment he began to obey, new life and strength began to flow into his previously paralyzed limbs.
Listen for the Lord's instructions in your heart. Search for them in His Word. There is no faith without action. There will be something that God will require you to do in order to release or express your faith.
It may make sense to you-or it may not. But to quote Mary, the mother of Jesus, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
After pastoring the same church for several decades, I have observed that many people remain stuck in their problems. Not because the Lord hasn't spoken to them, but because He has and they haven't obeyed.
If there is any unfilled obedience in your life, get busy and do what the Lord has told you to do. It is the only way to get unstuck.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
As I have loved you, so you must love one another. - John 13:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
Spanish Renaissance artist El Greco once said, "I hold the imitation of color to be the greatest difficulty in art." If art is likened to life, then the imitation of Christ is our greatest difficulty. As with color, embodying the nuances, simplicity, and grandeur of Jesus is not intuitive to our sinful nature. To love like Christ can only be accomplished by the work of our Creator God through His Holy Spirit in us. First Corinthians 13:3 tells us that love is the essential characteristic of followers of Jesus, and our passage today paints the ultimate description of God's love.
Verse 4 opens with "love is." Remember our study of 1 John 4:8-10, "God is love," and let this be the backdrop for today's passage. Verses 4 through 7 enumerate characteristics of love: what love does and does not do, how love functions and what it avoids. Comparing different Bible translations and paraphrases helps to enliven this familiar passage. For example, The New Living Translation reads: "[Love] does not demand its own way. It is not irritable." The Message paraphrase reads: "Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self . . . Isn't always 'me first' . . . Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel . . . Always looks for the best." Notice how the ways of love all depend upon confidence in God's promises in new creation and the future renewal of all things (v. 7). Love is forward looking; it sees beyond what is to what will be (cf. Gal. 5:5-6).
"Love never fails" precisely because God is eternal and God is love. All true human loving must be grounded in God. This is one way we "participate in the divine nature" and imitate Christ (2 Peter 1:3-4). One necessary component of love is that it always involves others; we cannot love unless we are in relationship. Remember that our passage today follows 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 about the body of Christ. In illuminating love in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul strengthens the community of Christ followers.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage is a fixture in wedding ceremonies, but let us not be mistaken: 1 Corinthians 13 is not only about the relationship between a husband and wife. It describes God's love that should permeate our relationships with all people. Ponder the characteristics of love listed, perhaps in a translation different from the one you regularly read. Invite the Holy Spirit to draw your attention to one characteristic in particular that He wants to shape in you; consider how it manifests in specific relationships in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 21, 2010
False Hope
READ: Ephesians 2:1-10
By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works. -Ephesians 2:8-9
The name of a pretty Bavarian town in Germany shares the name of a place of horror-Dachau. A museum on the grounds of this infamous Nazi concentration camp attracts many World War II history buffs.
As you look around, it would be hard to miss the misleading words welded to an iron gate: Arbeit Macht Frei. This phrase-Work Makes You Free-was just a cruel lie to give false hope to those who entered this place of death.
Many people today have false hope that they can earn a place in heaven by working at being good or by doing good things. God's standard of perfection, however, requires a totally sinless life. There's no way any of us can ever be "good enough." It is only through the sacrifice of the sinless Savior that we are made righteous. God made Jesus "who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). Eternal life is given because of God's gift of grace-not because of our good works (Eph. 2:8-9).
Don't let Satan trick you by giving you false hope that your good works will save you. It is only through Jesus' work on the cross that you can have real freedom. - Cindy Hess Kasper
Accept the teaching of the world
And hopeless you will be,
But trust in God's eternal plan
If you want life that's free. -Branon
We are not saved by good works, but by God's work.
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Confounding the Wise
In 1 Corinthians 1:20, 27-29, the apostle Paul provides a very powerful word,
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
We are often enamored with what the world considers wise and mighty, but God isn't. In fact, He chooses things that are foolish and weak, things the world considers insignificant, and things the world even despises, to put to shame the things that people consider wise.
I really like the King James Version when it states that God does these things to confound the wise.
We need to understand that sometimes God turns human conventional wisdom on its head. And I believe Scripture shows us three ways in which He does that.
First, there are times that God turns conventional wisdom on its head with the people He chooses for His purposes. Second, He will confound human wisdom with the plans He unfolds. Whether they are for your deliverance, or plans to further His kingdom and expand His work.
And then, third, God will truly confound the wise of this world with the pardon that He provides.
Through people, plans, and pardon, God does confound the wise!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
As I have loved you, so you must love one another. - John 13:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
Spanish Renaissance artist El Greco once said, "I hold the imitation of color to be the greatest difficulty in art." If art is likened to life, then the imitation of Christ is our greatest difficulty. As with color, embodying the nuances, simplicity, and grandeur of Jesus is not intuitive to our sinful nature. To love like Christ can only be accomplished by the work of our Creator God through His Holy Spirit in us. First Corinthians 13:3 tells us that love is the essential characteristic of followers of Jesus, and our passage today paints the ultimate description of God's love.
Verse 4 opens with "love is." Remember our study of 1 John 4:8-10, "God is love," and let this be the backdrop for today's passage. Verses 4 through 7 enumerate characteristics of love: what love does and does not do, how love functions and what it avoids. Comparing different Bible translations and paraphrases helps to enliven this familiar passage. For example, The New Living Translation reads: "[Love] does not demand its own way. It is not irritable." The Message paraphrase reads: "Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self . . . Isn't always 'me first' . . . Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel . . . Always looks for the best." Notice how the ways of love all depend upon confidence in God's promises in new creation and the future renewal of all things (v. 7). Love is forward looking; it sees beyond what is to what will be (cf. Gal. 5:5-6).
"Love never fails" precisely because God is eternal and God is love. All true human loving must be grounded in God. This is one way we "participate in the divine nature" and imitate Christ (2 Peter 1:3-4). One necessary component of love is that it always involves others; we cannot love unless we are in relationship. Remember that our passage today follows 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 about the body of Christ. In illuminating love in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul strengthens the community of Christ followers.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage is a fixture in wedding ceremonies, but let us not be mistaken: 1 Corinthians 13 is not only about the relationship between a husband and wife. It describes God's love that should permeate our relationships with all people. Ponder the characteristics of love listed, perhaps in a translation different from the one you regularly read. Invite the Holy Spirit to draw your attention to one characteristic in particular that He wants to shape in you; consider how it manifests in specific relationships in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 22, 2010
The Rescue Business
READ: Romans 3:10-22
There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. -Luke 15:10
Living in Colorado, I climb mountains. On summer weekends, I see casual hikers who have no idea what they are doing. In sandals, shorts, and T-shirts, carrying a single container of water, they start up a trail at mid-morning. They have no map, no compass, and no rain gear.
My neighbor, who volunteers for Alpine Rescue, has told me stories of tourists rescued from certain death after wandering off a trail. Regardless of the circumstances, Alpine Rescue always responds to a call for help. Not once have they lectured a hapless tourist, "Well, since you ignored the rules of the wilderness, you'll just have to bear the consequences." Their mission is rescue. They pursue every needy hiker, no matter how undeserving.
The central message of the Bible is one of rescue. Paul points out that none of us "deserve" God's mercy and none of us can save ourselves. Like a stranded hiker, all we can do is call for help. Quoting the psalmist, he says, "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God" (Rom. 3:10-11; Ps. 14:1-3).
The good news of the gospel is that in spite of our state, God seeks after us and responds to every plea for help. You might say that God is in the rescue business. - Philip Yancey
Thinking It Over
What keeps you from calling out to God for spiritual rescue? Your pride? Do you fear that you are too bad for God's grace? What does Romans 3:23-26 say?
The heart of repentance is turning from sin and toward God.
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God's Choice of People
1 Corinthians 1:26 says,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
God does not call a lot of people who our world would consider wise, noble or mighty. He calls a few, but not many. The fact of the matter is, God will use anyone who will yield himself or herself to Him.
The idea Paul wants us to understand is that the vast majority of people God chooses are a surprise to everyone else. God's choices are generally not on our "A" list of people.
Think about the apostle Paul himself, who wrote these very words in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. And the next words out of his mouth are profound, But by the grace of God I am what I am.
Paul was a persecutor of Christians. In fact, he was so filled with hatred he even went to foreign cities to have believers arrested, families split apart, Christians jailed, beaten, and at times even executed. And yet, God chose Paul as His mouthpiece.
It was so astonishing to many in the church that they didn't want to receive Paul when he was first saved. They thought it was a trick. It took them a while to understand that God actually had saved him and was using him.
Paul would not have been one of their primary choices as a vessel for God. I love that about the Lord. He uses the unexpected and those we might pass over to carry out some of His most important work.
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Read: John 15:9-17
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. - Matthew 6:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
After issues plagued her bathrooms, Mrs. Kim finally called a plumber. As the truck approached, she noticed the message: "Family-owned and operated since 1935." The father-son team worked quickly with remarkable competence. Steve explained that his grandfather and father had both been plumbers, and that his son, Robert, was apprenticing with him now to learn the family business: "Like my father and grandfather before him, I want to pass down the necessary skills and character for my son to fulfill our mission." In today's reading, Jesus invites us to apprentice with Him in His Father's mission.
Observe the parallels between the Father's relationship with Jesus and Jesus' relationship with His disciples. First, Jesus loves His disciples just as the Father has loved Him (v. 9). God's love is the cornerstone of today's passage. In love, the Father sent Jesus into the world "that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9). Second, Jesus' obedience was the result of a life lived in the Father's love. We also make Jesus' love our dwelling place when we obey (v. 10). Jesus highlights one particular command. He indicates His sacrificial death as the kind of love for others He intends (vv. 12-13). God's love is not only life giving, it also produces complete joy. Everything originates with Jesus before we experience it: love, obedience, and joy.
Third, everything Jesus has learned from His Father, He has passed down to us (v. 16). Jesus fulfills His Father's mission, and He calls us to join it, too (cf. John 5:17). Jesus declares: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (20:21). We remain in God's love as we participate in this incarnational mission as God's sent ones.
Jesus clarifies the context of our relationship with Him and the Father. We are not slaves, obliged to submit to the Father's rules. We are friends, joyfully joining His work of redemption in the world. We know we are friends because we are made privy to the Father's business, and God has purposed us to bear fruit in His kingdom.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus promises: "Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name" (v. 16). The context for answered prayer is God's mission. The Father answers prayers that accord with and are focused upon pursuit and fulfillment of His work. Prayers that are motivated by selfishness are not aligned with the will of God; we should not interpret this verse as a magic word to get whatever we want. Rather, praying in Jesus' name recognizes His authority over our lives and our desire to live out our calling as His followers.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 23, 2010
Longing For Spring
READ: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives. -Ecclesiastes 3:12
It's been a long, cold winter, and I am eager for warm weather. I'm tired of seeing bare trees and lifeless brown leaves covering the ground. I long to see wildflowers poke through the dead leaves and to watch the woods turn green once more.
Yet even as I anticipate my favorite season, I hear my mother's voice saying, "Don't wish your life away."
If you're like me, you sometimes hear yourself saying, "When such and such happens, then I will . . . or, If only so and so would do this, then I would do that . . . or, I would be happy if . . . or, I will be satisfied when . . ."
In longing for some future good, we forget that every day-regardless of the weather or our circumstances-is a gift from God to be used for His glory.
According to author Ron Ash, "We are where we need to be and learning what we need to learn. Stay the course because the things we experience today will lead us to where He needs us to be tomorrow."
In every season, there is a reason to rejoice and an opportunity to do good (Eccl. 3:12). The challenge for each of us every day is to find something to rejoice about and some good to do-and then to do both. - Julie Ackerman Link
Just as the winter turns to spring,
Our lives have changing seasons too;
So when a gloomy forecast comes,
Remember-God has plans for you. -Sper
Every season brings a reason to rejoice.
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A Seedbed of Faith
In Judges 6:11-15, we read this about Gideon,
Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!" Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
We often think of Gideon as a great champion for Israel, and he was. But when he was chosen, we found him cowering in the winepress. He was hiding, he was fearful, he was negative, he was doubtful, and he was questioning.
While we might be critical of Gideon, I have found that the only people who never question are those who have been indoctrinated. Sometimes you need to doubt. Sometimes you need to question. In fact, a lot of times uncertainty is the seedbed from which faith grows.
If you are struggling with doubt today, if you have genuine questions, don't panic. If you are sincerely looking for answers, God will meet you, and faith will spring from the answers you find.
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Read: John 17:20-26
I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. - Acts 13:47
TODAY IN THE WORD
"Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty; never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another." Around A.D. 260, Dionysius of Alexandria described the self-sacrificial love and unity Christians demonstrated to one another and to unbelievers during a plague that swept the Roman Empire. He continued, "they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ . . . they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains." This response to God's love results in powerful witness to the world that today's passage commends.
Our Bible reading today is part of the longest prayer of Jesus recorded in the New Testament (John 16:1-17:26). In sum, Jesus prayed that believers would share in God's love, glory, and unity. Insofar as they do this, they become a sign to the world of the love that is shared between the Father and the Son (v. 23).
Jesus' prayer describes the eternal relationship of perfect love and unity between the Father and Son, a mystery that strains human comprehension (vv. 21, 24; cf. John 1:1-2). It is amazing to hear Him pray that when believers exemplify this same love and unity, they are a symbol of God's love to an unbelieving world.
Believers are capable of unity because they are recipients of God's glory. Jesus is the full revelation of God's glory; all who receive Him are privileged to become children of God (John 1:12, 14). "World" occurs four times in today's text and refers to God's creation that remains in darkness, hostile to Him. The world rejects Jesus and therefore rejects God. Yet, the world remains an object of God's love (3:16). Just as Jesus is a mediator between God and the world, Jesus prays that His followers would be the embodiment of God's love to the world (v. 23), since God's love now dwells in them through Christ (v. 26).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Unity between the Father and Son is demonstrated in John's Gospel as pure love and Jesus' perfect obedience to the Father's will. Jesus prays that as a result of sharing in God's love and glory through Christ, believers would be unified, a "message" to the world (v. 20). How does your local church reflect God's love? Is there hostility among you that needs to be reconciled? Are there areas of disobedience to be conformed to God's will? Imagine how unity in God's love would speak to the world around you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 24, 2010
A "Banana Slug" Lesson
READ: Micah 6:1-8
What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? -Micah 6:8
Sports team names have a variety of origins. They come from history (Spartans, Mountaineers), nature (Cardinals, Terrapins), and even colors (Orange, Reds). One even comes from the mollusk family.
In the 1980s, the University of California at Santa Cruz was just starting to get involved in competitive sports. UCSC had a bit of disdain for the overemphasis some big-time schools place on athletics, so the student body sought a team name that would reflect a somewhat different approach. They decided on the Banana Slug, a yellow, slimy, slow, shell-less mollusk. It was a clever way for UCSC to give a balanced perspective on the relative worth of sports.
I have always loved sports, but I know that they can easily become more important than they should be. What matters most in life is what Jesus said is most vital-loving God with all of our hearts and loving our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-39). Micah listed God's requirements this way: "do justly," "love mercy," and "walk humbly with your God" (6:8). For believers in Jesus, it is vital that nothing else takes top priority over God's expectations for us.
What matters most to you? The Spartans? The Red Sox? Or loving God in thought, word, and action? - Bill Crowder
Lord, what matters most to You today?
What can direct us in each thing we do?
Could it be to let nothing at all
Interfere with our deep love for You? -Branon
Beware of spending too much time on matters of too little importance.
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The Most Important Quality
In 1 Samuel 16:6-7, when Samuel came to Jesse's house to anoint the next king of Israel, we see the criteria God uses to choose people for service to Him,
So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him." But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
This is a fascinating story with a very strong lesson I want you to understand. Right after these verses, Jesse parades each of his sons before Samuel...except for David. Jesse knows why Samuel is there, but he doesn't even bother to get David.
David's own father had written him off. His own father didn't see enough potential in him to call him before Samuel.
But David was anointed king that day. Not based on what Jesse thought was important, but on what God thought was important...David's heart.
Maybe your own father has written you off. Maybe your parents said you would never amount to anything. Maybe your teacher said, "Look, you're not going to amount to much. You just better get yourself a minimum wage job."
Only God can see things in your heart that your father can't see, that your mother can't see, that your teachers didn't see, that your family doesn't see, that the people around you don't see.
It is not that God overlooks ability or talent or training. All of those things are important. But God looks first at the most important quality for service, and that is the heart.
Don't let someone else write your history before it happens.
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Read: Luke 6:27-36
Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! - Psalm 66:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
"It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out; but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do." These are the words of Corrie ten Boom as she recalled the day a former guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp, where she and her family were imprisoned during World War II for hiding Jews and members of the Dutch resistance movement, approached her to seek her forgiveness. Remembering Jesus' teaching from today's passage, Corrie extended her hand in love. Corrie wrote: "You never so touch the ocean of God's love as when you forgive and love your enemies." Let's consider the words and love of Jesus that moved Corrie ten Boom to do the impossible.
Our passage today is part of a larger sermon that Jesus delivered beginning in Luke 6:17. We may compare it to its larger and well-known counterpart in Matthew 5 though 7, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' message is radical. He says that the poor and hungry are blessed and proclaims woes on the rich and well fed (Luke 6:20-26). He says we must reconcile with our neighbor before we come to worship Him (Matt. 5:23-24). He says we must not store up treasures on earth (Matt. 6:19), and in today's passage He exhorts us to "the most difficult thing," to love our enemies (v. 27).
The next verses expound upon this charge. In the face of hate and violence, Jesus calls His followers to the opposite. In response to hate, we love; to offense and mistreatment, we invoke God's favor through prayer. We trade our craving for retaliation for actions of self-sacrifice and shame.
What is the rationale behind and result of this incomprehensible behavior? The grounds for this revolutionary love is the Father's love and mercy; He Himself is "kind to the ungrateful and wicked," namely to us-remember the message of Romans 5:8? As His children, we are to be like Him, to love like Him (vv. 35-36).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you experiencing hate, cursing, and mistreatment? Perhaps you are treated differently at work because of your faith, or your family's resistance to faith is hurting you. Whatever the circumstance, pray for strength and humility to follow the path Christ illuminates in today's passage. Begin loving and praying for your enemies, seeking God's goodness in their lives and giving your desires for retribution and vindication to Him. If you are in an abusive relationship, you need to remove yourself and seek healing immediately.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Hope you are enjoying this Lords day.
The Gospel Hiway KGHY
Daily Devotional
April 25, 2010
Our Co-Pilot?
READ: Galatians 2:11-21
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. -Galatians 2:20
The bumper sticker "Jesus is my co-pilot" may be a well-intentioned sentiment, but it has always troubled me. Whenever I'm in the driver's seat of my life, the destination is nowhere good. Jesus is not meant to be just a spiritual "co-pilot" giving directions every now and then. He is always meant to be in the driver's seat. Period!
We often say that Jesus died for us, which of course is true. But there's more to it than that. Because Jesus died on the cross, something inside of us died-the power of sin. It's what Paul meant when he said, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). We were essentially co-crucified with Him. With Jesus in the driver's seat, the old destinations are off-limits. No more turning down the streets of self-centeredness, greed, or lust. No more off-road ventures into the swamp of pride or the ditch of bitterness. We were crucified with Him and He is at the wheel now! He died so that He alone can drive and define us.
So, if you've died and Christ lives in you, He's not your co-pilot. Your joy is to let Him drive and define your life. There may be a few bumps in the road, but you can count on it-He'll take you somewhere good. - Joe Stowell
Lord, I thank You for salvation,
For Your mercy, full and free;
Take my all in consecration,
Glorify Yourself in me. -Codner
Still at the wheel of your life? It's time to let Jesus drive.
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The First Step Toward Freedom
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:2-6).
Jesus asked this man a seemingly ridiculous question, "Do you want to be made well?" It's obvious isn't it? He is at the ool, isn't he? The only reason people went there was to be healed. What kind of a question is that to be asking? Of course, he wanted to be healed.
But Jesus was not convinced. This man had been stuck in his condition for a long time. He was not only lying down on the outside, he was lying down on the inside.
Sometimes people get used to living in their problems. While they may outwardly be going through the motions to get free (generally because they know that is what is expected of them), inwardly they have given up.
The first step toward getting free from your problems and that which binds and restricts your life is wanting it-really wanting it.
You have to stand up on the inside before you can ever stand up on the outside.
Let me be very bold and ask you: Do you want to be made well? Do you really want things to change? Or have you grown accustomed to living under the devil's heel?
If you are tired of defeat, mediocrity and bondage, then stand up on the inside and say, "Enough is enough!"
It is the first step toward freedom.
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Read: 2 Corinthians 5:13-6:2
Christ's love compels us. - 2 Corinthians 5:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
Traveling to Turkey as a tourist and traveling as a diplomat are two completely different experiences. Tourists act as consumers, making decisions based entirely on their personal preferences and seeing the sites with eyes of a civilian. The diplomat, on the other hand, acts and speaks as a representative of someone else's purposes and sees everything and everyone through the lens of social, political, and economic global realities.
We do not simply consume God's love like a tourist. God's love for us in Christ moves us. It urges us on, persuading us to do something. Why? Because we are certain that Jesus died on behalf of all people that we might have life. Christ's death transforms all of life.
In today's text, Paul sets forth two ways Christ's death changes things and compels us. First, His death completely redirects how people live. We no longer live for ourselves, but for Christ (v. 15). Second, Christ's death alters how we view others. We no longer see from a worldly point of view (v. 16). We regard others based on the inner person, rather than what is seen of the outer person. Our understanding of who people are and how they are doing is not based on the clues we get from the outside appearance. This is how the world views people.
Beginning in verse 17, Paul introduces the dramatic in-breaking of new creation: "the old has gone, the new has come!" (cf. Rom. 8:21; Gal. 6:15; Revelation 21). Paul reminds us again that this radical transformation and new life come from God.
He also returns to the idea that we do not simply receive and consume God's love (v. 18). Reconciliation is spoken of in the context of family and friendship; it is the restoration of broken relationships. God repaired our relationship with Him in Christ and has in turn empowered us to embody this peacemaking with others by practicing reconciliation. In doing this, "we are Christ's ambassadors," His representatives, inviting others to be reconciled to God (v. 20).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Second Corinthians 6:2 persuades us that the right time to respond to God's love is now. We are all invited to be ministers, practitioners, and representatives of God's love through reconciliation. Do you have a broken relationship with a friend or family member? Today is the day to pursue restoration. We experience true healing and peace in our relationships because God has first reconciled us to Himself through Christ. Begin with prayer, then initiate the giving and receiving of forgiveness and grace.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 26, 2010
A Universe Of Humanity
READ: Acts 28:16-31
Paul . . . received all who came to him. -Acts 28:30
During the 1920s and 30s, photographer August Sander set out to portray a cross-section of German society. Through his lens he saw factory workers and financiers, actresses and housewives, Nazis and Jews. Even though his published collection contains only people in and around his hometown of Cologne, he captured what David Propson, writing in The Wall Street Journal, called "a universe of humanity in his restricted sphere."
That phrase strikes me as an apt description of our lives and the people we meet day by day. Wherever we live, we cross paths with people from many backgrounds and beliefs.
For years, the apostle Paul traveled and preached before being imprisoned in Rome. There he continued to touch people with the gospel because he cared about them and wanted them to know Jesus Christ. The book of Acts concludes with Paul confined in Rome, living under guard in a rented house, where he "received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28:30-31).
Instead of focusing on his restrictions, Paul saw opportunities. That's the key for us as well. There is a universe of humanity within our reach today. - David C. McCasland
You are called with a holy calling
The light of the world to be,
To lift up the lamp of the gospel
That others the light may see. -Anon.
The gospel is a priceless gift that's offered free to everyone.
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Stop Blaming and Rise Up
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me" (John 5:6-7).
This guy was basically saying, "It's not my fault. I'm in this condition because of what someone else won't do for me, and because of what someone else has done to me."
Think about it, "I have no man to put me in." Paraphrased that says, "I'm stuck because of what someone won't do for me." Or, "While I'm coming, another steps down before me," which paraphrased says, "I'm stuck because of what someone else has done to me." Either way, "It is not my fault."
After making up our minds that we want to be free, the next step is to stop shifting the blame to others.
A friend of mine migrated from Mexico to the U.S. many years ago. He didn't understand the culture or the language and seemed to be hopelessly locked into a dead end job.
His employer took advantage of him and it seemed like he had no way out. But instead of blaming others for his situation (which would have been easy for him to do), he decided to get unstuck and do something with his life.
It took several years, but today he has several businesses and is quite wealthy.
Do not get caught in the trap of blaming others. Instead, make the decision to rise up (something we will be talking about in our next devotional.)
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Read: Ephesians 4:17-5:2
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children. - Ephesians 5:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Charlie is a stubborn toddler. His mother attempts to persuade him that he is a big boy now. He has a big boy bed, a big boy chair, and a big boy toothbrush. Yet Charlie refuses to wear big boy underpants. Despite the news that big boys don't wear diapers, Charlie won't live into his new identity. We are often like Charlie, straddling two lives, what Paul calls the "old self" and "new self."
The first contrast in our text is between "Gentiles" (vv. 17-19) and Christ followers (vv. 20-24). The unbelievers are separated from God due to their hardened hearts. Those who know Christ are dramatically different. They are sensitive to God, not controlled by worldly indulgences, nor typified by impurity.
Two additional contrasts are introduced. First, the imagery of clothing is the backdrop for the language of "put off" and "put on." Second, the author compares the "old" and "new" self. As a result of knowing Christ, we throw off the old self and stop "living as the Gentiles do." Before we change into the metaphorical clothes of our new self, we must first "be made new" by God (v. 23). The ball is back in our court in verse 24; we are exhorted to "put on the new self," and represent God's holiness and righteousness.
Paul gives examples of what it looks like to put off the old self and put on the new self (vv. 25-32). One is to "put off" stealing and instead "put on" the practice of productive work. The fruit of labor enables generosity, and this reflects the image of God. Another example is to "put off" the hardness of heart that prevents you from reconciling with others. Instead, "put on" kindness, compassion, and forgiveness and thus resemble Christ.
Ephesians 5:1-2 explain how this attitude connects with God's love. Jesus loves us so much He surrendered His life on the cross, that we may be God's "dearly loved children." Transformed by our adoption, we imitate God in self-giving love.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul's fundamental understanding is that we have been transformed in Christ, and now we actively resist sinful behavior. Did you observe his emphasis on what comes out of our mouths? Look again at verses 25, 29, 31 and 32. Our words greatly affect our relationships. Invite the Holy Spirit to search your heart and your speech (cf. Ps. 139:23-34). You may also wish to study the topic further in James 3:3-12 and Matthew 12:33-37.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 27, 2010
For The Sake Of His Name
READ: 1 Samuel 12:19-25
I will never leave you nor forsake you. -Hebrews 13:5
The ancient Israelites gathered at Gilgal for the coronation of Saul as their first king (1 Sam. 11:15). The Lord was not pleased that His people had asked for a king, yet on this occasion Samuel uttered these words: "The Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people" (12:22).
We too are God's "own special people" if we have trusted Jesus as Savior (1 Peter 2:9). He will not forsake us even though He knows we will fail Him. He knows what we are like-sinful, weak, and frail. He knew it before He called us and drew us to Himself. The certainty of our salvation rests not in ourselves but on the character of God (1 John 5:20). He will keep us to the end.
This does not give us an excuse to continue in sin. Paul said, "Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Rom. 6:2). Our choices do reflect on God's reputation, our witness in the world, and our fellowship with Him. But God will never reject His people, those who are truly His. The Lord cannot and will not forsake His own (Heb. 13:5).
We can rest assured. What God saves, He keeps-for the sake of His great name! - David H. Roper
"Able to keep!" how sure is the word!
He is my Keeper, Savior, and Lord.
"Never shall perish," one of His sheep,
Glory to God! He is able to keep. -Anon.
Lives rooted in God's unchanging grace can never be uprooted.
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Experience the Abundant Life
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10:10
Do you know what is wrong with many of us? We are trying to get out of trouble rather than get into righteousness.
We are so focused on the defensive side of Christianity that we forget about offensive, positive approach.
Wouldn't you like to get up and stay up?
Wouldn't you like to experience the abundant life our Lord talks about?
Jesus came to give us eternal life. He came to give us the abundant life. We need to do like the old song says and "Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative."
Why don't you determine today that you are going to get right with God and stay right with God? Determine that you're going to take steps that lead to a life of obedience.
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Read: Luke 7:36-50
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness. - Psalm 29:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Imagine the scene of today's reading. Jesus was the honored guest in the home of Simon the Pharisee, a devout Jewish leader. Suddenly, an uninvited woman of disrepute entered the scene clutching a jar of extremely expensive perfume. Everyone watched with bated breath. The so-called sinful woman stood at Jesus' feet sobbing. Her tears were plentiful enough to wet Jesus' feet. As if this episode was not already astonishing, the woman let down her hair to dry his feet. We can almost hear the audience gasp; a woman in the first century only showed her hair in the privacy of her own family. Then, the scandalous woman kissed Jesus' feet and poured her costly perfume on them. What follows are two dramatically different interpretations of her behavior.
The spotlight falls on Simon, the stately host. We hear a voiceover of Simon's inner thoughts (v. 39). According to the Pharisee, Jesus should know this woman's awful reputation and the disgrace of associating with her. Though Simon may not have realized it at first, Jesus knew his private judgments and responded with a parable (vv. 41-43). The story of the debt collector has two main points. First, neither borrower has the ability to pay off his debt. Second, the one with the larger debt cancelled will be more grateful. Interestingly, Jesus frames the gratitude in terms of love, which knits the parable together with His following comments about the woman.
Jesus' question to Simon in verse 44 probes beyond the surface. Jesus was not simply asking if his host's physical eyes were functioning; He discerned Simon's spiritual eyes. Moreover, Jesus starkly contrasted the respectable Pharisee with the "sinful" woman and turned expectation upside down. Whereas Simon interpreted the woman's actions as disgraceful, Jesus regarded them as loving (v. 47). Then He referenced the parable to make two complementary points: the indebted woman loved Jesus abundantly and was forgiven because of it; she loved lavishly because she recognized that she had been released of such an insurmountable debt.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What would it be like for you to worship God extravagantly? Are you restrained by the expectations of others? Is your love of God stifled by guilt and inability to receive His forgiving love? Reflect on these questions. Next, take account of the debt of sin you cannot repay and God's costly sacrifice to satisfy it. Let your recognition increase your gratitude for salvation in Christ. Join the songwriter of Jesus Paid It All: "Oh praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
April 28, 2010
For The Sake Of His Name
READ: 1 Samuel 12:19-25
I will never leave you nor forsake you. -Hebrews 13:5
The ancient Israelites gathered at Gilgal for the coronation of Saul as their first king (1 Sam. 11:15). The Lord was not pleased that His people had asked for a king, yet on this occasion Samuel uttered these words: "The Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people" (12:22).
We too are God's "own special people" if we have trusted Jesus as Savior (1 Peter 2:9). He will not forsake us even though He knows we will fail Him. He knows what we are like-sinful, weak, and frail. He knew it before He called us and drew us to Himself. The certainty of our salvation rests not in ourselves but on the character of God (1 John 5:20). He will keep us to the end.
This does not give us an excuse to continue in sin. Paul said, "Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Rom. 6:2). Our choices do reflect on God's reputation, our witness in the world, and our fellowship with Him. But God will never reject His people, those who are truly His. The Lord cannot and will not forsake His own (Heb. 13:5).
We can rest assured. What God saves, He keeps-for the sake of His great name! - David H. Roper
"Able to keep!" how sure is the word!
He is my Keeper, Savior, and Lord.
"Never shall perish," one of His sheep,
Glory to God! He is able to keep. -Anon.
Lives rooted in God's unchanging grace can never be uprooted.
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April 22
More Blessed to Give than to Receive
"...remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts 20:35
Unhappiness comes from mirrors. Happiness comes from windows.
If you want to be miserable, then think about yourself first...
what you want,
what people are saying about you,
what you ought to have done for you,
how down you feel,
how good you feel.
Just focus on yourself. Feeling good yet? If you are, then something is wrong. Selfishness and happiness just don't go hand in hand.
If you're thinking it's better to receive than to give, then you'll never be happy. You'll never experience the blessing of giving that Jesus taught.
Hold out your hand and make a fist for at least one minute. Now relax. Which feels better-the clinched fist or the relaxed and flexible hand?
Imagine that your spirit is tight like that fist and think of how severely that can quench His work in your life. Now relax and submit your spirit to the One who truly blesses.
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Read: Psalm 51:1-19
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love. - Psalm 51:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Second Samuel 11 records King David's infamous adultery with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah. Chapter 12 narrates the prophet Nathan's rebuke of David and the king's confession. Today's psalm is attributed to King David as his prayer following these sins.
David opens his prayer of repentance with a plea based on God's declaration in Exodus 34. Three words bind verse 1 to Exodus 34:6: "mercy," "love," and "compassion." Treat me according to who You said You are, David appeals. In other words, be gracious to me, Lord, not because of who I am, but because of who You are. David's petition that God would completely cleanse him from his sin continues through verse 9. This opening section of Psalm 51 includes two peculiar acknowledgments by David. First, David admits that his sin was an offense against the Lord (v. 4). Seemingly, David's offense was primarily against his neighbors. "Only" in verse 4 means "ultimately" more than it does "exclusively." To sin against our neighbor is to sin against the Lord. Second, David recognizes that he was sinful at birth (v. 5). Notice that the words David uses in his request (vv. 1-2); "blot out," "wash," and "cleanse" are repeated in reverse order in verses 7 through 9, indicating closure and completeness of the first section of his prayer.
The second portion of Psalm 51 includes David's request for renewal and acceptable sacrifice (vv. 10-17). "Heart" and "spirit" occur six times, emphasizing the theme of verse 6. David's prayer is that God would "create" in him a new heart, one that is pure and repentant. The essence of David's request is not simply hope for forgiveness for a particular transgression, but rather an appeal for God to make him the kind of person who is holy.
The final section of today's passage illuminates the communal effects of David's personal restoration (vv. 18-19). Repentance and heart renovation have ripple effects. If the king is renewed, Jerusalem will also be built up, and the people will follow his example, bringing the Lord "righteous sacrifices."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Psalm 51 clarifies that sin is an offense against God. Rather than employing either efforts of self-improvement or drowning in his remorse, David reached to God's unfailing love for restoration. We know from 2 Samuel 12:13 that God forgave and established David. Jeremiah also records God's promise to forgive us and give us new hearts that follow him (Jer. 31:33-34). Consider using Psalm 51 as a guide for a prayer of repentance in your own life. Pray this prayer today and begin to experience God's forgiveness, healing, and love.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 29, 2010
For The Sake Of His Name
READ: 1 Samuel 12:19-25
I will never leave you nor forsake you. -Hebrews 13:5
The ancient Israelites gathered at Gilgal for the coronation of Saul as their first king (1 Sam. 11:15). The Lord was not pleased that His people had asked for a king, yet on this occasion Samuel uttered these words: "The Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people" (12:22).
We too are God's "own special people" if we have trusted Jesus as Savior (1 Peter 2:9). He will not forsake us even though He knows we will fail Him. He knows what we are like-sinful, weak, and frail. He knew it before He called us and drew us to Himself. The certainty of our salvation rests not in ourselves but on the character of God (1 John 5:20). He will keep us to the end.
This does not give us an excuse to continue in sin. Paul said, "Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Rom. 6:2). Our choices do reflect on God's reputation, our witness in the world, and our fellowship with Him. But God will never reject His people, those who are truly His. The Lord cannot and will not forsake His own (Heb. 13:5).
We can rest assured. What God saves, He keeps-for the sake of His great name! - David H. Roper
"Able to keep!" how sure is the word!
He is my Keeper, Savior, and Lord.
"Never shall perish," one of His sheep,
Glory to God! He is able to keep. -Anon.
Lives rooted in God's unchanging grace can never be uprooted.
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The Sweetheart of Your Life
"For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh." Matthew 19:5
Today's message is for the men...If you don't love your wife now more than you loved her when you got married, you probably love her a lot less. Sir, I want you to learn to flirt - but not with any other woman - just with the girl you married!
Keep that flirtation going all throughout your life.
Never call the waitress "sweetheart." She's not your sweetheart. You have only one sweetheart. Never call someone else "dear." She's not your dear.
There is one who needs to know beyond a shadow of any doubt that she is your sweetheart, she is your darling, and she is number one.
Develop that love and keep it growing.
Are you a husband or dating someone? Let me ask you a question, then. When was the last time you bought your wife or girlfriend flowers or her favorite perfume or wrote her a love note? Stop right now and think of how you're going to show her that she's the only sweetheart in your life!
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Read: Romans 8:28-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? - Romans 8:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
Fear can be a force of both action and paralysis. All around us, fear proliferates. Fear of cancer, flying, extremists, and an international pandemic; fear of crime, failure, and economic turmoil; fear of people of other ethnicities, fear of loneliness or being truly known, fear of the end of the Mayan calendar, and fear of death. Our passage today anchors our hearts in God's love and dissipates our fears.
Verse 28 continues the point Paul introduces in verse 17: we share in both Christ's suffering and His glory. God's purpose is the overarching theme of verses 28 through 30, which is our conformity to Christlikeness. God's foreknowledge and pre-determined purpose for us is an outworking of His love and grace. Before any thought or action on our part to reach for God, He reaches for us to redeem us and call us to something so much greater, reflecting His Son, Jesus. This does not, however, exclude our cooperation with God or our loving obedience.
Paul asks in effect, If what I just said is true, then what is the result? (v. 31). Answer: if we are on God's side, then we will not be defeated. How do we know "God is for us?" Paul recounts that God gave His only Son for us to demonstrate the measure of His commitment to His love and purpose for us. Moreover, Christ was raised to life and now intercedes for us in "our present sufferings" (v. 34; 8:18).
Verses 35 and 39 are bookends to Paul's next section proclaiming that no influence or adversity-nothing-can detach us from God's unshakable love in Christ. In fact, in the same power that raised Christ from the dead, "we are more than conquerors" (v. 37). Notice the connection between God's love for us and the promise of victory over suffering and trials. The love of God in Christ overcomes hardship, persecution, and powers that war against us; it gives hope of triumph in the midst of suffering; and it is seen most clearly "in Christ Jesus our Lord" (v. 39).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The path to Christlikeness is not easy street. Sin brings suffering into our lives, and Jesus teaches that we will experience loss and persecution for following Him (Mark 10:30; John 15:20). Paul also reports oppression and trials for preaching Christ (2 Cor. 11:23-28). You can encourage and pray for Christians around the world who suffer persecution; and you can find personal comfort in adversity, being confident that nothing can separate you from God's love and that you will overcome in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 30, 2010
The Search For Satisfaction
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May 1, 2010 - by Joe Stowell
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Our Daily Bread Radio is hosted by Les Lamborn
Read: Isaiah 55:1-6
Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? -Isaiah 55:2
Bible in a year:
1 Kings 10-11; Luke 21:20-38
When it comes to jigsaw puzzles, we all know that to enjoy a satisfying outcome you need all the pieces. In many ways, life is like that. We spend our days putting it together, hoping to create a complete picture out of all the scattered parts.
Yet sometimes it seems like a piece is missing. Perhaps we've been pursuing the wrong pieces to the puzzle. Even though we may know that life without God at the center is a life that has lost the most important piece, do we live as though He isn't particularly relevant? And even though we may attend church regularly, is He the throbbing center of our lives? Sometimes we grow accustomed to feeling distant from God. This makes it easier to sin, complicating the sense that something important is missing.
But no matter how far we may drift from God, He wants us near. He appealed to His people through the prophet Isaiah: "Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance" (Isa. 55:2).
If something is missing in your life, remember that God is the only One who can fully and abundantly satisfy you. Let Him complete the picture of your life.
The God-shaped void within our heart
Cannot be filled by treasure;
It's only God who satisfies
In ways we cannot measure. -Sper
There's a longing in every heart that only Jesus can satisfy.
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Praying in Secret
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Matthew 6:6
What did our Lord mean when He said, "Enter into your closet to pray"? The word "closet" simply means a place where you can shut the door on the world and open the windows to heaven.
As you study the life of Jesus, you'll discover that Jesus sought times to be alone. Sometimes He would go to a mountain top, sometimes into the wilderness, and sometimes into a garden. It is the secret place that is the sacred place.
The mark of your prayer life is not really how well you pray in public but in private.
When you enter your closet to pray,
spend some time in silence
clear your mind
listen for His Words of edification, encouragement, and exhortation.
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Read: Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. - Ecclesiastes 1:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
New appliances in the 1950s promised housewives a new identity. A new washer or dryer, mint-green electric stove, or upright vacuum cleaner would define her as competent and accomplished-and in addition, make her happy. The allure of these shiny new household objects was short-lived. Beneath the glitz of a new Frigidaire was merely the reality of daily work. Laundry still needed to be washed, another meal to be cooked, a dirty floor to be cleaned. The cycle of work was endless.
Our study this month will examine the ways that we define our identity and find meaning and value in our lives. As we study some of the promises of the world to bring meaning to our lives, we'll also see what God's Word says about our worth and true identity.
In the book of Ecclesiastes, we read a record of this profound search for the meaning of life. Why am I here? What pleasure is there in this life? Is life "meaningless" (1:2), or is there a purpose under heaven?
The search for life's meaning plays a key role in our search for identity. Some people find identity in their career, hoping to be fulfilled as a doctor, a teacher, or a lawyer. They might conclude, I am good at football-so I will be a football star. What happens to the star's identity when what he does is no longer an option? If a teacher has no class to teach, or if a doctor has retired from practice, can he or she maintain an identity?
Ecclesiastes aptly describes the cycle of life with its repetition and continuity. "Generations come and generations go" (v. 4). Even a great king or the richest man on earth is but one player in the rolling tide of generations. Even when you achieve wealth or glory or fame, life can seem meaningless.
Finding our identity in a career is building a life on a shaky foundation. Jobs end. Skills decline. And subsequent generations may never remember our accomplishments. We need to look elsewhere for the ultimate source of our identity and worth.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It's one of the most frequently asked questions: What do you do? Our culture tempts us to equate our identity and value with what we do for a living. Career accomplishments or the size of our paycheck are barometers of our success. But as Ecclesiastes reminds us, in the scope of the universe, this could be meaningless. During your time of prayer today, ask the Lord to show you the way that He values your life and desires to shape your identity, and ask for an eternal perspective.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 2, 2010
Recession Proof
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May 2, 2010 - by Cindy Hess Kasper
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Our Daily Bread Radio is hosted by Les Lamborn
Read: 1 Chron. 29:10-13
All that is in heaven and in earth is Yours. -1 Chronicles 29:11
Bible in a year:
In his sermon titled "What Is the Recession For?" pastor John Piper suggests that when the economy plummets, God has His own purposes. Some of them might be:
1. To expose hidden sin and so bring us to repentance and cleansing.
2. To wake us up to the constant and desperate condition of the developing world, where there is always and only recession of the worst kind.
3. To relocate the roots of our joy in His grace rather than in our goods, in His mercy rather than in our money, in His worth rather than in our wealth.
4. To advance His saving mission in the world-the spread of the gospel and the growth of His church-precisely at a time when human resources are least able to support it.
5. To bring His church to care for its hurting members and to grow in the gift of love.
What else does God want to teach us in difficult times? That nothing is impossible with Him (Luke 1:37). That He who owns "the cattle on a thousand hills" (Ps. 50:10) is not limited by an economic downturn. That God hasn't placed a moratorium on the Great Commission nor abandoned us (Matt. 28:20). Let's not put our hopes on worldly prosperity, but on the One who owns it all!
When difficulties come our way,
God uses them to show
That when we put our trust in Him
His goodness we will know. -Sper
When all you have is God, you have all you need.
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Making Your Bible Come Alive
"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 Timothy 2:15
Why is it that sometimes when we read the Bible we leave our common sense at the door? You don't just pick up a book, open it at random, and start reading in the middle of a paragraph. The book wouldn't make any sense.
In order to understand and get the full appreciation for the book, we read it sequentially and in paragraphs or units.
When you read the Bible, read for quality not quantity. Don't see how much of the Bible you can read. See how much of the Bible you can assimilate and apply! Maybe what you need to do is spend a week studying one verse.
In your Bible reading today, stop and ask yourself:
"What is God telling ME?"
Not "what does this say?"
But "what is God saying to me?"
Then seek to put that into practice today.
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Read: Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8
Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. - Ecclesiastes 12:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the popular game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? the host asks the contestant progressively more difficult questions. The first questions have obvious answers, and it is fairly simple to pick the correct answer from the four options. But as the prize gets larger, the questions get more difficult.
If you've ever played along with the show, you may feel fairly confident about your own intelligence-until it passes the $32,000 mark. At that point, the questions get much more specific and the field of knowledge begins to narrow. Even a well-educated person realizes he may not know everything there is to know. The game is not as easy as it initially appeared.
The ending of the book of Ecclesiastes shows that this game of life is not as easy as first thought. Chapter 11 begins with the command, "Cast your bread upon the waters" (v. 1). The chapter continues to echo the overall theme of Ecclesiastes-life occurs in the cycle of history. What has been learned at the end of this journey?
Even our best-laid plans can go awry. Our job is not to figure out what lies ahead, but rather to do the task at hand: "you do not know the path of the wind" (v. 5). There is so much we do not know. Scripture cautions against relying on our own knowledge, intelligence, or understanding. "You cannot understand the work of God" (v. 5).
Though we cannot know the future, we are still advised to take certain actions: "let not your hands be idle" (v. 6). No matter how old we become, we should "enjoy" each year (v. 8). "Be happy" when we are young and "let your heart give you joy" (v. 9).
The true key to meaning, suggests Ecclesiastes, is not exclusive investment in work or planning for the future. It is not found in ourselves or in endless self-analysis. The key is to focus on the Creator: "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth" (12:1). We are to look for God who will satisfy the craving for meaning and purpose in our lives.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
An epitaph is the inscription that will be engraved on your gravestone. These few words will summarize who you are and what your life represented. What will your epitaph read? What has your life meant to others? What would you like it to say? It's never too late to "Remember your Creator" and make a choice to live a life with eternal purpose. As the words of a classic poem remind us, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 3, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . -Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God's interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, "I will not allow that thing to happen." And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own "sad and pitiful self." You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God's interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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Starting Your Day Out Right
"My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up." Psalm 5:3
Christianity is a love relationship. You cannot love someone that you do not know, and you cannot know someone that you don't spend quality time with.
To know Jesus is to love Him.
To love Him is to trust Him.
To trust Him is to obey Him.
To obey Him is to be blessed.
It begins with a quality, daily communication with the Lord.
Why is it best to spend time with the Lord in the morning? Because you are getting ready to go on a road trip through life. You don't take the trip and then read the map, do you?
How are you starting your mornings? With a cup of coffee and the paper? Or with the pure milk of the Word and the light of His Presence?
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Read: Romans 6:1-11
Through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. - Romans 6:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
When an American citizen might face violent recrimination from testifying against a dangerous defendant, the federal witness security program will hide the person or family and provide a new identity. Those who participate in the program may be sent to a far-away city, given new identification cards, and even new names. They are required to create a new life story, to discard anything that might tie them to their old life, and to refrain from contact with anyone-including family members-from the past. It is as if they are reborn as a new person.
In Romans, we learn about the new identity we have as believers in Christ. When we are reborn in Christ, we die to ourselves. This is a good thing, not a bad thing! By dying to self, we discard all of those old ties and old habits that have troubled us and weighed us down. Paul explains, "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (v. 2).
Paul compares this rebirth to baptism, which represents our death and resurrection in Christ. When we die to sin, we are figuratively burying it in the ground. Our new self is raised in Christ, as He was resurrected. By this, we, too, have "new life" (v. 4).
Why is this important to us as we seek our identity in Christ? It is important to distinguish between the natural, human, sinful struggles that we have and the new identity we have been given when we are raised in Christ. Through Christ, we are indeed a new creation. But dying to self is still a process. While we are on earth, we continually need to remind ourselves that our true identity is found in the salvation through Christ's resurrection, not in our own struggles and failings.
No longer can sin define us, because we are inhabited by the very Spirit of God Himself. The presence of the Holy Spirit is our new "identification card" guaranteeing that our past can never reclaim us. Our identity as the children of God is secure.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Complete this simple, fill-in-the-blank. I am ______; God is ________. Either by yourself or with your family or friends, make a list of your strug-gles to complete the sentence. For example, you might write, "I am lonely" or "I am worried." Then think of how God has fulfilled your specific need, for example: "God is faithful." Praise God that despite our ongoing struggles on this earth, He meets our needs and provides the definition for our eternal identity!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 4, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vicarious Intercession
. . having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . -Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic "understanding" of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
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The Reason We Are Stressed
"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" Matthew 6:30
Do you know the reason we're stressed? Because we think our needs are not going to be met. We say, "Oh my goodness, I'm not going to have what I need!"
Jesus tells us not to worry about what you are going to eat. And don't worry about what you are going to wear. He's saying only one thing is important - His righteousness. These things don't even take significance until your deepest needs are met. You are to find your satisfaction in Him. If you don't find your satisfaction in Him, you're going to be stressed.
Are you stressed out about something today? Turn it over to Jesus and turn your focus to Him. Let Jesus meet your needs and transform your heart today.
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Read: Psalm 8:1-9
What is man that you are mindful of him? - Psalm 8:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1893, an English professor went by train to Colorado to teach summer school. On her trip, 33-year-old Katharine Bates was inspired by many of the scenic views she saw, including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the wheat fields of Kansas. She was particularly moved by the majestic view of the plains from atop Pike's Peak. On the top of that mountain, the words of a poem came to her and she quickly wrote them down. Today, we know the poem as the song, "America the Beautiful." Her description of the "purple mountains' majesty" still resonates with our feelings of glory and awe as we view God's creation today.
The psalmist in today's passage records a similar wonder at God's creation. Read the psalm through in its entirety, noting how it begins and ends with a praise to God, the Creator: "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (vv. 1, 9). There is a contrast here between God and man. God is distinguished by "glory" (v. 1); worthy of "praise" and powerful (v. 2).
The psalmist wonders: Considering these attributes of God, how can He care for people like him? "What is man that you are mindful of him?" (v. 4). Further he asks, "the son of man that you care for him?" Not only did God create us-He cares for us!
God's creation was made with love and is given a place of honor and purpose. The text says that the son of man has been "crowned with glory and honor" and has been made "ruler over the works of your hands" (vv. 5, 6). This is a position of both significance and responsibility.
Isn't it incredible that the God of all creation could care for us in such an intimate, purposeful way? God has given us great gifts. He has given us the gift of His creation to enjoy and to rule. This demonstrates His love for us and the value He has given to us.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Music helps us to express the glory of God. If you can, listen to a few of those songs that describe the wonder of God's creation and His love for us. "America the Beautiful," "How Majestic Is Your Name," or "Lord of All Creation" are just a few suggestions. Of course, the classic hymn "How Great Thou Art" also reflects the awe we feel in God's presence. Thank Him for who He is and glory in the fact that He created us and loves us!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 5, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Judgment and the Love of God
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God . . . -1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God's idea, not man's; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience- preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out- it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
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God's Omnipotence in Creation
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1
An eloquent preacher said, "God stepped from behind the curtain of nowhere and stood upon the platform of nothing and spoke a world into existence." God is the creator of all that your hand can touch, your eye can see, your ears can hear, and your nose can smell. If you see a watch, I hope you assume there's a watchmaker. And if you see the precise atomic flux of the universe, I hope you don't believe that happened by chance. The evolutionists believe that if you take billions of years and add time plus chance, that you can turn frogs into princes. In school they call that fairy tales. In the laboratory they call it science.
God spoke your life into existence. His Word sustains your breath. His Word can silence your breath. Thank Him for your life today!
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Read: Genesis 1:26-2:25
So God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them. - Genesis 1:27
TODAY IN THE WORD
Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is said to have painted more portraits of himself than any other artist before him. He began to paint self-portraits at age 13, and later used his own face on a number of other famous portraits. Near the end of his career he thought his face bore a similarity to Jesus Christ, and he used it in a religious engraving called the "Veil of Veronica."
Dürer saw a likeness between himself and Christ; he saw himself as a reflection of the Son of God. Dürer's art expressed a conviction that we ought to share: we are made in the image of God. We bear the reflection of God in our human bodies.
Today's passage is the well-known creation story. It is important, when considering our identity in Christ, to begin at the beginning. Why were we created? How did God fashion us? What was His motivation? In this Genesis passage, God had finished creating the animals and living creatures who inherit His perfect earth.God looked at His creation and declared it "good" (v. 25).
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule." (v. 26). Note there that God gives a unique vision for His creation of mankind. He chose to create humanity, not the animals or other objects, in "his own image" (v. 27).
What does it mean to be created in the "image" of God? It certainly has implications both physically and spiritually. If we are created in God's image, then we are to reflect His image in every facet of our being. All parts of our being-body, soul, spirit-were made for His purposes and His pleasure.
But this is a cautionary tale. Man and woman did not remain in the garden. Sin separated them from God. Nevertheless, that image of God, stamped upon them would continue. Sin could not erase the reality of being created in the image of God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Pull out a coin from your coin purse or pocket. Whose image does it bear? Why? When we want to honor an individual, we put their image or name on a sign, statue, or even money. God has put his image on your life. What does that mean for you? Certainly it should ward off any tendency to cut ourselves down or to attack ourselves with negative thoughts and impulses. God respects us as His creation, worthy of bearing His image. Do you view yourself as worthy of respect?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 6, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free . . . -Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand- "Believe this and that"; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40 ). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty- the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one true liberty- the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don't get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you- with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go . . . and make disciples. . ." ( Matthew 28:19 ), not, "Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions."
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It's All about Jesus
"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5
The thing I love about the Old Testament is the thing I love about the New Testament. The Old Testament and the New Testament both are the inspired Word of God. Don't get the idea that the Old Testament has a message different from the New Testament. All of the Bible is about Jesus. If you read the Bible and you don't find Jesus, you better go reread it.
Somebody may ask if you have read the four gospels, and you can answer them, "I've read all sixty-six!"
From Genesis to Revelation,
It has the same villain - Satan.
It has the same hero - Jesus.
It has the same purpose - to present salvation in no other name but Jesus.
Read Isaiah 53. What are the prophecies that were fulfilled in the life of Christ?
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Read: Isaiah 45:5-12
It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. - Isaiah 45:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2007, a New York woman was on a walk to get a morning cup of coffee when she saw a painting set out for the trash. Elizabeth Gibson told reporters, "It was a huge, powerful, and beautiful painting. I said to myself, 'It is wrong to be in the garbage.'" Gibson carried the painting home, unaware of its value. Researching online, she discovered that the painting was titled, "Tres Personajes," by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, and had been stolen more than 20 years earlier. After returning the painting to its rightful owners, Gibson received a $15,000 reward. The painting was expected to earn as much as one million dollars at auction.
It was fortunate for the owners and for the art world that Gibson recognized the value of the painting. Without her careful eye, the beautiful and valuable creation might have been lost forever. It is sometimes easy for us to fail to recognize the value of creation. Certainly that is the case in today's passage, where the prophet bemoans man's tendency to demean the creation of God.
Part of recognizing our worth is the realization that a holy God will not make junk. God and His creation both deserve a place of honor-not set out for the trash but hung on a gallery wall. The passage begins by placing God in His rightful place of honor: "I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God" (v. 5). Why is this important? Because a correct perception of God will impact the way we perceive ourselves.
If we recognize the strength and power of God, we will see how His love can and will support us (v. 5). We see God's power in creation (vv. 7, 8). We are warned that we, as the created being, should not argue with our Creator (v. 8). After all, who knows us better than God?
Finally, we are reminded that our true value lies in the fact that we are purposefully created by a Holy God. We are made by His own hands (v. 12), the same hands that created the stars and the heavens. Certainly, we have great value.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
You may not have valuable artwork hanging on the walls of your home, and you might have to travel to an art museum in order to see a Renoir or a Van Gogh. At a museum, you will see works by great masters, as well as security guards. Why? Because it is important to guard things we treasure. What about your heart? How do you guard what God has created? Pray today that you will be careful with God's creation. Ask God to help you avoid thoughts that will seek to harm what He has so carefully and lovingly formed.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 7, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Building For Eternity
Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it . . . -Luke 14:28
Our Lord was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, the unfathomable agony He experienced in Gethsemane, and the assault upon Him at Calvary- the central point upon which all of time and eternity turn. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. In the final analysis, people are not going to laugh at Him and say, "This man began to build and was not able to finish" ( Luke 14:30 ).
The conditions of discipleship given to us by our Lord in verses 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple " (Luke 14:26 ). This verse teaches us that the only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion- those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus? (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 ). We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.
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Procrastination Is a Sin
"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." James 4:17
Are you one of those people who believes, "Put off until tomorrow what you could do today"? This is one of those times when the fingers pointing back at me outnumber the one that's pointing to you! What am I talking about? Procrastination.
Did you know that procrastination is a sin?
I say that because sin is not merely doing wrong, it is failing to do what you ought to do.
Procrastination and disobedience are just different shades of the same sin.
I heard a quote once that said it well:
When you have a job to do, begin this very hour.
You supply the will, God supplies the power.
That is the "will-power" we need to instantly obey!
Has a certain task been hounding you? Confess your procrastination as sin. And act now; don't hesitate.
Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow may never come.
Today is the day!
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Read: Isaiah 44:1-28
This is what the Lord says-he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you. - Isaiah 44:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
Abby Johnson joined Planned Parenthood because she believed that the organization was helping women at a critical time of need. The 29-year-old progressed to become a director of a local Texas chapter of the organization. But last year she was asked to assist in an ultra-sound and viewed first-hand an abortion. "I had never seen an abortion happen on an ultrasound," she said. Johnson said the experience changed her forever. "I just thought, 'What am I doing?'" she said. And then, she thought, "Never again." At the point she saw a living, breathing, heart-beating baby alive in the womb, Johnson was convinced that abortion was something she could no longer support.
Today's passage is an important one. Not only does it state that God knew and created us in the womb, but the chapter outlines His purpose for our lives. God says not only that He knew and created us, but also that He is eternal. "I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God (v. 6). He asks, "Who then is like me?" The answer, of course, is no one.
God is eternal and all-powerful. He is the Creator. We are His creation. That gives us a value, a worth that cannot be denied. We are purposefully made, purposefully created. He reminds us in verse 21: "Remember these things . . . I have made you, you are my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you."
We are made by the God who does not make mistakes. He knows us. He has promised not to forget us. This gives us reason to rejoice. Verse 23 articulates this joy: "Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this." Verse 24 directs this joy toward the Creator, "the Lord who has made all things."
When we look for our purpose, it is helpful to remember that God is our personal Creator. He has signed His name to our life. He designed us the way we are. And He has the power to carry us to the end of our lives (vv. 25-28).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
A work of art is more valuable when it is signed. The signature of the artist helps to protect against forgery or misidentification. As a child of the Creator of the universe, you need not live as a forgery, or think you are unworthy of the blessings of the Lord. Spend time today thanking God for His signature upon your life. If you are tempted to relegate yourself to a dustbin of uselessness, pray through the verses in today's reading again and praise the God who made you, who loves you, and has declared your value.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 8, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vicarious Intercession
. . having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . -Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic "understanding" of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
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Choose to Love
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust'" (Matthew 5:43-45).
These are not suggestions to be considered, they are commands to be obeyed. "A pretty tall order," you say. Perhaps, but definitely within the realm of possibility.
Jesus would never tell us to do something we could not do. That would be unjust. We can bless, we can do good, we can pray for and forgive those who have wronged us.
When people say, "I can't forgive," that generally means, "I won't forgive." The ability to love, bless and forgive is within us-because God is within us. Learn to let His nature of love dominate you. Choose to love. Let what God has put on the inside come out.
The world needs to see real love-the kind of unconditional love that brought us into God's family. And they need to see it in us. If we really are the children of God, then His nature should be displayed in us and through us. The most outstanding feature of God's nature is love. God is love.
One last thing. When you choose to love and forgive those who have wronged you, you set a prisoner free. The prisoner is you.
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Read: Matthew 10:26-32; 1 Corinthians 13:11-13
Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. - Matthew 10:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
Chandria Murphy was in a state of panic when she discovered her diamond engagement ring was missing. Murphy had stopped to help her mother at her local business giving chair massages to tired shoppers. In order to assist with a last-minute client, Murphy took off her ring and placed it on a table. In the craziness of the day, she forgot it. The next day, she hurried back, but the ring was gone. She checked with security and placed an ad in the paper. Amazingly, the next day Jim Baroch found the ring while shopping. He saw Murphy's ad and returned it to the rightful owner. How relieved Murphy must have been to have such a valuable treasure found at last!
Did you know that God sees you as a treasure? In our reading from Matthew today, Jesus was addressing the disciples' fears. He acknowledged their concerns that people might treat His followers badly. In fact, Christians might find themselves attacked or put in life-threatening situations. Jesus counseled them, "So do not be afraid of them" (v. 26). On the surface, this advice does not make sense; of course we would be afraid of potential threats!
But the reason we can avoid fear comes from the value that God ascribes to us as His children. He compares us to sparrows. Although they are not worth much financially, "not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father" (v. 29). Our worth is even greater. God knows us, He cares about us, and He will not let eternal harm befall us. This makes us supremely valuable.
God knows us intimately and fully. First Corinthians 13 describes not only God's love for us, but also how our love should be extended to others. The verses at the end of this passage show not only God's love for us but also His knowledge of us. "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (v. 12). No part of our life is hidden; God knows us and values us.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The more you value a relationship, the more you know about a person. For example, do you know the one food that your spouse or best friend hates? Do you know his or her favorite movie? Can you identify their pet peeves? On the contrary, it would be very difficult to answer these questions for someone you've just met or an acquaintance you see once in a while. We can have confidence knowing that our God knows us so intimately-and He loves and values us very much.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 9, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Next Step
. . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses -2 Corinthians 6:4
When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.
Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17 .
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Pursue Hospitality
Romans 12:9-14 says,
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
At the end of verse 13, Paul says we are to be "given to hospitality." The word given is the Greek word translated "pursue" everywhere else in the New Testament. This could be translated "pursuing hospitality."
Hospitality is actually a compound word in the Greek language. The first part of the word means to be fond of. The second part means guests. So hospitality means to be friendly to strangers, to open your heart and open your home to others.
The Scripture is very strong when it says we are to pursue hospitality. It is one of the greatest ways in all the world to demonstrate the love of God to people who are in need.
I remember like it was yesterday a time I was preaching at a church. It was over 20 years ago, when I was a newlywed. After the service was done, Janet and I were standing around not knowing what to do. No one was speaking to us and the church had made no provision for our lodging or meals.
Just then an elderly couple came up to us and invited us to their home for lunch, which we gratefully accepted.
And you know what? I don't remember what I preached that day, but to this day I remember eating roast in that couple's home. I remember their graciousness, their hospitable spirit, and how much they made us feel welcome.
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Read: Romans 5:1-11; John 3:16
But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world. The white marble structure in India was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife and queen Mumtz Mahal. She died during childbirth at age 39. Some say her dying request was for her husband to build a beautiful mausoleum in honor of their love. The Taj Mahal took 22 years and 20,000 workers to construct at a cost of 32 million rupees. But for a gift of love, no time, labor, or cost was too much.
Remarkable love often results in remarkable sacrifice. The emperor loved his dying wife so much and grieved so greatly after her death that he wanted to pay tribute to her with something tangible. In an even more magnificent way, God did the same for you. Today's passage outlines the gospel story that you may have heard many times before. As you read, focus on this expression of divine love.
Let's look at the context of our verse for today. The beginning of Romans 5 describes the result of our justification. Because we are justified, we have "peace" (v. 1) with God. Because we are justified, we have "gained access" to God and have the "hope of the glory of God" (v. 2). Because we are justified, we can "rejoice in our sufferings" (v. 3).
The last part may give us pause. Why does our justification allow us to rejoice even when we are suffering? The passage continues to answer that question. Suffering allows us to become more conformed to the image of Christ. Suffering has by-products; it produces perseverance, character, and hope.
We have hope. Why? Because our justification before God was a supreme act of love. It shows how valuable we are to God, even in our sinful and corrupt state. God's gift for us was not earned. He loves us unconditionally. His love was proven by the sacrifice of His Son, a gift to justify us. The evidence of His love is not a marble structure, but it is seen in the way our lives reflect His character.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Love impacts our hearts, minds and bodies. For some, it may be difficult to accept that God could love us in this way. We think we have to prove ourselves or do something worthy. The truth is, nothing we do could possibly be impressive enough. God demonstrated His love to us while were still sinners. Thank God for His indescribable gift, and if you have not yet accepted His love by trusting in the gift of His Son Jesus to justify you and save you from your sins, will you do so today?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops -Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2 ). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."- pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood- darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart- a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
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Choose to Love
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust'" (Matthew 5:43-45).
These are not suggestions to be considered, they are commands to be obeyed. "A pretty tall order," you say. Perhaps, but definitely within the realm of possibility.
Jesus would never tell us to do something we could not do. That would be unjust. We can bless, we can do good, we can pray for and forgive those who have wronged us.
When people say, "I can't forgive," that generally means, "I won't forgive." The ability to love, bless and forgive is within us-because God is within us. Learn to let His nature of love dominate you. Choose to love. Let what God has put on the inside come out.
The world needs to see real love-the kind of unconditional love that brought us into God's family. And they need to see it in us. If we really are the children of God, then His nature should be displayed in us and through us. The most outstanding feature of God's nature is love. God is love.
One last thing. When you choose to love and forgive those who have wronged you, you set a prisoner free. The prisoner is you.
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Read: Romans 5:1-11; John 3:16
But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world. The white marble structure in India was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife and queen Mumtz Mahal. She died during childbirth at age 39. Some say her dying request was for her husband to build a beautiful mausoleum in honor of their love. The Taj Mahal took 22 years and 20,000 workers to construct at a cost of 32 million rupees. But for a gift of love, no time, labor, or cost was too much.
Remarkable love often results in remarkable sacrifice. The emperor loved his dying wife so much and grieved so greatly after her death that he wanted to pay tribute to her with something tangible. In an even more magnificent way, God did the same for you. Today's passage outlines the gospel story that you may have heard many times before. As you read, focus on this expression of divine love.
Let's look at the context of our verse for today. The beginning of Romans 5 describes the result of our justification. Because we are justified, we have "peace" (v. 1) with God. Because we are justified, we have "gained access" to God and have the "hope of the glory of God" (v. 2). Because we are justified, we can "rejoice in our sufferings" (v. 3).
The last part may give us pause. Why does our justification allow us to rejoice even when we are suffering? The passage continues to answer that question. Suffering allows us to become more conformed to the image of Christ. Suffering has by-products; it produces perseverance, character, and hope.
We have hope. Why? Because our justification before God was a supreme act of love. It shows how valuable we are to God, even in our sinful and corrupt state. God's gift for us was not earned. He loves us unconditionally. His love was proven by the sacrifice of His Son, a gift to justify us. The evidence of His love is not a marble structure, but it is seen in the way our lives reflect His character.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Love impacts our hearts, minds and bodies. For some, it may be difficult to accept that God could love us in this way. We think we have to prove ourselves or do something worthy. The truth is, nothing we do could possibly be impressive enough. God demonstrated His love to us while we were still sinners. Thank God for His indescribable gift, and if you have not yet accepted His love by trusting in the gift of His Son Jesus to justify you and save you from your sins, will you do so today?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Love One Another"
. . . add to your . . . brotherly kindness love -2 Peter 1:5, 7
Love is an indefinite thing to most of us; we don't know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26 ). Initially, when "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" ( Romans 5:5 ), it is easy to put Jesus first. But then we must practice the things mentioned in 2 Peter 1 to see them worked out in our lives.
The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He commands me to show the same love to others by saying, ". . . love one another as I have loved you" ( John 15:12 ). He is saying, "I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you." This kind of love is not a patronizing love for the unlovable- it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight. Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated.
"The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish . . ." ( 2 Peter 3:9 ). I should look within and remember how wonderfully He has dealt with me. The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor God's divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.
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The Love of Money
In 1 Timothy 6:9-11, Paul gives us a critical insight,
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
I want you to notice: Before Paul tells us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness, he says we must first flee the love of money. You have to be willing to flee the wrong things before you can pursue the right things, because you cannot go in two directions at once.
If you are pursuing riches, and the gaining of wealth and the achievement of success have become your number one priorities, pushing everything else, including God, to the side, then you are pursuing the wrong thing.
You may be thinking, "Well, that's great for some people, but that doesn't apply to me." You need to understand that you can be eaten up with the love of money and not have a dime in your pocket. All of us are subject to such a temptation and such a trap.
It's fascinating that Paul uses the word "drown" here. I live by the Pacific Ocean, and generally people who drown do so because, (a) they overestimate their own abilities as a swimmer; or (b) they underestimate the power of the ocean.
If you overestimate your ability to be free from this type of a temptation, or you underestimate the power of this type of a temptation, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
Flee the wrong and pursue the right. Stay on course with God.
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Read: 1 Peter 2:4-9; Colossians 3:1-4
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house. - 1 Peter 2:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the world's most famous gems is the Hope Diamond. The story goes that a French merchant purchased an enormous 112-3/16-carat diamond. The diamond, most likely from India, was described as having a "beautiful violet" color. The merchant sold the diamond to King Louis XIV of France in 1668. Many of its owners experienced bad luck and even death, which led to the association of the gem with its unfortunate legend. Over the years, the diamond passed through the hands of royalty and wealthy businessmen, and along the way, it was recut and shaped to its present 45.52 carats. Although now a fraction of its original weight, the diamond is still a magnificent treasure on permanent display in the Smithsonian.
Precious stones do not go unnoticed. They are valued, displayed, treasured, and fought over. They are used as a tribute to one's love when placed in an engagement or anniversary band. So it is noticeable that God compares us, as well as His Son, to living stones "chosen by God and precious to him" (1 Peter 2:4).
In Colossians, our value is linked to Christ. Paul explains that since we have been raised with Christ into a new life (v. 1), our focus should not be on things here on earth, but on eternal things. Our new life, says Paul, is "hidden with Christ in God" (v. 3). To be hidden means that our own selfish desires are submitted to Christ. We are invisible, so that Christ can become visible in our lives.
The word hidden also carries with it the idea of protection. When a gem is very valuable, it is often hidden to protect it from theft or destruction. Our lives, our very identity, is hidden safely in Christ. No one can take or destroy what is safely hidden with God. Scripture tells us that our one gem becomes part of a larger dwelling, "a spiritual house" offering sacrifices acceptable to God. Together, our precious gem becomes transformed into something immensely valuable to our Creator.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our lives and our identities are hidden in Christ-protected and being transformed to be more like Him. Spend time in prayer today asking the Holy Spirit to show you any areas where you are tempted to shine your own light or promote your own identity. Sometimes we do this out of fear or in order to feel in control. Ask the Lord to help you remember that when you are hidden in Christ, you are safe and fully loved.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Having No Habits
If these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful . . . -2 Peter 1:8
When we first begin to form a habit, we are fully aware of it. There are times when we are aware of becoming virtuous and godly, but this awareness should only be a stage we quickly pass through as we grow spiritually. If we stop at this stage, we will develop a sense of spiritual pride. The right thing to do with godly habits is to immerse them in the life of the Lord until they become such a spontaneous expression of our lives that we are no longer aware of them. Our spiritual life continually causes us to focus our attention inwardly for the determined purpose of self-examination, because each of us has some qualities we have not yet added to our lives.
Your god may be your little Christian habit- the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, "I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God." No, this is your time alone with your habit. There is a quality that is still lacking in you. Identify your shortcoming and then look for opportunities to work into your life that missing quality.
Love means that there are no visible habits- that your habits are so immersed in the Lord that you practice them without realizing it. If you are consciously aware of your own holiness, you place limitations on yourself from doing certain things- things God is not restricting you from at all. This means there is a missing quality that needs to be added to your life. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there someplace where you are not at home with God? Then allow God to work through whatever that particular circumstance may be until you increase in Him, adding His qualities. Your life will then become the simple life of a child.
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The Main Pursuit
Ezekiel 33:30-32 provides some pretty direct and challenging words from God,
"As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, 'Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them."
I think, for some people, church is almost like going to a concert, especially if the preacher is flashy and the music is great. They are not listening with a view to imbibe God's truth and then put it into practice in their lives.
What is the reason for this disconnect? People are pursuing something else in their hearts. Sure, they are showing up at church, they are listening, they are even saying "amen" at the right time, but they are not applying God's truth to their lives. Why? Because they are pursuing something else in their heart.
This is the same thing that Paul talked to Timothy about in yesterday's devotional. Remember? Like Ezekiel, he said, Their hearts pursue their own gain.
It is very simple: If your focus is on the pursuit of things, your focus will never be on the One who has created all things. It really boils down to this one question: What is the main pursuit of your life?
If it is not God, then your life is going in the wrong direction!
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Read: Philippians 2:1-13
Shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. - Philippians 2:15-16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Many visitors to Los Angeles make their way to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On Hollywood Boulevard, embedded in the sidewalk, are more than 2,000 stars engraved with the names of celebrities from music, television, and theater. The first eight stars were dedicated in 1958. The celebrities, real and fictional, who have had a star placed in their honor include former President Ronald Reagan, Mickey Mouse, John Wayne, and Diana Ross.
It is ironic that these stars are on the ground, in a place where ordinary human beings can walk on top of them. In today's passage, God clearly explains the value He places upon our lives. He immortalizes us not on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but as stars in the universe, held high for all to see. Our value in Christ extends far beyond mortal fame. By humbling ourselves to God, we are truly exalted.
The Philippians passage is an oft-quoted favorite. It describes the example we have in Christ who, "being in very nature God" (2:6), humbled Himself by taking on the "nature of a servant" (v. 7). Jesus Christ did not claim all His rights and privileges on earth. Instead, He was born as a baby of humble means. His arrival was not heralded in newspapers or photographed by the paparazzi.
The significance of His humility is noted in verse 9. "Therefore"-because of this-we read that "God exalted him to the highest place" (v. 9). God gave Him the "name that is above every name" (v. 9). No name-no person-is higher than Jesus Christ.
What does this mean for us? It gives us extraordinary, immeasurable value. It places us in a place of honor. Through Christ's transformation, we become "blameless and pure" (v. 15). Through His love, we will "shine like stars in the universe." We can never view our lives as insignificant. As children of God, chosen and redeemed by the Son of God, we have immeasurable value and will be given a position of high honor.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Before you go to bed tonight, step outside and take a look at the stars. If the night is not too cloudy, you will see a vast array of tiny dots of light. For millennia, people have charted their path according to the stars, using them to guide ships and continental treks. As you gaze at God's creation, realize that your life, too, is a star shining for all to see. Can others look to you for an example of how to live? Does your life reflect the glory of God and lead others on a path toward Him?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Keeping a Clear Conscience
. . . strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men -Acts 24:16
God's commands to us are actually given to the life of His Son in us. Consequently, to our human nature in which God's Son has been formed (see Galatians 4:19 ), His commands are difficult. But they become divinely easy once we obey.
Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God's standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God's Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" ( Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23 ).
God always instructs us down to the last detail. Is my ear sensitive enough to hear even the softest whisper of the Spirit, so that I know what I should do? "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God . . ." ( Ephesians 4:30 ). He does not speak with a voice like thunder- His voice is so gentle that it is easy for us to ignore. And the only thing that keeps our conscience sensitive to Him is the habit of being open to God on the inside. When you begin to debate, stop immediately. Don't ask, "Why can't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There is no debating possible once your conscience speaks. Whatever it is- drop it, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.
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Sowing Righteousness
The Bible says in Galatians 6:7,
Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
And in Proverbs 11:18 it says,
The wicked man does deceptive work, but he who sows righteousness will have a sure reward.
The Bible teaches the law of the harvest, that what you sow, you will also reap. If you treat others fairly and uprightly, it will come back to you.
We live in a world that doesn't put much stock in integrity, fairness, uprightness, and righteousness. We must be careful to not give in to that influence. We need to be different.
How? By not cutting corners. By putting in an honest day's work. By giving people what they pay for and more. If you will pursue righteousness, it will come back to you.
You may remember a story back in the eighties about an armored car that crashed in Columbus, Ohio. Two million dollars in cash spilled out on the highway, and the motorists helped the armored car company gather all of its money.
But, when it was all said and done, only $400,000 of the $2 million made its way back to the armored car company. $1.6 million ended up in the pockets of the people who stopped along the highway to "help."
I'm sure they had every excuse under the sun. Some probably even said, "Well, I've been praying for God to meet my needs, and it was a miracle!" No, it was not a miracle. They were thieves!
You cannot make an excuse for that kind of thing. And yet that is the way the world thinks. There should be a difference between us and the world. We need to pursue uprightness, integrity, honesty, and godly character. They need to be hallmarks of our lives.
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Read: 1 John 3:1-24
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us! - 1 John 3:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Online dating has changed the way millions of men and women approach romance. Instead of spotting your potential loved one across a crowded room, people now scroll through a variety of potential candidates on a computer screen. The single person looking for love enters his or her personal data into a computerized Web site or online dating program. The program will screen those characteristics, finding the closest matches. Web sites like e-Harmony and Match.com claim that their techniques have produced hundreds of thousands of marriages and long-term relationships. No wonder they are popular! Don't we all hunger to find our one true love?
Everyone wants to feel loved in a special and intimate way. A good deal of our self worth comes from knowing that someone knows us and loves us. Famed psychologist Abraham Maslow described our need for love as an important platform in his pyramid, the Hierarchy of Needs. We all need to be loved.
In today's passage, John describes the way God loves us. Chapter 3 emphasizes the type of love God gives us. It is not stingy or reserved. It is "great" and "lavish" (v. 1). This is an effusive love, an over-the-top type of love. God's love toward us is amazing. We also know that we are His children, and we are not yet in our final state.
The second part of verse 2 is important. God's love promises to transform us. When God appears, we will be made like Him. His love will "purify" us (v. 3). This purity excludes sin. John warns us to keep in mind the final transformation that God promises to us as His children to motivate our behavior now. We are not to be like those who do not know Him. We are to love others, as God has loved us (v. 10).
God's dramatic love for us required great sacrifice (v. 16). Our love for others should mimic His sacrifice. Our words and our actions should be marked and transformed by love (v. 18). How great a love God has given us!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
All of us are searching for love. Sometimes, though, we look for it in the wrong places. We may even start to feel bad about ourselves because we are not loved as we think we should be. Whether you are single or married, an adult or a child, you know how important it is to experience love. Today, take time to thank God for the lavish way He loves you, and look for opportunities to extend this extravagant, sacrificial love to others in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Enjoying Adversity
. . . that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body -2 Corinthians 4:10
We have to develop godly habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not just a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved so that "the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." And it is adversity that makes us exhibit His life in our mortal flesh. Is my life exhibiting the essence of the sweetness of the Son of God, or just the basic irritation of "myself" that I would have apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy adversity is the acute sense of eagerness of allowing the life of the Son of God to evidence itself in me. No matter how difficult something may be, I must say, "Lord, I am delighted to obey You in this." Instantly, the Son of God will move to the forefront of my life, and will manifest in my body that which glorifies Him.
You must not debate. The moment you obey the light of God, His Son shines through you in that very adversity; but if you debate with God, you grieve His Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30 ). You must keep yourself in the proper condition to allow the life of the Son of God to be manifested in you, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God's sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to "supply all your need" ( Philippians 4:19 ).
Keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on your memories of past experiences, but let the Word of God always be living and active in you.
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The Reward of Godliness
In today's devotional, I want to draw your attention to the importance of the pursuit of godliness. Let's look at 1 Timothy 6:6,
Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
What an incredible truth. Godliness coupled with contentment is great gain. Not just gain, GREAT gain!
Over and over in Scripture, God highlights the importance and reward of godliness. For instance, it says in Psalm 4:3, That the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly. 2 Peter says the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Those are great rewards!
But there is more. Look at 1 Timothy 4:7-8,
But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
It could not be more clear! There is profit in godliness, and that profit is not only in this life, but in the life that is to come. Godliness is going to pay off in both this life and into eternity!
So it makes sense to make this pursuit of godliness a priority! Even if people want to kick you every time you do something that is right, you need to stay with it.
Determine today to make godliness an everyday pursuit. If you do, you will reap the rewards of godliness, great gain and profit, not just in this life, but for eternity.
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Read: Psalm 139:1-10
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. - Psalm 139:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
A medical imaging method using X-rays is called "full body scan" or computed tomography. This type of full-body X-ray is used to scan the entire body looking for potential health problems. While not fully supported by everybody in the medical community or the FDA, these full body scans seem appealing to someone worried about his or her health. What better way to prevent illness than to be able to peer inside one's body, to look under the skin, and to see everything that is happening? If doctors were able to know the inner working of our bodies, wouldn't that be to our advantage?
The Bible speaks of an even better, intimate knowledge of who we are inside and out, not just physically but also spiritually. Today and tomorrow, we will look at Psalm 139. This song of praise focuses on the way God knows and loves us.
In today's passage, David talks about God's knowledge of who he is. "You have searched me and you know me" (v. 1). To search implies effort. When something is lost, we search for it. We may retrace our steps, send out groups of people, and track clues. All of these things imply active engagement. God feels that way about us. He searches our heart. He knows us intimately.
God knows when we "sit" and "rise" (v. 2). God knows our "thoughts" and our "ways (v. 3). Even before we utter a word, God knows what we are going to say. This intimate knowledge is not oppressive, but freeing. Because God knows us intimately, we feel safe. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me," exclaims David (v. 6).
He then uses expansive poetic imagery to prove how thorough and widespread God's love is for us. He says that if we go to the "heavens" or down to the "depths" (v. 8), God is aware of exactly where we are. The "darkness" and the "light" do not hide us. He knows us. The Creator of the universe has created us, knows us, searches us intimately, and still loves us profoundly.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Stretch out your hand and look at it closely. Examine your fingernails, your wrinkles, the veins on your hand. Do you have any freckles on your hand? Which one of your fingers is the longest? Turning over to look at your palms, examine the lines that criss-cross it. What shapes do they make? As you look at yourself this intimately and closely, know that God, your Creator, already knows these things about you and much more. Thank Him today for His knowledge of who you are. You are known and loved.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Rising to the Occasion
. . . that you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . -Ephesians 1:18
Remember that you have been saved so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in your body (see 2 Corinthians 4:10 ). Direct the total energy of your powers so that you may achieve everything your election as a child of God provides; rise every time to whatever occasion may come your way.
You did not do anything to achieve your salvation, but you must do something to exhibit it. You must "work out your own salvation" which God has worked in you already ( Philippians 2:12 ). Are your speech, your thinking, and your emotions evidence that you are working it "out"? If you are still the same miserable, grouchy person, set on having your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.
God is the Master Designer, and He allows adversities into your life to see if you can jump over them properly-"By my God I can leap over a wall" ( Psalm 18:29 ). God will never shield you from the requirements of being His son or daughter. First Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you . . . ." Rise to the occasion-do what the trial demands of you. It does not matter how much it hurts as long as it gives God the opportunity to manifest the life of Jesus in your body.
May God not find complaints in us anymore, but spiritual vitality-a readiness to face anything He brings our way. The only proper goal of life is that we manifest the Son of God; and when this occurs, all of our dictating of our demands to God disappears. Our Lord never dictated demands to His Father, and neither are we to make demands on God. We are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. Once we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine with which to feed and nourish others.
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Strengthening Your Faith
Romans 10:17 is the verse I would like for you to read today. It says,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
To fully understand this verse, you need to know that if you are saved, faith has already been deposited in your heart. It is part of your spiritual DNA. Romans 12:3 says that, God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Faith is something He has already given.
It is up to you to develop that faith. It is up to you to do something with it. How do you develop it? You develop it first by hearing the Word of God.
The Bible-God's Word-is the food. As you feed upon it, your faith will be strengthened.
You know those body builders, men and women who are constantly pumping weights? Well, if you talk to any serious body builder, one of the first things they will refer to is diet. You have to eat the right kind of diet if you are going to build muscle mass. Usually, their diet is protein-rich.
They faithfully drink their protein shakes and eat their tuna fish sandwiches, which, when they are consumed and digested, become the raw materials that build muscle mass.
As you feed upon and digest God's Word, that truth becomes the raw material that will build faith. It is faith food.
Most people who struggle with their faith are feeding on the wrong things. Faith comes unconsciously when you feed upon God's Word.
So today, if you feel like you are struggling in your faith, then change your diet. Start feeding more on God's Word!
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Read: Psalm 139:11-24
For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. - Psalm 139:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
With the help of ultrasound imaging, scientists today know more than ever about the way life begins. For example, did you know that twenty days after conception, before most women know they are pregnant, the fetus has a beating heart? A doctor who performed the first blood transfusion to an unborn baby said, "By thirty days, the baby has a brain of unmistakable human proportions, eyes, ears, mouth, kidneys, liver, an umbilical cord, and a heart pumping blood he has made himself." Certainly, our lives are woven in miraculous ways.
But God has known you longer than anyone else, including your parents? In this psalm, David rejoices in the fact that God knows us eternally. As today's verse describes, God knew us while we were being formed in the womb. God created not just our human form: our eyes, lips, and heart. He created who we are, "our innermost being" (v. 13).
God saw who we would be before we were created. "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (v. 16). Not only did God know who you would become, and that you might inherit your father's eyes or your mother's ability to whistle, He actually knew what would happen to you in every moment of existence. Your life is held safely in His hand.
This type of foreknowledge invites troubling thoughts as well. David seems to wrestle with this idea, as he acknowledges that God's knowledge of who we were means that the amount of His thoughts are innumerable (v. 18). How can we conceive the mind of God?
Why does God allow us to struggle? Why do we face enemies (vv. 19-22). Why do we wrestle with illness or depression? God knows this too, right? David concludes that God's ways are higher than ours. Even when we are tempted to question God's ways, we must rest in the knowledge that He undoubtedly knows us and what is best for us, far more than we can know ourselves (vv. 23-24).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Many of our questions about our life's plan will remain unanswered until eternity. Thankfully, God has given us the examples recorded in Scripture to remind us that we are not alone, and that He is faithful. If you are struggling with events in your life, read through the books of Job and Psalms to see how God works to comfort and protect His children. Pray today that God will allow you to rest your anxious thoughts in Him. He knows you, your past and your future, and He is a good and loving God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Recognizing God's Provision
. . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . -2 Peter 1:4
We are made "partakers of the divine nature," receiving and sharing God's own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God's provision for us. We say, however, "Oh, I can't afford it." One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, "Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle." And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him. Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn't they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges- always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.
Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, "All my springs are in You" (Psalm 87:7 ). If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 9:8 )- then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself. Be marked and identified with God's nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.
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The Qualities of Love
For the last number of devotionals, we have focused our attention on how love is such a vital quality to the Christian life. We have seen that unless we love, any of the spiritual gifts are meaningless.
We have also seen that God has deposited His love in us already, and as a result, it is our responsibility to choose to express that love. It is not something we can put on God's shoulders. We must take on that obligation.
So what do those qualities of love really look like? I want to share with you 1 Corinthians 13 from theAmplified Bible, but I want to do it with a twist. I want to make it personal and show how, if we choose to love as God has asked us to love, it will look.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 from the Amplified Bible...personalized (read it out loud),
I endure long, and I am patient and kind. I am never envious or boil over with jealousy. I am not boastful or vainglorious. I do not display myself haughtily. I am not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride. I am not rude or unmannerly. I do not act unbecomingly. God's love in me does not insist on its own rights or its own way for I am not self-seeking. I am not touchy or fretful or resentful. I take no account of the evil done to me. I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail. I bear up under anything and everything that comes, and I am ever ready to believe the best of every person. My hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and I endure everything without weakening. God's love in me never fails.
I challenge you to read this out loud to yourself every day for a month, and see if it does not change your life!
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Read: Jeremiah 31:1-14
I have loved you with an everlasting love. - Jeremiah 31:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the classic movie Love Affair, a man and a woman fall in love while onboard a ship. They make an appointment to meet six months later atop the Empire State Building. In the meantime, tragedy strikes. The woman, Terry McKay, is struck by a car and told she might be crippled. The man, a French painter named Michel Marnet, goes to meet her, but she does not show up. While the two are separated, they never forget their love for one another. Finally, they meet by accident and Michel learns the real reason Terry did not keep their appointment. He assures her that their love is meant to be, and that he will stay with her whatever the diagnosis may be. The story struck such a chord that it has been remade several times, most notably as An Affair to Remember.
Most of us yearn for this type of never-ending, romantic love. We see in our today's passage in Jeremiah that God loves us exactly like that. The only difference is that unlike Michel, God already knows exactly who we are and what we are struggling with; nothing is hidden from Him.
The third verse is worth memorizing: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness." Here God speaks to His people who have been plagued with problems and doubt and disobedience. They have worshiped other gods. Yet, despite their sins, God makes this astounding pledge. He loves them. And He will "build them up again" (v. 4).
He describes the joy and life they will know again with "tambourines" and "vineyards" and "joy." He is their redeemer (v. 11). He will pay the price to buy them back from their oppressors and to restore them.
"Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well" (v. 13). This is a passage of hope for us. Ultimately due to His own redemptive work, God promises to restore us. The story does not end with times of trouble. His everlasting love will keep us to the end.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The wedding ring is often used to symbolize everlasting love. Do you realize that married or not, you have been promised a love like this? Write out the third verse and put it somewhere you will read it often this week. Remember that whether or not you wear a physical token of love, you have been promised God's eternal love. You have been bought with a price. You have been guaranteed a hopeful future. Your life is in the hands of One much greater than you. You are not alone.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Ascension and Our Access
It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven -Luke 24:51
We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord's life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward- Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection- everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.
The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.
The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God- He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
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Spiritual Metamorphosis
Romans 12:1-2 says this,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
First, notice that it is your responsibility to present your body to God. God will not do it for you. You have to do it. But Scripture doesn't leave us there. We are shown how we are to do that in verse 2 above.
First, when it says, Do not be conformed, that word conform means to be pressed into a mold by outward pressures. Instead of being conformed we are told to be transformed. That is actually the Greek word from which we get our English word metamorphosis. It means to let what is on the inside come to the outside.
One day many years ago, my kids came home from school with some silk worms. We were supposed to put them in a box and feed them mulberry leaves. I couldn't believe how many leaves these worms ate! They ate leaves until they turned a translucent green!
Then they wove cocoons and went through a metamorphosis. They went from being these ugly ol' fat green transparent worms, to the most beautiful fuzzy huge white moths. It was amazing to see!
My friend, you renew your mind by feeding on God's Word, the same way that those silk worms fed on the mulberry leaves. As you are filled with His truth, it causes a metamorphosis to take place. It brings what is on the inside-God's nature-to the outside.
So feed on God's Word and watch your life be transformed.
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Read: Acts 17:22-31
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. - Acts 17:27
TODAY IN THE WORD
Tracing one's family tree is a popular hobby for many Americans. In fact, in 2001, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution declaring October as Family History Month. It stated, "Within the last month some 14,167,329 people researched their family history and 24 million people have used the Web and e-mail to locate or hunt for family or friends." Kim Farah, a spokesperson for the Family History Library, says that it touches a fundamental need: "It crosses faith and cultures. The positive benefits of knowing our heritage . . . gives us a sense of responsibility and self-esteem."
As believers, our self-esteem can and should be directly linked to our relationship to God. In today's passage, Paul is giving a speech in Athens, a city filled with idols (v. 16). Paul stressed the distinction between being religious and knowing the true God, and he detailed how his own God was the one true God who created the heaven and the earth (vv. 23-24).
This God is not "served by human hands" (v. 25). In other words, God does not need us in order to survive. He made us and made the world-what could He need? Yet, in this passage, Paul revealed what God desires. God made all of this "so that men would seek him" (v. 27). God loves us, but He does not manipulate our minds and hearts. He made us, and it is His desire that we would want to know Him, to find Him, and to have a relationship with Him. He does not view us as puppets on His string.
"For in him we live and move and have our being" (v. 28). Our heritage is directly linked to the divine Creator. It is natural for offspring to want to know their parents. It is natural, then, that since we are God's offspring, we will want to find our image in Him. Only in God-not in our own accomplishments, possessions, personality, or family history-can we find the source of our true identity.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What part of you resembles your ancestors? You might have your mother's eyes or your grandfather's nose; those attributes are an unmistakable link to your heritage. Spend some time today considering what attributes you have that link you to God, your heavenly Father. Your list might include patience with a difficult loved one, generosity toward the needy, or forgiveness of someone who hurt you. Pray that the Holy Spirit will strengthen you as you mature to look more like your Father every day.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Living Simply- Yet Focused
Look at the birds of the air . . . . Consider the lilies of the field . . . -Matthew 6:26, 28
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin"- they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars, and the moon- all of these simply are as well- yet what a ministry and service they render on our behalf! So often we impair God's designed influence, which He desires to exhibit through us, because of our own conscious efforts to be consistent and useful. Jesus said there is only one way to develop and grow spiritually, and that is through focusing and concentrating on God. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me." In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38 ). We cannot discover the source of our natural life through common sense and reasoning, and Jesus is teaching here that growth in our spiritual life comes not from focusing directly on it, but from concentrating on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows our circumstances, and if we will stay focused on Him, instead of our circumstances, we will grow spiritually- just as "the lilies of the field."
The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and "the lilies of the field"- simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.
If you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him, and He will make use of you every minute you live- yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of Him.
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Your Professional Trainer
As we continue to look at faith, I want you to read Hebrews 12:1-2,
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
What this passage teaches about faith is vital for you to understand if you are to progress in your faith. That truth is simply this: Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He not only authors it, He is the One who is the developer of our faith.
Remember the analogy of the body builder from the last two devotionals? Well, if your faith is like a body builder, Jesus is your weight trainer. Many of the people who are seriously into body building have a professional trainer who will work with them to be more effective in building muscle mass and sculpting their body.
Just like the professional weight trainer for a body builder, Jesus is your professional faith trainer. No one knows more about faith than Jesus. If you want to learn about faith, you need to listen to Jesus. You need to follow His guidance on how to build your faith.
Over the next few devotionals, I will show you three levels of faith Jesus talks about. Through that process, I pray you will discover where you are at, and see where you need to go and what you need to pursue in order for your faith to grow.
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Read: Romans 8:9-17
We are heirs-heirs to God and coheirs with Christ . . . that we may also share in his glory. - Romans 8:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
At one time, William Clark was the second-richest man in the United States, his fortune rivaled only by that of John Rockefeller. The bulk of his fortune passed to his daughter Huguette. Now nearly 104 years old, Huguette has no direct heirs, and almost no one-including the staff of her various homes- even knows where she is. Though she has made charitable contributions through the years, no one knows how she intends to dispense of her immense fortune when she dies.
Our passage today talks about an inheritance even more magnificent than anything imagined by William Clark. And in this case, we know who the heirs are-it's us! "We are heirs-heirs to God and coheirs with Christ" (v. 17).
This section of Romans 8 begins with a reminder about control. We are no longer to be dominated by our old sinful nature (v. 9). We are risen with Christ, spiritually freed from the power of death and sin as we look forward to the full resurrection of our bodies and life with God eternally. We now live through His Spirit (v. 11).
This gift of moving from the control of death into life means that "we have an obligation" (v. 12). We must live in a way that reflects appropriately on who we are, on our new name. We are not to continue to live in our old ways, but to live in a manner that reflects who we are as children of God (v. 14). Our new adoptive state is not one of distance from a heavenly Father who is too lofty to bother with us. Our new relationship with God is an intimate, loved, caring one. We are true sons and daughters.
As a result of our adoption into God's family, we are heirs to the kingdom. And we should live as royal sons and daughters of the Most High Creator. We have been given a name of honor and much wealth. We have a future and a hope that is unique to those in our position. We must realize who we are and not be tempted to live in the squalor and sin and depravity of our old lives.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What will you leave to someone else as an inheritance? Some of the things we inherit are tangible. Other things are intangible. Make a list today of the things, both tangible and intangible, that you would like to pass on to others after your death. Certainly sharing your faith in Christ is the greatest inheritance you can give to those you love. If your friends or children do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior, consider today how you can share this gift with them, a gift that will last for eternity.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Out of the Wreck I Rise
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? -Romans 8:35
God does not keep His child immune from trouble; He promises, "I will be with him in trouble . . ." ( Psalm 91:15 ). It doesn't matter how real or intense the adversities may be; nothing can ever separate him from his relationship to God. "In all these things we are more than conquerors . . ." ( Romans 8:37 ). Paul was not referring here to imaginary things, but to things that are dangerously real. And he said we are "super-victors" in the midst of them, not because of our own ingenuity, nor because of our courage, but because none of them affects our essential relationship with God in Jesus Christ. I feel sorry for the Christian who doesn't have something in the circumstances of his life that he wishes were not there.
"Shall tribulation . . . ?" Tribulation is never a grand, highly welcomed event; but whatever it may be- whether exhausting, irritating, or simply causing some weakness- it is not able to "separate us from the love of Christ." Never allow tribulations or the "cares of this world" to separate you from remembering that God loves you ( Matthew 13:22 ).
"Shall . . . distress . . . ?" Can God's love continue to hold fast, even when everyone and everything around us seems to be saying that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?
"Shall . . . famine . . . ?" Can we not only believe in the love of God but also be "more than conquerors," even while we are being starved?
Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver, having deceived even Paul, or else some extraordinary thing happens to someone who holds on to the love of God when the odds are totally against him. Logic is silenced in the face of each of these things which come against him. Only one thing can account for it- the love of God in Christ Jesus. "Out of the wreck I rise" every time.
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God Does Care
In yesterday's devotional, I told you about the three levels of faith Jesus talks about. The first of these levels is found in Mark 4:37-40,
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?" Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?"
The first level of faith that Jesus speaks about is no faith. No faith believes God does not care. It is typified by the disciples who woke Jesus in the midst of the storm and said, "Lord, don't You care that we're perishing?"
Perhaps you are in a storm today; and, to you, it seems like God is asleep and that He doesn't even care. That He is aloof, disinterested, and disconnected from you. That you are going through hell and He doesn't care.
Do not believe that lie. If you buy into the lie that God does not care, it robs you of faith. And you cannot get any lower than that.
Do not believe the lie that God is detached and unconcerned. Don't think, "If God cares about me, why would this have happened? Why am I going through this storm? Why is this happening in my life? God doesn't care about me. He doesn't even know my name."
My friend, God does care. He is not going to let you perish. He is interested in even the smallest details of your life.
1 Peter 5:7 says, He cares for you!
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Read: John 1:1-18
Yet to all who received him . . . he gave the right to become children of God. - John 1:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Children who grow up in the White House certainly have a unique childhood experience. Their home has 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and six levels. It includes 28 fireplaces, eight staircases, and three elevators. Instead of a parent cooking the meals, their home has five full-time chefs. Just because they are children of the President, however, doesn't mean they always treat their home like a prized palace. For example, Tad Lincoln herded goats into a sitting room while his mother was giving an official tour. Teddy Roosevelt's son Quentin got into trouble for running a toy wagon through a priceless painting. Amy Carter caused a stir when she read a book during a formal state dinner.
In our passage today we see more about what it means to be the children of God, with certain rights and privileges. John 1 recounts who God was at the very beginning. In fact, God was the beginning (1:1). There was no one or nothing else before Him. Through God "all things were made" (v. 2). Not only did God create physical light, He also sent Jesus as the "true light" (v. 9).
But the world did not recognize Him (v. 10). Many remained willfully blinded in darkness. But to these people who received the Son, God bestowed an incredible gift (v. 12). John says that God gave them the right to become children of God.
When we become children of God, we are elevated to an extremely lofty position. We did not grow up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but our Father is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (v. 14) so that we could one day inherit resurrected flesh and make our eternal dwelling with God. As His children, we have an experience of salvation that is not to be taken lightly.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As a child of God, you can turn to Him with your most private and pressing needs. Just as President Obama's daughters can come to the president for help with their homework or problems with friends, we can beseech the Most High for help with our lives. In fact, God desires this kind of daily interaction with His children. What worries are pressing on your heart today? What burdens are you trying to carry on your own? Won't you tell your Father right now? He can help you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking Possession of Our Own Soul
By your patience possess your souls -Luke 21:19
When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5 ). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!
There are certain things in life that we need not pray about- moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won't. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh.
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Little Faith
In our last devotional, we looked at the first level of faith: no faith. We learned that no faith is based on the belief that God does not care, and that such a belief is completely false. God does indeed care for you!
Today we are going to look at the second level of faith. It is found in what Jesus says in Matthew 6:30-34,
"Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
This second level of faith is little faith. As we see in this passage, little faith is a worried faith, worried about tomorrow and occupied with lack instead of being occupied with God.
While people with little faith believe God cares, their focus is wrong. They are concentrating on, "What am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? How am I going to get by?"
Now, those are all legitimate things; and your Father knows you have need of those things. So rather than focusing on your lack and being worried about tomorrow, pulling tomorrow's clouds over today's sunshine, let your focus be on God and His sufficiency, His care, and His abundant love.
Do not live a life of little faith.
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Read: Matthew 6:1-15
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. - Matthew 6:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Jordan was six months old, his father, Charles Monroe King-a decorated soldier-was killed in combat in Iraq. Anticipating the danger he was facing, Charles had written a 200-page journal that he left behind for his son. Written while serving in that "hot terrifying place," the father's words were left as a legacy and reminder of his abiding love. Charles wrote on many topics including faith, love, duty, honor, and practical things like safe places to keep money on a trip. Still a child, Jordan doesn't fully comprehend the tragedy he has suffered. But the words of his dad will certainly be a treasure to him in the future and help to him in times of need.
In today's verse, Jesus says, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." This text is part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7, delivered when Jesus had gone up a mountainside to teach (5:1). The sermon focuses on the way that inhabitants of the kingdom of God should live.
Today's passage speaks about charity and prayer. The first section stresses that "acts of righteousness" should not be performed before others, but rather done in private. This way, says Jesus, "your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (v. 4). Prayer is viewed in a similar manner, not as a showy, demonstrative act, but as a private way of communing with our heavenly Father.
Jesus says, "Do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues" (v. 5). Prayer is not an opportunity to demonstrate how holy we are, or try to impress others with our flowery verbiage, or to seem super pious as if we are better than someone else. Indeed, we should pray for an audience of one: our Father (v. 6).
In one of the most famous passages of Scripture, Jesus says a prayer to His Father and ours. The Lord's Prayer demonstrates the communion between our Father and His children.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today, pray the Lord's Prayer, alone or with your family. As you repeat these famous words of adoration, confession, and supplication, concentrate on your heavenly Father. Consider that these words of advice and instruction, found in the Gospel of Matthew, are a journal of sorts left for you. Like Jordan, we cannot see our father. Yet, we have been given a book with His words, meant to guide us through our lives. What a treasure we have in God's Word to us!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Having God's "Unreasonable" Faith
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you -Matthew 6:33
When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ". . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . ." Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, "But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.
". . . do not worry about your life. . ." ( Matthew 6:25 ). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed- no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Don't make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God." Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.
It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
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Great Faith
In today's devotional, I want to look at the third level of faith. It is found in Matthew 8:5-10,
Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!"
We saw in previous devotionals that the first level of faith is no faith, the second is little faith, and now the third is great faith.
Great faith says, "Lord, Your word is enough." The centurion said, "Only speak a word." He understood the authority of Jesus' words. He said, "Jesus, all You have to do is say it. You don't even have to come into my house. I don't have to see anything. Your word is all the evidence I need."
That is what great faith says, "Lord, Your Word is all the evidence I need. Things don't have to look differently and I don't have to feel differently. Your Word is it. I don't need any other kind of confirmation. It doesn't matter what the circumstances say. Lord, Your Word settles the issue for me."
That is great faith, and that is what we should be pursuing.
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Read: Colossians 3:5-17
Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness humility, gentleness and patience. - Colossians 3:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the tale The Emperor's New Clothes, a wealthy vain ruler is consumed with his own appearance. He hires two weavers to create outfits that will mesmerize the masses. The clever weavers decide to take advantage of the emperor's conceit and play a trick on him. They convince him that they have woven the most magical material that only the wisest and most important people can see. So they go through the motions of weaving this magical cloth and make a cloak for the king. Of course, the material did not exist, nor did the cloak, and the emperor parades through the streets naked. He is convinced that he should be able to see the clothing, so he pretends that he does.
Today's passage speaks about the way we, as believers, are clothed, not with cloth that can be seen, but with the qualities of God's righteous character. It depicts a contrast between the way we appeared without Christ and the way our lives are transformed afterward. Before Christ we are marked by our "earthly nature." We are characterized by ugly things like sexual immorality, greed, selfishness, rage, malice, and filthy language (vv. 5-8). Certainly, these behaviors are not becoming of royalty!
Paul compares our change in lifestyle to changing clothing. We are to recognize our position in Christ (vv. 1-4), "take off" (v. 9) these old behaviors, and "put on the new self" (v. 10). How wonderful to know that we are no longer destined to wear the old tattered clothing that represents our sinful nature. Instead we are treated to glorious new clothes of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness (v. 13). Of course, "taking off" these old habits and desires must be aided by God. We are still living with earthly habits. It is through the Holy Spirit that we daily put on these new clothes.
This behavior brings great reward. Through it we are ruled by unity and peace. Through it we are filled with thankfulness and gratitude. We are transformed and perfected, as we dwell in God's love.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As you get dressed today or tomorrow, consider how you choose the clothing you put on. Do you put on your paint-splattered sweatshirt to attend a church or business meeting? Would you wear your old, beat-up gym shoes to a nice restaurant? Just as you put clothing on your body appropriate for the task at hand, pray that God will help you put on His righteousness: qualities of love, compassion, kindness, thankfulness, gentleness-garments appropriate for the life He has given us.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Explanation For Our Difficulties
. . . that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us . . . -John 17:21
If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17 . It will explain exactly why you are where you are- because Jesus has prayed that you "may be one" with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22 ). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn't ask, "Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?" No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, "Your will be done" ( Matthew 26:42 ), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God's purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him- because Jesus prayed, ". . . that they all may be one . . . ."
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Your Purpose
Today I want to speak to you about your destiny and purpose. First, read Ephesians 2:10,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The word beforehand refers to before the foundation of the world. What the apostle Paul is saying in this verse is that before we were ever born, God prepared good works for us to walk in them. God decided that we would be doing certain things.
Listen to that same verse from the Knox Translation, We are His design. God has created us in Christ Jesus, pledged to such good actions as He has prepared beforehand to be the employment of our lives. I like that.
Paraphrased, "You were designed with a unique purpose, and that is what you should be doing with your life."
In Philippians 3:12, Paul also states,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
The phrase "I press on" literally means "I pursue." What is it that Paul states he is pursuing? He is pursuing his purpose.
On that Damascus road, Jesus laid hold of Saul of Tarsus, and He did it for a reason. There was a purpose involved. From the day that Jesus Christ laid hold of him, Paul's life became a progressive search to lay hold of the answer to the question, "God, why have You laid hold of me? What is my purpose?"
My point? You have a God-designed purpose in life! There is something that you are wired up to do as the employment of your life.
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Read: James 1:1-18
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything. - James 1:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
What frustration to work on a complicated, mind-boggling, 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, get to the end, and realize that one piece is missing! Most of us would search under every table and rug to try to find that one missing piece. Why? Because, without it, the picture is incomplete, marred. We look at the picture we have created and all we notice is the missing part. The puzzle is not and cannot be finished.
The Christian life, like a puzzle, can be marred by a missing piece of Christ-like character. In the same way that we would search for a missing puzzle piece in order to complete the picture, so too we need to endeavor to be complete in the qualities that point others to Jesus.
The book of James begins with what seems like a strange sort of pep talk: "Consider it pure joy . . . whenever you face trials" (v. 2). As James explains, though, this is not a masochistic reveling in pain and suffering. Rather, we can have joy because these trials that weface are for a purpose: "that the testing of your faith develops perseverance" (v. 3). Perseverance means finishing what we start, completing what has been begun, or sticking to the job. Perseverance enables us to press on toward maturity and completeness, "not lacking anything" (v. 4).
The experience of trials allows us to develop the qualities that lead to the completion of a beautiful character that honors God. God will not rest until He has placed the last piece of the puzzle in our lives. These trials are merely sanding the edges of our imperfection, wearing down our old, selfish, human nature. We find perfection not in pampering, but in difficulty. That may not be the answer we want to hear.
The chapter ends with a warning: "Don't be deceived. . . . Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change" (vv. 16-17). He will help us persevere to the end.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"Finish what you start" is a lesson that many of us resist. What tasks in your life have gone unfinished? Was it a knitting project that sits in a bag in a closet or a piece of trim that never got attached to a baseboard? Or a Sunday school class that you quit teaching, or the discipline of tithing that is now abandoned? In your Christian life, ask God to help you persevere. Ask God to help you finish the work He has begun in you, to help you be faithful to the end.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Our Careful Unbelief
. . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on -Matthew 6:25
Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, "Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?" And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
". . . do not worry about your life . . . ." Don't take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No- "the cares of this world" (MatthewMatthew 13:22 ). It is always our little worries. We say, "I will not trust when I cannot see"- and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.
The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.
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Exercising the Muscle of Faith
Yesterday we looked at the importance of God's Word to strengthen our faith. Yet there is something more we need to do to see our faith grow. We must use it.
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says this about faith,
Fight the good fight of faith.
Faith is made for conflict. It does not grow without conflict. It does not grow without pressure. You need to use it.
Remember our illustration of the body builders and how a proper diet is essential to building muscle mass? Well, they will also tell you that it is not enough to drink protein shakes and eat tuna fish, you have to work those muscles if they are going to grow. They work those weights every day in order to build their muscles.
The same thing is true when it comes to faith. Faith is a muscle that you have to use. It is not enough just to listen to your Bible teaching CDs all day long. Hearing alone is not enough to develop faith. You must use your faith muscle.
That is what the fight of faith is all about. You exercise your faith when you are standing in the midst of your storm, and you are assailed by temptations and every kind of trial that tells you you're not going to make it, that you are going down with the ship.
As you stand in the midst of your storm, and the wind is howling around you, and the lightning is flashing, and the waves are breaking over the bow of your little ship, stand up and say, "I believe God, that it is going to be just as it was told me." That is where the fight of faith comes in.
No matter what you may be going through today, exercise that muscle of faith. Trust God to do just as He has promised.
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Read: Philippians 4:4-9
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything . . . present your requests to God. - Philippians 4:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
For some children, all sorts of situations cause worry. They have paralyzing fear about homework, schedules, and teachers. They agonize whether they are going to fail a test or have friends to sit by in the cafeteria. The fear can even make them physically ill. Psychologists say the cause of anxiety disorders in children is both biological and conditional. Some children are more prone to being shy or perfectionists, and these tendencies show up during the school years when pressures increase. Anxiety disorders are not limited to children, but also plague countless adults.
In our discussion about our self-image and identity, we often focus on external characteristics like appearance or possessions or accomplishments. But what about internal issues that threaten to derail our secure identity in Christ?
Today's passage in Philippians is worth committing to memory, for it offers advice for those who are anxious in spirit. It begins with a command, "Rejoice!" (v. 4). The command may seem puzzling, worry has just been mentioned. When are we to "rejoice"? The answer is "always." But the source of our rejoicing is not found in ourselves or our circumstances, but "in the Lord" (v. 5). Our lives are embedded and transformed in Christ. We are not our old selves.
The reason we can rejoice is found in verse 5: "the Lord is near." God is near to you today. He knows you and your circumstances. He knows what you will do and say. He goes before you. Therefore, the next verse makes sense. "Do not be anxious about anything" (v. 6). This is perhaps the best advice that can be given. We can tell everything to God-even all of our worries. God is the only one who can see the future. He is the only one who can truly help. In return, "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (v. 7). What better news can we get? The peace of God is ours.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In order to find peace, we have to spend time in the presence of God. Too often we fill our lives with talking, reading, or doing something. Today, meet with God in silence. Close your eyes and meditate on His character. Be still, and know that He is God (Ps. 46:10). You can cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Not only does He care, but He is all-powerful and able to bear any burden. Allow the peace of God to calm your anxious heart.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Delight of Despair
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead -Revelation 1:17
It may be that, like the apostle John, you know Jesus Christ intimately. Yet when He suddenly appears to you with totally unfamiliar characteristics, the only thing you can do is fall "at His feet as dead." There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awesomeness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair. You experience this joy in hopelessness, realizing that if you are ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God.
"He laid His right hand on me . . ." ( Revelation 1:17 ). In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms" ( Deuteronomy 33:27 ), full of support, provision, comfort, and strength. And once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory, the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, saying, "Do not be afraid" ( Revelation 1:17 ). His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells . . ." ( Romans 7:18 ). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.
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Understanding Faith
In the last two devotionals, we have been talking about faith and the importance of both the proper diet of God's Word, and exercising our faith if we are to see it grow.
The natural question is, "What is faith?" Most Christians probably know the technical definition for faith from Hebrews 11:1,
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The New International Version says, Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That is pretty clear. But it becomes even more clear when you plug that definition into 1 Timothy 6:12,
Fight the good fight of [the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Fight the good fight of being sure of what you hope for and being convinced of what you do not see.]
When the answer to your prayers is not on the horizon, when you don't feel differently, you need to fight the good fight and say, "You know what? God's Word says it and that's all the evidence I need. It is the evidence of things not seen, and I'm going to stand on that truth. I don't care what the world says, I don't care what circumstances say, I am going to fight the good fight of the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what I do not see."
And you stay with it until, as they say, "Faith turns to sight."
What are you struggling with today? What challenge is testing your faith? Stand firm on the truth of God's Word. Trust Him, no matter what others may say.
Real faith is standing firm in the midst of the storm. So stand firm!
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Read: Isaiah 58:8-14
You will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. - Isaiah 58:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
In June 2009, 9-year-old Grayson Wynne was lost in Utah's Ashley National Forest. His family had been hiking when the young boy separated from the group. While searchers combed the area, the little boy tried to leave clues to his whereabouts. As he walked he tore and dropped pieces of his yellow raincoat. He spent the night under a log, thinking about his parents, praying and crying. Because of the clues Grayson left behind and a granola wrapper that fell to the trail, a helicopter spotted the boy waving to them in an open meadow. He was waving the last piece of his yellow raincoat. When the father reached the boy, Grayson's first words were, "Happy Father's Day." Imagine the joyful reunion between the father and his young son.
Today's passage in Isaiah talks about another dramatic rescue: God's rescue of His children. There are times when we, as believers, are in desperate straits. We may have wandered away from the path. We need our Father's help. The prophet addressed the nation of Israel, a people infamous for wandering. In this passage, Isaiah tells God's people the proper way to fast. He talks about true worship rather than merely going through outward motions.
Once we are in proper communion with God, our lives will shine: "Then your light will break forth like the dawn" (v. 8). All of the "thens" in this passage speak of what God will do or has done in response to our union with Him. As believers, we have been made new creations by God, so these truths apply. The most dramatic verses speak of God's help. "Then you will call, and the Lord will answer" (v. 9). Like a 911-rescue team waiting to help, God is ready to hear our calls. Verse 11 echoes that assurance: "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs." Your Father sees you. He knows where you are. He is ready and waiting to answer your call for help. His dramatic rescue saves us from death and gives us a life that shines brightly in this world.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have you ever seen God's hand guiding your life? Take some time to write out your story, whether it recounts the events when you came to faith in Christ, or knew God was leading you in a big decision, or experienced God's loving correction from some mistakes and wandering from way of holiness. These experiences strengthen us in other times when we need God's direction. Additionally, your story might be the encouragement that someone else needs to hear. God is faithful to lead, guide, and protect His children.Read: Philippians 4:4-9
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything . . . present your requests to God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Good or The Best?
If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left -Genesis 13:9
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, ". . . walk before Me. . ." ( Genesis 17:1 ).
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Intimacy with God
Paul, in Philippians 3:10-12, gives us the other principle for discovering your purpose,
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul said, "I am pursuing my purpose," but it was a purpose based on knowing God. Look at what he said in verse 10, That I may know Him.
The understanding of his purpose came out of that primary desire and pursuit of knowing God Himself and living in intimacy with Him.
Perhaps the most important thing you could do in your life right now is to just lock yourself away, grab your Bible, and go sit at the beach. Find that place of communion with God. As you get to know Him, you will also discover your own heart and the dreams and desires that God put within you.
They are there. They may be covered with debris, they may be covered with dust, but they are there. You can find out what they are if you will develop that intimate relationship with God.
It is in closeness with God that His breath blows the dust off of undiscerned and unrecognized purposes and dreams.
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Read: 2 Corinthians 5:1-21
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! - 2 Corinthians 5:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
During the recent recession, many people have decided to apply some elbow grease and creativity to turn something old into something new. Author Margot Starbuck applies colorful pieces of fabric to thrift-store clothes to create personalized designer clothes for herself and her family. One store in Zurich, Switzerland, specializes in old furniture that has been repainted with colorful children's characters. And activity on Freecycle, a Web site that allows users to give away their unneeded items to someone else, has never been busier.
In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he describes the believer's hope of resurrection. The passage begins in verse 1 with a contrast between a temporary "earthly tent" (the body we now have) with an "eternal house in heaven" (the believer's resurrected body) (v. 1). In this tent, says Paul, we "groan" (v. 2) with a longing to be clothed with our resurrected body.
Though we have not achieved perfect holiness yet, God has sent the Holy Spirit as a "deposit" (v. 5). Because of His presence in our life, we know that we are guaranteed a heavenly future and all that comes with eternity. Even now, He is preparing us for our eternal destiny of life with God.
Our goal in this life is to please God (v. 9). We will appear before the "judgment seat of Christ" to give an account of how we have lived, and our motivation and goal is to have Him pleased with us (v. 10). This new perspective on life changes not only our view of ourselves, but also the way we relate to others. In the second half of the passage, Paul shows how Christ's love motivated him to persuade others to believe the gospel. We no longer live for ourselves (v. 15). We are now "Christ's ambassadors" (v. 20), representing the message of His life-changing salvation.
In Christ we are made new: "the old is gone, the new has come!" (v. 17). This is nothing less than a transforming miracle, from the death of sin to life with Christ; "we [have] become the righteousness of God!" (v. 21).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Each of us struggles to focus on life as a new creation in Christ, putting off our old self with our worldly habits. To find our identity in Christ, we must put away "old ways" of evaluating our self worth. How do you measure yourself? How do you evaluate your identity? If you find yourself clinging to an old narrative about yourself-whether defining yourself by failures or successes-relinquish your grip and allow the Holy Spirit to make you conformed to the image of Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Thinking of Prayer as Jesus Taught
Pray without ceasing . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:17
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing . . ."- maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, ". . . everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Matthew 7:8 ). Yet we say, "But . . . , but . . . ." God answers prayer in the best way- not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.
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Weeping
In 1 Samuel 30:1-4 we read,
Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
David experienced the sudden loss of his family and it tore his heart out. Notice that David and his men lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
Feeling sorrow and anguish and expressing it is not wrong. In fact, it is normal, especially when you have experienced a sudden and personal loss.
Perhaps, like David, you have lost family members. Or maybe you have wayward children. They were brought up in the way of the Lord, but they are living a lifestyle that is diametrically opposed to the ways of God right now, and your heart is broken when you think about it.
Maybe you have experienced some other loss in your life, something of value, something that is important to you, something that has meaning to you. If so, it is okay to grieve!
God has wired us to be emotional beings. We are not robots. It is right for loss to affect us on a personal, emotional level. As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:4, there is a time to weep.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).
Sorrow has its place and its time, but there is also a time for it to end and to be replaced with something else.
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Read: Psalm 119:97-117
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies. - Psalm 119:98
TODAY IN THE WORD
The group Mensa was founded in England in 1946 by barrister Roland Berrill and Dr. Lance Ware. The lawyer and scientist had the idea of establishing a society for extraordinarily bright people. The only requirement for membership was a high IQ. The society continues to welcome people from all races and religions, as long as their IQs are in the top 2 percent of the population. Mensans, as they are called, range in age from 4 to 94. They include farmers, musicians, lawyers, and police officers. Some members of Mensa are famous, but most have names you would not recognize.
Today's passage talks about the benefits of God's wisdom as it is displayed in our lives. The psalmist begins the section with an exclamation: "Oh, how I love your law!" (v. 97). This enthusiasm for God's Word is notable. He meditates on it "all day long." The result? He is wiser than his enemies and has wisdom that surpasses his teachers (vv. 98-99). Age alone isn't a guarantee of understanding; the key is obedience to the precepts in God's Word (v. 100). The psalmist does not just acquire knowledge-he also acts on it.
It seems, from this passage, that the more the author devours the Word of God, the more he desires it (v. 103). This wisdom, gleaned not from his own understanding but by learning of the mind and heart of God, impacts his daily life. It keeps him from walking down "wrong paths" (v. 104).
The next verses are often memorized: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (v. 105). As our knowledge of God and His law increases, we have access to guidance and safety. God's Word is not abstract principles with no connection to our lives. We need to do more than simply read over the words. When we apply Scripture to our lives, we will find our steps directed in the ways of life (v. 119).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The psalm today reminds us that trying to live our lives without help from God's Word is like walking through life without a light. You don't need to be a member of Mensa to be wise. God's Word provides counsel and wisdom and light to safeguard our hearts and minds. If you don't have a regular habit of memorizing Scripture, this might be a good time to start. Choose one verse from today's reading and commit it to memory this week.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Life To Know Him
. . . tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high -Luke 24:49
The disciples had to tarry, staying in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost, not only for their own preparation but because they had to wait until the Lord was actually glorified. And as soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear" ( Acts 2:33 ). The statement in John 7:39 - ". . . for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"- does not pertain to us. The Holy Spirit has been given; the Lord is glorified- our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness.
The Holy Spirit's influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Once our Lord was glorified in His ascension, the Holy Spirit came into the world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revealed truth that He is here. The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord.
It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes people, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into their lives through the Holy Spirit. We all too often separate things that the New Testament never separates. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ- it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not make you think of time or eternity- it is one amazing glorious now. "This is eternal life, that they may know You . . ." ( John 17:3 ). Begin to know Him now, and never finish.
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Taking Responsibility
In the devotional yesterday, we saw how it is okay when we experience loss to weep and to grieve. I want to point you to verse 6 of that same passage to learn another important lesson related to experiencing loss. 1 Samuel 30:6 says,
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him. David was not only grieving for the loss of his own family, but he was now being blamed for the whole thing. In fact, they were blaming him to the point that they wanted to take his life.
When you experience troubles, do not be someone who always wants to blame others. I know that it is human nature to want to point the finger and to lash out at somebody else when we are in trouble or when we have experienced loss.
In fact, I think blaming others is just part of our fallen fleshly DNA. Just take a look at what Adam and Eve did in the garden when they messed up. When God turned up and asked what happened, Adam said, "Well, it's the woman that You gave me. She gave me from the tree, and I ate."
And when God asked Eve what happened, she replied, "Well, it was the serpent. It was the snake."
So Adam blamed his wife, and blamed God who gave him his wife, and Eve blamed the snake. Neither Adam nor Eve took personal responsibility. It was somebody else's fault.
If the problems you are experiencing today are your fault, take responsibility, and do not blame others.
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Read: 2 Timothy 1:1-12
God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power. - 2 Timothy 1:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
All of the characters in the classic book and film The Wizard of Oz were in desperate need of help. Dorothy wanted to go back to her home in Kansas. The scarecrow wanted a brain. The tin man wanted a heart. The Cowardly Lion desperately wants to be brave. In one scene, Dorothy scolds the awkward trembling beast: "My goodness what a fuss you're making! Why you're nothing but a great big coward!" The Lion cries, "You're right. I am a coward. I haven't any courage at all. I even scare myself!"
Sometimes we, too, haven't any courage at all. In the face of difficulty or opposition, our courage flounders, and we retreat into ourselves. How do we find a way to be brave in the face of danger? In Paul's second letter to Timothy, he reminds the young man that he remembers him in his prayers night and day (1:3). What an encouragement the prayers of others are to troubled and fearful hearts!
He tells Timothy to "fan into flame" the gift of God so that he has a spirit not of "timidity" but of "power" (vv. 6-7). Paul instructs Timothy not to be fearful of testifying about God or ashamed of Paul being in prison (v. 8). Instead, Timothy is to join forces with Paul in "suffering for the gospel by the power of God" (v. 9).
The end purpose of our journey is what gives us courage. We know the end of the story! We know that God will prevail! Ours is a God who "destroyed death" (v. 10). Even the grave could not conquer our Lord and Savior. This victory gives us great courage. We do not need to be fearful, even in the face of the grave. Verse 12 has been set to music as a hymn: "I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day." We can trust in God. He has promised to keep us. We are brave in and through Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is your greatest fear? Many of us have fears of things like heights, public speaking, or mice. Other fears attack us deeply in the core of our being, like fear of failure, losing our job, rejection, or being alone. Today's passage reminds us that God has not given us a spirit of fear. In Him we can be free from being consumed and paralyzed by fear. Pray today that God will take your fear and replace it with a spirit of courage.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
May 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Unquestion Revelation
In that day you will ask Me nothing -John 16:23
When is "that day"? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. "In that day" you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, "In that day you will ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone- you don't seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren't you?
"In that day" there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. "In that day you will ask Me nothing"- you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature- that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. "In that day you will ask Me nothing."
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Strengthen Yourself
For today's devotional, I would like you to read 1 Samuel 30:6 again as it contains another truth I want you to see,
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
Notice that this verse begins by saying, David was greatly distressed, but it ends this way, But David strengthened himself in the Lord.
It is all right to weep, but when you are done, you need to strengthen yourself. It is all right to grieve, it is all right to express those emotions, but when you are done, you need to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
You need to connect with God in whatever way you find is best for you. If it is lifting your hands and worshiping Him, then that is what you should do.
If it is getting into His Word (which I would suggest for everyone) and spending time feeding your spirit, then do that. If it is reminding yourself about how God has helped you in the past, you need to do that.
Personally I believe that is what David was doing when the Bible says he "strengthened himself in the Lord." I think David was reminding himself about:
· How God delivered him from the lion and the bear;
· How God delivered Goliath into his hands; and
· How God delivered him when Saul tried to kill him.
I am confident David was thinking, "You know, God hasn't delivered me so miraculously in my past to get to this point and to let go of my hand and abandon me. I know He is going to help me now."
David was strengthening himself in the Lord, and you need to learn to do the same thing.
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Read: 2 Timothy 2:1-13
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. - 2 Timothy 2:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Before Arnold Schwarzenegger became the governor of California, and even before he was known as an action-film hero, he was renowned for his extraordinary strength and body building. Schwarzenegger began weight training at age 15. When he was just 22, he won the title of Mr. Universe and then went on to capture top billing at the Mr. Olympia contest seven times. The Arnold Strongman Classic, a contest named for him, continues each year in Columbus, Ohio. Who will be the strongest this year?
Today's verse instructs us to "be strong" (2 Tim. 2:1). This strength doesn't come from pumping iron. It's not even an emotional stoicism, trying to appear unmoved. This type of strength is again connected to the grace we find in Jesus. Only in knowing our position as recipients of God's grace can we find strength to withstand persecution.
Verse 3 puts it another way, exhorting us to "endure hardship" (v. 3). Life in Jesus does not mean that we will exist without trouble. We will be enduring hard times and difficult situations. Our response to these is emphasized here. Paul compares the believer to a "good soldier." Our goal is not to please those around us but only our "commanding officer" (v. 4). The same principle extends to athletes. During competition, the focus is not on the competition but on the crown (v. 5). We endure hardship because our eyes are not on the current situation-but on the end goal.
Our focus should be to "remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead" (v. 8). Because Jesus endured the cross and God raised Him from the dead, we know that even our times of trouble can lead to God's deliverance. Therefore, says Paul, "I endure everything," even imprisonment for the sake of the gospel (v. 10). In another passage, Paul describes this irony of discovering true strength in our times of greatest weakness. "For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10 ). When our lives are embedded in Christ, we are made strong.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage shows how God's idea of strength is flipped upside down from traditional expectations. We do not need to prove that anyone else is weaker. We do not trust in our bulging muscles or our stiff upper lip. Instead, we are to keep our focus on the reality of what Christ has done and what God will do in our lives. No matter what type of challenge you are facing right now, pray that God will give you strength, endurance, and an eternal focus.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
May 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Untroubled Relationship
In that day you will ask in My name . . . for the Father Himself loves you . . . -John 16:26-27
In that day you will ask in My name . . . ," that is, in My nature. Not "You will use My name as some magic word," but-"You will be so intimate with Me that you will be one with Me." "That day" is not a day in the next life, but a day meant for here and now. ". . . for the Father Himself loves you . . ."- the Father's love is evidence that our union with Jesus is complete and absolute. Our Lord does not mean that our lives will be free from external difficulties and uncertainties, but that just as He knew the Father's heart and mind, we too can be lifted by Him into heavenly places through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that He can reveal the teachings of God to us.
". . . whatever you ask the Father in My name . . ." (John 16:23). "That day" is a day of peace and an untroubled relationship between God and His saint. Just as Jesus stood unblemished and pure in the presence of His Father, we too by the mighty power and effectiveness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit can be lifted into that relationship-". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
". . . He will give you" (John 16:23). Jesus said that because of His name God will recognize and respond to our prayers. What a great challenge and invitation-to pray in His name! Through the resurrection and ascension power of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit He has sent, we can be lifted into such a relationship. Once in that wonderful position, having been placed there by Jesus Christ, we can pray to God in Jesus' name-in His nature. This is a gift granted to us through the Holy Spirit, and Jesus said, ". . . whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." The sovereign character of Jesus Christ is tested and proved by His own statements.
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Inquire of the Lord
1 Samuel 30:8 tells us what David did next as He sought to deal with the troubles that besieged him. After grieving and strengthening himself in the Lord, here is what he did,
So David inquired of the LORD, saying, "Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?" And He answered him, "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all."
David inquired of the Lord.
There is a story in the book of Joshua that shows the importance of inquiring of God, of seeking His guidance, no matter how things may seem.
The nation of Israel had entered the Promised Land and they were gaining great victories. One day a group of Gibeonites showed up. They had bags full of old moldy bread, their sandals were worn out, their water skins were cracked and old, and their clothing was old and worn.
They told Joshua and the leaders that they had come from a country far, far away. They went on to tell them they had heard about the great things God was doing through Israel, and they wanted to make sure they would not be attacked. So they had traveled from afar to make a covenant so that when Israel eventually reached them in the future, they wouldn't attack the Gibeonites.
The Bible says specifically that Joshua and the men did not inquire of the Lord. Rather, they looked at the people's provisions...the moldy bread, the old sandals, the old water skins...and they made a covenant with them.
It turns out they were the next door neighbors and Israel had been deceived. And it caused huge problems in Israel's future.
I am telling you, things are not always as they appear. It pays to inquire of the Lord when you are going through difficult times. He will lead you.
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Read: Romans 8:28-38
If God is for us, who can be against us? - Romans 8:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Victory Lap or "lap of honor" is the extra lap a winning race car driver takes around the track in celebration of his victory. The Victory Lap is a time when the driver can drive at a slower speed, allowing the fans to celebrate and greet and congratulate the winner. Recent changes in race regulations have limited what a Formula One driver can do during that lap. The new rule states that all cars must proceed directly to the end point without distraction or assistance. Even that last lap has one focus: the prize waiting at the end.
Many of the passages in this month's study have focused on the struggles we face in this life as we live out the daily Christian life. And we may often feel less than victorious. Today's passage focuses on the victory lap we have as believers. Romans 8:28 has a description of our calling. Those called by God know that He will work all things together for good. We know that we will be conformed to Christ's likeness (v. 29). God can redeem each experience in our lives to mold us into His image for His glory.
This kind of thinking transforms the way we think and live. Paul asks: "If God is for us who can be against us?" (v. 31). Ultimately, our victory doesn't depend on our own endurance or ingenuity. Our victory depends on who God is and what He will do. We are God's chosen children and nothing can separate us from God's love (v. 35).
Whatever we face in the midst of the race of life, we can be assured that we will be victorious in the end. Verse 37 says that we are "more than conquerors." Notice the use of the word "more"-we go beyond just being victorious. This is a type of ultimate victory that promises not only making it through the final days of life on this earth but also guarantees us a place by our Father in Heaven. This type of thinking will transform the way we view ourselves and our daily lives.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps one of Satan's greatest tricks is to get us so focused on ourselves, our weaknesses and insecurities, that we take our eyes off our Savior. There is an old hymn that asks us to "turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face." Will you turn your eyes on Jesus today? Will you set aside your search for self and replace it with the knowledge that in Christ you are made glorious? We are perfected in Him. We are completed in Him. In Him, we are victorious!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 30, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Yes- But . . .!"
Lord, I will follow You, but . . . -Luke 9:61
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, "Yes, but- suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?" Or we say, "Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn't go against my common sense, but don't ask me to take a step in the dark."
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis- only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
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Global Harvest
In Mark 16:15 Jesus said,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
In Matthew 13:38 He said,
"The field is the world..."
We need to lift up our eyes upon the harvest field "of the world."
It may sound crazy, but God is expecting us to do something about the salvation of the whole world!
In James chapter five, we are told that God is like a farmer waiting patiently for the precious fruit "of the earth." The implication there is that the Lord is coming, but there is a great global harvest coming first.
Here are some things you can do to be a part of reaching the world for Christ:
· Pray - Matthew 9:37-38 says, Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
· Give - Generously support ministries that are reaching the lost. Make the mission outreaches of your own church a priority.
· Go - Jesus' command to go is to all believers. At the very least, take a short term missions trip to share the Good News with others.
Remember, the only things we will take to heaven with us are the precious souls we have brought to Christ.
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Read: Jude 17-24
Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. - Jude 20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Cartoon characters like Pinocchio or Fred Flintstone are sometimes pictured with an imaginary friend hovering over their shoulder. In many episodes, Jiminy Cricket or the Great Gazoo would scold Pinocchio or Fred, warning them against making the wrong choice, or urging them to take a particular action.
Sometimes we might wish that we had a little conscience sitting on our shoulder, reminding us to stay on our diet or be honest on our taxes or hold our tongue. We don't have Jiminy Cricket, but we have something even better-we have the Holy Spirit living within us and we have the Word of God to instruct us. Today's passage is from the book of Jude, which is a single chapter filled with both caution and encouragement to those living in the faith at a time when others have abandoned it. Jude cautions that believers should "remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold" (v. 17).
As in Jude's day, "scoffers" and others will live out their "ungodly desires" (v. 18). We are not to follow these types of people. The way to combat these negative, blasphemous voices is to "build yourselves up" (v. 20). Note that this is not a by-your-bootstraps spirituality. This is not about personal positive mantras or giving ourselves an ego boost. We are to become deeply rooted in our "holy faith" (v. 20). The more the scoffers increase around us, the more earnestly we must pursue the truth of God's Word.
Verse 22 tells us practical ways to do this. We are to be "merciful" and to "snatch others from the fire"-to be rescuers of the perishing. Finally, Jude ends with a beautiful doxology that is a wonderful way to culminate this study. Only God is able to "keep us from falling." Through God's power, we will be presented before Him "without fault and with great joy" (v. 24). What an amazing promise. By persevering in this present time of conflict, we will be made perfect in the end!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We began this study looking at our identity as it is found in Christ. We have found that our focus needs to be not on ourselves but upon Christ. Make a list today of the attributes of Christ that you would most like to see reflected in your own life. At the top of the list write these words: "MORE HIM; LESS ME." Pray today that God will help to change your focus, and that day by day you would begin to look more like your Savior.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
May 31, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Put God First
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . .for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Put Trust in God First. Our Lord never put His trust in any person. Yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, and never lost hope for anyone, because He put His trust in God first. He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for others. If I put my trust in human beings first, the end result will be my despair and hopelessness toward everyone. I will become bitter because I have insisted that people be what no person can ever be- absolutely perfect and right. Never trust anything in yourself or in anyone else, except the grace of God.
Put God's Will First. "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:9).
A person's obedience is to what he sees to be a need- our Lord's obedience was to the will of His Father. The rallying cry today is, "We must get to work! The heathen are dying without God. We must go and tell them about Him." But we must first make sure that God's "needs" and His will in us personally are being met. Jesus said, ". . . tarry . . . until you are endued with power from on high" ( Luke 24:49 ). The purpose of our Christian training is to get us into the right relationship to the "needs" of God and His will. Once God's "needs" in us have been met, He will open the way for us to accomplish His will, meeting His "needs" elsewhere.
Put God's Son First. "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me" ( Matthew 18:5 ).
God came as a baby, giving and entrusting Himself to me. He expects my personal life to be a "Bethlehem." Am I allowing my natural life to be slowly transformed by the indwelling life of the Son of God? God's ultimate purpose is that His Son might be exhibited in me.
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The Signpost of a Provoked Heart
Without a doubt, God has plans for you. Your life is no accident. You have a purpose. In today's devotional, we will discover an important key to help you understand your calling.
Let's look first at Acts 17:16-17,
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
The word provoked literally means that his spirit was deeply troubled, his spirit was grieved within him.
That gives us the first step in understanding your purpose. What grieves your heart? Paul was grieved about this city wholly given over to idols. And the next verse begins with the word therefore. He did something about it.
Generally, the things that grieve you in your heart are things that God has gifted you to change. They point you to your purpose.
For instance, in Job 30:25, Job said, "Has not my soul grieved for the poor?" If you read Job's story, a big part of his ministry had to do with helping the poor. It was tied to what caused his heart to grieve.
Then there was David who was grieved and provoked as Goliath was taunting the Israelites. Why? David was called to be a leader and a warrior in Israel. It was a signpost pointing to his calling.
What is it that provokes you in your heart? Whatever it is, do something about it.
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Read: Hebrews 12:1-1
Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. - 1 John 5:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Runners training for a marathon spend weeks and months in preparation for the race. They eat the right foods, go to bed early, and endure grueling training regimens in order to prepare both body and spirit for the challenge ahead. What motivates a runner to run a marathon? Martine Costello, in an interview with CNN Money had this answer: "It's a challenge that we take on, with just our hearts and the body God gave us. We run because if we can make it through 26.2 miles, everything else will seem easy. Marathons offer a moment in time when an average person can feel like Michael Jordan and do something extraordinary."
"An average person doing something extraordinary" is a wonderful description of who we can be in Christ. Today's passage places us in the thick of the race that is our Christian journey. We are not alone, but are "surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses" (v. 1). The writer encourages us to finish the race well and to "run with perseverance." We are not to be consumed by endless introspection or accept the self-help mentality touted by the world, but rather to "fix our eyes on Jesus" (v. 2).
In this race, Jesus is our example. He endured struggle and scorn and shame. Yet He completed His calling. We will also endure struggle as we walk with Jesus (v. 4). We are asked here to see some of this "hardship" as discipline (v. 7). We are not promised an easy life but a purposeful one. We are children of God, and thus will be both rewarded and disciplined by a Heavenly and loving Father (v. 10). This is God's way of molding us into His image.
As the author reminds us, we are to "throw off everything that hinders us" (v. 1). As we complete this study on finding our identity in Christ, we must throw off the temptation to define ourselves by our own past, present, or future. By fixing our eyes on Jesus, we will finish the race victorious.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Anyone who has ever tried to run knows that it is not easy. The initial excitement that comes with a new pair of gym shoes can quickly be extinguished by a gut-wrenching side ache. Yet, consistent training makes running increasingly satisfying. As you run the race of your Christian life, keep your focus not on your daily aches and insecurities, but on who you are in Christ and how He is shaping you. Run the race with perseverance-you are guaranteed a victorious finish!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 01, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Dilemma of Obedience
Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision -1 Samuel 3:15
God never speaks to us in dramatic ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand. Then we say, "I wonder if that is God's voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spoke to him "with a strong hand," that is, by the pressure of his circumstances (Isaiah 8:11). Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?
Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord," and life will become a romance (1 Samuel 3:9). Every time circumstances press in on you, say, "Speak, Lord," and make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline- it is meant to bring me to the point of saying, "Speak, Lord." Think back to a time when God spoke to you. Do you remember what He said? Was it Luke 11:13 , or was it 1 Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ears become more sensitive, and like Jesus, we will hear God all the time.
Should I tell my "Eli" what God has shown to me? This is where the dilemma of obedience hits us. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences and thinking, "I must shield 'Eli,' " who represents the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli- he had to decide that for himself. God's message to you may hurt your "Eli," buttrying to prevent suffering in another's life will prove to be an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own risk that you prevent someone's right hand being cut off or right eye being plucked out (see Matthew 5:29-30 ).
Never ask another person's advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. ". . . I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood . . ." (Galatians 1:16 ).
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The Place of Blessing
In Genesis 12:1-3 we read,
Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Notice how God says to Abram, "Abram, I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." But here is what I want you to see: Abram's being a blessing was tied to being in God's purpose. He could only become a great blessing if he followed God's calling.
You will never be the blessing God intends for you to be if you are not flowing in your purpose.
Was there risk involved for Abram? You bet! He had to leave everything that was familiar to him, all of his security, everything that was comfortable and familiar.
He left Ur of the Chaldeans, which history tells us was one of the most highly developed cities of the ancient world. They had cobblestone streets, an underground sewage system, and it was a place of world trade.
Abram left all of that and went out on an adventure by faith, pursuing the purpose that God had for his life. And in pursuing that purpose, God blessed him, and he became a blessing.
But think about this. What if he had stayed back? What if he had said, "I'm secure here; I have it made; I have a nice house and everything I need. I think I will stay put." We would not even know his name.
Pursue your purpose. That is the place of God's blessing.
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Read: Ezekiel 1:1-3
The heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. - Ezekiel 1:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bible scholar Richard Patterson has pointed out the numerous literary forms and genres present in Old Testament prophecy. His list includes announcements of judgment (typically revolving around human sin and God's justice), kingdom oracles (including themes of redemption, restoration, and blessing), instructional accounts (exhorting hearers to repentance and worship), prayers, hymns or psalms, satire, laments, and vision reports. In the book of Ezekiel, these literary forms and genres create a rich "kaleidoscope of material" that challenges interpreters to be diligent and alert about how language is used.
As we begin this month's book study of Ezekiel, we need to heed Patterson's admonition. Ezekiel is an exciting and complex book in which settings and literary genres shift rapidly. Chapters 15 through 18, for example, are instructional accounts. Chapters 25 through 32 are announcements of judgment. Chapter 37 is a kingdom oracle. Careful handling of God's Word will, as always, yield the best results (2 Tim. 2:15).
Like Jeremiah and Zechariah, Ezekiel was a priest in addition to being a prophet. His name means "God strengthens." Based on his literary style and wide knowledge of history, culture, and politics, he seems to have been well educated. Along with a cohort of fellow Israelites, he was exiled to Babylon in 597 B.C. He received his prophetic call in 593 B.C. at the age of 30. In chapters 1 through 24, he preached mainly about the coming destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, which took place in 586 B.C. Following that event, he continued prophesying for another fifteen years. In chapters 25 through 32 he brought messages of judgment to other nations. The final main section of the book, chapters 33 through 48, is a word of hope and promise for the humbled people of God. The book's main themes include judgment, repentance, worship, and God's sovereignty and glory. A refrain repeated often is "then they will know that I am the Lord."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Ezekiel received his prophetic calling at age 30, which was also when a priest usually began his ministry. But at that time, he had already been in exile four years. Imagine the despair he must have felt-far from his homeland, far from the temple, far from the place where he had anticipated serving the Lord. He must have wondered what purpose God had for him now. If you're in a place of doubt and despair, take courage, God does indeed have a plan for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 02, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Staggering Question
He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' -Ezekiel 37:3
Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer- "O Lord God, You know" ( Ezekiel 37:3 ). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done."
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.
"Behold, O My people, I will open your graves . . ." ( Ezekiel 37:12 ). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My "grave" has been opened by God and "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells" ( Romans 7:18 ). God's Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.
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Through Kindness and Love
In Romans 12:20 we read a startling truth,
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head."
Our natural inclination is to hate our enemies, isn't it? But the Bible gives us a very different perspective and direction. We are to care for and love our enemies. In fact, some of the greatest antagonists to the gospel have been won through love.
We once had a neighbor next to our church building who was very set against us and very vocal against the church. He would voice his opinion in meetings at the city hall and, on occasion, he would even accost people as they were walking to church. He would shout things at them and harass them a bit from his front yard.
Well, we had one of our pastors go out of his way to show this guy love. He would compliment this man on how well he took care of his lawn, and he began to build a relationship with him. Then one day he actually led the man to Christ!
That same man who would yell at the church members as they walked by his house came into our auditorium and repented before me with tears in his eyes and apologized. He said he had lashed out because he was afraid. But now he had come to Christ, and he had been saved.
It is a glorious thing. He was won to the Lord through kindness and through love.
Think about God. I am so glad that He did not judge us and let the hammer fall on us because of our sins. Instead He extended kindness and mercy to us.
Win your enemy to Christ by showing him kindness and loving him today!
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Read: Ezekiel 1:4-28
When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking. - Ezekiel 1:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
Industrial scientists have been working recently to create "sheets of light." Plastic panels are coated with chemicals known as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which light up when an electric current is run through them. Their light is soft and diffuse, unlike the bright light from normal incandescent bulbs. These plastic sheets are flexible and can be placed nearly anywhere. They might one day make lamps and light fixtures obsolete, and they are already being used in televisions and electronic gadget displays. One analyst predicts that by the year 2015 about $6 billion worth of OLEDs will be sold.
Brilliant light is one of the central images in Ezekiel's awe-inspiring vision of heaven. This vivid and dramatic vision was a prelude to and divine validation of his prophetic call in chapter 2, and no doubt a turning point in his spiritual life. The symbolic descriptions here can be generally divided into three parts: the four living creatures or cherubim (vv. 4-14), the wheels (vv. 15-21), and the throne of God (vv. 22-28). Overall, the images convey God's power, purity, eternality, sovereignty, holiness, wisdom, mystery, and majesty.
As impressive as the cherubim are, it is notable that a glittering "expanse" separates them from God's throne in the vision. His person and glory are inexpressibly greater than anything in the created realm. Encouragingly, He appears as "a figure like that of a man" (v. 26). The language here is full of qualifiers and comparisons as Ezekiel struggled to express what he saw-a man made of glowing metal and fire, "brilliant light," a rainbow in the clouds (cf. Rev. 4:3). He could not apprehend God directly, of course-as a priest, he would have known that would mean death-only an "appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord" (v. 28). Still, it was more than enough to put him facedown on the ground in reverence and holy fear. Though conquest and exile were testing the faith of Israel, God remained God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's reading also reminds us of the incredible origins of God's Word. This Book that we hold so lightly in our hands and sometimes take for granted did not just roll off a printing press somewhere-it came directly from the awesome place and Person described in Ezekiel's vision! No wonder the psalmist exclaimed, "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! . . . Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" (Ps. 119:103, 105).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 03, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Obsessed by Something?
Who is the man that fears the Lord? -Psalm 25:12
Are you obsessed by something? You will probably say, "No, by nothing," but all of us are obsessed by something- usually by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our own experience of the Christian life. But the psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God. The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God Himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child's awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to "live and move and have our being" in God ( Acts 17:28 ), looking at everything in relation to Him, because our abiding awareness of Him continually pushes itself to the forefront of our lives.
If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives- not concerns, nor tribulation, nor worries. And now we understand why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
"He himself shall dwell in prosperity . . ." ( Psalm 25:13 ). God will cause us to "dwell in prosperity," keeping us at ease, even in the midst of tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander, if our "life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. "God is our refuge . . ." ( Psalm 46:1 ). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
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Aiming at God's Pleasure
In John, chapter 8, Jesus made a statement that I wish I could make. He said, "I always do those things that please the Father." Wouldn't it be great if we could all say that?
Paul points us in that direction in 2 Corinthians 5:6-9,
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.
Whether we are still in this earthly body or we are standing before the Lord in heaven, he says, "We make it our aim to be well pleasing to Him."
But you know what? You cannot aim at a target that you can't see. You can't make it your aim to be well pleasing to Him if you don't know what pleases Him. And it is to your advantage to find out, as Paul points out in verse 10,
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
So let me ask you, what is your aim today? Are you aiming at what pleases God? My prayer is that you will come to truly know and understand what pleases God as you spend time each day with me in this devotional...and that you will make that your aim!
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Read: Ezekiel 2-3; Ezekiel 3:16-23
Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. - Ezekiel 3:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Jesus was a baby, there was a "righteous and devout" man living in Jerusalem named Simeon (Luke 2:21-35). Simeon was "waiting for the consolation of Israel," that is, the Messiah, and he had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would have the privilege of seeing Him before he died. "Moved by the Spirit" one day, he went to the temple and was led straight to the holy child. He took him in his arms and exclaimed: "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
Like Simeon, Ezekiel was chosen by God to be a "watchman," one who sees what is coming and brings news or warning to everyone else. God commissioned him to bring words of warning to hardhearted people. Not only did God call him, He also equipped him for this task by giving him the words to say, as symbolized in the eating of the scroll (2:9-3:3). He further promised to make him "unyielding and hardened" (3:8), that is, strong, courageous, and persistent. Interestingly, the word for "harden" is embedded in Ezekiel's name-"God strengthens" and "God hardens" have the same root. God was playfully reminding this "son of man" to live up to his name.
God was not promising Ezekiel a popular and fulfilling ministry. Being a watchman would be a challenging and thankless task. The Israelites were characterized in today's reading as rebellious, stubborn, obstinate, and unwilling to listen. Prophesying to them would be like walking among briers and thorns and scorpions (2:6). The message would be dominated by "words of lament and mourning and woe" (2:10). Even so, God charged the young priest to speak His words boldly, to give warning to the wicked, and to be faithful even if no one listened (3:27; cf. Luke 8:8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Another truth symbolized by Ezekiel's eating of the scroll was that he internalized God's words, taking them in, digesting them, and being nourished by them. The words at this time were sad ones. But because they were God's words, they "tasted as sweet as honey." As Jeremiah said: "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight" (Jer. 15:16). We can internalize God's words and be nourished by them as well through Bible study and memorization. Is God's Word your joy and heart's delight?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 04, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Never-forsaking God
He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you' -Hebrews 13:5
What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I have heard what He says? "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?' " ( Hebrews 13:5-6 ).
"I will never leave you . . ."- not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
"I will never . . . forsake you." Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful- just the everyday activities of life- do I hear God's assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing- that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God's assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
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Making a Priority of Faith
When we talk about what pleases God, I think we must put faith at the top of the list. Very simply, faith pleases God.
Hebrews 11-often called the faith chapter-makes it very clear how vital faith is to pleasing God. In fact, Hebrews 11:6 tells us,
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Notice it doesn't say, "Without faith it is very difficult to please Him." No, it is impossible to please God without faith. You and I must learn to trust God if we are to bring a smile to the face of God.
Some people say, "Well, there is just too much teaching on faith." I disagree. Why? Because it takes faith to please God. Without it, we have no chance at all of pleasing Him. In fact, Hebrews 10:38 states,
Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
That is pretty black and white, isn't it? If you desire to please God, it starts with faith, trusting God completely.
I challenge you today to ask yourself, "Do I really trust God with every part of my life? Do I place my faith in Him moment by moment? Or do I refuse to trust Him as I should?"
If this is an area of struggle for you, determine today to spend time in the Word of God. For the Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Ask God to speak to you through His Word. Your faith and trust in Him will grow. Our great God is worthy of your trust.
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Read: Ezekiel 4-5; Ezekiel 5:8-13
I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. - Ezekiel 5:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Last fall, the National Basketball Association (NBA) put its rule book online. Intended to educate fans, a new Web site features video clips from actual games that demonstrate such infractions as a charge, a discontinued dribble, or a second-degree flagrant foul. More than 100 NBA rule violations are defined and illustrated in this way. Said an NBA official: "It's very difficult, unless you've played the game at a very high level or better yet, officiated the game at a very high level, to understand the complexity of our rules simply by reading them."
Rules come with consequences, in sports and in life. By sinning, Israel had violated God's rules and covenant and would now bear the consequences. This was the message of judgment with which Ezekiel's ministry began.
Following God's instructions, the newly commissioned prophet performed five symbolic actions (4:1-5:4), which he then interpreted (5:5-17). First, he created a model of Jerusalem and represented it as under siege in order to give warning of the city's impending doom (fulfilled in 2 Kings 25). Then he lay on his left side for the sins of Israel and on his right side for the sins of Judah, all the while preparing, rationing, and eating ritually unclean food to illustrate how God's people were defiling themselves. Finally, he shaved his hair and beard and burned the hair in order to show again the coming judgment. One third of the people would die from famine during the siege, one third would be killed by Babylonian soldiers, and one third would be exiled and scattered among the nations.
These actions, which took over a year to complete, were mortifying for Ezekiel. He probably became something of a public spectacle, not to mention that no one likes bearers of bad news. The loss of his beard was culturally humiliating. God was mindful of such things and graciously granted the prophet's request not to have to cook with human excrement (4:14-15).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Israel's idolatry had made God's name a mockery among the nations. Despite having God's law and God's love, the people had done worse evils than the pagan nations around them. Therefore, God's judgments were just and would restore His good name. "And when I have spent my wrath upon them," He said, "they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal" (5:13). Similar phrases occur something like 65 times in this book. God wants His people to learn (or relearn) who He is!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 05, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Assurance
He Himself has said . . . . So we may boldly say . . . -Hebrews 13:5-6
My assurance is to be built upon God's assurance to me. God says, "I will never leave you," so that then I "may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear' " ( Hebrews 13:5-6 ). In other words, I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean that I will not be tempted to fear, but I will remember God's words of assurance. I will be full of courage, like a child who strives to reach the standard his father has set for him. The faith of many people begins to falter when apprehensions enter their thinking, and they forget the meaning of God's assurance- they forget to take a deep spiritual breath. The only way to remove the fear from our lives is to listen to God's assurance to us.
What are you fearing? Whatever it may be, you are not a coward about it- you are determined to face it, yet you still have a feeling of fear. When it seems that there is nothing and no one to help you, say to yourself, "But 'The Lord is my helper' this very moment, even in my present circumstance." Are you learning to listen to God before you speak, or are you saying things and then trying to make God's Word fit what you have said? Take hold of the Father's assurance, and then say with strong courage, "I will not fear." It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in our way, because "He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you . . . .' "
Human frailty is another thing that gets between God's words of assurance and our own words and thoughts. When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God seems to be nonexistent. But remember God's assurance to us- "I will never. . . forsake you." Have we learned to sing after hearing God's keynote? Are we continually filled with enough courage to say, "The Lord is my helper," or are we yielding to fear?
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The Nature of Faith
In our last devotional, we talked about how important faith is to pleasing God. It is not just important, it's essential, because without it, you and I cannot please God.
The natural question is, "What is faith?"
In Hebrews 11:1, the writer gives us the technical definition of biblical faith,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith deals with unseen reality. In fact, Weymouth's translation says, "Faith is a conviction of the reality of things we do not see."
You might think, "That's a nice definition, but what does that really mean?" That is a good question. And it is answered by the examples given in Hebrews 11, which show different ways people expressed their faith in God, because there is not just one way to demonstrate faith in God:
Abel shows us that faith is giving our best to God. He deserves our first and our best.
Enoch shows us that faith is walking with God. It is living a life in constant connection with God, even when you can't sense or feel Him.
Noah shows us that faith is making preparations as though Christ is coming back today, even when there is seemingly no evidence.
Abraham shows us that faith is obeying God, even though you may not know where He is leading you.
Sarah shows us that faith is receiving God's promise, even when public opinion says, "No way!"
Moses shows us that faith is living life in light of eternity, and allowing that focus to affect all of life's decisions.
Commit today to live this life of faith. If you do, you will truly please God!
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Read: Ezekiel 6-7; Ezekiel 6:1-10
You will know that I am the LORD. - Ezekiel 6:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2006, Jacinta Marcial, an Otomi Indian and mother of six, was accused of kidnapping six Mexican police officers. Police had confronted street merchants about pirated CDs, and her picture had appeared on the margins of a newspaper photograph of the event. Despite the absurdity of the charges, she was found guilty and sentenced to 21 years in prison. Last fall, after much pressure from international human rights organizations, the Mexican courts changed the verdict and set her free after three years of wrongful imprisonment. "As far as I am concerned, I forgive them," she said.
Injustice angers the Lord. Perfect justice is what He's all about. Ezekiel 6 uses the literary device of addressing the land, which is told that the idolatrous places of worship that have been built on it and defile it will be destroyed. Ezekiel 7 takes "the end has come" as its refrain and is a vigorous indictment of the nation's sin of idolatry.
Worshiping other gods was a direct violation of God's covenant with Israel. It amounted to mocking the Lord, and justice demanded that He respond. He is the only One worthy of worship, and those who act otherwise learn the hard way of His irresistible power and absolute sovereignty. The people's wickedness was brazen and God's wrath would be entirely just.
The principle of reaping what you sow is part of divine justice. "I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices," God said (7:3). For example, the people were proud of their jewelry and used it to make idols, much as their forebears had done with the golden calf at Mount Sinai. God made the punishment fit the crime-foreigners would loot the jewelry when they conquered Israel (7:20-22). Poetic justice! The Israelites should not blame the Babylonians but realize that God was the one executing judgment.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What about us? Do we also have "adulterous hearts" (6:9)? Is there anything we value more than the Lord? Good things we prize too highly, such as family or a professional career, might be idols. They might be sins we've rationalized, such as greed for money or gluttony. Let Ezekiel sound a warning trumpet for us as well-one way or another, God is going to teach us that He alone is Lord!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 06, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Work Out" What God "Works in" You
. . . work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you . . . -Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, "But I don't know if my will is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say "I will not obey" is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God's creation of human beings- sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. ". . . for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." With focused attention and great care, you have to "work out" what God "works in" you- not work to accomplish or earn "your own salvation," but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God's will- God's will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God's will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with "dynamite," and the "dynamite" is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
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Global Harvest
In Mark 16:15 Jesus said,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
In Matthew 13:38 He said,
"The field is the world..."
We need to lift up our eyes upon the harvest field "of the world."
It may sound crazy, but God is expecting us to do something about the salvation of the whole world!
In James chapter five, we are told that God is like a farmer waiting patiently for the precious fruit "of the earth." The implication there is that the Lord is coming, but there is a great global harvest coming first.
Here are some things you can do to be a part of reaching the world for Christ:
· Pray - Matthew 9:37-38 says, Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
· Give - Generously support ministries that are reaching the lost. Make the mission outreaches of your own church a priority.
· Go - Jesus' command to go is to all believers. At the very least, take a short term missions trip to share the Good News with others.
Remember, the only things we will take to heaven with us are the precious souls we have brought to Christ.
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Read: Ezekiel 8-9; Ezekiel 9:1-6
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. - Psalm 89:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Roman Empire believed itself to be "eternal and unconquerable." So when Rome was looted and pillaged by Alaric and an army of 40,000 "barbarians" in A.D. 410, the entire world was shocked. Ancient scholar Jerome stopped work on his Commentary on Ezekiel and wrote to a friend, "The city to which the whole world fell has fallen. If Rome can perish, what can be safe?" Augustine wrote The City of God to argue that Rome's defeat was not the revenge of the "gods" on Christians. God is not tied to any one city or state, he reminded the church. God is sovereign over all nations and deals with them as He pleases. His kingdom is much greater than any earthly empire.
Like the Romans, the Jews believed that Jerusalem and the temple could never fall. They symbolized God's presence and His covenant with His people, so surely He would never let anything happen to them, right? But they had neglected the truth that the covenant came with responsibilities. Their persistent sin presumed upon God's patience and grace and dishonored His holiness. Today's reading gives us further details concerning Israel's idolatry: In chapter 8, Ezekiel was given a vision of the evil going on in Jerusalem at that time. Chapter 9 continues the vision and depicts "six men" (guardian angels of the city) executing judgment on the wicked.
The "idol that provokes to jealousy" (8:3) was likely one of the Canaanite goddess Asherah, placed right in the temple as an open insult to the Lord. That alone was provocation enough! But there was more. Digging into the temple walls-an action showing that nothing is hidden from God's sight-the prophet uncovered the leaders of Israel bowing down before idols. Even his fellow priests were worshiping the sun (8:16)! They had brought judgment on themselves (9:9-10). Even so, God honored the fact that some remained faithful to Him. They received a mark of protection (9:4-6), reminiscent of the blood on the doorposts during the Exodus from Egypt.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Sin deserves God's judgment. Since all of us are sinners, perfect justice means that all of us deserve death. Thankfully, in the gift of His Son Jesus Christ, God has provided a way by which we need not reap what we have sown. It's because Jesus reaped the judgment on our behalf, paying for our sins by His death and offering us life through His resurrection. He is our "mark of protection." "By believing [we] may have life in his name" (John 20:31).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 07, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . -John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point- the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? "If you abide in Me . . . "- that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point- "you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you" ( John 15:7 ). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these- what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
"Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . ." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God's foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
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Two Voices that Cry Out
Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (James 5:3-4).
These words are written to believers, to Christians who are hoarding up wealth rather than giving to support the spread of the gospel.
The reapers in verse 4 are those preaching and working out in the harvest fields of the world. Notice it says that the Lord has heard their cry. But if you read carefully, you will find that another cry has entered the Lord's ears as well.
"The wages" of the laborers cry out to God as well! The tithes and offerings that have been withheld cry out. Monies that should have been sown into the cause of Christ are raising their voices in a mighty chorus to heaven!
Large amounts of undesignated and unused funds that sit in bank vaults cry out. Funds God has graciously given to His people that have been withheld from their purpose-to bring a living Jesus to a dying world-cry out and cry out and cry out!
Are you sitting on a talking wallet today? Is your purse crying out to God? If you could hear their voice, what would they cry? "China! Europe! Africa! The Middle East!"??
Are you generously supporting the work of your own local church? Do not let your money testify against you! Give where, when, and how much God directs- consistently-into the work of His Kingdom.
If the precious fruit of the earth is going to be reaped, we have to support those who labor in the field.
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Read: Ezekiel 10-11; Ezekiel 11:16-23
Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple. - Ezekiel 10:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
While a Chinese couple slept, their three-year-old daughter was busy. She found her mother's purse and about $1,100 in cash. She played with the money and ended up throwing the bills out the window of their family's 17th-floor apartment in Shenzhen, China. A restaurant owner on the first floor later told the mother that people had gladly grabbed the money as it rained down from the sky. "We're now hoping for magic, and that the people with our money will bring it back," she said. In the meantime, they've put wire mesh on the windows.
In the same way that this Chinese family's financial treasure went out the window, the true treasure of Israel, God's presence, departed from the temple in today's reading. The message of judgment against Israel's sin that has been building since chapter 4 reaches a climax. God's glory had begun to leave even in yesterday's reading (9:3), because He refused to share His temple with false gods. His presence would not remainwith idolaters and covenant-breakers. Even more painfully, from Ezekiel's perspective, the departure wasn't abstract or vague, but a highly visible and purposeful exit by the same heavenly throne, cherubim, and wheels he had seen in his original vision of heaven. God's absence is the ultimate punishment! The coals scattered on the city indicate judgment by fire, as well as hinting at fire's purifying effects.
Following the departure of God's glory in chapter 10, Israel's leaders were again condemned in chapter 11. The image of the pot and meat (11:3) indicates that they were proud, considering themselves "choice cuts." Since they hadn't been exiled with Ezekiel's group, they thought they were safe. God reversed their metaphor and let them know that despite their attempts to devour Jerusalem's meat-that is, to use their power for selfish gain (11:7)-He was going to "turn up the heat" and their goose was cooked (11:11)! They were oblivious to the scales of God's justice and would pay the price.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's glory had departed. If ever there were a time for despair, this was it. But God is faithful to give hope to His people, even when they are undergoing deserved discipline or punishment. Ezekiel was glad to prophesy that judgment was not the end of the story. A day would come when God would gather His people and "give them an undivided heart" (11:19). Hearts of stone would be transformed into hearts of flesh. Even now, God Himself would be their "sanctuary" in exile (11:16).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 08, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What's Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them -John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself- begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice . . ." ( 1 Samuel 15:22 ). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." ( John 7:17 ).
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A Prosperous Attitude
In our previous devotional, we learned that God is pleased to bless us. But that prosperity must be accompanied by a special attitude...an attitude that is captured in 1 Kings 3.
This passage records God's appearance to Solomon in a dream at Gibeon. In the dream God said to Solomon, "Ask! What shall I give you?"
What an incredible statement, and question! Equally incredible is Solomon's response, which revealed the attitude of his heart, the attitude which must accompany our prosperity. That response is captured in verses 7-10,
"Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?" The speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.
God is pleased when, in our hearts, we put others before ourselves. God delights in prospering us when prosperity is not our chief aim. When we get it right, and in our hearts we do place others before ourselves, God can bless us beyond our wildest dreams.
God will give you everything you need to fulfill His plan for your life. He will give you richly all things to enjoy, as long as you have a prosperous attitude that puts His plans and His people first.
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Read: Ezekiel 12; Ezekiel 12:21-28
None of my words will be delayed any longer; whatever I say will be fulfilled, declares the Sovereign LORD. - Ezekiel 12:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some Native American peoples have revived an ancient penalty for wrongdoing-exile or banishment from the tribe. Faced with serious and persistent problems of crime, alcoholism, and drug abuse, tribal councils have in some cases chosen this extreme response in order to try to improve their societies. Critics see exile or banishment as an excessive punishment, but some tribal leaders believe it reflects a traditional Native American emphasis on community. "We need to go back to our old ways," one told the New York Times. "We had to say enough is enough."
God also said, "enough is enough," and planned to punish His people Israel with defeat and exile. The wicked leaders in Ezekiel 11 felt safe because they weren't in the first group exiled, but divine justice would catch up with them. People have an amazing capacity for self-deception. Even the exiles listening to Ezekiel's prophecies wanted to believe that the destruction of Jerusalem and God's judgment were in the distant future, not close at hand (v. 27). Despite the pervasive idolatry and covenant unfaithfulness, despite the partial judgment already executed, and despite many prophetic messages, the people were unwilling to heed these warnings and repent (v. 1).
So God commanded Ezekiel to perform two symbolic actions. First, he was to pack his things as if for a sudden trip, then to dig through his house wall as if trying to escape. This turned out to be a specific oracle about what was going to happen to King Zedekiah (see 2 Kings 25 for the prophecy's fulfillment). Second, he was to eat and drink while displaying fear and anxiety, as if disaster were imminent, because it was. God promised to destroy the popular saying "Every vision comes to nothing" with His word that "Every vision will be fulfilled" (vv. 22-23). Sin deserves punishment. Worship is serious business. God will not be mocked. In judgment, the people would learn that He alone is the Lord (v. 15).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some people treat the return of Christ like the Israelites treated God's warnings of judgment (Matt. 24:37-44; 2 Peter 3:3-10). They think either it can't happen soon or it won't happen at all. They doubt God can or will keep His promises. They scoff at the notion of judgment on sin. But Jesus said He would come like a thief in the night: "So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him" (Matt. 24:44).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 09, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Then What's Next To Do?
Everyone who asks receives . . . -Luke 11:10
Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God . . . " ( James 1:5 ), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask. You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose. The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13 ). The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.
"Everyone who asks receives . . . ." This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45 ). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.
"If any of you lacks wisdom . . . ." If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality- do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means "beg." Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg- blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3 ).
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Fitting into God's "Foolishness"
In 1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul gives us an interesting insight into how you and I please God.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
God's methods are astounding. To bring men and women into His family through the foolishness of preaching! When people hear the gospel preached and believe it, God is pleased.
Now how is the gospel preached? Through your life and mine. Every one of us has been entrusted by God with some gift to communicate the gospel. Perhaps you have been entrusted by God with unusual wealth. Or maybe a marvelous singing voice, or the ability to communicate, or perhaps the skill to assimilate facts.
Whatever it is, God has put something in each of us that somehow fits into His great master plan of winning this lost world to Jesus Christ.
God has chosen to use these weak, fallible vessels to share the simple gospel message that the world is separated from Him because of sin. In His mercy, God reached down to the human race when He sent His own Son, Who willingly gave up His life on the cross and died for our sins. The price was paid. God's eternal justice was satisfied. And the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
That is the message our world so desperately needs to hear today! God is pleased when you share that "foolishness." So however God has gifted you, use that gift today to present a living Jesus to our dying world!
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Read: Ezekiel 13-14; Ezekiel 14:1-6
Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices! - Ezekiel 14:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Most Americans are familiar with the episode about whitewashing the fence in Mark Twain's famous book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In order to get out of doing a hated chore, young Tom persuaded his gullible friends that whitewashing the fence was a great privilege . . . but one that he was willing to part with for a price. In the end, most of the job was done by others and he ended up with his pockets full of his friends' stuff.
In today's reading, the false prophets' whitewashing couldn't hide the nation's moral filth. These two chapters are renewed indictments of Israel's sin, warnings of judgment, and a call to repent.
Chapter 13 deals with false prophets while chapter 14 condemns idolaters. We know from chapter 12 that the false prophets told people judgment wouldn't happen. Here they were described as foolish, blind, liars, and jackals. They were motivated by greed and mixed up with witchcraft and the occult. They spoke words concocted by their prideful imaginations rather than messages revealed by God. They were so self-deceived that they actually thought their words would come true (13:6). But to misrepresent the Lord is to profane His name-His wrath would come down on them like a terrible storm.
Idolaters were somewhat less obvious, especially those who did not openly worship pagan gods but instead set up idols in their hearts (14:4). Leaders were doing the right things externally, but internally they were not cultivating attitudes of faithfulness and obedience. They had divided hearts (see Ezek. 11:19). Judgment on such people was certain (14:12-23). The message is phrased in dramatic if/then conditional statements, but the "if" is rhetorical; that is, it was sure to happen. Israel's heritage of righteousness, as seen in the lives of Noah, Daniel (who may be the biblical Daniel, Ezekiel's contemporary), and Job, did not give the nation a free pass. A remnant would be saved, and God's justice and mercy would prevail.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Like the people of Israel, we sometimes ignore the Holy Spirit's conviction of sin in our lives. We rationalize wrongdoing. We believe past good actions will somehow save us from the consequences of current sinful behavior. We neglect the many opportunities God gives us to hear the truth, come to our senses, confess our sins, and turn back to Him. If this is the burden of your heart today, heed the words of Ezekiel: "Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!" (14:6).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
And After That What's Next To Do?
. . seek, and you will find . . . -Luke 11:9
Seek if you have not found. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss . . ." ( James 4:3 ). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, "you ask amiss"; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God. ". . . seek, and you will find . . . ." Get to work- narrow your focus and interests to this one thing. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? ". . . seek, [focus,] and you will find . . . ."
"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. . ." (Isaiah 55:1 ). Are you thirsty, or complacent and indifferent- so satisfied with your own experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a doorway, not a final goal. Beware of building your faith on experience, or your life will not ring true and will only sound the note of a critical spirit. Remember that you can never give another person what you have found, but you can cause him to have a desire for it.
". . . knock, and it will be opened to you" ( Luke 11:9 ). "Draw near to God . . ." ( James 4:8 ). Knock- the door is closed, and your heartbeat races as you knock. "Cleanse your hands . . ." ( James 4:8 ). Knock a bit louder- you begin to find that you are dirty. ". . . purify your hearts . . ." ( James 4:8 ). It is becoming even more personal- you are desperate and serious now- you will do anything. "Lament . . . " ( James 4:9 ). Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are. "Humble yourselves . . . " (James 4:10 ). It is a humbling experience to knock at God's door- you have to knock with the crucified thief. ". . . to him who knocks it will be opened" ( Luke 11:10 ).
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Pleasing God...Even in Your Sorrow
In Psalm 69, David shares his innermost thoughts as he cries out to God, afflicted, sorrowful, beaten down, and distressed. David felt like he was sinking in floodwaters, caught in the quicksand of difficulties.
If you are like me, I am sure you have been there too. In fact, you may feel like you are there right now. Floodwaters of trouble have come into your life. You are treading water, and it seems like you are about to go down for the third time.
For most of us, our response is to get down and depressed, to feel sorry for ourselves. And to hope we will receive comfort and encouragement from those around us.
David's reaction was different. And a model for how we should respond to those times of sorrow and trouble in a way that pleases God. In verses 30 and 31 of Psalm 69 he states,
I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull.
You know, anyone can sing when the sun is shining. It is easy to praise God and shout the victory when things are going your way. But to praise God when the chips are down...that brings pleasure to God.
To worship God, to magnify Him and to thank Him even when it looks like you are not going to make it, that pleases the heart of God. It shows Him something about you. It demonstrates that you have faith in Him, and it opens a way for Him to work in your life.
If your life feels full of sorrow and trouble, begin to praise God, and watch God work!
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Read: Ezekiel 15-16; Ezekiel 15:1-8
I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine. - Ezekiel 16:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Fiddler crab females are not easy to please. When they search for a mate, they may audition 100 or more males before finally selecting one. A research team in southern California studied these picky crabs and described how the males stand in front of their burrows and wave to attract a female's attention. The movement of their front claws looks much like a human "come here" gesture. The male crab's burrow must be exactly the right size for the female to lay her eggs, or she moves on to the next potential mate.
Israel is pictured in today's reading as an adulterous wife (chapter 16) as well as a barren vine (chapter 15; see also Ps. 80:8-16). A barren vine is good for nothing. It cannot be used to make even trivial items such as pegs to hang things on. It is fit only to become kindling for the fire. In the same way, the fire of God's judgment will consume the nation because the people had been unfaithful (15:7-8).
The story of the adulterous wife has the same point: The nation's apostasy ignored God's love and doubted His justice, and therefore judgment would come. At the start, Israel was like an abandoned baby-unloved and helpless. The Lord rescued and redeemed her, and with His love and protection she grew up to be a beautiful woman.
Then came the wedding day, the formal inauguration of a covenant relationship (16:8-14). Tragically, this lovely bride chose the path of prostitution. She took the very gifts God had given her to build high places and altars to idols. She ignored prophetic warnings and pursued perverse promiscuity in worse and worse ways, so that even the godless were shocked by her depravity. God had been very patient, but sin earns His wrath and so a day of judgment was coming (16:35-43). Despite everything, the Lord never stopped loving His people and would one day atone for their sins and restore the covenant (16:60-63).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Reading the allegory of Ezekiel 16, we might feel amazed. How could Israel spurn and wound the One who loved them so much? Yet at times we as believers are guilty of the same behavior. If we desire to be fruitful rather than barren vines, we have only one hope-to abide in Christ, the true Vine (John 15:1-8). Only through His spiritual life and strength can we live lives that please the Lord. Only by remaining in Christ can our words and actions bring glory to God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting There (1)
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words- "Come to Me." Our Lord's words are not, "Do this, or don't do that," but- "Come to me." If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing- "Come to Me." If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord- "Come to Me," and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be "foolish" enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
". . . and I will give you rest"- that is, "I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm." He is not saying, "I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep." But, in essence, He is saying, "I will get you out of bed- out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity." Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about "suffering" the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
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Fearing God
In Psalm 147:10-11, David gives us insight into two things that please God-two things that may seem disconnected from each other.
He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
First, God delights in those who fear Him, those who have a reverential respect and awe for Him. Second, God is pleased with those who hope in His mercy.
In today's devotional, I want to focus on what it means to truly fear God. And, in tomorrow's devotional, we will look at what it means to hope in mercy, and how these two are connected.
Scripture constantly admonishes us to fear God. But how do you do that? I believe the Bible gives us at least four ways:
Through a hatred of evil. Proverbs 8:13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.
Through radical obedience. To fear the Lord means to radically obey Him, as Abraham did in Genesis 22 when he was willing to sacrifice his son.
With an awareness that God is always watching you. Scripture makes it clear there is nowhere you can go that God does not see.
With the knowledge that one day you will have to stand before God as your Judge. Jesus even tells us that one day, when we stand before Him, we will have to give an account of every idle word we have spoken.
Pray today that God will help you live your life by these four principles. Because God delights in those who fear Him.
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Read: Ezekiel 17; Ezekiel 17:22-24
I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. - Ezekiel 17:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University in Massachusetts, a new apple tree was planted last fall. This was no ordinary apple tree-it was a descendant of the famous tree Isaac Newton sat under when an apple dropped on his head and helped him come up with the theory of gravity. Tufts received three branches from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which had previously received a cutting from the Royal Botanical Gardens in England, where a descendant of the original tree is said to reside.
In today's reading, the planting of a new tree symbolizes a new beginning for Israel (vv. 22-24). First, though, Ezekiel gave an allegory or parable of an eagle and a seedling (vv. 1-10), followed by its interpretation (vv. 11-21). The first eagle was Nebuchadnezzar. The cedar tree represented the kingly line of David. Taking seeds from the top of the tree to a faraway land symbolized Jewish leaders, particularly King Jehoiachin, being taken to Babylon in exile. Then another seed, King Zedekiah, became a vine which tried to rebel against Babylon by relying on an alliance with Egypt (the second eagle). The east wind blew and the vine withered, meaning that the Babylonian armies would crush the revolt. (This prophecy was given about three years before it was fulfilled, as recounted in 2 Kings 24:8-25:30.) By breaking a treaty made in God's name and putting their trust in a human ally, Israel would once again prove that human wisdom is foolish and faithless.
Despite everything, a day would come when God Himself would restore the nation. His care and loving-kindness would ensure the growth of a new cedar tree. Birds would roost in its branches, suggesting that all the peoples of the earth will benefit. Over all these plot twists of history, God was, is, and will be sovereign. He raises up and brings down. He causes failure and gives success. He is the Ruler of all!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Faith, as Scripture tells us, "is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). We sometimes speak of faith in God as if it were some kind of risk, when in fact it is the surest confidence there is. He will do what He says. He is in control. That's one reason Jesus compared faith to a mustard seed in His kingdom, which, though a small seed, grows into one of the largest of garden trees (Matt. 13:31-32).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting There (2)
They said to Him, 'Rabbi . . . where are You staying?' He said to them, 'Come and see' -John 1:38-39
Where our self-interest sleeps and the real interest is awakened. "They . . . remained with Him that day . . . ." That is about all some of us ever do. We stay with Him a short time, only to wake up to our own realities of life. Our self-interest rises up and our abiding with Him is past. Yet there is no circumstance of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
"You are Simon . . . . You shall be called Cephas" ( John 1:42 ). God writes our new name only on those places in our lives where He has erased our pride, self-sufficiency, and self-interest. Some of us have our new name written only in certain spots, like spiritual measles. And in those areas of our lives we look all right. When we are in our best spiritual mood, you would think we were the highest quality saints. But don't dare look at us when we are not in that mood. A true disciple is one who has his new name written all over him- self-interest, pride, and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.
Pride is the sin of making "self" our god. And some of us today do this, not like the Pharisee, but like the tax collector (see Luke 18:9-14 ). For you to say, "Oh, I'm no saint," is acceptable by human standards of pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. You defy God to make you a saint, as if to say, "I am too weak and hopeless and outside the reach of the atonement by the Cross of Christ." Why aren't you a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe that God can make you into one. You say it would be all right if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is exactly what He will do! And not only do we make our home with Him, but Jesus said of His Father and Himself, ". . . We will come to him and make Our home with him" ( John 14:23 ). Put no conditions on your life- let Jesus be everything to you, and He will take you home with Him not only for a day, but for eternity.
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Hoping in God's Mercy
In our last devotional, Psalm 147:10-11 showed us how important fearing God is to pleasing Him.
He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
In today's devotional, I want to look at the second thing that pleases God, according to this psalm, those who hope in God's mercy.
You have to wonder why the Lord put those two things together, the fear of Him and hoping in His mercy. At first blush, they do not seem to go together, but they do.
They show how God truly understands our nature. That even those who reverence Him, and truly fear Him, and try to live for Him, sometimes fall short. And in those moments of failure, they need the mercy of God.
In fact, we are told in the Book of Proverbs that the righteous man falls seven times, but gets up again.
You know, I love God, and I do my best to serve Him and walk with Him. But I'm super grateful for His mercy! Thank God He is a merciful God! Because there are times when I so desperately need it, And I am sure you do, too!
My friend, if you have stumbled and today feel like you are a million miles away from God, do not despair. God finds pleasure in those who hope in His mercy. He is delighted when you ask for His mercy. He will not be angry.
Remember, only the guilty need mercy. And God finds pleasure when in your guilt you call out to Him, and hope in His mercy.
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Read: Ezekiel 18; Ezekiel 18:19-23
Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit - Ezekiel 18:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
As a young man, Dawson Trotman was a good student and a natural leader. In fact, he led the Christian Endeavor young people's group at his church. But he was living a double life in which he enjoyed drinking, smoking, and a partying lifestyle. When he and his girlfriend nearly drowned in a mountain lake, he took it as a spiritual wake-up call. Soon after, at age 20, he committed himself to following Christ. "Daws," as he became known, went on to found the Navigators, an organization committed to authentic discipleship.
"Repent and live!" is the message at the center of God's approach to justice and judgment. He takes no pleasure in punishing the wicked, but stands ready to forgive all who turn to Him. That's one of the main principles of Ezekiel 18. God's moral law is not as hard as iron, but is tempered by the softness of His mercy. A new heart and spirit are not something we can earn, but He stands ready to give them (v. 31).
A second main principle here is that we bear responsibility for our spiritual choices (cf. Jer. 31:29-30). The saying quoted in verse 2 reflects self-pity. The Israelites complained they would have no inheritance to pass on to their children. God contradicted this: First, He is in control, so the next generation's inheritance was ultimately His responsibility, not theirs. Second, He holds individuals accountable, so if the next generation acted differently, the results would be different.
To make sure the point was clear, Ezekiel gave a three-generation illustration of the principle that "the soul who sins is the one who will die" (v. 4). What about the Law's promise to punish the children for the sins of the fathers (Ex. 20:5)? Individual responsibility and collective responsibility are both present in Scripture. But God emphasized the former in this case because the Israelites were using His judgment as a cynical excuse to continue their disobedient ways, whereas He was calling them to repent and live.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 5 through 9 in today's reading, the first generation in Ezekiel's illustration, paint a vivid portrait of a righteous man. He is committed to justice, worship of the one true God, and faithfulness in his marriage. He does not exploit the poor but is generous to those in need. He is obedient to God's commands and thereby inherits life. How do we measure up in comparison to such a person? Our prayer today is that the Holy Spirit would enable us to live for Christ so that this description would be true of us.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting There (3)
. . come, follow Me -Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1 ). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you- and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, "Come," then He will continue to say, "Come," through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ's "Come." That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
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Standing in the Gap
Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him (Isaiah 59:14-16).
God is not pleased at injustice nor when truth and righteousness do not prevail. hen He sees those who turn from evil becoming a prey, He is not happy.
I remember a young man who an had lived a particularly sordid life. He heard the gospel and had an amazing conversion experience. Within a month or so of accepting Christ, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
What happened? He departed from evil and became a prey! God was not responsible for his situation, nor was He pleased.
Why did it happen? At least part of the answer is found in verse 16. There was no man serving as an intercessor. No one was keeping a hedge of protection around that young man through prayer.
Before and after people turn from evil we need to intercede to God on their behalf.
I challenge you today to be one of those who stands in the gap and makes up the hedge for new babes in Christ. May God find pleasure in you and me as we take our position as intercessors.
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Read: Ezekiel 19-20; Ezekiel 20:39-44
You will know that I am the LORD, when I deal with you for my name's sake and not according to your evil ways. - Ezekiel 20:44
TODAY IN THE WORD
Responding to today's passage, Nate Wilson wrote in Ezekiel: A Devotional Commentary: "Dear God, please help me to not be rebellious against you! Help me to put away the filthy idols of my eyes and love You wholeheartedly! . . . Oh God, help me to hate the evil I and my fathers have done and let me be part of an acceptable generation to You who worships You rightly and makes the nations know Your holiness."
Rebellion and idolatry dishonor the Lord, while obedience and worship bring glory to His name. That's the spiritual message Ezekiel conveyed throughout his ministry. In today's reading, chapter 19 is a prophetic lament, a sad poem commemorating the day when Ezekiel's prophecy of Jerusalem's destruction would come true. The first part of the poem (19:1-9) pictures the king and people as a pride of lions and lionesses that get trapped and caged. The second part (19:10-14) imagines the nation as a tall and fruitful vine that gets uprooted, stripped, and burned. This lament poem is God's and Ezekiel's way of mourning the necessity of the coming judgment.
What made it necessary? Chapter 20 answers that question with a history lesson on Israel's faithlessness. During the Exodus from Egypt, the people defiled themselves through idolatry. They ignored the promises and commandments of the God who had just freed them from four centuries of slavery. He had been inclined to destroy them then, but for the sake of His name He did not do so. The same thing happened over and over. The people would ignore God's blessings, plunge into idolatry, dishonor the covenant, and provoke the Lord to anger, but He patiently kept giving them another chance. He is love, and though Israel's sin invited judgment, He would redeem and purify them in spite of themselves (20:32-38). They didn't listen to these warnings (20:45-49)-but we can. To understand who God is and act in a manner worthy of our calling is to please and glorify Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Like Nate Wilson in the devotional commentary referenced in today's illustration, we should always be alert to the meanings and applications of Scripture for our spiritual lives. What are your personal responses to the book of Ezekiel as we've studied it so far? What poetic figures of speech or symbolic actions remain most vividly in your imagination? Which aspects of the life of faith has the Holy Spirit been bringing to your attention during this study? Which dimensions of God's character have stood out most clearly?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Get Moving (1)
Abide in Me . . . -John 15:4
In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus- I have to do it myself. I have to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5 ). "Abide in Me"- in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord's inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father's plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord's life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is "hidden with Christ in God" ( Colossians 3:3 ).
Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, "Yes, Lord, just a minute- I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then." Get moving- begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.
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God's Pleasure...Your Blessing
In Psalm 35:27 we are told,
Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, "Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant."
This Psalm says it clearly-God is pleased when you are blessed. The Revised Standard Version translates this verse this way, God delights in the welfare of His servant.
In Luke 12, when talking about God meeting our practical, physical, and material needs, Jesus says, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
You do not need to somehow convince God to meet your needs. In fact, God desires to bless you.
It is like the son who felt his father had not provided for him when his dad passed away. His father left one sibling some property, another one some valuable stock, and all the son got was a box of what looked to him like junk.
One day, because of financial trouble, the son had to move out of his apartment. As he cleaned things out, he found the box of junk he had thrown in the back of a closet. Noticing there were some stamps and trading cards in the box, he decided to see if they were worth anything.
It turned out the trading card collection was filled with rare baseball cards in mint condition. And every one of the stamps was very rare-very valuable. The combined appraisal of the two collections was over $450,000!
His father had provided for him, but the son had lived far below those privileges because he didn't believe his father had blessed him!
Our heavenly Father delights in, He takes pleasure in, the prosperity of His servant. And that means you!
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Read: Ezekiel 21-22; Ezekiel 22:23-31
For with fire and with his sword the LORD will execute judgment upon all men. - Isaiah 66:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Guest worker policies in some countries create a legalized equivalent of slavery. For example, as reported in Newsweek, labor brokers guarantee international workers jobs and salaries in Malaysia in exchange for hefty placement fees. When they arrive, however, the workers find they've been scammed. The salaries are far lower than promised-after deductions for room and board, as little as $14 per month. But the workers can't leave because Malaysian law requires them to sign multiyear contracts and their employers hold their passports. The workers are trapped. The United Nations estimates that at least 12.3 million people worldwide are enslaved in such forced labor arrangements.
God hates injustice in any form, and when He draws His sword of judgment we can be sure justice will be swiftly done. Chapter 21 is an extended discourse on this topic. It might be an answer to Ezekiel's complaint that the people were dismissing his "parables" (20:49)-this word from the Lord was much more direct! There were still dramatic elements, such as the command to groan loudly and to make some kind of map or model (21:6-7, 19-20). But the meaning was plain: Babylon would conquer and destroy Jerusalem. In this case, Babylon was the sword of the Lord, and His judgment would be righteous and terrible.
Chapter 22 reiterates or makes plain the sins that were the reason for judgment. As compared to the historical angle of chapter 20, this condemnation is framed as a court case against the present generation, especially the leaders. Their sins were extensive: idolatry, abuse of power, violence or bloodshed, slander, desecration of the Sabbath, sexual immorality, taking bribes, and other forms of social injustice and self-indulgence. Leaders should serve rather than prey on others for personal gain. Priests should serve the Lord rather than leading the way to the altars of false idols. The furnace of God's judgment would burn away these sins and purify His people (22:18-22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God looked for but could not find a single righteous person to "stand in the gap" (22:30). To "stand in the gap" means to intercede for a larger group, as when Moses prayed for the Israelites (Num. 21:4-9) or when Jesus prayed for His disciples (John 17). Are we as followers of Christ standing in the gap for our country? Social injustices such as racism and abortion anger the Lord, but we have the privilege and responsibility of interceding in prayer for our nation and its leaders.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
June 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Get Moving (2)
Also . . . add to your faith . . . -2 Peter 1:5
In the matter of drudgery. Peter said in this passage that we have become "partakers of the divine nature" and that we should now be "giving all diligence," concentrating on forming godly habits (2 Peter 1:4-5 ). We are to "add" to our lives all that character means. No one is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; it must be developed. Nor are we born with habits- we have to form godly habits on the basis of the new life God has placed within us. We are not meant to be seen as God's perfect, bright-shining examples, but to be seen as the everyday essence of ordinary life exhibiting the miracle of His grace. Drudgery is the test of genuine character. The greatest hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will only look for big things to do. Yet, "Jesus . . . took a towel and . . . began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." ( John 13:3-5 ).
We all have those times when there are no flashes of light and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily routine with its common everyday tasks. The routine of life is actually God's way of saving us between our times of great inspiration which come from Him. Don't always expect God to give you His thrilling moments, but learn to live in those common times of the drudgery of life by the power of God.
It is difficult for us to do the "adding" that Peter mentioned here. We say we do not expect God to take us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we do! I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all of the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty's sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Obedience and Respect
I am sure most Christian parents, at one time or another, have pointed their children to Colossians 3:20,
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Or to Ephesians 6:1-3,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
These two character qualities of obeying and honoring parents are vital to pleasing God. But it is important to understand that obedience has to do with an outward act, while honoring has to do with an inward attitude of the heart.
As parents, we all can remember those times when our children may have been outwardly obedient but were being inwardly disrespectful. You may have gotten them to sit down in the corner, but while they sat there, they were thinking, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"
If you are a parent, it is critical for you to deal just as swiftly with a disrespectful attitude as it is with a disobedient act. It is part of your God-given role of teaching your children obedience and respect for authority.
As your children learn how to obey and respect, you will not only bring them peace, they will experience God's blessing in their lives.
So as you work to raise your children to be the people God desires them to be, make a priority of teaching your children the qualities of respect for authority and obedience. Someday they will bless you for it!
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Read: Ezekiel 23-24; Ezekiel 24:9-14
You may be sure that your sin will find you out. - Numbers 32:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
Once a lobster is caught by a fisherman, its fate is all but certain-a cooking pot, a garlic butter sauce, and a comfortable bed on the plate of some lucky diner. Fiona, however, is an exception. Fiona is a rare yellow lobster caught in 2009 off the coast of eastern Canada. How rare? One in 30 million. "In 57 years, I have never seen a yellow lobster and I doubt that I will ever see one again," said restaurant owner Nathan Nickerson. Actually a bright orange in color, Fiona will live in a tank in his restaurant, where he hopes she will attract many new customers.
A yellow lobster may escape the cooking pot, but the leaders of Israel had no escape. They could be sure their sins would find them out (Num. 32:23). Today's reading concludes the first major section of Ezekiel-the prophecies preceding the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 B.C.
These chapters can be divided into four parts. First is a parable of two sisters who were prostitutes (23:1-21). These sisters stand for Israel and Judah in the days of the divided kingdom. Idolatry and political alliances with pagan nations constituted unfaithfulness to the Lord. The people should have been relying on God alone and worshiping Him alone. Instead, their disobedience is seen in the sisters' lustful, indiscriminate lewdness.
Second is an exposition of God's just judgment on Israel and Judah (23:22-49). The cup of God's wrath was full. The people had no excuse. Knowing full well God's law and character, they chose wickedness. Third is a picture of a cooking pot as a metaphor for God's judgment (24:1-14; see also June 7). This vision came on the exact day the siege of Jerusalem began.
And fourth is the death of Ezekiel's wife (24:15-27). This event took place on the exact day the temple was destroyed. The quiet but deep mourning of the prophet for the heartbreaking loss of his wife reflected at a personal level what the loss of Jerusalem and the temple meant to Israel.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Throughout the prophecies of impending judgment, God through Ezekiel continuously urged the Israelites to confess their sins and return to Him. As Christians, we also have this privilege-and we know we need it. If we think we're walking without sin, we're kidding ourselves. God's work of sanctification in our lives is not yet complete; therefore, confession needs to be a regular spiritual discipline. When we confess and repent, we enjoy God's forgiveness and walk again in His light (1 John 1:5-10).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will You Lay Down Your Life
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . . -John 15:13, 15
Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, "I will lay down my life for Your sake," and he meant it ( John 13:37 ). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing- our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. Has the Lord ever asked you, "Will you lay down your life for My sake?" ( John 13:38 ). It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways. There was only one bright-shining moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was there that He emptied Himself of His glory for the second time, and then came down into the demon-possessed valley (seeMark 9:1-29 ). For thirty-three years Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father. "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" ( 1 John 3:16 ). Yet it is contrary to our human nature to do so.
If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, "Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful." And Jesus says to us, ". . . I have called you friends. . . ." Remain faithful to your Friend, and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life.
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Embracing the Blessings of God
Ephesians 1:3 is a verse that is often misunderstood. It tells us,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
I used to read that and wonder what in the world a spiritual blessing in a heavenly place in Christ really was! I truly believed that I had been blessed with it, but I didn't have a clue what it meant.
Then one day as I studied, I found out that the word spiritual literally means Holy Spirit-conferred. The Amplified Bible helps clarify the meaning when it says, He has blessed us with every Holy Spirit-given blessing.
What it means, literally, is that the blessings you and I enjoy as believers in Jesus Christ come from heaven's vast resources. And they have already been conferred on us. Isn't that awesome?!
But there is something more. These Holy Spirit-conferred blessings include any blessing and benefit we get from God, be it material, physical, emotional, or spiritual.
So, when God heals you, it is a blessing being conferred through the agency of His Spirit. When God brings peace to your troubled heart, that is a blessing from the Holy Spirit. And when God supernaturally supplies material needs, that is the Holy Spirit at work blessing you from the vast resources of heaven!
But here is what I really want you to grasp. Based on this verse, all those blessings have already been given. They have been issued. On God's side of the ledger, they are a done deal. He has already signed them and sent them.
So praise God for...and embrace...His blessings in your life!
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Read: Ezekiel 25; Ezekiel 25:1-7
O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble. - Psalm 79:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Sin can now be mapped. Forbes magazine published a 2008 special report on "America's Most Sinful Cities." For each of the seven deadly sins, researchers chose a statistical stand-in-wrath or anger was measured by the murder rate, greed or avarice by the number of billionaires per capita, gluttony by obesity rates, and so on. In a related study, geographers from Kansas State University examined available data such as the number of reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases per capita (for lust) and the number of fast food restaurants per capita (for gluttony).
No single group has a monopoly on evil-we are all fallen. Though most of Ezekiel is aimed at Israel, the prophet also delivered messages of judgment against her neighbors. These are found in chapters 25 through 32, the second main section of the book. It was comforting to Israel that her enemies would be punished as well, and for us it is reassuring that God's justice is impartial and His power is absolute.
Four countries are targeted in today's reading-Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia. Ammon (vv. 1-7) lay east of Israel in modern-day Jordan. The Ammonites had been opportunistic raiders who preyed on Israel at moments of weakness. To rejoice in the downfall of God's people, however, was the same as laughing at God (v. 6). As a result, they themselves would be conquered and destroyed.
Moab (vv. 8-11) lay south of Ammon. The Moabites saw Judah as no different from pagan nations, and for their disrespect they would also be destroyed. Edom or Seir (vv. 12-14) lay south of Moab and earned God's judgment by harassing instead of welcoming refugees after the Babylonian conquest. Finally, Philistia (vv. 15-17) lay west of Judah and also had a long history of hostility with God's people. They acted as the others had and would earn a similar fate. Just as the Lord promised long ago, whoever cursed His people would themselves be cursed (Gen. 12:3).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's verse begins a psalm you might consider reading in full. Psalm 79 prays for judgment on Israel's enemies in much the same way as is true in Ezekiel's prophecy. It is also a prayer for forgiveness and for the restoration of a close covenant relationship: "Help us, O God our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name's sake. . . . Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will praise you forever" (vv. 9, 13).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Beware of Criticizing Others
Judge not, that you be not judged -Matthew 7:1
Jesus' instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, "Don't." The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.
There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5 ). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24 ). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person's situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
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Enjoying the Fullness of Your Inheritance
In Galatians 4:1-5, the apostle Paul helps us understand what it means to be part of God's family,
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Adoption in Roman society was very different from adoption today. When a flesh and blood son reached the age of maturity, he was "adopted" into his own family. Until that time, he was considered a child, and he was under the tutelage of a household slave.
We are heirs because of adoption. What does this mean? It means that God is well pleased when we assume our place as mature sons of God, exercising our authority and enjoying the fullness of our inheritance. But most Christians don't do this.
Not long ago, I learned about a particular website that can tell you if you have any money anywhere that you don't know about. There are literally hundreds of millions of dollars sitting unused in trust funds or accounts that people don't know about.
A lot of Christians operate this way. They have this incredible inheritance that belongs to them, this incredible authority that has been given to them, and they are unaware of it. And, friend, that does not bring pleasure to God.
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Read: Ezekiel 26-27; Ezekiel 27:29-34
The LORD tears down the proud man's house but he keeps the widow's boundaries intact. - Proverbs 15:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2003, salvage explorers found the wreck of the S.S. Republic about 100 miles southeast off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. The vessel sank in 1865 as the result of a hurricane, and although 42 of the 59 passengers made it into lifeboats and survived, $400,000 in coins sank with the ship. Today those coins are worth an estimated $150 million. The finders also planned to recover and put on display historical artifacts from the wreck.
Metaphorically speaking, Tyre was a ship loaded with riches that God promised to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Their wealth and achievements wouldn't save them. Tyre was the capital city of Phoenicia (located in modern Lebanon), north of Israel. In part an island city, Tyre was very active in business and trade. But like the nations in yesterday's reading, they rejoiced in the downfall of Jerusalem and even planned to profit from it (26:2). Ezekiel's prophecy in chapter 26 exposed their pride-they believed they could not be conquered. They made their business plans and threw noisy parties and thought the good times would never end (26:13). But God said otherwise. Destruction was coming. Tyre was besieged and humbled by several invading armies, and eventually destroyed by Alexander in 332 B.C. The world would see and tremble at the spectacle of God's judgment on this proud city.
Chapter 27 is a prophetic lament for the city's destruction. The first part of the poem builds a picture of the greatness of Tyre and celebrates her wealth, beauty, and economic and military power (27:1-11). The second part expands the picture even further to show a thriving city with which the entire world was eager to trade (27:12-25). The third and final section shows that the bigger they are, the harder they fall (27:26-36). They trusted in their riches, as symbolized by a trading ship, but that object of faith was headed to the bottom of the sea. Only the Lord is worthy of human trust. He is the Rock on which we stand!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Pride is the enemy of God. Pride focuses on self to such an extent that one's thoughts do not even have room for God (Ps. 10:4). Pride seeks glory for self rather than glory for God. That's why "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18). Pride has the potential to creep into every area of our lives-some people are even proud of being humble! What's the cure? "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5-11).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Keep Recognizing Jesus
. . . Peter . . . walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid . . . -Matthew 14:29-30
The wind really was boisterous and the waves really were high, but Peter didn't see them at first. He didn't consider them at all; he simply recognized his Lord, stepped out in recognition of Him, and "walked on the water." Then he began to take those things around him into account, and instantly, down he went. Why couldn't our Lord have enabled him to walk at the bottom of the waves, as well as on top of them? He could have, yet neither could be done without Peter's continuing recognition of the Lord Jesus.
We step right out with recognition of God in some things, then self-consideration enters our lives and down we go. If you are truly recognizing your Lord, you have no business being concerned about how and where He engineers your circumstances. The things surrounding you are real, but when you look at them you are immediately overwhelmed, and even unable to recognize Jesus. Then comes His rebuke, ". . . why did you doubt?" ( Matthew 14:31 ). Let your actual circumstances be what they may, but keep recognizing Jesus, maintaining complete reliance upon Him.
If you debate for even one second when God has spoken, it is all over for you. Never start to say, "Well, I wonder if He really did speak to me?" Be reckless immediately- totally unrestrained and willing to risk everything- by casting your all upon Him. You do not know when His voice will come to you, but whenever the realization of God comes, even in the faintest way imaginable, be determined to recklessly abandon yourself, surrendering everything to Him. It is only through abandonment of yourself and your circumstances that you will recognize Him. You will only recognize His voice more clearly through recklessness- being willing to risk your all.
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Delivered!
Do you realize that the devil has absolutely no authority over you?
In Colossians 1:12-13, the apostle Paul tells us,
Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
You and I have been delivered from the power of darkness. We are out from under the authority of the devil.
That was a happy day for me when I realized this truth. After I was saved, I was afraid of the devil because I had been so deeply involved in the occult. I literally had a fear that hung upon me and followed me everywhere I went. So I just prayed over and over, "God, please make me so I'm not afraid of the devil."
I started to constantly read the New Testament. As I did, I realized what Christ had done for me, and I was set free.
As I thought about this truth, I was reminded of being in elementary school. We had this kid who terrorized a lot of other kids. I was so afraid of him. One day, he just pushed one of my buttons. All of a sudden I was on top of him holding his arms down, and I was thinking, "Why in the world was I ever afraid of this kid?" He was absolutely helpless!
Just like that bully, the devil is a defeated foe. And part of your inheritance is authority over all the power of the enemy. It is a happy day when you realize it.
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Read: Ezekiel 28; Ezekiel 28:24-26
When I gather the people of Israel from the nations . . . I will show myself holy. - Ezekiel 28:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jesus once encountered a rich young man who wanted to obtain eternal life (Matt. 19:16-30). Jesus told him to keep the commandments, and the man naively responded that he did so. "If you want to be perfect," Jesus then told him, "go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." But the man could not bear to part with his money-in truth, wealth held first place in his heart. Jesus explained to His disciples, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." They thought wealth was God's stamp of approval rather than a potential competitor for the heart's allegiance.
The kingdom of Tyre had achieved great commercial success. Riches and success had led to pride, as we learned yesterday. Ezekiel 28 continues with two more oracles against Tyre (vv. 1-10 and 11-19), plus a short prophecy against Sidon (vv. 20-23) and a promise for Israel (vv. 24-26). The first oracle begins by recapping the theme of pride. The king of Tyre was so proud he thought he was a god and trusted completely in his own wisdom and wealth. God would judge him by stripping away his pride and taking away his riches. He would die a shameful and violent death.
The second oracle is a lament that charts the spiritual sequence of pride, temptation, and fall. In words suggesting Satan, the father of all pride and thus the power behind the throne of Tyre, Ezekiel described a perfect "guardian cherub" in Eden who sinned and was expelled from heaven. The short prophecy against Sidon, a sister city to the north of Tyre, emphasizes that judgment will likewise teach them who is the true God.
Against this backdrop, God's promise to Israel is a genuine word of comfort. He will regather the exiles and restore them to their land, where they will live in peace. The covenant relationship will be renewed. Then the people will "know that I am the LORD their God" (v. 26).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The spiritual sequence of pride, temptation, and fall is one we need to be aware of as well. Satan took pride in his own beauty and wisdom, but instead of using them for God's glory he embraced the self-centered falsehood that he was equal to God. His fall was unsurprising, for God's justice makes the fate of the proud inevitable. No matter what gifts and abilities God has given us, we need to be always on guard against temptations to pride and self-centeredness. All His gifts are to be used for His glory, not our own.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
June 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
. . . do you love Me? . . . Tend My sheep -John 21:16
Jesus did not say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. We consider what we do in the way of Christian work as service, yet Jesus Christ calls service to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . , he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ). In this verse, there is no argument and no pressure from Jesus to follow Him; He is simply saying, in effect, "If you want to be My disciple, you must be devoted solely to Me." A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, "Now I see who Jesus is!"- that is the source of devotion.
Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way. Our Lord's primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of people- the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even though people may treat me like a "doormat." The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that "falls into the ground and dies"- it will spring up and change the entire landscape ( John 12:24 ).
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Blessed to Be a Blessing
Our capitalistic society is geared toward one purpose...people accumulating wealth. While there is nothing wrong with material abundance, many Christians today have lost sight of why God has blessed them with prosperity.
They believe it is for their own good and benefit, but God's perspective is quite different. For example, here is what the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 13:16,
But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Now the phrase "to share" means to share with others. One translation says, Share what you have. Another version translates this, Be generous. Another says, Contribute to the needy.
You see, God blesses us to make us a blessing! That ought to be the main motivation for desiring and praying for God's blessing in our lives. God told Abraham, "I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." God says the fringe benefit is that, "I will give you richly all things to enjoy." But the main flow of God's purpose in blessing us is so we can help other people.
It is also the reason we should desire the inheritance that Christ has given to us, all of those Holy Spirit-conferred blessings, which we discussed on day 14. Why? Because we can't give what we don't have. You can't bless someone if you don't have anything to bless them with!
God is well pleased to see us walk in our inheritance as sons, but He is also well pleased to see us share what He has blessed us with.
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Read: Ezekiel 29-30; Ezekiel 30:20-26
Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance. - Psalm 82:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
One of the ancient Egyptian gods was Sobek, the crocodile god. Represented either as a crocodile or as a man with the head of a crocodile, he symbolized the strength of the ruler and was considered to be in control of the waters, especially the Nile River. He was associated with fertility and rebirth for both people and crops. Many mummified crocodiles and paintings of crocodiles have been found in Egyptian tombs. In The Book of the Dead, he says, "I am Sobek, and I seize my prey like a ravening beast."
Given that crocodiles symbolized the might of Egypt, Ezekiel's prophecy of Egypt as a doomed crocodile hunted by the Lord is shocking. Rather than seizing his prey, Sobek or Egypt became the prey. Ezekiel prophesied that Egypt was going to be hooked and netted by the Lord and stood no chance of escaping His judgment. Egypt was a powerful nation to the south of Judah, an ally the nation had relied upon in its bid to rebel against Babylon.
Egypt then was larger than it is now and included other areas of northern Africa. Due to its size and strength, it represented the temptation to trust in human strength rather than in God. Egypt rated four chapters of prophetic judgment in Ezekiel. These chapters are divided into seven oracles, each of which begins, "The word of the LORD came to me." Each emphasizes the sovereignty of God in dealing with nations as He pleases.
Today's reading covers the first four oracles. The first prophecy condemns Egypt's pride and failure to help Israel (29:1-16). For this, its power and status will be broken-the crocodile will become roadkill. The second prophecy reveals that Babylon will be Egypt's conqueror and the instrument of God's justice (29:17-21). The third prophecy is a lament poem that graphically describes the devastating judgment that is on the way from God's hand (30:1-19). The fourth prophecy proclaims that God will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon so that he will break the arms of the king of Egypt (30:20-26).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's sovereignty is a terrible truth to sinners but an encouraging one for believers. Rather than fearing His judgment, we look forward to spending eternity with Him. At the end of history, when God's plans for the nations have been fulfilled, here's how it will be in the new Jerusalem: "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Rev. 21:27).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Come to "When" Yet?
The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends -Job 42:10
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, "Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer- I will walk rightly before You if You will help me." But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.
If you are not now receiving the "hundredfold" which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29 ), and not getting insight into God's Word, then start praying for your friends- enter into the ministry of the inner life. "The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends." As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.
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Rejoicing in God's Mercy
We all are familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son. After he had wasted his inheritance, he came to his senses and returned home, hoping he could just be a servant to his father.
His father wouldn't even consider it. He put the best robe on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and then had the fatted calf killed for a party. The father delighted in showing mercy to his son!
But what about the older brother? He stood outside the party and wouldn't come in to celebrate. He was so angry! He had never messed up and yet his father had never thrown him a party!
Sometimes, if we are not careful, we can have the attitude of that older son. We can look at the lives of others and think, "That is not fair. I know he's been messing up, and God is blessing him. What's up with that? I haven't been as bad as him!"
We need to remember that God delights in showing mercy to the guilty when, from a sincere heart, they seek that mercy. He delights when you and I ask for His mercy when we have blown it.
Micah 6:7-8 says,
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
God delights in showing mercy. So be a person of mercy, and rejoice when God shows mercy to someone who needs it.
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Read: Ezekiel 31-32; Ezekiel 32:28-32
I made the nations tremble at the sound of its fall. - Ezekiel 31:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
In The Inferno, Part I of Dante's Divine Comedy ("comedy" here indicates a narrative with a happy ending), Dante and his guide, the Latin poet Virgil, descend into hell. In each of the nine circles of hell, they see sinners being punished for sins they committed during their lives on earth. For example, the second circle contains lustful people, the fifth circle wrathful people, and the eighth circle fraudulent people such as flatterers and hypocrites. It is a dark journey filled with horrifying scenes and spiritual warnings for Dante and his readers.
As in Dante's classic work of literature, part of Ezekiel's prophecy in today's reading is an imagined descent into the underworld. The seventh out of seven oracles spoken against Egypt narrates Pharaoh's journey to Sheol (32:17-32). This is not a doctrinal description of the afterlife but a poem highlighting God's control over history and His judgment on human pride. When Pharaoh arrives, he finds Assyrian kings there ahead of him, no longer fear-inspiring empire-builders but impotent victims of God's judgment. The grave is in fact full of fallen, formerly mighty kings and rulers. Their pride now appears foolish-they have all returned to dust.
Going back to the start of today's passage, the fifth oracle against Egypt features a splendid, impressive cedar tree representing Assyria (31:1-18). Assyria had been a superpower, but God used Babylon to bring her down. That downfall should be a lesson to Egypt: Military power and political supremacy guarantee nothing.
The sixth oracle is a lament over the king of Egypt and again pictures him as a crocodile that gets hunted, caught, and gutted (32:1-16). The pride of Egypt will be shattered by a ruthless killer, Babylon. Interestingly, darkness is part of this judgment, an echo of the ten plagues in the days of Moses and the Exodus. The point is that God is in control of history-He raises up kingdoms and brings them down as His justice decrees.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If God is sovereign, is there any point at all to human planning? Yes, as long as that planning is done in submission to Him. Planning can be part of good stewardship and obedience. As Proverbs 14:22 reminds us: "Do not those who plot evil go astray? But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness." Actually, the book of Proverbs contains a great deal of wisdom about making spiritually sound plans, including such references as Proverbs 16:3; 19:21; and 21:30.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Ministry of the Inner Life
You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . -1 Peter 2:9
By what right have we become "a royal priesthood"? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our "hanging on by the skin of our teeth," although we say, "What a wonderful victory I have!" Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don't worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, "Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men." Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: "Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now."
How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.
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Becoming a Person of Mercy
Luke 6:38 tells us,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
It is not unusual to hear this verse used in connection with giving money to the Lord's work. And while there is a principle concerning money embedded in this verse, Jesus was not talking about giving an offering when He made this statement. That was not the subject under discussion.
In order to understand what He was really talking about, you need to read verses 35-37,
"But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Jesus wanted to impress on us this truth: If you give forgiveness, and you give love, and you give mercy, they come back to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together.
He wanted us to understand that by the same measure you and I give these things, it will come back to us. But if you and I measure out judgment and condemnation, guess what gets measured back to us?
Make a commitment today to become a person of mercy, not seeking anything in return. Become known as someone who reflects our God of mercy to a broken and needy world.
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Read: Ezekiel 33; Ezekiel 33:10-16
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. - Ezekiel 33:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Usually pop songs on the radio are here today, gone tomorrow. Yesterday's top hit, played hourly to keep pace with album sales, is tomorrow's forgotten tune. Somewhere in Nashville or Los Angeles, musicians and marketers are already crafting the next hit, probably something about romantic love, probably something that appeals to a 20-something or younger demographic, probably something not too long and not too complicated so that the radio stations will play it.
In Ezekiel's day, God's people treated His messages as though they were pop songs, as background noise but not divine words to heed and obey (v. 32). They were not doers of the Word, but hearers only (James 1:22-25). Today's reading begins the third and final main section of the book of Ezekiel-chapters 33 through 48 deliver a message of comfort and promise to the Jewish exiles.
Ezekiel's commission as a "watchman" was renewed at the start of the passage (vv. 1-20). As a man with a message from God, he must share it. If he didn't, the people's blood would be on his head, but if he did and no one listened, it would be on their heads. Ezekiel may have been tired of being a misunderstood doomsayer, but God encouraged him to continue taking seriously his responsibility as a prophet of the Most High.
Ezekiel was doubtless glad his message was vindicated when a messenger arrived confirming the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (vv. 21-33). The people had chosen to ignore his prophetic warnings and put their confidence in their status as "chosen people," despite their idolatry. Perhaps because of their faithless response, the prophet had been temporarily muted by God, but now his tongue was released. Surely the people would listen now! Now that all they loved seemed dead-the promised land, the holy city, the temple, and the kingly line of David-perhaps they would actually listen to what God had to say.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The point of Ezekiel's prophecies was not for the people to feel depressed about their wrongdoing or even for the prophet to exult in divine justice, but rather for sinners to repent and live (v. 11)! God takes no pleasure in wielding His sword of judgment or in punishing people. He would much rather extend forgiveness and grace to those who put their trust in Him. The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament-delighting to show mercy and inviting people to embrace His love.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unchanging Law of Judgment
With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you -Matthew 7:2
This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution- "with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God's throne down to us (see Psalm 18:25-26 ).
Romans 2:1 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts. To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts. The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, "Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge."
Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged" ( Matthew 7:1 ). He went on to say, in effect, "If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way." Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, "My God, judge me as I have judged others"? We have judged others as sinners- if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Perfect and Complete
Your faith in God has incredible potential to make your life complete. To take you from the place of deficiency, to the place of being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James puts it this way in James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Faith in God can make you complete, but your faith will be contested. It will be opposed, even as we read here. Your faith will go through the fire of trial.
If you lack spiritually in your life, you can get to the place of holiness. If you are lacking materially, you can get to a place where your needs are met. Whatever your lack, your faith in God has the potential to take you from where you are, and where you are lacking, to this place that the Bible speaks of...being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
But, the path to that completeness is one of trial. Your faith will not get you there until it first goes through testing. You do have an adversary. You will be opposed. The Bible says, Your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
The devil knows what is at stake, and he will do all he can to keep you from trusting God. So as your faith encounters the turbulence of trials, do what James says, and count it all joy. You are on your way to becoming perfect and complete in Christ.
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Read: Ezekiel 34; Ezekiel 34:11-16
I will shepherd the flock with justice. - Ezekiel 34:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Political scientist Alan Houston was at the British Library doing archival research for a book on Benjamin Franklin, one of the most studied figures in American history. There he made an incredible find-47 letters written by, to, and about the great man. No one had seen these letters before; no one even knew they existed! Professor Houston spent two years verifying their authenticity and examining their contents, and then published them last year in The William and Mary Quarterly, accompanied by an essay by him. The letters provide new information about historical events and in some cases show new sides of Franklin.
Just as historical documents help us understand historical figures, so also God's Word guides us in understanding who He is. Having just received confirmation of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, this was what the Israelites needed to understand most of all: When all else is gone, God remains. Yes, He hates and judges sin, and the nation paid the price for their persistent idolatry. But as Ezekiel 34 teaches, He keeps His promises and remains the faithful and loving Shepherd of His people (cf. Psalm 23).
This chapter is built around a contrast between God and the false shepherds, who were the political and religious leaders of Israel. These leaders had failed to care for the flock, instead looking to profit at its expense (vv. 1-6). Naturally, the sheep had been scattered and preyed upon by wild animals. God opposed such "shepherds" and would hold them accountable as "sheep" who had gotten fat while others starved (vv. 7-10, 17-24). As the divine Shepherd, He would rescue His people from this horrible situation-searching for the lost, binding up the injured, finding them safe pasture, and in general shepherding the flock with justice (vv. 11-16). The covenant would be renewed and the land restored (vv. 25-31). "Showers of blessing" would rain down. Harvests would be plentiful and the people would dwell in peace.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 24 indicates that the Shepherd will be a descendant of David and God Himself. This messianic riddle is solved in Jesus Christ. He is our Good Shepherd and we are His sheep (John 10:1-16). We follow His voice as He leads us to green pastures and quiet waters. Whereas a hired hand runs away when a wolf comes, Jesus proved He is the true Shepherd by laying down His life for us. Those who follow Him can "have life, and have it to the full."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Acquainted With Grief"
He is . . . a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief -Isaiah 53:3
We are not "acquainted with grief" in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of our lives we do not bring ourselves to the point of dealing with the reality of sin. We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts, and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through life, we find the presence of something which we have not yet taken into account, namely, sin- and it upsets all of our thinking and our plans. Sin has made the foundation of our thinking unpredictable, uncontrollable, and irrational.
We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue- if sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine- that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
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Passing the Test of Your Faith
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how God desires for us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing; but the road to that is the testing of our faith.
The natural question is, "What does it take to succeed when the test comes?" There are two cooperating forces which must be at work. James 1:4-5 shows us what those two forces are,
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
The first force is patience. James' point is, "Don't quit before the answer comes. Let patience have full play, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
Hebrews 10:36, says it this way,
For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
You and I may actually have done the will of God, done what God wants us to do, but if we don't exercise endurance, we won't receive the promise. That is the importance of patience.
The second cooperating force at work to pass the test of your faith is wisdom. If you lack wisdom, if you can't see the forest for the trees in the midst of your trial, you can ask God and He will give it...liberally and without reproach.
God delights when you ask for wisdom. And He won't belittle you or find fault with you for asking.
So if you find your faith on trial, if you are being sorely tested, ask God for wisdom and patiently endure. Without these two forces, you will never know victory!
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Read: Ezekiel 35-36; Ezekiel 36:24-32
You, O mountains of Israel, will produce . . . fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home. - Ezekiel 36:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
About 35 years ago, two baby boys were given up for adoption. They were adopted into two different families, attended rival high schools, and lived in neighboring towns in Maine . . . all the while unaware of each other's existence. One of them eventually got a job as a furniture mover for a bedding store. Then amazingly, the other was hired for the same job by the same store. As the two men drove their truck around town completing deliveries, customers would ask them if they were brothers. "We thought they were just trying to razz us," one said. Then they dug into their adoption records and discovered it was true-they actually were brothers!
The joy of being reunited with family is comparable to the joy Israel would feel upon returning to the land of promise. Today's reading begins with a chapter of prophecy against the nation of Edom (cf. 25:12-14). The enmity between Edom and Israel extended all the way back to Jacob and Esau. When the Edomites looted Jerusalem after the Babylonian conquest (Obad. 1:11-14), they angered the Lord and incurred His judgment.
Why is this chapter here in the section of Ezekiel devoted to messages of comfort and promise? The Edomites intended to capitalize on their enemy's defeat and seize the Israelite's land for themselves (35:10-13). These plans showed disrespect for God because He had given the land to Jacob as an inheritance. In truth, it was God's land (36:5).
Therefore, the prophecy against Edom is an appropriate introduction to God's promise in chapter 36 to restore Israel to her land. One day they would return from exile-homes would be built, crops would be grown, the people would live in peace again (36:8-12). Just as the honor of God's name demanded the justice of judgment, so it also meant that He would give the people new hearts and restore them as a witness to the nations (36:20-28). "Then they will know that I am the LORD" (36:38).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
No discipline lasts forever (36:15). God's justice aims not to take vengeance on sinners but to restore them to fellowship with Him. The same is true today for Christians: "God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:10-11). We should rejoice in God's "tough love" for us-He's preparing us for full fellowship with Him!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
This is your hour, and the power of darkness -Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact of sin- not recognizing it and refusing to deal with it- produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this "hour, and the power of darkness" into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, "Yes, I see what this sin would mean." The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship- it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous. Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.
Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin.
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Gaining the Wisdom of God
I think every Christian desires wisdom from God. But they don't get it because they don't understand how to receive it.
In Psalm 51:6, we are told,
...in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
When God communicates His wisdom to us, He does it in that secret part. Whether it's as we read His Word and a Scripture speaks to us, or whether the Holy Spirit just whispers to us. As Proverbs 20:27 tells us, The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord. In other words, God illuminates us through our spirit.
For example, maybe you are in a difficult financial situation and you just don't know what to do. You are working, you are tithing, you are trusting God, you are doing all you need to do, but it seems like you can't make ends meet.
Maybe what you need is wisdom. If you ask for it, God may speak something as simple to your heart as, "Go talk to this person." Or, "Advertise in this magazine." Or, "Call so-and-so and ask them to forgive you for the way you treated them." Or He may just say, "Hold steady."
Shortly after I was saved, I developed a physical condition I could not get any relief from. So I went to God and I said, "God, give me wisdom." God spoke to me and said, "You need to stop drinking coffee."
Now I did not want to hear that because I was a big coffee drinker. But you know what? After obeying God in that, almost immediately, that condition cleared up, and it has never been back.
God's wisdom. He will speak to you. If you ask, He will make His wisdom known in the hidden part.
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Read: Ezekiel 37; Ezekiel 37:1-10
Son of man, can these bones live? - Ezekiel 37:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Several well-known African-American spirituals are sung about the book of Ezekiel. "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel," for example, celebrates his vision in chapter 1. "Dry Bones" responds to his vision in today's reading by reimagining those bones coming to life: "The toe bone connected with the foot bone, the foot bone connected with the ankle bone, the ankle bone connected with the leg bone . . . They gonna walk around, dry bones, Rise and hear the word of the Lord!" The hope of resurrection and new life permeates all the various versions of this classic spiritual.
Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones is probably the most famous chapter in the book. The bones symbolized Israel's hopeless condition (vv. 11-14). They weren't just losing big or hoping for a miracle comeback. They were dead as dead can be!
But God brought life to this desolate scene. Before Ezekiel's eyes, the bones began to rattle, tendons and flesh and skin appeared to bind everything together, the breath of life was breathed into them, and they stood up on their own two feet (vv. 1-10). Israel had lost everything-the promised land, their capital city, and their beloved temple. Yet God would bring the nation back from the dead, so to speak, and restore the people to a covenant relationship with Him.
The second part of the chapter is a second prophecy with the same meaning (vv. 15-28). Ezekiel took two sticks representing Israel and Judah and made them into one stick to show that the divided kingdom would be reunited and the exiled people brought home. The restored nation would be ruled by a king from the line of David who would lead them in the ways of genuine worship and holiness. This prophecy of the Messiah anticipated Christ's first (to us, past) and second (future) advents. He has established an everlasting "covenant of peace": "My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people" (vv. 26-27; cf. 1 Thess. 5:23).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Unbelievers are in the same hopeless condition as Israel (Eph. 2:1-5). They're spiritually dead as dead can be! But just as the dry bones came to life through God's mighty power, so too can dead people become spiritually alive through Christ's resurrection power. One of the purposes of our redemption is for us to bear witness to this truth! Just as Ezekiel was called to be a prophet and "watchman" to Israel, so also are we called to speak and live the gospel of Christ to the world.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
. . . what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 'Father, glorify Your name' -John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
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The Requirement for Receiving God's Wisdom
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about how, when you ask for God's wisdom, He reveals it in your spirit...that hidden place. But there is a critical requirement for God to reveal that wisdom to you. You have to ask for it in faith.
James 1:6-8 tells us,
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
You can't vacillate between two opinions. If you don't anchor yourself on God's promise that He will give you His wisdom, you will be blown about by the opinions of others, by your feelings, by the way the circumstances look, and you won't receive anything from God.
Not too long ago I went with some friends in a small boat to Catalina (an island 26 miles off the coast of Southern California). Just as we were arriving at about eight in the evening, the engine seized. We paddled in to a depth where we could drop the anchor.
After calling Vessel Assist, a storm came up and the wind began to blow and the rain began to fall. We had to wait a couple of hours before help arrived.
You know what? If we hadn't dropped anchor, the wind would have blown us somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
My friend, you have to drop your anchor. You have to ask in faith. You can't vacillate. You can't be double-minded if you are going to receive the wisdom of God.
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Read: Ezekiel 38-39; Ezekiel 39:21-29
I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. - Ezekiel 38:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1950, the U.S. men's national soccer team earned one of the greatest upsets in sports history. A group of amateurs including a schoolteacher, a mail carrier, and a hearse driver traveled to Brazil for the World Cup. In an early-round game against powerhouse England, they pulled off an unbelievable 1-0 victory. It was so unbelievable that some newspapers thought the telegraph report must be a typo and that England had actually won 10-1. Others suspected a hoax and did not immediately report the score. The team's story, recently told in a book and movie titled The Game of Their Lives, is gaining renewed attention because the United States is again scheduled to play England in this summer's World Cup.
While at times it might appear that God's enemies are unbeatable, His triumph at the end of history is assured. In yesterday's and today's readings, Ezekiel's words of comfort for the Jewish exiles slide forward from a homecoming in 70 years to the advent of the Messiah to the end times period known as the Millennium. Not everyone will welcome the kingdom of God-chapters 38 and 39 recount a future battle in which the nations attempt to overturn or destroy it. Their leader is "Gog," who may be an individual king or who may represent an allied group of nations deceived by Satan. As happens in Revelation 20:7-10, these nations wield fearsome military power, but against God they stand no chance and are destroyed by fire from heaven. Their evil plans are overwhelmed by His sovereign plan.
The word of comfort here is that from beginning to end God is in control. His enemies think they are fighting a battle, but the fact is that He is leading and driving them as one leads or drives a horse or an ox (38:4; 39:2). Their crushing defeat is certain, to the point where the prophet issued a mock invitation for animals to come to a "feast" after the battle (39:4, 17-20). The name of the Lord will be honored and His glory will be proclaimed (38:23; 39:7, 21-29).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Every day, we are engaged in spiritual warfare with an enemy who "prowls around like a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8). And while Christ has already won the victory (1 Cor. 15:57-58), He has also given us the daily responsibility of putting on "the full armor of God so that [we] can take [our] stand against the devil's schemes" (Eph. 6:10-18). Be encouraged that the Lord will be with you today as you stand firm in His mighty power (2 Cor. 1:21-22)!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Drawing on the Grace of God- Now
We . . . plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain -2 Corinthians 6:1
The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. ". . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses"- that is where our patience is tested ( 2 Corinthians 6:4 ). Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, "Oh well, I won't count this time"? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you- it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.
". . . in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 6:5 )- in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.
". . . having nothing . . . ." Never hold anything in reserve. Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you. ". . . and yet possessing all things"- this is poverty triumphant ( 2 Corinthians 6:10 ).
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True Faith
James 2:14-20 tells us the substance of true faith,
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
My favorite translation of this last verse is, "Faith without actions that correspond is dead." Faith must have actions that correspond with it.
You can talk about catching fish, about what lures you are going to use, and how you are going to cook them after you catch them, but if you never throw a line in the water, you are not going to catch a fish.
Or it's like the golfer who comes to a 3-par hole with a lake right in front of the green and says, "No problem, I can hit that green with my six iron." Then he digs out an old ratty golf ball. If he truly believes he can hit the green, he will hit his brand new $3 golf ball!
For faith to be genuine, it has to have corresponding actions.
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Read: Ezekiel 40-41; Ezekiel 40:1-4
I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness. - Psalm 138:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Legos, the interlocking plastic building blocks with which kids (and adults!) can build nearly anything they can imagine, celebrated their 50th anniversary two years ago. Over 400 billion Legos have been sold worldwide. The term Lego originated from the Danish words leg and godt, meaning "play well." Legos are now made in 2,400 different shapes and the product line includes building kits, games, movies, books, amusement parks, and children's shoes. Lego pieces have been used to recreate the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London. There is even a Brick Testament Web site and book series featuring more than 3,600 Lego illustrations of 400 Bible stories.
Ezekiel's vision of a new temple seems to be a future building project-no temple matching the measurements given in chapters 40 and following has yet been built. Commentators are divided over whether it will be built during the end times or if perhaps this temple is symbolic or allegorical (like so many other pictures in Ezekiel).
In any case, the temple was hugely significant for Israel because it represented the covenant and God's presence with His people. It was the center of national worship. It represented His love and faithfulness and reminded them of their responsibilities to obey and walk with Him. It pointed back to a golden age under the kingships of David and Solomon. Even though the people had pursued false idols and defiled the temple, they were still devastated when the Babylonians destroyed it.
Because Ezekiel had never had the privilege of serving in the original temple, this must have been a thrilling vision for him. While a prophet and in exile, he remained a priest. Even in the vision, he was not allowed into the Most Holy Place (41:3-4). But to receive and share from God a picture of this new temple was surely a deeply fulfilling ministry.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One of the ways in which God's presence with His people is symbolized today is through the Lord's Supper. Churches celebrate it to obey Christ's command, "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:14-20). The Lord's Supper reminds us that the Resurrected One lives in our hearts and calls us to worship and obedience. We are also called to share this good news: "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:23-29).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Overshadowing of God's Personal Deliverance
. . . I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord -Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally- ". . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . ." (Jeremiah 39:18 ). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God's personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly." Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, "Why should I be treated like this?" If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, "Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance." Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard- we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God's name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6 ).
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You Can't Out-Give God
Tucked away in the pages of the New Testament is a very powerful promise to those who are generous givers. It is found in Philippians 4:18-19,
Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The Philippian church had made the financial support of the apostle Paul a priority. In these verses Paul acknowledges their generosity and also states a vital principle for every believer to grasp...you can't out-give God!
Not too long ago I came across a letter from a lady who had sacrificially given to the work of God. Here is what she said in her letter:
"My husband and I were in dire straits. He is a Vietnam War veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange. Due to his benefit claims being denied and his being unemployed for three years, we lost nearly everything. We had to put our home up for sale, but nothing was happening. During this time, I gave every penny I could get my hands on and always prayed. So one miracle after another began to take place. First, we were able to move into my husband's deceased mother's home. Then we signed papers for the sale of our former home. Next, my husband's claim for benefits was approved and awarded, and the award was backdated three years. Then he found a job! Our income has tripled, and God continues to do miraculous things for us."
My friend, become a generous giver today. Because you can't out-give God!
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Read: Ezekiel 42-43; Ezekiel 43:1-9
The glory of the LORD filled the temple. - Ezekiel 43:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Last fall, the newly built U.S.S. New York, a Navy assault ship, sailed into New York harbor. What made her visit extra special was a bow built from 7.5 tons of steel recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Firefighters and relatives of those who died on 9/11 watched the arrival of the ship, which delivered a 21-gun salute to honor those who died on that tragic day. The ship's crest design shows a phoenix rising from between the twin towers with the motto, "Never Forget."
For the Jewish exiles listening to Ezekiel's description of a new temple, the point was also "Never Forget." To remember how the glory of God once dwelt in Jerusalem but departed due to their sin was painful. It had been 19 years since Ezekiel delivered that word from the Lord (Ezekiel 10, see June 7). The fact that the original temple was destroyed was likewise a crushing realization. The prophet's vision, however, encouraged the people that God had not forgotten them and that His glory would return one day.
Chapter 42 describes the rooms for the priests in this new temple, highlighting the purity and holiness of the place, the people, and their activities. We also see here a stark contrast with the evil found in the rooms of the temple earlier in the book (Ezekiel 8, see June 6).
In chapter 43, Ezekiel's vision comes to a climax when the glory of the Lord enters the new temple. As before, the prophet fell facedown in awe and reverence, and was lifted to his feet by the Holy Spirit (43:1-5). Then God spoke and once again promised an eternal covenant relationship with Israel. This included a promise to keep the nation holy for His name's sake-there would be no more cycles of rebellion and idolatry. The people would turn away from all that, and God Himself would keep them righteous (43:7-9). The dedication ceremonies for the new temple symbolize a complete change of heart and a reconsecration to walking in the ways of the Lord (43:10-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16). In light of what we've learned in Ezekiel, it's clear that Paul employed an incredibly powerful metaphor when he compared our bodies with the temple-a place of purity, a place of worship, a place where God's glory dwells. No wonder the apostle admonished us: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
:angel:
June 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me -Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you "turn aside to the right hand or to the left" ( Deuteronomy 5:32 ). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has "laid hold of" us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, "Well, I'm really not suited for this." What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you- your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are- you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do. . . I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" ( Philippians 3:13-14 ).
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The Priority of Purity
We live in a highly sexualized society. It is amazing the number of people, even pastors, who fall to sexual temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 we are told straight out,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
God expects for you and me to live in sexual purity. You need to know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor; otherwise your body will possess you.
God has created a strong sexual drive that is an awesome blessing in marriage! But, you know, it is so strong that sometimes it just wants to flow out of the banks and go somewhere it shouldn't go.
We must learn how to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, and live morally pure lives that bring pleasure to God. Here are three practical ways:
Avoid temptation. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, Flee youthful lusts. Avoid the very scenes of temptation. Stay away when you know you might get in trouble.
Feed your spirit, not your flesh. In Romans, we are told of the great war every Christian experiences, the war between our spirit and our flesh. Whatever you feed is going to be stronger, so make sure to feed your spirit.
Rely on the Holy Spirit and His power. If you will acknowledge Him and look to Him for strength, you will find He is a very present help in your time of need.
Make a commitment today to practice these three principles for purity. If you do, you will live in the sexual purity God desires.
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Read: Ezekiel 44; Ezekiel 44:24-30
They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common. - Ezekiel 44:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
One day in 1938 a boy in Queensland, Australia, brought home a dull-colored stone he had found lying on a hillside. The family decided to use it for a doorstop, where it stayed for ten years. Then a jeweler recognized it for what it was, bought it, and polished it until it was revealed as the largest star sapphire in the world. Known as the Black Star of Queensland and now mounted on white gold with 35 diamonds around the star's rim, this 733-carat sapphire is considered to be one of the most beautiful gems in the world.
As breathtaking as such treasures are, they can't compare to the splendid glory of God! Ezekiel witnessed the glory of the Lord fill the new temple and he again fell facedown in worship. Because God's glory had passed through the eastern gate, that gate would be shut permanently-it was holy, not for common use. Disobedience that dishonored the covenant would no longer be tolerated, for example, bringing "foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh" into the sanctuary (vv. 7-9). Circumcision was a physical and spiritual symbol of membership in the community of faith.
The instructions for Levites and priests in this new order of worship likewise emphasize the necessity of pure hearts when coming into God's presence. Collectively, these passages fulfill an ancient promise: "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live" (Deut. 30:6).
These instructions also stress the religious leaders' responsibility to teach the people "the difference between the holy and the common . . . the unclean and the clean" (v. 23). They should provide good examples and models of holy living. They should in all things act with scrupulous integrity and a commitment to righteousness. They would not be assigned a portion of land, because God Himself would be their inheritance (v. 28; cf. Deut. 18:1-2).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Just as the "temple" is no longer a building, but all believers (see yesterday's Today Along the Way), so also are "priests" no longer a select few, but all believers. All who have trusted Christ for salvation are "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that [we] may declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:9). Each of us has a responsibility to cultivate righteousness and purity in every dimension of our lives.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Strictest Discipline
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell -Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that "if your right hand causes you to sin" in your walk with Him, then it is better to "cut it off." There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then "cut it off." The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do- things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, "What's so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!" There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God's sight than to appear lovely to man's eyes but lame to God's. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don't use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but inMatthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life- "You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
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The Importance of Revival
Psalm 85:6 asks a powerful question,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
Notice that the psalmist says, "again." This tells me that the nation of Israel was once in a state of revival, but that had waned, it had declined, and they had come again to the place where they needed to be revived.
Perhaps today you are in a place where you need to be revived.
Revival has been described as the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. That is a good definition. Something needs to be revived when it is dying or when it has lost its strength or momentum.
Revival brings new life. It brings fresh vigor. It brings renewed momentum to that which is in a weakened or dying state.
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy, Stir up the gift of God which is in you. The word for stir up literally means to rekindle. In other words, a fire was there at one time, but it has begun to burn low. And now it needs to be refueled and tended to.
The Amplified Bible says, Rekindle the embers, fan the flame and keep burning the gracious gift of God, the inner fire.
Maybe you have felt spiritually flat lately. Maybe the fire that once burned white hot for God is now just a glowing ember. If so, it is time to rekindle those embers and fan to flame what He has put within you.
As God goes to work in your life, you will find that once again your life will be filled with purpose, and you will once again rejoice in God.
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Read: Ezekiel 45-46; Ezekiel 46:1-8
The people of the land are to worship in the presence of the LORD. - Ezekiel 46:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Basement kitchens are found in many churches across America. On the counter sits a pair of well-used coffee urns. A few washed casserole dishes from last month's potluck dinner lie unclaimed a few feet away. A handmade sign on the cupboard asks visitors not to eat the Cheerios and Goldfish crackers needed for Sunday school and nursery snacks. The trash can is filled with soda bottles and pizza boxes from a youth group meeting.
Church basement kitchens are cousins to the temple kitchen areas in today's reading (46:19-24). Following the account of the new temple, Ezekiel narrated a new division of the promised land. The list of what does and does not belong to the ruler is a warning not to repeat the exploitation and injustice that led to God's judgment. Leaders are instructed to protect the property rights of all citizens and reminded that in truth the land belongs to the Lord, as seen in the Year of Jubilee (46:16-18).
The bulk of this passage deals with offerings and holy days (45:13-46:24). The reasons behind the sacrifices are much the same as in the Mosaic Law-worship, purification, atonement, and gratitude-but the specifics vary in so many details that an entirely different time period seems to be in view. In addition, some sacrifices and holy days are not mentioned. It's possible that these instructions are actually symbols and allegories. As with understanding the new temple, commentators differ as to whether the prophecy will be literally fulfilled during the end times or whether it speaks primarily to spiritual principles and meanings.
Might it be both? Take the kitchens, for example. They may very well actually be built one day as part of a new temple complex during the end times. Even now, though, at a spiritual level they speak to the reality that fellowship is an important part of worship. They remind us that within the community of faith, social and spiritual interactions merge with one another. A shared meal can bring glory to God!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It is often a good idea to seek out additional Scripture passages to help illuminate or give background to a biblical text under consideration. For instance, studying the sacrifices in Ezekiel 45 and 46 would correlate very well with a review of the sacrifices in the Mosaic Law (Lev. 1-7). For another example, the centrality of the temple within the book of Ezekiel might send an eager inquirer to such passages as Solomon's dedication of the original temple (1 Kings 8).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
June 30, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do It Now!
Agree with your adversary quickly . . . -Matthew 5:25
In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, "Do what you know you must do- now. Do it quickly. If you don't, an inevitable process will begin to work 'till you have paid the last penny' ( Matthew 5:26 ) in pain, agony, and distress." God's laws are unchangeable and there is no escape from them. The teachings of Jesus always penetrate right to the heart of our being.
Wanting to make sure that my adversary gives me all my rights is a natural thing. But Jesus says that it is a matter of inescapable and eternal importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord's standpoint it doesn't matter whether I am cheated or not, but what does matter is that I don't cheat someone else. Am I insisting on having my own rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ's standpoint?
Do it quickly- bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. If you don't, the inevitable, relentless process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit of God so strongly urges us to stay steadfastly in the light! (see John 3:19-21 ).
"Agree with your adversary quickly . . . ." Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly- make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person- do it now!
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The Vital Sign of Joy
In yesterday's devotional, I challenged you to consider whether God needs to do a work in your life to revive you spiritually. Perhaps you feel it, but you just don't know what it is.
Over the next few days, I want to point you to the vital signs that may indicate the need for spiritual revival in your life. The first one we find in Psalm 85. It is lack of joy. Look at the language in verse 6,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
When a person is sullen and depressed spiritually, cheerless and despondent, it is a sure sign that they need revival.
You might say, "Well, you know, if my circumstances would just change, then I would rejoice." No. Joy is not dependent upon your circumstances. In fact, let me give you a great example.
2 Corinthians 8:1-2 states,
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.
Notice this language. The Macedonians were not in a little trial. They were in a "great trial of affliction." They were experiencing deep poverty, tremendous lack in their life, and yet they had abundant joy.
What was their secret? Living in the grace of God.
More than anything else, joy is dependent upon understanding the grace of God, knowing that God's grace is at work even in your affliction.
If you are joyless today, ask the Spirit of God to fill your heart. If you do, there will be a joy regardless of what you are facing.
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Read: Ezekiel 47-48; Ezekiel 47:1-12
And the name of the city from that time on will be: the Lord is there. - Ezekiel 48:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bill Foege, a pioneer in global health, has saved millions of lives. He started working in Nigeria to vaccinate people against smallpox and contributed much to the eradication of the disease. He later headed up a task force working to improve immunization rates for the world's children, raising the rate from only five percent in 1978 to 80 percent by 1990. Later, he persuaded a major pharmaceutical company to donate drugs to help end river blindness in Africa. Inspired by the life of Albert Schweitzer and a missionary uncle who served in Papua New Guinea, Foege works today with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, continuing to formulate strategies to improve health conditions worldwide.
God is the ultimate giver and saver of life, as seen in Ezekiel's vision of the river of life flowing from His throne (47:1-12). This recurring image in prophecy can also be found in Revelation 22:1-2. In those verses, the "river of the water of life" flows from God's throne and is lined by trees, the leaves of which bring healing to the nations, exactly as seen in Ezekiel. The water's main properties are that it heals and gives life, suggesting a renewal of the physical creation as well as spiritual vitality. Christ Himself is the Living Water: "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:7-14).
Following a description of the new boundaries of the promised land and new divisions of it among the twelve tribes of Israel, the book of Ezekiel draws to a close (48:30-35; cf. Rev. 21:1-7). The new Jerusalem will be renamed, "THE LORD IS THERE." His presence and worship of Him will define this place and time in unprecedented ways. All through the book we have heard the refrain that God does what He does in order that "they will know that I am the LORD." Here at last is the place where our thirst for God will be quenched (Psalm 84)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's reading brings us full circle of our study this month. The transcendent and sovereign God we encountered in Ezekiel 1 is the same God who keeps promises made long ago to Abraham and Moses. The wrathful God who wielded the sword of justice is the same God who dwells with His people as friend and King. The holy God whose glory departed from the city is the same God who names the city to affirm His eternal presence with His people.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
July 01, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Inevitable Penalty
You will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny -Matthew 5:26
There is no heaven that has a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure, holy, and right, and He will not allow you to escape from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit for even one moment. He urged you to come to judgment immediately when He convicted you, but you did not obey. Then the inevitable process began to work, bringing its inevitable penalty. Now you have been "thrown into prison, [and] . . . you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny" ( 5:25-26 ). Yet you ask, "Is this a God of mercy and love?" When seen from God's perspective, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure, spotless, and undefiled, but He wants you to recognize the nature you were exhibiting- the nature of demanding your right to yourself. The moment you are willing for God to change your nature, His recreating forces will begin to work. And the moment you realize that God's purpose is to get you into the right relationship with Himself and then with others, He will reach to the very limits of the universe to help you take the right road. Decide to do it right now, saying, "Yes, Lord, I will write that letter," or, "I will be reconciled to that person now."
These sermons of Jesus Christ are meant for your will and your conscience, not for your head. If you dispute these verses from the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you will dull the appeal to your heart.
If you find yourself asking, "I wonder why I'm not growing spiritually with God?"- then ask yourself if you are paying your debts from God's standpoint. Do now what you will have to do someday. Every moral question or call comes with an "ought" behind it- the knowledge of knowing what we ought to do.
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The Vital Sign of Prayer
One of the truest indicators of whether an individual's spiritual life is progressing or declining is prayer. And if your prayer life is declining, it is a sure sign your spiritual life is in need of reviving.
Psalm 80:18 puts it this way,
Then we will not turn back from You; revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
Prayer is to the spiritual life what breathing is to the physical life. If your breathing is shallow and intermittent, something is wrong. It is a sign that there is a lack of health. If your breathing is deep and regular, it is a sign of health.
I once read a story about a World War II soldier who was called in before his commanding officer and accused of spying. The officer said, "You have been seen slipping off into a wooded area where we know enemy patrols have been seen, and we think you're passing information to them."
The commanding officer demanded, "Why did you go there?" and the soldier said, "I just slipped away for a quiet hour of prayer." The officer then commanded him to get on his knees and show him how he prayed.
So the soldier hit his knees, thinking he was likely to get executed for treason, and began to cry out to God. Immediately it was evident that he had an intimacy with God. The commanding officer stopped him and said, "That's enough. You can go." He turned to another officer and said, "No one could pray like that without a long apprenticeship."
Where are you when it comes to prayer? Is it deep and regular? Or is it shallow, sporadic, and intermittent? If it is shallow, it is a sign that your heart needs to be revived.
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Read: Psalm 10:1-18
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? - Psalm 118:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
We don't have to look far to find accounts of injustice. In just one week we might hear news stories about a local politician who has accepted bribes in exchange for government contracts, investment bankers who profited from the economic calamity of their own clients, and young women trafficked into sexual slavery around the world. Despair might be an understandable response. So much is wrong in the world; who can make it right? Psalm 10 was written thousands of years ago, but it remains relevant today as a depiction of injustice in the world, our response, and God's character.
The psalm paints a vivid picture of the perpetrator (vv. 2-11). More than a dozen verbs communicate that the wicked person actively pursues the demise of the helpless: he premeditates violence and boasts about triumph; he considers himself untouchable and disdains God. He is portrayed as a poacher: he "hunts" and "lies in wait" to "ambush," then he "catches" his victims in his "net" (vv. 2, 8-9). The evil person denies God's authority. He lives lawlessly as if he is in control and God is disinterested or even absent.
In contrast, the psalmist petitions God to respond according to His character. He invokes God's covenant name, LORD, which calls for God to be faithful to His promises (v. 12). The word hand in the ancient world symbolized authority, power, and divine presence. "Lift up your hand" entreats God to punish the wicked and to help the helpless.
Psalm 10 affirms that God does see and respond to trouble and grief; God helps those who cannot help themselves (v. 14). Our God hears the cries of the afflicted, He defends the defenseless, and He encourages the oppressed (vv. 17-18). God is not only the compassionate defender of the weak; He is also the eternal King of all kings. We can have confidence that God is a righteous judge who calls the wicked to account for his deeds (v. 15). God protects the weak and abolishes injustice; He replaces terror with His peace.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In our world full of hatred, violence, and sins against the weak and powerless, Psalm 10 tells us who God is and how He responds to evil. Perhaps there is particular wickedness that weighs on your heart. Maybe you are overwhelmed by the general state of the world today. Let us begin this month in prayer, adopting the words and frame of reference of Psalm 10. Cry out to God on behalf of the helpless; bring the wicked before His throne for judgment; declare who God is; pray for His justice and peace.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 02, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Conditions of Discipleship
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also . . . . And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me . . . . So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple -Luke 14:26-27, 33
If the closest relationships of a disciple's life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person- our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause- He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has "poured out in our hearts" the very "love of God" (Romans 5:5 ). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.
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The Vital Sign of Hunger for God's Word
It is not unusual for someone who becomes physically sick to lose their appetite. In fact, when a person is deathly ill, the doctor will often pull loved ones aside and say, "Try to get them to eat something. If they're going to recover, they have to eat."
The same is true when someone is sick spiritually. They lose their appetite for spiritual things. They lose their appetite for the Word of God. In fact, when you see a believer who has lost his or her hunger for God's Word, it is a sure sign that person needs to be revived.
At least three times in Psalm 119, the psalmist tells us that one of the ways God will revive you when you are spiritually weak is through His Word.
In verse 25 he says,
My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your word.
In verse 107 he says,
I am afflicted very much; revive me, O LORD, according to Your word.
And then in verse 154 he says it again,
Plead my cause and redeem me; revive me according to Your word.
If you are going to be revived, it will be in large part according to or through the Word of God. In fact, what the psalmist is literally saying is, "Give me life. Revive me through Your Word." The more you feed on God's Word, the more you hunger for it.
So a critical vital sign of the spiritual life is a hunger, an appetite, for God's Word. There is a renewed hunger for spiritual truth when you are revived. As you feed upon His Word, it will give you more life, it will give you more strength, and it will give you spiritual vitality.
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Read: Psalm 68:1-19
Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. - Psalm 96:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, the spell of the White Witch has made it always winter in the land of Narnia but never Christmas. When the curse is broken, the effects of the long winter are reversed: the icy river thaws, trees blossom, and the snow melts to reveal the lush landscape. The signs of spring are the dawn of new life and change. They are also the result of Aslan's return and foreshadow his redemption. We find similar signs of restoration in today's reading.
Psalm 68 is a memoir of the journey of God's people from Sinai to Jerusalem. From Egypt and throughout the wilderness wandering, God guided and sustained His people. From out of the wasteland, God led His people into the Promised Land; His enemies were scattered (v. 1) and kings and armies fled in haste (v. 12). Then He established His throne and dwelling place in Jerusalem (vv. 16, 29).
Paramount to Psalm 68 is the revelation of God's character and conduct along the journey (vv. 1-7). The psalmist employs four distinct names of God that accentuate specific aspects of who He is. The most frequent is "God" or Elohim in the original Hebrew language, a common name for God. Adonai appears as "Lord" in English and emphasizes God as master (vv. 11, 17, 19). "The LORD" symbolizes God's covenant faithfulness to His people (vv. 4, 16, 18; cf. Ex. 3:13-14). Finally, Shaddai is "Almighty" and highlights God's power and strength (v. 14).
Also notice the descriptions of God's actions in Psalm 68 (vv. 5-6). God advocates for vulnerable people. In all four illustrations, God reverses the plight of the people. God fathers the orphans; He protects the defenseless widow; He restores people once isolated to community; and He frees captives. Along the journey, God has demonstrated who He is: Almighty God, Eternal King, Father, Savior, and Renovator. Psalm 68 ends with a call to worship grounded in the assurance that God daily bears our burdens (v. 19).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Tucked within Psalm 68 is a picture of how the righteous, those who love God and follow Him, respond to God's character: gladness, joy, and praise (vv. 3-4). They glorify Him for who He is. Identify a characteristic of God from our passage that is meaningful to you. Perhaps you have experienced His fatherly care or protection in the past, or maybe you desire to see His restoration or kingly rule. Today worship God for who He is: acknowledge His character and praise Him for His deeds.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 03, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Concentration of Personal Sin
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips . . . -Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, "Oh yes, I know I am a sinner," but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind's attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone's life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, "I don't know where I've gone wrong," but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah's vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was "a man of unclean lips." "He touched my mouth with it, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged' " ( Isaiah 6:7 ). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
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The Vital Sign of Passion to Reach the Lost
One of the major signs that someone needs to be revived is a lack of concern for the lost. In David's psalm of repentance, Psalm 51:10-13, he says,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When David says, Renew a steadfast spirit in me...Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, he is saying, "God, revive me, restore me, renew me." One of the fruits we find in a heart that has been revived is a desire to see others converted. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When a person's spiritual life wanes, there is very little thought and very little action aimed at reaching the lost. Yet, someone who has been revived and is spiritually healthy will be actively engaged in the evangelization of the lost.
Read carefully these words from Elton Trueblood, a Quaker scholar. He said, "Evangelism occurs when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out."
When you are spiritually revived, you will think about the spiritual state of the people that you rub shoulders with every day. It is inevitable that when your heart is revived and close to God, you will have a concern for the lost.
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Read: Psalm 146:1-10
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. - Psalm 20:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
"Worship Lyrics and the Hidden Narcissism" is the title of a worship pastor's blog post from 2009. He noted that the lyrics of many modern praise choruses are self-centered, and after a conference for worship leaders, he lamented: "Each song seemed to define God according to our experience of Him," rather than the other way around. We need to evaluate lyrics for subtle narcissism, "which places us at the center of the worship experience instead of God." The pastor then encouraged his readers to be thoughtful about how lyrics reflect God's Word. Some of the best examples of God-centered expressions of worship come from Scripture, especially the book of Psalms.
Psalm 146 is a wonderful example of a song grounded in the acknowledgment of who God is. The entire Psalm is bracketed with praise (vv. 1-2, 10). The psalmist clarifies that worship emanates from one's inner being and continues for a lifetime. Verses three through six contrast the person who places his security in humans with the one who trusts God for help and hope-this one is called "blessed." "Mortal men" diminish compared to the eternal and faithful Creator (v. 6).
The psalm resounds with ten proclamations of who God is and what He does (vv. 7-10). God advocates for the oppressed. In the original Hebrew, the first line of verse 7 reads: "the one who executes justice." The Lord feeds the hungry and releases the prisoners; He heals the blind and lifts up the humble. The Lord cares for the displaced and vulnerable people among us, like refugees, orphans, and widows. Notice the important contrast: God loves the righteous, but obstructs the plans of the wicked (v. 9).
Psalm 146 praises God as the eternal King (v. 10), and He is the faithful covenant keeper (v. 5) who can remain true to His promises for all generations. He is a God who not only cares about the oppressed, but also has the power to deliver from sin and to defeat the wicked. He is worthy of all our praise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 04, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
One of God's Great "Don'ts"
Do not fret- it only causes harm -Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves "out of joint" mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, "Do not fret," but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It's easy to say, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" ( Psalm 37:7 ) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to "rest in the Lord" then? If this "Do not" doesn't work there, then it will not work anywhere. This "Do not" must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God's plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and "abide under the shadow of the Almighty" ( Psalm 91:1 ). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah's vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was "a man of unclean lips." "He touched my mouth with it, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged' " ( Isaiah 6:7 ). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
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The Motive of Faith
When speaking of faith, it is critical to talk about the motive of our faith. James 4:2-3 tells us what a wrong motive is,
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
God is very concerned about the "why" behind our prayers of faith. He is very interested in the state of our hearts. And I think it is good to check our motives from time to time.
Why do we want what we want? Is it ego driven? Am I asking for it because I want to impress someone? Are my motives right?
Now, you don't have to overdo it. You can overanalyze things to the point that you become spiritually frozen and don't do anything. I think if you will get honest and lay your heart out before God, He will very quickly put the spotlight on the things that should not be there.
Our dog always stands at the back door and scratches on the glass like he really loves us and wants to come in and be with us. But the moment you open the door he runs right by you into the kitchen looking for food.
Why do you want the thing you want? What is the purpose behind asking? Is it for the glory of God? Is it to help people? Is there a pure motive there?
When your motive is right, God will not be long in answering. But if your motive is not right, God won't answer until it gets right.
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Read: Psalm 7:1-17
Morning by morning he dispenses his justice, and every new day he does not fail. - Zephaniah 3:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Old Testament was originally written in the Hebrew language, and the two words translated "justice" and "righteousness" often appear together. We often associate them with punishment for wrongdoing, but this doesn't capture the entirety of these biblical words. Righteousness and justice are also about "being right, doing right, and putting things right" relationally, socially, and politically. According to one Bible scholar, righteousness is about "God re-establishing right order in the fallen world." These words occur in today's passage as we continue contemplating God's character.
As seen before, God is our refuge, shield, savior, and deliverer (vv. 1, 10). The middle of Psalm 7 is saturated with words like "justice," "judge," "righteousness," and "righteous" (vv. 6-11), revealing more dimensions of who God is. He is both ruler and righteous judge; He decrees justice and expresses His wrath daily. Psalm 7 teaches that the LORD judges all people righteously according to the integrity of their minds, hearts, and actions (vv. 3-5, 8-10). The outcome includes eliminating the violence of the wicked and establishing the righteous (v. 9).
Psalm 7 emphasizes God's righteousness as the measure of evaluating our own righteousness (vv. 8, 9). God's people are to live in a way that exemplifies the justice and righteousness of God in their relationships with other people. For example, in verse 5, the psalmist says if I have treated another person unjustly, then let the victim be vindicated. Yet, the psalmist argues that he has acted with righteousness (v. 8). He beseeches God to confirm that he has imitated God's righteousness in his own relationships.
The fulcrum of Psalm 7 is the declaration of God as righteous judge (v. 11). The beginning of Psalm 7 affirms that precisely because God is not capricious or unjust, He is able to be a trusted shelter and redeemer (v. 1). The psalm ends with thanksgiving and praise in response to His righteous judgment.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Psalm 7 is certainly turned outward-"let the LORD judge the peoples," but it is also turned inward-"judge me, O LORD" (v. 8). It is always easier to cite God's righteous judgment in reference to the sins of others; accepting God as our own righteous judge often proves uncomfortable. Today let us come before God in humble confession, inviting His Spirit to search our hearts for unrighteousness (Ps. 139:23-24). Then let's rejoice in the assurance of our pardon in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1-2).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 05, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Don't Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass -Psalm 37:5
Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him- that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our "spiritual face" before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don't plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? "Love . . . thinks no evil" ( 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 ). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don't plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1 ). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command- "Let not. . . ." To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
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The Prayer of Faith
Over the last few devotionals, we have looked at faith-what true faith looks like, and the motive behind the faith that pleases God.
In James 5:15 we are told,
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Clearly, James wants us to know that when we pray a prayer of faith, God will answer it. In this passage, we are told that through that prayer God will indeed heal those who are sick, and raise them up.
So what is it that makes up the prayer of faith? There are three components, all of which we have touched on in the last few days.
The prayer of faith is a prayer that:
Does not waver. It doesn't vacillate, moving back and forth. It is anchored on the promise of God.
Is followed by corresponding actions.
Is prayed from right motives.
The example James cites of someone who prayed a prayer of faith is Elijah. I encourage you to read his story in 1 Kings 17. There you find that, through the prayer of faith, God shut up the heavens and there was no rain. And then, by another prayer of faith, the heavens were opened and rain came down.
Elijah expressed his faith when he said he heard the sound of abundance of rain. He made that statement before there was a cloud in the sky or before a drop of rain ever fell!
When you and I don't waver in our faith, when we show our faith by corresponding action, and when we pray with right motives, God will act. As surely as Elijah heard that rain by faith, you can hear the rain...whatever that represents in your life. That is the prayer of faith.
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Read: Genesis 45:1-15; 50:14-21
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. - Genesis 50:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Why are the innocent victimized? Where is God in the midst of evil and suffering? These questions arise when we consider the reality of injustice in our world. We began this month's study devoted to understanding God's character and work; He defends, cares for, and restores the vulnerable and marginalized, and He is righteous judge, king, creator, and redeemer. Now let's turn our attention to examples of God's character at work in the lives of people who faced suffering and injustice.
Joseph could be a poster child for a life fraught with injustice at every turn. As you read Joseph's story, notice parallels and repeated themes. Joseph is favored by his father, so his jealous brothers plot to kill him and sell him into slavery (Genesis 37). Joseph is favored by Potiphar, whose seductive wife falsely accuses Joseph and has him thrown into prison (Genesis 39). Joseph is favored by the prison warden and promoted to a position of authority (39:21-23). While in prison, Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh's servants, but misses his jailbreak opportunity when the cup-bearer forgets to vouch for him (Genesis 40). He remains in prison two more years (41:1)! Yet when he interprets Pharaoh's dreams, Joseph receives the promotion of a lifetime. As the predicted famine spreads, Joseph's brothers travel to Egypt to buy food. After several perplexing exchanges between Joseph and his brothers, several trips back and forth from Canaan to Egypt, Joseph finally reveals his true identity, initiates reconciliation with his family, and reunites with his father, Jacob (Genesis 43-46).
Beyond favoritism, promotion, deceit, and maltreatment, another essential thread runs through Joseph's biography. In the midst of suffering and injustice, God is with Joseph (39:2-3, 21, 23; 41:38-39), and Joseph recognized God's power, presence, and providence (39:5-9; 40:8; 41:16-28, 32; 45:5-7). "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (50:20).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God upheld Joseph's cause; He freed him from enslavement and prison and frustrated the plans of the wicked (Ps. 146:7-9). God even worked through Joseph's suffering to save many. When you experience pain or injustice, Christ is present with you, too. If you or someone you love is experiencing difficult circumstances, pray to know God's presence. Also, celebrate God's work to transform these circumstances from what the Evil One intends into something redemptive through Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 06, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Visions Become Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . -Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor's hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
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Exercising the Muscle of Faith
Yesterday we looked at the importance of God's Word to strengthen our faith. Yet there is something more we need to do to see our faith grow. We must use it.
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says this about faith,
Fight the good fight of faith.
Faith is made for conflict. It does not grow without conflict. It does not grow without pressure. You need to use it.
Remember our illustration of the body builders and how a proper diet is essential to building muscle mass? Well, they will also tell you that it is not enough to drink protein shakes and eat tuna fish, you have to work those muscles if they are going to grow. They work those weights every day in order to build their muscles.
The same thing is true when it comes to faith. Faith is a muscle that you have to use. It is not enough just to listen to your Bible teaching CDs all day long. Hearing alone is not enough to develop faith. You must use your faith muscle.
That is what the fight of faith is all about. You exercise your faith when you are standing in the midst of your storm, and you are assailed by temptations and every kind of trial that tells you you're not going to make it, that you are going down with the ship.
As you stand in the midst of your storm, and the wind is howling around you, and the lightning is flashing, and the waves are breaking over the bow of your little ship, stand up and say, "I believe God, that it is going to be just as it was told me." That is where the fight of faith comes in.
No matter what you may be going through today, exercise that muscle of faith. Trust God to do just as He has promised.
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Read: Exodus 3:1-10
But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. - Psalm 10:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to International Justice Mission, "Bonded slavery is the continual labor of individuals forced to work by mental or physical threat." Bonded slaves are forced to work long hours for scant or no wages, often in poor conditions, and they are frequently beaten and abused. In 2009, an estimated 27 million women, children, and men all over the world today are held as bonded slaves, child soldiers, and in sexual servitude.
Does the Bible have anything relevant to say about this? Absolutely yes. Yesterday we considered Joseph, one man who faced injustice, and God's work in his life. Today's passage introduces the story of a whole group of God's people who experienced both slavery and God's salvation.
The Israelites of today's passage were held in slavery by their Egyptian oppressors, much like modern-day bonded slaves. The beginning of the book of Exodus notes that the Egyptians began to feel threatened by the number of Joseph's descendants. A new Egyptian king, who did not know about Joseph, enslaved them under brutal working conditions. He even ordered that all Hebrew males be killed at birth (Exodus 1). Moses was one Israelite baby who escaped death and enslavement and was even reared in the royal palace. As an adult, however, Moses witnessed the bondage of his people and killed an Egyptian oppressor, which forced him to flee to Midian (Exodus 2). Despite these events, God heard the cries of the Israelites and remembered His covenant of love with them (Ex. 2:23-25).
God appeared to Moses "in flames of fire from within a bush" (v. 2). He declared that He was not blind nor deaf to the suffering of the Israelites (v. 7). He did not ignore their misery, enslavement, and suffering at the hands of the oppressive Egyptians. He said twice that "now" is the time He will act (vv. 9-10). What will God do in the face of this injustice? It is not enough simply to free them from this situation. He also promised to reestablish them (v. 8). Amazingly, God recruits Moses to join His rescue mission (v. 10).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The claims that we read in the Psalms are not simply good-sounding rhetoric. God does not forget the helpless. He listens to the cry of the afflicted and calls the wicked to account (Ps. 10:12-18). He also invites everyday people, like Moses and like you, to join His rescue mission. God's people are joining His mission today to abolish modern-day slavery. If you are interested in learning more and getting involved, consider the work of Christian organizations like International Justice Mission, World Vision, and Not for Sale.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 07, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Visions Become Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . -Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor's hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
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The Slippery Spiritual Slope
The slippery slope to spiritual decline is one that is almost imperceptible. One day you are on fire for God, and then before you know it, you are dull and lethargic.
How does spiritual decline happen? I think there are at least four ways:
Through neglect. If you neglect a garden, the weeds grow. If you don't water the garden, it will eventually dry up. Sometimes we get into a state where we need to be revived due to neglect.
Through the storms of life. Life can sometimes beat you up. Some people have been so beaten up that they are just worn down; and when you couple that with neglect, it is a recipe for spiritual disaster.
Through the influence of wrong company or wrong relationships. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. ." And the very next word is awake. Awake to righteousness, and do not sin. Do not be deceived. Evil company, bad company, corrupts good habits.
Through willful disobedience. I don't know anyone who hasn't been guilty at one time or another of willful disobedience. And when that is not repented of, when it is not taken care of, it brings us into a state of spiritual decline that can be very dangerous.
So what do you do if you find yourself in spiritual decline? Let me leave you with this verse, Hosea 6:1,
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
The same Spirit that convicts also comforts. If you are convicted, repent. Repentance is an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. Return to the Lord and let Him heal you and bind you up.
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Read: Exodus 21:2-11; 22:21-27; 23:1-11
The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. - Proverbs 29:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
When the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai, God declared: "If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, you will be for me . . . and a holy nation" (vv. 3-6). God's rescued people needed to live as a testament to Him before the nations, a calling contingent upon their obedience to God and faithfulness to His covenant. To illustrate this, God outlines a steadfast life. The Ten Commandments identify general instructions regarding love for God (Ex. 20:2-11) and neighbor (20:12-17). The Book of the Law follows the Commandments (Ex. 20:22-23:33) and outlines righteous living in various settings and relationships. Our texts today are situated within this Book of the Law.
Exodus 21:2-11 addresses treatment of Hebrew servants. For ancient Israel, indebted labor allowed people to escape poverty and destitution as a means of economic debt recovery. A Hebrew male became a servant because of bankrupt parents, personal indigence, or to make restitution for theft. A Hebrew female became a servant if her father was unable to supply a sufficient dowry. Old Testament law ensured that these servants were not abused, oppressed, or deprived of justice. God instituted provisions for them to be released from debt "without paying anything" (21:2, 11).
Exodus 22:21-27 prohibits mistreatment of vulnerable people. Foreigners lacked support from family; widows and orphans lacked protection from husband and father. God advocates directly for them as their compassionate protector and defender (22:23-24, 27). He expects the same from His people. Exodus 23:1-11 forbids various forms of injustice such as false testimony, denying legal rights to the poor, and taking bribes.
There are two theological reasons for obedience. First, the Israelites know what it is like to be victims of injustice and oppression, so they must treat others justly out of empathy and common humanity (22:21; 23:9). Second, the Lord is compassionate and just (22:27; 23:6), and God's people are to imitate Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One counter-cultural teaching of Jesus is love of enemies (Matt. 5:44-48). Here Jesus is consistent with the Old Testament. Consider Exodus 23:4-5, for example. If you find what is valuable to your enemy, return it to him. Care about the interests of those who hate you. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. In this way, we reflect our Savior: "While we were still sinners, [God's enemies], Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 08, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . -Joshua 24:15
A person's will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will- I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God's Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
". . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . ." Your choice must be a deliberate determination- it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God- do not "confer with flesh and blood" about it ( Galatians 1:16 ). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading- the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, "I will be faithful." But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, "You are witnesses against yourselves . . ." ( Joshua 24:22 ). Don't consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, "I will serve You." Will to be faithful- and give other people credit for being faithful too.
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Patience in Repentance
In yesterday's devotional, I mentioned Hosea 6:1 as a challenge to repent if indeed God is convicting you.
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
God is indeed a God of compassion Who wants you to return to Him. That is the nature of His grace!
It's not unusual to truly repent of a sin, to seek to return to God and walk with Him, but not feel anything right away. And perhaps, to get discouraged.
The verse that follows Hosea 6:1 gives us a good word as a clear encouragement. Here is what Hosea 6:2 says,
After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.
You need to understand that the evidence of revival may not be perceivable right away. That is why I believe Hosea says, After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up.
You need to be careful not to say, "Well, Lord, you have until lunchtime today to do something. And if it doesn't happen by then, I'm out."
God wants you to stick with your commitment to repent. He wants to know you are serious in your desire to walk with Him.
Remember the words of Zechariah 1:3, "Return to Me," says the Lord of hosts, and "I will return to you." Returning to God is something you can do. But only God can do God's part.
If you will return to Him, He will return to you.
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Read: Exodus 11:1-10
Blessed are you, O Israel . . . a people saved by the Lord. - Deuteronomy 33:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
The AIDS virus has ravaged sub-Saharan Africa. It has orphaned 15 million children and shortened life expectancy in some countries to a mere 37 years. In countries like Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, AIDS is believed to affect 15 to 20 percent of the adult population. The AIDS crisis is a modern-day plague of death.
In the next few days, we'll read about the tenth and final plague visited upon Egypt. It, too, is a plague of death. The Israelites would be spared, but the firstborn of every Egyptian family and herd would die as night fell.
We can't help but think about the innocent children who suffered under this plague. What's more, Pharaoh, the evil man behind the melodrama of the last several chapters, lost a son, yet his own life was preserved. How do we reconcile what we know of God's goodness and justice with the tenth plague?
This death knell might be more horrific than what we would prefer to find in the Bible. Think back to Genesis: Adam and Eve died for transgressing God's command, the generation of Noah died in the Flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah were obliterated because of their sin. Why are the pages of Scripture stained with blood?
It isn't because God takes pleasure in anyone's death (cf. Ezek. 18:23). It is because death is the ultimate reality of fallen humanity: for the Egyptians on the night of the Passover, and for every human being. God had not created humanity to experience death, but the consequence of sin has brought upon each of us its curse (cf. Rom. 3:23).
The Passover story doesn't just include death; we miss the whole picture if that is all we see. Passover also proclaims life for the people of God. It reveals gospel truth. At the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a message about God rescuing us from spiritual death. The Passover foreshadows this message and adds an important word to our spiritual vocabulary: salvation.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We don't all have dramatic testimonies of God saving us from drugs, alcohol, or crime, especially if we professed our faith in Christ at an early age. But it's still true that we've been saved. Think of some of the synonyms for saved: rescued, delivered, liberated, set free. Reflect on how God has rescued you. From what have you been delivered and liberated? Do you live as one set free? "Jesus saves" may sound like a worn-out revival phrase, but it captures what's true of us as Christians.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 09, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will You Examine Yourself?
Joshua said to the people, 'You cannot serve the Lord . . .' -Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, "I cannot live a holy life," but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. "You cannot serve the Lord . . ."- but you can place yourself in the proper position where God's almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
"The people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve the Lord!" ( Joshua 24:21 ). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, "But God could never have called me to this. I'm too unworthy. It can't mean me." It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, "I will serve the Lord."
We say, "Oh, if only I really could believe!" The question is, "Will I believe?" No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief" ( Matthew 13:58 ). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
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In the Pits?
There are times when each of us are in the pits, when life just seems to be upside down and nothing seems to be going right.
As you read the Psalms, you realize King David often felt this way. Take Psalm 88 for example. In verses 2-6 he says,
Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to the grave. I am counted with those who go down to the pit; I am like a man who has no strength, adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and who are cut off from Your hand. You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths.
Pretty descriptive of how you and I can sometimes feel, when our soul is full of troubles...like one who has no strength...adrift among the dead...whom You [God] remember no more.
When you are in the pits, it can often seem like there is no way out. Your soul is full of trouble, you are despondent, you are overwhelmed by the problems of life, you can almost feel like something has died inside of you, and you might feel totally cut off from God, like He has somehow forgotten you.
What I want you to see in today's Scripture is that you are not alone. Every one of us has gone through these difficult days. Even King David!
God knows your struggles. Like David, take time today to share with God all that is on your heart, and in the next few days, I will show you how you can get out of the pits!
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Read: Deuteronomy 10:12-22; 24:10-22
The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them. - Hosea 14:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
While speaking to a group of business school students at a prominent American university, a retired executive described that there is no such thing as business ethics. Rather, he continued, there are simply ethical people in business. The successful businessman explained how following Jesus had transformed his relationships with others in all aspects of his life, including business. In our passage today, justice in one's business and personal life reflects a right relationship with God.
Deuteronomy 10:12-22 is Moses' passionate plea that the Israelites would wholeheartedly love and obey God. Moses reminds the people that God is the sovereign creator who forged a special relationship with them. To "walk in all his ways" is not primarily about compulsion. It is about a loving response to God in the context of their covenant relationship with Him (vv. 12-13). God's people are called to "circumcise" their hearts, to renounce hardheartedness in exchange for hearts that reflect His love, mercy, and forgiveness (vv. 16-22). Once again, God's love for the disadvantaged in society is highlighted (vv. 18-19). Moses reminds them that they know what it is like to be a foreigner in Egypt, and they know what it is like to experience the Lord's salvation and protection. Therefore, love those who are "aliens" among you, sojourners, immigrants, and refugees.
Deuteronomy 24:10-22 describes specific ways in which God's people are instructed to emulate His love for vulnerable people in the community. The passage is concerned with the poor who need loans and live paycheck to paycheck hoping to stay afloat (vv. 10-15). It also considers the refugee, immigrant, orphan, and widow who have no social safety net to rely upon for provision and protection (vv. 17-22). The instructions to care for these people reflect God's patience, compassion, and generosity, and they preserve people's dignity and prevent exploitation. Caring for the poor and weak is pleasing in God's sight and embodies what it means to be "righteous" (v. 13). In fact, neglecting this kind of care is called sin in verse 15.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
From a worldly perspective, the behavior advocated in today's reading is risky and even laughable. Walking in God's ways requires trust and cultivating a generous, compassionate heart like His. Let the Holy Spirit search your heart and expose any fears you may have that keep you from living justly in your business and personal life. Renounce whatever prevents you from recognizing God as faithful and trustworthy (10:16-17). Ask God to reveal specific ways you can reflect His love, mercy, and forgiveness to vulnerable people.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Lazy Saint
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . -Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative- our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.
"Yes, I think it is right," Peter said, ". . . to stir you up by reminding you . . ." (2 Peter 1:13 ). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up- someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up- all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement- He says, "Go and tell My brethren . . ." (Matthew 28:10 ).
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Waiting on God
To get out of a pit, it's really not complicated. Psalm 40:1-2 tells us the first step,
I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.
The first step in getting out of the pit of despair is to cry out to God. He will hear your cry, and He will bring you up and out.
But His answer is not always instant. Notice David said, I waited patiently for the Lord. The answer to his cry wasn't apparent for a while. If you've spent a long time getting yourself into a mess, it may take some time for your deliverance.
A number of years back I went hunting with a friend. I was to fly on a little plane into a meadow about 20 miles into the wilderness where he was going to meet me.
For a variety of reasons, I ended up being six hours late to the drop-off point. My friend wasn't there, so for 20 minutes the pilot of that little plane tried to convince me not to stay. He said there were mountain lions, grizzly bears, packs of wolves...I would get eaten alive!
He finally left, and at about two in the morning I heard a noise. It wasn't a grizzly bear; it was my friend with the horses!
I think the devil is like that airplane pilot. He is always trying to talk us into quitting and giving up. But we can miss the greatest blessings in our lives when we are not patient.
Cry out to God, He will answer you. Period! But be prepared to exercise patience.
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Read: 1 Kings 10:1-12
Give your servant a discerning heart . . . to distinguish between right and wrong. - 1 Kings 3:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Giles Foden's novel, The Last King of Scotland, portrays the gruesome injustices of Uganda's former dictator, Idi Amin, infamous for political and economic atrocities and horrific ethnic persecution during his eight-year reign. Amin is only one among innumerable human rulers who epitomize the absolute opposite of God's will for a king.
We learned from Exodus and Deuteronomy that God's people were expected to reflect His righteousness, justice, and care for vulnerable people in society. After the generation of Israelites who entered the Promised Land died, God raised up judges to govern the people who had become increasingly disobedient and idolatrous (Judges 2:10-17). Yet, God's people did not maintain justice and righteousness as He commanded, nor did their leaders (21:25); the Israelites eventually requested a king to reign over them (1 Samuel 8). The Lord appointed Saul to be the first king, then David, and then David's son, Solomon. Solomon is Israel's king referenced in today's reading. When the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon's wisdom and fame, she visited him. Though a foreigner, she clearly understood God's purposes for Israel's king.
By the fruit she saw-Solomon's wisdom, wealth, and fame-the Queen of Sheba recognized that the God of Israel delighted in Solomon. Let's consider two things she said to King Solomon. First, she connected God's eternal love for Israel with Solomon's ascent to the throne. The reference to God's eternal love echoes back to Yahweh's original covenant with His people (cf. Deut. 7:9; 1 Chron. 17:22). God has not given up on His people. Because of His faithful love for them, He appointed a king who reflected His love. Second, the Queen noted God's purposes for anointing Solomon as king. The role of Israel's king was to demonstrate and administer God's justice and righteousness. In a way, God was renewing and reestablishing the role of Adam in the Garden as God's vice-regent on earth (Gen. 1:26-28); He was raising up a leader to lead His wayward people in His ways.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Idi Amin ruled in Uganda in the 1970s, and unjust rulers persist in the world today. The apostle Paul instructs us to intercede in prayer for kings and all those in authority (1 Tim. 2:2). In your prayer time today, pray for global leaders to maintain God's justice and righteousness. Pray particularly for those who work against God's will, that God would rescue the people under their harsh rule and that they themselves would come to know the light and life of Jesus Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
. . . that I may know Him . . . -Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing- even eating, drinking, or washing disciples' feet- we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. "Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." ( John 13:3-5 ).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is "that I may know Him . . ." Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.
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The Vital Sign of Spiritual Insight
In the Old Testament, we find the story of Ezra and a large group of Israelites who returned to Jerusalem to reestablish the temple and the worship of God. In the midst of this incredible effort, Ezra prays a powerful prayer, as recorded in Ezra 9:8,
"And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage."
Ezra prays that their eyes would be enlightened spiritually. It is reminiscent of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1, when he prayed that the eyes of the Ephesians would be enlightened, spiritually opened.
One vital sign of the need for revival is when we are spiritually dull and insensitive to God's promptings, and the Holy Spirit's direction and creativity.
Perhaps you can remember something creative that once operated in your life, but sadly, it has waned. It has declined. It has gone dormant.
It shouldn't be that way! The Holy Spirit wants to prompt you and guide you and give you knowledge and creativity. But when you are living in a spiritual fog, and you have become accustomed to living in that fog, you can be assured you have become spiritually dull.
That is when you need to be revived. And when you are, there is an enlightening of the eyes. There is a renewed sense and an awareness of the prompting, and the wooing, and the guiding of God's Spirit. That is what comes with revival.
When you are spiritually revived, you will be sensitive to God's Spirit, and you will gain from Him supernatural insight and enlightenment.
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Read: Psalm 72:1-20
Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead for the case of the widow. - Isaiah 1:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the fall of 2009, Kushan, his wife, and seven others enslaved by bonded labor in a rice mill in India were freed through the tireless advocacy and work of International Justice Mission (IJM), a Christian-based human rights agency that secures justice for those oppressed through bonded labor, sexual slavery, and child trafficking. Our text today motivates Christians, like IJM staff, who courageously answer God's call to pursue justice and righteousness until Jesus comes again.
Verse 20 indicates that David wrote this psalm for his son, Solomon. David makes three main petitions on behalf of Solomon, who is next in line to inherit the throne. First, David asks God to equip Solomon to rule with justice and righteousness (vv. 1-3). Second, David requests protection and deference from enemies and other nations (vv. 8-11). Third, David desires a long life for Solomon filled with God's favor and blessing (vv. 5, 15, 17). David fully acknowledges God's sovereignty, goodness, and glory (vv. 18-19).
He describes what ruling with justice and righteousness entails (v. 4). The king protects victims and guarantees justice for them; he rescues helpless children from exploitation and harm; his justice and righteousness disarm and disable the oppressors in society. Verse 12 begins with For, here meaning "because." The reason that the kings of other nations revere and serve the king of Israel and that his enemies are humbled before him is precisely because he defends the afflicted and delivers the oppressed (vv. 12-14).
A king who reigns like this will be "like showers watering the earth" (v. 6). His justice and righteousness will nourish the whole world and bring forth new life. David affirms that only God can empower a king to lead like Him (v. 18), and when he does, the world will witness God's presence and glory (v. 19). Caring for the needs that concern the heart of God will direct others to His saving power.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The king is to defend and deliver "the afflicted who have no one to help" (vv. 4, 12). God's people also share this responsibility. Learn more about the International Justice Mission and hear stories of bringing justice in the name of Jesus to the enslaved and oppressed: www.ijm.org. The Web site suggests ways to get involved, to become more educated about what Scripture says about injustice as well as be informed about injustice in the world today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . -Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose- that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ- ". . . that I may know Him. . ." ( Philippians 3:10 ). To fulfill God's perfect design for me requires my total surrender- complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
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The Vital Sign of Pride
Pride and self-sufficiency are unmistakable signs of a heart that is in desperate need of reviving. Isaiah 57:15 tells us,
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
To have a contrite heart literally means you break easily. Even at the thought of grieving God's Spirit you break and repent very quickly. It means you walk softly in your heart before God.
God says He will revive those with a humble spirit and a contrite heart. But one of the great dangers among Christians today-especially for those living in the western world with all of its abundance-is a belief that we don't need anything.
More than ever we need to read the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:17,
"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
How can you be miserable and naked and not know it? It's obvious that Jesus is speaking of their inward, spiritual condition. Apparently, their outward wealth blinded them to their inward poverty. They fell into the trap of pride, which is one of the inherent dangers that comes with prosperity. As Christians living in a very prosperous western world, we need to heed this word!
At Disneyland there is a ride with cool little cars. I remember once seeing a little boy on the ride with his dad, and his feet didn't even reach the pedals! But Junior thought he was driving, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was actually driving the car and making it go.
We need to remember that our feet don't even reach the pedals, and that Daddy, our God, is the One who makes this thing go. We need to maintain a humble heart.
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Read: Isaiah 1:1-23
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. - Titus 1:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
The prophet Isaiah received visions from the Lord during the reigns of four kings of Judah (approximately 740-698 B.C.). His visions are recorded in the book of Isaiah. Presumably, Isaiah 1 was written after the Assyrians ravaged the countryside of Judah, leaving only Jerusalem standing in 701 B.C. (vv. 7-9). By this point in Judah's history, those in power had developed a system of heavy economic burdens imposed upon the weak. Vulnerable people were denied justice and the religious practices of the day legitimized and perpetuated the injustices.
As we read Isaiah 1, we become like observers in a court of law. Today's reading is the Lord's indictment upon Judah. Pay attention to the emotions and tone of the passage: anger, displeasure, hostility, and intense frustration. Judah is sinful and estranged from God. They have rebelled against their Father (v. 2); they are shamefully compared with animals (v. 3); they instinctively do evil and have completely turned against the LORD (v. 4). The "survivors" were the only hope of redemption from this sober situation (v. 9).
Why is the Lord so outraged with His people? Let's look at verses 10 through 17. The people of Judah think they're fulfilling worship; but the Lord charges them with hypocritical worship (vv. 13-14). Their sacrifices, prayers, and rituals are meaningless to God because their behavior does not match up. Their "evil deeds" are identified as injustice, exploitation of the oppressed, and denying support to those without social safety nets (vv. 16-17). God does not mince words. This behavior disgusts Him, reflects a sinful heart, and results in hollow worship.
It is not simply that seeking justice is a bonus to worship. Rather, pleasing worship is impossible apart from seeking justice. God calls for repentance and change and warns of the consequences of further disobedience (vv. 18-23).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's reading is a solemn reminder that God looks beyond church attendance and daily prayer. We cannot claim to worship God and then ignore-or participate in the oppression of-the vulnerable members of our society. True worship reflects His heart by seeking justice on their behalf. As you reflect on Isaiah 1, repent for ways that you and your Christian community might be like Judah. Ask God to reveal injustice in your midst and align your heart with His through tangible action.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . -Isaiah 6:1
Our soul's personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally- when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord," there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God's surgical procedure- His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
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Are You Obeying God's Warnings?
The third thing you should check in your life, if indeed you are in the pits, is to make sure you have obeyed God's warnings.
God does warn us, but we must listen to those warnings. As Job 33:14-18 says,
For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
God always tries to warn us to keep us out of the pits and to keep our lives from danger. And He speaks in many different ways. Sometimes, as we read here, God will speak to us even through a dream.
As I look at my own life, I can see that I have fallen into pits at various times because I did not listen to God's warnings. There have been times I have been too busy to perceive the fact that God was talking to me. It wasn't that God wasn't warning me. He was. I just had a bunch of other things going on in my life and was not taking time to listen to Him.
He is always faithful to warn us. It's just that we are not always faithful to listen. So if you find yourself in a pit today because you did not heed God's warning, just say, "God, I'm sorry." Repent. God will forgive you. And you will be in the position to receive His deliverance.
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Read: Isaiah 1:1-23
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. - Titus 1:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
The prophet Isaiah received visions from the Lord during the reigns of four kings of Judah (approximately 740-698 B.C.). His visions are recorded in the book of Isaiah. Presumably, Isaiah 1 was written after the Assyrians ravaged the countryside of Judah, leaving only Jerusalem standing in 701 B.C. (vv. 7-9). By this point in Judah's history, those in power had developed a system of heavy economic burdens imposed upon the weak. Vulnerable people were denied justice and the religious practices of the day legitimized and perpetuated the injustices.
As we read Isaiah 1, we become like observers in a court of law. Today's reading is the Lord's indictment upon Judah. Pay attention to the emotions and tone of the passage: anger, displeasure, hostility, and intense frustration. Judah is sinful and estranged from God. They have rebelled against their Father (v. 2); they are shamefully compared with animals (v. 3); they instinctively do evil and have completely turned against the LORD (v. 4). The "survivors" were the only hope of redemption from this sober situation (v. 9).
Why is the Lord so outraged with His people? Let's look at verses 10 through 17. The people of Judah think they're fulfilling worship; but the Lord charges them with hypocritical worship (vv. 13-14). Their sacrifices, prayers, and rituals are meaningless to God because their behavior does not match up. Their "evil deeds" are identified as injustice, exploitation of the oppressed, and denying support to those without social safety nets (vv. 16-17). God does not mince words. This behavior disgusts Him, reflects a sinful heart, and results in hollow worship.
It is not simply that seeking justice is a bonus to worship. Rather, pleasing worship is impossible apart from seeking justice. God calls for repentance and change and warns of the consequences of further disobedience (vv. 18-23).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's reading is a solemn reminder that God looks beyond church attendance and daily prayer. We cannot claim to worship God and then ignore-or participate in the oppression of-the vulnerable members of our society. True worship reflects His heart by seeking justice on their behalf. As you reflect on Isaiah 1, repent for ways that you and your Christian community might be like Judah. Ask God to reveal injustice in your midst and align your heart with His through tangible action.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Suffering Afflictions and Going the Second Mile
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also -Matthew 5:39
This verse reveals the humiliation of being a Christian. In the natural realm, if a person does not hit back, it is because he is a coward. But in the spiritual realm, it is the very evidence of the Son of God in him if he does not hit back. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but you must make it an opportunity to exhibit the Son of God in your life. And you cannot imitate the nature of Jesus- it is either in you or it is not. A personal insult becomes an opportunity for a saint to reveal the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not, "Do your duty," but is, in effect, "Do what is not your duty." It is not your duty to go the second mile, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say, "Oh well, I just can't do any more, and I've been so misrepresented and misunderstood." Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself. That is the real meaning of filling "up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ). A disciple realizes that it is his Lord's honor that is at stake in his life, not his own honor.
Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself. We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is- Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
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The Pit of Immorality
In the last several devotionals, we have discovered a variety of ways to get out of the pits. Today, I want you to focus on something that is an increasing problem in the Church today. Immorality.
Solomon tells us in Proverbs 22:14,
The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred by the LORD will fall there.
And he says in Proverbs 23:27,
For a harlot is a deep pit, and a seductress is a narrow well.
Immorality is a deep pit. A pit that is difficult to get out of once you have gotten yourself into it. Not only do you get physically involved with another, there is an emotional entanglement that is not that easy to get out of.
Solomon also says immorality is a narrow well. It is binding, restrictive, and it suffocates your spiritual life. If you are seeking God for deliverance while continuing to engage in immoral behavior, your effort is fruitless.
If you are in the pits today because of an immoral relationship, you must cut off that relationship before seeking God's deliverance. If you will ask God for help after you have repented and cut off that relationship, He will help you beyond anything you could imagine.
God is a merciful God. And He has the ability to work something for good even in a situation like this. If you are truly repentant and broken, God can do something good.
God is the only One who can break something and make it more valuable. I break things, and they lose their value. But when God breaks something, it becomes more valuable.
If you are in an immoral relationship, stop it, repent, and He will forgive you, and bring you out of your pit.
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Read: Isaiah 58:1-12
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice . . . to set the oppressed free? - Isaiah 58:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Daniel's native country, a succession of deficient harvests launched a crisis in the subsistence farming economy in which his family and neighbors had lived for generations. Daniel was forced to borrow money at exorbitant interest rates to purchase seed and supplies for upcoming harvests. Unable to repay this debt, Daniel was driven to place his family in indentured service to lenders. Eventually, Daniel lost the land they depended on for survival and had farmed for decades. Daniel's experience was true in the days of Isaiah, and it continues to be a familiar scenario today for people from countries like Guatemala, Uganda, Vietnam, Mexico, and Nigeria who farm crops such as coffee and cocoa beans (for chocolate). Today's passage connects the fasting and worship of God's people to their call to undo the conditions that create situations like Daniel's.
Verse 2 initially seems like an ideal description of God's people, but verse 1 indicates that something was seriously wrong. The people noticed that God was unresponsive to what they passed off as sincere devotion to Him (v. 3). Like in yesterday's reading, God declared that their religious practices were unacceptable because their behavior belied the condition of their hearts. They couldn't fast and simultaneously mistreat their employees, argue with one another, and ignore injustice and oppression around them (v. 5). The LORD clarified the kind of fasting He desired: liberating people from what oppresses them, providing for those in need, and denying oneself for the sake of the vulnerable (vv. 6-7, 9-10).
If God's people began worshiping Him in this way, the result would be extraordinary. God promises that if you fight for justice and serve the poor, "then" your own healing will begin, the darkness of your looming enemies will end, and you will be protected by righteousness and glory. God will not forsake you; He will provide for you; you will be restored, and you will flourish (vv. 10-12).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
To pretend that people like Daniel and their stories of injustice are not real, to convince ourselves that this is someone else's problem, or simply to wish that all the brokenness would just disappear are not acceptable responses if we follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior (see Luke 10:25-37). To learn how to act responsibly and wisely in a world marked by poverty and injustice, read When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
My Life's Spiritual Honor and Duty
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians . . . -Romans 1:14
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent his life to express it. The greatest inspiration in Paul's life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that same sense of indebtedness to Christ regarding every unsaved soul? As a saint, my life's spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to these lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? I will only be able to do this as the Spirit of God works into me this sense of indebtedness.
I am not a superior person among other people- I am a bondservant of the Lord Jesus. Paul said, ". . . you are not your own . . . you were bought at a price . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ). Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ and he said, in effect, "I am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus; I am free only that I may be an absolute bondservant of His." That is the characteristic of a Christian's life once this level of spiritual honor and duty becomes real. Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. That is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wine in real life.
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The Pit of Pride
The fifth and the final reason your life may be in the pits is pride. We always need to check our hearts for pride.
In Isaiah 14:13-15 we read,
For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.
This passage records God's rebuke of Satan when he was kicked out of heaven. Satan was talking real big with pride oozing from every word that he said.
But God said, "That's what you think. I'm going to throw you down to the pit." And because of the pride in his heart, Satan will indeed be thrown down to a pit for all eternity (read Revelation 20!).
Pride is a dangerous thing. In fact, so dangerous we are told in 1 Timothy 3:6 to not put a novice into a leadership role in the Church, lest being puffed up with pride, he or she falls into the same condemnation as the devil.
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride is a weird thing. It's like bad breath. Everybody seems to know you have it before you do! But pride will not only get you into a pit, it will destroy you.
I want to challenge you today. If your life is in the pits, check to see if it is because of your pride. If so, humble yourself, otherwise you are not going to get out!
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Read: Jeremiah 22:1-17
"Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD. - Jeremiah 22:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1993, Baptist missionary Keith Grimes visited Kalingalinga, Zambia. He recruited their singing boys to tour the United States, naming them the Zambian Acappella Boys Choir and promising them salaries, health care, and education in return. The Choir toured churches and generated millions of dollars in donations-but it was a scam. Not one penny was given to any of the boys, and they were held in restrictive conditions under threat of deportation. Several local church members who attended concerts in Texas and Louisiana grew suspicious and requested criminal investigations. Finally in 2000, a judgment for nearly $1 million was handed down against the Grimes family for unpaid wages for 67 Zambian boys.
In today's text, benefitting from exploited labor clearly does not please God, and there are consequences for people who practice oppression. We have learned that God entrusted Israel's kings with maintaining His justice and righteousness, yet both Israel and her kings were better known for injustice and idolatry.
Today's passage records a direct message from the Lord to Jehoiakim, one of Judah's kings. Like his brother Shallum before him, he had disregarded the reforms of his father, Josiah (2 Kings 23:31-37). Jeremiah begins with a reminder: the one who sits on David's throne is to enact justice and righteousness; he is to rescue the maltreated and defend the innocent (vv. 2-3). Then he states a promise and a warning. If you are not the kind of king God desires, your palace-symbolic for your whole reign-will be destroyed (vv. 4-8). This is the consequence of ignoring the covenant made with their compassionate God (v. 9).
Verses 13 through 17 contrast two kinds of kings. One king pads his pockets through unjust means. He uses his countrymen like slaves (vv. 13-14). His eyes and heart are corrupt and greedy; he disregards the rights and health of his employees (v. 17). This is God's description of Jehoiakim. Josiah, on the other hand, understood that God is the provider who cares for those who obey Him. Josiah regarded the concerns of the poor and needy (vv. 15-16).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The power of the ancient king is now distributed into the hands of everyday people. The Zambian boys were released only after intervention from regular people sitting in church pews. Concerned Women for America encourages women across the country to advocate for just enforcement of laws to protect the thousands of women and children who are sexually trafficked in the United States every year. Our decisions and actions matter and can impact the lives of those held in bondage.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Concept of Divine Control
. . . how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! -Matthew 7:11
Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct in this passage for those people who have His Spirit. He urges us to keep our minds filled with the concept of God's control over everything, which means that a disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.
Fill your mind with the thought that God is there. And once your mind is truly filled with that thought, when you experience difficulties it will be as easy as breathing for you to remember, "My heavenly Father knows all about this!" This will be no effort at all, but will be a natural thing for you when difficulties and uncertainties arise. Before you formed this concept of divine control so powerfully in your mind, you used to go from person to person seeking help, but now you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those people who have His Spirit, and it works on the following principle: God is my Father, He loves me, and I will never think of anything that He will forget, so why should I worry?
Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God's will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but is an attitude of the mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7 ).
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Avoiding the Pit
Over the last few days, we have looked at what it takes to get out of the pits-what to do when life seems to be turned upside down.
There is one pit, though, that every person is headed for except for the grace and provision of God. Some of the most marvelous verses of Scripture are found in Psalm 49:6-9. These verses point us to the one and only way to avoid the pit for eternity.
Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him-for the redemption of their souls is costly, and it shall cease forever-that he should continue to live eternally, and not see the Pit.
These are powerful words for our day and age. It is so easy for many to believe that their wealth, their power, and their goodness will someday be enough to save them.
But the only way to have eternal life and not see the pit of eternal destruction is to realize that you can do nothing and pay no amount to redeem your own soul. Why? Because the price of your soul is very costly-more than you could ever pay.
The purchase price was the shed blood of the Son of God upon Calvary's cross. Only through embracing His sacrifice can your soul be ransomed. No good works can do it. No personal sacrifice can do it. The price has been paid.
I trust you have accepted God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. If so, praise Him today for rescuing you from the pit of hell and for paying that high price for you.
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Read: Isaiah 11:1-10
The Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. - Isaiah 11:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Picture a disarmed rifle converted into a working guitar. Colombian musician and peace activist, Cesar Lopez, envisioned this after a deadly terrorist attack in Bógota in 2003. One of his escopetarras is displayed at the United Nations' permanent exhibition on disarmament in New York as a symbol of peace for the whole world. Lopez explains: "The fact that a weapon is transformed in such a radical way speaks of the possibility the whole planet has to change, even if it seems absurd." Today's passage points us to the reality of the new creation where agents of violence will become representatives of peace.
The Lord makes clear His displeasure with rulers who tolerate and perpetuate injustice (Isa. 10:1-4). Yet there is hope for God's people. The prophet Isaiah tells of a small group who will survive His judgment, destruction, and exile (10:20-23). The "stump" is symbolic of this remnant of survivors (11:1). Isaiah prophesies that from the remnant of David's descendants, God will raise up someone to reclaim the throne of King David to restore justice and righteousness (vv. 1-5). This new king will not rule like the unfaithful kings of old. Rather, by the Spirit's wisdom and power He will rule with justice and righteousness on behalf of the poor and needy, and He will not tolerate the wicked.
The result of this new king's rule is described in verses 6 through 8: a leopard stretched out with a goat resting peacefully on the leopard's belly, a toddler playing near a cobra's nest without danger of harm. Once dangerous predators are at peace with former prey, and the safety of a little child is mentioned twice. Remember the predators we have read about this month who overburden their employees and deprive workers their wages, who mistreat the weak in society and ignore injustice? Imagine their weapons of oppression being disarmed and replaced with attitudes and behaviors that protect the helpless. This is the kind of total transformation effected by the new Davidic king.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 9 explains the grounds for such dramatic changes: "The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord." The anointing of the Spirit generates knowledge and fear of the Lord in the new king (v. 2). Then, King Jesus gives us the gift of His Spirit to dwell in us, to teach us His grace and truth, and to empower us to live for Him. As you grow to know God more deeply each day, one suggestion is to read Revelation: The Glorified Christ by Woodrow Kroll.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Miracle of Belief
My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom . . . -1 Corinthians 2:4
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the highest degree; he was not speaking here out of a deep sense of humility, but was saying that when he preached the gospel, he would veil the power of God if he impressed people with the excellency of his speech. Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the effectiveness of redemption, not by impressive speech, nor by wooing and persuading, but only by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of redemption comes through the preaching of the gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher.
Real and effective fasting by a preacher is not fasting from food, but fasting from eloquence, from impressive diction, and from everything else that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God- ". . . as though God were pleading through us . . ." (2 Corinthians 5:20). He is there to present the gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get close to Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the gospel will result in making me a traitor to Jesus, and I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work.
"And I, if I am lifted up. . . , will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32).
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Falling into Crisis
In 1 Kings we have the story of the prophet Elijah. In chapter 18, we see a great victory over the priests of Baal, an incredible victory that demonstrated the power of the one true God for all to see.
In the next chapter, we see Elijah on the run (1 Kings 19:1-3),
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
How could Elijah, a prophet of God who had been used in such a powerful way, now be on the run? (He eventually even became suicidal.) While there are a number of things we could look at, I want to give you one truth today to consider.
After any great spiritual victory, it is always wise to keep your armor on. Over and over, there are examples of tremendous trials and temptations after great victories.
King David, after God had supernaturally spoken to him, fell morally, and committed adultery with Bathsheba. Or there is Samson who, after God used him to bring great deliverance, got messed up with Delilah. Then there is Jesus who, after being with the Father on the mount of transfiguration, came to the bottom of the mountain and was met by a demon-possessed boy.
Sometimes we are the most vulnerable after the highest and brightest times we have with God. So today, let me encourage you to always keep your armor on (see Ephesians 6:11).
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Read: Luke 1:46-55
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. - Isaiah 9:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Probably every mother has a story of how she realized that she was going to have a child. Rebecca knew when she felt dizzy at the park; Lillian knew when the nausea hit; Stacy knew when the social worker called with the news that the birth mother had selected her to adopt her daughter. But imagine if an angel told you that you would miraculously conceive, your baby would be the long-awaited Davidic king, and your cousin affirmed this revelation through blessing (Luke 1:26-45)! This was Mary's experience, and today's reading is her response to the remarkable news.
The famous title of Mary's Song, Magnificat, originates from the first word of the Latin version of this passage: magnify. "My soul magnifies the Lord!" Mary sings. Her response is praise, and the remainder of her song explains why (vv. 47-55).
Notice throughout Mary's song, the primary actor is God. For who He is and what He does, the Lord is worthy of praise. Mary rehearses God's mercy to her personally (vv. 48-49). She highlights the contrast: the Mighty One, holy and exalted, is mindful of one inconsequential young woman. God's activity reverses her situation; Mary goes from humble servant to blessed forever by all generations.
Verse 50 connects the two sections of her song, and then Mary shifts to proclaim God's mercy to Abraham's descendants (vv. 51-55). "Mighty deeds" and "outstretched arm" echo back to God's rescue of His people out of Egypt. Mary recognizes God as deliverer, and she knows the news of her baby is news of God's deliverance. God's redemption turns things upside down. Notice what happens to the proud, the rulers, and the rich compared to the humble and the hungry (vv. 51-53). The end of Mary's song ties Gabriel's announcement to God's ancient covenant with Abraham and his descendants. God will be faithful to His promises; He will be merciful (vv. 54-55). Mary understands that the birth of her baby Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promises of redemption. Jesus is the new king we read about yesterday.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The structure of verses 52 and 53 draws our attention to them. God's action toward the rulers and rich is mentioned first and last, with His mercy toward the humble and hungry announced in the middle. In Jesus, God is transforming people and social structures that exalt self-absorption and wealth to the exclusion and at the expense of the poor. God humbles the proud to reveal their need of Him and to soften their hearts toward others. Allow God to humble you so that He can then fill you with good things.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Mystery of Believing
He said, "Who are You, Lord? -Acts 9:5
Through the miracle of redemption, Saul of Tarsus was instantly changed from a strong-willed and forceful Pharisee into a humble and devoted bondservant of the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing miraculous or mysterious about the things we can explain. We control what we are able to explain, consequently it is only natural to seek an explanation for everything. It is not natural to obey, yet it is not necessarily sinful to disobey. There can be no real disobedience, nor any moral virtue in obedience, unless a person recognizes the higher authority of the one giving the orders. If this recognition does not exist, even the one giving the orders may view the other person's disobedience as freedom. If one rules another by saying, "You must do this," and, "You will do that," he breaks the human spirit, making it unfit for God. A person is simply a slave for obeying, unless behind his obedience is the recognition of a holy God.
Many people begin coming to God once they stop being religious, because there is only one master of the human heart- Jesus Christ, not religion. But "Woe is me" if after seeing Him I still will not obey ( Isaiah 6:5 , also see Isaiah 6:1 ). Jesus will never insist that I obey, but if I don't,I have already begun to sign the death certificate of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say, "I will not obey," He will never insist. But when I do this, I am backing away from the recreating power of His redemption. It makes no difference to God's grace what an abomination I am, if I will only come to the light. But "Woe is me" if I refuse the light (seeJohn 3:19-21 ).
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Have You Dug a Pit for Others?
In order to get out of the pits, you need to make sure you haven't dug any pits for others. Psalm 7:14-16 tells us,
Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
Then there is Psalm 9:15-16,
The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The LORD is known by the judgment He executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
Finally, Psalm 57:6,
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me; into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.
When people dig a pit for somebody else, they end up falling into it themselves. In fact, Proverbs 26:27 says it most directly,
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.
Pretty plain, isn't it? If you are asking God to get you out of a pit, you need to take time to consider if it is a pit of your own construction. If you have done something to get someone else in trouble-even if you think you are justified in doing it because that person has hurt you-you need to repent. Until there is repentance, God will not intervene.
God is not going to get you out of your pit while you have a shovel in your hand.
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Read: Luke 4:14-30
I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. - Isaiah 42:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
When American Idol winner, David Cook, returned to his hometown, 10,000 tickets sold out instantly, buttons and t-shirts adorned hysterical fans, and the city buzzed with excitement. David took center stage at his former high school where admirers gathered to pay homage to their hometown hero. In every sense of the show's title, David is the American idol of Blue Springs, Missouri. In our reading today, when Jesus stepped into the limelight in his old neighborhood, the locals were not as welcoming.
After 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus traveled to the region of Galilee and began teaching in the synagogue. His fame spread quickly, and the general public praised Him (v. 15). When Jesus arrived in His hometown, He visited the synagogue on the Sabbath. He stood up, took the scroll, and unrolled it (vv. 16-17). Later, the actions are exactly reversed: Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back, and sat down (v. 20). This detail highlights what happens in between: Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-3. Jesus declared that He has come to announce good news to the poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed. His message is freedom and release for those held in all kinds of bondage, and all this will be accomplished through the Spirit's anointing. When He said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," Jesus claimed that He is the answer to God's ancient promise. At first, the crowd seems accepting and astonished by their hometown boy (v. 22). Jesus, however, challenged their approval (v. 23).
Jesus recounted two incriminating stories from the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha (vv. 24-27; cf. 1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 5:1-19). He cautioned their American Idol-like enthusiasm, suggesting that when they understood His deeper message and mission He might lose their votes. Will they be implicated when Jesus sets the captives free? Their praise and amazement quickly turned to fury (v. 28). The townspeople drove Jesus to the edge of town ready to kill Him, but Jesus escaped unhindered (vv. 29-30).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus announces freedom from all things that hold us captive: sin, disease, loneliness, mental illness, injustice, death. The Spirit of the Lord upon Jesus seals the liberation with power and authority, and this same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives in us (Rom. 8:11). You or someone you love may be imprisoned right now-physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Today, hear the great news of total emancipation in Jesus Christ. Cry out to Him for healing and restoration and trust His Spirit in you for complete redemption.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Submission of the Believer
Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, "You will submit to me." No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose- so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done; and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination, in which I acknowledge that "You are worthy, O Lord . . ." ( Revelation 4:11 ). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don't recognize his worthiness, nor obey his instructions for me, it is a sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.
If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other; like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, "I and My Father are one" ( John 10:30 ). ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" ( Hebrews 5:8 ). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because He was the Son, not in order to become God's Son.
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Are You Rebelling Against Authority?
If you are in the pits, you need to make sure you are not in rebellion against God's established authority, or aligned with those who are.
In Numbers 16 there is an instructive story of Korah and his followers. They openly confronted Moses and Aaron, and challenged whether they were really God's ordained leaders.
Moses and Aaron were flawed and fallible just like every one of us, but Korah wanted to usurp authority that did not belong to him.
God had placed Moses and Aaron in their position of authority, but Korah tried to undermine that authority and lead people against them.
Look at the result of Korah's rebellion. Moses is speaking in verses 30 and 31,
"But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods.
Notice that it was not just Korah who was destroyed. All those who were aligned with him also went into the pit.
I don't think the ground is going to open up under you if you rebel against the authority that God has set up. But you may find yourself in an emotional, physical, or financial pit that you cannot get out of until you get the rebellion out of you.
If you are in a pit today, check your heart and make sure you are not in rebellion against God's ordained authority.
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Read: Luke 5:12-14
He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. - Luke 4:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Home for Joy, a Christian ministry in Bangladesh, provides food, shelter, and job training for women who have been socially and economically ostracized either because of severe scarring from acid attacks or rape. Rejected for marriage, these women are vulnerable and impoverished in a cultural context where social and economic protection from men is required. Resources and support from The Home for Joy has provided healing and restoration to 28 women over the past ten years.
Jesus encountered a man covered with leprosy, a term that refers to various skin diseases considered highly infectious in the ancient world. According to Leviticus 13, if the priest identified something as a skin disease, the person was thereafter unclean. "He must live alone; he must live outside the camp" (Lev. 13:46). Thus, the leprous man of Luke 5 was completely isolated spiritually from his community. Prohibited from all interaction with others, the man was socially and economically secluded as well. He was most likely poverty-stricken.
The leprous man demonstrated humility, dependence, reverence, and belief in Jesus' healing power. He called out, "Lord," affirming even more than he actually knew about Jesus (vv. 12, 17). Jesus responded remarkably by touching the "unclean" man. Without reservation or fear of contamination, Jesus crossed traditional boundaries to heal this man.
Yet today's text is more than a story of Jesus' physical healing. It is a story of justice. Jesus pronounced the man "clean" and thus restored him spiritually, socially, and economically. This is indeed "good news to the poor" (4:18).
Jesus commanded the man to accord with the Levitical laws for cleansing and reentry into community life (Lev. 14:1-32), "as a testimony" to the priest (v. 14). First, a visit to the priest would confirm the healing and allow reintegration into spiritual, social, and economic life, much of which revolved around the temple. Second, the visit would testify to the power of the Lord at work.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Following the healing of the leprous man, Jesus steals away for private prayer (5:16). Jesus often set aside time for prayer and communion with the Father. The fruit of this time is intimacy with His Father, alignment with God's mission, and strength for demanding ministry. One way we cultivate our relationship with our heavenly Father and have our strength renewed is through Bible study and prayer. In addition to your time with Today in the Word, pursue private time in prayer to the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Dependent on God's Presence
Those who wait on the Lord . . . shall walk and not faint -Isaiah 40:31
There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities. To "walk and not faint" is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person- ". . . John . . . looking at Jesus as He walked. . . said, 'Behold the Lamb of God!' " ( John 1:35-36 ). There is nothing abstract or obscure in the Bible; everything is vivid and real. God does not say, "Be spiritual," but He says, "Walk before Me. . ." ( Genesis 17:1 ).
When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" ( Isaiah 40:31 ), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.
Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of- "We will not fear, even though . . ." ( Psalm 46:2 )- will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God's presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, "He has been here all the time!" At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that." Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.
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Lightening the Load
When we get into the storms of life, it is often difficult to know what to do. It can feel like the noise of our troubles drowns out everything else.
In Acts 27 we find the apostle Paul caught in the midst of a horrible storm. The ship was being tossed all over the place, and the situation was becoming quite serious.
Embedded in this story is a spiritual truth that can guide you and me when we get caught in the storms of life. It is found in verses 18-19,
And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
Notice that when the storm got bad and threatened to capsize the ship, they lightened the load.
Sometimes in a storm you need to throw some things overboard. In fact, it is a great time to evaluate any baggage that you are carrying in your life. There are some things that may not be a sin to you, but they are a weight to you.
One of the things you need to carefully evaluate is your relationships. There are some relationships you need to cut loose because they are hanging you up, holding you back, and they are hindering you from getting to where God wants you to go.
Or maybe it's something as simple as too much TV. Watching TV may not be a sin, but it can sure be a weight! It can sure be a hindrance to you hearing from God, especially when you are in a time of crisis.
If you really want to hear from God and get yourself unstuck, lighten your ship.
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Read: Luke 8:42-48
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. - Luke 4:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
My mood has become as hard as my surroundings and as lifeless and empty. It seems nothing can move me. . . . I realize the isolation, pain and heartache that must grip so many other women that live here-all of us seeing the same scene day after day. "Here" for poet Rhonda Leland is Valley State Prison for Women in central California, and her experience is shared by "many other women" who live imprisoned physically, spiritually, and socially.
We meet one such woman in Luke 8. She lived in a particular kind of prison, since she suffered from chronic bleeding for 12 years. In first-century Palestine, this meant that she was "unclean," and like the leprous man from yesterday's reading, she was cut off from society spiritually, socially, and economically.
Picture Jesus and His disciples walking through the streets of the town, surrounded by such a large crowd that Jesus was nearly crushed (v. 42). Luke points out one unnamed woman from among the multitude. Her condition elicits our compassion: continuous, incurable hemorrhaging (v. 43). Like the leprous man, she seemed to recognize Jesus' power. Perhaps the news of Him had spread. Unlike the leprous man, the woman tried to remain incognito-but not for long. Her courageous touch of Jesus' cloak healed her immediately, and Jesus knew power had left Him (vv. 44, 46).
Jesus is more than a magic healer. He is the long-awaited King and Savior of the whole world. By asking the woman to identify herself, Jesus invited her into a personal encounter with Himself. Though no one answered, and Peter thought the question wholly nonsensical, Jesus persisted. Compelled by fear and faith, the woman fell at Jesus' feet and disclosed her identity and intentions (v. 47). Jesus' response proclaimed freedom for the imprisoned woman (v. 48; Luke 4:18). The woman once unnamed is now called "Daughter." Jesus not only healed her body, but He also brought her back into the community of God and into relationship with Him. He turns her "isolation, pain, and heartache" into true freedom and peace.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you have eyes like Peter or like Jesus? In the crowds surrounding you-family, coworkers, neighbors, church community, friends, and even strangers-there are people suffering in their own kinds of prisons. Ask God to open your eyes to see them. Invite the Holy Spirit to minister to them through you, to show you how to proclaim the freedom of Christ into their lives. One idea is to invite a friend to study the Gospel of Luke with you. The John MacArthur Luke Bible study guide is a great resource.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Doorway to the Kingdom
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to reaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it. What good is there in telling me to be what I can never be- to be "pure in heart" ( Matthew 5:8 ), to do more than my duty, or to be completely devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach- He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The redemption means that Jesus Christ can place within anyone the same nature that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives us are based on that nature.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces a sense of despair in the natural man- exactly what Jesus means for it to do. As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord, I cannot even begin to do it." Then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." ( Matthew 5:11 ). This is the doorway to the kingdom, and yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work.
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Rest
In the last several devotionals, we have looked at how we respond to the storms of life. Today and tomorrow we will look at two more principles for handling life when the storms hit.
Today, I want to go back to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. In verses 5-6 we read,
Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Notice that in the midst of his crisis, Elijah rested and ate. He took care of his body.
Some of the crises you experience come because you are sleep deprived and you don't eat right. And you know what? Your body, your soul, and your spirit are all tied together. What you do to one affects the other two. It affects the whole.
We are intricately woven together. And the wisest thing you can do when you get into a crisis is just give your body a rest, because it affects every other part of your life.
When you are exhausted and physically weak, it is easy for everything to be blown out of proportion. When you are tired, it can look like your whole world is falling apart when it really is not. It is like Mark Twain said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
You and I do need to rest. If you are in the midst of a storm today, make sure not to neglect the rest you need.
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Read: Luke 13:10-17
He has sent me . . . to release the oppressed. - Luke 4:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus can be found in the places to worship God, whether temple or synagogue. In today's passage, we see Him again teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath (v. 10). As we've seen the past few days, Jesus carried out His promise to release the oppressed and once more faced opposition.
The first person introduced in the congregation was likely the most marginalized: a disabled woman (v. 11). Her physical condition, "crippled," also describes her social and spiritual position. Jesus saw this woman who was usually invisible to others; He invited her to Himself. As with the leprous man and the bleeding woman, Jesus' touch brought healing.
Notice that Jesus said, "You are set free from your infirmity" (v. 12). Liberation is not the typical way to express physical healing. Yet Luke has already told us that the woman was "crippled by a spirit," and Jesus confirmed that she was under satanic bondage (v. 16). Luke makes a connection between this instance of physical infirmity and the influence of Satan. For this woman, physical healing could not be separated from her spiritual freedom. When she was healed and set free, her physical and spiritual postures transformed instantly (v. 13).
One job of the synagogue ruler was to maintain faithfulness to the Mosaic Law in the teaching and actions in the synagogue. According to this person, Jesus violated Deuteronomy 5:13. In front of the assembly, he challenged Jesus' authority to heal. But Jesus is Lord, full of all power and authority in heaven and on earth (v. 15). In response to this charge, Jesus shamed His opponents and confirmed His authority to interpret the Law and fulfill God's redemptive purposes (vv. 15-17). As He argued: If you can free an animal on the Sabbath, how much more a "daughter of Abraham"? Jesus emphasized her inclusion in the community of God. If you can liberate an animal bound for a few hours, how much more this woman bound by Satan for 18 years! Jesus made clear that God's purposes are to release the oppressed, and it is a misinterpretation of the Law to deny salvation on the Sabbath.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus challenged the practices and power structures of His day. Like Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom who resisted Nazi decrees; like John Perkins who withstood segregation, throughout history God's people have been known for courageously opposing laws, systems, and power brokers that did not comport with God's purposes in the world. If you need encouragement to stand for the Lord in the face of injustice, read a biography of one of these brave Christians.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sanctification (1)
This is the will of God, your sanctification. . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Sanctification requires our coming to the place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid. There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is realized- something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . his own life . . . he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ).
In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest- simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword" ( Matthew 10:34 ). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, "But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me." Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.
Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply "me"? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ).
When I pray, "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me- it is Himself in me (see 1 Corinthians 1:30 ).
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The Still Small Voice
In the last three devotionals, we have looked at principles on how we should respond when our life is in crisis. The last principle is found in 1 Kings 19:11-12,
Then He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
If your life is in crisis today, you need to remind yourself how God leads. Do not look for it in outward, powerful manifestations-the strong wind, an earthquake, or fire.
Rather, listen for that "still small voice."
That is how Jesus speaks to us today. Read carefully the words of John 16:13,
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come."
God has given you and me His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. And, friend, when God leads you, it is going to be through the still small whisper of the Spirit in your heart.
Yet many people want more than that. Some people think, "I'm in a desperate situation. I need something more!" You and I need nothing more, because through the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have God on the inside.
So if God is going to guide you, He is going to do it from within...through that still small voice.
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Read: Matthew 25:31-46
Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. - Romans 12:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Luke and Doris Musumba thumbed through the Schneider family guestbook, where the pages revealed their German hosts' constant care for visitors. The Musumbas are Kenyan missionaries, and the Schneiders are friends who built a small apartment in their home to host Christian workers and allow them to restore their energies. Today we turn our attention toward the New Testament's teaching on how generosity includes care for the vulnerable, a principle embodied in the Schneider family.
Jesus referred to Himself in our text today as "the Son of Man" (see Dan. 7:13-14). The connection with Daniel 7 is intentional: Jesus' glory is mentioned twice; "all the nations" are gathered before Him; He sits on His throne as sovereign King with all authority as final judge (vv. 31-34).
As the King and Judge, Jesus separates the crowd into two groups. The first is called blessed by the Father, heirs of God, and righteous (vv. 34, 37). Jesus invites them to receive the kingdom prepared for them. "For" indicates the reason for this particular judgment: they provided food, drink, shelter, and clothing for Him, they cared for Him when He was sick, and they visited Him in prison (vv. 35-36). The people are perplexed (vv. 37-39), so Jesus explains clearly: "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (v. 40).
Bible scholars suggest Jesus is not referring to care of the poor, sick, and imprisoned generally (though that care is consistent with broader biblical values). Rather, the "brothers" are Jesus' disciples, messengers of His gospel (cf. Matt. 12:50; 28:10). His disciples faced great need for hospitality as they traveled to spread the good news. They experienced sickness (Phil. 2:27-30) and even imprisonment.
Gospel messengers are Jesus' representatives. How they are received illustrates how Jesus is embraced (cf. 10:40). Jesus continued this logic toward those on His left (v. 45). Those who ignore or reject His messengers on this side of the Day of Judgment reject Him, with eternal consequences.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus' messengers today include vocational ministers and missionaries. Many vocational "messengers" still depend on the hospitality and care of others. This month, learn more about the local and global missionaries that your church partners through prayer and financial support. Consider how you might serve them. Some ideas include hosting missionaries on furlough, meeting practical needs for their family or ministry, and sending them notes or e-mails of encouragement.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sanctification (2)
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . . -1 Corinthians 1:30
The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He "became for [me] . . . sanctification . . . ." Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.
The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is "Christ in you . . ." ( Colossians 1:27 ). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification- imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?
Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy- it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness- ". . . kept by the power of God . . ." ( 1 Peter 1:5 ).
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PRAISE: The First Step in Effective Prayer
Praying consistently will change your life. In fact, many of the blessings God wants you to enjoy will never be realized unless you pray.
I think all Christians know they are supposed to pray, and all Christians want to pray. But many of God's people, if they are completely frank and transparent about the issue, would have to admit their prayer life is somewhere between mediocre and non-existent.
Over the next few devotionals, I want to share with you four simple points which I have put into an acronym: P-R-A-Y. If you can spell the word pray, hopefully you will be able to remember how to make your prayer life more effective, and you will be inspired to pray more consistently.
Psalm 100 helps us understand the first letter, "P", in the word P-R-A-Y, which stands for praise. Psalm 100:1-4 states it well,
Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
Verse 2 tells us, Come before His presence with singing. And in verse 4 notice the words "enter into." In other words, praise is how you are to enter God's presence. It is the best way to begin your prayer.
When you want to come to God, you start with thanksgiving. You start with singing. You start with praise. Or, as The Message says, Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Today, and every day, make praise the starting point of every conversation with God!
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Read: Matthew 25:31-46
Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. - Romans 12:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Luke and Doris Musumba thumbed through the Schneider family guestbook, where the pages revealed their German hosts' constant care for visitors. The Musumbas are Kenyan missionaries, and the Schneiders are friends who built a small apartment in their home to host Christian workers and allow them to restore their energies. Today we turn our attention toward the New Testament's teaching on how generosity includes care for the vulnerable, a principle embodied in the Schneider family.
Jesus referred to Himself in our text today as "the Son of Man" (see Dan. 7:13-14). The connection with Daniel 7 is intentional: Jesus' glory is mentioned twice; "all the nations" are gathered before Him; He sits on His throne as sovereign King with all authority as final judge (vv. 31-34).
As the King and Judge, Jesus separates the crowd into two groups. The first is called blessed by the Father, heirs of God, and righteous (vv. 34, 37). Jesus invites them to receive the kingdom prepared for them. "For" indicates the reason for this particular judgment: they provided food, drink, shelter, and clothing for Him, they cared for Him when He was sick, and they visited Him in prison (vv. 35-36). The people are perplexed (vv. 37-39), so Jesus explains clearly: "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (v. 40).
Bible scholars suggest Jesus is not referring to care of the poor, sick, and imprisoned generally (though that care is consistent with broader biblical values). Rather, the "brothers" are Jesus' disciples, messengers of His gospel (cf. Matt. 12:50; 28:10). His disciples faced great need for hospitality as they traveled to spread the good news. They experienced sickness (Phil. 2:27-30) and even imprisonment.
Gospel messengers are Jesus' representatives. How they are received illustrates how Jesus is embraced (cf. 10:40). Jesus continued this logic toward those on His left (v. 45). Those who ignore or reject His messengers on this side of the Day of Judgment reject Him, with eternal consequences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus' messengers today include vocational ministers and missionaries. Many vocational "messengers" still depend on the hospitality and care of others. This month, learn more about the local and global missionaries that your church partners through prayer and financial support. Consider how you might serve them. Some ideas include hosting missionaries on furlough, meeting practical needs for their family or ministry, and sending them notes or e-mails of encouragement.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Nature and Our Motives
. . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, "If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind." Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations- He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature- He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.
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REPENT: The Second Step in Effective Prayer
Yesterday we began to look at what makes for effective prayer by using the acronym P-R-A-Y. The first step is praise. Today, I want to focus on the second letter of our acronym, "R", which stands for repent.
By repentance in prayer, I mean taking the time before God to search your heart and repent of anything that has come between you and Him. Psalm 19:12-13 expresses it well,
Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Verse 12 begins with the question, "Who can understand his errors?" The psalmist is telling us, "You will not always know when you do something wrong. You will not always know when you get into an area that is not right."
What David is pointing to are the secret faults and presumptuous sins which can still have dominion over you-even though you may not be aware that what you did was wrong.
For example, sometimes we can allow attitudes to get into our hearts that we don't realize are inconsistent with God's character. Or sometimes we can do and say things that are detrimental, not only to us, but to others, and not really understand the damage we have done.
How do you deal with these sins? You come before God and say, "God, put the spotlight on anything in my life that has raised a barrier between You and me, and I will repent of it."
So when you pray, ask God to reveal any sin in your life you may be overlooking. God will honor your heart of repentance.
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Read: James 5:1-6
Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. - 1 Corinthians 10:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
The description "fair trade" indicates that workers have not been deprived of fair wages, safe working conditions, or economic opportunity. Many people associate fair trade with coffee, but other fair trade initiatives include items like chocolate, tea, sugar, flowers, rice, handcrafted goods, and sports balls. Did you know that Christians initiated the fair trade movement in 1946? Edna Ruth Byler, a Christian in business, was moved by the poverty and injustice she encountered in Puerto Rico and decided to reflect God's heart through her business practices. Other Christians joined Ms. Byler, and the practice of fair trade began. We've already seen that God cares about fair wages from Deuteronomy 24, Isaiah 58, and Jeremiah 22. Today's passage confirms that this is not simply an Old Testament value.
This text is a harsh rebuke of affluent people who misuse and abuse their wealth and power. Although it is a misinterpretation to apply James's message to all wealthy people, this sobering lesson about money, possessions, and love for our neighbor should provoke all of us to evaluate ourselves in light of Scripture. Verse 1 announces impending judgment. Verses 2 and 3 expose the fleeting worth of money and possessions. The bulk of James' message discloses reasons for such severe condemnation.
The "rich people" are criticized for amassing wealth and storing it up (v. 3; cf. Luke 12:13-21). We are expected to live in light of Jesus' imminent return. The Landowners are accused of withholding wages from their employees (v. 4). They weren't paying their farmers fair wages. God heard the cries of these exploited workers, and His judgment followed.
The wealthy are further condemned for their self-indulgent, excessive lifestyles. The "day of slaughter" is an expression for the Day of Judgment (v. 5). James moved from "the last days" to judgment day. The self-indulgent lifestyle has prepared the rich for judgment, much like a cow is fattened up for slaughter. Without fair wages, workers are condemned to poverty and death. Thus, the final indictment is injustice and murder of innocent people (v. 6).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Through our consumer choices, we all contribute to the wages people are paid all over the world. Perhaps you know little or are misinformed about fair trade practices. This month, take time to learn more. All of us also hear the world's daily messages about money: you need more, more, more, all targeted toward your own comfort, security, entertainment, or status. Without God's Word, we are devoid of His vision and values for our lives. Commit
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are . . . -Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the "dynamite" of the Holy Spirit. And they "explode" when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, "What a startling statement that is!" Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child's play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations- it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
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The Power of Zero
Perhaps you are in a very stressful time in your life right now, and you feel you can't go on. I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact, some of the greatest men and women of God have gone through what you are going through right now.
One of those individuals is the prophet Elijah whom I mentioned in yesterday's devotional. After a great spiritual victory over the priests of Baal, we find him on the run, wondering whether life is even worth it.
We catch the story in 1 Kings 19:4-6,
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Elijah had reached that "zero" place in his life. There was nothing left. He had given it all and the tank was empty.
Maybe that describes you right now, you are on the verge of quitting. You figure, "I've had enough. I'm done. Enough pressures, enough hassles, I cannot ride this thing out anymore. My strength is gone!"
Well, did you notice that when Elijah was at the end of his strength, that was when God intervened? Being out of strength, being at zero, is not a bad place to be. If you will look to God, He is prepared to meet you in your moment of need.
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Read: 1 John 3:16-17
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
To celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2010, one church in Chicago is giving sacrificially to meet the needs of people in their community. They are sending 25 adults back to college, rescuing 25 families out of foreclosure, and liberating the needy among them from $2.5 million of oppressive debt. According to today's reading, these are examples of working out of God's love.
John first establishes that the supreme revelation of love is Jesus Christ laying down His life for us (v. 16). God's love in Christ is not simply something to admire. Before verse 16 ends, John says we ought also to imitate Christ by laying down our lives for our brothers and sisters. This month we have learned that we seek to live righteously because God is righteous; we fight for justice because God is just; and most fundamentally, we love because God first loved us, and our love ought to imitate God's love (cf. 1 John 4:19).
Just as God's love is revealed to us in the concrete sacrifice of Christ, so too God's love in us is demonstrated in concrete ways. John offers one such example in verse 17. "Material possessions" refer to the "ordinary things of life," as one Bible scholar explains. John's message is not for the wealthy alone, but for any Christian who has enough to live on. The needy "brother" is arguably a fellow Christian, since family imagery is only used to describe the community of God in the New Testament. If you have sufficient provision in life and encounter a disadvantaged brother or sister, and your heart is unmoved by compassion and mercy, John challenges whether the reality of God's love is in you.
The rhetorical question can be turned into a positive statement: If God's love is truly in you, then you will be moved with pity when you see a fellow Christian in need. In light of verse 16, this "pity" is God's love, and it will result in us laying down our lives for the needy brother or sister. Like God's love in Christ, we will love sacrificially and abundantly.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage teaches that God's love in us ought to be active. One tangible expression is sacrificial giving to serve fellow Christians in need. A beautiful picture of this attitude is the early church described in Acts 2:42-47. Often our lives are too full or isolated to truly know the needs of our brothers and sisters. The application of this Word today begins with knowing people well enough to know their needs. If you already know someone's need, ask God to guide you in ways to love them sacrificially.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Purity
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart . . . . For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . . -Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, "But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart." We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own "innocent ignorance"? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own "innocence," I am living in a fool's paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
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Your Weakness, God's Power
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a powerful reminder of God's provision for you and me when we reach the end of our strength.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
When Paul wrote these words, he was being harassed everywhere he went by an evil spirit that he referred to as "a thorn in the flesh." It was a messenger sent from Satan to buffet him, to constantly harass him.
The constant harassment of this spirit finally got to him, and he begged God three times to take it away. Paul was clearly at the end of his rope.
But, even though Paul prayed for God's intervention three times, the spirit did not depart. And God's response to Paul was the verse we read above. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
What does perfect mean? It means that His power comes to full maturity...it blossoms...it is fully expressed in our weakness.
What was Paul's response? He went on to say in verses 9-10 of that same chapter,
Therefore most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
It seems that sometimes we have to get to the end of ourselves before we will look fully to God. But when we do, we find that He is more than enough. If you are there today or close to that point, take hold of God's strength.
Put your trust in Him. He will bring you to the place of your breakthrough, and you will find the strength and direction you need.
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Read: 2 Corinthians 5:14-6:2
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. - Matthew 5:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
We have spent the last few days considering what God's justice and mercy look like in terms of caring for the vulnerable and extending generosity, specifically among our needy brothers and sisters. Now we turn our attention for the remainder of the month to God's justice and mercy as seen through pictures of reconciliation and new creation in the New Testament.
Paul asserts that Christ's love drives and controls gospel ministry (vv. 11-14). Christ's love compels because of the certainty of the transforming power of His death and resurrection. "Us" and "we" occur 14 times in our reading for today. For today's readers, these pronouns refer to all who put their faith in Jesus' death and resurrection and so "no longer live for themselves but for Him" (v. 15).
Jesus' death and resurrection transforms us. Now we are reconciled to God (v. 18); now we enter His new creation (v. 17); now we see with spiritual eyes (v. 16); and now we are Christ's ambassadors, entrusted with the ministry and message of reconciliation (vv. 18-19). How did this transformation happen? While humanity was alienated and estranged from God-as His enemies-God initiated forgiveness that completely restored our relationship with Him. This is called "reconciliation," and it's made possible because our sin was dealt with once for all on the cross (vv. 18-19, 21; cf. Rom. 5:10).
Reconciliation as a noun or verb appears 5 times (vv. 18-20), indicating that it is the central theme. As one New Testament scholar puts it, reconciliation is God's "cosmic restoration" project to make new all that is chaotic and distorted in the world, beginning with His relationship with humanity. God is the first Reconciler. As with His justice, righteousness, and love, we are also called to bear His image as reconcilers. Reconciliation is more than a message; it is a ministry. It is the work of forgiveness and peacemaking and of healing broken relationships, beginning with our relationship with God and extending throughout the whole world. Reconciliation is the pathway to new creation.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The picture of new creation is astonishing: "The old has gone, the new has come" (v. 16). This is God's mission in the world through Christ-making all things new. As Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice put it, reconciliation, justice, and new creation are not things we strive toward, but gifts of God that we accept. To delve deeper into today's passage and the message and ministry of reconciliation, work through Katongole and Rice's book Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace, and Healing.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Knowledge
If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine . . . -John 7:17
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" ( Matthew 5:23-24 ). He is saying, in essence, "Don't say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right." The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don't try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, "First . . . go . . .." Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.
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YIELD: The Fourth Step in Effective Prayer
Psalm 37:4 provides us the "Y" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, the four elements to effective prayer we have been discussing over the last few devotionals.
Here is what Psalm 37:4 says,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Now the Hebrew word for delight in this verse literally means to become soft or pliable. This means that "delighting" in the Lord is assuming a yielded posture before God.
So the "Y" in P-R-A-Y stands for yield. The question is: How do you practice yielding to God when you pray? Yielding is when you stop talking, and you wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.
In my own practice of prayer, I will often bow before God and ask Him, "God, is there anything You want to say to me? Do You have any instructions for me? Is there anything You want me to change?"
Then I silently wait for Him to speak to me.
As you assume this posture of being yielded and waiting quietly before Him, you will be surprised at some of the things that come to your attention: "You need to spend more time with your daughter," "Take your wife out on a date," "Bake your neighbor a pie and build a bridge over which the gospel can travel," "Spend more time praising Me," "Show your gratitude and appreciation for those who have been helping you in your life."
You will indeed hear from God if you ask Him to speak into your heart, and wait silently before Him.
That is the last element of effective prayer: praise, repent, ask, yield. Your prayers can indeed be effective if you commit to these four principles. That is how to P-R-A-Y.
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Read: Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37
Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. - Deuteronomy 15:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Christian "intentional communities" have sprung up in cities all across the United States in recent years. One of the best-known, Jesus People USA in Chicago, has been in existence since 1972; other intentional communities have formed in places as diverse as Philadelphia, Tampa, Durham, and San Francisco. These Christians are characterized by sharing property, living simply, worshiping together, and ministering in challenging neighborhoods. They strive to embody the description of the church in our reading.
Approximately 120 believers gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus' resurrection (Acts 1:15). By the Spirit's power after Pentecost, another 3,000 decided to follow the resurrected Christ (2:41). This miraculous conversion of new believers is followed by an equally incredible description of their life together (2:42-47).
Verse 42 explains that the Christian community was devoted to four practices. The first was teaching. Signs and wonders accompanied the apostles' teaching, confirming their authority (v. 43). The temple was also associated with teaching, they met there daily (v. 46). Second, sharing their possessions with one another was another prominent characteristic of their fellowship (vv. 44-46). Third, "breaking of bread" refers to shared meals and the hospitality of opening their homes to one another (v. 46). Finally, prayer included the daily temple gatherings and "praising God" (vv. 46-47). Their life in community gained the respect of those who were not Christians, and people "were being saved" every day (v. 47).
Peter and John continued to preach the gospel and were imprisoned (3:1-4:30). The believers were not deterred by this opposition. In fact, 5,000 more believed in Christ (4:4) and were further emboldened by the Holy Spirit (4:31). Acts 4:32-37 confirms that the Christians' vibrant community life continued and strengthened. They remained unified and remarkably generous with one another. Luke repeats: "There were no needy persons among them" (4:34).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The early church shared more than common beliefs and core values. They shared their whole lives-including their material possessions. Passages like Deuteronomy 15:1-18 and Leviticus 25 share astonishing similarities with today's readings. "There shall be no poor among you . . . do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs" (Deut. 15:4, 7-8). Are our hearts hard or our fists closed to our brothers and sisters in need?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Purpose or Mine?
He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . -Mark 6:45
We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God's purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
What is my vision of God's purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish- His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see "Him walking on the sea" with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see "Him walking on the sea" ( Mark 6:49 ). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
God's training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God's purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.
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Pressing On
In Philippians 3:12, Paul says,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul's challenge in this verse is for you and me to press on, to keep growing. I believe one of the greatest assets in life that you and I have is the capacity to grow and change. We have the capacity to press on.
One of the first steps in pressing on is to realize that you have not yet arrived. Even the apostle Paul acknowledged and recognized that he had not yet arrived. He said, Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected.
Paul understood that he had a lot of room for growth. And if he did, so do we.
If you have grown stagnant in your spiritual life, you need to ask the question, "Why?" Why is your spiritual life stunted? Why are you not growing? Why are you stymied in your spiritual progress? What are your barriers to growth?
I believe that if we are willing to admit that we need to grow, then identify the barriers that are keeping a lid on our spiritual lives, and finally, by the grace of God, deal with those barriers and remove them, we will begin to press on and grow.
If you were to take a catfish and put it in a small fish tank, that fish would only grow to be 12 inches long and it might weigh a quarter of a pound. But if you took that identical catfish and placed it into a lake, it might grow to be three feet long and weigh 60 pounds.
What was the barrier to its growth? The tank kept it contained. It grew to the limit that the environment allowed.
Remove the barriers to your spiritual growth and press on!
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Read: Acts 10:1-23
Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too. - Romans 3:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
Maggy Barankitse grew up in Burundi, which shares a border with Rwanda. There, 600,000 people were massacred during ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis. After Maggy witnessed the murder of 72 friends and coworkers in 1993, God gave her the vision for Maison Shalom (House of Peace) where Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa people would build a new community together, reconciled to one another through God's love. Maison Shalom embodies God's deep healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation between enemies.
Yesterday we learned about God's initiative to reconcile humanity to Himself. Today we encounter His desire for reconciliation between people who are alienated from one another. At the beginning of Acts 10, we meet Cornelius, a God-fearing Gentile who received a vision from God and obeys immediately (vv. 1-8). Little does Cornelius know that Peter also experienced a vision from God. While praying, Peter saw a sheet containing all kinds of unclean animals and birds. A voice commanded him three times to kill and eat and proclaims, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" (vv. 11-16). Nothing could shock Peter more! How can religious distinctions between clean and unclean be abolished? Before Peter discerned the meaning of the vision, Cornelius' men arrived at his house (vv. 17-19).
The Spirit instructed Peter to greet the Gentile visitors and accompany them without hesitation (v. 20). In the original language of the New Testament, the word translated as hesitate means to evaluate, discriminate, or mistrust. Jews were prohibited from mingling with "unclean" Gentiles. Here, however, the Spirit commanded a righteous Jew not to discriminate with respect to Gentiles.
Like Cornelius, Peter obeyed immediately. He even invited the "unclean" visitors to be his guests (v. 23). The message of Peter's vision becomes clear; He removed the distinction between clean and unclean foods, and even destroys the barriers between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:11-22).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have you experienced a ruptured relationship? Have you determined that "things will never change" with a person or group? Maybe you have heard God's call to pursue reconciliation, but your first response was like Peter's: "Surely not, Lord!" (v. 14). Forgiveness and peacemaking is work. The journey to reconciliation for God first took Jesus to the cross before He ascended into glory. As you pursue God's reconciliation in your relationships, ask God for strength for the difficult road ahead and to relinquish your discriminations.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
Behold, He is coming with clouds . . . -Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" ( Nahum 1:3 ). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds- He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child- a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God's character, we do not yet know Him.
". . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud" (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is "no one anymore, but only Jesus . . ." (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2-7 ).
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Growing Up
The Scripture says in Ephesians 4:15 that we should grow in all things. In today's and tomorrow's devotionals, I want to give you ten areas in which the Bible teaches us we should grow. I hope you will take time to read each passage and answer the question of whether you are growing as you should in each of these areas.
1. In Colossians 1:10 we are told we should increase in the knowledge of God. You ought to know more about God and His Kingdom this week than you did last week.
2. Psalm 71:21 tells us we are to be growing in our influence. I hope I have not reached the pinnacle in my life when it comes to the influence I have for good in the lives of others. If you call yourself a leader and no one is following you, then you are not influencing them, you are just taking a walk. You and I need to grow in influence.
3. In Proverbs 13:11 it says we are to be growing and increasing materially. I don't know of many who couldn't grow in this area!
4. Isaiah 29:19 speaks of increasing in joy. From appearances, some people seem to grow more and more sour as the days go by and have less and less of a sense of humor. Listen, the more you advance in age, the more your capacity to laugh at life's ups and downs should grow.
5. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 teaches us that we should grow in faith. Now faith certainly touches all areas of life; and, hopefully, today you don't freak out like you used to when you are faced with a trial, because your faith has grown and you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
In tomorrow's devotion we will complete this list.
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Read: Acts 10:24-48; 11:15-18
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. - 2 Corinthians 5:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Since television shows have started making entire seasons available on DVD, some people have sat down intending to watch just one episode-only to find themselves hooked to find out what happens next with the characters and plot lines. Hours later, they're still eagerly watching one episode after another.
Acts is better than that show "you just can't miss," and yesterday's reading left us in suspense. In the middle of the story of Peter and Cornelius, we were left wondering if Peter will fully obey God's command not to discriminate against Gentiles. Will God's reconciliation be worked out, or will these two groups remain separate and alienated from one another? Today we'll discover the outcome.
"The next day," Peter took his first big steps toward reconciliation: he traveled to Cornelius' house and entered into Gentile space. God had transformed Peter's prior understanding; Peter declared it himself (v. 28). The good news is that through Jesus, God reconciles all people to Himself, Jews and Gentiles (v. 35). This is why Peter calls Jesus "Lord of all" (v. 36). Peter's conversion of understanding occurs, and then Cornelius' conversion to faith.
While Peter continued to tell about Jesus, he was interrupted by the Holy Spirit. Echoes of Pentecost resound, but this time, to the astonishment of Peter and his companions, the Spirit anointed Gentiles, who began "speaking in tongues and praising God" (vv. 44-46). If the message wasn't clear before, the Holy Spirit certainly sealed the deal: God "accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right" (v. 35; 11:17).
He is not God of one people group, but God of the whole world. Therefore, all who trust in Jesus Christ are members of one family, brothers and sisters despite all diversity and difference and barriers of hostility the world erects. Peter and Cornelius represent all Jews and Gentiles respectively. Reconciled first to God, now they must be reconciled with one another.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Immediately after his visit to Cornelius' house, Peter traveled to Jerusalem where he recounted the entire episode to the Jewish Christians there (Acts 11:1-18). The story of reconciliation and the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit is so astonishing that Luke records it twice. It is important for us to hear and tell stories of reconciliation. They remind us of the truth, power, and hope of the gospel. If Maggy Barankitse can extend forgiveness and reconciliation, surely through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we can, too.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 30, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Teaching of Disillusionment
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . . , for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens- if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God, and in what God's grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.
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Growing Up-Part 2
Yesterday we began a list of ten areas in which Scripture says we should be growing. In today's devotional, I want to complete that list for you.
1. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 teach us that we should grow in our love for others. I would hate to think that I have plumbed the depths of love for my wife, for my children, for my friends, or for God.
2. Ephesians 2:21 speaks to us of growing in unity. You and I ought to grow better and better at getting along with other believers, especially those in our church.
3. Luke 2:52 speaks of growing in wisdom. God is so anxious to provide you and me with His wisdom, but it is something we need to seek. Are you growing in wisdom?
4. Luke 2:52 also speaks of growing in favor. Are you obnoxious and hard to get along with? Do you find it difficult to get along with others? I challenge you, if that is true, to consider the model of Jesus for our lives. He grew in favor with both God and men.
5. 2 Peter 3:18 says that we can grow in grace. I don't know about you, but I am deeply grateful for God's grace in my life. And for those who extend me grace when I blow it. Is grace a hallmark of your life?
According to Scripture, these ten areas-the five from yesterday and the five today-are vital areas in which you and I are to grow. I challenge you to read each Scripture and take each area before the Lord and ask Him to reveal where you need to grow.
You will be amazed at the change for good that will come about in your life!
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Read: Acts 10:24-48; 11:15-18
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. - 2 Corinthians 5:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Since television shows have started making entire seasons available on DVD, some people have sat down intending to watch just one episode-only to find themselves hooked to find out what happens next with the characters and plot lines. Hours later, they're still eagerly watching one episode after another.
Acts is better than that show "you just can't miss," and yesterday's reading left us in suspense. In the middle of the story of Peter and Cornelius, we were left wondering if Peter will fully obey God's command not to discriminate against Gentiles. Will God's reconciliation be worked out, or will these two groups remain separate and alienated from one another? Today we'll discover the outcome.
"The next day," Peter took his first big steps toward reconciliation: he traveled to Cornelius' house and entered into Gentile space. God had transformed Peter's prior understanding; Peter declared it himself (v. 28). The good news is that through Jesus, God reconciles all people to Himself, Jews and Gentiles (v. 35). This is why Peter calls Jesus "Lord of all" (v. 36). Peter's conversion of understanding occurs, and then Cornelius' conversion to faith.
While Peter continued to tell about Jesus, he was interrupted by the Holy Spirit. Echoes of Pentecost resound, but this time, to the astonishment of Peter and his companions, the Spirit anointed Gentiles, who began "speaking in tongues and praising God" (vv. 44-46). If the message wasn't clear before, the Holy Spirit certainly sealed the deal: God "accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right" (v. 35; 11:17).
He is not God of one people group, but God of the whole world. Therefore, all who trust in Jesus Christ are members of one family, brothers and sisters despite all diversity and difference and barriers of hostility the world erects. Peter and Cornelius represent all Jews and Gentiles respectively. Reconciled first to God, now they must be reconciled with one another.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Immediately after his visit to Cornelius' house, Peter traveled to Jerusalem where he recounted the entire episode to the Jewish Christians there (Acts 11:1-18). The story of reconciliation and the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit is so astonishing that Luke records it twice. It is important for us to hear and tell stories of reconciliation. They remind us of the truth, power, and hope of the gospel. If Maggy Barankitse can extend forgiveness and reconciliation, surely through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we can, too.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
July 31, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Becoming Entirely His
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing -James 1:4
Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.
Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.
We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God's redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. "Let patience have its perfect work . . . ." The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, "Now let your patience become a finished product." Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, "Oh, that will have to do for now." Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.
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Focus
In Philippians 3:13, Paul says,
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The phrase I want to direct you to today is Paul's statement, One thing I do. These are echoes of words King David spoke when he said, "One thing I desire," and Jesus, who said to the rich young ruler, "There is one thing you lack."
Then there is the blind man, who had been blind from birth, whom Jesus healed. When he was questioned, he said, "There is one thing I know: I was blind, now I see." One thing I do; one thing I desire; one thing you lack; one thing I know.
Each of these statements points to a vital thing needed if you are to grow in your spiritual life: FOCUS.
The problem with many people is they are far too scattered. They are trying to do everything and be everything. They try to be a jack-of-all-trades and end up being a master of none.
If that describes you today, let me ask you a question: What is the one main thing that should be the focus of your life?
I have a very gifted friend who drives me crazy. We can spend an hour in the car; and, in that hour, he has shared 21 new ideas with me. He is trying to be so many things and do so many things that he is not as effective as he could be at anything!
My question to you is this: If you died and stood before God today, what is the one thing He is going to ask you about? Paul said, "One thing I do." What is that one thing for you?
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Read: Revelation 21:1-7
I am making everything new! - Revelation 21:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
We began this month overwhelmed with oppression, injustice, and death (Ps. 10:1). Then we encountered God's righteousness and justice, His love and care for the afflicted, marginalized, and victimized. We heard His call "to act justly and to love mercy" (Micah 6:8), although His people were unfaithful. So God sent His only Son "to preach good news to the poor . . . to proclaim freedom for the prisoners" through His death and resurrection (Luke 4:18). Consequently, we learned that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" and shares Jesus' ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17-18). We end this month with a vision of new creation-the ultimate end of injustice, suffering, and death.
The new heaven and new earth are the culmination of God's promise to renew all things (Isa. 65:17-18). Everything that has been distorted and marred since the fall of Adam and Eve is finally and fully restored. Most importantly, Revelation 21 reverses Adam and Eve's exile from God's presence in the Garden (v. 3). God eternally guarantees the covenant He made with His people: "They will be my people, and I will be their God" (Jer. 32:38). The result is the end of suffering, grieving, and death. Do you hear the echo of 2 Corinthians 5:17? The King declares once for all, "The old has gone, the new has come" (vv. 4-5). Today's passage pictures God satisfying all human need-nourishment, relationships, and peace-and dwelling among His people on the eternal throne.
As one missionary describes, what "begins in a garden, ends in a city." We might be surprised to see the new heaven and earth look more like bustling Chicago than barren Alaska. Revelation was written to urban churches facing persecution and death, longing for Christ's return and the redemption of all things. Only those who overcome will inherit all this (v. 7). To overcome is to be steadfast in the face of persecution (2:10), uncompromising toward worldly values (2:14, 20), and to resist self-reliance (3:17).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The vision of new creation in today's reading gives us hope. These are God's promises, and they are "trustworthy and true" (v. 5). Remember when we asked: "Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" (Ps. 10:1). Now we have unwavering hope in the midst of suffering and injustice surrounding us. God cares and acts; God calls us to care and act; and God is making all things new. Praise Him and re-commit to join His new creation mission!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 01, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Learning About His Ways
When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities -Matthew 11:1
He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, "I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here," it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. "Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . ." ( Luke 9:33 ).
Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God's role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.
He works where He sends us to wait. ". . . tarry . . . until . . ." (Luke 24:49 ). "Wait on the Lord" and He will work (Psalm 37:34 ). But don't wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can't see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to "wait patiently for Him"? ( Psalm 37:7 ). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.
These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.
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God's Guidance System
In Matthew 6:22-24, Jesus tells us the impact when God has our whole heart,
"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
While it may not seem like it, Jesus is talking about the heart.
As we learned in our previous devotionals, if you give to God, and give for the right reasons, God has your heart. Your heart belongs to Him. When God has your heart, He can lead you; because that is how God leads, He leads through your heart.
That's really what this illustration is about. That is what He means by, "The lamp of the body is the eye."
Think about the difference light makes when trying to walk on a narrow, craggy path. When light comes into your eye, you can see your way. Your eyes, when the light is able to come in, are a built-in guidance system, aren't they?
Well, you know what? You have a guidance system God uses to lead you. That guidance system is called your heart. If God has your treasure, He has your heart. But God can't lead you through your heart if He doesn't have your heart.
If God has your heart, then He can begin to lead you. You can go anywhere He tells you to go. And interestingly enough, the loyalty of our heart is expressed through our giving. Giving and guidance tied together? According to Jesus...definitely!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Corinthians 1:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
In October 2009, a spate of articles in publications like the New York Times and The New Republic as well as on numerous parenting blogs all debated the same question: Is shouting the "new" spanking? As the practice of spanking children has declined in segments of the American population, parents admitted that they resorted to yelling and shouting instead. Now they wondered if that was really better than corporal punishment. When children misbehaved or exasperated them, was it okay to scream at them?
Every parent can relate to the occasional frustration caused by their child's actions and attitude-and as a spiritual father, Paul felt this toward his beloved church in Corinth (4:14,15). Yet in this letter to the Corinthians, which we'll study this month, Paul sent a message that is paternal and firm but never harsh or screeching. There was just cause for a tongue-lashing. The problems in the Corinthian church-including disunity, pride, misuse of spiritual gifts, and abuse of the Lord's Supper-were serious indeed.
In the opening portion of this letter Paul remains realistic in his appraisal of the Corinthians' spiritual life and practice, but he does not play the part of the scolding father. In fact, his tone is confident and expectant, because his hope for the Corinthians is rooted firmly in the unwavering faithfulness of God. Despite all their problems, Paul knows that in the end, they will be declared blameless on the day of Jesus' return. In these opening lines, he has full confidence that God has given the Corinthians a sure calling and hope, an enriching of their mouths and minds, and spiritual gifts for every need and occasion.
Exuberance abounds in the "every" and "all" of verse five. These words are only possible for those who call on the name of Jesus. In Christ, everything depends on grace, not on human performance. No one then, not even this strife-torn first-century church, falls beyond the reach of grace. God's rescue of salvation is evidence that He is committed to saving us and changing us.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Like the Corinthians, we are followers of Jesus who sometimes struggle to get along with each other. Their problems, as we'll see throughout the month, aren't unlike ours. Divisions have grown up in the church, and the community is fractured and broken. A place to begin when broken fellowship seems irreparable is the unfailing grace of God: He never gives up on us. He has declared what we should be (saints), and He is determined to make our holiness a reality. If God doesn't give up on us, can we give up on one another?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 02, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Teaching of Adversity
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world -John 16:33
The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . ." ( Psalm 91:1,10 )- the place where you are at one with God.
If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He is saying, "There is nothing for you to fear." The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.
God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment- "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life . . ." (Revelation 2:7 ). If you completely give of yourself physically, you become exhausted. But when you give of yourself spiritually, you get more strength. God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment. Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense. But a saint can "be of good cheer" even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God.
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Go Fish
Over the next seven devotionals, I want to talk to you about the number one business of the Church: the business of winning souls. It is what I call "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning."
The first "C"-commission-is found in Mark 16:15. These are some of the last words Jesus spoke before He ascended into heaven,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Could it be any clearer? Jesus said, "Go." Dare we say, "No"? He said, "Go."
That is the opposite of "stay," isn't it? G G-O.
God wants you and me to take the Gospel to Others.
You and I need to get out into the world! Jesus was not crucified between two candles on a church altar. He was crucified out in the byways and highways of humanity, and that is where we must take the message.
Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." That is a promise. But you know what? You have to get to the water if you are going to catch fish. You have to get out of the four church walls, out to where hurting humanity is, and engage them with the gospel.
A while back, I went backpacking with my two sons in a very remote area. We found a pristine lake where just about every time we would put a line in the water, we would catch a fish.
We also had this incredible camp. But you know what? If we wanted to catch fish, we had to go down to the water. No one could catch a fish sitting in camp.
A lot of Christians just hang around the camp. They form fishing clubs and talk about how important it is to fish. But they don't fish.
God wants us to go fish!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree. - 1 Corinthians 1:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
In an article in Sports Illustrated, sportswriter Rick Reilly dryly mocks today's self-esteem generation: "I know what all these NPR-listening, Starbucks-guzzling parents want. They want their Ambers and their Alexanders to grow up in a cozy womb of noncompetition where everybody shares tofu, and Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf set up a commune. Then their kids will stumble out into the bright light of the real world and find out that, yes, there's weak and there's strong and teams and sides and winning and losing."
As the spiritual father of the Corinthian church, Paul struck a balance between coddling and competition, for he knew that either extreme was unhealthy spiritually. He was not afraid to talk to his spiritual children about where they were weak and where improvement was needed. His letter began with gracious words of encouragement, but he turned quickly to address the problems. Serious disunity plagued this church, producing quarrels and factions. The Christians in Corinth had divided themselves according to different allegiances and loyalties: "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos," "I follow Cephas," and even "I follow Christ."
We aren't told the reasons for these factions. Apollos was an eloquent teacher of the Scriptures and may have been favored for his rhetorical talents (cf. Acts 18:24-28). Peter, or Cephas, was of course a prominent member of Jesus' original twelve disciples. Paul himself founded the church at Corinth. No doubt each faction argued why their guy was the best.
Notice that what is at stake here was more than the Corinthians simply not getting along or someone's hurt feelings. The disunity threatened the integrity of the gospel and the message of the Cross. The Cross of Christ wields the power to bring wildly diverse people into agreement of mind and thought. The Cross exchanges ethnic and cultural identities for the name, Christian. At the Cross, forgiveness is freely offered to all, and together the people of God are baptized into one name: Jesus Christ. When disunity prevails, it makes a mockery of the Cross.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The church of Jesus Christ has yet to fully live into and claim the power of the gospel for which Paul fights fiercely in his letter. The gospel does not simply give us the capacity to be nice to people unlike us; far more than just niceness, it teaches us to work toward common goals and perspectives with people of different skin color, different social status, and different cultural backgrounds. Do you need to "reach across the aisle" in your church and community in the name of Jesus Christ?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 03, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Purpose of God
He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . -Luke 18:31
Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord, represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will. Jesus said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" ( John 5:30 ). Seeking to do "the will of the Father" was the one dominating concern throughout our Lord's life. And whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, success or failure, He was never deterred from that purpose. ". . . He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem . . ." ( Luke 9:51 ).
The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God's purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. "You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . ." ( John 15:16 ).
We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God's purpose- we are taken into God's purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God's goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God's aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God's purpose is. We say, "God means for me to go over there," and, "God has called me to do this special work." We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan. "He took the twelve aside . . ." ( Luke 18:31 ). God takes us aside all the time. We have not yet understood all there is to know of the compelling purpose of God.
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Your Lane
God has given each of us a call...a destiny designed by God for His glory.
In Philippians 3:12, Paul gives us some additional insight into that call,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul-when he was still an unbeliever and on the road to Damascus-had an encounter with Jesus. Our Lord laid hold of him and Paul realized God had not only put a call on his life, but that the call was unique.
He was driven to fulfill that call. He states it this way, "Since that day, I have been trying to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me."
You also have a unique call. And whatever it is, you need to stop comparing yourself to others and competing with others. That is a terrible way to live. Find out what your lane is, what your gifting is, your calling, and run in that lane.
You are unique! God has not called anyone else to do exactly what you do. Find out who you are and forget about what anybody else thinks. God is not comparing you to another person. You do not have to compete with anyone or be compared to anyone. Just do what He has asked you to do.
That is running in your lane. Do not run in somebody else's lane. Now you can certainly learn from others, but you don't want to copy them. You were born an original; you don't want to die a copy.
Determine God's unique design for your life and run in the lane of that design. That is when you will know satisfaction, blessing, and contentment.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things . . . so that no one may boast before him. - 1 Corinthians 1:28, 29
TODAY IN THE WORD
Aesop's fables give keen insight into the human condition; they expose the folly of human vanity and pride, laziness and trickery. A lesser-known fable, that of the olive tree and fig tree, warns against boasting due to the possibility of reversals of fortune: the olive tree taunts the fig tree for having lost all her leaves in the winter. She brags of her own year-round beauty. As she boasts, a thunderbolt strikes her and burns her to ashes, while the fig tree stands safe and sound.
The Bible is full of reversals of fortune like the one suffered by the olive tree. The story of Jesus Christ is the most powerful of all. God the King is born as a baby in a dirty stable into a carpenter's family. He enjoys no superior privilege, position, or education. He chooses ordinary fishermen and despised tax collectors to follow Him and preach His message. And eventually, He dies a criminal's death. The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus is the ultimate reversal in all of history. The good news of this God-Man's story subverts everything that the world esteems.
The culture of Corinth is similar to our culture today. They loved power and status, and in such a culture, a crucified Savior is absurd. How could the power and wisdom of God be executed on a cross with nails in His hands and feet? This portrait compels only those who believe. The Jews demanded a grand celestial display of God's power; the Greeks demanded carefully conceived and persuasively argued ideas. But the God-Man died without miraculous rescue from God and without eloquent philosophical treatises.
The purpose of God's plan is clear: He reserves all glory for Himself. Not one person deserves to boast in His presence. Man's abilities and achievements do not impress Him. This is a sobering message for the Corinthian church, whom Paul indicts for their boasting here and in later points in the letter (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18, 21; 2:7, 18; 5:2, 6). There's no room at the Cross for pride.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The gospel, as we've seen from our reading today, tells us about the heart of God but also the methods of God. They aren't pragmatic, or necessarily clever and compelling. In fact, it seems that God wants to make sport of what matters most to foolish human beings, things like achievement, success, power, and influence. It's a sobering reminder to us as we "build" our churches today. Do we do so according to the foolishness of the world or the wisdom of Christ?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 04, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Brave Friendship of God
He took the twelve aside . . . -Luke 18:31
Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, "But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value"? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value to Him He cannot choose you, because you have purposes of your own to serve. But if you will allow Him to take you to the end of your own self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him "to Jerusalem" ( Luke 18:31 ). And that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.
We tend to say that because a person has natural ability, he will make a good Christian. It is not a matter of our equipment, but a matter of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a matter of natural virtues, of strength of character, of knowledge, or of experience- all of that is of no avail in this concern. The only thing of value is being taken into the compelling purpose of God and being made His friends (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 ). God's friendship is with people who know their poverty. He can accomplish nothing with the person who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not here for our own purpose at all- we are here for the purpose of God, and the two are not the same. We do not know what God's compelling purpose is, but whatever happens, we must maintain our relationship with Him. We must never allow anything to damage our relationship with God, but if something does damage it, we must take the time to make it right again. The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.
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The Prize
If you have read the last couple of days' devotionals, you know we have been focusing on Philippians 3:12-14. Today I want to give you one final truth from this passage of Scripture.
It is found in verse 14 where Paul says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
What I want to focus our thoughts on today is the prize. According to this passage, there is a reward for finishing, a reward that will be given openly to all those who are faithful.
In fact, the Greek word translated prize literally means a reward that is given publicly. This is not something that is given in private.
In 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Paul says,
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
This crown of righteousness is synonymous with the "prize." Paul said, "It will be given to me on that Day." Not the day Paul died, but rather on a day that has yet to arrive, when we are gathered before God's throne.
On that day, everyone will be there. King David, Samuel the prophet, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Moses, the apostle Paul, Peter...every saint who has lived for God in every generation since the Resurrection.
On that day, we are going to be standing before God giving an account of our lives. We are going to be rewarded publicly if we have fulfilled our job description and run within the lines of our calling while on this earth.
I urge you to prepare for that day!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. - 1 Corinthians 2:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A kindergarten teacher wanted to understand her students' struggle to master the fine motor skills of writing, cutting, and tying their shoes. For a period of time, she decided to use her weaker hand for all of her own fine motor tasks. She soon understood how it felt to fumble clumsily with a pair of scissors or a pencil.
In his own ministry, Paul purposefully "disadvantaged" himself for the purpose of upholding the integrity of the gospel. There were methods and means he could have used that might have arguably been more persuasive, but he made the deliberate decision not to employ them. "I resolved to know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (2:2). Paul did not avail himself of the rhetorical devices he could have used to make compelling arguments about Jesus. Instead, for Paul, there was only the cross and the God-Man, Jesus.
From portraits of Paul in the book of Acts, we know that he was capable of powerful oratory. He was well-versed in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the contemporary poetry and literature of his day. Notice his address to the scholars and philosophers of Athens in Acts 17! But Paul, for all his academic and religious training, gave up the tactics of logical persuasion and argumentation, at least in Corinth, to focus all the power of his message on the Cross. And the Cross, as we've seen yesterday, doesn't fit neatly into common-sense categories.
In the culture of Corinth (and the Roman empire at this time), men were admired and esteemed for their rhetorical abilities. If one succeeded in public speaking, he earned the iconic status that movie stars and professional athletes enjoy in our day. Today, beauty and athletic ability are the currency of fame; in the Roman empire, philosophical wisdom and rhetorical eloquence were sought-after gifts. The Corinthians obviously held these in high esteem, which is why Paul would not, in his preaching, capitulate to their terms and compromise the gospel in any way.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Everything seems upside-down in the kingdom of God. Weakness is power. Humility is strength. Foolishness is wisdom. But the force behind preaching that centers on this "foolish" gospel is the Spirit's power. When the Spirit of God animates His Word with power, there is healing, conviction of sin, and worship. There are real encounters with the living God, and in His presence everything is possible. Must we, like the Corinthians, repent of worldly values that displace our allegiance to the crucified Christ?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 05, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Bewildering Call of God
'. . . and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.' . . . But they understood none of these things . . . -Luke 18:31, 34
God called Jesus Christ to what seemed absolute disaster. And Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death, leading every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. His life was an absolute failure from every standpoint except God's. But what seemed to be failure from man's standpoint was a triumph from God's standpoint, because God's purpose is never the same as man's purpose.
This bewildering call of God comes into our lives as well. The call of God can never be understood absolutely or explained externally; it is a call that can only be perceived and understood internally by our true inner-nature. The call of God is like the call of the sea- no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him. What God calls us to cannot be definitely stated, because His call is simply to be His friend to accomplish His own purposes. Our real test is in truly believing that God knows what He desires. The things that happen do not happen by chance- they happen entirely by the decree of God. God is sovereignly working out His own purposes.
If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, "I wonder why God allowed this or that?" And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God.
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Your Three-Way Calling
In Jude 1, we read the following greeting,
Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.
The Greek word for called here is used in three different ways. As believers in Jesus Christ, this word tells us we are called to three things:
1. It is used for those who are summoned to an office, duty, or a responsibility. Friend, every believer has been called. You have a duty, you have an office, and you have a responsibility. We have all been called to do something for Christ. We are ambassadors for Christ, and we need to represent Him to a lost and dying world.
2. The word called is also used in the Greek language to summon someone to a feast or a festival. And you know what? You have been called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and you will sit down one day to enjoy all the things God has planned for eternity.
3. Finally, the word translated called in this passage is used to summon someone into court to give an account for themselves, or to summon them to judgment. One day we will have to give an account of our lives. One day every one of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the works done in the body.
You have a responsibility to represent Christ to our dying world, to someday celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to ultimately give an account of your life.
I pray you will embrace and fulfill your calling today!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to little children. - Matthew 11:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
For 1,400 years, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. In 1799, some of Napoleon's troops stationed in Egypt discovered a black basalt stone slab on which were written words from three different languages: 2 were forms of hieroglyphics, one Greek. After working diligently for 14 years, French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion cracked the code and translated the hieroglyphics.
Without translators, dictionaries, or diligent study, we can't understand another language. Today's reading shows us that spiritual realities and truths are communicated to us in a spiritual language. These truths are unintelligible to the world. Verse 7 describes this wisdom as "hidden." What God knows, what God purposes and plans, and what God does-all this is incomprehensible to us. The senses we've been given in our physical bodies to perceive the material world-our eyes, ears, and minds-can't perceive or apprehend the realities of the gospel. The Bible speaks of the gospel as a mystery, shrouded and hidden from human eyes (cf. Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:26). That's why spiritual understanding relies not on human cleverness but on the willing revelation of God.
This passage identifies three gifts for believers in Christ, each connected to a member of the Trinity. First, we know that God has prepared great wonders for those who love Him (v. 9). This verse echoes Isaiah 64:4, which identifies God's help for His people who wait for Him. Second, believers have the "mind of Christ," which makes it possible for us to receive His instruction (v. 16). Third, we have the Holy Spirit, who acts to reveal God to us and enables us to understand spiritual truth (vv. 10-14).
This passage should provoke great soberness, humility, and joy in us. Without an active work of God, no one can grasp the gospel. The most intellectually astute might fail to understand it. Our embrace of the cross of Christ is only possible because of the work of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can rejoice that He hasn't abandoned us to our own wisdom, senses, and understanding.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This passage can help us pray for those we love who do not yet know God. We can pray that the Holy Spirit will provide the spiritual discernment to understand spiritual truth. We can pray that Jesus will bestow on them the mind of Christ. And we can pray that God the Father will prepare great wonders of salvation for them. Our own humility and joy in response to our salvation is also a powerful testimony to the powerful work of the Trinity in our lives.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 06, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Cross in Prayer
We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to get through, yet we get through for the purpose of getting into it. The Cross represents only one thing for us- complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ- and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.
"Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" ( Matthew 6:8 ). Then why should we ask? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God's grace.
". . . I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you . . ." ( John 16:26-27 ). Have you reached such a level of intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that it has become one with the prayer life of Jesus Christ? Has our Lord exchanged your life with His vital life? If so, then "in that day" you will be so closely identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.
When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason- God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you.
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Your Calling to Judgment
One of the three ways in which we are called as believers, which we looked at in yesterday's devotional, is a call or summons to judgment. And frankly, the thought of it unsettles me.
In fact, when I read what the apostle Paul says about the judgment seat of Christ, it is very sobering. He tells us that someday we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the works done in the body. In 2 Corinthians 5:11, he states this about that day,
Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
Think about that for a moment. Isn't that unsettling to you?
The apostle Paul who wrote the great majority of the New Testament, who walked the known world three times to establish churches and to preach the gospel where it had been previously unpreached, who gave his life, and according to church history, was even martyred for the cause of Christ, refers to the judgment seat of Christ as "the terror of the Lord."
Wow! That is just unnerving.
Someday I really want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I'm taking God's call seriously. Now, I am enjoying life to the max, but there is always that serious edge knowing that I am going to have to stand before Jesus someday.
My prayer for you today is that you, too, would take your call before the judgment seat of Christ seriously. Someday you will stand before our Lord and give an account of every part of your life.
May you hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
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Read: 1 Corinthians 3:1-4
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly-mere infants in Christ. - 1 Corinthians 3:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Recently, some Christian colleges loosened rules for how students dress and spend their leisure time. One reversed its no-dancing policy for students and no-drinking policy for faculty and staff-a long overdue decision, some supporters argued; a harbinger of moral laxity, opponents disputed.
Centuries after the church in Corinth, groups still use different criteria to evaluate spirituality. How do we preserve moral standards and a spiritual climate in our Christian communities? Some denominations value the manifestation of certain spiritual gifts to show that someone is spiritually mature. In other churches, the mastery of biblical knowledge is highly prized. For still other churches or denominations, someone is judged by how moral he is and how well he avoids certain highly visible sins.
The Corinthians judged one another by worldly standards of wisdom and eloquence and classified one another by these false categories. As Paul had argued, their standards were informed by the values of the culture, not the values of the cross. The result was factional in-fighting and attitudes of haughty superiority. Many within the church believed that they had attained a superior wisdom and spiritual standing, and this inflated their sense of self-importance.
Paul takes direct aim at their pride in the opening verses of chapter three. For those who take pride in their supposed spiritual maturity, he calls them worldly and infantile. In fact, he notes that he cannot even address them spiritually when they don't have the spiritual maturity to understand or embrace what he says?
Paul radically redefines worldliness here. It isn't the absence of spiritual knowledge (as the Corinthians might have thought) or moral laxity (as we tend to think). Worldliness is stubborn willfulness and inflated self-importance when it comes to matters of opinion. This attitude of pride and superiority leads to division and to jealousy. Haughty arrogance and self-certainty destroys the health of a Christian community. This is in direct contrast to the attitude of our Savior (see Phil. 2:5-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When we think about advancing in our spiritual life, we often set our sights on knowing more Scripture, serving more vigorously, and avoiding sin. And all these are good! But we also need to take inventory of our relationships. Do any of those relationships suffer from a willful pride in our heart? Do we esteem ourselves better than another? Have we valued unity in the body of Christ as much as Paul does in his letter to the Corinthians? If there are relationships in your church that you can take a step toward mending, do that today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 07, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's House
. . . they found Him in the temple . . . . And He said to them, '. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' -Luke 2:46, 49
Our Lord's childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood- His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father's house? Is the Son of God living in His Father's house within me?
The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong- when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. ". . . I must be about My Father's business"- and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father's house.
Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord's life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father's house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.
The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.
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No Plan B
Have you ever thought of the fact that in eternity past God planned for you, me, and every other believer to be His Plan "A" to take His salvation to the world?
Read the words of Jude 1:3,
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
In this verse, Jude is telling those to whom he is writing, "I have written to exhort you, to call you near to God, and that you might contend (literally fight) for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."
He is referring to the doctrine of Jesus Christ: His crucifixion, His suffering for our sins, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and His imminent return.
Notice his words, though, that it "was once for all delivered." In other words, God is not changing His plan now. It was delivered to us to both defend and to declare, once and for all. There is no Plan B. We are it.
This means the gospel has literally been entrusted to you and to me as the Church...the body of Christ. God has chosen that through the foolishness of preaching men would be saved.
The good news of Jesus Christ, God's only method of bringing salvation to a lost and dying world, the only method of changing men and women's eternal destination, has been delivered to us.
Isn't that an awesome thought? That is why my passion is to bring a living Jesus to a dying world. Because there is no Plan B.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 3:5-17
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. - Ephesians 2:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Wheaton College recently hosted a panel of business leaders to discuss the topic, "Business as Mission." They considered what it might look like to affect issues of global poverty and social injustice by establishing businesses in the poorest countries. One African man, when asked how to most effectively address the dire needs in Africa, answered, "Come and build relationships. Change happens in the context of relationship."
His answer might not surprise us if we know a little something about African culture. It reflects the high priority Africans place on relationship and community. But it's not the way we Americans think. We tend to prize the individual-his rights, his freedoms, and his potential.
That lens is one we have to readily acknowledge (and shed) when we come to a passage like the one we've read today. Paul isn't addressing individual believers in this passage. The testing he alludes to in verses 13 through 15 isn't the testing of one's own individual spiritual life. The temple he refers to in verse 16 isn't the individual body of the believer. This entire passage intends to defend the sacredness of the community of believers, the church. Paul uses three metaphors to explain this: the church as God's field, the church as God's building, and the church as God's temple.
The field, the building, the temple-all belong to God. Although Paul, Apollos, and others have contributed to the work of building the church in Corinth, ultimately it's been fully and completely the work of God. Paul planted, Apollos watered, but the church grew because God made in grow. Paul laid a foundation, others are building on that foundation, but the church stands because Jesus Christ Himself is the foundation. The church is the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, and none can destroy that temple without the judgment of God falling heavy upon him.
This means that the factions into which the church at Corinth has splintered are ridiculous. They deny the unity and sacredness of God's church.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How often do you think of your identity beyond individual categories? What would it look like to consider more seriously the importance of your participation in your church? Would you treat the relationships you share with your brothers and sisters as more sacred? Would you expend more energy toward building up and serving the local church of which you are a part? It is all too easy to have a consumer mentality toward church: what does it provide me? How am I growing? What different questions does the passage beckon us to ask?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 08, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's Honor
. . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God -Luke 1:35
If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God's birth on earth is true of every saint. God's Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise the right of a child- the right of always being face to face with my Father through prayer. Do I find myself continually saying in amazement to the commonsense part of my life, "Why did you want me to turn here or to go over there? 'Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' " ( Luke 2:49 ). Whatever our circumstances may be, that holy, innocent, and eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.
Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He having His wonderful way with me? Is God's will being fulfilled in that His Son has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19 ), or have I carefully pushed Him to one side? Oh, the noisy outcry of today! Why does everyone seem to be crying out so loudly? People today are crying out for the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for God's Son right now- no room for quiet, holy fellowship and oneness with the Father.
Is the Son of God praying in me, bringing honor to the Father, or am I dictating my demands to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the time of His manhood here on earth? Is God's Son in me going through His passion, suffering so that His own purposes might be fulfilled? The more a person knows of the inner life of God's most mature saints, the more he sees what God's purpose really is: to ". . . fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ). And when we think of what it takes to "fill up," there is always something yet to be done.
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Forgetting the Past
Philippians 3:13. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The key word I want to have you focus on today is forgetting. I want you to understand the importance of forgetting the past so you can move forward.
Some people-perhaps you-cannot reach forward because they are continually looking backwards. Their focus is on their past sins, their past mistakes, their past failures, their past hurts.
God does not want you to live in the past, but rather focus on the future.
A while back I was visiting a friend who had a great impact on my life as a young believer. As I was sitting at a meal with him and his wife, he began to share with me a great personal failure.
About ten years earlier, when he was pioneering a church, he fell into an adulterous relationship. It rocked the foundation of his marriage; but he repented, got out of the relationship, and over time, God healed his marriage. But he has not been in ministry since.
As he told me, tears began to stream down his face. He got up from the table, went to the bathroom, and his wife looked at me and said, "Bayless, if you can help him, please do. My husband has lived a holy life for the last ten years. God has forgiven him, I have forgiven him, but he hasn't forgiven himself."
This man chained himself to this one past failure, and he can't get on with what God had called him to do.
Bury your past so you can uncover your future.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 3:18-23
It is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. - 2 Corinthians 10:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Beauty pageants, Disney princesses, and Barbie: in recent generations, they've fueled the ire of some and sparked cultural debate. The ideal of feminine beauty plastered on magazine covers and media screens seems dangerously unattainable, and considering the power of digital photo enhancement, altogether false.
The standard we use to compare ourselves matters. We judge ourselves by how we look, how smart we are, and how successful we deem ourselves to be.
What about in the church? The point that Paul makes in the final verses of chapter three is that we can't be too careful when choosing the standard by which we judge ourselves, especially in the area of spiritual maturity.
The Corinthians had imbibed the cultural values of their day. They bought into the lie that what matters most is how eloquently one speaks and how much one knows. What mattered most in Corinthian culture was the so-called wisdom one had attained. This had created a dangerous disunity in the church. Each faction boasted of their superiority, and the church divided into "haves" and the "have-nots."
Paul's criticism is clear. Their self-judgment was deluded. They had been deceived. By judging themselves according to false, worldly standards, they had arrived at erroneous conclusions. They were not wise; they were fools. And if they thought themselves to be wise, they needed to cling more closely to the foolish message of the cross and to Jesus Christ, the supreme Fool.
In these final verses of chapter three, Paul inverts a popular saying of Greco-Roman philosophy of that time: "The wise man possesses all things." It was a way of saying that wisdom, or Sophia, mattered more than anything else. Paul's argument goes something like this: "All things are yours, but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." It encapsulates his whole argument of chapter three: everything belongs to God, and this truth unifies the church and defeats human pride.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It is so easy to judge ourselves by false standards, isn't it? The world defines our worth by our physical attractiveness, our earning power, and the success of our families. When we judge ourselves by these standards, we can be led falsely into either shame or pride. But the standard Paul sets up throughout the entire letter of 1 Corinthians is radically defined by God: we have the standard of Christ crucified, the foolish wisdom of God who is "our righteousness, holiness and redemption" (1:30).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 09, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's Hearing
Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me' -John 11:41
When the Son of God prays, He is mindful and consciously aware of only His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19 ) the Father will always hear my prayers. But I must see to it that the Son of God is exhibited in my human flesh. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . . " ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ), that is, your body is the Bethlehem of God's Son. Is the Son of God being given His opportunity to work in me? Is the direct simplicity of His life being worked out in me exactly as it was worked out in His life while here on earth? When I come into contact with the everyday occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of God's eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? Jesus says, "In that day you will ask in My name . . ." ( John 16:26 ). What day does He mean? He is referring to the day when the Holy Spirit has come to me and made me one with my Lord.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied by your life, or are you exhibiting a walk of spiritual pride before Him? Never let your common sense become so prominent and forceful that it pushes the Son of God to one side. Common sense is a gift that God gave to our human nature- but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son, and we should never put our common sense on the throne. The Son always recognizes and identifies with the Father, but common sense has never yet done so and never will. Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God. We must make sure that our human flesh is kept in perfect submission to Him, allowing Him to work through it moment by moment. Are we living at such a level of human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being exhibited moment by moment in us?
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Running Inside the Lines
In Philippians 3:14, Paul provides a powerful insight into his passion. Here is what he says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul clearly had a goal in mind, a sense of his destiny. And he was undaunted in seeking to reach it.
In fact, the phrase "I press toward the goal" could literally be translated from the Greek text this way, "I run within the lines." It paints the picture of a runner, running down a track, staying in his lane.
He is not overreaching his bounds, running in someone else's lane. Rather, as he goes for the goal, he is running within the lines with the goal in mind.
In a little mission in Medford, Oregon, many years ago, there was a young man with a terrible drug and alcohol problem. One night God got a hold of his life. It was a truly dramatic conversion.
I was that young man. And for several decades now, I have been seeking to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me. I knew that night that God had a destiny for my life. And that is the goal I strive and press forward to achieve.
God has a destiny for your life, too. God laid hold of your life just like He did mine, for a purpose. If you have not already done so, you must understand and press forward to fulfill the destiny God has for your life.
If you don't know what that might be, then start asking God to reveal that to you. Ask Him to show you the lane you are to run in.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 4:1-7
Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. - Romans 14:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
This year, Toyota executives have been called before congressional panels to answer questions regarding the safety of their vehicles. Reports of unintended acceleration (and injuries and death) have obviously alarmed the general public, and these executives were called to give an account for their products.
All of us are accountable to someone. If we work for a company, we're accountable to our boss. When working for the government, we're accountable to the taxpayer. But as servants of the Christ, we're accountable to the Lord. Paul makes the case that neither he nor any other apostle can or should be judged by the Corinthians. Later in the letter, we learn that the Corinthians were in fact second-guessing his authority and performance as an apostle (cf. 9:3). But Paul dismissed their criticism by explaining that he and the other apostles have been appointed by God and are ultimately accountable to God. No other judgment but God's matters. The Corinthians, who think they are so wise, are not in a position to judge Paul, and Paul certainly doesn't make it his goal to please them or curry their favor. The tone of the letter and the force of his criticisms are evidence enough of that.
Paul even disqualifies himself from the task of judging his own heart. Though his conscience is clear, he does not presume to be the final word in his own judgment. When Christ returns, He will judge. He is the arbiter of what is true. He can evaluate the motives of our hearts. And He is the only one whose commendation matters.
Again and again, Paul deals a blow to human pride and arrogance. Our ability to judge the hearts of others-even to judge our own motives completely-is flawed. Everything we have, we've been given by God. There is no reason for boasting of the privileges and gifts we've received. And there cannot be boasting before the Lord's return, for only then will we finally know the truth of the content of our character, our conduct, and our service.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This passage teaches us never to presume that we are fully blameless in any given situation. We can rationally analyze any situation and deduce that our methods and motives have been pure. But the truth is that we cannot with certainty understand ourselves. There are unexplored places in our hearts and minds we do not know. Peter was an example of this. "Lord, I will die with you!" he declared emphatically when only a short time later, he denied the Lord three times. Pray the words of Psalm 139:23-24 and trust God to be the judge.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Holy Suffering of the Saint
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good . . . -1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will- even if it means you will suffer- is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, "God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:21-23 ). We must be merciful to God's reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23 ). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10 ).
Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
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Six Times We Should Seek God
But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).
In today's devotional, I want to show you the first three of six times we should seek the Lord:
1. When we have sinned.
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
If you sin, do not run from God, run to Him. Do not allow shame to keep you away.
2. When we are feeling dry spiritually.
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).
When you sense a distance between you and God, or if you feel dry spiritually, do not delay! Seek Him early.
When my potted plants feel dry, I water them. I do not wait until they turn brown and are almost dead. If the soil is dry and the leaves begin to droop, they are in need of water right then, and so it is when you are feeling spiritually dry.
One of the keys to keeping potted plants-and our spiritual lives-healthy is to tend to them early.
3. When we are fearful.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).
When you are fearful or anxious, it is time to seek the Lord. When you seek Him you can expect to be delivered from all of your fears!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 4:8-20
For Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
In A.D. 155, Polycarp, the 86-year-old Christian bishop of Smyrna, was brought into the city arena where the Roman governor demanded he swear allegiance to Caesar. The crowd murderously chanted, "Death to the godless! Death to Polycarp!" Refusing to renounce Christ, Polycarp was tied to the stake, and the straw and wood kindling were doused with oil and the fire lit.
Many Christians still suffer violent persecution across the globe, and the possibility of martyrdom was real for apostles like Paul, who suffered innumerable hardships. Commitment to Christ and missionary work cost them material comfort and personal reputation. Hunger, thirst, homelessness, public ridicule-these followers paid a high price for faith in Jesus.
Contrasted with the willingness of the apostles to suffer hardship for the gospel is the Corinthians' attitude of entitlement. They saw themselves as meriting the treatment of kings! We've already seen how the Corinthians had been lured into the corrupt and godless value system of the culture around them. They prized the wisdom of the world rather than the Cross. And because they saw themselves as already possessing this worldly wisdom, it had only served to inflate their self-regard. In fact, Paul notes that they are so self-satisfied that they have no hunger for the things of God (v. 8). Paul had to challenge such arrogance, and he does so by holding up as example the suffering of the apostles.
If God had meant for each of His followers to achieve the stature of kings and queens, why had He subjected the apostles to such public humiliation? In verse nine, God is compared to a victorious Roman general who parades triumphantly after battle through the city, His enemies trailing behind Him in procession. Surprisingly, those at the end of the procession aren't the enemies of God. They are the apostles themselves! No special, privileged treatment is reserved for the apostles. Instead, they are humiliated in the worst kind of way, having become "the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world" (v. 13).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What demands have we put on God? Do we believe that we deserve certain things from Him or that we should be exempt from hardship? Would we rather be content with the trappings of the world's comfort and success than eagerly pursue the kingdom of God? The suffering of the apostles proves that while God is certainly good and faithful, bad things can happen to His people. In fact, the Bible promises suffering to those who want to follow Christ faithfully (2 Tim. 3:12). Our hope is that God's strength is made perfect when we are most weak.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
This Experience Must Come
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha . . . saw him no more -2 Kings 2:11-12
It is not wrong for you to depend on your "Elijah" for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, "I cannot continue without my 'Elijah.' " Yet God says you must continue.
Alone at Your "Jordan" ( Kings 2:14 ). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your "Elijah." You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go- the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your "Jordan" alone.
Alone at Your "Jericho" ( 2 Kings 2:15 ). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your "Elijah" do great things. Yet when you come alone to your "Jericho," you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your "Elijah," you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.
Alone at Your "Bethel" ( 2 Kings 2:23 ). At your "Bethel" you will find yourself at your wits' end but at the beginning of God's wisdom. When you come to your wits' end and feel inclined to panic- don't! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your "Elijah"- use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14 ). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.
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Six Times We Should Seek God (Part Two)
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at three times we should seek God. Today we will look at three more:
4. When we are in trouble.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:2).
In Hosea 5:15 the Lord says, "...in their affliction they will earnestly seek me."
I don't like to admit it, but the truth is that at times I have sought God more earnestly when I have been in trouble. Problems have a way of getting us on our knees. If you are in trouble today - seek Him!
5. When all is well.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore! (Psalm 105:4).
If you will carefully read the preceding verses of this psalm, you will find that the context is one of blessing and not trouble.
This may be the most important time of all to seek Him. May we never become smug and think that we do not need God when all is well.
6. Continually.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!
(1 Chronicles 16:11).
The word evermore in this verse means continually or at all times.
When you have sinned, when you are dry, when you are afraid, when you are in trouble, when all is well, and in any other situation - you need to seek God!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? - 1 Corinthians 5:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In recent years the Roman Catholic Church has been riddled with scandal and charged with complicity in numerous accounts of child abuse by clergy. Victims who were sexually abused as children by their priests have come forward to say that church leaders knew of the abuse and yet refused to do anything about it. Are silent church leaders any less guilty than the abusers themselves?
Paul levels a charge of complicit sin against the Corinthians in today's reading. With the knowledge of the church, a man was still publicly enjoying an incestuous relationship with his father's wife. It's a grievous sin that even the pagans themselves would have disdained. The church had done nothing about it. In fact, Paul describes their attitude as arrogant (once again)!
What we have in this passage are solemn words of instruction. First, Paul wants his readers to understand what it means to be the church. The blood of the Passover Lamb, Christ, has given us a distinct identity as God's covenant community. The moral standards to which we are held are different than the moral standards of the prevailing culture. Not only that, but the way we treat church members who compromise those standards is different than the way we would treat those outside the church.
When flagrant sin has been committed in the church, and when there has been no remorse or repentance (as seems to be the case here), the church's first reaction should be grief (v. 2). We hardly need explosive, self-righteous tirades. We need tears. We are called to grieve the power of sin to destroy fellowship with God and the integrity of the church's identity.
Grieve, we must, and with that sorrow we must also exclude the guilty person from our fellowship (v. 9). This is an act of hope. By handing "this man over to Satan" (v. 5), by removing him from the protection and privilege of one belonging to the church community, we pray fervently that his new vulnerability will renew a fear of God and ignite repentance.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Church discipline is rare today, probably because we're confused about our responsibilities and the biblical commands. This case from 1 Corinthians contains several elements to guide us. First, this man's sin was egregious; second, he was continuing in that sin publicly and shamelessly. We don't need to be scouring each other's lives to find places of moral failure, but when there is shameless, unrepentant, and public sin in our church, that must be dealt with. Matthew 18:15-20 gives us further instruction for this process.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Theology of Resting in God
Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? -Matthew 8:26
When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable. Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God. We come to our wits' end, showing that we don't have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world. To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us.
". . . O you of little faith!" What a stinging pain must have shot through the disciples as they surely thought to themselves, "We missed the mark again!" And what a sharp pain will go through us when we suddenly realize that we could have produced complete and utter joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, in spite of what we were facing.
There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible. But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him.
We have been talking quite a lot about sanctification, but what will be the result in our lives? It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him. And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also a profound joy to Him.
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True Satisfaction
Isaiah 14:12-15 records the fall of Satan. Created as God's archangel, we read about the dissatisfaction that got him in trouble,
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit."
Clearly his problem was pride. "I will, I will, I will...I am going to be like God." He wasn't satisfied with being the archangel that God had created him to be. He wanted to take God's place.
The root of Satan's pride was his discontent with the post and station that the supreme Monarch of the universe had assigned and allotted him. He thought he deserved better.
We all have our sphere of influence, and we all have our gifting from God. Your sphere of influence and gifting are different than mine, and mine are different than yours. It is unwise to desire something that someone else has rather than exploring what God has given you and developing that to its highest potential.
When you look over the fence, it looks like the grass is greener on the other side, but when you hop over, you find out it is spray-painted!
You will only be satisfied if you will develop what God has put inside of you and take that to its highest level possible. That is what you will be rewarded for.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11
If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment? - 1 Corinthians 6:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2009, Jonathan Lee Riches earned the honor in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most litigious man: he had sued scores of people, including the coach of the New England Patriots and Martha Stewart. How did Riches handle the prestigious nomination to a world record? Why, he sued, of course.
In the United States, the most litigious nation in the world, we're well acquainted with the subject of today's reading: lawsuits. The Corinthians also lived in a litigious culture. There are some differences between the historical context and what should be true today. The majority of plaintiffs in the Corinthian context would have been wealthy and privileged. The judges, too, would have shared a high social status. This corrupted the legal system. court cases were a sham. Lawsuits were decided in favor of those with the most money, power, and social standing.
The Corinthians participated in this unjust system. Apparently, believers within the church were taking other believers to court. And based upon the historical evidence, the privileged and wealthy were cheating and defrauding their poorer brothers. Paul would not tolerate such behavior in the community of saints, and he gives a number of reasons why.
First, he frames the issue as an eschatological one, calling to mind eternal realities. In eternity, we will judge the angels. Can it be, then, that no believer in the Corinthian church is competent for judging disputes of "trivial matters" today? (Notice Paul's ironic use of the word, wise, in verse 5.) Can these cases be rightly discerned by "the wicked," those who will not inherit God's kingdom?
The real question concerns identity. Just as in the case of flagrant sin in the church, unlawful court cases between believers compromised the church's identity. We are God's people, God's family. We are brothers and sisters. Not only does this bear on our relationship in heaven, but it must impact the way we relate to each other here and now.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul challenges the Corinthian believers to be willing to suffer wrong and be cheated rather than do anything to compromise the unity and integrity of the church. Whether or not you've actually brought a formal lawsuit against another believer, maybe it's true that you've drawn up a list of "charges" against another brother or sister. You've spent time enumerating the ways you've been wronged. You've tallied the offenses and declared a verdict. What might God say to you today through today's reading?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do not quench the Spirit -1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze- so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a "still small voice" ( 1 Kings 19:12 ), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, "Once, a number of years ago, I was saved." If you have put your "hand to the plow" and are walking in the light, there is no "looking back"- the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God ( Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7 ). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to "walk in the light" by recalling your past experiences when you did "walk in the light" ( 1 John 1:7 ). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.
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True Redemption
The passage of Scripture I want to call your attention to today is Ephesians 4:8-10,
Therefore He says: "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men." (Now this, "He ascended"-what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
Before Jesus ascended, what did He do? He descended. I didn't write that. The Bible says that. And when He descended, what did He do? He led captivity captive. That refers to the Old Testament saints who were in what is called "Abraham's bosom" or Paradise.
Jesus went down there. They were in captivity in the sense that they could not go to heaven until Christ's sacrifice. But after Christ died, having paid the price for our sins, He went and emptied Paradise and He led captivity captive. He brought those saints up to heaven.
Here is what I want you to picture. Jesus, through His death and resurrection, defeated hell and death. He took the keys away from the devil, stripped him of his power and his authority, and won redemption for the human race. Then He went to Paradise and there He saw Abraham, David, Moses, Ezekiel, Joshua, Esther, Ruth-all of the people who served the Lord under the Old Covenant.
He threw the door open and said, "Hey, guys! Time to come home! It's been done! The thing the prophets prophesied about, here I am! I am the reality. Time to leave this place and come to heaven with me!"
Then He who descended, ascended, leading all of those Old Testament saints to heaven with Him! And He sent back the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to empower us to tell the story of His resurrection and His victory.
Let us make that our passion! To proclaim the resurrected Jesus who has paid the price for our redemption.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1850, provoked a maelstrom of public outrage at the institution of slavery. The novel gives voice to the suffering of slaves, such as this Kentucky slave named George: "Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because he says, I forgot who I was. . . . I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe!"
To George, freedom was something worth dying for. And freedom is central to the gospel of Jesus. Paul preached and wrote extensively about the freedom Jesus Christ purchased for us on the cross: the freedom from sin and the freedom for restored fellowship with God. But the Corinthians had been abusing their freedom in Christ. Today's reading brings us to the first of several examples of that abuse.
Their freedom had been used to justify sexual misconduct. It might have been that the Corinthian men were continuing in the accepted cultural practice of visiting prostitutes. But their promiscuity might also have been broader than that. The line of defense by which they had justified their actions sounds something like this: In Christ, we are free to do what we want. There is no law that forbids us these sexual pleasures. And of what consequence is it really, for do our physical bodies matter? The stomach for food, food for the stomach-and well, we know why we have our sex organs!
Paul counters their rationalizations with a theological framework. Here he seizes yet another opportunity to address the subject of identity: every Christian believer is part of the body of Christ. This isn't merely a symbolic or mystical reality. It means that our physical bodies, every appendage, organ, and skin cell, belong to God. Our bodies do matter. They will one day be resurrected just as Jesus was raised bodily.
Do we dare join what is holy to what is defiled? Can we carelessly desecrate the dwelling place of God?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We easily slip into Gnostic thinking, a danger many of the early Christians also faced. Gnosticism taught that the spiritual was good and the material was bad. With such a view, it would be easy to diminish the importance of the body. But this passage today clearly challenges that kind of thinking. Our bodies matter to God, and this will force us to confront a number of things in our own lives: body image, sexual behavior, eating practices, and addiction to unhealthy substances.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him -Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, "Oh, that must be from the devil."
"Do not quench the Spirit" ( 1 Thessalonians 5:19 ), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, "Don't be blind on this point anymore- you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I'm revealing it to you right now." When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
". . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him." We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, "Oh well, I can't help it. I prayed and things didn't turn out right anyway. So I'm simply going to give up on everything." Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me- sanctification is God's idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ).
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Search the Scriptures
After Paul preached the gospel to the Bereans, they did something that others had not done-they searched the Scriptures.
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so (Acts 17:11).
According to the next verse, the result of their search was that many of them believed.
Jesus said in John 5:39, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me."
I once heard a Jewish believer share his testimony. His daughter, who had become a Christian, challenged him to read through the New Testament.
He began in Matthew and was astonished to find so many Old Testament references to the Messiah being fulfilled by Jesus.
His initial reason for searching the Scriptures was to prove that his daughter was wrong, but instead, he ended up giving his heart to Christ. The Scriptures testified of Jesus!
Look for Him as you read the Holy Scriptures, and encourage others to do the same.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 7:1-24
Keeping God's commands is what counts. - 1 Corinthians 7:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Legalism is an ever-present danger in the church. It's tempting to find confidence by the rules we're keeping. Legalism confuses universal biblical truth with the preferences of any one community, and then asserts its own spiritual superiority over others not adhering to its rules and preferences.
The struggle of the Corinthians with legalism in today's reading might seem surprising, given our earlier study of their abuse of freedom. In fact, both problems plagued this church. Someone (or some faction) in the community had reportedly been teaching that it was best for everyone, married and unmarried alike, to remain abstinent. And just a chapter earlier, Paul was forbidding the Corinthians from having sexual intercourse with prostitutes! It may be that because the Corinthian community was fractured by dissent, one faction had been reveling in their "freedom" in Christ while another had been forbidding every kind of sexual activity. Notice that both extremes are rooted in a disregard for the bodies God has created.
To set the record straight about sex and marriage, Paul answers a letter that the Corinthians had written to him previously. He had been asked to either validate or refute this teaching on sex. Paul answers this way: first, sexual intercourse is reserved for marriage. Second, within the confines of the marriage relationship, husbands and wives should enjoy sex frequently.
The reasons are two-fold. First, a wife's body belongs to her husband, and the husband's body belongs to his wife. Second, the temptation to sexual immorality is real. When husbands and wives enjoy healthy and meaningful sex in their marriage, this serves to protect them from sinfully pursuing their passions and pleasures in illicit relationships.
The key verses of today's reading are verses 17 and 24. They explain in part how it is that we must understand and live out our identity in Christ. One godly saint echoed Paul when he said, "Our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This weekend, take some time to think through your own identity. On a sheet of paper, make a list of the words you would use to describe yourself. When you have finished, review your words in light of what 1 Corinthians has said about our identity. Are there any attributes that you rank too highly? Do you need a stronger grasp of your membership in the body of Christ? In your prayer time, ask God to shape your understanding of your actions and attitudes as a Christian.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
You must be born again -John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus' question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced ( John 3:4 ). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
"But as many as received Him. . ." ( John 1:12 ). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
". . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God " (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God's kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God's control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
"Whoever has been born of God does not sin. . ." ( 1 John 3:9 ). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, "Should a Christian sin?" The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin- it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
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The Entrance of Error
Jude 4 gives us an ominous warning,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude is giving us an idea of how the devil brings error into a church. The key phrase is men have crept in unnoticed. That phrase literally means to come alongside by stealth. It pictures someone creeping in and coming alongside, like coming in through a side door.
The folks Jude is talking about look like everyone else, they talk like everyone else, but they are not like everyone else.
That is the way the devil brings error and false doctrine into the Church. It looks like the truth, sounds good, seems like the truth, and it may even be partially true. But there is enough poison in it to kill you.
It's like the guy who wanted to break into a used car lot to steal a bunch of auto parts. The only problem was the two guard dogs. So for the next week he showed up every night with some pieces of meat.
At first the dogs would bark like crazy, but after the man left, they would eat the meat. By the end of the week, they didn't bark at all, they just wanted the meat. So, having become familiar with the dogs, knowing that they wouldn't "sound the alarm," he approached them one last time-with poisoned meat. The dogs ate, and he was able to get into the lot and steal all he wanted.
That is the way the devil does it a lot of times. He sends someone among the believers in order to distract and detour them from the truth. But it is calculated and happens by degrees. Do not let your "inner alarm system" go silent through familiarity.
Beware of those who would move you away, even subtly, from the clearly revealed truth of God's Word.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 7:25-40
I am saying this . . . that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. - 1 Corinthians 7:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
The movie, The Bucket List, is the story of the unlikely friendship between two men, one a corporate executive, the other an auto mechanic. They've landed in the same hospital room, and both are facing unwelcome diagnoses and their own mortality. But courageously and humorously, they set off together on the adventure of doing what they had both always meant to do before "kicking the bucket." Every dream and ambition mattered now that time was short.
Paul writes with a similar kind of urgency in the second half of 1 Corinthians 7. In verse 26, he refers to "the present crisis." In verse 29, he emphasizes, "The time is short;" and in verse 31, he concludes, "This world in its present form is passing away." Sooner rather than later, he expects Jesus' visible, bodily return to earth, and time is running out to tell the world about the good news. He passionately wants the church to be on a mission in the last days.
Because Paul anticipated Jesus' imminent return, he encourages unmarried believers in the Corinthian church not to marry. As he answers their questions from the previous letter (this time about those single or betrothed but not yet married), he does so with the sole aim of securing their "undivided devotion to the Lord." He is not, as some have argued, against marriage. He does not promote celibacy as the most spiritual of choices. But he does teach that an unmarried person is free from the distractions of a married person and more able to concern himself with the things of God.
From our vantage point, we now know what Paul did not: that Jesus would not return in his generation. That doesn't mean, however, that the Scriptures are somehow in error. Paul even tempers the tone of this discussion with disclaimers like, "I think that it is good," and "In my judgment." He has reasoned that if one can choose freely not to marry, exercising self-control in the area of sexual purity, this is best. However, no one sins by choosing to marry (v. 28).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The church can be a very difficult place for singles. They see the ideal of marriage and family promoted (as it should be), but they often feel exempt from the blessings of God. The church needs the biblical understanding provided by today's passage. Singleness is also a gift from God! If we're married, we should be satisfied in our situation and seek to glorify God through our marriage. And if we're single, we can embrace the freedom and flexibility we have to serve God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
He calls his own . . . by name . . . -John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18 ). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person's soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2 ); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. ". . . she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. . . . Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' " ( John 20:14, 16 ). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. "She turned and said to Him, 'Rabboni!' " ( John 20:16 ).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29 ). Have I been doubting something about Jesus- maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord" ( John 20:25 ). But Thomas doubted, saying, "Unless I see . . . I will not believe" ( John 20:25 ). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. "Thomas . . . said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' " ( John 20:28 ).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17 ). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75 ), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, "Lord . . . You know that I love You" ( John 21:17 ).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him- a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
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The True Grace of God
Yesterday we read Jude 4 which states,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we move away from this verse, I want to point out a phrase that I believe is very dangerous ground for the Church in America today. It is the phrase, "Ungodlymen, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness."
Lewdness literally means unrestrained lust, wickedness, and immorality. These people believed that once you were saved, you could live however you wanted.
There are people in the Church today with this type of thinking. They believe that if you are saved by grace, and good works do not merit salvation, then you can do whatever you want.
You can sleep around, commit adultery, get drunk, the sky's the limit. It's grace, baby! Your works don't have anything to do with it. You can live however you want!
One of the things that I have heard throughout the years is, "Hey, it doesn't matter. It's grace. God will forgive me, so I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway."
You do not want to live that way. Believe me, something begins to break down inside of you, and you will pay the piper eventually.
If you are turning the grace of God into lewdness through immorality, or any other sin, I challenge you to stop today. Confess your sin to God, turn from whatever it is that you have been doing, and ask God to help you live for Him. If you do, you will experience the true grace of God, which teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).
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Read: 1 Corinthians 8:1-6
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. - 1 Corinthians 8:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Like any major city in the Roman Empire, Corinth's streets were lined with shrines and statues of pagan gods. Feasts in the pagan temples celebrated birthdays, weddings, and other important social events. These feasts would have been hard to avoid, especially for the wealthier members of the Corinthian church. The question the Corinthians posed to Paul in their letter was a real problem: Could they eat meat that had been used in the pagan sacrifices?
In Pauline fashion, he takes the next three chapters to answer their question fully. Based on an understanding of what happened at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the question might have warranted a straightforward answer. There, the apostles and elders had gathered to decide whether or not the Gentile Christians should obey Jewish law and tradition. They formally decided no, but they did author a letter asking the Gentile Christians to abstain from eating of meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Apparently, they feared that this issue had the potential to divide Gentile and Jewish Christians.
In Corinth, the church was pre-dominantly Gentile, but the issue of eating idol meat was still divisive. One side touted their own consequently, eating idol meat is also nothing. Paul seems to agree with them on the matter of whether it was sinful to eat the meat, but he was concerned about a deeper issue in the church. Rather than delivering a simple black-and-white decision, Paul challenged the attitude of arrogance he saw fueling this debate.
As they have on other issues, the community has fallen into the trap of valuing what they know over and above everything else. Knowledge has trumped Christian character, and Paul wants to reorient them towards the priority of love. His reasoning goes something like this: You can know something, but if you have used that knowledge to become proud, you have missed what is most important. Pride is the evidence you failed to know love, which is what really counts in God's economy. Whether they ate or didn't eat the meat was less important than how they treated their fellow believers.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul is building towards the climax of his letter in chapter 13 where he describes what Christian love looks like. His teaching on love echoes some of the last words of Jesus: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Consider the spiritual practices of your life. Are you simply seeking more knowledge? Or do you desire to become more loving? Humbly ask someone who's known you a long time whether he or she sees you growing in your ability to love.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
. . . Jesus . . . said to him, 'You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.' But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven't, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, "Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me." Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him- He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened- not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain- He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
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Inwardly Compelled
It was love that motivated the Father to send His Son Jesus to redeem mankind. That same love has been poured out into the heart of every believer.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
God's love in us calls and compels us to do something about the plight of lost people. Even as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, For the love of Christ compels us.
A few years ago, late at night I would hear what seemed to be a very faint chime or bell. Several times I got out of bed to try and find the source of the sound, but it always stopped before I could discover it.
Finally, one evening, I found out what it was. It was an old watch I had, tucked away in a drawer under some junk. Every evening, the alarm would go off at the same time.
The call of God's love in your heart can be like that. Sounding regularly but seldom heard. Buried under personal ambitions, cares and problems, daily routines and the general busyness of life. But it is unmistakably there!
The same love that moved Jesus to heal the sick and minister God's life to broken people is in you! Listen to it. Get in touch with it and express it to someone in need.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 8:7-13
When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. - 1 Corinthians 8:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
The language of rights is woven into the fabric of American identity. Our Declaration of Independence asserts inalienable human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution offers a Bill of Rights, guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, and the press. Valuing freedom has been central to being American.
Our readings the next few days will explore the subject of "freedom" within the context of Christian community. Paul intends to show us that there will be occasions where we're called to forfeit certain rights in deference to another believer. The opening of chapter eight launches us into the question of whether or not it is permissible to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. A certain faction of the Corinthian church proudly claimed to have the answer. They are "free" to eat meat sacrificed to idols. With such knowledge, they have acted in careless disregard to their brothers and sisters. They boldly attended public feasts in the pagan temples, and their actions have emboldened the "weaker" believers to compromise their conscience and follow suit.
On the one hand, these "stronger" believers have reasoned correctly: idols are nothing. Eating meal offered to idols was morally neutral ground. But this did not acquit them-there was more to this question than simple definitions of right and wrong. Paul is clear. Freedom and knowledge are not to be prized and protected above anything else. Indeed, the "strong" must lay down their freedoms for the purpose of protecting the unity of the community and the spiritual health of each of its members, especially the "weak." In the process of reasoning out the answer to the question of eating idol meat, the Corinthians overvalued knowledge and neglected love.
Disunity, factions, and pride had impaired the church in Corinth. They threatened the integrity of the gospel and the message of the Cross. And now, Paul raises this issue of unity to even higher stakes. When we sin against one another, we sin against Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul is not saying in this passage that each of us must be bound by the conscience of every member of our church. Consider the difficulty and impracticality of having to understand all the varying (and conflicting!) convictions held by even a small group of believers. Paul challenged the Corinthians' behavior, not because they had disagreed, but because the stronger brothers flouted their freedoms and "emboldened" the weaker brothers to sin. "Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way" (Rom. 14:13).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus' words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God's Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, "If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions."
"Sell all that you have . . ." ( Luke 18:22 ). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought- in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult- it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus- not love for Jesus Himself.
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"Come Over and Help Us"
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:9-10).
The world is in need and they are calling! I can hear Africa, Asia, voices from South America and Europe calling out. China and Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines...voices from around the globe crying out, "Come over and help us!"
The call may be coming from down your street or from the next aisle in the grocery store. "Help me! I'm lost. I want to find God. I have problems I can't cope with. I have an aching void in my heart that I don't know how to fill. Is there anyone out there with answers?!"
Who will go to them if not you and me?
To say, "I don't feel called to go to them," is equivalent to a strong swimmer standing on the shore of a lake saying he doesn't feel called to save the man drowning before his eyes.
Ask God today to direct you to someone whose heart has cried out for answers and help. Chances are you won't have to go too far to find them.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 9:1-14
We put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. - 1 Corinthians 9:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the musical, The Music Man, con man Harold Hill waltzes into River City, Iowa, posing as the organizer of a boys' band. He wins over the townspeople who pay money for instruments and uniforms, money with which Harold intends to skip town. He's a fraud, and the town librarian, Marian, knows it and determines to expose him.
Just as Marian questioned Harold, some skeptics had raised doubts about Paul and questioned the legitimacy of his apostleship. In chapter four, Paul announced that he was unwilling to subject himself to the scrutiny of others; God alone would judge his ministry. In chapter nine, however, he seems to offer, if not a defense, then an explanation for his ministry methods.
While it may seem like a digression from the argument of chapter eight regarding the eating of meat in pagan temples, chapter nine is purposefully connected to that conversation. Paul cites his own ministry as an example to imitate when it comes to deciding issues where personal freedoms collide. Though Paul had the right to collect financial compensation for his work as an apostle, he forfeited it for the sake of the gospel.
He gives many reasons for this apostolic right. First, many other apostles received support from the churches where they ministered. Second, he gave the examples of the soldier, the vineyard grower, and the keeper of the flock. Could they be expected to work at their own expense? Then, he asks them to consider the Law of Moses. It prescribes that oxen not be muzzled when treading out grain. Such treatment would be inhuman and cruel. Even the Jewish temple rituals provided for the food of the priests who served there.
By offering himself as an example of setting aside his rights, Paul answers what it might look like to address the questions and divisions emerging from the issue of meat sacrificed to idols in chapter eight. What if the "strong," like Paul, forfeited their freedom to eat idol meat and chose not to attend feasts in the pagan temples, simply for the sake of the gospel and the community?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This passage teaches the right every minister of the gospel has to earn his living through his ministry; in fact, on the question of pastors' salaries, verse 14 sends us right back to the teaching of Jesus! Questions for us to consider: do we pay our pastor(s) a fair and living wage? Do we expect our pastor to work tirelessly for meager compensation? Each of us should be contributing our money generously to a local body of believers as well as to other Christian ministries where the gospel is being preached.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Self-Awareness
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one- "Come to Me . . . ." The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
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Resist the Devil
In Jude 9 we are told how Michael the archangel dealt with Satan.
Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
My concern is that some people have tried to use this Scripture to say that we do not have authority over the devil. They believe we have no recourse other than to pray that the Lord will do something about him.
But that is not the point he is making here at all. Jude was referencing the previous verse where some would "speak evil of dignitaries." He used Michael's conversation with the devil to show that this was wrong. To say that we do not have the right to resist the devil and cast him out on the basis of this Scripture is ridiculous. Here are five things to think about:
1. This event between Michael and Lucifer (Satan) happened before New Testament times-before Jesus defeated the devil and broke his power.
2. James 4:7 tells us, Resist the devil and he will flee from you. It does not say, "Pray that God will resist the devil for you."
3. Jesus, in the Great Commission, told us to cast out devils (or demons). Jesus wouldn't tell us that if He hadn't given us the authority.
4. In Luke 10:19 Jesus said, "I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
5. In the book of Acts, as the Church carried out their mission, they commanded demons to come out, and they came out in Jesus' name.
My friend, Jesus has broken the authority of the devil in your life. Resist him and he will flee!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 9:15-27
I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. - 1 Corinthians 9:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Amy Carmichael began her missionary assignment in Japan, she insisted on wearing traditional Victorian dress: multiple petticoats, stockings, laced-up shoes, and a bonnet. But one day, bundled up in her thick woolen coat and her fur gloves, she made a visit to an older Japanese woman with the intention of sharing the gospel. The woman paid no attention to the message Amy shared. She was distracted by the curious gloves that Amy wore. Amy wept on her way home, saying, "Never again will I risk so much for so little! She traded her lace petticoats for a kimono.
Both Amy Carmichael and Paul are in a long line of missionaries who made these cultural choices about how they will live and behave in foreign contexts. The question prominent in the apostle Paul's mind was, "Will what I choose advance or hinder the gospel?" He was committed to spreading the gospel and refused to make any choice that might cause someone to reject Christ on the grounds of his personal behavior.
First, he chose not to receive financial support from the Corinthian churches. Other churches did in fact give Paul money, but in Corinth he refused such support. His reasons may have been to avoid either being accused of greed (which characterized certain philosophers in Corinth) or of losing the independence of thought and action he had, were he to depend on either the church or a handful of wealthy patrons. Instead, he worked his day job, making tents. He had the right to earn his living from his ministry, but Paul determined to offer the gospel free of charge.
Not only did Paul forfeit his salary for the sake of the gospel, he forfeited other rights and freedoms, humbling himself to win as many converts to Christ as he can. As a minister to the Gentiles, he no longer subjected himself to the constraints of Judaism. And yet, when it was required of him to make adaptations so as not to offend a Jewish audience, he did so (cf. Acts 21:17-26).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul showed tremendous flexibility in his choices. He did not abandon faithfulness to Christ, but he was able to discern which issues mattered and which didn't. He asked the same of the Corinthians, especially when it came to eating meat sacrificed to idols. Some might accuse Paul of relativism, but Paul isn't teaching that moral choices don't matter. He demonstrated that love for Christ and others is more important than rights and preferences. Do we have such a disciplined commitment to Christ, which advances the gospel?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Christ-Awareness
. . and I will give you rest -Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don't allow yourself to say, "Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I'm sure I must have this cleared up with them already." Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, "Lord, what is your will?" A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest," that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest- the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
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Criticizer or Encourager?
Verse 10 in the book of Jude talks about those who "speak evil of whatever they do not know."
Criticism, many times, stems from ignorance. People tend to criticize things they do not know anything about.
A number of years ago, a man came up to me after a service. He had never been to our church before, but he was pretty upset. I had taught that particular night about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and what the Scripture had to say about speaking in other tongues.
He told me, "This church is really off-balance. You overemphasize speaking in tongues." I asked, "Really...how many services have you been to at our church?" His reply was, "Just this one."
So I asked him, "How many of my recorded messages have you listened to?" His response was, "None." I told him, "That seems a little imbalanced. Why don't you stick around for a while and find out what we're about, then see if you feel the same after staying here for a few months."
He said, "Okay, I will." He ended up staying and loving the church.
Too often we are quick to criticize, even when we don't know the whole story. Be careful about criticizing others. Too often what you hear is just rumor.
Do not be a criticizer. Be an encourager. Be a person who is known for always seeking to lift and bless, not speaking evil of whatever you do not know.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 10:1-22
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God. - Exodus 20:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Judaism is a religion where meals have always mattered. The Passover Seder is a ritual meal commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. The tithes, which God commanded His people to bring to the temple, were consumed as meals in the presence of God (cf. Deut. 14:23). Christians, having inherited a rich tradition of meal-sharing from their Jewish forefathers, now celebrate Christ's death and resurrection through the Lord's Supper.
In today's reading, Paul draws parallels between the story of the Israelites and the experiences of the first-century Gentile Christians of Corinth. Not only is Paul teaching the content of the Old Testament Scriptures to the Corinthians, he also introduces a method for reading those Scriptures, whereby the Corinthian Christians are invited to find themselves in the history of Israel. While theirs is not a shared ethnic heritage (the Christians in Corinth are Gentile, not Jewish), spiritually they share the same ancestry. What happened to the Israelites serves as examples and warnings to Christians of the first century and to Christians today.
The parallels between the generation of the Exodus and first-century Corinthian Christians are unmistakable: both shared experiences of spiritual privilege. The Israelites tasted the divine Presence, drank spiritual drink from the rock in the desert, ate bread from heaven, and were baptized under the leadership of Moses. Similarly, the Corinthians had the blessings of baptism and participation in the Lord's Supper. Nevertheless, just as the Israelites suffered the fierce wrath of God for their idolatrous practices, so, too, the Corinthian Christians needed to tremble at the prospect of God's judgment.
God would not tolerate divided allegiance, and the Corinthians were on the precipice of idolatry. Paul warns them against sexual immorality, testing the Lord, and grumbling (vv. 8-9). Later in the chapter, Paul will denounce the act of feasting in pagan temples. For now, he illuminates their precarious spiritual standing. Their pride has given them a false sense of confidence, and Paul illuminates the Old Testament Scriptures as a word of warning.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The Corinthians lived in a pluralistic culture, just as we do. The word Paul speaks to them is relevant today. In what ways do we compromise our allegiance to God? Do we participate in idolatrous practices? We might want to consider our culture's gods of sex, money, and power. Where have we casually shared fellowship with these gods? And what would uncompromised obedience to God look like in a culture like ours?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This literally means, "Blessed are the paupers." Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person's strength of will or the beauty of his character- things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, "Make a decision for Jesus Christ," places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him- something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, "Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom." I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness- I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. "He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" ( John 7:38 ). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
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Clean and Committed
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
When God looks at us, the first thing He sees is the state of our heart. In the next few devotionals we are going to look at several different aspects of the heart-things that must be present in order to experience the richer blessings of God.
· A clean heart. Psalm 51:10 says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
Every once in a while I have to clean out the drains throughout our house. It is amazing how quickly they become clogged. If I do not clean them, before long, the sinks get stopped up and the water will not flow through anymore.
If we don't periodically take time before God to have our hearts purified and cleansed, pretty soon His blessings can no longer flow to us or through us.
· A committed heart. 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV) says, "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
I believe it is important to be committed to God before seeking His blessings.
God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may serve me." Most people want to be delivered from their captivity, but they are not so keen on the "serving God" part of the deal.
The Lord is looking for committed hearts. Does your heart belong fully to Him? If not, commit it to Him today!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 10:23-33
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. - 1 Corinthians 11:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the past few decades, American churches have staked out positions on whether women could wear pants, whether drums or hand-held microphones could be used in worship services, whether Christian parents could send their children to public schools, and whether only the King James Version of the Bible could be used. Since the first century, the church in every time and place has had particular cultural issues that have prompted strenuous disagreement.
In today's passage, Paul quotes Psalm 24:1: "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it" (v. 26). One issue dividing the Corinthian church concerned eating meat that had been offered to idols. Rather than characterize the issue as right and wrong, Paul provides an explanation for both the strong and the weak positions.
On a certain level, Paul agrees with the strong. They've been arguing that eating idol meat is ultimately meaningless since idols themselves are nothing. Yes, Paul says, the earth is the Lord's. Everything belongs to Him. As long as we eat and drink with thankfulness, we are free to enjoy all that God has created and should not be denounced for the exercise of this freedom.
Paul doesn't close the argument there, however. He is careful to retrace some ground, tempering the freedom of the strong for the protection of the weak. To the strong, he warns: don't exercise your freedom in such a way that you cause a brother or sister to fall into sin. Don't just think of yourselves, as if your rights and your freedoms were all that mattered. Think about the good of others. Does your freedom build them up or tear them down?
The way for the church to navigate these questions of conscience isn't simply to determine what's absolutely right and what's emphatically wrong. For a Christian, Paul is quite clear that we've got extensive freedom. God invites us to enjoy His good creation. The key, however, is to always think of others first instead of ourselves. Our highest calling is love.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul's given us a series of questions to ask in ambiguous situations. Going beyond the question of right and wrong, we can ask: How does this affect my brothers and sisters in Christ? Does it offend them and cause them to fall into sin? Does it burden them with regulations beyond the truth of Scripture? How does this affect God's reputation? Does it ultimately glorify Him? And does this serve to advance the gospel? We must remember the example of Christ, who forfeited His rights for the good of others (see 1 Cor. 11:1).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"I Indeed . . . But He"
I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire -Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, "I indeed . . . but He . . ."? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more- butHe begins right there- He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin- it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. "He will baptize you . . . ." The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
"I indeed" was this in the past, "but He" came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
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God in Nature
God has made Himself known to mankind in a powerful way people often ignore...His creation. Romans 1:18-20 tells us,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God speaks to people through nature...through His creation. I am confident that there is a point in every person's life where there comes an awareness of God. Whether it is looking at a shooting star, or at a sunset, or at a blade of grass, the thought occurs to them, "This didn't just get here. This didn't just happen. There must be a God."
Creation speaks to us of the Godhead. It is a revelation of God. The book of Psalms says, Night unto night shows forth knowledge. And it says the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. Creation speaks to us of God.
But notice what this passage says. This revelation of God has come to men, but some have wanted to suppress it. They came to that point and thought, "You know what? If I find out about this, then I'm going to become responsible. So I don't think I want to know."
The natural bent of men and women is to suppress the truth, but God is speaking loudly and clearly of His greatness and reality through His creation. Praise Him today for revealing His beauty and power through nature, and use it to point people to Him.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 11:1-16
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. - 1 Corinthians 10:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
Augustine St. Clare, a Louisiana slaveholder in Uncle Tom's Cabin, claims he's not religious. He's cynical about religion, since preachers defend the institution of slavery from the pulpit. "Well, suppose that something should bring down the price of cotton once and forever . . . don't you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine?"
Has each generation simply sought to interpret the Scriptures in such a way as to favor what we already want, and then to silence it should it challenge something we cherish? Today's passage is difficult to interpret, and the temptation might be to qualify what Paul says in the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 11 as entirely cultural and in effect, dismiss what he is saying.
Without denying the text's complexities, we can begin with what is clear in today's passage. First, on the basis of the creation account as well as the dynamic of the marriage relationship, Paul explains that gender distinction does in fact matter. And though men and women are different, they are still interdependent. Neither inherently occupies a more important role in the church. In fact, Paul does not challenge here the practice of women praying and prophesying in the church. He wants to ensure, however, that they do so in suitable and seemly ways.
Women whose heads are uncovered while they pray (the original Greek language here suggests not that she lacks an actual veil but that her hair falls loosely on her shoulders) would resemble women praying in the pagan temples, where they did so with their hair unbound. This actually had serious implications, because women whose hair was not bound up might be mistaken for the equivalent of temple prostitutes. Thus, the discussion here about head coverings is consistent with the earlier exhortations regarding sexual immorality and Christian freedom.
Just as he has in many other places in his letter, Paul is identifying the church as unique and separate from the world. The preservation of that identity matters for the integrity of the gospel.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
C. S. Lewis once noted that Christians need to distinguish between social and cultural norms that change in different times and places (he gave the example of modesty in Victorian England and the Polynesian Islands) and biblical principles that are true in all times and places (for example, chastity). Are you able to tell the difference between a principle and a preference? Are you willing to give up a preference for the sake of church unity and the advancement of the gospel?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer- Battle in "The Secret Place"
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly -Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, "Dream about your Father who is in the secret place," but He said, ". . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . ." Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, "This needs to be done, and I have to do that today." Jesus says to "shut your door." Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from "the secret place"- He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in "the secret place," it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into "the secret place," and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and "pray to your Father who is in the secret place," every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
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No Unbelievers in Hell
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a very sobering story,
"The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom... Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment'" (Luke 16:22b-23 and 27-28).
Everyone in hell believes in evangelism. They are crying out lest their loved ones end up with them.
Two thousand years have passed and this rich man has had no relief. A billion years from now he will just be getting started in his torment and pain. Listen to his cry, "My brothers! Send someone to my family!"
Hell is for unbelievers but there are no unbelievers in hell!
Several years ago a man came weeping to the altar of our church. A message had been preached that night from these very Scriptures. After giving his heart to Christ (and after a long time of almost uncontrollable weeping), he told us this story:
He said, "I died twice on the operating table during heart surgery. Each time I died, I left my body and went to hell. It was so horrifying that I tried to put it out of my mind. As the message was preached tonight, all the details of my experience came flooding back into my mind."
He did not need to be convinced that hell was real. That night he accepted Christ and was liberated from the fear of returning to that place of torment.
Jesus alone can rescue us from the terrors of hell and bring us safely to heaven. Shouldn't we be telling people there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? Shouldn't we be warning them and encouraging them to accept Christ-while there is still time?!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 11:17-33
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body. - Ephesians 4:3-4
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Lord's Supper, or Eucharist, is observed in many different ways in various church traditions, but one point upon which all Christians agree is its special significance. One theologian noted that in Jesus' final moments with His disciples, He did not impart theory to them, but instead, gave them a meal. In the Lord's Supper, we have a picture of redemption: Jesus, Son of God, is the bread of life who was broken for the sins of the world. We remember His life and death in a very earthly sort of way: at the table.
The Lord's Supper in the times of the early Christians was celebrated as a communal meal. In the case of the Corinthians, this is exactly where the problems emerged. In Roman culture (and Corinth was a Roman colony), social conventions dictated that those of highest rank and social standing should be served the largest portions and better quality food. Instead of challenging those social conventions, the Corinthians capitulated to them. (They've been guilty before of accepting wholesale the messages of culture rather than reinterpreting their worldview according to the gospel. See August 3, 10, 11, 12.)
As the Corinthian Christians gathered for the Lord's Supper, the rich were humiliating the poor by not sharing their food with them. The divisions in the church (which Paul has been boldly confronting throughout his entire letter) were falling along socioeconomic lines. The situation was so dire that Paul says their worship gatherings do more harm than good. They would be better off staying at home!
Paul brings them back to the gospel, to the message of Jesus Christ crucified. The new covenant community is called to unity and to selfless sacrifice, following in the footsteps of their Lord. The Lord's Supper is an occasion for remembering and reflecting on their call to live as the body of Christ. To "recognize the body of the Lord" has a double meaning: first, we acknowledge the sacrifice of our Savior. Second, we recognize that we are part of His body, the church, in the practice of participating in the Lord's Supper.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
On a personal level, each of us must try to reconcile our grievances with one another in our local community before we eat the Lord's Supper. But on a more global level, the Lord's Supper is also an invitation to think of other brothers and sisters in Christ in poorer parts of the world whose burden we are called to share. We must not be like the Corinthians, wallowing in our affluence without thought to Christians in distress. Could the Lord's Supper provoke in us greater generosity to those in need around the globe?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? -Matthew 7:9
The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (seeMatthew 5:45 ). Never say that it is not God's will to give you what you ask. Don't faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a "good child" in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, "I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings"? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a "good child."
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God's child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12 ).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I "walk in the light" ( 1 John 1:7 ). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong- a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, "Everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Matthew 7:8 ).
Unless They Are Agreed
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3).
In order to walk with God, one must agree with Him. In order to experience the fulfillment of His promises in our lives, we must agree with what those promises say-whether we understand how they could ever come to pass or not.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would give birth to a son, she asked, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34).
A pretty fair question, don't you think? It seemed impossible to Mary. She could not get her mind around how Gabriel's announcement could ever come to pass.
I love the angel's response to her question, "The Holy Spirit..." (Luke 1:35). That is the answer to your impossibilities as well. When you can't understand how a promise from God could ever be fulfilled, the answer is "The Holy Spirit!"
At this point Mary could have said, "No way! This makes no sense to me. I don't accept it!" But she didn't. She said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word"(Luke 1:38).
Mary agreed with God's promise and accepted it. Then the miracle happened.
Whatever you are facing today, make the decision to agree with God and His promises. The Holy Spirit can bring His Word to pass!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. - 1 Corinthians 12:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his 2006 book, The Blind Side, Michael Lewis examines the hidden heroes of football. For example, the virtually unknown players at the left tackle position are some of the highest paid players on the team. It's their job to defend the blind side of the quarterback. The offense depends on their strength and agility. The left tackle doesn't get the acclaim the quarterback does, but he's arguably just as important.
To carry the team analogy further, the church is made up of all kinds of players: quarterbacks, running backs, offensive linemen, and kickers. Just as Paul teaches here in the first verses of chapter 12, the community of believers is a wide assortment of people whose gifts and service are equally as diverse. In the Corinthian church, there is clear confusion on the matter of spiritual gifts, and Paul dedicates the next three chapters of his letter to answering questions the Corinthians have posed to him on the subject.
The Corinthians have some fundamental misconceptions about spiritual gifts, which Paul must address. They had elevated certain gifts above others, most notably the gift of tongues (cf. 1 Corinthians 14). And no doubt those with the gift of tongues were boasting of some spiritual privilege and position. Perhaps they had even come to doubt that all members of the community were indwelt by the Spirit and endowed with gifts from Him.
From the beginning, Paul wants to establish why and by whom the gifts are given. Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit, and everyone who confesses the lordship of Christ has the Spirit. Nothing more is required to demonstrate the indwelling of the Spirit-no spectacular or miraculous manifestation. Every believer has a spiritual gift, and the gifts differ in expression. The list, which Paul gives in our reading, is not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, it's to confirm the point that spiritual gifts are diverse! And the purpose for spiritual gifts is that their exercise would enhance the common good, not simply to feel important or good about ourselves.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Each believer has been given an ability from God to help others and to proclaim the lordship of Jesus Christ. Not all will preach or teach, but everyone has the capacity for influencing the lives of others for good and for reflecting the glorious body of Jesus Christ. Are you exercising your gift to help the church and bring glory to God? Or do you doubt that you are one of the "gifted" Christians? Numerous inventories for discovering your spiritual gift exist, but a good place to start is by asking trusted Christian friends what gifts they observe in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sacrifice and Friendship
I have called you friends . . . -John 15:15
We will never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we surrender in every detail of our lives. Yet self-surrender is the most difficult thing for us to do. We make it conditional by saying, "I'll surrender if . . . !" Or we approach it by saying, "I suppose I have to devote my life to God." We will never find the joy of self-sacrifice in either of these ways.
But as soon as we do totally surrender, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a taste of His joy. The ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is to lay down our lives for our Friend (see John 15:13-14 ). When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, our greatest desire is to lay down our lives for Jesus. Yet the thought of self-sacrifice never even crosses our minds, because sacrifice is the Holy Spirit's ultimate expression of love.
Our Lord is our example of a life of self-sacrifice, and He perfectly exemplified Psalm 40:8, "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . . ." He endured tremendous personal sacrifice, yet with overflowing joy. Have I ever yielded myself in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If He is not the One to whom I am looking for direction and guidance, then there is no benefit in my sacrifice. But when my sacrifice is made with my eyes focused on Him, slowly but surely His molding influence becomes evident in my life (see Hebrews 12:1-2 ).
Beware of letting your natural desires hinder your walk in love before God. One of the cruelest ways to kill natural love is through the rejection that results from having built the love on natural desires. But the one true desire of a saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not something sentimental or emotional- for a saint to love as God loves is the most practical thing imaginable.
"I have called you friends. . . ." Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created in us, which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God. It is a life that is completely humble, pure, and devoted to God.
Grumbling and Complaining
One of the things I believe grieves the heart of God is when His children grumble and complain. In Jude 6 we find some interesting insight into this destructive behavior,
These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.
The word complainer is really two Greek words stuck together. The first word means to blame, and the second word means your fate or lot in life. The point is that complainers blame someone else for their lot in life.
Isn't it always amazing how someone can make wrong choices, and when they have to face the consequences of those choices, it is always somebody else's fault?
I have two pieces of advice for you on this. First, if you are a complainer and grumbler, stop. God is not honored, and you are only showing that you are "walkingaccording to your own lust," not according to God's Spirit.
Second, stay away from people like that or you will end up being like them. Proverbs 22:24-25 says,
Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.
Their attitudes and mindsets will bleed off on you.
Did you ever throw a pair of jeans in the washing machine with a red shirt? What happened to your blue jeans? They turned pink, didn't they? The red dye bled over into the blue jeans, and the blue jeans were no longer blue. They were pink.
If you hang around with people who grumble and complain, their attitudes will bleed over into your way of thinking. And the last thing you want to be is a grumbler and complainer.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. - 1 Corinthians 12:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
The church in Haiti was not destroyed when the buildings collapsed in the January 12 earthquake. Gersan Valcin, pastor of a church in Port-au-Prince, was visiting one of his church members when a destitute woman approached whose shoes had fallen apart. The church member took off her own shoes-the only pair she owned-and gave them to the woman, who still had many miles to travel.
Here is a picture of the kind of actions and attitudes to which Paul calls the Corinthians in verse 26 of our reading today. As the church of God, we must compassionately identify with those among us who hurt. Moreover, when members of our body are honored, we celebrate together. This isn't mere sympathy or polite applause. With the kind of a radical unity in the body of Christ that Paul has been urging, we actually feel for one another. As followers of Jesus, we become like Him and take on each other's pain and celebration in an incarnational way. In Christ, our stories and our lives really matter to others.
We can see what Paul is doing as he answers the questions the Corinthians have posed to him on the subject of spiritual gifts. He's using his answer as an occasion to retrace some of his themes of the letter. We must remember that the fundamental problem the Corinthian church faced was its disunity. The disunity has expressed itself in multiple ways: believers had taken one another to court, the community had divided over the issue of whether one can eat meat sacrificed to idols, factions developed between sexual immorality and sexual asceticism, and the Lord's Supper had become another occasion of the rich shaming the poor. Spiritual gifts were another arena where the Corinthians had despised one another.
Paul teaches that every member of the body is indispensable. We cannot do without what might seem to be the weakest of our members. As infinitely complex and beautiful as the human body, the diversity of the church is there by God's creative design.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Seminary president in Port-au-Prince, Jean Dorlus, spoke of the cooperation between Americans and Haitians in the relief and rebuilding efforts in the wake of the earthquake. For all the praise he offered, he also noted, "Oh, Americans-they would be almost perfect people except for one thing: if they would listen!" His words challenge us to remember that as the body of Christ, in order to function in a healthy way, we've got to listen to one another. Real listening is the prerequisite for real compassion and unity.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you . . . -John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always "spirit, and they are life" ( John 6:63 ). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? ". . . My peace I give to you. . ."- a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you "looking unto Jesus" ( Hebrews 12:2 ) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." ( John 14:27 ).
Prayer?
In Ephesians 6:17-18, the apostle Paul tells us,
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
Today I want you to take special note of that phrase, "Praying always with all prayer." In Goodspeed's translation, he puts it this way, Use every kind of prayer and entreaty; and at every opportunity, pray in the Spirit.
I believe Paul is pointing you and me to the fact that there are different kinds of prayer. Over the next few devotionals, I want to talk to you about those different types of prayer.
Now, I know you may be thinking, "Well, prayer is prayer. Let's not get so technical." There is a truth there because prayer in its simplest form is just talking to God, and that is something anyone can do.
But to say, "All prayer is prayer," is equivalent to saying, "All sports are sports." It is true in one sense, but you cannot play one kind of sport with the rules that govern a different kind of sport.
I remember when I was coaching Little League. A ground ball was hit into the outfield. When the outfielder got it, he threw it at the kid running to second base and hit him. Then the outfielder started screaming, "You're out! I got you!"
Well, that works in dodge ball, but it doesn't work in baseball. There are different kinds of prayer for different kinds of circumstances, which I look forward to helping you understand in the coming devotionals.
Be diligent to talk to God every day, but along with that commitment, make it your aim to learn the "rules" that govern different kinds of prayer.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. - 1 John 3:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
William Wilberforce, one of the more well-known members of the Clapham Sect, worked tirelessly in Parliament to abolish the British slave trade. But it was Hannah More, a lesser known member, who wrote this on the subject of notable Christian service: "We are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise rare and great virtues, and by stepping over the ordinary ones that lie directly in the road before us."
This notion is at the heart of Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 13. What matters most isn't always our greatest achievements, spiritual or otherwise. When considered in the light of what will endure, all of the spiritual gifts, whether tongues or knowledge (which the Corinthians esteemed) or prophecy (which Paul valued), have secondary importance. What matters most is that we've acted for love and in love. Love will be the final criterion for our spiritual lives. And love is what will distinguish the Christian life and community.
We must remember that Paul wasn't waxing eloquent on the theme of love for the purposes of poetry. 1 Corinthians 13, before it became a common passage to be used in weddings, was included in a letter to a church whose sins of pride and arrogance, whose misuse and misunderstanding of spiritual gifts, and whose socioeconomic differences had become sources of division. Paul hasn't pushed the pause button on his main themes of his letter, but in this chapter, he gives feet to the character of love. It is the force that he knows can unify the Corinthian community.
When the Corinthians decide to love, the factional infighting and envious quarreling in the community will end (cf. 1:11, 3:3). When the Corinthians begin to love, the exercise of spiritual gifts will build up, rather than divide, the community. When the Corinthians consider controversial questions of Christian faith and practice, and when love governs that discussion, the unity of thought and mind to which Paul first called them will be realized (1:10).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Love can heal what pride has injured. It can bind up the places where we've been wounded and where trust has eroded. In a commentary on 1 Corinthians, one New Testament scholar says, "Love requires the formation of character." He means to highlight that what Paul has described in this chapter isn't necessarily how we feel love for others but how we show love. To love is to need a radical inner transformation. To love is to depend on Christ, whose example defines for us what love is (1 John 3:16).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Living Your Theology
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . . . -John 12:35
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" ( Matthew 6:23 ). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.
The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.
Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, ". . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" ( Matthew 5:20 ). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.\
The Prayer of Dedication
Yesterday we began a journey to understand the different kinds of prayer for the different circumstances we face in life. The first kind of prayer I want to point you to is the prayer of dedication.
Mark 14:32, 35-36 helps us understand this type of prayer,
Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, "Sit here while I pray."...He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will."
Here we find Jesus dedicating and consecrating Himself to the will of the Father. He is in agony; He is in distress. This is the eve of His crucifixion. And Jesus is saying, "Lord, if we can redeem humanity some other way, God, please! But Your will is what is important. So I am consecrating Myself to Your will, Father."
This prayer of dedication and consecration is one that believers should pray. In fact, I believe every Christian should pray this prayer in a general sense after they get saved. Just like the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, "Lord, what would You haveme to do?"
Also, when you come to specific crossroads as you follow God, if you are unsure of God's will, or you feel He may be leading you into a specific area that will require sacrifice, reestablish that consecration and dedication to God through this kind of prayer.
Christ was dedicated to do the will of the Father, and yet He reaffirmed that dedication as He prayed, "I am willing to submit Myself to You."
Pray it. Vocalize it. Submit yourself to His will as He reveals it.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 14:1-25
Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church. - 1 Corinthians 14:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2010, Chinese authorities undertook a massive campaign to correct thousands of signs in English. A sign that should read, "Caution! Floor is slippery!" instead declared, "Slip and fall down carefully!" "No Smorking!" signs abounded to ban cigarette smoking in certain areas. Instead of "Keep off the grass!" a sign exhorted: "Please don't disturb me. I am sleeping and will feel pain." American companies trying to market their products in Chinese haven't always fared any better. KFC's "finger-lickin' good" slogan was translated as "eat your fingers off." And the original attempt to translate Coca-Cola into Chinese was rendered, "Bite the wax tadpole."
Cultural miscommunication between speakers of different languages is how Paul describes what was happening in the church of Corinth. The Corinthians were speaking in tongues in their public worship gatherings, but as their speech was unintelligible to one another, it did not benefit the community. Because of the overemphasis on tongues (and what might have been a neglect of gifts like prophecy), their worship gatherings hummed with a noise like a hack with a clarinet to his lips or the muffled bugle call on the battlefront. They don't promote the encouragement and instruction of the believers.
Paul is not sidelining the gift of tongues. He is not faulting the Corinthians for having the gift or even wanting it. He speaks in tongues and recognizes the value of tongues for one's personal edification. But he is reminding them of the purpose of spiritual gifts and how they are to function in the public worship assembly. The Corinthians should never use their gifts, especially not tongues, to inflate their own self-importance or to draw more attention to themselves during corporate worship.
Spiritual gifts are given for the common good, and when the community gathers, priority should be given to the gift of prophecy (and presumably, other gifts, such as knowledge and teaching, v. 6). The exercise of spiritual gifts should always have the intent to build up the church.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul's teaching to the Corinthians challenges us in a relevant way today. How eager are we to have spiritual gifts and use them? The implication is that our gifts are not static. It isn't as if the spiritual gifts we receive when we're first converted are the only gifts we'll ever have. The text invites us to consider prayerfully asking God to endow us with spiritual gifts. With faith and a desire to build up the church, we must seek God and trust Him to use us in the body of Christ as His servants.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Purpose of Prayer
. . . one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray . . .' -Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person's life will suffer if he doesn't pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Ask, and you will receive . . ." ( John 16:24 ). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." ( Matthew 18:3 ). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits' end. When a person is at his wits' end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems- the very things that have brought you to your wits' end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
To say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature.
The Prayer of Faith
Yesterday we learned about the prayer of dedication. Today I want to help you understand the prayer of faith. This kind of prayer is found in Mark 11:22-24,
So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
With the prayer of faith, at the moment you pray you are to believe that you receive what you pray for. Not when the circumstances look different, not at some point in the future, but when you pray. The Amplified Bible says, Believe that it is granted to you.
When you pray, believe that God hears you and that He has sent the answer, whether you feel differently or not. Before you ever get up off your knees, believe that heaven has sent the answer.
1 John 5:14-15 says it this way,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
The prayer of faith is prayed when you know and understand God's will. Friend, the Bible is a revelation of the will of God. Prayer will not reach beyond the will of God, and God's Word reveals His will to us.
So pray the prayer of faith according to His will, and you can be assured He hears you and heaven has sent the answer to your prayer.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. - 1 Corinthians 14:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
With social networking sites and the ubiquity of Internet access, churches and pastors are exploring how to use these technologies to reach their communities. Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, a cyber church, admits, "We were blown away at how people could actually worship along [online]. The whole family will gather around the computer, and they'll sing and worship together. Instead of trying to get people to come to a church, we feel like we can take a church to them."
Would Paul endorse replacing the physical gathering of the body of believers with a virtual church experience from one's smart phone? From our study of 1 Corinthians, the answer is arguably "no." Of course the Corinthians weren't tempted to do church via iPhone, but they did struggle to understand our corporate identity as the people of God. We haven't always understood why it is that the church exists and why it is that we gather each week for worship. The Corinthians treated the worship gathering as a place to showcase their spiritual gifts. We often look for the feel-good experience of church. Both attitudes fail to see that God meant for us to seek not to be strengthened, but to strengthen when we gather.
Paul's summary comments are offered in today's reading. The believers should gather together to hear from God's Word and to speak to God through prayer and praise. They are called to be expectant and eager to witness the spontaneous movement of the Spirit of God for the purpose of the common good. While there's freedom in the gatherings (it's unlikely that they had bulletins outlining exactly what would be said and when), nevertheless, there are restrictions put in place. These restrictions, such as forbidding more than one person from talking at a time or requiring interpretation for a person speaking in tongues, do not restrain the Spirit but promote order.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is your attitude toward Sunday gatherings at your church? Do you hope for inspirational music and a message with rhetorical flourish? Do you intend to socialize with your friends? None of these things are inherently wrong, but they can distract us from more important things. How are you serving others in the church? Are you eager to join with believers to praise God? Spend time today in prayer for your church service tomorrow, that the members will be unified in using their gifts together to worship the Lord and build up one another.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith
Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?' -John 11:40
Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, "It's all a lie"? When you are on the mountaintop, it's easy to say, "Oh yes, I believe God can do it," but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief (see Luke 9:28-42 ). Every time my theology becomes clear to my own mind, I encounter something that contradicts it. As soon as I say, "I believe 'God shall supply all [my] need,' " the testing of my faith begins ( Philippians 4:19 ). When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat?
Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" Matthew 11:6 ). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. "We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . ." ( Hebrews 3:14 ). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God- trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6 ).
Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
· A grateful heart. Deuteronomy 28:45-47 (Amplified) says,
All these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. They shall be upon you for a sign [of warning to other nations] and for a wonder, and upon your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness of [mind and] heart [in gratitude] for the abundance of all [with which He had blessed you].
William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Do you express gratitude to God for all the things He has blessed you with, or do you take His blessings for granted?
Many years ago, when I was serving in a small church, one of my duties was to take groceries to families in need. I was shocked at the ingratitude of some that received the gift of food delivered to their homes. While some were truly grateful, others acted as if it was somehow owed to them-even complaining because their favorite foods were not included!
Hopefully you have taken time recently to thank God for the blessings He has bestowed on your life. If not, take time today to express your gratitude to Him who is the source of every good thing you enjoy.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 15:1-34
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. - Hebrews 12:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
For the sake of the gospel, missionaries like John and Betty Stam and Nate Saint gave their lives to share Jesus with people who had not heard of Him. For the sake of the gospel, D. L. Moody gave up a lucrative business career to reach the urban poor and marginalized with the message of salvation. For the sake of the gospel, thousands of unheralded Christians have ministered in prisons, taught Sunday school to unruly children, adopted orphans, given up vacations in order to participate in mission trips, or worked to free people from the bonds of slavery.
What is this gospel, that could compel people to action like this? As Paul nears the end of his letter, he returns to what is the fundamental issue at hand, the very theme with which he began: the gospel. In chapter 15, Paul defines what the gospel is and what its implications are for the Corinthians and indeed, for all believers.
In verses 3 through 5, Paul is citing what may be one of the earliest of Christian creeds. It announces that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and then raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the cataclysmic events of history. They have fulfilled the story God began with the nation of Israel, which He has carefully recorded in the Scriptures. The gospel is both an Old and New Testament story of God's person and work with His people.
The gospel isn't just a story rooted in past events. The gospel provides an expectant hope for what is to come. Jesus, having died for our sins and been raised, now lives to destroy the enemies of God. God's kingdom will finally and fully come through Jesus at the end of time. Our bodily resurrection is a witness to this future redemption of the world.
Because of the salvation secured by Christ and verified through the resurrection, we are compelled to act. As we share the news about Jesus with others, we are participating in God's promise to renew all creation.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some people like to force a divide between doctrine and doing-and then emphasize whichever element they prefer as most important. But theology and practical ministry can't be split apart; they inform each other. Paul's letter to the Corinthians is full of the connections between sound theology and life together in the church. The ability to know God and the ability to serve others are both rooted in the truth and power of the gospel, the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Usefulness or Relationship?
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven -Luke 10:20
Jesus Christ is saying here, "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service- rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour "rivers of living water" through you ( John 7:38 ). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7 ).
Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone's usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint's usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person's life is that person's relationship with God- something of great value to His Father. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory . . ." ( Hebrews 2:10 ).
Listening and Believing
For the last several devotionals we have been looking at heart attitudes that are conducive to receiving God's blessings. Today we will discuss a few more.
· A listening heart. Luke 5:15 says, However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.
The people came to hear and then be healed. Some did not want to take the time to listen, they just wanted the blessing so they could be on their way.
Listen to what the apostle Paul said to some people in Acts 28:27, For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.
We must have listening, receptive hearts if we are going to experience healing or any other of God's blessings.
· A believing heart. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.
Many years ago I was hiking up a canyon with one of my sons. He was about eight years old at the time. We reached a place where he could only get up by trusting me.
I dropped him a rope and pulled him up to where I was. He needed to believe that I would not let go. Because he did, and put actions with his belief, my strength was made available to him and he reached a place he could not have gotten to on his own.
God's strength is made available to the believing heart, and as we believe He brings us to places we could never reach on our own.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away! - Revelation 21:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his book, A Grace Disguised, Gerald Sittser describes his journey of grief. In one tragic car accident, he lost his wife, his mother, and his youngest daughter. The book offers no easy answers about the problem of suffering. As hopeful as the book is, it's also honest about loss. Sittser admits, "We recover from broken limbs, not amputations." Through the pain, Sittser holds onto the hope of the gospel: "The Easter story tells us that the last chapter of the human story is not death but life."
Sittser's book offers a thoroughly Christian view of death, the only view that makes sense of the hope of resurrection. In order to fully appreciate the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of believers (a doctrine the Corinthian believers had failed to understand), we've got to face the reality of death in all of its horror. Death is our bitter enemy. It robs, and it destroys. It is the cruel weapon of Satan himself, whose every ambition it is to plunder the goodness of God's creation and destroy life.
It's the resurrection of our bodies and the redemption of all creation, which shouts the joyful chorus that Christ has won! He has defeated Satan! War, disease, starvation, decay-the fiercest weapons of the enemy will be destroyed on the day when Jesus returns to earth, and all believers are given new bodies, spiritual bodies.
Whereas the philosophers in the time of the Corinthians conceived of enlightened spirituality as the state of the soul escaping the body, the Christian doctrine of resurrection affirms the goodness of the body. In the resurrection, our souls don't escape to heaven in a disembodied form. We will put on a new body of a different sort: imperishable, immortal, strong, and glorious.
The doctrine of resurrection fuels our energy for obeying and serving Christ in this life. Because of the resurrection of Christ and the promise of the resurrection of our own bodies, we do not believe or hope in vain.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you've recently had someone close to you die, and you've struggled with the anger you've felt as a result. Maybe even your anger has been directed toward God. This passage of 1 Corinthians 15 tells us it's perfectly appropriate to be angry about death. It is not God's good plan for His creation! But death is not the final word; it will once and for all be destroyed. The resurrection of Christ guarantees it. If you are comforting a friend who's grieving the death of a loved one, comfort them with the hope of the resurrection!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
August 31, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"My Joy . . . Your Joy"
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full -John 15:11
What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father- the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do- ". . . who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross . . ." ( Hebrews 12:2 ). "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . ." ( Psalm 40:8 ). Jesus prayed that our joy might continue fulfilling itself until it becomes the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God's work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, ". . . the cares of this world, . . . choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" ( Mark 4:19 ). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold- He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" ( John 7:38 ). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His "living water." Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live "your life . . . hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3 ). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
The Prayer of Supplication
Today I want to focus your attention on the prayer of supplication. Ephesians 6:18 tells us,
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
When Paul says, Praying always with all prayer, the Greek word he uses for prayer is just a general term for prayer used throughout the New Testament.
But the word he uses translated supplication means prayer for definite, specific needs. Most generally, you will find that this is a prayer prayed for others, as is the case in this verse.
In Philippians 1:4, Paul uses this same word for supplication, when he says,
Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.
Both the words translated prayer and request are the Greek word for supplication that we just read in Ephesians 6:18. But here it is translated as prayer and request.
I want you to notice who he is saying to pray for, Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all. It is for someone else.
Recently, I had a pastor friend ask me to pray for his church and their finances. He said things were really tight. So several times I brought the issue before God and made specific requests about it...or supplications.
Now, I did not pray, "I believe I receive it." That is not my place. What I did do was pray for God to help them. I prayed that God would give them wisdom, that God would inspire the people in the church to give, that people would have a heart for souls, and a number of other specific requests over the following several days.
That is the prayer of supplication...praying specific requests for specific people.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 16:1-24
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. - 1 Corinthians 16:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, wrote over 1,100 letters to each other during the period of their courtship and John's political career. Their correspondence is rich with the details of the turbulent times leading up to the Revolutionary War and the infancy of the American democracy. Their letters have provided historians with information about the political happenings of the day as well as the ordinary routines and concerns of the American family at that time.
A letter is a fascinating window into the world of someone else. Paul's letter to the Corinthians provides such a window. Reading the Corinthians' mail, we start to understand what it must have been like to belong to this newly converted Gentile community. There was still confusion about the fundamental truths of the gospel. They continued to puzzle over questions of Christian life and practice. The pagan philosophies of their day held sway over their moral and spiritual imaginations. We know now why Paul several times compared them to immature children!
For all their abundance of spiritual gifts and direct contact with Paul, we have blessings today that the Corinthians didn't. For instance, the Scriptures were still being written in their generation, and their teaching was sporadic at best, relying upon correspondence with Paul (1 Corinthians may have been the second of a three-letter exchange) and the frequency of his visits (infrequent, we infer from chapter 16). Before we judge this church too harshly and revel in our own superiority, we should note that we continue to struggle with some of the same issues in the 21st century.
Paul ends the letter like he started it. After all the time spent to correct and rebuke them, he now affirms his confidence in them. God's grace in their lives will prevail, despite their many serious problems. He returns to the theme of love in chapter 16. He urges the Corinthians to do all that they do in love and to express that love in tangible ways to one another. He affirms his love for them in an intensely personal way, writing the words in his own hand.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
First Corinthians 16 may seem like a laundry list of last-minute afterthoughts from Paul. He discusses travel plans. He arranges for the collection of an offering promised beforehand for the poor in Jerusalem. He affirms the ministry of Timothy and Stephanas. But one important conclusion we draw from this chapter is the attention to the interconnectedness of the church throughout Asia: from Ephesus, to Jerusalem, to Galatia, and to Corinth, they were all brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. "There is one body . . . and one Lord" (Eph. 4:4, 5).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 1, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's House
. . . they found Him in the temple . . . . And He said to them, '. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' -Luke 2:46, 49
Our Lord's childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood- His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father's house? Is the Son of God living in His Father's house within me?
The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong- when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. ". . . I must be about My Father's business"- and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father's house.
Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord's life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father's house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.
The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.
The Prayer of Intercession
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of intercession...the sixth and last of the kinds of prayer we have been covering over the last week of devotionals.
1 Timothy 2:1 points us to this type of prayer,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.
Intercession, as we find it here, is a technical term for approaching a king on behalf of another. In a general sense, related to prayer, intercession is seeking God on the behalf of others. But, more specifically, it is coming to God for one who has no standing with Him.
A number of years ago, I was ministering in Nigeria, speaking at a large conference in the city of Onitsha. While there, we were invited to go meet the king of Onitsha.
It was pretty exciting driving in a motorcade with little flags on all the cars. I felt like a big shot! But when we got to the palace, we had to have someone go on our behalf in order to meet with the king. I had no standing with the king, and neither did anyone else in our party.
The person who brought us to the king of Onitsha was an intercessor. And that is the idea of this word intercession. You are coming to the King of kings on the behalf of someone who presently has no standing with Him.
Do you remember when Abraham went before God for the city of Sodom-desiring that God would spare Sodom? What was Abraham doing? He was acting as an intercessor. He was coming between God and someone who had no standing with God.
We all should be praying prayers of intercession. You and I are to make intercession for the lost.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Corinthians 1:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
In October 2009, a spate of articles in publications like the New York Times and The New Republic as well as on numerous parenting blogs all debated the same question: Is shouting the "new" spanking? As the practice of spanking children has declined in segments of the American population, parents admitted that they resorted to yelling and shouting instead. Now they wondered if that was really better than corporal punishment. When children misbehaved or exasperated them, was it okay to scream at them?
Every parent can relate to the occasional frustration caused by their child's actions and attitude-and as a spiritual father, Paul felt this toward his beloved church in Corinth (4:14,15). Yet in this letter to the Corinthians, which we'll study this month, Paul sent a message that is paternal and firm but never harsh or screeching. There was just cause for a tongue-lashing. The problems in the Corinthian church-including disunity, pride, misuse of spiritual gifts, and abuse of the Lord's Supper-were serious indeed.
In the opening portion of this letter Paul remains realistic in his appraisal of the Corinthians' spiritual life and practice, but he does not play the part of the scolding father. In fact, his tone is confident and expectant, because his hope for the Corinthians is rooted firmly in the unwavering faithfulness of God. Despite all their problems, Paul knows that in the end, they will be declared blameless on the day of Jesus' return. In these opening lines, he has full confidence that God has given the Corinthians a sure calling and hope, an enriching of their mouths and minds, and spiritual gifts for every need and occasion.
Exuberance abounds in the "every" and "all" of verse five. These words are only possible for those who call on the name of Jesus. In Christ, everything depends on grace, not on human performance. No one then, not even this strife-torn first-century church, falls beyond the reach of grace. God's rescue of salvation is evidence that He is committed to saving us and changing us.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Like the Corinthians, we are followers of Jesus who sometimes struggle to get along with each other. Their problems, as we'll see throughout the month, aren't unlike ours. Divisions have grown up in the church, and the community is fractured and broken. A place to begin when broken fellowship seems irreparable is the unfailing grace of God: He never gives up on us. He has declared what we should be (saints), and He is determined to make our holiness a reality. If God doesn't give up on us, can we give up on one another?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 2, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
A Life of Pure and Holy Sacrifice
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow . . . -John 7:38
Jesus did not say, "He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God," but, in essence, "He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him." Our Lord's teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person- His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God's purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us- and we cannot measure that at all.
When Mary of Bethany "broke the flask . . . of very costly oil . . . and poured it on [Jesus'] head," it was an act for which no one else saw any special occasion; in fact, ". . . there were some who . . . said, 'Why was this fragrant oil wasted?' " (Mark 14:3-4 ). But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said, ". . . wherever this gospel is preached . . . what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her" ( Mark 14:9 ). Our Lord is filled with overflowing joy whenever He sees any of us doing what Mary did- not being bound by a particular set of rules, but being totally surrendered to Him. God poured out the life of His Son "that the world through Him might be saved" ( John 3:17 ). Are we prepared to pour out our lives for Him?
"He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water"- and hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. Now is the time for us to break "the flask" of our lives, to stop seeking our own satisfaction, and to pour out our lives before Him. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?
Regaining Your Cutting Edge
Over the next several devotionals, I want to focus your attention on something that affects every Christian at one time or another: Losing our spiritual edge.
God wants us to stay spiritually sharp. Consider Ecclesiastes 10:10,
If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but wisdom brings success.
God is using this analogy to illustrate a very important truth: If you lose your edge spiritually, you lose your effectiveness as well.
Maybe you feel that way today. Though you are exerting strenuous effort, you are making little progress in your spiritual life. God wants you to go forward. He wants you to progress and not become stagnant in your spiritual life.
I have a friend whose father was a logger many years ago. It was a time when they cut all the timber by hand with just an ax.
One day his father shared about the way he would operate. After he chopped down a tree, he would sit on the stump of the tree he had just chopped down, take out a file he kept on his belt, and he would sharpen the edge of the ax. He would sit there until the ax was very sharp again, then he would go after the next tree.
Each time he chopped down a tree he would do exactly the same thing. But he said most of the other guys didt do that. They just wanted to keep going, never stopping to sharpen their axes.
Without fail, he said, he always got more done than they did, and he used a lot less effort. They had to exercise more strength, yet they got less done.
Over the next several days, we will look at what it takes to regain that spiritual edge.
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Read: Jonah 1:3-10
Jonah ran away from the LORD. - Jonah 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Scientists studying the migration patterns of purple martins and wood thrushes recently found that these small birds can fly more than 300 miles per day. Tiny devices called "geolocators" were attached to the birds' backs to enable the researchers to track them from northwestern Pennsylvania to Central and South America and back. They also found that these birds returned north at least twice as fast as they migrated south, perhaps due to the pressing need to find a mate and build a nest.
Like these birds, the prophet Jonah was determined to cover some serious distance. He wanted to run as far and fast away as he could from God's command and the city of Nineveh. This was obviously a sinful choice. But what motivated his disobedience? It seems that a kind of ethnocentric jealousy or misplaced national loyalty was at work in his heart. Under Jeroboam II, during the time Jonah ministered, the boundaries of Israel expanded nearly to those under Solomon. Jonah may have hoped a period of national blessing was beginning. In that case, he would have welcomed the idea of God judging Nineveh and would have been very resistant to bringing God's message-which he accurately understood as not only threatening judgment but also offering mercy (4:2)-to Israel's chief enemy, Assyria. In short, Jonah refused to accept that God loved Nineveh and fled from God's call to be the messenger of His love.
Jonah headed for Tarshish, which was in the opposite direction and about as far away as one could get from Nineveh. As a prophet, surely he must have known how futile this was! God was justly angry and pursued Jonah with a storm. The Nineveh mission was important to Him, and there was no chance He would let His prophet's disobedience go unpunished. While the ship's sailors jettisoned cargo and called uselessly on their "gods" to save their lives, Jonah didn't bother-he knew God was hunting him down! Even so, he did not reveal his spiritual state to his shipmates until after God exposed him through the casting of lots (see Prov. 16:33).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jonah displayed theological understanding but divorced it from what he did. He knew God was loving, powerful, and sovereign, but refused to tell the Assyrians and acted as though he could run, hide, and thwart God's purpose. Sometimes we are guilty of this sin. We know God loves our neighbor, then act as if He doesn't. We know God is powerful, then act as if it depends on us. We know God is sovereign, then worry about the future. May the Lord forgive us!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 3, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Pouring Out the Water of Satisfaction
He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord -2 Samuel 23:16
What has been like "water from the well of Bethlehem" to you recently- love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing ( 2 Samuel 23:16 )? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out "to the Lord." You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God- something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.
How can I pour out "to the Lord" natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way- I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out "to the Lord." Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as "rivers of living water" all around me ( John 7:38 ). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out "to the Lord."
If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything "to the Lord," other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.
Are You Listening?
Yesterday we began a series of devotionals focusing on how you can regain your spiritual edge. As we think about how to do that, it is important to consider those things that would indicate we have become spiritually dull.
I believe the number one characteristic you find in someone who has lost their cutting edge spiritually is that the voice of the Holy Spirit is no longer recognized. Those impressions that the Spirit makes upon your heart, through which He guides you, are no longer clear.
In Matthew 13:14-15, Jesus talks about this in a pretty plain way,
"And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.'"
This concern is echoed in Hebrews 5:11, where the writer, in talking about the priesthood of Christ, says,
Of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Have you lost the edge? Have you lost that sensitivity to the voice of God? Hearing with the physical ears, but not understanding in the heart; seeing with the physical eyes, but not perceiving what God is doing?
Jesus said that happens when the heart becomes dull. When someone loses that edge spiritually, it results is an insensitivity to the voice of God.
If this describes you today, ask God to open your eyes to see and your ears to hear. Begin now to regain your spiritual edge.
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Read: Jonah 1:11-16
You may be sure that your sin will find you out. - Numbers 32:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
If you use social networking sites such as Facebook, which now boasts more than 400 million active users, you're probably familiar with receiving a request to be someone's "friend." At that point, you have a choice: you can click "confirm" or "ignore." You might later decide to "unfriend" someone, meaning to remove him or her from the list of people who have access to your personal information. Due to the popularity of such Web sites, the New Oxford American Dictionary named "unfriend" its 2009 Word of the Year.
In modern terms, Jonah was trying to "unfriend" God. God, however, is present everywhere, so there was no escape for the prophet (cf. Ps. 139:7-10). There was also no release from his calling and ministry assignment, no matter how unwelcome. Jonah tried his utmost to block God's purposes for Nineveh, but his resistance, no matter how extreme, could never thwart the divine will. When the lot settled on Jonah, he persisted in his rebellion by not repenting or calling upon the Lord but instead asking the sailors to throw him overboard.
Perhaps he had despaired to the point of suicide, knowing how God hates sin. But more likely he clung to an irrational hope that if he were to die, no one could take God's message to Nineveh. In that case, he would "die for his country" and his disobedience could still accomplish something.
The pagan sailors, to their credit, made a contrasting choice. They refused to commit murder and did everything they could to avoid throwing Jonah into the sea. When at last they felt compelled to do so, they cried out for forgiveness. After God miraculously stilled the storm and the "great fish" swallowed Jonah (an event they probably witnessed), they responded in worship, proving the sincerity of their hearts. We don't know whether this was momentary awe or a lasting conversion, but it would be reasonable to assume it was a life-changing event for at least some of the sailors. Even in the midst of Jonah's disobedience, God found a way to reveal Himself to unbelievers and bring glory to His name!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus used Jonah to answer the Pharisees' demand for a sign: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:38-42). They wanted supernatural verification that Jesus really did come from God-but they really wanted to discredit Jesus. Christ answered their question by prophesying His Resurrection, turning Jonah's disobedience on its head for His glory!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 4, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His!
They were Yours, You gave them to Me . . . -John 17:6
A missionary is someone in whom the Holy Spirit has brought about this realization: "You are not your own" ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). To say, "I am not my own," is to have reached a high point in my spiritual stature. The true nature of that life in actual everyday confusion is evidenced by the deliberate giving up of myself to another Person through a sovereign decision, and that Person is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit interprets and explains the nature of Jesus to me to make me one with my Lord, not that I might simply become a trophy for His showcase. Our Lord never sent any of His disciples out on the basis of what He had done for them. It was not until after the resurrection, when the disciples had perceived through the power of the Holy Spirit who Jesus really was, that He said, "Go" (Matthew 28:19; also see Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8 ).
"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ). He was not saying that this person cannot be good and upright, but that he cannot be someone over whom Jesus can write the word Mine. Any one of the relationships our Lord mentions in this verse can compete with our relationship with Him. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself, but if that is the case, then, Jesus said, "[You] cannot be My disciple." This does not mean that I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be entirely His.
Our Lord makes His disciple His very own possession, becoming responsible for him. ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ). The desire that comes into a disciple is not one of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a perfect delight to Him. The missionary's secret is truly being able to say, "I am His, and He is accomplishing His work and His purposes through me."
Be entirely His!
Instruments in the Hands of God
Yesterday we saw that the first sign a person has lost their spiritual edge is that he or she no longer recognizes the voice of the Holy Spirit and His leading.
The second characteristic of someone who has lost their edge spiritually is they lose their usefulness as an instrument in the hands of God.
Revelation 14:14-16 tells us,
Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
The One sitting on the cloud with a crown on His head is the Lord Jesus Christ. The harvest on the earth is the salvation of lost humanity, men and women who do not yet have a relationship with God.
Then what is the sharp sickle? It is the Church. It is you. It is me. If God is going to reap the harvest of lost humanity, it is going to be through His people.
You and I are to be a sharp sickle in God's hand in His great plan of mankind's redemption. That means the housewife, the doctor, the businessman, the student, the truck driver...every one of us. We are to be setting our hand to whatever practical work we have been gifted to do to see people being saved and being discipled.
Let us determine to be an effective instrument-a sharp sickle-in the hand of our God.
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Read: Jonah 1:17-2:1
Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. - Jonah 1:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
For more than five years, fisherman Allen Sklar cast his lines into the surf of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maryland. Determined to catch a giant striped bass, he baited his hook with fish heads that were too large for smaller fish to swallow. During the early afternoon on May 16, 2005, his patience was rewarded when he hooked a 50-inch striped bass that weighed in at 52 pounds, 14.4 ounces, a new state record. "It was the biggest I'd ever seen with my own eyes," he said.
It took Sklar 20 minutes to land that large bass, but it took the "great fish" in today's reading only a few seconds to swallow Jonah. The hapless prophet thought he was about to drown, but God wasn't finished with him yet and rescued him in this unique way.
The idea that a "great fish" swallowed Jonah and he lived inside it for three days is somewhat unbelievable. It's not absolutely impossible, for there are documented reports that whales and even sharks have swallowed people and large objects. But in the end, it sounds like a "tall tale." How do we respond? Do we believe or not that God could have made this happen? Do we believe or not the report in God's Word that this in fact did happen? Many "spiritual" people are embarrassed by supernatural events and prophecy, preferring to explain matters in other ways. By faith we believe that God's words are true and His power is more than sufficient to trust the veracity of this historical narrative.
The fact that a "great fish" swallowed Jonah, though dramatic, is actually less important than other aspects of the story. One key is that God provided the fish at exactly the right moment to do exactly what His sovereign plan decreed. Despite Jonah's disobedience, God's will is a certainty. Another key is Jonah's change of heart. It may have taken three days and three nights for God and Jonah to "do business," but at last Jonah was ready to repent and pray the prayer recorded in chapter 2. God's mercy always wins out (Rom. 5:8)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The "sign of Jonah" mentioned yesterday carries a second meaning: an exhortation to respond to God's call to repent from sin. As Jesus explained: "The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here" (Luke 11:29-32). This rebukes all who refuse to accept the message of God's mercy as revealed in His incarnate Son.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 6, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water -John 7:38
A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, "rivers of living water" will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even "to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8 ) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow- "This is the work of God, that you believe. . ." ( John 6:29 ). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.
A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ- not emotion nor experience- nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.
Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.
The Prayer of Personal Edification
Today's devotional brings us to the prayer of personal edification. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, Paul writes,
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
In verse 14, Paul says, If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Coupled together with his statement in verse 4, we can see that praying in tongues edifies our spirit.
Edifies is actually an old English word. It means to build an edifice or building higher and higher. The closest modern way to say that would be "charges himself with energy," just like you would recharge a battery.
When I pray in other tongues, I charge my spirit with energy. I build myself up. It is like my cell phone. It needs to be recharged, or before long it will cease to work.
Sometimes I keep my phone on and talk on it while it is recharging, but when I do that it takes a whole lot longer to recharge. If I turn it off and plug it in, the charging process happens much quicker.
Sometimes you just need to shut everything down, turn everything off, and go get away with God and pray. Build yourself up in the Holy Spirit, especially praying in other tongues.
Sometimes after a long day I will come home just drained, tired inside and out. Eating a good meal and getting some rest takes care of my physical tiredness, but in order to replenish my inner resources, I need to do something else.
For me, reading His Word is food for my spirit, and praying in tongues brings inward rest and rejuvenation.
Even as the Scripture declares in Isaiah 28:11-12, For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, "This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," and, "This is the refreshing."
Take the time to get away and recharge your spiritual batteries.
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Read: Jonah 2:5-7
You brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God. - Jonah 2:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
African American poet James Weldon Johnson wrote a poem titled "Go Down Death" in which he gave an inspiring "funeral sermon": "Sister Caroline" was not dead, but rather "resting in the bosom of Jesus." She'd been in pain-the Lord in his "everlasting pity" had taken her home. Death did not come by chance. God commanded Death and his "pale, white horses" to "go down" and set Sister Caroline free. She saw Death coming and was not afraid. She whispered to the watchers at her bedside, "I'm going home." "Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears," and said to her, "Take your rest, take your rest."
Death carries no sting for believers, because Jesus in His Resurrection has shown us the way to everlasting life (1 Cor. 15:50-58). Though he lived before the Incarnation of Jesus, Jonah understood that God holds all power over life and death. God had already saved Jonah from drowning, but for several days He kept the prophet in suspense about what would happen next.
In today's portion of the prayer, the pattern of stating the need and then affirming faith continues. Verses 5 through 6a again describe Jonah's dire situation, and verses 6b and 7 again express his trust that God will come to the rescue. When Jonah said, "I remembered you, LORD" (v. 7), repentance and worship are implied. Spiritual "remembering" means Jonah came to his senses, realized how foolish he had been, and once again desired a close relationship with Him.
The sea imagery is an elaborate extended metaphor. "The deep" or "the heart of the seas" shows how near to death Jonah was and how helpless he felt. The "currents" and "waves and breakers" represent his troubles, which are as overwhelming as "engulfing waters." Sinking toward the "roots of the mountains" with seaweed suffocating him, he was trapped beyond all earthly help or hope. "But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God" (v. 6) is the hinge on which the prayer turns. These circumstances don't overwhelm God, and so the poem's direction turns from sinking to rising, from imminent death to His gift of life.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Making use of biblical and traditional prayers can assist life of faith. In the Psalms, God has given us an entire inspired prayer book! Church leaders throughout history have written down prayers for use by believers; the Book of Common Prayer has blessed Christians for centuries. In addition, we can write down our own prayers as a record of our hearts' cries to the Lord. One helpful tool is the Pray! Prayer Journal, available online or through Christian bookstores.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 5, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Watching With Jesus
Stay here and watch with Me -Matthew 26:38
Watch with Me." Jesus was saying, in effect, "Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me." In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular "Gethsemane" experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, "No, Lord, I can't see the meaning of this, and besides, it's very painful." And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don't even know why He is suffering? We don't know how to watch with Him- we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.
The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they "all . . . forsook Him and fled" ( Matthew 26:56 ).
"They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . ." ( Acts 2:4 ). "They" refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events- our Lord's death, resurrection, and ascension- and the disciples have now been invaded and "filled with the Holy Spirit." Our Lord had said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." ( Acts 1:8 ). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.
The Prayer of Agreement
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of agreement.
This prayer is found in Matthew 18:19, where Jesus says,
"Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven."
When I pray with other people, nine times out of ten this is the prayer that I pray with them. And most of the time I will quote this verse to them.
I remember working for a ministry years ago and praying with the folks who called on the phone. When I prayed with someone, I would walk them through this verse before we prayed.
The steps I pointed out were simple:
There needs to be at least two of us praying.
We need to agree.
We need to be on earth (I usually got a laugh out of this one).
What we are asking God for needs to come under the category of "anything" (which their request always did).
God will do it.
The only part people ever got hung up on was the agreement. "What does it mean to agree?" they would ask. I would say, "Simple, to agree means to agree." Don't over-spiritualize it. If we decide to get lunch together at a certain time at a certain place, and you say, "Ok, see you there," we have just agreed.
To agree in prayer is no different.
Read this verse again. Look at it step by step, and follow it-in all its simplicity. If we do our part, God will do His.
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Read: Jonah 2:2-4
In my distress I called to the LORD. - Jonah 2:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
If you've seen the Veggie Tales movie version of Jonah, you might remember the scene inside the great fish: It's a bit dark, but there's plenty of room to move around. The prophet mopes, but his life does not seem to be in immediate danger. A chorus of glittering angels appears and sings an amazing gospel music number, with Jonah occupying the front row for their dramatic performance.
The reality, of course, was much darker and smellier, as well as more depressing and dangerous. As Jonah's actions attested, he was a very stubborn and willful individual-even Jacob only wrestled with God one night. The prophet admitted to the sailors what he had done (1:12), but it wasn't until he spent three days inside the "great fish" that he repented of his sin and turned back to the Lord. The prayer recorded in chapter 2 opens with a statement of need and faith (v. 2). His need was obvious: he was in "distress" and on the verge of death at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Without further divine intervention, he would not survive. His faith is shown in the affirmations that God "answered me" and "listened to my cry."
The following two verses expand both Jonah's description of his need and his affirmation of faith (vv. 3-4). He recognized that his need, the life-threatening situation in which he found himself, was a result of his sin. He had done wrong and was being punished, primarily by being "banished" or "driven away" (ESV) from God's presence. What had happened had been justly orchestrated by God, and it is this truth that gave the prophet hope.
The Lord had a purpose-to recover and reclaim His wayward servant. For this reason, Jonah trusted that he would one day "look again toward your holy temple." Though he was repentant, it seems he was unaware that the kind of mercy and salvation for which he prayed and in which he expressed faith was exactly the kind of mercy and salvation he didn't want God to extend to Nineveh. His later complaint (4:2) showed he had yet to learn this important spiritual lesson.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jonah's prayer presents his need in vivid language, matched only by his faith that God will rescue him and he will again worship in the temple. This pattern of need + faith would be a good one for us to follow in our prayers as well. We can tell God about our negative situation as emotionally as we like. He's listening. But we can't allow a human perspective to overwhelm us. Prayer should express our confidence that God is bigger than our troubles and acts in our best interests.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 7, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Fountains of Blessings
The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life -John 4:14
The picture our Lord described here is not that of a simple stream of water, but an overflowing fountain. Continue to "be filled" ( Ephesians 5:18 ) and the sweetness of your vital relationship to Jesus will flow as generously out of you as it has been given to you. If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame- something is obstructing the flow. Was Jesus saying to stay focused on the Source so that you may be blessed personally? No, you are to focus on the Source so that out of you "will flow rivers of living water"- irrepressible life ( John 7:38 ).
We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as "rivers of living water" in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you "will flow rivers of living water." It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.
Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, "But I don't see the rivers"? Through the history of God's work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
Growing Up
The Scripture says in Ephesians 4:15 that we should grow in all things. I want to give you ten areas in which the Bible teaches us we should grow. I hope you will take time to read each passage and answer the question of whether you are growing as you should in each of these areas.
1. In Colossians 1:10 we are told we should increase in the knowledge of God. You ought to know more about God and His Kingdom this week than you did last week.
2. Psalm 71:21 tells us we are to be growing in our influence. I hope I have not reached the pinnacle in my life when it comes to the influence I have for good in the lives of others. If you call yourself a leader and no one is following you, then you are not influencing them, you are just taking a walk. You and I need to grow in influence.
3. In Proverbs 13:11 it says we are to be growing and increasing materially. I don't know of many who couldn't grow in this area!
4. Isaiah 29:19 speaks of increasing in joy. From appearances, some people seem to grow more and more sour as the days go by and have less and less of a sense of humor. Listen, the more you advance in age, the more your capacity to laugh at life's ups and downs should grow.
5. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 teaches us that we should grow in faith. Now faith certainly touches all areas of life; and, hopefully, today you don't freak out like you used to when you are faced with a trial, because your faith has grown and you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
6. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 teach us that we should grow in our love for others. I would hate to think that I have plumbed the depths of love for my wife, for my children, for my friends, or for God.
7. Ephesians 2:21 speaks to us of growing in unity. You and I ought to grow better and better at getting along with other believers, especially those in our church.
8. Luke 2:52 speaks of growing in wisdom. God is so anxious to provide you and me with His wisdom, but it is something we need to seek. Are you growing in wisdom?
9. Luke 2:52 also speaks of growing in favor. Are you obnoxious and hard to get along with? Do you find it difficult to get along with others? I challenge you, if that is true, to consider the model of Jesus for our lives. He grew in favor with both God and men.
10. 2 Peter 3:18 says that we can grow in grace. I don't know about you, but I am deeply grateful for God's grace in my life. And for those who extend me grace when I blow it. Is grace a hallmark of your life?
According to Scripture, these ten areas-the five from yesterday and the five today-are vital areas in which you and I are to grow. I challenge you to read each Scripture and take each area before the Lord and ask Him to reveal where you need to grow.
You will be amazed at the change for good that will come about in your life!
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Read: Jonah 2:8-10
Salvation comes from the LORD. - Jonah 2:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
The great hymnwriter Charles Wesley exulted in God's love: "Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heav'n, to earth come down! / Fix in us Thy humble dwelling; All Thy faithful mercies crown. / Jesus, Thou art all compassion; Pure, unbounded love Thou art. / Visit us with Thy salvation; Enter every trembling heart. . . . Finish then Thy new creation; Pure and spotless let us be. / Let us see Thy great salvation, Perfectly restored in Thee. / Changed from glory into glory, Till in heav'n we take our place, / Till we cast our crowns before Thee, Lost in wonder, love and praise."
In this classic hymn, as in today's Scripture reading, we hear the praise and prayer of a man who rejoices in God's salvation. From a rebellious and disobedient prophet, Jonah was transformed into a man who worshiped, gave thanks, and promised, "What I have vowed I will make good" (v. 9). By this he meant he would be obedient to God's call on his life-he would go to Nineveh and deliver God's message. No more running; no more fighting. "Salvation comes from the LORD" indeed! After the miracles and acts of God already recorded, there came one more. The fish "vomited Jonah onto dry land" (v. 10). This is not very flattering language, but the prophet's life was saved. That's why Jonah pitied those "who cling to worthless idols" when the one true God alone deserves faith and worship.
God knew very well that Jonah still had much to learn, but He had mercy on him anyway. The rest of the book testifies to the fact that the prophet persisted in his sin of failing to love his neighbor, a sin rooted in misunderstanding the heart of God and His love for the world. While today's reading shows a heart yearning once again for the Lord, later events would show this same heart to be made of stone (4:10-11). Isn't this typical of human nature? We repent, then backslide; confess our sin, then repeat it; and return to the Lord, only to find our self-deception and sin run deeper than we had imagined. And He loves us anyway!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Part of the transformation God worked in Jonah's heart was to make him willing to receive grace. The prophet had resisted God's merciful pursuit, preferring to drown in the Mediterranean rather than cry out to the Lord. Until he came to his senses, he had been among those willing to "forfeit the grace that could be theirs" (v. 8). Like Jonah, we should know better. But all too often we cling to our own ways rather than casting ourselves upon God's mercy and grace.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 8, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do It Yourself (1)
. . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God's divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . ." (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier "against the knowledge of God" is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God's power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin- Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched- the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers "against the knowledge of God." We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).
Looking to the Master
In 2 Kings 6:5, we read the second in our series of seven principles to regain our spiritual edge. It is the response of the man who lost his cutting edge,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
When this man lost his ax head and it fell into the water, he cried out and said, "Alas, master!" He went to the prophet.
The prophet was God's representative in that day. He was the mouthpiece of God. If you wanted to hear from God, you went to the prophet, and the prophet would give a word from God.
Today, thank goodness, we have direct access to God as individuals. We can go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Master. And that is the second principle to regaining your spiritual edge. You need to realize the only One who can restore your edge once it is lost, is the Lord Jesus Himself.
You need to get your eyes off of men and get your eyes on the Master. Some people make a great mistake because they have their eyes on men. You will always be disappointed if your eyes are on men instead of on the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is only One who can help you regain your spiritual edge, and that is Jesus Christ. No man or woman can take His place.
So today, put your eyes on the Master. Cry out to Him to help you regain your spiritual edge.
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Read: Jonah 3:1-4
Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD. - Jonah 3:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Charles Thomas Studd was a child of privilege. Born into a wealthy family and educated at Oxford, his father came to Christ as a result of the ministry of D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey. Studd trusted in Christ while in college, when a visiting preacher asked if he believed God's promises. When his brother became ill, Studd determined that his priorities needed to change. "I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come" he later wrote. C. T. Studd decided to become an evangelist and missionary to China.
Like C. T. Studd, Jonah was called to bring the word of the Lord to a foreign nation. Given a second chance in today's reading-in the uproar, God's plan had not changed one iota (vv. 1-2)-this time he chose obedience to God's call (v. 3). Thanks to God's grace, Jonah's ministry didn't end because of one mistake, even though that mistake was a whopper!
Nineveh had a population of 120,000 people. The city's double inner wall was 50 feet wide, 100 feet high, and eight miles in circumference. An outer wall protected outlying towns, villages, and fields, and made the overall city about 60 miles in circumference. That's why it took Jonah three days to walk around Nineveh.
How might the people of this powerful city have been expected to respond to his message? From a human perspective, their rejection of Jonah was inevitable. He was, after all, a foreign prophet of a foreign God. He brought a ridiculous message that a major city of the reigning world superpower would be overthrown. Furthermore, this would take place in only 40 days, with not a threat on the horizon.
Jonah did not think the Ninevites would heed his words, much less repent of their sins. As events unfold, it becomes clear that he didn't want them to do either one. His sermon is one of the shortest ever recorded, a mere eight words (v. 4). It conveyed only the promise of judgment with no mention of repentance or mercy. Jonah obeyed . . . but his effort was reluctant and halfhearted.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We could say that God is a "God of second chances," and it would be true. But it would be more true to talk about third chances, tenth chances, seventy-seventh chances, and ten thousandth chances. God's patience runs deep! And it's a good thing, too, because most of us need many more than two chances to learn the spiritual lessons He's trying to teach us. Praise the Lord that He is such a longsuffering Teacher and that He has compassion on all of us "slow students."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 9, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do It Yourself (2)
. . . bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Discipline Other Things. This is another difficult aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul said, according to the Moffatt translation of this verse, ". . . I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ . . . ." So much Christian work today has never been disciplined, but has simply come into being by impulse! In our Lord's life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was never the slightest tendency to follow the impulse of His own will as distinct from His Father's will- "the Son can do nothing of Himself . . . " ( John 5:19 ). Then compare this with what we do- we take "every thought" or project that comes to us by impulse and jump into action immediately, instead of imprisoning and disciplining ourselves to obey Christ.
Practical work for Christians is greatly overemphasized today, and the saints who are "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity" are criticized and told that they are not determined, and that they lack zeal for God or zeal for the souls of others. But true determination and zeal are found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that arises from our own undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity," but are simply doing work for God that has been instigated by their own human nature, and has not been made spiritual through determined discipline.
We have a tendency to forget that a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible, and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God, the world, and of sin and the devil. This means that each person must recognize the responsibility to "be transformed by the renewing of [his] mind. . . ." (Romans 12:2 ).
Taking Responsibility
Today we are on the third key to regaining your cutting edge. The first was to admit you have lost your edge, and the second was to put your eyes on the Master. The third is to take responsibility if you have lost your spiritual edge.
I want to take you back to 2 Kings 6:5,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
It is important to understand that ax heads do not just fall off. They fall off because they are not properly maintained.
I have spent endless hours chopping wood, and I have owned a number of fine axes in my time. But in all the years I have chopped firewood, I have never had an ax head fly off.
The only reason an ax head would fly off is if the one using the ax has not been taking care of it. This must have been the case for the guy in 2 Kings 6 who lost the ax head. He was responsible to make sure the ax head would stay on.
The point is this: If you have lost your cutting edge, you need to take responsibility. If it is something that you did, or neglected to do, repent. Take responsibility and stop blaming other people.
As much as you might like to point the finger at the last church you went to, or your spouse, or your boss, or whatever it might be, no one can take your cutting edge away from you. Only you can cause it to be lost.
Stop blaming others, and take responsibility if you have lost your edge. It is a necessary step toward regaining your spiritual sharpness.
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Read: Jonah 3:5-9
The Ninevites believed God. - Jonah 3:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
As reported in Leadership Journal, a recent survey found that religious faith in America is decreasing. The number of those identifying themselves as "Christian" has gone down by 11 percent since 1990. The answer "None" (15%) was the only category to grow in all 50 states, and it was the fastest-growing category across the board. The "Don't know/confused" category also grew significantly. One of the survey's co-authors commented that people are more or less making up their own religious identities and tend to view religion mainly as a form of self-expression.
The results of this survey suggest that had it been Americans instead of Ninevites hearing the message of Jonah, we might not have responded as they did. Despite the prophet's halfhearted, short-and-not-very-sweet sermon, the people of Nineveh began repenting as soon as they heard it! Though from a human perspective their response was completely unexpected, as explained in yesterday's devotion, it was no surprise to God. Clearly He had been preparing the hearts of these pagans to heed His message and receive His mercy. The credit certainly shouldn't go to Jonah-he made about as feeble an effort as one can imagine. Rather, God had set the stage and the time was ripe. When Jonah finally obeyed, events unfolded exactly as God intended. Jonah himself had sensed God's purposes and been (sinfully) afraid this would happen (4:2).
The Assyrians of Nineveh "believed God" (v. 5). They responded humbly to the words of condemnation and judgment brought by Jonah. They fasted and wore sackcloth to indicate the urgency of their sorrow over sin, the sincerity of their repentance, and their willingness to submit themselves to the Lord's will. From the least to the greatest, they accepted individual and collective responsibility for their sins. The king led the city in casting their fate upon God's mercy (vv. 8-9). God was satisfied with the genuineness of their faith and suspended His judgment at that time. Sadly, as we'll learn in Nahum, this revival did not endure.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Why did God forgive a cruel and idolatrous city like Nineveh? Because that's the kind of God He is: "If that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned" (Jer. 18:7-8). Our God has made us the same promise that He is "faithful and just and will forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9). Confession of sin needs to be a regular spiritual discipline in our lives.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Missionary Weapons (1)
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you -John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us- it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, "If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion"? Yet you won't rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God's training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person's true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private "fig-tree" life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, "But I can't be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn't come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready"? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God's work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
Where Did it Fall?
The fourth key to regaining your cutting edge is found in verse 6 of 2 Kings 6,
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
The words I want you to focus on are, Where did it fall? That is quite a question. And look at the response, And he showed him the place.
That is the fourth key, to know where you lost your cutting edge. Unless you go back to that place, you cannot retrieve it; and unless you are willing to deal with whatever issue caused you to lose your cutting edge, you will never regain it.
Did you notice that the man knew right where he lost his cutting edge? If you will be honest, you can probably point right to the time you lost, or began to lose, your edge spiritually.
Perhaps it was when you became offended because of what someone did. Or maybe it was when you started watching too much television, or when you began hanging around with a certain person.
If when asked, "Where did it fall?" you cannot immediately point to the place, take some time to commune with your own heart and be still. It won't be long before your answer comes.
This is essential because if you are to regain your edge, you need to start where you lost it.
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Read: Jonah 3:10
I the LORD do not change. - Malachi 3:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon clarified the doctrine of the immutability of God by identifying six areas in which God does not change: essence, attributes, plans, promises, threatenings (that is, promises of judgment), and in the objects of His love. About God's essence, for example, he explained: "The fabric of which this world is made is ever passing away. . . . But God is perpetually the same. He is not composed of any substance or material, but is spirit-pure, essential, and ethereal spirit-and therefore he is immutable. He remains everlastingly the same. There are no furrows on his eternal brow . . . he sees ages pass, but with him it is ever now. He is the great I AM-the Great Unchangeable."
If the Lord is "the Great Unchangeable," how are we to comprehend His apparent change of mind about the fate of Nineveh? Biblical narratives represent His actions in this way on a number of occasions (e.g., Gen. 6:1-11; Ex. 32:9-19). One response is that God's "change of mind" depends on our human perspective within time. God is eternal, not subject to time, and so His plans and actions with regard to Nineveh look different to Him than they do to us. A second response is that the message of judgment brought by Jonah was fulfilled, but on a delayed timeline. As we'll discover when we study the book of Nahum (Sept. 14-22), when the city of Nineveh later resumed its sinful ways it was completely destroyed, just as God said it would be.
A third response to this dilemma is to think of "immutability" primarily in terms of the character of God. He gives multiple chances. He loves all peoples. He acts with mercy and lovingkindness. He is responsive to repentant hearts. He honors faith. He forgives. This is the kind of God He is, at all times, "everlastingly the same." In the end, faith trusts both that God is unchangeable and that biblical stories of Him "changing His mind" are true. Such paradoxes are, after all, merely beyond our comprehension. One day we shall understand such matters far more clearly (see 1 Cor. 13:12).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's "immutability" is not an abstract theological doctrine, but a nourishing root for our daily spiritual lives. The unwavering faithfulness of God means we can stand firm in our faith. He does not play hide-and-seek with His expectations and commands. His holiness, justice, and love are eternally the same. He always acts in perfect accord with all of His attributes. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb. 13:8). Amen and amen!
GOD BLESS!
:angel
September 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
After Surrender- Then What?
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will- and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person's will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.
Surrender for Deliverance. "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest" ( Matthew 11:28 ). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will- "Come to Me." And it is a voluntary coming.
Surrender for Devotion. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . . " (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, "If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me." And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and (Philippians 4:19).
Surrender for Death. ". . . another will gird you . . ." (John 21:18 ; also see John21:19 ). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being "united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death" ( Romans 6:5 ) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.
And after you surrender- then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.
Be Watchful
We started in yesterday's devotional to look at the lessons we can learn about regaining our spiritual edge from the story in 2 Kings 6. In verses 4-5 we are told about the guy who loses his cutting edge,
...when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
Notice this guy is working hard, cutting down a tree. But, in the midst of this effort, he loses his cutting edge. His ax head falls into the water.
Now you might think, "Well, you wouldn't end up in a state like that, you wouldn't lose your edge, unless you were out of God's will."
But if you read yesterday's devotional, you will see these guys were in the will of God. They were moving by divine permission. The prophet not only said go, he went with them, showing just how much this was the right thing to do.
Or you might think, "Well, a spiritual man or a spiritual woman wouldn't have lost their edge." No, there is no indication that the guy who lost his cutting edge was unspiritual. Every indication tells us he was spiritually strong.
So what does this teach us? Be careful not to think we cannot lose our spiritual edge. It can happen to you, and it can happen to me. We all can lose our cutting edge if we are not careful.
My friend, it is vital to take care not to lose your spiritual edge. This is something you have to work at to maintain. Just because you have it today doesn't mean you will have it tomorrow.
The good news is that if you have lost your spiritual edge, you can regain it! Even better, be watchful to maintain your edge-staying sharp for God!
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Read: Jonah 4:10-11
Should I not be concerned about that great city? - Jonah 4:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
The classic story How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss, suggests the reason the Grinch hated Christmas "may have been that his heart was two sizes too small." With such a heart, the Grinch could not comprehend the joy and generosity displayed during the holiday season by "every Who down in Who-ville." He hated it all with such a passion that one Christmas Eve he snuck into Who-ville and stole all the gifts, decorations, and food for their feast. Yet the next morning the Whos gathered in the center of town to sing Christmas songs. Listening, the Grinch's heart was transformed-some say it even "grew three sizes that day"!
We can only hope the same thing happened to Jonah. He looks even worse in chapter 4 than in chapter 1, if that's possible. But perhaps God's rebuke at the close of the book convicted him of sin and spurred a change of heart. What happened next is not recorded, but the very existence of the book of Jonah, assuming it was written by the prophet himself, as tradition holds, surely counts as evidencefor a positive conclusion. A man who could write a book in which he is both the main character and a fool is one who has seen himself through God's eyes and realized the depths of his own sinfulness.
At this point in the narrative, Jonah was specifically guilty of a callous heart. He mourned for a dead plant but had no compassion on an entire city. He cared for a random vine but not for 120,000 people to whom he had been called to bring a word from the Lord. He showed more interest in his personal comfort than in the spiritual well-being of others. He reacted coldly to the amazing repentance of the Ninevites, yet professed despair over the natural withering of a single plant. His "pain" is selfish and absurd. Israel enjoyed God's law and covenant, but morally and spiritually these Assyrians could not "tell their right hand from their left." God had mercifully sent them a real prophet-a prophet who turned out to need a dramatic lesson on the love of God (cf. Matt. 5:43-44).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We would never behave like Jonah . . . would we? He grew irritated over the loss of a small comfort (the shade of a plant) while caring nothing for a lost city. Leaving our material comforts to go elsewhere and do God's will doesn't sound appealing. Are we open to being called to a less comfortable place? It might be translating the Bible in a remote jungle. It might be spending your days with prisoners in your own city. Don't cling to whatever "vines" are holding you back!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Arguments or Obedience
. . . the simplicity that is in Christ -2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your "arguments and . . . every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25 ).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God's will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
Created for a Purpose
Many Christians today are not living the successful life God intends because they have missed the purpose for which they were born.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
If you are going to live successfully, you have to know what you are all about. Any tool that is used for something other than what it was created for will not be effective. And it is liable to get damaged.
At times I have needed a hammer to pound in a nail, but I have been too lazy to go out in the garage to get one (don't get too self-righteous, you've done it too!). So I have ended up using whatever I had handy, like a wrench.
Well, you can get the nail in, but you are not going to be very effective. You are liable to dent the wall, and you are liable to damage the wrench.
Too many Christians today are not functioning or flowing in the thing they were created for, and consequently, they are not effective. And sometimes they get hurt and damaged.
You do have a purpose. In fact, the word in Ephesians 2:10 translated workmanship literally means you are handcrafted by God. The Greek word is the same word we derive our English word poem from.
In other words, your life is not to be without order or symmetry or rhyme or reason. God has some specific things mapped out for your life. You are not an accident. You are not excess baggage. You have a purpose.
Ask God today to show you that purpose, and then develop the gifts God has given you to fulfill that purpose.
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Read: Nahum 1:1
God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. - Ephesians 2:19-20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Marian Anderson was a renowned African American contralto. Looking for a concert venue in Washington, D.C., her agent discovered that Constitution Hall, owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), was available only to white artists. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was on the DAR board, resigned in protest and helped arrange for the concert to be held instead on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. On Easter Sunday, 1939, a record audience gathered there, with millions more listening on the radio. Anderson opened by singing, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing." Later she would sing at the inaugurations of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, among many other achievements and awards.
Anderson thought of herself as a musician, not a civil rights hero, but her story of achievement required perseverance, courage, and justice. The book of Nahum is also about courage and justice. It was risky for Nahum to prophesy judgment on Nineveh, because Assyria was a powerful empire known for its cruel treatment of defeated nations and leaders. This message of justice included God's condemnation of Nineveh's sin. More than a century after Jonah's time, Nineveh was completely destroyed in 612 B.C. as an act of divine judgment.
As a prophet, Nahum is among those who constitute the foundation of our faith (Eph. 2:19-20). He ministered during the reign of Josiah, likely overlapping with a young Jeremiah. His name means "comfort" or "consolation" and his message of judgment on Assyria, which had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., would certainly have been a word of comfort or consolation for Judah. Nothing is known about his hometown of Elkosh. The book of Nahum is not a narrative like Jonah, but rather resembles other prophetic books in that it is an "oracle" or a "vision," meaning a prophetic message or sermon. Most oracles contain a message of blessing to balance the one of judgment, but that is not the case here.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Each generation must take responsibility for its own moral and spiritual choices (Ezek. 18:20-24). In Jonah's day, the people of Nineveh responded with repentant hearts to the word of the Lord. But the Ninevites of Nahum's day made different choices and stood guilty before God. Their city would be permanently destroyed as a result of their wickedness. While past church leaders and revivals are a heritage from God, they cannot replace our responsibility to be faithful.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What To Renounce
We have renounced the hidden things of shame . . . -2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you "renounced the hidden things of shame" in your life-the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind-renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don't necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
". . . not walking in craftiness. . ." (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way-the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way-the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God's blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others-God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest-your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God's perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted
Keeping Your Focus
Yesterday we discovered that God does have a purpose for each of our lives. Yet even once we discover our purpose, we must remain focused. Luke 4:42-44 says,
Now when it was day, He departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; but He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent." And He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.
I want you to notice that statement of Jesus, "For this purpose I have been sent." Jesus knew His purpose. He said, "I must preach the kingdom." But notice the people tried to distract Him from that purpose.
I am sure the people meant well, but they were trying to divert Jesus from His purpose. But Jesus knew His purpose; therefore, He did not stay.
People will innocently divert you from doing what God has called you to do. It is only when you know your purpose that you will not be sidetracked, and you will not be distracted from what you are supposed to do.
The apostle Paul knew his purpose. In fact, he said this in 1 Corinthians 9:26, "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step" (The Living Bible). He was not about to get distracted from God's purpose for his life.
Our lives are not to be aimless, but they are to have purpose and direction, and we are to stay focused on that purpose, running straight at that goal. Keep focused on the purpose for which God has created you.
Be able to say like Paul, "I am running straight to the goal with purpose in every step."
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Read: Nahum 1:2-6
The LORD is slow to anger and great in power. - Nahum 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
The first African ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize was Albert John Lutuli, a nephew of Zulu kings who himself was elected Chief. Born in modern-day Zimbabwe, he was in 1952 elected President of the African National Congress (ANC), which opposed the apartheid regime in South Africa. During Lutuli's 15-year leadership of the ANC, their protests were mostly peaceful, including a bus boycott. One reason Lutuli fought for racial justice was his deeply held Christian faith. He said: "My own urge because I am a Christian, is to get into the thick of the struggle . . . taking my Christianity with me and praying that it may be used to influence for good the character of the resistance."
As we see in today's reading, justice was also one of the main concerns of the prophet Nahum. Chapter 1 is primarily a description of the character of God, as historically contextualized in His judgment on Nineveh. In the first part of the chapter, Nahum focused on the justice and power of the wrath of God, while in the second part he dealt more with God's patience and holiness. In today's reading, we find a poetic picture of a God who hates the worship of false idols, punishes sin, and feels righteous anger at evil (vv. 2-3a). He is slow to anger, great in power, and perfect in justice. We also find a poetic picture of God's power, conveyed through natural imagery (vv. 3b-5). Like a whirlwind or fierce storm, God's power is beyond human control. To say He can dry up seas and rivers and cause Bashan, Carmel, and Lebanon (all fruitful places) to wither is to say He has control over even the elements of nature. It's like saying He can wipe out the corn in Iowa or the oranges in Florida. This kind of absolute power inspires holy fear, as pictured in the mountains quaking and the hills melting.
To conclude, Nahum asks, "Who can withstand his indignation?" (v. 6). No one, of course. God's wrath is like a consuming fire-it will destroy whatever He chooses. It made no difference that Assyria was a world superpower. This wicked nation would be utterly unable to stand against the righteous power of God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some people want to ignore God's wrath and judgment. They say there's the "God of the Old Testament," but the "God of the New Testament" is all about love. But there is only one God and He's the God of the whole Bible. He's merciful and loving in both testaments, and holy and righteous in both testaments. His holy wrath and judgment are found throughout Scripture. The fact that judgment is also a New Testament doctrine can be seen, for example, in Romans 2:1-10.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Praying to God in Secret
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place . . . -Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is- keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
"When you pray, do not use vain repetitions . . ." (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly- He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God- that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
"Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer- but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, ". . . you will ask what you desire. . ." (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, "Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask." But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
Living with Passion
I want to focus your attention today on two passages. The first is Ecclesiastes 9:10,
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
The second passage is Colossians 3:23,
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.
Do you see the common theme? God desires us to live our lives full out, with passion. Whether you are a preacher, a writer, a teacher, or a singer, whatever you do, you are to do it with passion. You are to throw yourself into it.
People are attracted to passion. They want to see someone who is burning with a fiery zeal for whatever they do!
In my opinion, the greatest example of a passionate person is Jesus. Remember the story when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple? That was a passionate act. In fact, the end of that passage says, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up."
Zeal is just another word for passion. "Passion for Your house has eaten Me up!" Have you ever tried to imagine Jesus doing that? I have a very clear image of what that must have been like.
He is whipping these guys and they are running, covering their heads. He is throwing over these big tables and the disciples are watching with their mouths wide open, when they remember the verse, "Zeal (passion) for Your house has eaten Me up."
Let me ask you a question: When is the last time you were eaten up with zeal for anything? When is the last time you were utterly passionate about anything?
Don't just sleepwalk through life. You need to decide you are going to live!
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Read: Nahum 1:7-11
The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. - Nahum 1:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Elena Desserich was just five years old, doctors diagnosed her with pediatric brain cancer. Her parents didn't tell her the news, but somehow she must have come to understand what was happening in the nine months before she died. After her passing in 2007, her parents and little sister found hundreds of her notes written on scraps of paper tucked in random corners all over the house. Elena loved to draw, and many of her notes featured purple hearts and the words, "I love you." She had hidden them everywhere for her family to find.
Such incredible love in the heart of a dying child inspires awe. God's love, the source and fountain of all human love, is awe-inspiring as well. In today's reading, Nahum's description of God's character continues, this time focusingon His lovingkindness. He is good, a caring refuge for those who trust in Him (v. 7). This doesn't mean He's a pushover. He is just in His condemnation of Nineveh's sin (vv. 8-10). And He is powerful-there is no escape from His judgment. To be enemies of the Lord is to be doomed. They will be burned up like stubble in a dry field. There is no way to resist His will. No plot can possibly succeed against His sovereign decree. Those who try will be caught in their own traps or made drunk by their own wine-that is, people will reap what they sow. To be God's enemy is synonymous with being wicked, leading to the opposite inference that to be God's friend is to pursue love and righteousness.
The identity of the "one" in verse 11 is uncertain. Some commentators think it was Sennacherib (1 Kings 19), while others speculate it might have been Ashurbanipal, the last great emperor of Assyria. In any case, Assyria had chosen the wrong "refuge" or stronghold, trusting in its military power above all. The city of Nineveh was well-known for its strong walls (see September 8). These, however, were nothing compared to the strength and power of God. No refuge is perfectly secure except Him (cf. Pss. 9:9; 46:1; 59:16).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Reaping what one sows is a general moral principle God has built into the structure of the universe (see Job 4:8). This principle is not absolute, or we would all reap the penalty of death for our sins (Rom. 6:23). God's grace and mercy rescue and redeem us from normal processes of cause and effect, and getting what we deserve. Even so, we are not to presume upon His grace but rather we are to live as those who have been freed from slavery to sin (Rom. 6:1-6).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is There Good in Temptation?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man . . . -1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person's inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal- it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don't know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else-what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations-He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16).
Contagious!
In yesterday's devotional, I challenged you to live life with passion. Today I want to give you one other perspective on that.
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 9:2 where Paul writes these words,
For I know your willingness, about which I boast of you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal has stirred up the majority.
Did you notice those last eight words, and your zeal has stirred up the majority? Passion is contagious.
What do you think might happen if a community saw a church that was utterly on fire? Where all the members in that church were passionate about their worship, passionate about their relationship with God, passionate about serving one another, passionate about real deal Christianity where the rubber meets the road?
I believe there is a divine attraction to that! And I believe that it would transform a community.
Sadly, most communities witness just the opposite-compromise, apathy, and boredom-not passion.
Now, rather than complain, I want to challenge you to live life with real passion. Go all out for God. It only takes one person to ignite the fire of passion in others.
I heard the story of a man who came to hear D. L. Moody preach. While sitting there the man next to him asked, "Do you come out here because you believe the things he's preaching?"
His response was, "No. I come out because he believes it."
Passion is contagious! Are people catching it from you? Is your zeal for Christ stirring up those who come in contact with you? If not, ask God to put that passion into your heart today and watch what happens!
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Read: Nahum 1:12-15
God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day. - Psalm 7:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Earlier this year, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) built the world's most precise clock. It is an experimental atomic clock based on a single aluminum atom, and according to NIST measurements it won't alter as much as one second in 3.7 billion years. By comparison, the current national clock for civilians, kept by a NIST-F1 cesium fountain clock, can keep to within one second for "only" 100 million years. The NIST physicists call their latest effort a "quantum logic clock."
By any measure, Nineveh's time had run out. God had been patient, but He is holy and will not tolerate evil forever. Though Israel was God's chosen people, this hadn't exempted them from His judgment on their sins. And though Assyria had been God's instrument of judgment on the northern kingdom, this wouldn't protect them from His judgment on their sins as well. Assyria's military strength and numerous allies wouldn't matter (v. 12). God's judgment was a sure thing. This judgment would be more than a military defeat, though that was part of it. It would also be a spiritual defeat, in which false idols were destroyed and God's supremacy vindicated. The prophecy included a cultural shocker-no descendants and a "vile" or "worthless" grave (v. 14). A family line or people group dying out was the worst fate imaginable.
Nahum spoke of Nineveh's destruction as an accomplished fact (v. 15). From his point of view, the messenger was already arriving in Judah with the good news of peace-the good news that an antagonist had been defeated. For God's people, it would be as though a yoke had been broken or chains removed (v. 13). The former conqueror, Assyria, would itself be overthrown and the nation would again be free to celebrate holy days and keep vows, that is, to pursue covenant faithfulness and worship the Lord. How complete would Nineveh's destruction be? Centuries later, during a battle involving Alexander the Great, he would not even realize that it took place near the site of the former imperial capital.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Nahum's picture of the "one who brings good news" (v. 15) reminds us of a picture of a person who spreads the gospel. In the words of Isaiah: "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim . . . salvation" (52:7; cf. Rom. 10:13-15). Having "beautiful feet" and actively sharing the good news of the gospel is the calling of every follower of Christ. Are we being faithful to bring life-giving news to others and glory to God?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin -Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord's temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things- he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus' baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One "who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) He "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness" (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation "without sin," and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
Peace
One of the great truths of the Christian life is that you and I can know the peace of God in our lives because we have peace with God. As believers, we need not live our lives without God's peace.
Are you worried right now about anything? Finances? Kids? Marriage? Job security? Your health? What somebody said about you? How a situation is going to turn out?
If you are worried about anything, here are some instructions for you found in Philippians 4:6-7,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything [that means in every circumstance] by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Talk to the Lord about your problems, offering thanks along with your requests. He promises to give you peace if you will.
Let me leave you with these words from Dr. Stanley Jones:
"I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil.... A Johns Hopkins University doctor says, 'We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than non-worriers, but that is a fact.' But I who am simple of mind think I know; We are inwardly constructed...for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality."
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Read: Nahum 2:1-10
Nineveh is like a pool, and its water is draining away. - Nahum 2:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
After finishing dead last among the 32 teams in the 1998 World Cup, no one expected much from the U.S. men's national soccer team in 2002. Their first opponent, Portugal, was widely considered a dark horse favorite to win the tournament. So when the Americans scored three goals in the first half against the overconfident Portuguese and went on to win the game 3-2, the sports world was stunned! The U.S. team made it to the quarterfinals that year in their best modern World Cup showing ever.
The phrase "how the mighty have fallen" describes the Portuguese defeat in that memorable soccer match, as well as the conquest of Nineveh in today's reading. Though God's righteous judgment of Nineveh was clear in chapter 1, Nahum wasn't ready to leave the topic just yet. Chapter 2 gives us a vivid narrative of the city's downfall. We might imagine that the messenger of Nahum 1:15 has arrived and is delivering this news or telling this story to a highly appreciative audience. First, there is an announcement, a mocking warning to Nineveh to brace for an attack (v. 1). The narrative then mentions the big picture of national Jewish restoration (v. 2) before picturing the arrival of an impressive enemy army at the gates of Nineveh (v. 3). The battle is soon over in the city's outer section, as the invaders' chariots roam freely through the streets (v. 4). Behind the inner walls, things aren't going well either. Elite Assyrian troops stumble on the way to their defensive positions (v. 5).
Nineveh's final defeat is pictured in terms of water, as if the city was being swept away by a flood (v. 6). The palace collapses, the battle is lost, the city is plundered, and the people are exiled (vv. 7, 9-10). In fact, many historians believe the Babylonians used the Assyrians' own dams against them to damage their fortifications. By opening floodgates on the Khoser River, they may have won a swift victory. In a powerful final image that is then true both literally and figuratively, Nineveh spirals down the drain (v. 8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Biblical prophets often spoke of the future they were predicting as if it had already happened. They knew they were speaking the absolutely true and unbreakable word of the Lord. Speaking of prophecies as accomplished involved no risk whatsoever. That's how sure God's promises are! As Joshua told the Israelites: "Not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed" (Josh. 23:14). What good promise of God do you need to believe today?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Divine Commandment of Life
. . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect -Matthew 5:48
Our Lord's exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections- some people we like and others we don't like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. ". . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are "perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God's interests in other people. Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian's life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
A Miracle-Working God
Once again I want to take us back to 2 Kings 6:6,
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Perhaps you are wondering just what other principle for regaining your spiritual edge can come from this verse. Well, there is one more, and it is critical to understand because it points to God's part in the process of restoration.
I want you to look at the words,"And he made the iron float."
I don't know about you, but I have never seen an iron ax head float. Clearly this was a miracle. God worked a miracle when the man did his part, looking to the master, taking responsibility, and going to the place where the ax head was lost.
You do your part; God does His part. I like the King James Version as it says, ...the iron did swim. It was against that ax head's nature to swim, but God made it swim.
God brings the restoration. He brings the healing. He brings back that sensitivity and usefulness to Him. I pray that right now God is at work in your heart, and you are responding, making adjustments...regaining your cutting edge.
As you admit to those areas where you have lost your spiritual edge, God is going to restore it. God's part is to make that ax head float once you have admitted where you have failed!
He can restore what has been lost, even if it takes His miracle power to do it.
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Read: Nahum 3:1-7
They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. - Hosea 8:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1839, the Amistad sailed for Cuba with a shipload of African slaves. The captives, led by a man known as Cinque, escaped from their chains and took over the ship. As seen in an award-winning movie, also called Amistad, they then attempted to return to Africa but were captured by the U.S. Navy and imprisoned while the case was investigated. Spain tried to pressure President Martin Van Buren into extraditing the group so they could be tried for piracy and murder, but abolitionists succeeded in having the case tried in the United States. Two years after the original mutiny, the Supreme Court finally ruled that they had been taken captive illegally and were thus free to go. Justice had been done!
In vivid and intense language, Nahum 3 reiterates the justice of God's judgment on Nineveh and poetically addresses the reasons for it-which is, in short, their sins. This "city of blood" (v. 1) was guilty of cruelty, pride, idolatry, deceit, and witchcraft, and one gets the feeling that Nahum's list is a sampler, not a complete record. The Lord's justice would be poetic: Sins done in private would be made public. Shamelessness would be shamed. "I will pelt you with filth," said God, "I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle" (v. 6). This may sound extreme, but the literary device of hyperbole (exaggeration for effect) reflects the true heinousness of Nineveh's sins.
Assyria was not just a superpower, but a sadistic and evil one. History testifies to their bloody cruelties. They are alleged to have cut off enemies' hands, feet, and noses; gouged out their eyes; flayed or skinned them alive; ripped open pregnant women; beheaded and then burned the bodies in huge piles; and carried out many massacres. Their lust for power is comparable to a lust for sex-the "harlot" (v. 4) is probably Ishtar, goddess of both fertility and war. Given all this, it's no surprise that no one will mourn the destruction of Nineveh, no one will offer words of comfort. Instead, Assyria's former victims will rejoice in their liberation (v. 7).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Justice is often about reaping what we sow. Sowing the wind, the Assyrians were bound to reap the whirlwind (Hos. 8:7). We need to remember, though, that God can and does break this pattern with His mercy and grace. He can make it so that "those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy" (Ps. 126:5). In Christ, He has made it so that those condemned to death can receive eternal life (John 3:16).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Predestined Purpose
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant . . . -Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances- we are turned solely into servants of God's own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God's purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God's great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in
John 3:16
- "For God so loved the world. . . ."
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God's creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God's servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God's purpose for your life
The First Commandment of Marriage: Exclusivity
The first of the Ten Commandments is simply this, as found in Exodus 20:3,
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
What is God saying in this commandment? That He wants to have an exclusive relationship with you. He wants to be your one and only. He will not settle for flavor of the month.
And how appropriate in marriage as well. We are to have an exclusive relationship with our spouse.
It's been said that Henry Ford, on his golden wedding anniversary...50 years of marriage...was asked, "What's the secret of your success in marriage?" And he said, "The secret of my successful marriage is the same secret that I have in business: I stick to the same model."
In traditional wedding vows, the man and woman pledge their devotion until death parts them. For life. There is no competition.
My wife has no competition. I am not shopping for a new model. I do not want to trade in the old model. I will not be shopping in the future. One is all I need.
When God made man, He said it is good. But then He said, "It is not good that he is alone. I am going to make a helper suitable for him." And the Bible says God took one of Adam's ribs, and He formed a woman, Eve, and brought her to the man.
God did not take four or five ribs and say, "Okay, Adam, here is Eve, and here is Lois, and here is Samantha, and here is Rachel." No, it was just one. And to have a healthy marriage relationship, that is it.
I am committed for life. An exclusive relationship. I am not shopping, not even window-shopping. One God. One wife. That is enough.
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Read: Nahum 3:8-13
You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. - Psalm 77:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
The survey discussed earlier on September 9 suggested that Americans are mixing and matching their religious beliefs for personal reasons. Another recent survey focused on American "millennials"-the generation born about 1980 that came of age at the turn of the millennium-sees a similar decline in orthodox Christian beliefs: Twenty-six percent of this generation are not affiliated with any church or faith tradition, even though 41 percent pray daily and 53 percent are "certain God exists." Only 18 percent attend any worship service weekly. Among all Americans, more than half say they combine their religion with New Age and Eastern beliefs such as astrology and reincarnation.
Although these numbers show a thirst for spirituality, God will not bless those who make up their own truth. They will reap what they sow, just as in today's reading. This passage is another reminder that God's judgment is certain because His power is absolute. If the Ninevites doubted, all they needed to do was remember
Thebes (vv. 8-10). Thebes, located about 400 miles south of Cairo on the eastern bank of the Nile River, was the capital of Upper Egypt. Defended by many moats and canals and with strong allies, Thebes was nonetheless destroyed by Assyria in 663 B.C. Assyrian records contain many details of this great victory, such as the exile of the city's people, the enslavement of its nobles, and the slaughter of its infants. Jeremiah (46:25) and Ezekiel (30:14-16) both prophesied about this.
Nahum's point was that Nineveh would suffer the same horrifying, humbling fate (vv. 11-13). Though now on top of the world, they would soon be running and hiding like refugees or like women (given that war was a "manly" pursuit in that day and age). Their defenses would fall like ripe figs-a startling simile, like comparing nuclear missiles to dandelion seeds blown away by the wind. Furthermore, the figs do not merely drop and spoil, rather, they are hungrily and effortlessly devoured, just as Nineveh would be by the armies of Babylon.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In the face of temptation, let us pray our defenses do not drop like ripe figs! When under spiritual attack we must "put on the full armor of God." We are to "stand firm" with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, and other spiritual truths pictured as pieces of military equipment. Behind the shield of faith, we are safe from the "flaming arrows of the evil one," and with the "sword of the Spirit" we can disarm him (Eph. 6:10-18).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Master and Teacher
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am . . . . I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master . . .-John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less- ". . . for One is your Teacher, the Christ . . ." (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
"You call Me Teacher and Lord . . ."- but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God's servant- He was His Son. ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience. . ." (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it-a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute
In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Don not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."
Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.
Love your husband only. Love your wife only. Do not look for fulfillment in some other relationship or in some other thing. Find your fulfillment in that relationship.
Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.
Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.
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Read: Nahum 3:14-19
Everyone who hears the news about you claps his hands at your fall. - Nahum 3:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
How can a loving God judge and destroy? This question applies not only to the city of Nineveh in today's passage but also to the doctrine of hell. Writer and apologist C. S. Lewis explored this issue in his books The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. He argues that those condemned to hell get not only what they deserve but also what they have chosen. In The Great Divorce he wrote: "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened."
One of the challenges of faith is to come to terms with truths that at first glance seem appalling. Judgment and hell are among these. Today's final reading in the book of Nahum again describes the defeat of Nineveh (vv. 14-15). Though Assyria was a commercial empire and center of world trade, it would be devoured by locusts, as it were. Merchants would take what they could and run (v. 16). Political leaders would disappear during the crisis (vv. 17-18). While a king named Ashur-uballit would try for several years to keep the empire going from another city, Nineveh's defeat would essentially be the death blow (v. 19). No one would grieve, for "who has not felt your endless cruelty?" The book ends with one of the many rhetorical questions, an effective literary technique in this prophecy.
How are we to respond to the fact that Nineveh was completely wiped out? It was never rebuilt, though archaeologists discovered its ruins in 1842. Was this overkill on God's part? Not at all. The wonder is that He waits so patiently and offers so much mercy in the face of human wickedness! If we had a true sense of His holiness and our own sin, we would, like Isaiah, fall to the ground in reverence for Him and in horror with ourselves: "Woe to me!" (Isa. 6:5).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's love cannot ignore or overlook sin. We should rejoice in divine justice and judgment because it represents the triumph of holiness. If these truths or the doctrine of hell are troubling you, consider doing additional Bible study on these topics. You might also read one of the books by C. S. Lewis mentioned above. The Screwtape Letters offer "advice" from a senior devil to a junior one, while The Great Divorce narrates a "bus tour" from hell to the edges of heaven.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Goal
He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . . ' -Luke 18:31
In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him?". . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:13), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.
In our Lord's life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go "up to Jerusalem."
"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master" (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our "Jerusalem." There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going "up to [our] Jerusalem."
". . . there they crucified Him . . ." (Luke 23:33). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord's grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, "I too go 'up to Jerusalem.' "
The Third Commandment of Marriage: Speak Well of Your Mate
Exodus 20:7 gives us our third commandment of marriage,
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
Many misunderstand the term, in vain. It means empty, meaningless, insincere, not showing due respect.
When we speak flippantly or lightly about someone, we erode our respect for that person. Some people are just far too casual in the way they speak of their spouse, and it erodes your respect for him or her.
In marriage, few things can affect the relationship like words. Words are containers. They can contain love; they can contain hate; they can contain joy; they can contain bitterness.
The book of James says that our tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It will send the ship of your marriage in whatever direction your words go. Some people are on the brink of divorce because they talk divorce. Just listen to the words they say. Are they negative or positive? Critical or encouraging?
One night I was out with a couple of friends diving for lobster. Some guys were out in one of those big, long speedboats drinking and zooming back and forth at 60 miles an hour. All of a sudden, BANG! The boat hit the rocks.
But it did not hit the rocks by itself. It was steered into the rocks. Just like the driver of that boat, some people are steering their marriage into the rocks of divorce, into the rocks of heartache, by the words they speak.
Think about what you say. Are you building up your partner? Learn to speak well of your mate. Build them up with your words. Be lavish with your praise. You will be pleased with where those words will take your relationship.
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Read: Haggai 1:1
The word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai. - Haggai 1:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
The teachings of the great Chinese philosopher Confucius have for centuries influenced culture, social morality, philosophy, and political theory throughout Asia and the world. He emphasized order and propriety in relationships, justice, and harmony. He believed strongly in the value of education as a key dimension of self-improvement, and he also promoted study of the classics as a highly virtuous pursuit. He is perhaps best known for his version of the Golden Rule, "Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself," which he called the virtue of "reciprocity."
Did you know Confucius was a contemporary of the prophet Haggai? Considering Haggai's ministry in this final week of our month's study, we begin by noting his book is the second shortest (to Obadiah) in the Old Testament. Its two chapters contain four brief messages delivered during a four-month timespan: chapter 1, 2:1-9, 2:10-19, and 2:20-23. It was written in 520 B.C., in the second year of the reign of Darius. It is permeated by a strong sense of being a message from God, as more than two dozen times we are reminded that this is the "word of the LORD." Haggai is regarded as the first postexilic prophet, joined soon after by Zechariah. Nothing is known about his personal background, though it is speculated he was perhaps in his 70s. This is based on a possible inference (from 2:3) that Haggai was one of the people who had seen the original temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.
The book's main purpose was to encourage the rebuilding of the temple. During the reign of Cyrus, 50,000 Jews returned home under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua the priest. In the second year of their return, the foundation for a new temple was laid, but then construction halted due to Samaritan harassment, political shifts in the empire, and the people's own spiritual apathy. Sixteen years later, Haggai appeared on the scene. The ministry of Haggai and Zechariah would be successful: The people obeyed and finished building a new temple about 515 B.C.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The book of Ezra (especially 3:1-4:5) provides background for understanding Haggai. The return of the people from exile happened as God promised, but it wasn't easy. The people had to make a new life, including rebuilding homes and planting crops. Collectively, they faced the challenge of rebuilding the temple and reestablishing national worship. It must have seemed overwhelming! Fortunately for them and for us, "nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Preparation
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift-Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord's words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. ". . . go your way. First be reconciled to your brother. . . ." The "go" of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don't just admit it- confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, "I will not give up my right to myself"- the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
The Fourth Commandment of Marriage: Spend Exclusive Time Together
Over the last few devotionals, we have been working through the principles behind the Ten Commandments...and how they form the basis for a strong and vibrant marriage. Today we come to the fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20:8-11,
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Sabbath means an intermission. It means to put down your work and rest. Take a break. And holy means separate to the Lord. "If you want a long-term relationship with Me," God says, "We have to have time together. I want special time, exclusive time. I want a whole day."
In the same way, in order to have a healthy, growing marriage, husbands and wives need time together...special time, exclusive time, sometimes extravagant time. And I think we all know that if we do not schedule it, it will not happen.
My wife, Janet, once did a little research. She found that surveys showed the average couple spends 37 minutes or less in face-to-face conversation every week. I bet before you were married you spent a lot more time together in a week, didn't you?
If your marriage is to thrive, you need to spend exclusive time together. You can't build a relationship and not spend time together. It is just not possible.
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Read: Haggai 1:2-11
Give careful thought to your ways. - Haggai 1:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
A credit company based in Riga, Latvia, last year asked borrowers for their immortal souls as collateral. The company, which offers short-term loans of up to $1,000 at high interest rates, did not worry about credit rating or actual collateral. Instead, said their Web site: "There is just one condition, a borrower should pledge their soul." According to the terms of the loan, the soul remained the property of the company until the loan had been completely repaid. Was this a joke? A marketing ploy? Latvians weren't sure, but several Christian denominations there complained and asked the government to investigate.
Some people are willing to sign away their souls for a bit of money, and we are reminded how human priorities contrast with God's. In today's reading, the Israelites were invited and commanded to "give careful thought" to their ways and priorities (v. 7). Initially, Haggai addressed Zerubbabel and Joshua directly (v. 2). As the main political and religious leaders of the nation, they could not allow the people to continue making sinful excuses about why the temple project was being neglected.
Haggai then spoke to all the people, condemning their spiritual indifference and self-centeredness. "Paneled houses" suggests luxuriousness, meaning that they were putting their personal, materialistic desires ahead of the priority of worshiping the Lord (v. 4). How could they be claiming, "the time has not yet come" when the ruins of the temple were compared to their own beautiful homes? Did it make sense to pursue earthly priorities first? Their present circumstances revealed that God was not blessing such actions (v. 6): Harvests were small. There were shortages of food and clothing. They were unable to save money and inflation was a problem. They were living hand-to-mouth-it was as though their purses had holes in the bottom! They needed to put God first and gather building supplies for the new temple (v. 8). Once they straightened out their priorities, He would bless the work of their hands (vv. 9-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We should give careful thought to our spiritual priorities in the stewardship of our physical and material resources. Do we take care of ourselves first and give God the leftovers? Perhaps it's difficult to offer God the "firstfruits" of our paychecks when it seems there's barely enough to cover the bills. When we have our priorities in order, though, God has a way of blessing us. And what are we worried about? He's already promised to meet all your needs (Phil. 4:19)!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Relationship
Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two-Matthew 5:41
Our Lord's teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a super-natural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice. No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself- a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, "I am here for God to send me where He will." Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally. And as long as we consciously maintain the determined purpose to be His disciples, we can be sure that we are not disciples. Jesus says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you. . ." (John 15:16). That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we can never escape; we can disobey it, but we can never start it or produce it ourselves. We are drawn to God by a work of His supernatural grace, and we can never trace back to find where the work began. Our Lord's making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us- He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace, and that is where the cross we must bear will always come.
The Fifth Commandment of Marriage: Honor Your Spouse by Showing How Grateful You Are
The fifth commandment gives us our next principle for a healthy and vibrant marriage. It is found in Exodus 20:12,
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."
Among other things, God is saying we must be grateful. Generally, parents spend a lot of time, labor, and money...sometimes to the point of radical sacrifice...to give their kids an edge in life.
And it is a tragedy when a child is ungrateful or unthankful. William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It is very difficult to have a relationship with an ungrateful, selfish person.
"Thank you" are important words to your parents, and an incredibly important phrase in marriage. It is difficult to live with someone who takes you and all of your efforts for granted.
You may be thinking, "I don't say it, but I am grateful in my heart. I truly am!" Well, hooray for you. You are blessed because in your heart you know you are grateful. But it does your spouse no good if you do not vocalize it.
If you do not demonstrate your gratitude, I doubt if you are really grateful because Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If it is not being expressed, chances are it is not truly there.
Maybe you think you don't have a lot to be grateful for. But there must be something you can say "thank you" for. There is something you can praise your mate for. Look for those things, and accentuate the positive.
Take time today to express thanks to your spouse in some way...through an action, through a card, through words. That is how you honor your mate.
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Read: Haggai 1:12-15
The people feared the LORD. - Haggai 1:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
The popular children's television program Reading Rainbow ended its 26-year run last summer. During this time, it won more than two dozen Emmy awards and was widely admired for inspiring children to fall in love with books and reading. Hosted by actor LeVar Burton, the show didn't address how to read but why to read, as reflected in the theme song: "Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high, Take a look, it's in a book." Children responded positively to the show's message.
In today's reading, the Jewish exiles who had returned to the Promised Land responded positively to God's message as brought by Haggai. This makes for a refreshing change in our month's study! Jonah eventually obeyed, but much of the time he acted like a stubborn donkey being pulled along a mountain path. The Ninevites responded to Jonah's message with humble repentance, but by Nahum's time their sins were so great that God judged them by totally destroying their city. Here at last in Haggai we find a group of people who, upon hearing the word of the Lord, simply got up and did it.
Thanks to Haggai's precise dating, we know that a mere 23 days passed between receiving the prophecy and restarting the temple building project. This short time tells us that Zerubbabel and Joshua were highly effective leaders and that the hearts of the people were spiritually receptive and responsive. They obeyed and feared the Lord, meaning they showed awe and reverence for Him (v. 12; cf. Deut. 31:12-13). For this reason, He renewed the covenant promise they most wanted to hear: "I am with you" (v. 13; cf. Matt. 28:19-20). What was the key to their obedience? From a human perspective, they got their hearts right with God and made the right choice to obey Him. From God's perspective, He "stirred up" their spirits or moved their hearts, a phrase suggesting both passion and action. In short, He spiritually transformed their self-centered hearts, enabling them to seek Him and choose to do the right thing (v. 14; cf. Ezra 1:5).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Now it's your turn to "give careful thought to your ways." Would an outsider looking at your decisions and way of life know that God was at its center? Worship and obedience are key, but we can't simply "will ourselves" to do them. We need God's help to seek Him and make right choices. We need Him to stir up our spirits and transform our hearts so that we can be better followers of Him. Let this be the cry of our souls today and every day!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Reconciliation
If you . . . remember that your brother has something against you . . . -Matthew 5:23
This verse says, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you . . . ." It is not saying, "If you search and find something because of your unbalanced sensitivity," but, "If you . . . remember . . . ." In other words, if something is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God- "First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:24). Never object to the intense sensitivity of the Spirit of God in you when He is instructing you down to the smallest detail.
"First be reconciled to your brother . . . ." Our Lord's directive is simple- "First be reconciled . . . ." He says, in effect, "Go back the way you came- the way indicated to you by the conviction given to you at the altar; have an attitude in your mind and soul toward the person who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing." Jesus does not mention the other person- He says for you to go. It is not a matter of your rights. The true mark of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
". . . and then come and offer your gift." The process of reconciliation is clearly marked. First we have the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden restraint by the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, and then we are stopped at the point of our conviction. This is followed by obedience to the Word of God, which builds an attitude or state of mind that places no blame on the one with whom you have been in the wrong. And finally there is the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
The Sixth Commandment of Marriage: Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle
Today we are going to look at the sixth commandment of marriage, based on the sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."
While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!
Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered...who are violent or have an explosive temper...destroy relationships.
If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.
Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.
Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold...using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.
If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.
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Read: Haggai 2:1-5
My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear. - Haggai 2:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
During the most recent Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, college football star Tim Tebow of the University of Florida played a starring role-not in the game, but in an advertisement aired during the game. The pro-life ad, sponsored by Focus on the Family, featured Tim and his mother, Pam. Pam discussed how she had almost aborted Tim, and viewers were directed to a Web site for more information. The ad sparked controversy before it even aired, but Tim Tebow and everyone involved stood their ground.
It takes courage to obey God's Word, as seen in today's reading. The date of this prophecy was the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, a harvest festival and the same holy day during which King Solomon had dedicated the original temple (v. 1). Again the prophecy was addressed specifically to the main political and religious leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, and then to the people in general (v. 2).
No doubt the older returnees from exile, possibly including Haggai himself, remembered the original glory of Solomon's temple. Unquestionably the new temple was nowhere near as splendid as the old one (v. 3). God knew it, the people knew it, and the leaders knew it. The book of Ezra records that when the new temple was dedicated, shouts of joy were mixed with sounds of weeping (3:10-13). Feeling discouraged was a natural result of recalling the nation's and temple's former glory and why it had been lost-their sin and God's judgment of conquest and exile.
In the face of these very human emotions, God Himself encouraged the people to "be strong" or "take courage" (v. 4, NLT; cf. Josh. 1:6-7). The size and beauty of the temple wasn't the point. The point was that God was their God and He was with them once again-the same God who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and shepherded them throughout their history (v. 5). Their responsibility was faithfully to do the work of rebuilding, not to mope around comparing their lives to the supposed "good old days."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you wonder where the "good old days" went? Do you think something you've done wrong has ruined everything? Be strong, take courage, your God is still with you. Be faithful to the work to which He has called you. Do not compare what you're doing now to the apparent "glory" of the past. Do not compare yourself to the next person about who is the "greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:1-4). Trust that God "will keep you strong to the end" (1 Cor. 1:8-9).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Renunciation
. . . someone said to Him, 'Lord, I will follow You wherever You go' -Luke 9:57
Our Lord's attitude toward this man was one of severe discouragement, "for He knew what was in man" (John 2:25). We would have said, "I can't imagine why He lost the opportunity of winning that man! Imagine being so cold to him and turning him away so discouraged!" Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to be hurt or offended. Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God. Our Lord's answers were not based on some whim or impulsive thought, but on the knowledge of "what was in man." If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death.
Luke 9:58 . These words destroy the argument of serving Jesus Christ because it is a pleasant thing to do. And the strictness of the rejection that He demands of me allows for nothing to remain in my life but my Lord, myself, and a sense of desperate hope. He says that I must let everyone else come or go, and that I must be guided solely by my relationship to Him. And He says, ". . . the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
Luke 9:59 . This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor did he want to show a lack of respect for his father. We put our sense of loyalty to our relatives ahead of our loyalty to Jesus Christ, forcing Him to take last place. When your loyalties conflict, always obey Jesus Christ whatever the cost.
Luke 9:61 . The person who says, "Lord, I will follow You, but . . .," is the person who is intensely ready to go, but never goes. This man had reservations about going. The exacting call of Jesus has no room for good-byes; good-byes, as we often use them, are pagan, not Christian, because they divert us from the call. Once the call of God comes to you, start going and never stop.
The Ten Commandments of Marriage
Good marriages don't just happen. It is not just because you married the right person and got lucky. Good marriages are built on more than passion. They are built on principle.
In the Scriptures, we find the best guidelines and principles for a healthy marriage. God's words and God's principles are never ever outdated...never! They are just as applicable today as they were to ancient Jews living in Israel.
What I want to do over the next couple of weeks of devotionals is point us to principles God has given us in a place you might not think was intended for marriage. That place is the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20.
Today, let me give you those Ten Commandments. What I would like you to do is spend time reading these carefully, and then take time to pray over each one. Ask God to begin to open your heart to see how these commands could be looked at as principles for marriage. I had a friend who challenged me to do the same, and I was amazed at what I discovered.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image...
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain...
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
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Read: Haggai 2:6-9
The desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory. - Haggai 2:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
To a previous generation, CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite was an authoritative voice. If he said it, it must be true. From 1962 to 1981, he stood for good journalism and "middle America." His reports on politics, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the first moon landing, Watergate, and other national and world events were models of objectivity, compassion, and hard-nosed integrity. When he died last summer at the age of 92, his obituaries invariably cited his reputation as "the most trusted man in America."
If we can trust the words of a television anchorman as reliable, how much more can we trust the words of God as completely certain? The Lord continued to encourage the people in today's reading by giving them the big picture and looking ahead in time to a great day when the "desired of all nations" would come (vv. 6-7). The phrase "once more" reminded them of God's mighty power. No one can stand against it. When He decided to liberate slaves from Egypt, it was done. When He decided Assyria's time was up as a world superpower, it was done. When He decides to shake things up, it is done. History irresistibly follows His decrees!
The writer of Hebrews referenced these verses as applying to Christ's Second Coming, God's final judgment of the nations, and the consummation of all things (12:26-29). This Haggai passage is therefore both messianic and eschatological. In the past, God's glory had filled a literal tabernacle and temple, but in the future, it would be most clearly revealed in the coming of His Son.
The advent of Christ was, and is, the turning point and climax of God's plan for history. The Jewish returnees needed to hold fast to the truth of God's sovereignty, His ordering of all world events (vv. 8-9). If He decided to fill the new temple with silver and gold, it would be done (Ezra 6:8). If He decided global riches will come to Zion in the end times, it will happen (Isa. 60:1-5). He sent His Son to be the Prince of Peace, and when He establishes that peace we will inherit a "kingdom that cannot be shaken."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God was teaching the people a lesson in how He sees things, and as a consequence, how we should strive to see things. From a human perspective, "first" and "last" might be obvious, but God has a way of turning that upside down (Luke 13:30). From a worldly perspective, "strong" and "weak" seem clear, but the Lord has a way of reversing that, too (1 Cor. 1:25-29). We must see not through earthly eyes but through His eyes.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Unconditional Identification
Jesus . . . said to him, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor . . . and come, take up the cross, and follow Me' -Mark 10:21
The rich young ruler had the controlling passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never places anyone's personal holiness above everything else when He calls a disciple. Jesus' primary consideration is my absolute annihilation of my right to myself and my identification with Him, which means having a relationship with Him in which there are no other relationships. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but deals solely with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us truly know what is meant by the absolute "go" of unconditional identification with, and abandonment and surrender to, Jesus.
"Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . ." (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"One thing you lack . . . ." From Jesus Christ's perspective, oneness with Him, with nothing between, is the only good thing.
". . . sell whatever you have . . . ." I must humble myself until I am merely a living person. I must essentially renounce possessions of all kinds, not for salvation (for only one thing saves a person and that is absolute reliance in faith upon Jesus Christ), but to follow Jesus. ". . . come. . . and follow Me." And the road is the way He went.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Positive Affirmation
The first way to affair-proof your marriage is to season your marriage with affirming communication.
In Song of Solomon 7:1-6 we read of how Solomon affirmed his bride,
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your navel is a rounded goblet; it lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple; a king is held captive by your tresses. How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
Solomon knew it was vital for him to compliment his bride's body, because, as you read in chapter 1, it is evident that it was an area of insecurity for her.
This Shulamite was a country girl. She said, "Do not look on me for I am dark." She was tan from working out in the vineyards. And compared with the fair-skinned, pampered ladies of the court, she felt very insecure.
So Solomon very wisely builds her up in the area where she feels most insecure.
Speak affirming words to your mate rather than tear him or her down. If your spouse is starved for positive affirmation, and it does not come from you, it opens a door of temptation. The devil will send someone to give insincere compliments, and if a person is starved for it, they gravitate towards it.
Praise one another lavishly. It is an important thing to do.
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Read: Haggai 2:10-14
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Psalm 51:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans contain large areas called "garbage patches." These are massive offshore regions in which trash is accumulating, with plastic waste especially threatening the health of fish and other marine animals. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is the size of the state of Texas, is well-known, but its Atlantic cousin has only recently been identified. The width of the Atlantic version is currently unknown but its length is roughly the distance from Cuba to Virginia. Plastic waste can be found as deep as 65 feet down, and trash density in these patches can be as high as 1.9 million bits of plastic per square mile.
Such pollution is a violation of God's mandate to care for His creation. It is also a reminder of the consequences of impurity in both the physical and spiritual realms. In today's reading, Haggai reminds the people of the importance of purity in obeying the word of the Lord. Two months had passed since his previous message, during which time Zechariah had begun his prophetic ministry (v. 10).
This message is delivered in the form of legal questions; the apparent purpose of these questions is to get official rulings on issues of ceremonial purity according to the Law. This implies a public or formal occasion and heightens the significance of the message. The first question asked, Can holiness be passed on by contact (vv. 11-12)? The answer came: No, purity cannot be transmitted in that way. The second question asked, Can unholiness be passed on in that way (v. 13)? The answer to this question was Yes (cf. Lev. 22:4-7).
Through these questions, God was highlighting the contrast between purity and impurity, obedience and disobedience. The issue was not whether the people had been offering sacrifices, but the state of their hearts (v. 14). They had been told to "give careful thought to your ways"-and now God was giving them His evaluation of their previous ways. Their worship had been rendered meaningless by their disobedience. God's response to their corrupt worship is the subject of tomorrow's devotional.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do we go to church as a matter of habit only? Are our minds elsewhere when Scripture is bring preached? Instead of worship and praise, do we focus on what people are wearing? Do we think God meant that message for our neighbor? Do we act as though mere attendance has a purifying effect on our lives? True worship comes from the heart, the Word is supposed to change us, and fellowship is to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds" (Heb. 10:24-25).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Awareness of the Call
. . for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
We are inclined to forget the deeply spiritual and supernatural touch of God. If you are able to tell exactly where you were when you received the call of God and can explain all about it, I question whether you have truly been called. The call of God does not come like that; it is much more supernatural. The realization of the call in a person's life may come like a clap of thunder or it may dawn gradually. But however quickly or slowly this awareness comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural-something that is inexpressible and produces a "glow." At any moment the sudden awareness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising call that has taken hold of your life may break through-"I chose you . . ." (John 15:16). The call of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. You are not called to preach the gospel because you are sanctified; the call to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a compulsion that was placed upon him.
If you have ignored, and thereby removed, the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances. See where you have put your own ideas of service or your particular abilities ahead of the call of God. Paul said, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" He had become aware of the call of God, and his compulsion to "preach the gospel" was so strong that nothing else was any longer even a competitor for his strength.
If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn't matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for His purpose in the end. If you will agree with God's purpose, He will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Companionship
Today I want to give you the second way to affair-proof your marriage. And that is by being a companion to your spouse, spending time together just enjoying each other's company.
Back in Song of Solomon 7 we read this in verses 10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Notice that Solomon and his bride just hung out together. It was a vital part of their relationship. And so must it be for any thriving marriage.
If you have drifted apart, I suggest you each make a list of things you like to do, or things that you might like to try. It could be anything from antique hunting, going to garage sales, taking walks, bicycling, fishing, going to museums, watching football, shopping, gardening, snorkeling, reading, sky diving, cooking, hiking, puzzles, photography, whatever.
Once you have made your lists, compare them and see where things overlap. Then find two or three things, and endeavor to do those things together. Have fun together.
Set time apart to do at least one activity together every couple of weeks. If you have kids, get a babysitter so it is just the two of you. It will be the best gift you could give your children.
If you do not do things together, you will find yourselves drifting apart.
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Read: Haggai 2:15-19
From this day on I will bless you. - Haggai 2:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Feast of Tabernacles, also called the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Ingathering, was established in the Mosaic Law as an occasion of gratitude to the Lord for the harvest (Lev. 23:33-43; Deut. 16:13-17). It typically took place in the seventh month on the Jewish calendar, or in September or October by our calendar. The people lived in booths in order to commemorate the Exodus and the long journey from Egypt to Canaan. Their thankfulness was not just for a specific year's harvest but also for the general fruitfulness of the Promised Land.
In today's reading, Haggai called upon the Israelites to consider their ways in light of the poor harvests they had experienced since returning from exile (vv. 15-17; cf. Amos 4:9). Prior to resuming work of building a new temple, they had seen only poor harvests and empty barns. This was true of all crops, including staples such as grapes and olives and more exotic items such as figs and pomegranates. In case they hadn't noticed, their hollow spiritual condition correlated with their meager return for their physical labor. All they did turned out poorly, because God made it turn out poorly, yet they hadn't seemed to understand why. The day they responded in faith to Haggai's ministry was the turning point (vv. 18-19). Assuming they continued to obey and rebuild the temple, God promised to bless the harvests to come.
God had responded to their empty worship and neglect of His house by continuing to pursue them with His love. He sent a prophet, Haggai. He gave warnings by making their farming unsuccessful-a significant judgment in an agricultural society. Once they had heard and obeyed and gotten back to building the temple, He promised to provide for and bless them in ways that contrasted with their recent failures. This "before and after" snapshot sent a clear message that He was pleased with their heartfelt response to His exhortations. God had shepherded the people from being oblivious, defiled, and disobedient to being obedient, responsive, and pleasing to Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In studying the book of Jonah, we learned that our God is a God of second (and more!) chances. This is true not only for individuals like Jonah but also for groups of people and even entire nations such as the Jews in today's reading. Neither Jonah nor they were "worthy" of God's patience and all the effort He made to show them His love and call them back to Himself. The fact is that none of us are "worthy" of God's love . . . a fact which brings Him more glory!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
September 30, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Assigning of the Call
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . . -Colossians 1:24
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" (Isaiah 6:8).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed-you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy
In the last two devotionals, we have learned that we can affair-proof our marriages through positive affirmation and companionship. The third way to affair-proof your marriage is by making intimacy a priority.
Let me take you back to the Scripture we read yesterday, Song of Solomon 7:10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
These verses paint a beautiful picture of intimacy between a husband and wife. Couples need to have physical intimacy. In fact, the New Testament commands the husband and wife not to deprive one another except by mutual consent, and then only if they are going to fast and pray.
So how do you create an atmosphere of intimacy? It starts with affirming your spouse. Notice that Solomon has been affirming his wife, complimenting her, building her up.
Now guys, you need to understand that women are wired differently than you. In order for a woman to be intimate, she needs to speak and be spoken to. You have to create an atmosphere for intimacy.
For most husbands, they just catch a glimpse of their wife in the shower and they are ready to go. But for women, it starts differently than that. She is aroused by words, sincere words, and it usually starts around breakfast time.
Take time today to create an atmosphere of intimacy. If you do, you will be on your way to experiencing true intimacy, as we will see in tomorrow's devotional.
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Read: Haggai 2:20-23
I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you. - Haggai 2:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his book Turning Points, historian Mark Noll has identified a dozen "decisive moments in the history of Christianity." They range from the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 to the Council of Nicaea in 325 to the conversion of the Wesleys in 1738 to the Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910. In each of these pivotal events, the church stood at a crossroads involving and interweaving history, doctrine, and sociopolitical and cultural forces and trends. The decisions and actions of key leaders at these times, under God's sovereignty, shaped the future of the church for years to come.
As we can now see, the book of Haggai is the story of a turning point in the spiritual life of God's people. They had gone from neglecting the new temple and the spiritual state of their own hearts to obediently rebuilding the temple and joyfully participating in genuine worship. They had moved from self-centered to God-centered, and as a result were poised to experience His blessing on their harvests and community.
Today's final message is addressed to Zerubbabel, and it parallels the messianic passage earlier in the chapter (vv. 6-9). The first part reaffirms that God is sovereign and has a plan for the nations (vv. 21-22). The second part portrays Zerubbabel as a "signet ring" on God's hand (v. 23). One meaning of this image was that God would bless Zerubbabel as a leader, as opposed to King Jehoiachin, who as a "signet ring" had been discarded (Jer. 22:24-25).
A second meaning of this picture was that Zerubbabel was a type or foreshadowing of Christ (cf. Zech. 3:8). Generally, a king's signet ring carries the authority of the king, just as Christ the Son is equivalent in authority to God the Father (John 17:2). From our vantage point in history, we know that Zerubbabel was in the line of David and an ancestor of Jesus (Matt. 1:12). Zerubbabel, then, was chosen by God to lead in a special task, rebuilding the temple, at a key time in history, and both who he was and what he did had spiritual significance beyond that time, just as God had planned.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We know that Messiah has come, and He will come again. We can have hope and confidence! "While we wait for the blessed hope-the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ," we are "to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives" so as to become "a people that are [Christ's] very own, eager to do what is good" (Titus 2:11-14). Christ says, "'Yes, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 1, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Exaltation
. . . Jesus took . . . them up on a high mountain apart by themselves . . . -Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God's perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14-18). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life- those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, "What's the use of this experience?" We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose.
Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy-Part 2
Yesterday we learned the first step in experiencing intimacy in marriage...by creating an atmosphere for that intimacy. Today, I want us to see the results of that deliberate effort.
As we mentioned yesterday, Solomon has been complimenting his wife and affirming her. Look at her response to that affirmation in Song of Solomon 7:10,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
She is digging it! She is saying, "He really loves me!" Solomon's affirmation of his bride has created this atmosphere of intimacy. And look what she says next in verse 11,
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.
She is grabbing Solomon's hand and saying, "Let's get a hotel room!" Then there are verses 12-13,
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Friend, catch what is going on. Solomon has affirmed his wife saying, "Honey, you are beautiful! I am so glad I married you. I married out of my league. You are wonderful. Your body is great. I am so happy!"
Her response? "Wow, he loves me. I'll tell you what, let's go away and have a little love vacation. Let's take a few days off." That is enough to get any husband inspired to rent a hotel room!
If you want to affair-proof your marriage, make intimacy a priority!
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Read: Colossians 1:3-14
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. - 2 Peter 3:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Debates about educational standards have raged in American society for generations. Some propose that extensive testing in core areas ensures that students are learning the fundamentals; other experts maintain that too much testing is counterproductive, and students should be allowed to explore subjects that interest them. What has remained constant, however, is agreement about what constitutes the fundamentals-the good old-fashioned "3 R's" of reading, writing, and arithmetic. If students are to progress academically, they must grow in these essential abilities.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to grow in the fundamentals of the Christian life. Our key verse for today serves as the theme for our study this month: we will explore what it means to grow in grace and to grow in knowledge. As we will see, our growth in these areas provides the platform for the rest of our spiritual development. Both grace and knowledge are rooted in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today's passage is a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving offered by Paul on behalf of the church in Colossae. He had much to be thankful for; these believers were characterized by love for each other and a concern to spread the gospel. Notice what formed the foundation for this growth: they had "understood God's grace in all its truth" (v. 6). An understanding of the grace of God had resulted in their faith in Jesus, love for the saints, and hope in heaven.
Paul acknowledged their understanding of grace and the results that fueled the spread of the gospel, but he didn't then tell the Colossians to rest on their spiritual laurels. Instead, he prayed that they would continue to grow in the knowledge of God (v. 10). Just as growing in grace produces love, faith, and hope, growing in knowledge leads to lives that please God and bear fruit. Knowledge of God would enable them to endure patiently what lay ahead on their Christian journey. The letter then transitions to a glorious anthem of praise to the Savior "in whom we have redemption" (v. 14).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As we begin our study this month, spend time in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to show you where you might need to grow in grace and knowledge. These are not abstract feelings or facts that sit idly in your head; rather, grace and knowledge produce results in your spiritual life. Could our lives be described as full of faith, love, hope, endurance, patience, and thankfulness? Let us seek to have lives that please the Lord and promote the spread of the gospel to others.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 2, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Humiliation
If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us -Mark 9:22
After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God- that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see Mark 9:5-6 , Mark 14-23).
"If you can do anything . . . ." It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus- will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation?
The Eighth Commandment of Marriage: Be a Person of Integrity
Exodus 20:15 gives us the eighth commandment for marriage,
You shall not steal.
You may be wondering how stealing applies to marriage. Simple. Not to steal is to be a person of integrity.
If you are always cheating or cutting corners, it will be hard for your spouse to respect you. Your uprightness should make your marriage partner feel proud. Your spouse and your family ought to testify of your integrity. This is really one of the things at the heart of a good marriage.
If you are married to somebody, and you know they cheat their customers, it is just hard to respect that person. You cannot respect someone who does not have integrity.
This is a big issue that many people fly right by. But it is vital to a healthy and vibrant marriage because it is hard to fully give yourself to someone who does not have integrity.
If you find that your spouse is holding back, if you feel like he or she does not respect you, take a look inside and see if you are compromising with your integrity. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you tell that "little white lie" to protect yourself or gain an advantage?
Do you represent yourself one way, when in fact in your heart you believe something totally different? Are you like the man Solomon speaks of in Proverbs 23:7?
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
If this is an issue in your life, take it to God today. He will help you become the person of integrity He desires you to be. And when you do, you will find your spouse will come to respect you, and your marriage will be strengthened!
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Read: Luke 2:39-52
Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. - Luke 2:52
TODAY IN THE WORD
When taking their child to the pediatrician for well-baby examinations, the highlight for many parents comes when the little one is measured and weighed and then the numbers are plotted on a growth chart. It's interesting to see that little Johnny's projected adult height will be 5'10" or that little Mary's growth pattern looks just like her older sister's. More importantly, those measurements help to determine whether a child is growing consistently and appropriately.
Just as we expect a healthy baby to grow and learn, so also believers should be growing and learning as a sign of spiritual health. Jesus Himself exemplified this kind of growth for us.
Scripture doesn't record many details from Jesus' childhood. In our passage today, we see that as Jesus grew older, He also grew in wisdom and grace (v. 40). Immediately after this general description, the Gospel of Luke provides an example of this growth. At the age of 12, Jesus made the annual trip to Jerusalem to observe Passover with His parents. This time, though, He didn't return home with them. After three frantic days of searching, they found Him in the Temple courts interacting with the teachers.
Jesus' wisdom and knowledge were on display: "Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers" (v. 47). Even His parents were astonished. Jesus was not simply a prodigy or theological savant, however. He demonstrated His growth in grace by what He did next: He returned home with His parents and "was obedient to them" (v. 51). Already at this young age, Jesus did not claim His divine rights or demand special treatment on account of His status (see Phil. 2:5-8). This episode was not the final stage of spiritual development, either. Jesus continued to grow in wisdom (v. 52).
Jesus demonstrated that growth requires action-through His habits, He put Himself in the physical and spiritual space where knowledge and grace of God would shape Him. And Jesus is the perfect example of being filled with wisdom and grace in order to minister to others.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If we want to grow in knowledge and grace of our Lord, we need to know the practices that enabled His own growth. He made study of Scripture a priority (see Matt. 4:23; 9:35; Mark 1:21; John 18:20). He was committed to times of prayer (see Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 11:1; John 17; Heb. 5:7). He extended compassion to those who were suffering or marginalized (see Matt. 19:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 8:43; John 9:1). Jesus is the example of how to grow and why to grow in our spiritual life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 3, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Ministry
He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting' -Mark 9:29
His disciples asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?' " (Mark 9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
Sixth commandment of marriage, Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle
Today we are going to look at the sixth commandment of marriage, based on the sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."
While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!
Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered who are violent or have an explosive temper destroy relationships.
If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.
Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.
Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.
If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.
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Read: Proverbs 2:1-11
You will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. - Proverbs 2:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Earlier this year, a nationwide treasure hunt began with the publication of the book, The Clock Without a Face. The story contains clues to find emerald-encrusted numbers from a clock-and in fact, twelve actual numbers have been buried across the United States. If you read the story, follow the clues, and find one of these numbers (with actual emeralds!), you get to keep it. As of this writing, nine of the twelve numbers have been found by people from Texas to Connecticut to Wisconsin.
If we're going to find buried treasure, it's important to have a map or clues to guide us. Today we'll begin a series of studies focused on how to grow in the knowledge of God. In our reading, wisdom, knowledge, and insight are compared to hidden treasure; just as we would commit time and energy to uncover buried riches, so too we should commit ourselves to the pursuit of the knowledge of God (v. 4).
The instruction in this passage, first given by David to his son Solomon, exhorts the reader to do two things. The first involves knowing content: "Store up my commands within you" (v. 1). Growing in knowledge means knowing the content of God's Word. This discipline is indispensable for our spiritual growth. But the knowledge of God does not end with the study of content. The second exhortation describes an attitude that hungers for spiritual knowledge and values wisdom. Notice the verbs in verses 3 and 4: "call out," "cry aloud," "look," and "search." This is a pursuit for more than just facts. This is a passionate quest to know God.
We are instructed to study God's Word and to desire God's wisdom. And God does not leave us alone in this endeavor; He engages with our efforts. He promises to bestow His wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (v. 6). In response to our searching, He provides victory and protection. Through our experience of His care and sovereign guidance, we then have the blessings of the knowledge of God. We know His commands and we know His character, and "wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul" (v. 10).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The knowledge of God is a treasure that we can find! As you reflect on this passage, ask the Spirit to evaluate your heart. Do you commit time to studying the Word of God? Do you have a passion to grow in His insight and understanding? Perhaps you've walked with God for many years, and can testify to your experience of His protection in your life. Share that testimony with others, just as David did with Solomon, to encourage them to grow in the knowledge of God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 4, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Vision and The Reality
. . . to those who are . . . called to be saints . . . -1 Corinthians 1:2
Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.
There are times when we do know what God's purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.
Our little "I am" always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little "I am" be shriveled up in God's wrath and indignation-"I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn't it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.
The Seventh Commandment of Marriage: Do Not Commit Adultery
The seventh commandment brings us to one of the most vital principles of having the marriage God intends. Exodus 20:14 simply says,
"You shall not commit adultery."
In a marriage, you would be hard pressed to imagine anything more damaging than your spouse being unfaithful. But being faithful is not only being faithful in action, but also in thought.
Again, Jesus expanded on this in Matthew 5, and I want you to read these words very carefully. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Having a lustful, exploitive disposition has no place in marriage. Love gives; lust takes. Love serves; lust demands. Love nourishes; lust chokes.
What a wonderful gift God has given us in this thing called sex. It was His idea. It is just as holy as when you lift your hands in church and worship Him. It is God's idea within the context and the confines of marriage. It should be enjoyed.
But lust has no place in marriage. It is a poison that will destroy the fabric of your relationship with your spouse.
Men, do not even entertain the thought of allowing pornography into your life. It can destroy your marriage. You are committing heart-adultery when you look at pornographic images and lust after another woman. Do not let the devil have that ground in your heart and life.
This is such a vital command, over the next few devotionals we are going to stay on this subject. I will share with you three ways to affair-proof your marriage.
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Read: Luke 8:4-15
The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you. - Luke 8:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Bush's Baked Beans is the top-selling brand of baked beans in the United States. The family-owned company gained fame throughout the 1990s with commercials featuring Jay Bush, the great-grandson of the company founder. In the ads, his golden retriever, Duke, keeps threatening to reveal the family's secret recipe, which has been handed down from generation to generation since 1922.
The allure of secret recipes, formulas, or codes appeals to our imagination. In our passage today, Jesus revealed that His followers have the secrets of the knowledge of the kingdom of God!
This announcement occurred after Jesus told the Parable of the Sower to the large crowd. He concluded, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (v. 8). Puzzled, the disciples asked Him what the parable meant. Before providing the meaning of the allegory, Jesus responded with a quotation from Isaiah 6. In that context, Isaiah had just responded to the call from God, and his first instruction was, "Go and tell this people: 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving'" (Isa. 6:9). God went on to describe how His people would be judged for their sins-and yet a root of hope would remain.
With that in mind, as we look at Jesus' explanation of His parable, we note that only a fraction of seed ends up bearing fruit. Most who hear the Word fall away or find spiritual desire choked by the cares of the world. Though initially this appears discouraging, we have hope that God is preserving His Word and His people. Even the greatest trials and most severe judgments will not obliterate them forever.
Two elements of Jesus' dialogue with the disciples are particularly noteworthy. First, it appears that only the disciples had the spiritual curiosity to ask Jesus the meaning of the parable. In response to their petition, Jesus answered. Second, the knowledge of the kingdom of God is directly connected to the way God works through His Word for His people. Both in Isaiah and in the parable, the Word went forth. And in both instances, a remnant of His people was preserved.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our growth in the knowledge of God depends on His Word. Do we proclaim it? Do we nurture it as a priority in our lives? Do we go to God with our questions about it? These indicate a healthy growth pattern for believers! Our knowledge of God also gives us hope in the face of testing, whether in our own lives or when we see God's people facing difficult times. We have the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God: He will prosper His Word and protect His people (see 2 Cor. 4:9).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 5, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Degeneration
Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . -Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away- an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, "I am my own god." This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis- my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).
Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch- only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "This is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light . . . " (John 3:19).
God's Eyes
In Hebrews 4:13, there is a powerful statement concerning God,
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
In this verse, we are taught that God sees what we do, and He sees the intent of what we do. That leads to one thing: total accountability.
There is no getting out of giving an account for our lives before God. We will all stand before Him. And at that time, there will be no shifting; there will be no saying one thing and thinking something else inside. Everything will be laid bare.
God sees everything all the time. Everything is open and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. You just can't get away from God.
The Scripture says in Proverbs 15:3, The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
But God also sees the very intent of our heart. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint a new king over Israel, and he was at the house of Jesse, Jesse had his big strapping son pass by. As Samuel looked at this guy he thought, "Surely this is the Lord's anointed."
But God said, "I rejected this one. For the Lord does not see as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance. But the Lord looks upon the heart."
Our intent can be right, but we can really mess up. God looks on our heart, and if our intent is right, He judges us according to our intent, not according to the mistakes we may have made. But, if the intent of our heart was not pure, God judges us according to that.
Live today...and every day...knowing that the Lord looks on the heart.
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Read: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
We have the mind of Christ. - 1 Corinthians 2:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
What credential enables someone to understand Scripture? Is a Ph.D. required? Clearly not, since some professors of theology and biblical studies use their knowledge to argue against the truth of God's Word. What about a background in the sciences, in order to know the details of God's creation? But some brilliant scientists conclude that the supernatural is absent from the natural world. Perhaps in-depth exploration of the human psyche and interactions makes the Bible clearer? Again, some astute observers of the human condition have determined that spirituality is simply a coping mechanism, not the reality of a relationship with the Savior.
The Corinthian culture prized rhetorical flourish and extensive education. These things weren't inherently evil, but the problem came when they were valued above the truth of God's Word. Advanced degrees, polished public speaking, or high I.Q. scores are not the foundation for our spiritual growth.
In today's text, Paul describes the work of the triune God as essential for us to gain wisdom. First, God the Father has prepared great things for us, wonders beyond the scope of our imagination or scientific discovery. Paul alludes to Isaiah 64, which describes God as one who acts on behalf of His people, a powerful God who still cares deeply for their well being (Isa. 64:4-5).
Second, we must have the Holy Spirit (v. 10). We are not left to our own limited devices-the Spirit has been given to us to enable us to know the words and deeds and character of God. Through the Spirit it is possible for us to understand spiritual truth.
Third, we have the mind of Christ. The word mind encompasses more than just intellectual capability; it includes the will, disposition, and attitude. Philippians 2 introduces the description of Jesus' humility and sacrificial love in this way: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus . . ." (v. 5, KJV). Here is a key to our growth in knowledge-a love for others in obedience to God that reveals spiritual discernment of the wondrous care of God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
No matter what your level of education, you can have spiritual knowledge and wisdom. God has prepared great things for us, He has sent His Holy Spirit to indwell us, and we have the example of the Lord Jesus to guide us. What sources have you looked to for spiritual discernment? Have you been swayed by the world's credentials? Our Christian leaders should be characterized by the mind of Christ and the leading of the Spirit. Only then can they have the insight to understand the truth.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 6, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Regeneration
When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . -Galatians 1:15-16
If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this- I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature- His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God's verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.
The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God- ". . . until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.
Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.
God's Heart
It is easy for us to think of Christ as this majestic, powerful figure in the heavens, unfazed by what is going on in our lives. But Hebrews 4:15 paints a very different picture,
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus sympathizes with you? The King James Version says He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. God is not aloof, distant, and unconcerned, and He does not look at you through some clinical, cold eye. He is moved; He is touched!
I want to show you a verse that, to me, is quite amazing. It is Isaiah 63:9, and it is talking about God and His people. It says,
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old.
When you suffer, God suffers. He is not untouched; He is not unmoved; He is not unsympathetic.
Then there is Jeremiah 31 where God says (speaking of Israel as one single person), I earnestly remember him still; therefore My heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
Finally, look at Psalm 145:8-9,
The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
God feels and sympathizes. He is moved and touched and afflicted as you walk through the difficulties of life. He understands. And He yearns to give you tender mercy.
That is the compassionate and gracious heart of God!
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Read: 2 Corinthians 4:2-7
I am the light of the world. - John 8:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2009, a Pakistani man named Kishan met a Christian woman, Mashir, who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him and prayed for months for the healing of his daughter. God miraculously healed his child, and Kishan embraced faith in Christ. When confronted by neighbors upset about his conversion, Kishan testified: "We were in the dark, but now we are in the light because Jesus Christ is our Savior who healed my daughter. We found a new life in Jesus Christ, we cannot deny Him, and we are ready to sacrifice anything." His testimony so impressed one neighbor, Bashir, that he and his family have also committed their lives to Christ.
Our passage today emphasizes the ways that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings us into the light of the knowledge of God. This text reminds us that the starting point for growing in knowledge is the person and work of Jesus.
We saw yesterday that Paul countered the Corinthians' appeal to fancy rhetoric and worldly wisdom. He continued that emphasis in this letter. His proclamation of truth was not couched in complicated arguments or rhetorical flourish (v. 2). If the truth of the gospel was unclear, it was on account of the deception of the Evil One (v. 3).
Notice the way that Paul used the image of light. God is the originator of light (Gen. 1:3; 1 John 1:5). This refers not only to physical light but also to spiritual light-He "made his light shine in our hearts" (v. 6). This spiritual light is the glory of God. And the glory of God is fully embodied in Christ, who as the fully divine Son of God sacrificed Himself for our sin and was resurrected into glory (vv. 4, 6).
The gospel of Jesus Christ, then, opens our eyes to the light of God's glory-His love and justice and mercy. We cannot grow in the knowledge of God without embracing the truth about Jesus. This is a "treasure" that transforms our lives and enables us to know the power of God (v. 7).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This text and the example of Mashir provide us with a good model of sharing the gospel with unbelievers. First, speak the truth plainly. Trust in the power of God, not our own arguments or rhetorical flourish, to remove the veil of unbelief. Second, pray for and minister to the needs of your unbelieving loved ones. The powerful witness of our love in action can prepare their hearts to receive the gospel and accept Jesus as their Savior.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 7, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Reconciliation
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him -2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship- it is not wrong doing, but wrong being- it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins- the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son "to be sin" that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . ." and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A man cannot redeem himself- redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person's life.
God's Provision for Your Failure
Psalm 37:23-24 states,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.
When you first read these verses, it is easy to focus on the truth that God orders the steps of a good man, someone who is following God. That is certainly a comforting, motivating, and powerful truth.
But I want to point you to the second sentence, Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.
What an amazing statement! Even when your steps are being ordered by the Lord, you can still goof up! God affirms that you may be seeking to walk with Him and you can still mess up, there is always that human factor.
Our flesh gets in the way. Sometimes we make wrong decisions. Sometimes we can be a bit stubborn. And sometimes we blow it, even when that is the last thing we want to do!
Here is what I want you to grasp today: Even if you mess things up, even if you stumble and fall, God will not utterly abandon you. He will support you, and He will lift you up with His hand.
The Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy that God is our refuge and our strength and that underneath us are His everlasting arms. That brings me a lot of comfort.
You and I may stumble, you and I may fall, but we are not going to stay down, because God's arms and His hands are underneath us, and they will uphold us.
Thank God for that!
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Read: Philippians 3:7-11
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. - Philippians 3:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jesus told two brief parables about what we are willing to do for the things we value. In the first, a man discovers a great treasure in a field. "In his joy," he then sold everything he had to buy the field. In the second parable, a merchant discovers a fine pearl "of great value." He also sold everything he had in order to buy the pearl. The treasure and the pearl are compared to the kingdom of heaven, and it is worth sacrificing everything else in order to obtain this exquisite treasure (Matt. 13:44-45).
These parables and our passage today challenge many of our notions about value, possessions, and worth. If we are to grow in our knowledge of God, we must exercise a proper appraisal on the value of this pursuit compared to other alternatives and be willing to calculate that it is worth all of our energy, time, and treasure.
After itemizing all the qualities that should have been considered credits in his spiritual account (vv. 3-6), Paul then made the astonishing statement that all these elements of his pedigree were "loss" rather than "profit" (v. 7). Preserving his credentials was less important than pursuing the knowledge of Jesus. Indeed, knowing Jesus was more valuable than everything else in Paul's life (v. 8).
The prosperity gospel asserts that you can have it all-spiritual heaven later and material heaven right here and now. Paul's testimony contradicted this. He had lost everything-including a flourishing career as a respected religious leader-for the sake of Christ (see Acts 7:58; 22:3). And yet Paul delighted in knowing Christ; he did not lament his lost wages or lost status or lost friendships. His greatest gain was "to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings" (v. 10).
Ultimately, like the merchant who found the pearl, Paul had a long-range view. He knew that resurrection into eternal life with God was worth more than any treasure offered by this world.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is your level of commitment to growing in the knowledge of Christ? How much do you value this pursuit? You can answer this by evaluating your time-is knowing Jesus an afterthought in your schedule or a priority each day? Examine your finances-do you value bank accounts or possessions more than the kingdom of heaven? And check your passion-would you sacrifice comfort or status in order to know Jesus more?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 8, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Coming to Jesus
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Isn't it humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things about which we will not come to Jesus Christ. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words- "Come to Me . . . ." In every dimension in which you are not real, you will argue or evade the issue altogether rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; and you will do anything rather than come the last lap of the race of seemingly unspeakable foolishness and say, "Just as I am, I come." As long as you have even the least bit of spiritual disrespect, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do something very big, and yet all He is telling you to do is to "Come . . . ."
"Come to Me . . . ." When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, and it will involve anything that will uproot whatever is preventing you from getting through to Jesus. And you will never get any further until you are willing to do that very thing. The Holy Spirit will search out that one immovable stronghold within you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him do so.
How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away thinking, "I've really received what I wanted this time!" And yet you go away with nothing, while all the time God has stood with His hands outstretched not only to take you but also for you to take Him. Just think of the invincible, unconquerable, and untiring patience of Jesus, who lovingly says, "Come to Me. . . ."
The Source of Your Success
There is no question we live in one of the most prosperous of ages. And many Christians today live in tremendous prosperity.
It is pretty easy to look at all we have accomplished, and the wealth we have accumulated, and feel pretty good about ourselves.
Today, I want you to read Psalm 44:1-3. It contains a powerful truth and reminder,
We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, the deeds You did in their days, in days of old: You drove out the nations with Your hand, but them You planted; You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out. For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them; but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, because You favored them.
Any good thing that you and I possess is the result of God's hand and nothing less. It is not because we are something special or because we are so intelligent.
When everything is said and done, we are not going to be able to point to our own arm or our own intelligence or our own ability. We will only be able to stand back and say, "Look what the Lord has done."
If you are prosperous today, I want you to know that it is the result of God's hand and God's arm working on your behalf.
As you look to the future, if you are going to experience the fullness of what He has for you, it will indeed be the result of the power of His Spirit working in your life. Not your ingenuity, not your human striving, not the power of your flesh, but the power of His Spirit.
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Read: 1 John 5:13-21
The Son of God has . . . given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. - 1 John 5:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies theories of knowledge. How do you know that you know anything? Different epistemologists offer different answers: some posit that knowledge is only possible to the extent of sense perception, while others assert that it is impossible to know anything with certainty.
In our passage today, John described a number of things that believers in Christ can know with full confidence. As we conclude our section on how to grow in the knowledge of God, we'll also see the implications for our intercession and protection.
The first thing that believers can know is the assurance of eternal life (v. 13). The resurrection of Jesus has guaranteed our own future; death is not the end of our existence, for we will live with God forever. Second, we know we can approach God with confidence (v. 14). As we grow in our knowledge of God, we know more of His will and our own desires are shaped to conform with His.
Not only can we approach God with our petitions and pleas, but we also know that He hears us (v. 15). This passage reveals some of God's character: He is not a distant deity who does not care for people, nor does He demand to be bribed or cajoled. God loves His people, hears their requests, and responds to them. This means that we can also go to God on behalf of others and intercede for their restoration (vv. 16-17).
Next, we know that growing in the grace and knowledge of God bears the fruit of freedom from persistent sin. This isn't a doctrine of sinless perfection, but rather the promise of freedom from the bondage of sin and protection from the Evil One (v. 18). In a world blinded by Satan, we are the children of God and safe both now and for all eternity.
Finally, we are able to know all this and have hope, confidence, and protection because of Jesus Christ (v. 20). Faith in Jesus enables us to grow in the knowledge of God and to declare that He is truth.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This letter concludes with the exhortation, "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols" (v. 21). In light of what we know about God and our relationship with Him, how can we pursue any lesser affections? In your spiritual journal, write out each thing we know as believers and its implications for hope, confidence, prayer, protection, etc. Use this list in your prayer time and throughout the day to help keep your attention and devotion focused on our loving Savior and God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 9, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Building on the Atonement
. . . present . . . your members as instruments of righteousness to God -Romans 6:13
I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it. If I construct my faith on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life- an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation- it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every kind of experience you have by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
The atonement of Jesus must be exhibited in practical, unassuming ways in my life. Every time I obey, the absolute deity of God is on my side, so that the grace of God and my natural obedience are in perfect agreement. Obedience means that I have completely placed my trust in the atonement, and my obedience is immediately met by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.
Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life- it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the trial or test of the atonement and ask, "Where is the discernment of the atonement in this, and in that?"
Gaining the Victory
We live in a society of addictions, of bondage to so many things. Maybe you are in bondage to cigarettes, or alcohol, or pornography, or anger, or any number of other things.
Whatever the condition that has you in bondage today, God's hand and God's arm can lift you up and untangle you and set you free. In Psalm 98:1 we are told,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
We find repeatedly throughout the Old Testament how, through God's mighty hand and His outstretched arm, He redeemed His people out of slavery and out of bondage.
Now here is the question. Does it just sort of randomly happen? Do we have to wait and see if we are one of the lucky ones God will choose to extend His mighty arm to help? Or, is there anything that we can do to cooperate with God to see His arm extended in our behalf?
The answer is yes, we can, and we must cooperate with God.
In Isaiah 51:5 God tells us,
"My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust."
The way we cooperate with God is to trust in His arm; not in our own arm, but in His. If you want to see God's mighty arm move on your behalf, then trust Him alone! Do not trust your intelligence, your ingenuity, your education, your status in life, your wealth, or any other thing.
Trust in God alone. And you will have the victory.
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Read: Hosea 4:1-9
My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. - Hosea 4:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
We take it for granted that knowledge is an important part of safety. We expect doctors to be thoroughly trained to practice their profession; teenagers must study and pass driving tests before they are licensed to drive a car. The government mandates health and safety warnings on numerous products to inform consumers of potential hazards. A lack of knowledge can be deadly.
In our passage today, we'll see the deadly spiritual consequences from a lack of knowledge. For the next few days we'll examine why we should care about growing in the knowledge of God, and this text from Hosea provides a strong exhortation for pursuing growth.
The lack of knowledge described here goes beyond simple ignorance or lack of information. The prophet was bringing a charge from the Lord: his audience was not exhibiting the character of God's people, and they were refusing to even acknowledge God (v. 1). Israel had long experience with God's faithfulness and love, and yet they refused to walk in His ways. They preferred to pursue their own inclinations, strategies, and pleasures.
Notice that the rejection of the knowledge of God extended beyond the rank-and-file people and also characterized the religious leaders (v. 7). What a tragic indictment on God's people: those responsible for leading the growth in the knowledge of God instead were disgraceful, relishing the wickedness and even profiting from sin (v. 8).
When the knowledge of God is rejected, deadly consequences follow. The people and priests would be punished, ignored, and rejected by God. Not only that, but the land itself groaned and suffered as a result of this sin (see Rom. 8:22). It's tempting to think that our spiritual stagnation affects only our own personal relationship with God. As this text reveals, the contagion of spiritual decline can infect entire communities and even creation.
In contrast to the benefits from knowing God outlined in yesterday's reading, the price of refusing to acknowledge God in today's reading seems stark. Amazingly, He remains true to His character of love and forgiveness (see Hosea 14).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This passage points us to three categories for which we can pray. First, pray for your spiritual leaders today. Ask God to fill them with a passion for knowing Him and His truth. Second, pray for those impacted by natural and environmental disasters, like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, earthquake in Haiti, and pollution in Beijing. Third, commit your own heart to seeking God and spiritual growth. Thank Him for His willingness to forgive, embrace, and restore His children!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Will I Know?
Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes' -Matthew 11:25
We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step- we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin- "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God's revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don't say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).
The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful
The ninth commandment for marriage speaks to the heart of any marriage, trust. It is found in Exodus 20:16,
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Someone who would lie about their neighbor, for whatever reason, is not going to make a good marriage partner. Honesty and trust are at the heart of a good marriage.
If you take advantage of people for your own gain, speaking untruthfully to get ahead, you are not a person to be trusted. And you ultimately are the loser.
I am reminded of the guy who was in a fender bender, and he feigned an injury, pretended like he hurt his arm and his shoulder. As a result, the poor little lady who had run into his car was subjected to a truly horrible situation. She was grilled by attorneys, had to give depositions, and ended up in court.
But this guy continued trying to take her for all she was worth. He didn't care because he knew she had money. He didn't care if she had to give up her house. He was looking at an opportunity to get rich.
The attorney for the lady's insurance company put him on the stand and said, "I would like to know, since the accident, since you injured your arm and your shoulder, how far can you now raise your arm?"
With great pain etched on his face, he said, "Well...'bout here. That's it. Just to here." Then the attorney asked, "Well, how far could you lift it before the accident?" The guy responded, raising his arm with ease, "I could lift it up to here."
Needless to say, he lost.
Anyone who is not truthful will ultimately lose. And if your spouse will lie to someone else, he or she will lie to you.
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Read: Romans 1:18-31
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. - Romans 1:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
Lisa Bradley and her husband seemed to have a perfect life-good jobs, beautiful home, two healthy children, and lovely cars and clothes. But behind this facade was the truth of escalating debt and a crumbling marriage. Lisa was convinced that an image of success was essential, no matter the cost. Rather than curtail her shopping, she would simply ignore the bills, credit card statements, and collections calls. She finally sought help when their debt neared $200,000 and her husband threatened to leave.
Telling ourselves lies and attempting to bury the truth can damage and destroy our lives. In yesterday's reading we saw the consequences of refusing to acknowledge God. This was not just one anecdote from the Old Testament about God and the people of Israel. As we see in our reading, people continue to suppress the truth about God, and God continues to exercise judgment on sin.
This is another example of the consequences of refusing to grow in the knowledge of God. Compared to the passage in Hosea, the stakes here were even higher-the people weren't just ignoring God, they were actively promoting lies as though they were truth (vv. 18, 25, 28, 32). Paul emphasized that these people did not suffer from ignorance. They knew God and His decrees, righteousness, and truth. Still they turned away.
This passage is an example of Scripture's denunciation of homosexuality (vv. 26-27). But we should not let this divert our attention from other sins listed in this chapter. The description of depravity here extends beyond sexual immorality. Notice the examples Paul gave of "wickedness, evil, greed and depravity": envy, deceit, gossip, arrogance, disobedience to parents, and ruthlessness (vv. 29-31). If we are honestly evaluating our hearts, we'll acknowledge that we all fall short of God's righteousness.
Honest assessment of our hearts is the point of this text. We all stand convicted of sin. The question, then, is how will we respond? Will we decide to suppress this truth and live the way we want? Or will we cry out for forgiveness and seek to grow in the knowledge of God?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In this section of our study we are answering the question, "Why grow in the knowledge of God?" The response from the Scripture yesterday and today resounds: Because lack of growth signals a dire spiritual condition, followed by God's righteous judgment. God has provided us with His Word, access to His throne in prayer, the example of our Savior Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of His Spirit. We have no excuse. Reject the lies and walk in His truth.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Silence- Then What?
When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was -John 11:6
Has God trusted you with His silence- a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible- with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).
A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy- silence.
The Tenth Commandment of Marriage: Be Content with What You Have
Today we come to the final commandment for marriage. That commandment is based on the tenth commandment given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 20:17,
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
This command is very direct. Do not covet. Don't be discontent with what you have. Do not make what you don't have the focus of your life. Accentuate what you do have and what God has blessed you and your spouse with.
You do this by celebrating your husband's or wife's strengths and giftings rather than thinking, "Oh, I wish he was this way," or, "I wish she had that."
If Janet compared me to her brothers, I would be in big trouble. Her brothers are these "Mr. Fix-It" guys who can do anything mechanical. If you are with me and our car breaks down on a desolate road, we are going to be in some serious trouble. I can pray, but do not expect me to fix the car.
Her brothers are another story. One just built a house from the ground up; and if anything mechanical breaks down, he can fix it.
While I am not a Mr. Fix-It, there are other things I am good at. I am so grateful that Janet wants to pull those out of me and give wings to those gifts. And I want to do the same thing for her.
You will always get into trouble if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Just water your own grass. Because on the other side of the fence, it's just Astroturf anyway.
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Read: 2 Corinthians 10:1-6
We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. - 2 Corinthians 10:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dieter Dengler was a German-born U.S. Navy pilot who escaped from a Laotian prison camp during the Vietnam War. He survived for 23 days in the harsh jungle before being rescued, considered one of the most amazing escapes ever by a prisoner of war. His survival has been credited to his willingness to forage for food and eat anything as well as his mental discipline under adversity. Though his body might have been captured, Dengler's mind was constantly planning for his escape.
This kind of mental discipline comes from character, training, and adversity (Dengler grew up foraging for food in the Black Forest during World War II). Spiritual discipline comes in much the same way, and it is required for our growth in the knowledge of God. This is an active engagement, not a passive one. Our passage today provides a helpful contrast to the willful suppression of the knowledge of God that we studied yesterday.
As we have seen in our other passages from Paul's letters to the church in Corinth, the Apostle contrasted worldly standards and spiritual ones (v. 2). The Corinthians had misjudged the value of worldly techniques and arguments. They were distracted from the pursuit of God by worldly assessments of success.
These distractions were leading them away from the knowledge of God, and Paul actively resisted anything that moved him further from the Lord. Notice the verbs he used: "demolish" and "take captive" (vv. 4-5). When presented with the allure of temptation, we should respond with spiritual weapons to demolish the mirage. When urged to follow the crowd instead of following Christ, we must run closer to Him. When pursuing our own pleasure or status threatens to derail our spiritual fellowship, we must take our thoughts captive and submit them to the Lord.
Yesterday we saw the active suppression of the knowledge of God. Today we see an active pursuit of the knowledge of God. Paul did not depict this as an easy stroll in the park. He described it as a battle with the highest stakes-our own lives. Every thought must be in obedience to Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In this life, we are not free from the temptation and allure of sin. How do we pursue the knowledge of God and take our thoughts captive for Christ? Only through spiritual disciplines-daily Bible study, prayer, and time with God. We also must reject our own pretensions that we know best or that we can handle temptation on our own. Finally, we can encourage each other through fellowship, prayer, and study together to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Heb. 12:2-3).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting into God's Stride
Enoch walked with God . . . -Genesis 5:24
The true test of a person's spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person's worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight (seeJohn 1:35-37 and John 3:30). It is painful work to get in step with God and to keep pace with Him- it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God, there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride, but once we have done so, the only characteristic that exhibits itself is the very life of God Himself. The individual person is merged into a personal oneness with God, and God's stride and His power alone are exhibited.
It is difficult to get into stride with God, because as soon as we start walking with Him we find that His pace has surpassed us before we have even taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus- "He will not fail nor be discouraged . . ." (Isaiah 42:4) because He never worked from His own individual standpoint, but always worked from the standpoint of His Father. And we must learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning. It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God's stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give up because the pain is intense right now- get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.
The Face of God
The psalmist says in Psalm 30:7,
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.
One thing we should never want to experience is for God to hide His face, because the face of God represents His favor, friendship, and fellowship.
Now there is only one thing that causes God to hide His face from us. It is found in Isaiah 59:1-2,
Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Sin is the one thing that causes God's face to be hidden. The Bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, which means the sin of mankind had hidden God's face.
But that is not the end of the story, thank goodness! In Isaiah 50:6 we are told,
"I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting."
Because Jesus did not hide His face from shame and spitting, because He took your place and died for your sins, God's face can shine upon you.
He could have hidden His face; He could have avoided the whole crucifixion, but He didn't. He bore a shame that was not His as God the Father laid the sin of the world on Him.
Because Jesus did not hide His face, the face of God need not be hidden from any of us. The light of God's countenance can shine upon every one of us, and we can indeed be the friends of God.
Thank you, Jesus, for what you did!
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Read: Ephesians 4:1-16
Prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. - Ephesians 4:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Human growth hormone has made news in recent years in connection with the investigations and allegations surrounding illegal doping in sports like baseball, cycling, and track & field. But for children suffering from disorders such as a lack of insulin like growth factor 1 or other growth hormone deficiencies, treatment with human growth hormone enables them to grow and develop more normally. This allows their physical growth to reflect their burgeoning maturity.
We usually associate physical growth with increasing maturity in children; as they grow older, we expect them to get taller and also more mature. Unlike the physical growth of children, however, we should not expect a tapering off of our spiritual growth. As our passage for today makes clear, continued growth in the knowledge of God leads to both increasing spiritual maturity and stronger Christian unity.
In the first part of this text, Paul described what true Christian unity looks like: "bearing with one another in love," remembering that we all share one hope, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father and all" (vv. 2-5). Rather than seeking our own agenda in the community of faith, we can accept that others have different gifts than we do, but we all have the same calling to use those gifts to strengthen the body of Christ.
In verse 13, Paul made an interesting connection between unity in the church and spiritual maturity. The link that enables believers to be unified in love and also mature in faith is found in the knowledge of the Son of God. As we grow in this knowledge, we understand more of the truth of our faith, providing a buffer against false teaching (v. 14). In fact, Paul used the metaphor of infants here to contrast with the spiritual growth that he urged for believers!
Growing in the knowledge of God leads to spiritual maturity, which leads to Christian unity. Rather than being helpless infants sent into panic by the slightest disturbance, the church should be firmly joined together, recognizing the Headship of Christ and our need to support one another in love (v. 16).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth
. . . when Moses was grown . . . he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens -Exodus 2:11
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, " '. . . bring My people . . . out of Egypt.' But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go . . . ?' " (Exodus 3:10-11). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses' forty years in the wilderness. It's as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, "Who am I that I should go . . . ?" We must learn that God's great stride is summed up in these words- "I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him- our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be "well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, "I know this is what God wants me to do." But we have not yet learned to get into God's stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.
Showers of Blessings
In Ezekiel 34:26, God is speaking, and He says,
"I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."
In this passage, God is certainly speaking of natural rain when He talks about the showers He will send. Those are rains He promised to Israel which would water the land and cause it to increase and be fruitful and bring an abundant harvest.
But, more than that, when God says there will be showers of blessing, He is talking about bringing blessings into the lives of His people. The rain is symbolic of more than just the rain that falls to the earth. It symbolizes the good things that God wants to bring into the lives of those who serve Him.
God wants to bring showers of blessings into your life. Not just a blessing or two, but showers of blessings. An abundance of blessings.
You may feel like you are in a season of drought rather than experiencing showers of blessings. So over the next few devotionals, I will help you understand:
The three ways God brings blessing into the lives of people
The things that can cause a spiritual drought
How you can break such a drought in your life
For today, what I want you to begin to see is God's desire to rain blessings into your life. If you are feeling a spiritual drought, I pray God will use the coming devotionals to help you break that drought, and experience the refreshing rains of His blessing.
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Read: 2 Peter 3:1-18
Be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men. - 2 Peter 3:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1974, heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the radical group Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). After several negotiation attempts for her release failed, she assisted the SLA two months later in a bank robbery. She was arrested, and during her trial pleaded that she suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, a condition when victims depend on their captors and then become sympathetic to them. Hearst was still convicted and sentenced to prison.
We've already discussed the importance of taking every thought captive for Christ (see 2 Cor. 10:6). Our passage today warns that without growing in the knowledge of God, we can easily be deceived and co-opted by the evil of this world. We must guard our sympathies so that we don't find ourselves in league with "lawless men" (v. 17).
In this final chapter of his letter, the apostle Peter provided three reasons why we should grow in the knowledge of God. First, evil is real, present, and persuasive. The arguments of those who scoff at the notion of a holy, loving God might make sense to those who "deliberately forget" the word and work of the Lord (v. 5). The temptation to follow their own desires seduces many into rejecting the knowledge of God (v. 3). Peter knew that even believers struggle, and he urged them to be on their guard, a picture of active vigilance against sinful lies (v. 17).
Second, Peter discussed the nature of God. He is the Creator of the world (v. 5). He is the Judge of the world (v. 7). And He is also patient, filled with love for His creation and extending forgiveness to all those who seek Him (vv. 9, 15). The God we know is not a celestial bully nor a humorless tyrant nor a fickle snob. He is holy, and He has also provided a means of salvation for His people.
Finally, we need an eternal perspective. The doctrine of End Times matters because it should impact how we live now (vv. 11, 13-14). Evil is real, and God will judge it. But He has prepared a new place for those who are saved. As we look forward to eternity with Him, we have every incentive to learn more about Him now.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you'd like to take your study of God's Word a step further. We are blessed to live in a time of numerous resources. Your pastor can recommend some commentaries on books of the Bible, or you might consider taking an online Bible study course with Moody Bible Institute. For more information on this option, call 1-800-758-6352. Pray that God will bless your study with a deeper knowledge of Him, protection from evil snares, and a focus on eternity.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work (1)
Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . .' -Matthew 28:18-19
The key to the missionary's work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don't go- He simply says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . ." He says, "Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me."
"Then the eleven disciples went . . . to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them" (Matthew 28:16). If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him myself. I must take time to worship the One whose name I bear. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . ."- that is the place to meet Jesus- "all you who labor and are heavy laden . . ." (Matthew 11:28)- and how many missionaries are! We completely dismiss these wonderful words of the universal Sovereign of the world, but they are the words of Jesus to His disciples meant for here and now.
"Go therefore . . . ." To "go" simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say in this verse, "Go into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria," but, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me in [all these places]." He takes upon Himself the work of sending us.
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you . . ." (John 15:7)- that is the way to keep going. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings.
"None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . ." (Acts 20:24). That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life.
The Blessing of God's Spiritual Influence
In the beginning of Isaiah 55, God invites His people to come to Him and fellowship with Him. In verses 3 and 6 God says,
"Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live.... Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near."
In verses 10-11, we are told what happens to those who respond to this invitation, to God's call to come and seek Him and listen to Him,
"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."
In the same way rain brings blessing when it waters the earth (causing it to bring a bountiful harvest and fruitfulness into the lives of the people), so God's spiritual influence brings refreshment and fruitfulness to our lives.
What is God's spiritual influence? It is the impact of His Word and His Spirit upon the hearts of His children.
When you come to God, when you respond to His call to seek Him and incline your ear, He will speak to you. And the effect His Word has when He speaks it into your life, into your heart, is the same effect that rain has on the earth.
His Word, as it penetrates your heart, will bring refreshment, enlightenment, and ultimately, fruitfulness. It will bring revival into your heart causing spiritual growth and progress.
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Read: Acts 13:13-48
Through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. - Acts 13:38
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to a July 2 report on Newshour, 40 percent of Americans from the ages of 18 to 29 don't know the country from which the United States gained independence. The poll provoked widespread hand-wringing about the state of contemporary American education if so many young adults were unaware of such a fact.
Knowing the facts of history is important, for they inform any subsequent analysis or conclusions about our understanding of the past. This is true spiritually as well, and our passage today shows wonderfully how using the account of God's past work can inspire a tremendous spiritual response.
We are transitioning at this point in our study from a focus on growing in knowledge to examining what it means to grow in grace. Our text today is a perfect link, for it connects knowledge of God and grace of God in a fascinating way. The context is a message that Paul delivered in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. Notice that the invitation was to offer "a message of encouragement" (v. 15).
Paul offered the ultimate encouragement: he proclaimed the gospel of Jesus (vv. 23, 32, 38). Since his audience was comprised of Jews, he carefully connected the story of Jesus to the story of God's work with His people throughout history. God had delivered them from Egypt, raised up judges, and anointed David. This same God, who had consistently cared for and rescued His people, continued His work of salvation through sending His Son to preach repentance, die on behalf of sinners, and then be raised from the dead (v. 30).
After this stirring sermon, the people responded in an interesting way: they urged Paul and Barnabas to "continue in the grace of God." Why not say "the knowledge of God" when Paul had just recounted a sermon full of facts and history? It's because they had heard the gospel. Yes, the "good news" about Jesus is factually true, but it is also filled with life-saving grace (v. 32). The gospel offers the opportunity to be spared from the consequences of our sin and to have life with God. What grace!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One way you can grow in grace is by reviewing your own spiritual history. Whether you accepted Christ as a child or an adult, you can trace the ways that God was working and preparing you to receive His grace. Spend some time reflecting on your past, perhaps the heritage of a godly family, a dramatic conversion, or a series of remarkable events that led you to faith. You might even want to record your history of experiencing God's grace, to encourage both yourself and others.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work (2)
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world -1 John 2:2
The key to the missionary's message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus- His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ's work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But- "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"- that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary's message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.
The real key to the missionary's message is the "remissionary" aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. ". . . repentance and remission of sins should be preached . . . to all nations . . ." (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins . . . ." The missionary's message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is "for the whole world." When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim "the Lamb of God." It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, "Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me," but, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel- "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
God's Plentiful Rain
Psalm 68:6-10 says,
God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. O God, when You went out before Your people, when You marched through the wilderness, the earth shook; the heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God; Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. You, O God, sent a plentiful rain, whereby You confirmed Your inheritance, when it was weary. Your congregation dwelt in it; You, O God, provided from Your goodness for the poor.
When you read various Bible commentators, you will find they agree that this refers to a tremendous rain. The language the psalmist uses refers back to the manna God provided for His children as they wandered in the wilderness.
God sustained them supernaturally. He gave them supernatural provision. He brought them out of bondage into prosperity, and He sent a plentiful rain symbolizing His extravagant blessing on their life.
God, out of His goodness, met the needs of those who previously had been poor. And in the same way, He pours blessings into our life. He sustains us, He takes care of us, and He meets our needs.
Take time today to praise Him for His provision and blessing in your life.
Now, if there is a drought in your life in any of these areas, there is a reason for it. In the next few devotionals, I want to talk to you about some potential causes for that drought, and suggest some things you can do to cause the drought to break and bring the rain of God's blessing to fall in your life once again.
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Read: Romans 5:1-11
We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. - Romans 5:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
In past centuries, royal weddings were elaborately orchestrated affairs of state with monarchs hammering out alliances or trade deals to be sealed by the marriage of their children. Love usually played no part in the match. Royal families in the twenty-first century are going a different direction. This past June, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden married her former personal trainer, and in 2006 Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark married Mary Donaldson, an Australian woman he met during the 2000 Olympics. Reportedly he first introduced himself as, "Hi, I'm Fred from Denmark."
Such access to the royal family would have been inconceivable for commoners in prior generations. Even more remarkable is the access that believers-who were sinners in rebellion against God-now have to the royal throne of God, the Lord of all creation. Only one person has made this possible: our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 2).
Our passage today is an exploration of God's grace, summed up in verse 8: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We were ungodly, powerless, and unrighteous (vv. 6-7). Still, God extended grace to us by sending Jesus to die for our sins and then raising Him from the dead.
Faith in Jesus provides the access to this grace. But if we've already trusted Christ and experienced the grace of salvation, what does it mean to grow in grace? Growing-or continuing-in grace means rejoicing. First, Paul says that we rejoice in "the hope of the glory of God" (vv. 2, 11). As we grow in grace, we focus our priorities on eternal and spiritual matters, finding joy in bringing glory to God and looking forward to eternal life with Him.
Second, we rejoice in our sufferings (v. 3). Most of us aren't too excited about suffering, much less rejoice in it. But as we grow in grace, we are able to see even our sufferings from God's eternal perspective. Ultimately, suffering produces hope, which is confirmed by our experience of God's love deep in our innermost being (v. 5). Thanks to Jesus, we have grace, hope, and joy in our Christian journey.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
These verses don't minimize the pain of suffering. Even Jesus experienced mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual agony in His crucifixion. This is not a call to a "stiff upper lip" or false assertions that "everything will be okay." Instead, if you are suffering, you have access to God to pour out your heart. You can ask the Holy Spirit to help you feel the love of God. You can press the Lord to fill you with His perspective so you can have hope. God has promised that our suffering will not be in vain.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Master's Orders
Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest -Matthew 9:38
The key to the missionary's difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work- that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary's difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master's orders- the key is prayer. "Pray the Lord of the harvest . . . ." In the natural realm, prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the commonsense point of view.
From Jesus Christ's perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person- Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father's or your brother's life- are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, "a servant [who] is not greater than his master" (John 13:16), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work- He calls us to Himself. "Pray the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.
The Number One Cause for Spiritual Drought
By far the Scriptures teach that the number one cause for spiritual drought is sin. And the number one cure for drought, according to the Scriptures, is repentance.
In 2 Chronicles 6:26-27, King Solomon is clear in this prayer,
When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.
Notice that the heavens were shut up, there was no rain, because of sin. But when the people confessed God's name and turned and repented, Solomon prayed, "God, hear and open the heavens once again and send rain."
This prayer is particularly significant because Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple. Scripture declares to us in 2 Corinthians 6:16, You are the temple of the living God.
The Old Testament temple was just a type and a shadow pointing to better things-to the era in which God would no longer dwell in buildings made with mortar and stone, but take up residence in human hearts.
That's you and me! As 1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are not our own. We have been bought with a price, and God's expectation is that we glorify Him in our bodies. You and I are God's temple.
If there is sin in your life, turn from it and turn to God, so that you can experience the refreshing rain of God's blessing in your life.
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Read: Ephesians 1:3-14
God . . . has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. - Ephesians 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
For parents determined to bestow lavish gifts on their children, retailers are ready to offer ideas. The 2003 edition of FAO Schwarz's "Ultimate Toy Catalogue" included a $15,000 Lego life-size model of an NBA star, as well as a $30,000 gasoline-powered off-road vehicle to give kids their "first driving experience." If that's too traditional, Hammacher Schlemmer offers a Levitating Hover Scooter for only $13,000.
In a consumer-driven culture, it can be difficult to distinguish between getting stuff and receiving blessings. We can find ourselves distracted by acquiring material things rather than experiencing spiritual growth. Our passage today describes the way that God has lavished gifts upon His children-and every item is better than Legos or hovercraft.
This passage begins with Paul praising God and noting that He has given us "every spiritual blessing" (v. 3). Then notice some of what follows: chosen to be blameless in His sight; adopted as His children; His glorious grace; redemption and forgiveness; wisdom and understanding; and the Holy Spirit, a guarantee for our eternal inheritance.
To borrow a line from the popular MasterCard commercials, this list is priceless. Now see how it is that we receive these amazing blessings: only when we are in Christ. Review this passage and count how many times the phrases "in Christ" or "in him" occur-it's nearly every verse. As we saw yesterday, without Christ we deserve full punishment for our sin and rebellion against God. In Him we receive full acceptance and adoption as God's children.
Paul inserted the gospel in his description of these blessings. How do we find our identity in Christ? When we hear the truth of the gospel and believe it (v. 13). It's not from any good work that we do to impress God; our new identity results from accepting the truth about Jesus. The full Trinity is involved, for upon our belief in Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit, which confirms that we indeed belong to God and will receive our inheritance as His children (v. 14). God is not stingy. He delights to lavish the riches of His grace (vv. 7-8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It doesn't matter who your parents are, where you came from, how much education you have, or how much money you make: when you believe the gospel message about Jesus, God calls you His child and lavishes His gifts upon you. If you struggle with comparing yourself or your stuff with others around you, review this list of the gifts God has given you. If you find yourself tempted to have low self-esteem, rejoice in your identity in Christ as God's child.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Devotion
. . . they went forth for His name's sake . . . -3 John 7
Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:17). And then He said, "Feed My sheep." In effect, He said, "Identify yourself with My interests in other people," not, "Identify Me with your interests in other people." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love- it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.
Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit- "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.
The key to the missionary's devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.
The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Power of Humility
One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is spiritual arrogance.
When pride wells up in our heart, it can absolutely take our spiritual legs out from under us, and keep the strong arm of the Lord from being revealed in our lives.
In 1 Peter 5:6, we are given the antidote to pride. It says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
It is unfortunate, but there are some who emphasize the message of faith that at times do so with a touch of arrogance rather than humility. The result is that it has really turned some people off to the whole message of faith.
Our faith always needs to be coupled with humility.
There are only two people in the Bible Jesus said had great faith. One of them was the Roman centurion whom we find in Luke 7. When you study his story, you find that because of his good works, the elders of the Jews said he deserved Jesus' help. But the centurion had a far different view of himself. He said he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof.
The other person that Jesus said had great faith was the woman with the possessed daughter in Matthew 15. Two elements stand out about her as we read her story. She was persistent and she was humble.
Great faith cannot be divorced from great humility. Humility is a necessary ingredient for the soil of our heart, without which a healthy faith cannot grow.
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Read: James 4:1-12
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. - James 4:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to an article in the Korea Times, the number of legal disputes between family members over an inheritance has greatly increased in recent years. In 2002, 69 lawsuits were filed in Seoul Family Court over an alleged unfair distribution of an inheritance. Nearly 300 such lawsuits were filed in 2008, including a suit brought by two sisters against their older brothers; in another case, a son sued his mother over the implementation of his father's will. Since many large corporations in South Korea are family-run, these disputes can have devastating consequences for the business as well as the family.
As believers, we share an inheritance of salvation in Christ, indwelling by the Holy Spirit, and eternal life with God. This makes our quarrels and disputes even more tragic. We've seen how we receive grace out of God's great love, not our own pedigree. And we've seen how that grace includes our ability to bring glory to God rather than follow the ways of the world.
Yet as the book of James shows, we still need to be reminded to "live a life worthy of the calling" we have received (Eph. 4:1). This book often hits us where the rubber meets the road, so to speak-there's nothing abstract or idealistic about James. This Scripture unveils some of our most besetting struggles and calls us to acknowledge and then address the sin in our lives.
James lists a number of problems between believers, including quarrels, covetousness, selfishness, and slander. The root cause of this selfishness and dissension, though, was pride. Not only did people think they were better than each other, there was also a lack of submission to God. These two postures of pride go together-if we think that we should be in charge spiritually, we are rejecting God's sovereignty and putting ourselves in judgment over our fellow believers (vv. 10-12).
Thankfully, James presents not just a problem but also a solution. The continued grace of God is available when we remember that God is in charge and submit ourselves to Him. Our repentance is met with His mercy; our humility is met with His grace.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In churches that follow liturgy, prayers of confession are part of each service, followed by a reminder that God forgives those who are repentant. Churches without liturgy often encourage private confession, a vital part of each believer's prayer life. Confession means allowing the Holy Spirit to search our lives and convict us of sin. Then we humbly surrender the matter to God and ask for His forgiveness. This helps us remain in fellowship with God and prepares us for relationships with others.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unheeded Secret
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world -John 18:36
The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation . . . . For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person's life.
We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord's life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.
It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College- its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God's redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.
Selfish?
Over the last several devotionals, we have been looking at the cause of spiritual drought. In today's devotional, I want to look at selfishness as a cause of spiritual drought.
Selfishness is where I am focused on my own interests rather than the needs of others or of furthering God's Kingdom.
In Haggai 1:4-6, 9-11, God says,
"Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes... You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands."
They were investing everything in themselves and their homes, but not a thought was given to God's house or God's Kingdom.
Friend, if you want the rain to fall, you need to think about God and His house first, others second, and yourself third. It is like the old saying, "If you want joy, j-o-y, it's Jesus, others, and then you."
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Read: 2 Peter 1:1-9
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. - 2 Peter 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dr. Joseph Ferrari, a professor at DePaul University, studies procrastinators. Some 20 percent of the population identify themselves as chronic procrastinators, and Ferrari says that this group struggles to get anything done-whether paying bills or cashing checks. One myth about procrastinators asserts that they simply need better time management skills. But Ferrari notes that "telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up." The problem isn't a lack of knowledge, but more core issues like fear of failure or a painful family environment.
We've discussed growing in spiritual knowledge, but for some of us, a lack of knowledge isn't the problem-we're stuffed with knowledge about God. In our final day of studying how we grow in understanding grace, our passage from 2 Peter offers a template for how grace and knowledge work together in the Christian life.
The two are connected right at the beginning of this letter, as Peter describes grace "in abundance" coming from knowledge of God (v. 2). God has not skimped on making knowledge of Himself accessible (v. 3; cf. Rom. 1:20), and this knowledge also imbues us with His divine power.
Now what will we do with this knowledge, grace, and power? Will we know the promises of God and experience the saving grace of Jesus and then just sputter spiritually? That will make us vulnerable to pride, corruption, and even forgetting about the transforming work of God (vv. 4, 9). In contrast, Peter assures us that we have everything we need for spiritual growth.
Just as grace and knowledge are linked, God's work and our effort are linked in this text. God has provided us with "everything we need," so "for this very reason" we "make every effort" (vv. 3, 5). This list begins with faith, the starting point of our journey with Christ. It ends with love, the ultimate expression of our identity as God's children embodying His character. Growing in the grace and knowledge of God means that we will become more like Him (v. 8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you need to put your spiritual knowledge into action? Is there something in the list in verses 5 through 7 that doesn't describe you? Perhaps you need more self-control, perseverance, or brotherly kindness. God has promised to give you the grace; as you spend time in prayer today, ask Him what you need to do-not just need to know-in these areas. Then take concrete steps to practice godliness and love in your daily life, confident that you will be spiritually effective and productive.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is God's Will My Will?
This is the will of God, your sanctification . . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
Sanctification is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me- is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me everything that has been made possible through the atonement of the Cross of Christ? Am I willing to let Jesus become sanctification to me, and to let His life be exhibited in my human flesh? (see 1 Corinthians 1:30). Beware of saying, "Oh, I am longing to be sanctified." No, you are not. Recognize your need, but stop longing and make it a matter of action. Receive Jesus Christ to become sanctification for you by absolute, unquestioning faith, and the great miracle of the atonement of Jesus will become real in you.
All that Jesus made possible becomes mine through the free and loving gift of God on the basis of what Christ accomplished on the cross. And my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound, humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness). It is a holiness based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing about Him (see Romans 5:8). He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification. No wonder Paul said that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is accomplished only through the magnificent atonement of Christ. Never confuse the effect with the cause. The effect in me is obedience, service, and prayer, and is the outcome of inexpressible thanks and adoration for the miraculous sanctification that has been brought about in me because of the atonement through the Cross of Christ.
Rx for Depression
Isaiah 58:10-11 gives you and me a powerful prescription for depression. It says,
If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Take a moment to think about what God is saying. Think about the promise: If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, God will satisfy your soul in drought.
If you are a person who is given to depression and you feel like you have this big empty void in your life, I have a prescription for you based on this passage. Are you ready?
Go help somebody else. In fact, find a place in your church, local rescue mission, or The Salvation Army where you can minister to folks who are going through a rough patch. Donate a couple of days a week, and help other folks who are going through a rough time.
God promises that if you will draw out your soul to the hungry and if you will minister to the afflicted soul, He will satisfy your soul in drought.
Rather than being so inwardly focused..."my problems, and I'm so depressed, and why aren't things going right for me?", go help somebody else. Get things in perspective. There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you are, and you will find that God will bring the rain into your life when you change your focus.
If your soul is dry, the way to get it watered is to go help someone else. The sooner the better.
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Read: 2 Peter 1:1-9
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. - 2 Peter 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dr. Joseph Ferrari, a professor at DePaul University, studies procrastinators. Some 20 percent of the population identify themselves as chronic procrastinators, and Ferrari says that this group struggles to get anything done-whether paying bills or cashing checks. One myth about procrastinators asserts that they simply need better time management skills. But Ferrari notes that "telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up." The problem isn't a lack of knowledge, but more core issues like fear of failure or a painful family environment.
We've discussed growing in spiritual knowledge, but for some of us, a lack of knowledge isn't the problem-we're stuffed with knowledge about God. In our final day of studying how we grow in understanding grace, our passage from 2 Peter offers a template for how grace and knowledge work together in the Christian life.
The two are connected right at the beginning of this letter, as Peter describes grace "in abundance" coming from knowledge of God (v. 2). God has not skimped on making knowledge of Himself accessible (v. 3; cf. Rom. 1:20), and this knowledge also imbues us with His divine power.
Now what will we do with this knowledge, grace, and power? Will we know the promises of God and experience the saving grace of Jesus and then just sputter spiritually? That will make us vulnerable to pride, corruption, and even forgetting about the transforming work of God (vv. 4, 9). In contrast, Peter assures us that we have everything we need for spiritual growth.
Just as grace and knowledge are linked, God's work and our effort are linked in this text. God has provided us with "everything we need," so "for this very reason" we "make every effort" (vv. 3, 5). This list begins with faith, the starting point of our journey with Christ. It ends with love, the ultimate expression of our identity as God's children embodying His character. Growing in the grace and knowledge of God means that we will become more like Him (v. 8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you need to put your spiritual knowledge into action? Is there something in the list in verses 5 through 7 that doesn't describe you? Perhaps you need more self-control, perseverance, or brotherly kindness. God has promised to give you the grace; as you spend time in prayer today, ask Him what you need to do-not just need to know-in these areas. Then take concrete steps to practice godliness and love in your daily life, confident that you will be spiritually effective and productive.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Impulsiveness or Discipleship?
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith . . . -Jude 20
There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God's nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman-an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he "followed Him at a distance" on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises-human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God-but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people-and this is not learned in five minutes.
The Blessing of God's Spiritual Influence
Perhaps today you are honestly doing all you know to do, but it seems like you are in this season of drought. God's blessing has seemingly dried up in your life.
Let me point you to 2 Samuel 21:1-3,
Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, "It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. Therefore David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?"
There was a famine in the land because there had been no rain for three years. So David inquired of the Lord, and God spoke to him. If you read to the end of the story, you see the rain finally did fall, the drought was broken, and the famine was over.
But here is the point. It says, David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered him.
If there is a drought in your life, ask God why. God will talk to you. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice." If you in earnestness will seek God and ask Him why, God will speak to you.
Be willing to take responsibility for whatever He shows you. There just may be something in the past that needs to be corrected.
Just ask. Then act on what He reveals.
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Read: Acts 11:19-26
The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. - Acts 11:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
Muhammed Omar was forced to relocate to Kenya after violence spread in his native Somalia. He converted from Islam to faith in Jesus, and says this about reaching his people with the gospel: "Fifty years ago, Christians the world over were challenged to go to more difficult places like Somalia. Then the war started in 1991 and now with still no central government, many Somalis had scattered all over the world, mainly to Kenya. Today, we do not need to go to Somalia to reach Somalis. I thank the Lord that they come for treatment to Kenya's Kijabe Hospital where I work as a volunteer chaplain."
From the beginning, believers in Jesus have followed the Great Commission to spread the gospel to others (Matt. 28:19-20). God has redeemed even such evil as persecution and displacement in order to reach people with the good news that He loves them enough to send Jesus to die for their sins. Just as Muhammed Omar found that he could reach people from Somalia, people in our text for today spread the gospel to cities across the known world.
After Stephen's death, persecution was unleashed against the church in Jerusalem (see Acts 8:1). One result is that Christians began to flee Jerusalem, taking the message of Christ with them to Phoenicia (in present-day Lebanon), Cyprus, and Antioch (in modern Turkey). Christianity was going global! The initial converts were Jewish, but then they shared the faith with their Gentile neighbors, who also believed (v. 20).
When the Jerusalem church heard about Gentile converts, they sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate. Barnabas found that these believers exhibited the grace of God, the mark of all followers of Christ throughout time (v. 23). Whether Jew or Greek, American or Somali, evidence of God's grace will identify true Christians.
This grace verified that Gentile converts were part of the family of God, and it also encouraged Barnabas. He committed a year to teaching the believers in Antioch so they could grow in the faith. The grace of God allows us to cross all social and cultural boundaries to share the gospel, and then embrace our brothers and sisters.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Missions has been part of the identity of the church from the beginning. Are you connected with a missions program or missionaries? Missionaries who have traveled from their homes need financial support and spiritual encouragement-even birthday cards or regular e-mails can be tremendously helpful. You don't have to leave home to share the gospel. Do you have a heart for your own family or neighbors to know Christ? Pray that the grace God has given you will bring others to faith.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Witness of the Spirit
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit . . . -Romans 8:16
We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him- we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.
Why doesn't God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won't abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself- He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28 , "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . . ." Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).
The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.
Praying for the Rain
For the past week we have been seeking to understand what causes a spiritual drought, and then how we can break that drought if indeed we are in one.
Here is what I want you to understand. Even if you earnestly seek God and repent of sin in your life, or you shift your focus and say, "God, I'm putting Your house first, and I'm going to put other people before myself," or perhaps God leads you to do something of a personal nature, you still need to pray for the rain.
Do not just assume God's blessing will automatically fall. You still need to ask for it. Zechariah 10:1 teaches us this truth,
Ask the LORD for rain In the time of the latter rain. The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone.
I used to read that and wonder, "God, I don't understand. If it is the time of the latter rain, if it is rainy season, why ask for rain? Won't it just fall automatically?" If it is rainy season, why pray for rain?"
Because you cannot assume that it is automatically going to fall.
In James 5:17-18 there is a story about Elijah from 1 Kings 18. James gives us the very, very, very short version. But it tells us something significant,
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
What caused the rain to stop? His prayer. What caused the rain to fall again? His prayer.
Ask God today for the blessing of His rain in your life!
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Read: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
By this gospel you are saved. - 1 Corinthians 15:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Charles Spurgeon has been called the "Prince of Preachers," and for good reason: he preached to an estimated ten million people between 1850 and 1892. Yet Spurgeon declared: "The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher; otherwise men would be the converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher's learning; otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men. We might preach until our tongues rotted, till we would exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless the Holy Spirit be with the Word of God to give it the power to convert the soul."
We've seen the powerful proclamation of the gospel by Stephen, made possible because he was filled with grace and the Holy Spirit. As we continue studying what it means to grow in extending grace, our passage today reveals that the grace of God strengthens us to share the gospel.
At this point in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wanted to correct some doctrinal error that had crept into the church. Before his eloquent discussion about resurrection (vv. 12-58), he reminded the church about their embrace of the gospel. This truth was the foundation for their salvation and identity-not their wealth, wisdom, social position, or ethnicity.
Most scholars believe that verses 3 through 6 are part of an ancient creed, a summary of the gospel that the earliest believers would have known and recited as a way to rehearse the truth about Jesus. The death, burial, and resurrection are included, as well as the witnesses who verified that the risen Lord appeared in His resurrected body.
Then Paul transitioned into his autobiography. He was a sinner; he had "persecuted the church of God" (v. 9). But he encountered Jesus and was saved (v. 8). Here was Paul-the great apostle, founder of churches across the world, author of nearly half of the New Testament-giving all the credit for his spiritual achievements to the grace of God (v. 10). He worked diligently, but even his labor was empowered by God's grace. Paul didn't receive this grace in vain: he extended it to others by faithfully preaching the gospel.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you ground your identity in your nationality or denomination? Do you look to your social status or income to validate you? If we are saved by faith in Christ, God's grace should be the foundation for our self-evaluation. We can't extend that grace to others if we think we have some intrinsic quality that makes us more valuable or important. Only by acknowledging that we are recipients of God's grace can we share the gospel with any power.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Nothing of the Old Life!
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
Our Lord never tolerates our prejudices- He is directly opposed to them and puts them to death. We tend to think that God has some special interest in our particular prejudices, and are very sure that He will never deal with us as He has to deal with others. We even say to ourselves, "God has to deal with other people in a very strict way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right." But we must learn that God accepts nothing of the old life! Instead of being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately removing them from us. It is part of our moral education to see our prejudices put to death by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.
When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is nothing remaining of the old life. Our old gloomy outlook disappears, as does our old attitude toward things, and "all things are of God" (2 Corinthians 5:18). How are we going to get a life that has no lust, no self-interest, and is not sensitive to the ridicule of others? How will we have the type of love that "is kind . . . is not provoked, [and] thinks no evil"? (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). The only way is by allowing nothing of the old life to remain, and by having only simple, perfect trust in God- such a trust that we no longer want God's blessings, but only want God Himself. Have we come to the point where God can withdraw His blessings from us without our trust in Him being affected? Once we truly see God at work, we will never be concerned again about the things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in heaven, whom the world cannot see.
It's Never Too Late
He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass. (KJV)
This verse refers to a field that has been eaten over by locusts, a plague of locusts that has come through and just devoured a field. And God gives a wonderful promise: He will come down like the rain on the mown grass, to revive and to restore that which the locusts have eaten.
Today, as you read this devotional, you may feel like a swarm of locusts has come over your life and eaten your blessing. I think if you seek God and earnestly pray and ask Him to send the rain, you will have an encounter with God beyond anything you could have imagined.
He can restore what the enemy has stolen in your life. You can indeed experience the freshness and revival and fruitfulness in your life again. It is never too late to pray for God's blessing.
No matter the situation, seek God today. Ask, and He will send the rain down on whatever part of your life has been mowed over by the locusts. And you will experience the blessing God desires for you.
Remember, it is never too late.
I remember when I was first saved and read this passage, I would picture somebody out there with a lawnmower. But of course, they didn't have lawnmowers back then! As we wrap up our series of devotionals on how to break a spiritual drought, I want to focus our attention on Psalm 72:6. This verse contains a very powerful truth that I want to leave with you. It says,
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Read: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
God is able to make all grace abound to you. - 2 Corinthians 9:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
The prophet Elijah saw God's promise of famine come true in judgment for the sins of Ahab and Israel. In obedience to God, Elijah went to Zarephath and asked a widow to provide him with food. She responded that she had no bread, and only a little flour and oil. She was preparing a final meal for herself and her son. Elijah promised that if she would feed him, God would provide continuous food. She trusted God's promise, and He ensured that miraculously the "jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD" (see 1 Kings 17).
God's principles of godly generosity have not changed. When people offer what they have-whether much or little-to Him, He promises to bless them. One way that we grow in extending grace is by extending generosity to others as a ministry to God.
The context of our passage is Paul's request for the Corinthian church to contribute financially to the impoverished and persecuted church in Jerusalem. The poor churches in Macedonia had already sent an offering, but the wealthy church in Corinth had been rather stingy (see Acts 8; Phil. 4:14-19). Paul didn't want to coerce or manipulate the Corinthians, but he did want them to understand God's principles of generosity. God wanted voluntary, joyful giving (v. 7). Sometimes a lack of generosity stems from a fear of not having enough left over; believers cling to financial resources for security. But God promises to extend the grace and resources necessary in response to our giving (v. 8).
This passage is often used by prosperity gospel preachers to assert that God has a mathematical formula-give a dollar and get $100 in return!-or that God wants all Christians to be rich. In contrast, notice what Paul emphasized: our money is not what enables us to live for God. Our money is a tool to serve God, and His grace enables us to pursue good works of service. The emphasis is not on getting rich, but on seeking "every good work," "righteousness," and "thanksgiving to God" (vv. 8, 10, 11, 13). Generosity exhibits obedience consistent with our confession of the gospel. God has extended His grace to us so that we can extend generosity to others (v. 14).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This text connects our willingness to release our financial resources to serve God with our ability to grow spiritually. There's no formula or percentage demanded; God cares about the state of our hearts. Are you willing to give financially to support your church, missionaries, or other ministries doing the work of God? Are you giving joyfully? Do you give the bare minimum, desiring to hold tightly to your money? Our security is in Christ, not our bank account. He promises to bless our generosity.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Proper Perspective
Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 2:14
The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God's perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Don't think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.
The proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose- to be captives marching in the procession of Christ's triumphs. We are not on display in God's showcase- we are here to exhibit only one thing- the "captivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, "I am standing all alone, battling for Jesus," or, "I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him." But Paul said, in essence, "I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn't matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph." Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul's secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive- and that became his purpose. It was Paul's joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." (Romans 8:37).
"We are to God the fragrance of Christ . . ." (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.
The Cure for the Drought Brought by Sin
One word: repentance.
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is clear and instructive,
"When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
There is no real repentance even if you are feeling emotional and weeping over your sin. That is not repentance. Feeling sorry is not repentance.
Repentance is the change of heart that results in a change of lifestyle, a change of direction, a turning. So I have a word for you:
If there is known sin in your life, repent.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD...."
If, because of sin, you are in a drought spiritually, repent. If you do, your drought can be broken and you can experience the blessings of God.
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Read: Ephesians 3:1-21
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit. - Ephesians 3:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Most people who make important discoveries want to share the news as quickly as possible. Robert Peary sent a telegram after discovering the North Pole. Albert Einstein published a paper on Special Relativity. When Apollo 11 reached the moon, the words and pictures were broadcast around the world.
In our passage today, Paul described the great spiritual discovery or "mystery" that had been made clear to him. He wanted the church in Ephesus to know that this discovery was for the benefit of everyone, and that God's grace enabled Paul to share it with the world.
This unveiled mystery was that the Gentiles were able to access the grace of God: "This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus" (v. 6). We might miss how revolutionary this is, but it's hard to imagine any contemporary divisions between people that are as deep and controversial as the rift between Jews and Gentiles at that time. This controversy had rocked the church since its earliest days (see Acts 10-11, 15). Many were willing to allow Gentiles into the faith-as long as they adopted a Jewish identity. Paul testified that the Gentiles came into the church not by becoming Jewish but through faith in the gospel (see Gal. 3:26).
Note how many times Paul used the word grace in this passage. The revelation of this truth was by grace; his status as an apostle was by grace; and his ability to preach was by grace. Paul didn't claim the credit for this teaching. He recognized that God had graciously allowed the truth to be revealed and enabled Paul to spread the gospel to Gentiles throughout the world, showing them they had access to God through Jesus Christ (vv. 10-12).
This extension of grace meant that believers-whether of Jewish or Gentile origin-could experience the fullness of the love of God. No ethnic heritage was necessary to claim salvation in God. The power of the Lord was at work in the church in all times and places-including us today! (vv. 20-21).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The church today doesn't struggle with Jew-Gentile tensions-do we? In fact, the tendency toward division still persists among God's people. Our churches often divide along racial and economic lines. Some insist that certain gifts be demonstrated to qualify as full believers; others declare that all Christians should adopt their preferences for ways of dress or types of music. To extend God's grace, we must follow Paul's example and recognize that access to the family of God is based on faith in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
October 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Submitting to God's Purpose
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some -1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God's man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, "If only I were somewhere else!" All of God's people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God's almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul's whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact- ". . . Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
"I chose you . . ." (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose- that He may be able to say, "This is My man, and this is My woman." We have to be in God's hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you "turn aside . . . to the right or the left . . ." (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
The Power of Humility
When pride wells up in our heart, it can absolutely take our spiritual legs out from under us, and keep the strong arm of the Lord from being revealed in our lives.
In 1 Peter 5:6, we are given the antidote to pride. It says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
Our faith always needs to be coupled with humility.
There are only two people in the Bible Jesus said had great faith. One of them was the Roman centurion whom we find in Luke 7. When you study his story, you find that because of his good works, the elders of the Jews said he deserved Jesus' help. But the centurion had a far different view of himself. He said he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof.
The other person that Jesus said had great faith was the woman with the possessed daughter in Matthew 15. Two elements stand out about her as we read her story. She was persistent and she was humble.
Great faith cannot be divorced from great humility. Humility is a necessary ingredient for the soil of our heart, without which a healthy faith cannot grow.
It is unfortunate, but there are some who emphasize the message of faith that at times do so with a touch of arrogance rather than humility. The result is that it has really turned some people off to the whole message of faith. One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is spiritual arrogance.
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Read: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
Encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. - 2 Thessalonians 2:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
Phoenix, Louisiana, is a largely African-American fishing community on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish. The area is noted for producing some of the nation's best shrimp and oysters and for the hard work and independence of the local fisherman. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the community, and, just as they were recovering, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shuttered the livelihoods for most of the town. Local pastor Tyronne Edwards stated: "We're strong in our faith. We have all kind of disasters come our way, but because of a religious conviction . . . we walk by faith, not by sight."
Times of hardship can test the faith and convictions for all of us. God's Word recognizes the challenge of testing, whether it comes from persecution or disaster or grief. Thankfully, the grace of God encourages us and gives us hope in these times.
In challenging times, our passage today offers three truths to remind us to stand strong in our faith. First, our salvation is secure through the work of God (v. 13). God chose us, Jesus loved us, and the Holy Spirit sanctified us. The implication is that our Lord will not abandon us, nor should we have reason to abandon faith in Him during hard times.
Second, Jesus Himself suffered and was vindicated by God. By aligning ourselves with Him in faith in the gospel, we too can have an eternal perspective. Despite our current times of difficulty, we will ultimately "share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 14).
Finally, even in the midst of a trial, God extends His grace to encourage and strengthen us (vv. 16-17). It is possible to maintain hope that is based on our knowledge of the character and promises of our Savior. Despite struggles, we can still be equipped to live as people of God, demonstrating our faith through "every good deed and word" (v. 17).
If we grow in our understanding of what it means to extend grace, we realize that God's grace sustains us throughout this life and prepares us for eternity with Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One day, all cancer, loneliness, despair, cruelty, tornadoes, greed, lying, and all other forms of sin, pain, and destruction will be forever banished from existence (Rev. 21:4). Until then, we don't flounder in hopelessness. If you are in the middle of a struggle today, ask your loved ones to pray verses 16 and 17 for you, asking God to encourage and strengthen you. This is a prayer that God delights to answer!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What is a Missionary?
Jesus said to them again, '. . . As the Father has sent Me, I also send you' -John 20:21
A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front- to sweep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him- to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God's call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ- "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . ." (Matthew 28:19).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, "What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!" But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were "foolish" enough to trust God's wisdom and His supernatural equipment.
Obedience in Marriage
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Even with that understanding, the Bible says that husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life. There is an equality before God between men and women and husband and wife.
What this passage teaches is that God has set up a system of authority in the home that needs to be followed, if it is going to be well with us. In fact, this is even a military term. To submit or to obey means to put yourself in rank under.
Friend, we are in a spiritual warfare, and there are spiritual forces that have been unleashed against homes and against marriages that would love to tear marriages apart.
God has designed a way for the home to function, and that is for the man to take the responsibility of leadership and for the wife to come under that authority. When a husband truly loves his wife, and cares for her like Christ does the church, and the wife respects her husband, things will be well in the home. That couple and that family will be magnets for the blessings of God.
It is important to make clear that before God there is an absolute equality between men and women, between husbands and wives. In fact, this passage does not say, "Women submit to men." It is purely a domestic situation. Ephesians 5:22-24 gives an important area of obedience. While this is not popular in our society today, it is biblical, but is also often misunderstood.
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Read: 1 Peter 4:7-11
Love covers over a multitude of sins. - 1 Peter 4:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Churches in wealthy areas from Fairfax, Virginia, to Phoenix, Arizona, have discovered that not everyone endorses offering Christian hospitality to those in need. Nearly two years ago, CrossRoads United Methodist Church began offering a hot, cooked breakfast on Saturday mornings to over 100 people who were homeless. Since then, 22 homeless people have joined the congregation of 200. But neighbors complained, and the city of Phoenix ruled that the church was violating zoning ordinances. A court settlement required the church to move their breakfast program to a poor neighborhood, though the city agreed not to prevent future ministry to the poor at the church.
The exhortations in today's passage seem simple at first. We might think we could boil this down to: "Just be nice to each other!" But far more is going on-and much more is at stake-than niceness. These are commands for us to extend God's grace, and we can do this only through His strength.
Peter started with the spiritual context: "The end of all things is near" (v. 7). As Christians we know that Christ will return and the world will be judged. That should impact the way we live. We make the choice to be clear-minded and self-controlled so that we can pray.
Notice that Peter didn't describe love and hospitality as easy. Christian love persists even in the face of opposition; it extends grace even to sinners. This kind of hospitality goes far beyond inviting friends over for a barbecue. Without the grace of God, this hospitality would incite grumbling (vv. 8-9). Christian love and hospitality require us to be willing to be inconvenienced in order to minister to others.
Each of us has received a gift from God, and the purpose of these gifts is to administer God's grace to others. Through our spiritual gifts, we are equipped to extend grace and bless others. Whether we are sharing the gospel, serving to meet practical needs, offering hospitality, or loving sacrificially, we are able to accomplish this ministry because of the grace that we've been given. For this reason, God receives the praise and glory (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some have bought the consumerist lie that your house has to look like a catalog or you have to cook like a Food Network star in order to extend hospitality. Scripture says that true hospitality comes from sharing God's grace with others, and all believers are equipped to do that. Our extension of hospitality should be motivated by the fact that Christ will return soon! Pray and see if God is leading you to open your home or participate in a ministry to extend hospitality to those in need.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
THE METHOD OF MISSIONS
"Go ye therefore, and teach (disciple) all nations." Matthew 28:19
Jesus Christ did not say - Go and save souls (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but - "Go and teach," i.e., disciple, "all nations," and you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples came back from their first mission they were filled with joy because the devils were subject to them, and Jesus said - Don't rejoice in successful service; the great secret of joy is that you are rightly related to Me. The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God, and realizes that his one purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. There is a passion for souls that does not spring from God, but from the desire to make converts to our point of view.
The challenge to the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, that there is a wadge of callous indifference; but along the line of his own personal relationship to Jesus Christ. "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" Our Lord puts that question steadily, it faces us in every individual case we meet. The one great challenge is - Do I know my Risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit? Am I wise enough in God's sight, and foolish enough according to the world, to bank on what Jesus Christ has said, or am I abandoning the great supernatural position, which is the only call for a missionary, viz., boundless confidence in Christ Jesus? If I take up any other method I depart altogether from the methods laid down by Our Lord - "All power is given unto Me . . , therefore go ye."
An Enemy to Your Enemies
"Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries."
Israel's success in possessing the promised land lay in their obedience. The same is true for us as we endeavor to possess the things promised to us by God.
I like the thought of God being an enemy to my enemies and an adversary to my adversaries, but that hinges on obedience as well.
The difficult thing about obeying God is that it always requires faith. He asks us to do things that sometimes make no sense. Other times He demands that we face seemingly impossible situations armed with nothing but His Word.
But He is faithful. He keeps His promises. And He can be absolutely trusted-in everything and with everything.
So today if you are desiring to enter some aspect of your "promised land", or if you are faced with difficult or seemingly insurmountable obstacles, listen for His voice, search His Word for instructions, and then obey.
He will be an enemy to your enemies, and you will possess the promises.
Exodus 23:20-22 says,
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Read: 2 Corinthians 6:1-13
As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. - 2 Corinthians 6:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2003, the infamous "tech bubble" burst and flattened sectors of the American economy, particularly the stock value of technology companies. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, canceled his stock options in the company in exchange for $75 million. Since Apple's share price had fallen from $36 to $7, it seemed like a good financial strategy. Had he held those options, however, today they would be worth over $10 billion.
We might not encounter financial deals in the millions or billions of dollars, but spiritually we often have the same option: choose something that looks attractive now and forfeit valuable spiritual riches. Today we transition from our examination of extending grace to warnings about the grace offered to us. Growing in grace includes understanding what is at stake in the offer of God's grace to us.
Our passage today warns us not to receive this grace in vain (v. 1). In order to see what that means, examine the context. In chapter 5, Paul had urged the Corinthian church to hear his message (5:11). He had many difficult matters to address with this church, and they were not inclined to hear the message of this apostle. He reminded them they shared the heritage of the gospel and the urgency of reconciliation that flowed from it (5:18-21).
By refusing to hear the admonition of Paul, the Corinthians were in danger of rejecting the grace offered to them. They were choosing comfort over conviction, rhetoric over repentance, and wealth over wisdom. They placed more value in immediate appearances than eternal priorities.
Paul described in detail how his message came from God and not his own ego: he was speaking "in truthful speech and in the power of God" with love for this church (v. 7). He was willing to suffer greatly in order to prod this church back to God's grace (vv. 4-10). Their rejection of him wasn't simply a bruise to his self-esteem. It was a refusal to accept the grace of God that would enable them to return to righteousness and be reconciled to the Lord, to Paul, and to each other.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How will you respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Paul took great pains to demonstrate that he is not trying to manipulate or control the Corinthians. His plea came out of "the Holy Spirit and in sincere love" (v. 6). If a godly person in your life is making such a plea with you, accept the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation being offered to God. Thank the Holy Spirit for stirring your heart to address any sin, and don't take the grace of conviction in vain.Read: 1 Peter 4:7-11
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
October 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Romans 5:10
I am not saved by believing; I realize I am saved by believing. It is not repentance that saves me, repentance is the sign that I realize what God has done in Christ Jesus. The danger is to put the emphasis on the effect instead of on the cause. It is my obedience that puts me right with God, my consecration. Never! I am put right with God because prior to all, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals I can accept, instantly the stupendous Atonement of Jesus Christ rushes me into a right relationship with God; and by the supernatural miracle of God's grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, not because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The Spirit of God brings it with a breaking, all-over light, and I know, though I do not know how, that I am saved.
The salvation of God does not stand on human logic, it stands on the sacrificial Death of Jesus. We can be born again because of the Atonement of Our Lord. Sinful men and women can be changed into new creatures, not by their repentance or their belief, but by the marvellous work of God in Christ Jesus which is prior to all experience. The impregnable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We have not to work out these things ourselves; they have been worked out by the Atonement. The supernatural becomes natural by the miracle of God; there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done - "It is finished."
Pay Your Taxes!
For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
While I do not like working hard and in the end sending a large portion of every dollar to support the government, it is the right thing to do. I am absolutely amazed when I learn of Christians who try to dodge their responsibility to pay taxes.
Friend, you must be honest and pay your taxes. Certainly take advantage of all that the law allows, and do not pay more than you need to, but don't hide anything. You need to make sure you do this because when you do, you are being obedient to God.
And there are always blessings tied to obedience-even if it is obeying God by paying your taxes!
What I want to address today is the need to pay our taxes with honesty, not trying to dodge our responsibility. It is a critical part of obeying the laws of the land as we discussed yesterday. Yesterday we learned from Romans 13:1-3 that we need to submit ourselves to the laws of the land if we want to live lives free from fear. I want to focus your attention today on the remainder of that passage, Romans 13:4-7,
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Read: Hebrews 12:14-29
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble. - Hebrews 12:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
A satirical newspaper once published an article titled: "Church splits over the correct spelling of Hallelujah." While some church splits have ostensibly been over issues like the color of the carpet, anyone who has been through a church split can attest that the experience is no laughing matter. No matter what people think they're arguing about, the root problems are often ego, control, selfishness, and bitterness.
Our passage today warns that rejecting the grace of God leads to bitterness, which can destroy the body of believers. We saw the example of Esau in our study yesterday, and today's text expands on reasons why we should grow in the grace of God.
Following Christ compels us to "make every effort to live in peace with all men"; in contrast, refusing the grace of God creates a "bitter root" that "grows up to cause trouble" (vv. 14-15). The contrast between holiness and sexual immorality also indicates our spiritual condition. Our relationship with God is proved in our relationships with others-if we are responding to others with bitterness, trouble-making, or lust, we are ultimately missing the grace of God.
The warning comes starkly from verse 25: "See to it that you do not refuse him [God] who speaks." We have no reason or excuse to refuse God's grace. He does not speak to us harshly, causing us to tremble in fear; because of Jesus, we are invited into a "joyful assembly," a community of believers surrounded by angels in worship to the Lord (vv. 18-24). Because God extends His grace to us in this way, with joy and love, the penalty for turning to selfishness and bitterness is even greater.
Instead, our response should be gratitude and worship. We understand the power and holiness of God, and we offer our praise and thanks "with reverence and awe" (v. 28). Even these warnings are a form of grace to His people. He does not try to trick us or manipulate people into worship, nor does He delight in abject fear. He invites us to an eternal life of rejoicing, guaranteed by the blood of Jesus.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our text is bracketed with descriptions of how we should behave toward others and God: "Make every effort to live in peace with all men" and "worship God acceptably with reverence and awe" (vv. 14, 28). Does this describe your church, and your own attitude? If not, begin by confessing your own bitterness or selfishness and receive God's grace to renew your walk in holiness. Pray also for your church, especially those with whom you disagree, that you will be reconciled.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 1, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Trial of Faith
"If you have faith as a mustard seed . . . nothing will be impossible for you -Matthew 17:20
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith- faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is- "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).
Obedience
One of those is King Saul. When he was told by God to make an end of the Amalekites and to destroy all of their property, he did not do it.
Instead of obeying God, he saved the oxen and the sheep, along with some other things, and then claimed he had obeyed God. But when Samuel heard the oxen and the sheep, Saul knew he had been caught. So he changed his story. He said, "Well, these things are just a sacrifice to God."
In response to this act of disobedience, this is what Samuel, the prophet, said. We find it in 1 Samuel 15:22,
So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."
Another reason why obedience is better than sacrifice is because it is preventative. In Saul's day, sacrifices were made to cover sin, but if he had obeyed, there would have been no need for sacrifice. Obedience would have prevented his sin.
So do what God desires. Obey what He commands. It is always better.
God does not want religious lip service. He wants obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice. One reason for that is because you cannot make up by sacrifice what you lose through disobedience. To God, obedience is a big deal. And one of the best ways to see just how importantly He regards it is to learn from those who disobeyed.
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Read: Revelation 22:7-21
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. - Revelation 22:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
Sigrid Paul gave birth to a son in East Berlin in 1961. The delivery was difficult, and the baby needed medical attention available only in a hospital in West Berlin. While he was receiving treatment, overnight the Berlin Wall went up-separating Sigrid in the East from her baby in the West. When she asked the government for permission to visit him, she was denied. Desperate, she made plans to escape from East Germany, but was caught and imprisoned for two years. Finally ransomed by the West German government, she was reunited with her son when he was nearly five years old.
During the separation, Sigrid never stopped feeling or acting like a mother longing to see her child. It is the relief from this longing that makes reunions so wonderful. We currently long to be united fully with our Savior, and our passage today says that we have the grace of God while we wait.
First, we have the promises of Jesus that He is going to return for us (vv. 7, 12, 20). We know that our God is absolutely faithful-He has provided His Word to remind us of what He has done in the past so that we have hope for what He will do in the future.
Second, we worship and obey the Lord while we wait (vv. 9, 12, 14). Scripture tells us what it means to have a life that brings glory to God; we do not have the excuse of ignorance. Our growth in knowledge and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ demonstrates our commitment to faith and prepares us to live with Him forever.
Third, we live in the present with a view toward our eternal future (vv. 12, 17, 19). We anticipate the reward of seeing Jesus, and we respond to the invitation to the "free gift of the water of life." We take seriously the warning to respect the Word of God, for we know what is at stake.
Ultimately, God's people are characterized by grace (v. 21). From the depths of our being we look forward to finally, freely dwelling with God, and we cry out, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (v. 20).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As a way to close our study on the grace and knowledge of God, spend time thinking about how you can grow in these areas. This might be a time of reflection, journaling, or perhaps taking specific actions. Close your devotional time by looking forward to Christ's return. You might write down what excites you most about seeing Him, or sing songs that focus on the coming of Jesus and living forever with God. This active focus on His return can conform our hearts to His grace.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 2, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Obedience or Independence?
If you love Me, keep My commandments -John 14:15
Our Lord never insists obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an "If," meaning, "You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so." "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . ." (Luke 9:23). In other words, "To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me." Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God's redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
Opening the Door to Calamity
In 1 Kings 13:21-25, God provides us with quite an unusual story,
And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the LORD: 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the LORD said to you, "Eat no bread and drink no water," your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.'" So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back. When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse. And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse. Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
Notice that the lion did something very unnatural. The guy disobeyed, the lion killed him, but the lion didn't go after the donkey. The donkey didn't run away, but the lion didn't try to kill the donkey, nor did it drag the guy off to eat him.
And to top it all off, now people start to walk by. Look, people do not walk by wild lions! But here they are: the donkey, the lion, the dead guy, and people are walking by.
What is God up to here? He is giving a snapshot, something He wants indelibly burned into their understanding: Disobedience opens the door to calamity.
If you choose to disobey God, know you have opened your life to calamity!
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Read: 2 Kings 2
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. - Isaiah 40:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Throughout history, the transfer of leadership has been a tenuous moment. Even today, some nations around the world teeter on the brink of civil war when one leader dies and another comes to power. With such shifts in leadership often comes the question: What will the future hold?
A similar question underlies today's passage as we read about the end of the prophet Elijah's ministry in Israel. His impending end was seemingly known by all, and Scripture builds our suspense for ten verses before we learn his (and Israel's) fate. When Elijah was finally taken up in miraculous fashion, Elisha's words summarized the sentiment of the moment: "Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" (v. 14). The answer is found in the details of the text.
Just as Elisha accompanied Elijah from Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan, so now starting in verse 14, Elisha retraced those steps, moving from the Jordan to Jericho to Bethel, performing notably miraculous actions. He parted the Jordan, healed deathly water, and cursed opponents of God. Where is God? He is right here, just as He had been for generations. Circumstances change and leaders come and go, but God and His powerful word remain the same.
Our passage illustrates God's enduring presence in a two-fold manner. First, we see God's restorative power (vv. 19-22). Through Elisha, God's grace healed the tainted waters of the cursed land (cf. Josh. 6:26). Just as Moses healed the bitter waters of Marah (cf. Ex. 15:22-26), so now God's restorative power continued. Isn't this the ultimate message of the gospel, that God can reverse a once cursed and fallen land and bring about blessing and life?
Second, we see God's power in judgment (vv. 23-25). As the youths of Bethel (a hot-bed of idolatry; see 1 Kings 12:25-33) maliciously rejected God and His prophet, the consequence were consistent with the warnings of judgment in Leviticus 26:21-22. God's powerful word brings either blessing or curse, depending on how we receive that word. The real question is not, Where is God?, but How will you respond to His enduring presence?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you ever wonder where God is as you consider the future? Do you doubt His presence, His power, and His care, wondering if He can ever restore the brokenness of your own life? Be encouraged by God's enduring power and presence in our lives. Perhaps you can make a list of the anxieties in your own life, then bring them before the Lord asking Him to instill you with confidence in His enduring word that can heal even those most broken aspects of our lives.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 3, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
A Bondservant of Jesus
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . . -Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, ". . . for My sake" (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.
Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is- will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable- "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ."
The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God's call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?
The Cost of Disobedience
1 Peter 5:8 tells us,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
I believe God wants you to get a snapshot of that lion in 1 Kings 13 imprinted in your mind. He wants you to understand that if you willfully disobey God, your adversary, the devil, is not going to just be roaring at you. Like that lion, he is going to be putting a paw on you.
Frankly, I don't know about you, but I don't want his paw on my finances, on my family, on my health, or on anything else. I don't want him sinking his teeth into my marriage. But disobedience opens the door to that.
James 4:7 says,
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
If you are disobedient in areas of your life, knowingly disobedient, your authority in Christ will not work.
So here is the question: Today are you being willfully disobedient to God in any area of your life? If so, confess and repent. Otherwise you can be sure the devil will get a paw on your life.
You see, you have been given authority in your life over the devil. This verse makes it clear-you can resist him. But your authority in Christ as a believer only operates as you have submitted yourself to God's authority through obedience. In our last devotional, we read the story from 1 Kings 13 about the lion that killed the prophet for his disobedience. We learned how that story illustrates for us the importance of obedience, and how disobedience opens the door to calamity in our lives.
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Read: 2 Kings 3
But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense-Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. - 1 John 2:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
There was a young man who, once grown and out of the house, slowly drifted away from his parents' lives. Now fully on his own, the selfish man rarely called home or stopped by for visits, except on rare occasions: when he was short on money. Perfectly content to live most of his life on his own terms, a financial crisis would always bring him crawling back home begging for a parental bailout.
Joram behaved in a similar way in today's reading. As the king of Israel, Joram determined to bring the wayward Moabites back under his thumb, enlisting the help of the kings of Judah and Edom to do so. No sooner had Joram led forth his expedition, however, than we are told they met with a crisis: "the army had no more water for themselves or for the animals with them" (v. 9).
Notice the responses to this difficult situation. While Joram immediately blamed God, Jehoshaphat's words offered a wiser way: "Is there no prophet of the LORD here, that we may inquire of the LORD through him?" (v. 11). These kings were in a fix and only godly Jehoshaphat recognized the importance of God's word in a difficult time. When Elisha the prophet had been called, the word was given: water will come, and Moab will fall. Indeed, God declared that it was too easy simply to provide needed water; He would defeat Moab as well. It turned out that the provision of water was also the provision of victory over Moab.
Understand the message here. To this wicked and rash king Joram, God delivered grace upon grace. But notice too the reason: it was not Joram who secured God's favor, it was Jehoshaphat, godly king in the line of David (vv. 13-14; cf. 1 Kings 22:41-43). Israel's victory over Moab may have been incomplete (vv. 26-27), but it was more than Joram ever deserved. We, like Joram, also receive God's abundant grace because another Righteous One stands by our side "who speaks to the Father in our defense" (1 John 2:1).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Let today's passage probe your heart: do you seek God's wisdom in all you do? Do you wait until you're in trouble before calling upon Him, or even blame God when things don't go your way? Perhaps you wonder whether you're worthy to approach God for help. Reflect on 1 John 1:5-2:2, a reminder that God's blessing of grace and victory over sin comes freely to us because of Christ. Then offer Him your thanks today for the blessing you have in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 4, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you -James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual- you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood- work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God's almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. "Come to Me . . ." (Matthew 11:28). His word come means "to act." Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
The Reward for Obedience
There are two verses I want to point you to in today's devotional. The first is Isaiah 1:19, where God says,
"If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land."
The second is Deuteronomy 28:1, which precedes a chapter of tremendous material blessings,
"Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth."
All of the incredible material blessings God promised in the following verses hinged on one thing...obedience.
God will bless you, if you will obey Him. Now, granted, God does not settle up the first and the fifteenth of every month. His blessings do not always arrive on our timetable, but they always arrive.
Sometimes obedience to God will cost you at first. It may cost you friends; it may cost you time; it may cost you embarrassment; but, in the long run, it is well worth it to obey.
Prior to being saved, I was renting a room above a bar in Oregon from a friend of mine. We smoked dope and drank a lot together. But when I was saved, I wouldn't drink or smoke dope any more.
Even though the temptation was there, I knew I needed to obey God. And I would not compromise.
One day my friend said, "You're no fun anymore. You're gone." And that was that. I was out on the street for quite awhile. It cost me. But I look back now and say, "God, You have more than made that up to me. It may have cost me initially, but I'm so glad I obeyed You."
God will reward you for your obedience to Him!
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Read: 2 Kings 3
But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense-Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. - 1 John 2:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
There was a young man who, once grown and out of the house, slowly drifted away from his parents' lives. Now fully on his own, the selfish man rarely called home or stopped by for visits, except on rare occasions: when he was short on money. Perfectly content to live most of his life on his own terms, a financial crisis would always bring him crawling back home begging for a parental bailout.
Joram behaved in a similar way in today's reading. As the king of Israel, Joram determined to bring the wayward Moabites back under his thumb, enlisting the help of the kings of Judah and Edom to do so. No sooner had Joram led forth his expedition, however, than we are told they met with a crisis: "the army had no more water for themselves or for the animals with them" (v. 9).
Notice the responses to this difficult situation. While Joram immediately blamed God, Jehoshaphat's words offered a wiser way: "Is there no prophet of the LORD here, that we may inquire of the LORD through him?" (v. 11). These kings were in a fix and only godly Jehoshaphat recognized the importance of God's word in a difficult time. When Elisha the prophet had been called, the word was given: water will come, and Moab will fall. Indeed, God declared that it was too easy simply to provide needed water; He would defeat Moab as well. It turned out that the provision of water was also the provision of victory over Moab.
Understand the message here. To this wicked and rash king Joram, God delivered grace upon grace. But notice too the reason: it was not Joram who secured God's favor, it was Jehoshaphat, godly king in the line of David (vv. 13-14; cf. 1 Kings 22:41-43). Israel's victory over Moab may have been incomplete (vv. 26-27), but it was more than Joram ever deserved. We, like Joram, also receive God's abundant grace because another Righteous One stands by our side "who speaks to the Father in our defense" (1 John 2:1).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Let today's passage probe your heart: do you seek God's wisdom in all you do? Do you wait until you're in trouble before calling upon Him, or even blame God when things don't go your way? Perhaps you wonder whether you're worthy to approach God for help. Reflect on 1 John 1:5-2:2, a reminder that God's blessing of grace and victory over sin comes freely to us because of Christ. Then offer Him your thanks today for the blessing you have in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 5, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Partakers of His Suffering
. . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings . . . -1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, "Oh, I can't deal with that person." Why can't you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.
The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered "according to the will of God" (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God's purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God's orders through a shortcut of their own. God's way is always the way of suffering- the way of the "long road home."
Are we partakers of Christ's sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through- we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize- "God has strengthened me and I didn't even know it!"
The Attitude of Obedience
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.
Jesus could have said no, but He didn't. He said, "Yes, Father."
And as He prayed in Gethsemane, agonizing over the thought of being separated from the bright presence of the Father, He said, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).
He could have said no. But He said, "Yes, Father."
And even hanging upon the cross, having been beaten and disfigured, gasping for every breath, knowing that the end was near-He became obedient to death.
He could have said no. But He said, "Yes, Father."
Through His attitude of obedience, we can receive eternal life. I am so grateful our Savior obeyed the Father!
That is the same attitude of obedience that should be in us.
When Jesus coexisted with the Father in eternity past, the Father said, "Son, we need You to go down and be born in a stable, be raised in a poor carpenter's home, and give up Your life." Over the last several devotionals, we have learned the importance and reward of obedience. Today I want you to see the underlying attitude of obedience, modeled by our Lord. It is found in Philippians 2:5-9,
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Read: 2 Kings 4:8-37
Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? - 1 Corinthians 15:55
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his musical composition Peter and the Wolf, Serge Prokofiev employed a technique known as leitmotif in which each character in the story is represented by a particular musical instrument. When the listener hears the oboe, for instance, one knows that the duck has entered the scene. Leitmotif can also be a literary term referring to recurring themes throughout the work, identifying for the reader central motifs of the narrative.
As one reads through today's passage, it becomes obvious that the story of the Shunammite woman falls into a familiar scriptural leitmotif: a barren woman gets a child. Much like the stories of Sarah (Genesis 11-21), Rebekah (Gen. 25:21), and Rachel (Gen. 29:31-30:24), we meet in today's reading a faithful, yet barren, woman. Having receiving much kindness from this woman, Elisha learned of her heart's desire and promised that she would soon have a child. A year later, the woman bore a son.
All seemed well to this point, another story of God's generous provision for His people. But then things turned dark. Before reaching adulthood, the child died and the woman was left with perplexity and "bitter distress" (v. 27). Why would God grant the happiness of a child only to take him away so quickly? With that anxiety in her heart, the woman turned to Elisha, and in doing so essentially turned to God Himself. In a living act of faith, the woman clung to God during desperate, confusing times (see vv. 27, 30).
Elisha too modeled true faith; without answers himself (v. 27), Elisha went to the dead boy, "shut the door . . . and prayed to the LORD" (v. 33). Both the woman and the prophet turned to God in times of distress. And what started as a story about a barren woman soon became a marvelous declaration of God's triumph over death-and a preview of the coming, final resurrection in Christ of all God's faithful people (see 1 Corinthians 15). Although suffering and death still remain (even this boy would eventually die again), they do not have the final say. Today's resurrection account proclaims that message.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Many of us know the pain of losing a loved one, and those moments of grief and loss may tempt us to question God's power or love. Let today's message reorient your thinking. Realize that in the raising of this woman's son, we are given a picture of Christ's final and ultimate defeat of death where we can join with Paul in proclaiming: "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" Make that your quiet but powerful reminder today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 6, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intimate Theology
Do you believe this? -John 11:26
Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But- she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha's theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance- "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ . . ." (John 11:27).
Is the Lord dealing with you in the same way? Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal intimacy with Himself? Allow Him to drive His question home to you- "Do you believe this?" Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a personal problem brings the awareness of our personal need.
To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone.
Then, when I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me, "Do you believe this?" I find that faith is as natural as breathing. And I am staggered when I think how foolish I have been in not trusting Him earlier
The Supremacy of Jesus
Hebrews 1:1-8 reads,
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"? But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God worship Him." And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire." But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom."
These eight verses tell us that Jesus is supreme, above any angel, because:
God speaks to us through His Son.
Jesus is the heir of all things.
God made all things through Jesus.
Jesus is the express image of God the Father.
He upholds all things with the word of His power.
He purged our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God, not a servant as are the angels.
He is worthy of our worship.
Jesus is God Himself.
That is the supremacy of Jesus!
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Read: 2 Kings 4:38-44
For this is what the LORD says: "They will eat and have some left over." - 2 Kings 4:43
TODAY IN THE WORD
One day a little girl asked her mother, "Where did I come from?" After a moment of shock, the mother calmed her nerves and launched into a lengthy and comprehensive explanation of the wonder of pregnancy and birth. After she finished, there was a long pause. Then the little girl replied, "Oh, because my friend says she came from Cleveland."
Like this interaction between mother and child, sometimes in Scripture we focus on the wrong details. Many commentaries spend large amounts of time exploring the puzzles in today's passage: exactly what's wrong with the stew? Will it kill them or only make them sick? How does the addition of flour fix the problem? One important detail, however, is often overlooked, and it holds our two food miracles together. Verse 38 tells us "there was a famine in that region." This was a time of serious dearth and deficiency; a spoiled meal or a hundred hungry people to feed was not just an inconvenience, it was a moment of great magnitude, perhaps even one of life and death.
Into this context of famine and scarcity, today's reading speaks an overarching message of God's abundance in deficient times. With God's intervention, a pot of death became a much-needed meal of sustenance and nourishment. A hungry crowd of one hundred was miraculously fed with only twenty loaves of bread. Not only were they fed, but as the Lord promised, they had some left over. Lest we miss the point about God's provision for the mundane necessities of life, Scripture uses the verb "to eat" eight different times in just seven verses. These two stories are all about food. And it was God who was doing the feeding and providing!
Of course we must be careful here. Today's reading is not a promise that God's children will never go hungry or that we will always have food in abundance. But it does show us that God's power and will are not thwarted even by great need or seemingly impossible circumstances. Nothing is too difficult or too trivial for God.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Each day we have food is a day when God has continued to provide. Christians in more affluent countries often take this for granted; but around the world children, women, and men are desperate for food and clean water. Consider supporting one of several Christian ministries that work to share the gospel with tangible resources like food, water, and other necessities to those in need. Visit www.samaritanspurse.org or www.worldvision.org to see how you can get involved.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 8, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered -Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don't often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
"He," the Holy Spirit in you, "makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . ." (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, ". . . He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple" (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer . . . . But you have made it a 'den of thieves' " (Mark 11:17).
Have we come to realize that our "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit"? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a "temple of the Holy Spirit." He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don't know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
Are You a "Convenient Christian"?
It is like the men and women of Israel who came to the prophet Jeremiah one day to see if it was God's desire for them to go to Egypt. You find their story in Jeremiah 42-43.
After they asked Jeremiah to ask God on their behalf, they said (Jeremiah 42:6),
"Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God."
But just a few verses later, when Jeremiah tells them, "This is the word of the Lord: Don't go into Egypt. Stay here," they respond this way (Jeremiah 43:2),
"You speak falsely! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.'"
Some people's posture is, "God, I'm going to do anything you say...as long as it agrees with my viewpoint." Some will say, "Lord, I'm going to be obedient and give an offering...but I'm not giving ten percent of my income. You can forget that because I just don't see it that way."
Or, "God, I'm going to do whatever You say, but I'm not going to forgive so-and-so because what they did to me is just unforgivable."
Friend, we can't pick and choose. It has to be, "God, I am going to do whatever You say. I'm going to do it whether it rubs the cat's fur the wrong way, whether it plows my field crossways...pleasing, displeasing, I'm going to obey."
Do not be a "convenient Christian."
Now that sounds pretty good. These folks seem like they have it together spiritually and truly desire to obey God. Some Christians are "convenient Christians." These are believers who seek to obey God, but only when it is convenient.
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Read: 2 Kings 6:1-23
Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." - 2 Kings 6:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
In an age of identity theft, our personal and financial security seems daily at risk. Knowledge of this persistent fear leads one company to offer full, guaranteed protection against identity theft. For a monthly fee, they will monitor your identity credentials and notify you of abnormal activity. Their motto: "We watch out for you so you don't have to."
While there may be consolation in knowing some company watches out for you, today's passage teaches us that there is also a God who watches over and cares for us. Sometimes we just need the vision of faith to see it. Our reading begins with the account of an axhead accidentally slipping into the river. Elisha recovered the tool by miraculously making the axhead float. One may wonder why such a seemingly inconsequential story is included in Scripture. If nothing else, the episode tells us that God cares for our needs no matter how trivial they seem. Have you ever avoided praying for something, thinking God doesn't care about such small concerns? Today's text speaks otherwise; God watches over us-even in the small things.
The second half of today's reading demonstrates that God watches over us in the big things, too. Aram and Israel were at war (again). Elisha warned the Israelite king of the Aramean's plans until the frustrated Aramean king sent his troops to capture the prophet. The army surrounded the town, and Elisha's servant feared the worst. Elisha prayed: "O LORD open his eyes so he may see" (v. 17), and the servant observed the hills filled with God's blazing, heavenly army. Of course, God's army was there all along; what changed was not God's decision to protect Elisha, but the servant's ability to see.
Continuing the theme of sight, the Aramean army was temporarily blinded until they were delivered into the hand of the Israelite king. At the urging of Elisha, the armies were fed, then sent home with a clear message blazoned in their memories: God cares for His people; you just need the right vision to see it.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The last stanza of a 1904 hymn, "God Will Take Care of You," conveys today's message: "No matter what may be the test / God will take care of you; / lean, weary one, upon his breast, / God will take care of you." Big or small, God can handle your problems and provide for your needs-in a wondrous display of power or a quiet assurance of His love. Either way, He is here and He cares. Ask God today to open your eyes that you may have that vision of faith.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 9, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sacred Service
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . . -Colossians 1:24
The Christian worker has to be a sacred "go-between." He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual's personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker's life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.
When we say, "What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!" then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32).
God Leads from Within
The new covenant better than the old covenant. One reason is found in Hebrews 8:8-11 which says,
..."Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."
In the Old Testament, God had to lead His people externally. When fleeing Egypt, God led them by night with a pillar of fire and by day with a pillar of cloud. They did not intuitively know where God wanted them to go or what God wanted them to do.
But under the new covenant, God leads His people from within because He has now taken up residence within. I believe that is why on the Day of Pentecost God chose to manifest the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire that sat upon each person individually.
God was saying that while under the old covenant, He led His people by a pillar of fire, and now He is coming to dwell and lead from the inside of each believer!
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Read: 2 Kings 6:24-7:20
He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea. - Psalm 102:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
The period from 1921 to 1923 was marked by hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. In early 1921, roughly sixty German Marks equaled one U.S. dollar. By 1923, through a series of economic circumstances and governmental decisions, the exchange rate became four trillion German Marks per U.S. dollar! At its worst, prices doubled every two days. In late November 1923, when a new currency was introduced, the old Marks became worthless and were collected to be recycled as paper. No one living in the Weimar Republic could deny those were desperate times.
Israelites living in Samaria knew desperate times as well, as today's reading makes painfully clear. Suffering the consequences of covenantal disobedience (see Deut. 28:45-57), the city of Samaria was under siege by the Arameans. Sustenance was scarce and food prices were sky high. So desperate was the situation that citizens had resorted to eating their own children in order to survive.
When the king of Israel heard first-hand of this drastic practice, he tore his robes and grieved the situation. Yet instead of turning to God in sorrow over his disobedience and idolatry, he blamed God and Elisha for such desperate times. He wanted revenge instead of repentance. His anger toward God was clear: "This disaster is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?" (6:33).
Surprisingly, the king got a message of hope: this time tomorrow, the crisis would be over. And now the test remained: will you believe the explicit promise of God? The servant voiced his disbelief, and the king displayed sheer skepticism (see 7:12), but the bulk of the passage highlights the fulfillment of that word.
Run off by God's power (note 7:6-7), the Arameans abandoned their camp. Four lowly lepers reported the news to the king, royal messengers verified it, and the word of God was fulfilled: food prices dropped and the king's disbelieving servant was dead. Scripture underscores the reliability of God's promises by telling us four different times that everything happened just as God said it would (7:16-20).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When God speaks His word of promise, it can be trusted. Scripture provides us with a multitude of promises from our God: His care for our needs (Phil. 4:19), His constant presence with us (Heb. 13:5); His aid in temptation (1 Cor. 10:13); His mighty future return (Rev. 22:7). Choose one of these, or another promise you find in Scripture, and post it someplace where you will see it throughout the day. Each time you see it, pause to give thanks for God's promising word.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Fellowship in the Gospel
. . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . -1 Thessalonians 3:2
After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God's interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.
I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, "Lord, this causes me such heartache." To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy "world within the world," and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being "frost-bitten."
No More Remembrance
Today I want to point you to another reason the new covenant in Christ is better than the old covenant. Hebrews 10:1-3, 15-17 tells us,
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year... But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them," then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
Under the old covenant, God remembered the sin of Israel every year. This meant that each year the priest would have to go into the Holy of Holies and offer the blood of an animal to cover the people's sins.
Under the new covenant, God does not remember.
Boy, am I glad that when I accepted Christ, my past was erased on God's ledger. I had a pretty checkered past before I came to Christ. But if today you enter my name in God's computer up in heaven...Bayless...past...push enter...push print...God's big printer prints out nothing but blank sheets.
Why? He doesn't remember my sins anymore. In fact, if you and I talk to Him about our past before we were saved, He says, "Sorry, it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned."
That is truly good news!
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Read: 2 Kings 8
"For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone," declares the Sovereign LORD. "Repent and live!" - Ezekiel 18:32
TODAY IN THE WORD
Before filming The Girl from Petrovka, actor Anthony Hopkins searched in vain throughout London bookstores for the George Feifer book by the same name. No bookstore had any, but Hopkins finally discovered a discarded copy left lying in a train station. Years later, Hopkins met Feifer and learned that the author had lost his own annotated copy. Hopkins retrieved his own and showed it to Feifer. To the amazement of both, it was none other than Feifer's own lost copy!
Gehazi and the king of Israel experienced a similar coincidence in today's reading. Just as Gehazi was telling the king about the time Elisha restored a woman's son to life, the Shunammite woman herself appeared. In response, the king ordered the woman to have all her land and possessions restored. Of course, Scripture's point is not to offer examples of coincidence, but to show God's grace bestowed upon His faithful people, orchestrating all the details in order to do so.
If earlier chapters demonstrated Elisha's ministry of God's grace, verses 7 through 15 highlight Elisha's ministry of God's judgment. Hazael had been sent to Elisha by the ailing Aramean king Ben-Hadad to discover whether recovery was likely. Elisha's puzzling answer in verse 10 suggested that if he were left alone Ben-Hadad would recover, but with Hazael's involvement, he would not. In fulfillment of 1 Kings 19:15-17, Elisha declared that Hazael would become the next Aramean king and would inflict extreme violence on the Israelites. Such news brought Elisha to tears, but delight to Hazael (who promptly returned and killed his king!).
Although we do not yet see the promised destruction of Israel by the Arameans, the mindful reader knows it is coming, and the rest of chapter 8 exhibits the spiraling direction of both Israel and Judah away from God and toward His judgment. Verses 16 through 29 record that the family ties between Judah's kings and Israel's kings were working their ill effect. The Judean kings, like the kings of Israel, "did evil in the eyes of the LORD" (vv. 18, 27).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today we see kindness shown to one, but judgment promised to disobedient Israel. Notice Elisha's response; like Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44), Elisha displayed God's deep love for His people-even when disobedient. We are encouraged to see God not as an angry judge, but as a loving God who wants us to live and be blessed rather than reject Him and die. Take heart in the words of our key verse today (Ezek. 18:32).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Supreme Climb
He said, 'Take now your son . . .' -Genesis 22:2
God's command is, "Take now," not later. It is incredible how we debate! We know something is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately. If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later- it must be done now. And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we actually perform it.
"So Abraham rose early in the morning . . . and went to the place of which God had told him" (Genesis 22:3). Oh, the wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not "confer with flesh and blood" (Galatians 1:16). Beware when you want to "confer with flesh and blood" or even your own thoughts, insights, or understandings- anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.
Abraham did not choose what the sacrifice would be. Always guard against self-chosen service for God. Self-sacrifice may be a disease that impairs your service. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it. But never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, "I will only go to there, but no farther." God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed. If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him. You must go through the trial before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because by going through the trial you learn to know God better. God is working in us to reach His highest goals until His purpose and our purpose become one.
Removed, Not Just Covered
And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
Not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another-He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
I want to tell you, friend, we are not just some patched up old sinners. We have been made new creations in Christ Jesus.
I know a horse trainer who trains beautiful thoroughbred horses. If I took a mule over to this guy and said, "Look, I want this mule to run with the thoroughbreds," he could feed it, brush its coat every day, and trim its tail and ears to look like a quarter horse. But when the gun fires and the gates go up and the horses start to run, it is just a mule. That is all it is!
Religion dresses up the mule, but God changes the mule into a thoroughbred. He takes away your sin and makes you a new creature in Christ Jesus when you embrace salvation.
Our sin is not just covered, it is gone, and we have been made into new people.
Under the old covenant, sins were merely covered. In the new covenant, Jesus removes our sin. In fact, John the Baptist declared, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Jesus doesn't just cover it, He takes it away! And then talking about Jesus, Today I want to give you another reason why the new covenant is better than the old covenant. I want you to read Hebrews 10:11 first, then Hebrews 9:25-26,
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Read: 2 Kings 9
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. - Isaiah 53:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some things in life, no matter how necessary, remain unpleasant to experience. Anyone who has had a root canal would never desire such a procedure, no matter how much Novocain is used. Others who have had a heart bypass, even if glad for the resulting health, do not savor the memories of surgery. And those who know the destruction that chemotherapy wreaks on the body in order to eradicate an insidious cancer do not long for the next round of treatment, even if the hope of recovery is promising.
Today's reading is not a pleasant experience either. There are multiple deaths, some explicitly described. When Jehu received word that he was the new king of Israel, he immediately took action. Finding Joram in Jezreel, Jehu declared his intentions and then promptly shot an arrow through Joram's heart. Jehu then ordered Joram's body to be picked up and thrown to the plot of ground once belonging to Naboth.
Then there was Jezebel, that wicked wife of king Ahab and murderer of God's prophets. Despite her attempts at seduction, Jehu ordered her thrown to her death from the window. Details of her bloody demise are provided, including wild dogs devouring her body. So decimated was her body that she was unrecognizable in the end.
Why do we need to hear about all this? Couldn't we have been spared the gruesome details? Obviously God thought otherwise. The details of Scripture teach us important lessons. First, the explicit destruction described here have a purpose, summarized in verse 6 through 10. This is not capricious brutality, but God's specific action to eradicate the cancer of Ahab's line, a family steeped in idolatry and covenantal disobedience. The brutality of their destruction demonstrates the severity of their sin and the extreme need to remove their influence from God's people.
Second, the details fulfill specific prophecies. First King 19:15-18 was fulfilled in the rise of Jehu and subsequent destruction; 1 Kings 21:19-23 was fulfilled in the details of the deaths of both Joram and Jezebel. God's word is proven true.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Another prophesy of harsh necessity is found in the Bible. Isaiah 53 depicts the suffering of Christ who was "despised," "rejected," "pierced," "crushed," "oppressed," and "afflicted," all "for our transgressions" (Isa. 53:3-7). The gravity of sin calls for extreme measures, but we can rest in God's love because of Christ's suffering on our behalf. Read Isaiah 53 today, and give thanks for a God who is willing to go to extremes to eliminate the pervasive disease of sin in His people.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Changed Life
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is- has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above- you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
Not Guilty
It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Even if you sin as a believer, thank God for 1 John 1:9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If you are still grappling with a guilty conscience after you have from your heart repented of sin and confessed it to God, then one of three things is happening:
1. The devil is accusing you. He is called the accuser of the brethren. He will run by your kitchen window with flash cards which say, "Remember when you did this? Remember when you did that!" Do not listen to the devil.
2. You have not forgiven yourself. You are forgiven by God, but you have not forgiven yourself. If God Almighty has forgiven you, you need to forgive yourself.
3. It may just be that you need to make restitution. That is something you will have to work out between you and God. Sometimes when you have injured a party through your sinful act, your conscience is going to bother you until you make things right with that person.
Under the new covenant there is cleansing from a guilty conscience, and it makes an awfully soft pillow at night.
At the point of conversion, not only is sin taken away, but the burden of guilt is lifted. The conscience is cleansed. Then verse 14 about the new covenant, The new covenant provides cleansing for a guilty conscience. In talking about the old covenant, read Hebrews 9:9,
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Read: 2 Kings 10
Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. - 2 Kings 10:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
Any boy scout who has earned his Wilderness Survival merit badge knows the importance not only of starting a fire, but also of keeping that fire strong. The best-built fires, if left unattended will eventually diminish to smoldering ashes. To keep the fire strong, one must continue to feed the flames with new sources of fuel.
The need to continue fanning the spiritual flame is an important lesson in today's reading as well. Previously, Jehu had been given the task of ridding Israel of the wicked house of Ahab. Jehu did that with great zeal. First, Jehu eliminated the seventy princes of the family of Ahab at Jezreel. He then displayed the evidence at the city gates, not as some barbaric act of cruelty, but for theological purposes. As Jehu himself declared: "Know then, that not a word the LORD has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail" (v. 10). Jehu understood the reliability of God's word, and publicly proclaimed his own zeal for the Lord (v. 16).
He then demonstrated this zeal by laying a cunning trap for the prophets of Baal. Feigning a festival to honor Baal, Jehu assembled every last Baal prophet and had them slaughtered. The prophets were now dead, the sacred stone was demolished, and the temple turned into a latrine. Baal worship in Israel was gone (v. 28), and God rewarded Jehu with the promise of four generations of kings (v. 30). All seemed well; zeal for God and His word was a driving force in Jehu's life.
But then comes the rest of the chapter. Immediately after the glowing comment about Baal eradication, we read: "However, [Jehu] did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat" (v. 29). Then after God's promise of reward, we read: "Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the LORD . . . with all his heart" (v. 31). What a sad commentary on how quickly Jehu forgot. What started as a burning zeal had turned into a barely smoldering ember. The fire was gone.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
For how many of us could the words of verse 31 be true, forgetting to set our whole heart upon God? Like burning logs, we too are aided by joining with others to keep the spiritual flame alive. Find someone today-a friend, a spouse, a spiritual mentor-with whom you can create a list of ways to continue fanning the flame of love for God in your life. Agree to pray for one another and to hold each other accountable to a life committed to Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"What Is That to You?"
Peter . . . said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, '. . . what is that to you? You follow Me' -John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God's plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn't." You put your hand right in front of God's permissive will to stop it, and then God says, "What is that to you?" Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don't allow it to continue, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another- proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness- consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we're not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach- a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.
A Better Covenant
There are two verses for your reading today. Hebrews 7:22, which says,
By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
And Hebrews 8:6, which tells us,
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
We have a better covenant; we have better promises. And Jesus is the One who makes it sure. He is the guarantee. He has personally pledged Himself to make it good.
As far as I am concerned, that takes away all reason for doubt, all reason for stressing out. Jesus, Himself, is the pledge, the guarantee that this covenant we have called the New Testament will be good and will be fulfilled in our lives.
And He is not only the guarantee, He is the Mediator. He is the go-between to what is truly a better covenant, established upon better promises.
Let's say your employer came to you and said, "We're going to give you a better contract. While the old contract was good, we're going to give you one that's better. This better contract will increase your hours, decrease your pay, eliminate your health and dental benefits, you will no longer get reimbursed for your mileage and your auto expenses, and you're going to have a shorter lunch break and no more Christmas bonuses."
Let me ask you, is that better? No! That is not better! And I will never understand how people can say, "We know God healed people and worked miracles and intervened in people's lives under the Old Testament, but He doesn't anymore."
The covenant Christ bought and sealed in His blood is a better covenant, established upon better promises. Praise God!
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Read: 2 Kings 13
But the LORD was gracious to them and had compassion and showed concern for them because of his covenant. - 2 Kings 13:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
A notoriously absent-minded man had once again lost his remote control. He spent an hour searching the house for the missing remote-under the couch cushions, under the chair, in the bedroom, behind the TV, in the bathroom-all to no avail. Later in the day, feeling a craving for ice cream, the man went to the freezer. When he opened the door, what should he see but the misplaced remote control!
Sometimes God's grace of salvation shows up in unexpected places as well, and today's reading gives us an example of just that. This chapter recounts the story of two evil kings of Israel, Jehoahaz and Jehoash. Both received the same indictment: "He did evil in the eyes of the LORD," and both continued Israel's pervasive idolatry (vv. 2, 11). As a result, the nation of Israel suffered for its disobedience: the Arameans persisted as a thorn in Israel's side, oppressing them continually.
Yet in the midst of this oft-repeated cycle of sin and idolatry, surprising moments appear when the kings softened and God's grace and mercy showed through. Jehoahaz, we are told, unexpectedly "sought the LORD's favor" (v. 4). The response? Seeing their great suffering, "The LORD listened to him" and sent a deliverer (this could also be translated as "savior") to rescue them (vv. 4-5). Is this not God's gracious way? In the midst of humanity's oppression under sin and death, God sent the ultimate Savior, Christ, to rescue us.
Then there was Jehoash, the second wicked king. Hearing of Elisha's impending death, the king went to him in tears over the coming loss of God's prophet in Israel. The response? Through Elisha, God demonstrated the hope of salvation and life. First, Elisha declared "the arrow of victory (literally "salvation") over Aram" (v. 17), and the three-fold defeat of the Arameans was soon fulfilled. Then came the strange resurrection of a dead man through Elisha's bones. Both episodes illustrate God's ability and willingness to extend life and grace to His people, if only they would turn and ask.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Notice the stated reason for God's grace and mercy: "because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" (v. 23). That covenant, the New Testament tells us, was fulfilled in the coming of Christ, and the grace, compassion, and concern that God showed Israel is now ours in and through Him. If you know someone who struggles to believe God's love and forgiveness in Christ is real, share today's message: for those who turn and seek the Lord, He is always ready to listen and act.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
November 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Still Human!
. . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It's one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, "What a wonderful man of prayer he is!" or, "What a great woman of devotion she is!" If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, "Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!" But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God's Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint's life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
The "Good Old Days"
Hebrews 11:13-16 contains a powerful truth, a perspective I want to encourage you to embrace. These verses are talking about the great heroes of the faith from the Old Testament,
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
As you read this passage, it is easy to see why some people struggle so much with past sins. As verse 15 says, Truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
The reason some people constantly struggle with returning to their old life, finding a multitude of opportunities to return, is because they keep calling it to mind. They keep rehearsing the "good old days." Perhaps you struggle with that as well.
If you do, seek to remember the "good old days" as they really were. Don't forget about all the pain. Don't forget about the way you struggled, the reason you came to Christ in the first place. Stop rehearsing the past. If the "good old days" were so good, you would not have gotten saved.
These heroes of the faith sought a better homeland. In verse 15 it talks about calling to mind the countryfrom which they had come, but the word country is just added by the translators. It really has the intent of saying if they had constantly thought about from where they had come, there would have been a great temptation to return there.
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Read: 2 Kings 13
But the LORD was gracious to them and had compassion and showed concern for them because of his covenant. - 2 Kings 13:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
A notoriously absent-minded man had once again lost his remote control. He spent an hour searching the house for the missing remote-under the couch cushions, under the chair, in the bedroom, behind the TV, in the bathroom-all to no avail. Later in the day, feeling a craving for ice cream, the man went to the freezer. When he opened the door, what should he see but the misplaced remote control!
Sometimes God's grace of salvation shows up in unexpected places as well, and today's reading gives us an example of just that. This chapter recounts the story of two evil kings of Israel, Jehoahaz and Jehoash. Both received the same indictment: "He did evil in the eyes of the LORD," and both continued Israel's pervasive idolatry (vv. 2, 11). As a result, the nation of Israel suffered for its disobedience: the Arameans persisted as a thorn in Israel's side, oppressing them continually.
Yet in the midst of this oft-repeated cycle of sin and idolatry, surprising moments appear when the kings softened and God's grace and mercy showed through. Jehoahaz, we are told, unexpectedly "sought the LORD's favor" (v. 4). The response? Seeing their great suffering, "The LORD listened to him" and sent a deliverer (this could also be translated as "savior") to rescue them (vv. 4-5). Is this not God's gracious way? In the midst of humanity's oppression under sin and death, God sent the ultimate Savior, Christ, to rescue us.
Then there was Jehoash, the second wicked king. Hearing of Elisha's impending death, the king went to him in tears over the coming loss of God's prophet in Israel. The response? Through Elisha, God demonstrated the hope of salvation and life. First, Elisha declared "the arrow of victory (literally "salvation") over Aram" (v. 17), and the three-fold defeat of the Arameans was soon fulfilled. Then came the strange resurrection of a dead man through Elisha's bones. Both episodes illustrate God's ability and willingness to extend life and grace to His people, if only they would turn and ask.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Notice the stated reason for God's grace and mercy: "because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" (v. 23). That covenant, the New Testament tells us, was fulfilled in the coming of Christ, and the grace, compassion, and concern that God showed Israel is now ours in and through Him. If you know someone who struggles to believe God's love and forgiveness in Christ is real, share today's message: for those who turn and seek the Lord, He is always ready to listen and act.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Eternal Goal
By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . . -Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself . . .
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
"At any cost . . . by any road" means submitting to God's way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, "Come," I simply come; when He says, "Let go," I let go; when He says, "Trust God in this matter," I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God's revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God's character.
'Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, "In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee."
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. "All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . ." (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our "Yes" must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, "Amen," or, "So be it." That promise becomes ours.
The Right Perspective
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Today, I want you to see an important perspective the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11 provide for us. What did they do? They looked to the future. These men and women of God walked as strangers and pilgrims on this earth because they looked for a better homeland, a better place, which God would prepare for them.
I'm telling you, there is a better homeland than our world today. There is a city called the New Jerusalem. There is a place that does not need the light of the sun nor the light of the moon because the Lamb-Jesus Christ-is its light.
In that city, every tear is wiped away. There is no more sin, no more sickness, no more pain, and no more suffering.
Like the heroes of old, I have my eye on that heavenly city. It is better than anything we have here! I pray that this will be your perspective today...and every day...as well.
Yesterday we talked about how it is so easy to remember "the good old days," but with selective memory, not really remembering the pain and struggle. In today's devotional, I want to take you back to the Scripture we looked at yesterday, Hebrews 11:13-16,
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Read: 2 Kings 15
He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as his fathers had done. - 2 Kings 15:9
In today's passage we see something of a spiritual maelstrom for the nation of Israel as the succession of wicked rulers becomes more and more frequent in a short amount of time. Consider the quick sequence of Israelite kings reported in our chapter: Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah-five kings in a span of less than thirteen years, all of whom "did evil in the eyes of the LORD" (vv. 9, 13-16, 18, 24, 28). In that brief space of time, these kings unleashed a flood of sin and turmoil on the land: treachery against rulers, three assassinations of reigning kings, brutality against pregnant women (and their still-developing infants), heavy taxation on their subjects, international strife from foreign nations, loss of cities and land, and even the deportation of Israelite families into Assyria. These were horrific and chaotic times for Israel.
The speed with which Scripture presents these reigns indicates something profound: a spiritual maelstrom of death has been created, and as the succession of wicked kings rapidly moves on, the downward spiral has begun to drag Israel down. All of the chaos above should have acted as warning signs to those paying attention, but none of the leaders seemed to take notice.
We're not left only with despair; Scripture does give us a poignant contrast, bookending the chapter with two positive reigns (both from southern Judah). Azariah (also called Uzziah) and his son Jotham combine to rule Judah for sixty-eight years, both of them doing "what was right in the eyes of the LORD" (vv. 3, 34). The point should be clear: sin and disobedience lead to the downward spiral of chaos, but obedience to God's word brings the assurance of stability.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What's true for God's people of old is true for God's people today. Churches that consistently refuse to heed God's word should not be surprised when turmoil and chaos seem to creep in. The question challenges us: will people respond to the warning signs of the spiraling vortex before it's too late? Pray today for Christ's body at home and around the world, that He would raise up godly leaders to guide His children into obedience and the much-needed stability that comes with it.
Most whirlpools found in nature are not very strong. But more powerful vortexes do exist, sometimes called maelstroms, which have been known to cause injury and death to the unfortunate or inexperienced. In such maelstroms, the danger comes from the faster, spiraling waters and the resulting downdraft that pulls the unsuspecting seafarer under the waters.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Winning into Freedom
If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed -John 8:36
If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, "I can't surrender," or "I can't be free." But the spiritual part of our being never says "I can't"; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin- we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, "I can't do that." God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our "arguments . . . and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5)- we have to do it. Don't say, "Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts." Don't suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
"If the Son makes you free . . . ." Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. ". . . you shall be free indeed"- free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
Mercy! Forgiveness! Acceptance! Pardon! Welcome!
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
God said, "Cain, the blood of your brother, Abel, cries out to Me from the ground." What did the blood of Abel say? "Vengeance! Judgment!"
The blood of Jesus cries better things. The blood that soaked the cross and made it red, the blood that soaked the ground below the cross at that place called Calvary, the blood that today is in the heavenly Holy of Holies, that blood cries out day and night into the ears of God.
The blood of Jesus today does not cry out, "Vengeance! Judgment!" Instead, it cries out, "Mercy! Forgiveness! Acceptance! Pardon! Welcome!"
The question is: How will you respond? Hebrews 12:25 issues a stern warning,
See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven.
If you have yet to accept Jesus as your Savior, do so today.
You can read the story of Abel and his brother, Cain, in Genesis 4. What we learn is that Cain became jealous of Abel, and as a result, Cain rose up against Abel in the field and killed him. In Hebrews 12:22-24, we are given a powerful word on how the blood of Jesus speaks such better things than the blood of Abel. This is a great insight, so bear with me,
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Read: 2 Kings 16
I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me. - 2 Kings 16:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In prairie states like Kansas and Nebraska, the terrain is so flat that one can see far into the distance. Looking to the west, an approaching thunderstorm can be seen miles away, long before it ever hits. Sunny skies might be enjoyed at the moment, but the wise and observant person will make preparations for the coming storm.
Our passage today likewise gives us a glimpse of the coming storm for southern Judah. In our last chapter, two kings ruled Judah in relatively stability for sixty-eight years. Now, with the rise of Ahaz, things take a turn for the worse, and the impending danger for Judah can be seen on the horizon.
First, there was a problem of leadership. Scripture tells us that the kings of Aram and Israel marched against Judah. Aram had already captured the important town of Elath, and now Jerusalem was under siege. What did Ahaz do? Instead of turning to God for help, Ahaz looked to the Assyrian king. Notice the language Ahaz used, typically employed to describe Judah's relationship with God: "I am your servant and vassal (this word could also be "son"). Come up and save me" (v. 7). Ahaz then emptied the temple's treasuries in order to secure this "salvation" from "Father" Assyria. The ploy worked, but Ahaz's actions clearly indicated a rejection of the true God who saves.
Second, there was the more serious problem of worship. We are told earlier that Ahaz was not a godly king; he followed the ways of Israel, practiced idolatry, and "even sacrificed his son in the fire" (vv. 3-4). Later, while in Damascus paying homage to Tiglath-Pileser, Ahaz encountered a new altar and immediately ordered one to be built back home. Upon his return, Ahaz employed even further temple remodeling "in deference to the king of Assyria" (v. 18). While little explicit commentary on these activities in the text, don't forget the earlier warning: Ahaz was "following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites" (v. 3). The storm was coming; would Judah heed the warning signs?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Most of us would not fall into the extreme categories of sin like Ahaz; after all, we might protest that we don't practice child sacrifice today! But what of the subtler disobedience in today's reading? Do we look to something other than God for comfort-a large bank account, "safe" neighborhoods and schools, or an insurance policy? Certainly, God can use a variety of means to protect us, but when those earthly means become our only consolation, are we truly trusting God?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
November 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"When He Has Come"
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . . -John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one- "Against You, You only, have I sinned . . ." (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary- nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn't merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
Where Have You Pitched Your Tent?
Genesis 13:12 (KJV) says, Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
Notice that Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. Every day his attention was placed on that city. Here is what the Bible says about those that lived there.
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly (Genesis 13:13, KJV).
What we focus our attention on will influence us. It will try to draw us in like a magnet. The next time we read about Lot he is living in Sodom.
And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed (Genesis 14:12, KJV).
Next we find him even further entrenched among the people of Sodom. Genesis 19:1 declares that Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.
In Eastern cities, the "gate" was a place devoted to business transactions, the administration of justice, and the enjoyment of social discourse and amusement. Lot was right "in the thick of things"-but it happened by degrees. It was a process.
What you view and listen to, and the company you keep, will influence you-sometimes in very subtle ways-and will play a role in shaping your values and character.
So be careful where you pitch your tent!
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Read: 2 Kings 16
I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me. - 2 Kings 16:7
Read: 2 Kings 17:1-23
So the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. - 2 Kings 17:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his 1905 work The Life of Reason, Spanish-American philosopher and poet, George Santayana, famously penned: "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. . . . Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." While Santayana was speaking about the progress of the human mind as it matures and develops, the quote is often used as an exhortation to take the study of history seriously.
Santayana's claims about the importance of the past ring true in 2 Kings 17 as well. While the first six verses record the final end for northern Israel, including its destruction and deportation, the more important lesson comes in the next fourteen verses explaining Israel's demise. First, Israel did not remember its past. This forgotten past included not only God's grace in bringing them out of Egypt (v. 7), but also the fate suffered by their forefathers who refused God's word and remained stiff-necked (v. 14). Had Israel recalled both what God had done for them and the warning of their predecessors, perhaps they would not have been doomed to repeat God's discipline.
Second, Israel repeatedly and thoroughly rejected God's commands. Although God specifically warned about following the practices of the nations in the land (Deut. 7:1-5), Israel quickly fell into pervasive idolatry. Their idolatry was a full-blown disobedience: worshiping Asherah, Baal, and the starry host; offering child sacrifice; and setting up altars throughout the land. Scripture summarizes their fate: "They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless" (v. 15).
Finally, Israel ignored God's repeated pleas for repentance. Twice God mentioned His grace in sending prophets to call the people back to Himself (vv. 13, 23). Yet Israel did not heed those calls. All of Israel's forgetting, rejecting, and ignoring did one thing: it provoked God to anger and brought the most serious judgment of all, mentioned three different times: the loss of God's presence (vv. 18, 20, 23). The message is profound: earthly suffering may be unpleasant, but the real disaster is losing God Himself.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We are called to the task of remembering. Remember the grace shown us in Christ. How has God shown that grace to you personally? Remember the commands laid out in God's Word. Are there areas in your life where you need to repent and turn back to God? Remember Israel's own past that we may not be condemned to repeat it. Don't let today's history lesson go unheeded. Renew your commitment to a life for Christ today, and thank Him for the lessons of divine history.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Forgiveness of God
In Him we have . . . the forgiveness of sins . . . -Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive- He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God's forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.
Better Than Life
In Psalm 63:1-4, the psalmist makes an incredible statement,
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
What does the psalmist mean when he says that God's lovingkindness is better than life? Let me try and explain.
First, lovingkindness literally means merciful love. It is God's unfailing, merciful love.
And this is the love the psalmist says is "better than life." This merciful and unfailing love of God is better than life at its best without that love.
When I think of my life without Christ, I can remember many high times, laughter I shared with people, and great relationships. But the least of God's mercies far outweighs the best of those times.
My life before coming to know Christ was chasing shadows. It was doing the best with a counterfeit because I had never experienced the reality. It was eating freeze-dried food when the Master Chef had prepared this sumptuous feast with the finest ingredients.
His lovingkindness is indeed better than the best of life without it. The natural response to such merciful love, to such an abundant life, is praise. Which means that every day, until your dying day, should be a thanksgiving day.
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Read: 2 Kings 17:24-41
Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods. - 2 Kings 17:38
TODAY IN THE WORD
A young man who had lived a fairly secluded life was excited to be headed to college. After a week, he wrote his parents describing the most exciting part of college life-the cafeteria! Having eaten the same limited meals over and over again back home, the school cafeteria options were overwhelming. Pizza, salad, soups, grilled chicken, Asian entrees, burgers, fish, and a variety of desserts. He could have anything he wanted; the choices seemed endless.
The choices of religion seemed endless in today's reading as well. Having deported the northern kingdom of Israel, and hoping to prohibit future revolts, the king of Assyria repopulated Samaria with foreigners, who of course brought a panoply of religious options. Only one problem: this was not the worship God required. The entirety of today's passage explores what faulty religion looks like.
First, it is a placating religion. When they first arrived, these foreigners "did not worship the LORD" (v. 25), so God sent lions to torment them. In response, the people requested an Israelite priest to teach them the rituals required by the God of the land. They were taught how to worship the Lord, but continued worshiping other gods as well. Seemingly, what mattered to them was placating God so they could avoid trouble. How many of us treat our worship the same way?
Second, it is a do-it-yourself religion. Notice that the verb "to make" is repeated six times in verses 29 through 31. Each nation "made" its own god and set it up in its own high place (even using some of the high places previously "made" by the Israelites). Isn't this the way of so much religion? We decide what we like and then we make God into that image.
Third, it is a syncretistic religion, one that combines truth with falsehood. The problem was not a failure to worship God-it was a failure to worship Him alone. Verses 29 through 33 describe their worship of the LORD and other gods, but verse 34 tells us that, in fact, this was not true worship of God. True worship exclusively worships God alone.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Most of us don't practice overt worship of stone or wooden idols, but what about the subtler deviation of syncretistic or "combination" worship? This worship is "God plus something else." We pray and go to church, but also bow down to the idols of money, public opinion, pleasure, and career ambition. Take a moment today to list those things that compete for your allegiance to God. Then ask God to help you put those idols away and give your exclusive devotion to Him.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . ." (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
Once for All!
Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you." Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
The old covenant was based on the blood of animal sacrifices; but under the new covenant, we are cleansed by the blood of Christ and His sacrifice.
Jesus went into that heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood. And the Father declared that the blood of Jesus satisfied the payment for sin for all eternity.
Oh, thank you, Jesus! That is why the Scripture declares we are accepted in the Beloved. When God accepted that blood sacrifice in heaven, He accepted all of us who believe, because Jesus went as our representative.
Praise God today for the provision of the sacrifice of Jesus...once for all!
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Read: 2 Kings 18
How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand? - 2 Kings 18:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Perils of Pauline (1914) was one of the most well-known suspense serials of the silent film era. The main character, Pauline, would find herself in a series of life-threatening predicaments: tied to train tracks, caught in a burning house, strapped to a board approaching a buzz saw, or stranded on the side of a cliff. In each episode, the audience was left wondering how Pauline would escape impending doom.
The writers of The Perils of Pauline could not have thought of a more suspenseful scene than our reading today, as the Assyrian army surrounded Jerusalem and promised its defeat in graphic detail. By the end of the 2 Kings 18, the question remains: can God be trusted to save, or not?
Before providing the details of that predicament, Scripture first introduces the new king of Judah, Hezekiah. The portrayal is a refreshingly rare com-mendation, for Hezekiah not only did right in God's eyes, he was like David himself. Despite a slight stumble in faithfulness (vv. 13-16), Hezekiah received rave reviews: "He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles" (v. 4). Moreover, Hezekiah "trusted in the LORD," "held fast to the LORD," and "did not cease to follow him" (vv. 5-6). In turn, "the LORD was with him" (v. 7) and gave him success in everything he did. That's an impressive summary of a godly and faithful king.
Then there's the rest of the chapter. Sennacherib's armies arrived in Jerusalem and sent a chilling message that went to the heart: can you really depend on your God? (The word depend, which can also be translated as "trust," occurs seven times.) With an echo of the wicked serpent himself (cf. Genesis 3), the messengers cast doubt on God's promises, contradicted God's word, lied about God's purposes, promised a better life under their terms, and reminded them that no other gods have yet stopped the Assyrians. Even the king's men seemed forlorn. So the chapter ends with the questions hanging in the air: will Hezekiah and the nation continue to trust God? Can He even be trusted?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some of us may find our faith under attack. We look around the world and see lying politicians re-elected, tyrannical dictators basking in power, dishonest business people gaining wealth, and faithful Christians suffering persecution. Many are the voices which call us to question: "Can God be trusted?" Sometimes it's worth sitting before God with our heavy hearts, asking Him to increase our faith. Do that this Lord's day, knowing that God hears us even in our darkest moments of doubt.
GOD BLESS!
:angel: :angel:
November 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person- God became a baby.
To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all- the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." (Matthew 10:24).
We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.
Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
For All People
The new covenant is for the whole world. It is for every nation, every people...anyone who will accept the free gift of salvation, by placing their faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 7:25 tells us,
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Or, as one old preacher said, "He saves to the uttermost and to the guttermost."
That may sound crass, but it is true! Through Jesus Christ, God has made a way of salvation for every person, no matter your race, or what religion you were brought up in, or what you may have done in your life.
John 3:16 says,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
His blood has the power to wash anyone clean if they will come to God through Jesus. His sacrifice takes away the sin of the world, the burden of guilt, and the shame of sin. He can make anyone into a new person. Only the blood of Jesus can do that...only the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah!
That means no one has ever done anything so bad that it could make God stop loving them. I don't care where they have been, how dark their past has been, or how burdened down their conscience is today with guilt for the things they have done-no one will be cast out if they come to Him. In today's devotional, I want to give you the seventh reason why the new covenant in Jesus is better than the old covenant. The old covenant was only for one nation-only one people-the Jews.
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Read: 2 Kings 19:1-19
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. - 1 Peter 5:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
This day marks the death in 1963 of renowned Christian apologist C. S. Lewis. In his work A Grief Observed, Lewis observed how suffering can strengthen faith: "Your bid for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist . . . will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high. . . . Nothing less will shake a man . . . out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs."
The stakes couldn't have been higher for Hezekiah and company. Assyria stood at the gate threatening Judah's destructionand mocking God as helpless deity. Would Hezekiah bet everything on God, or would his profession of faith prove empty? Observe Hezekiah's response to the disheartening news: joining together his grief and his God, Hezekiah tore his clothes (a symbol of grief) and went to the temple (the symbol of God's presence), and then sent messengers to Isaiah the prophet. Here is a man who offers us a godly example, not only professing belief in God, but acting upon it when the stakes were highest.
Notice the tension from what follows. Isaiah sent a word of hope and deliverance, but nothing changed in the external situation. Assyria remained and their verbal abuse poured forth, reminding Judah (again) that no god had yet withstood the fearsome Assyrian king.
In the face of such dire circumstances, Hezekiah again sought the Lord, his prayer offering instruction for us today. He began, not with his own anxieties, but with God, acclaiming Him as the true Creator, enthroned over all kingdoms of the earth. Only then, and on the basis of who God is, did Hezekiah then call for God to hear and act. In the face of Assyria's taunts, Hezekiah called upon God to defend His name "so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God" (v. 19). Perhaps the best prayers are simple: remember who God is, admit our need of Him, and entreat Him to act.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage shows us that the best prayers often start with our own helplessness, urging us to turn for help to the God of all. Perhaps there is someone in your life-a neighbor, a co-worker, a family member, or friend-who needs to hear this simple, yet profound, message. Pray for a way today to encourage that person to turn his or her helplessness into a prayer in which they cast all their anxieties before the God who can indeed hear, see, and act (1 Peter 5:7).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Distraction of Contempt
Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt -Psalm 123:3
What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. "Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously" (Malachi 2:16). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.
Beware of "the cares of this world . . ." (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by "the cares of this world."
Another thing that distracts us is our passion for vindication. St. Augustine prayed, "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself." Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul's faith in God. Don't say, "I must explain myself," or, "I must get people to understand." Our Lord never explained anything- He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.
When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.
Protecting The Children
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
First, it is important to understand that the word sin in this verse means to entrap. It means to set a snare for someone. Jesus was talking about someone who purposely entices an innocent child to do wrong.
Second, the millstone He refers to was about five feet across and would take an ox or a donkey to turn it. Get the picture?! Better for that millstone to be tied around a person's neck and to drown in the depths of the deepest sea than to entice a child to do wrong.
The exploitation or abuse of children is not overlooked or taken lightly by God. We read in Scripture that some sins incur a worse judgment from the Almighty. Causing children to sin is one of the worst. Never take their exploitation lightly.
This is a powerful truth God desires you and me to understand. He takes very seriously the protection and nurture of children. Matthew 18:1-6 is our reading for today,
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Read: 2 Kings 19:20-37
I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant. - 2 Kings 19:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
For several decades, E. F. Hutton & Co. was one of the most well-respected financial firms in the United States. It was made popular by its numerous television commercials in which a room full of boisterous people would suddenly quiet down when someone would say, "My broker E. F. Hutton says "¦" In the still of the room, the commercials ended with the words: "When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen."
If people could learn about financial investments by listening when E. F. Hutton talks, how much more could we learn by listening when God talks? Today's reading is dominated by God's word through the prophet Isaiah, and provides important lessons for us all. In the first section, God rebuked the Assyrian king. The problem was not just Sennacherib's mockery of Judah, but his arrogance toward God Himself, boasting of Assyria's conquests. God corrected the Assyrian king by noting his three-fold failure.
First, Sennacherib failed to recognize God's sovereignty; it was God who raised up the Assyrians and gave them power. Second, the king failed to realize the omniscience of God. God knew where Sennacherib was, where he went, and what he said. Third, Sennacherib failed to account for the zeal of God. The gods of the nations might sit idly by, but the God of Israel would not stand for such insolence. A little awareness on Sennacherib's part would have eliminated his arrogance and brought him to repentance before the living God. Instead, God promised destruction: "The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this" (v. 31).
The second part of our passage describes God's word to Hezekiah. The message is simple and counters His people's hopelessness: God does not turn back on His people; He will deliver and protect, and you will prosper once again. "For my sake and for the sake of David my servant," God would deliver His people (v. 34). That night God's word proved true as 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were struck down by God's hand, while the escaping Sennacherib met his own end at the hands of his sons. When God speaks, it happens!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Both challenge and encouragement are found in today's reading. For those whose lives reflect hardness toward God, His words urge an attitude of repentance and humility: God is truly in control, and nothing escapes His notice or His plans. Will you yield to Him today? For those who feel hopeless in the face of an unjust world, God's word provides encouragement: God has not forgotten you or your plight; He is powerful to defend and deliver. Will you trust in His saving zeal today?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Direction of Focus
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters . . . , so our eyes look to the Lord our God . . . -Psalm 123:2
This verse is a description of total reliance on God. Just as the eyes of a servant are riveted on his master, our eyes should be directed to and focused on God. This is how knowledge of His countenance is gained and how God reveals Himself to us (seeIsaiah 53:1). Our spiritual strength begins to be drained when we stop lifting our eyes to Him. Our stamina is sapped, not so much through external troubles surrounding us but through problems in our thinking. We wrongfully think, "I suppose I've been stretching myself a little too much, standing too tall and trying to look like God instead of being an ordinary humble person." We have to realize that no effort can be too high.
For example, you came to a crisis in your life, took a stand for God, and even had the witness of the Spirit as a confirmation that what you did was right. But now, maybe weeks or years have gone by, and you are slowly coming to the conclusion- "Well, maybe what I did showed too much pride or was superficial. Was I taking a stand a bit too high for me?" Your "rational" friends come and say, "Don't be silly. We knew when you first talked about this spiritual awakening that it was a passing impulse, that you couldn't hold up under the strain. And anyway, God doesn't expect you to endure." You respond by saying, "Well, I suppose I was expecting too much." That sounds humble to say, but it means that your reliance on God is gone, and you are now relying on worldly opinion. The danger comes when, no longer relying on God, you neglect to focus your eyes on Him. Only when God brings you to a sudden stop will you realize that you have been the loser. Whenever there is a spiritual drain in your life, correct it immediately. Realize that something has been coming between you and God, and change or remove it at once.
Dealing with Sin
"If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire."
When Jesus says, "Cut it off," He is speaking of ruthless self-judgment. And He didn't stop there. He said, "Cut it off and cast it from you." In other words, get as far away from the source of your sin as you can.
I remember one day I walked right into a spider web. As I did, I caught a glimpse of this huge orange-colored spider out of the corner of my eye. As I hit the web, I felt it get on my neck. I started doing a war dance, hitting myself and ripping my shirt off, trying to get that thing off me.
And you know what? The moment a sinful thought lands in your mind, you ought to do the same thing, go on the warpath! Start batting that thing away! Start quoting Scriptures.
Do whatever you can to keep it from sinking its teeth into your life. As Jesus said, it will be better for you if you do!
The eye represents the thought life, where sin is conceived. The hand represents that sin actually being carried out. And the foot is where it becomes a walk, a pattern, an entrenched habit of life, a sinful lifestyle. Matthew 18:8-9 provides an important insight into how to deal with sin,
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Read: 2 Kings 20
I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. - 2 Kings 20:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
We don't know much about the life of William Hammond, an eighteenth-century hymnist. He was a well-educated, committed English Christian who loved to write original hymns, many of them still sung in churches today. One such hymn speaks of our approach to God in prayer, and the first stanza reads: "Lord we come before Thee now / At Thy feet we humbly bow; / Oh, do not our suit disdain! / Shall we seek Thee, Lord, in vain?"
If Hammond's hymn were around during Hezekiah's reign, one could bet that the king would sing it from the heart. Hezekiah was ill, and the initial word from Isaiah was that the king would not recover. In response, Hezekiah turned to the Lord in prayer, weeping bitterly, seeking God's favor. God's response was immediate; no sooner had Isaiah left the middle court than God sent him back with a new word: "I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you" (v. 5); fifteen more years would be added to his life. To make sure of God's word, Hezekiah asked for a difficult sign, and it was granted. Here we see a king who lived by faith, knew that prayers matter to God, and turned to Him in his greatest need. We also see a God who hears our cries and delights to answer prayer.
But if the Hezekiah of verses 1 through 11 lived by faith, the Hezekiah of verses 12 through 19 lived by sight. Messengers came from Babylon, and Hezekiah showed off all his wealth, likely hoping for an alliance against the Assyrians. Just when Hezekiah seemed flawless in his devotion to God, he tried to gain a little extra help elsewhere.
God's message of rebuke came through Isaiah, and His opinion on the matter is clear: you can't serve two masters. Doing so will only result in the ultimate demise of your kingdom. The sad truth is that Hezekiah was more faithful in times of suffering and distress than in times of health and blessing. How often do we act the same way?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage is a good reminder that we need to seek God in all times, both bad and good. William Hammond's hymn echoes this teaching in Scripture, reminding us that we do not seek the Lord in vain. See if you can find Hammond's full hymn online or in your church's hymnal, and spend some time memorizing the stanzas and reflecting on your own need to seek the Lord. Perhaps even learn the melody and teach it to your friends or family.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving!
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Secret of Spiritual Consistency
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
When a person is newly born again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more concerned about being consistent externally. In the external expression of things, Paul lived in the basement, while his critics lived on the upper level. And these two levels do not begin to touch each other. But Paul's consistency was down deep in the fundamentals. The great basis of his consistency was the agony of God in the redemption of the world, namely, the Cross of Christ.
State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. ". . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).
Far Better!
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
While the following is a somewhat silly example, I think it makes the point.
My wife and I recently visited some friends in Washington, and it rained virtually the whole time we were there. It was just a series of gray, drizzly, dreary, rainy days. My friend is an avid golfer, so I asked him, "How long has it been since you have been able to go golfing?" He said, "Four months." I thought, "Wow! That's a long time!"
Now, the day Janet and I got back to Southern California it was a stunning Southern California day, about 70 degrees out. My son said, "Dad, you want to go golfing?" I said, "Sure. Throw the gear in the car."
As we were driving to the golf course, it hit me...Southern California is a place that is far better for a golfer than Washington! It is gain to be absent from the gray and rain, and present in the sun!
To be absent from the body is gain, because it means to be present with the Lord in the brightness of His glory! Don't feel sorry for believers when they go to be with the Lord. For them it is gain that is far better!
Wow! Did you see what Paul said? To live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I die, I am going to be with Christ. And that is not a little better. It is far better. In Philippians 1:21-23, the apostle Paul says this
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Read: 2 Kings 21
Manasseh . . . has done more evil than the Amorites . . . and has led Judah into sin with his idols. - 2 Kings 21:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
We have all seen idyllic portraits of the supposed "First Thanksgiving" in 1621. Pilgrims and Native Americans gathered together, feasting on the bounty of the land, forging alliances of peace, and giving thanks for the blessings of life. Yet, just a generation later colonists and natives found themselves at war with each other. Many colonists and Native Americans feared each other, and tribe after tribe would be forced from their land through unjust transactions, eventually relegated to impoverished reservations in unwanted lands. How quickly the tide can turn!
With the rise of King Manasseh, the tide turned quickly in Judah as well. After 29 years under godly Hezekiah, Manasseh took the throne and plunged the land into incredible wickedness, reversing everything Hezekiah had done (cf. 2 Kings 18:3-8). He rebuilt the high places, re-introduced Baal and Asherah, worshiped the starry host, and even practiced child sacrifice. Moreover, he desecrated the temple, the place where Scripture twice reminds us that God had promised to place His very presence. Manasseh was not only the most wicked king of Judah, he was more wicked than pagan nations (see vv. 9, 11).
Judah had a long history of disobedience (see v. 15), but Manasseh was the final straw. The consequences were laid out in full detail: Judah would experience immense disaster. They would be wiped out, forsaken, handed over to their enemies, looted, and plundered. Scripture is clear: all of this would happen "because they have done evil in my eyes" (v. 15).
In this bleak chapter, there is an important lesson about the power of legacies. On the one hand, Manasseh's wickedness brought both Judah's inevitable destruction and another generation of wickedness in his son Amon. Our sin rarely affects just ourselves, but almost always has future repercussions. On the other hand, there is a glimmer of hope in verse 24. After Amon's death, they made Josiah king. As we will see, not only would he preserve the promised line of David, his godly heart would bring important healing to the people.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As you celebrate Thanksgiving, consider the legacies bestowed on you by forebears and those you will bestow on future generations. For all the blessings you have received because of the faithfulness of previous generations, give public thanks today, naming those blessings and those faithful individuals. As you ponder the kind of legacy you are leaving, ask God's forgiveness for poor examples and His wisdom and strength to be a godly influence on those around you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Focal Point of Spiritual Power
. . . except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
If you want to know the power of God (that is, the resurrection life of Jesus) in your human flesh, you must dwell on the tragedy of God. Break away from your personal concern over your own spiritual condition, and with a completely open spirit consider the tragedy of God. Instantly the power of God will be in you. "Look to Me. . ." (Isaiah 45:22). Pay attention to the external Source and the internal power will be there. We lose power because we don't focus on the right thing. The effect of the Cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these. We are to preach "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work. Concentrate on God's focal point in your preaching, and even if your listeners seem to pay it no attention, they will never be the same again. If I share my own words, they are of no more importance than your words are to me. But if we share the truth of God with one another, we will encounter it again and again. We have to focus on the great point of spiritual power- the Cross. If we stay in contact with that center of power, its energy is released in our lives. In holiness movements and spiritual experience meetings, the focus tends to be put not on the Cross of Christ but on the effects of the Cross.
The feebleness of the church is being criticized today, and the criticism is justified. One reason for the feebleness is that there has not been this focus on the true center of spiritual power. We have not dwelt enough on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption.
No Regrets
In yesterday's devotional, we saw from Philippians 1:21-23 how it is far better to depart from this life and be with the Lord. Today I want to follow up with this question: Are you unable to abide thoughts of death?
If you answered "yes" to that question, chances are you are not ready to meet our Lord. But you need to be ready because everyone here is going to die. There are only two exceptions in all of history: Enoch and Elijah, and it is not likely you are going to be the third exception.
Death visits both kings and commoners. Its approach is sure. The Bible says in Psalm 89:48,
What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his life from the power of the grave? Selah.
That Hebrew word selah means to pause and calmly think about that, and that is the problem with some. They never think on it. They push every thought of their own mortality from their mind. But how can you prepare for eternity if you never think about it?
When the time comes and we have finished our course for God, let us face death like men. Let us look it in the eye. Let us not rebel against the cutting of the cords that loose us from the mooring of these earthly shores; but, rather, unfurl the sails and take that blessed journey to a better country!
As we read yesterday, To live is Christ; and to die is gain. To depart and be with Christ is far better.
Until then, squeeze every drop of life you can out of every single day. Live with all of your heart and all of your strength for God, and leave no regrets behind. Because life is a short day even at its longest. And when its sun has gone down, it leaves us in eternity.
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Read: 2 Kings 22
Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD . . . I have heard you. - 2 Kings 22:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Of all the responsibilities and powers entrusted to U.S. state governors, the authority to issue reprieves is one of the weightiest. Convicted inmates on death row may appeal to the governor for a delay of execution while further evidence is examined, or even for a full prison release under certain circumstances. At those moments, that single elected official holds the power of life and death. Granting a reprieve means life; denying it means death.
While most gubernatorial reprieves are issued on the basis of legal evidence, today's passage shows us a divine reprieve, this one on the basis of the spiritual evidence of humility. We've just surveyed fifty-seven years of wicked leadership under Manasseh and Amon, but now a complete change: Josiah. Messengers were sent to the temple on financial business, but Hilkiah the priest "found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD" (v. 8). We're not told where it had been, but it was likely pushed aside during the Law-less reign of Manasseh.
The book was taken to King Josiah and read to him. Then came Josiah's stirring response. Realizing that "our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book" (v. 13), Josiah tore his robes in grief and immediately sent messengers to inquire of the LORD. Struck with repentance and humility, Josiah moved to action. Oh that we would respond to God's word with such zeal and sincerity-not just hearing God's word, but taking it to heart, grieving over our failure to obey, and seeking from the Lord what to do.
Finally, there was God's response, which included both judgment and mercy. On the one hand, the promised judgment over disobedience would come; Judah could not escape the consequence of generations of disobedience. But there was also mercy: "Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD . . . I have heard you" (v. 19). Judgment would come, but Josiah received a reprieve. He would die in peace. This is so often the way of God, to offer mercy and forgiveness in the face of repentance and humility?
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This teaches us the power and importance of humbly responding to God's word, even when it points out our sin. The pain of facing our sin with repentance will always be met with the grace and mercy of a forgiving God. Attitudes of humility and repentance cannot simply be conjured up like magic. Pray for the Holy Spirit to soften your heart, making the words of Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, your prayer: "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Consecration of Spiritual Power
. . . by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world -Galatians 6:14
If I dwell on the Cross of Christ, I do not simply become inwardly devout and solely interested in my own holiness- I become strongly focused on Jesus Christ's interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor a fanatical holy man practicing self-denial. He did not physically cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. In fact, He was so much in the common everyday world that the religious people of His day accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual power.
It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives- no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it- to be separated internally, not externally (seeJohn 17:16).
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God's service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God's part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, "Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?"
The Best Safeguard Against Adultery
In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, the apostle Paul gives us a safeguard against adultery. He says,
Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Now, if these verses are saying anything, they are telling us that married couples should enjoy sexual intimacy. In fact, the more they enjoy it, the better safeguard it is against immorality.
Notice Paul even goes so far as to say the wife does not have authority over her own body; and the husband does not have authority over his body. As husband and wife, you belong to one another. It says do not deprive one another unless you are going to be fasting and praying, and then only with consent.
I want to challenge you to make sexual intimacy a priority in your marriage. Don't consider it as unimportant, or leave it to your spouse. Take the responsibility to light the fire of sexual intimacy, and close the door to Satan's temptation.
It grieves my heart, as I look across the country, at the number of Christian marriages being destroyed by adultery. It should not be that way!
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Read: 2 Kings 23:1-30
Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did. - 2 Kings 23:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the 2008 film Fireproof, Caleb Holt slowly came to understand God's intentions in marriage by following a life-transforming forty-day relationship experiment (the "Love Dare") recommended by his father. In one scene, Caleb came to see that his addiction to Internet pornography was destroying his relationship with his wife. In response, Caleb destroyed the computer with a baseball bat and left in its place a note for his wife: "I love you more."
That movie scene depicts the extreme reaction needed against sin in our life. Rather than simply pushing sin away, sometimes we need to take steps to destroy it. Today's reading illustrates this destructive action. King Josiah called the people together to hear God's law and to renew their covenant with Him. Both king and people pledged "to follow the LORD and keep his commandments" (v. 3).
But there was more than verbal assent; 2 Kings 23 is a chapter of an assault against sin. Consider the language used to describe the violence against idolatry. At the king's orders, the priests "removed," "did away with," "desecrated," "burned," "ground to powder," "broke down," "smashed," "defiled," and "slaughtered" the vestiges of pagan idolatry, their places of worship, and their priests. This was no half-hearted attempt; it was a full-blown destruction of sin that violated their covenant with God. What a model of how we should treat sin in our own lives.
Yet how do we reconcile this thorough-going reform and the pronouncement in verses 26 and 27 that God would nevertheless destroy Judah? Perhaps the point is to show us what true repentance looks like. God had already declared that Judah's punishment would come because of Manasseh's sin, and Josiah knew that pronouncement (22:16-20). Despite this, Josiah pressed on in obedience, not in order to manipulate God's mercy, but because it was right in God's eyes. This is the picture of one turned to the Lord with all his heart, soul and strength (v. 25). And there is great comfort in knowing that another King in David's line whose own obedience to the Father did remove the penalty of our sin once for all!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is your reaction to sin? Do you take steps to destroy its power, or do you only push it to the margins where it can soon drift back into a position of influence? We should imitate Josiah's active commitment to God by destroying opportunities for sin in our life. Take time for serious, prayerful reflection and respond to any conviction of the Holy Spirit. With God's help in light of Christ's work, commit to tangible, even life-changing, actions to demolish sin's power in your life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Riches of the Destitute
. . . being justified freely by His grace . . . -Romans 3:24
The gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the truth that it reveals is not palatable or easy to swallow. There is a certain pride in people that causes them to give and give, but to come and accept a gift is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom; I will dedicate my life to service- I will do anything. But do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God through our own efforts. We must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest spiritual blessing we receive is when we come to the knowledge that we are destitute. Until we get there, our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us as long as we think we are sufficient in and of ourselves. We must enter into His kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are "rich," particularly in the area of pride or independence, God can do nothing for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit. The gift of the essential nature of God is placed and made effective in us by the Holy Spirit. He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, making us truly alive. He takes that which was "beyond" us and places it "within" us. And immediately, once "the beyond" has come "within," it rises up to "the above," and we are lifted into the kingdom where Jesus lives and reigns (see John 3:5).
A Picture of God's Lovingkindness
God's merciful and unfailing love. 2 Samuel 9:3-7 provides us with a picture of that love,
Then the king said, "Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?" And Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet." So the king said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the king, "Indeed he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar." Then King David sent and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar. Now when Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face and prostrated himself. Then David said, "Mephibosheth?" And he answered, "Here is your servant!" So David said to him, "Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually."
David made a blood covenant with Jonathan to show Jonathan's offspring the lovingkindness of God. After Jonathan died, Mephibosheth was the only offspring who remained, and he hid in the wilderness in fear of David. But David found him and elevated him to be one of his own sons, set him at his table, and restored everything he lost.
This is such a beautiful picture of the covenant God made with His Son Jesus, a covenant sealed by the blood of Christ. Because of what Jesus did, God shows us His lovingkindness, elevating us to the position of sons or daughters, and inviting us to break bread with Him at His own table.
That is the lovingkindness of God!
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Read: 2 Kings 23:31-24:20a
It was because of the LORD's anger that . . . in the end he thrust them from his presence. - 2 Kings 24:20
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Christian season of Advent consists of the four Sundays preceding Christmas day, and today marks the first Sunday in Advent. For centuries Christians have noted a penitential season reflecting on the two "advents" or "comings" of Christ, His first at the Incarnation and His Second Coming in the future. Advent also brings an air of excitement as we approach the joys and festivities of the Christmas celebration.
As we begin this season of reflection and excited anticipation, we get something of a contrast from today's reading. The rapid downward spiral of Judah is not the most joyous reading. So much more time and detail were spent on the previous godly leadership of Josiah and Hezekiah, but here we are rushed through Judah's last twenty-two years and four kings. Perhaps that's the point. Holiness and obedience should be more exciting and capture more of our attention than the drab dullness of sin and disobedience.
So we get the uninspiring, repetitive report that Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah all "did evil in the eyes of the LORD." Some were vassals of Egypt; others of Babylon. Some paid taxes to their oppressors, while others experienced siege and exile from the land. Some were kings in their own right; others were mere puppets in the hands of foreigners. No matter how you look at it, the consequences of sin were always the same, leaving the land deprived of its treasure and people. Sin may promise excitement and fulfillment, but it only delivers predictable disappointment.
Finally, today's reading reminds us of the reason for Judah's downfall: the egregious sin of its people. Scripture repeats this lesson again and again. Verses 2 through 4 record that it all happened at God's command "because of the sins of Manasseh" (24:3b). Verse 13 reports that their destruction was in perfect fulfillment of God's earlier word (see 21:10-15), and verse 20 again narrates that God Himself was behind it all, to "thrust them from his presence." The fall of Judah was severe, but it also demonstrated the trustworthiness of God's word. He promised consequences for disobedience, and now we see that word fulfilled.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's trustworthy word will always be fulfilled. As we begin the Advent season and reflect on Christ's promise to return one day, we can trust that word. Let today's reading challenge you to reject sin's empty promise of excitement and to use this Advent season to prepare your heart for Christ's coming. Use your corporate worship experience today to repent of your sins, sing God's praise, commit your day to His service and glory, and encourage others to do the same.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
He will glorify Me . . . -John 16:14
The holiness movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them. There is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ. All that is required is a pious atmosphere, prayer, and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous. It did not cost the sufferings of God, nor is it stained with "the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 12:11). It is not marked or sealed by the Holy Spirit as being genuine, and it has no visual sign that causes people to exclaim with awe and wonder, "That is the work of God Almighty!" Yet the New Testament is about the work of God and nothing else.
The New Testament example of the Christian experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the Person of Jesus. There is no regeneration- no being born again into the kingdom in which Christ lives and reigns supreme. There is only the idea that He is our pattern. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Savior long before He is the pattern. Today He is being portrayed as the figurehead of a religion- a mere example. He is that, but He is infinitely more. He is salvation itself; He is the gospel of God!
Jesus said, ". . . when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, . . . He will glorify Me . . ." (John 16:13-14). When I commit myself to the revealed truth of the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit, who then begins interpreting to me what Jesus did. The Spirit of God does in me internally all that Jesus Christ did for me externally.
Cherishing the Presence of God
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
When the psalmist talks about "a day in Your courts," he is not talking about being in some building or admiring some bit of religious architecture. He is talking about enjoying the presence of God. As verse 2 of this psalm says,
My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
I think The Message Bible conveys the idea of verse 10,
One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.
Not long ago, I was walking through the neighborhood (I do this from time to time) just having a prayer walk. I walked for maybe 45 minutes and just prayed and worshiped God.
As I started thinking about all of the good things He has done for me, I began to sense His presence, and I started to cry. Now, I don't know what the neighbors thought if they happened to look out their window, but I didn't care, because I so appreciate His presence in my life.
I encourage you today to learn to cherish the presence of God!
God is so good that just one day with Him is better than a thousand anywhere else. Just to be on the threshold, just to be on the doorstep, just to feel the slightest fringes, if you would, of the presence of God, is better than spending a thousand days anywhere else. Psalm 84:10 gives us an important perspective of God's presence,
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Read: 2 Kings 24:20b-25:26
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. - 2 Corinthians 7:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Johnny Cash, the renowned American country singer with that distinctive voice, had a long and successful musical career. But not all of Cash's life was characterized by joy. In the early 1960s Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to drugs. As a result, his behavior became increasingly erratic, his performances suffered, and his marriage was being destroyed. By 1967, his life out of control, Cash crawled deep into Nickajack cave in Tennessee hoping to die. He had hit rock bottom.
Today's reading is Judah's version of hitting rock bottom, and it's clear that the writer wants to emphasize the sadness and loss Judah experienced. First, there was the loss of land. Verse 11 reports that "Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people." The land was now gone, and the people were forced to live in a foreign land. In many ways, 2 Kings 25 is summed up with these simple words: "So Judah went into captivity, away from her land" (v. 21). That promised land of milkand honey, that land of freedom from the slavery of Egypt, was now taken away.
Second, there was the loss of the city, Jerusalem. That fortified capital of Judah, God's Zion, represented His protection and glory. The Psalms are full of the praises of Zion's strength and beauty (see Ps. 2:6; 48:2), but now that city was destroyed. Its walls were broken through, torn down, and burned. The great city had been reduced to ruins.
Third, there was a loss of temple, the place of worship and of God's presence. Not content simply to capture the city, the Babylonian king burned the temple to the ground. Later, his commander removed the articles from the temple, piece by piece. The bronze pillars, the bronze Sea, the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes-all were removed from the temple and taken to Babylon.
Why dwell on such loss and sadness? Perhaps because often the realization of our loss prompts us to return to God. Sadness can evoke our repentance (2 Cor. 7:10-11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
You may know someone who has hit rock bottom, and like the writer of today's passage, you feel the sorrow and see the consequences of their sinful choices. You can pray that God will use the loss and sadness in order to bring about true repentance. Only when we first see our own misery can we long for redemption from it. Our God remains a God of compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and love.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
November 30, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"By the Grace of God I Am What I Am"
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . -1 Corinthians 15:10
The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God's perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, "Oh, I shouldn't claim to be sanctified; I'm not a saint." But to say that before God means, "No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn't possible." That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.
Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, "Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified," is in God's eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.
There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.
Mistreated?
1 Peter 3:13-18 are verses that are a great encouragement,
And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. "And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled." But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
Jesus was not guilty. He suffered for things He did not do, and the result is that we came to God. What Peter wants us to understand is the importance of showing forgiveness and a Christlike spirit, even when we are being mistreated.
What it can do is reach the hearts of your persecutors for God. If you keep a Christlike spirit, your good conduct can make them ashamed, even though they are hassling you, and bring them to the place where they will ask you a question for the hope that is in you: Why are you the way you are? What's this deal going on in your life? Why do you react the way you react? And you can tell them about Christ.
But if you lash out, and if you dish out the same kind of abuse that you are receiving, God is not revealed at all.
Patiently endure whatever your mistreatment, and ask God to use it to reach those who need to know Him as Savior.
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Read: 2 Kings 25:27-30
So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king's table. - 2 Kings 25:29
TODAY IN THE WORD
As Johnny Cash lay in the dark, waiting to die deep inside Nickajack cave, a strange sensation overcame him. With a sense of clarity and peace, he began to think about his life, his decisions, and God's presence with him there. With a flicker of hope, but surrounded by pitch blackness, Cash began to crawl. After a time, he felt a faint breeze on his back, and Cash followed it until he eventually made his way out. Realizing God's hand in his life, Cash later entered rehab and recommitted his life to God.
Today's reading is something like that faint breeze of hope in an otherwise dark landscape. We ended yesterday with a bleak picture of loss and sadness for the nation of Judah: no land, no city, and no temple. Some were killed brutally, others taken into exile. And we were left wondering if Judah would ever be restored? Would it all be darkness from here on? Then we come to verses 27 through 30 and there is a flicker of hope.
A new king of Babylon took the throne and a change occurred. Jehoiachin, king of Judah, was released from prison. The Babylonian king, Scripture says, "spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor" in Babylon (v. 28). Jehoiachin was permitted a place at the king's table where he ate well "for the rest of his life" (v. 29). Moreover, Jehoiachin was given a regular allowance to support himself and his family.
In the face of the utter darkness of 2 Kings 25:1-26, we get not a floodlight of promise, but still a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the reader is expected to remember God's everlasting promises to Judah in 2 Samuel 7:13-16 and 1 Kings 11:39. Judah may have forgotten God, but God had not forgotten His people.
Of course, it would still be another five centuries of ongoing oppression under foreign nations, but eventually, out of that darkness, the Light of Christ would come (see Matt. 1:12-16). The book of 2 Kings ends with a glimpse of that coming glorious restoration.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The glimmer of hope in today's passage finds its fulfillment in the coming of Christ. This is the season when we focus on preparing our hearts to celebrate Christmas and preparing our lives for His Second Coming. As His disciple, what lessons has God taught you this month? Jot down some of the things you learned about yourself or about God's own character through our study of 2 Kings. Then thank Him for His word to us and His unfailing promises.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 1, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Law and the Gospel
Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all -James 2:10
The moral law does not consider our weaknesses as human beings; in fact, it does not take into account our heredity or infirmities. It simply demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never changes, either for the highest of society or for the weakest in the world. It is enduring and eternally the same. The moral law, ordained by God, does not make itself weak to the weak by excusing our shortcomings. It remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we are not aware of this, it is because we are less than alive. Once we do realize it, our life immediately becomes a fatal tragedy. "I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (Romans 7:9). The moment we realize this, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin. Until a person gets there and sees that there is no hope, the Cross of Christ remains absurd to him. Conviction of sin always brings a fearful, confining sense of the law. It makes a person hopeless- ". . . sold under sin" (Romans 7:14). I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God- it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience. Who of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!
We only begin to realize the power of the moral law once we see that it comes with a condition and a promise. But God never coerces us. Sometimes we wish He would make us be obedient, and at other times we wish He would leave us alone. Whenever God's will is in complete control, He removes all pressure. And when we deliberately choose to obey Him, He will reach to the remotest star and to the ends of the earth to assist us with all of His almighty power.
What Do You Value?
Psalm 119:72 says,
The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
We understand "the law of Your mouth" to be God's Word. And what the psalmist is saying is, "Lord, Your word is better to me than a pile of silver or a pile of gold."
Let's say you are offered a position at a particular company-offered a great job, great increase of pay, and maybe the housing in that area is less. It is your dream job! But you investigate things, and you find out there is not a good spirit-filled Bible teaching church in that town where the job is. But you can make a lot more money! Do you go? It depends on how much you value God's Word.
One gentleman who was very involved in my church came to me one day and announced that he was moving. I asked him, "Did you find a church there?" He replied, "No, no. There's not a good church in the town at all. But I'm going to be making a lot more money. We can get a bigger house. It's going to be great."
A year later his teenage daughter was pregnant, his boy was in juvenile hall, he and his wife were getting a divorce, and he was back on drugs. But, hey! He was making a lot more money.
In our society, it is so easy to make decisions based solely on money. And sadly, it is the ruin of many a family and relationship. Value first God's Word. Value it more than anything our world can give you.
If you do, you will never be disappointed.
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Read: Revelation 1
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the LORD God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." - Revelation 1:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
The so-called worship wars have plagued churches for years. These debates usually focus on the music used in the worship service, and sometimes include the appropriateness of hand-held microphones; the presence of a choir; congregational hymns or choruses; and the use of piano, organ, guitars, or drums. Some churches split services into different "worship styles"; other churches split entirely into different congregations.
Serious matters may underlie these worship wars, but a broader understanding of worship itself is often lost. Worship has been condensed into a 15- to 30-minute category meaning essentially "the music before the sermon." In our study this month from the book of Revelation, we'll examine what Scripture has to say about worship: its appropriate context, appropriate expression, and especially its appropriate object-God Himself.
It might seem unusual to tackle a study of Revelation during the Advent and Christmas seasons. But just as Advent should be a time of preparing our hearts to celebrate the Lord's first coming at Christmas, it is also a season to prepare our hearts for His Second Coming. Christmas makes sense only in light of the ultimate victory of Jesus over sin, death, and Satan.
Our passage opens by making clear that this book is the revelation of Jesus Christ Himself (vv. 1-2). This precedes even the usual greeting from the author to the recipients that is standard practice in letters from this time. It was more than an exhortation from John-it was the testimony of the Son of God. The full deity of Jesus is underscored here as well; not only did God the Father author this revelation (v. 1), but also Jesus claimed the divine description of Alpha and Omega for Himself (vv. 8, 17).
When confronted with the glory of the Lord, John fell down before Him, an understandable reaction given the description of Jesus (vv. 12-16). In the fullness of His power and glory, Jesus told John not to be afraid! Worship recognizes who God is and who we are in relation to Him-but it is not characterized by quaking fear.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Go back through this passage and make a list of all the descriptions given of Jesus. Nearly every verse tells us something about the person, character, or work of our Savior. This is the basis of true worship-our response to who God is. After you have your list, spend time praising the Lord for each item, rejoicing that you have been invited into a relationship without fear with the One who is alive forever and ever and who holds the keys of death and Hades.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 2, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Christian Perfection
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect . . . -Philippians 3:12
It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do- God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life's determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, "It could never be God's will for me to be sick"? If it was God's will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn't He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do. The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives may leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary- that through your own human effort and devotion you can attain God's standard for your life. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God's purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.
What Do You Value?
Psalm 119:72 says,
The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
We understand "the law of Your mouth" to be God's Word. And what the psalmist is saying is, "Lord, Your word is better to me than a pile of silver or a pile of gold."
Let's say you are offered a position at a particular company-offered a great job, great increase of pay, and maybe the housing in that area is less. It is your dream job! But you investigate things, and you find out there is not a good spirit-filled Bible teaching church in that town where the job is. But you can make a lot more money! Do you go? It depends on how much you value God's Word.
One gentleman who was very involved in my church came to me one day and announced that he was moving. I asked him, "Did you find a church there?" He replied, "No, no. There's not a good church in the town at all. But I'm going to be making a lot more money. We can get a bigger house. It's going to be great."
A year later his teenage daughter was pregnant, his boy was in juvenile hall, he and his wife were getting a divorce, and he was back on drugs. But, hey! He was making a lot more money.
In our society, it is so easy to make decisions based solely on money. And sadly, it is the ruin of many a family and relationship. Value first God's Word. Value it more than anything our world can give you.
If you do, you will never be disappointed.
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Read: Revelation 2:1-7
You have forsaken your first love. - Revelation 2:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A number of pitfalls can trip up Christians who seek to please God. One of these is an emphasis on external behaviors to the exclusion of examining our hearts. A young man reared in a Christian family, Christian schools, and Bible college described it this way: "I knew what all the rules were and how to be a good person. I knew all the right answers to say and the wrong behaviors to avoid. I was as zealous as Saul in enforcing standards I thought were correct. But I had no joy, very little love, and an abundance of pride. I confused passion for rules with passion for God."
This is not a new challenge, based on our reading for today. The ancient church in Ephesus needed to recalibrate their worship to make passion for God a priority.
First, notice in this text that the reality of our lives-both as individuals and corporately as churches-is laid bare before the Lord (vv. 1-2). There are no secrets hidden from Him, no pretenses that fool Him. He loves and knows His people. Second, He commended the faithfulness of this church. The Ephesians apparently took the gospel seriously and were earnestly contending for the truth (v. 2). This was not a church plagued by compromise with the world; in fact, the Ephesians were willing to suffer for their faith and endure trials and hardships as a result of their witness. They sought truth from their leaders and rejected the moral compromise (likely sexual immorality) of the Nicolaitans.
And yet the Lord said, "I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love" (v. 4). Truly, this text should make us tremble. Here was a church commended for their stand for truth and purity-but it was not enough. If these things do not flow from a love for God, they become legalistic rules and a source of pride.
Their lack of passion for Christ was described as having fallen from a great height (v. 5). The call to repent was urgent with enormous stakes. The worship of God's people should always be filled with a passion for Him-His character and work-and not with our pride in our own perseverance and works.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As we ponder this message, take comfort that God loves us enough to warn us to repent. He wants our full, unbridled love in return. Have you insisted on truth and purity without love and passion for God? Worship demands that we surrender our pride and praise Him alone. In addition, our love is what attracts others to the gospel. We don't have to compromise on truth or purity, but we must consistently guard that they flow out of our worship, praise, love, and passion for God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 3, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Not by Might nor by Power"
My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power . . . -1 Corinthians 2:4
If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality. Take care to see while you proclaim your knowledge of the way of salvation, that you yourself are rooted and grounded by faith in God. Never rely on the clearness of your presentation, but as you give your explanation make sure that you are relying on the Holy Spirit. Rely on the certainty of God's redemptive power, and He will create His own life in people.
Once you are rooted in reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith. But nothing can ever change God or the reality of redemption. Base your faith on that, and you are as eternally secure as God Himself. Once you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. That is the meaning of sanctification. God disapproves of our human efforts to cling to the concept that sanctification is merely an experience, while forgetting that even our sanctification must also be sanctified (see John 17:19). I must deliberately give my sanctified life to God for His service, so that He can use me as His hands and His feet.
Do You Cherish God's Word?
Psalm 107:20 says,
He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
God has given us His Word for our benefit, and yet so many Christians ignore it to their hurt.
It is like the story of the woman a preacher went to visit one day. She lived in a dilapidated house. As long as he had known her, she had struggled with poverty. Twenty years earlier she had been the housekeeper for the wealthiest woman in town, but the wealthy woman had died. So this housekeeper moved into an old shack.
As the pastor was visiting her, he noticed a document framed on the wall. He said, "Do you mind if I borrow this for a few days?" She replied, "Well, you can borrow it, but please bring it back. Although I can't read, it is very important to me. It is the only thing that the lady left me when she died. It is very valuable to me. It reminds me of her. So make sure you bring it back."
He took it and had it investigated and authenticated. It was the will of the woman who had died, and in the will she left her housekeeper a fortune. The housekeeper could have had any house she wanted in the whole city and had servants of her own, but due to her ignorance, she lived in poverty and had a rough go of it all those years.
That woman reminds me of a lot of Christians. They don't read their Bible, but they admire it because it reminds them of God. They haven't taken time to find out the inheritance that belongs to them as believers.
God's Word is a light to our path. It is our guidebook for life. It is bread for our spirit. It is our strength. It is our refuge in troubled times.
Cherish God's Word.
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Read: Revelation 2:8-11
Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. - Revelation 2:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Many letters from Christian leaders early in the second century have survived, some written within a decade after the apostle John wrote his Gospel and Revelation (around A.D. 95-96). These include letters to and from Polycarp, the leader of the church in Smyrna, who would have been about 35 years old then. Indeed, as prophesied in our passage, persecution came to the church in Smyrna, and Polycarp was martyred for his faith at the age of 86. He declared: "Eighty-six years have I been His servant, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me? If you suppose vainly that I will swear by the genius of Caesar . . . hear you plainly: I am a Christian."
Yesterday we saw that God's love caused Him to exhort the Ephesians to repent and worship Him out of love. Today we again see that our worship is rooted in God's character-our faithfulness is possible because He is faithful.
Despite the persecution happening in Smyrna, Christ spoke encouragement to His beloved church and told them of an encouraging reality: despite their material poverty, they were spiritually rich (v. 9). He knows the hearts of those who are faithful and those who are deceitful. And not only did He know their situation of suffering at that moment, He also knew their eternal reward in the future (v. 10).
Notice that the Lord did not imply that suffering isn't real or that it isn't all that bad. Our Savior Himself experienced physical and spiritual suffering more painful than we can imagine. Instead, He urged them to be faithful during the trials and persecution. This kind of faithfulness is possible because of the example of Jesus and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Not only is Jesus the example of faithfulness in suffering, His resurrection also testifies to the ultimate deliverance by God. He opened His address to Smyrna by describing Himself as "the First and Last, who died and came to life again" (v. 8). Though some in Smyrna would also die for their faith, they were to receive "the crown of life" (v. 10).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We can't escape trials and tribulations on our own timetable, but we can hold on to what we know about God and worship Him in the midst of our suffering. In your time of prayer today, praise God for the resurrection of Jesus, the encouragement to remain faithful, and the promise of eternal life. He knows our present and our future. He knows our reality, no matter what the world perceives about us. He knows that our test will result in our testimony.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 4, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Law of Opposition
To him who overcomes . . . -Revelation 2:7
Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.
Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me. To maintain good health I must have sufficient internal strength to fight off the things that are external. Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead. If I have enough inner strength to fight, I help to produce the balance needed for health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.
Morally it is the same. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.
And spiritually it is also the same. Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation . . ." (John 16:33). This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, ". . . but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I must learn to fight against and overcome the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness. Then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.
Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.
No Worries
I trust that these words from Isaiah will encourage you today. Read carefully what God has to say,
"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?... But I am the LORD your God, who divided the sea whose waves roared-the LORD of hosts is His name" (Isaiah 51:12-13 and 15).
God spans the heavens with the palm of His hand. The nations are as a drop in the bucket before Him. There is nothing too hard for Him, and nothing He cannot do.
A number of years ago, I had the chance to go elk hunting with a friend in Montana. We were lying outside under the stars, and I was unprepared for the glory I saw. I have never seen so many stars in my life! It took my breath away!
As we lay there, I said, "You know what? God spans the heavens with His hand, and you and I are worried about paying the rent!" It was just one of those moments. We both just cracked up at how ridiculous it was to worry when God was so big.
What are you worrying about today? Whatever it is, place it into God's hands. After all, His hand spans the entire universe!
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Read: Revelation 2:12-17
Woe to them! . . . They have rushed for profit into Balaam's error. - Jude 11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Throughout Scripture, false prophets have been associated with sexual immorality and financial greed. They threaten the people of God by attempting to mix faith and truth with sinful aspirations and actions. The sorcerer Balaam, motivated by greed, could not curse Israel but encouraged Moab to bring judgment on Israel by enticing them through sexual immorality (Numbers 22-25; Rev. 2:14). The book of Jude warns against "godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality" for their own material profit (Jude 4).
The church in Pergamum had also been infiltrated by this same false teaching. They had not recanted their public profession of faith, despite intense persecution (v. 13). But their practice of faith had been compromised by a fundamental misunderstanding of God's grace.
The Lord introduced Himself to this church as the One with the authority to judge. The image of the double-edged sword indicates the power both to see the deepest inward reality and to cut out whatever is rotten at the core (v. 12; see Heb. 4:12). This judgment connotes discernment-Christ knew the situation of this church (v. 13). It also promised punishment if the church did not repent (v. 16).
This image of judgment and the sword also struck against false teaching. The lie of Balaam and the Nicolaitans was essentially a distortion of the grace of God; it asserted that it was okay for Christians to engage in sexual immorality and promiscuity because these allowed more opportunities for God's grace to be manifested. Christians were forgiven and had liberty-why not do what felt good (see 2 Peter 2:13-15)? This view presumed on the forgiveness of God to entice the church into a lifestyle that sought financial gain and sexual license.
God does extend grace and forgiveness-but He also judges persistent sin and hates wickedness. He has declared us "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:9).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The church at Pergamum had maintained a public profession of faith, but they were permitting sexual sin to go unchecked in their church. Private purity is as important as public praise. If the Holy Spirit is convicting your heart about persistent sin that you have not confessed, repent today before you join with others in corporate worship tomorrow. Repentance is a necessary prelude to worship.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 5, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"The Temple of the Holy Spirit"
. . . only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you -Genesis 41:40
I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority. Paul said he did not "set aside the grace of God"- make it ineffective (Galatians 2:21). The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever. I am not being saved- I am saved. Salvation is as eternal as God's throne, but I must put to work or use what God has placed within me. To "work out [my] own salvation" (Philippians 2:12) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me. It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly. "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection . . ." (1 Corinthians 9:27). Every Christian can have his body under absolute control for God. God has given us the responsibility to rule over all "the temple of the Holy Spirit," including our thoughts and desires (1 Corinthians 6:19). We are responsible for these, and we must never give way to improper ones. But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves. We make excuses for things in ourselves, while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.
Paul said, "I beseech you . . . that you present your bodies a living sacrifice . . ." (Romans 12:1). What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple. Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth-my body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit."
Single?
Today I want to speak to singles,
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
If you are single, and you long for physical intimacy, and you sometimes struggle with your sexuality, and you want to be married, it is God's will for you to be married. In fact, I can tell you that you do not have the gift to be single that Paul talks about.
On the other hand, you may be single and completely content, with no desire to be married. You need to know that does not mean there is something wrong with you. You just may be operating with a gift God has given you. In fact, Paul says it is better. You can serve the Lord undistracted that way.
If you do not have that gift, I believe it is God's plan for you to get married. If you are tortured with unsatisfied desire, it is better to marry.
That does not mean to go out and marry the first person you would like to have sex with. You have to take this into the context of all of God's counsel. You need to realize marriage should be the highest form of agreement between two people. No marriage should be entered into lightly or just based on physical attraction.
But if you are single and desiring to be married, I believe God does have someone for you.
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Read: Revelation 2:18-29
How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him. - 1 Kings 18:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
Scripture says that Ahab, king of Israel, "did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him . . . urged on by Jezebel his wife" (1 Kings 16:30; 21:25). The sins of Ahab and Jezebel were many, including the murder of Naboth, stealing and selfishness, and disregard for the Word of the Lord. Their most grievous sin, however, involved replacing worship of God with worship of Baal to an extent unprecedented in Israel. God's prophet Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a memorable showdown on Mount Carmel to see who worshiped the real deity; more than just a competition between religions, Elijah was calling the people of Israel back to true worship (see 1 Kings 18).
Although Jezebel was killed in a humiliating manner (1 Kings 21:23; 2 Kings 9), the temptation to replace or combine worship of God with false teaching has persisted among God's people. The church in Thyatira had such a situation in their midst. The city was known for its numerous trade guilds, including bronze-smiths, each with their own guild deity. Apollo has been identified with the god of the city, so it seems likely that the description of Christ that opens this message intended to counter the gods of the city and commerce (v. 18).
The church was commended for numerous positive attributes: unlike the Ephesians they had love in addition to their faith; they had actions consistent with their faith, and they had served and persevered. In fact, they had exhibited spiritual growth (v. 19). The problem was that they had not put out the false teaching of Jezebel. Not everyone in the church had fallen prey to idolatry, but the church had not taken a strong stance against this evil (v. 24).
Sexual immorality appears again here, but in Thyatira it was accompanied by the temptation to mix worship of God with idols, or even Satan (vv. 20, 24). Just as Elijah called for the people of Israel to choose whether they would serve God or Baal, Jesus warned the church that true worship cannot be contaminated by allowances for other gods.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The church in Thyatira struggled combining worship of God with worshiping the guild deities, likely required for the ability to do business. Our cultural particulars are different, but we still face the temptation to worship the gods of materialism and greed and comfort instead of putting faith in God alone. Jesus reminds us that He holds all power and authority (vv. 26-28). Our worship should hold on to what He has given, not seek to supplement it with other sources of supposed security.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 6, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"My Rainbow in the Cloud"
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth -Genesis 9:13
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn't God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn't God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is- will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won't do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God-a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don't believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, "Now I believe." There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." (Isaiah 45:22).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement- no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
Under Control
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
So, mom or dad, here is something you can share with your kids in connection with relating to the opposite sex. Be prepared, I am going to be blunt.
1. Any body part they have that you don't have, don't touch it. Any equipment they have that you don't have, it is hands off!
2. Do not put any part of your body into any part of their body.
3. Do not get horizontal. Don't even sit on the couch watching TV, and lay down in one another's arms. If you do, you know where that can lead.
4. If you are going to kiss, let it be short and meaningful. Don't allow yourselves to get into a wrestling match. Again, it is hard to find the switch to turn it off once you get going.
5. Finally, let things like holding hands or putting your arm around your boyfriend or girlfriend actually be meaningful.
If you are single, apply these rules, and they could save you a lot of grief!
What I want to focus on is verse 9, especially the part about burning with passion. There are way too many young Christians who are out of control in their physical relationship with the opposite sex. In today's devotional I want to follow up on the passage we looked at yesterday, 1 Corinthians 7:7-9,
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Read: Revelation 3:1-6
Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die. - Revelation 3:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Renowned preacher A. W. Tozer wrote, "We are brought to God and to faith and to salvation so that we might worship and adore Him. We do not come to God that we might be automatic Christians, cookie-cutter Christians, Christians stamped out with a die. God has provided His salvation that we might be . . . vibrant children of God, loving God with all our hearts and worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness."
"Cookie-cutter Christians" might have described the church in Sardis-as well as many churches today. No hint of theological controversy is given; no warning against insidious immorality is issued. This church seems full of peace and quiet-but it is the peace and quiet of the cemetery. Despite their reputation, Jesus declares this church to be dead (v. 1).
What worse declaration could there be than for God Himself to declare our religious rituals and solemn ceremonies to be meaningless? This church had become like a corpse propped up in the living room to impersonate the living. But the stench of death had reached the nostrils of God. Mercifully, the Lord sounds the clanging bell of an alarm clock: "Wake up!"
How could God tell a dead church to wake up? Shouting at a dead body won't get any response. Unlike human efforts to rouse the dead, however, Jesus holds the keys to life, signified in this passage as the "seven spirits of God" (v. 1). Sometimes translated as the "sevenfold Spirit," this phrase means the full power of the Spirit, including the power to bring the dead into life.
A flicker of vitality remains in this complacent church. Christ urges them to fan these embers into a roaring spiritual flame, to remember the truth, to obey God's instructions, and to repent of their spiritual neglect (vv. 2-3). Only these measures will revive the church and spare them from judgment.
The conclusion of this message underscores that Sardis faced a life-or-death decision. Those who heed this warning will have their names in the Book of Life (v. 5). While other churches had actively compromised with the world in faith or practice, Sardis had passively slid into a spiritual stupor.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Those who have been Christians for some time can face a similar danger as the church in Sardis. Everything might look fine on the outside, but worship has become dead. This message alerts us to pay attention to the prodding of the Holy Spirit: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (v. 6). If God is shouting for you to wake up, follow the path to revival of repentance and remembering and obedience. This is the path to life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 7, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Repentance
Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation . . . -2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction of sin is best described in the words:
My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall.
Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person's conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person's relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God- "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight . . ." (Psalm 51:4). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, "I have sinned." The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes- a reflex action caused by self-disgust.
The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man's respectable "goodness." Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person's life (see Galatians 4:19). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses- repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant.
By Janet Conley
How to Stay Connected How to Stay Connected
Yesterday we discovered the second key to effective prayer is to stay connected to God. The critical question is: How do we do that?
While there are many things we can do, I want to focus on two things. First of all, if you want to have a close relationship with God, it is important to realize just how much He desires to have a close relationship with you.
This is an amazing truth when you stop to think about it. He is Almighty God, and yet He wants to have a close relationship with you.
Romans 5:11 in the New Living Translation says, Now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Through Jesus, God made us to be His friends! So connecting with God starts with remembering He desires to be your closest friend.
Second, you need to practice His presence. Right now God is with you. He is everywhere you go. He is at your job; He is at your home; He is with you wherever you might be, even in the hardest time of your life.
The last part of Hebrews 13:5 says, For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
There was a monk in the seventeenth century named Brother Lawrence who wrote a book called The Practice of the Presence of God. In the monastery there were chimes that rang every hour, and Brother Lawrence would use that as a reminder to connect with God.
If you have a PDA or a wristwatch or a cell phone, you might consider setting it to go off throughout the day to remind you that God is with you. Each time it goes off, spend a few moments communing with Him. Practice His presence. That will help you stay connected to God.
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Read: Revelation 3:7-13
For we are the temple of the living God. - 2 Corinthians 6:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
After Jesus performed His first miracle of turning water into wine, He went to the temple at Passover. Upon seeing men exploiting the poor and manipulating worship for their own profit, Jesus fashioned a whip and drove out the salesmen and their goods (John 2:12-25). As pastor Kent Hughes says, "While the religious authorities of Jesus' day loudly proclaimed the holiness and otherness of God, they denied it in practice. Our Lord's whip was loosed against what detracted from the communication of God's glory, especially in worship."
The message to the church in Philadelphia emphasized that God still cared about worship that had Him as the object. He still rejected worship that attempted to exclude or exploit others. He was still zealous for His temple (Ps. 69:9; John 2:17).
First, Jesus has the authority to determine the quality of our worship (v. 7; see John 2:18-19). He is the standard by which our worship is evaluated-He alone opens the door to eternal life with God, and He alone sees the truth of our deeds and motives.
Second, the Jews of the city had oppressed the Philadelphian church, insisting that Christians had no right to access the love of God. The church held fast to the gospel of Christ, however, despite the persecution (v. 8). Jesus made clear that attempts by the "synagogue of Satan" to exclude God's people from worship would fail; indeed, the Jews who didn't embrace the authority of Jesus would be forced to acknowledge the truth about the Messiah (v. 9).
Finally, Jesus tenderly encouraged the Philadelphian church to maintain their profession and practice of faith in Him, for those who were faithful would be pillars "in the temple of my God" (v. 12). In John 2, Jesus used the metaphor of the temple to refer to His own body; just as "the body of Christ" also referred to the church, so too here the metaphor of the temple was extended to describe the people of God. Jesus cared about true worship of God in the physical structure of the temple, and He cares about worship in the lives and gathering of His body of believers.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The strong word of denunciation for the "synagogue of Satan" is balanced with the gentle words of encouragement for the Philadelphian church. Jesus' zeal for His temple includes both rebuke for those who exploit worship and rest for those who endure faithfully for Him. If you are experiencing trials and difficulties, receive His comfort today. No one can shut the door He has opened for you. He sees your struggle, and He knows the truth. And He is coming soon!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 8, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Impartial Power of God
By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified -Hebrews 10:14
We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only reason for the forgiveness of our sins by God, and the infinite depth of His promise to forget them, is the death of Jesus Christ. Our repentance is merely the result of our personal realization of the atonement by the Cross of Christ, which He has provided for us. ". . . Christ Jesus . . . became for us wisdom from God-and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:30). Once we realize that Christ has become all this for us, the limitless joy of God begins in us. And wherever the joy of God is not present, the death sentence is still in effect.
No matter who or what we are, God restores us to right standing with Himself only by means of the death of Jesus Christ. God does this, not because Jesus pleads with Him to do so but because He died. It cannot be earned, just accepted. All the pleading for salvation which deliberately ignores the Cross of Christ is useless. It is knocking at a door other than the one which Jesus has already opened. We protest by saying, "But I don't want to come that way. It is too humiliating to be received as a sinner." God's response, through Peter, is, ". . . there is no other name . . . by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). What at first appears to be heartlessness on God's part is actually the true expression of His heart. There is unlimited entrance His way. "In Him we have redemption through His blood . . ." (Ephesians 1:7). To identify with the death of Jesus Christ means that we must die to everything that was never a part of Him.
God is just in saving bad people only as He makes them good. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The atonement by the Cross of Christ is the propitiation God uses to make unholy people holy.
Key to Effective Prayer - Praying From the Heart
If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
I believe this truth applies to every kind of prayer. It is not good enough to just use eloquent words. There has to be heart behind them if you are going to realize results from your prayers.
I think only those things that burn brightly within our hearts truly touch the heart of God.
When I was young, I would go fishing with my cousins. At night, the bats would come out and my cousins would take a lure, and they would cast it up in the air. Every once in a great while one of the bats would hit the lure and get snagged.
I think when we pray, it is like casting lines up into the heavens. But it is only the prayers that come from our heart that ever hook onto anything in heaven.
Effective prayer comes from your heart.
Prayer must come from the heart. These verses in particular teach us that if a person is going to pray a prayer of salvation, the heart and the mouth must get together. It is not good enough to just have the words. Your heart and mouth must be in agreement. Today we will look at the third key to effective prayer. This key is found in Romans 10:9-10 where it says,
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Read: Revelation 3:14-22
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. - Revelation 3:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
In Hans Christian Andersen's story, "The Emperor's New Clothes," two men swindle a vain monarch by offering to clothe him in a garment so magnificent that it is not visible to stupid people. As they pantomime showing him the invisible garment, his pride prevents him from admitting that he can see nothing. He then parades through the streets while everyone pretends to admire the suit, unwilling to be thought stupid by admitting they can't see it. Finally a young child declares the truth, "But he has nothing on at all!"
The emperor's parade of triumph became a display of his vanity and humiliation. Misplaced priorities and perceptions still cause people to be unwilling to see the truth of a situation. This afflicted the church in Laodicea.
To begin, Jesus described Himself as the one who is faithful and true. He is the source of truth and proper perspective. In addition, He is "the ruler of God's creation" (v. 14). He had the authority to announce the warning and judgment upon this church. And what a warning it was: the situation in Laodicea made the Lord sick (v. 16). He was disgusted by the complacent, passive worship that desired to determine its own terms of devotion.
No mention is made that this church had rejected or compromised the truth of the gospel. Instead, the grievous failure had been to trust their own resources and judgments rather than seek the Lord. Laodicea was a wealthy city with banking and pharmaceutical centers. But all the money in the city wouldn't make the church spiritually rich; all the medicine wouldn't make them spiritually healthy. Their misplaced priorities and perspectives had left the church "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (v. 17).
The great mercy and love of God shines through in verse 19: this urgent plea, full of strong images of spewing this destitute church, was motivated by love. The Lord saw the true condition of the church, and He was unwilling to leave them in this dreadful condition without a call to repentance. If they would repent and recognize their complete dependence on Him, He promised spiritual victory and intimate fellowship (vv. 20-21).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have we identified worship with exquisite church buildings, lavish music ministries, well-coifed parishioners, or the growth of our personal standard of living? These are not condemned in this passage-but it is wrong to value them above hearing the Lord's voice. We measure spiritual health and wealth by His categories. In your prayer time, repent of any false priorities or perspectives in your life, and repent on behalf of churches who nauseate Christ with complacent, self-centered worship.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 8, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Opposition of the Natural
Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires -Galatians 5:24
The natural life itself is not sinful. But we must abandon sin, having nothing to do with it in any way whatsoever. Sin belongs to hell and to the devil. I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and to God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God's best. Once we come to understand that natural moral excellence opposes or counteracts surrender to God, we bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us would debate over what is filthy, evil, and wrong, but we do debate over what is good. It is the good that opposes the best. The higher up the scale of moral excellence a person goes, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ. "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh . . . ." The cost to your natural life is not just one or two things, but everything. Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. . ." (Matthew 16:24). That is, he must deny his right to himself, and he must realize who Jesus Christ is before he will bring himself to do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.
The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. There is no high or easy road. Each of us has the means to accomplish it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying, but of sacrificing, and thereby performing His will.
Key to Effective Prayer - Consistent with God's Will
In order for your prayers to be effective, they need to be in line with God's Word and will. That is the fourth key to effective prayer.
This means you must have knowledge of God's Word. In John 15:7, Jesus says,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
As Hebrews 4 reminds us, the Word of God is living and active and powerful. It is spirit; it is life. It's not just pages on a piece of paper. And as you are in the Word of God, I believe the Holy Spirit will paint heaven's pictures, heaven's thoughts, and heaven's ideas on the canvas of your heart and your mind.
As you read the Word of God, you will have confidence in your prayers because you will have God's heart. And when you have God's heart, He is going to answer your prayers because that is what He desires.
I also want to point you to 1 John 5:14 which says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
This means you and I need to know what the Bible says so that our prayers will be answered. Effective prayers are those that are in line with God's Word and will.
His will, of course, is His Word. So if you ask anything according to His Word, He will hear you. And if you know that He hears whatever you ask, you know you have the petitions you have asked of Him. If you abide in God and His words abide in you, your desires will line up with His will. How important it is for us to know the Word of God!
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Read: Revelation 4
You are worthy, our LORD and God, to receive glory and honor and power. - Revelation 4:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
The psalmist cried, "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze up on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple" (Ps. 27:4). If we are worshipers of the triune God, the Creator and Redeemer, we will indeed dwell in the house of the Lord, gazing on His beauty. Our passage today provides a glimpse of this worship.
Revelation transitions to a heavenly vision in chapters 4 and 5. This vision is bookended between the messages to the seven churches and the tribulation unleashed in chapter 6. This placement reminds us that no matter what is happening on earth, God is on His throne. Before describing the judgment that will come upon sin and death and Satan, Scripture establishes that God remains completely in control of the universe.
This description of the throne room of heaven resembles those from Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1. The throne of God was in the center, not just in heaven but of all reality. The imagery of precious gems, the rainbow, and the sea of glass conveyed the "appearance of the likeness of the glory of God" (Ezek. 1:28). Truly power and majesty flow from the throne of God, but also beauty and glory.
The four living creatures testified that the Lord God Almighty is "holy, holy, holy . . . who was, and is, and is to come" (v. 8, see Isa. 6:3). God is worthy of worship because He is perfectly holy and untainted with any hint of sin or darkness. He is perfectly powerful, able to accomplish His plan over the earth. He is eternal, and He is also involved with His creation-He has not forgotten His promises to redeem us.
Finally, we see that God is worthy of our worship because He is the Creator of all things. Notice that worship involves giving God thanks and praise (v. 9). It focuses on Him instead of our own accomplishments, seeing rightly the relationship between creature and Creator (v. 10). It recognizes who God is and what He has done (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Rather than simply reading about descriptions of worship, also spend time today praising and worshiping the Lord. Praise Him for who He is, using passages of Scripture if you'd like. Praise Him for what He has done, both His work of creation and His sustaining care in your own life. You might want to sing or listen to music that praises God, like the beautiful hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy" or the gospel song "High and Lifted Up" by Joe Pace.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 10, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Offering of the Natural
It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman -Galatians 4:22
Paul was not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural can be turned into the spiritual only through sacrifice. Without this a person will lead a divided life. Why did God demand that the natural must be sacrificed? God did not demand it. It is not God's perfect will, but His permissive will. God's perfect will was for the natural to be changed into the spiritual through obedience. Sin is what made it necessary for the natural to be sacrificed.
Abraham had to offer up Ishmael before he offered up Isaac (see Genesis 21:8-14). Some of us are trying to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God before we have sacrificed the natural. The only way we can offer a spiritual sacrifice to God is to "present [our] bodies a living sacrifice . . ." (Romans 12:1). Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost.
If we do not sacrifice the natural to the spiritual, the natural life will resist and defy the life of the Son of God in us and will produce continual turmoil. This is always the result of an undisciplined spiritual nature. We go wrong because we stubbornly refuse to discipline ourselves physically, morally, or mentally. We excuse ourselves by saying, "Well, I wasn't taught to be disciplined when I was a child." Then discipline yourself now! If you don't, you will ruin your entire personal life for God.
God is not actively involved with our natural life as long as we continue to pamper and gratify it. But once we are willing to put it out in the desert and are determined to keep it under control, God will be with it. He will then provide wells and oases and fulfill all His promises for the natural (see Genesis 21:15-19).
Key to Effective Prayer-Endurance
The next key to effective prayer is the need to be patient. You need to be willing to endure.
Hebrews 6:11-15 says,
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you." And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Do you realize that once God gave Abraham and Sarah the promise of having a child, it was 25 years before Isaac was born? There was some patient enduring that took place before they obtained the reality of God's promise in their lives. And so it must be with us.
Perhaps you have been praying for things in your life, and you are getting discouraged. You must remember that God does not always work things on our timetable. He works according to His.
I just want to encourage you today: Be patient. Patience is that long-lasting quality of your faith.
A number of years ago I heard one person say that faith is like your hand and patience is like your arm. When you exercise faith, it is like holding up your hand against the problem, and as you do, things are being worked out. But if you take your patience down, your faith comes down with it.
Patience is the thing that keeps your faith applied until the answer comes.
Patience is a critical key to effective prayer. Whatever you are praying for, patiently endure.
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Read: Revelation 5
Worthy is the Lamb . . . to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! - Revelation 5:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
The word worship comes from the old English word worth-ship, meaning to attribute worth or value to something, or to recognize the true worth or value of something. When we worship God, we are recognizing His worth and attributing worth and value to Him. But at this point we might pause: Does that mean that God depends on us, His creation, for His worth and value? Not at all! It is entirely the other way around-we completely depend on Him! Instead, as one commentator put it, "As Creator and Giver of all life, God is entitled to the praise of his creatures. This praise itself does not furnish him his power and glory, but it is their visible and audible reflection."
Our passage today continues our glimpse into the throne room of heaven. Yesterday we saw that God is worthy of our worship; today we see that the Lamb is also worthy of our worship.
Jesus was introduced in a way that should grab our attention: "See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah" was the announcement of the elder (v. 5). John looked to see the King, and instead saw the sacrifice-the Lamb (v. 6, see Gen. 49:9). He was both Lion and Lamb, both Ruler and Redeemer. The creatures who worshiped God also worshiped Jesus, evidence of His deity. He had been slain, evidence of His humanity.
Just as God was worshiped for His work of creation, the Lamb was worshiped for His work of redemption. He was declared worthy for His obedience to the Father in freeing us from sin and transforming people in rebellion against God into a "kingdom and priests to serve our God" (v. 10).
Before we move on in our study of Revelation, pause to let this scene sink into your soul. This is where the story starts and ends-God as Creator, the Lamb as Redeemer, and the response of praise and worship from all of creation. The song swells from every angel, every person, every created being: "Praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" (v. 13).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
During this season many choirs perform selections from Handel's Messiah. One majestic chorus is taken from today's reading, "Worthy is the Lamb." More contemporary songs, like those by Marvin Winans and Hillsong Church, are also based on this testimony of these verses. In anticipation of the eternal, resounding praise of all creation, listen to one of these songs and use this time to praise Jesus, the Lion, Lamb, and Redeemer, for who He is and what He has done.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 11, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Individuality
Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . .' -Matthew 16:24
Individuality is the hard outer layer surrounding the inner spiritual life. Individuality shoves others aside, separating and isolating people. We see it as the primary characteristic of a child, and rightly so. When we confuse individuality with the spiritual life, we remain isolated. This shell of individuality is God's created natural covering designed to protect the spiritual life. But our individuality must be yielded to God so that our spiritual life may be brought forth into fellowship with Him. Individuality counterfeits spirituality, just as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself, but individuality corrupts that human nature for its own purposes.
The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-will. We hinder our spiritual growth more than any other way by continually asserting our individuality. If you say, "I can't believe," it is because your individuality is blocking the way; individuality can never believe. But our spirit cannot help believing. Watch yourself closely when the Spirit of God is at work in you. He pushes you to the limits of your individuality where a choice must be made. The choice is either to say, "I will not surrender," or to surrender, breaking the hard shell of individuality, which allows the spiritual life to emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing (see Matthew 5:23-24). It is your individuality that refuses to "be reconciled to your brother" (Matthew 5:24). God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself, He cannot. ". . . let him deny himself . . ."- deny his independent right to himself. Then the real life-the spiritual life-is allowed the opportunity to grow.
Key to Effective Prayer-Humility
Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble." Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
Humility, more than anything else, is an attitude of the heart that says, "I recognize I am not self-sufficient. I am open, I am teachable, I am thankful. God, I am willing to bow my heart before You and confess that I am in utter need of Your assistance."
Contrary to what some people say and think, humility is not to be equated with lack of courage. In fact, it takes great courage for a person to admit they have need. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is a sign of strength.
King David said in Psalm 18:35, Your gentleness (or Your meekness) has made me great. Moses was called the meekest or the humblest man on the face of the earth, and yet we don't think of him as a weak person. He is one of the greatest leaders to ever step out of the pages of the Bible, and very few people in history have had power with God in the place of prayer like Moses did.
Jesus, our Savior, said, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart" (KJV). Friend, that ought to be one of the hallmark qualities of our lives- especially when we are praying. It is a key to effective prayer.
God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble. Humility is a very important key to effective prayer. In 1 Peter 5:5-6 we read this,
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Read: Revelation 6
How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? - Habakkuk 1:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Throughout Scripture, people have cried, "Where are you, God, in the face of evil?" The prophet Habakkuk lamented the prosperity of the wicked and the prevalence of injustice. He cried for God to deal with the destruction and violence that plagued the people (Hab. 1:3). The Lord declared that His justice would come: "It will certainly come and will not delay" (Hab. 2:3). In response to the word from God, Habakkuk prayed, "In wrath remember mercy. . . . I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength" (Hab. 3:2, 18-19).
In our passage today, we again hear the cry of God's people, "How long, Sovereign LORD, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" (v. 10). For the next few days, we'll consider the role of worship and praise during times of suffering and God's judgment.
Yesterday we saw that the Lamb was proclaimed worthy of worship, and He was given the scroll sealed with seven seals. Today we read that the Lamb was also proclaimed worthy to judge, and He began to open the seals and unleash judgment on the earth. What followed was terrible: war and injustice and death and natural disasters marched out, creating havoc and leaving people to despair for their future.
Notice the contrasting response of two groups of people in our reading. First, the martyrs, those who suffered and died for the sake of their testimony for Christ, cried out for justice. This was not the angry, defiant, fist-waving demand for God to show up. Rather, the martyrs knew that the Lamb was worthy to judge, and they asked the Sovereign God to be true to His character. They cried out from a place of worship-under the altar (v. 9). They received assurance that justice would come, and they were cared for and protected.
In contrast, the rich and powerful kings and generals discovered that their wealth and power could not save them. They sought their own destruction rather than face the judgment of God (v. 16). They asked the rocks to crush them, rather than stand securely on the Rock of Ages.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The Lord's judgment is sure-how will you respond? Will you choose despair, or will you be in a place of worship, acknowledging His sovereignty and faithfulness? Evil and injustice flourish in the world today. Will you conclude that God is absent, or will you worship the true Savior who does not ignore or forget the suffering of His people? Whether it is the season of evil or the season of judgment, it is time to praise and worship the Lamb who is worthy.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 12, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Personality
. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . -John 17:22
Personality is the unique, limitless part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. It is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island in the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island. We don't know the great depths of our being, therefore we cannot measure ourselves. We start out thinking we can, but soon realize that there is really only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator.
Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality is the characteristic of the outer, natural man. Our Lord can never be described in terms of individuality and independence, but only in terms of His total Person- "I and My Father are one" (John 10:30). Personality merges, and you only reach your true identity once you are merged with another person. When love or the Spirit of God come upon a person, he is transformed. He will then no longer insist on maintaining his individuality. Our Lord never referred to a person's individuality or his isolated position, but spoke in terms of the total person- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . ." Once your rights to yourself are surrendered to God, your true personal nature begins responding to God immediately. Jesus Christ brings freedom to your total person, and even your individuality is transformed. The transformation is brought about by love- personal devotion to Jesus. Love is the overflowing result of one person in true fellowship with another.
Key to Effective Prayer-Forgiveness
An important key to effective prayer is your relationship with others. In Mark 11:24-26 Jesus says,
"Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."
Pretty strong, isn't it? Jesus cited unforgiveness as the number one reason for unanswered prayer. If my prayers were not being answered, this would be the first place I would look-into my own heart, to see whether I had allowed bitterness toward another human being to reside there. Whether I was harboring a grudge or had strife in my heart toward anyone else.
Jesus said if you have anything against anyone, anything-big or small, new or old-or anyone-yourself, your husband, your wife, a family member, a loved one, a neighbor, a co-worker, a relative, an enemy-if you have anything against anyone, it will lead to unanswered prayer.
Sometimes people hold things against themselves. They do not forgive themselves, even after God has forgiven them and after others have forgiven them. They just want to whip themselves for their stupidity for falling into the same stupid sin again, or for whatever they have done, and they don't release themselves!
There are others too, including those closest to us, whom we must forgive. If your prayers are not being answered, then look there.
Perhaps you have searched the Scriptures, filled your heart with the Word, you are praying from the bottom of your heart, and you are expectant of answers; but before you can partake of the fruit of your prayers, you must forgive if you have anything against anyone!
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Read: Revelation 7
Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! - John 12:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
In John 12, we find the account of Jesus anointed at Bethany-an action He described as a preparation for His burial-and Jesus' prediction of His death. In between these two events is the description of His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, an interlude in the unfolding story of Jesus' crucifixion in judgment for the sins of the world. As He rode into the city, the crowd waved palm branches and shouted, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!" (John 12:13).
We see a similar pause for praise in our reading today. In between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals, the narrative is interrupted to describe worship of the Lamb who is able to save.
John saw one of the greatest depictions of the relationship between the Lord and His people. An innumerable gathering of people "from every nation, tribe, people and language" stood before the throne of God and the Lamb. With palm branches in their hands, they shouted, "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (vv. 9-10).
The scene echoes the earlier recounting of heavenly worship in chapters 4 and 5. The praise of the multitude was joined by the adoration of the angels, elders, and living creatures: "Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" (v. 12). While God was shaking the foundations of creation, His people recognized that it was time to praise Him.
This worship was possible only because of what Jesus had done; the white robes clothing the multitude existed only because they had been dipped in the blood of the Lamb (v. 14). After the tribulation, those who have identified with Jesus will find that God will supply all their needs out of His great riches (see Phil. 4:19). They will be protected from hunger, thirst, and affliction. The Lamb will lead them to living water. God will tenderly comfort them and eliminate any sorrow or pain. And they will have full communion with God around His throne, worshiping the Lamb who is able to save.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Especially in this season, we can be tempted to forget to pause. Advent should help us think about what God is doing around us and respond to Him with praise and worship. On this third Sunday of Advent, take a break from the hustle and bustle of shopping or baking or decorating or working and pause to worship the Lamb who has saved you. Praise Him for your eternal salvation as well as His protection and comfort today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 13, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intercessory Prayer
. . . men always ought to pray and not lose heart -Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to "fill up . . . [with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Colossians 1:24), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, "It is putting yourself in someone else's place." That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God's place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can't pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply "patched up." We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
Key to Effective Prayer - Being Connected
In John 15:5, Jesus says,
"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."
In John 15:16, Jesus goes on to say,
"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you."
But if something happens and the branch is not solidly connected to the tree, it will probably not bear any fruit at all. There may be a few leaves, but the blossoms won't come and there won't be any fruit. The blossoms and healthy fruit will only come if the branch is fully connected.
God wants us connected to Him in every part of our lives. When that happens, our prayers will be in line with His desires, and we can be confident that He will answer.
If we are connected to God and we abide in Him, Jesus says we will bear much fruit-prayer fruit. Think about a fruit tree for a moment. The leaves come out because the branches are attached to the tree. In the spring the branch will blossom, and from those blossoms comes the fruit. God wants every part of our life to be connected to Him. And He tells us that as that happens, as we have our lives connected with Him, we bear much fruit. A few verses later Jesus directly connected that fruit to prayer. Yesterday we found that the first key to effective prayer is the need to be specific when we pray. Today, I want to show you the second key: The need to have a close relationship with God.
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Read: Revelation 8
May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. - Psalm 141:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
The nature of the relationship between God and His people through prayer has fascinated Christian philosophers and scholars. Dismissing the idea that prayer works like a spiritual vending machine, forcing God to give us what we want if we push the right buttons, Søren Kierkegaard said, "The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."
We know that Christians should follow the exhortations to pray (see 1 Thess. 5:17). And we know that prayer is not intended to manipulate God into giving us our own way, but rather to conform us to His will (Matt. 6:10). But we also need to reflect on God's perspective toward our prayers. Our passage today reveals that we worship a God who hears and delights in the prayers of His people.
Today's reading opens with a surprising account of silence in heaven. The Old Testament prophets help us to understand what this silence means: "The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him" (Hab. 2:20, see Zeph. 1:7; Zech. 2:13). This silence was not the quiet of peaceful rest, but rather the ominous stillness before the holy Judge of the universe.
Next, an angel went to the heavenly golden altar to prepare incense. This alludes to the altar of the Lord in the tabernacle and temple (see Ex. 37:25; Lev. 16:18). The priests had been commanded to offer incense on this altar morning and night (Ex. 30:7). Other special offerings were also designated for the altar of the Lord (see Leviticus 2). All of these provided a sweet aroma to the Lord. Now in Revelation 8, we see that incense was mixed with "the prayers of all the saints" (v. 3). When God's people offer Him the worship of their prayer, it is beautiful and pleasing to God. Prayer doesn't just transform us-it also delights the Lord as the sweet aroma of incense.
After this pause of silence and prayer, the terrible judgment of the trumpets was unleashed on the earth. This juxtaposition reminds us that our God both savors the prayers of His people and sends judgment on those who defy Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The image of the priests offering incense on the golden altar can shape our prayer life. First, we should set regular, dedicated times for prayer. Second, just as the incense wafted before God throughout the day, we should be in a continual relationship with God to converse with Him in prayer. Third, we should remember that our prayers matter-they shape us more into the image of Christ, and they also bring delight and joy to God. Worship Him through your offering of prayer today!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 14, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Great Life
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled . . . -John 14:27
Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. But as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight to us. As long as we try to serve two masters, ourselves and God, there will be difficulties combined with doubt and confusion. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit for our own purposes.
God's mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace; not a natural peace, "as the world gives," but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, wait until it does, or seek to find out why it is not coming. If you are acting on your own impulse, or out of a sense of the heroic, to be seen by others, the peace of Jesus will not exhibit itself. This shows no unity with God or confidence in Him. The spirit of simplicity, clarity, and unity is born through the Holy Spirit, not through your decisions. God counters our self-willed decisions with an appeal for simplicity and unity.
My questions arise whenever I cease to obey. When I do obey God, problems come, not between me and God, but as a means to keep my mind examining with amazement the revealed truth of God. But any problem that comes between God and myself is the result of disobedience. Any problem that comes while I obey God (and there will be many), increases my overjoyed delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems.
Hindered Prayers
1 Peter 3:7 says,
Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
Notice it says, "Husbands, likewise," which means, gals, you are not off the hook. The following truth applies to you as much as it does to the boys.
That truth is simply this: If there is bitterness or unforgiveness in your heart toward your spouse, your prayers will be hindered. That word hindered literally means to be cut down in the same way one would cut down a tree.
I once had this incredible tree called a cherimoya tree. One of the things about a cherimoya tree is that it is not indigenous to our country, and the insects that pollinate it do not exist here.
In order for the tree to bear fruit, I needed to pollinate it by hand with my little artist paintbrush. I would get pollen on the brush from one flower and pollinate other flowers.
Eventually the little buds I had pollinated began to turn into fruit. I was so excited! They were getting close to the time to be harvested. Then I came home one afternoon to find my whole tree hacked to pieces. Every branch and piece of fruit was in the trash. The gardener had cut my tree down!
I believe that can happen with our prayers. You can be intensely committed spiritually, searching the Scriptures, filling your heart with the Word, praying from the bottom of your heart, but if you are not honoring your spouse or you are treating them in a bad way, the devil has the authority to waltz right in and chop your prayer tree down.
Let's keep the ax out of the devil's hand by honoring and forgiving and valuing our marriage partner.
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Read: Revelation 9
During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them. - Revelation 9:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jonathan Edwards's sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is the most famous sermon from the Great Awakening revival. After detailing God's present and future judgment of the wicked, Edwards concluded the sermon with these words: "Therefore let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come." The wrath to come is outlined in our reading today. We've examined descriptions of the worship of God by saints and angels, but today we see what happens to those who refuse to worship a holy and loving God.
The end of our passage today details the natural disasters that resulted from the judgments of the trumpets (8:6-12). After four trumpets, an eagle announced: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!" (8:13). The next trumpets would directly afflict the people who had chosen rebellion against God. They had not repented after the disasters from the first four trumpets, and now they would personally experience the consequences of their sin.
Notice first what emerged from the Abyss. The torment of the locusts echoes the plague in Exodus 10. But whereas those locusts were insects that devoured all the remaining vegetation (Ex. 10:5), these were demonic locusts that spare the plant life but afflicted all those who had rejected God (see Joel 2:1-11). Some like to imagine that hell is a place for the wicked to party. In reality, the torments from hell are so severe that people would prefer death (see Luke 16:23).
Next, God had sovereignly appointed this judgment. The four angels released to kill a third of mankind "had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year" (v. 15). The Lord is not surprised by man's rebellion and disbelief, and He will surely accomplish His judgment.
Finally, note the tragic conclusion to our passage. After natural disasters, pain from demonic locusts and devastation of war, the remaining people still did not repent. They persisted in their idolatry and sin (vv. 20-21). They insisted on worshiping demons rather than the sovereign Lord.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If we have trusted in the saving person and work of Jesus Christ, we will be spared the terrors of this judgment (v. 4, see Joel 2:12-14). But this passage should motivate us to share the gospel with our loved ones who do not yet believe in Jesus. Perhaps you can use this Christmas season as a time to introduce the gospel to friends and family. Invite them to Christmas services or musical concerts at your church, or host a social gathering in your home designed to talk about the meaning of Christmas.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 15, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Approved to God"
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth -2 Timothy 2:15
If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don't, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God's winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God's truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God's wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, "I'm not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I'll just borrow my words from someone else," then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.
Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn't know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.
The Power to Forgive
But forgiveness is not an option for you and me as followers of Jesus Christ.
Forgiveness is an act of the will. You can forgive. In fact, Jesus said that we even need to love our enemies, those who may not want peace with us.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:44,
"Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
Once you have forgiven someone, it can still affect your emotions. I like what Corrie ten Boom shared. She went through several sleepless weeks over something that someone had done to her. She tried to forgive the person; but, still, when she would think about it, she would respond emotionally.
When she shared this with her pastor, he had her look up at the bell tower of the church. He reminded her that the bell would continue to ring even after the person ringing it had let go of the rope. But given a little time, the bell would slow down until it was silent.
It may take time for your emotions to settle even when you have let go of the rope. Just let go of the rope and forgive. You can do it!
When you and I embrace salvation through Jesus Christ, that same love of God is poured out in our hearts. (See Romans 5:1 and 5). As a result, we can forgive those who have wronged us. How can you do that? Because God has done the same thing for you. In Romans 5:10 it says, There are times when we need to forgive someone for something they have done. On occasion it can seem so difficult...almost impossible.
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Read: Revelation 10
Before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. - Jeremiah 1:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
The call to be a prophet of the Lord was not usually followed by fame and fortune. Instead, prophets were asked to be public laughingstocks (Jeremiah and Ezekiel), suffer devastating loss in their personal lives (Hosea and Ezekiel), and challenge powerful rulers (Nathan and Micaiah), all in service to the Lord and His word. No wonder Jonah tried to run the other way when God called him to ministry!
We might expect our reading to begin with the blast from the seventh trumpet. Instead, just as the pause after the opening of the sixth seal, there is an interlude after the sixth trumpet. We should beware of feeling like we want God to hurry up and finish His plan-He often has something important for us in the time of waiting. In this passage the continued mercy and judgment of God was manifested in the commissioning of John as a prophet.
Interestingly, the first command given to John in this text was not to write. The seven thunders spoke in response to the roar of the mighty angel, and John prepared to transcribe the message. God halted him: "Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down" (v. 4). We can never presume to know the things God has chosen not to reveal (see Deut. 29:29).
Next, the angel attributed the authority to judge to the God of creation. In the midst of mystery, judgment, prophecy, and uncertainty, the one constant is our eternal God, who has created all things in heaven and earth and sea (v. 6). He knows the message of the seven thunders. He knows the time of the seventh trumpet. He knows the beginning and the end. He alone is trustworthy and all-powerful to accomplish His will.
We saw John commissioned to record this vision from Jesus Christ (see Rev. 1:9-11). Now we see John commissioned to the role of a prophet. Like the prophet Ezekiel, he was commanded to eat the scroll that was sweet in his mouth (v. 9; Ezek. 3:1-3). Now John was prepared for his prophetic mission to "prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings" (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Those who follow God's call into Christian ministry often face significant physical and spiritual challenges. Some pastors are lonely and underpaid. Missionaries encounter disease or persecution. Youth leaders and teachers struggle with burnout and apathy. Pray for the Christian leaders in your life, for God to strengthen and encourage them. During this Christmas season, make a special effort to express your appreciation through a letter or gift and a commitment to pray regularly for them.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 16, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Wrestling Before God
Take up the whole armor of God . . . praying always . . . -Ephesians 6:13,18
You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn't meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint (see Genesis 32:24-25). Don't become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." (Romans 8:37). Wrestling before God makes an impact in His kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness- "take up the whole armor of God . . . ."
Always make a distinction between God's perfect will and His permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our lives. God's perfect will is unchangeable. It is with His permissive will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must wrestle before Him. It is our reaction to these things allowed by His permissive will that enables us to come to the point of seeing His perfect will for us. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . ." (Romans 8:28)- to those who remain true to God's perfect will- His calling in Christ Jesus. God's permissive will is the testing He uses to reveal His true sons and daughters. We should not be spineless and automatically say, "Yes, it is the Lord's will." We don't have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength.
Do You Really Believe It?
Ephesians 2:4-7 says,
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
There was a time in my wife's life when nothing was going right. It was before we were married while she was attending Bible school. Things were so bad that she was ready to drop out, and she wondered where God was in her life.
It was then that she attended a seminar where a woman was teaching on this passage. As my wife read this, and heard it taught, she saw that God loved her in an amazing way. That He loves everybody so much He sent Jesus Christ, so that He could make us a showpiece of His great love.
She realized He wanted to make her life beautiful and full. He wanted to make it good. He wanted to do things in her life so that she would be a showpiece for Him, and other people would look and say, "What is it about you?" and she could tell them that God made the difference in her life. Since that truth dawned on Janet's heart, she has never been the same.
1 John 4:16 says,
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.
Do you really believe that God loves you and has good things in store for you? You have heard about God's love, but do you really know it? Are you really believing the love that God has for you?
Well He does love you, and when you believe it, you will never be the same!
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Read: Revelation 11:1-14
The survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God in heaven. - Revelation 11:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
When a man wishes to propose marriage to the woman he loves, typically he will first spend time searching for the perfect ring to offer her as the symbol of his love. He will become familiar with measurements like the carat weight of a diamond, the karat count of gold bands, the types of gemstone cuts, and the way that jewelers calculate a gem's clarity. He cares about these measurements because he cares about this symbol of his relationship with the woman he desires to be his wife.
John's first assignment as a prophet mirrors a task assigned to the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah: he was to measure the temple of God (v. 1; see Ezekiel 40; Zech. 2:1-2). The temple represented God's relationship with His people, particularly His love and faithfulness and covenant with them. Most significantly, the temple represented God's presence with His people. Unlike the earlier prophets, John was also instructed to count the worshipers at the altar, those who are faithful to God. In this time of judgment against unbelievers, God still cared for His people.
Next, John described the world's response to God's prophets. These two witnesses performed their prophetic task in the context of great hostility, attacked by the beast from the Abyss and assaulted by unbelievers who hated the message and the messenger from God (vv. 5-7). Despite physical and spiritual opposition, God protects His people. Notice that this protection does not preclude death-the two witnesses were indeed killed, their demise a cause for sinners to gloat in triumph. But their death was not the end of the story: God raised them from the dead, and coincided their call up into glory with His judgment sent down to earth (v. 11).
The role of the prophet is to faithfully proclaim the message of God to people. Sometimes people will hear the word and repent (see Jonah 3:5). Other times, people refuse to hear the word and they receive judgment (see Nahum 1:14). Either way, God will receive the glory-the resistance of rebellious sinners cannot last forever (Phil. 2:10-11). Ultimately, every created being will give worship to God (v. 13).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How much better to offer that worship as a sacrifice of obedience than after the experience of righteous judgment! Either way, ultimately we will give glory to God. The question before us is whether we will obey God and experience the love and protection of a relationship with Him, or whether we will shake our fists in defiance and endure the day of His wrath. If you are facing opposition in your life today, pray to know God's continued loving protection for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 17, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Redemption- Creating the Need it Satisfies
The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him . . . -1 Corinthians 2:14
The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel. Is the gospel hidden to those who are servants already? No, Paul said, "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe . . ." (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). The majority of people think of themselves as being completely moral, and have no sense of need for the gospel. It is God who creates this sense of need in a human being, but that person remains totally unaware of his need until God makes Himself evident. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7). But God cannot give until a man asks. It is not that He wants to withhold something from us, but that is the plan He has established for the way of redemption. Through our asking, God puts His process in motion, creating something in us that was nonexistent until we asked. The inner reality of redemption is that it creates all the time. And as redemption creates the life of God in us, it also creates the things which belong to that life. The only thing that can possibly satisfy the need is what created the need. This is the meaning of redemption- it creates and it satisfies.
Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32). When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it awakens no real sense of need. But once Jesus Christ is "lifted up," the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him. The creative power of the redemption of God works in the souls of men only through the preaching of the gospel. It is never the sharing of personal experiences that saves people, but the truth of redemption. "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).
The Reality of the Battle
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Conflict with the enemy is unavoidable. These verses make that eminently clear. There will be a battle if you are part of God's family. We do have a spiritual adversary.
The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:8-9,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
We do have an enemy and we are involved in a spiritual battle. But don't you think if you knew when the devil was going to attack you, that it might give you a bit of an advantage? Well, over the next few devotionals I want to share with you three times that the devil is very likely to bring the battle to your front door.
We are going to find that as we look at the life of Jesus, this pattern was in His life. There were three times that the devil in particular brought the battle to His front door, as it were. And I believe we can expect spiritual battle at the same three times in our lives.
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Read: Revelation 11:15-19
The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our LORD and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever. - Revelation 11:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
A pernicious lie has circulated for centuries about the God of the Bible. This lie asserts that the God of the Old Testament was a God of wrath, but the God of the New Testament is a God of love. As Christians, we firmly reject this notion that describes God the Father as vengeful and angry and God the Son as meek and mild. Our God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-is the same in all of Scripture. We see this most clearly in the Cross, when both love and judgment met as Jesus offered His life to atone for our sins.
We see another example in our reading today. The seventh trumpet had sounded, and if we've been paying attention we should be holding our breath or peeking through our fingers in terror at what will surely be a devastating judgment on the rebellious sinners. Yet, instead of hearing of natural and spiritual disasters and the death toll of the ungodly, we first hear a resounding chorus of worship.
We learn something important about how to worship God from this passage. The scene should cause us to go back to the introduction of the heavenly scene in Revelation 4 and 5. The Lamb was introduced as the one worthy to open the scroll. He had opened each seal, and each trumpet had sounded. Thus the refrain of praise signaled that the Lamb had completed the work that He alone could do, and at that point the world had been brought under His authority (v. 15).
The twenty-four elders were introduced earlier, and now we hear their worship again. They first praised God for His eternal nature (v. 17). Second, they asserted His power and authority to reign over the whole earth. Next, they connected His judgment with His love and faithfulness (v. 18). God had heard the cry of His people, His "servants and the prophets and your saints and those who reverence" His name. His love for them was unfailing, because His holiness is unending.
This love is intimately connected with His judgment. When the ark of His covenant in heaven was revealed-signaling the Presence of God-it was a place where love and judgment met.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Praise the Lord that His character is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Praise the Lord that He will never forget you-He rewards those who reverence His name! Praise the Lord that Jesus is a worthy sacrifice for sins and that all the world will be subject to Him! Praise the Lord that His love and judgment meet, making possible your eternal salvation and relationship with Him! If you need additional words for praise, read through the passage again as your own testimony of praise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 18, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Test of Faithfulness
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28
It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith- the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.
Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don't ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.
The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.
Where Satan Will Attack First
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.
It was the devil who was behind King Herod commanding that all of the male children two years old and younger be slaughtered. It was only because Joseph was warned by God in a dream that he, Mary, and Jesus escaped from Herod's clutches.
What I want you to see here is that the battle came to Jesus as soon as He was born. And I think we should expect battle as soon as a person is born again, as soon as someone comes into God's family.
The child in this passage is the Lord Jesus Christ, the woman represents the nation of Israel, and the dragon that wanted to devour the Child as soon as He was born is our adversary the devil. Yesterday we began a series of devotionals looking at when we can expect Satan to attack us. Revelation 12:1-5 provides insight into the first time he will attack,
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Read: Revelation 12
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. - Revelation 12:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
Adventure stories are a genre as old as story-telling itself. Homer'sIliad and Odyssey, two of the earliest recorded tales, recount exciting battles, conflict between gods and mortals, intrigue and deception, and the fate of kingdoms hanging on the prowess of a warrior.
Our passage today is a thrilling adventure story-but this is no fiction. And the stakes of this battle exceed any imagined by the most gifted author. The fate of the world for all eternity hangs on the outcome.
The true nature of Satan is spelled out in these verses; note the descriptions of his person and deeds. He desired to devour the Child, the source of salvation (v. 4). He was the accuser, continually bringing allegations against believers (v. 10). He was filled with fury and made war against God's people (v. 17). All of Satan's character and works opposed God; He was in complete contrast to the faithful God who loves and protects His people.
In the next few chapters we'll see more details of this war between Satan and God, and we'll be introduced to other insidious, evil characters. But even as Satan's evil persecution persisted, note the instruction to remain faithful to our Savior. Scripture does not deny that the affliction and temptation of the Devil is real (see the book of Job). He is the father of lies (John 8:44), the accuser of the righteous. But he does not have ultimate power!
Even as spiritual warfare between the angels and demons rages, we see the key to our faithful stand against the wiles of the Devil. We hold fast to the "blood of the Lamb"-the saving work of Jesus that atoned for our sins and freed us from bondage to Satan. Our hope is in what Jesus has accomplished, the Lamb who has all the authority and power.
Second, we remember the "word of their testimony"-the ongoing work of God that demonstrates His love and protection. Recounting what God has done for us keeps us from falling prey to Satan's temptations. Our testimony keeps us focused on God, and also encourages others to stand firm as well.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you have a testimony of God's love and protection in your life? If you are alive and reading this, the answer is yes! Each day that God grants us life and a reasonable portion of health and strength is an example of His provision. Additionally, He might have met a physical or spiritual need in your life in a way that was clearly a demonstration of His love. As part of your worship, share your testimony with someone, not only to encourage them but also to keep your focus on God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 19, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Focus Of Our Message
I did not come to bring peace but a sword -Matthew 10:34
Never be sympathetic with a person whose situation causes you to conclude that God is dealing harshly with him. God can be more tender than we can conceive, and every once in a while He gives us the opportunity to deal firmly with someone so that He may be viewed as the tender One. If a person cannot go to God, it is because he has something secret which he does not intend to give up- he may admit his sin, but would no more give up that thing than he could fly under his own power. It is impossible to deal sympathetically with people like that. We must reach down deep in their lives to the root of the problem, which will cause hostility and resentment toward the message. People want the blessing of God, but they can't stand something that pierces right through to the heart of the matter.
If you are sensitive to God's way, your message as His servant will be merciless and insistent, cutting to the very root. Otherwise, there will be no healing. We must drive the message home so forcefully that a person cannot possibly hide, but must apply its truth. Deal with people where they are, until they begin to realize their true need. Then hold high the standard of Jesus for their lives. Their response may be, "We can never be that." Then drive it home with, "Jesus Christ says you must." "But how can we be?" "You can't, unless you have a new Spirit" (see Luke 11:13).
There must be a sense of need created before your message is of any use. Thousands of people in this world profess to be happy without God. But if we could be truly happy and moral without Jesus, then why did He come? He came because that kind of happiness and peace is only superficial. Jesus Christ came to "bring . . . a sword" through every kind of peace that is not based on a personal relationship with Himself.
The Holy Spirit's Help
In John 16, Jesus is talking to His disciples, and He is trying to prepare them and let them know that He is going away. In John 16:7 He tells them,
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."
Do you know who the Helper is? It is the Holy Spirit. Earlier in John 14:26 he had told His disciples this,
"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."
The Helper, the Holy Spirit, has been sent to come alongside and teach us all things. He will teach you how to pray; He will teach you things about prayer. The Holy Spirit will help you in that way.
Then He said, "[He will] bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." The Holy Spirit will help us remember the promises. The things that God has taught us He will bring to our remembrance, so we can pray effectively.
The Holy Spirit is like having a personal assistant. A personal assistant will help you remember your appointments or show you something you do not know. Every moment of every day He is there for us.
Take time to praise God today for His provision of the Holy Spirit. And remember He is there to help you in prayer.
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Read: Revelation 13
This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints. - Revelation 13:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
After God miraculously rescued Peter from Herod's fortress, Scripture underscores that God had authority and power. Herod went on vacation to Caesarea, where people from Tyre and Sidon approached him begging for peace because they depended on him for their food supply. Herod delivered a public address, and the groveling people declared: "This is the voice of a god, not a man!" Herod accepted their flattery, and because he did not direct the praise toward God, "an angel of the LORD struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died" (Acts 12:19-25).
People are willing to direct false worship toward religious and political leaders rather than God. In our passage today we see the demonstration of this false worship and its deadly consequences.
Notice the words the people proclaimed regarding Satan's deputy, the Beast: "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?" (v. 4). We know the end of the story and so know the answers to these questions, but they are startling in their similarity to the praise directed toward God (see Ps. 76:7; Mal. 3:2). Rather than acknowledge the true God, people turned to these false political and religious leaders-empowered by Satan-and attributed worship to them.
Next, notice that true and false worshipers are distinguished by their marks. God's redeemed people had their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life (v. 8). Those who worshiped the Beast received his mark, the number of his name (v. 17). This mark allowed people to participate in the economy and presumably pursue a "normal" life. But true wealth doesn't come from buying and selling, and only the mark of your name written in the Book of Life ensures salvation.
The worship called for in this passage is shown by "patient endurance and faithfulness" (v. 10). God knows about tribulation and trials. He knows Satan makes war against His people. He urges His people to be faithful, for suffering and death cannot remove a name from the Book of Life. Even when evil seems the most powerful, we worship by faithfully obeying the Lord.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We generally prefer worship of joyful exuberance instead of faithful endurance. But we will encounter both seasons in our lives, and the Lord asks us to remain faithful to Him no matter what sorrows or successes we encounter. If you are tempted to worship the false gods of our culture-lying to get ahead at work, cheating on your spouse, believing salvation comes from political leaders-re-orient your worship toward God alone. We might not achieve material success, but we have eternal salvation!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 20, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Right Kind of Help
And I, if I am lifted up . . . will draw all peoples to Myself -John 12:32
Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but major surgery.
When you find yourself face to face with a person who is spiritually lost, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the cross. If that person can get to God in any other way, then the Cross of Christ is unnecessary. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way- not in a human way that ignores God. The theme of the world's religion today is to serve in a pleasant, non-confrontational manner.
But our only priority must be to present Jesus Christ crucified- to lift Him up all the time (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). Every belief that is not firmly rooted in the Cross of Christ will lead people astray. If the worker himself believes in Jesus Christ and is trusting in the reality of redemption, his words will be compelling to others. What is extremely important is for the worker's simple relationship with Jesus Christ to be strong and growing. His usefulness to God depends on that, and that alone.
The calling of a New Testament worker is to expose sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Savior. Consequently, he cannot always be charming and friendly, but must be willing to be stern to accomplish major surgery. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful speeches. We must be willing to examine others as deeply as God has examined us. We must also be sharply intent on sensing those Scripture passages that will drive the truth home, and then not be afraid to apply them.
Forgiveness
An important key to effective prayer is your relationship with others. In Mark 11:24-26 Jesus says,
"Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."
Pretty strong, isn't it? Jesus cited unforgiveness as the number one reason for unanswered prayer. If my prayers were not being answered, this would be the first place I would look-into my own heart, to see whether I had allowed bitterness toward another human being to reside there. Whether I was harboring a grudge or had strife in my heart toward anyone else.
Jesus said if you have anything against anyone, anything-big or small, new or old-or anyone-yourself, your husband, your wife, a family member, a loved one, a neighbor, a co-worker, a relative, an enemy-if you have anything against anyone, it will lead to unanswered prayer.
Sometimes people hold things against themselves. They do not forgive themselves, even after God has forgiven them and after others have forgiven them. They just want to whip themselves for their stupidity for falling into the same stupid sin again, or for whatever they have done, and they don't release themselves!
There are others too, including those closest to us, whom we must forgive. If your prayers are not being answered, then look there.
Perhaps you have searched the Scriptures, filled your heart with the Word, you are praying from the bottom of your heart, and you are expectant of answers; but before you can partake of the fruit of your prayers, you must forgive if you have anything against anyone!
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Read: Revelation 14
Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. - Revelation 14:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
After his dramatic demonstration of God's power on Mount Carmel, in the very next chapter the prophet Elijah was cowering under a broom tree in the desert. Elijah complained to God, "The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." The Lord instructed him for his future ministry-and also assured him that he was not alone, for seven thousand people in Israel had not worshiped Baal (1 Kings 19).
After our reading yesterday, we might feel a bit like Elijah. It seemed that the whole world had turned to worship the Beast and evil ran rampant. As if to reassure us, the next picture in the book is the Lamb with 144,000 who were not marked by the Beast but who instead bore the name of God (v. 1). Yesterday we saw that the worship of faithful endurance is the right response to evil. Today we see that worship is also the right response to God's righteous judgment.
Thank God that Revelation 13 is not the end of the story! Right as Satan and the Beast and evil seem to be taking over the world, Scripture reminds us that the Lamb is worshiped, and God's judgment is sure.
The sequence of the three angels is interesting: the first angel proclaimed the gospel and instructed everyone to worship God our Creator and Judge (v. 7). The second angel announced the fall of Babylon the great, and the third angel extended the announcement of judgment to include all those who accepted the mark of the Beast (vv. 8-11). Whereas the Beast had tormented the people of God, now those who offered false worship to the Beast would find that their identity with him resulted in everlasting torment.
In contrast to their suffering, those who followed Jesus found rest and peace, even in death (v. 13, see Heb. 4:1-11). This should inspire renewed endurance, obedience, and faithfulness for the sake of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We are in the final week before Christmas. Many gods and idols and cultural values tempt us to turn our focus from the Lord at this time-they offer security, comfort, possessions, or merriment for our worship instead. To keep your worship directed toward God, be inspired by the 144,000 and sing songs of praise today. You could gather friends and family to sing Christmas carols together. You could also seek out a new Christmas song to learn or listen to for your time of praise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 21, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Experience or God's Revealed Truth?
We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God -1 Corinthians 2:12
My experience is not what makes redemption real- redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth- Jesus Christ.
If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, "I do not care what I experience- I am sure of Him!"
Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God's revealed truth is the only faith there is.
You Made it This Far!
In the last couple of devotionals, we saw how the devil will attack a new babe in Christ. Hebrews 10:32 sheds some additional light on what we can expect,
But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings.
When it says, after you were illuminated, it literally means, "After you came to the light." This verse is talking about when the light of the
Gospel dawned on you, when you were saved.
And what does it say? You need to recall, to remember, that after you came to Christ, you endured. You went through some battles.
I think we need to remember that. In fact, let me just encourage you today. The fact that you are reading this devotional today says something about you. Did you know there are a lot of people who were saved at the same time you were, but they are not seeking God today?
You made it through the battle! You stood fast. You might feel like you are pretty rickety and ready to keel over, but you are still seeking God! If the devil could get you, he would have gotten you already.
By God's grace you made it this far. Now is no time to quit!
Getting Established in the Faith
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Read: Revelation 15
For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. - Psalm 86:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The escape of Israel from Egypt and Pharaoh featured powerful plagues and miraculous rescues. After the final plague of the death of the firstborn, Pharaoh granted Israel permission to leave. But he quickly changed his mind, sending his army out in pursuit. Trapped between Pharaoh's mighty army and the Red Sea, Israel witnessed a miracle of both salvation and judgment-God parted the Red Sea for them to cross and then closed it over the army of Pharaoh. In response, Moses and Miriam led the people of Israel in an extended hymn of praise (Exodus 15).
Their praise foreshadowed the scene of praise in our passage today. Heaven celebrated the triumph of God, which included His salvation and His judgment.
First, note that God's wrath is sure, and it will also be completed-the angels were tasked with pouring out the seven last plagues (vv. 1, 8). Wrath is not part of His character; instead, it is His work of judgment because of His holiness. That work will be done one day and His holiness will be satisfied, yet His love will extend forever.
Next, we see how to praise the Lord for His works of salvation and judgment. His deeds are "great and marvelous" and "just and true" (v. 3). Recognizing the works of God enables us to see reality; our understanding of truth and justice should be shaped by the way that God works in the world. When we recognize and praise His work, we are aligning our own character with His.
Finally, when we praise the Lord now we are getting a head start on the eternal praise for the Creator by all of creation. One day "all nations will come and worship" God for His righteous acts (v. 4). Like the Israelites after the crossing of the Red Sea, any time we exalt the Lord for what He is doing in our lives we are anticipating the praise of heaven. In this way, our praise even on earth connects us to the reality of the praise in heaven-our praise is a spiritual act that identifies us with God and His character and His works.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When we worship God, we are both recognizing what He has done in the past and being shaped to see what He will do in the future. In your time with God today, follow the example of Moses and Miriam and create a song, poem, or letter of praise for God's work of salvation and judgment in your life. Offer this praise as a gift to Him in preparation for this upcoming Christmas celebration as well as preparation for an eternity of praise and worship.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 22, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Drawing of the Father
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . -John 6:44
When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15-16). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God's throne.
In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will to believe. But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things. I must surrender myself completely to God.
Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner, personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life.
Attack at the Point of Spiritual Breakthrough
We have seen in previous devotionals how Satan will attack when a person comes to Christ, when they are a babe in their faith. I believe Scripture shows us that the devil will also attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough, or at a time of important transition. This is the second battle we must fight.
In Matthew 3, we find Jesus at an absolutely critical time of transition in His life. We have not heard from Him since He was 12 years old. There has been about 30 quiet, unnoticed years where He presumably was working in His father's carpentry shop.
That is when we read in Matthew 3:16-4:1,
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus is about to enter public ministry. The sick will be healed; the poor will have the gospel preached to them; miracles will be worked; the Father will be revealed. So from this point, the battle is on. And we are given a bird's-eye view of the conflict that occurs between Christ and the devil, which we will look at in more detail in the next several devotionals.
But I want to submit something to you today. If it seems that all hell has broken loose in your life, maybe, just maybe, it's because you are on the verge of a breakthrough in your life.
Maybe it's a time of very important transition where God wants to lift you into a place where there is going to be greater influence and greater impact through your life.
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Read: Revelation 16
Do not take revenge . . . but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay." - Romans 12:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2005, 19-year-old Ryan Cushing was riding in a car with friends. Just for fun, he threw a frozen turkey out the window, which crashed through the windshield of the car behind him, hitting Victoria Ruvolo in the face and nearly killing her. She suffered severe injuries and required numerous surgeries to repair her shattered face. After the young man pled guilty, Ms. Ruvolo appeared at the courtroom for his sentencing. He broke down in sobs, repeatedly telling her, "I'm so sorry." Amazingly, Ms. Ruvolo embraced him, stroked his head as he wept, and requested that he not receive the penalty of 25 years in prison requested by the prosecutor. Her act of forgiveness touched the entire courtroom, and the judge honored her request and gave the young man a sentence of six months in jail plus probation.
The story of Ms. Ruvolo's forgiveness seems entirely consistent with the exhortation in Romans 12 to abstain from revenge and instead offer our enemies food and drink if they need it (Rom. 12:17-21). How then do we reconcile the command to forgive with the depictions of God's judgment in our reading today? We continue to examine what it means to worship God in response to His works of salvation and judgment. Today's passage describes the bowls of God's wrath being poured out on the unbelievers who had chosen to worship the Beast.
As we saw in Revelation 13, these people had rejected God and insisted on following the evil deception of Satan and the Beast. Even as the plagues intensified, the people refused to worship the true God (v. 9). Unlike righteous Job, they cursed God for their pain and sores and gnawed tongues (vv. 11, 21).
In contrast, the praise of heaven asserted that God is just and true (vv. 5-7). This is why God can exercise His wrath and we should not: His holiness ensures that His wrath is always fully just. He can truly see what men deserve. He has the perspective of eternity. He is God, and we are not. Therefore, the appropriate response to all His works is praise and worship.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God's Word assures that every injustice we suffer is noted by God. While we follow the example of Jesus who extended forgiveness to His enemies, we know that our faithful, true, holy, loving God will respond to measure out justice. In this text, His wrath is directed toward those who have oppressed His "saints and prophets" (v. 6). If you need to forgive someone, know that you have the example of Jesus, the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the true and just Father.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 23, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sharing in the Atonement
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
The gospel of Jesus Christ always forces a decision of our will. Have I accepted God's verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ? Do I have even the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death- to be completely dead to all interest in sin, worldliness, and self? Do I long to be so closely identified with Jesus that I am of no value for anything except Him and His purposes? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can commit myself under the banner of His Cross, and that means death to sin. You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you, or that at any cost you want to be identified with His death. When you act in confident faith in what our Lord did on the cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place immediately. And you will come to know through a higher knowledge that your old life was "crucified with Him" (Romans 6:6). The proof that your old life is dead, having been "crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20), is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you now enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.
Every once in a while our Lord gives us a glimpse of what we would be like if it were not for Him. This is a confirmation of what He said- ". . . without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). That is why the underlying foundation of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus. We mistake the joy of our first introduction into God's kingdom as His purpose for getting us there. Yet God's purpose in getting us into His kingdom is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means.
The Devil's Seeds of Doubt
As we saw yesterday, Satan will seek to attack when we are on the verge of a major breakthrough. I believe there are three distinct areas of attack in this battle. Today I want to cover the first with you. It is found in Matthew 4:3-4,
Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
The devil's first area of attack will be to try to get you to doubt your calling.
Notice that just prior to this encounter the voice of God the Father said to Jesus, "This is My beloved Son!" And that is the first thing the devil challenges, "Well, if youare the Son of God...."
He will do the same thing to you.
What is it that God has spoken to you about that He wants you to do with your life? Has He told you that He wants to use you to funnel vast resources into the gospel? Or maybe God said you are to be a teacher, or that you are going to impact the entertainment industry, or that you are going to be a prayer warrior and tip the spiritual scales in critical times.
Whatever it is, the devil will saddle up next to you and say, "Who do you think you are? What God has told you is just a pipe dream. It's just your own head speaking to you." He will try and get you to doubt what God has said to you and to doubt what God has called you to do.
When that happens, you need to go back to that word that God has spoken to you in order to keep your focus and direction right.
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Read: Revelation 17
The Lamb will overcome them . . . and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers. - Revelation 17:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
The apostle John once desired to rule the world with Jesus. He and his brother James asked Christ, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." When Jesus responded by questioning their willingness and ability to withstand the suffering and death required of Him, the two brothers eagerly assured Him, "We can!" Their readiness to rule blinded them to the truth of God's kingdom: "Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all" (Mark 10:35-45).
We might be tempted to read today's passage and think: Finally! Enough of our suffering and calling out for justice-we get to be victorious with Jesus! Like James and John, we look forward to the ruling without accounting for the prerequisites. We think of power and authority in earthly terms instead of heavenly ones. Our text today helps to correct our perspective.
We've already seen God's wrath poured out on the unbelievers who worshiped the Beast. Now for two days we'll see God's judgment on the Beasts introduced in Revelation 13. First, notice that hatred of God and persecution of His people go hand-in-hand. The Beast is covered with blasphemous names; the woman on the Beast "was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus" (vv. 3, 6). Because we identify with God, we will also suffer opposition from the enemies of God, even to the point of death.
Next, we see that the victory of Christ includes the victory of His people. Though all the powers of the world were arrayed against the Lord, "the Lamb will overcome them" (v. 14). Every king was subject to His throne; every idolatrous religious ruler was subject to His Lordship. After the fulfillment of this prophecy, we will share in His triumph at His good pleasure, not because of our own might and strength. He has called us and chosen us. We are to remain faithful. The way to spiritual victory begins with our faithful witness for Christ even during persecution by the world.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
With two days before Christmas, ask the Holy Spirit to examine your heart for any pride or self-satisfaction. Are you willing to follow the example of Jesus, who humbled Himself first as a helpless baby and then sacrificed His life for others? Do you want to be a Christian for any prestige or advantage you might get? Are you impatient for God to elevate you without understanding that you must renounce yourself to follow Christ? If the Spirit convicts your heart, repent and seek to be a servant for the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 24, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Hidden Life
. . . your life is hidden with Christ in God -Colossians 3:3
The Spirit of God testifies to and confirms the simple, but almighty, security of the life that "is hidden with Christ in God." Paul continually brought this out in his New Testament letters. We talk as if living a sanctified life were the most uncertain and insecure thing we could do. Yet it is the most secure thing possible, because it has Almighty God in and behind it. The most dangerous and unsure thing is to try to live without God. For one who is born again, it is easier to live in a right-standing relationship with God than it is to go wrong, provided we heed God's warnings and "walk in the light" (1 John 1:7).
When we think of being delivered from sin, being "filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18), and "walk[ing] in the light," we picture the peak of a great mountain. We see it as very high and wonderful, but we say, "Oh, I could never live up there!" However, when we do get there through God's grace, we find it is not a mountain peak at all, but a plateau with plenty of room to live and to grow. "You enlarged my path under me, so my feet did not slip" (Psalm 18:36).
When you really see Jesus, I defy you to doubt Him. If you see Him when He says, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:27), I defy you to worry. It is virtually impossible to doubt when He is there. Every time you are in personal contact with Jesus, His words are real to you. "My peace I give to you . . ." (John 14:27)- a peace which brings an unconstrained confidence and covers you completely, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. ". . . your life is hidden with Christ in God," and the peace of Jesus Christ that cannot be disturbed has been imparted to you
Where Satan Will Attack Second
Yesterday we saw the first area the devil will attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough or in a time of important transition. Today, I want to show you the second area, the area of pride.
We pick up the drama of Satan's attack of Christ in Matthew 4:6,
"If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"
I believe the devil was appealing to Jesus' pride at this point. He realized Jesus was solid in His own heart about who He was and what He was to do.
So the devil took Him to the most public of all places, and told Him, "Now, hey, You need to prove this to everybody else. If You cast Yourself down, You will have a soft landing because the angels will catch You, and everyone will know that You're the Son of God."
Pride will cause us to do things recklessly, and Satan was doing all he could to get Jesus to act recklessly. But Jesus answered perfectly, "You shall not tempt the LORD your God."
By the way, the verse Satan quoted to Jesus about the angels catching Him had an ending, which he failed to include. It says, "To keep you in all your ways." The Amplified Bible says, "In all your ways of obedience and service."
In other words, you can't do some reckless thing to prove a point to other people and expect God to save you. Don't let your pride get you out on a limb. Instead, resist Satan's attack in the area of pride. Realize it for what it is; it's his temptation to get you to fall!
If you are secure in who you are, you don't have to prove anything to anyone.
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Read: Revelation 18
Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins. - Revelation 18:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Roman emperors had Christians killed because they would not agree that Caesar was a god. The Nazi government sent to concentration camps those Christians who disobeyed government orders by sheltering Jews. Christians in many countries throughout the centuries have found their access to work permits, voting, or marriage licenses blocked because of their witness for Christ.
In our passage today, we'll see that worship includes our witness for God, which might put us in conflict with the values of the world. We'll also see why our witness and worship is so important, and why earthly persecution is worth enduring for eternal gain.
As we saw yesterday, God's judgment was unfolding against the Beast. In our text today we hear the announcement of Babylon's fall-no matter how great any earthly kingdom or principality claims to be, their existence is subject to the permission of God (v. 2). Notice the descriptions here: rampant adultery and excessive luxury characterized Babylon (v. 3, see Rev. 17:4).
Next comes the clear call for God's people to flee from this city, a call to reject the values that had tempted others into sin (v. 4). The pursuit of wealth had caused Babylon to put all confidence in her own strength and power (v. 7), utterly rejecting God and His people.
Go through the passage and note every reference to luxury and luxury goods. This does not mean that God hates wealth or that the so-called finer things of life are inherently sinful. It does point out, however, that being defined by wealth and material possessions is to be defined against God (see 1 Tim. 6:10). The pursuit of riches leads to a spiritual arrogance, a readiness to worship the false idols of Self and Stuff. God's people are called to reject this value system. We are instructed to renounce the indulgence in sexual sins and greed, for these sins will be punished.
Babylon did not treat God's "saints and apostles and prophets" well (v. 20). Still, while the world rewards our witness with persecution, God restores us with His protection.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It's the last shopping day before Christmas! Stores are jam-packed with last-minute shoppers, and children (as well as adults!) can't wait to open their presents. Especially at this time of year, our culture wants to turn Christmas into a celebration of greed, luxury, and materialism. These false idols threaten to distract us from worship. Pray about how you and your loved ones can be a witness for Christ this season, choosing His values instead of the world's.
:angel:
December 25, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Birth and Our New Birth
'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God with us' -Matthew 1:23
His Birth in History. ". . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of- He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate- God coming into human flesh from outside it. His life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors. Our Lord's birth was an advent- the appearance of God in human form.
His Birth in Me. "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you . . ." (Galatians 4:19). Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a "Bethlehem" for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. "You must be born again" (John 3:7). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that "Christ is formed" in me. And once "Christ is formed" in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.
God Evident in the Flesh. This is what is made so profoundly possible for you and for me through the redemption of man by Jesus Christ.
Compromise
Today, I want to highlight for you the third area where the devil will seek to cause you to fail when you are on the verge of a breakthrough. It is found in Matthew 4:8-11,
Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'" Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
If you think about it, the devil offered Jesus exactly what He had come to this world to obtain. Jesus came to win the kingdoms of this world to our God.
And the devil is saying, "Hey, You can take a shortcut. I will give You what You want. You don't have to do it God's way. You may have to compromise Your integrity, but think of how quickly You will succeed! You can even avoid the whole sacrifice thing! You don't have to do it God's way."
Listen, anytime God has set a goal for you, and you are going to obtain something, the devil will always come and try to get you to compromise and offer you substitutes.
He will tempt you by saying things like, "You can get what you want without living by all those narrow, restrictive rules that God puts on people's lives. You can be dishonest; you can be unfaithful; you can compromise; and you can still be blessed, and you can still be happy."
Do not believe him for a moment. His way of compromise leads only to ruin!
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Read: Revelation 18
Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins. - Revelation 18:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Roman emperors had Christians killed because they would not agree that Caesar was a god. The Nazi government sent to concentration camps those Christians who disobeyed government orders by sheltering Jews. Christians in many countries throughout the centuries have found their access to work permits, voting, or marriage licenses blocked because of their witness for Christ.
In our passage today, we'll see that worship includes our witness for God, which might put us in conflict with the values of the world. We'll also see why our witness and worship is so important, and why earthly persecution is worth enduring for eternal gain.
As we saw yesterday, God's judgment was unfolding against the Beast. In our text today we hear the announcement of Babylon's fall-no matter how great any earthly kingdom or principality claims to be, their existence is subject to the permission of God (v. 2). Notice the descriptions here: rampant adultery and excessive luxury characterized Babylon (v. 3, see Rev. 17:4).
Next comes the clear call for God's people to flee from this city, a call to reject the values that had tempted others into sin (v. 4). The pursuit of wealth had caused Babylon to put all confidence in her own strength and power (v. 7), utterly rejecting God and His people.
Go through the passage and note every reference to luxury and luxury goods. This does not mean that God hates wealth or that the so-called finer things of life are inherently sinful. It does point out, however, that being defined by wealth and material possessions is to be defined against God (see 1 Tim. 6:10). The pursuit of riches leads to a spiritual arrogance, a readiness to worship the false idols of Self and Stuff. God's people are called to reject this value system. We are instructed to renounce the indulgence in sexual sins and greed, for these sins will be punished.
Babylon did not treat God's "saints and apostles and prophets" well (v. 20). Still, while the world rewards our witness with persecution, God restores us with His protection.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It's the last shopping day before Christmas! Stores are jam-packed with last-minute shoppers, and children (as well as adults!) can't wait to open their presents. Especially at this time of year, our culture wants to turn Christmas into a celebration of greed, luxury, and materialism. These false idols threaten to distract us from worship. Pray about how you and your loved ones can be a witness for Christ this season, choosing His values instead of the world's.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 26, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Walk in the Light"
If we walk in the light as He is in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin -1 John 1:7
To mistake freedom from sin only on the conscious level of our lives for complete deliverance from sin by the atonement through the Cross of Christ is a great error. No one fully knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced at Calvary. The evidence that I have been delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me. For a person to really know what sin is requires the full work and deep touch of the atonement of Jesus Christ, that is, the imparting of His absolute perfection.
The Holy Spirit applies or administers the work of the atonement to us in the deep unconscious realm as well as in the conscious realm. And it is not until we truly perceive the unrivaled power of the Spirit in us that we understand the meaning of 1 John 1:7 , which says, ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." This verse does not refer only to conscious sin, but also to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Spirit in me can accomplish.
I must "walk in the light as He is in the light . . ."- not in the light of my own conscience, but in God's light. If I will walk there, with nothing held back or hidden, then this amazing truth is revealed to me: ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses [me] from all sin" so that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke in me. On the conscious level it produces a keen, sorrowful knowledge of what sin really is. The love of God working in me causes me to hate, with the Holy Spirit's hatred for sin, anything that is not in keeping with God's holiness. To "walk in the light" means that everything that is of the darkness actually drives me closer to the center of the light.
Protecting New Believers
We have been talking about the devil's attack on newborn babes in Christ. This is something we can expect. But what are the reasons for it?
Look at Isaiah 59:15-16, as it provides us with a clue,
So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
I want you to think about that. Truth fails, and the person who departs from evil makes himself a prey, in the same way that a lion looks at a wounded gazelle as prey.
To me this is a picture of what happens to some new believers. They depart from evil (get saved) and suddenly it seems like everything is going wrong for them. And God is not pleased about it!
Where it says He "wondered " literally means He was astonished that there was no intercessor. This means that there was no one praying. That is why they became prey!
If we do not pray for those who turn from evil, then they will become the prey of the devil. We have a responsibility to intercede for people who come to Christ. It puts up a barrier of protection around them.
Paul wrote to the Colossians about this when he said, Praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ. Paul didn't just pray for them before they were saved, he also prayed for them after they were saved.
Oh, may God not wonder in our day, "Where is the intercessor who should be praying for the new babes in Christ?"
Let's take our responsibility seriously and pray for those who have newly come to the faith.
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Read: Revelation 19:11-21
He has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. - Revelation 19:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Every thrilling war story describes the two sides and their leader or hero, the setting of the conflict, and then the military strategy. The story then explains how the strategy will be executed and which side will emerge victorious. These elements comprise the drama in battle accounts including Homer's Iliad, Judges 4, the Battle of Gettysburg, or the Battle of the Bulge.
Our text today describes the climactic battle of all history-and yet there's almost no discussion of the military strategy, the pitch of battle, or the raging warfare. Instead, Scripture wants us to focus our attention, and our worship, in one direction: toward Jesus.
First, John describes heaven as standing open (v. 11). Earlier in the book he had referenced the open door of heaven, and here again he indicated he was giving us a scene from heaven itself (see 4:1). Then heaven opened wide to reveal Jesus, the Rider on a white horse. To underscore that Jesus is fully God, the first description provided was that He is "Faithful and True," words used to describe God throughout the book (see 15:3; 16:7; 19:2). This title alerts us to the upcoming judgment in this passage. Jesus was given all authority (12:10), and He was preparing to unleash the wrath of God on the Beast, the False Prophet, and any aligned with them (v. 15).
Everything about evil is a perverted imitation of the truth of God. The Beast was covered in blasphemous names; Jesus has the name "King of kings and Lord of lords" (v. 16). The relationship between Jesus and His people led to the wedding supper of the Lamb; the relationship between the Beast and his followers resulted in the feast for birds on the flesh of rebellious sinners. The miracles of the False Prophet led unbelievers to destruction; the miracles of God protected and saved His people.
The battle was over before it began-the armies of earth were arrayed against Jesus and the armies of heaven, but instead of a description of the conflict, we see the execution of divine judgment. The Beast and False Prophet were thrown into the "fiery lake of burning sulfur" (v. 20), and their followers became a feast for the birds.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Worship aligns our hearts to see reality. We see that evil offers nothing that is original or valuable, only worthless imitations. Spend time praising Jesus, using the words from our text today. Also ask the Lord to use your praise to sharpen your spiritual perspective to recognize and choose the worthy things of God and not the temptations of evil. As a reminder, you can write King of kings and Lord of lords on a notecard or sticky note-we worship the Lamb who triumphs!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 27, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Where the Battle is Won or Lost
'If you will return, O Israel,' says the Lord . . . -Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, "I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I'll put God to the test." Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point- a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory.
Getting Established in the Faith
If you are a new believer in Christ, or know someone who is, I want to talk to you today. I want to share with you four things that will help you get established in your faith.
1. Read your Bible every day. That's food for your spirit. Psalm 119:11 says, Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. It is vital you spend time in God's Word.
2. Pray every day. Spend time talking to God and then listening in your heart for His answers. As 1 Thessalonians 5:17 admonishes us, Pray without ceasing. This is a vital part of your growth and protection as a believer.
3. Fellowship with other believers. Do not get isolated from the church. Do not get isolated from the rest of the body. Scripture tells us to not forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as is the manner of some (Hebrews 10:25). In fact, it is important to get integrated into a smaller circle of fellowship. You need to get connected relationally. There is a real safety in that.
4. Listen to your spiritual leaders. Go to church whenever the doors are open, and go expecting God to speak to you through the teaching and preaching. One translation of Hebrews 13:17 says, Give ear to your spiritual leaders and be willing to do what they say for their work is to watch over your souls. Become a part of a strong Bible-believing fellowship and take heed to what is taught.
If you will do those things: read your Bible every day, pray every day, get involved in a smaller circle of fellowship and listen to your spiritual leaders, you will be all right.
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Read: Revelation 20:1-6
They will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him. - Revelation 20:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Worship is important because we begin to resemble what we worship. Psalm 115 exposes the folly of idols, for they are helpless, mute, blind, deaf, and lame. Not only are idols impotent, unable to communicate or meet any of our needs, but "those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them" (vv. 5-8). If what you worship is empty, you will be empty.
In contrast, when we worship the one, true God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-we become conformed to His image (Rom. 12:1-2). As we worship the One who is Faithful and True, we become faithful and true followers. As we adore the God who is loving and holy, we are able to be loving and holy. And as we see in our passage today, if we worship the Lord who is King of kings and Lord of lords, we are also given the power and authority to reign with Him.
As we have proceeded through the chapters describing God's righteous judgment against evil, we have seen the bowls of His wrath poured out on unbelievers, thejudgment of the woman, and Jesus' victory over the Beast and False Prophet. Next, Satan himself was about to reap the reward for his evil deceptions and rebellion against God. In our passage today, he was bound for 1,000 years, demonstrating that he was subject to the will of God. This binding was a foretaste of his ultimate doom, which we'll read about tomorrow.
A God powerful enough to bind Satan is also powerful enough to resurrect from death those who were faithful to His name (v. 4). Those who suffered the degradation of death for the sake of Jesus received the right to rule with Him. Not only would faithful believers reign with Christ for the thousand years of Satan's bondage, but death could never again assert any claim over them.
Finally, note the words of blessing bestowed on believers: "Blessed and holy . . . priests of God and of Christ . . . reign with him" (v. 6). Worshipers of God become like Him!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One commentator observed: "[Believers] should draw instant conclusions for their actions and conduct: the magnitude of the promise rewards the effort, but at stake is nothing less than complete, indestructible fellowship with Christ." This prophecy should motivate our present actions-the whole of our worship-in light of future promises. Is the character of Christ increasingly defining your existence? We will receive the consequences of our worship in eternity-will you be destroyed or redeemed?
GOD LESS!
:angel:
December 28, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Continuous Conversion
. . . unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 18:3
These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God's, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must "put on the new man . . ." (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule- God must rule in us.
To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, "I won't submit." We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.
Samson and Jesus-Part 1
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS... And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:31 & 35).
There are some striking similarities between Samson the Nazarite and Jesus the Nazarine. Here are a few of them.
· Both the birth of Samson and the birth of Christ were announced through angelic messengers.
· Samson's father said, "Let your words come to pass." Mary, the mother of Jesus, said, "Let it be unto me according to your word."
· Samson was born to deliver the Israelites who were in bondage to and oppressed by the Philistines. Jesus was born to deliver the world that was in bondage to and oppressed by Satan.
· The Spirit moved upon Samson. The Spirit descended upon and anointed Jesus.
· Samson was a thorn in the Philistines' side, going about destroying their yoke over Israel. Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil and thereby destroying Satan's yoke of bondage.
· Samson's own people rejected him and turned him over to the Philistines. Jesus' own people (the Jews) rejected Him and turned Him over to the Romans.
These similarities between Samson and Jesus are not coincidental. Samson's story is meant to point the way to Jesus. God wants people to know about the blessed Savior. You can point the way to Him as well. Tell someone today about Jesus!
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Read: Revelation 20:7-15
Another book was opened, which is the book of life. - Revelation 20:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1936, Toni Kurz, a German mountain climber, attempted to scale the imposing north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. The expedition turned disastrous, with all three of his fellow climbers dying during their attempted descent. A storm made a rescue attempt for Kurz even more harrowing. After spending an entire night hanging on the side of the mountain exposed to the elements, and now with one arm frozen, Kurz received rope from his rescuers-but it was too short to reach them. He attempted to separate the rope and retie it, but as he worked his way to safety, the knot caught on his carabiner. Without the strength to lift himself up to free the knot, he died-just a few meters above the waiting rescue team.
Some people try to rescue themselves spiritually in a similarly tragic way. They trust their own works, or the advice of others, or a good reputation. Their hope of salvation lies in a patchwork of good deeds and intentions. Like Kurz's rope, none of these things will be sufficient to bring salvation and spiritual safety. In our passage today, we see the final outcome of those who have trusted anything other than Jesus Christ.
The long-awaited final judgment of Satan is completed in our passage. After being loosed from hell, Satan remained consistent with his character of deception and rebellion against God (vv. 7-8). His resistance was futile; God cast him into eternal torment in the "lake of burning sulfur," where he joined the Beast and False Prophet (v. 10).
Next, the scene shifts to the Great White Throne Judgment, where all the dead stood before the throne of God, subject to His judgment. The books were opened, and their deeds were evaluated. Ultimately, no sum of the deeds can equal salvation. The only hope of eternal life lies in having your name found in the Lamb's Book of Life (v. 15). And only by trusting in Jesus and holding fast to Him can we have the eternal safety of life with God, escaping the judgment of the lake of fire (see Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 17:8).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Will you trust in Jesus, the secure rock of salvation? Or will you trust in the too-short rope of your own deeds? The answer is a question of eternal life and death. If you aren't sure whether your name is in the Book of Life, surrender your life to God today, trusting that Jesus-the worthy Lamb-has died on the cross as the payment for your sin and been raised from the dead, defeating the power of sin and death. If you need to talk to someone, call 1-800-NEED HIM.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 29, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Deserter or Disciple?
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more -John 6:66
When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must "walk in the light" of that vision (1 John 1:7). Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don't "walk in the light" of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord. Mentally disobeying the "heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19) will make you a slave to ideas and views that are completely foreign to Jesus Christ. Don't look at someone else and say, "Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why can't I?" You have to "walk in the light" of the vision that has been given to you. Don't compare yourself with others or judge them- that is between God and them. When you find that one of your favorite and strongly held views clashes with the "heavenly vision," do not begin to debate it. If you do, a sense of property and personal right will emerge in you- things on which Jesus placed no value. He was against these things as being the root of everything foreign to Himself- ". . . for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:15). If we don't see and understand this, it is because we are ignoring the underlying principles of our Lord's teaching.
Our tendency is to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us. But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don't try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide. It means your conscience does not respond to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you as one who either continues on with even more devotion as a disciple of Jesus Christ, or as one who turns to go back as a deserter.
Samson and Jesus-Part 2
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS (Luke 1:31).
In yesterday's devotional we examined some amazing similarities between Samson and Jesus. Here are a few more parallels to ponder:
· Samson was betrayed by Delilah. Jesus was betrayed by Judas.
· Samson was taken prisoner and tortured by the Philistines. Jesus was taken prisoner and tortured by the Romans.
· Samson, while being mocked in Dagon's temple, wrought his greatest victory and gave the Philistines their worst defeat-the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life. Jesus, while being mocked on the cross by his persecutors, wrought His greatest victory and handed hell its ultimate defeat. And He did it through His death.
It is said that Samson "began to deliver Israel," indicating that his work was to be carried on by others. Jesus has left the work of evangelism to us. Though He paid the price, we are to carry the good news of His victory to the ends of the earth.
As you think about these similarities, I want you to especially consider the last one I presented. Once we receive the gospel, we are then to be carriers of the gospel. Tell someone about Jesus and what He has done for them-today!
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Read: Revelation 20:7-15
Another book was opened, which is the book of life. - Revelation 20:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1936, Toni Kurz, a German mountain climber, attempted to scale the imposing north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. The expedition turned disastrous, with all three of his fellow climbers dying during their attempted descent. A storm made a rescue attempt for Kurz even more harrowing. After spending an entire night hanging on the side of the mountain exposed to the elements, and now with one
Read: Revelation 21
It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. - Revelation 21:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In September, the Finn family experienced great joy and sorrow at the same time. Ashley Finn delivered a healthy baby boy. But there were complications during the delivery, and blood clots began to spread throughout her body. Within a week a clot made its way to her brain, causing a massive hemorrhage and death. And this was not the only tragic event that happened in that month, or that week, or even that day. All around the world people are suffering and grieving, powerless to prevent the death of a loved one. As Christians, how do we have hope in the face of such sorrow?
Part of the answer is found in our passage today. Sorrow is real in our world today-but this world will not last forever. For the last three days of our study we'll see what Scripture says about the end of the story, which we can only know if we worship the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega (v. 6).
First, God fulfilled His promise to create a new heaven and a new earth (v. 1; cf. Isa. 65:17). Next, God fulfilled His promise to dwell in intimate communion with His people (v. 3; cf. Ezek. 37:27; Zech. 2:14). This intimacy means that God Himself will "wipe away every tear from their eyes." God's love and tenderness is combined with His power and faithfulness to result in the comfort of His people and the destruction of death, suffering, weeping, and distress-forever (v. 4). Never again can tragedy grip the lives of those who worship the Lord.
As you read verses 9 through 27, note all the beautiful descriptions used for this "bride, the wife of the Lamb" (v. 9). She was radiant with the glory of God, adorned with gold and precious jewels. She was open, not closed off (v. 25), and she was pure. Most spectacularly, there was no sun or moon, because the "glory of God is its light" (v. 23).
God's redeeming work of history was complete (v. 6). He began history as Creator, and, at the conclusion of this prophecy, he had completed history as Redeemer and Judge. He alone is worthy of our faithful worship.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
One of God's most precious promises-and a recurring theme throughout this book-is found in verse 7: "He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." God knows the heartache we experience on this earth, but He has promised that in the new heaven and new earth no suffering or sin can reach us. What a motivation to worship this "trustworthy and true" God (v. 5)! Praise Him for His power and love and promises today.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 30, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"And Every Virtue We Possess"
. . . All my springs are in you -Psalm 87:7
Our Lord never "patches up" our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside- ". . . put on the new man . . ." (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ- a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.
Prosperity
In Luke 12, Jesus has some very direct and clear teaching on prosperity. For instance, take a look at Luke 12:13-15,
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses."
It's easy to read these verses and believe that God is against prosperity. But if you look at what I call the Genesis Principle, I think you can see that prosperity is God's will.
When God created man, He gave him abundance. You can't read the story in the Garden of Eden and think that Adam lacked for anything. And God's plan, His idea, His heart for humanity has never changed.
But God did not give Adam all that abundance so that the abundance itself would be the focus of his life. His focus was to be his relationship with the Father as they walked and talked in the garden. His life did not consist in the abundance of things, but in his relationship to his Creator.
So what is abundance? Abundance, or prosperity, is having all that you need to meet any circumstance, with enough left over to give wherever God might direct you.
Jesus certainly is not against prosperity. In fact, prosperity is what I believe is God's will for all of His children. I don't think God wants any of His kids to be in poverty. Poverty is not a virtue unless you choose it for some reason.
God wants you to be prosperous, but there are some principles to properly understand prosperity, which we will discover in the next few devotionals.
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Read: Revelation 22:1-11
In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and . . . a river watering the garden. - Genesis 2:9-10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The coda of a symphony is the final section that summarizes and concludes the piece of music. While a distinct musical section, it highlights earlier musical themes and refrains, pulling them together into a fitting finale for the entire symphony.
The analogy of a coda helps us to understand our passage for today. It continues to expand on the description of the heavenly city, the bride of Christ (see Rev. 21:9). And then it seems to repeat information we've already been told in the book. That repetition of themes highlights for us what we remember as the main themes of the entire symphony that is the book of Revelation.
The new information in this description of the city should cause us to reflect on God's creation of the world, especially the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 2). There He had placed the Tree of Life, and a river running through the Garden. Now, in John's account of the new creation of heaven and earth we again see God's life-giving gifts, yet this time without any curse or Fall (vv. 1-3).
Next comes the repeated description of fellowship with God. We should be clear that eternity is not about freedom from pain and being surrounded by gold and gems. It is about communion with God that is face to face! Truly, can we even imagine what this fellowship will be like? The beauty and joy will also be real, but those things flow from our presence with God; they are the results of our communion with God, not the cause of our eternal bliss.
This section ends with a warning, one repeated from earlier in the book. As John beheld this vision, he fell down in worship-but at the feet of the angel (see Rev. 19:10). The angel reminded him that worship is not to be directed toward fellow servants, but only toward God. In this closing coda, a theme was issued as an imperative: "Worship God!"
The angel also repeated a warning and motivation here. Those who persisted in evil would find that God's promise equals judgment. Those who persisted in righteous worship would find that God's promise equals eternal life with Him.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As a way of creating your own coda for our study this month, reflect back through the book of Revelation and record in a notebook or your spiritual journal the themes, messages, and promises that especially spoke to you. Ask the Holy Spirit to transform your study of His Word into renewed motivation to worship and praise God in your faithful life, your testimony of His protection, your witness of His salvation, your offering of praise, and your prayers. "Worship God!"
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
December 31, 2010
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Yesterday
You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard -Isaiah 52:12
Security from Yesterday. ". . . God requires an account of what is past" (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. ". . . the Lord will go before you . . . ." This is a gracious revelation- that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our "rear guard." And God's hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. "You shall not go out with haste . . . ." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
It Might Be Today
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
I want to direct our thoughts to verses 19-20 today.
Sometimes it is easy for people to think they have many years left. But that is a foolish perspective. We need to live like we will meet with the Lord tonight.
That doesn't mean you don't work towards the future; it doesn't mean you don't save. In fact, the Bible says a righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children's children.
But we need to live in such a way that we will not be ashamed because we have left all sorts of unused and undesignated funds sitting in the bank that are not going to do anybody any good.
Someday we will have to stand before Jesus and give an account for all of our stuff. And that may be sooner than later!
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Read: Revelation 22:12-21
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" - Revelation 22:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
When a child hears, "Just wait until your father gets home!", is he filled with eager anticipation or heavy dread? The answer depends on two factors: Is the father a good and just man, or a capricious and manipulative man? And is the child looking forward to a reward or treat, or expecting a penalty or punishment?
As worshipers of God, we know that our Father is good-He is holy, true, faithful, loving, and almighty. And if we are maintaining our faithful confession of praise, then we should await the return of Jesus with eager anticipation. Soon! Soon all the promises of God will be fulfilled and we will experience full communion with Him!
Jesus directly addressed His people in this passage, which concludes the book with a call-and-response between the Lamb and the bride. This final section also emphasizes themes from the first chapter of Revelation. First, Jesus said, "Behold, I am coming soon!" Everyone will be rewarded, unbelievers with judgment and worshipers with eternal life. Jesus identified Himself as God-He is the Alpha and the Omega (v. 13; see Rev. 1:8; 21:6).
In response to Jesus' announcement of His imminent coming, the Spirit and the bride responded, "Come!" The bride, the redeemed, sanctified, purified people of God, long to see Jesus "coming with the clouds" (1:7). The invitation is extended to any who longed to have their thirst quenched by the Living Water (see John 4). This gift is free! But it is not cheap. To emphasize that, John warned those who would manipulate this word in any way. You cannot approach the free gift of living water and eternal life and still cling to your habits of deception. In fact, this would reveal the truth about a heart that rejects worship, and the penalty will be sure (vv. 18-19).
On the basis of His authority as the Faithful and True Word, Jesus again called: "Yes, I am coming soon." And God's people again responded, "Amen. Come, LORD Jesus" (v. 20; see 1 Cor. 16:22). Our worship should always shape us to long for the coming of our Savior, the worthy Lamb, Jesus Christ.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Worship has theological significance in Revelation. That is, it is not just something we do, but it shapes who we are. Worship forces us to abandon the idol of our own dominion and power. Worship prepares us for fellowship with God. Worship identifies us as the people of God who long to see Him face to face. Tomorrow marks the first day of a new year. As you transition from 2010 into 2011, spend time in praise and worship, responding to the Lord: "Amen. Come, LORD Jesus!"
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Happy New Year from KGHY
Daily Devotional
January 01, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Let Us Keep to the Point
". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death" -Philippians 1:20
My Utmost for His Highest. ". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed . . . ." We will all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus the areas of our lives He has asked us to yield to Him. It's as if Paul were saying, "My determined purpose is to be my utmost for His highest- my best for His glory." To reach that level of determination is a matter of the will, not of debate or of reasoning. It is absolute and irrevocable surrender of the will at that point. An undue amount of thought and consideration for ourselves is what keeps us from making that decision, although we cover it up with the pretense that it is others we are considering. When we think seriously about what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He doesn't know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point- He does know. Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only- my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone.
My Unstoppable Determination for His Holiness. "Whether it means life or death-it makes no difference!" (see Philippians 1:21). Paul was determined that nothing would stop him from doing exactly what God wanted. But before we choose to follow God's will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens because we tend to be unresponsive to God's gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide- for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.
It Might Be Today
Over the last few devotionals, we have been looking at Luke 12. Today I want you to read verses 16-21, which will be the basis for our next few days of devotionals,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
I want to direct our thoughts to verses 19-20 today.
Sometimes it is easy for people to think they have many years left. But that is a foolish perspective. We need to live like we will meet with the Lord tonight.
That doesn't mean you don't work towards the future; it doesn't mean you don't save. In fact, the Bible says a righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children's children.
But we need to live in such a way that we will not be ashamed because we have left all sorts of unused and undesignated funds sitting in the bank that are not going to do anybody any good.
Someday we will have to stand before Jesus and give an account for all of our stuff. And that may be sooner than later!
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Read: Luke 12:32-34
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Luke 12:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
Have you heard the news? The American economic recession is over, at least according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The NBER pegged the recession as having lasted from December 2007 to June 2009-at eighteen months, the longest recession since World War II. Though the worst is supposedly over, the economy is still in the process of recovery, as many of us know all too well. The NBER looks at national-level numbers, not the personal costs of lost jobs, shrunken retirement savings, and "underwater" home mortgages (in which the value of a home has decreased to less than the amount still owed on the loan).
Given the still-weak state of the economy and the difficult financial situations of many Americans, this month's devotional topic of Money & Godliness is particularly timely. In the coming days and weeks we'll dig into Scripture to learn how and why we are to handle our money. The Bible is not a textbook on finances or business, but it does have a good deal to say about money-related topics, including proper priorities (with regard to money), stewardship, wealth, simplicity, and giving.
The most important principle for handling our financial resources in a godly way is to walk in faith in this area of our life no less than in every other area. Worry sometimes dominates our thinking about money. Will we have enough to pay the bills? Will we have enough to retire? But Jesus said, "Do not be afraid, little flock" (v. 32), a reminder that He is our Good Shepherd. The same God who has given us His kingdom can take care of our present needs! If we trust in Him, we have the freedom to be extravagantly generous and to use our temporal resources to store up eternal rewards (v. 33).
The attractions of wealth can be a powerful temptation to serve another master, but we should see money as another tool with many potential purposes (see Matt. 6:19-24). Our hearts need to treasure that which is truly a treasure-not money or material goods, but Christ and His kingdom (v. 34).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are you anxious about your financial situation? Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, remembering Paul's words, "My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). The Lord has already given us a treasure that won't decay, can't be lost, and is incalculably more valuable than the largest earthly fortune. There's no reason to stay up nights worrying fearfully about the future. As the song says, "He's got the whole world in His hands."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 02, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will You Go Out Without Knowing?
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
Have you ever "gone out" in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, "What do you expect to do?"You don't know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to "go out" in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, because you don't know what God is going to do next. Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to "go out," building your confidence in God. ". . . do not worry about your life . . . nor about the body . . ." (Luke 12:22). In other words, don't worry about the things that concerned you before you did "go out."
Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do- He reveals to you who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you "go out" in complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?
Believe God is always the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him. Then think how unnecessary and disrespectful worry is! Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to "go out" in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus. You must learn to "go out" through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God.
The Seduction of Covetousness
Luke 12:15, says, And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses."
Jesus begins His teaching regarding prosperity in this passage by saying, "Beware of covetousness." In our society, even in the Church, there are a lot of people whose lives are tied up in "things." The focus of their life is their stuff, and doing whatever they can to acquire even more things.
It is what the Bible calls covetousness.
I want to ask you today, is your heart filled with covetousness? Do you find yourself thinking, "I know the missing ingredient in my life, I just need a little more. If I could just get a little more, I would be happy. If I could just build a bigger house and fill it with a little more stuff...if I could get a nicer car...if I could upgrade...then I would be happy, and then I would be successful."?
A little more, a little more, a little more.
The problem is, however, that desire for more never stops. In fact, as we will see in our next devotional, God called a man a fool because he never realized that riches are only temporary.
If you find your life driven by the need for more things, if you are consumed with stuff, if you define your success by what you have (or do not have), then you have been seduced by covetousness, and you will never find the happiness you are looking for.
Do not be a fool seeking after things. Instead, make the passion of your life seeking after God.
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Read: Proverbs 2:1-11
The LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. - Proverbs 2:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2007, rare coin dealer John Feigenbaum flew coast-to-coast with a special dime in his pocket. He didn't eat and he didn't sleep; he was nervous. He bought an economy-class ticket and dressed to be inconspicuous. After his flight landed in New York, he had to kill time in a Starbucks, waiting for a bank to open. Finally it did, and Feigenbaum breathed a sigh of relief. The dime Feigenbaum was delivering to a buyer was worth $1.9 million. It's called an 1894-S dime-only 24 were known to have been minted, and only nine are still known to exist. That's one expensive 10-cent coin!
The Bible, though, keeps matters in perspective: The financial value of such treasures pales in comparison to wisdom. It is "more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her" (Prov. 8:11).
Today's reading is basically a long conditional statement, that is, an if/then statement. If we search after wisdom, then God
will give it to us. The search for wisdom is described as a whole-person, holding-nothing-back, all-out endeavor (vv. 1-4). It involves listening, obeying, diligence, and passion. One must understand the value of wisdom in order to "search for it as for hidden treasure" (v. 4).
The key truth undergirding this quest is that God is the source and giver of wisdom (vv. 5-8). That's why wisdom is described here and elsewhere as "the fear of the LORD." Even while suffering, Job grasped this truth. Men dig gold and silver mines and find precious gems deep in the earth, but they cannot find wisdom. "God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells" (Job 28:23). When God gives wisdom to those who pursue and call out for it, there are many positive and pleasurable results, including moral understanding and discretion (vv. 9-11). Wisdom, though, is not simply a means to an end-it is a relationship with the Giver, with Wisdom Himself. And that is something that money just can't buy!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today's passage gives us many reasons to put our trust in God rather than money. Not only is the Lord the giver of wisdom and the source of all knowledge and understanding, He also gives victory to the upright, is a shield to the blameless, guards the path of the just, and protects the way of the faithful (vv. 6-8). Trusting in Him is the very definition of wisdom, and putting our trust in anything else the very definition of foolishness!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 03, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Clouds and Darkness
Clouds and darkness surround Him . . . -Psalm 97:2
A person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when he is baptized by the Holy Spirit, he finds that "clouds and darkness surround Him . . . ." When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first realization of this. The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet- getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God- it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. Only after the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable "darkness" of realizing who He is.
Jesus said, "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Once, the Bible was just so many words to us - "clouds and darkness"- then, suddenly, the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us when our circumstances make the words new. That is the way God speaks to us; not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to God, it is by the most simple way- words.
Prosperity
In Luke 12, Jesus has some very direct and clear teaching on prosperity. For instance, take a look at Luke 12:13-15,
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses."
It's easy to read these verses and believe that God is against prosperity. But if you look at what I call the Genesis Principle, I think you can see that prosperity is God's will.
When God created man, He gave him abundance. You can't read the story in the Garden of Eden and think that Adam lacked for anything. And God's plan, His idea, His heart for humanity has never changed.
But God did not give Adam all that abundance so that the abundance itself would be the focus of his life. His focus was to be his relationship with the Father as they walked and talked in the garden. His life did not consist in the abundance of things, but in his relationship to his Creator.
So what is abundance? Abundance, or prosperity, is having all that you need to meet any circumstance, with enough left over to give wherever God might direct you.
Jesus certainly is not against prosperity. In fact, prosperity is what I believe is God's will for all of His children. I don't think God wants any of His kids to be in poverty. Poverty is not a virtue unless you choose it for some reason.
God wants you to be prosperous, but there are some principles to properly understand prosperity, which we will discover in the next few devotionals.
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Read: Revelation 18:4-20
In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin! - Revelation 18:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
The prophet Ezekiel brought an oracle of judgment against the cities of Tyre and Sidon (Ezekiel 26-28). These were important cities in the kingdom of Phoenicia (modern Lebanon), an economically prosperous country to the north of Israel. The Phoenicians had become wealthy by trading throughout the known world, using their impressive fleet of ships to carry goods and earning a healthy profit. The financial success wasn't inherently the problem, but their riches had led to pride and disrespect for the Lord. They pursued worldly pleasures and made arrogant business plans to get even richer. The Phoenicians trusted in their wealth and success, but God condemned them for their sinfulness.
As today's reading shows, material prosperity can be a barrier to godliness and righteousness. From God's point of view, righteousness is far more valuable than wealth. This is another foundational principle or perspective that must guide how we handle money as followers of Christ. In John's apocalyptic vision, "Babylon" is a rich and powerful city that opposes God and that's why is doomed to fall. "Her sins are piled up to heaven" (v. 5) and include pride, self-indulgence, and injustice. Wealth is one factor behind these sins. Though Babylon reveled in its own glory and luxury, and believed it was secure because of its power and prosperity, it would be repaid by the mighty Judge with grief and pain (vv. 7-8).
Verses 9 through 20 are modeled on the lament for Tyre (Phoenicia) in Ezekiel 27. In both cases, the destruction is sudden, complete, terrifying, and just. The mourners include those who had profited by the system-the powerful (kings), the rich (merchants), and the opportunistic (sailors). But the system was rotten to the core-the kings had "committed adultery" by reveling in Babylon's luxury (v. 9), the merchants had slave-traded in the "bodies and souls of men" (v. 13), and the sailors had been involved in all this as well. They recognized the justice of the city's ruin (v. 20). Those who trust in God and pursue righteousness must heed the call: "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins" (v. 4).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Like Jesus' disciples (Mark 10:23-26), we, too, can fall into the trap of interpreting material wealth as God's blessing. Many sinful people achieve financial success and prosperity, but it's no sign of favor with God! His blessing and provision may come in material forms, but we should consider more important factors, like wisdom and righteousness, as evidence of God's work.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 04, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Why Can I Not Follow You Now?
Peter said to Him, 'Lord, why can I not follow You now?' -John 13:37
There are times when you can't understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don't fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification- to be set apart from sin and made holy- or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt- wait.
At first you may see clearly what God's will is- the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is distinctly God's will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move.
Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. "I will lay down my life for Your sake." Peter's statement was honest but ignorant. "Jesus answered him, ' . . . the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times' " (John 13:38). This was said with a deeper knowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not follow Jesus because he did not know himself or his own capabilities well enough. Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His irresistible charm, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him.
Giving When No One Sees
Matthew 6:1-4 gives some important insight into giving,
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."
Jesus points us to a truth that is vital to us as Christians: Giving is an issue of the heart.
God will not honor your giving if, when you give, your heart is saying, "I want everyone to know what I'm doing. I want to be noticed when I give. I want everyone to know just how generous and kind I am and what a benevolent heart I have."
We should give with a pure motive. When we give with the right motive, not to be seen by men but out of a right heart, God will reward us openly. That may not exactly translate into dollars and cents, but it will translate into tangible blessings, things that people can see.
If nobody else knows you kicked in the extra hundred bucks, don't worry about it. God sees, and He has a way of rewarding you openly. Everyone will recognize the hand of God is on you. God's blessings will come into your life.
So when you give, check your heart to make sure you are giving with the right motive.
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Read: Genesis 13
He was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. - Hebrews 11:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
As a huge crowd gathered outside a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York, on Black Friday in 2008, the mood was ugly. People had come for holiday bargains, but it seemed they would have to struggle to get what they wanted. They shoved forward, the glass doors shattered, and a mob of desperate shoppers rushed into the store. In the process, they trampled worker Jdimytai Damour to death, despite the best efforts of his co-workers and emergency personnel to rescue him. When an announcement was made that a person had been killed and the store would have to be cleared, people protested that they had been waiting a long time and deserved to keep shopping!
Greed is ugly and has tragic results, as Lot's choice in today's reading also demonstrates. Abram and his nephew had both become quite wealthy, creating a practical need to move to separate lands in order to sustain their large flocks and herds. As a peacemaker, Abraham initiated the conversation. Though it was countercultural to defer to the younger man, he gave Lot first choice because he wasn't anxious about the future (v. 9). When our eyes are fixed on the Lord, circumstances and others' actions don't seem so threatening. God is the one in control, our true "insurance policy." Abram kept his word even when Lot chose greedily and selfishly, picking the best for himself-the thriving Jordan Valley would surely provide opportunities to increase his wealth. Lot showed no concern about either the well being of Abram or his own spiritual well being when he chose the sinfulness of Sodom.
As the book of Heb-rews confirms, Abraham's wealth was not the result of a self-centered plan, as was Lot's. It was because he lived by faith (11:8-10). People are more likely to prosper in familiar places, but trusting in God's promise, Abraham journeyed to an unknown land. People are more likely to prosper in cities than as nomadic tent-dwellers, but Abraham was content to live without a permanent home. In all situations, he continued to worship (vv. 3-4, 18). As today's verse shows, he chose God's promises as the best investment for his life (vv. 14-17).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Does the story of Lot mean we should never choose anything to our financial advantage? Not at all-it means that we should test all financial decisions by the rule of faith. Are we choosing something out of greed or self-centered opportunism? Are we putting hope in the material and the temporal? Discerning what is wise or prudent, as opposed to what is selfish or self-indulgent, is not always easy. But for faith-filled worshipers of God this is one of the daily responsibilities.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 05, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Life of Power to Follow
Jesus answered him, 'Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward' -John 13:36
"And when He had spoken this, He said to him, 'Follow Me' " (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, "Follow Me" (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first "Follow Me" was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).
Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. ". . . He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit' " (John 20:22). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.
All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to "receive the Holy Spirit." "Receive the Holy Spirit "- the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.
What Has You?
In Mark 10:17-22, this is what we read,
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.'" And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
This is an interesting passage, isn't it?! I think verse 22 could probably be read as "great possessions had him," and we wouldn't do too much damage to the text. Possessions possessed him, and he went away from his conversation with Jesus sorrowful.
When Jesus met this guy, He was able to cut right to the heart issue, what controlled his life. Verse 21 could be paraphrased, "Okay, you really want it? Here's your roadblock, baby." It was the guy's attitude toward his stuff.
This man loved possessions, wealth, and the things of this life more than he loved Jesus.
Where are you today, my friend? Have you allowed our world to con you into believing that you should base your life on the stuff you accumulate? Or do you love God the most?
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Read: James 4:13-17
If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. - James 4:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
A single mother named Kelly was preparing to head out to the laundromat when a friend stopped by. She had no money, she said, and her kids had no clean clothes. Could she borrow some laundry money? What should Kelly do? If she loaned her friend the money, she herself would be broke. Nonetheless, trusting God to provide, she gave her friend what she had. Later that afternoon, the phone rang. "Do you know anyone who could use a free washer and dryer?" her pastor asked. He had been praying and her name had come to mind. "I sure do!" she answered. "Me!" God had provided above and beyond-not just laundry money but a washer and dryer!
Kelly submitted her finances and plans to God's will, and He richly blessed her for it. Being a good steward means that we don't have to obsessively try to control every detail or make plans for every contingency. Kelly, like Abram in yesterday's reading, kept her eyes on the Lord and followed His call to be generous. When our plans are submitted to God's will, the topic of today's reading, we acknowledge and depend upon Him as the Provider who cares for us.
James used business people's plans as his example (v. 13). The point here is not that we shouldn't make plans-the point is not to have faith in those plans, and by extension our own brilliant strategy or competent execution. Nothing is certain except that God is in control. To be frank, we don't even know what tomorrow will bring (v. 14). Our knowledge is limited, our lives are but a vapor (cf. Ps. 90:10), and many factors could disrupt our plans.
We should plan for the future with a humble spirit-our finiteness makes speaking with certainty a prideful thing to do. To talk as if a plan has already come to pass is empty bragging (v. 16). Perhaps the business people were previously unaware of the sinfulness of this attitude, but now that James had taught them they had to change (v. 17). For all of us, the bottom line is that all our plans should be made in submission to God's will (v. 15).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As we've seen, wisdom and faith must go hand in hand in financial matters, just as in every other area of the Christian life. Wisdom or intelligence without faith turns all too quickly into pride or selfishness. Faith or confidence without wisdom turns all too quickly into foolishness or irresponsibility. How we deal with our financial resources can very easily fall into these twin traps. We can steer between them by making sure our plans and actions are done in submission to the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 06, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Worship
He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord -Genesis 12:8
Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.
Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time- there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life- worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God's idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.
Giving When No One Sees
Matthew 6:1-4 gives some important insight into giving,
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."
Jesus points us to a truth that is vital to us as Christians: Giving is an issue of the heart.
God will not honor your giving if, when you give, your heart is saying, "I want everyone to know what I'm doing. I want to be noticed when I give. I want everyone to know just how generous and kind I am and what a benevolent heart I have."
We should give with a pure motive. When we give with the right motive, not to be seen by men but out of a right heart, God will reward us openly. That may not exactly translate into dollars and cents, but it will translate into tangible blessings, things that people can see.
If nobody else knows you kicked in the extra hundred bucks, don't worry about it. God sees, and He has a way of rewarding you openly. Everyone will recognize the hand of God is on you. God's blessings will come into your life.
So when you give, check your heart to make sure you are giving with the right motive.
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Read: Luke 19:1-10
The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. - Luke 19:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some people see "market morality" as an empty phrase. In the market, they say, what's "right" is what works. "Sex sells," so immorality is promoted and human bodies are degraded to sell a product. "Fame sells," so we are urged to buy something as an act of near-worship of an athlete or entertainer. Dignity and self-respect are assaulted-people are told their bodies, minds, desires, and lifestyles are hopeless, unless they purchase certain items. Envy and covetousness are promoted-happiness and contentment are impossible without the latest gadgets.
In God's eyes, however, the bottom line of sales and profit margins is not the bottom line of morality. As followers of Christ, we cannot use such reasoning in our handling of money. Zacchaeus had done so, but when he trusted Christ his financial attitudes and actions changed dramatically. As a chief tax collector, he had reasoned and acted in worldly ways. He had used his position and power for personal gain. All the Roman collaborators did so, and since he was in a position of authority he must have been good at it! But God worked in his life, and one momentous day this short man climbed a sycamore tree in order to be able to see Jesus. Shockingly, the Son of God invited Himself to dinner at the house of this notoriously corrupt official (vv. 5-7; cf. Luke 5:27-32; 15:1-7).
Zacchaeus believed in Jesus that day (vv. 9-10). He repented of his sins and showed it by his words and actions. He gladly welcomed Jesus into his home, even though his guest knew all about him. His life would never be the same. He not only returned his ill-gotten gains, he repaid his thievery four times over, far beyond the Law's normal provision for restitution of paying back the amount plus 20 percent (Num. 5:5-7). Furthermore, Zacchaeus generously gave half of what remained to the poor, demonstrating once and for all that his heart no longer served Money (Luke 16:13). In the end, money was transformed from a sign of corruption, dishonesty, and oppression into a sign of repentance, freedom, and spiritual rebirth.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Introducing his Gospel, the apostle John said of Jesus: "To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God" (1:12-13). Repenting of sin and believing in Jesus, as Zacchaeus did in today's reading, is the key to becoming a child of God. If you haven't done so already, we encourage you to take this step today!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 07, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intimate With Jesus
Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?' -John 14:9
These words were not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus was encouraging Philip to draw closer. Yet the last person we get intimate with is Jesus. Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jesus as the One who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see Luke 10:18-20). It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to come: ". . . I have called you friends . . ." (John 15:15). True friendship is rare on earth. It means identifying with someone in thought, heart, and spirit. The whole experience of life is designed to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ. We receive His blessings and know His Word, but do we really know Him?
Jesus said, "It is to your advantage that I go away . . ." (John 16:7). He left that relationship to lead them even closer. It is a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in Scripture to be the visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (see John 15:1-4).
Once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely and we never lack for understanding or compassion. We can continually pour out our hearts to Him without being perceived as overly emotional or pitiful. The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control. This is the outcome of allowing Jesus to satisfy every area of life to its depth. The picture resulting from such a life is that of the strong, calm balance that our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.
A Matter of the Heart
God cares deeply about the motivations of our hearts. Yesterday, we saw that the heart is what matters most in giving. In Matthew 6:6, 17-18, we are shown just how important the heart is to God.
First Jesus deals with our heart when we pray,
"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Next He deals with our heart when fasting,
"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Jesus wants you and me to pray with the right heart, not seeking the praise of others. And the same is true with fasting. When you fast, you are not supposed to let everybody know.
When you fast, if somebody says, "Hey, would you like to go to lunch today?" and you reply, "I can't. I'm fasting," they may think, "Wow, he's spiritual!" but that is all the reward you get, right there, so you better enjoy it.
What is Jesus' point? When we give to the poor, when we pray, when we fast, we do not do it to get the applause or recognition of men. We do it out of obedience to God, out of love for our fellow men, and just wanting to help somebody else who is trying to make it through the day on this planet.
That is why we should do it. That is the right motivation of the heart.
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Read: Mark 14:3-9
Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told. - Mark 14:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Almost 90 percent of Americans identify with a religion, including 75 percent who say they're Christian. But according to a survey by the Barna Group, only 12 percent identify faith as the top priority in their life. Faith is outranked by family (45%); by health, leisure, and a balanced lifestyle (20%); and by wealth, money-making, and career success (17%). Among those who go to church regularly, the number is still just one in five. Among evangelicals, only 39 percent say faith is their highest priority in life. The president of the Barna Group commented: "When it comes to why so much of American religion seems merely skin-deep, this gap between what people call themselves and what they prioritize is perhaps most telling."
The woman in our reading had her priorities in the right order. From John 12:1-8, we know the woman was Jesus' friend, Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. Just before Passion Week, while Jesus was in their home, she anointed Him with a very expensive perfume. Her act was a sign of respect and devotion and was motivated by both friendship and worship. The disciples, however, did not understand. They complained that the perfume, probably pure nard from India, could have been sold for the equivalent of a year's pay and the money given to the poor. Setting aside the dishonest motives of Judas (revealed in John's account), what was wrong with their complaint? After all, their statement was true. Wouldn't it have been more efficient and beneficial to use the money as they suggested? Wouldn't this have been better stewardship?
Jesus' response indicated that good stewardship is not necessarily governed by pragmatic concerns, even well-intentioned ones. In this case, honor and worship of Jesus trumped all other considerations (vv. 6-9). His earthly ministry was drawing to a close. Soon He would be crucified and buried, and within God's plan Mary's anointing was a foreshadowing of and a preparation for these events. What she had done was not wasteful but "a beautiful thing" and would become part of the proclamation of the gospel throughout the world.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Just as Jesus observed, the poor still need our help (v. 7). Christ showed compassion for the poor throughout His earthly ministry. Holidays are often seen as a time of special giving in this regard, including distributing food baskets at Thanksgiving and putting money into Salvation Army buckets outside stores at Christmas. But after the holidays, the poor still need help from God's people. Consider volunteering at a soup kitchen, or see if a homeless shelter needs blankets or coats this month.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 08, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intimate With Jesus
Abraham built an altar . . . ; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar . . . -Genesis 22:9
This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not- "Lord, I am ready to go with You . . . to death" (Luke 22:33). But- "I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God."
We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him.
It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a "living sacrifice"- to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12:1). This is what is acceptable to God.
The Heart of the Issue
Over the last few devotionals, we have learned just how important our heart motivation is in giving, praying, and fasting. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus continues to deal with matters of the heart,
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
How do you lay up treasures in heaven? Jesus told the rich young ruler, "Sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." So giving to help people, giving to the poor, giving to ministry, giving to God's work instead of hoarding it up, giving to God-that is the way you lay treasure up in heaven.
But notice that Jesus goes on to say, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus hasn't really changed the subject. The heart of the issue is the heart. That is the theme of Jesus' teaching.
A right heart attitude-a proper heart motive-is what God cares about most. That is true whether you are giving, you are praying, or you are fasting. He wants you to do these things for the right reasons.
Those right reasons include your desire to help people. Your desire to express your love for God and His Kingdom. Those are the right reasons.
Jesus said, when you are motivated by the right reasons, you are laying up treasure in heaven. He says, "Where your treasure is (in heaven with God), there your heart will be also."
His point? The heart of the issue is your heart.
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Read: Deuteronomy 8:10-18
Remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. - Deuteronomy 8:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Like Jacob, his father-in-law Laban liked to manipulate and deceive (Genesis 29-31). While Jacob was an accomplished trickster and dealmaker himself, Laban beat him at his own game, first deceiving him into working fourteen years for the right to marry Rachel, then paying him "wages" of only the spotted and speckled sheep from his flocks. Nonetheless, God blessed Jacob with wealth and prosperity to such an extent that Laban and his family became jealous. Jacob gave full credit to the Lord for his success: "The God of my father has been with me . . . God has taken away your father's livestock and has given them to me" (Gen. 31:5, 9).
Giving credit to the Lord is one of the key principles of godly financial stewardship. After all, God is in charge of our financial destinies: "The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts" (1 Sam. 2:7). Or in the words of today's verse: "It is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth" (v. 18).
The Mosaic covenant included God's promise of blessing on obedience. The corresponding temptation, however, was that once the people had received blessings they would forget the Source and take the glory for themselves. The human tendency is to blame other people or circumstances for bad things, but to take full credit for good things! Moses, after presenting an appealing portrait of peace and prosperity, forcefully warned them of the temptation of pride (v. 14). By focusing on self, pride forgets who God is. The Israelites could not afford to forget the One who had freed them from slavery in Egypt, led them through the desert, provided for their needs, and would bring them to the Promised Land. When that day came, they would need to resist the inevitable temptation to pat themselves on the back (v. 17).
We, too, must acknowledge the Lord as the real Provider and the One who controls our financial situations. In light of this, we, too, should reject pride and focus instead on a response of praise (v. 10) and a habit of obedience (v. 11).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As both wage earners and business people, we face the temptation to give ourselves credit for any success. We would do well to heed God's words: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight" (Jer. 9:23-24).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 09, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayerful Inner-Searching
May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
"Your whole spirit . . . ." The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139 . The psalmist implies- "O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me."
Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus-no longer condemned in God's sight.
We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.
Living for Whom?
Today I want us to return to Luke 12, but focus on verses 16-19,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."'"
This guy is classic! While he was rich, he was only rich toward himself. He did not have any thoughts about being rich toward the Kingdom of God. He was totally self-centered.
In fact, in the few short verses where this man speaks, verses 17, 18, and 19, he uses six "I"s, five "my"s, and four "I will"s. He says, "My crops, my barns, my goods, my soul." Pretty self-centered!
Yes, his land brought forth an incredible harvest, but who provided the fertile soil? Who provided the rain? Who provided the sunshine? Who gave him his health? Who gave him the ability to think and plan? In fact, for that matter, who gave him his soul?
In Ezekiel 18:4 God says, "All souls are Mine."
This man totally left God out of his plans. Everything he did, he did for himself. And God said he was a fool. On the very same day he made his boast, his soul was required of him.
Instead of a barn, he had a burial; instead of living in the lap of luxury, he had to stand before God and give an account of his life.
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Sunday, January 9, 2011
Read: Proverbs 10:4-5
Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. - Proverbs 10:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A recent Nielsen study revealed that the average American watches four hours and 49 minutes of television per day. That's 20 percent more than a decade ago. In an average American household, someone is watching TV eight hours and 21 minutes of every day. In 1991, that number was only one hour and 50 minutes. Experts attribute this increase to expanded television programming, competing leisure options, and varying economic conditions.
Perhaps they should also consider laziness and an addiction to entertainment as contributing factors! By contrast, both the book of Proverbs and common sense recommend diligence and hard work as essential elements of successful stewardship. Good stewards understand that they are stewards, not owners. All the resources they manage belong to the Lord. Good stewards further understand that their ability to acquire and manage these resources also comes from the Lord. Whether in terms of external factors such as money and material goods, or in terms of internal factors such as abilities and effort, we have no reason for pride. Good stewards give all the glory to God.
This is not an excuse for not working diligently (cf. Eph. 4:28). Believers do not "put it on cruise control" and call it "trusting the Lord to provide." God's will is for us to be diligent and hard-working with the responsibilities He's given us, including those related to wage-earning and finances. This is clear in today's reading. These two proverbs are built around contrast. In verse 4, the contrast is about results-laziness leads to poverty, but diligence leads to wealth. In verse 5, the contrast is about character-hard work indicates wisdom, whereas slothfulness indicates foolishness.
Proverbs are general truths or principles. They are not promises, certainties, or explanations for all situations. For example, there are causes for poverty other than laziness. Even so, the principle that one reaps what one sows in terms of diligence versus laziness is confirmed many times in Proverbs (see 14:23; 24:30-34; and 28:19).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Throughout Proverbs, hard work and diligence are associated with wisdom, understanding, and humility; while laziness or slothfulness are associated with foolishness, ignorance, and pride. The diligent get it done-the lazy are empty talkers. Or in modern terms, the hard workers walk the walk, while others are merely couch potatoes. This makes biblical stewardship a countercultural idea. Others might be obsessed with entertainment and pleasure, but Christians strive to please God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Praise be to God!
Daily Devotional
January 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Opened Sight
I now send you, to open their eyes . . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . -Acts 26:17-18
This verse is the greatest example of the true essence of the message of a disciple of Jesus Christ in all of the New Testament.
God's first sovereign work of grace is summed up in the words, ". . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . ." When a person fails in his personal Christian life, it is usually because he has never received anything. The only sign that a person is saved is that he has received something from Jesus Christ. Our job as workers for God is to open people's eyes so that they may turn themselves from darkness to light. But that is not salvation; it is conversion-only the effort of an awakened human being. I do not think it is too broad a statement to say that the majority of so-called Christians are like this. Their eyes are open, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration. This is a neglected fact in our preaching today. When a person is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision. People may make vows and promises, and may be determined to follow through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to the place where we are able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ, namely, forgiveness of sins.
This is followed by God's second mighty work of grace: ". . . an inheritance among those who are sanctified . . . ." In sanctification, the one who has been born again deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's ministry to others.
Compromise
As we continue our consideration of prosperity, I want to turn your attention to Luke 12:31,
"But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
This is a simple but powerful principle for life: We have to put God's Kingdom first if we are to realize God's prosperity.
A lot of Christians get caught up in the drive for prosperity and forget that God's greatest desire is for us to pursue His Kingdom. In fact, I think some of God's children today are frustrated as they are endeavoring to prosper. They can see the promise of prosperity in the Word, yet they are coming up short, and they are asking, "God, what's up?"
I really think this is an issue of the heart. God is not prospering them because they may not be mature enough spiritually to handle the degree of prosperity they are seeking. It might do them harm.
This brings to mind a young coworker of mine from a number of years ago. He was a believer but was struggling financially. One night we were in a restaurant after work when he shared a difficult struggle he was going through.
We prayed that God would do something supernatural to help him in his time of need. Two days later, he got an unexpected inheritance. It was huge! And you know what? The next week he wasn't at work. Instead he was out partying. All of a sudden, his church life stopped and he walked away from his relationship with God. He didn't have the maturity to handle the success.
I think success has ruined more people than failure. It has been said that money is the most dangerous thing God can put into your trust.
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Read: Genesis 41:41-57
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! - Proverbs 6:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In one of Aesop's fables, an ant met a grasshopper. The grasshopper was hopping about, singing and chirping in the bright summer sunshine, while the ant was toiling away at its task of gathering food. "Why not take a break?" said the grasshopper. "Come play with me and enjoy yourself." "I'm preparing for the coming winter," the ant responded, "and you should do the same." The grasshopper ignored this advice and continued on his merry way. But when winter came, the grasshopper found himself starving while the ants were well fed. Too late, he understood the virtue of planning ahead (cf. Prov. 6:6-11).
Thinking ahead is another dimension of effective stewardship, and Joseph provides one of the best biblical models of this in today's reading. He used his administrative gifts to glorify God where he was put-and where he was put, amazingly enough, was second-in-command over all Egypt! Sovereignly and suddenly elevated from imprisoned slave to powerful ruler, Joseph had advance warning of a severe crisis. By means of his God-given ability to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, he knew a famine was coming. He had faith that God was the source of the dream-that is to say, he knew the dream was true and must be taken seriously.
Having been warned, he acted. He diligently collected and stored grain during the seven years of plenty, even when the accountants could not keep up. Then, when the seven years of famine began, there was enough food to save the lives of both Egyptians and foreigners, including Joseph's father, Jacob, and his extended family (vv. 53-57).
The fulfillment of Pharaoh's dream may have surprised some, but it didn't surprise Joseph. He knew it was a merciful warning from God, and that God had placed him in a position to do something about it. His planning ahead and good stewardship saved lives throughout the civilized world of that day. Though his brothers had attempted to destroy him out of spite and envy, Joseph understood in faith that God had turned their evil into good (Gen. 45:5-8; cf. Prov. 21:30).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Thinking and planning ahead is a good thing, but sometimes life deals us unexpected blows-a lost job, an expensive medical need, bills that grow faster than income. While we know God is in control, struggling from day to day is hard. If that describes you, this encouraging verse is especially for you: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jer. 29:11).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What My Obedience to God Costs Other People
As they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon . . . , and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus -Luke 23:26
If we obey God, it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the pain begins. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything- it is a delight. But to those who do not love Him, our obedience does cost a great deal. If we obey God, it will mean that other people's plans are upset. They will ridicule us as if to say, "You call this Christianity?" We could prevent the suffering, but not if we are obedient to God. We must let the cost be paid.
When our obedience begins to cost others, our human pride entrenches itself and we say, "I will never accept anything from anyone." But we must, or disobey God. We have no right to think that the type of relationships we have with others should be any different from those the Lord Himself had (see Luke 8:1-3).
A lack of progress in our spiritual life results when we try to bear all the costs ourselves. And actually, we cannot. Because we are so involved in the universal purposes of God, others are immediately affected by our obedience to Him. Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent? Or will we do just the opposite and say, "I will not cause other people to suffer"? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but it will grieve our Lord. If, however, we obey God, He will care for those who have suffered the consequences of our obedience. We must simply obey and leave all the consequences with Him.
Beware of the inclination to dictate to God what consequences you would allow as a condition of your obedience to Him.
Go Fish
Over the next seven devotionals, I want to talk to you about the number one business of the Church: the business of winning souls. It is what I call "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning."
The first "C"-commission-is found in Mark 16:15. These are some of the last words Jesus spoke before He ascended into heaven,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Could it be any clearer? Jesus said, "Go." Dare we say, "No"? He said, "Go."
That is the opposite of "stay," isn't it? G G-O.
God wants you and me to take the Gospel to Others.
You and I need to get out into the world! Jesus was not crucified between two candles on a church altar. He was crucified out in the byways and highways of humanity, and that is where we must take the message.
Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." That is a promise. But you know what? You have to get to the water if you are going to catch fish. You have to get out of the four church walls, out to where hurting humanity is, and engage them with the gospel.
A while back, I went backpacking with my two sons in a very remote area. We found a pristine lake where just about every time we would put a line in the water, we would catch a fish.
We also had this incredible camp. But you know what? If we wanted to catch fish, we had to go down to the water. No one could catch a fish sitting in camp.
A lot of Christians just hang around the camp. They form fishing clubs and talk about how important it is to fish. But they don't fish.
God wants us to go fish!
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Read: Deuteronomy 24:10-22
It will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God. - Deuteronomy 24:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
Pastor Cole Huffman wrote in Discipleship Journal: "Whether our money stories are shaped by our families, culture, or innate preferences, a new chapter gets written when we are reborn into Jesus' kingdom." If we follow in Christ's footsteps, "Our checkbook ledgers should tell a story of Jesus' ongoing transformation of us. We keep and spend not just for personal necessities like food and utilities, but also to do beautiful things for those we love or feel compelled to help."
One kingdom principle guiding our financial stewardship is that money must be handled with justice and respect. As mentioned on January 6, profits and material benefits are not the bottom-line justification for our financial choices. Instead, godliness and moral concerns must govern our handling of money. Two such concerns, justice and respect, are identified in today's reading. Both are based on the doctrine of creation-the fact that people are intrinsically valuable to God as beings made in His image (Gen. 1:27). Each person carries individual responsibility in this matter (v. 16).
Three examples get the point across. In the first example, the fact that one person is giving another a loan does not give the first person the right to show disrespect to the other (vv. 10-13). When the loan collateral is the borrower's personal clothing, the man's needs and dignity are more important considerations than money.
In the second example, the fact that one person is another's employer does not give the first person the right to pay wages when it's convenient (vv. 14-15). Not paying wages promptly amounts to exploiting one's workers (cf. Mal. 3:5). In fact, all who are socially vulnerable should be treated fairly (vv. 17-18). In the third and final example, the fact that one person owns a field while another is a poor gleaner does not give the first the right to maximize his harvest by leaving nothing to be gathered (vv. 19-22). In that culture, it would have been cruel to be overly thorough and efficient with the harvesting. People made in God's image deserve better treatment from their fellow human beings.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Money must be handled in ways that show respect and practice justice in order to please the Lord. What might this principle mean for you in your context? Do you allocate some of your resources to share with the needy? Do you treat others, especially those in need, with dignity and respect? We still need to apply this lesson within the context of the stewardship responsibilities God has given us. If we're not sure how, He has promised to give us wisdom when we ask (James 1:5).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (1)
When they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples -Mark 4:34
Our Solitude with Him. Jesus doesn't take us aside and explain things to us all the time; He explains things to us as we are able to understand them. The lives of others are examples for us, but God requires us to examine our own souls. It is slow work- so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose. We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it. But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage?
We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves. That is always the last bit of pride to go. The only One who understands us is God. The greatest curse in our spiritual life is pride. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we will never say, "Oh, I'm so unworthy." We will understand that this goes without saying. But as long as there is any doubt that we are unworthy, God will continue to close us in until He gets us alone. Whenever there is any element of pride or conceit remaining, Jesus can't teach us anything. He will allow us to experience heartbreak or the disappointment we feel when our intellectual pride is wounded. He will reveal numerous misplaced affections or desires- things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. Many things are shown to us, often without effect. But when God gets us alone over them, they will be clear.
Compassion for the Lost
Yesterday we started a series of devotionals I am calling "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning." Today I want to point you to the second "C"-compassion. In Mark 16:16 Jesus said,
"He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Now, condemned is a pretty soft word in the English language. I actually like the King James Version, where it says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
Condemned or damned, it means eternally separated from God with no opportunity of rescue or retrieval. Forever lost. Think about it!
Do you recall the story Jesus told of the rich man who died? It ought to send a shudder through the heart of even the most brazen sinner.
Jesus tells us that the rich man died and was in torment, in flame. Jesus goes on to say that the rich man lifted up his eyes, and begged for mercy. But no mercy came, even as it says in Revelation 14:11, "The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever."
I know it is not a popular subject in the Church to talk about hell, but Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven. It is a very real place. If we would consider just for a moment the end of the man or woman who rejects Christ, it ought to cause our hearts to be stirred with compassion.
When was the last time you and I shed a tear over lost humanity? When was the last time you and I were truly broken with the things that break the heart of God?
Our compassion for the lost ought to move us to do all we can to share Christ with them!
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Read: Matthew 25:14-27
You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. - Matthew 25:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to a recent report, the U.S. healthcare system is plagued by inefficiency, mistakes, and fraud. For example, antibiotics are over-prescribed and unnecessary laboratory tests are ordered in order to protect physicians from malpractice suits. Fraud accounts for about 22 percent of the total waste, including false Medicare claims. Other significant problems include administrative inefficiency, redundant paperwork, and medical errors. According to the report, "The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada." The report found that up to $850 billion is lost annually.
Those responsible will one day be held accountable for this colossal waste. In the end, as the Parable of the Talents reveals, we will all be held accountable for our stewardship of the resources, including money, with which God has entrusted us.
The basis for our accountability lies in our identity as a steward or servant (v. 14). A 21st-century American might say, "I've earned it. It's mine. I can do with it what I like." But Christians understand this is false. All we are and all we have belongs to the Lord, and one of our life goals should be to do with ourselves and our resources not what we like but what He likes. If we invest in attitudes and actions that please Him, He will bless our stewardship with multiplied resources and a good "return on investment"-in kingdom terms this can include material things, but ultimately it's about spiritual blessings. "Profit" for the kingdom is ultimately about God's glory-good stewardship is about making choices that bring Him more glory.
The reward for faithful stewardship is God's commendation, some kind of additional responsibility, and best of all, the blessing of His presence for eternity. In the words of the master in the story: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (v. 21). When we understand that the Master is God, we understand what an incredible invitation this is!
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What about the servant who failed? In the parable, the third servant buried his one talent in a hole and gave it back to the master when he returned. He justified this laziness in terms of fear, and was condemned for it. Stewardship is never about fear. It's not about taking the "safe way." What responsibility has God given you? What talents and resources do you have? Are you using them boldly for the glory of God? He calls us to serve, and He will bring the increase.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (2)
When He was alone . . . the twelve asked Him about the parable -Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship- when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. Notice Jesus Christ's training of the Twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were confused. His disciples constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly explained things to them, but they didn't understand until after they received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person's struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
Common Ground
The next "C" of "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning" is common ground. We need to endeavor to find common ground with people. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-24, Paul says,
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
In this passage, Paul is talking about the way he ran-the method he used-to reach people for Christ. Verse 22 in The Living Bible puts it this way, Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone so that I might bring them to Christ.
Paul didn't run aimlessly. And like Paul, you have to find a point to relate to people so that you can build a bridge over which the gospel can come.
I encourage you today to find a common area of interest, a common ground, to relate to people in order to share Christ with them.
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Read: 1 Timothy 5:3-10, 17-20
The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God. - 1 Timothy 5:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Many Asian cultures, especially those influenced by Confucian values, are characterized by a deep love for elders and respect for parents, especially mothers. Parents tend to be strong authority figures who have earned their authority by faithfully raising their children. Unsubmissive children are often viewed not as independent or self-confident but as ungrateful and self-centered. Because they gave children life, mothers in particular are owed a debt that can never be repaid. In northeast China, for example, one Christian English teacher was amazed to find that on their birthdays, her students would telephone their mothers to thank them for giving birth to them!
These family relationships and obligations compare well with the cultural background in today's reading. The apostle Paul dealt here with two stewardship responsibilities that applied to the church as a whole. The first is to take care of widows and, by extension, any fellow believers in serious need. The second is to pay pastors a decent wage. Many churches have embraced this second duty, understanding that elders who teach are "worthy of double honor" (v. 17). With regard to the first duty, however, we have perhaps grown careless. We're conditioned to think that it's the government's responsibility, not ours, to offer social services and a "safety net" for the poor.
But whatever the government does or does not do, Paul's command remains. If a believing widow or other person is truly in need-and examples are given of stringent circumstantial and spiritual standards that must be met to determine whether this is so-then the church is to offer material support. This is first a family obligation (vv. 4, 8), but also a family-of-God obligation.
The point of today's passage is simple: Pay pastors a decent salary, and make sure deserving widows and other needy believers get help from the body of Christ. We talk about loving others, and here are two specific ways to put our money where our mouth is.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul's command regarding pastors' pay is given in the context of the local church, where the Spirit has gifted some for leadership and teaching. Today, this often means one or more pastors on a church staff, and perhaps includes missionaries supported by the church as well. While other ministries might at times seem more glamorous, our first priority for our financial giving should always be the local church with whom God has called us to serve and worship.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Called By God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me' -Isaiah 6:8
God did not direct His call to Isaiah- Isaiah overheard God saying, ". . . who will go for Us?" The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God's call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). That is, few prove that they are the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have had their spiritual condition changed and their ears opened. Then they hear "the voice of the Lord" continually asking, ". . . who will go for Us?" However, God doesn't single out someone and say, "Now, you go." He did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call. His response, performed in complete freedom, could only be to say, "Here am I! Send me."
Remove the thought from your mind of expecting God to come to force you or to plead with you. When our Lord called His disciples, He did it without irresistible pressure from the outside. The quiet, yet passionate, insistence of His "Follow Me" was spoken to men whose every sense was receptive (Matthew 4:19). If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard-"the voice of the Lord." In perfect freedom we too will say, "Here am I! Send me."
Character Counts
So far we have learned about the first three "Cs" of soul winning in the last few devotionals. Today let me share the fourth "C"-character. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, particularly verse 27, tells us the importance of character in witnessing to others,
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
Paul said he was temperate in all things, that he disciplined his body. He would bring it into subjection, meaning he had problems keeping his body in subjection, just like you and I do.
Every one of us has a propensity toward certain sins. It is important, though, that we rein in our flesh and that we are temperate in all things because our lifestyle affects our message.
Take just a moment and do the following exercise. Imagine you are an employer. If you wanted to hire an efficient, competent, trustworthy employee, would you hire yourself at your present salary?
Or let's say that you were going to have to spend the rest of your life with someone just like you. Would you look forward to it as a great opportunity and privilege? Or not?
If your character is out of whack, people are going to have a hard time hearing what you have to say. Character counts!
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Read: Luke 16:1-15
If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? - Luke 16:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his sermon, "The Use of Money," John Wesley spoke of the virtue of prudence. The first rule: "Gain all you can, without hurting either yourself or your neighbor, in soul or body, by [working diligently] and with all the understanding which God has given you." What next? "Having gained all you can, by honest wisdom and unwearied diligence, the second rule of Christian prudence is, 'Save all you can.'" In particular, Wesley exhorted believers, "Expend no part of [your money] merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life." Finally, the third rule is: "Give all you can, or, in other words, give all you have to God."
Prudence is perhaps the concept closest to the word translated "shrewd" in today's text. This parable presents us with several puzzles. The first is that Jesus seems to be encouraging us to follow a bad example. Some have sought to explain the manager's actions as culturally appropriate or even indicating a change of heart, but this seems to be reading in quite a bit. Jesus Himself called the man "dishonest" (v. 8), and the manager explicitly stated his motive as self-preservation (v. 4).
A second puzzle is why the rich man in the story commends the manager. "Because he had acted shrewdly." What does this mean? An additional puzzle is what Jesus meant by recommending shrewdness and why He linked it to trustworthiness and integrity (vv. 10-12). The Greek word at the center of these puzzles is phronimos, also translated as "prudent," "sensible," or "wise" in the sense of being mindful of one's own interests. For example, the man who built his house on a rock was phronimos (Matt. 7:24), as were the bridesmaids who brought oil for their lamps (Matt. 25:2).
In light of all this, the parable gives us a valuable lesson. In the same way that the manager used the resources available to him for temporal personal gain, so we should use the resources available to us for eternal personal (but not self-centered) gain. To use worldly wealth for heavenly purposes (v. 9) is a very shrewd investment!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Before spending money, Wesley recommended this prayer, slightly modified here: "Lord, you see I am going to expend this sum on that food, apparel, or furniture. And you know I act in this matter with a single eye as a steward of your goods. . . . You know I do this in obedience to the Lord, as you command, and because you command it. Let this, I pray, be a holy sacrifice, acceptable through Jesus Christ. Let my conscience bear witness in the Holy Spirit that this plan is well-pleasing to God."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You Walk In White?
We were buried with Him . . . that just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . even so we also should walk in newness of life -Romans 6:4
No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a "white funeral"-the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a "white funeral," a death with only one resurrection-a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can defeat a life like this. It has oneness with God for only one purpose- to be a witness for Him.
Have you really come to your last days? You have often come to them in your mind, but have you really experienced them? You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement. Death means you stop being. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death. It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death. It is dying- being "baptized into His death" (Romans 6:3).
Have you had your "white funeral," or are you piously deceiving your own soul? Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, "Yes, it was then, at my 'white funeral,' that I made an agreement with God."
"This is the will of God, your sanctification . . ." (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Once you truly realize this is God's will, you will enter into the process of sanctification as a natural response. Are you willing to experience that "white funeral" now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you.
The Comforter
Today we are going to look at the fifth "C" of soul winning, and that is the Comforter. Many times when Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit, He referred to Him as the Comforter.
In Acts 1:4-5, after the resurrection, Jesus said something to the disciples that was very intriguing,
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
He had already told them to go into all the world, but then He said, "Hey, you need to wait for something. There's some equipment you need before you go. Don't go start a Bible study, don't go pass out a tract, don't do anything. You need something first. You need to be baptized with the Spirit."
Then look at what He said in verse 8,
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
The Holy Spirit gives us power to be a witness. There is something beyond even living a life of integrity. There is a supernatural, captivating element when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit that makes the witness of the gospel even more inescapable.
Jesus was so strong on it He said, "Look, don't leave Jerusalem without it." God has given us His Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to empower us to reach our generation for Christ.
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Read: Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
The day after former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile in 1821 on the island of St. Helena, someone cut a lock of hair from his head. That lock of hair landed in the collection of Denzil Ibbetson, a British official who served on St. Helena during the six years Napoleon lived there after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Ibbetson later emigrated to New Zealand. Last year, his descendants there auctioned off his collection, including the famous lock of hair. A collector in London paid $13,000 for the unusual artifact.
Thousands of dollars for a bit of centuries-dead hair from a defeated dictator? It would seem that this collector didn't get much of true value for his money. For the next six days we'll consider what Scripture has to say about wealth, values, and money. While it's true that wealth can be a blessing, the fact is that Scripture has mostly words of warning about riches and their danger as a spiritual temptation.
The book of Ecclesiastes is a record of Solomon's search for meaning and purpose in life. In today's reading, he experimented with various pleasures, all of which required money to enjoy. During his initial fling with shallow pleasures such as wine, he "wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do" (v. 3). He next engaged in deeper pleasures, including building projects and the accumulation of material wealth. In summary, he did whatever he wanted, indulged in every pleasure he could find, and found some happiness in his success (v. 10). Yet ultimately it was all "meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (v. 11).
Without God, pleasure and wealth cannot bring purpose or meaning to life. Pleasure, work, and money all have their proper places, but only within a larger worldview that has God and His glory at the center. Little wonder, then, that Solomon advised: "Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle" (Prov. 23:4-5).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
These days, individual goals in American society are often about career advancement and the accumulation of material wealth-get a degree so you can get a good job so you can earn a high salary so you can live a comfortable life. It's all about climbing the ladder of success. But God's standards for success are rather different from the world's. Are we living by His truth? Or are we pursuing things that will one day lead us to admit, "Nothing was gained under the sun"?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Voice of the Nature of God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' -Isaiah 6:8
When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God's voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person's opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
God's Guidance System
In Matthew 6:22-24, Jesus tells us the impact when God has our whole heart,"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
While it may not seem like it, Jesus is talking about the heart.
As we learned in our previous devotionals, if you give to God, and give for the right reasons, God has your heart. Your heart belongs to Him. When God has your heart, He can lead you; because that is how God leads, He leads through your heart.
That's really what this illustration is about. That is what He means by, "The lamp of the body is the eye."
Think about the difference light makes when trying to walk on a narrow, craggy path. When light comes into your eye, you can see your way. Your eyes, when the light is able to come in, are a built-in guidance system, aren't they?
Well, you know what? You have a guidance system God uses to lead you. That guidance system is called your heart. If God has your treasure, He has your heart. But God can't lead you through your heart if He doesn't have your heart.
If God has your heart, then He can begin to lead you. You can go anywhere He tells you to go. And interestingly enough, the loyalty of our heart is expressed through our giving. Giving and guidance tied together? According to Jesus... definitely!
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Read: Psalm 52
But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love. - Psalm 52:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
One day, a man asked Jesus to settle a family financial dispute: "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Instead, Jesus warned His listeners: "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." He then told a parable about a rich man who was anticipating a profitable harvest, making plans to build bigger barns, and relaxing in the "security" of his wealth. "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.' . . . This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:13-21).
As Jesus so dramatically emphasized, trusting in money is folly. His ancestor David taught the same lesson in Psalm 52. This psalm was written during a low point in his feud with King Saul, during the years he was waiting for God to put him on the throne of Israel.
The psalm begins with a portrait of a wicked man (vv. 1-4). He is boastful, destructive, and deceitful, with a tongue like a "sharpened razor." As a "disgrace in the eyes of God," such a person is marked for divine judgment (vv. 5-7). The righteous will rejoice when justice is done on such a person. What was the man's key mistake? Why did he "love evil rather than good"? Why did he do the things he did? He "did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth" (cf. Job 27:13-23).
In contrast, David trusted not in his money but in "God's unfailing love for ever and ever" (vv. 8-9). Pride did not govern his actions-instead he was motivated to praise and worship the Lord. As a result, he was "like an olive tree, flourishing in the house of God." Olive trees-this is one of only two in all the psalms (the other is Ps. 128:3)-are particularly long-lived and fruitful. This image thus clearly expresses David's faith and hope in God (cf. Ps. 1:1-3).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We are also vulnerable to the temptation to trust in money. We might see it as security in retirement, for example, when our true security is God. We might see it as a source of freedom, when our true freedom is found in Christ. We might see it as an indication of ability or success, but the Lord has very different ways of using our abilities and measuring our successes. For some, money is a source of self-confidence and self-worth. We must resist temptations to think in these ungodly ways!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Call of the Natural Life
When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . -Galatians 1:15-16
The call of God is not a call to serve Him in any particular way. My contact with the nature of God will shape my understanding of His call and will help me realize what I truly desire to do for Him. The call of God is an expression of His nature; the service which results in my life is suited to me and is an expression of my nature. The call of the natural life was stated by the apostle Paul- "When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him [that is, purely and solemnly express Him] among the Gentiles . . . ."
Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God. Service becomes a natural part of my life. God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand His call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation of absolute love. Service to God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is an expression of my nature, and God's call is an expression of His nature. Therefore, when I receive His nature and hear His call, His divine voice resounds throughout His nature and mine and the two become one in service. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life.
When God Has Our Hearts
In Matthew 6:25-26, Jesus applies all we have covered over the last few days, "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Given the context of the preceding verses, Jesus is telling us that if God is first in our giving, then He indeed has our heart. If He has our hearts, He can guide us and meet our needs, and we have no need to worry about provision for our life.
He feeds the birds. He will take care of you. Do not worry. Obey Him, trust Him, and look to Him for your daily bread.
Matthew 6:33 says,
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
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Read: James 5:1-6
Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. - James 5:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Nehemiah investigated the situation among the Jewish returnees from exile, he was appalled to find economic injustices (Nehemiah 5). Some had been forced to mortgage their fields to buy food. Others had no financial option but to have family members work in a kind of slavery. Worst of all, the people were being squeezed by their own countrymen! Furious, Nehemiah summoned the leaders and forcefully reminded them of their responsibilities: "What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them" (Neh. 5:9-11). The leaders did respond to Nehemiah's rebuke and promised to do better.
Money and spirituality go hand-in-hand, and using money to exploit or oppress others is wrong and will be judged by God. In his epistle, James warned unbelieving rich people about the "misery that is coming upon you" (v. 1). We know they are unbelievers because they are told to "weep and wail," that is, to repent and turn to the Lord. The priorities, purposes, and actions of wealthy believers, as we know, should look very different. James's warning included vivid images of riches rotting away or becoming corroded, showing how fleeting and worthless they are (vv. 2-3a). The "corrosion" is not only physical but also spiritual, which is why it "will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire."
These financial resources would testify that the wealthy have "hoarded" money for themselves instead of paying what they owed to their laborers (vv. 3b-4; cf. Jer. 22:13). These rich people are guilty of self-indulgence or living in luxury (v. 5), while at the same time they withhold wages and in effect murder innocent men by stealing their livelihoods (v. 6). They put self ahead of others, luxury ahead of integrity, selfishness ahead of justice, and money ahead of God. He will judge them severely for their sinful priorities and actions.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich, presents the financial challenges faced by the working poor in our country. The author recounted trying to make ends meet by working minimum wage jobs. Her stories of what happened are funny, shocking, and insightful. This secular book has sold over 1.5 million copies and has done much to help people understand and empathize with those near the bottom of the financial pecking order.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It Is the Lord!"
Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' -John 20:28
Jesus said to her, 'Give Me a drink' " (John 4:7). How many of us are expecting Jesus Christ to quench our thirst when we should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). That means lives of pure, uncompromising, and unrestrained devotion to the Lord Jesus, which will be satisfying to Him wherever He may send us.
Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?
The Coming Reward
Let me quote to you from Daniel 12:3, which says,
"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever."
There is a coming reward for those who turn people to righteousness.
The dearest thing to God's heart is winning humanity and bringing them into His family. Nothing is more important to God. He bankrupted heaven and gave His only begotten Son to save humanity.
The Bible teaches us that there will be a reward, my friend: authority in heaven, a place in heaven, honor in heaven.
In addition to that, I want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Someday there is going to be a joy and a fullness in heaven, but there are some who will not experience that level of joy.
The story is told that Cyrus, the king of Persia who had defeated Babylon and set the captive Jews at liberty, was walking through his garden one day with a visitor. The visitor was looking at all of the beautiful trees and shrubs and exclaimed how much pleasure the garden was giving him.
Cyrus said, "Not nearly the pleasure it gives to me for, you see, I have planted every one of these trees myself."
I think there is going to be something about being in heaven and seeing your fingerprints on people who are there because you shared, because you gave, and because you prayed. I believe there is going to be a greater joy for some because they did more for heaven while on earth than others.
There is a coming reward!
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Read: James 2:1-9
Don't show favoritism. - James 2:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
"Does God want you to be rich?" asked a 2006 Time magazine cover story. The main article explored contemporary versions of the "prosperity gospel." This "gospel" holds that God wants all believers to be professionally successful and financially well off. Its followers dream of large homes, expensive cars, and other signs of wealth-this is their definition of "blessing" and the "abundant life." They reason that since an all-powerful God loves us and wants the best for us, and since success and wealth are the best life has to offer, then all we must do is act in faith to receive this blessing. Or as Time put it, "Why not gain the whole world plus my soul?" This is not a fringe movement: In a Time poll, 17 percent of Christians surveyed said they were part of a"prosperity gospel" church, and 61 percent agreed that "God wants people to be prosperous."
Unfortunately for "prosperity gospel" followers, God's Word does not agree with them. God might sometimes choose to bless or reward people materially, but the fact is that material wealth is unrelated to spiritual status in the kingdom of God. James's command in this matter is simple: "Don't show favoritism" (v. 1). In his supporting example, a rich man and a poor man go to church. The rich man receives personal attention and a privileged seat from the church leaders, while the poor man is ignored and shunted off to the side (vv. 2-4). These "judges with evil thoughts" had made the mistake of attaching evaluations of worth and importance to clothes, jewelry, and wealth.
The truth, however, is that God's evaluations turn worldly ones upside-down (v. 5; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-31). In this case, the financially poor have been chosen "to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom." Why, asked James, would you favor these rich anyway? They're the ones exploiting you, taking you to court, and slandering God's name through their behavior (vv. 6-7). Showing favoritism to them is an insult to the poor, not to mention a violation of the command to "love your neighbor" (vv. 8-9).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Despite thousands of books of financial advice, perhaps what we need most are the two greatest commandments. According to Jesus, these are, "Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:37-39). How does our handling of money fulfill or reflect these two commandments? Many budget-related discussions and prayers might flow from this single question.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vision and Darkness
When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him -Genesis 15:12
Whenever God gives a vision to a Christian, it is as if He puts him in "the shadow of His hand" (Isaiah 49:2). The saint's duty is to be still and listen. There is a "darkness" that comes from too much light-that is the time to listen. The story of Abram and Hagar in Genesis 16 is an excellent example of listening to so-called good advice during a time of darkness, rather than waiting for God to send the light. When God gives you a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will bring the vision He has given you to reality in your life if you will wait on His timing. Never try to help God fulfill His word. Abram went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all of his self-sufficiency was destroyed. He grew past the point of relying on his own common sense. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not a period of God's displeasure. There is never any need to pretend that your life is filled with joy and confidence; just wait upon God and be grounded in Him (see Isaiah 50:10-11).
Do I trust at all in the flesh? Or have I learned to go beyond all confidence in myself and other people of God? Do I trust in books and prayers or other joys in my life? Or have I placed my confidence in God Himself, not in His blessings? "I am Almighty God . . ."- El-Shaddai, the All-Powerful God (Genesis 17:1). The reason we are all being disciplined is that we will know God is real. As soon as God becomes real to us, people pale by comparison, becoming shadows of reality. Nothing that other saints do or say can ever upset the one who is built on God.
Worry About Work
In 2 Corinthians 11:28, the apostle Paul says something very interesting,
Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
You may be wondering, "Bayless, what does this have to do with my life?" Let me show you.
The phrase "deep concern" literally means anxiety and worry. And that phrase "to come upon"in the original language literally means "it conspires against me in order to overthrow me."
The apostle Paul's job was to oversee the churches that God had used him to establish, and in this verse he is confessing, "I daily have to battle with worry over these churches. How are they doing? Are they being misled by false prophets? Are they staying true to good doctrine?"
He was dealing with worry about those churches. Every day he grappled with that worry, and he had to throw it down.
It is easy for all of us to worry about our job. Some people, even though they are at home, never leave their job. They carry the burden around with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
They are always worrying about the job, even when they are home with their family. "How are things going at work? I wonder what they're saying. I wonder about the competition. What about sales? What about my job security? What's going to happen tomorrow?"
Consequently, when they get home from work, they are carrying this burden of work around with them, and they are robbing their family. Their own spiritual life is robbed, many times almost to the point of bankruptcy.
Do not let your family be robbed. Do not let your own personal and spiritual life be robbed because you carry the care of your job around with you. Instead, give it to God.
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Read: Matthew 19:16-30
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. - Matthew 19:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the beginning, Solomon's heart was devoted to the Lord. He knew he couldn't rule successfully without God's help. God offered the young man anything he wanted, and Solomon showed the quality of his heart by choosing wisdom. "Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?" (2 Chron. 1:10). Unfortunately, spiritual decay later set in (1 Kings 11). Solomon married foreign women, let them build temples to false gods, then joined them in idolatry. He took increasing pride in his great knowledge and wealth. He relied more on himself and less and less on the Lord. His faith eroded, and his final legacy was not a godly one.
Power and riches can seduce the heart, as today's reading also shows. This is the story of a rich young man's encounter with Jesus. At the start of the conversation, the man asked how to get eternal life, but the implied question was really, "How good do I need to be?" Jesus countered that salvation is not about our
goodness but about God's goodness. To prove it, He also gave a more straightforward answer, "Obey the commandments" (v. 17). A godly person would have known that perfectly keeping God's law is impossible, but the rich young man asserted that he met the standard.
Trying to enlighten this proud person, Jesus switched tactics and presented the man with a practical challenge: Sell your possessions, give to the poor, and follow me (v. 21). He knew that wealth, not God, had first place in this man's heart. The rich young man "went away sad," and perhaps also shocked and humbled (v. 22). The true state of his heart had been revealed.
Jesus followed up by teaching His astonished disciples that riches are a fierce and direct competitor to faith and to our valuing God above all else (vv. 23-26). In fact, those who have given up earthly riches for committed discipleship will be blessed with far more heavenly riches than those they gave up (vv. 27-30).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The rich young man believed he could earn his way to God through spiritual performance without rearranging the priorities of his heart. But God will not share the throne of our lives with our love of riches, security, comfort, or self. He alone will be worshiped. Good works should flow out of our love for Jesus, but works alone cannot substitute for our praise and obedience to God (see Eph. 2:10). Do we spend more time worrying about financial investments than praising the Lord who protects us?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 20, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Fresh for Everything?
Jesus answered and said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' -John 3:3
Sometimes we are fresh and eager to attend a prayer meeting, but do we feel that same freshness for such mundane tasks as polishing shoes?
Being born again by the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, and as surprising as God Himself. We don't know where it begins- it is hidden away in the depths of our soul. Being born again from above is an enduring, perpetual, and eternal beginning. It provides a freshness all the time in thinking, talking, and living- a continual surprise of the life of God. Staleness is an indication that something in our lives is out of step with God. We say to ourselves, "I have to do this thing or it will never get done." That is the first sign of staleness. Do we feel fresh this very moment or are we stale, frantically searching our minds for something to do? Freshness is not the result of obedience; it comes from the Holy Spirit. Obedience keeps us "in the light as He is in the light . . ." (1 John 1:7).
Jealously guard your relationship with God. Jesus prayed "that they may be one just as We are one"-with nothing in between (John 17:22). Keep your whole life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don't pretend to be open with Him. Are you drawing your life from any source other than God Himself? If you are depending on something else as your source of freshness and strength, you will not realize when His power is gone.
Being born of the Spirit means much more than we usually think. It gives us new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything through the never-ending supply of the life of God.
An Original
1 Samuel 15:19 and 24 provide us with real insight into an area of anxiety for many people. One that may control your life today.
This is Samuel talking to Saul,
"Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"
Saul gives his answer in verse 24,
Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice."
Hmmm! "I feared the people and obeyed their voice." Saul confessed that he was worried about what other people thought of him and what other people would say about him. As a result, he made a horrible decision that was counter to what God wanted.
Too many people, even good Christians, are eaten up with worry over what other people think and say about them. Let me tell you, the worst place to have your peace is in somebody else's head. As Proverbs 29:25 says, The fear of man brings a snare.
Saul is a perfect example. He never fulfilled his destiny, he never fulfilled his purpose in life, because he was too worried about what people thought about him even though God chose him to be king.
Someone wisely said this:
"It is not what I think I am that molds me and drives me, and it is not what you think I am that molds me and drives me. It is what I think that you think I am that molds me and drives me."
Is that your concern today? If so, let me give you some advice: Be yourself. You were created by God as an original, and it would be a shame if you died a copy.
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Read: 2 Samuel 19:31-39
Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. - Proverbs 11:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
Lincoln Electric, a global leader in arc-welding equipment, treats its employees based on the Golden Rule. The brothers who started the company, John and James Lincoln, were influenced by their father (who was a preacher) in this regard. There are no layoffs, and profits are shared according to workers' performance. If times are bad, everyone suffers, but no one loses their job. According to the current CEO, "They know we're not going to desert them in the bad cycle, and they become more and more committed as far as the company is concerned." Not one worker has been laid off for economic reasons in more than 60 years!
This is a good example of how people might use money in ways that honor the Lord. In Barzillai, we find a biblical example of a rich person who used his money for godly purposes. He provided for King David during the rebellion of Absalom (v. 32). It would have been far less risky to stay out of the political conflict. If he were a betting man, the
"smart money" was on Absalom, whose populist rebellion seemed certain to succeed. But Barzillai honored David as God's anointed king and put his money where his mouth was. Supporting David and his men when they were on the run wasn't cheap! And if Absalom had won, Barzillai would no doubt have paid with his life. His support meant so much to David that the king spoke of it on his deathbed (1 Kings 2:7).
Barzillai's attitude was one of duty and humility (vv. 34-37). After regaining the kingship, David invited his benefactor to return with him to Jerusalem, no doubt to be honored and rewarded. Barzillai, however, preferred not to seek such attention and instead recommended Kimham, probably one of his sons. This was not a "price tag" for his help, though, as made clear by the emphasis on "whatever pleases" the king and by his receiving the king's blessing even though he was by some measures in the superior position (v. 39). His righteousness caused him to "thrive like a green leaf" (Prov. 11:28)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Barzillai serves as a model for those with wealth and also for those with more modest means. No matter how large or small our sphere of financial influence, each of us must use our money according to godly priorities, whether those seem high-risk or low-risk under the circumstances. Consider the contrast between Barzillai and the rich young man, mentioned yesterday. With the rich young man, money owned his heart. With Barzillai, his heart belonged to God alone.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Recall What God Remembers
Thus says the Lord: 'I remember . . . the kindness of your youth . . .' -Jeremiah 2:2
Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Does everything in my life fill His heart with gladness, or do I constantly complain because things don't seem to be going my way? A person who has forgotten what God treasures will not be filled with joy. It is wonderful to remember that Jesus Christ has needs which we can meet- "Give Me a drink" (John 4:7). How much kindness have I shown Him in the past week? Has my life been a good reflection on His reputation?
God is saying to His people, "You are not in love with Me now, but I remember a time when you were." He says, "I remember . . . the love of your betrothal . . ." (Jeremiah 2:2). Am I as filled to overflowing with love for Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He ever find me pondering the time when I cared only for Him? Is that where I am now, or have I chosen man's wisdom over true love for Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no thought for where He might lead me? Or am I watching to see how much respect I get as I measure how much service I should give Him?
As I recall what God remembers about me, I may also begin to realize that He is not what He used to be to me. When this happens, I should allow the shame and humiliation it creates in my life, because it will bring godly sorrow, and "godly sorrow produces repentance . . ." (2 Corinthians 7:10).
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The Power of a Word
Proverbs 12:18 gives us some valuable advice,
There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health.
Did you ever know someone who is good at making cutting remarks? They spoke like the piercings of a sword?
Over twenty years ago I was at the house of some friends. We were all just kind of hanging out and I made a comment to one of the brothers in the family. It was a clever little comment and was basically meant to take a jab at him.
A couple of the family members heard it and snickered and said, "Oh, way to go, Bayless! You got him!" But as soon as I said it, his countenance fell, and my heart just sank. While I looked for an opportunity to apologize to him that night, I didn't do it because he ended up leaving early.
I've regretted that comment ever since. I repented, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed me from that sin. But you know what? Those words were out, and I couldn't get them back.
Shortly after that night, he went feet first into a very destructive lifestyle involving his sexuality. I have to think that quite possibly my words pushed him away from God. It may have been that little jab of the sword that pushed him off the edge.
The New Testament says in Ephesians 4:29, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but only that which is good for edification or for building up that it may minister grace to the hearers.
Are your words ministering grace to those who hear them? Are they building up? Or are they tearing down?
Read: Ecclesiastes 5:10-19
He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. - Ecclesiastes 5:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to varying reports, between three and 30 million pieces of luggage are lost annually by airlines around the world. If unclaimed, this luggage often ends up at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. The Center is like a giant thrift store, with items from the unclaimed bags available at bargain basement prices. Clothing, electronics, jewelry, and other goods are all for sale. One customer compared shopping there to a treasure hunt. The CEO called it "an archaeological dig." About 7,000 new items come into the store per day, or about one million new items per year.
Lost luggage is a reminder that "you can't take it with you" (v. 15; cf. Ps. 49:16-20). As one preacher put it, "There are no U-Haul trucks behind the hearse." Earthly riches are only temporal. People who are spiritually dead live in denial about this. "Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income" (v. 10). At a practical level, argued Solomon (he would know!), wealth is empty or troublesome. A rich man can't sleep because he's worried about it, while a poorer laborer enjoys sweet sleep (v. 12). If money is hoarded, it brings harm; if it's lost, it was all for nothing (vv. 13-14). What, then, is the point of all the work involved in getting it (vv. 16-17)? It's just more chasing after the wind.
To treat acquiring money as a worthy purpose in life leads to worship of things rather than God. It embraces covetousness as a lifestyle-it is a thirst that can never be quenched. For this reason, when it comes to money and material goods, simplicity and contentment are recommended biblical values.
Wisdom's response to the "we can't take it with us" dilemma is that contentment can be found in accepting whatever socioeconomic lot God assigns us and enjoying whatever work He gives us to do (vv. 18-19). "When God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-this is a gift of God."
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Verse 11 of today's reading seems to describe the current world economic situation: "As goods increase, so do those who consume them." Consumerism is a never-ending spiral, with goods and buyers always increasing and the amounts of money (and debt) always escalating as well. But to what end? What's it all for? "What benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them?" Now more than ever, a hopeless world needs to hear the good news of eternal hope and salvation in Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Looking To God?
Look to Me, and be saved . . . -Isaiah 45:22
Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us? He says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ." The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult. Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere. The basic lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is to narrow all your interests until your mind, heart, and body are focused on Jesus Christ. "Look to Me . . . ."
Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians' lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God. This is not salvation- it is not simple enough. He says, in effect, "Look to Me and you are saved," not "You will be saved someday." We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ." Our difficulties, our trials, and our worries about tomorrow all vanish when we look to God.
Wake yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter how many things seem to be pressing in on you, be determined to push them aside and look to Him. "Look to Me . . . ." Salvation is yours the moment you look.
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No Fear
People tend to worry in these days about world events. In Matthew 24:6-7, Jesus tells us this,
"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places."
Jesus said, "When these things happen, don't be troubled. Don't worry. They must come to pass." Think about some of those things.
Earthquakes in various places. I have been told that around the world earthquakes are increasing both in frequency and in size. They are happening more and more, and they are getting worse and worse. It is a sign, my friend.
Jesus mentions pestilences-diseases without cures. Ring any bells? There are certain nations where it is reported that 50 percent of the population is infected with AIDS. It is rampant in many countries of the world. It is an incredible problem even in our own country.
Jesus points to famines. There is drought, which is causing famines, which is causing starvation around the world.
Then Jesus talks about wars, rumors of wars, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. You can't turn on the news without hearing about some terrorist attack. There are countries today aggressively pursuing nuclear capabilities. Nations are poised against one another.
The leaders of our nation and other nations make decisions that affect literally the whole world. It seems like the world is on fire! Things are hanging in the balance.
Our response? It should not be fear, but rather recognition that these things must come to pass before Christ returns!
Read: Proverbs 30:7-9
Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. - Proverbs 30:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Using Peter and Matthew as examples, musician and writer Michael Card sings of "the freedom we find from the things we leave behind." The lesson of the song is that "worshiping goods" is love of the world, whereas a true Christ-follower's heart is not tied to such things. The song continues: "Every heart needs to be set free from possessions that hold it so tight, 'cause freedom's not found in the things that we own, it's the power to do what is right. Jesus, our only possession, giving becomes our delight. We can't imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind."
For those of us who trust in the Lord, our daily bread is enough. The godly virtue of simplicity is relatively simple. As followers of Christ, we abandon the world's frantic pursuit of more and bigger and better, understanding that money and material goods do not and cannot satisfy our deepest needs and desires. The so-called rat race promotes anxiety and covetousness, not thankfulness and a sense of God's blessing.
That's why the otherwise-unknown figure of Agur declared in today's reading that he had only two prayers. The first prayer was for truth or honesty, and the second prayer was for simplicity or contentment (v. 8). He defined "simplicity" as a balance between poverty and riches; it is enough to live on, that is, "daily bread." For the Israelites, this was a powerful historical image of God's provision. They remembered well how God had provided manna for them day by day in their desert wanderings during the Exodus.
To Agur, "daily bread" was the perfect midpoint between two extremes (v. 9). If poor, the temptation would be to steal. Rich or poor, stealing is a sin-God's ethics are not relative (Prov. 6:30-31). If rich, on the other hand, the temptation would be to rely on money and forget God. Moses had long ago warned the nation that prosperity could bring faithlessness if the people failed to remember that wealth and the ability to produce it are God's gift (Deut. 8:11-20).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
A trip to your local grocery store (all those choices!) reveals how complicated "daily bread" might become if we let it. We hope that today's devotional has given you a deeper appreciation for the line in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us today our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11). Money and things cannot satisfy, but Jesus Christ is our "Bread of Life . . . Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever" (John 6:26-58).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Transformed by Beholding
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image . . . -2 Corinthians 3:18
The greatest characteristic a Christian can exhibit is this completely unveiled openness before God, which allows that person's life to become a mirror for others. When the Spirit fills us, we are transformed, and by beholding God we become mirrors. You can always tell when someone has been beholding the glory of the Lord, because your inner spirit senses that he mirrors the Lord's own character. Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you. It is almost always something good that will stain it- something good, but not what is best.
The most important rule for us is to concentrate on keeping our lives open to God. Let everything else including work, clothes, and food be set aside. The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God. We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through. Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticize us as they will; but never allow anything to obscure the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him. This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it. The most difficult lesson of the Christian life is learning how to continue "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord . . . ."
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Convicting and Convincing
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about the fifth "C" of soul winning-the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is such an important part in witnessing I want to take you to another passage today to help you understand His role more clearly.
The passage is John 16:7-9. Here Jesus is talking to the disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me."
Jesus is not telling us that we need to pray, "Holy Spirit, go convict this person." Rather, the foundation from which He is speaking is found in John 14. In that passage He says, "When the Holy Spirit comes, He will no longer just be with you, but He will be in you."
In the following verses, He then talks about all the things the Holy Spirit does within us. And here, when He talks about the Holy Spirit convicting people of sin (and, as the Amplified Bible says, convicting and convincing the world of sin), He does that work when we engage them with the gospel.
When we talk to people about Christ, the Holy Spirit then goes to work.
I think about that little boy who told me about Jesus-a Spirit-filled 12-year-old. I had never heard the gospel in my life, yet there was something so captivating, so arresting about him, I could not get him out of my mind.
It was the power of the Holy Spirit working through him. And He wants to work through you as well.
Read: Luke 12:22-31
Seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. - Luke 12:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Internet has put more information than ever before at our fingertips-maybe too much information. Sometimes people get obsessed, for example, with checking online the balances in their retirement accounts. "How's my 401(k) or IRA today?" they wonder. "Is the market up or down? How is my mutual fund performing?" Worried, they switch funds or reallocate to investments that are thought to be more secure. They watch television shows like Mad Money, desperate to pick up tips that will give them an advantage. If the numbers are headed downward, they get depressed or panicky.
Such worrying, Jesus said, is sinful. Habitual anxiety about finances is doubting that God can or will provide for our needs. Money is a tool, a means to ends. Handling it well is part of being responsible stewards, but it's just not worth all the fretting and worrying that sometimes goes on.
Jesus taught this in today's reading in three different ways (v. 22; cf. Matt. 6:25-34). First, He gave two natural object lessons. Ravens and lilies neither work nor worry, yet God ably takes care of their needs. Since people are even more valuable to God, surely we can trust Him to take care of our needs as well.
Second, Jesus used rational arguments against worry. One was that life is about more than basic needs (v. 23). If we go overboard obsessing about food or clothing, we've lost perspective. Also, worry is useless, practically speaking (vv. 25-26). It accomplishes nothing, so why would we waste our time on it?
Jesus' third strategy was spiritual arguments against worry. Worry shows a lack of faith (v. 28). God already knows what we need, and He is our Provider. In addition, worry characterizes a pagan lifestyle, not a godly one (v. 30). To pursue lesser things is to obtain only lesser things. As we know from the parable of the seeds, the "worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth" can conspire to choke out faith (Matt. 13:22). By contrast, we should invest our time, energy, and money in seeking God's kingdom first (v. 31)!
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Worry sneaks up on us. We tend to think it's not a serious sin like murder or adultery. But it is a sin that reveals the state of our hearts, and the temptation to worry must not be underestimated. If we are habitually anxious about our bills, budget, job, health insurance, savings, or other financial aspects of life, we are dishonoring the name of the Lord by forgetting His promises and faithfulness. Thankfully, He stands ready to forgive and to remind us of His deep and everlasting love for us.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Overpowering Purpose
I have appeared to you for this purpose . . .-Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, "Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine." And the Lord also says to us, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . ." (John 15:16).
When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be "disobedient to the heavenly vision"-not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling ". . . to make you a minister and a witness . . . ." There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ's. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
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Wise Counsel
Counsel-the counsel of God. By that I mean the Word of God. It's important we learn to share the Word with people.
Our testimony is powerful and should be shared. But even though that may move people and influence people, folks need to know they are anchoring their trust in the promises of God. Not just in a feeling they have gotten, not just because they feel influenced and moved-even if that is by the Holy Spirit.
Why? Because feelings change. Our feelings can go up and down like a rollercoaster. You may be feeling God today, and tomorrow feel like He is nowhere around. Ever felt that way?
I have had days when I have woken up and not felt God at all, even though I had experienced a good time with Him the night before. In those times, if I would have gone by my feelings, I would have said, "God, You have deserted me this morning."
But I know He hasn't because God's Word makes it clear that He never leaves us nor forsakes us. When a person is saved, they need to be anchoring their faith on the promises of God, not on their feelings.
Promises like Romans 10:9-10,
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
So when we witness to people, we need to give them the counsel, the promises of the Word of God.
Read: Philippians 4:10-13
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. - Philippians 4:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
How can we live simply in a materialistic culture? Christie and Paul Borthwick addressed this question in their article, "Alternatives to Affluenza: Living Light in the Land of Plenty." The world bombards us with an incredible variety of goods, advertising, and the examples of peers and colleagues buying the latest gadgets. The Borthwicks, however, did not want to "end up making choices based on cultural pressure instead of convictions grown from our commitment to Christ." They have made their financial decisions by the godly principles of stewardship, freedom in Christ, and identifying with the poor. "In all of our life choices," they wrote, "God notices. What we do in terms of giving more or spending less or choosing simplicity might not be world changing, but the God who knows every sparrow that falls will know when we intentionally bring our lifestyles more in line with discipleship, obedience, and His global purposes. In that knowledge, there is great reward."
Paul, too, had learned the secret of contentment. In today's reading, he thanked the Philippian believers for their financial support of his ministry, and he described his gratitude in the context of godly joy and contentment (v. 10). This was not a psychological strategy for prompting another gift. Rather, because of God, Paul was always joyful and satisfied, whatever the situation (v. 11). He understood that contentment is rooted in God's ever-present faithfulness, not the ebb and flow of bank accounts and material circumstances (Heb. 13:5). Paul's statement that he had "learned to be content whatever the circumstances" is not an empty boast, for he had experienced a wide variety of what life has to offer (v. 12). He had been well-fed and hungry. He had lived in prosperity and in poverty. He had been popular and persecuted. Paul had experienced life's highs and lows, and he knew God was always faithful.
Paul's key to contentment was the realization of "him who gives me strength" (v. 13). Circumstances don't bring contentment, and neither do abilities, self-confidence, or optimism. Rather, it was Jesus Christ who empowered Paul to do "everything" for God's glory (cf. Col. 1:10-12).
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The opening illustration today is from a 2006 special issue of Discipleship Journal. The publisher, NavPress, has since turned parts of this issue into a resource packet, "The Good News About Money." For a small fee, it's available for download from www.navpress.com/product/9781600067839/The-Good-News-About-Money-Discipleship-Journal. Other helpful resources on money and godliness are available at your local Christian bookstore or online.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Leave Room for God
When it pleased God . . . -Galatians Galatians
As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him-to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly- God meets our life ". . . when it pleased God . . . ."
Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.
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Uniquely You
Each of us possesses strengths which God has given us. Psalm 18:32 says,
It is God who arms me with strength.
And in Philippians 4:13,
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And King David said this in 1 Chronicles 29:12,
...in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
God gives us all strength, yet I believe there are specific things He gives each of us that make you and me strong individually. The book of Psalms says in 33:14-15, From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually. In the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 12:27 it says, Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
We are collectively the body of Christ, but God has wired us each differently. God has formed our hearts individually. He has put certain deposits in one person that may not be in another person. He has given one person a certain kind of strength that may not be another person's strength.
Here is what I am getting at. I believe there is something uniquely you that gives you strength and character and presence, something that makes you a person to be reckoned with, something that God has put in you. It is a foundation, a seat of strength that He wants to move through in order to influence and to bless others.
Rather than coveting someone else's unique giftings and strength, discover and develop your own. Remember, God individually fashioned you. There is something wonderfully unique about you, through which God wants to bring blessing to others.
Read: 1 Timothy 6:3-10, 17-19
The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. - 1 Timothy 6:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Given all that Scripture says about money, perhaps the question is not, "Does God want you to be rich?" (see Jan. 18), but "Is poverty spiritual?" As one writer asked, "Would [we] not be able to trust God far better and have greater faith, if [we] had less material goods to rely on?" But this misses the point. Our sins with regard to money and possessions are not so much about having things as about using them-sins such as self-indulgence, irresponsible stewardship, and stinginess are about what we do with the resources we have, whether much or little. Furthermore, even those who possess little can sin by idolatrously organizing their lives around the pursuit of wealth and goods. Scripture urges us to consider the context and the attitude of our heart. Believers have wrestled with such questions throughout history. The truth that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" is a difficult one (v. 10). This is why the Bible so often warns about wealth as something in competition for our souls' allegiance, and why it so often emphasizes simplicity, contentment, and walking in dependence on the Lord to provide.
In today's reading, Paul warned Timothy about false teachers who were motivated by pride, ignorance, and greed (vv. 3-5). By contrast, "godliness with contentment is great gain" (vv. 6-8). This means that we understand we can't take material possessions into eternity, and that we're satisfied with having enough to live on. We are also vigilant against the love of money, knowing it can lead people to wander from the faith and "[pierce] themselves with many griefs" (vv. 9-10).
At the end of the chapter, Paul added more strong exhortations for the believers who are rich (vv. 17-19). They should not give in to the temptation to be arrogant because of their financial success, but rather they should seek to be generous, rich in good deeds, and seekers of eternal treasures. Whether wealthy or poor, followers of Christ should be characterized by generosity and humility rather than stinginess and pride.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Are we guilty of treating "godliness as a means to financial gain"? It's the human tendency to bargain-"Just get me out of this one and I'll . . .", or perhaps feeling that God owes us material blessings in exchange for our obedience. We owe Him a debt we can never repay, so we should stop pretending we have anything to bargain with. Godly contentment rests in the good gifts from God rather than attempting spiritual manipulation in the pursuit of more money or things.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Look Again and Consecrate
If God so clothes the grass of the field . . . , will He not much more clothe you . . . ? -Matthew 6:30
A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us because we will not be simple. How can we maintain the simplicity of Jesus so that we may understand Him? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, and obeying Him as He brings us the truth of His Word, life will become amazingly simple. Jesus asks us to consider that "if God so clothes the grass of the field . . ." how "much more" will He clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him? Every time we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it is because we have disrespectfully thought that we knew better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed "the cares of this world" to enter in (Matthew 13:22), while forgetting the "much more" of our heavenly Father.
"Look at the birds of the air . . ." (Matthew 6:26). Their function is to obey the instincts God placed within them, and God watches over them. Jesus said that if you have the right relationship with Him and will obey His Spirit within you, then God will care for your "feathers" too.
"Consider the lilies of the field . . ." (Matthew 6:28). They grow where they are planted. Many of us refuse to grow where God plants us. Therefore, we don't take root anywhere. Jesus said if we would obey the life of God within us, He would look after all other things. Did Jesus Christ lie to us? Are we experiencing the "much more" He promised? If we are not, it is because we are not obeying the life God has given us and have cluttered our minds with confusing thoughts and worries. How much time have we wasted asking God senseless questions while we should be absolutely free to concentrate on our service to Him? Consecration is the act of continually separating myself from everything except that which God has appointed me to do. It is not a one-time experience but an ongoing process. Am I continually separating myself and looking to God every day of my life?
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Promises, Promises
Here are four thoughts to help you when it comes to experiencing the benefit of God's promises:
1. Find a promise from the Bible that covers your need. Faith begins here.
2. Consider the promises.
Hebrews 10:23 says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
And Hebrews 11:11 says, By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
4. Start thanking God and exercising patience.
Hebrews 10:36 says, For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
And Hebrews 6:12 says, That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.If you will do these four things, you are on your way to experiencing the fulfillment of God's promises in your life. 3. Act on the promise, fulfilling all necessary conditions. God is not a respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of conditions. God has given us His promises because He wants to fulfill them. Be they promises of peace, restoration, healing, or for material supply, we must keep in mind that the Lord would not have made the promise if He did not want to do it.
Read: Malachi 3:6-12
You are robbing me. - Malachi 3:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the days of the prophet Haggai, the people looked after themselves instead of taking care of God's house. After returning from exile, the Jews started to rebuild the temple, but stopped when the going got rough. Instead, they focused on their own homes and fields. They made excuses, "The time has not yet come." God condemned their attitudes and actions: "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin? . . . Give careful thought to your ways." He had tried to get their attention by making their labor difficult and unproductive, but they had missed the point. "Go up into the mountains," God said, "and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored" (Hag. 1:2-11). The people obeyed.
Withholding proper offerings to the Lord is sinful, as today's reading emphasizes. In this final week of our month's study, we'll focus on giving. The Bible has a lot to say on this topic, and any study of what the Word has to say about money would be remiss not to stress it. With regard to godliness and money, giving is an essential spiritual discipline.
Malachi's condemnation was built around contrast. On one side was God's character, perfect and unchanging (v. 6). He's faithful to His covenant, which is why the people hadn't been destroyed. If He reacted based on their actions, they'd be dead already. On the other side of the contrast was the people's character, rebellious and disobedient (v. 7). Because of God's character, they had hope; but they needed to repent of their sins and change their ways.
The first thing they needed to change was their attitude and practice of giving. The people were robbing God by withholding their tithes and offerings (vv. 8-9). In order to return to the Lord, they should give appropriately. Then, in response to their renewed obedience and trust, God could pour out covenant blessings (vv. 10-12). The prophet's audience desperately needed transformed hearts-the road back to closeness with God would start with this one specific, measurable part of life.
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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Two principles that should guide our giving are regularity and firstfruits. Regularity means that we set aside money for God at regular intervals. This means including giving in our regular budgets (1 Cor. 16:2). Firstfruits means that we honor the Lord by giving to Him first (Prov. 3:9-10). Our giving is not done after all other expenses have been met. That's the mistake Malachi exposed in today's reading-we are not to put our own "houses" ahead of God's house or worshiping Him.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do not worry about your life . . . -Matthew 6:25
A warning which needs to be repeated is that "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches," and the lust for other things, will choke out the life of God in us (Matthew 13:22). We are never free from the recurring waves of this invasion. If the frontline of attack is not about clothes and food, it may be about money or the lack of money; or friends or lack of friends; or the line may be drawn over difficult circumstances. It is one steady invasion, and these things will come in like a flood, unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the banner against it.
"I say to you, do not worry about your life . . . ." Our Lord says to be careful only about one thing-our relationship to Him. But our common sense shouts loudly and says, "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, and I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing yourself to think that He says this while not understanding your circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things to the point where they become the primary concern of our life. Whenever there are competing concerns in your life, be sure you always put your relationship to God first.
"Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matthew 6:34). How much trouble has begun to threaten you today? What kind of mean little demons have been looking into your life and saying, "What are your plans for next month- or next summer?" Jesus tells us not to worry about any of these things. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father (Matthew 6:30).
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Builder and Protector
Psalm 127:1-2 says,
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.
If ever I am tempted to worry about the Church, I remember that it is His house and ultimately only He can build it. My efforts, by themselves, are in vain.
He is not only the builder of the Church, He is the protector of it as well. These truths take a lot of weight off of my shoulders and help me sleep well at night. And I believe that is the way God wants it.
Too many of God's children sit up late, worrying and eating the bread of sorrows. Whether you are a pastor or a business owner or a stay-at-home mom, learn the secret of casting your cares on God.
He is the builder and protector of your life, and He knows the battles you face. Trust Him today and sleep well tonight!
These verses have been favorites of mine for a long time.
Read: Matthew 6:1-4
Be careful not to do your "acts of righteousness" before men, to be seen by them. - Matthew 6:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the early days of the church, Barnabas sold some land and gave the money to the Apostles to be used in meeting the needs of fellow believers. It seems that he was much admired for this, so much so that Ananias and Sapphira were moved to do the same-sort of. They also sold some land and brought a sum of money to the Apostles. So far so good, but when they said they were donating the entire purchase price, they were not telling the truth. Peter knew it. "You have not lied to men but to God," he told them, and the Lord judged this proud and hypocritical couple with death (Acts 4:36-5:11). Some organizations will put up with anything as long as donors send in the money. To the Lord, however, the state of the heart is far more important than the size of the gift. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught the need to give our offerings in humility. The larger principle is that the motivation for good works should not be the admiration of others, but pleasing the Lord (v. 1). As Jesus' listeners knew, the Pharisees paraded their "righteousness" in front of human eyes in order to impress others and assert their authority. Unfortunately for them and for anyone who does likewise, human praise is all the reward such people get. God-honoring good works, however, receive rewards from Him (1 Cor. 3:12-14).
Jesus illustrated first with the specific example of giving (vv. 2-4). The wrong way to give is to make sure everyone sees how much you deposit into the offering plate. This kind of giving is really a worship of self, and it indicates not generosity but hypocrisy. Such givers aim for honor from others-that's what they get, and that's all they get.
The right way to give is "in secret," signifying discreetness and humility. This means that we are content if no one else knows the amount that we give or if we don't receive any recognition from others. This indicates a heart of true generosity and worship. Since God knows all thoughts, motives, and actions, He is able to judge perfectly each gift that is offered, and He will reward each person as He sees fit (Col. 3:23-24).
APPLY THE WORD
In some churches, unfortunately, money means power. Big donors may receive special attention and privileges. Those who give more might have more access to the pastor or more influence in shaping decisions. Favoritism for the rich is standard practice in secular fundraising, where all that matters is the amount of money, but as followers of Christ we cannot afford to follow this example. Whether wealthy or not, Christians should be motivated to give to honor the Lord.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Could Someone So Persecute Jesus!
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? -Acts 26:14
Are you determined to have your own way in living for God? We will never be free from this trap until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of "the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3:11). Stubbornness and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set on our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our own rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Him. Whenever we rely on self-respect, we systematically disturb and grieve His Spirit. And when we finally understand that it is Jesus we have been persecuting all this time, it is the most crushing revelation ever.
Is the Word of God tremendously penetrating and sharp in me as I hand it on to you, or does my life betray the things I profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of Satan, the very spirit that persecutes Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of only one thing- a perfect oneness with the Father. And He tells us, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29). All I do should be based on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that others may use me, go around me, or completely ignore me, but if I will submit to it for His sake, I will prevent Jesus Christ from being persecuted.
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God Can Build The Family
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
Trust Him to build and protect your family. Do your part, but look to Him for guidance and strength. And trust Him to do what you cannot do.
He can cause your "arrows" to be effective against the enemy instead of wounding your own heart.
May you be happy with your quiver of "arrows," and may God be glorified in your family.
If you have sat up late, worrying about your children or your family, you need to know that God can turn things around. The Hebrew word for house in verse one can actually be translated family. That is one reason why the next few verses (3-5) read like this, Earlier we have looked atPsalm 127:1-2 which says,
Read: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9
They gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. - 2 Corinthians 8:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Giving was often a public matter in ancient Israel. People would deposit their gifts into a treasury box in the temple. One day, Jesus and His disciples sat and watched. Those with sizeable gifts made a big show of throwing in large amounts of money. Others dropped in their gifts more quietly. But one particular woman drew Jesus' attention-a poor widow who put in two small coins. He held her up as an example of faith and sacrificial generosity: "They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-all she had to live on" (Mark 12:41-44). The Macedonians also excelled in the grace of sacrificial giving. Paul brought them to the attention of the Corinthians as an encouraging (and convicting) example. The Macedonians' "rich generosity" was proof of God's grace at work in their church, even in the midst of dire poverty and harsh trials (vv. 1-2). Despite the circumstances, God's grace led to their "overflowing joy," which in turn bubbled up into sacrificial giving.
"Sacrificial" means that they gave beyond any reasonable estimate of their ability to do so (vv. 3-4). Furthermore, they gave on their own initiative, with no external pressure from Paul or anyone else. Usually any urgent pleading comes from the people in need, but in this case it was the Macedonians requesting to share from their meager resources with their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem.
The Corinthians would do well to follow this example (vv. 6-8). Paul wrote that Titus, probably the bearer of this epistle, was entrusted with the task of completing the collection in Corinth for the same purpose. That is, the Corinthian church was also being called upon to give toward meeting the needs of poor believers in Jerusalem. They, too, should seek to "excel in this grace of giving." Paul didn't issue a command, but he was bold and forthright in saying that he regarded this offering as a test of the sincerity of their love. If they needed additional motivation, they need look no further than God's grace in Christ (v. 9).
APPLY THE WORD
The metaphor in verse 9 is exquisite and meaningful. What does it mean to say that Jesus went from riches to poverty so that we could go from poverty to riches? Jesus' movement from riches to poverty is a way of describing the Incarnation. Laying aside the glories of heaven to walk as a man on earth shows incredible love. Our movement from poverty to riches is a way of describing redemption. The gospel accomplished in Christ takes us from condemnation and death to salvation and life.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
January 31, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You See Your Calling?
. . . separated to the gospel of God. . . -Romans 1:1
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell- it is redemption. The need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.
Paul did not say that he separated himself, but "when it pleased God, who separated me . . ." (Galatians 1:15). Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. "Don't ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes." To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose- to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).
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Guarding Your Ways
In Psalm 39:1, we are given an important warning,
I said, "I will guard my ways, Lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, While the wicked are before me."
The psalmist is drawing our attention to something that has been repeated again and again, a response that has been so often repeated that it has become engrained in our behavior-a habit.
You have probably heard the saying, "He's set in his ways," meaning it is not likely you are going to change the way a person acts in certain instances. The "ways" are habits, attitudes, and responses that aren't likely to change without a very powerful motivation or without some sort of an encounter with God.
I think virtually every habit we have initially began with a thought. Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an action; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny. It all goes back to a thought that perhaps should have been dealt with, but wasn't.
Take some time today to consider your thoughts. Are you giving way to thoughts that will lead to ungodly habits? If so, give those thoughts to God and ask Him to help you think the thoughts that will lead to godly habits.
The Hebrew word translated "ways" in this passage literally means a well-trodden path. It paints the picture of a pathway that has been walked down so many times that a groove has been worn in that path.
Read: Matthew 13:44-46
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! - 2 Corinthians 9:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jesus' story about a treasure in a field in today's reading is not imaginative fiction. In the past, people really did bury treasures in hiding places like this. There were, after all, no bank vaults until recently! In the summer of 2009, an amateur treasure hunter found one such hiding place. Using a metal detector in a farmer's field in central England, Terry Herbert "discovered the largest Anglo-Saxon hoard of gold artifacts ever found in Britain." Due to their historical and archaeological value, the more than 1,500 gold and silver items he found, which date from the seventh century, are the property of the state and were put on temporary display at Birmingham Museum. Herbert and the landowner, however, did share in their value, which runs into the millions of dollars. Imagine how you would feel if you had just discovered such a treasure! That's the feeling Jesus conveyed through the two brief parables of the treasure hidden in a field and the pearl of great price. Both are similes for the "kingdom of heaven," and the point of both comparisons is its incalculable value and present hiddenness. As with Jesus Himself, whose deity was clear only to those with eyes to see, His kingdom is here but presently hidden from those who can't or won't see it.
For us, the application is that we must value Christ and His kingdom above all, which means we must sacrifice everything for its sake. Our discipleship, our commitment to following Jesus, must be complete in every area. We can hold nothing back, because that would imply that something else is of greater value. Since that's false, we must pursue what is supremely valuable with every ounce of time, energy, money, and other resources that we have.
Elsewhere, Jesus put the cost of discipleship in equally strong terms. It's like carrying a cross to an execution; like an intense, long-term construction or military project; like dying; or like being reborn (Luke 14:26-32; John 3:3-8; 12:24-25). Wholeheartedness with our financial resources is an important dimension of this kind of discipleship.
APPLY THE WORD
What part does handling money play in your own discipleship? Would your checkbook ledger testify to wholehearted stewardship and generosity in your pursuit of the kingdom of heaven? Whether God has put one, three, or five, "talents" into your keeping, His greatest wish is that you would multiply these resources for eternal purposes. He longs to welcome you one day with the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant! . . . Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matt. 25:21).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 01, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Call of God
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel . . . -1 Corinthians 1:17
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "the gospel," namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification- we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32). It is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God. The fact that we can experience redemption illustrates the power of its reality, but that experience is a byproduct and not the goal of redemption. If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden His energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.
The one passion of Paul's life was to proclaim the gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for only one reason- these things kept him unmovable in his devotion to the gospel of God.
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What's Your Measure?
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
But notice that He also added this, "The same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." If you take a serving spoon, and that is what you measure out your giving with, you will get an overflowing serving spoon. It comes back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing from a serving spoon.
The measure you use is what is measured back to you. If you use a shovel, and that is what you measure it out with, that is how it comes back to you.
Wouldn't you rather have a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shovel as opposed to a serving spoon? The measure you use, Jesus said, that is what is used to measure back to you.
I believe many people are using a teaspoon and yet they are praying, "God bless me. I have big needs." I am sure God is saying, "I'm doing all I can. You know, I'm pressing it down as much as I can press it down. It is running over. But a running over teaspoon is just not that much."
Are you using a teaspoon or a shovel? Whatever you use is what comes back multiplied, but it is only according to the measure you use.
That is a promise of Jesus that you can stake your life on. Give, and what happens? It will be given to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?! In Luke 6:38, Jesus said these words,
Read: Hebrews 1:1-3
It is finished. - John 19:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
This world has no shortage of discouragement. People all around us insist there is no God or that belief in Jesus Christ is foolishness. Those who stand against us mock us. Sometimes the people we love most break our hearts. Other times life just doesn't go our way. Because of those disappointments and more, every believer at one time or another has felt the temptation to give up.
The book of Hebrews is the perfect remedy for the person on the verge of losing the will to carry on in the faith. Not only does Hebrews show the superiority and sovereignty of Jesus Christ, it also invites us into the finality of His salvation: His perfect, eternal rest.
Our opening passage in the study introduces several themes that recur throughout the book. First of all, Jesus, the Son of God, is the flawless communication of the identity of God. The concept of a visible earthly person or object representing a heavenly reality plays heavily throughout Hebrews, and Christ is a special example far greater than any other. Secondly, the dual concepts of creation (or birth) and inheritance (which is related to death) frequently arise in the discussion. Jesus is both Creator of all and Inheritor of all.
All of those themes converge into the overarching reality of God's perfect rest. It is perfect because it is not merely a break from activity or suffering but rather a final stage of existence. The Son of God sat down, a position of rest, and one of honor and sovereignty as well! Jesus completed the work to save us and, unlike the examples from the Old Testament we'll see over the next several days, Jesus' journey into a glorious place of rest is final! And it is for us to share.
But the path Jesus traveled to arrive there should clue us in to the nature of our journey as His followers. When He "provided purification," He did it on the cross. To follow Jesus into the salvation of His holy rest is not a sweet and gentle Sunday afternoon stroll. We are compelled to suffer, to strive, and to serve Him until the day we can meet Him in person.
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APPLY THE WORD
Do not be discouraged. If life is hard, if it is painful, if it is more than you can bear, these are not signs that you are out of God's favor. Those are reasons to pursue His holy rest. Unlike that feeling of fleeting relief when the work week is over and the weekend begins, the rest of Jesus Christ that awaits us as believers is permanent and eternal and glorious. Let your faith be so steadfast as well. Praise God for this assurance through His Word, His Son!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 02, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Force of the Call
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
Beware of refusing to hear the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact of his salvation. That, however, is not the same as the call to preach, but is merely an illustration which can be used in preaching. In this verse, Paul was referring to the stinging pains produced in him by the compelling force of the call to preach the gospel. Never try to apply what Paul said regarding the call to preach to those souls who are being called to God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved, because it is solely God's sovereign work- "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." (Isaiah 45:22). Our Lord never requires the same conditions for discipleship that he requires for salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ. But discipleship has an option with it-"If anyone . . ." (Luke 14:26).
Paul's words have to do with our being made servants of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be "separated to the gospel" means being able to hear the call of God (Romans 1:1). Once someone begins to hear that call, a suffering worthy of the name of Christ is produced. Suddenly, every ambition, every desire of life, and every outlook is completely blotted out and extinguished. Only one thing remains- ". . . separated to the gospel. . . ." Woe be to the soul who tries to head in any other direction once that call has come to him. The Bible Training College exists so that each of you may know whether or not God has a man or woman here who truly cares about proclaiming His gospel and to see if God grips you for this purpose. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.
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Giving to Get?
Any time I give, I expect a blessing to return. It is a law that we find in Scripture. It is a promise of Jesus.
But you know what? That is not my main motivation for giving. And that should not be our heart for giving. Jesus says in Luke 6:32-38,
"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you."
He makes it clear that if you do those things for the right motivation, it will come back to you. Your reward will be great.
Do not give with the motivation of just getting something back. Non-Christians have that motivation! How does that set you apart from them? Give out of a higher motivation.
What is the heart of this whole thing? Jesus said, "Don't love just to get love back; don't do good just so that good might be done back to you; don't lend just hoping to get something back."
Read: Hebrews 1:4-9
Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. - Hebrews 2:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Author Elizabeth Stone said that the decision to have a child "is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." Indeed, the connection between a parent and a child is unlike any other, marked by love, likeness, and oneness. Although the divine relationship is undoubtedly unique, any parent (or child for that matter) can understand some facet of the special loving relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son, especially the joy surrounding Jesus' birth.
In yesterday's passage, the author of Hebrews wrote that God spoke through Jesus. Lest we make the mistake of equating Him with any of God's other messengers, the writer emphasized Christ's superiority over angels. He is not merely God's messenger or God's servant-He is God's Son, a far more important and glorious name (v. 4)!
The Old Testament passages quoted here carry more significance than simply denoting the Father/Son relationship. The first, from Psalm 2:7, emphasizes that Jesus was literally, physically born as the human offspring of God (the words translated "I have become your father" in the NIV could also be expressed as "I have begotten you"). The second verse hearkens back to 2 Samuel 7, when the prophet Nathan told David that his royal offspring would rule the kingdom of his descendants in eternal peace and glory. This passage connoted royalty.
Angels, on the other hand, are subject to the authority of the Son of God. They worship and serve Him. Comparing them to fire showed the temporary nature of their service. That isn't to say that the existence of angels will be extinguished, merely that their divinely appointed roles are limited in scope and duration. Not so with Jesus.
Again we're reminded that Jesus' reign is eternal, righteous, and anointed above all creation. Tomorrow, we'll examine the contrast between Christ's rule and angels' ministry further, but today let us celebrate the unique relationship of the Father and His only begotten Son. God loves Him as His own and bestows upon Him His entire kingdom-what's more, we share in both blessings!
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APPLY THE WORD
Whether it's continually at the front of your mind or you have lost sight of the reality, today is a perfect opportunity to remind yourself that you are a child of God. While you were not born under the same miraculous circumstances as Jesus, you were born again in the power of His Spirit! Is there any struggle or setback that could outweigh the joy of knowing that God loves you with an undying love? Let that motivate you to live for Him in obedience.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 03, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Becoming the "Filth of the World"
We have been made as the filth of the world . . . -1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or "filth of the world." "Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." (Colossians 1:24) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration-being "separated to the gospel of God . . ." (Romans 1:1).
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you . . ." (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, "I won't submit; I won't bow or bend." And you don't have to- you can be saved by the "skin of your teeth" if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is "separated to the gospel . . . ." Or you can say, "I don't care if I am treated like 'the filth of the world' as long as the gospel is proclaimed." A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but "to reveal His Son in me. . ." (Galatians 1:16).
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The Right Motivation
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how we should not give just to get. That should not be our sole motivation. So the question is, "What is the right motivation?"
All we need to do is look at what motivated God to give. It is found in John 3:16,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
You should give out of love and devotion for God. Give because you do not want people to go into an eternity without God, because you love humanity, because you have mercy and compassion for broken, dying people.
That is the right motivation for giving. When you give with that motivation, your reward will be great. God will see that it comes back to you multiplied.
That is a far cry from what many emphasize when it comes to giving today. It appears to me that a lot of people, when they teach on giving, are just pushing people's greed buttons. It seems that the main motivation that some leaders are teaching for people to give is, "Hey, give because God will bless you." And there is no doubt that God blesses those who give. The scriptural promises are clear.
But what about the weightier matters? Remember how Jesus rebuked the Jewish leadership in Matthew 23:23 because they, "Neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith"?
God looks at the heart. Our hearts ought to be like that of our heavenly Father, who is merciful, kind, loving, and generous, even to the most thankless and evil among us. That is the right motivation.
God so loved that He gave. And, yes, God certainly did reap a harvest when He gave His Son. He reaped a harvest of sons and daughters.
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Read: Hebrews 1:10-14
In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth. - Hebrews 1:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
No one can say for sure what the last song performed by Wallace Hartley's band really was, but popular legend suggested it was "Nearer, My God, to Thee." The only witnesses close enough to hear his closing number perished aboard the RMS Titanic as it plunged to its frigid doom. The name of the tune was in question, but-despite the fact that some people have mocked the band for stubbornly refusing to flee-the nobility of the musicians is not. They performed their duties to the very end for the benefit of the evacuating passengers, despite the knowledge that their whole world was sinking.
A crucial point of today's passage reminds us that this earth, like that ill-fated ship, won't last forever. Our Lord, however, most certainly will. How can we be so sure He'll outlast this world? Because He created it.
Just as the world considered the Titanic to be unsinkable for the size implied by its name, the vastness of our world and the great expanse of space can lead us to forget that it is as insignificant as specks of dust compared to our infinite God. Jesus has the power to change it all, and yet He cannot be changed!
Jesus is superior in substance, in nature, and in power. The comparison to angels continues in verse 13, where we see that they do not measure up to the authority and power of the Son of God. Unlike the angels, who are subject to His authority, Jesus has been decreed to rule over even His enemies. There is no one and nothing above Him or equal to Him.
The passage concludes with an interesting note about the roles of angels, though. Not only do they serve Christ, the author of our salvation, but they also serve the inheritors of that salvation (v. 14). They are spirits that minister to us. What's more, the author referred to salvation in the future tense. Earlier, he spoke of Christ's saving work as complete, but here he alluded to that aspect of salvation to which his audience still looked forward.
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APPLY THE WORD
The security of the believer is a subject that arises several times in Hebrews, and today's reading offers just a taste of it. For now, let's direct our thoughts to the one on whose righteousness we depend completely: Jesus Christ. He died so that we could have life. We should spend our lives advancing toward the rest He secured for us. And we have ministering angels to assist us in this pursuit! Spend time in prayer today with the assurance that God loves and provides for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 04, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Majesty of His Power
The love of Christ compels us . . . -2 Corinthians 5:14
Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by "the love of Christ." Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. "The love of Christ compels us . . . ." When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person's life.
When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you "receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . . ." Not witnesses to what Jesus can do- that is basic and understood- but "witnesses to Me . . . ." We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it's the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane-he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for- to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of "the love of Christ." This total surrender to "the love of Christ" is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God's holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.
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Where's Your Heart?
I want to have you read and think about Mark 12:41-44 today,
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
Notice He calls His disciples over and says, "This poor widow has put in more than everyone else." Why? Because He wanted them to understand that God measures your gift based on what you have.
Some people could give $1,000, and there is really no sacrifice at all. It never touches their life, never causes any kind of change of priorities. While for other people, $10 or $15 is a great sacrifice.
I believe some of the rich people Jesus points to in this passage were giving out of their abundance, but from heaven's viewpoint, they were putting it in with a teaspoon. But this little widow, who put in less than a penny, walked up with a shovelful-everything she had. It got heaven's attention.
Where is your heart when it comes to giving?
That is quite a picture, isn't it? Jesus sitting opposite the treasury, watching what people put in and how they put it in. I believe Jesus still watches during offering time. He watches how we give, what we give, and why we give. He said, "Where your treasure is, that is where your heart is also."
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Read: Hebrews 2:1-10
How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? - Hebrews 2:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Any baseball player would be honored to have his career compared to Babe Ruth's. The same is true for basketball players and Michael Jordan. A filmmaker would rejoice to have a critic mention her film in the same breath as Citizen Kane, as would any painter whose masterpiece was likened to the Mona Lisa. To be compared to those great people and works would be considered high praise in itself.
In our readings so far, the writer of Hebrews proved Jesus was superior to angels and to the prophets-but that is by no means an insult to those esteemed messengers of God. On the contrary, Jesus' superiority has special significance because the prophets and angels spoke the very Word of God! Theirs is no small message, and ignoring it would be no small mistake.
This is the first of what are often considered five parenthetical warnings in the book of Hebrews; however, in our study this month these warnings are anything but a side note. We'll view them more like the main points of application as we absorb the truth about Christ. The messages delivered in the past by angels and through prophets had been verified by deliverance or by judgment. So it stands to reason that the message of salvation announced by Jesus would also come to fruition with even more profound and long-lasting results. Hebrews then urges believers to hold true to the faith and enter His rest willfully and boldly instead of lazily or passively.
The author of Hebrews punctuated the message of Christ's superiority with a mark of irony. Mankind surrendered their position of authority over all creation because of sin (cf. Psalm 8). Jesus reclaimed it for Himself by taking up a place of humility, sacrifice, and death. And so He became the perfect pioneer of our salvation. Not only does that assure us of the salvation waiting for us, it foreshadows the nature of our path into His rest. We shouldn't be surprised when the road is difficult; we shouldn't be shocked when pursuing shortsighted, selfish, and temporary goals fails to satisfy us.
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APPLY THE WORD
Jesus was crowned with glory and honor by suffering and submitting to the will of the Father. We may not be able to repeat Christ's level of courage, wisdom, and perfection, but we can model our lives after it. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to put His will and others' needs before your own desires. When service and submission become your focus, notice how rarely you become disappointed or ungrateful. Save the honor, glory, and rest for eternity instead of seeking it now.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 05, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)
If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all-Philippians 2:17
Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer-to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, "I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don't want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, 'Well done.' "
It is one thing to follow God's way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a "doormat" under other people's feet. God's purpose may be to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased . . ." (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket-to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted-not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
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Rich or Poor
It is interesting that Jesus, in our devotional yesterday, did not try to keep the widow from giving all she had. It is especially interesting considering what He said a little earlier in Mark 12:38-40,
Then He said to them in His teaching, "Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."
Yet, right on the heels of saying that, this widow gave all she had, which means she probably didn't even have anything left to buy food for a meal that night. With her gift of less than one penny, she had nothing left. And yet, Jesus said she gave more than everybody else.
Jesus did not give the slightest indication that she shouldn't have given an offering. He didn't run after her and say, "Now wait a minute, Ma'am! You shouldn't be doing this. You're a widow. God doesn't want this." On the contrary, it seems that He commended her for it, even calling her gift to the attention of the disciples.
Why do you suppose this lady would have given like that-all she had? I reckon because of her love for God and her love for the work of God.
Which is what Jesus looks for when we give, whether we are rich or poor.
You can hear the protection of God for widows in the voice of Jesus. You can hear His concern, and you can hear the judgment of God on those who manipulate, abuse, and take advantage of defenseless people and widows.
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Read: Hebrews 2:11-18
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. - Hebrews 2:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
For a leader of great renown, siblings and family members of ill repute can cause massive political headaches. Be it a wayward member of a royal family or a renegade sibling of a presidential candidate-or even past associates who stir up controversy-public figures often find their image at the mercy of their family tree. Their advisers often do all they can to keep family embarrassments out of the public eye.
But Jesus isn't ashamed to call believers His family, despite our more than checkered past. The first reason listed here in today's reading is that He delivers us from our sinful history, atoning for our sins (v. 17) and making us holy (v. 11). And He doesn't just rescue us from what we have done-He saves us from the punishment we deserve.
Because of His deliverance, we are freed from the fear of death. Jesus (John 8:34) and Paul (Rom. 6:6) both taught that we were slaves to sin. The writer of Hebrews, however, identifies a different nuance of that slavery: being slaves to fear, specifically the fear of death, is a result of sin. Jesus took on that penalty and destroyed it (v. 14). Interestingly, though, He didn't do it from on high as a distant king eradicating a threat to his lowly subjects. Jesus recorded that victory as one of us.
That is a crucial distinction for those of us who are still living in a world dominated by sin. He didn't just defeat the power of sin from afar. Jesus suffered the temptations afflicting us. And He died to conquer the power behind them. Here we find the image of Jesus as our high priest who can relate to our weaknesses yet also live up to God's requirements of righteousness (v. 17). The power of sin that tempts us to betray the Word of God? Jesus has faced and resisted it. The death we deserve for falling short of God's glory? Jesus took it upon Himself, and He has been raised from it. The fears that would cause us to lose hope? Christ has, by His example, proven them unwarranted.
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APPLY THE WORD
We are spiritual descendants of Abraham because of our faith in Jesus, who became his physical descendant. He makes us holy, and He makes us His family. Paul wrote that he was not ashamed of the gospel; amazingly, the Author of the gospel is also not ashamed of us. Take that as motivation to honor the family name of Christ in your behavior today. Be His child, publicly and without apology, and let everyone see your faith, hope, and love on full display.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 07, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Dejection
We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened -Luke 24:21
Every fact that the disciples stated was right, but the conclusions they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that has even a hint of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If I am depressed or burdened, I am to blame, not God or anyone else. Dejection stems from one of two sources- I have either satisfied a lust or I have not had it satisfied. In either case, dejection is the result. Lust means "I must have it at once." Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Himself who gives the answer. What have I been hoping or trusting God would do? Is today "the third day" and He has still not done what I expected? Am I therefore justified in being dejected and in blaming God? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get ahold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected, because dejection is a sign of sickness. This is also true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.
We look for visions from heaven and for earth-shaking events to see God's power. Even the fact that we are dejected is proof that we do this. Yet we never realize that all the time God is at work in our everyday events and in the people around us. If we will only obey, and do the task that He has placed closest to us, we will see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes to us when we learn that it is in the everyday things of life that we realize the magnificent deity of Jesus Christ.
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The Right Word at the Right Time
Proverbs 15:23 contains a powerful truth,
A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!
It is critical for words of encouragement, words of comfort, words of counsel, words of wisdom, and even words of correction to be spoken in due season. Timing is just as important as content.
I read once about a lady who invited family and friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. When they received the invitation, they let her know that they were going to come. In fact, they were looking forward to the day.
She really put on quite a spread. She baked pies and bread; she cooked a turkey with all of the trimmings-an incredible meal. When the time came for her guests to arrive, she lit candles and put the finishing touches on decorating the house.
The only problem was, no one showed up.
Then she remembered the calendar she had picked up from a local business. On that calendar it said that Thanksgiving was on the 21st rather than on the last Thursday of the month as it normally is every year. At the time she thought it was strange, but she figured that they must have moved the holiday.
She had prepared her sumptuous banquet a week early! The content was great but the timing was not so great.
So it is with our words. They can be just the right words, perfect for the need of the person, but if not delivered at the right time, they can fall short.
Be sensitive to pick the right time to speak as well as the right words to say.
Notice that this verse talks about not just a word spoken, but a word spoken in due season-at the proper time. How good it is!
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Read: Hebrews 4:1-10
So on the seventh day he rested from all his work. - Genesis 2:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
The concept of the Sabbath was no mystery to the recipients of this letter. They would have observed the Sabbath, which literally means "to cease," more than a thousand times. It had been a basic tenet of their faith and culture as a people since the Exodus from Egypt. Consecrating the seventh day of every week and resting from their work required no explanation-being restricted from experiencing the rest of the Lord, however, was something new.
Observing sabbath rest once a week symbolized something bigger, and the symbolic act did not guarantee the fulfillment of the eternal rest to which it pointed. To someone in whom the Sabbath was deeply ingrained as a way of life, the prospect of failing to enter the rest would have been shocking. Indeed, for those Israelites who failed to enter the Promised Land, the Word of God was deemed virtually worthless to them because they lacked faith (v. 2). Keep in mind that these were the same people who had obeyed God's command to paint their doorposts in the blood of a spotless lamb (Ex. 12:21-28). The implication to the believers addressed here was that the gospel would be worthless to them if they lacked faith.
The author established that God's rest, which He entered on the seventh day having completed creation once and for all, still awaited His people. As people of faith, they were not yet done with their labors (v. 10). The author reminded them of the rest of God, a concept with which they were already quite familiar, so that they would also consider the choice facing anyone who hears the Word of God: to enter by faith or to harden their hearts.
That choice was not relegated to the past. It was present with Moses, with Joshua, and with David, and it was still before them in the days after the resurrection of Christ in the day God called "Today." This rest that has been in existence since the completion of God's created work remains a future consideration for all of us who are still living and serving. As long as we have breath, we must never stop serving. Our work is not yet done. We still long for God's eternal rest.
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APPLY THE WORD
Whether you are enjoying retirement or planning for it, it's important to remember that we always have a duty to continue serving the Lord, and that begins with obedience. Even if you don't have an official role as a leader in the church or elsewhere in vocational ministry, there is always a job for you to do for the Lord. Encouraging other believers, communicating the message of the gospel, and obeying the Word of God are all things you can and should do to remain faithful to the end.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 08, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God's point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God's purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." (John 17:19). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul's prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person's life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's work in us?
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A Word of Encouragement
I want you to look today at a passage of Scripture that helps guide us in what to say, who to say it to, and when and how to say it. Isaiah 50:4-5,
"The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away."
Jesus made it very clear in Matthew, chapter 10 verses 19-20, that the Holy Spirit is quite able to give us the right words to say at the right time. In Isaiah 51:16, God says, "I have put My words in your mouth." In Isaiah 57:19, He says, "I create the fruit of the lips."
Chances are there is someone in your world today who needs to be given a word of encouragement. The key is being sensitive and available. Sometimes we are so embroiled in our own struggles that we don't even give a thought to the fact that there may be someone around us who needs encouragement...a coworker, a neighbor, your spouse, your child.
I personally think our children need to be given encouragement every day. Like the little boy said, "Daddy, let's play darts. I'll throw, and you say 'Wonderful!'" Children crave affirmation and encouragement.
There is someone who you either have contact with now, or you will have contact with, who needs encouragement. And you are God's messenger.
First, we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He will teach us how to speak a word in season to the person who is weary. As it says, He will awaken our ear.
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Read: Hebrews 4:11-16
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. - Hebrews 4:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
The saying, "Live by the sword, die by the sword, is rooted in Christ's admonition of Peter in Matthew 26:52: "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (cf. John 18:10). The church father Origen interpreted this statement as a contrast of the physical and the spiritual. Peter drew a literal sword, but his violence would be judged by the sword of the Word of God, a far more fearsome weapon.
As believers, we often teach and memorize verse 12 in today's passage as reassurance that the Bible is a living text that always remains relevant to our lives and powerful for revealing the true condition of our hearts, which is true. But the sword imagery here is not merely depicting a tool of protection. The Word of God is a weapon against disobedience and a device of judgment on hardened, rebellious hearts.
That foreboding image comes immediately after the encouragement (and warning) to enter the rest of Christ by remaining obedient to Him every day until the very end to avoid a fate similar to the Israelites in the wilderness. It is foolish for anyone to think God will overlook their continued rebellion: His Word exposes our hearts and His eye sees all (v. 13).
But we have no reason to fear for our security if our faith is in Jesus, the Son of God and our great high priest (v. 14)! He has ascended into heaven, so He has finished the work of conquering death. He can relate to our weaknesses because He was tempted as we are. And we can trust in Him alone because He did not succumb to temptation, but has victory over it, and we can share in that.
Should we fear for the security of our salvation? Not at all! The sword of God's Word may be a threat to the disobedient, but nothing prevents us from drawing near to God's throne-and it is a throne of grace (v. 16)! We need mercy, for we are not perfect, but we also have grace to help us stay true. God gives us confidence, not fear. Why should we ever lose faith?
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APPLY THE WORD
There is merit to the line of thought that says doing the right thing is quite often doing the difficult thing-but that's due in part to our sin natures. When we value the opinions of others or our own pride above our standing with God, we feel conflicted. But we should adopt the mindset that we are both afraid to disobey the Lord and confident to approach His throne of grace. In light of His Word, isn't that an easy decision to make?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 09, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Exhausted Spiritually?
The everlasting God . . . neither faints nor is weary -Isaiah 40:28
Exhaustion means that our vital energies are completely worn out and spent. Spiritual exhaustion is never the result of sin, but of service. Whether or not you experience exhaustion will depend on where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter, "Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing with which to feed them (John 21:17). The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people's souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely- to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.
Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God? If so, then renew and rekindle your desires and affections. Examine your reasons for service. Is your source based on your own understanding or is it grounded on the redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually look back to the foundation of your love and affection and remember where your Source of power lies. You have no right to complain, "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that He is your supply. "All my springs are in you" (Psalm 87:7).
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For Just a Little While
Today's Scripture will start with the very last word of 1 Peter 1:4, just so you know who it is talking about, and go through verse 7,
...you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Notice in verse 6 it says, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. That phrase "a little while" literally means a season. The King James Version says, Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
I like the phrase "a little while". That tells me the season is going to end. It is not forever. Every season ends. Winter ends. Spring ends. Summer ends. Fall ends. Every season has a beginning, and every season has an end.
If you are in a trial right now and feeling the weight of it, you are grieved because of it, I have good news. It will not be forever. Things are going to change. It may not seem like it, but that season will come to an end.
Even if you are not experiencing a trial today, I am confident you have gone through such a season, and it is likely that you will probably experience such a season again.
When you do, or if you are today, be encouraged. God's Word wants you-and me-to remember it is for just a little while.
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Read: Hebrews 5:1-10
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered. - Hebrews 5:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
A new generation of American socialites, sometimes dubbed "celebutantes," has achieved fame for their narcissistic antics. They flaunt their families' riches and publicize their wild, spoiled lifestyles. One such starlet, whose net worth is estimated at over $45 million, epitomized the trend with this quote: "The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in."
Inheriting a position of wealth, rank, or influence doesn't mean much without honor, responsibility, and meaningful achievements of one's own. Jesus, the Son of God, didn't simply inherit the role of high priest through a sense of entitlement or a grand coronation. Jesus was heard by the Father due to His "reverent submission" (v. 7). How is it that the Son of God had to learn obedience? Because the highest royalty in the universe took on humility for our sakes.
A student of the law might question Jesus' qualifications to be a priest since He was from the tribe of Judah, not Levi. But Jesus didn't cut corners to gain that title. He was a priest in the order of Melchizedek, a distinction we'll explore in further detail later. For now we'll focus on the fact that He was appointed by God to the position. Therefore, there's no question that Jesus can relate to the people He represents.
Verse 9 states that Jesus was made perfect, which is not to say He was ever imperfect. Through His sufferings, Jesus was made complete as the perfect high priest who, like other priests, could relate to our sufferings and struggles as humans. But unlike other priests, Jesus had no sins of His own to confess. Thus, He is not merely a go-between who confesses our sins on our behalf; instead, He is the true source of our salvation (v. 9).
This passage is encouraging because it emphasizes not only the high qualifications of Christ but also the humble way He ascended to that position. As the Son of God, He had nothing to prove. But as one of us, He knows just what we're going through.
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APPLY THE WORD
It has become fashionable in recent years to speculate about what it would have been like to be Jesus, with an increased fascination on the details of Christ's humanity. Ironically, Jesus doesn't have to wonder at all what it's like to be us. He can sympathize completely with our struggles, and He assumed that position by choice. Rejoice today in the knowledge that Jesus relates to your pain. It should make obeying His Word that much easier to know His demands are never unreasonable.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is Your Ability to See God Blinded?
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things . . . -Isaiah 40:26
The people of God in Isaiah's time had blinded their minds' ability to see God by looking on the face of idols. But Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their power to think and to visualize correctly. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in nature and will realize that it is holy and sacred. We will see God reaching out to us in every wind that blows, every sunrise and sunset, every cloud in the sky, every flower that blooms, and every leaf that fades, if we will only begin to use our blinded thinking to visualize it.
The real test of spiritual focus is being able to bring your mind and thoughts under control. Is your mind focused on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Is it your work? Is it your idea of what a servant should be, or maybe your experience of salvation and sanctification? If so, then your ability to see God is blinded. You will be powerless when faced with difficulties and will be forced to endure in darkness. If your power to see has been blinded, don't look back on your own experiences, but look to God. It is God you need. Go beyond yourself and away from the faces of your idols and away from everything else that has been blinding your thinking. Wake up and accept the ridicule that Isaiah gave to his people, and deliberately turn your thoughts and your eyes to God.
One of the reasons for our sense of futility in prayer is that we have lost our power to visualize. We can no longer even imagine putting ourselves deliberately before God. It is actually more important to be broken bread and poured-out wine in the area of intercession than in our personal contact with others. The power of visualization is what God gives a saint so that he can go beyond himself and be firmly placed into relationships he never before experienced.
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Keep Trusting
In the passage we looked at yesterday, Peter encouraged us to see the trials we face as temporary, something that only lasts for a while. I want you to read that passage again today, and then I want to point your attention to another truth that is vital to enduring through whatever trial you may be facing.
It says in 1 Peter 1:5-7,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
One of the critical things you and I need to do when faced with trials is continue to trust God in the midst of those trials.
No matter how difficult, do not unplug your faith, even when things get rough. Keep trusting God and His promises. Why? Well, look at what verse 5 says: We are "kept by the power of God through faith."
When you keep your faith plugged in, you are then kept by God's power.
That word keep means to preserve. It means to protect, to guard. It is used elsewhere in Scripture of a garrison of soldiers protecting something. When you are going through a trial, God will protect you through His power when you trust Him.
That word power is the same word in the Bible translated miracle. I take it to mean this: When you or I are in a season of trial, if God has to work a miracle to keep us and protect us, He will do it.
Whatever your trial...keep trusting.
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Read: Hebrews 5:11-6:12
The Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. - Ephesians 4:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
The eternal security of the believer is an important theological tenet of our faith. This doctrine teaches that our salvation comes from God and therefore cannot be removed or lost. Once we place our faith in Christ, it is secure (see John 6:37; 10:27-29; Rom. 8:35-39; Eph. 1:13-14). Some have read our passage for today and wondered whether this text undermines the doctrine of eternal security. Does Hebrews contradict the teaching of "once saved, always saved"?
Obviously, understanding this subject requires more than the span of one day's devotional study, but it will help to look at Hebrews 6:4-8 within the context of the whole passage and the message of Hebrews as a whole. Prior to today's passage, the author was explaining the essential points of Jesus' qualifications as high priest-an important, yet largely new, line of thinking for many readers of this letter. Beginning in 5:11, though, the writer expressed frustration with the fact that many of these believers had abandoned the discipline of growing in their knowledge of Christ.
In fact, they had yet to fully grasp foundational, elementary concepts such as repentance, faith, baptism, and eternal destiny (6:2). But, beginning with the phrase, "It is impossible," the stern warning that concludes in 6:8 takes the argument one step further. Those who mock Christ and dismiss His gift after tasting the goodness of His Word and experiencing the powerful influence of His Spirit reveal their true spiritual condition through their actions. They have mocked Christ with their dismissal of His gift. They have produced no fruit, so why should we expect anything else (v. 8)?
The writer of Hebrews expected his readers to have progressed in their understanding and obedience, not teetering on the edge of doing right or doing wrong. They should be growing in their knowledge of Jesus, flourishing in good works, and working diligently to live out their faith with every day of their lives. The Christian life isn't a matter of obeying the rules. We are expected to grow, to study diligently, and to actively inherit our salvation.
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APPLY THE WORD
Our works can never save us-but our saving faith will produce works. Yet we all know someone who has fallen away from the faith. The word that stings our hearts is impossible. Is it really impossible for a fallen brother or sister to return to repentance? The words of Christ tell us: "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matt. 9:26). God is full of grace and mercy, but that should encourage us to love and serve Him, not test His forbearance.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is Your Mind Stayed on God?
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You -Isaiah 26:3
Is your mind stayed on God or is it starved? Starvation of the mind, caused by neglect, is one of the chief sources of exhaustion and weakness in a servant's life. If you have never used your mind to place yourself before God, begin to do it now. There is no reason to wait for God to come to you. You must turn your thoughts and your eyes away from the face of idols and look to Him and be saved (see Isaiah 45:22).
Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. You should seek to be "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . ." (2 Corinthians 10:5). This will be one of the greatest assets of your faith when a time of trial comes, because then your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. When you have thoughts and ideas that are worthy of credit to God, learn to compare and associate them with all that happens in nature-the rising and the setting of the sun, the shining of the moon and the stars, and the changing of the seasons. You will begin to see that your thoughts are from God as well, and your mind will no longer be at the mercy of your impulsive thinking, but will always be used in service to God.
"We have sinned with our fathers . . . [and] . . . did not remember . . ." (Psalm 106:6-7). Then prod your memory and wake up immediately. Don't say to yourself, "But God is not talking to me right now." He ought to be. Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Encourage yourself to remember, and your affection for God will increase tenfold. Your mind will no longer be starved, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.
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Keep Laughing
I want to head back to 1 Peter 1:5-7 again today. Something tells me we could all continue to use the encouragement of Peter's words, especially the advice I want you to focus on today. 1 Peter 1:5-7,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Regardless of what you may be going through today, you need to rejoice. Peter says in verse 6, In this you greatly rejoice, even if for a season you are experiencing various trials.
Friend, keep your sense of humor. It will help you outlast your trials.
I read a story once about a guy parachuting when the wind blew him onto a track where they were racing cars...not a good place to land in a parachute. He was trying to get his parachute off when another gust of wind came and started dragging him face first down the track.
He finally got the parachute off and stood up only to see a car racing towards him. He quickly jumped out of the way and said to himself, "Man, I'm glad that's over!" and turned to get off the track. As he did, he stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle.
That was just too much! Even in his pain, he just started laughing!
Keep your sense of humor. Even if you are going through the roughest patch you have ever been through.
Do not let your trials rob you of your joy.
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Read: Hebrews 6:13-20
I swear by myself, declares the LORD . . . I will surely bless you. - Genesis 22:16-17
TODAY IN THE WORD
The complete details are secret, but the rigorous security protecting the vault at Fort Knox is known worldwide. The walls of the vault are lined with granite. A 22-ton blast door protects the entrance. The combination to enter the vault has to be entered separately by ten different individuals who alone know their part of the code. In addition to the expected cameras, alarms, and guards, the Bullion Depository is rumored to boast lavish security measures such as attack helicopters, mines, automated machine guns, and a flooding system designed to drown any intruder.
Anyone looking for a loophole in God's promise of salvation to His people will have more success trying to infiltrate Fort Knox. God's Word on its own is unchangeable and sure, but to add an extravagant layer of security for our comfort, He sealed His promise with an oath sworn on the highest name possible: His own. By His Word and by His name-two things absolutely guaranteed to be true-God confirmed that a great nation would come from Abraham (v. 18).
Take note: even though there is no one higher than God, He found it suitable to relate to Abraham and to us using a humanly understood authentication of His promise. He didn't need to. The promise itself was sufficient. He did so to help us understand more clearly just how invariable His salvation would be (v. 17). He did this after Abraham verified his faith beyond dispute through his willingness to sacrifice his own son (Genesis 22). Was Abraham's faith born out in works? Yes. Were his works the reason for his assurance? Not at all. Abraham may have waited patiently (v. 15), but we know he didn't wait perfectly. It was the Word and name of God that assured him.
What an inspiring assurance after the warning in yesterday's passage! To prevent anyone from falling prey to the belief that our salvation is based on works, the author of Hebrews reminded us of the true anchor firmly holding our souls secure. It is our hope in Christ, who is already enjoying the rest of resurrection and communion on high with the Father in His sanctuary.
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APPLY THE WORD
The doubly guaranteed promise of God should provide incomparable assurance in our hearts. How can we let doubt creep in when God has given us such an ironclad covenant? He didn't swear by Himself for His own good but for ours. Let the truth of His Word and His name cast all doubt from your mind. Spend at least a few minutes quietly savoring the hope we have in Him. Or sing aloud a hymn such as "Blessed Assurance," and praise your Savior all day long!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Listening to God?
They said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die' `-Exodus 20:19
We don't consciously and deliberately disobey God- we simply don't listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them- not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.
"You speak with us, . . . but let not God speak with us . . . ." We show how little love we have for God by preferring to listen to His servants rather than to Him. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we don't want God Himself to speak to us. Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us? It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey. But if it is simply one of God's servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative. We respond by saying, "Well, that's only your own idea, even though I don't deny that what you said is probably God's truth."
Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child? Once I finally do hear Him, the humiliation I have heaped on Him returns to me. My response then becomes, "Lord, why was I so insensitive and obstinate?" This is always the result once we hear God. But our real delight in finally hearing Him is tempered with the shame we feel for having taken so long to do so.
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Stop the Worry
Over the last few devotionals, we have been talking about trials and how we should respond. Today I have a simple but important word for you directly from God's Word: Don't worry.
1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Jesus said, "Don't take an anxious thought for tomorrow. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." When we worry about tomorrow, we pull tomorrow's clouds over today's sunshine.
I have shared many times in my ministry about the incredible truth of Jesus' command, "Do not worry about tomorrow." It is like we have this 24-hour fuse. We are wired up to deal with the stresses of life one day at a time.
If you worry about tomorrow today, you are putting a 48-hour load on a 24-hour fuse, and something is going to give somewhere.
Some people don't just worry about tomorrow, they worry about next week and next month. No wonder the fuse is blowing!
You see, what the mind cannot contain, it will impose upon the body. If your health is breaking down, worry may just be the problem. The Bible says to cast all of your care, the whole of your care, all your anxieties, on Him, once and for all.
Roll your burden on the Lord. The Bible says be anxious for nothing. And that means nothing. Do not worry about your children, do not worry about your money, do not worry about your future, do not worry about anything.
Your Heavenly Father does care for you, and it is His good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
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Read: Hebrews 7:1-10
Melchizedek king of Salem . . . was priest of God Most High. - Genesis 14:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
"Father Abraham" is a children's song rehearsed in Sunday schools for generations. The implicit message, one adopted by many believers even without singing the song or conducting the motions, is that Abraham is the father of faith in the one true God. We tend to assume that when Abraham was called by God, he represented the lone pillar of faith in the world, and all believers are spiritual descendants from Abraham and his decision to follow God.
But the biblical account in both our reading today and in Genesis 14 offers interesting additional information. After Abram valiantly rescued Lot, he was greeted by Melchizedek, who was a leader without genealogy (v. 3 in today's reading). He was both king and priest, and he was a righteous and obedient servant of God. We aren't provided with many details about Melchizedek, but clearly he is important for us to understand the nature of Jesus' priesthood and our faith.
If we were tempted to think that all faith in the history of creation springs from Abraham, we would be sorely mistaken. Abraham is a spiritual father, to be sure. But he is not the author of faith. In fact, he recognized the authority of Melchizedek above his own and paid a tithe to him accordingly (v. 4). Melchizedek provides evidence against anyone who would object to Christ's qualifications as high priest on the basis of His tribal lineage. While Jesus is not his physical descendant, he is a priest of that order or of that nature, independent of (and, the author argued, even superior to) the Levitical line from which Hebrew priests were selected (v. 9).
One last quality about Melchizedek relates very closely to the nature of Christ: the meaning of his name. His name and title meant king of righteousness and king of peace (v. 2). How fitting that such an affiliation would be bestowed on Jesus Christ, the source of our righteousness and the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). It also helps convey that Christ's priesthood was not a hostile takeover but the ultimate phase of an established, superior priesthood.
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APPLY THE WORD
If your view of Christian faith has become confined to only the people like you, perhaps it's time to look for how God is working in other places. You could read a biography of a Christian from another denomination, or read some testimonies of believers in other parts of the world. The point of this exercise is not to identify theological variances, but to be encouraged by how God calls, equips, and preserves His people in all times and all places in the world.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Devotion of Hearing
Samuel answered, 'Speak, for Your servant hears' -1 Samuel 3:10
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, "You are My friends . . ." (John 15:14). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord's this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don't even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God's message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don't want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don't hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, "Speak, for Your servant hears." If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God's voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things- things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God's voice today?
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Your Real Adversary
As we continue to think about the reality of trials in our lives, and the challenge it is to handle those trials, I want to point you to another important teaching about trials in today's devotional.
You need to realize who your adversary is. It is not God; it is the devil. Look at 1 Peter 5:8-9,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Some of the trials and sufferings that we experience are the direct result of the adversary's work.
Some people want to blame God for everything, but the Bible says it is the thief- the devil-who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came to give us life and more abundantly.
Peter makes this even clearer in verse 10,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Our God is the God of grace. The devil is seeking to devour.
Frankly, I hate the middle part of this verse, After you have suffered for a while.... Clearly, God wants us to understand that suffering is going to happen. Trials are going to happen. No matter how much you may say, "I don't receive it!", it is still there! You are going to go through difficult times. It is part of the human experience.
But when you go through that time of trial, remember not to blame God. It is the devil who is your adversary!
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Read: Hebrews 7:11-28
A better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. - Hebrews 7:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
The advent of ultrasound technology revolutionized the medical field of obstetrics. Prior to its advancement in the 1960s (and its popularity boom in the decades that followed), doctors and midwives used techniques that provided a much more limited knowledge of the health and development of unborn children. These ultrasonic images convey a wealth of potentially life-saving information.
In similar fashion, the priesthood in the order of Aaron served its purpose for a time, but it was limited in its effectiveness. Compared to the priesthood of Christ, the function of the Levitical priesthood was helplessly incomplete.
The author made it clear that Jesus did not fit the traditional pattern that Israel expected from a priest. But that was actually a blessing rather than a detriment, because the work of the traditional priest was forever unfinished. The work of Jesus Christ was complete forever (v. 25)! And Christ's qualification as priest was secured with a divine oath (vv. 17, 20; cf. Ps. 110:4). Notice how the author of Hebrews continually used Old Testament passages to verify the authenticity of this New Testament priesthood in Christ.
One chief limitation of any human priest is the one that plagues us all: death (v. 23). That wasn't a problem for Jesus, because He died and rose again before taking His place as priest. Whereas other priests offered a service to people of faith for a time but were constrained by their own mortality, Jesus is able to save us completely even from death because He has already crossed that chasm. He is all that we are not: holy, sinless, set apart, and exalted. Yet He is not detached.
Through Christ, we draw near to God (v. 19)! As Hebrews has established again and again, Jesus Christ relates to us, and in addition, He intercedes for us and brings us close to our Heavenly Father. He bridges a spiritual and natural gap that we could never cross on our own. He also takes us from temporal to eternal-this relationship with God, established through His priesthood, will never end!
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APPLY THE WORD
We can draw near to God. The power of that simple yet profound truth astounds us. We might not fully grasp the eternal process of Christ's priesthood, but the result for our lives is clear. Yet how often do we avail ourselves of the throne of grace to which we can draw near? If the answer to that question isn't "every possible waking moment," we are missing out. We have a permanent connection beyond this fallen world. Rejoice in that and make full use of it today!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops -Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."- pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood- darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart- a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
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The Path to Maturity
1 Peter 5:10 provides a very critical principle for those times when we are going through trials, a principle that is easy to miss,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
You need to realize that even though God did not initiate your trouble, He can still use it to work something good in you. What the devil means for evil, God can turn into something good.
Even though the devil's purpose is to destroy you, if you will respond correctly, God can work good things. Notice the verse says after you have suffered a short season, God will perfect. It brings maturity to you.
While we might hate it, how we respond in times of trial makes us who we are-and it fits us to accomplish God's will. I hate some of the things I have gone through! But you know what? I would not be who I am had I not experienced those things. It has fitted me to do the will of God.
And while it may not seem like it, your present difficulty may be instrumental in your future success.
It reminds me of the guy who was shipwrecked on a deserted island. One day he decided to go across the island for food. When he got to the other side he looked back and saw a plume of smoke in the sky. He ran back only to find that his shack burnt to the ground!
It stung him to the core! Except the next morning a ship arrived and rescued him. When he asked the sailors, "How'd you know I was here?" they said, "We saw your smoke signal."
Your present trials just may be fitting you for something you would never expect!
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Read: Hebrews 8:1-13
They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. - Hebrews 8:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
In geometry, a circle is defined as the set of all points in a plane that are a set distance from the center. Although we can see drawings of a circle and observe objects that are circular in shape, they aren't true circles. The points that make up a circle are immeasurably small, having no width, height, or depth. A true circle would be imperceptible to the naked eye. What we see are mere representations of an ideal concept.
Like a representative sketch, so too the earthly tabernacle, the sanctuary of the Lord set up by Moses in the wilderness, was an imperfect symbol. The main difference is that, unlike a geometrical ideal, there is a true heavenly original upon which the earthly tabernacle was based. It was neither set up by Moses nor intended for transitory life. The true sanctuary is permanently stationed in heaven.
Today's passage marks the logical conclusion about Christ's status as the perfect high priest with the perfect qualifications, in an established place of service, living in the true tabernacle (vv. 1, 2). For any Jewish believers who may have been wavering between their commitment to their new Savior and the comfortable familiarity of their old traditions, the argument made in chapter 8 would have been quite convincing. The temporary nature of the old covenant was obvious.
The writer was not making a new point. A significant portion of this chapter is in fact yet another quote from the Old Testament (Jer. 31:31-34). The law would no longer be engraved in stone or inscribed on a scroll; God planned to implement a new law and record it in the minds and hearts of His people (v. 10). The prophecy foretold a people who would not only know the Word of God, but one who would know God Himself (v. 11). The means to that end was Jesus Christ. This High Priest, promise, law, covenant, and tabernacle are superior to their earthly manifestations. The temporal was nothing to cling to, but rather a system intended to point to the perfect future ahead. People of faith had no reason to turn back to past traditions. The future in Christ was so much brighter.
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APPLY THE WORD
The imagery and tradition of modern worship may be very different from past Jewish practices, but both are merely foretastes of coming glory. We celebrate the New Covenant, but our hymns and songs are but a preview of eternal praise. Our sermons and teaching preview an eternity with the Word Himself. We are not meant to be complacent with where we are in our spiritual growth-remember your citizenship in heaven and focus on the real home we have yet to enter.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We "sit together in the heavenly places . . ." (Ephesians 2:6). "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it . . ." (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, "Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?" "Our sufficiency is from God . . ." and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).
"You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone- to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say "thank you" to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him- ". . . lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27).
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Rich Blessings
Let me ask you a question. Do you believe God wants to bless you? You may say, "Yes," but in your heart do you really believe this to be true?
Take a moment to read Ezekiel 34:26,
"...I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."
I believe the Bible teaches us that just like there are seasons of trial, there are seasons of exceptional blessing that come from God. And those seasons of exceptional blessing should not be taken for granted. We should capitalize on them and seize the momentum when those seasons come.
Don't get me wrong, God is good all the time, and He is good to all. His tender mercies are over all His works. He causes His sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The fact of the matter is, God is good even to people who are not good because it is His nature.
However, there are richer, more frequent blessings that come from the hand of God. And they come to those who do a particular thing.
Tomorrow I want you to look with me in the book of Galatians. As we look at these verses, we will find that though God is good to all, the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. Together we will see what that thing is.
Today, I just want you to grasp the truth that God does want to bless your life in an extraordinary way.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Read: Hebrews 9:1-10
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. - Matthew 27:51
TODAY IN THE WORD
The city of St. Petersburg, Russia, has a rich history. For over two centuries, it served as the capital of the Russian Empire, but when the capital relocated to Moscow in 1918, St. Petersburg lost its status as the center of the Russian world. As Czech author and journalist Joseph Wechsberg quipped, "To the Russians [St. Petersburg] is not what Rome is to the Italians or Paris to the French. The decisions are made in the Kremlin. The city of Peter remains a museum, open from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M."
Upon the crucifixion of Christ, the role of the temple sanctuary in a life of faith and a relationship with God changed dramatically. What was once of central importance was intended to point to a greater reality about God and His people. Although lost, destroyed, or irretrievably hidden after the Babylonian destruction of the temple in 586 B.C., the contents of the original tabernacle sanctuary had been crucial instruments of worship and atonement for generations of priests. They represented the presence, provision, and protection of God-and yet they were not perfect.
The things the author of Hebrews described in these verses were considered the holiest objects and places of the Jewish faith. Had they been preserved to this day (or were they to be discovered) they would be considered the most valuable archaeological treasures in the world. Even now as we read of the Ark of the Covenant, the gold jar of manna, Aaron's budded staff, and the stone tablets of the covenant, the thought of those artifacts is awe-inspiring. But here the author called it all just an illustration (v. 9), carrying out mere external regulations (v. 10).
The holy objects and rituals, amazing as they were, were not sufficient to clear the conscience or cleanse the stain of sin (v. 9). What's more, everyone was not free to enter the place where the Lord dwelt. When Jesus died, He tore the curtain that separated the entire world from the Most Holy Place and He completed the ceremonial sacrifices. He had no sins of His own to atone for-only the sins of the world.
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APPLY THE WORD
The initial list of qualifications and regulations needed to enter or even draw near to the inner rooms of the tabernacle appear in Leviticus 16. Read through that description and then go back to a verse we focused on earlier this month: Hebrews 4:16. "Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence." Rejoice in what the work of Christ has accomplished! Where man could rarely set foot, Jesus has a permanent place. Through Him, so do we.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, "Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard-just do what needs to be done!" That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, "Get up and get going," suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, "Arise from the dead . . . ." When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to "arise from the dead" and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we "get up and get going." God does not give us overcoming life-He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, "Arise from the dead . . . ," we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand" (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
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Sow Good...Reap Blessing
As I mentioned in yesterday's devotional, God wants to bless your life, and the richer, more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. We find that thing in Galatians 6:9-10,
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
The seasons of blessing come due more often to those who consistently sow, to those who seize opportunities that are afforded them to do good. Notice again in verse 9, Let us not grow weary while doing good. Verse 10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all.
This same truth is reinforced by verse 7, which states,
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
If we sow good, we will reap good. A season of blessing will come.
What many Christians tend to do is stand before a field in which they planted no seed, and pray, "God, give me a miracle harvest."
Now, God is God, and He certainly can do things out of the ordinary. But He also works according to laws and principles that He has set into motion. One of those laws is the law of sowing and reaping.
Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Therefore, do not grow weary while doing good. In due season, you will reap, if you do not faint. When you have opportunity, do good. Get some seed in the ground.
Because the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who sow good.
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Read: Hebrews 9:11-14
You who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. - Ephesians 2:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
After an explosion sank an off-shore oil rig, The Deepwater Horizon, into the Gulf of Mexico, crews attempted to clean up the nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil using a number of methods. One of the more controversial approaches was the use of an unprecedented amount of a dispersant called Corexit. The blend of chemicals allows the oil to more easily blend with water, preventing it from coating elements of the ecosystem. It doesn't technically remove the oil, but it does clean the surface.
The presentation of the blood of Old Testament sacrifices provided cleansing and purity for the people of God. It provided atonement, and it allowed the high priest to enter the Most Holy Place once every year. But it did not assuage guilt of their sins from their consciences, and it had to be repeated continually.
Jesus did what the high priests before Him could not do: He entered a better tabernacle that was not of this earth (v. 11). A quick translation note: some Bible versions (NIV) translate the phrase in verse 11 as "the good things that are now already here," while others (NASB) render it "the good things that are to come." The reason for the difference stems from a textual variant in the ancient manuscripts, and while most scholars tend to side with the latter translation, the certainty of Christ's complete work is maintained by both wordings. The important point in these verses is that Jesus alone could enter the heavenly Most Holy Place.
He didn't enter only a superior tabernacle as a superior high priest, but also He offered a superior sacrifice. The presentation of His own blood brought eternal redemption that could cleanse us inwardly, spiritually. His sacrifice needed to be made but once. And there's an added level of redemption here. Not only are we protected from the penalty of eternal death caused by sin, but we are also freed from the control of sin and able to serve the living God this very day (v. 14)! Our consciences are clean, and our ability to serve is untarnished!
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APPLY THE WORD
How often do we forget that there is another world beyond what we see with our eyes? Let today's study remind you that our eternal destination is in a better place because Christ offered a better sacrifice to pave a better way. And He did more: He cleansed the invisible stain of sin in our souls when we placed our trust in Him. Find strength for what you face today knowing that all that you need has already been given to you by Christ.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive-only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God's creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things-things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
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Real Treasure
Proverbs 15:6 says,
In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.
Notice that this verse does not just declare there is treasure in the house of the righteous. It says there is much treasure in the house of the righteous.
You can also find treasure in the house of the wicked, but Solomon says it is laced with trouble. The income of the wicked has a bunch of trouble with it.
But the same is not true for those who are right with God. When the treasure is found in their house, it does not have the same trouble that it does when it is found in the house of the wicked.
If you read on, the Lord shares two things that must accompany this treasure if it is going to be enjoyed. First, you must have a right relationship with God. Proverbs 15:16says, Better is a little with the fear of the LORD, than great treasure with trouble.
It is better to have almost nothing and have a right relationship with God than to have everything money can buy and not have a relationship with God. We must get our priorities right.
The second thing we need to have is a right relationship with people, lest the treasure become hollow and become a curse. Proverbs 15:17says, Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred.
Some people have more prosperity than they know what to do with, but all of their relationships fail. They do not have love. Consequently, there is a vacuum they can never fill with things, that they can never fill by accumulating more possessions.
Pursue your relationship with God, and a right relationship with people. Then you will enjoy the treasure God gives you!
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Read: Hebrews 9:15-28
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. - Isaiah 53:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In legal parlance, a covenant generally stipulates an action or actions that both parties agree to carry out (or refrain from). It is a promise to behave in a certain way. At this point in his letter to the Hebrews, the author points out a peculiar detail of God's covenants, new and old, with His people. In some ways these covenants of promised action take on the function of a last will and testament. They are covenants because both parties live on (for eternity, no less). But the covenant also calls for an inheritance, as in the case of a will-and to enact it, someone has to die.
To make this legal arrangement even more interesting, Jesus is the Testator (the one whose will it is), the Decedent (the one who has died), the Executor of the will (who carries out the provisions), and the Mediator of the covenant (who intercedes on our behalf before the Father). We've already discussed how He is both the high priest and the sacrifice, and at the beginning of the book we learned that the world was created through and is sustained by Christ (1:2, 3). How significant do you feel by comparison?
Somehow, though, in all His glory and authority, the reason Christ mediates this covenant-the reason He offered His own blood as a sacrifice-is so that we could receive our inheritance, which is eternal salvation and relationship with God (v. 15). If Christ's many roles had you feeling small, His sacrifice should make you feel quite special.
Much of today's reading restates what we've already read and puts it into its logical context in the story of our salvation. Jesus, our high priest, entered heaven in a manner that previous high priests could only symbolize on earth. Once and for all, at the culmination of the ages in a realm not bound by time as we know it, Christ offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice and eradicated the power of sin (v. 26). From the moment Adam and Eve first sinned, it was mankind's destiny to die once and appear before God to face judgment. Jesus countered by dying once and offering His sacrifice before God in order to accomplish salvation.
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APPLY THE WORD
If we think about it long enough, the greatness of Jesus Christ will make our heads spin. We can't grasp the enormity of His glory in our finite minds, but we can testify to His vital importance with our actions. The Testator, Decedent, Executor, and Mediator of God's covenant ensures your salvation! How can we let our own selfish inklings and material desires get in the way of serving Him? Let us live like people who are waiting eagerly for His return.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going -Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, "Well, it's all over and ruined now; what's the point in trying anymore." If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, "Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can't change that. But get up, and let's go on to the next thing." In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing- they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, "Get up, and do the next thing." If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
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Overrated
We read in Proverbs 23:4, Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!
First, I want you to notice that this verse does not say don't work. And it does not say don't work hard. It says don't overwork.
There are some people in God's family who are not led, they are driven. They are so focused on reaching their goals and achieving whatever level of success they are going after, that they are making a lot of sacrifices along the way.
But they are making the wrong sacrifices. They are sacrificing their marriage and they are sacrificing their relationship with their kids. Why? Because they overwork. And, friend, that is not healthy.
In fact, I would say that overworking is as unhealthy as not working. You miss out on the grand things in life, the important things in life. With some people, even their relationship with God gets squeezed out because they overwork.
You need to be motivated; you need to work hard; but you don't want to overdo it to the point that you don't have time for your children. You don't want to work so hard that you don't have time for your spouse. And you don't want to so overwork that you don't have time for your God.
You are missing life if you are just after possessions, and you are sacrificing the more important things along the way.
How does your work life measure up today? Are you overworking at the expense of your marriage, your family, and your relationship with God? If so, determine today to get your life back in balance.
Overworking is overrated!
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Read: Hebrews 10:1-18
And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. - Hebrews 10:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
On June 2, 2010, pitcher Armando Galarraga had a perfect game, one of the rarest achievements in baseball. But on the would-be final play at first base, umpire Jim Joyce ruled the runner safe, a call every observer could see was wrong. After the game, Joyce admitted he was wrong and ruefully said: "I just cost that kid a perfect game." The call could not be reversed, but the next day, June 3, the pitcher and umpire met at home plate, and the audience stood in applause in recognition of a different kind of perfection-the kind that comes from forgiveness and restoration.
Human attempts at perfection are almost always doomed from the start. Even a mistake-free performance is subject not only to the mistakes of others but also to the impermanence of the temporal world. What we often consider perfection is just the act of being error-free for a limited time. We can't stave off sin on our own. Animal sacrifices brought ceremonial atonement and purity for a year only. And even after a spotless sacrifice was presented, the guilt of sin remained on the consciences of those who worshiped (v. 2). Even an unblemished sacrifice was still not perfect.
Again, the author of Hebrews used Old Testament messianic prophecies to establish Jesus' standing as a better sacrifice and priest (cf. Ps. 40:6-8; Jer. 31:33-34). He will also bring about a better covenant. Instead of a written law, the earthly copy of God's heavenly realities (v. 1), Christ will usher in a law that is programmed into our very makeup (v. 16). Rather than obeying a list of rules, we will be ruled by the righteousness of Christ within us!
The picture of the future in Christ painted in these last verses is vivid, bright, and promising. All enemies of Christ will be defeated. All believers are made perfect in Him, although our sanctification is a process (v. 14). And perhaps the most miraculous act of all is that the sin we have already committed, which is prevalent and despicable, will be erased from God's consideration (v. 17). We have every reason to be hopeful and motivated to serve in obedience.
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APPLY THE WORD
The reality of our weaknesses and shortcomings can depress and discourage us if we focus on them. But we are, at this very moment, forgiven of our sins! Allow that truth to sink into your heart today. Remember that as you consider those who have wronged you, even those who refuse to apologize. What grounds do any of us have to hold grudges? Soften your heart toward those in the wrong and ask the Spirit to help you forgive, for you have been forgiven much.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine . . . -Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us- He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue- a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery- washing fishermen's feet. He then says to them, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer's body has become "the temple of the Holy Spirit"
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Only Temporary
Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Does it ever seem to you that your money has wings? That it just flies off more quickly than you would have ever imagined?!
Money can be very temporary, very transitory in nature. Proverbs 27:24 reinforces that truth when it tells us,
For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
You need to understand that wealth is temporary just like our time here is temporary. What are the implications for how we live our lives? As believers, it is so important for us to have a pilgrim mindset and realize that we are just passing through.
This world is not our home. This life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. If you begin to think that somehow things are permanent, and you plan as if it is all permanent, you are going to get off course in your life with God.
Moses is a great example of someone who made a choice to live life with the right priorities. You can read about it in Hebrews 11. In that chapter, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy all the riches of Egypt.
Moses had everything at his fingertips, but he made the right choice. He said, "You know what? There are more important things. My priorities are different than this." And his lifestyle changed pretty radically in a hurry.
But looking back, it's obvious that Moses made the right choice isn't it? He changed the world and right now he is in heaven enjoying the presence of God.
In our last devotional, we looked at Proverbs 23:4. Today I want us to look at the next verse. I will bet you can relate to it. Verse 5 says,
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Read: Hebrews 10:19-25
Encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching. - Hebrews 10:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
Ramzi Yousef, convicted of perpetrating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sentenced to 240 years and life in solitary confinement. The only human contact he is allowed comes in the form of legal counsel and minimal exposure to the guards watching over his isolated cell block (which houses only one other prisoner). Some activists call that level of isolation cruel and unusual punishment. Others think it's necessary for national security. Everyone agrees that it is severe punishment indeed.
For whatever reason, believers often get into the habit of putting themselves (or at least the Christian aspect of themselves) in utter solitude. Some of this letter's original audience may have done this out of fear-discovery of their faith could have led to literal imprisonment or torture. Others may have given up hope or simply grown lazy in their development as believers. In our day, the excuse could be shame, depression, frustration, or any number of reasons for withdrawing from fellowship with other believers. But spiritual solitary confinement can have severe consequences.
To counter this, the writer issues three "let us" directives in today's passage. The first was to draw near to God (v. 22). We have every assurance that God welcomes us into a loving relationship. The second "let us" statement is related in that we are called to hold on to hope, namely our hope in the salvation promised to us (v. 23). We are not isolated from God, and we are not abandoned to waste away in this fallen world.
Both of these "let us" statements affect our vertical relationship with God. But we are also created for relationship with other people, not only with God. To thrive spiritually, we also need deep connections with others. Hence the third exhortation: we need to stay connected to our fellow believers (v. 24). This involves more than attending church, although that is a helpful part of it. We aren't just called to congregate socially but to hold each other accountable, to love each other, and to serve together as well. We persevere in pursuing our relationship with God and building our faith, and we also grow spiritually by acting in faith to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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APPLY THE WORD
Notice how verses 24 and 25 frame our fellowship as believers. We aren't called to continue meeting together for the purpose of self-improvement. We should enter into our relationship with fellow believers with an eye toward encouraging others. Consider how you can take the initiative to encourage your church family. Waiting for others to come to you is the first step toward isolation. Instead, find someone who needs your help or a ministry that needs your service.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me -Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things- things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? "She has done a good work for Me."
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. ". . . but perfect love casts out fear . . ." once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
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The Right Perspective
Yesterday's devotional showed us how money, riches, and wealth are untrustworthy. So the natural question is, "Is wealth a bad thing?"
Let's go back to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 for our answer,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I believe God makes it clear that if you are in a position where He has blessed you, you should enjoy it. And do it guilt-free. If you can take the whole family on a 30-day vacation to Europe, go for it.
Just make sure you pay your tithes first. Make sure you are generous to the work of God, but enjoy what God gives you. It is a gift of God to be able to enjoy the fruit of the work of your hands.
God is all for us enjoying whatever measure of prosperity we have. He just wants us to be generous in proportion to our prosperity. He wants us to be ready and willing to give big. To be sowing extravagantly into the gospel and thereby laying up treasure in heaven.
The point is this: Do not just live with your eye on this world. Rather, live with your eye on the world to come. If you do, you will truly be able to enjoy the wealth God gives you.
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Read: Hebrews 11:1-3
Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. - Hebrews 11:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his New York Times opinion piece entitled, "Taking Science on Faith," author and researcher Paul Davies questioned the premise that scientists believe only in the facts that can be proved by physical evidence. He asserted that scientists blindly trust the impersonal, mathematical laws of physics to behave in an orderly, consistent fashion without any explanation as to why that is the case. He concluded, "Until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."
In a similar way, Christians who claim to have incontrovertible proof of all that we believe do not really reflect what Scripture teaches. The reason we call it faith is that, as today's passage explains clearly, for us believing does not require seeing. That is not to say that our beliefs aren't supported by the facts we have at our disposal. But ultimately, we put our trust in the invisible, even when the visible might discourage us.
Let's work backwards through these three verses, because the third points to the explanation for the very earliest event in which we believe: the creation of the visible universe by a being we cannot see. What evidence, apart from the testimony of those to whom God has spoken, could prove that in our current context? We understand it to be true in part because of the undeniable difference we have experienced in our lives.
The testimony of those who have gone before us speaks loudly and authoritatively to us (v. 2). While we do not have proof in the specific scientific sense, we do have assurance. And while our hopes in the future resurrection cannot be tested in a laboratory, we do have confidence that our hope is not misplaced. We have the examples of many believers who share our faith, even those who died waiting to see the fulfillment of what was promised to them. The reason we have that assurance: the person of Jesus Christ our Savior. Those before Christ had faith He would come to enact salvation, and we have faith that He did. Even now, we continue to have faith that He will come again and lead us into our eternal inheritance.
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APPLY THE WORD
However sincere their convictions, everyone accepts some of their most basic beliefs on faith. While apologetic arguments for our faith can serve to strengthen and encourage us, the best evidence in support of our faith is faithful obedience to God, which includes being loving and humble in your treatment of those who disagree. If you have people in your life whom you long to see accept the truth of salvation, resist the urge to argue and instead seek to love and serve them.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Spiritual Perseverance
Be still, and know that I am God . . . -Psalm 46:10
Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for- love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men- will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.
If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere . . ." (Revelation 3:10).
Continue to persevere spiritually.
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It's All About Him
I want us to look again at the last two verses from our last devotional, 1 Timothy 6:18-19,
Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I think it is beautiful the way verse 19 ends, ...that they may lay hold on eternal life. Paul is writing to believers here, and he is not saying they must do this so that they can get saved.
Rather, I think he is saying that when they are rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, then they will lay hold on what eternal life is all about. It is not about the things you possess; it is not about the blessings God gives you. It is about a relationship with Him. Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
If you are blessed, realize the main thing is not your riches and wealth. They can be very transitory.
I have a friend who, years ago, migrated from a country in Central America that had experienced a military coop. Her family was quite well off, having property and wealth that had been passed down through several generations.
But after the coop, the new government seized all of the families properties and wealth. All was lost overnight.
This story could have turned out badly except that this woman is an exceptional Christian with a great attitude. She has built a successful life here in the U. S and has chosen not to be bitter or resentful over the past. She has kept her trust in God, realizing that no matter what happens if she still has Him she will be alright.
Friend, keep your eyes on God and keep your trust anchored in Him. He is what life-real life-eternal life is all about!
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Read: Hebrews 11:4-16
And without faith it is impossible to please God. - Hebrews 11:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
Yesterday we mentioned our legacy from past people of faith who testify in support of our common hope. Today we begin to explore the catalog of witnesses in Hebrews 11, what is commonly referred to as the Hall of Faith. This chapter includes some of the most widely known heroes of the Old Testament, but the author of Hebrews began the list with two comparatively unheralded names from the past.
The first was Abel, whose entire life was chronicled in the span of a mere seven verses (Gen. 4:2-8). The reason God found Abel's sacrifice to be favorable has been the subject of much speculation, but the core reason is identified beyond doubt in this passage: Abel had faith. He believed in something he could not see in a way that Cain did not. And, as verse 4 alludes, the blood of Abel cried out to God even after it was spilled (Gen. 4:10). He was murdered, but a new home awaited him.
Enoch's time on earth was also recorded briefly, as he was mentioned only
in the genealogy from Adam to Noah (Gen. 5:18-24). We know even less of Enoch, but the Bible does say that he walked faithfully and that God "took him away" in mystery. It's interesting that Hebrews, which states that people are destined to die once (9:27), mentions Enoch for whom no record of death is found. It is fitting, since the author of Hebrews wanted to remind his audience that eternal life existed beyond this fallen world.
The faith of Noah, Abraham, and Sarah needs little review. The names alone elicit strong emotions in the hearts of believers who have studied the miracle of Noah's rescue from both flood waters and cultural ridicule and of Abraham and Sarah's amazing story of childbirth at an impossible age. Their faith will never be forgotten. What we often fail to remember is that they all relied on faith to the very end of their lives on earth. The phrase stands out like a neon sign: "They did not receive the things promised" (v. 13).
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APPLY THE WORD
It's humbling to realize that the most revered people in the history of our faith felt like strangers on this planet. They looked forward to another home. To follow their examples, we cannot tie up our emotional attachments to the things of earth. Our possessions, our work, our leisure activities, and even our health are all ultimately temporary. God has prepared a city in a heavenly country for us-anchor your heart in the world to come.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Determination to Serve
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . .-Matthew 20:28
Jesus also said, "Yet I am among you as the One who serves" (Luke 22:27). Paul's idea of service was the same as our Lord's- ". . . ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people. But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a "doormat" for others- called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, "I know how to be abased . . ." (Philippians 4:12). Paul's idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul's service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.
Paul's understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. "I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man . . ." (1 Timothy 1:13). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.
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His Stuff
You have probably noticed that over the last few days of devotionals, we have been focusing on material blessings and how we should view those blessings.
1 Chronicles 29:14-16 is very helpful to see God's perspective,
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. "O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own."
In these verses, King David is actually talking to the Lord as an offering is being received, and resources are being collected for the building of the temple (something his son Solomon is going to achieve).
We see that David recognized that everything he had, everything the people had, literally belonged to God. They were just giving God back something that belonged to Him in the first place.
I am going to let you in on a little secret: You and I are just stewards, and one day the Owner will call us into account for how we handled His stuff. Every one of us will give an account for our stewardship of His possessions.
While He gives us richly all things to enjoy, He is going to ask you if you did what He told you to do with His stuff. It is not our stuff.
Material treasure is a stewardship, and we must do what the Owner wants with it. This means we have a responsibility to be listening for the Owner's voice and following His instructions with His goods.
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Read: Hebrews 11:17-35
He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. - 1 Peter 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
You can learn a wealth of information about people by asking their thoughts about dying. Some, like Mark Twain, stress the importance of character: "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time." Others, like Groucho Marx, prefer to laugh away their concerns: "I intend to live forever, or die trying." People of faith, like Billy Graham, focus on the life beyond: "You're born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there's a loophole."
Today's portion of the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith includes a host of men and women who treated death like a minor obstacle. Most notable among them was Abraham, because his faith in the power of God to conquer death extended even to the life of his beloved son. Those who follow this example of fearlessness and faith in a life after death are the spiritual children of Abraham.
Isaac blessed his sons, knowing that God had a plan for their future even after his death. Jacob, for all of his flaws, retained his faith in God's plan for the nation that would spring forth from his sons. And Joseph's faith even extended to the final resting place of his bones, believing that his descendants would be free to carry him out of Egypt (Gen. 50:4). The fulfillment of his prophetic words wouldn't come for another 430 years, but it came to pass, by faith (Ex. 12:41).
Moses' parents did not fear the edict of death pronounced upon their child. Moses did not fear the attack of Pharaoh when he led his people out of Egypt. And the nation of Israel did not fear the walls of water that ultimately crashed down upon their pursuers in the Red Sea. All of these examples looked forward not only to a new country but also to a resurrection beyond their earthly graves. To imitate the words of the author of Hebrews, we do not have the time or space to study each entry in the Hall of Faith of this chapter. Death, torture, fire, and sword were not powerful enough to conquer the faith of these heroes who share in the same promise in which we hope.
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APPLY THE WORD
If you're facing a trial today or you have recently come through one, reread chapter 11 and imagine your name and your struggle included in the list. How does what you fear most compare to the situations faced by God's people in the past? Is there any reason to fear? Not at all! Do not be discouraged. None of the people mentioned in this chapter were perfect, but they all saw their faith to completion because they believed in what God had promised. You can too!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
February 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Delight of Sacrifice
I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls . . . -2 Corinthians 12:15
Once "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit," we deliberately begin to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests and purposes in others' lives (Romans 5:5). And Jesus has an interest in every individual person. We have no right in Christian service to be guided by our own interests and desires. In fact, this is one of the greatest tests of our relationship with Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, Jesus (see John 15:13). I don't throw my life away, but I willingly and deliberately lay it down for Him and His interests in other people. And I do this for no cause or purpose of my own. Paul spent his life for only one purpose- that he might win people to Jesus Christ. Paul always attracted people to his Lord, but never to himself. He said, "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22).
When someone thinks that to develop a holy life he must always be alone with God, he is no longer of any use to others. This is like putting himself on a pedestal and isolating himself from the rest of society. Paul was a holy person, but wherever he went Jesus Christ was always allowed to help Himself to his life. Many of us are interested only in our own goals, and Jesus cannot help Himself to our lives. But if we are totally surrendered to Him, we have no goals of our own to serve. Paul said that he knew how to be a "doormat" without resenting it, because the motivation of his life was devotion to Jesus. We tend to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which allow us more spiritual freedom than total surrender to Him would allow. Freedom was not Paul's motive at all. In fact, he stated, "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren . . ." (Romans 9:3). Had Paul lost his ability to reason? Not at all! For someone who is in love, this is not an overstatement. And Paul was in love with Jesus Christ.
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Spiritual Treasure
In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul tells us,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
If you look at this chapter, Paul helps us understand that this treasure is ministry, the gospel, the Word of God, and the light and the glory of God, God's presence.
Paul wants us to understand that God has placed in us an incredible spiritual treasure...a treasure residing in these earthen vessels...our bodies. The treasure is in you and me!
But that treasure needs to be poured out.
I can't help but think that Paul was thinking of two particular earthen vessels that were used in his day. One was the vessel of mercy and the other the vessel of honor.
One place you would find the vessel of honor was around the home. People would use the water to wash their feet after traveling the dusty roads before they would enter your house, or they would use the water to quench their thirst. Like the vessel of honor, we are to wash the feet of our family, to humbly serve them and to help quench their thirst for more of God.
The vessel of mercy looked identical to the vessel of honor, but it was located in public places like the town square, so that any traveler coming through that arid land would be guaranteed to find a fresh drink of water. It was placed where the needs were. We need to take mercy where mercy is needed most-out onto the highways of humanity.
You are an earthen vessel filled with His spiritual treasure, so start pouring it out-in your home and out where the people are.
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Read: Hebrews 11:36-40
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. - John 15:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
During the primaries leading up to the 2008 presidential election, two prominent candidates made the mistake of using the word wasted to describe the lives of American troops who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both candidates intended to convey the idea that the deaths could have been avoided, but their poor choice of words grieved the families who lost their beloved sons and daughters and who needed to be reassured that their losses were not in vain.
A life unselfishly given out of love for another is never a waste. But it isn't always easy to see that under tragic circumstances. It is very likely that the recipients of this letter personally knew believers who had been martyred. The history of God's people is filled with examples of those who paid the ultimate price for their faith. Today's passage mentions this group and defines their identity by their courageous faithfulness to the very end.
A stark reality puts a harrowing signature on this commemoration of their sacrifices. "None of them received what had been promised" (v. 39). It is hard to read those words without thinking, "What a waste!" But their lives were not wasted at all. God had planned something better! What those men and women receive in eternity is incomparably better than anything they ever could have attained in this life. The readers of Hebrews needed to know that just as we need to know it now. Why? Because we play a part in giving their deaths meaning.
Only together with us, the body of Christ who remain faithful to the very end, will the martyrs of the past be made perfectly complete. Those who looked forward in faith to the coming of Christ will be joined with those who look back in faith to His resurrection and welcome the indwelling of His Spirit. They helped bring the message of salvation to us. It is our duty to keep it alive by maintaining our confidence in the truth and our obedience to the Word of God. To ignore that would be to treat their sacrifices, and the death of Jesus Himself, as a wasted loss.
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APPLY THE WORD
As believers we are united and interconnected in Christ. Because of that, our actions take on immense significance. Who we are individually reflects on the entire group. This isn't meant to be a guilt trip but rather an opportunity for encouragement. We have a responsibility to each other that includes the profound privilege to help each other in faith. In doing so, we honor those who have gone before us and leave a legacy of love.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Destitution of Service
. . . though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved -2 Corinthians 12:15
Natural human love expects something in return. But Paul is saying, "It doesn't really matter to me whether you love me or not. I am willing to be completely destitute anyway; willing to be poverty-stricken, not just for your sakes, but also that I may be able to get you to God." "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor . . ." (2 Corinthians 8:9). And Paul's idea of service was the same as our Lord's. He did not care how high the cost was to himself- he would gladly pay it. It was a joyful thing to Paul.
The institutional church's idea of a servant of God is not at all like Jesus Christ's idea. His idea is that we serve Him by being the servants of others. Jesus Christ actually "out-socialized" the socialists. He said that in His kingdom the greatest one would be the servant of all (see Matthew 23:11). The real test of a saint is not one's willingness to preach the gospel, but one's willingness to do something like washing the disciples' feet- that is, being willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God. It was Paul's delight to spend his life for God's interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. But before we will serve, we stop to ponder our personal and financial concerns- "What if God wants me to go over there? And what about my salary? What is the climate like there? Who will take care of me? A person must consider all these things." All that is an indication that we have reservations about serving God. But the apostle Paul had no conditions or reservations. Paul focused his life on Jesus Christ's idea of a New Testament saint; that is, not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others.
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You're Not Stuck
1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
The word temptation in this verse also means test or trial. With that in mind, here are a couple of thoughts to encourage you today.
1. Whatever test, trial, or temptation you are facing today, it is "common to man." That means that you are not the only one who has gone through whatever you are facing.
It is comforting to know that others have faced similar problems before us and made it through!
2. God makes a way of escape with the trial or temptation. That means you're not stuck! Before your difficulty ever arose, God designed a way of escape. And that means of escape comes with the problem.
So if you find yourself embroiled in trials, tests, or temptations today, start looking for God's way of escape-it exists. Trust Him to guide you safely through and out of your difficulties!
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Read: Hebrews 12:1-11
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. - Hebrews 12:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
Spiros Louis was a humble water carrier who, in 1896, found himself the bearer of unprecedented esteem with a permanent place in the history of his nation. He represented his nation of Greece, the host of the first modern Olympics, in the inaugural running of the race from Marathon to Athens. When he entered the stadium, first of all competitors, the home crowd showered him with cheers. The Crown Prince Constantine and Prince George joined his side for the completion of the arduous race. A man who began the day a commoner finished it as a companion of royalty.
The opening verses of today's reading comprise one of the most inspiring exhortations in all of Scripture, and they compare the successful completion of a life of faith to the triumphant victory of a race watched by our most faithful supporters, culminating in a royal destination. We fix our eyes on Him who is seated at the right hand of the throne of God and who traveled a much more painful road to arrive there. Our sin, our worries, our troubles, and our frustrations are nothing but needless entanglements holding us back. We are called to throw it all off-what a freeing, invigorating invitation!
After verse 3, however, the author changed tone in order to recognize the very real hardship faced by every believer. By doing so, he helped his audience view their sufferings in the proper perspective: as discipline from the Father. His warning that only illegitimate children would not undergo discipline is purely hypothetical-for everyone undergoes discipline (v. 8). You need not worry about whether you have faced enough hardship in life to be counted a true believer.
The point is to be encouraged by the discipline you have faced and will continue to overcome. Hardship is a reminder that the things of this earth that make us content and comfortable are not the things that will last for eternity. By shifting our appreciation from temporal things to a longing for eternal blessing, discipline sanctifies us into a share of God's holiness. We are set apart from the citizens of this world, and we become participants in the race that ends at the feet of Christ.
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APPLY THE WORD
Take a serious approach today to the call to throw off everything that hinders us. Obviously, the entanglements of sin should be eliminated, but let's consider what else might be holding us back. These things might not be inherently sinful, but they are preventing your spiritual race. Maybe there's a relationship that needs to change or a habit that needs to be eliminated from (or added to) your routine. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you identify and release anything that is holding you back spiritually.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
February 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Do You Now Believe?"
'By this we believe . . . .' Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe?' -John 16:30-31
Now we believe. . . ." But Jesus asks, "Do you . . . ? Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you . . . will leave Me alone" (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.
We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to "walk in the light" of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to "walk in the light asHe is in the light. . ." (1 John 1:7). When we do something out of a sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation-just obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.
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The Road to Perfect and Complete
I want us to focus our attention today on James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What I want to look at today is how God seeks to bring us to maturity by building patience into our lives. If there is one thing I have learned in my Christian walk, it is that God is not in as much of a hurry as I am!
Now, what is patience? Patience is the long-lasting quality of your faith. If you let go of your patience, your faith falls to the floor.
The end result God is looking for is that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The word perfect here means mature. God is developing maturity in us by working on our patience.
I have a dear friend who has a great church. They endeavored to build another building on their property and it ended up being a major undertaking. In fact, it turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done. I mean, it took a strip out of his hide.
Eventually it got built, but you know what my friend says about it? He says, "You see that building? I didn't build that building. It built me."
Going through those trials, facing those difficulties, having his faith tested, having to trust God when it seemed like there was a lack of finances, having to hold onto God's Word when he was a laughing stock with some people, all of that built character in him as he stood the test.
I have a question for you: Has anything been building you lately? If so, rejoice, because God is working maturity in you!
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Read: Hebrews 13:1-25
The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. - Hebrews 13:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
The first twelve chapters of Hebrews are filled with some of the most intellectually challenging, spiritually gripping passages in all the Bible. It features Old Testament allusions, teaching that the author himself described as advanced, stern warnings, and theologically rich prophecies. Simply reading this letter to the Hebrews at times feels like studying a master's- or doctorate-level research book. But the purpose of the book isn't merely academic in nature-far from it. To the person who asks, "What does any of that mean for my life practically?" chapter 13 is the answer.
As much as we have endeavored to explain what it means to pursue the rest of God awaiting us, the final chapter renders the most tangible expressions yet, beginning with the very first command: keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. More practical applications follow, including hospitality, purity, and praying for fellow believers who are imprisoned-they need our encouragement as well! Also, the freedom from the love of money mentioned in verse 5 is more than just steering clear of Scrooge-like notions of wealth; it also involves ridding ourselves of the fear of poverty.
Another way to put this book into practice is by imitating godly leaders throughout the past. Just as Jesus Christ helped them in their time of need, He will likewise help us now (v. 8). With that in mind, not all who profess to be leaders are trustworthy, and we should stay on guard against false teaching. On the other hand, we should also be willing to carry truthful teaching to those outside of our Christian circles of fellowship. We should be generous with our message and with our possessions.
We are also called to be supportive and submissive to our church leaders, and the author puts it so beautifully. We should live in such a way that being a leader in the church is an absolute joy. To do so yields benefits for the whole congregation (v. 17). The closing benediction says it all: the person of Christ gives us great encouragement so that we can do His work and give Him glory.
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APPLY THE WORD
We have faith that the request of the benediction will be fulfilled: that God will equip you with everything good for doing His will. And while you are doing His will, He will be working in you. May you remember today and for the rest of your life that Jesus has secured your salvation, and that you actively participate in pressing forward in faith to the eternal rest of salvation in the presence of God. Grace be with you.
GOD BLESS!
March 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus
Where then do You get that living water? -John 4:11
"The well is deep"- and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! (John 4:11). Think of the depths of human nature and human life; think of the depth of the "wells" in you. Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you have a deep "well" of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says to you, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1). Would your response be to shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even You can't draw up quietness and comfort out of it." Actually, that is correct. Jesus doesn't bring anything up from the wells of human nature- He brings them down from above. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering only what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and also by saying, "Of course, I cannot expect God to do this particular thing." The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do. We impoverish and weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. The impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from approaching Him as our Almighty God.
The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, "Of course, He can't do anything about this." We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, "It can't be done." You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.
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It Will All Work Out
Ephesians 1:11 is a powerful verse with a vital lesson,
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Over the 30 years of my Christian life, I have come to have great confidence in God's ability to work things out. No matter what is going on or how obscured my understanding of a situation is, I believe God is always working things according to His great sovereign plan.
It is as if there is this giant tapestry that God is weaving, and my life is a part of it. I sometimes get caught up with the temporal things and the stuff that is happening, but God reminds me, "Hey, nothing is taking Me by surprise. I'm weaving all of these things into this great pattern. Your mistakes, the stuff that happens to you, it is all going to turn out alright!"
Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God? The thing you are embroiled in right now did not take God by surprise. He did not look at your situation and say, "Oh no! I didn't figure on that! Gabriel, do you have any suggestions? What are we going to do?"
I know that sometimes in my microscopic view of things I have said, "Lord, such and such has got to happen." And God has replied, "Well, you don't have the big picture." Then, as time went on, God pulled the camera back, and I got the wide view, and I realized God was up to something very cool-totally apart from what I thought "had to happen."
Whatever your situation, you can rest assured that God has plans to work things out. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So relax! Even if your present circumstances have totally taken you by surprise, God saw it coming and made provision far ahead of time.
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Read: Jeremiah 29:1-14
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, . . . " plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11
TODAY IN THE WORD
If you want to study leadership, hundreds of books have been written asserting to offer the keys to successful leadership. While some titles offer helpful ideas or practical suggestions, God's Word gives believers the best insights into what it means to be a godly leader. In our study this month, we're going to examine the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, both of which focus on leaders who were committed to following God.
These books, which were originally one book or scroll, recount events following the Exile of Judah in Babylon in 586 B.C. Prior to the Exile, the prophet Jeremiah had warned Judah of impending doom if they did not repent and return to the Lord in obedience. In addition to his warnings, however, the Lord also sent a gracious word of hope. Jerusalem would fall. The people would be captured and sent to Babylon. But God would not forget them.
Our passage today is the word of promise that God gave to His people decades before the events of Ezra and Nehemiah. At this time, most of the high-ranking officials and high-profile citizens had already been taken into captivity (vv. 1-2). Jeremiah, who still remained in Jerusalem, sent this letter to give instructions to God's people during their time in Babylon. Even though the Exile had begun, God demonstrated His love and care for His people by continuing to speak to them through His prophet.
This letter encouraged the people to settle into Babylon, continuing family traditions and contributing to the prosperity of their conqueror (vv. 4-7). The people should not listen to false prophets who would urge them to resist their captivity or rebel against Babylon (vv. 8-9). They didn't need to try to escape, because God was promising to bring them back to their land-He was even giving them the timeframe! (v. 10).
The final verses of our reading contain one of the beautiful promises of God. His people were suffering the consequences of their rebellion, but He still loved them. He was still faithful. He still had plans to prosper them and give them hope and a future.
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APPLY THE WORD
Jeremiah 29:11 has encouraged the people of God for thousands of years: "For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." If your future seems uncertain or you feel on the verge of losing hope, commit this verse to memory as a way to remember the faithful promises of our faithful God. No matter what you're going through today, God guarantees your future.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Force of the Call
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
Beware of refusing to hear the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact of his salvation. That, however, is not the same as the call to preach, but is merely an illustration which can be used in preaching. In this verse, Paul was referring to the stinging pains produced in him by the compelling force of the call to preach the gospel. Never try to apply what Paul said regarding the call to preach to those souls who are being called to God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved, because it is solely God's sovereign work- "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." (Isaiah 45:22). Our Lord never requires the same conditions for discipleship that he requires for salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ. But discipleship has an option with it-"If anyone . . ." (Luke 14:26).
Paul's words have to do with our being made servants of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be "separated to the gospel" means being able to hear the call of God (Romans 1:1). Once someone begins to hear that call, a suffering worthy of the name of Christ is produced. Suddenly, every ambition, every desire of life, and every outlook is completely blotted out and extinguished. Only one thing remains- ". . . separated to the gospel. . . ." Woe be to the soul who tries to head in any other direction once that call has come to him. The Bible Training College exists so that each of you may know whether or not God has a man or woman here who truly cares about proclaiming His gospel and to see if God grips you for this purpose. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.
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The Remnant
Today, I want you to read Romans 11:2-5,
God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
When Elijah pleads with God, he is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Jezebel is after his head and he has run into the wilderness. He is sitting down under a tree, and he is crying to God, "I'm the only one. Nobody else is serving You."
But God says, "Hey, wait a minute, Tiger. I have seven thousand more who haven't bowed their knee to the false idol. You're not the only one."
God is saying, "I have a remnant." And then Paul brings it right into present day, and says, "Just like God had a remnant then, God has a remnant today."
A remnant is a small group that has remained. That is where the word remnant comes from. It comes from the root "to remain." God always has a remnant. A remnant that remains faithful, committed, on course, obedient to God. That does not get discouraged, quit, or give up because of life's many turns.
Life has its share of setbacks and unexpected turns, and many people give up because of those setbacks. But those who stay on course and remain faithful will experience God's richer blessings.
God blesses all of His children. But those who stay the course are rewarded for their faithfulness.
So stay on track, hold course, stay steady, and remain faithful. Be a part of the remnant.
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Read: Ezra 1
In order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia. - Ezra 1:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon controlled a vast empire and enriched his capital with captive peoples and looted treasure. He had been warned in a dream, interpreted by Daniel, to repent of his sins, but instead he proclaimed: "Is this not the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" God responded with judgment for his pride. Only after his extraordinary humiliation did Nebuchadnezzar respond: "Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever" (see Dan. 4:28-37).
The Babylonian kingdom was soon overtaken by the Persian Empire (see Dan. 5:28). In contrast to Nebuchadnezzar, King Cyrus of Persia exhibited a measure of humility about his position. Here in the opening verses of the book of Ezra, we see a key theme emerge: Leaders are important-but only if they allow God to work through them.
Notice throughout today's reading how often the text describes God working in the hearts of leaders. First, "the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus" in order to fulfill His promise, which we read about yesterday (v. 1). Historians have said that the Persians, particularly Cyrus, were interested in encouraging their conquered peoples to retain their native religion, assuming that this would keep them happier and less likely to revolt. Scripture provides us with the behind-the-scenes peek, however-whatever political motives Cyrus might have had, it was the work of God that prompted him to make the proclamation to initiate the return of Jewish exiles to Jerusalem (vv. 2-4; see Isa. 44:28).
God worked through Cyrus to fulfill His promise, and He also moved the hearts of the tribal leaders, priests, and Levites to desire to return to rebuild the temple (v. 5). Remember that the people had been exiled for several generations; many of them had extended families, good jobs, and comfortable lives throughout the empire. A spiritual prompting made them willing to embrace the arduous task of repairing their decimated spiritual center of worship.
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APPLY THE WORD
This chapter concludes with a list of items that Cyrus returned to the Jews. We might be tempted to skim or disregard the lists in this book as irrelevant to our contemporary devotional life. But it reminds us that the Lord cares about details, and He provided for the practical needs to accomplish this task. He restored some of the treasure to His people and equipped them for their journey. When the Lord calls you, He will also equip you to obey Him!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 3, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Commission to Us
Feed My sheep -John 21:17
This is love in the making. The love of God is not created- it is His nature. When we receive the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit, He unites us with God so that His love is demonstrated in us. The goal of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not just to unite us with God, but to do it in such a way that we will be one with the Father in exactly the same way Jesus was. And what kind of oneness did Jesus Christ have with the Father? He had such a oneness with the Father that He was obedient when His Father sent Him down here to be poured out for us. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21).
Peter now realizes that he does love Him, due to the revelation that came with the Lord's piercing question. The Lord's next point is- "Pour yourself out. Don't testify about how much you love Me and don't talk about the wonderful revelation you have had, just 'Feed My sheep.' " Jesus has some extraordinarily peculiar sheep: some that are unkempt and dirty, some that are awkward or pushy, and some that have gone astray! But it is impossible to exhaust God's love, and it is impossible to exhaust my love if it flows from the Spirit of God within me. The love of God pays no attention to my prejudices caused by my natural individuality. If I love my Lord, I have no business being guided by natural emotions- I have to feed His sheep. We will not be delivered or released from His commission to us. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by following your own natural human emotions, sympathies, or understandings. That will only serve to revile and abuse the true love of God.
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Not There Yet
In Philippians 3:12-13, Paul gives us an important insight into becoming complete or mature in Christ,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected (or complete); but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
As believers, we must realize that we have a way to go. We have not arrived. There are still some things ahead. We still must press on.
But some people have the idea they have arrived. They don't need to grow anymore; they don't need to study anymore; they don't need to increase anymore.
It is like the true story of a young neighbor who was talking to Albert Einstein at a dinner party. She asked, "What is it exactly that you do as a profession?" Einstein looked at her and said, "I've devoted myself to the study of physics." And in shock she replied, "Studying physics at your age? I finished my studies a year ago!"
Unfortunately, that is the attitude many Christians have today about their spiritual growth. They think they have finished. Instead, our attitude should be like 95-year-old Pablo Casals, considered to be the greatest cellist that the world has ever known.
A young reporter asked him one day, "You're 95. The world considers you to be its greatest cellist; and still, at 95, you practice six hours a day. Why?" To which he responded, "Because I think I'm making progress."
Friend, you have not arrived. Set your goal to be making progress every day. That is how you will become mature in Christ.
Read: Ezra 2
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give . . . for God loves a cheerful giver. - 2 Corinthians 9:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
The test of commitment lies not in starting out but in following through when difficulties arise. We don't evaluate the strength of a marriage on the wedding day-it's only possible after we see how a couple respond to adversity and the passing of time. We don't award medals for athletes who begin a race; they have to earn them by completing the distance despite their burning lungs and quivering legs.
One theme of Ezra and Nehemiah is the test of commitment when tested by opposition and challenges. In our reading yesterday we saw that the tribal and religious leaders followed the prompting of the Lord to return to Jerusalem. Today we see the first step of their follow-through on that commitment.
The list of the people who returned might cause our eyes to glaze over. So many strange names, and seemingly irrelevant list of numbers! But interesting information is embedded in this list that gives us clues about the important message communicated to us through the book of Ezra. Notice the main categories described after the geographical list: the priests, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers of the temple, the temple servants and servants of Solomon (vv. 36, 40, 41, 42, 43, 55). This return to Jerusalem had spiritual significance, indicated by the list of religious leaders. Throughout the Exile, God had preserved the spiritual leadership for His people.
The importance of spiritual leadership is highlighted further by the incident in verses 59 through 63. As the book of Ezra will stress repeatedly, the purity of God's people is vitally important for their obedience and relationship with God. With no family records to verify their claims of Jewish or priestly identity, this group was instructed not to participate as religious leaders until God's divinely appointed tools for seeking wisdom could be used by a priest (v. 63; cf. Ex. 28:30; Num. 27:21).
Finally, the chapter concludes with their arrival in Jerusalem, and the "heads of families gave freewill offerings toward the rebuilding of the house of God" (v. 68). It was another step on their journey of commitment.
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APPLY THE WORD
Most of us are better at starting something than we are at finishing. We need only look at half-finished craft projects, rarely used gym memberships, or list of friends whom we need to call. When it comes to our spiritual commitments, our continuing obedience reveals the state of our hearts. If you need to renew your journey, remember that the Lord equips you and take action today-whether it's prayer, serving someone in need, or perhaps giving generously-to live for Him.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 4, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is This True of Me?
None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself . . . -Acts 20:24
It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because then you are not bothered by what He requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion, becomes your guide. You may be more prosperous and successful from the world's perspective, and will have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do His will. You will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.
What do I count in my life as "dear to myself"? If I have not been seized by Jesus Christ and have not surrendered myself to Him, I will consider the time I decide to give God and my own ideas of service as dear. I will also consider my own life as "dear to myself." But Paul said he considered his life dear so that he might fulfill the ministry he had received, and he refused to use his energy on anything else. This verse shows an almost noble annoyance by Paul at being asked to consider himself. He was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him. Our reasonable work is based on the following argument which we say to ourselves, "Remember how useful you are here, and think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude chooses our own judgment, instead of Jesus Christ, to be our guide as to where we should go and where we could be used the most. Never consider whether or not you are of use- but always consider that "you are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19). You are His.
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Prayers and Preaching
Yesterday we talked about how progressing towards spiritual maturity is a process that will never end in this life. There are two things I want to focus your attention on today that will help you in that effort.
The first is found in Colossians 4:12,
Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
If you are going to be complete or mature in Christ, you need the prayers of others. In the long haul, I am convinced none of us make it across the finish line without the prayers of other Christians.
The second is found in Colossians 1:27-28,
...Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
In addition to the prayers of others, you need to be under good preaching and teaching to become complete in Christ. Preaching promotes change while teaching promotes growth, and you need both of them.
Looking back at my Christian life, I can still remember messages that literally shook my world and changed me. I remember one in particular when I had been saved less than a month.
Some new Christian friends took me to hear an evangelist preach. I was blessed so I decided to go back the next night. That night I heard a message that changed my life. It was a message on the parable of the sower, and that night I fell in love with the Word of God. It absolutely shaped me.
To become mature in your faith, make sure you are under solid biblical preaching and teaching, and develop the prayer habit as well as soliciting the prayers of others.
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Read: Ezra 3:1-6
Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar . . . to the LORD. - Ezra 3:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Jacob and his sons went to Egypt to escape the famine in the land God had promised to Abraham, the Lord told him that his descendants would one day return to the land of promise (Gen. 46:3-4; 50:24-25). God kept this promise, miraculously leading the people of Israel from Pharaoh's bondage. Yet on the verge of entering the Promised Land, the people balked. They heard the report from ten of the spies that focused on the dangerous inhabitants. They rebelled against Moses, preferring to base their decision on fear of others' power rather than faith in God's promise (see Num. 13:28-14:4).
Centuries later, the people of Israel were again returning to their land. Again God had kept His promise. And again, dangerous people inhabited the land. Anyone familiar with the history of Israel would wonder: What will they do this time? Will they respond in fear or in faith?
Notice in our passage today that the Israelites still feared the peoples who were in the land (v. 3). As we will see this month,this fear was not without reason. But they did not focus on their fear or their foes-they responded with worship. The leadership of Zerubbabel is introduced here, and he led the people in starting right away to rebuild the "altar of the God of Israel" (v. 2).
Although the temple had not yet been rebuilt, Zerubbabel and the people didn't use that to excuse themselves from worship. The tone of the text indicates that they eagerly hurried to complete the altar so that they could resume worship. Obedience and worship are integrally connected throughout Scripture, including in the book of Ezra. The people of God exhibit their identity through worship offered to the Lord and obedience to His decrees. The specific offerings are listed in verses 3 through 5, and notice the refrain describing them: "in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses," "required number," and "appointed sacred festivals" (vv. 2, 4, 5). The people took God's Word seriously, and they acted in faith and obedience.
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APPLY THE WORD
The Lord does not promise us a life free from opposition or obstacles, but He does promise to never leave us or forsake us (Deut. 31:6; Heb. 13:5). He doesn't guarantee that we will never have people or situations to fear, but He does promise that He will reward our faith (1 Cor. 15:58). If you are facing a frightening situation, commit the outcome to God and choose to worship and obey Him. Offer Him your praises and service, knowing that His Word will never fail.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
March 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Source of Abundant Joy
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us -Romans 8:37
Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.
Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let's apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against- tribulation, suffering, and persecution- are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. "We are more than conquerors through Him" "in all these things"; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4).
The undiminished radiance, which is the result of abundant joy, is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can change. And the experiences of life, whether they are everyday events or terrifying ones, are powerless to "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
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An Encouraging Word
A while back I ran into a woman who I hadn't seen in quite some time. Being my friendly self I said, "Hi!"
The moment I said that she replied, "Oh, Bayless!" and proceeded to open her purse and pull out a letter I had written to encourage her three years earlier. She said, "I take this with me everywhere I go."
I wanted to cry! I mean, I was touched. But then I thought, "Is there no one else who comforts you? Is there no one else who speaks encouraging words into your life?" And I wonder the same about you.
Are you needing some encouragement today? I don't know what you may be faced with, but I personally find comfort and encouragement in the following passage. It is 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11,
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
Think about this for a moment. As you look into eternity, which is what ultimately matters, you and I are not appointed to wrath! That is good news! That is great news! That is encouraging news! And that is great comfort!
God is storing up wrath against the ungodly. But, just like in ancient Egypt when the death angel passed over every home where the blood of the Lamb was, I thank God the wrath of God passes over us!
It is being stored up, but not for me or for you. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have escaped the wrath of God.
Thank you, Jesus!
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Read: Haggai 1
Now Haggai the prophet . . . prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel. - Ezra 5:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Throughout history, the proclamation of God's Word has transformed individuals and societies. Preaching in the Great Awakening led to an outpouring of conversions as well as witness to both free and enslaved African Americans. The first Black Baptist churches were formed as a result. The revivals in the United States in the early nineteenth century evangelized Native Americans and also encouraged prison reform and care for the mentally ill. The powerful preaching of D. L. Moody led many to salvation and prompted others to serve the urban poor and needy.
The prophet Haggai had a message from the Lord that His people needed to hear. As we'll see today and tomorrow, this faithful proclamation had dramatic results for the Jews' commitment to their call to rebuild the temple.
When this word from God came, construction on the temple had been idle for about fourteen years. In the meantime, however, the people had been busily working-not on the Lord's house, but on their own (v. 9). Scripture indicates that these had been difficult years. Harvests had been sparse, and the people were hungry and disappointed (vv. 6-11). It appears that the people had not given much thought to the lapsed construction of the temple, but had spent a great deal of effort on their homes and material possessions (v. 4).
Haggai urged the people to "give careful thought to your ways" (vv. 5, 7). Again we see the Lord's work in the hearts of Zerubbabel and the rest of the people (v. 14). They had not been actively rebellious against the command of God, but had passively drifted away from their commitment. When they heard this message, they recognized the truth of what Haggai said and were stirred to action.
Notice the time frame in this passage: within a matter of weeks after Haggai delivered the word of the Lord, the people had resumed work on rebuilding the temple (vv. 1, 15). When the Word is faithfully proclaimed, and the Lord opens hearts to respond, the work of God springs into action.
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APPLY THE WORD
Not only did the Lord instruct the people to turn their attention to His temple, He also gave them this assurance: "I am with you" (v. 13). When our loving, faithful God calls us back to obedience, He reminds us of His protection and presence. He never sends us out to face opposition alone; He calls us to walk with Him. Thank Him today for the ministry of His Word in your life, for His help in maintaining the right priorities, and for His never-failing presence.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Surrendered Life
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.
If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you.
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Forever With Him
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 gives us powerful prophetic words,
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Jesus Christ will return, and the church will be caught away! We will meet the Lord in the clouds and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. From that moment on, we will always be with the Lord.
Maybe you are going through a rough patch right now. If so, let me remind you that this earthly life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. But we have eternity in store. Thank God we will ever be with the Lord!
If He tarries and we die before He returns, we get to go to heaven. But I have a feeling, with the way things are shaping up, that we will be the generation that sees His return.
Have you noticed how the eyes of the world are on the Middle East? This is all end times stuff. Also, one of the things that Jesus said would be a precursor to the end is that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to every nation, literally, to every language group.
And you know what? That will be completed in our generation.
So keep your eyes fixed on His return, and that day you will meet Him in the air and be with Him forever!
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Read: Ezra 5
Let a search be made in the royal archives . . . to see if King Cyrus did in fact issue a decree to rebuild this house of God. - Ezra 5:17
TODAY IN THE WORD
On March 6 we shared the story of Christ Liberty Family Life Center in Avondale Estates, Georgia, a church forced from its building because of zoning ordinances. Here's more of the story. In response to the city's action, the church filed suit in federal court alleging that the zoning ordinance, which applied only to religious groups, infringed on religious freedom. In August 2010, a federal judge ruled that the city must permit the church to have access to their facilities while the case is heard.
The Samarian people thought that they could use political and legal action to halt the building of the temple and the resurgence of Jewish faith and presence. As we'll see today and tomorrow, God can work through government to protect His people and preserve His work.
The chapter begins by recognizing the prophetic work of Zechariah and Haggai, which we examined in more detail yesterday. No sooner had rebuilding begun, however, when government officials appeared, demanding to know who had authorized this construction project (v. 3). They send a report to the Persian king Darius about the matter.
Several things were different on this occasion than fourteen years earlier. First, the Jewish leaders seemed to understand that they had God's protection, and they did not respond out of fear (v. 5). They tell the government officials the truth about Cyrus's decree and their authorization to rebuild (vv. 11-16). Second, the rebuilding work does not cease while they wait to hear back from Darius. In fact, the description given by Tattenai and the other officials indicated that Zerubbabel and the people had taken the message of Haggai to heart. Not only did they continue to work with diligence, but they were also "making rapid progress" (v. 8).
The report from the hostile Samarians referenced the rebellious nature of Jerusalem before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C., which the royal archives confirmed. But this report referenced the more recent decree by Cyrus in 538 B.C, which according to Persian law must be honored.
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APPLY THE WORD
We've seen how God can work through political leaders and how the government and legal system can affect the people of God. Take time to pray specifically and by name for each of your elected officials. Pray that they will be instruments of God's will in their city, state, and nation. Pray that their hearts will be open to the direction of God, even if-like Cyrus-they aren't believers. Pray, too, that you will demonstrate a Christian attitude and response toward leaders.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Turning Back or Walking with Jesus?
Do you also want to go away? -John 6:67
What a penetrating question! Our Lord's words often hit home for us when He speaks in the simplest way. In spite of the fact that we know who Jesus is, He asks, "Do you also want to go away?" We must continually maintain an adventurous attitude toward Him, despite any potential personal risk.
"From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. One thing God constantly requires of us is a oneness with Jesus Christ. After being set apart through sanctification, we should discipline our lives spiritually to maintain this intimate oneness. When God gives you a clear determination of His will for you, all your striving to maintain that relationship by some particular method is completely unnecessary. All that is required is to live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. Never try to live your life with God in any other way than His way. And His way means absolute devotion to Him. Showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus.
Peter saw in Jesus only someone who could minister salvation to him and to the world. But our Lord wants us to be fellow laborers with Him.
In John 6:70 Jesus lovingly reminded Peter that he was chosen to go with Him. And each of us must answer this question for ourselves and no one else: "Do you also want to go away?"
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Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises
2 Peter 1:2-4 says,
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I want to draw your attention to verse 4 where the Scripture states that through the promises we partake of God's nature.
The promise is the connector, it is the pipeline through which God's nature flows to us.
"What is God's nature?" you might ask. It is the answer to everything you need! His nature is life, it is health, it is peace, it is wisdom, it is abundance. There is an answer in God's nature for every one of mankind's needs.
That is why the promises are called "exceedingly great and precious." Without a promise, there is no pipeline. Without a promise, we cannot partake.
But when you take a promise-an exceedingly great and precious promise-and act upon it in faith, God's nature is released into your situation.
Thank God for His promises!
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Read: Ezra 6:1-12
May God, who has caused his Name to dwell there, overthrow any king or people who lifts a hand to change this decree. - Ezra 6:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Part of the delight in reading the book of Esther comes from the wonderful use of irony. Haman thought he would manipulate the king into bestowing great honor upon him-but the honor went instead to his archrival, Mordecai (Esther 6). Then Haman's plot to destroy Mordecai and all the Jewish people resulted in his destruction on his own gallows, the promotion of Mordecai, and the protection of the Jews (Esther 7-8).
Our passage contains another account of irony in Scripture, and it's notable that this isn't merely a reversal of fortune or expectation. It's an example of God going above and beyond for His people.
In response to the request from the local governors, King Darius ordered a search for the alleged decree from Cyrus that granted permission for the temple to be rebuilt. As Zerubbabel had said, the scroll was indeed found, and it matched their account of events (vv. 1-5).
At this point, Darius could have sent a notice to Tattenai and the local governors that, in fact, the Jews were correct about the decree of Cyrus. He could have simply instructed the officials to leave Zerubbabel alone to continue the construction of the temple, as he stressed in verses 6 and 7. But the decree continued on. Not only did the Lord halt the opposition, He went above and beyond to ensure that His people were provided for.
Darius commanded that the governors pay for the temple construction expenses out of their own treasuries (v. 8). They also had to provide the materials for the sacrifices, from the animals to the drink and grain offerings, directly facilitating the ability of the Jews to worship God (v. 9). Of course this was motivated by Darius's own self-interest-he welcomed prayers on his behalf to any and every deity his subjects might worship (v. 10). But despite Darius's motives, God was divinely superintending every step.
Tattenai might have thought his appeal to Darius would be the end of temple construction. But God used this to reverse the situation from oppression to protection, and then even beyond, to provision.
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APPLY THE WORD
In the middle of struggles and heartaches, it's comforting to know that the Lord knows the whole story: beginning, middle, and end. He understands your sorrow, and He also prepares your joy. You see the past and the present, but He also knows the plans He has for your future (Jer. 29:11). Just as He was faithful to His people to protect and provide for them, He will be faithful for you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
Daily Devotional
March 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Being an Example of His Message
Preach the word! -2 Timothy 4:2
We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message- "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God's purpose to make a person's life a holy example of God's message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God's truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples' lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God's message in the flesh. ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8).
Allow God to have complete liberty in your life when you speak. Before God's message can liberate other people, His liberation must first be real in you. Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to "set your words on fire" for His glory.
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Richer Blessings
Jeremiah 23:3-4 says,
"But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking," says the LORD.
As we discovered in one of our earlier devotionals, God gives richer blessings to these who remain faithful (the remnant). A good question to ask is, "What are the blessings for those who remain faithful?"
Jeremiah gives us a good clue,
They will have no fear.
They will lack for nothing.
They will be fruitful.
They will increase.
Are you interested in increasing? In fruitfulness? In not being afraid? God says those are things that happen to the remnant. These are the rich blessings you will receive if you stay faithful, committed, and obedient.
I once read a story about an old member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a pitcher named Harry Hartman. In 1918, he was called up from the minors to pitch against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was his dream come true! On his first pitch, the batter hit a single. No big deal.
The next batter hit a triple. Harry walked the next guy on four consecutive pitches. The next batter hit a single. Harry Hartman walked off the mound, went into the locker room, showered, put on his street clothes, went to a local naval recruiting office, and enlisted. The next day he was in uniform and was never seen again in professional baseball. He got discouraged and quit.
No matter what, do not give up! Remain faithful, because God promises great blessings to those who stay the course.
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Read: Ezra 6:13-22
Then the people of Israel . . . celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. - Ezra 6:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
When the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel opened in 1998, lavish celebrations commemorated the event. Invitation-only parties and a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Chicago dignitaries signaled that construction had been completed and the hotel was open for business.
In today's passage, we have the description of the completion of another construction project-the temple of God in Jerusalem was finally finished. A great celebration was held, but instead of parties and celebrities, the event featured worship and an acknowledgment of God's goodness.
The governors of the area obeyed the decree of Darius, and the next four years offered great physical and spiritual blessing to the exiles in Judah. They were continuing to obey God's command to build His house, and they were blessed by the spiritual leadership of Haggai and Zechariah (v. 14). After the many descriptions of disobedience and turmoil, these verses hearten and encourage us that seasons of obedience and blessing do happen for God's people!
Notice three related themes in the account of their celebration: joy, obedience, and worship. The dedication of the temple was an occasion for joy (v. 16). But the people didn't assume that they deserved the credit for this construction project. They were careful to follow "what is written in the Book of Moses" and order their worship through offerings and the installation of their religious leaders (vv. 17-18).
The people observed Passover, and they coupled their ceremonial practice with obedient lifestyles-separating themselves from the "unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors" (v. 21). The word joy appears two more times, and again we see the relationship between joy, obedience, and worship. They were obeying the Lord's instructions for their relationship with Him, they were committed to His worship, and they were filled with joy (v. 22).
Finally, notice how God received the glory. He had changed the heart of the king. He had assisted them with building. The recognition of who God is and what He has done will result in joy, obedience, and worship.
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APPLY THE WORD
Has God done something wonderful in your life? Rejoice and praise Him! Has God been faithful to you? Obey His commands and follow Him! Has God proved Himself full of love, mercy, provision, and protection? Worship Him and give Him the glory! Our lack of joy, obedience, and worship always stems from a failure to focus on who God is and what He has done. When we think of the goodness of Jesus and what He's done for us, we will respond with a life of praise.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Obedience to the "Heavenly Vision"
I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision -Acts 26:19
If we lose "the heavenly vision" God has given us, we alone are responsible- not God. We lose the vision because of our own lack of spiritual growth. If we do not apply our beliefs about God to the issues of everyday life, the vision God has given us will never be fulfilled. The only way to be obedient to "the heavenly vision" is to give our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory. This can be accomplished only when we make a determination to continually remember God's vision. But the acid test is obedience to the vision in the details of our everyday life- sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour, not just during times of personal prayer or public meetings.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . ." (Habakkuk 2:3). We cannot bring the vision to fulfillment through our own efforts, but must live under its inspiration until it fulfills itself. We try to be so practical that we forget the vision. At the very beginning we saw the vision but did not wait for it. We rushed off to do our practical work, and once the vision was fulfilled we could no longer even see it. Waiting for a vision that "tarries" is the true test of our faithfulness to God. It is at the risk of our own soul's welfare that we get caught up in practical busy-work, only to miss the fulfillment of the vision.
Watch for the storms of God. The only way God plants His saints is through the whirlwind of His storms. Will you be proven to be an empty pod with no seed inside? That will depend on whether or not you are actually living in the light of the vision you have seen. Let God send you out through His storm, and don't go until He does. If you select your own spot to be planted, you will prove yourself to be an unproductive, empty pod. However, if you allow God to plant you, you will "bear much fruit" (John 15:8).
It is essential that we live and "walk in the light" of God's vision for us (1 John 1:7).
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Liberty!
Look at Isaiah 30:21,
Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.
The idea this verse is conveying is that if you get off-course with God, He is going to let you know you are making a wrong decision or a wrong turn.
The Living Bible puts it this way, And if you leave God's paths and go astray, you will hear a voice behind you say, "Not this way. Walk here."
What I have come to realize is that you and I have far greater liberty within the parameters of God's will than I previously thought.
It is important that you stay open and keep things laid out before God. But I have discovered, as I said, that we have far greater liberty than I previously thought. Let me give you an example.
Not long ago, my wife and I were very seriously considering selling our house and moving. Real estate had gone up so much that the equity in our house had more than doubled since we bought it. So we got to thinking that it might be a good time for us to move.
I did not have a word from God about moving. But I just know God well enough to know that I could make a decision like that. If I was getting into an area where we were going to make a mistake, God would let me know!
Some people get so uptight about everything. But as long as you stay open to God, you can make those kinds of decisions, because He will be there to direct you if indeed you are making a mistake.
That is true liberty!
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Read: Ezra 7
Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD. - Ezra 7:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
The explorer David Livingstone was commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society as Her Majesty's Consul for the East Coast of Africa. The British authorities hoped that Livingstone's discoveries would benefit their trading access and acquisitions, but Livingstone had spiritual interests, not just geographic ones. A committed Christian, he believed that his gifts as an explorer could aid the spread of missions work in Africa. And in fact, his work opened up much of central Africa to missionaries who opened schools, founded hospitals, and shared the gospel.
Sometimes God works both through the tainted motives of rulers and the talents of His followers, to accomplish His will. Today's passage introduces Ezra, and we learn something significant about worldly and godly leadership.
This text opens with the phrase, "After these things" (v. 1). The Persian Empire left a tremendous historical record, and most scholars conclude that the phrase captures a time lapse of some fifty years between chapters 6 and 7. As we transition to Ezra's ministry, we read of his godly heritage, verifying that he was a legitimate priest from Aaron's line (vv. 1-5).
Ezra certainly didn't coast on his family background. His commitment to the Word of the Lord is repeated several times: he was "well versed in the Law," and he "had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law" (vv. 6, 10). He was respected by the king, blessed by God, and dedicated to knowing and following the Lord's teaching.
The commission by Artaxerxes reveals the provision for the work in Jerusalem that we've seen several times from the Persian kings. And Artaxerxes, like Darius, was motivated by his own self-interest. He wanted protection from every deity he thought he could please (v. 23). Worldly leadership views power as how much stuff it controls-how much money, how many people, or how many weapons. But Ezra wasn't deceived by worldly leadership. He knew the source of his protection; he knew that ultimately God worked through this Persian leader to accomplish His own will (vv. 27-28).
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APPLY THE WORD
Ezra understood that godly leadership is submission to the call of God. Therefore he could say, "I took courage" (v. 28). No matter what your gifts and talents are, you have been called to serve the Lord. And where God has called, He will also provide. That means that you can serve with confidence. Have you resisted "taking courage" because you were distracted by worldly leaders? Focus on what God has given you instead, knowing that no service for Him will be wasted.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Yielding
. . . you are that one's slaves whom you obey . . . -Romans 6:16
The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.
If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is- "I must have it now," whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. ". . . He has anointed Me . . . to proclaim liberty to the captives . . ." (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1).
When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you will know you can't. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person's life.
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The Prerequisite of Prayer
In yesterday's devotional, I shared that God's priority is to see people come to know Him. Today, I want to give you the first of the five "P"s of evangelism, which I hope will encourage you as you seek to share your faith.
The Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:1-6,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
I want you to notice verse 4 in particular: God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants them saved and discipled.
As Jesus said, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all nations." Those are our two main jobs. Proclaim the gospel to see people get saved, and then disciple them. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
But did you notice that verse 1 preceded verse 4? Verse 1 says, Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Verse 4 will not and cannot happen until verse 1 happens. First there is prayer, then comes sharing the plan of salvation.
We must first talk to God about men before we talk to men about God. We cannot be successful unless we talk to God about men first. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read: Ezra 10
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. - James 5:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
The old saying quips that you can't be a leader if nobody follows you. So part of the question of leadership is How do you get people to follow you? Different leaders have tried different tactics. Authoritarian rulers rely on exerting power to mandate obedience. Some bosses manipulate employees with a mixture of threats and bribes. And probably nearly every parent has at one time told a child to follow "Because I said so!"
Ezra demonstrates that spiritual leadership provides a different model for why people will follow: the power and conviction of a godly example. Notice in our passage that the national repentance that transpired was not instigated by Ezra's decree, insistence, manipulation, or threat. Instead, while he wept and prayed at the temple, the people noticed and were spiritually moved (v. 1).
Shecaniah spoke for the people in admitting their culpability for the sin of intermarriage with the pagan women. He also understood a key spiritual truth: "We have been unfaithful to our God. . . . But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel" (v. 2). He encouraged Ezra to take the bold step of a public assembly, with confession and restitution. Ezra responded the way he had when confronted with the challenge of leaving Persia without the king's troops for protection-he fasted and prayed and trusted the Lord (vv. 4-6).
The gravity of the assembly was emphasized by the penalty for failure to attend (v. 8). Although not every Jewish man had married a heathen wife, the standing of the entire community before God was at stake. In case the situation was not bad enough, the weather captured the dreary circumstances as it poured rain on the gathered nation (vv. 9, 13). Ezra's proclamation here was brief: he explained their sin and what they must do to remedy their disobedience.
"The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: 'You are right! We must do as you say' " (v. 12). Ezra's godly example gave him the authority to instruct the people on repentance and restitution before God. The people agreed to reject their idolatrous marriages, and within a few weeks they had complied with the instructions.
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APPLY THE WORD
Ezra's leadership included humility, courage, and, above all, a commitment to know and obey God. This spiritual leadership transforms others and inspires them to seek God more faithfully. Certainly, church leaders should have these qualities; but even if you aren't ordained or hired by a Christian ministry, you can still affect others with your example of love for God and your trust in Him. Your prayers can be some of your most powerful tools of spiritual leadership.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Dismay
As they followed they were afraid -Mark 10:32
At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar- "Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed" (Mark 10:32).
There is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple's heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set "like a flint" (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.
Jesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don't know Him. We don't recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don't know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.
The discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 1:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy.
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Turning Desire into Prayer
I want to follow up yesterday's devotional by turning your attention to something I believe is very profound. It is Romans 10:1, where Paul states,
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
It is important to pray that people be saved. In fact, I want you to notice how Paul turned his desire into a prayer.
I think if I were to ask any believer, "Do you desire your family to be saved?" they would say yes. Or, "Do you desire your friends to be saved?" they would answer yes. Or, "Do you desire your coworkers to be saved?" they would reply yes.
Well, that is great. That is to be commended, but it is not enough. Your desire must be turned into a prayer. It is not enough just to have a desire that they be saved. That desire has to translate into prayer. Prayer that they may be saved.
It's all right to pray generally, but it is better to pray specifically. I encourage you to make a list of every unsaved person in your life. Start with the network of relationships that already exist in your life. Make a list of family members, friends, and associates who are not saved, and then do your best to pray for the people on that list every day.
Most Christians genuinely desire for folks to be saved, but not all Christians pray for the salvation of people that they love. And even fewer pray for the salvation of folks that they work with.
Turn your desire for the unsaved people in your life to be saved into prayer for their salvation. And start today.
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Read: Nehemiah 1
I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. - Nehemiah 1:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
Memoirs have become a best-selling category of books. People love to read behind-the-scenes accounts from politicians and military leaders. Stories of overcoming dramatic obstacles in life enchant others. And some people just enjoy reading a well-written personal narrative about another person's inner thoughts and feelings.
The book of Nehemiah, which is primarily a memoir of his time in Jerusalem, contains all of these elements of a captivating memoir. His story begins 13 years after the last events recounted in the book of Ezra.
The first thing we find about the Jewish people who returned from exile is distressing, and Nehemiah reacted with the kind of heartfelt passion as if his own home had been vandalized (vv. 1-4). From the very beginning of this book, we see that a godly leader identifies himself with God's people and doesn't stay at a distance from their struggles and pain.
Next, Nehemiah demonstrated the proper action in response to spiritual crisis. Nehemiah responded with mourning, fasting, and praying (see Ezra 9-10). This introduces a theme running throughout this memoir: Nehemiah's reliance on God and the priority of prayer. As we'll see, Nehemiah was a confident, successful, talented man-but he exercised his gifts and talents out of a dependence on God, committing himself to seeking God first.
Nehemiah's prayer in this passage gives us a peek inside the spiritual life of a godly leader. The prayer begins with an acknowledgment of who God is ("great and awesome") and what He does ("keeps his covenant of love," v. 5). Next, Nehemiah showed spiritual insight by recognizing that the condition of the walls of Jerusalem reflected the spiritual condition of the Israelites. He acknowledged that both personal and corporate sins had broken the clear command of God (vv. 6-9).
Finally, Nehemiah didn't view prayer as an excuse not to follow up with action. He had confessed and committed the matter to the Lord. Now he committed himself to act on behalf of his disgraced and distressed people (v. 10).
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APPLY THE WORD
Nehemiah provides example of prayer and action. We might be tempted to act in a situation without first committing it to the Lord. We might also be tempted to pray but then refuse to follow up with action. Spend time in prayer, allowing the Holy Spirit to prompt your heart for any issues you need to confess or petition. Use the model of Nehemiah's prayer to shape your own words. Then follow through on any actions you need to take, especially on behalf of others who are hurting.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Master Will Judge
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that we must all, preachers and other people alike, "appear before the judgment seat of Christ." But if you will learn here and now to live under the scrutiny of Christ's pure light, your final judgment will bring you only delight in seeing the work God has done in you. Live constantly reminding yourself of the judgment seat of Christ, and walk in the knowledge of the holiness He has given you. Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, "Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there." If you don't, your heart will become hardened through and through. One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. No power, except the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, can change or prevent the inherent consequences of sin.
"If we walk in the light as He is in the light. . ." (1 John 1:7). For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.
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How to Pray for the Unsaved
In the last two devotionals, I have stressed the importance of praying for the unsaved people in our lives to be saved. Today, I want to give you four ways you can pray for them:
1. Pray for openness and understanding. Acts 16:14 says the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to heed the things spoken by Paul. Paul was speaking the gospel. And if the Lord can open Lydia's heart, He can open your Aunt Mildred's heart.
2. Pray that God would send laborers to them. In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." I am confident that God will answer any prayer He has commanded us to pray, and this prayer is not a suggestion. Jesus commanded us to pray that God would send out laborers into the harvest.
3. Pray that God will visit them and reveal Himself to them. I do not know of a specific promise in the Bible where it says God is going to visit someone in a dream or give them a vision. But I do see in Scripture where God reveals Himself to people in such ways, like Saul of Tarsus, who, on the Damascus Road, had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved.
4. Pray for personal direction and for personal opportunities to share. Jesus, in Luke 10:2 said, "The harvest is great, laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest." In the next verse Jesus said, "Behold, I send you." You can become the answer to your own prayer!
So pray for the unsaved people in your life, and do not stop praying until they get saved.
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Read: Nehemiah 2:1-10
Then I prayed to the God of heaven. - Nehemiah 2:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
The kings of Persia demanded absolute obedience and deference. The father of King Artaxerxes, Xerxes the Great, is a major character in the book of Esther, and a central drama swirls over whether he will permit her to live once she commits the capital offense of approaching his throne unbidden. Artaxerxes himself murdered two of his brothers in asserting his claim to the throne-and according to the ancient historian Plutarch, he was considered one of the gentlest Persian kings!
As cupbearer to the king, Nehemiah had daily, immediate access to Artaxerxes. The position required the king's full trust, and it also meant that Nehemiah was responsible for the king's safety from any who might try to tamper with his wine (1:11-2:1). In keeping with the protocol to please the king, Nehemiah always had a pleasant demeanor. But he could not hide his grief at the news from Jerusalem (v. 2).
The conversation between Artaxerxes and Nehemiah offers several insights into the right way to approach the throne of men and the throne of God. First, Nehemiah displayed the appropriate respect to the king (vv. 3, 7). We might not like our mayor, or president, or boss, but we do not have license to be disrespectful to those in leadership positions (see Rom. 13:1).
Second, Nehemiah placed his ultimate trust in God, not the king. Notice the brief, millisecond prayer that he offers before answering the king in verse 4. Even as he prepared to make a bold request that could change his life, he sought to place himself under the authority of the Lord. Nehemiah also credited God with the favorable response from the king: "Because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my requests" (v. 8).
Finally, when the Lord opened a door of opportunity for Nehemiah to make a difference, he was willing to walk through boldly. He requested the king's permission to rebuild Jerusalem, then asked for letters of protection, and then petitioned the king for materials from his own forest (vv. 5-9). Nehemiah understood that God can work through anyone-even a Persian king-to accomplish His will.
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APPLY THE WORD
God can use Artaxerxes, Nehemiah, and you! He has put you where you are for a reason. Nehemiah might have been a cupbearer for years before this moment came. When it did, Nehemiah was prepared because of his relationship with God through prayer. If you are waiting to see what God will do, you can prepare by cultivating your prayer life. If God has shown you the opportunity to make a difference for His kingdom, take it boldly, for His gracious hand is on you!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Servant's Primary Goal
We make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him -2 Corinthians 5:9
We make it our aim. . . ." It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only "to be well pleasing to Him." It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the right goal. At least once a week examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you. Paul was like a musician who gives no thought to audience approval, if he can only catch a look of approval from his Conductor.
Any goal we have that diverts us even to the slightest degree from the central goal of being "approved to God" (2 Timothy 2:15) may result in our rejection from further service for Him. When you discern where the goal leads, you will understand why it is so necessary to keep "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2). Paul spoke of the importance of controlling his own body so that it would not take him in the wrong direction. He said, "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest . . . I myself should become disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27).
I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. My worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may sound?
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The Power of Your Presence
Jesus said in Matthew 5:16,
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
The way you let your light shine is just being yourself around people. Witness everywhere you go through your life, and use words, if necessary.
You can sow seeds just by showing people that you are real. Some people call it friendship evangelism: being a genuine friend, touchable, genuinely caring for people, just letting your light shine.
Jesus also said you are a city set on a hill. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nobody lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. You and I are to live a life that brightly shines the gospel to the unsaved.
I read a story years ago about a guy who had his doorbell hooked up to a big buzzer in the back room. The buzzer was really loud. He wanted to change it and put a light there instead that would illuminate when somebody pushed the doorbell. So he rigged it up to do just that.
The problem was the light would barely illuminate. He could not figure out what was wrong, so he called an electrician friend. His friend looked at it and told him, "Oh, you don't understand. It takes more power to shine than it does to make noise."
That is very true. Jesus said, "Let your light shine." Without having to necessarily confront people, they will just notice something different about you. If you are walking with God, it is reflected in your attitude, your work ethic, and your countenance. It is a discernable difference that will lead some people to ask about your faith. You will be able to sow seeds just with your presence.
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Read: Nehemiah 2:11-20
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. - Philippians 1:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Justin Smith was appointed president of the Atlantic Media Company in 2007, one of his biggest challenges was trying to restore profitability to The Atlantic, one of the oldest magazines in the United States. The losses were around $7 million each year, and Mr. Smith immediately upended the conventional wisdom about magazine management, and as a result of his changes The Atlantic now nets nearly $2 million in profit, an impressive feat in a difficult publishing environment.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he needed to upend the conventional wisdom about how to rebuild and protect the city. He began by personally inspecting the damaged walls and gates (vv. 11-16). He did not immediately announce himself and demand to be in charge, nor did he start giving orders without first assessing the situation.
After taking time to review that crumbling wall and burned gates, he met with the Jewish officials. Notice the content of his inspiring pep talk. First, Nehemiah appealed to their honor as the people of God: "we will no longer be in disgrace" (v. 17). He knew that the disrepair of Jerusalem reflected poorly on the relationship between the people and God.
Then, Nehemiah informed the officials about God's hand of protection and provision (v. 18). He could already testify to God opening a door for him to speak to the king and secure supplies. That testimony of God's hand in the past would be vitally important as they faced challenges in the future. Knowing that God had led Nehemiah this far was a tremendous encouragement for the officials.
Finally, Nehemiah assured them that Artaxerxes had authorized this project (v. 18). This became immediately relevant when Sanballat and Tobiah (whom we'll examine in more detail later) challenged the rebuilding project: "Are you rebelling against the king?" (v. 19). Nehemiah and the Jewish officials could declare that they had the king's permission-and what's more, they were obeying God (v. 20). They responded: "Let us start rebuilding!" (v. 18).
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APPLY THE WORD
Many churches have done away with time in the service for people to share testimonies of what God has done. Hearing those stories can be important reminders of how God has worked and an encouragement that He will be faithful to His people (see Phil. 1:6). Perhaps your Sunday school class or small group could take some time to share about "the gracious hand of my God." Use the time to give the glory to God for the specific ways He has led and sustained you.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will I Bring Myself Up to This Level?
. . . perfecting holiness in the fear of God -2 Corinthians 7:1
Therefore, having these promises. . . ." I claim God's promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God's perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit," or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not "confer with flesh and blood," but cleanse yourself from it at once (Galatians 1:16). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.
I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived-a level of perfect submission to His Father's will- where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?
Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life.
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The Power of Proclamation
In our last few devotionals, we have seen we are to pray for the unsaved and live lives that shine the gospel.
But there does come a time to speak up. Look at Romans 10:13-14,
For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
When the time does come to speak up, a lot of Christians are like arctic rivers: frozen at the mouth. But someone must tell the story!
Pray for the unsaved, let your light shine, and when the time comes, tell them the gospel story. Paul said in Romans 1:16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
Through just a simple proclamation of the message, many people, when they hear it, will believe and be saved. The reason for that is found in Romans 10:17,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
A proclamation of the message causes faith to arise in people's hearts. Just simply tell them the gospel story: Mankind was separated from God, Jesus paid the price for their sins, He was raised from the dead, and if you put your trust in Him, you can be saved.
As well as opening your mouth to share the Good News, you might consider writing letters to your friends to simply and clearly share the gospel. Incorporate your own story if you feel it would be helpful.
It is easy to share the gospel if you just remember three things: our rebellion, our ransom, and our response. With those three things, you can share the gospel with anyone.
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Read: Nehemiah 3
The whole body . . . grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. - Ephesians 4:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Terrell Owens, a wide receiver in the National Football League, has amassed impressive Hall of Fame statistics. He's recognized as one of the most talented players at that position. But as the 2010 season was about to begin, Owens still hadn't been signed to a team. He was healthy and ready to play, and the problem wasn't his football skills-it was his reputation as a divisive showboat who cared only about his own accomplishments and not the fortunes of the team. Although he has amazing athletic ability, few teams feel like he will focus on helping them achieve their shared goals.
Some Christians seem to think that being a spiritual superstar is all that's required for success. They act like their gifts are the most important and assume they can function just fine without any help from God's people. Today's passage provides an illustration that this kind of thinking will lead to frustration, not success. Nehemiah inspired the people to work together to accomplish the daunting task of repairing the gates of Jerusalem.
We might be tempted to think that this chapter is a dry rehearsal of information. But if we look carefully, Scripture gives us interesting clues about how the people of God should function. First, notice that the high priest himself, Eliashib, was part of the work crew for the Sheep Gate (v. 1). The spiritual leader of Israel didn't consider himself too good for manual labor, or above the lowly task of rebuilding the gate.
Others followed his example. Perfume-makers and goldsmiths, Levites and merchants, all pitched in to help (vv. 8, 17, 32). Many of these people were probably not skilled masons or construction workers, but they didn't use that as an excuse to shirk the community effort. The daughters of Shallum even joined in to help repair a section of the wall (v. 12). There's a place for everyone in the work of God.
This list of people and the part of the wall they worked on gives us a rich picture of how individuals contribute to the larger work of God's people. Spiritual teamwork means putting the needs of the community above any desire for personal glory.
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APPLY THE WORD
What project in your spiritual community can you be part of? It might not be glamorous-but then repairing the Sheep Gate probably didn't seem very glamorous either. It might not be a perfect match with your gifts, but then Malkijah the goldsmith probably never thought he would end up repairing the Tower of the Ovens (v. 11). If this is the season of rolling up your sleeves to join with others to accomplish something for God, don't make an excuse like the nobles of verse 5.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Identified or Simply Interested?
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow Him"-but-"I have been identified with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
". . . it is no longer I who live . . . ." My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.
". . . and the life which I now live in the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see, "I live by faith in the Son of God . . . ." This faith was not Paul's own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.
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The Snare of Fear
Proverbs 29:25 tells us,
The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.
A snare is a noose used for catching an animal. Fear will cause you to be snared or trapped, just like an animal.
I have a friend in the church who has a very large nut tree in his yard, which the squirrels regularly raid. He put this big net over the tree, but it did not seem to deter the squirrels at all. So he finally got a trap and set it up on the roof right next to the nut tree. To date, he has caught about 120 squirrels.
When the squirrel is in the trap, it is totally at his mercy. It can't go anywhere. He happens to be a fairly merciful gentleman, so he takes them over to a local park and lets them go.
When fear gets a hold of your life, you become like one of those trapped squirrels-you are not going anywhere. You are at its mercy. You will not progress spiritually. It keeps you bound. The fear of man can keep you from obeying God; it will keep you from pleasing God. It will keep you from the joy you would experience when you trust God.
In fact, there is a contrast in our verse today. The man or woman who is bound by the fear of man, will not be trusting God in some area of his life. Look at the two parts of the verse together: The fear of man brings a snare, but... in contrast ...whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
Do not allow the fear of man to control your life. Instead, trust in the Lord.
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Read: Nehemiah 6:1-14
But I prayed, "Now strengthen my hands." - Nehemiah 6:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Robert Sternberg was a mediocre student in his Introduction to Psychology class-in fact, he earned a C in the course. His professor wrote on his paper, "There was a famous Sternberg in psychology and it is obvious there will not be another." But three years later, Sternberg graduated summa cum laude from Stanford University with exceptional distinction in psychology. In 2002, proving his professor's prophecy wrong, he became the president of the American Psychological Association.
In our reading, we see more of the opposition against the work of Nehemiah, and the attacks included schemes, lies, and false prophecies. Nehemiah had to choose whether he would believe the word of his enemies or remain steadfast in God's call.
First, Sanballat and his cronies conspired to trap Nehemiah outside Jerusalem (v. 2). The text hints that this was proposed as a sort of negotiation, a scheme intended to lure Nehemiah by the promise of a truce or peace settlement. Nehemiah saw the trap for what it was and refused to leave his work (vv. 3-4).
Next, Sanballat issued a threat: he was circulating a story that Nehemiah had declared himself king of Judah in defiance of the Persian authorities. Sanballat would communicate this information to the Persians if Nehemiah refused to meet with him (vv. 5-7). Again, Nehemiah resisted the bait, recognizing that Sanballat's plot was intended to frighten him and the people away from completing the work on the wall of Jerusalem. Instead of being manipulated by Sanballat, Nehemiah responded with prayer: "Now strengthen my hands" (v. 9).
Finally, Sanballat and Tobiah hired a Jewish man to tempt Nehemiah to go into hiding. Shemaiah alleged that a plot on Nehemiah's life required that he hide in the temple for safety (v. 10). Nehemiah had confidence in God's protection and wisdom to recognize deceit; he refused to cower and abandon the work (vv. 11-13). Notice Nehemiah's prayers in 5:19 ("Remember me") and in verse 14 ("Remember Tobiah and Sanballat"). He could trust the Lord to know his heart and judge him and his enemies justly.
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APPLY THE WORD
Nehemiah was determined to believe the call of God, not the false prophecies of failure. When we have committed the truth of God's Word to our hearts and minds, we can reject the claims of Satan that we will never serve God, never be forgiven, or never amount to anything for God. Choose one of these verses to keep you focused on God's love and care for you: Philippians 1:6; Jeremiah 29:11; or Deuteronomy 31:8.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us . . . ? -Luke 24:32
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart- a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart- unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don't allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the "mount of transfiguration," basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
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Don't Lose Out
In 1 Samuel 15:18-19, 24-26, Samuel, the prophet, comes to King Saul, and this is what he says,
"Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"... Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel."
Saul disobeyed God and then lied about it, tried to cover it, and tried to shift the blame to the people. Did you notice that part? Why? Because he feared the people.
Because of the fear of man, Samuel said to him, "You have lost your place." Later on he says, "God has found a man better than you, a man after His own heart." And He chose David to replace Saul as the king of Israel.
I want you to think about this: God had promised Saul that his seed would sit on the throne, but it was a conditional promise God gave to him.
Saul lost out because of his disobedience caused by the fear of man, and so did his offspring! And David, a better man than Saul, ended up on the throne of Israel, through whom our Savior came.
If the fear of man can rob us of our destiny and affect our offspring, just think what faith in God can do!
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Read: Nehemiah 6:15-19
This work had been done with the help of our God. - Nehemiah 6:16
TODAY IN THE WORD
Shane was a college student preparing for a lucrative career in law when he knew God was nudging him toward seminary instead. After wrestling with the decision for several weeks, he finally prayed, "Okay, God, I'll go to seminary on one condition: you have to help me learn Greek." Never a strong student in languages, Shane began to study Greek-at which he excelled. He went on to seminary and today is an ordained minister and seminary professor training other pastors-to-be in the Greek New Testament.
Following God's call doesn't mean we get to sit back, put our feet up, and wait to see what happens. Instead, it means we "put our shoulder to the plow" and trust that God will enable our work to bear spiritual results (Luke 9:62). God blessed Shane's studies-but he actually had to study; he didn't wake up one morning proficient in Greek. Nehemiah had to actually build the wall; he didn't simply pray and then open his eyes to see a completed wall surrounding the city.
Our passage reveals the spiritual consequences of our obedience. The announcement of the completed wall almost seems like an afterthought, a simple statement of fact (v. 15; see Ezra 6:15). After threats, opposition, and exhaustion, the wall had been built in 52 days. The text focuses our attention on the most important detail: the significance of the completed wall.
The enemies of Nehemiah had persistently tried to undermine the confidence of God's people, but when the wall was finished, it was their own self-confidence that lay shattered (v. 16). The people they had derided as "feeble" had accomplished a construction feat (see 4:2). There was no denying that they were empowered by a strong and mighty God.
The final verses illustrate the problem of intermarriage that we saw in the book of Ezra. Tobiah, the foe of the Jewish resettlement and rebuilding, had married a Jewish woman (v. 18). This meant a number of the Jewish nobles and officials found themselves under legal or financial obligation to a spiritual enemy. He continued to threaten Nehemiah and to attempt to coerce Jewish leaders to align with him.
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APPLY THE WORD
Our obedience to God doesn't just accomplish His work in our lives. It also testifies to others about His power and His faithfulness. If you've seen a spiritual "wall" completed in your life, share that story with others, and write it down in a spiritual journal so that you can remember the great work of God. Praise God that He specializes in strengthening His people to finish the good works to which He calls them! (see Eph. 2:10).
God bless
:angel:
March 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Carnally Minded?
Where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal . . . ? -1 Corinthians 3:3
The natural man, or unbeliever, knows nothing about carnality. The desires of the flesh warring against the Spirit, and the Spirit warring against the flesh, which began at rebirth, are what produce carnality and the awareness of it. But Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). In other words, carnality will disappear.
Are you quarrelsome and easily upset over small things? Do you think that no one who is a Christian is ever like that? Paul said they are, and he connected these attitudes with carnality. Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly awakens a spirit of malice or resentment in you? If so, that is proof that you are still carnal. If the process of sanctification is continuing in your life, there will be no trace of that kind of spirit remaining.
If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He doesn't ask you to make it right; He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right. A child of the light will confess sin instantly and stand completely open before God. But a child of the darkness will say, "Oh, I can explain that." When the light shines and the Spirit brings conviction of sin, be a child of the light. Confess your wrongdoing, and God will deal with it. If, however, you try to vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness.
What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone you will know it-it is the most real thing you can imagine. And God will see to it that you have a number of opportunities to prove to yourself the miracle of His grace. The proof is in a very practical test. You will find yourself saying, "If this had happened before, I would have had the spirit of resentment!" And you will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.
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Not Ashamed
I have a question to ask you today. Has there ever been a time when you were afraid to confess the name of Jesus? In John 9:20-23, we have the example of the parents whose son had been born blind but was healed by Jesus.
Look at their response when asked who healed their son,
His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself." His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
How many Christians have held their tongue when they should have been giving praise to the name of Jesus? Praise for answered prayer, for the miracles He has done, but they were intimidated by unbelievers?
I was coming back from Africa when a Muslim man on the plane put a blanket on the floor, got down on his face and began to pray. This man was not ashamed at all about kneeling down on the plane in front of everyone.
I thought, "Oh, Jesus! How many times have Your people kept silent because they were afraid of what someone might think of them?"
Throw off the shackles of fear and timidity, and boldly take your stand for Christ!
Proverbs 28:1 says, The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
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Read: Nehemiah 7
Now the overseer is to be above reproach. - 1 Timothy 3:2
TODAY IN THE WORD
Some elementary school students chafe at learning multiplication tables. Few teenagers enjoy studying for their written driving exam. No one goes to culinary school simply because they want to learn how to peel potatoes or chop onions. But all of this basic information is necessary in order to progress to important material: algebra and geometry, driving a car, or preparing gourmet meals.
Our passage transitions between the account of the rebuilding of the wall and the book's climax in chapters 8 through 10. We might wonder what devotional benefit could possibly be found in reading this list of names-especially since we've already read this list in Ezra 2! But as it sets the scene for the coming events, this chapter also includes helpful reminders for us about the nature of spiritual leadership.
First, notice the criterion that Nehemiah used to select other leaders. He chose Hananiah as commander of the citadel because "he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most people do" (v. 2). He understood that spiritual qualifications are most important for carrying out God's work (see also 1 Timothy 3).
Next, we see Nehemiah's concern for the restoration and protection of God's people. He gave instructions to appoint gatekeepers and guards (vv. 1, 3). He also addressed population issues confronting Jerusalem: surrounded by hostile people who felt threatened by the return of the Jews, Jerusalem needed to regain population in order to establish God's people in the land again. Otherwise, they would be susceptible to attacks from outside the city and infiltration and intermarriage within the city.
Nehemiah discovered the records of the first families who returned after the decree of Cyrus (v. 5). The diligence and care of a spiritual leader are manifested in this bit of the story-Nehemiah could have ignored this history from some 90 years earlier. But his priorities were obeying God and serving His people, not promoting himself as the sole architect of the reconstruction. He took the record of the past into account before forging ahead with decisions for the future.
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APPLY THE WORD
Spiritual leadership has times when grateful people offer thanks. Other times feature dramatic confrontation with those who oppose the work of God. And other moments are like today's passage: the "grunt work" of ministry that's often not noticed or appreciated but is necessary for the spiritual growth of God's people. Take a moment to write a note of thanks to your pastor and other spiritual leaders for their faithful ministry.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Decreasing for His Purpose
He must increase, but I must decrease -John 3:30
If you become a necessity to someone else's life, you are out of God's will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a "friend of the bridegroom" (John 3:29). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don't try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone's life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God's will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."
Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. ". . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:29-30). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness-at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.
Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34).
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No Worries
I trust that these words from Isaiah will encourage you today. Read carefully what God has to say,
"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?... But I am the LORD your God, who divided the sea whose waves roared-the LORD of hosts is His name" (Isaiah 51:12-13 and 15).
God spans the heavens with the palm of His hand. The nations are as a drop in the bucket before Him. There is nothing too hard for Him, and nothing He cannot do.
A number of years ago, I had the chance to go elk hunting with a friend in Montana. We were lying outside under the stars, and I was unprepared for the glory I saw. I have never seen so many stars in my life! It took my breath away!
As we lay there, I said, "You know what? God spans the heavens with His hand, and you and I are worried about paying the rent!" It was just one of those moments. We both just cracked up at how ridiculous it was to worry when God was so big.
What are you worrying about today? Whatever it is, place it into God's hands. After all, His hand spans the entire universe!
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Read: Nehemiah 8
All the people lifted their hands and responded, "Amen! Amen!" They bowed down and worshiped the LORD. - Nehemiah 8:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Jewish festival of Purim was established by Mordecai and Esther after God's deliverance of the Jewish people from Haman's evil plot to destroy them (see Esther 9). The celebration, which continues among Jews today, includes sharing gifts and food with both friends and the needy so that all may participate in the joy.
We've reached the focal point in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (which were originally compiled as one book). It would be a mistake to think of these accounts as primarily about rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the wall, or describing the return of the people. While all of those things happen in these chapters, they point to the critical event of the spiritual restoration of the people of God. The Lord was not simply bringing them back into the land; He was bringing them back into relationship with Him.
The people requested the public reading of the Law (v. 1). The text underscores the spiritual unity here; go through the passage and note how many times the words "all the people" or "the whole company" occur. This unity centered on the Word of God and their hunger to hear it proclaimed.
The people were also unified in their praise (v. 6). Their worship, led by Ezra, centered on "the LORD, the great God." After hearing the Word explained, Nehemiah instructed the people that it was time to rejoice! There would be time for grieving and mourning to come (we'll study this tomorrow), but for the time being, worship of the Lord was to be accompanied with joy (vv. 10-12, 17).
This joy should also be shared with those in need. Using language that echoes the instructions of Purim, established only a few decades earlier, Nehemiah instructed the people to share food and drink with others (vv. 10, 12). Expressions of joy from worship are intended to praise God as well as to promote generosity.
Finally, the people were unified in their obedience. By keeping the Feast of Booths they demonstrated a willingness to follow God's commands and to identify with the long history of the people of God.
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APPLY THE WORD
We might not associate a "sacred day" with joy and celebration and feasting, but Nehemiah declared that "the joy of the LORD is your strength" (v. 10)! Take time for an intentional meal of celebration with family and friends, and rejoice in the goodness of God. With hectic schedules and cultural notions of "perfect" entertaining, we can easily let the habit of gathering to share together slip by. As part of your celebration, you could volunteer at a soup kitchen or food pantry together to extend help to others.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Maintaining the Proper Relationship
. . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . -John 3:29
Goodness and purity should never be traits that draw attention to themselves, but should simply be magnets that draw people to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing others to Him, it is not the right kind of holiness; it is only an influence which awakens undue emotions and evil desires in people and diverts them from heading in the right direction. A person who is a beautiful saint can be a hindrance in leading people to the Lord by presenting only what Christ has done for him, instead of presenting Jesus Christ Himself. Others will be left with this thought- "What a fine person that man is!" That is not being a true "friend of the bridegroom"- I am increasing all the time; He is not.
To maintain this friendship and faithfulness to the Bridegroom, we have to be more careful to have the moral and vital relationship to Him above everything else, including obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey and our only task is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ, seeing that nothing interferes with it. Only occasionally is it a matter of obedience. At those times when a crisis arises, we have to find out what God's will is. Yet most of our life is not spent in trying to be consciously obedient, but in maintaining this relationship- being the "friend of the bridegroom." Christian work can actually be a means of diverting a person's focus away from Jesus Christ. Instead of being friends "of the bridegroom," we may become amateur providences of God to someone else, working against Him while we use His weapons.
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Your New Nature
As human beings, we are constantly confronted with opportunities to fear. People have fears concerning their health, their finances, terrorism, relationships, their jobs...the list is almost endless.
I want to challenge you with a thought today, and it is simply this: Realize who you are. If you are born again, you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, and it is not in your nature to be afraid.
Consider what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7,
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Which points to our problem with fear. We listen to our heads, and we listen to our flesh, rather than listening to our spirit. As a result, our lives can be overwhelmed with fear.
I want to challenge you today to listen to your spirit instead of your head. The real you on the inside is made after the image of God. Once you realize who you are and what you are made of, it will help deliver you from fear. Consider these verses that talk about the real you:
· Ephesians 4:24, And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
· 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
When you understand your true nature, that you are made after the image of God, you will know freedom from fear.
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Read: Nehemiah 9:1-15
Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. - Nehemiah 9:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress declared that the 13 colonies of Great Britain were now the 13 united states, independent from the rule of King George III. Most of the Declaration of Independence outlined the history of grievances the colonists had suffered under British rule. This account provided the background and framework for their assertion that they were justified in declaring independence from King George.
Our passage includes a history of the actions taken by a sovereign Ruler, but this was no earthly monarch. Instead, the people recounted the works of God, which provided the background and framework for their belief that worshiping the Lord was justified.
After three weeks of feasting, celebrating, and observing the appointed feasts of the Law, the Israelites gathered again for a solemn assembly (v. 1). The Levites led them in a time of reading the Law, confession, and worship (vv. 3-5). Notice today how Scripture helps us understand the appropriate context for our confession and grieving our sins before God.
First, the focus of confession begins with God, not ourselves. The declaration of praise opens with an acknowledgment of who God is: "You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens . . . the earth . . . the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything" (v. 6). Because He is the Creator and Giver of life, God deserves praise. He determines the standards for His creation.
Next, God did not only create all things, He also cares about His creation and His people. He has chosen to enter into relationship with people, and "you have kept your promises because you are righteous" (v. 8). He intervened to rescue His people, and He tenderly provided for every spiritual and physical need (vv. 9-15).
This history of what God has done reveals a powerful, faithful, holy, loving God who created, protected, and communed with His people. Truly, this God is worthy of all praise and obedience.
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APPLY THE WORD
Tomorrow we'll look at the specific confession of the people, but it's important that we not rush past this element of confession-the focus on God. Our own times of confession are not intended to be times when we wallow in our own failures, but instead are occasions for us to praise the Lord for His character and His relationship with us. How have you experienced God's power, faithfulness, and love in your own life? Spend time today praising Him for all He has done.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Isn't There Some Misunderstanding?
'Let us go to Judea again.' The disciples said to Him, '. . . are You going there again?' -John 11:7-8
Just because I don't understand what Jesus Christ says, I have no right to determine that He must be mistaken in what He says. That is a dangerous view, and it is never right to think that my obedience to God's directive will bring dishonor to Jesus. The only thing that will bring dishonor is not obeying Him. To put my view of His honor ahead of what He is plainly guiding me to do is never right, even though it may come from a real desire to prevent Him from being put to an open shame. I know when the instructions have come from God because of their quiet persistence. But when I begin to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate enter into my mind, I am bringing in an element that is not of God. This will only result in my concluding that His instructions to me were not right. Many of us are faithful to our ideas about Jesus Christ, but how many of us are faithful to Jesus Himself? Faithfulness to Jesus means that I must step out even when and where I can't see anything (see Matthew 14:29). But faithfulness to my own ideas means that I first clear the way mentally. Faith, however, is not intellectual understanding; faith is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can't see the way ahead.
Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked? Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy. When He tells you something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a misunderstanding of what honors Him and what doesn't. Are you faithful to Jesus, or faithful to your ideas about Him? Are you faithful to what He says, or are you trying to compromise His words with thoughts that never came from Him? "Whatever He says to you, do it " (John 2:5).
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Who Made the Sun Shine?
Look again at Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Take a look at the few words that this man spoke. In his short declaration, he uses the word I six times and the word my five times!
His perspective was a very selfish one.
Here are a few questions to ponder:
· Who gave the rain that made his crops grow?
· Who made the soil out of which his crops grew?
· Who made the seed he planted?
· Who caused the sun to shine?
· Who gave him the physical strength to work the field?
· Who gave him his soul?
The answer to all of those is God. Yet he makes no acknowledgement of God in his speech, planning, or giving. He should have been thanking God for all His blessings and asking the Lord what He wanted done with His things.
Be faithful to acknowledge God and to ask Him what to do with His resources over which you are a steward.
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Read: Nehemiah 11
Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess. - Numbers 33:53
TODAY IN THE WORD
When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, the government proclaimed "the renewal of the Jewish State in the Land of Israel, which would open wide the gates of the homeland to every Jew." In 1950, the Law of Return granted every Jew in the world the right to come to Israel as an oleh (Jew immigrating to Israel) and become an Israeli citizen. Today, nearly 30 percent of the Jewish population of Israel are immigrants from around the world, some fleeing persecution and others wishing to participate in the world's only Jewish state.
After the high point of the book in the preceding three chapters, today's text returns to Nehemiah's concern in chapter 7 (see 7:4-5). Major construction projects had been completed. The people had confessed sin and committed themselves to service. Now it was time to sort out the organizational details that would make the resettlement of God's people in Judah a successful, long-term endeavor.
The people had settled in their ancestral towns, but Jerusalem remained underpopulated, likely because until the wall was rebuilt the people had significant security concerns. Now that provision had been made for greater protection, the leaders settled in Jerusalem, and the people volunteered one tenth of the population of their towns to now reside in the capital (vv. 1-2).
The rest of this chapter reveals something about Nehemiah's concerns and his leadership. First, his record of the settlements and population shows his commitment to organization and detail. He did not treat the matter of God's people settling into their land as a haphazard affair. The people had been commanded to settle the land after the Exodus; now Nehemiah was recording that process again after the return from Exile (see Num. 33:53; Deut. 10:11; Joshua 13-21).
Second, Nehemiah exhibited spiritual concern that the resettlement would facilitate the spiritual stability of the people. He detailed the provision for Levites in Jerusalem (vv. 15-18) as well as enough priests and singers to conduct worship in the temple (vv. 12, 22).
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APPLY THE WORD
The praise and worship of the Lord on Sunday is an important part of our spiritual obedience. But God also cares about how we're living from Monday through Saturday. The details might not seem glamorous or spiritually significant, but every part of our lives, from how we conduct ourselves at work to our attitudes toward our family members to how we organize our finances, matters to God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Our Lord's Surprise Visits
You also be ready . . . -Luke 12:40
A Christian worker's greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not facing our beliefs or doctrines, or even facing the question of whether or not we are of any use to Him, but the need is to face Him.
Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord's surprise visits. This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle-we must be spiritually real.
If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today's world, and instead are "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thoughts, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ.
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Life's Proper Focus
Read Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
This parable really helps us bring life into the right perspective. The rich man in this story failed to do three things.
He failed to realize that he was only a steward and not the owner of his goods.
He failed to have an eternal perspective.
He failed to consider how brief this earthly life can be.
How did he fail in these three areas? By not understanding just how short life is and where to place his focus.
He talked about building barns but instead he had a burial.
He said he had many years but God said "this night."
He thought he was wise, but God said he was a fool.
Let's learn from his mistakes and bring our life into proper focus.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Read: Nehemiah 12
God had given them great joy. - Nehemiah 12:43
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Psalms have been described as the songbook of Israel. The final psalm is a crescendo of praise: "Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord."
From the account in our reading today of the dedication of the Jerusalem wall, it seems that Nehemiah was certainly familiar with Psalm 150! Just as this psalm builds into a chorus of praise, the description of this celebration almost bursts off the page with music and joy.
Instruments of cymbals, harps, lyres, and trumpets were appointed for praise (vv. 27, 35-36, 41). Singers gathered from around Judah, and Nehemiah divided them into two large choirs "to give thanks" (v. 31). Then he sent them in opposite directions around the wall, in effect surrounding the city with a citadel of praise. What a beautiful picture of the power of praise literally encircling the city along with the rebuilt wall! The rejoicing was so full, rich, and loud that it could "be heard far away" (v. 43).
Not only was the celebration full of joy, it was also concerned with appropriate worship. The priests and Levites ensured their own ritual purity as well as that of the people (vv. 30, 45). This outpouring of praise to dedicate the wall extended to acts of generosity and service to ensure that the ministry of the temple was provided for (vv. 44-47). The people didn't stop with songs and rejoicing; they were willing to bring their firstfruits and tithes required by the Law.
By the end of this dedication, we see that the spiritual life of Judah has been ordered according to God's instructions. "All Israel contributed," rejoicing "because God had given them great joy" (v. 47).
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APPLY THE WORD
If you have breath in your body, you have reason to praise the Lord! Take some time today to praise Him with music. You might choose to gather with friends or family to sing or play musical instruments. Or you could listen to some praise music throughout the day, whether at work, home, or in your car. Thank the Lord for the works He has completed in your life, and thank Him for "every good and perfect gift" (James 1:17).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 30, 2011
Spring Sharathon 2011 is going on right now!
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Holiness or Hardness Toward God?
He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor . . . -Isaiah 59:16
The reason many of us stop praying and become hard toward God is that we only have an emotional interest in prayer. It sounds good to say that we pray, and we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial- that our minds are quieted and our souls are uplifted when we pray. But Isaiah implied in this verse that God is amazed at such thoughts about prayer.
Worship and intercession must go together; one is impossible without the other. Intercession means raising ourselves up to the point of getting the mind of Christ regarding the person for whom we are praying (see Philippians 2:5). Instead of worshiping God, we recite speeches to God about how prayer is supposed to work. Are we worshiping God or disputing Him when we say, "But God, I just don't see how you are going to do this"? This is a sure sign that we are not worshiping. When we lose sight of God, we become hard and dogmatic. We throw our petitions at His throne and dictate to Him what we want Him to do. We don't worship God, nor do we seek to conform our minds to the mind of Christ. And if we are hard toward God, we will become hard toward other people.
Are we worshiping God in a way that will raise us up to where we can take hold of Him, having such intimate contact with Him that we know His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship with God, or have we become hard and dogmatic?
Do you find yourself thinking that there is no one interceding properly? Then be that person yourself. Be a person who worships God and lives in a holy relationship with Him. Get involved in the real work of intercession, remembering that it truly is work-work that demands all your energy, but work which has no hidden pitfalls. Preaching the gospel has its share of pitfalls, but intercessory prayer has none whatsoever.
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He Has Said, So We May Say
In our last few devotionals, we have been talking about fear, and how to be free from it. Today, I want to give you a final thought to consider on fear. It is based on Hebrews 13:5-6,
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we may boldly say: "The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
I want you to notice what the Bible says, He Himself has said...So we may boldly say. God says something, so you can say something.
What does God say? He says He will never leave you. He says He will never forsake you. As a result you can say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
When you understand that God will never leave you or forsake you, you can live without fear. And that freedom from fear will be reflected in both your actions and in your speech.
What are you facing today? Would you be afraid if God was standing beside you saying, "It's alright. I am here"? Well He is with you! He said He would never leave you or abandon you! You may not see or feel Him, but He is with you-now and always.
It is time to start acting and speaking like you believe it.
Boldly say, "The Lord is helping me! I will not fear!"
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Read: Nehemiah 13:1-14
LORD, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells. - Psalm 26:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
At its peak, an estimated 24 million listeners tuned in to Paul Harvey's radio programs, The Rest of the Story, News and Comment, and Paul Harvey News. He was probably best known for The Rest of the Story, which was sometimes described as part history and part mystery. With his trademark delivery, Harvey would have millions of Americans on the edge of their seats when he began, "Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey. You know what the news is. In a minute, you're going to hear . . . the rest of the story."
After the glorious celebration in yesterday's reading, our text today is like the rest of the story. And in many ways, we might wish that the book of Nehemiah had just ended on the high note of praise and joy and worship. But instead, we have the unvarnished truth about the way that spiritual community began to disintegrate over time.
The first three verses pick up where chapter 12 ended. When the people heard the instructions in the Law to keep separate from the idolatrous enemies of true worship, they complied. Then things went downhill. After 12 years as governor in Jerusalem, Nehemiah was recalled to the court of Artaxerxes (v. 6). We're not told how long he stayed in Persia, but at some later point he was given permission to return to Jerusalem.
He discovered that one of his chief opponents, Tobiah the Ammonite, was being housed inside the very temple of God (vv. 4-7)! This directly contradicted the command of God that no Ammonite should be allowed in the assembly of God (see v. 1; Judges 10:6). Now this foe of righteousness had wormed his way into the heart of Jewish worship and identity.
Nehemiah responded by forcefully removing Tobiah and all his possessions and ordering the rooms to be purified again (vv. 8-9). He then learned that the commitment to provide for the Levites and singers had been neglected, forcing the spiritual leaders to leave the temple in order to provide their own food (v. 10). Nehemiah installed new leadership to ensure that the house of God and its service would be provided for and respected.
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APPLY THE WORD
Scripture is honest with us about the reality of the spiritual life. A great high point of fellowship with God might be followed by a drift away from our commitment to serve Him. Do you have a sustained passion for the work of God, or have you grown complacent about things in your life that contradict a life of faith? If you resemble Eliashib, who let Tobiah into the temple, repent and return to your commitment to the Lord. Pray to have Nehemiah's zeal for the things of God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 31, 2011
Spring Sharathon 2011 is going on right now!
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Heedfulness or Hypocrisy in Ourselves?
If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death -1 John 5:16
If we are not heedful and pay no attention to the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other people are failing, and then we take our discernment and turn it into comments of ridicule and criticism, instead of turning it into intercession on their behalf. God reveals this truth about others to us not through the sharpness of our minds but through the direct penetration of His Spirit. If we are not attentive, we will be completely unaware of the source of the discernment God has given us, becoming critical of others and forgetting that God says, ". . . he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death." Be careful that you don't become a hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right with God before you worship Him yourself.
One of the most subtle and illusive burdens God ever places on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning others. He gives us discernment so that we may accept the responsibility for those souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them (see Philippians 2:5). We should intercede in accordance with what God says He will give us, namely, "life for those who commit sin not leading to death." It is not that we are able to bring God into contact with our minds, but that we awaken ourselves to the point where God is able to convey His mind to us regarding the people for whom we intercede.
Can Jesus Christ see the agony of His soul in us? He can't unless we are so closely identified with Him that we have His view concerning the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ will be completely and overwhelmingly satisfied with us as intercessors.
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God's Priority
In Matthew 28:18-20, we have the top priority on God's list,
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Just imagine after the Resurrection that an angel comes up to Jesus and says, "Jesus, this is wonderful! You have paid the price for mankind's sin. What are You going to do to let the whole world know that they can be saved and they won't have to perish and spend an eternity without God? What is Your plan? How are You going to do it?"
And Jesus replies by saying, "Well, My few disciples are going to tell people, who in turn will tell other people, who are going to tell other people, who are going to tell other people."
Puzzled, the angel then asks, "Well, do You have a backup plan?" And Jesus says, "No." Still confused, the angel asks, "Well, no offense, Lord, but what if they fail?" Jesus replies by saying, "I have confidence in them."
My friend, there is no Plan B. God has no backup plan. You and I are it! We are Plan A! The problem is, too many Christians today do not have God's priority as their priority.
Over the next few devotionals, I am going to share with you what I call the five "P"s of evangelism. I pray they will encourage you to actively share the Good News of our risen Savior!
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Read: Nehemiah 13:15-31
Remember me with favor, my God. - Nehemiah 13:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
Chapter 2 of the Gospel of John describes Jesus' passionate purification of the temple: "To those who sold doves he said, 'Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a market!' His disciples remembered that it is written: 'Zeal for your house will consume me'" (vv. 16-17). The passage the disciples recalled comes from Psalm 69:9, and the end of that psalm concludes: "For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there" (vv. 35-36).
Throughout the book of Nehemiah we've seen his dedication to the Law of the Lord and his frequent prayers to God. In chapter 12, it seems evident that Nehemiah knew the psalms and modeled the celebration after their prescriptions for praise. In chapter 13, Nehemiah's heart for the temple and Sabbath of God are consistent with Psalm 69, and it is reasonable to think that he believed the prophetic words that God would rebuild the cities and resettle the people in Zion. Nehemiah's passion for the things of God foreshadows the passion of Jesus Himself.
In today's reading, Nehemiah discovered that the commitment to keep the Sabbath, made in 10:31, was now ignored (vv. 15-18). Both Jews and foreigners were trading on the Sabbath instead of consecrating the day to the worship of God. Nehemiah didn't merely bemoan this state of affairs-he took zealous action to ensure that the Sabbath observance would be in keeping with the commands of a holy God. He shut the gates, posted a guard, and warned the merchants that they would be removed by force (vv. 19-22).
The plague of intermarriage had again afflicted the people, even including a marriage between a priest and the daughter of Sanballat. As Nehemiah noted, if even the wise king Solomon couldn't maintain his loyalty to God when surrounded by his foreign wives, how did these men expect to be obedient to the Lord (vv. 23-31). Again, Nehemiah demonstrated that spiritual leadership requires a commitment to doing God's work in God's way.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
March 31, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Helpful or Heartless Toward Others?
It is Christ . . . who also makes intercession for us. . . . the Spirit . . . makes intercession for the saints . . . -Romans 8:34, 27
Do we need any more arguments than these to become intercessors-that Christ "always lives to make intercession" (Hebrews 7:25), and that the Holy Spirit "makes intercession for the saints"? Are we living in such a relationship with others that we do the work of intercession as a result of being the children of God who are taught by His Spirit? We should take a look at our current circumstances. Do crises which affect us or others in our home, business, country, or elsewhere, seem to be crushing in on us? Are we being pushed out of the presence of God and left with no time for worship? If so, we must put a stop to such distractions and get into such a living relationship with God that our relationship with others is maintained through the work of intercession, where God works His miracles.
Beware of getting ahead of God by your very desire to do His will. We run ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don't worship God, and we fail to intercede. If a burden and its resulting pressure come upon us while we are not in an attitude of worship, it will only produce a hardness toward God and despair in our own souls. God continually introduces us to people in whom we have no interest, and unless we are worshiping God the natural tendency is to be heartless toward them. We give them a quick verse of Scripture, like jabbing them with a spear, or leave them with a hurried, uncaring word of counsel before we go. A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord.
Are our lives in the proper place so that we may participate in the intercession of our Lord and the Holy Spirit?
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Power
In Acts 9:32-35, we are given the fifth and final "P" of evangelism, and that is power,
Now it came to pass, as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed." Then he arose immediately. So all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
Two entire cities turned to Christ because of one display of God's power! One man who had been paralyzed was healed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and two cities came to God.
We have the same gospel. It is the same Holy Spirit; we serve the same blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have to pray that God will, if necessary, do the miraculous to save people.
Paul, writing in the book of Romans, says he fully preached the gospel with miracles, signs, and wonders. People will respond today just like they did then. But we need to be bold, step out, and pray for things to happen.
When I was living in Oregon, there was an Indian girl who was very sick and actually at the point of death. The doctors told her she was going to die. She came to a small meeting one night and the evangelist prayed for her. She was healed and then gave her life to Christ. As a result, her dad, a famous rodeo rider, got saved, and her mom was saved also. Then a large group of people from her tribe came to Christ as well.
Evangelism through power. We need to trust God for the supernatural.
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Read: Nehemiah 4
All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him." - Psalm 22:7-8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Marion Donovan was born into a family of inventors in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She received numerous patents for her own inventions, including the Zippity-Doo, designed to help women zip up the backs of their skirts or dresses. But one product earned nearly universal scorn when she first introduced it: the disposable diaper. Critics laughed. Manufacturers didn't want to produce what they thought would be a huge waste of money. Donovan persevered, and in 2009 sales of disposable diapers in the United States approached nearly $2 billion.
Not every project or product is welcomed with open arms at first. The ridicule found in our passage today, however, was motivated by anger at the success of God's people (v. 1). This was not doubt about whether the project would succeed-this was an attempt to intentionally derail the construction of Jerusalem by undermining the confidence of the Jews.
Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite have appeared in our reading before (see Neh. 2:10, 19). They were leaders of people who had settled in the land that had been Israel and Judah, and so the return of the Jews from exile posed a threat to their own power and control over the territory. Their opposition to Nehemiah, introduced in chapter 2, runs throughout the book and escalates in this text from ridicule to plans for assault.
In response to the taunts, Nehemiah followed the example of the psalms and prayed to the Lord for justice (vv. 4-5; see Psalm 75). When Sanballat and Tobiah threatened to attack, Nehemiah and the builders prayed to God and posted a guard (vv. 6-9). And after the report came that their enemies planned to exploit any weakness by killing the workers, Nehemiah assessed his resources. True, he armed the builders and stationed people strategically around the wall. But more importantly, he reminded the people of their ultimate resource: "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome. . . . Our God will fight for us!" (vv. 14, 20). With a plan for action and the promise of the Lord's help, the construction continued.
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APPLY THE WORD
When we encounter opposition, we need spiritual wisdom to discern if it is warranted criticism or ungodly taunting. Does it seek to undermine our commitment to God's instruction? Does it attack the character of God and His promises? Our response should be like Nehemiah's: seeking the Lord and focusing on His character. If you are struggling with opposition to your spiritual growth, write verse 14 on a card to remind you to "remember the Lord, who is great and awesome."
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 04, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Permanent Faith
Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you will be scattered . . . -John 16:32
Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the perfect relationship with God, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our faith must be exercised in the realities of everyday life. We will be scattered, not into service but into the emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know what internal death to God's blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is certainly not of our own choosing, but God engineers our circumstances to take us there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings. But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is what is meant by faith being exercised in the realities of life.
". . . you . . . will leave Me alone." Have we been scattered and have we left Jesus alone by not seeing His providential care for us? Do we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord, we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God's blessings is fundamental
". . . be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need.
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Faithful to Another
Jesus, in Luke 16:12, makes a very interesting statement...one that provides a perspective on faithfulness you would not expect,
"And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?"
Jesus makes it clear. You have to be faithful in something that is someone else's before He will fulfill your dream or open doors for you.
God gives each of us opportunities to help others. And He looks for us to faithfully help others before He blesses us. For example, Joseph had to help Pharaoh with his dream, before God allowed Joseph's dream to come to pass.
Maybe you have a dream to be super rich for the purpose of spreading the gospel. You would like to see the gospel go around the world. Or you would like to pay off the debt on your church's building. Or you would like to fund a certain missions organization.
I think the Kingdom could use a multitude of very wealthy people who have a heart for the lost and a desire to see God's work succeed and expand.
But first you need to be faithful working for that person who has hired you. You have to be faithful in that which is another man's. God is not going to open a door for you to fulfill the dream you have if you do not show up for work on time, or if you do not put in a full day's work. Why would God open the door for you to lead your own successful business if you have not been faithful working for someone else?
You must serve that other person with all of your heart, or that other company you are working for first, before God will prosper you. It is a Kingdom principle.
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Read: Luke 2:21-52
Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. - Luke 2:52
TODAY IN THE WORD
The St. Chad Gospels are a rare treasure. A beautifully illustrated, eighth-century Latin manuscript containing the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and part of Luke, it has endured for more than a thousand years. It is preserved at a cathedral in Litchfield, England, and is in delicate condition. Scholars from the University of Kentucky have recently been able, however, to use digital imaging techniques to make this manuscript available without further wear and tear. Computer technology allows those who wish to study the text and illustrations without having to travel to England or handle the physical manuscript.
The St. Chad Gospels manuscript tells the same story as the printed English Bible you hold in your hands today. In Luke's Gospel, the story is that the direction and purpose of Jesus' life were clear right from the beginning. This is seen in today's reading in two events that take place at the temple.
The first happened when Jesus was still a baby. Joseph and Mary came to offer ritual sacrifices for her post-birth purification and to dedicate their son to the Lord. While fulfilling these religious responsibilities, they encountered two faithful servants of God who had long been awaiting the Messiah. The Holy Spirit led first Simeon, then Anna, straight to the unremarkable-looking young couple and their baby. Simeon declared that God's saving love was found in this baby, not only for Jews but for all humanity-"a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel" (vv. 30-32).
The second occurrence at the temple took place years later, when the boy Jesus was twelve years old. His family had gone to Jerusalem for Passover, then headed home to Nazareth. Mary and Joseph thought that Jesus was among their travel group, and when they realized they had left Him behind they hurried back to the city. After several days of searching, they found Him in the temple, conversing as an equal with the rabbis. Though at the time no one understood, this episode revealed Jesus' awareness of His identity as well as His commitment to honor and obey His heavenly Father (v. 49).
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APPLY THE WORD
Anyone who's ever lost a child at a playground or the store has doubtless felt the same emotions as Mary and Joseph: sad, panicked, irritated, frantic, regretful, upset. I thought you were watching him! The humanity that permeates the Gospel narrative is here in all its richness. But Jesus was not only human, He was also divine. And so this very human story ends with a wonderful moment of divine strangeness: "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (v. 49).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 05, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . 'Stay here and watch with Me' -Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don't have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique- they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God- Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan's assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation- ". . . the devil . . . departed from Him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan's final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
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The Way Up May Be Down
It is not unusual for God's promotion to look like a demotion at first, to feel like you are going backward rather than forward.
There are a couple of great examples of this in the Bible. For instance, do you remember how Joseph in Genesis 37 dreamt he would one day rule over his brothers? That God was going to promote him to a place of prominence?
So what happened? His brothers threw him into a pit, he was sold to Midianite traders as a slave, and then he was put on the auction block and sold again in Egypt. On top of that, he ended up in prison on false charges and spent several years there, seemingly forgotten.
But without those experiences, Joseph would have never been ready to rule. Preparation comes before promotion. The way up may go down for awhile at first.
David is another example of how God will "demote" in order to promote. Do you remember in 1 Samuel 16:12-13 how David was anointed king while still just a shepherd?
Now he [David] was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!" Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
This is a pretty big promotion for a shepherd boy, don't you think? But for years, David lived a fugitive's life-moving from place to place, living in caves, being hunted. He was separated from everyone and all the things that he loved.
His promotion ended up looking more like a demotion, which is often the way God works. In the process of your promotion, He will take you through difficult times to prepare you for that promotion.
Just remember, the way up is often down.
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Read: Luke 3
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. - Luke 3:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
Both Matthew and Luke include genealogies of Jesus in their Gospels. According to New Testament professor Grant Osborne, Matthew organizes his genealogy into three groups of fourteen names each, thus emphasizing Jesus' kingly ancestry in the line of David. Luke's purpose, though, is a bit different. His genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, thus focusing on Jesus' universal humanity as well as affirming the claim that He is the unique Son of God. That's why Luke placed his genealogy between Jesus' baptism and temptation (see 3:22; 3:38; 4:3), instead of at the beginning of the narrative (as in Matthew).
Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist marked the beginning of His public ministry. John's own ministry of preparing the way had begun, like that of previous prophets, when the word of the Lord came to him (v. 2). His mission was to prepare the way for the Messiah, and he was well aware that in doing so he was fulfilling a prophecy of Isaiah (vv. 4-6). His message was one of repentance and forgiveness. This was not an easy message to bring, for it included strong condemnations of sin and warnings of God's wrath, from which the Jews' status as God's chosen people would not protect them. "Speaking truth to power" landed him in jail when he dared to condemn King Herod's immorality. But those who believed John were baptized, signifying faith and a public commitment to live out his words.
We might legitimately wonder why Jesus was baptized. He had no sins to confess and no need for repentance. But by allowing John to baptize Him, He identified Himself with John's ministry and message. Indeed, the themes of repentance and forgiveness would be at the heart of His own ministry and of the gospel.
In addition, this event revealed the person and ministry of Christ as recognized and approved by the other two members of the Trinity: "The Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased'" (v. 22).
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APPLY THE WORD
Repentance is much more than a prayer. Confession must be followed by turning away from sin toward righteousness: "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance" (v. 8). Scripture gives specific, concrete instructions to those who repent, such as to share with those in need and not to abuse positions of power. Jesus preached this: "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit" (6:43). Seek to live in accordance with your confession and repentance today.
GOD BLESS !
:angel:
April 06, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Collision of God and Sin
. . . who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . . -1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God's judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross- He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus- He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating "God was manifested in the flesh. . ." from ". . . He made Him. . . to be sin for us. . ." (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
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Preparation for Promotion
It is easy for us to be impatient with God's timeline of blessing, or to wonder why God is not prospering us as we think we should be.
In 1 Samuel 22:1-2, we are given a snapshot of how God prepared David, a little shepherd boy, to be king,
David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him.
Just think how David must have felt. God tells Him, "David, you're going to be Israel's next king!" but Saul is chasing him across the countryside and the people who are following him are all the outcasts, the people with problems, the people who are unhappy, the people who don't have any money.
On top of that, the next few verses of this passage talk about how David had to move his family to a foreign country just to keep them safe. Some promotion!
But you know what? Through it all David was learning how to trust God and how to manage people. His character was being tested. He was being fitted by God to wear the garments of a king: the garment of mercy, fairness, and wisdom, the shoes of decisiveness, the belt of strength, covered with a robe of gentleness.
The fullness of his promotion came in due season, and so will yours. David was not ready to be king when he walked out of the field as a young shepherd boy, so do not be surprised if you also need to be prepared for your promotion!
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Read: Luke 4
Do not put the Lord your God to the test. - Luke 4:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
If the Gospel of Luke were a courtroom drama, today's reading marks a shift from testimony to hostile cross-examination. Yesterday, not only John the Baptist but also God the Father and God the Holy Spirit testified to the reality of the arrival of the Messiah and His identity as God the Son. The Father said, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" (3:22). Now Satan entered the scene like an opposing lawyer finally given permission to question the defendant. His clear intention was to disprove or call into doubt the person and mission of Christ.
He planned to do that by tempting Him to sin. If he could get the Son of God to sin, the mission of redemption would be over. The plan of salvation would be finished, wrecked before it had really begun.
The first temptation was straightforward, trying to provoke Jesus to use His divine power to meet a physical need (for food). The second was more subtle, taunting Jesus to establish His kingdom by a road other than suffering and death. The third was even more devilish, as Satan used biblical words to try to manipulate Jesus to perform a sign that would gain Him public recognition as the Messiah.
Full of the Holy Spirit and quoting Scripture, Jesus successfully resisted these temptations. To the first, He responded that His power was not for selfish use. To the second, He rejected an alternative road as one that would involve disobeying His Father and the blasphemous act of worshiping Satan. To the third, He saw through the tempter's twisting of Scripture to justify wrongdoing and dismissed both Satan and his specious reasoning.
Then Jesus walked out of the desert and began His public ministry. His first public words quoted Isaiah to identify Himself as the Messiah (vv. 15-21). He taught. He cast out demons. He worked miracles of healing. He encountered some faith, but more often surprise, anger, and rejection. These narrative events in Luke 4-temptation, miracles, and rejection-form a preview or microcosm of the entire life and ministry of Christ.
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APPLY THE WORD
Jesus experienced temptations throughout His life (v. 13). How can we resist them as He did (Heb. 4:14-16)? One key is to know and use the Word of God-Jesus quoted Scripture in response to all three temptations. Another key is to be full of the Holy Spirit and controlled by Him. With the Spirit at the wheel, one cannot steer wrong. Finally, because He saw Satan's shortcuts as dead ends, Jesus was unwilling to consider anything less than full obedience to His Father.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 07, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Why We Lack Understanding
He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead -Mark 9:9
As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you- until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth. When you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the words Jesus spoke become so clear that you are amazed you did not grasp them before. In fact, you were not able to understand them before because you had not yet developed the proper spiritual condition to deal with them.
Our Lord doesn't hide these things from us, but we are not prepared to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual life. Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now" (John 16:12). We must have a oneness with His risen life before we are prepared to bear any particular truth from Him. Do we really know anything about the indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His Word is becoming understandable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we don't have His Spirit. And our own unyielding and headstrong opinions will effectively prevent God from revealing anything to us. But our insensible thinking will end immediately once His resurrection life has its way with us.
". . . tell no one . . . ." But so many people do tell what they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration- their mountaintop experience. They have seen a vision and they testify to it, but there is no connection between what they say and how they live. Their lives don't add up because the Son of Man has not yet risen in them. How long will it be before His resurrection life is formed and evident in you and in me?
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At Just the Right Time
It is easy for us to get anxious when it seems like God is moving more slowly than we would like. But Scripture is clear, God's purposes have their appointed times. They are fulfilled in their season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
And there is 1 Peter 5:6-7, which says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Humility and God's exalting of you are two things that are tied together. Perhaps you are feeling pretty frazzled, wondering, "God, when's it going to happen?" Just continue to cast your cares on Him. He will promote you in due time. Do not worry about it.
In fact, the phrase that says, that He may exalt you in due time, literally means "at the set time" or "at the time prearranged by God."
When your character has been shaped and molded enough, and when other events are ready and in their proper place, then God will promote and exalt you.
Think about Moses who had it in his heart to be a deliverer and a judge, but when he first acted on it he failed miserably. He was 40 years early! (See Acts 7:23-34). The Israelites were not ready to be delivered yet. God had to work at the other end of the line.
Remember, God may have put some things in your heart, but the timing may not be quite right. There may be some work He needs to do in your life, or there may be some other factors God is working on. Until those things come together, God will not push you into that position.
So, focus on being faithful and let God worry about just the right time.
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Read: Luke 5:1-32
Follow me. - Luke 5:27
TODAY IN THE WORD
Dr. Amit Goffer of Israel has created a robotic suit that can help paralyzed individuals to walk. Created after Dr. Goffer himself was disabled in an accident, the ReWalk suit is a kind of exoskeleton with leg supports, motion sensors, and a computerized control box. According to one news report: "With the assistance of crutches, which offer balance and support, people paralyzed from the waist down can walk, bend, sit and even climb stairs when they wear the suit." Benefits are said to include better physical health and a stronger sense of personal dignity.
Jesus needed no modern technology to help the paralyzed man in today's reading walk. He had the power to heal at a word. What's more, He had the power to forgive sins. When the paralytic's friends lowered him through the roof, in fact, this was the issue Jesus dealt with first (v. 20). As the Pharisees recognized, Jesus was claiming to be God-because only God can forgive sin. When Jesus backed up His claim with divine healing power, what could they say? They could have praised God, as did others who were present (v. 26), but instead they took offense and continued to oppose Him. They saw not with eyes of faith, but with small minds and petty hearts (v. 30).
We see a variety of examples of Jesus' power in Luke 5. He healed a leper as well as the paralytic. He demonstrated power over nature by filling nets with fish. His teaching was powerful, as people crowded around to hear the word of God (v. 1) and the call to repentance (v. 32). He clearly believed in the power of prayer, for He cultivated it as a personal discipline that sustained His inner spiritual life (v. 16). He also showed spiritual power in calling individuals to follow Him, and it is notable that He chose not from among the ranks of religious leaders but instead called fishermen (vv. 10-11) and a tax collector (vv. 27-28). Unlike the Pharisees, these new disciples responded to the person of Christ in wholehearted faith-they "left everything and followed him."
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APPLY THE WORD
Where do you stand in relation to Jesus. Are you a Levi, a forgiven sinner eager to introduce others to Him? Are you a face in the crowd, attracted by His teachings or miracles but still undecided? Are you a skeptic, offended by the idea that Jesus is the only way to God? Are you a fisherman, unsure of what this extraordinary Jesus person is going to say or do next, or why, but still ready to follow Him anywhere? Wherever you are, Jesus stands ready to welcome you as His follower.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 08, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Resurrection Destiny
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? -Luke 24:26
Our Lord's Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ's resurrection destiny- His foreordained purpose- was to bring "many sons to glory" (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life- a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can "walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). Paul's determined purpose was to "know Him and the power of His resurrection" (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, ". . . as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him" (John 17:2 . The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
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Attractive... or Unattractive?
Titus 2:9-10 says this,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
Let's focus on that phrase at the end, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. We adorn the gospel. We dress it up in clothes, as it were.
The New International Version says this, And not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. We make the gospel attractive or unattractive.
I was returning from Europe one time when, just before they closed the door of the plane, a woman rushed in and sat next to me. She was wearing a baggy wool cap pulled down low, a pair of glasses sticking out from underneath the cap, a big baggy woolen sweater, and a bright orange sweat suit.
When we took off, I closed my eyes and took a little snooze. When I opened my eyes and looked at her, I was startled because there was this beautiful woman sitting next to me. I was really shocked.
She turned out to be an actress who, I guess, was traveling incognito. There was this amazing lady hidden under all this frumpy stuff. Sometimes we take this amazing gospel that we have, and we adorn it in such a way that it is unattractive.
We must be careful to make the gospel attractive. But in order to do that, I believe it is important to see how we make the gospel unattractive first.
Our next few devotionals will deal with that subject.
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Read: Luke 5:33-6:16
Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? - Luke 5:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
"I used to believe in God," wrote actor and comedian Ricky Gervais. "I loved Jesus. He was my he-ro." But then one day his "cheeky" brother came in and asked their mother, "Why do you believe in God?" She panicked and could give no answer. Startled, young Ricky felt she must be hiding something, and very soon he concluded that Jesus was as big a fake as Santa Claus. "Within an hour, I was an atheist." Now he tries to do the right thing and be a good person, but he thinks that God, heaven, and hell are security blankets for people who can't handle the truth.
Rejection of Jesus and God's truth is nothing new. Though it was present from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, opposition becomes a major theme from this point forward in Luke.
Several conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees take center stage in today's reading. The first involved a challenge to His disciples' spirituality (5:33-39). The setting was Levi's evangelistic dinner. Jesus answered their question about why He shared a meal and fellowship with sinners with a rebuke that implied they didn't understand His ministry (5:30-32). Their pride stung, they attempted to regain face by asking Jesus why His disciples didn't fast. Fasting is a spiritual discipline indicating devotion or self-denial, so the question was obviously an insult. Who does this rabbi think He is? they might have been thinking. Choosing such ridiculous disciples! Jesus' answer was a wise surprise. Days of fasting would come, but the arrival of the Messiah meant the present time was one of joy and celebration (5:34-35).
Two additional conflicts involved challenges to Jesus' righteousness (6:1-11). The Pharisees accused the disciples, then Jesus, of doing "work" on the Sabbath and thus breaking the fourth commandment. To count rubbing heads of grain together or speaking words of healing as "work" seems strange, but it broke their traditional regulations. Jesus responded with a biblical reference to David, identified Himself as "Lord of the Sabbath," and asked a rhetorical question-about whether doing good was "against the law"-that exposed their spiritual blindness.
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APPLY THE WORD
If many of us are honest, the attitude of the Pharisees might feel familiar. It's often easy to critique someone's choice of friends or seeming lack of piety. We become indignant when others don't follow our interpretation of what's appropriate. When we are tempted to react like the Pharisees, we should search the Scriptures and pray, inviting the Holy Spirit to search our own hearts. We want to follow Jesus in having the spiritual wisdom to know what is truly important and honoring to God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Complete and Effective Divinity
If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . -Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God- His complete and effective divinity- to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house- He invades all of it. And once I decide that my "old man" (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to "reckon" that I am actually "dead indeed to sin," because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness- the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.
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Remember
Titus 3:1-7 says,
Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Paul tells us to remember where we have come from. Notice he said to show humility to all men and speak evil of no one. Why? Because we also used to be foolish and deceived and disobedient.
I thank God I am a new creation in Christ, but I still blush when I think about some of the stuff I got involved in before I was saved! Disobedient? Been there. Serving various lusts and pleasures? Up to my eyeballs! Plus all the other things Paul mentions in this passage and a few more!
It is amazing how people in the church forget what they were like before the grace of God came into their life. When that happens they tend to get very haughty and judgmental towards those still lost in their sin. A harsh, judgmental church that lacks humility while verbally lashing out at sinners is one of the ugliest garments you can dress the beautiful gospel in.
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Read: Luke 8
The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables. - Luke 8:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Sweet potatoes might be an ancient solution to the modern problem of hunger. They have been grown as a food crop for more than 5,000 years. Ninety-five percent of the global sweet potato crop is currently grown in developing countries, where they rank fifth in importance as a food source. Adaptable and hardy, as well as rich in carbohydrates and vitamin A, sweet potatoes have often served as lifesavers in times of famine. The American Society for Horticultural Science recently published research that will help small-scale farmers in developing countries raise even more of this valuable crop.
Planting sweet potatoes can help fight world hunger, and planting the seed of the gospel can help fight world sin. The Parable of the Sower, the first of 29 parables recorded by Luke, is well placed in his Gospel.
The narrative to this point has revealed who Jesus was, why He came, and the central themes of His message. Jesus had already encountered the responses described in the parable (vv. 11-15). First is unbelief, as the devil "takes away the word from their hearts." Second, people accept it-if it's convenient. "They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away." The third response is stunted growth. "As they go on their way, they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature." And the fourth response to the seed of the gospel is obedient faith. They "hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop." These four are meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. That is, they do not cover all possible scenarios, but rather represent a spectrum of possible responses to Jesus.
The rest of the chapter gives us plenty of reasons to respond to Christ in faith. We can trust in the One who rules over nature and is able to calm storms and heal diseases. We can trust in the One who rules over the supernatural world and is able to cast out demons. We can trust in the One who reverses death itself and raises a dead girl to life. If we "hear God's word and put it into practice" (v. 21), this is the One who counts us as family!
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APPLY THE WORD
Time and relationships are key to discerning responses to the gospel. A seed is planted, and then we must wait to see what happens. For example, Nicodemus was a Pharisee, but he sought deeper spiritual truths and eventually accepted Jesus' explanation of spiritual rebirth. This should encourage us in our own witness. The Spirit might be working in the heart of that friend or neighbor who seems so resistant to the gospel. Keep praying for them!
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Complete and Effective Dominion
Death no longer has dominion over Him. . . . the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God . . . -Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:- not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life- ". . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to "let go." But any effort to "hang on" to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.
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What's Your Motive?
The Bible says in James 4:3,
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James says that you ask, but you do not receive, because you ask amiss. The word amiss here comes from the Greek root word that means to harm or to injure. His point is: God will not grant you anything that is going to harm or injure your spiritual life, whether in the short term or in the long term.
When you pray, God is looking out for your best interests.
But then he also said, You ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. The word pleasures has the idea of sensuality, which means, if I am asking for something just to stroke my fleshly ego, then I short-circuit the prayer by my wrong motivation.
For example, it is great to pray for a car. I live in Southern California where we need a car to get around. And I think God will give you a car that you like. After all, the Bible says He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Jesus said, "Ask, that your joy might be full." So I think God wants us to be happy, and He generally has no problems granting your request for a car you would like.
Yet some people go a step beyond that, and their real motivation is, "Man, I want that car because I would look good in that car! If I came to work in that car, I would really show up so-and-so. People would think I'm pretty fine if I had that car. If I had that car, the chicks would dig me."
Be careful when you pray to not slip over into a motivation that is not really pure. Because you will short-circuit your faith and you will not receive an answer-except "no".
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Read: Luke 9
Take nothing for the journey. - Luke 9:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
While it's easy to focus on Jesus' dramatic miracles and confrontations with the Pharisees, His most significant ministry-apart from our salvation-is found in His relational mentoring and teaching of His twelve closest disciples. A classic article in Discipleship Journal titled "If Jesus Led Your Small Group" suggests key principles based on how Jesus led His own "small group" of unlikely future church leaders. These principles include preparation or setting aside dedicated time, modeling what you say, room for questions, a safe atmosphere or forgiveness for failure, mutual friendship (rather than know-it-all authoritarianism), and flexibility.
We see these principles in today's reading. Luke 9 seems to focus more on these personal dimensions of Jesus' ministry. When He sent out the Twelve, it's as if He were saying, "Here, you take the wheel." This was a powerful and encouraging experience for them, so much so that Jesus afterward took them on a ministry debriefing retreat. When the crowds interrupted, He was disappointed that the disciples seemed to doubt He could do something as simple as provide lunch. His miracle told them once again that He was the Son of God. The leaders and crowds had varying opinions, but He wanted His disciples to have no doubts about His identity. With divine help (Matt. 16:17), Peter boldly declared that Jesus was "God's Messiah" (v. 20).
Discipleship is a journey filled with highs and lows. There are moments of exhilarating insight, as in Peter's confession. There are moments of beholding God's glory, as at the Transfiguration. There are also times of shame and suffering as we live counter to the world's priorities. Giving one's life for Christ's sake is part of what it means to be His disciple (vv. 23-26, 57-62). Following Him must be our absolutely top priority. Thankfully, it's about God's strength, not our own, for there will be times when we fail (as when the disciples couldn't cast out an evil spirit) or embarrass ourselves (as when they argued about who was the greatest). Once we've put our hand to the plow, though, there's no turning back!
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APPLY THE WORD
It is possible to understand some spiritual truths but remain clueless about others. Though Peter knew exactly who Jesus was, he didn't grasp what Jesus told him about the suffering and death He would soon undergo (vv. 22, 44-45). Though the disciples had experienced Jesus' power, they didn't grasp that this power was for love and service, not conquest or revenge (vv. 51-56). We must trust that God is the One who enlightens our spiritual understanding at just the right times.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What To Do When Your Burden Is Overwhelming
Cast your burden on the Lord . . . -Psalm 55:22
We must recognize the difference between burdens that are right for us to bear and burdens that are wrong. We should never bear the burdens of sin or doubt, but there are some burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off. God wants us to roll them back on Him- to literally "cast your burden," which He has given you, "on the Lord . . . ." If we set out to serve God and do His work but get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility we feel will be overwhelming and defeating. But if we will only roll back on God the burdens He has placed on us, He will take away that immense feeling of responsibility, replacing it with an awareness and understanding of Himself and His presence.
Many servants set out to serve God with great courage and with the right motives. But with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, they are soon defeated. They do not know what to do with their burden, and it produces weariness in their lives. Others will see this and say, "What a sad end to something that had such a great beginning!"
"Cast your burden on the Lord . . . ." You have been bearing it all, but you need to deliberately place one end on God's shoulder. ". . . the government will be upon His shoulder" (Isaiah 9:6). Commit to God whatever burden He has placed on you. Don't just cast it aside, but put it over onto Him and place yourself there with it. You will see that your burden is then lightened by the sense of companionship. But you should never try to separate yourself from your burden.
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Overcoming Barrenness
I Samuel 1:10-11 says,
And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head."
These words are written about Hannah, who was barren. But God answered her prayer by giving her a son, and he became one of the most prominent figures in Biblical history-Samuel.
Perhaps there is a "barrenness" in some area of your life, and like Hannah, who was tormented by her adversary-so it is with you. Prayer can change things. It did in Hannah's life, and it can in yours. But there are several things about Hannah's prayer that we need to consider:
1. Hannah's prayer was not casual. It was heartfelt and deep. Too much of our praying is "skin deep." Only prayers that originate from deep within us get God's attention. James 5:16 declares that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
2. Hannah's prayer was specific. She asked for a male child. Too much of our praying is too general. Don't be afraid to be specific in your requests.
3. Hannah wanted the answer to her prayer to glorify God. Her boy would be dedicated to God's service. When our prayers take on the purpose of glorifying God, we have moved into a higher realm.
If you are experiencing a barrenness in any arena of life, pray. And let your prayers be heartfelt, specific, and for the glory of God.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Read: Luke 10
You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. - Luke 10:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
A hit-and-run driver struck a 78-year-old man on a busy city street in Hartford, Connecticut. Car after car drove by the injured man, and bystanders gawked. Several people did call 911, but a surveillance camera captured most people's unwillingness to get involved or help. The same month, again captured by video, a woman who had been waiting for a bed for 24 hours in a Brooklyn hospital collapsed on the floor, writhing in pain. Staff and patients in the waiting room noticed her convulsions but made no move to help. When someone did check on her over an hour later, it was too late-the woman was dead.
Whether in ancient or modern times, it seems that the sacrificial love of the Good Samaritan remains the exception rather than the rule. Jesus shared this parable about truly loving one's neighbor in response to a test question from a religious leader about the greatest commandment (vv. 25-37).
The story teaches many things about love. Love is not predictable-those who might be expected to obey the commandment (two religious leaders) did not do so. Love crosses boundaries of ethnic and cultural prejudice, as the Samaritan helped the Jew. Love goes the extra mile and makes a personal investment, seen in the ways the Samaritan cared with his own resources for the robbery victim. Love loves when no one is watching, on a lonely road, not for human praise.
Jesus' story illuminated the true nature of love, exhorted His hearers to love in this manner, and revealed the deep love and mercy of God. The "neighbor," after all, turned out to be the one who showed mercy to the helpless man in need, just as God has done for us (vv. 36-37).
God's merciful love enables another kind of love, that of friendship between human beings and God (John 15:15). Mary was one of Jesus' closest friends, and at the end of the chapter she showed her devotion by choosing "what is better," that is, to sit quietly and listen to her friend and Savior (v. 42).
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APPLY THE WORD
As when Jesus sent out the Twelve, His sending out of the 72 in today's reading was a training exercise in leadership and ministry. But even more, it was an act of love for the people of Israel. The preaching and miracles done by this larger group of disciples gave many more people a chance to learn about Jesus than would otherwise have been possible. As He so often does, God was giving people maximum opportunity to turn to Him (see 1 Tim. 2:3-4).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Inner Invincibility
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me . . . -Matthew 11:29
Whom the Lord loves He chastens . . ." (Hebrews 12:6). How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us to the point where we can have fellowship with Him, only to hear us moan and groan, saying, "Oh Lord, just let me be like other people!" Jesus is asking us to get beside Him and take one end of the yoke, so that we can pull together. That's why Jesus says to us, "My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). Are you closely identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you will thank God when you feel the pressure of His hand upon you.
". . . to those who have no might He increases strength" (Isaiah 40:29). God comes and takes us out of our emotionalism, and then our complaining turns into a hymn of praise. The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and to learn from Him.
". . . the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). Where do the saints get their joy? If we did not know some Christians well, we might think from just observing them that they have no burdens at all to bear. But we must lift the veil from our eyes. The fact that the peace, light, and joy of God is in them is proof that a burden is there as well. The burden that God places on us squeezes the grapes in our lives and produces the wine, but most of us see only the wine and not the burden. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God living within the human spirit; it creates an inner invincibility.
If your life is producing only a whine, instead of the wine, then ruthlessly kick it out. It is definitely a crime for a Christian to be weak in God's strength.
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Power in Numbers
I believe the Bible teaches us that when we join together the impact is multiplied far beyond just the addition of those who join together. One plus one equals far more than two. Let me show you what I mean.
In Deuteronomy 32:30, it says,
How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had surrendered them?
While this verse deals with Israel's disobedience to God and subsequent retreat from their enemies, think of what might be possible when God's people obey Him! It says that one could chase a thousand, but two could put ten thousand to flight.
While one person can impact a thousand, two people can impact ten thousand. That is a ten-fold multiplied effect!
Leviticus 26:7-8, when God was giving promises to His people if they would walk in His ways, states this,
You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Notice God says five will chase a hundred, and a hundred will chase ten thousand. By increasing the number of people times 20, their effectiveness would increase times 100. Again, that is a multiplied effect.
You have probably heard of the Clydesdale horses, those big, strong workhorses that can pull a lot of weight. One horse by itself can pull two tons, but if you yoke two together they can pull 23 tons! That is incredible!
And that is how it works when we pray together with one another. When we join our forces in prayer and connect with heaven, that is what happens. There is a multiplied effect.
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Read: Luke 11
How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! - Luke 11:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his book, Read, Think, Pray, Live, youth pastor Tony Jones suggested that an old approach to prayer might be just the thing for modern young people. The approach is called lectio divina, and it involves four steps: reading a Scripture passage both aloud and silently, meditating on the passage, praying aloud about issues that God puts on one's heart during the previous step, and finally, contemplating God and resting in Him. The idea is that youth today are exceptionally busy and, thanks to technology, constantly multitasking. For this reason, they have a hard time "being still" before the Lord (Ps. 46:10). "Lectio divina" is one way for them to slow down and find silence in which they can hear God's voice.
Jesus taught His disciples another kind of model prayer in today's reading (vv. 1-4; cf. Matt. 6:5-13). It begins with "Father"-how gracious of Almighty God to encourage us to address Him with such an intimate term! This is not to take Him for granted, however-"hallowed be your name, your kingdom come" recognizes His holiness and sovereignty and prays for the whole world to do the same.
The first personal petition, "Give us each day our daily bread," is a request for basic physical needs to be met. The second, "Forgive us our sins," covers our most basic spiritual need and is followed by reminders that we, too, should forgive others and need God's help to resist sin's temptation. Jesus' expanded teaching on prayer emphasized persistence (vv. 5-8), boldness (vv. 9-10), and faith (vv. 11-13). We should pray tenaciously, believing that God can and will answer.
As seen in the rest of the chapter, prayer is important because it prepares the soul for spiritual experiences and conflicts beyond human strength. This included not only demonic opposition but also human opposition, as Jesus' enemies made the illogical argument that He was casting out evil spirits using Satan's power, demanded a sign in addition to all the miracles already performed, and focused on legalistic trivia like hand-washing and spice-tithing rather than justice and love (v. 42).
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APPLY THE WORD
Young people are not the only busy Americans who use technology to multitask. Who among us is beyond the reach of our cell phone? How often does the background noise of a car radio or MP3 player fill our ears while we're doing something else? Is "being still" before the Lord a lost art in our daily spiritual walk? Using the "lectio divina" approach, or simply using the model of the Lord's Prayer, might slow things down enough for us to be able to savor prayer and listen to God.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Failure To Pay Close Attention
The high places were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was loyal all his days -2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa was not completely obedient in the outward, visible areas of his life. He was obedient in what he considered the most important areas, but he was not entirely right. Beware of ever thinking, "Oh, that thing in my life doesn't matter much." The fact that it doesn't matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God. Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God. How much longer are we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing? But He keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience. You say, "I know I am right with God"- yet the "high places" still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience. Do you protest that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life He causes you to doubt? Whenever God causes a doubt about something, stop it immediately, no matter what it may be. Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.
Are there some things regarding your physical or intellectual life to which you have been paying no attention at all? If so, you may think you are all correct in the important areas, but you are careless- you are failing to concentrate or to focus properly. You no more need a day off from spiritual concentration on matters in your life than your heart needs a day off from beating. As you cannot take a day off morally and remain moral, neither can you take a day off spiritually and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely His, and it requires paying close attention to keep yourself fit. It also takes a tremendous amount of time. Yet some of us expect to rise above all of our problems, going from one mountaintop experience to another, with only a few minutes' effort.
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Unburdened
Philippians 4:6-7 promises,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
God is telling us not to freak out about anything. Anything! Can you think of anything that does not fit in "anything"? Instead of worrying-pray-about everything!
It is interesting that these verses do not promise God will answer your requests (though it is implied). Rather, what God does promise in these verses is this: If, when you are confronted with difficult things, you will pray rather than worry, God will give you peace. The stress will lift. The pressure will be broken.
In America, people spend millions of dollars visiting their therapists. They talk over all their problems with their therapists to try and relieve the stress and worries of life. I have a confession to make...I have a therapist. I talk to Him every single day. My therapist is my Father in heaven. I bring all my problems to Him. And I talk over everything with Him.
One of the keys in unburdening your heart when you pray is being completely honest. God knows what you are thinking, anyway. You may as well tell Him the truth about what is weighing you down.
It is no accident you are reading this today. Perhaps you are so filled with anxiety and stress that you are working on an ulcer right now. You don't sleep like you should. Your anxieties have robbed you of the quality of life God wants you to have.
God wants you free from your burdens. Take them to God today, and every day, and see how those burdens are lifted.
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Read: Luke 12
From the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. - Luke 12:48
TODAY IN THE WORD
Junior high school science teacher Doug Edmonds makes science "cool." Using music, Edmonds takes popular songs and rewrites the lyrics in order to explain scientific ideas such as density and chemical bonds. Then he creates videos of himself singing the new song, complete with visual aids such as flash cards and diagrams. These music videos are posted on the Internet, where his students (and anyone else) can learn from them. The songs help his students to remember and understand complex concepts. One said, "If I'm ever struggling on a quiz, I'll just sort of sing them to my-self."
As seen in His parables and elsewhere, Jesus was also a creative master teacher. Even when delivering spiritual warnings, He did so in powerful language and memorable images. There are seven things in today's reading that He warned us to be on guard against.
(1) Hypocrisy (vv. 1-3). He called this "the yeast of the Pharisees" and warned that one day their true character would be known. (2) Disrespecting God (vv. 4-12). He cares for us, but those who reject Him will themselves be rejected on judgment day. When we stand firm, by contrast, He helps us. (3) Greed (vv. 13-21). The rich fool in the parable disrespected God and put his trust in the wrong object. In the end, his material possessions couldn't save him. By comparison, we should seek God's kingdom as genuine treasure.
(4) Worry (vv. 22-34). Greed might in part be fueled by worry or anxiety, which shows a lack of faith in God to care and provide. A lack of generosity might also show that we're anxiously attached to our material resources. (5) Spiritual unreadiness (vv. 35-48). The servants in the parable weren't ready for their master's return. Committed servants of God need to be faithful and vigilant. (6) Spiritual unfaithfulness (vv. 49-53). Faith in Christ creates difficult social and personal choices, but proper priorities mean God must always come first. (7) Spiritual blindness (vv. 54-59). We need to be sensitive to the "signs of the times" and on the lookout for what God is doing.
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APPLY THE WORD
Financial worry might be high-after all, today is when personal income tax returns must be filed in the United States, though this year we actually have until Monday, April 18. Tax season is an excellent time to take to heart Jesus' warnings concerning greed and worry. Those with more should remember that "life does not consist in the abundance of possessions" (v. 15)-those with less, that we should "seek his kingdom, and [food and clothing] will be given to you as well" (v. 31).
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Readiness
God called to him . . . . And he said, 'Here I am' -Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses' reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, "Here I am." Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing- it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God's plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself, we hear God's voice as our Lord heard His Father's voice, and we are ready for it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us just as His Father did with Him. He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father. ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready- he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.
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The First Step Toward Freedom
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:2-6).
Jesus asked this man a seemingly ridiculous question, "Do you want to be made well?" It's obvious isn't it? He is at the ool, isn't he? The only reason people went there was to be healed. What kind of a question is that to be asking? Of course, he wanted to be healed.
But Jesus was not convinced. This man had been stuck in his condition for a long time. He was not only lying down on the outside, he was lying down on the inside.
Sometimes people get used to living in their problems. While they may outwardly be going through the motions to get free (generally because they know that is what is expected of them), inwardly they have given up.
The first step toward getting free from your problems and that which binds and restricts your life is wanting it-really wanting it.
You have to stand up on the inside before you can ever stand up on the outside.
Let me be very bold and ask you: Do you want to be made well? Do you really want things to change? Or have you grown accustomed to living under the devil's heel?
If you are tired of defeat, mediocrity and bondage, then stand up on the inside and say, "Enough is enough!"
It is the first step toward freedom.
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Read: Luke 15
There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. - Luke 15:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Preoccupied with plans for upcoming concerts and tours, classical violinist Gidon Kremer accidentally left his $3 million violin behind on a train. Once he realized the situation, he urgently called Amtrak officials to see what could be done. A baggage handler found the violin, undisturbed in its blue cloth case, and the valuable instrument was quickly returned to its owner. As a thank-you, Kremer invited the Amtrak employee who had located the violin to one of his concerts.
As eagerly as Kremer searched for his lost violin, God is even more passionate in searching for spiritually lost individuals. Up to this point in our month's study, we have divided Luke's Gospel into three main parts: Jesus' birth (Luke 1-2), the start of His public ministry (chap. 3-7), and His main teachings (chap. 8-14). Today we begin a fourth section on the theme of God's kingdom in Jesus' teaching (chap. 15-19:27), to be followed by a final section on Passion Week, that is, Jesus' death and resurrection (19:28-24:53).
The three parables in today's reading reveal the joy God takes in saving the lost. The Pharisees thought it was improper for a rabbi to fraternize with "tax collectors and sinners," but Jesus wanted everyone to know that this is what the kingdom of God is all about! His first story involved a lost sheep (vv. 3-7), the second a lost coin (vv. 8-10), and the third a lost son (vv. 11-32). The first two begin with an item that gets lost, and then a careful effort is made to find it, upon which great rejoicing follows. From a spiritual perspective, sin is lostness and redemption is "foundness," so finding the lost item represents a sinner who by the grace of God repents.
The third parable is similar but more complex. The lost item in this story is a person who makes a series of choices. These choices include extreme disrespect to his father, selfishness, pleasure-seeking, wastefulness, and pride. By contrast, the father's choices include grace, mercy, compassion, unconditional love, and finally a celebration of "life out of death" when his son returned.
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APPLY THE WORD
While the shepherd and the housewife in the parables searched diligently for their lost items, the third story doesn't mention the father searching at all. He let the son make his choices and walk his wayward road-what he did do was watch and pray. When the prodigal returned, he ran to meet him and threw a celebratory banquet. Sometimes our vigilant concern for the salvation of those we love means we must watch and pray, trusting that God is working in their hearts.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Beware of the Least Likely Temptation
Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom -1 Kings 2:28
Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11-13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.
We are apt to say, "It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world." Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials- now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.
". . . kept by the power of God . . ."- that is the only safety. (1 Peter 1:5).
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Stop Blaming and Rise Up
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me" (John 5:6-7).
This guy was basically saying, "It's not my fault. I'm in this condition because of what someone else won't do for me, and because of what someone else has done to me."
Think about it, "I have no man to put me in." Paraphrased that says, "I'm stuck because of what someone won't do for me." Or, "While I'm coming, another steps down before me," which paraphrased says, "I'm stuck because of what someone else has done to me." Either way, "It is not my fault."
After making up our minds that we want to be free, the next step is to stop shifting the blame to others.
A friend of mine migrated from Mexico to the U.S. many years ago. He didn't understand the culture or the language and seemed to be hopelessly locked into a dead end job.
His employer took advantage of him and it seemed like he had no way out. But instead of blaming others for his situation (which would have been easy for him to do), he decided to get unstuck and do something with his life.
It took several years, but today he has several businesses and is quite wealthy.
Do not get caught in the trap of blaming others. Instead, make the decision to rise up (something we will be talking about in our next devotional.)
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Read: Luke 16
God knows your hearts. - Luke 16:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Recent studies suggest that Americans' religious walk doesn't match their religious talk. Seventy percent say they have no doubt God exists, and 40 percent claim to attend religious services regularly. Empirical evidence contradicts the latter claim, however. One study asked people to narrate their Sunday schedules, another estimated religious service attendance nationwide and compared that to poll responses, and another examined nearly 500 different time-use studies. All concluded that actual church attendance is only about half of what people say. Although most Americans don't go to religious services, they apparently want others to believe they do.
God is not fooled by such posturing. He knows our hearts (v. 15)-in time our actions will prove what our hearts truly value. That's why the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God in today's reading (v. 16) is accompanied by so many practical, moral commands. Jesus taught things that weren't popular then and aren't popular now, but they're true nonetheless. One cannot serve both God and money (v. 13). Divorce is related to adultery (v. 18). Riches can be a barrier to faith. Submission and stewardship are important spiritual disciplines. God is no respecter of persons.
The two main parables in this chapter deal with money. The parable of the shrewd manager teaches that money is a means, not an end. To give up money-not his money, but money nonetheless-to get friends showed a kind of cleverness that treated money as a means to a better end. If an unethical person can show the way in this area, how much more will spiritual wisdom lead us to treat money as a means to eternal ends. Earthly stewardship is a warm-up for heaven.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus teaches us, among other things, that riches can be a barrier to faith when they compete for loyalty and priority in our lives. The rich man's comfortable state on earth had led him to neglect faith and godliness, and as a result he ended up in hell. Too late he realized that he had lived for the wrong things!
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APPLY THE WORD
The phrase "everyone is forcing his way into it" (v. 16) is a difficult phrase to translate. The idea of "force" can have positive or negative connotations. It seems to point toward the passion, positive or negative, of people's responses to the ministry of Jesus. To paraphrase this verse, "God's Word promised the kingdom all along. Since John the Baptist its arrival has been proclaimed and people have been violently embracing or rejecting it." Which one describes you?
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 20, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Can You Come Down From the Mountain?
While you have the light, believe in the light . . . -John 12:36
We all have moments when we feel better than ever before, and we say, "I feel fit for anything; if only I could always be like this!" We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to even when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for the everyday world when we are not on the mountaintop. Yet we must bring our everyday life up to the standard revealed to us on the mountaintop when we were there.
Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate. Don't place yourself on the shelf by thinking, "How great to be in such a wonderful state of mind!" Act immediately- do something, even if your only reason to act is that you would rather not. If, during a prayer meeting, God shows you something to do, don't say, "I'll do it"- just do it! Pick yourself up by the back of the neck and shake off your fleshly laziness. Laziness can always be seen in our cravings for a mountaintop experience; all we talk about is our planning for our time on the mountain. We must learn to live in the ordinary "gray" day according to what we saw on the mountain.
Don't give up because you have been blocked and confused once- go after it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by an act of your own will. Never change your decisions, but be sure to make your decisions in the light of what you saw and learned on the mountain.
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Obey and Get Unstuck
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk" (John 5:8).
These words were spoken to a man who had been sick for 38 years! His bed had been carrying him, and now Jesus was telling him to carry his bed!
We have discussed several keys to getting unstuck from your problems in our last devotions. First, we must genuinely want to be free, and second, we must stop shifting the blame for our problems to others.
The final key I want to share with you is found in the above verse. It is to obey what the Lord tells you. Whether it makes sense or not-obey!
To a man who had been carried by his bed for 38 years, rising up and carrying his bed must have seemed crazy! But the moment he began to obey, new life and strength began to flow into his previously paralyzed limbs.
Listen for the Lord's instructions in your heart. Search for them in His Word. There is no faith without action. There will be something that God will require you to do in order to release or express your faith.
It may make sense to you-or it may not. But to quote Mary, the mother of Jesus, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
After pastoring the same church for several decades, I have observed that many people remain stuck in their problems. Not because the Lord hasn't spoken to them, but because He has and they haven't obeyed.
If there is any unfilled obedience in your life, get busy and do what the Lord has told you to do. It is the only way to get unstuck.
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Read: Luke 17
It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. - Luke 17:30
TODAY IN THE WORD
Faith, according to Hebrews, "is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (11:1). But how do we live this out? Thankfully, many concrete examples are found in Scripture, especially in Hebrews 11, also known as the "Hall of Faith." Abel, for instance, offered his sacrifice in humble faith and God accepted it. Noah trusted the Lord and "built an ark to save his family." Abraham obeyed God and journeyed to a foreign land. Joseph anticipated the Exodus. Moses' parents protected him from the murderous intentions of their Egyptian enslavers.
Today's reading reveals five essential principles and practices of faith. First, faith means resisting and forgiving sin (vv. 1-5). Sin may be inevitable, but this doesn't remove human responsibility. Woe to one who causes a child to sin or refuses to forgive a repentant brother! In their response, "Increase our faith!" the disciples correctly perceived the difficulty of obeying these commands.
Second, faith means serving without looking for praise or reward (vv. 6-10). Service as a spiritual "duty" is not an inspiring or motivating message in today's world, but the fact is that God owes us nothing. Our work for His glory is proper and fitting and our duty and privilege to perform.
Third, faith means gratitude for God's incredible work in our lives (vv. 11-19). This is seen in the incident with the ten lepers, only one of whom (and a Samaritan at that!) came back to say "thank you" for his miraculous healing from a dreadful disease. Once again, Luke stresses overturned expectations.
Fourth, faith understands that the "kingdom of God" is a spiritual reality (vv. 20-21). The Pharisees and others were looking for a savior from the Roman occupation and a new Davidic golden age, but Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is in your midst" (v. 20). Fifth and finally, faith understands that the "kingdom of God" is both present and future (vv. 22-37). It is present in Jesus and in people's responses to Him, but it is also future in Jesus and His Second Coming.
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APPLY THE WORD
The return of Christ is imminent. By this, we don't mean that it will necessarily happen soon-after all, Scripture says, "About that day or hour no one knows" (Matt. 24:36). Rather, the imminent return of Christ means that it could happen at any time. Nothing else needs to happen first. It could be in the next minute, next week, next decade, or next century. Are we ready? No, if we're focused on temporal things and worldly concerns. Yes, if we're walking day by day with Christ in faith.
GOD BLESS!
:angel:
April 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Don't Hurt the Lord
Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? -John 14:9
Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us-astounded at how "un-simple" we are. It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time. Philip expected the future revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in Jesus, the Person he thought he already knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be-it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event. We have no reluctance to obey Jesus, but it is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask-"Lord, show us the Father . . ." (John 14:8). His response immediately comes back to us as He says, "Can't you see Him? He is always right here or He is nowhere to be found." We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself in His children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not. We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child.
"Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (14:1, 27). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? . If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.
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Confounding the Wise
In 1 Corinthians 1:20, 27-29, the apostle Paul provides a very powerful word,
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
We are often enamored with what the world considers wise and mighty, but God isn't. In fact, He chooses things that are foolish and weak, things the world considers insignificant, and things the world even despises, to put to shame the things that people consider wise.
I really like the King James Version when it states that God does these things to confound the wise.
We need to understand that sometimes God turns human conventional wisdom on its head. And I believe Scripture shows us three ways in which He does that.
First, there are times that God turns conventional wisdom on its head with the people He chooses for His purposes. Second, He will confound human wisdom with the plans He unfolds. Whether they are for your deliverance, or plans to further His kingdom and expand His work.
And then, third, God will truly confound the wise of this world with the pardon that He provides.
Through people, plans, and pardon, God does confound the wise!
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Read: Luke 18
What is impossible with man is possible with God. - Luke 18:27
TODAY IN THE WORD
Author and pastor John Piper called humility a "shy virtue." What did he mean? "Our humility, if there is any at all, is based on our finiteness, our fallibility, and our sinfulness. But the eternal Son of God was not finite. He was not fallible. And he was not sinful. So, unlike our humility, Jesus' humility originated some other way." To put it simply, He chose to be humble (Mark 10:45; Phil. 2:6-8). "What defines Jesus' humility is the fact that it is mainly a conscious act of putting himself in a lowly, servant role for the good of others. . . . [W]e are called to join Jesus in this conscious self-humbling and servanthood."
Humility is a key dimension of citizenship in God's kingdom, including humility in prayer (vv. 9-14). To some smug listeners, Jesus told a story built around a contrast. On one side stood a religious leader. His prayer was prideful. He boasted of his good works and compared himself favorably to others. On the other side a tax collector stood at a distance. His prayer was humble and repentant. He confessed his unworthiness and begged God for mercy. It was this man rather than the other who "went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (v. 14) The tax collector understood that we are to receive the kingdom "like a little child" (v. 17).
We should also pray with persistence and purity of heart. Jesus made the first point with a story about a widow and an unjust judge (vv. 1-8). If a widow could obtain justice under unfavorable circumstances through simple persistence, how much more can we expect the same from our just and loving God? The blind man who would not be shushed and shouted louder for healing certainly discovered this (vv. 35-43). The issue of purity of heart is shown in Jesus' encounter with the rich young man (vv. 18-30). Though apparently in search of the kingdom, the fact was that his heart was attached more to his wealth than to God's truth.
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APPLY THE WORD
Some of us would rather "achieve" the kingdom than "receive" the kingdom (v. 17). Even though we know in our heads that salvation is all about God's grace and not what we deserve, we still want to earn something. Perhaps we do good deeds in an attempt to "repay" God. Perhaps we take ideas like discipleship and sacrifice and turn them into spiritual achievements to take pride in. But in our own strength we can do nothing at all-there's no room for pride in God's kingdom!
God bless
:angel:
April 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Light That Never Fails
We all, with unveiled face, beholding . . . the glory of the Lord . . . -2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so very much alone that he never realizes he is alone. In the early stages of the Christian life, disappointments will come- people who used to be lights will flicker out, and those who used to stand with us will turn away. We have to get so used to it that we will not even realize we are standing alone. Paul said, ". . . no one stood with me, but all forsook me . . . . But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me . . ." (2 Timothy 4:16-17). We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails. When "important" individuals go away we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, so that only one thing is left for us to do- to look into the face of God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking with strong determination into the face of God regarding yourself and your doctrine. And every time you preach make sure you look God in the face about the message first, then the glory will remain through all of it. A Christian servant is one who perpetually looks into the face of God and then goes forth to talk to others. The ministry of Christ is characterized by an abiding glory of which the servant is totally unaware- ". . . Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him" (Exodus 34:29).
We are never called on to display our doubts openly or to express the hidden joys and delights of our life with God. The secret of the servant's life is that he stays in tune with God all the time.
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God's Choice of People
1 Corinthians 1:26 says,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
God does not call a lot of people who our world would consider wise, noble or mighty. He calls a few, but not many. The fact of the matter is, God will use anyone who will yield himself or herself to Him.
The idea Paul wants us to understand is that the vast majority of people God chooses are a surprise to everyone else. God's choices are generally not on our "A" list of people.
Think about the apostle Paul himself, who wrote these very words in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. And the next words out of his mouth are profound, But by the grace of God I am what I am.
Paul was a persecutor of Christians. In fact, he was so filled with hatred he even went to foreign cities to have believers arrested, families split apart, Christians jailed, beaten, and at times even executed. And yet, God chose Paul as His mouthpiece.
It was so astonishing to many in the church that they didn't want to receive Paul when he was first saved. They thought it was a trick. It took them a while to understand that God actually had saved him and was using him.
Paul would not have been one of their primary choices as a vessel for God. I love that about the Lord. He uses the unexpected and those we might pass over to carry out some of His most important work.
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Read: Luke 19:1-27
The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. - Luke 19:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
At the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization held last year in Cape Town, South Africa, an 18-year-old Korean high school student gave a stirring testimony. Born in Pyongyang, North Korea, she was the only child of a wealthy and well-connected family. When they were politically persecuted, they fled to China. There they met Chinese Christians and Korean and American missionaries who introduced her parents to faith in Christ. Her mother soon died of leukemia. Her father sought to take the gospel back to North Korea, but was imprisoned and is presumed martyred. She, too, received Christ and shares this passion to see His gospel flourish in the physically and spiritually impoverished land of her birth.
This is also the heart of her heavenly Father, and the very reason for the Incarnation: "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (v. 10). This verse is often described as the theme verse for Luke's entire Gospel.
It is epitomized in the story of Zacchaeus (vv. 1-10). As a chief tax collector in the Roman system, he almost certainly was corrupt and locally notorious for his sinfulness. Yet God had moved in his heart until he took the undignified step of climbing a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus.
Jesus knew he would be there and took the initiative to invite Himself to dinner. Though some would criticize this move, "to seek and to save the lost" was exactly why He had come. Zacchaeus responded with immediate faith, concretely demonstrating his repentance of sin by paying restitution and giving to the poor. These actions didn't save him, but they were proof of God's saving work in his heart.
Like Zacchaeus, we who are "found" seek to be faithful followers of Christ (vv. 11-27; cf. Matt. 25:14-30). Being faithful in our stewardship of resources is one such way. One servant in the parable failed to manage his talent well and stood condemned. The other two, however, obeyed faithfully and were ready on the day of the master's return (cf. 1 Cor. 4:5).
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APPLY THE WORD
Thanks to modern technology, you can see and hear the North Korean student's testimony. Video of it is available both at the Lausanne Congress Web site, http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11671, and on YouTube. (www.youtube.com). Her testimony of suffering and faith will stir your soul and encourage you in your daily walk. It is a vigorous witness to the power of the gospel and the love of God.
God bless
:angel:
April 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Ready in Season"
Be ready in season and out of season -2 Timothy 4:2
Many of us suffer from the unbalanced tendency to "be ready" only "out of season." The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. This verse says, "Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season." In other words, we should "be ready" whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. There are some people who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm. They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you tend to say, "Now that I've experienced this moment, I will always be like this for God." No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best for God, as during those exceptional times, you actually become an intolerable burden on Him. You will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously aware of His inspiration to you at all times. If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you.
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When God's Plan Doesn't Make Sense
In Joshua 6:1-5 we find one of the most bizarre battle plans, but one with an important lesson for you and me,
Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him."
When you and I read that today it is easy for us to think, "Oh, that must have been pretty normal and natural to Joshua." But it wasn't. It did not make any more sense to him than it would have to you and me.
Imagine God taking Joshua aside and telling him that all they need to do is march around the city one time for six days. Then on the seventh day march around seven times and shout. It made no sense. Naturally speaking, it was ridiculous!
All of us will face our Jerichos, and sometimes God's plans won't seem to make sense. Our part is to listen and obey-even when God's instructions don't make sense to our natural minds. He has had a lot more experience winning battles than we have!
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Read: Luke 21
Be always on the watch, and pray. - Luke 21:36
TODAY IN THE WORD
Did you know that "once in a blue moon" actually happens? A "blue moon" is the second full moon in a month, an event that occurs about once every two-and-a-half years. To ring in the year 2010, a "blue moon" occurred on New Year's Eve in North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. That hadn't happened since 1990, and the next New Year's Eve "blue moon" won't occur until the year 2028.
As rare as a "blue moon" is, the advents of Christ are even rarer. According to Scripture, just two are planned for all of recorded history! From our vantage point in time, we look back on His first coming and forward to His second. In the Olivet Discourse, our passage today, Jesus spoke of these matters (vv. 5-38; cf. Matthew 24).
One lesson for His disciples was not to trust in church building projects, so to speak. Jesus' shocking statement about the destruction of the temple was literally fulfilled in A.D. 70, when the Romans burned it to the ground. The crowds were focused on looking for a messiah to liberate them from Roman occupation, but Jesus wanted His disciples to understand the deeper nature of redemption and God's plan for the world.
A second lesson He wanted them to learn was not to trust in impostors. Many false messiahs and teachers would show up during the "end times," and believers would need to be discerning and rely on God's wisdom to know how to respond. A third lesson was that there would be "signs of the times," including both social (persecution and wars) and natural signs (earthquakes and famines).
The climax of history will be the Second Coming of Christ (v. 27). The first advent was about rejection and redemption, but the next will be about power and glory. How should we respond to all this? The point is not to try to decode the signs as if they were a puzzle, though we should be aware of passing events (vv. 29-31). Rather, we should remain steadfast when the going gets rough. God's love will preserve our eternal lives no matter what happens.
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APPLY THE WORD
What is the key to the end times? At a practical, everyday level, the answer can be found in the story that opens this chapter (vv. 1-4). The widow who put all her money into the temple offering trusted the Lord with all she had, without reservation. This is the sign of a heart that is not weighed down with the cares of this world (v. 34). We, too, will be ready for Christ's return and found faithful if we trust Him with all we have, all we are, and all we do.
God bless
:angel:
April 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Supreme Climb
Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you -Genesis 22:2
A person's character determines how he interprets God's will (see Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this traditional belief behind through the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditional beliefs that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs which must be removed-for example, that God removes a child because his mother loves him too much. That is the devil's lie and a travesty on the true nature of God! If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of our wrong traditional beliefs about God, he will do so. But if we will stay true to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will serve to bring us into a better knowledge of Himself.
The great lesson to be learned from Abraham's faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter what contrary belief of his might be violated by his obedience. Abraham was not devoted to his own convictions or else he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was actually the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself. But you must always be willing to come to the point of giving up your own convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did that you are willing to do anything, even "to go . . . both to prison and to death" (Luke 22:33). Abraham did not make any such statement- he simply remained true to God, and God purified his faith.
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Pursue Peace
In 1 Peter 3:10-11, Peter provides an important command in our relationships with other people,
For "He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it."
I want to focus your attention on the last part of verse 11, "Seek peace and pursue it." This means we are to pursue peace with people.
This command is reinforced by the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12:14,
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
I want you to take note of the first part of that verse, Pursue peace with.... How many people are we to pursue peace with? All people. Does that include your neighbor? How about your mom? How about your dad? How about your kids? Your boss? Your relatives? How about that individual who seems to have a gift for getting on your nerves? What about those who are rude and obnoxious?
We are told that we are to pursue peace with all people. That is not a suggestion. That is a command. And that command is clarified further in Romans 14:19, which says,
Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.
Things that edify (or build up) create peace. Things that tear down shatter peace. Keep that in mind next time you are having a heated discussion with your husband or wife. Ask yourself, "Are the things that I am sharing at this moment building up my partner? Or, are they tearing them down?"
Pursue peace with all people by choosing words and deeds that will build them up.
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Read: Luke 22:1-46
Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done. - Luke 22:42
TODAY IN THE WORD
In today's reading, Jesus' disciples were guilty of pandiculation. This seldom-used English word means, "Stretching the body and extremities when drowsy or tired, usually accompanied by yawning." It can also be a verb, "pandiculate," or an agent noun, "pandiculator." The Latin root is pandiculari, meaning "to stretch one's self." While His closest friends unhelpfully pandiculated, Jesus prayed fervently in the Garden of Gethsemane (vv. 39-46). Knowing what would happen, and why, didn't necessarily make things easier-He was in such agony that He sweat drops of blood. Nonetheless, the core of His prayer and of His entire life was, "Not my will, but [God's] be done" (v. 42).
Just prior, Jesus had shared the Last Supper with His disciples and spoken quite plainly about His impending death. Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, had gone to the Pharisees and agreed to betray the Lord when an opportunity presented itself. Satan entered him, not against his will but as a result of his choices, and spurred the plot forward.The thirty pieces of silver do not seem to be a sufficient motive for Judas' betrayal, but they are an indication of his low character. Jesus knew what was going on and revealed during dinner that one of them would betray Him (vv. 21-22) and that Peter would deny Him three times (v. 34), facts which no doubt added to His emotional burden.
As they shared the Passover meal, Jesus spoke to His disciples of His coming suffering, death, and resurrection, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 (v. 37), and the redeeming power of His blood, soon to be shed for them and for all of us. As this would be the last close fellowship He would be able to share with them before His death, these were the matters closest to His heart. As part of the meal and the teaching, He instituted a "new covenant" and what we today call communion or the Lord's Table (vv. 19-20). Though the "new covenant" meant that nothing would ever be the same, the disciples' unfortunate response was to renew an old debate over which of them was the greatest.
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APPLY THE WORD
Jesus taught about servant leadership (vv. 25-27). Those who view power and authority in worldly ways use it to seek their own advantage, to command respect, and to make themselves look good. But with God, power and authority are for different purposes, namely, to serve others. Jesus Himself showed the way-His divine power and authority culminated in Him presenting His life as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin (Heb. 9:26).
God bless
:angel:
April 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What Do You Want?
Do you seek great things for yourself? -Jeremiah 45:5
Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts- He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental; it comes and it goes. But God never gives us anything incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you.
If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You have become a Christian based on your own terms. You protest, saying, "I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn't give me the rest and the peace I expected." And instantly God puts His finger on the reason-you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7). Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. "Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him.
Are you seeking great things for yourself? Have you said, "Oh, Lord, completely fill me with your Holy Spirit"? If God does not, it is because you are not totally surrendered to Him; there is something you still refuse to do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He's continually working out His ultimate perfection for you- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
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Winning an Offended Brother
Proverbs 18:19 tells us,
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a castle.
When this verse refers to a "strong city," it means a fortified or a guarded city. You cannot just waltz up to the gate of a fortified city and say "give up." It takes strategic planning to take such a city. You have to think things through and have a plan.
It also means there is going to be strenuous effort involved. And, more than likely, you will be in a vulnerable position. In fact, you don't take a strong city without taking risks, without becoming vulnerable.
The same things come into play when a brother is offended. It takes thoughtful planning, it takes effort, and sometimes you have to become vulnerable when you do not want to be.
Perhaps you are struggling with a damaged relationship today, and you haven't pursued healing this relationship because you don't know how to do it. It always starts with prayer. You talk to God about them and about yourself, and then you need to go and talk to them.
When you do, I want you to listen carefully, it should not be with a view to prove that you are right. Being right is not the goal. Peace is. Most of the time it is more important to be kind than it is to be right.
If you try to work something out, but only with the intention of having them understand your point of view so that you can prove you are right, you may win the argument, but you will never make peace.
So when you are endeavoring to win an offended brother, listen carefully to them, and endeavor to understand where they are coming from. Seek to hear and not just be heard. Though it may be difficult, you can win peace and see a broken relationship restored.
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Read: Luke 22:47-23:25
They kept shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" - Luke 23:21
TODAY IN THE WORD
A great-grandmother in California has donated more than 200 pints of blood. Margaret Delfino, who began giving blood in 1954, gave her 200th pint in 2009. An ovarian cancer survivor, she wishes more individuals would give, pointing out, "It can mean the difference between life and death for some people." She encourages her own family to donate, and she and a granddaughter have a date every eight weeks to do so at a local blood bank.
For many, Margaret Delfino's blood has doubtless given the gift of life. God's gift of eternal life is made possible by the blood of Christ. In today's reading, the events of Passion Week head for a climax.
To begin, Judas accomplished his act of treachery. He let the religious leaders know where they could find Jesus that night, and they showed up with a mob to arrest Him. Judas' kiss has become an idiom for betrayal by a friend, but it was unnecessary. Jesus identified Himself, did not resist, and even undid the impetuous violence done on His behalf by Peter.
The trials Jesus endured highlight His innocence and the guilt of His accusers-both Jews and Gentiles-and the unfaithfulness of those for whom He was to die-not only religious leaders but also His disciples. As He stood trial, out in the courtyard the future "rock of the church" was denying His Lord three times, even though he had been explicitly warned he would do so that night. Thankfully, Peter's bitter sorrow wasn't the end of that story (see John 21:15-23).
Meanwhile, Jesus suffered torture at the hands of the Roman soldiers and two show trials. The soldiers' mockery showed some familiarity with His ministry-they seem to relish inflicting pain on their helpless prisoner. The Jewish Sanhedrin interpreted Jesus' few words as blasphemy. Herod hoped to get Him to put on a show, which He refused to do. And Pilate played political games, passing the buck to Herod before condemning Jesus to death in a pragmatic response to the crowd's demands.
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APPLY THE WORD
Why did Peter deny Christ three times? He was afraid. If he was identified as a friend of Jesus, perhaps they would arrest him as well. Would he then be imprisoned or executed? Peter didn't know, and he acted on base instincts of self-preservation rather than taking a stand for what he believed. Fear is always the enemy of faith. Thankfully, when our courage fails, as it did Peter that night, there is "forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace" (Eph. 1:7).
God bless
:angel:
April 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What You Will Get
I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go -Jeremiah 45:5
This is the firm and immovable secret of the Lord to those who trust Him- "I will give your life to you . . . ." What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. ". . . your life . . . as a prize . . ." means that wherever you may go, even if it is into hell, you will come out with your life and nothing can harm it. So many of us are caught up in exhibiting things for others to see, not showing off property and possessions, but our blessings. All these things that we so proudly show have to go. But there is something greater that can never go- the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).
Are you prepared to let God take you into total oneness with Himself, paying no more attention to what you call the great things of life? Are you prepared to surrender totally and let go? The true test of abandonment or surrender is in refusing to say, "Well, what about this?" Beware of your own ideas and speculations. The moment you allow yourself to think, "What about this?" you show that you have not surrendered and that you do not really trust God. But once you do surrender, you will no longer think about what God is going to do. Abandonment means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you totally abandon yourself to God, He immediately says to you, "I will give your life to you as a prize . . . ." The reason people are tired of life is that God has not given them anything- they have not been given their life "as a prize." The way to get out of that condition is to abandon yourself to God. And once you do get to the point of total surrender to Him, you will be the most surprised and delighted person on earth. God will have you absolutely, without any limitations, and He will have given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience in your life or your refusal to be simple enough.
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Listen... to Understand
In Proverbs 18:2, we are given an important word of warning,
A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart.
It is so easy to play the role of such a fool when we are dealing with a strained or broken relationship. Rather than seeking to understand the other person, we will often feel the need to make the other person understand our hurt.
Like me, you have probably said, "You need to hear me. You need to understand why I'm hurt. You need to understand why I reacted the way I reacted. You need to see that I'm right. I need to convince you that I'm justified in the things I've said and the things I've done."
When we say those things, we are not interested in understanding the other person's point of view to reach a mutual peace. We just want to express our opinions, our hurt, and our reasons.
The Bible says that is the way a fool behaves. I am going to stand at the front of the line and say, "I've been that fool more than once." But we must learn to listen and understand.
Once you have listened and understood, here is an important phrase to learn, "I see what you're saying, and I'm sorry." That does not mean, "I see what you're saying, and I'm sorry you're such an idiot." That means, "I've listened to you, I've heard you, and I'm sorry." Period. "Forgive me."
It is amazing how some people choke on those words. In fact, it is shocking to realize how few people know how to give a proper apology. They offer the rose of an apology by handing it thorn-end first.
Don't play the fool. Listen...to understand.
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Read: Luke 23:26-56
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. - Luke 23:34
TODAY IN THE WORD
Several years ago, a twelve-year-old boy was in the middle of his piano lesson when a stray bullet from a drunken robber's gun hit him. The shot paralyzed him. Police caught the gunman and he was tried and convicted in a court in Oakland, California. The judge sentenced him to 70 years to life in prison, seemingly a just outcome. But what came next transcended justice. The victim, Christopher Rodriguez, rolled his wheelchair to the front of the courtroom, shook the hand of the man who had shot him, and said, "I forgive you." It is uncertain whether the criminal felt true remorse, but Christopher left the court that day unburdened by hate.
Before He died, Jesus, too, forgave all those who participated in murdering Him (vv. 34-38). The Crucifixion was the turning point of history and the hinge of God's plan of redemption, but it was also an act of criminal injustice. Jesus forgave the Roman soldiers who cast lots for His clothing and mocked Him. He forgave the religious leaders who sneered at Him and challenged Him to save Himself. He forgave the gawking and passivity of the watching crowd. He forgave the followers who had run away and hidden, including the remaining disciples. His women followers did stay with Him. No doubt their presence was a comfort to Jesus. These faithful eyewitnesses throughout this heart-wrenching time also made preparations for His burial.
Jesus remained in control throughout His crucifixion (vv. 44-49). He continued the ministry of the kingdom right up to the end, forgiving the sins of one of the criminals who hung next to Him and offering him the hope of heaven. He chose the moment of His own death, signaling that it was not defeat but the surrender of His spirit to His sovereign Father. Nature responded to this momentous event with three hours of midday darkness. The inner curtain of the temple was torn in two, meaning that the terms of access to God were forever changed (see Heb. 8:11). And the commander of the execution squad cried out in faith, "Surely this was a righteous man!" (v. 47).
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APPLY THE WORD
Scripture commands: "Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2). How can we imitate the incredible love of Christ? By loving one another. Jesus said: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Later the apostle John reflected: "If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us" (1 John 4:12).
God bless
:angel:
April 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Gracious Uncertainty
. . . it has not yet been revealed what we shall be . . . -1 John 3:2
Our natural inclination is to be so precise-trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next-that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we do not put down roots. Our common sense says, "Well, what if I were in that circumstance?" We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which we have never been.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God-it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." (Matthew 18:3). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, ". . . believe also in Me" (John 14:1), not, "Believe certain things about Me". Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in-but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.
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The Power of a Gift
Proverbs 19:7 says,
All the brothers of the poor hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him! He may pursue them with words, yet they abandon him.
Sometimes just pursuing reconciliation with a person through communication is not enough. Sometimes you need to take it to another level. Look at Proverbs 18:16,
A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.
Sometimes it wouldn't hurt you to offer a gift to someone with whom you are seeking to reconcile. The New International Version says, A gift opens the way.
When a brother is offended and the contentions are like bars of iron with the gate shut tight, the thing that opens the way is a gift. The Living Bible says, A gift does wonders. The Scripture says in Proverbs 21:14,
A gift in secret pacifies anger.
It is important to understand that both Proverbs 18:16 and 21:14 are actually shared in a negative sense. They are talking about the power of a bribe. Proverbs is great that way because it gives us both the positive and negative perspectives. It's a truth (that I'm not saying is a good thing) that a bribe can open doors which may not be opened otherwise.
In a positive way, it is true that a gift can do wonders. Not that you are trying to buy someone's favor, but a sincere gift can be a powerful form of communication. The important thing is your motivation behind it.
A gift can say, "You're valuable enough to me that I took some of my hard-earned money and bought this for you." A gift has the power to take things to another level as you seek to make things right.
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Read: Luke 24:1-35
Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? - Luke 24:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
Jesus' resurrection is the central historical event of the Christian faith. Fifth-century church leader John Chrysostom said: "Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it." Nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon added: "That very day our Lord won a victory which shook the gates of hell, and caused the universe to stand astonished. . . . On His head are many crowns, and at His feet the hosts of angels bow! Jesus is the master of legions today, while the Caesars have passed away. . . . His cause is not to be crushed, it is forever rising."
These truths were not, however, immediately clear to Jesus' followers. On that Sunday morning, the women took the lead. They went to the tomb not in hope but in respect, planning to properly anoint the corpse. But their plan went awry when the corpse turned up missing! Even then, it took a blunt angelic message for them to recall Jesus' words about being raised to life. Was it possible that He had been speaking not about a distant hope but about a literal, here-and-now reality? They reported this news to the disciples, who treated it as "nonsense" (v. 11). Only the disgraced Peter even bothered to go to the tomb and verify that the body was missing, though, puzzlingly, the graveclothes were still there.
Later that day two followers of Jesus became the first in Luke's account to talk to the risen Lord, but they failed to recognize Him. While talking to the stranger who joined them on the road to Emmaus, they gave a respectful but inadequate summary of Jesus as a powerful prophet victimized by the ruling powers, a familiar narrative in Jewish history (vv. 19-24). He responded with what must have been an amazing Bible lesson on the suffering of the Messiah (vv. 25-26). The moment of recognition finally came when they broke bread together. Hastily returning to Jerusalem, they found the Apostles already believing as a result of other appearances by Jesus.
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APPLY THE WORD
The good news of the kingdom is that Jesus died and rose again. This good news mean that if we call on His name and repent of our sins, we have eternal life and become children of God (John 1:12-13). Have you taken this step of faith? Just tell God you trust in His Son for salvation and accept His sacrifice for sin. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Acts 2:21). It will be the first step on an unforgettable journey!
God bless
:angel:
May 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it . . . -Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God's true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. ". . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue- he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . . ." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, "What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . ." (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, "Now I've got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . ." (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
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Suppressing the Truth
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
A truth that is suppressed is a truth that has addressed itself to someone, but they do not want to be confronted by it. They do not want it to force them to change, so they keep it down and refuse to look at or deal with it.
What kind of a truth is it that men suppress? Romans 1:19 tells us,
Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
People are suppressing a knowledge or truth about God. Where did they learn that truth about God that they are suppressing? Verse 20 tells us,
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Creation speaks of a Creator. God is understood, it says, by the things that are made. There comes a point in every human's life as they observe nature, where a voice whispers to them, "This didn't just happen. There has to be a hand behind this."
At that point, each person has a choice: Whether or not to suppress that truth. If they do not suppress the truth, I believe God will move heaven and earth to get the knowledge of the gospel to that person.
This is so profound because even on Judgment Day no one is going to be able to stand and say, "Well, I never heard. I didn't have a chance." They will be without excuse, because God is going to take them right back to that experience where HeHeHH spoke to them through nature.
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Read: Matthew 3:11-17
I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. - John 1:32
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the biblical account of creation, the three persons of the Trinity each play a distinct role. God (presumably the Father) spoke the light into existence (Gen. 1:3), and the Son was the very Word by which the world came to be (John 1:1-5). The Spirit of God hovered over the waters that had yet to take shape-even at the dawn of time, the movement of the Holy Spirit was best described with a word that expressed the flight of a bird on the wing (Gen. 1:2; cf. Deut. 32:11).
The description in today's passage can be found in all four Gospels (Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, John 1:32), and once again it includes the image of a bird-a dove, specifically-and the manifestation of all three persons of the Trinity. The Spirit descended on the Son, and the Father spoke His approval (v. 17). The scene of that rare display of the eternal majesty of the Trinity converging in an earth-bound setting tells us something about the importance of what was about to take place.
John spoke correctly when he professed his need to be baptized by Jesus (v. 13), but his baptism of his Lord was distinct from the baptism of repentance he performed for his followers or the baptism Christ was to bestow upon those who would inherit the Spirit (v. 11). Without sin, Jesus had nothing for which to repent. And He certainly didn't need to become His own disciple. The purpose must have been unique, and Jesus' words confirm that.
John was to baptize Jesus "to fulfill all righteousness" (v. 15). The text doesn't go into further detail than that, but the subsequent display by the Trinity revealed a perfect collaboration of the Son's obedience, the Spirit's assistance, and the Father's approval. The harmony fulfilled the righteous character of God in a public ceremony proclaiming Jesus' identity as the Son of God. Led and filled by the Spirit, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1). We associate the image of a dove with peace and hope-fitting, since Jesus assuredly received it as He faced this trial at the outset of His ministry.
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APPLY THE WORD
The dove may stand as a symbol of peace, but it is also a strong bird with incredible endurance and precise direction-again, it's an apt portrait of the Holy Spirit. Depending on the Spirit is no sign of weakness! Today's passage shows the Son of God being ministered to by a man, showing obedience to the Father, and receiving assistance from the Spirit. We should never feel too proud to yield to the Spirit's guidance or accept help from others.
God bless
:angel:
May 3, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . -Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God's interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, "I will not allow that thing to happen." And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own "sad and pitiful self." You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God's interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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Pursue Hospitality
Romans 12:9-14 says,
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
At the end of verse 13, Paul says we are to be "given to hospitality." The word given is the Greek word translated "pursue" everywhere else in the New Testament. This could be translated "pursuing hospitality."
Hospitality is actually a compound word in the Greek language. The first part of the word means to be fond of. The second part means guests. So hospitality means to be friendly to strangers, to open your heart and open your home to others.
The Scripture is very strong when it says we are to pursue hospitality. It is one of the greatest ways in all the world to demonstrate the love of God to people who are in need.
I remember like it was yesterday a time I was preaching at a church. It was over 20 years ago, when I was a newlywed. After the service was done, Janet and I were standing around not knowing what to do. No one was speaking to us and the church had made no provision for our lodging or meals.
Just then an elderly couple came up to us and invited us to their home for lunch, which we gratefully accepted.
And you know what? I don't remember what I preached that day, but to this day I remember eating roast in that couple's home. I remember their graciousness, their hospitable spirit, and how much they made us feel welcome.
Pursue hospitality!
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How to Save a Nation in Trouble
In His Presence:
2 Chronicles 7:11-22
"[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land"(2 Chronicles 7:14).
King Solomon reigned over Israel. In 2 Chronicles 6, Solomon had just finished building God's temple and had offered up a prayer of dedication. In this prayer, Solomon was basically saying that he wanted to lead this people as God wanted him to lead. After the prayer, God's glory came down to the temple and filled it. The people offered sacrifices and held a feast. Later that night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and told him that if the people ever rejected His ways and turned away from Him, the prayers of His people would be heeded.
God will deal with a nation that turns its back on Him. If a culture wants to be free of God, He will let it have that freedom. But freedom from God brings dire consequences. Pagans do not normally turn to God when things get rough. But this Scripture isn't addressing pagans; it is addressing "My people who are called by My name" (v. 14). The people who are supposed to pray for their nation are God's covenant people. In the Old Testament, His covenant people were the Jews. In the New Testament, the covenant people are the church-the body of true believers who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Sin-bearer and Redeemer.
One Minute Please
God will pay attention to our prayers when we come to Him humbly, seek His face, and turn from our ungodly behavior.
Source: Are Christians Destroying America? Pp. 124-132.
God bless
:angel:
May 4, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vicarious Intercession
. . having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . -Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic "understanding" of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
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In the Balance
1 Thessalonians 5:15 is a powerful verse that speaks to everyone,
See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.
Notice the apostle Paul makes sure no one is excluded. That means you can't get out of this. You are either a "no one," or an "anyone" in this verse!
Paul's point about pursuing what is good for both yourselves and for all can be looked at two ways. First, he could be talking about the worshiping community as a whole. His point: Pursue what is good for the church, but also for all those outside the church. You need to think of the welfare of the church and the community in which you exist.
On a more personal level, Paul could be speaking to the need for you and I to weigh how our words, our actions, and our pursuit of that which is good for us affects others. I have to weigh that in the balance.
While a certain thing may be good for me, I need to think of how it is going to affect others. It is not just about pursuing what is good for me, even if it is something I deserve. I need to ask, "How it is going to affect others...my spouse, my kids, my friends, my church, my neighbor." I have to factor that in.
Many times people pursue something and they defend their position by saying, "Well, it's time for me to start thinking about myself. I deserve this. This is good for me."
Well, this verse allows for that. In fact, it admonishes you to pursue what is good for you, but it adds the proviso "and for all."
Eagerly pursue the things that are beneficial for you, but also that which is good for others.
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Social Gospel?
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Instead of writing off our culture as hopelessly secular and doomed, God wants His people to have a redeeming and transforming impact on American society. But what is the relationship of the Gospel to social action? What is the Christian's responsibility in matters of social ills-injustice, poverty, and hunger?
In many evangelical circles, the terms "social action" and "social gospel" have negative connotations. But the question remains: what does the gospel of Jesus Christ have to say to the poor and the oppressed? This is an important question all Christians need to deal with.
The message of the Gospel is narrow, not broad. The issue of social action is not part of the gospel message. Whenever social action is made part of the Gospel, two problems arise: Social action obscures what the Gospel really is, and no one knows how much emphasis to give to the social aspect of the message.
Those who want to make social action a part of the Gospel's content make the same mistake repeatedly in biblical interpretation. They apply the non-technical use of the word Gospel as it is used in the first four books of the New Testament rather than applying its more specific use in the epistles, where the word has a much more limited meaning.
One Minute Please
When Paul spoke of the Gospel, he limited it to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sin (see today's reading). In Matthew 4, Jesus used the term to refer to the good news of the kingdom. "Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom" (v. 23).
God bless
:angel:
May 5, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Judgment and the Love of God
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God . . . -1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God's idea, not man's; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience- preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out- it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
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A More Excellent Way
In 1 Corinthians 14:1, we are given a foundational truth,
Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
Notice that this verse leads off with a very direct command. We are to pursue love.
It is interesting that this command is given in the context of Paul's teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14 deal with the gifts of the Spirit: the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, the discerning of spirits, the gift of faith, the working of miracles, the gifts of healing, the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, and the gift of prophecy.
Chapter 12 gives us the definition of those gifts, chapter 13 teaches us the spirit that should characterize their use, and chapter 14 gives us guidelines for their functioning within the context of the local church.
When it comes to the operation of the gifts of the Spirit, Paul is very clear. He tells us, "Desire the gifts. Seek to have these things operating in your life and operating in the life of the local church, but they need to be practiced in love."
It is with that thought in mind that Paul writes 1 Corinthians 12:31. Here is what he says,
But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.
As we read the following verses we are told that the more excellent way is love. Again, Paul is giving us the spirit that should characterize the use of the gifts of the Spirit as they function within the context of the local church.
Desire the gifts. Earnestly covet them. But let them operate through a spirit of love.
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Penetrate the Culture
In His Presence: Colossians 3:17
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world . . . Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:13-14, 16).
When we look closely at a culture that is deteriorating, we will probably see the people of God withdrawn from that culture. For example, when Christians began abandoning inner city and urban neighborhoods, taking their skills, resources, and moral influence with them, those neighborhoods deteriorated. When Christians left the public school system, moral values were systematically erased until they became almost illegal to teach. When Christians vacated the media, a spiritual approach to defining everything we hold dear went with them. When Christians decided to get out of politics, righteous political decisions left with them.
God's people have been called to penetrate society. Of course, evangelism is always first because without forgiveness of sins, anything else we give a person is temporary. We have been called first and foremost to win people to Christ. But after a person receives Christ for eternity, he must represent Christ in history. Christians must give out hope; no earthly institution offers real hope for the world.
One Minute Please
The absence of righteousness in our culture has everything to do with the absence of God's people penetrating the culture. When there is no yeast, the bread stays flat.
Source: Are Christians Destroying America? Pp. 31-34.
God bless
:angel:
May 6, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free . . . -Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand-"Believe this and that"; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty- the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one true liberty- the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don't get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you- with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go . . . and make disciples. . ." (Matthew 28:19), not, "Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions."
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Pursue Love!
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about how love is "the more excellent way." We are to pursue love, especially in how we practice the gifts of the Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul presses home the point of just how important love really is. Let's start with verse 1,
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
Paul does not say the gift of tongues isn't legitimate or genuine. But if there is not a heart of love behind it, it is just noise. You see, the water picks up the taste of the pipe that it flows through. If the pipe isn't clean, the water can pick up a pretty nasty taste, even though it is still genuinely water.
So also the gift can be genuine, but it is more noise than anything else to the hearts of the people who hear it if it is not accentuated by love.
Let's move to verse 2,
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Notice he did not say the gifts are nothing. The gifts are genuine. He says you are nothing. From heaven's point of view, you are defined by your character, not by your accomplishments. The world tends to define people by their accomplishments. In heaven's books, however, you are defined by your character.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (verse 2).
It does not say the poor won't profit, but you won't profit. You lose your reward if your heart is not right.
Pursue love!
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Taking Back American Culture
In His Presence: Jeremiah 29:4-14
"[He] is able to establish you according to [the] gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested . . . leading to obedience of faith" (Romans 16:25-26, emphasis added).
One major problem in America is that Christians often separate the personal message of salvation from its practical implications. As the Gospel-the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ-is proclaimed, a concern for human needs should flow naturally out of its effect on people and the community. Unfortunately, a trait of our individualistic age is that people care very little about the deterioration of our society.
When the Gospel has permeated a group of people, there should be a shift from social inertia to social sensitivity. This increases the importance of Jesus' statement: "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Our testimony is enhanced by the social interactions that take place between Christians and the world. It is unbiblical to believe that our faith in Jesus Christ has no bearing on the needs of this world.
American culture will be reclaimed when Christians regain spiritual clarity. When the Jews were sent into exile, they ended up living within Babylonian culture-a clearly pagan culture. They had to work hard to establish themselves again as a set-apart, unique people.
One Minute Please
"Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce . . . seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile"(Jeremiah 29:5,7).
Source: Are Christians Destroying America? Pp. 239-242.
God bless
:angel:
May 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Reaching Beyond Our Grasp
Where there is no revelation [or prophetic vision], the people cast off restraint . . . -Proverbs 29:18
There is a difference between holding on to a principle and having a vision. A principle does not come from moral inspiration, but a vision does. People who are totally consumed with idealistic principles rarely do anything. A person's own idea of God and His attributes may actually be used to justify and rationalize his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah tried to excuse his disobedience by saying to God, ". . . I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" (Jonah 4:2). I too may have the right idea of God and His attributes, but that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of honesty and integrity, because the vision gives me the moral incentive.
Our own idealistic principles may actually lull us into ruin. Examine yourself spiritually to see if you have vision, or only principles.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
"Where there is no revelation [or prophetic vision]. . . ." Once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless. We cast off certain restraints from activities we know are wrong. We set prayer aside as well and cease having God's vision in the little things of life. We simply begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating only out of our own hand, and doing things solely on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on a downward path. We have lost the vision. Is our attitude today an attitude that flows from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done before? Is there a freshness and a vitality in our spiritual outlook?
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The Qualities of Love
For the last number of devotionals, we have focused our attention on how love is such a vital quality to the Christian life. We have seen that unless we love, any of the spiritual gifts are meaningless.
We have also seen that God has deposited His love in us already, and as a result, it is our responsibility to choose to express that love. It is not something we can put on God's shoulders. We must take on that obligation.
So what do those qualities of love really look like? I want to share with you 1 Corinthians 13 from theAmplified Bible, but I want to do it with a twist. I want to make it personal and show how, if we choose to love as God has asked us to love, it will look.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 from the Amplified Bible...personalized (read it out loud),
I endure long, and I am patient and kind. I am never envious or boil over with jealousy. I am not boastful or vainglorious. I do not display myself haughtily. I am not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride. I am not rude or unmannerly. I do not act unbecomingly. God's love in me does not insist on its own rights or its own way for I am not self-seeking. I am not touchy or fretful or resentful. I take no account of the evil done to me. I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail. I bear up under anything and everything that comes, and I am ever ready to believe the best of every person. My hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and I endure everything without weakening. God's love in me never fails.
I challenge you to read this out loud to yourself every day for a month, and see if it does not change your life!
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Satan Poses the Question
In His Presence: Genesis 3:1-7
Since God placed man on this planet, Satan has been determined to deceive man about the nature of God and God's words to us. In the Garden of Eden, Satan began his plan by talking to Eve. "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1). Satan raised a question about God's command. Notice that he used the word "not." He skipped over the first part of God's statement and focused on the restriction. He didn't want Eve to be thinking about God's goodness. He wanted God to appear harsh and restrictive.
What God actually said was: "TheLord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die' " (Genesis 2:16-17). The first thing God told Adam was what he could do. All the fruit was good for the picking, and Adam could eat freely of the trees. He could eat whatever he wanted to eat whenever he wanted to eat. Of all the trees in the garden, and there were probably hundreds of trees, he was only restricted from one tree.
Especially for those of us who live in the United States, we have so much that is good. As much as we are able, we are free to pursue a good life and liberty. We can go after what makes us happy.
One Minute Please
In spite of what Satan wants, we should be thinking about God's goodness.
God bless
:angel:
May 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Take the Initiative
. . . add to your faith virtue . . . -2 Peter 1:5
Add means that we have to do something. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves- God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We must "work out" our "own salvation" which God has worked in us (Philippians 2:12). Add means that we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning- to instruct yourself in the way you must go.
Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative- stop hesitating- take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you stand. Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, "I will write that letter," or "I will pay that debt"; and then do it! Make it irrevocable.
We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we have not yet been.
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Spiritual Metamorphosis
Romans 12:1-2 says this,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
First, notice that it is your responsibility to present your body to God. God will not do it for you. You have to do it. But Scripture doesn't leave us there. We are shown how we are to do that in verse 2 above.
First, when it says, Do not be conformed, that word conform means to be pressed into a mold by outward pressures. Instead of being conformed we are told to be transformed. That is actually the Greek word from which we get our English word metamorphosis. It means to let what is on the inside come to the outside.
One day many years ago, my kids came home from school with some silk worms. We were supposed to put them in a box and feed them mulberry leaves. I couldn't believe how many leaves these worms ate! They ate leaves until they turned a translucent green!
Then they wove cocoons and went through a metamorphosis. They went from being these ugly ol' fat green transparent worms, to the most beautiful fuzzy huge white moths. It was amazing to see!
My friend, you renew your mind by feeding on God's Word, the same way that those silk worms fed on the mulberry leaves. As you are filled with His truth, it causes a metamorphosis to take place. It brings what is on the inside-God's nature-to the outside.
So feed on God's Word and watch your life be transformed.
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The Reality of Debt
In His Presence: Proverbs 13:22
Financially speaking, there are three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots, and those who have not paid for what they have! Debt has become a way of life in the American landscape. The average American household spends at least 20 percent of their net income on consumer debt. We must understand that when debt rules, debt ruins. Proverbs 22:7 says: "The borrower becomes the lender's slave." Debt controls your life, so it puts you in a kind of slavery. There are several reasons for debt: ignorance, indulgence, poor planning, and emergencies. All these things can contribute to the snowball of debt.
But I believe that God provides a way for us to live without being controlled by our debt. Debt is owing something you cannot pay, and that kind of debt should be abnormal for the Christian because it is outside God's will. Debt is first and foremost a spiritual issue-we are in debt because we have refused to obey God.
Psalm 37:21 says:"The wicked borrows and does not pay back." Ecclesiastes 5:5 says: "It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay."But also: "TheLord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow" (Deuteronomy 28:12).
We can be set free from the tyranny of debt, and there are four steps that can help us: plant, plan, prioritize, and pray.
One Minute Please
Knowing the truth about debt is the first step toward financial freedom.
God bless
:angel:
May 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Love One Another"
. . . add to your . . . brotherly kindness love -2 Peter 1:5, 7
Love is an indefinite thing to most of us; we don't know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26). Initially, when "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5), it is easy to put Jesus first. But then we must practice the things mentioned in 2 Peter 1 to see them worked out in our lives.
The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He commands me to show the same love to others by saying, ". . . love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). He is saying, "I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you." This kind of love is not a patronizing love for the unlovable- it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight. Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated.
"The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish . . ." (2 Peter 3:9). I should look within and remember how wonderfully He has dealt with me. The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor God's divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.
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The Love of Money
In 1 Timothy 6:9-11, Paul gives us a critical insight,
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
I want you to notice: Before Paul tells us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness, he says we must first flee the love of money. You have to be willing to flee the wrong things before you can pursue the right things, because you cannot go in two directions at once.
If you are pursuing riches, and the gaining of wealth and the achievement of success have become your number one priorities, pushing everything else, including God, to the side, then you are pursuing the wrong thing.
You may be thinking, "Well, that's great for some people, but that doesn't apply to me." You need to understand that you can be eaten up with the love of money and not have a dime in your pocket. All of us are subject to such a temptation and such a trap.
It's fascinating that Paul uses the word "drown" here. I live by the Pacific Ocean, and generally people who drown do so because, (a) they overestimate their own abilities as a swimmer; or (b) they underestimate the power of the ocean.
If you overestimate your ability to be free from this type of a temptation, or you underestimate the power of this type of a temptation, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
Flee the wrong and pursue the right. Stay on course with God.
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What Are We Thinking About?
In His Presence: 1 Chronicles 16:8
Why did God put a limitation on the tree in the Garden of Eden? Why do we have limitations at all? In order to enjoy freedom, there must be sufficient restriction so that we can maximize what freedom is. A baseball player isn't free to play baseball if there are no foul lines. A football player is not free to play football if there are no sidelines. God placed the restriction in the Garden of Eden to give us the ability to choose. In that way, freedom is better understood.
Another reason why God put a restriction in the Garden of Eden was to remind man that he is a created being. Restrictions make it clear who is in charge. God wanted it to be clear that there is a major difference between created man and the Creator God. God is transcendent. He is infinite and omniscient. We are not.
Satan used the presence of these restrictions to trick Eve into focusing on the negative. The apostle Paul said: "I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). Satan led her thinking away from the goodness of God to focus on the restrictions of God. In doing that, Eve lost sight of the freedom God had given her.
One Minute Please
Adam and Eve lived in a home they didn't build and ate food they didn't have to grow. They lived in a perfect environment that had only one restriction. Does your mind focus only on the restrictions in your life?
God bless
:angel:
May 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Having No Habits
If these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful . . . -2 Peter 1:8
When we first begin to form a habit, we are fully aware of it. There are times when we are aware of becoming virtuous and godly, but this awareness should only be a stage we quickly pass through as we grow spiritually. If we stop at this stage, we will develop a sense of spiritual pride. The right thing to do with godly habits is to immerse them in the life of the Lord until they become such a spontaneous expression of our lives that we are no longer aware of them. Our spiritual life continually causes us to focus our attention inwardly for the determined purpose of self-examination, because each of us has some qualities we have not yet added to our lives.
Your god may be your little Christian habit- the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, "I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God." No, this is your time alone with your habit. There is a quality that is still lacking in you. Identify your shortcoming and then look for opportunities to work into your life that missing quality.
Love means that there are no visible habits- that your habits are so immersed in the Lord that you practice them without realizing it. If you are consciously aware of your own holiness, you place limitations on yourself from doing certain things- things God is not restricting you from at all. This means there is a missing quality that needs to be added to your life. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there someplace where you are not at home with God? Then allow God to work through whatever that particular circumstance may be until you increase in Him, adding His qualities. Your life will then become the simple life of a child.
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The Main Pursuit
Ezekiel 33:30-32 provides some pretty direct and challenging words from God,
"As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, 'Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them."
I think, for some people, church is almost like going to a concert, especially if the preacher is flashy and the music is great. They are not listening with a view to imbibe God's truth and then put it into practice in their lives.
What is the reason for this disconnect? People are pursuing something else in their hearts. Sure, they are showing up at church, they are listening, they are even saying "amen" at the right time, but they are not applying God's truth to their lives. Why? Because they are pursuing something else in their heart.
This is the same thing that Paul talked to Timothy about in yesterday's devotional. Remember? Like Ezekiel, he said, Their hearts pursue their own gain.
It is very simple: If your focus is on the pursuit of things, your focus will never be on the One who has created all things. It really boils down to this one question: What is the main pursuit of your life?
If it is not God, then your life is going in the wrong direction!
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Trees of Analogy
In His Presence: John 8:12
Have you ever thought about the restricted tree in the Garden of Eden? It was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Was this a bad tree? No, there was nothing wrong with the tree itself. Good things could be learned from it. It would teach the difference between good and evil. Another tree in the Garden was the Tree of Life, but it had no restrictions. These two types of trees make a good analogy for today's Christians.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents lists of good and bad things. We are to do the good things and not do the bad things. We could think of this as the Tree of the Law. This tree offered Adam and Eve death. The other tree, the Tree of Life, offered Adam and Eve intimate fellowship and relationship with God. It offered them life.
God wanted Adam and Eve and their descendents to live their lives based on a relationship with Him. He didn't want them to live by a list. The Tree of Life pictured Jesus Christ, who is life. It represents the abiding relationship we have with Him through which the grace of God flows into our lives. We enjoy walking with God in an intimate relationship. The problem with eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was that life had to be lived based on a set of rules, not on a relationship. The New Testament would call that the difference between Law and grace.
One Minute Please
Eating from the Tree of Life meant that there was no need for the Tree of Knowledge.
God bless
:angel:
May 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Keeping a Clear Conscience
. . . strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men -Acts 24:16
God's commands to us are actually given to the life of His Son in us. Consequently, to our human nature in which God's Son has been formed (see Galatians 4:19), His commands are difficult. But they become divinely easy once we obey.
Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God's standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God's Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23).
God always instructs us down to the last detail. Is my ear sensitive enough to hear even the softest whisper of the Spirit, so that I know what I should do? "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God . . ." (Ephesians 4:30). He does not speak with a voice like thunder- His voice is so gentle that it is easy for us to ignore. And the only thing that keeps our conscience sensitive to Him is the habit of being open to God on the inside. When you begin to debate, stop immediately. Don't ask, "Why can't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There is no debating possible once your conscience speaks. Whatever it is- drop it, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.
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Sowing Righteousness
The Bible says in Galatians 6:7,
Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
And in Proverbs 11:18 it says,
The wicked man does deceptive work, but he who sows righteousness will have a sure reward.
The Bible teaches the law of the harvest, that what you sow, you will also reap. If you treat others fairly and uprightly, it will come back to you.
We live in a world that doesn't put much stock in integrity, fairness, uprightness, and righteousness. We must be careful to not give in to that influence. We need to be different.
How? By not cutting corners. By putting in an honest day's work. By giving people what they pay for and more. If you will pursue righteousness, it will come back to you.
You may remember a story back in the eighties about an armored car that crashed in Columbus, Ohio. Two million dollars in cash spilled out on the highway, and the motorists helped the armored car company gather all of its money.
But, when it was all said and done, only $400,000 of the $2 million made its way back to the armored car company. $1.6 million ended up in the pockets of the people who stopped along the highway to "help."
I'm sure they had every excuse under the sun. Some probably even said, "Well, I've been praying for God to meet my needs, and it was a miracle!" No, it was not a miracle. They were thieves!
You cannot make an excuse for that kind of thing. And yet that is the way the world thinks. There should be a difference between us and the world. We need to pursue uprightness, integrity, honesty, and godly character. They need to be hallmarks of our lives.
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Relationship vs. Rules
In His Presence: John 10:14-15
"My brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God . . . What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law''(Romans 7:4, 7).
Romans 7 tells us that the Law is good. But the problem with the Law is that it can't help us deal with sin. While it can show us what is wrong, it can't empower us to improve. Only a relationship abiding in the presence of Jesus Christ can transform our lives. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was irrelevant to Adam and Eve. They had abundant life already. "I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). It was a life based on a relationship with God.
So how do we combat what Satan wants us to believe-that restrictions and "do's" and "don'ts" are unfair? We should focus on the goodness of God. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith" (Romans 3:23-25). This demonstration of grace is what the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was all about.
One Minute Please
"From any tree of the garden you may eat freely"(Genesis 2:16).
God bless
:angel:
May 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Recognizing God's Provision
. . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . -2 Peter 1:4
We are made "partakers of the divine nature," receiving and sharing God's own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God's provision for us. We say, however, "Oh, I can't afford it." One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, "Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle." And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him. Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn't they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges- always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.
Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, "All my springs are in You" (Psalm 87:7). If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . ." (2 Corinthians 9:8)- then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself. Be marked and identified with God's nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.
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Exercising the Muscle of Faith
Yesterday we looked at the importance of God's Word to strengthen our faith. Yet there is something more we need to do to see our faith grow. We must use it.
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says this about faith,
Fight the good fight of faith.
Faith is made for conflict. It does not grow without conflict. It does not grow without pressure. You need to use it.
Remember our illustration of the body builders and how a proper diet is essential to building muscle mass? Well, they will also tell you that it is not enough to drink protein shakes and eat tuna fish, you have to work those muscles if they are going to grow. They work those weights every day in order to build their muscles.
The same thing is true when it comes to faith. Faith is a muscle that you have to use. It is not enough just to listen to your Bible teaching CDs all day long. Hearing alone is not enough to develop faith. You must use your faith muscle.
That is what the fight of faith is all about. You exercise your faith when you are standing in the midst of your storm, and you are assailed by temptations and every kind of trial that tells you you're not going to make it, that you are going down with the ship.
As you stand in the midst of your storm, and the wind is howling around you, and the lightning is flashing, and the waves are breaking over the bow of your little ship, stand up and say, "I believe God, that it is going to be just as it was told me." That is where the fight of faith comes in.
No matter what you may be going through today, exercise that muscle of faith. Trust God to do just as He has promised.
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Cultivating the Gratitude Mindset
In His Presence: Romans 9:14-24
"Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called . . . Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy"(1 Timothy 6:11-12, 17).
Cultivating a godly perspective of our spiritual state and our physical circumstances does not happen naturally. To fight against overlooking God's grace and lovingkindnesses toward us instead of complaining about our losses takes a great deal of energy and persistence. We need to develop a mindset that looks for God's graciousness at all times.
An attitude of thanksgiving should dominate the life of the believer. Ingratitude is the mark of the devil. Satan whispers in our ears to make us think about what God has taken away from us. God wants us to look at what He has freely given to us. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). We have so much to be thankful for!
When the nation of Israel moved out of Egypt en masse into the wilderness of Sinai, the first thing they did was complain. They complained about the conditions, the lack of water and meat, and their vulnerability to the Egyptians. God had set them free from slavery, but already they had forgotten.
One Minute Please
When we set our eyes on our misfortunes, we soon forget to express gratitude.
God bless
:angel:
May 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Ascension and Our Access
It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven -Luke 24:51
We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord's life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward- Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection- everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.
The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.
The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God- He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
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Understanding Faith
In the last two devotionals, we have been talking about faith and the importance of both the proper diet of God's Word, and exercising our faith if we are to see it grow.
The natural question is, "What is faith?" Most Christians probably know the technical definition for faith from Hebrews 11:1,
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The New International Version says, Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That is pretty clear. But it becomes even more clear when you plug that definition into 1 Timothy 6:12,
Fight the good fight of [the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Fight the good fight of being sure of what you hope for and being convinced of what you do not see.]
When the answer to your prayers is not on the horizon, when you don't feel differently, you need to fight the good fight and say, "You know what? God's Word says it and that's all the evidence I need. It is the evidence of things not seen, and I'm going to stand on that truth. I don't care what the world says, I don't care what circumstances say, I am going to fight the good fight of the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what I do not see."
And you stay with it until, as they say, "Faith turns to sight."
What are you struggling with today? What challenge is testing your faith? Stand firm on the truth of God's Word. Trust Him, no matter what others may say.
Real faith is standing firm in the midst of the storm. So stand firm!
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Living in Gratitude
In His Presence: Acts 16:16-34
"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6).
In even the worst situations there's always a reason to give thanks. There was a man who needed his dress pants ironed. While his wife was ironing them she burned them. The man began to get angry, but then he paused a moment to think about it. He realized he could thank the Lord that his leg wasn't in that pair of pants when they were burned!
The apostles Paul and Silas were falsely accused, arrested, and put into jail. They were beaten with rods and thrown into the inner prison, their feet placed in stocks. "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25). Even in pain, they were singing and praising God. Later, because of their testimony the jailor was saved.
Job was a righteous man. He prayed and offered sacrifices not only for himself but also for his children. One day, disaster struck his family and possessions, and he lost everything. Job grieved and mourned, but he also fell down in worship of God and said these words: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).
One Minute Please
"The Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalms 84:11). How diligent are you in giving thanks to God?
God bless
:angel:
May 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Good or The Best?
If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left -Genesis 13:9
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, ". . . walk before Me. . ." (Genesis 17:1).
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Intimacy with God
Paul, in Philippians 3:10-12, gives us the other principle for discovering your purpose,
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul said, "I am pursuing my purpose," but it was a purpose based on knowing God. Look at what he said in verse 10, That I may know Him.
The understanding of his purpose came out of that primary desire and pursuit of knowing God Himself and living in intimacy with Him.
Perhaps the most important thing you could do in your life right now is to just lock yourself away, grab your Bible, and go sit at the beach. Find that place of communion with God. As you get to know Him, you will also discover your own heart and the dreams and desires that God put within you.
They are there. They may be covered with debris, they may be covered with dust, but they are there. You can find out what they are if you will develop that intimate relationship with God.
It is in closeness with God that His breath blows the dust off of undiscerned and unrecognized purposes and dreams.
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Know God's Written Word
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 1:4-5
"The devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, "He will command His angels concerning You"; and "On their hands they will bear You up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." ' Jesus said to him, 'On the other hand, it is written, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" ' ''(Matthew 4:5-7).
We can be certain that Satan knows the Bible. He knows what it says and how to twist it into half-truths when it serves his purposes. Satan pulled a portion of Scripture out of context to serve his purposes. It isn't enough for us to know the words in the Bible; we need to know the context. We need to understand the basic principle that the Word of God never violates: God does not contradict Himself.
"Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Go, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." ' Then the devil left Him"(vv. 8-11).
One Minute Please
If the Living Word, who wrote the written Word, needed to use the written Word to get Satan off His back, then think how much more we need to use the written Word of God to fend off the devil!
God bless
:angel:
May 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Thinking of Prayer as Jesus Taught
Pray without ceasing . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:17
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing . . ."- maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, ". . . everyone who asks receives . . ." (Matthew 7:8). Yet we say, "But . . . , but . . . ." God answers prayer in the best way- not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.
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Weeping
In 1 Samuel 30:1-4 we read,
Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
David experienced the sudden loss of his family and it tore his heart out. Notice that David and his men lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
Feeling sorrow and anguish and expressing it is not wrong. In fact, it is normal, especially when you have experienced a sudden and personal loss.
Perhaps, like David, you have lost family members. Or maybe you have wayward children. They were brought up in the way of the Lord, but they are living a lifestyle that is diametrically opposed to the ways of God right now, and your heart is broken when you think about it.
Maybe you have experienced some other loss in your life, something of value, something that is important to you, something that has meaning to you. If so, it is okay to grieve!
God has wired us to be emotional beings. We are not robots. It is right for loss to affect us on a personal, emotional level. As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:4, there is a time to weep.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).
Sorrow has its place and its time, but there is also a time for it to end and to be replaced with something else.
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Does Sin Have Consequences?
In His Presence: 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
"From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die"(Genesis 2:17).
When Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden that she would not die from eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he emphasized his lie: "You surely will not die!" (Genesis 3:4). By telling her this, he was implying two things: God's Word could not be trusted, and there would be no consequences to her disobedience to God. Satan's fourth lie in this passage was that you can rebel against God and get away with it.
Sin is a violation of the law of God. Just like "No trespassing" signs say we are subject to prosecution if we violate the trespassing laws, God said to Adam and Eve and the rest of the world that when we have violated His law we will suffer the consequences. God's law is a reflection of His character. He doesn't make rules just to make rules. His guidelines and regulations reflect what He is like.
One of the chief definitions of sin is that which is contrary to the holiness of God. At the root of the word holy is the word separate. At the root of the word separate is the concept that God and sin cannot inhabit the same environment. He is wholly separate.
One Minute Please
Because of God's purity and holiness, God never gets used to filth. We may get used to it, but according to His nature, God cannot.
God bless
:angel:
May 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Life To Know Him
. . . tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high -Luke 24:49
The disciples had to tarry, staying in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost, not only for their own preparation but because they had to wait until the Lord was actually glorified. And as soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear" (Acts 2:33). The statement in John 7:39 - ". . . for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"- does not pertain to us. The Holy Spirit has been given; the Lord is glorified- our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness.
The Holy Spirit's influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Once our Lord was glorified in His ascension, the Holy Spirit came into the world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revealed truth that He is here. The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord.
It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes people, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into their lives through the Holy Spirit. We all too often separate things that the New Testament never separates. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ- it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not make you think of time or eternity- it is one amazing glorious now. "This is eternal life, that they may know You . . ." (John 17:3). Begin to know Him now, and never finish.
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Taking Responsibility
In the devotional yesterday, we saw how it is okay when we experience loss to weep and to grieve. I want to point you to verse 6 of that same passage to learn another important lesson related to experiencing loss. 1 Samuel 30:6 says,
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him. David was not only grieving for the loss of his own family, but he was now being blamed for the whole thing. In fact, they were blaming him to the point that they wanted to take his life.
When you experience troubles, do not be someone who always wants to blame others. I know that it is human nature to want to point the finger and to lash out at somebody else when we are in trouble or when we have experienced loss.
In fact, I think blaming others is just part of our fallen fleshly DNA. Just take a look at what Adam and Eve did in the garden when they messed up. When God turned up and asked what happened, Adam said, "Well, it's the woman that You gave me. She gave me from the tree, and I ate."
And when God asked Eve what happened, she replied, "Well, it was the serpent. It was the snake."
So Adam blamed his wife, and blamed God who gave him his wife, and Eve blamed the snake. Neither Adam nor Eve took personal responsibility. It was somebody else's fault.
If the problems you are experiencing today are your fault, take responsibility, and do not blame others.
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Running From God
In His Presence: 1 Peter 2:15-16
"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden"(Genesis 3:8).
God told Adam and Eve that the day they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. Obviously their physical bodies didn't die, as they lived for centuries (see Genesis 5:5) after the moment of their disobedience to God. In the Bible the word death means separation. God told Adam and Eve they would be separated from Him. A barrier came between God and His creation.
Before the day they disobeyed, Adam and Eve walked with God in close fellowship: "The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). After they ate the fruit, they began running from God. Adam said: "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself" (3:10).
When someone hides from his Creator rather than enjoying Him, a spiritual death has taken place. Adam and Eve were suddenly full of guilt, shame, and fear. They hid from God and were frightened of Him. We can call that emotional death. They were suffering the consequences of death. When they were not alienated from sharing a life with God, there was peace in their minds about themselves and their world.
One Minute Please
Today, we are separated from God by our inherited death sentence. Only God's grace sets us free.
God bless
:angel:
May 31, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Put God First
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . .for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Put Trust in God First. Our Lord never put His trust in any person. Yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, and never lost hope for anyone, because He put His trust in God first. He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for others. If I put my trust in human beings first, the end result will be my despair and hopelessness toward everyone. I will become bitter because I have insisted that people be what no person can ever be- absolutely perfect and right. Never trust anything in yourself or in anyone else, except the grace of God.
Put God's Will First. "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:9).
A person's obedience is to what he sees to be a need- our Lord's obedience was to the will of His Father. The rallying cry today is, "We must get to work! The heathen are dying without God. We must go and tell them about Him." But we must first make sure that God's "needs" and His will in us personally are being met. Jesus said, ". . . tarry . . . until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). The purpose of our Christian training is to get us into the right relationship to the "needs" of God and His will. Once God's "needs" in us have been met, He will open the way for us to accomplish His will, meeting His "needs" elsewhere.
Put God's Son First. "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me" (Matthew 18:5).
God came as a baby, giving and entrusting Himself to me. He expects my personal life to be a "Bethlehem." Am I allowing my natural life to be slowly transformed by the indwelling life of the Son of God? God's ultimate purpose is that His Son might be exhibited in me.
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Two Voices that Cry Out
Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (James 5:3-4).
These words are written to believers, to Christians who are hoarding up wealth rather than giving to support the spread of the gospel.
The reapers in verse 4 are those preaching and working out in the harvest fields of the world. Notice it says that the Lord has heard their cry. But if you read carefully, you will find that another cry has entered the Lord's ears as well.
"The wages" of the laborers cry out to God as well! The tithes and offerings that have been withheld cry out. Monies that should have been sown into the cause of Christ are raising their voices in a mighty chorus to heaven!
Large amounts of undesignated and unused funds that sit in bank vaults cry out. Funds God has graciously given to His people that have been withheld from their purpose-to bring a living Jesus to a dying world-cry out and cry out and cry out!
Are you sitting on a talking wallet today? Is your purse crying out to God? If you could hear their voice, what would they cry? "China! Europe! Africa! The Middle East!"??
Are you generously supporting the work of your own local church? Do not let your money testify against you! Give where, when, and how much God directs- consistently-into the work of His Kingdom.
If the precious fruit of the earth is going to be reaped, we have to support those who labor in the field.
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Respect for God's Laws
In His Presence: Hebrews 12:1-2
"To Adam [God] said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat from it," cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to the dust you shall return' ''(Genesis 3:17-19).
There are definitely consequences to sin. Sometimes we don't connect the problem with the cause. In this case, when Adam sinned, he affected the world of work. Even the ground was cursed. Though Satan denied that there would be death upon eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a lot of the dying wasn't immediately evident. Economy was affected. Adam and Eve's family felt the results of death in the discord within. Their bodies began to die. Ultimately, they died physically as well.
We can cut a flower from its stem. It dies right away because it is separated from the source of life, but it doesn't appear dead immediately. The longer it is unattached, the more evident death becomes. One thing we must realize about sin and consequences is that we can choose the sin, but we cannot choose the consequences.
One Minute Please
We must respect God's laws.
God bless
:angel:
June 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Staggering Question
He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' -Ezekiel 37:3
Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer- "O Lord God, You know" (Ezekiel 37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done."
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.
"Behold, O My people, I will open your graves . . ." (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My "grave" has been opened by God and "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells" (Romans 7:18). God's Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.
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A Chain Reaction
Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus (John 1:35-37).
When John opened his mouth about Jesus, two people who heard him speak followed the Lord. We must open our mouths about the Lamb of God if we want people to follow Him.
Look what happens next in John 1:40-42,
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
We have a chain reaction happening here. John says, "Behold the Lamb of God," and two men follow Jesus. One of the men, Andrew, goes straight to his brother and brings him to Jesus. It is interesting to note that it says he "first" found his own brother-indicating that Simon was not the only one that Andrew found and brought to the Lord.
The remainder of this chapter in John tells us how Philip told Nathaniel about Jesus and was able to persuade him to meet the Lord with the words "come and see."
These stories from the first chapter of John reveal to us what we should be doing once we meet Jesus. We need to bring our friends and loved ones to the Lord. We should be inviting them to "come and see."
Take a moment right now and ask God to show you someone who you should talk to about Jesus. Then get busy and do it. You just may see a chain reaction of salvations.
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The Cure
In His Presence: 1 John 1:9
"The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel"(Mark 1:15).
Sin is more than just a problem in our lives. Many of our troubles are the consequences of sin. Sin always carries a consequence. Some of us may be suffering consequences for many years. Aren't you tired of living with these consequences? God has a cure-repentance.
Repentance is God's way of restoring harmony and removing the impregnable wall that goes up when we've lost our close fellowship with Him. Repentance is the decision to turn from sin in order for God to bring an end to the judgment He has wrought on us. Repentance repairs relationships.
The Greek word metanoia means a change of mind. It is often translated as repentance. It involves a change of heart, a new way of looking at life. Only one aspect of metanoia is repentance. It is much more like a rebirth. Metanoia involves a realization or new way of looking at ourselves. Like David who said: "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13), we need to wake up to the fact that we have sinned against God and God alone. We have offended God.
True repentance involves regret. We should feel sorrow over our sin, not just sorrow over the fact that we got caught. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom" (James 4:8-9). We need to be broken-hearted before God about our sins.
One Minute Please
Have you gotten sick over your sins yet?
God bless
:angel:
June 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Obsessed by Something?
Who is the man that fears the Lord? -Psalm 25:12
Are you obsessed by something? You will probably say, "No, by nothing," but all of us are obsessed by something- usually by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our own experience of the Christian life. But the psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God. The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God Himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child's awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to "live and move and have our being" in God (Acts 17:28), looking at everything in relation to Him, because our abiding awareness of Him continually pushes itself to the forefront of our lives.
If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives- not concerns, nor tribulation, nor worries. And now we understand why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
"He himself shall dwell in prosperity . . ." (Psalm 25:13). God will cause us to "dwell in prosperity," keeping us at ease, even in the midst of tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander, if our "life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. "God is our refuge . . ." (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
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Through Kindness and Love
In Romans 12:20 we read a startling truth,
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head."
Our natural inclination is to hate our enemies, isn't it? But the Bible gives us a very different perspective and direction. We are to care for and love our enemies. In fact, some of the greatest antagonists to the gospel have been won through love.
We once had a neighbor next to our church building who was very set against us and very vocal against the church. He would voice his opinion in meetings at the city hall and, on occasion, he would even accost people as they were walking to church. He would shout things at them and harass them a bit from his front yard.
Well, we had one of our pastors go out of his way to show this guy love. He would compliment this man on how well he took care of his lawn, and he began to build a relationship with him. Then one day he actually led the man to Christ!
That same man who would yell at the church members as they walked by his house came into our auditorium and repented before me with tears in his eyes and apologized. He said he had lashed out because he was afraid. But now he had come to Christ, and he had been saved.
It is a glorious thing. He was won to the Lord through kindness and through love.
Think about God. I am so glad that He did not judge us and let the hammer fall on us because of our sins. Instead He extended kindness and mercy to us.
Win your enemy to Christ by showing him kindness and loving him today!
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Another Lie
In His Presence: 1 John 2:15-16
"He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist"(Acts 17:26-28).
Satan understood that he could not get rid of God. Before man was created, He tried to elevate himself to God's level. That way, he could do what he wanted to do, and God could do what He wanted to do. Satan did not want to be reminded that God created him.
In the Garden of Eden, God established a boundary. He limited Adam and Eve's access to one tree. The boundaries created dependency. As mentioned in the above verse, God desires that we should seek Him. The limitations are meant to guide our search for Him.
When Satan approached Eve at the restricted tree, he told her: "God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). Satan's fifth lie in this third chapter of Genesis was that we could be equal with God. Satan was offering Eve an impossibility. He was telling her that she could become like God by eating the fruit. However, we can never be like God. He is unique. Satan encouraged Eve to rebel against her creatureliness as he had done earlier.
One Minute Please
God creates boundaries to establish the Creator/creature distinction.
God bless
:angel:
June 3, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"The Secret of the Lord"
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him . . . -Psalm 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving Him no time to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God. But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself- to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so intimately united to Jesus Christ's idea of prayer- "Your will be done" (Matthew 6:10)- that we catch the secrets of God? What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us- He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.
"Him shall He teach in the way He chooses" (Psalm 25:12). At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God. But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never try to reason it out, saying, "I wonder why I shouldn't do this?" God instructs us in what we choose; that is, He actually guides our common sense. And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, "Now, Lord, what is Your will?"
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Aiming at God's Pleasure
In John, chapter 8, Jesus made a statement that I wish I could make. He said, "I always do those things that please the Father." Wouldn't it be great if we could all say that?
Paul points us in that direction in 2 Corinthians 5:6-9,
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.
Whether we are still in this earthly body or we are standing before the Lord in heaven, he says, "We make it our aim to be well pleasing to Him."
But you know what? You cannot aim at a target that you can't see. You can't make it your aim to be well pleasing to Him if you don't know what pleases Him. And it is to your advantage to find out, as Paul points out in verse 10,
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
So let me ask you, what is your aim today? Are you aiming at what pleases God? My prayer is that you will come to truly know and understand what pleases God as you spend time each day with me in this devotional...and that you will make that your aim!
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God Is Unique
In His Presence: Nehemiah 9:6
"Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; yes, let him recount it to Me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place' ''(Isaiah 44:6-7).
There are no other beings like God. He is entirely unique. Anyone trying to equate themselves to the status of deity is practicing idolatry. God establishes His uniqueness in so many ways. " 'You are my witnesses,' declares theLord, 'and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me' '' (Isaiah 43:10).
When God placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden and placed a limitation on the man He had created, He was saying that He is God, the Creator, and Adam was man, the created. He lay down a clearly marked line that Adam and Eve were not to cross over.
"I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God"(Isaiah 45:5). Satan, in the Garden of Eden, held out to Adam and Eve the idea that they could cross over the line and become like God.
One Minute Please
God is so spectacular that it will take all of eternity for us to get to know Him.
God bless
:angel:
June 6, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Work Out" What God "Works in" You
. . . work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you . . . -Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, "But I don't know if my will is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say "I will not obey" is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God's creation of human beings- sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. ". . . for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." With focused attention and great care, you have to "work out" what God "works in" you- not work to accomplish or earn "your own salvation," but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God's will- God's will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God's will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with "dynamite," and the "dynamite" is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
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Standing in the Gap
Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him (Isaiah 59:14-16).
God is not pleased at injustice nor when truth and righteousness do not prevail. When He sees those who turn from evil becoming a prey, He is not happy.
I remember a young man who an had lived a particularly sordid life. He heard the gospel and had an amazing conversion experience. Within a month or so of accepting Christ, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
What happened? He departed from evil and became a prey! God was not responsible for his situation, nor was He pleased.
Why did it happen? At least part of the answer is found in verse 16. There was no man serving as an intercessor. No one was keeping a hedge of protection around that young man through prayer.
Before and after people turn from evil we need to intercede to God on their behalf.
I challenge you today to be one of those who stands in the gap and makes up the hedge for new babes in Christ. May God find pleasure in you and me as we take our position as intercessors.
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Knowledge vs. Power
In His Presence: Proverbs 3:19-20
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host"(Isaiah 45:12).
God wants a Creator/creature distinction between us. We can still relate with each other, talk, and have fun. But we must not forget there is a difference. We have limitations while God does not. A good illustration of this type of relationship is the teen/parent relationship. Teenagers often question why there should be a distinction in the relationship. Depending upon whom they listen to, they may feel that their parents are withholding things that will make life better. They don't understand why they can't enjoy the same privileges as their parents.
Why would Satan tell Eve that eating the fruit would open her eyes and make her like God? Does this reasoning sound familiar?
Satan basically said, "God wants to keep us ignorant so He can control us. If He can control us, He can always tell us what to do and be our boss. But if we eat of the tree we won't be ignorant anymore. We will know what He knows and be able to do what He does."
In using the word know, Satan was implying that information equaled power-the power to determine our own future, our own fate.
One Minute Please
Using our illustration of the teen/parent relationship, Satan was encouraging Adam and Eve to think like the teen who wants his parents to pay the bills, but does not want to submit to their authority.
God bless
:angel:
June 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . -John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point- the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? "If you abide in Me . . . "- that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point- "you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these- what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
"Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . ." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God's foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
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God's Pleasure...Your Blessing
In Psalm 35:27 we are told,
Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, "Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant."
This Psalm says it clearly-God is pleased when you are blessed. The Revised Standard Version translates this verse this way, God delights in the welfare of His servant.
In Luke 12, when talking about God meeting our practical, physical, and material needs, Jesus says, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
You do not need to somehow convince God to meet your needs. In fact, God desires to bless you.
It is like the son who felt his father had not provided for him when his dad passed away. His father left one sibling some property, another one some valuable stock, and all the son got was a box of what looked to him like junk.
One day, because of financial trouble, the son had to move out of his apartment. As he cleaned things out, he found the box of junk he had thrown in the back of a closet. Noticing there were some stamps and trading cards in the box, he decided to see if they were worth anything.
It turned out the trading card collection was filled with rare baseball cards in mint condition. And every one of the stamps was very rare-very valuable. The combined appraisal of the two collections was over $450,000!
His father had provided for him, but the son had lived far below those privileges because he didn't believe his father had blessed him!
Our heavenly Father delights in, He takes pleasure in, the prosperity of His servant. And that means you!
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Who Will Be Our God?
In His Presence: 1 Peter 3:15
"If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"(Exodus 19:5-6).
When Satan tried to get Eve to take the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he put forth arguments that sounded convincing in her ears. He told her God was holding out on them. He said if they ate the fruit, they would be like God. He said God's Word couldn't really be trusted anyway.
There was something that Satan didn't tell the first married couple. In disobeying God, they would be obeying Satan, making him their master. He knew that whomever we obey is our god. So the devil was not just offering Adam and Eve a bit of knowledge independently of God, he was offering himself as their new god. That is what he originally wanted as Lucifer, the angel of light. He wanted to be like God. We're right back to the issue that caused the problems in the first place.
Moses said: "If you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 28:1-3).
One Minute Please
The issue today for us is whom are we going to obey? Who is the authority in our lives?
God bless
:angel:
June 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What's Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them -John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself- begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice . . ." (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).
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A Prosperous Attitude
In our previous devotional, we learned that God is pleased to bless us. But that prosperity must be accompanied by a special attitude...an attitude that is captured in 1 Kings 3.
This passage records God's appearance to Solomon in a dream at Gibeon. In the dream God said to Solomon, "Ask! What shall I give you?"
What an incredible statement, and question! Equally incredible is Solomon's response, which revealed the attitude of his heart, the attitude which must accompany our prosperity. That response is captured in verses 7-10,
"Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?" The speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.
God is pleased when, in our hearts, we put others before ourselves. God delights in prospering us when prosperity is not our chief aim. When we get it right, and in our hearts we do place others before ourselves, God can bless us beyond our wildest dreams.
God will give you everything you need to fulfill His plan for your life. He will give you richly all things to enjoy, as long as you have a prosperous attitude that puts His plans and His people first.
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Knowledge vs. Power
In His Presence: Proverbs 3:19-20
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host"(Isaiah 45:12).
God wants a Creator/creature distinction between us. We can still relate with each other, talk, and have fun. But we must not forget there is a difference. We have limitations while God does not. A good illustration of this type of relationship is the teen/parent relationship. Teenagers often question why there should be a distinction in the relationship. Depending upon whom they listen to, they may feel that their parents are withholding things that will make life better. They don't understand why they can't enjoy the same privileges as their parents.
Why would Satan tell Eve that eating the fruit would open her eyes and make her like God? Does this reasoning sound familiar?
Satan basically said, "God wants to keep us ignorant so He can control us. If He can control us, He can always tell us what to do and be our boss. But if we eat of the tree we won't be ignorant anymore. We will know what He knows and be able to do what He does."
In using the word know, Satan was implying that information equaled power-the power to determine our own future, our own fate.
One Minute Please
Using our illustration of the teen/parent relationship, Satan was encouraging Adam and Eve to think like the teen who wants his parents to pay the bills, but does not want to submit to their authority.
God bless
:angel:
June 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Then What's Next To Do?
Everyone who asks receives . . . -Luke 11:10
Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God . . . " (James 1:5), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask. You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose. The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.
"Everyone who asks receives . . . ." This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.
"If any of you lacks wisdom . . . ." If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality- do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means "beg." Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg- blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3).
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Fitting into God's "Foolishness"
In 1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul gives us an interesting insight into how you and I please God.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
God's methods are astounding. To bring men and women into His family through the foolishness of preaching! When people hear the gospel preached and believe it, God is pleased.
Now how is the gospel preached? Through your life and mine. Every one of us has been entrusted by God with some gift to communicate the gospel. Perhaps you have been entrusted by God with unusual wealth. Or maybe a marvelous singing voice, or the ability to communicate, or perhaps the skill to assimilate facts.
Whatever it is, God has put something in each of us that somehow fits into His great master plan of winning this lost world to Jesus Christ.
God has chosen to use these weak, fallible vessels to share the simple gospel message that the world is separated from Him because of sin. In His mercy, God reached down to the human race when He sent His own Son, Who willingly gave up His life on the cross and died for our sins. The price was paid. God's eternal justice was satisfied. And the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
That is the message our world so desperately needs to hear today! God is pleased when you share that "foolishness." So however God has gifted you, use that gift today to present a living Jesus to our dying world!
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Who Will Be Our God?
In His Presence: 1 Peter 3:15
"If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"(Exodus 19:5-6).
When Satan tried to get Eve to take the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he put forth arguments that sounded convincing in her ears. He told her God was holding out on them. He said if they ate the fruit, they would be like God. He said God's Word couldn't really be trusted anyway.
There was something that Satan didn't tell the first married couple. In disobeying God, they would be obeying Satan, making him their master. He knew that whomever we obey is our god. So the devil was not just offering Adam and Eve a bit of knowledge independently of God, he was offering himself as their new god. That is what he originally wanted as Lucifer, the angel of light. He wanted to be like God. We're right back to the issue that caused the problems in the first place.
Moses said: "If you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 28:1-3).
One Minute Please
The issue today for us is whom are we going to obey? Who is the authority in our lives?
God bless
:angel:
June 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
And After That What's Next To Do?
. . . seek, and you will find . . . -Luke 11:9
Seek if you have not found. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss . . ." (James 4:3). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, "you ask amiss"; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God. ". . . seek, and you will find . . . ." Get to work- narrow your focus and interests to this one thing. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? ". . . seek, [focus,] and you will find . . . ."
"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. . ." (Isaiah 55:1). Are you thirsty, or complacent and indifferent- so satisfied with your own experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a doorway, not a final goal. Beware of building your faith on experience, or your life will not ring true and will only sound the note of a critical spirit. Remember that you can never give another person what you have found, but you can cause him to have a desire for it.
". . . knock, and it will be opened to you" (Luke 11:9). "Draw near to God . . ." (James 4:8). Knock- the door is closed, and your heartbeat races as you knock. "Cleanse your hands . . ." (James 4:8). Knock a bit louder- you begin to find that you are dirty. ". . . purify your hearts . . ." (James 4:8). It is becoming even more personal- you are desperate and serious now- you will do anything. "Lament . . . " (James 4:9). Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are. "Humble yourselves . . . " (James 4:10). It is a humbling experience to knock at God's door- you have to knock with the crucified thief. ". . . to him who knocks it will be opened" (Luke 11:10).
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Pleasing God... Even in Your Sorrow
In Psalm 69, David shares his innermost thoughts as he cries out to God, afflicted, sorrowful, beaten down, and distressed. David felt like he was sinking in floodwaters, caught in the quicksand of difficulties.
If you are like me, I am sure you have been there too. In fact, you may feel like you are there right now. Floodwaters of trouble have come into your life. You are treading water, and it seems like you are about to go down for the third time.
For most of us, our response is to get down and depressed, to feel sorry for ourselves. And to hope we will receive comfort and encouragement from those around us.
David's reaction was different. And a model for how we should respond to those times of sorrow and trouble in a way that pleases God. In verses 30 and 31 of Psalm 69 he states,
I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull.
You know, anyone can sing when the sun is shining. It is easy to praise God and shout the victory when things are going your way. But to praise God when the chips are down...that brings pleasure to God.
To worship God, to magnify Him and to thank Him even when it looks like you are not going to make it, that pleases the heart of God. It shows Him something about you. It demonstrates that you have faith in Him, and it opens a way for Him to work in your life.
If your life feels full of sorrow and trouble, begin to praise God, and watch God work!
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True Worship
In His Presence "An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:23).
Many years ago, Robert Grant wrote the words to "O Worship the King,"
O worship the King, all glorious above
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, Whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the winds of a storm.
These two verses introduce us to the glory of God and the opportunity that we have to worship Him. However, a growing concern for many pastors is that many in their congregations attend church on Sunday because it is the right thing to do-not to worship the Lord. In other words, the act of coming together and fellowshipping has become more important than being in God's presence where we worship Him through praise and prayer.
It is like the couple who had their baby christened at church, and then, after the service, had a party to celebrate the event. Aunts and uncles began arriving along with grandparents, nieces, nephews, and friends. Everyone began talking and eating. Finally someone spoke up and asked, "Where's the baby?" The parents had taken the child to his bedroom and placed it in the crib to take a nap. Everyone was so busy enjoying one another that they had forgotten why they were there.
Worship is essential to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. In the Scripture above, the Lord explains to a woman who had committed many sins that a time was coming-and really, had come-when true believers would worship in spirit and truth. The Messiah was standing right before her, and in His presence she found forgiveness for all that she had done and salvation for her soul.
It was then that she realized the freedom of heart and mind that God was extending to her. And she began to worship the Lord by telling others of His marvelous grace and love.
One Minute Please
Worship has to do with real people who have real needs. When we understand the gift the Father has given us, we will want to worship Him without ceasing.
God bless
:angel:
June 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting There
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words- "Come to Me." Our Lord's words are not, "Do this, or don't do that," but- "Come to me." If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing- "Come to Me." If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord- "Come to Me," and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be "foolish" enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
". . . and I will give you rest"- that is, "I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm." He is not saying, "I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep." But, in essence, He is saying, "I will get you out of bed- out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity." Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about "suffering" the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
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Rejoicing in God's Mercy
We all are familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son. After he had wasted his inheritance, he came to his senses and returned home, hoping he could just be a servant to his father.
His father wouldn't even consider it. He put the best robe on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and then had the fatted calf killed for a party. The father delighted in showing mercy to his son!
But what about the older brother? He stood outside the party and wouldn't come in to celebrate. He was so angry! He had never messed up and yet his father had never thrown him a party!
Sometimes, if we are not careful, we can have the attitude of that older son. We can look at the lives of others and think, "That is not fair. I know he's been messing up, and God is blessing him. What's up with that? I haven't been as bad as him!"
We need to remember that God delights in showing mercy to the guilty when, from a sincere heart, they seek that mercy. He delights when you and I ask for His mercy when we have blown it.
Micah 6:7-8 says,
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
God delights in showing mercy. So be a person of mercy, and rejoice when God shows mercy to someone who needs it.
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The Priority of Worship
In His Presence "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3).
Imagine what it would be like to step inside your church sanctuary on Sunday morning and witness the vision that Isaiah saw. He writes, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings . . . One called out to another and said, 'Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke" (Isaiah 6:1-4).
This had to be a glorious sight! But it also was one that conflicted Isaiah's heart because he knew that he was guilty of sin. Immediately, a godly sense of fear swept over him, and he cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). When we become aware of God's holy presence, we won't be able to stop ourselves from worshiping Him and seeking His cleansing for our sins.
However, if we become so entangled with sin and the pleasures of this world, we will fail to sense the need to worship God. In fact, our spirits will be dead to any true praise. Instead, we will yawn and check our watches to see if the preacher is preaching longer than he should.
Isaiah realized there was a problem in his life-it was one that needed to be addressed immediately, so he could do what God had called him to do. Many times, we miss God's best for our lives because we become too busy for worship. When we take time to worship God for who He is-righteous, loving, and infinite in power-our hearts will be lifted, and our lives will be changed. We will cry out, "Holy are You Lord and worthy to be praised!"
One Minute Please
True worship begins with a heart that is totally turned toward God.
God bless
:angel:
June 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Get Moving! (1)
Abide in Me . . . -John 15:4
In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus- I have to do it myself. I have to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). "Abide in Me"- in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord's inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father's plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord's life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).
Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, "Yes, Lord, just a minute- I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then." Get moving- begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.
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Becoming a Person of Mercy
Luke 6:38 tells us,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
It is not unusual to hear this verse used in connection with giving money to the Lord's work. And while there is a principle concerning money embedded in this verse, Jesus was not talking about giving an offering when He made this statement. That was not the subject under discussion.
In order to understand what He was really talking about, you need to read verses 35-37,
"But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Jesus wanted to impress on us this truth: If you give forgiveness, and you give love, and you give mercy, they come back to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together.
He wanted us to understand that by the same measure you and I give these things, it will come back to us. But if you and I measure out judgment and condemnation, guess what gets measured back to us?
Make a commitment today to become a person of mercy, not seeking anything in return. Become known as someone who reflects our God of mercy to a broken and needy world.
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A Notetaker's Journal
In His Presence "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord" (Exodus 24:4).
One of the most exciting things you can do in your Christian walk with the Lord is to keep a journal of all that He is teaching you. Exodus 24:4 says, "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord." In other words, he did not want to miss or forget anything. He took notes! If he were attending church with you, you could expect him to pull out a notebook and start jotting things down. Why? God directed Moses to do this because he was the one who would communicate what God said to the nation of Israel.
Today, godly men and women teach God's truth, and we would be wise to pick up the habit of taking notes, as God taught Moses to do. Actually, the human mind has to hear or record a fact at least three times before it is committed to memory. Sometimes, it can take hearing a fact up to fourteen times before it is actually stored in our knowledge base.
This is why when you walk up to your pastor at the end of the worship service and commend him on his sermon, you pray that he does not ask you to repeat his main points back to him. It also is the reason you can gather over lunch with family and friends and exclaim how much you learned at church, but when you are asked to tell what you thought was the highlight, your mind goes blank.
Learn to take notes. Record your thoughts, and then, when you are alone with the Lord, ask Him to affirm what you have heard in and through His Word. Godly messages never conflict with what God has written in the Bible-it is the infallible Word of God. This means that it is God's Word to us, and nothing about it can be changed or taken away.
We live in a devious world because Satan is constantly enticing us away from God's truth. As you worship the Lord, ask Him to make you aware of the Enemy's subtle and dangerous scheme. There is only one way to worship God, and that is with the entirety of our hearts and minds.
One Minute Please
Worship is not a place or an event. It's a way of life.
God bless
:angel:
June 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Get Moving! (2)
Also . . . add to your faith . . . -2 Peter 1:5
In the matter of drudgery. Peter said in this passage that we have become "partakers of the divine nature" and that we should now be "giving all diligence," concentrating on forming godly habits (2 Peter 1:4-5). We are to "add" to our lives all that character means. No one is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; it must be developed. Nor are we born with habits- we have to form godly habits on the basis of the new life God has placed within us. We are not meant to be seen as God's perfect, bright-shining examples, but to be seen as the everyday essence of ordinary life exhibiting the miracle of His grace. Drudgery is the test of genuine character. The greatest hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will only look for big things to do. Yet, "Jesus . . . took a towel and . . . began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." (John 13:3-5).
We all have those times when there are no flashes of light and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily routine with its common everyday tasks. The routine of life is actually God's way of saving us between our times of great inspiration which come from Him. Don't always expect God to give you His thrilling moments, but learn to live in those common times of the drudgery of life by the power of God.
It is difficult for us to do the "adding" that Peter mentioned here. We say we do not expect God to take us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we do! I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all of the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty's sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Obedience and Respect
I am sure most Christian parents, at one time or another, have pointed their children to Colossians 3:20,
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Or to Ephesians 6:1-3,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
These two character qualities of obeying and honoring parents are vital to pleasing God. But it is important to understand that obedience has to do with an outward act, while honoring has to do with an inward attitude of the heart.
As parents, we all can remember those times when our children may have been outwardly obedient but were being inwardly disrespectful. You may have gotten them to sit down in the corner, but while they sat there, they were thinking, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"
If you are a parent, it is critical for you to deal just as swiftly with a disrespectful attitude as it is with a disobedient act. It is part of your God-given role of teaching your children obedience and respect for authority.
As your children learn how to obey and respect, you will not only bring them peace, they will experience God's blessing in their lives.
So as you work to raise your children to be the people God desires them to be, make a priority of teaching your children the qualities of respect for authority and obedience. Someday they will bless you for it!
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Tapping into His Power
In His Presence: "Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God" (Acts 12:5).
There was a lady who lived out in the country and never had electricity. Finally, her family made arrangements so a line could be run out to her house. However, after six months, she had only used one unit. Company officials decided to drive out to her house to make sure nothing was wrong. When everything checked out fine, they asked her if she was enjoying having electricity. "Oh my, yes," she replied.
Then one of the representatives said, "Well, tell us how you are using it." The old woman paused for a moment, and then, with a gleam in her eyes, she explained. Each evening, as the sun was setting, she turned the lights on long enough to light her kerosene lamps-and then turned them off! She was still living a kerosene existence when she could have been enjoying the comforts of having electricity.
God has given us tremendous power through the presence of His Spirit. Yet many times, we fail to use it. Instead, we settle for much less by relying solely on our human ability. There are certain things God never meant for us to handle on our own. We may be fine when it comes to choosing which shirt to wear in the morning, but when life becomes stormy and the winds begin to blow hard against us, we need an omnipotent Savior.
In Acts 12, we learn that Peter was arrested and that no amount of human effort could free him. However, the supernatural power of God did. The Bible tells us that the church was praying fervently. This means they were praying without ceasing, knowing that God had the power they lacked to release the one they loved.
What are you wrestling with today? Have you rolled it over onto the Lord through prayer, or have you lit a room full of kerosene lamps? Stop struggling on your own and turn on God's power through prayer and faith. Allow Him to be your strength and your everlasting peace.
One Minute Please
God wants to use the problems we face to demonstrate His awesome power and ability. Are you willing to allow Him to do this?
God bless
:angel:
June 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Will You Lay Down Your Life?"
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . . -John 15:13, 15
Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, "I will lay down my life for Your sake," and he meant it (John 13:37). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing- our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. Has the Lord ever asked you, "Will you lay down your life for My sake?" (John 13:38). It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways. There was only one bright-shining moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was there that He emptied Himself of His glory for the second time, and then came down into the demon-possessed valley (seeMark 9:1-29). For thirty-three years Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father. "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16). Yet it is contrary to our human nature to do so.
If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, "Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful." And Jesus says to us, ". . . I have called you friends. . . ." Remain faithful to your Friend, and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life.
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Embracing the Blessings of God
Ephesians 1:3 is a verse that is often misunderstood. It tells us,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
I used to read that and wonder what in the world a spiritual blessing in a heavenly place in Christ really was! I truly believed that I had been blessed with it, but I didn't have a clue what it meant.
Then one day as I studied, I found out that the word spiritual literally means Holy Spirit-conferred. The Amplified Bible helps clarify the meaning when it says, He has blessed us with every Holy Spirit-given blessing.
What it means, literally, is that the blessings you and I enjoy as believers in Jesus Christ come from heaven's vast resources. And they have already been conferred on us. Isn't that awesome?!
But there is something more. These Holy Spirit-conferred blessings include any blessing and benefit we get from God, be it material, physical, emotional, or spiritual.
So, when God heals you, it is a blessing being conferred through the agency of His Spirit. When God brings peace to your troubled heart, that is a blessing from the Holy Spirit. And when God supernaturally supplies material needs, that is the Holy Spirit at work blessing you from the vast resources of heaven!
But here is what I really want you to grasp. Based on this verse, all those blessings have already been given. They have been issued. On God's side of the ledger, they are a done deal. He has already signed them and sent them.
So praise God for...and embrace...His blessings in your life!
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Jailed but Not Bound
In His Presence "Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison" (Acts 12:6).
Has there ever been a time when you felt so bound by your circumstances that you thought you would never be released? Without a doubt, Peter's situation, from a human standpoint, seemed impossible. However, from God's perspective nothing was further from the truth. It was an opportunity for Him to display His awesome power through Peter's life.
While the church was praying for his release, Peter was resting. In fact, he was asleep! Most of us would have been awake, anxiously watching the door and wondering what was going to happen next. But not Peter. He was in the center of God's loving will. Life is not void of trouble and heartache. Sometimes His plan for us includes difficulty.
When trouble strikes and you feel as though your world is falling apart, do you have this same type of faith? Many of us don't. We may start out thinking, "Now Lord, You know my needs. Please help me." However, when time drags on and the door to freedom remains closed, we begin to wonder what has happened to God. Has He left the scene? The answer is no. He is right where He always is-beside you, with you, and living His life out through you.
Peter was not worried about tomorrow because his eyes were set on Christ. Being handcuffed to him was probably similar to being chained to the apostle Paul. We can imagine that at every opportunity, those who were guarding him had the opportunity to hear about the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.
"The Lord is not slow about fulfilling His promises" (2 Peter 3:9). What may seem like forever to you is not even a moment to God who is infinite and eternal. Peter's amazing release came at just the right time-the middle of the night. When life appears the darkest, the light of God's hope will find you. Your Savior is working on your behalf, and He will answer your prayer.
One Minute Please
If Satan has hemmed you in on all sides, if he has handcuffed you and you see no way out, then you are a good candidate for a miracle!
God bless
:angel:
June 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Beware of Criticizing Others
Judge not, that you be not judged -Matthew 7:1
Jesus' instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, "Don't." The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.
There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person's situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
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Enjoying the Fullness of Your Inheritance
In Galatians 4:1-5, the apostle Paul helps us understand what it means to be part of God's family,
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Adoption in Roman society was very different from adoption today. When a flesh and blood son reached the age of maturity, he was "adopted" into his own family. Until that time, he was considered a child, and he was under the tutelage of a household slave.
We are heirs because of adoption. What does this mean? It means that God is well pleased when we assume our place as mature sons of God, exercising our authority and enjoying the fullness of our inheritance. But most Christians don't do this.
Not long ago, I learned about a particular website that can tell you if you have any money anywhere that you don't know about. There are literally hundreds of millions of dollars sitting unused in trust funds or accounts that people don't know about.
A lot of Christians operate this way. They have this incredible inheritance that belongs to them, this incredible authority that has been given to them, and they are unaware of it. And, friend, that does not bring pleasure to God.
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Worship the Lord with Your Life
In His Presence: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy" (Jude 24).
Faith is at the heart of worship. In Streams in the Desert, Mrs. Charles E. Cowman records a story that focuses on giving God praise. The story is of a woman who had very little. She made a "precarious living by hard daily labor; but [she] was a joyous, triumphant Christian." One day, a gloomy friend said to her, "Ah, it is well enough to be happy now, but I should think the thought of your future would sober you. Only suppose, for instance, you should have a spell of sickness and are unable to work. Or suppose your present employer moves away and no one else gives you anything to do. Suppose . . ."
Nancy knew where the conversation was going and raised her hand to interrupt her friend. "Stop! I never use the word suppose. The Lord is my Shepherd, and I know that I shall not want. And, Honey, it is all your 'supposing' that is making you so miserable. You had better give them up and just trust the Lord."
We worship God with our lives. Not just with the songs we sing on Sunday morning, but with the way we live each day-including the way we greet others and talk about what God is doing in us. Some people may have an abundance of money while others appear to have very little. It does not matter. If they know the Savior, they have a wealth that this world cannot understand.
Fame and riches mean nothing to God. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are also the loneliest. However, if you have a personal relationship with the Savior, you are never alone. Instead of thinking about what could happen, enjoy the goodness of this day, and worship Him for His faithfulness. He stands watch over your life and gives you promises that will hold true for eternity. Therefore, worship the Lord, and He will bless you in ways that are far greater than you can imagine.
God bless
:angel:
June 20, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Come to "When" Yet?
The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends -Job 42:10
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, "Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer- I will walk rightly before You if You will help me." But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.
If you are not now receiving the "hundredfold" which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29), and not getting insight into God's Word, then start praying for your friends- enter into the ministry of the inner life. "The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends." As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.
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You Can't Out-Give God
Tucked away in the pages of the New Testament is a very powerful promise to those who are generous givers. It is found in Philippians 4:18-19,
Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The Philippian church had made the financial support of the apostle Paul a priority. In these verses Paul acknowledges their generosity and also states a vital principle for every believer to grasp...you can't out-give God!
Not too long ago I came across a letter from a lady who had sacrificially given to the work of God. Here is what she said in her letter:
"My husband and I were in dire straits. He is a Vietnam War veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange. Due to his benefit claims being denied and his being unemployed for three years, we lost nearly everything. We had to put our home up for sale, but nothing was happening. During this time, I gave every penny I could get my hands on and always prayed. So one miracle after another began to take place. First, we were able to move into my husband's deceased mother's home. Then we signed papers for the sale of our former home. Next, my husband's claim for benefits was approved and awarded, and the award was backdated three years. Then he found a job! Our income has tripled, and God continues to do miraculous things for us."
My friend, become a generous giver today. Because you can't out-give God!
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Acceptable to God
In His Presence: "Abel . . . brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard" (Genesis 4:4-5).
As consumers, we have little interest in leftovers. We don't like to spend our money on flawed products. When we pay for an item or a service, we feel that it should be the best that company has to offer. This is true of God, but to an even greater extent.
Adam and Eve taught their sons Cain and Abel how to worship God in an acceptable manner. Yet when it came time to do this, the quality of Cain's offering was not pleasing, and it was not given with the same passion as Abel's. God does not have favorites. He did not choose one over the other because He liked one brother better than the next.
Abel simply understood the principle of worship and offered God the very best that he had. Cain, on the other hand, offered what he could gather quickly-an apple from here, a pear from there, and a clump of grapes. It is also interesting to note that Cain's life is one that was filled with a desire and passion for what God had cursed in the garden at the fall of mankind-the land. Abel offered God the very best of His flocks-the fattest lambs-because he understood that worship came from a heart of love and devotion.
This concept is not just about giving money to the Lord on Sunday. He established guidelines for our giving in order for us to remember that He is the One who enables us to make a living. More importantly, it is about how we live our lives. Are we totally committed to the Savior? Do we love Him and want to worship Him on a regular basis? Or do we just pray when we have a need of Him and go to His house when it is convenient? Those who worship out of convenience have hearts that contain a character flaw-a bent toward Cain's nature.
This does not have to be true of your life. Ask God to show you any area where you are not fully devoted to Him. Remember, worship is something we do with our entire life.
One Minute Please
A character flaw always leads to a content flaw.
God bless
:angel:
June 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Ministry of the Inner Life
You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . -1 Peter 2:9
By what right have we become "a royal priesthood"? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our "hanging on by the skin of our teeth," although we say, "What a wonderful victory I have!" Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don't worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, "Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men." Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: "Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now."
How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.
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The Priority of Purity
We live in a highly sexualized society. It is amazing the number of people, even pastors, who fall to sexual temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 we are told straight out,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
God expects for you and me to live in sexual purity. You need to know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor; otherwise your body will possess you.
God has created a strong sexual drive that is an awesome blessing in marriage! But, you know, it is so strong that sometimes it just wants to flow out of the banks and go somewhere it shouldn't go.
We must learn how to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, and live morally pure lives that bring pleasure to God. Here are three practical ways:
Avoid temptation. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, Flee youthful lusts. Avoid the very scenes of temptation. Stay away when you know you might get in trouble.
Feed your spirit, not your flesh. In Romans, we are told of the great war every Christian experiences, the war between our spirit and our flesh. Whatever you feed is going to be stronger, so make sure to feed your spirit.
Rely on the Holy Spirit and His power. If you will acknowledge Him and look to Him for strength, you will find He is a very present help in your time of need.
Make a commitment today to practice these three principles for purity. If you do, you will live in the sexual purity God desires.
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The Lifestyle of Worship
In His Presence: "You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel" (Psalm 22:3).
Worship is not simply an event or a place. It is an orientation. It is a way of life. It is the result of a decision that we make-one that exalts God above everything else. It is also a way of thinking. We come to a point where we realize and acknowledge that God is truly great and worthy of all praise.
One of the major benefits of worship is that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. This is why worship is crucial to the life of a believer. If we do not worship God on a regular basis, we will not sense His closeness and will not know which way to go when trouble comes. We will not experience the joy of living free lives because we will not be in tune with His Spirit. Instead, we must learn how to walk each day in the light of His grace and unconditional love.
Israel learned the importance of worship in the desert, where they were prepared by God to enter the Promised Land. They carried the altar of God with them. When they stopped to make camp, the first thing they did was to set up the altar and the surrounding tent. They didn't say anything about needing to wait until the Sabbath to worship. They realized the importance of worshiping the One who held their lives fast within His hands.
Do you have this same attitude toward worship? Do you go to church on Sunday with a grateful heart, longing to sing and praise God for His goodness? Or are you one of the missing who rarely shows up to worship the Lord?
Sadly, while God longs for our fellowship, the one that loses out in this case is the person who fails to enter His gates with thanksgiving. He does not need us, but we definitely need Him.
The one place where you can learn the most about God's infinite love and care for you is through times of worship. You don't have to put on your finest clothes in order to worship Him. He just wants you to come and worship with a heart that sincerely wants to be with Him.
One Minute Please
Make worship to God your heart's passion, and He will renew your faith.
God bless
:angel:
June 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unchanging Law of Judgment
With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you -Matthew 7:2
This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution- "with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God's throne down to us (see Psalm 18:25-26).
Romans 2:1 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts. To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts. The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, "Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge."
Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). He went on to say, in effect, "If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way." Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, "My God, judge me as I have judged others"? We have judged others as sinners- if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Perfect and Complete
Your faith in God has incredible potential to make your life complete. To take you from the place of deficiency, to the place of being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James puts it this way in James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Faith in God can make you complete, but your faith will be contested. It will be opposed, even as we read here. Your faith will go through the fire of trial.
If you lack spiritually in your life, you can get to the place of holiness. If you are lacking materially, you can get to a place where your needs are met. Whatever your lack, your faith in God has the potential to take you from where you are, and where you are lacking, to this place that the Bible speaks of...being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
But, the path to that completeness is one of trial. Your faith will not get you there until it first goes through testing. You do have an adversary. You will be opposed. The Bible says, Your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
The devil knows what is at stake, and he will do all he can to keep you from trusting God. So as your faith encounters the turbulence of trials, do what James says, and count it all joy. You are on your way to becoming perfect and complete in Christ.
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Worship That Comes From the Heart
In His Presence: "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8).
Usually, there will come a time when God will test the depth of your devotion to Him. In Genesis 22, He tested Abraham's faith beyond anything imaginable. The Lord instructed Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice.
For a moment, draw this parallel in your mind: God sent His own Son to earth and willingly offered Him as a sacrifice for our sins. Was God's request of Abraham a foreshadowing of what would come? Perhaps. However, the one thing we want to focus on here is that Abraham was willing to obey God. He did not talk back, make excuses, or turn away from God. He just obeyed-knowing in his heart that the Lord would provide the right sacrifice.
When they had reached their destination, Abraham spoke with words of faith as he told his servants, "I and the lad will . . . worship and return to you" (v.5). When it came to the actual moment of sacrifice, God stopped him. "Abraham! . . . Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me" (vv. 11-12). God did not want Abraham to harm his son. He was just checking Abraham's devotion.
How often have you faced a difficult situation and thought, "Lord, You can have anything, but please, just don't take ______." You can fill in the blank for yourself. In this situation, Abraham would have written in the name of his son Isaac-the answer to the promise God had given him years earlier.
Is there something that you are withholding from God? Could it be a relationship, dream, idea, or pursuit? Worship begins in the heart. Therefore, always be willing to obey the Lord by letting go of anything you deem more valuable than your relationship with Him. When you do, His goodness and mercy will be poured out in abundance for you.
One Minute Please
God never sends a test our way just because He's in a testing mood. He has a specific purpose in mind. Usually, it is to draw us closer to Himself.
God bless
:angel:
June 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Acquainted With Grief"
He is . . . a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief -Isaiah 53:3
We are not "acquainted with grief" in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of our lives we do not bring ourselves to the point of dealing with the reality of sin. We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts, and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through life, we find the presence of something which we have not yet taken into account, namely, sin- and it upsets all of our thinking and our plans. Sin has made the foundation of our thinking unpredictable, uncontrollable, and irrational.
We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue- if sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine- that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
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Passing the Test of Your Faith
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how God desires for us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing; but the road to that is the testing of our faith.
The natural question is, "What does it take to succeed when the test comes?" There are two cooperating forces which must be at work. James 1:4-5 shows us what those two forces are,
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
The first force is patience. James' point is, "Don't quit before the answer comes. Let patience have full play, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
Hebrews 10:36, says it this way,
For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
You and I may actually have done the will of God, done what God wants us to do, but if we don't exercise endurance, we won't receive the promise. That is the importance of patience.
The second cooperating force at work to pass the test of your faith is wisdom. If you lack wisdom, if you can't see the forest for the trees in the midst of your trial, you can ask God and He will give it...liberally and without reproach.
God delights when you ask for wisdom. And He won't belittle you or find fault with you for asking.
So if you find your faith on trial, if you are being sorely tested, ask God for wisdom and patiently endure. Without these two forces, you will never know victory!
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A Call of Devotion
In His Presence: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife . . . and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
God calls us to a total commitment-nothing less will do. He called Abraham to complete devotion, and the same was true for Moses, David, all of the disciples, and the apostle Paul. We can't be halfhearted in our love for the Lord and expect to fully experience His joy and peace in our lives. In fact, until we make a full, uncompromising commitment to Him, there will always be distracting factors at work in our lives. We'll constantly be tempted to step away from His very best for us.
In order to be His disciple, you must be willing to deny-not only yourself and your personal desires and passions-but also your love for anyone or anything that could possibly take His place in your heart. Nothing can be more important than Him.
For many people, this concept is hard to accept. They want to say, "Lord, surely You don't want me to give up my only dream for the future?" Or, "Lord, I really want to marry this person. I love her. I know she's not a believer, but I need her. Besides, if I walked away, who would help her know You? Isn't my love for her a testimony about Your love for us?"
To make her point clear, a Christian counselor climbed up on a chair and asked her client to pull her down. The object lesson? It is easy to pull someone down but next to impossible to pull another up-especially if that person resists the truth. God wants you to be solely devoted to Him so that He can bless you with His very best.
The Enemy of your soul, however, wants you to settle for much less. In fact, his goal is for you to step out of God's will through disobedience. He knows if you do, you will not only miss a blessing, but your life will become shrouded with feelings of guilt and disappointment. When that happens you become ineffective as a witness for Christ. God has a great plan in mind for you. When you dedicate yourself fully to Him, you will see it unfold.
One Minute Please
True worship always gives God the nearest, dearest, and most treasured thing in our lives.
God bless
:angel:
June 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
This is your hour, and the power of darkness -Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact of sin- not recognizing it and refusing to deal with it- produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this "hour, and the power of darkness" into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, "Yes, I see what this sin would mean." The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship- it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous. Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.
Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin.
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Gaining the Wisdom of God
I think every Christian desires wisdom from God. But they don't get it because they don't understand how to receive it.
In Psalm 51:6, we are told,
...in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
When God communicates His wisdom to us, He does it in that secret part. Whether it's as we read His Word and a Scripture speaks to us, or whether the Holy Spirit just whispers to us. As Proverbs 20:27 tells us, The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord. In other words, God illuminates us through our spirit.
For example, maybe you are in a difficult financial situation and you just don't know what to do. You are working, you are tithing, you are trusting God, you are doing all you need to do, but it seems like you can't make ends meet.
Maybe what you need is wisdom. If you ask for it, God may speak something as simple to your heart as, "Go talk to this person." Or, "Advertise in this magazine." Or, "Call so-and-so and ask them to forgive you for the way you treated them." Or He may just say, "Hold steady."
Shortly after I was saved, I developed a physical condition I could not get any relief from. So I went to God and I said, "God, give me wisdom." God spoke to me and said, "You need to stop drinking coffee."
Now I did not want to hear that because I was a big coffee drinker. But you know what? After obeying God in that, almost immediately, that condition cleared up, and it has never been back.
God's wisdom. He will speak to you. If you ask, He will make His wisdom known in the hidden part.
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The Reach of Love
In His Presence: "I who speak to you am He" (John 4:26).
Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He decided to pass through Samaria. He was returning to Jerusalem and the disciples could not believe He wanted to travel into the region. Even though it was the shorter route home, the Samaritans were considered to be unclean by most Jews. Therefore, the area was generally avoided. But not by Jesus. He had an appointment with a woman at a well. Only, He did not let His disciples in on His plans.
As He stopped to rest beside the well, they urged Him to keep moving. Finally, He sent them into the city to buy food. When a woman showed up to draw water, Jesus asked her for a drink. He violated a long list of Jewish rules by talking with this woman-a person whose life was far from pure. Only women who lived sinful lifestyles came to the well at midday. Yet, this was exactly when and where she met the Savior.
The bottom line of their discussion was focused on God's unconditional love. He is willing to go anywhere to meet us, and Jesus proves this by traveling into Samaria. Until we come to know and experience His personal love for us, we will never understand how to worship Him.
Perhaps, like this woman, you have found yourself living in a situation that is rooted deeply in sin. Guilt and fear are wrapped around your heart and are now weighing your life down-causing you to wonder if God could ever love you. The answer is yes. Not only does He love you with an unconditional love, He wants you to be free of anything and everything that would prevent you from truly loving and worshiping Him.
This woman became a believer, and her joy and faith were so powerful that those who heard her speak couldn't wait to meet the Savior. You are never outside the reach of God's love. When you turn to Him, He turns toward You with hope and restoration.
One Minute Please
There is more to worship than finding the right location. It has to do with a heart that is repentant and turned toward the Savior.
God bless
:angel:
June 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Overshadowing of God's Personal Deliverance
. . . I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord -Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally- ". . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . ." (Jeremiah 39:18). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God's personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly." Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, "Why should I be treated like this?" If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, "Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance." Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard- we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God's name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
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The Motive of Faith
When speaking of faith, it is critical to talk about the motive of our faith. James 4:2-3 tells us what a wrong motive is,
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
God is very concerned about the "why" behind our prayers of faith. He is very interested in the state of our hearts. And I think it is good to check our motives from time to time.
Why do we want what we want? Is it ego driven? Am I asking for it because I want to impress someone? Are my motives right?
Now, you don't have to overdo it. You can overanalyze things to the point that you become spiritually frozen and don't do anything. I think if you will get honest and lay your heart out before God, He will very quickly put the spotlight on the things that should not be there.
Our dog always stands at the back door and scratches on the glass like he really loves us and wants to come in and be with us. But the moment you open the door he runs right by you into the kitchen looking for food.
Why do you want the thing you want? What is the purpose behind asking? Is it for the glory of God? Is it to help people? Is there a pure motive there?
When your motive is right, God will not be long in answering. But if your motive is not right, God won't answer until it gets right.
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In Your Father's Presence
In His Presence: "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me" (John 14:11).
One day, as Abraham Lincoln's son was walking in a park near the White House, he saw a young soldier sitting on a bench crying. The man was greatly distressed, and the young Lincoln stopped to ask what was wrong.
Looking up through his tears, the soldier explained that his brother had been placed in jail for something he did not do. He had been told that the only person who could help was the President of the United States. The problem, of course, was that he could not get a message to the president because no one in the White House would listen to him.
Lincoln's son thought for a moment and then asked, "Mister, will you go with me?" Even though he did not know the younger Lincoln's identity, he agreed. The two walked across the street and through the White House gate. They passed the guards and Lincoln's personal secretary. In fact, they didn't stop walking until they crossed the threshold of Lincoln's office where his son finally spoke up and said, "Hello, Dad. This soldier needs to talk with you."
The president looked up from what he was doing and smiled. Then he listened as the solider explained his situation. This story certainly proves that when you have the right relationship, you can go a lot further, a lot faster.
The same is true of our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is God's Son, and He has direct access to His heavenly Father. We don't have to spend time praying to others, hoping that we tapped into the right source. When you pray to Jesus, you have all the access you need. No one can prevent you from coming into His presence, and nothing can stop Him from answering your prayers.
You can take your heartaches, sorrows, and disappointments to God in prayer. Whatever concerns you also concerns Him. He is your heavenly Father, and He has full control over the entire universe.
One Minute Please
When you come to worship, you are worshiping the God of the universe who is also your Daddy.
God bless
:angel:
June 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me -Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you "turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has "laid hold of" us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, "Well, I'm really not suited for this." What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you- your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are- you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do. . . I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).
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The Prayer of Faith
Over the last few devotionals, we have looked at faith-what true faith looks like, and the motive behind the faith that pleases God.
In James 5:15 we are told,
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Clearly, James wants us to know that when we pray a prayer of faith, God will answer it. In this passage, we are told that through that prayer God will indeed heal those who are sick, and raise them up.
So what is it that makes up the prayer of faith? There are three components, all of which we have touched on in the last few days.
The prayer of faith is a prayer that:
Does not waver. It doesn't vacillate, moving back and forth. It is anchored on the promise of God.
Is followed by corresponding actions.
Is prayed from right motives.
The example James cites of someone who prayed a prayer of faith is Elijah. I encourage you to read his story in 1 Kings 17. There you find that, through the prayer of faith, God shut up the heavens and there was no rain. And then, by another prayer of faith, the heavens were opened and rain came down.
Elijah expressed his faith when he said he heard the sound of abundance of rain. He made that statement before there was a cloud in the sky or before a drop of rain ever fell!
When you and I don't waver in our faith, when we show our faith by corresponding action, and when we pray with right motives, God will act. As surely as Elijah heard that rain by faith, you can hear the rain...whatever that represents in your life. That is the prayer of faith.
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On Holy Ground
In His Presence "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple" (Isaiah 6:1).
Isaiah probably felt as though he had been hit by a hurricane. King Uzziah had died. With his death came the end of a great era for Israel, which had become a mighty nation under his rule. Now that the king was dead, the people were in an emotional upheaval. Their security was compromised because it was in a man rather than in God.
What is your King Uzziah? Many people place their trust in savings accounts, jobs, and relationships. Shortsightedly, they mistakenly believe that if they have money and good health today, they will be fine tomorrow. While we don't need to live our lives in fear, we do need to develop a strong, unshakeable faith in the One who will never fail us-the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, when life does take a downward turn, we will rest secure in His loving care.
How do you handle a crisis-when you receive the news that your income will be cut in half or that the relationship you believed would lead to marriage falls apart? What do you do when your Uzziah dies and your dreams fall apart? If the focus of your devotion is set on the things of this world, then when trouble comes, you will be shaken. However, if it is on God, you will remain steadfast and sure.
Our greatest vision and understanding of God often comes in times of crisis. Isaiah stepped out of a national whirlwind into the security of the temple where God's presence appeared before him in full glory. Suddenly, the hurricane that had been ripping at his heart vanished, and he fell on his face and worshiped the Lord.
Are the winds of adversity blowing hard against your life? If so, turn your sense of worry into worship because you are standing on holy ground. F. B. Meyer writes, "A storm is only the outskirts of His robe-the symptom of His advent and the environment of His presence."
One Minute Please
Ask God to help you to see your situation from His perspective. When you do, you will understand that He has a perfect plan and that it involves His goodness poured out in abundance for you.
God bless
:angel:
June 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Strictest Discipline
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell -Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that "if your right hand causes you to sin" in your walk with Him, then it is better to "cut it off." There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then "cut it off." The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do- things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, "What's so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!" There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God's sight than to appear lovely to man's eyes but lame to God's. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don't use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in Matthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life- "You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
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The Importance of Revival
Psalm 85:6 asks a powerful question,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
Notice that the psalmist says, "again." This tells me that the nation of Israel was once in a state of revival, but that had waned, it had declined, and they had come again to the place where they needed to be revived.
Perhaps today you are in a place where you need to be revived.
Revival has been described as the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. That is a good definition. Something needs to be revived when it is dying or when it has lost its strength or momentum.
Revival brings new life. It brings fresh vigor. It brings renewed momentum to that which is in a weakened or dying state.
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy, Stir up the gift of God which is in you. The word for stir up literally means to rekindle. In other words, a fire was there at one time, but it has begun to burn low. And now it needs to be refueled and tended to.
The Amplified Bible says, Rekindle the embers, fan the flame and keep burning the gracious gift of God, the inner fire.
Maybe you have felt spiritually flat lately. Maybe the fire that once burned white hot for God is now just a glowing ember. If so, it is time to rekindle those embers and fan to flame what He has put within you.
As God goes to work in your life, you will find that once again your life will be filled with purpose, and you will once again rejoice in God.
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Out of a Whirlwind
In His Presence: "When Elijah heard [a gentle whisper of wind], he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave" (1 Kings 19:13).
Huddled in a cave and miles away from his home, Elijah tried to warm himself and remember how he got to this place. The memory of Queen Jezebel and her violent threats against him came rushing back to his mind. By then, he had almost forgotten the miracle God had done on Mount Carmel and the spiritual victory that had been gained there. Instead, he hid out in fear (1 Kings 19).
At some point, many of us have done the same thing. God breaks into our lives through answered prayer, and we are left speechless. Then, some little sign of trouble appears on the horizon, and we begin to break down emotionally. Instead of sleeping soundly at night, we wake up, toss and turn, and wonder if God will help us. Of course, He always does.
Elijah's first mistake was to believe that he was the only one left in Israel who had a pure heart before God. Pride always leads to feelings of fear, loneliness, and discouragement. As Elijah waited in the cave, God began to demonstrate His mighty ability to His prophet. First, He did so through a strong wind that tore at the mountain, then through an earthquake, and finally, through a mighty fire. God's presence, however, was not in any of these. Then the prophet heard a gentle wind blowing around him, and he knew that he was standing in the presence of God.
God doesn't have to lift a finger in order to deal with the problems you face each day. He spoke the world into existence, and at His command, the storms surrounding your life will cease. Perhaps as He did with Elijah, He will gain your full attention by allowing the storm to blow a little longer. If this is the case, let the earthquake, fire, and wind come, knowing that you have a loving heavenly Father whose only desire is to draw you nearer to Himself. Take time to worship Him and tell Him that you are listening for His voice.
One Minute Please
When thoughts of fear surround your life, remember, God is still on the throne.
God bless
:angel:
June 30, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do It Now!
Agree with your adversary quickly . . . -Matthew 5:25
In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, "Do what you know you must do- now. Do it quickly. If you don't, an inevitable process will begin to work 'till you have paid the last penny' (Matthew 5:26) in pain, agony, and distress." God's laws are unchangeable and there is no escape from them. The teachings of Jesus always penetrate right to the heart of our being.
Wanting to make sure that my adversary gives me all my rights is a natural thing. But Jesus says that it is a matter of inescapable and eternal importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord's standpoint it doesn't matter whether I am cheated or not, but what does matter is that I don't cheat someone else. Am I insisting on having my own rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ's standpoint?
Do it quickly- bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. If you don't, the inevitable, relentless process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit of God so strongly urges us to stay steadfastly in the light! (see John 3:19-21).
"Agree with your adversary quickly . . . ." Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly- make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person- do it now!
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The Vital Sign of Joy
In yesterday's devotional, I challenged you to consider whether God needs to do a work in your life to revive you spiritually. Perhaps you feel it, but you just don't know what it is.
Over the next few days, I want to point you to the vital signs that may indicate the need for spiritual revival in your life. The first one we find in Psalm 85. It is lack of joy. Look at the language in verse 6,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
When a person is sullen and depressed spiritually, cheerless and despondent, it is a sure sign that they need revival.
You might say, "Well, you know, if my circumstances would just change, then I would rejoice." No. Joy is not dependent upon your circumstances. In fact, let me give you a great example.
2 Corinthians 8:1-2 states,
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.
Notice this language. The Macedonians were not in a little trial. They were in a "great trial of affliction." They were experiencing deep poverty, tremendous lack in their life, and yet they had abundant joy.
What was their secret? Living in the grace of God.
More than anything else, joy is dependent upon understanding the grace of God, knowing that God's grace is at work even in your affliction.
If you are joyless today, ask the Spirit of God to fill your heart. If you do, there will be a joy regardless of what you are facing.
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Knowledge vs. Power
In His Presence: Proverbs 3:19-20
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host"(Isaiah 45:12).
God wants a Creator/creature distinction between us. We can still relate with each other, talk, and have fun. But we must not forget there is a difference. We have limitations while God does not. A good illustration of this type of relationship is the teen/parent relationship. Teenagers often question why there should be a distinction in the relationship. Depending upon whom they listen to, they may feel that their parents are withholding things that will make life better. They don't understand why they can't enjoy the same privileges as their parents.
Why would Satan tell Eve that eating the fruit would open her eyes and make her like God? Does this reasoning sound familiar?
Satan basically said, "God wants to keep us ignorant so He can control us. If He can control us, He can always tell us what to do and be our boss. But if we eat of the tree we won't be ignorant anymore. We will know what He knows and be able to do what He does."
In using the word know, Satan was implying that information equaled power-the power to determine our own future, our own fate.
One Minute Please
Using our illustration of the teen/parent relationship, Satan was encouraging Adam and Eve to think like the teen who wants his parents to pay the bills, but does not want to submit to their authority.
God bless
:angel:
July 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Inevitable Penalty
You will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny -Matthew 5:26
There is no heaven that has a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure, holy, and right, and He will not allow you to escape from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit for even one moment. He urged you to come to judgment immediately when He convicted you, but you did not obey. Then the inevitable process began to work, bringing its inevitable penalty. Now you have been "thrown into prison, [and] . . . you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny" (5:25-26). Yet you ask, "Is this a God of mercy and love?" When seen from God's perspective, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure, spotless, and undefiled, but He wants you to recognize the nature you were exhibiting- the nature of demanding your right to yourself. The moment you are willing for God to change your nature, His recreating forces will begin to work. And the moment you realize that God's purpose is to get you into the right relationship with Himself and then with others, He will reach to the very limits of the universe to help you take the right road. Decide to do it right now, saying, "Yes, Lord, I will write that letter," or, "I will be reconciled to that person now."
These sermons of Jesus Christ are meant for your will and your conscience, not for your head. If you dispute these verses from the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you will dull the appeal to your heart.
If you find yourself asking, "I wonder why I'm not growing spiritually with God?"- then ask yourself if you are paying your debts from God's standpoint. Do now what you will have to do someday. Every moral question or call comes with an "ought" behind it- the knowledge of knowing what we ought to do.
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The Vital Sign of Prayer
One of the truest indicators of whether an individual's spiritual life is progressing or declining is prayer. And if your prayer life is declining, it is a sure sign your spiritual life is in need of reviving.
Psalm 80:18 puts it this way,
Then we will not turn back from You; revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
Prayer is to the spiritual life what breathing is to the physical life. If your breathing is shallow and intermittent, something is wrong. It is a sign that there is a lack of health. If your breathing is deep and regular, it is a sign of health.
I once read a story about a World War II soldier who was called in before his commanding officer and accused of spying. The officer said, "You have been seen slipping off into a wooded area where we know enemy patrols have been seen, and we think you're passing information to them."
The commanding officer demanded, "Why did you go there?" and the soldier said, "I just slipped away for a quiet hour of prayer." The officer then commanded him to get on his knees and show him how he prayed.
So the soldier hit his knees, thinking he was likely to get executed for treason, and began to cry out to God. Immediately it was evident that he had an intimacy with God. The commanding officer stopped him and said, "That's enough. You can go." He turned to another officer and said, "No one could pray like that without a long apprenticeship."
Where are you when it comes to prayer? Is it deep and regular? Or is it shallow, sporadic, and intermittent? If it is shallow, it is a sign that your heart needs to be revived.
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Walk by the Light of His Love
In His Presence: "Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand" (Psalm 73:23).
Harriet Tubman was a small wisp of a woman, yet God used her to do a mighty work. Maybe, as you read these words, you are wondering how God could possibly use you. You feel defeated and want to quit. Don't. Instead, keep reading.
While the Civil War threatened to tear our country apart, there were key players behind the scenes that not only worked to preserve life but also defended liberty, hope, and the belief that there is another life worth living. Harriet was one of these people. Without a thought about her own safety, she led hundreds to safe houses along the Underground Railroad and became a legend as she crossed back and forth over lines of battle.
She made the journey countless times, and many wondered how she could continue traveling such long distances-along roadways that were carved out of thick and unruly landscapes. But she did. Even though the threat of death shadowed her, she refused to stop. How did she do it?
The answer is simple: She had a fixed focus on her goal and nothing was going to turn her. Her faith in God's unconditional love gave her the strength she needed to continue her treks to freedom.
Perhaps you long to travel your own road to freedom. You look up at night into the heavens and wonder how you will continue-especially when your heart feels weary and burdened by life's pressures. You can continue on but only when your faith is in Someone much greater than yourself.
The psalmist writes, "Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day" (Psalm 139:12). Each night, Harriet Tubman walked straight through the darkness and on to freedom. In fact, nighttime was the safest time for her to travel, and she did not walk in fear. Perhaps it was because she carried a light of hope with her-the light given to her by an eternal God.
You too can worship the Lord because He does great things, and His loving hands encompass your life.
One Minute Please
Satan spends a lot of effort bricking up your view of God's victory and grace. Therefore, keep walking and keep holding up God's light of hope and grace.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
July 5, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Don't Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass -Psalm 37:5
Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him- that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our "spiritual face" before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don't plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? "Love . . . thinks no evil" (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don't plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command- "Let not. . . ." To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
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The Vital Sign of Pride
Pride and self-sufficiency are unmistakable signs of a heart that is in desperate need of reviving. Isaiah 57:15 tells us,
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
To have a contrite heart literally means you break easily. Even at the thought of grieving God's Spirit you break and repent very quickly. It means you walk softly in your heart before God.
God says He will revive those with a humble spirit and a contrite heart. But one of the great dangers among Christians today-especially for those living in the western world with all of its abundance-is a belief that we don't need anything.
More than ever we need to read the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:17,
"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
How can you be miserable and naked and not know it? It's obvious that Jesus is speaking of their inward, spiritual condition. Apparently, their outward wealth blinded them to their inward poverty. They fell into the trap of pride, which is one of the inherent dangers that comes with prosperity. As Christians living in a very prosperous western world, we need to heed this word!
At Disneyland there is a ride with cool little cars. I remember once seeing a little boy on the ride with his dad, and his feet didn't even reach the pedals! But Junior thought he was driving, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was actually driving the car and making it go.
We need to remember that our feet don't even reach the pedals, and that Daddy, our God, is the One who makes this thing go. We need to maintain a humble heart.
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No Shifting Shadows
In His Presence: "Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude" (1 Timothy 4:4).
What looks like a closed door to you is God's pathway to blessing. What appears to be a nightmare can become His dream for your life. And what may seem like the worst news you could possibly receive can actually be the point of a new beginning. This is because no matter what God allows to touch your life, He has a plan for your future through it.
It is easy to think of God's goodness in a lighthearted way when it seems that we have everything going for us-a good job, health, a growing family, two new cars in the garage, and a house with several bedrooms. Life seems rich and full. But if we never learn to say "thank you" to the Lord, then we have not learned the truth of James 1:17. "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."
There are two extremes that can prevent us from living with grateful hearts. One is a sense of pride. We become prideful and believe that we have earned all that we have. When we have this attitude, we can expect to run headlong into trouble (Proverbs 16:18).
The second extreme comes as a result of feeling sorry for ourselves. While the temptation to be sorrowful-and even depressed-may pull at our hearts at times, we need to refuse it by turning our eyes heavenward. With a grateful heart we should say, "Thank You, Lord. I'm hurting, and I know You understand. I don't know how You will use this heartache that I am feeling, but I trust You to do just that-use it for Your glory and for my blessing."
God loves to hear our words of worship and praise. When we thank Him-even in times of difficulty-for His constant care over our lives, we are expressing our faith and trust in an omnipotent God who watches over every aspect of our lives.
One Minute Please
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Therefore, be grateful that the light of His love covers you.
God bless
:angel:
July 6, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Visions Become Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . -Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor's hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
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View from the Top
I sometimes think Jesus views the Church much differently than we view the Church. In fact, there is a really alarming verse that points to this. It is Revelation 3:1,
"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, 'These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead."
WOW! That was written to a church that on the outside looked like they had it all together!
They had a reputation of being a living, vibrant church! People who saw them went to seminars to find out how they were doing it, and people applauded them for their success. But Jesus says, "You're dead!"
The Knox Bible puts it this way, How thou dost pass for a living man and all the while art a corpse. The Living Bible says, I know your reputation as a live and active church, but you're dead.
You see, activity is not synonymous with life. Sometimes people and churches that are decaying spiritually cover it up with activity. They are still "going through the motions," but there is really a spiritual decay eating away inside.
People think they are doing great, but Jesus sees right to the heart of the matter, both in our individual lives and in the Church.
May God keep you and me from being so mislead. May we look to Him always for our daily bread, recognizing and acknowledging that every blessing we possess, every stride of progress we make, is the result of His goodness and His grace alone.
He is the One whose view really matters!
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Your Heart, God's Home
In His Presence: "I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it" (Acts 15:16).
What makes the place where you live merely a house? What transforms it into a home? Many people purchase houses that never become their home while others live in an apartment they do not own, but they consider it home. The thing that makes a house a home is not a deed or piece of paper. Rather, it is the relationships that are shared by those who live within its walls. If there is a lack of love and respect, then you simply have a meaningless building framed with brick and mortar. However, if the relationships are firm and loving, even a small apartment can be a lovely place to live.
God has a favorite home. In Acts 15:16 He tells us that one day He will rebuild the tabernacle of David. It always helps to understand what God does not say. He doesn't say that He is going to rebuild the tabernacle of Moses or the grand temple of Solomon. Instead, He says, "I am going to rebuild the tabernacle of David."
What is so special about the place that David built? The answer is in Acts 13:22, "[God] said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.'" It was David's character that drew God to his home. And it was through that kind of devotion that the Messiah would reign. Therefore, the tabernacle to be rebuilt was the spirit of David's kingdom.
The Lord loved to be with David because David loved being with Him. He passionately sought the Lord's presence. Therefore, David's tabernacle was unlike that of Solomon's because it was more about God's kingdom than a place to practice rituals. Though grand, Solomon's temple had veils within that separated the people from God. But David's kingdom was an example of love and obedience to God. David was always ready to worship; he was always in the presence of God.
This is what the Lord desires for us. He wants our hearts to be His home-His place of worship where He can meet with us and know that He is welcomed. Is your heart a heart of worship and one that seeks the God of love and truth?
One Minute Please
The passion of any house of worship must be Jesus Christ. Then it will be God's home.
God bless
:angel:
July 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult
Enter by the narrow gate . . . . Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life . . . -Matthew 7:13-14
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but its difficulty does not make us faint and cave in-it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest-our best for His glory?
God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and "it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). But we have to "work out" that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Philippians 2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.
Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory" (Hebrews 2:10 , and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God's grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Slippery Spiritual Slope
The slippery slope to spiritual decline is one that is almost imperceptible. One day you are on fire for God, and then before you know it, you are dull and lethargic.
How does spiritual decline happen? I think there are at least four ways:
Through neglect. If you neglect a garden, the weeds grow. If you don't water the garden, it will eventually dry up. Sometimes we get into a state where we need to be revived due to neglect.
Through the storms of life. Life can sometimes beat you up. Some people have been so beaten up that they are just worn down; and when you couple that with neglect, it is a recipe for spiritual disaster.
Through the influence of wrong company or wrong relationships. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. ." And the very next word is awake. Awake to righteousness, and do not sin. Do not be deceived. Evil company, bad company, corrupts good habits.
Through willful disobedience. I don't know anyone who hasn't been guilty at one time or another of willful disobedience. And when that is not repented of, when it is not taken care of, it brings us into a state of spiritual decline that can be very dangerous.
So what do you do if you find yourself in spiritual decline? Let me leave you with this verse, Hosea 6:1,
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
The same Spirit that convicts also comforts. If you are convicted, repent. Repentance is an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. Return to the Lord and let Him heal you and bind you up.
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Worship the King
In His Presence: "Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).
As you open up a hymnal on Sunday and sing along with the choir, remember, God is not listening to the tone of your voice or the words you sing. He is listening to your heart. Is it turned to Him in worship and praise and adoration? Or is tuned to the distractions of the world? Are you thinking about His goodness or about the person you promised to meet at the mall later in the afternoon?
When life suddenly falls apart, people begin to search for answers. At times, it seems as if they are willing to search anywhere but in the presence of God. Recently, an actor was on television telling why the cult he was involved with was the only one that could actually help people get in touch with themselves. However, his approach was very vain, empty, and naïve-and totally devoid of God.
Unless we have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we can't know our true identity. This is because our identity is in Christ. Each one of us was created in the image of God-not by a human philosophy or culture. We were shaped for His worship-to stand in the presence of God's holiness and not in the drafty, dark, and lonely halls of sin and fear.
The songs of our lives need to reflect our love and faith in the Savior who died so that we might have eternal life. Praise hymns are wonderful to sing, but much of our deep Spiritual truth and theology can be found in the hymns of old. One of these is "O Worship the King" by Robert Grant.
O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise. . . .
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
One Minute Please
When it comes to worship, sometimes we spend so much time on the appetizers that we forget to enjoy the main course.
God bless
:angel:
July 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . -Joshua 24:15
A person's will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will- I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God's Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
". . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . ." Your choice must be a deliberate determination- it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God- do not "confer with flesh and blood" about it (Galatians 1:16). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading- the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, "I will be faithful." But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, "You are witnesses against yourselves . . ." (Joshua 24:22). Don't consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, "I will serve You." Will to be faithful- and give other people credit for being faithful too.
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Patience in Repentance
In yesterday's devotional, I mentioned Hosea 6:1 as a challenge to repent if indeed God is convicting you.
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
God is indeed a God of compassion Who wants you to return to Him. That is the nature of His grace!
It's not unusual to truly repent of a sin, to seek to return to God and walk with Him, but not feel anything right away. And perhaps, to get discouraged.
The verse that follows Hosea 6:1 gives us a good word as a clear encouragement. Here is what Hosea 6:2 says,
After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.
You need to understand that the evidence of revival may not be perceivable right away. That is why I believe Hosea says, After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up.
You need to be careful not to say, "Well, Lord, you have until lunchtime today to do something. And if it doesn't happen by then, I'm out."
God wants you to stick with your commitment to repent. He wants to know you are serious in your desire to walk with Him.
Remember the words of Zechariah 1:3, "Return to Me," says the Lord of hosts, and "I will return to you." Returning to God is something you can do. But only God can do God's part.
If you will return to Him, He will return to you.
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The Privilege of Being in God's Presence
In His Presence: "The Lord has blessed the house of Obededom and all that belongs to him, on account of the ark of God" (2 Samuel 6:12).
In 2 Samuel, we read how David decided to bring the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. However, he did not move it the way God commanded that it should be transported in Exodus 25. The Levities were commissioned by God to be the ones to carry this important part of Israel's worship. Instead of following what he knew was right, David decided the ark, which represented the very presence of God, would be more secure on a new cart with the Levities walking in front of it. He ignored God's instructions!
Whenever we sidestep what we know is right before the Lord, we end up getting into serious trouble. This situation was no different. David had also ordered an elaborate display for the ark's arrival-all of Israel was to be on hand for the event. However, as the procession crested a small hill, the oxen became upset and the ark started to slide.
Without thinking, Uzzah reached out and touched the ark, and the anger of the Lord burned against him. God struck him down because of his irreverent attitude, and suddenly the celebration came to a halt (2 Samuel 6:7). David was stunned. His plans had failed. So he took God's ark from the threshing floor of Nacon to the house of Obed-edom. It wasn't until three months later that God allowed the ark to be moved to Jerusalem. This time, David got it right and sent the Levities to personally move the ark to its new home.
When it comes to worship, God does not kid around. We may laugh and sway to the music being played in our worship services, but God wants our hearts to reflect the purity and holiness that His Word commands.
As the ark entered Jerusalem, David danced "before the Lord with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14). This time He knew that he had done what was right from God's perspective rather than his own. Do you limit your worship of God to Sundays or other religious events? If so, you could be moving dangerously toward touching something that God has said for you to keep holy.
One Minute Please
How you handle the things of God goes a long way in determining the character of your worship and whether you will be blessed or cursed.
God bless
:angel:
July 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
. . . that I may know Him . . . -Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing- even eating, drinking, or washing disciples' feet- we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. "Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." (John 13:3-5).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is "that I may know Him . . ." Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.
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Have You Dug a Pit for Others?
In order to get out of the pits, you need to make sure you haven't dug any pits for others. Psalm 7:14-16 tells us,
Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
Then there is Psalm 9:15-16,
The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The LORD is known by the judgment He executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
Finally, Psalm 57:6,
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me; into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.
When people dig a pit for somebody else, they end up falling into it themselves. In fact, Proverbs 26:27 says it most directly,
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.
Pretty plain, isn't it? If you are asking God to get you out of a pit, you need to take time to consider if it is a pit of your own construction. If you have done something to get someone else in trouble-even if you think you are justified in doing it because that person has hurt you-you need to repent. Until there is repentance, God will not intervene.
God is not going to get you out of your pit while you have a shovel in your hand.
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A Pattern for Worship
In His Presence "Even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary" (Hebrews 9:1).
Many of us can remember watching our mothers make dresses when we were children. Patiently, they would cut out a pattern, pin it to the fabric, and then carefully cut out the pieces so they could be sewn together. The pattern was a guideline for something greater-a dress, skirt, pair of slacks, or blouse.
When we plan the construction of a building, we begin with a blueprint as well. It becomes the pattern we follow in building the structure. In fact, anyone who has ever undertaken a building project knows the importance of architectural drawings. The goal in using these is to achieve a greater result.
If you are going to do anything well in this life, you must begin with a design. The same is true of worship. God outlined a precise pattern for Israel to follow in their worship of Him. The nation had witnessed His miraculous deliverance and their release from Egyptian bondage. However, over time they forgot His goodness and waned in their devotion to Him. The pattern He had given them was meant to lead them to a greater, closer relationship with the God of the universe. But they did not understand this principle and strayed.
The same is true for us today. God loves us with an everlasting love and has provided a pattern for our worship. It is one that, if we use it, will guide us into a close, personal relationship with the Savior. We find His pattern for worship in His Word and through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told His followers, "When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). The Spirit of God is the one who lays a pattern for us to follow in worship and praise. Ask God to develop within you a heart of devotion to Him. Then you will experience not only the fullness of His blessings but also the outpouring of His delight in your life.
One Minute Please
Worship requires a basic design, but it produces a glorious result-one that leads us straight into the throne room of God.
God bless
:angel:
July 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . -Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose- that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ- ". . . that I may know Him. . ." (Philippians 3:10). To fulfill God's perfect design for me requires my total surrender- complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
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Are You Rebelling Against Authority?
If you are in the pits, you need to make sure you are not in rebellion against God's established authority, or aligned with those who are.
In Numbers 16 there is an instructive story of Korah and his followers. They openly confronted Moses and Aaron, and challenged whether they were really God's ordained leaders.
Moses and Aaron were flawed and fallible just like every one of us, but Korah wanted to usurp authority that did not belong to him.
God had placed Moses and Aaron in their position of authority, but Korah tried to undermine that authority and lead people against them.
Look at the result of Korah's rebellion. Moses is speaking in verses 30 and 31,
"But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods.
Notice that it was not just Korah who was destroyed. All those who were aligned with him also went into the pit.
I don't think the ground is going to open up under you if you rebel against the authority that God has set up. But you may find yourself in an emotional, physical, or financial pit that you cannot get out of until you get the rebellion out of you.
If you are in a pit today, check your heart and make sure you are not in rebellion against God's ordained authority.
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The Light of Worship
In His Presence: "If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship" (1 John 1:7).
In his classic book, The Pursuit of God, pastor and author A. W. Tozer writes:
When we sing, "Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord," we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.
Why do some persons "find" God in a way that others do not? . . . Of course, the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.
In Old Testament times, there was a spiritual distance between the people and God. Before entering His presence, the priests were required to wash ceremonially and offer a sacrifice for their sins. Only after doing this could they enter the temple. Women could only worship in a certain area of the temple. Their husbands could travel a little further toward the altar of God, but the priests were the ones who offered sacrifices for the people. This is not so today.
The coming of Jesus Christ ended this rigid form of worship and tore away the veil that separated God from His people. Today, we are never outside of His presence. Therefore, it is even more important to be sensitive to His holiness and our need for purity.
The Israelites ritually washed in order to be clean before God. However, after Christ's resurrection, they did not understand that the gift of God's grace could live with them and cleanse them completely. Today, we can bow our heads in prayer, ask God to forgive our sins, and be completely assured that He does. We are cleansed-not because we are special but because His Spirit lives within us. Isn't this enough to stir your heart to worship and praise?
One Minute Please
The Word of God cleans you and prepares you for worship, even when you do not know it is at work in your life.
God bless
:angel:
July 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . -Isaiah 6:1
Our soul's personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally- when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord," there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God's surgical procedure- His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
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Are You Obeying God's Warnings?
The third thing you should check in your life, if indeed you are in the pits, is to make sure you have obeyed God's warnings.
God does warn us, but we must listen to those warnings. As Job 33:14-18 says,
For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
God always tries to warn us to keep us out of the pits and to keep our lives from danger. And He speaks in many different ways. Sometimes, as we read here, God will speak to us even through a dream.
As I look at my own life, I can see that I have fallen into pits at various times because I did not listen to God's warnings. There have been times I have been too busy to perceive the fact that God was talking to me. It wasn't that God wasn't warning me. He was. I just had a bunch of other things going on in my life and was not taking time to listen to Him.
He is always faithful to warn us. It's just that we are not always faithful to listen. So if you find yourself in a pit today because you did not heed God's warning, just say, "God, I'm sorry." Repent. God will forgive you. And you will be in the position to receive His deliverance.
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A Love That Will Not Let You Go
In His Presence: "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 13:15).
When he was eighteen years old, author and theologian George Matheson went blind. Yet, he continued his studies and entered college where he became an outstanding student. Later, he was ordained as a preacher in the Church of Scotland. Throughout his early years, his sister remained at his side, helping him to study and learn Greek and Hebrew-which added spiritual depth to his writings.
He was, however, destined to suffer an even greater loss. His sister married and he was forced to confront his impending loneliness. A broken marriage engagement in his own life left him questioning God's personal love and divine care.
It was during this period of his life that he wrote a well-known hymn proclaiming the one thing that he believed was still true. God's love for us will never let us go. He writes:
"O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be."
Some believe that Matheson wrote these words on the day that his sister was married. He confessed, "Something happened to me on that day, which was known only to myself and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. This hymn was the fruit of that suffering."
Perhaps you have suffered a great loss, and you don't know how you will ever worship God again. Your dreams are shattered and your heart is broken. Worship does not always come as a result of overflowing joy. It also can pour out of a heart that is hurting. After all, it was Job who wrote, "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 15:13). God understands, and you can still worship Him because He will never let you go.
One Minute Please
Worship is simply our response to a loving God who refuses to let go of us.
God bless
:angel:
July 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Suffering Afflictions and Going the Second Mile
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also -Matthew 5:39
This verse reveals the humiliation of being a Christian. In the natural realm, if a person does not hit back, it is because he is a coward. But in the spiritual realm, it is the very evidence of the Son of God in him if he does not hit back. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but you must make it an opportunity to exhibit the Son of God in your life. And you cannot imitate the nature of Jesus- it is either in you or it is not. A personal insult becomes an opportunity for a saint to reveal the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not, "Do your duty," but is, in effect, "Do what is not your duty." It is not your duty to go the second mile, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say, "Oh well, I just can't do any more, and I've been so misrepresented and misunderstood." Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself. That is the real meaning of filling "up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." (Colossians 1:24). A disciple realizes that it is his Lord's honor that is at stake in his life, not his own honor.
Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself. We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is- Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
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The Pit of Immorality
In the last several devotionals, we have discovered a variety of ways to get out of the pits. Today, I want you to focus on something that is an increasing problem in the Church today. Immorality.
Solomon tells us in Proverbs 22:14,
The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred by the LORD will fall there.
And he says in Proverbs 23:27,
For a harlot is a deep pit, and a seductress is a narrow well.
Immorality is a deep pit. A pit that is difficult to get out of once you have gotten yourself into it. Not only do you get physically involved with another, there is an emotional entanglement that is not that easy to get out of.
Solomon also says immorality is a narrow well. It is binding, restrictive, and it suffocates your spiritual life. If you are seeking God for deliverance while continuing to engage in immoral behavior, your effort is fruitless.
If you are in the pits today because of an immoral relationship, you must cut off that relationship before seeking God's deliverance. If you will ask God for help after you have repented and cut off that relationship, He will help you beyond anything you could imagine.
God is a merciful God. And He has the ability to work something for good even in a situation like this. If you are truly repentant and broken, God can do something good.
God is the only One who can break something and make it more valuable. I break things, and they lose their value. But when God breaks something, it becomes more valuable.
If you are in an immoral relationship, stop it, repent, and He will forgive you, and bring you out of your pit.
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Are You Shouting?
In His Presence: "Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones" (Psalm 33:1).
Shirley Caesar sings a song entitled "Hold My Mule." Itis a song about a man who was called Shouting John because he loved to worship God. The problem was that he ended up going to a city church whose members did not appreciate his form of worship. However, this did not stop John. When he felt the Spirit move, he shouted all over the church.
It wasn't long before he had irritated some of the members, and the deacons decided they needed to have a talk with Shouting John. Standing in one of John's fields-where the old man had been plowing with his mule-they explained why he could not continue his antics. "We're a quiet church," one of the men said, "and you can't be doing all this."
Shouting John listened for a moment, and then he said, "Just a minute. Look out there." He pointed to his fields. "You see all that land? I'm a [former] slave; I'm not supposed to have anything. Yet, I got all this land. Whenever I see that land or think about it, Shouting John gotta shout!"
He paused a moment and then continued, "Look at my chillen. All my chillen are alive. All my chillen are saved. All my chillen are doing fine. Whenever Shouting John thinks about the goodness of God to his chillen, Shouting John gotta shout!"
Then he said, "I get up every morning when the rooster crows and Shouting John get on the back of this mule, and it pulls that plow so Shouting John will have food all year long. When I think about God giving Shouting John a mule and the strength to plow when he is 85 years old, Shouting John gotta shout!" It was then that Shouting John turned to one of the deacons and said, "Hold my mule, I feel a shout coming on."
When we realize where God has brought us from and the plans He has for our future, we will want to shout and never stop!
One Minute Please
The thing that determines whether or not a person is a true worshiper of Jesus Christ is the gratitude that overflows from his or her heart.
God bless
:angel:
July 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
My Life's Spiritual Honor and Duty
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians . . . -Romans 1:14
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent his life to express it. The greatest inspiration in Paul's life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that same sense of indebtedness to Christ regarding every unsaved soul? As a saint, my life's spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to these lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? I will only be able to do this as the Spirit of God works into me this sense of indebtedness.
I am not a superior person among other people- I am a bondservant of the Lord Jesus. Paul said, ". . . you are not your own . . . you were bought at a price . . ." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ and he said, in effect, "I am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus; I am free only that I may be an absolute bondservant of His." That is the characteristic of a Christian's life once this level of spiritual honor and duty becomes real. Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. That is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wine in real life.
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The Pit of Pride
The fifth and the final reason your life may be in the pits is pride. We always need to check our hearts for pride.
In Isaiah 14:13-15 we read,
For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.
This passage records God's rebuke of Satan when he was kicked out of heaven. Satan was talking real big with pride oozing from every word that he said.
But God said, "That's what you think. I'm going to throw you down to the pit." And because of the pride in his heart, Satan will indeed be thrown down to a pit for all eternity (read Revelation 20!).
Pride is a dangerous thing. In fact, so dangerous we are told in 1 Timothy 3:6 to not put a novice into a leadership role in the Church, lest being puffed up with pride, he or she falls into the same condemnation as the devil.
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride is a weird thing. It's like bad breath. Everybody seems to know you have it before you do! But pride will not only get you into a pit, it will destroy you.
I want to challenge you today. If your life is in the pits, check to see if it is because of your pride. If so, humble yourself, otherwise you are not going to get out!
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At the Savior's Feet
In His Presence "I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but [this woman] has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair" (Luke 7:44).
It was customary for the master of the house to provide water at the door so that those who entered could wash their dusty feet. Simon, a Pharisee, had obviously overlooked this important detail. However, the Savior used this oversight as a point to teach His disciples an important lesson about God's forgiveness, grace, and personal worship.
A woman who was a prostitute had been waiting for the right moment to express her devotion to God. We are not told how she got into Simon's house, only that she suddenly began to worship at the feet of the Savior, and every man in the room was aware of it. Without hesitation, she bowed before the Lord and broke the seal on a priceless bottle of perfumed oil. Obviously, she had heard Him teach at some point in the past and had repented of her sin. Nothing is so sweet to the Savior as the fragrance of our repentance.
This was her opportunity to say thank you to God for what He had done in her life. The perfumed oil she poured over His feet was very costly. Yet, Jesus did not stop her from worshiping Him or question where she had gotten the money to buy such an expensive gift. He knew her actions where motivated by pure devotion to God. He also realized that it was a steep sacrifice and something that she would remember for the rest of her life.
Though she did not know it, she was anointing the Savior for his burial. Simon, however, did not even offer a simple pan of water so Jesus could wash His feet. Instead, the Pharisee acted in a typically legalistic fashion. He questioned why Jesus would allow such a display of affection to happen, especially knowing that this woman was a sinner.
God is not ashamed to be with us. This woman fell at Christ's feet knowing that He had forgiven her many sins. She was there to worship Him. And today is the day that you can do the same.
One Minute Please
When you realize the grace of God that has been given to you, you will bow down before Him.
God bless
:angel:
July 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Mystery of Believing
He said, "Who are You, Lord? -Acts 9:5
Through the miracle of redemption, Saul of Tarsus was instantly changed from a strong-willed and forceful Pharisee into a humble and devoted bondservant of the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing miraculous or mysterious about the things we can explain. We control what we are able to explain, consequently it is only natural to seek an explanation for everything. It is not natural to obey, yet it is not necessarily sinful to disobey. There can be no real disobedience, nor any moral virtue in obedience, unless a person recognizes the higher authority of the one giving the orders. If this recognition does not exist, even the one giving the orders may view the other person's disobedience as freedom. If one rules another by saying, "You must do this," and, "You will do that," he breaks the human spirit, making it unfit for God. A person is simply a slave for obeying, unless behind his obedience is the recognition of a holy God.
Many people begin coming to God once they stop being religious, because there is only one master of the human heart- Jesus Christ, not religion. But "Woe is me" if after seeing Him I still will not obey (Isaiah 6:5 , also see Isaiah 6:1). Jesus will never insist that I obey, but if I don't,I have already begun to sign the death certificate of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say, "I will not obey," He will never insist. But when I do this, I am backing away from the recreating power of His redemption. It makes no difference to God's grace what an abomination I am, if I will only come to the light. But "Woe is me" if I refuse the light (seeJohn 3:19-21).
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The Power of Zero
Perhaps you are in a very stressful time in your life right now, and you feel you can't go on. I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact, some of the greatest men and women of God have gone through what you are going through right now.
One of those individuals is the prophet Elijah whom I mentioned in yesterday's devotional. After a great spiritual victory over the priests of Baal, we find him on the run, wondering whether life is even worth it.
We catch the story in 1 Kings 19:4-6,
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Elijah had reached that "zero" place in his life. There was nothing left. He had given it all and the tank was empty.
Maybe that describes you right now, you are on the verge of quitting. You figure, "I've had enough. I'm done. Enough pressures, enough hassles, I cannot ride this thing out anymore. My strength is gone!"
Well, did you notice that when Elijah was at the end of his strength, that was when God intervened? Being out of strength, being at zero, is not a bad place to be. If you will look to God, He is prepared to meet you in your moment of need.
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The Person of the Holy Spirit
In His Presence: John 14:16-29
Our God is a triune Being, three Persons in One. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. They are distinct from one another in Their personhood, but They are one in their essence. They are like pretzels, which have three holes but are all tied together by the same dough. The Three are distinct in their functions, but They are essentially one God.
God bless
:angel:
July 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Submission of the Believer
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am -John 13:13
Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, "You will submit to me." No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose- so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done; and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination, in which I acknowledge that "You are worthy, O Lord . . ." (Revelation 4:11). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don't recognize his worthiness, nor obey his instructions for me, it is a sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.
If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other; like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, "I and My Father are one" (John 10:30). ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" (Hebrews 5:8). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because He was the Son, not in order to become God's Son.
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Your Weakness, God's Power
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a powerful reminder of God's provision for you and me when we reach the end of our strength.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
When Paul wrote these words, he was being harassed everywhere he went by an evil spirit that he referred to as "a thorn in the flesh." It was a messenger sent from Satan to buffet him, to constantly harass him.
The constant harassment of this spirit finally got to him, and he begged God three times to take it away. Paul was clearly at the end of his rope.
But, even though Paul prayed for God's intervention three times, the spirit did not depart. And God's response to Paul was the verse we read above. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
What does perfect mean? It means that His power comes to full maturity...it blossoms...it is fully expressed in our weakness.
What was Paul's response? He went on to say in verses 9-10 of that same chapter,
Therefore most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
It seems that sometimes we have to get to the end of ourselves before we will look fully to God. But when we do, we find that He is more than enough. If you are there today or close to that point, take hold of God's strength.
Put your trust in Him. He will bring you to the place of your breakthrough, and you will find the strength and direction you need.
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Let the Waters Flow
In His Presence: Psalm 19:14
"Jesus stood and cried out, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." ' But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"(John 7:37-39).
We know God wants Christians to grow. Spiritual growth takes place deep down inside us. It comes from the Holy Spirit, whose job is to make the "waters flow." However, most Christians have a home improvement mentality, where we depend on ourselves to produce the development we know we ought to have. But if we could do it ourselves, we wouldn't need the Holy Spirit. The assumption of the work of the Holy Spirit is that we can't do it ourselves. Just as air enables a horn to make a sound, or wind enables a sailboat to move, the Holy Spirit enables the spiritual life to work.
Many Christians do not realize what they have within them. If we were riding on a bus and it broke down, we would all look pretty foolish if we got out to push the bus while Clark Kent was sitting inside it. Christians tend to want to row themselves to spiritual progress. We row and row until we are so tired that we want to give up. But God wants us to use the speedboat with the motor, and He provides it for us.
One Minute Please
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, there would be no spiritual progress.
God bless
:angel:
July 20, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Dependent on God's Presence
Those who wait on the Lord . . . shall walk and not faint -Isaiah 40:31
There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities. To "walk and not faint" is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person- ". . . John . . . looking at Jesus as He walked. . . said, 'Behold the Lamb of God!' " (John 1:35-36). There is nothing abstract or obscure in the Bible; everything is vivid and real. God does not say, "Be spiritual," but He says, "Walk before Me. . ." (Genesis 17:1).
When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.
Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of- "We will not fear, even though . . ." (Psalm 46:2)- will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God's presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, "He has been here all the time!" At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that." Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.
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Lightening the Load
When we get into the storms of life, it is often difficult to know what to do. It can feel like the noise of our troubles drowns out everything else.
In Acts 27 we find the apostle Paul caught in the midst of a horrible storm. The ship was being tossed all over the place, and the situation was becoming quite serious.
Embedded in this story is a spiritual truth that can guide you and me when we get caught in the storms of life. It is found in verses 18-19,
And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
Notice that when the storm got bad and threatened to capsize the ship, they lightened the load.
Sometimes in a storm you need to throw some things overboard. In fact, it is a great time to evaluate any baggage that you are carrying in your life. There are some things that may not be a sin to you, but they are a weight to you.
One of the things you need to carefully evaluate is your relationships. There are some relationships you need to cut loose because they are hanging you up, holding you back, and they are hindering you from getting to where God wants you to go.
Or maybe it's something as simple as too much TV. Watching TV may not be a sin, but it can sure be a weight! It can sure be a hindrance to you hearing from God, especially when you are in a time of crisis.
If you really want to hear from God and get yourself unstuck, lighten your ship.
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Filled with the Holy Spirit
In His Presence: Psalm 63:1
"Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord"(Ephesians 5:18-19).
Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit "abides with you and will be in you" (John 14:17). But how do we engage this personal Helper? How does His power become real for us? We are to become filled with the Spirit; another way to express this is to be full of Him. When a person drinks too much liquor, they become intoxicated. When a person is drunk, they are under the influence of the drink. The alcohol dictates the agenda. They don't get drunk by looking at the liquor or talking about it. They drink it. The more they drink, the more drunk they get.
God tells us that it is like that with the Holy Spirit. To see the Helper develop us, He must have control. We must come under the influence of the Holy Spirit. We must become full of Him. So how do we drink the Holy Spirit? Remember, the Holy Spirit is a spirit, not a being we can see. He functions in the spiritual world, so that's what we drink-spiritual worship. The Holy Spirit fills up the environment that is filled with worship-songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with our hearts to the Lord.
One Minute Please
Worship fuels us with the Holy Spirit's presence, operating in us to engage the new nature.
God bless
:angel:
July 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Doorway to the Kingdom
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to reaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it. What good is there in telling me to be what I can never be- to be "pure in heart" (Matthew 5:8), to do more than my duty, or to be completely devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach- He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The redemption means that Jesus Christ can place within anyone the same nature that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives us are based on that nature.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces a sense of despair in the natural man- exactly what Jesus means for it to do. As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord, I cannot even begin to do it." Then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." (Matthew 5:11). This is the doorway to the kingdom, and yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work.
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Rest
In the last several devotionals, we have looked at how we respond to the storms of life. Today and tomorrow we will look at two more principles for handling life when the storms hit.
Today, I want to go back to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. In verses 5-6 we read,
Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Notice that in the midst of his crisis, Elijah rested and ate. He took care of his body.
Some of the crises you experience come because you are sleep deprived and you don't eat right. And you know what? Your body, your soul, and your spirit are all tied together. What you do to one affects the other two. It affects the whole.
We are intricately woven together. And the wisest thing you can do when you get into a crisis is just give your body a rest, because it affects every other part of your life.
When you are exhausted and physically weak, it is easy for everything to be blown out of proportion. When you are tired, it can look like your whole world is falling apart when it really is not. It is like Mark Twain said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
You and I do need to rest. If you are in the midst of a storm today, make sure not to neglect the rest you need.
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Keep Your Tank Full
In His Presence: Psalm 27:14
"Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand"(Psalm 95:6-7).
Most Christians view worship as an event instead of a lifestyle. But our day of worship is not supposed to replace our weekday and weekend worship. Sunday is supposed to launch us into our week of worship. Worship is meant to be a lifestyle, not an event.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit and with a heart full of worship for our great God and King, we must be like a car pulling up to a filling station to receive a full tank of gasoline. Once we are filled up, do we park our vehicle and sit there the rest of the week? No, we go to a filling station to get what we need to leave the station. We have a destination and need full tanks to get there.
A problem occurs when we leave the station. As soon as we walk out of our Sunday worship, people begin to burn up that fuel inside them. Our mates, children, and work burn it up. When we leave our church, we are full of God's presence and glory from our time in corporate worship. But Satan's job is to burn up that fuel. The worst thing we can do is to wait until next Sunday to worship. We need to drink continually to stay filled.
One Minute Please
What we do on Sunday must become a way of life to remain filled with the Holy Spirit.
God bless
:angel:
July 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sanctification (1)
This is the will of God, your sanctification. . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Sanctification requires our coming to the place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid. There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is realized- something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . his own life . . . he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest- simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, "But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me." Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.
Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply "me"? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
When I pray, "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me- it is Himself in me (see 1 Corinthians 1:30).
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The Still Small Voice
In the last three devotionals, we have looked at principles on how we should respond when our life is in crisis. The last principle is found in 1 Kings 19:11-12,
Then He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
If your life is in crisis today, you need to remind yourself how God leads. Do not look for it in outward, powerful manifestations-the strong wind, an earthquake, or fire.
Rather, listen for that "still small voice."
That is how Jesus speaks to us today. Read carefully the words of John 16:13,
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come."
God has given you and me His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. And, friend, when God leads you, it is going to be through the still small whisper of the Spirit in your heart.
Yet many people want more than that. Some people think, "I'm in a desperate situation. I need something more!" You and I need nothing more, because through the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have God on the inside.
So if God is going to guide you, He is going to do it from within...through that still small voice.
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The Raging Battle
In His Presence: Psalm 37:4
"I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please"(Galatians 5:16-17).
The very Spirit of God has taken up residence in our lives if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. God wants to express His mind, His thoughts, His desires, and His will through our mortal bodies. But for us to see this happen, we need to be under the Holy Spirit's control. While this is taking place, we are going to experience conflict within ourselves. This is one way we can know we are Christians. If we have no battles raging within, we are probably not saved. There is no opposition within us. God says the flesh and the Spirit are total opposites; they are not going to get along with each other at all.
How do we know the difference between the flesh and the Holy Spirit within us? The Spirit will want to please God, and the flesh will want to please ourselves. That's why the war going on inside of us is good, not bad. Most of us feel guilty about having such a battle. Of course, we may not like the feeling, but the two laws operating in our bodies should give us occasion to praise God.
One Minute Please
If a battle is being waged within you, that's a good thing because it indicates that the Spirit is active.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
July 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are . . . -Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the "dynamite" of the Holy Spirit. And they "explode" when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, "What a startling statement that is!" Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child's play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations- it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
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ASK: Effective Prayer
Today I want to show you the very important step of asking.
Repentance is searching your own heart and asking God to put the spotlight on it, and then repenting of anything that He shows you. When your heart is clean, you can have confidence before God when you ask. As 1 John 3:21-22 says,
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus tells us,
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
Pretty clear, isn't it? God loves you and wants the very best for you. Be careful not to water down the words of Jesus, or somehow try and explain them away or complicate them. He meant just what He said.
But there are some conditions. And tomorrow we will look at those conditions for receiving what you ask God for.
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Walking in the Spirit
In His Presence: Proverbs 9:10
"We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us"(1 John 3:24).
Since we all live in the flesh, we will struggle with the desires of the flesh until we get to heaven. But we can bring these desires under the Holy Spirit's influence. "I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). Notice that the apostle Paul doesn't say we won't have the desires of the flesh when we walk in the Spirit, but that we won't carry out those desires.
Walking in the Spirit is similar to the concept of being filled with the Holy Spirit. To walk implies that the Spirit is going somewhere-there's a destination. He always goes to the same place, to that which brings God glory. In contrast, the flesh is always moving to that which will please itself. Walking is continuous, so not only do we have to pay attention to our destination, but our walking also involves dedication. Like the filling of the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit is ongoing. A third aspect of walking includes dependency. The act of walking is taking one step after another.
The key to walking in the Spirit is to look to Him to give us the ability to do what we know we can't do on our own. The moment we try to do it on our own, we reject the work of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn't need our help; we need His.
One Minute Please
When we walk in the Spirit, the flesh will lose its ability to have the last word.
God bless
:angel:
July 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Purity
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart . . . . For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . . -Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, "But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart." We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own "innocent ignorance"? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own "innocence," I am living in a fool's paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
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The Conditions for Answered Prayer
Yesterday we talked about the "A" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, which is our way of understanding the steps in effective prayer. That "A" stands for ask, and I have come to believe that too many Christians don't believe that God wants them to ask.
God wants you to ask. He really does. But there are some conditions He gives in order to answer your requests. In John chapters 14-16 we find a number of these conditions.
We need to remember that these are Jesus' last hours with the disciples; and He wants them to understand how prayer really works. Over and over He emphasizes the need to ask, but His answers will be based on three conditions.
First, in John 14:13, Jesus says your request must glorify God,
"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."
Second, in John 15:7, He says your request must be consistent and in harmony with His Word,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
And finally, in John 16:23-24, Jesus sets the condition that your request bring you joy,
"And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
Over and over, Jesus commands you to ask. But when you ask, make sure your request will glorify God, that it is consistent with His Word, and that it will bring you joy.
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Remarkable Fruit
In His Presence: Matthew 11:29
"[God] made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Corinthians 3:6).
The Holy Spirit within us makes life real; life comes alive. When we have accepted Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, life is no longer theology. It's all right to have theology in our heads, just as long as it becomes real in our lives when we grow closer to God through the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit takes over, we begin to grow. The Holy Spirit becomes our power source behind this growth so that eventually it will become evident. "The deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:19-23).
The Holy Spirit is the divine enabler who produces growth in us. Every time we try to grow independently of God, we are working against Him. Many of us spend much of our time shutting God out. We are trying to produce those fruits on our own. However, God does not need our help to grow us.
One Minute Please
When the Holy Spirit takes over our spiritual growth, He will produce remarkable fruit in us.
:angel:
God bless
:angel:
July 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Knowledge
If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine . . . -John 7:17
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:23-24). He is saying, in essence, "Don't say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right." The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don't try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, "First . . . go . . .." Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.
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YIELD: The Fourth Step in Effective Prayer
Psalm 37:4 provides us the "Y" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, the four elements to effective prayer we have been discussing over the last few devotionals.
Here is what Psalm 37:4 says,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Now the Hebrew word for delight in this verse literally means to become soft or pliable. This means that "delighting" in the Lord is assuming a yielded posture before God.
So the "Y" in P-R-A-Y stands for yield. The question is: How do you practice yielding to God when you pray? Yielding is when you stop talking, and you wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.
In my own practice of prayer, I will often bow before God and ask Him, "God, is there anything You want to say to me? Do You have any instructions for me? Is there anything You want me to change?"
Then I silently wait for Him to speak to me.
As you assume this posture of being yielded and waiting quietly before Him, you will be surprised at some of the things that come to your attention: "You need to spend more time with your daughter," "Take your wife out on a date," "Bake your neighbor a pie and build a bridge over which the gospel can travel," "Spend more time praising Me," "Show your gratitude and appreciation for those who have been helping you in your life."
You will indeed hear from God if you ask Him to speak into your heart, and wait silently before Him.
That is the last element of effective prayer: praise, repent, ask, yield. Your prayers can indeed be effective if you commit to these four principles. That is how to P-R-A-Y.
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What Are Carnal Christians?
In His Presence: 1 Timothy 2:1-4
What is a carnal Christian? Carnality is that spiritual state where a born-again Christian knowingly and persistently lives to please and serve self rather than Christ. Carnality is an issue with Christians only, because a carnal Christian is a genuine Christian. These people have placed their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone, and have been born again a second time. It is possible for Christians to be on our way to heaven but be of no good to God on earth.
Christians are experiencing a crisis of carnality. Many men, women, and young people are only half-stepping with Christ. God has too many children who are not sure whose family we really want to be a part of. This indecision has led to untold agony, unanswered prayers, emotional weakness, physical weakness, loss of peace, loss of joy, and lack of stability. This does not mean that every time a Christian experiences a problem it implies that he or she is carnal. However, far too many of us are experiencing too many failures because we are, in fact, carnal and only half-stepping with the Gospel.
The apostle Paul addressed this issue with the church in Corinth: "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly" (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
One Minute Please
Do you want to be part of God's family or the world's family?
God bless
:angel:
July 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Purpose or Mine?
He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . -Mark 6:45
We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God's purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
What is my vision of God's purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish- His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see "Him walking on the sea" with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see "Him walking on the sea" (Mark 6:49). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
God's training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God's purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.
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Pressing On
In Philippians 3:12, Paul says,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul's challenge in this verse is for you and me to press on, to keep growing. I believe one of the greatest assets in life that you and I have is the capacity to grow and change. We have the capacity to press on.
One of the first steps in pressing on is to realize that you have not yet arrived. Even the apostle Paul acknowledged and recognized that he had not yet arrived. He said, Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected.
Paul understood that he had a lot of room for growth. And if he did, so do we.
If you have grown stagnant in your spiritual life, you need to ask the question, "Why?" Why is your spiritual life stunted? Why are you not growing? Why are you stymied in your spiritual progress? What are your barriers to growth?
I believe that if we are willing to admit that we need to grow, then identify the barriers that are keeping a lid on our spiritual lives, and finally, by the grace of God, deal with those barriers and remove them, we will begin to press on and grow.
If you were to take a catfish and put it in a small fish tank, that fish would only grow to be 12 inches long and it might weigh a quarter of a pound. But if you took that identical catfish and placed it into a lake, it might grow to be three feet long and weigh 60 pounds.
What was the barrier to its growth? The tank kept it contained. It grew to the limit that the environment allowed.
Remove the barriers to your spiritual growth and press on!
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Biblical Saints Living in Carnality
In His Presence: Proverbs 24:14
It is possible to be a genuine Christian and be carnal. The Bible gives us several examples of such men and women. One of these examples is Saul, son of Kish, the first king of Israel. We know that he was redeemed because the Bible says: "God changed his heart" (1 Samuel 10:9). Yet here was a man who, because of his rebellion against God, eventually sought the counsel of witches and committed suicide.
King Solomon is another example of a king who was redeemed by God but turned away from Him. At first, he was a tremendous king. The Lord appeared to him in a dream one night and said to Solomon: "Ask what you wish me to give you" (1 Kings 3:5). King Solomon replied: "Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child . . . Give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil" (vv. 7-9). Yet later in the same book it says: "King Solomon loved many foreign women" (1 Kings 11:1). When King Solomon entered the life of carnality, he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, which is about the emptiness of life.
The sons of Jacob lived in carnality for 11 years after they sold Joseph into slavery. King David lived in a state of carnality when he committed adultery and murder. When David tried to hide his sin, he covered it up until Nathan the prophet confronted him.
One Minute Please
God gives us new life. It is up to us to make it meaningful.
God bless
:angel:
July 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
Behold, He is coming with clouds . . . -Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds- He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child- a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God's character, we do not yet know Him.
". . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud" (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is "no one anymore, but only Jesus . . ." (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2-7).
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Growing Up
The Scripture says in Ephesians 4:15 that we should grow in all things. In today's and tomorrow's devotionals, I want to give you ten areas in which the Bible teaches us we should grow. I hope you will take time to read each passage and answer the question of whether you are growing as you should in each of these areas.
1. In Colossians 1:10 we are told we should increase in the knowledge of God. You ought to know more about God and His Kingdom this week than you did last week.
2. Psalm 71:21 tells us we are to be growing in our influence. I hope I have not reached the pinnacle in my life when it comes to the influence I have for good in the lives of others. If you call yourself a leader and no one is following you, then you are not influencing them, you are just taking a walk. You and I need to grow in influence.
3. In Proverbs 13:11 it says we are to be growing and increasing materially. I don't know of many who couldn't grow in this area!
4. Isaiah 29:19 speaks of increasing in joy. From appearances, some people seem to grow more and more sour as the days go by and have less and less of a sense of humor. Listen, the more you advance in age, the more your capacity to laugh at life's ups and downs should grow.
5. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 teaches us that we should grow in faith. Now faith certainly touches all areas of life; and, hopefully, today you don't freak out like you used to when you are faced with a trial, because your faith has grown and you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
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Stagnant Christians
In His Presence: Colossians 4:2
The carnal Christian is a stagnant Christian. The apostle Paul told the church in Corinth: "Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly" (1 Corinthians 3:2-3). Even though a carnal Christian is saved, he has had little or no development over time. It is dismaying as a pastor to watch Christians who come to church week after week, month after month, year after year, making no progress even though they may be performing. They commit the same old sins the same way. They are not overcoming these sins that in time they should be mature enough to overcome. They refuse to think biblically.
What marks a stagnant Christian is their persistence in the milk of the word. We can call them the "A B C" Christians. "A B C" Christians are still learning how to read, while their peers are graduating from high school. The difference between the stagnant and growing Christian is that the stagnant Christian does not use the time since salvation to grow spiritually.
A carnal Christian is like a vehicle that has stalled because it has run out of gasoline. We are stalled if we still measure success in our spiritual lives purely by how much we were entertained in church. The Holy Spirit is there to provide the power, but your spiritual life needs gas. There's nothing wrong with the engine, but the gasoline needed for this car to run is our commitment to grow. It needs our persistence.
One Minute Please
We have to make a decision on our own to move from the milk of the Word to solid food.
God bless
:angel:
August 01, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Learning About His Ways
When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities -Matthew 11:1
He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, "I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here," it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. "Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . ." (Luke 9:33).
Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God's role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.
He works where He sends us to wait. ". . . tarry . . . until . . ." (Luke 24:49). "Wait on the Lord" and He will work (Psalm 37:34). But don't wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can't see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to "wait patiently for Him"? (Psalm 37:7). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.
These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.
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Growing Up-Part 2
Friday we began a list of ten areas in which Scripture says we should be growing. In today's devotional, I want to complete that list for you.
1. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 teach us that we should grow in our love for others. I would hate to think that I have plumbed the depths of love for my wife, for my children, for my friends, or for God.
2. Ephesians 2:21 speaks to us of growing in unity. You and I ought to grow better and better at getting along with other believers, especially those in our church.
3. Luke 2:52 speaks of growing in wisdom. God is so anxious to provide you and me with His wisdom, but it is something we need to seek. Are you growing in wisdom?
4. Luke 2:52 also speaks of growing in favor. Are you obnoxious and hard to get along with? Do you find it difficult to get along with others? I challenge you, if that is true, to consider the model of Jesus for our lives. He grew in favor with both God and men.
5. 2 Peter 3:18 says that we can grow in grace. I don't know about you, but I am deeply grateful for God's grace in my life. And for those who extend me grace when I blow it. Is grace a hallmark of your life?
According to Scripture, these ten areas-the five from yesterday and the five today-are vital areas in which you and I are to grow. I challenge you to read each Scripture and take each area before the Lord and ask Him to reveal where you need to grow.
You will be amazed at the change for good that will come about in your life!
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Carnality by Choice
In His Presence: Galatians 6:2
"Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"(Hebrews 3:12-13).
When God saved us, He saved us to serve Christ. Occasional lapses into sin do not imply carnality. Everyone sins. Carnality is the state where the person has the mindset of seeking to gratify themselves rather than please Christ.
No Christian has to be carnal. Being carnal is a decision of the will. Carnal Christians have grown up physically and should be able to feed themselves. But they can't. That is because a carnal Christian is a person who has developed a mindset of disobedience. They willfully live in sin, controlled by the old person they used to be. They are saved and the Holy Spirit is in them, but they are not allowing the Holy Spirit to grow them.
There is a difference between a baby Christian and a carnal Christian. Baby Christians are young in the Lord and do not yet have the capacity to eat on their own. Someone else has to feed them-to give them the Word. A young Christian desires the milk of the Word of God. "Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" (1 Peter 2:2).
One Minute Please
Have you become hardened to sin in your life? Are you a carnal Christian?
God bless
:angel:
August 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Teaching of Adversity
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world -John 16:33
The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . ." (Psalm 91:1,10)- the place where you are at one with God.
If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He is saying, "There is nothing for you to fear." The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.
God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment- "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life . . ." (Revelation 2:7). If you completely give of yourself physically, you become exhausted. But when you give of yourself spiritually, you get more strength. God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment. Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense. But a saint can "be of good cheer" even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God.
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Running Inside the Lines
In Philippians 3:14, Paul provides a powerful insight into his passion. Here is what he says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul clearly had a goal in mind, a sense of his destiny. And he was undaunted in seeking to reach it.
In fact, the phrase "I press toward the goal" could literally be translated from the Greek text this way, "I run within the lines." It paints the picture of a runner, running down a track, staying in his lane.
He is not overreaching his bounds, running in someone else's lane. Rather, as he goes for the goal, he is running within the lines with the goal in mind.
In a little mission in Medford, Oregon, many years ago, there was a young man with a terrible drug and alcohol problem. One night God got a hold of his life. It was a truly dramatic conversion.
I was that young man. And for several decades now, I have been seeking to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me. I knew that night that God had a destiny for my life. And that is the goal I strive and press forward to achieve.
God has a destiny for your life, too. God laid hold of your life just like He did mine, for a purpose. If you have not already done so, you must understand and press forward to fulfill the destiny God has for your life.
If you don't know what that might be, then start asking God to reveal that to you. Ask Him to show you the lane you are to run in.
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Carnality by Choice
In His Presence: Galatians 6:2
"Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"(Hebrews 3:12-13).
When God saved us, He saved us to serve Christ. Occasional lapses into sin do not imply carnality. Everyone sins. Carnality is the state where the person has the mindset of seeking to gratify themselves rather than please Christ.
No Christian has to be carnal. Being carnal is a decision of the will. Carnal Christians have grown up physically and should be able to feed themselves. But they can't. That is because a carnal Christian is a person who has developed a mindset of disobedience. They willfully live in sin, controlled by the old person they used to be. They are saved and the Holy Spirit is in them, but they are not allowing the Holy Spirit to grow them.
There is a difference between a baby Christian and a carnal Christian. Baby Christians are young in the Lord and do not yet have the capacity to eat on their own. Someone else has to feed them-to give them the Word. A young Christian desires the milk of the Word of God. "Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" (1 Peter 2:2).
One Minute Please
Have you become hardened to sin in your life? Are you a carnal Christian?
God bless
:angel:
August 3, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Purpose of God
He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . -Luke 18:31
Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord, represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will. Jesus said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 5:30). Seeking to do "the will of the Father" was the one dominating concern throughout our Lord's life. And whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, success or failure, He was never deterred from that purpose. ". . . He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem . . ." (Luke 9:51).
The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God's purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. "You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . ." (John 15:16).
We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God's purpose- we are taken into God's purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God's goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God's aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God's purpose is. We say, "God means for me to go over there," and, "God has called me to do this special work." We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan. "He took the twelve aside . . ." (Luke 18:31). God takes us aside all the time. We have not yet understood all there is to know of the compelling purpose of God.
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Your Lane
Yesterday we discovered that God has given each of us a call...a destiny designed by God for His glory.
In Philippians 3:12, Paul gives us some additional insight into that call,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul-when he was still an unbeliever and on the road to Damascus-had an encounter with Jesus. Our Lord laid hold of him and Paul realized God had not only put a call on his life, but that the call was unique.
He was driven to fulfill that call. He states it this way, "Since that day, I have been trying to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me."
You also have a unique call. And whatever it is, you need to stop comparing yourself to others and competing with others. That is a terrible way to live. Find out what your lane is, what your gifting is, your calling, and run in that lane.
You are unique! God has not called anyone else to do exactly what you do. Find out who you are and forget about what anybody else thinks. God is not comparing you to another person. You do not have to compete with anyone or be compared to anyone. Just do what He has asked you to do.
That is running in your lane. Do not run in somebody else's lane. Now you can certainly learn from others, but you don't want to copy them. You were born an original; you don't want to die a copy.
Determine God's unique design for your life and run in the lane of that design. That is when you will know satisfaction, blessing, and contentment.
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The Natural Man
In His Presence: 2 Timothy 3:16-17
"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised"(1 Corinthians 2:14).
It's important to understand that when the apostle Paul talks about the natural man he is referring to an unbeliever. The non-Christian does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They seem like foolishness to him. He cannot understand it. A Christian is supposed to be supernatural man, because the Spirit of God is living within him. Non-Christians can pretend to be Christians, but can only carry spiritual things so far. They do not want spiritual things controlling their lives.
The natural man can be moral, kind-hearted, filled with good intentions and good works. Yet the non-believer does not accept spiritual things as part of his everyday life. He doesn't know what to do with them. Spiritual truth is not very important to this person. He wants to talk about everything but spiritual things. The mindset of the unbeliever is that everyone else is doing it so it must be all right. The Bible uses the word sensual to describe him.
If we could draw an analogy of the natural man and the Christian, we could compare the natural man to a surround-sound entertainment center that is not hooked up to cable or satellite. While the entertainment center is expensive and of good quality, without a signal it won't do very much. In the same way, the natural man will not get the same signals as the Christian.
One Minute Please
The natural man is not a carnal Christian even though they may appear to be similar.
God bless
:angel:
August 4, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Brave Friendship of God
He took the twelve aside . . . -Luke 18:31
Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, "But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value"? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value to Him He cannot choose you, because you have purposes of your own to serve. But if you will allow Him to take you to the end of your own self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him "to Jerusalem" (Luke 18:31). And that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.
We tend to say that because a person has natural ability, he will make a good Christian. It is not a matter of our equipment, but a matter of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a matter of natural virtues, of strength of character, of knowledge, or of experience- all of that is of no avail in this concern. The only thing of value is being taken into the compelling purpose of God and being made His friends (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31). God's friendship is with people who know their poverty. He can accomplish nothing with the person who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not here for our own purpose at all- we are here for the purpose of God, and the two are not the same. We do not know what God's compelling purpose is, but whatever happens, we must maintain our relationship with Him. We must never allow anything to damage our relationship with God, but if something does damage it, we must take the time to make it right again. The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.
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Your Three-Way Calling
In Jude 1, we read the following greeting,
Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.
The Greek word for called here is used in three different ways. As believers in Jesus Christ, this word tells us we are called to three things:
1. It is used for those who are summoned to an office, duty, or a responsibility. Friend, every believer has been called. You have a duty, you have an office, and you have a responsibility. We have all been called to do something for Christ. We are ambassadors for Christ, and we need to represent Him to a lost and dying world.
2. The word called is also used in the Greek language to summon someone to a feast or a festival. And you know what? You have been called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and you will sit down one day to enjoy all the things God has planned for eternity.
3. Finally, the word translated called in this passage is used to summon someone into court to give an account for themselves, or to summon them to judgment. One day we will have to give an account of our lives. One day every one of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the works done in the body.
You have a responsibility to represent Christ to our dying world, to someday celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to ultimately give an account of your life.
I pray you will embrace and fulfill your calling today!
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Newborn Christians
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:20
"I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ"(1 Corinthians 3:1).
There are people who are Christians but are not mature. They are neither carnal Christians nor unbelievers. These are people who are brand-new to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. They have not been saved long enough to become spiritual. A baby Christian cannot be mature. They can be Spirit-controlled, but they cannot be mature because maturity requires time.
When Paul addresses Christians about their infancy, he is referring to weak, brand-new Christians. We cannot condemn a person because he or she is a baby. Neither does the apostle Paul condemn new Christians because they are immature. New Christians should not get frustrated because they are not mature. They should allow the Holy Spirit control over what they have, and He will make it increase with time. When a baby Christian desires to become mature, we should rejoice that they have listened to the Holy Spirit's voice and have developed a desire for a deeper and more satisfying relationship with God.
"I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it"(v. 2). New Christians grow by feeding on the basics of Christianity. They learn who God is and how much He loves us. They learn who Jesus Christ is, and why it was necessary for Him to become the Lamb of God.
One Minute Please
A baby Christian learns to love God with all his heart, mind, and soul.
God bless
:angel:
August 5, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Bewildering Call of God
. . . and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.' . . . But they understood none of these things . . . -Luke 18:31, 34
God called Jesus Christ to what seemed absolute disaster. And Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death, leading every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. His life was an absolute failure from every standpoint except God's. But what seemed to be failure from man's standpoint was a triumph from God's standpoint, because God's purpose is never the same as man's purpose.
This bewildering call of God comes into our lives as well. The call of God can never be understood absolutely or explained externally; it is a call that can only be perceived and understood internally by our true inner-nature. The call of God is like the call of the sea- no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him. What God calls us to cannot be definitely stated, because His call is simply to be His friend to accomplish His own purposes. Our real test is in truly believing that God knows what He desires. The things that happen do not happen by chance- they happen entirely by the decree of God. God is sovereignly working out His own purposes.
If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, "I wonder why God allowed this or that?" And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God.
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Focus
In Philippians 3:13, Paul says,
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The phrase I want to direct you to today is Paul's statement, One thing I do. These are echoes of words King David spoke when he said, "One thing I desire," and Jesus, who said to the rich young ruler, "There is one thing you lack."
Then there is the blind man, who had been blind from birth, whom Jesus healed. When he was questioned, he said, "There is one thing I know: I was blind, now I see." One thing I do; one thing I desire; one thing you lack; one thing I know.
Each of these statements points to a vital thing needed if you are to grow in your spiritual life: FOCUS.
The problem with many people is they are far too scattered. They are trying to do everything and be everything. They try to be a jack-of-all-trades and end up being a master of none.
If that describes you today, let me ask you a question: What is the one main thing that should be the focus of your life?
I have a very gifted friend who drives me crazy. We can spend an hour in the car; and, in that hour, he has shared 21 new ideas with me. He is trying to be so many things and do so many things that he is not as effective as he could be at anything!
My question to you is this: If you died and stood before God today, what is the one thing He is going to ask you about? Paul said, "One thing I do." What is that one thing for you?
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Make God Your Reference Point
God has assigned every believer a divine reason for being, including you. Your purpose is to fulfill God's purpose. And if you are not fulfilling His purpose, it's just another day gone by, filled with everything but real meaning. You will be floating around with no destination when you're disconnected from the purposes of God.
You cannot discover your purpose until God is your reference point.
I encourage you to pray, "Help me to grasp what it means to have a life of purpose, meaning and destiny and not to meander and waste another day on things that really don't matter."
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:28-33
God bless
:angel:
August 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's Honor
. . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God -Luke 1:35
If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God's birth on earth is true of every saint. God's Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise the right of a child- the right of always being face to face with my Father through prayer. Do I find myself continually saying in amazement to the commonsense part of my life, "Why did you want me to turn here or to go over there? 'Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' " (Luke 2:49). Whatever our circumstances may be, that holy, innocent, and eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.
Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He having His wonderful way with me? Is God's will being fulfilled in that His Son has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19), or have I carefully pushed Him to one side? Oh, the noisy outcry of today! Why does everyone seem to be crying out so loudly? People today are crying out for the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for God's Son right now- no room for quiet, holy fellowship and oneness with the Father.
Is the Son of God praying in me, bringing honor to the Father, or am I dictating my demands to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the time of His manhood here on earth? Is God's Son in me going through His passion, suffering so that His own purposes might be fulfilled? The more a person knows of the inner life of God's most mature saints, the more he sees what God's purpose really is: to ". . . fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." (Colossians 1:24). And when we think of what it takes to "fill up," there is always something yet to be done.
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The Entrance of Error
Jude 4 gives us an ominous warning,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude is giving us an idea of how the devil brings error into a church. The key phrase is men have crept in unnoticed. That phrase literally means to come alongside by stealth. It pictures someone creeping in and coming alongside, like coming in through a side door.
The folks Jude is talking about look like everyone else, they talk like everyone else, but they are not like everyone else.
That is the way the devil brings error and false doctrine into the Church. It looks like the truth, sounds good, seems like the truth, and it may even be partially true. But there is enough poison in it to kill you.
It's like the guy who wanted to break into a used car lot to steal a bunch of auto parts. The only problem was the two guard dogs. So for the next week he showed up every night with some pieces of meat.
At first the dogs would bark like crazy, but after the man left, they would eat the meat. By the end of the week, they didn't bark at all, they just wanted the meat. So, having become familiar with the dogs, knowing that they wouldn't "sound the alarm," he approached them one last time-with poisoned meat. The dogs ate, and he was able to get into the lot and steal all he wanted.
That is the way the devil does it a lot of times. He sends someone among the believers in order to distract and detour them from the truth. But it is calculated and happens by degrees. Do not let your "inner alarm system" go silent through familiarity.
Beware of those who would move you away, even subtly, from the clearly revealed truth of God's Word.
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Crisis in Our Culture
In His Presence: Psalm 40:8
"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse"(Malachi 4:5-6).
Men, when we look at the state of our culture and our country today, we find that we are in a crisis situation. How can we not be when 40 percent of our children go to sleep at night with no dad at home? Among the minority populations, that statistic goes up to 63 percent, and in the innermost inner cities, it rises to 83 percent. There is no respect or dignity among men anymore. They are fathering children but not taking the responsibility to help rear them. Men have become like the fabled abominable snowman, whose footprints are everywhere, but he cannot be found.
In the Bible, whenever Satan wanted to destroy a nation, he went after the male children. While the children of Israel lived in Egypt, eventually one of the pharaohs ordered the death of all male babies born in the land. In Jesus' time, King Herod ordered all the male children under the age of two to be killed in Bethlehem in his efforts to stifle the prophecy of a king born to the Jews. Satan understands that if he can immobilize the men, he can hijack the culture.
One Minute Please
To get a sense of what a real man is, we must turn to the Bible for examples and principles of manhood.
God bless
:angel:
August 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's Hearing
Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me' -John 11:41
When the Son of God prays, He is mindful and consciously aware of only His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19) the Father will always hear my prayers. But I must see to it that the Son of God is exhibited in my human flesh. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . . " (1 Corinthians 6:19), that is, your body is the Bethlehem of God's Son. Is the Son of God being given His opportunity to work in me? Is the direct simplicity of His life being worked out in me exactly as it was worked out in His life while here on earth? When I come into contact with the everyday occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of God's eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? Jesus says, "In that day you will ask in My name . . ." (John 16:26). What day does He mean? He is referring to the day when the Holy Spirit has come to me and made me one with my Lord.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied by your life, or are you exhibiting a walk of spiritual pride before Him? Never let your common sense become so prominent and forceful that it pushes the Son of God to one side. Common sense is a gift that God gave to our human nature- but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son, and we should never put our common sense on the throne. The Son always recognizes and identifies with the Father, but common sense has never yet done so and never will. Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God. We must make sure that our human flesh is kept in perfect submission to Him, allowing Him to work through it moment by moment. Are we living at such a level of human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being exhibited moment by moment in us?
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The True Grace of God
Yesterday we read Jude 4 which states,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we move away from this verse, I want to point out a phrase that I believe is very dangerous ground for the Church in America today. It is the phrase, "Ungodlymen, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness."
Lewdness literally means unrestrained lust, wickedness, and immorality. These people believed that once you were saved, you could live however you wanted.
There are people in the Church today with this type of thinking. They believe that if you are saved by grace, and good works do not merit salvation, then you can do whatever you want.
You can sleep around, commit adultery, get drunk, the sky's the limit. It's grace, baby! Your works don't have anything to do with it. You can live however you want!
One of the things that I have heard throughout the years is, "Hey, it doesn't matter. It's grace. God will forgive me, so I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway."
You do not want to live that way. Believe me, something begins to break down inside of you, and you will pay the piper eventually.
If you are turning the grace of God into lewdness through immorality, or any other sin, I challenge you to stop today. Confess your sin to God, turn from whatever it is that you have been doing, and ask God to help you live for Him. If you do, you will experience the true grace of God, which teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).
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God Has a Purpose for Us
In His Presence: Jeremiah 29:11
"David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers"(Acts 13:36).
Men, the worst thing in the world is to live out our 75 or so years of life not knowing why we were put here in the first place. When God placed Adam in this world, He told him to fill the earth and tame it. He was to create a culture out of the wild. Adam knew he had a purpose for his life. The tragedy today is that men have settled for the mundane and become satisfied by emptiness. They haven't gotten around to exploring God's reason for their existence. If we don't know why we have a life to live, then anyone who whispers in our ear can distract us from our divinely ordained reason for being.
God has a purpose for each of us; we need to pursue God's special future. But if we just settle for the definition of manhood given us by society, the entertainment industry, the sports industry, and our buddies, then we will never discover the purpose God has for us. Real living is when we are completing the work that God has called us to do.
Satan is seeking to overrun this world with evil. But God is ready to partner with us when we take up the mantle of manhood. Through the Holy Spirit, He will work in and through us, but it requires taking a risk.
One Minute Please
Are you going to settle for the ordinary, or are you going to be God's man doing God's business?
God bless
:angel:
August 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Holy Suffering of the Saint
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good . . . -1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will- even if it means you will suffer- is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, "God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God's reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10).
Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
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Six Times We Should Seek God
But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).
In today's devotional, I want to show you the first three of six times we should seek the Lord:
1. When we have sinned.
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
If you sin, do not run from God, run to Him. Do not allow shame to keep you away.
2. When we are feeling dry spiritually.
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).
When you sense a distance between you and God, or if you feel dry spiritually, do not delay! Seek Him early.
When my potted plants feel dry, I water them. I do not wait until they turn brown and are almost dead. If the soil is dry and the leaves begin to droop, they are in need of water right then, and so it is when you are feeling spiritually dry.
One of the keys to keeping potted plants-and our spiritual lives-healthy is to tend to them early.
3. When we are fearful.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).
When you are fearful or anxious, it is time to seek the Lord. When you seek Him you can expect to be delivered from all of your fears!
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Man Must Lead
In His Presence: Ecclesiastes 3:9-12
"I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ"(1 Corinthians 11:3).
God has created a systematic chain of command by which He operates. He expects this chain of command to become part of our lives as well. Even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, comes under the authority of God the Father. A man is to place himself under the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is not a statement of equality, but of function. God ordained this order at creation. Further, a woman comes under the authority of her husband as a statement of submission to God.
What happens when we break the chain of command? Satan began his plan of attack on man right in the Garden of Eden. He got Eve and Adam to switch roles. Eve took the lead and Adam became the follower. It was a disastrous experience. Sin was introduced to the world along with its companions, death and disobedience.
God has stitched women in such a way that they are built to be responders. When the man leads the home by placing himself under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the woman will follow. But for a follower to be a good follower, they must have someone worth following. If the man refuses to recognize the authority of Jesus in his life, then the woman will step into the leadership role.
One Minute Please
The biblical definition of real manhood is a man who leads his family in the worship of God by submitting to his Lord.
God bless
:angel:
August 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
This Experience Must Come
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha . . . saw him no more -2 Kings 2:11-12
It is not wrong for you to depend on your "Elijah" for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, "I cannot continue without my 'Elijah.' " Yet God says you must continue.
Alone at Your "Jordan" (Kings 2:14). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your "Elijah." You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go- the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your "Jordan" alone.
Alone at Your "Jericho" (2 Kings 2:15). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your "Elijah" do great things. Yet when you come alone to your "Jericho," you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your "Elijah," you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.
Alone at Your "Bethel" (2 Kings 2:23). At your "Bethel" you will find yourself at your wits' end but at the beginning of God's wisdom. When you come to your wits' end and feel inclined to panic- don't! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your "Elijah"- use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.
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Six Times We Should Seek God (Part Two)
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at three times we should seek God. Today we will look at three more:
4. When we are in trouble.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:2).
In Hosea 5:15 the Lord says, "...in their affliction they will earnestly seek me."
I don't like to admit it, but the truth is that at times I have sought God more earnestly when I have been in trouble. Problems have a way of getting us on our knees. If you are in trouble today - seek Him!
5. When all is well.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore! (Psalm 105:4).
If you will carefully read the preceding verses of this psalm, you will find that the context is one of blessing and not trouble.
This may be the most important time of all to seek Him. May we never become smug and think that we do not need God when all is well.
6. Continually.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!
(1 Chronicles 16:11).
The word evermore in this verse means continually or at all times.
When you have sinned, when you are dry, when you are afraid, when you are in trouble, when all is well, and in any other situation - you need to seek God!
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Carnality in Action
In His Presence: Proverbs 21:21
The apostle Paul had spent several years teaching and preaching at the church in Corinth. He was concerned because there was division among the members. "I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren . . . that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, 'I am of Paul,' and 'I of Apollos,' and 'I of Cephas,' and 'I of Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?" (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).
The Corinthians had time to mature, but they were distracted and began to argue among themselves. Instead of growing, they were regressing. "You are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not mere men?" (1 Corinthians 3:3-4).
Have you ever said, "I'm only human"? That's non-Christian talk-talking like "mere men." Paul was saying that these Christians were acting like everyone else around them. And Corinth was known to be a wicked city. Paul was not complimenting these Christians. Instead of acting like the new man or woman they had become, they were rebellious believers.
One Minute Please
Behaving like "mere men" is an act of the will. Carnality is perpetuated by the will.
God bless
:angel:
August 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Theology of Resting in God
Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? -Matthew 8:26
When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable. Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God. We come to our wits' end, showing that we don't have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world. To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us.
". . . O you of little faith!" What a stinging pain must have shot through the disciples as they surely thought to themselves, "We missed the mark again!" And what a sharp pain will go through us when we suddenly realize that we could have produced complete and utter joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, in spite of what we were facing.
There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible. But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him.
We have been talking quite a lot about sanctification, but what will be the result in our lives? It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him. And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also a profound joy to Him.
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True Satisfaction
Isaiah 14:12-15 records the fall of Satan. Created as God's archangel, we read about the dissatisfaction that got him in trouble,
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit."
Clearly his problem was pride. "I will, I will, I will...I am going to be like God." He wasn't satisfied with being the archangel that God had created him to be. He wanted to take God's place.
The root of Satan's pride was his discontent with the post and station that the supreme Monarch of the universe had assigned and allotted him. He thought he deserved better.
We all have our sphere of influence, and we all have our gifting from God. Your sphere of influence and gifting are different than mine, and mine are different than yours. It is unwise to desire something that someone else has rather than exploring what God has given you and developing that to its highest potential.
When you look over the fence, it looks like the grass is greener on the other side, but when you hop over, you find out it is spray-painted!
You will only be satisfied if you will develop what God has put inside of you and take that to its highest level possible. That is what you will be rewarded for.
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Neglectful Christians
In His Presence: Psalm 62:8
A person does not fall into carnality overnight. He does not lapse into carnality because he or she did one thing wrong. There is a pattern that takes time to establish. The carnal Christian is characterized by the neglect of spiritual matters.
"If the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:2-3). The author of Hebrews was writing to a group of Jewish Christians who had turned their backs on faith. They were genuine Christians, but had demonstrated the neglect that is one of the first signs of carnality. To neglect simply means to show disinterest. It's not that the Christian is doing a lot of wrong things, but it is evident that they are doing very little that's right. Neglect is an act of passive disobedience rather than active disobedience. This Christian is not doing the things that are necessary to catapult us down the road to spiritual growth and maturity.
Passive, benign neglect opens the door to failure. Some marriages end in divorce not because there was an adultery committed, but because the husband sat in front of the TV too much. Some of us are going down the road to carnality not because we have committed gross sins, but because Satan has done just enough to keep us out of the Word of God and off our knees.
One Minute Please
The road to carnality starts with neglect-failure to do the things that are necessary for us to mature in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
God bless
:angel:
August 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again -John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus' question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
"But as many as received Him. . ." (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
". . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God " (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God's kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God's control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
"Whoever has been born of God does not sin. . ." (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, "Should a Christian sin?" The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin- it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
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God in Nature
God has made Himself known to mankind in a powerful way people often ignore...His creation. Romans 1:18-20 tells us,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God speaks to people through nature...through His creation. I am confident that there is a point in every person's life where there comes an awareness of God. Whether it is looking at a shooting star, or at a sunset, or at a blade of grass, the thought occurs to them, "This didn't just get here. This didn't just happen. There must be a God."
Creation speaks to us of the Godhead. It is a revelation of God. The book of Psalms says, Night unto night shows forth knowledge. And it says the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. Creation speaks to us of God.
But notice what this passage says. This revelation of God has come to men, but some have wanted to suppress it. They came to that point and thought, "You know what? If I find out about this, then I'm going to become responsible. So I don't think I want to know."
The natural bent of men and women is to suppress the truth, but God is speaking loudly and clearly of His greatness and reality through His creation. Praise Him today for revealing His beauty and power through nature, and use it to point people to Him.
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Consequences of Neglect
In His Presence: Psalm 103:12
Husbands often take their wives for granted; wives often take their husbands for granted. In much the same way, Christians often take "so great a salvation" for granted (Hebrews 2:3). It is a salvation that cost God His Son. It is a salvation that has given us eternal life. Our salvation has provided us with the enablement of the Holy Spirit. This salvation has given to us the authority of God's Word. It has provided us a home in heaven. This is a salvation that's replete with eternal rewards. It calms the most hurting heart and restores the broken life. How can people neglect that kind of salvation?
Nothing and no one can compare with this salvation. How can we pass over this? We will not escape; there is a price. "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives' . . . But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons" (Hebrews 12:4-8).
The natural product of being a Christian is to be disciplined as a son. But neglecting our great salvation comes with further discipline, because the discipline must turn us away from our wandering.
One Minute Please
When we don't remember what we have, we take it for granted.
God bless
:angel:
August 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Does He Know Me . . . ?
He calls his own . . . by name . . . -John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person's soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. ". . . she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. . . . Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' " (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. "She turned and said to Him, 'Rabboni!' " (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus- maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord" (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, "Unless I see . . . I will not believe" (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. "Thomas . . . said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' " (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, "Lord . . . You know that I love You" (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him- a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
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No Unbelievers in Hell
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a very sobering story,
"The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom... Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment'" (Luke 16:22b-23 and 27-28).
Everyone in hell believes in evangelism. They are crying out lest their loved ones end up with them.
Two thousand years have passed and this rich man has had no relief. A billion years from now he will just be getting started in his torment and pain. Listen to his cry, "My brothers! Send someone to my family!"
Hell is for unbelievers but there are no unbelievers in hell!
Several years ago a man came weeping to the altar of our church. A message had been preached that night from these very Scriptures. After giving his heart to Christ (and after a long time of almost uncontrollable weeping), he told us this story:
He said, "I died twice on the operating table during heart surgery. Each time I died, I left my body and went to hell. It was so horrifying that I tried to put it out of my mind. As the message was preached tonight, all the details of my experience came flooding back into my mind."
He did not need to be convinced that hell was real. That night he accepted Christ and was liberated from the fear of returning to that place of torment.
Jesus alone can rescue us from the terrors of hell and bring us safely to heaven. Shouldn't we be telling people there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? Shouldn't we be warning them and encouraging them to accept Christ-while there is still time?!
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Hardened Hearts
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:20-21
"Just as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the days of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me . . . I was angry with this generation, and said, "They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways"; As I swore in My wrath, "They shall not enter My rest" ' ''(Hebrews 3:7-11).
For many years the sons of Israel lived in the land of Egypt. Eventually the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites and forced them to make buildings of bricks. They suffered terribly until finally God raised up a leader to guide them back to the Promised Land, where God had taken Abraham hundreds of years before. Moses led them out of Egypt and into the wilderness of Sinai. There they began to complain bitterly about the lack of food and water and tried God's patience. God said their hearts were hardened.
The Hebrews' hearts were hardened because they were tricked by sin. Sin leads us to stop believing God. We believe the sin instead. One of the reasons why many of us are in our present dilemma is because we have stopped believing God. We have developed hearts of unbelief.
How do we know that we have been taken in by the deceitfulness of sin? Does the sin bother us less often? When evil doesn't anger and upset us-when we have gotten used to it-our hearts have been hardened.
One Minute Please
Sin provides short-term gratification leading to long-term disaster.
God bless
:angel:
August 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
. . . Jesus . . . said to him, 'You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.' But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven't, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, "Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me." Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him- He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened- not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain- He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
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Inwardly Compelled
It was love that motivated the Father to send His Son Jesus to redeem mankind. That same love has been poured out into the heart of every believer.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
God's love in us calls and compels us to do something about the plight of lost people. Even as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, For the love of Christ compels us.
A few years ago, late at night I would hear what seemed to be a very faint chime or bell. Several times I got out of bed to try and find the source of the sound, but it always stopped before I could discover it.
Finally, one evening, I found out what it was. It was an old watch I had, tucked away in a drawer under some junk. Every evening, the alarm would go off at the same time.
The call of God's love in your heart can be like that. Sounding regularly but seldom heard. Buried under personal ambitions, cares and problems, daily routines and the general busyness of life. But it is unmistakably there!
The same love that moved Jesus to heal the sick and minister God's life to broken people is in you! Listen to it. Get in touch with it and express it to someone in need.
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Dullness of Hearing
In His Presence: 2 Corinthians 5:20
Carnal Christians are characterized by a willful refusal to grow. The writer of Hebrews says that they "have become dull of hearing. For though by this time [they] ought to be teachers, [they] have need again for someone to teach [them] the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and [yet they] have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the world of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:11-14).
The writer here says they had become dull of hearing. Notice that he says they have become dull of hearing, not that they are dull of hearing. This implies that they used to be good listeners at one time, but that changed. They had become willfully rebellious against God. They started by being neglectful and disinterested, and then they became insensitive to sin.
The Greek term used here to mean "dull of hearing" has to do with slowness of perception due to moral laxness. It was the word used as an epitaph for a mule! So the writer was telling his readers that they had become like mules. Now mules are not the greatest thinkers; they are used for manual labor. The mule-minded Christians had regressed so much that they were of little value to God-not because God had made them that way, but because they had become that way.
One Minute Please
People become dull of hearing as a result of choices they have made.
God bless
:angel:
August 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus' words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God's Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, "If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions."
"Sell all that you have . . ." (Luke 18:22). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought- in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult- it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus- not love for Jesus Himself.
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"Come Over and Help Us"
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:9-10).
The world is in need and they are calling! I can hear Africa, Asia, voices from South America and Europe calling out. China and Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines...voices from around the globe crying out, "Come over and help us!"
The call may be coming from down your street or from the next aisle in the grocery store. "Help me! I'm lost. I want to find God. I have problems I can't cope with. I have an aching void in my heart that I don't know how to fill. Is there anyone out there with answers?!"
Who will go to them if not you and me?
To say, "I don't feel called to go to them," is equivalent to a strong swimmer standing on the shore of a lake saying he doesn't feel called to save the man drowning before his eyes.
Ask God today to direct you to someone whose heart has cried out for answers and help. Chances are you won't have to go too far to find them.
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Dullness of Hearing
In His Presence: 2 Corinthians 5:20
Carnal Christians are characterized by a willful refusal to grow. The writer of Hebrews says that they "have become dull of hearing. For though by this time [they] ought to be teachers, [they] have need again for someone to teach [them] the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and [yet they] have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the world of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:11-14).
The writer here says they had become dull of hearing. Notice that he says they have become dull of hearing, not that they are dull of hearing. This implies that they used to be good listeners at one time, but that changed. They had become willfully rebellious against God. They started by being neglectful and disinterested, and then they became insensitive to sin.
The Greek term used here to mean "dull of hearing" has to do with slowness of perception due to moral laxness. It was the word used as an epitaph for a mule! So the writer was telling his readers that they had become like mules. Now mules are not the greatest thinkers; they are used for manual labor. The mule-minded Christians had regressed so much that they were of little value to God-not because God had made them that way, but because they had become that way.
One Minute Please
People become dull of hearing as a result of choices they have made.
God bless
:angel:
August 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Self-Awareness
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one- "Come to Me . . . ." The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
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Resist the Devil
In Jude 9 we are told how Michael the archangel dealt with Satan.
Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
My concern is that some people have tried to use this Scripture to say that we do not have authority over the devil. They believe we have no recourse other than to pray that the Lord will do something about him.
But that is not the point he is making here at all. Jude was referencing the previous verse where some would "speak evil of dignitaries." He used Michael's conversation with the devil to show that this was wrong. To say that we do not have the right to resist the devil and cast him out on the basis of this Scripture is ridiculous. Here are five things to think about:
1. This event between Michael and Lucifer (Satan) happened before New Testament times-before Jesus defeated the devil and broke his power.
2. James 4:7 tells us, Resist the devil and he will flee from you. It does not say, "Pray that God will resist the devil for you."
3. Jesus, in the Great Commission, told us to cast out devils (or demons). Jesus wouldn't tell us that if He hadn't given us the authority.
4. In Luke 10:19 Jesus said, "I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
5. In the book of Acts, as the Church carried out their mission, they commanded demons to come out, and they came out in Jesus' name.
My friend, Jesus has broken the authority of the devil in your life. Resist him and he will flee!
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Keep the Fires Burning
In His Presence: Psalm 51:12
The carnal Christian is characterized by withdrawing from the fellowship of other Christians. "Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near" (Hebrews 10:25). One of the ways we know we are on the road to carnality is when we feel that church doesn't matter much any more. While we don't have to go to church to become Christians, attending church is necessary for us to grow spiritually. Attending a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching fellowship will inspire and motivate us in this direction. Mature Christians not only want to be blessed, but they want to be a blessing to others.
"Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds"(v. 24). God saved us to be part of His body. Our fingers couldn't work without our hands, and our hands couldn't work without our wrists. Our wrists couldn't work without our arms, and our arms wouldn't work without our shoulders. God has designed us to need each other and to care for each other. When someone begins down the road to carnality, we find that they don't attend church as often as they used to. As a result, no one is around to hold them accountable and encourage them to be responsible.
One log in the fireplace does not burn very well. Logs need to be piled together for there to be a flame. The flame lasts longer when there are several logs burning together.
One Minute Please
Attending church services involves much more than attending a meeting.
God bless
:angel:
August 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"I Indeed . . . But He"
I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire -Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, "I indeed . . . but He . . ."? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more- butHe begins right there- He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin- it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. "He will baptize you . . . ." The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
"I indeed" was this in the past, "but He" came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
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Clean and Committed
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
When God looks at us, the first thing He sees is the state of our heart. In the next few devotionals we are going to look at several different aspects of the heart-things that must be present in order to experience the richer blessings of God.
· A clean heart. Psalm 51:10 says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
Every once in a while I have to clean out the drains throughout our house. It is amazing how quickly they become clogged. If I do not clean them, before long, the sinks get stopped up and the water will not flow through anymore.
If we don't periodically take time before God to have our hearts purified and cleansed, pretty soon His blessings can no longer flow to us or through us.
· A committed heart. 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV) says, "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
I believe it is important to be committed to God before seeking His blessings.
God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may serve me." Most people want to be delivered from their captivity, but they are not so keen on the "serving God" part of the deal.
The Lord is looking for committed hearts. Does your heart belong fully to Him? If not, commit it to Him today!
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Apostasy
In His Presence: Deuteronomy 13:4
The carnal Christian is also characterized by rejection of the Christian faith. If the carnal Christian stays on the road to carnality long enough, he will apostatize-fall away from the life of faith. He or she may deny Christianity. Can a Christian go so far as to become a rank sinner in his actions? Yes, "for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
God will intervene on behalf of the carnal Christian, but He will also judge. Even the blood of Jesus will not save him from God's wrath. This does not mean that salvation will be lost, but God will judge that person. There will be emotional consequences. It may even mean an end to his life. The price tag for apostasy is staggering. "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (vv. 28-29).
One Minute Please
A person is not beyond help if he is disinterested
God bless
:angel:
August 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer- Battle in "The Secret Place"
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly -Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, "Dream about your Father who is in the secret place," but He said, ". . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . ." Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, "This needs to be done, and I have to do that today." Jesus says to "shut your door." Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from "the secret place"- He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in "the secret place," it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into "the secret place," and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and "pray to your Father who is in the secret place," every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
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Listening and Believing
· A listening heart. Luke 5:15 says, However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.
The people came to hear and then be healed. Some did not want to take the time to listen, they just wanted the blessing so they could be on their way.
Listen to what the apostle Paul said to some people in Acts 28:27, For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.
We must have listening, receptive hearts if we are going to experience healing or any other of God's blessings.
· A believing heart. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.
Many years ago I was hiking up a canyon with one of my sons. He was about eight years old at the time. We reached a place where he could only get up by trusting me.
I dropped him a rope and pulled him up to where I was. He needed to believe that I would not let go. Because he did, and put actions with his belief, my strength was made available to him and he reached a place he could not have gotten to on his own.
God's strength is made available to the believing heart, and as we believe He brings us to places we could never reach on our own.
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Spiritual Discipline
In His Presence: James 1:2-2
When a person's carnality reaches the point of rejecting the Christian faith, many things can happen. Financial, emotional, social, and mental difficulties are just a few things that could catch up with them. If they live in persistent rebellion against God, God is going to discipline them. "We had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplines us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness" (Hebrews 12:9-10).
The purpose of God's discipline is to bring us back to Him in reconciliation. He does not discipline in vengeance or because He is angry. Our parents disciplined us the best they could, but God disciplines perfectly every time. He knows everything. He knows what the carnal Christian has done, so God is never caught by surprise.
"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful" (v. 11). A person living in carnality is going to experience discipline that will hurt. What is the difference between a Christian in the will of God going through trials, and a person out of the will of God going through discipline? If we are in the will of God, we can "consider it all joy" (James 1:2). If we are out of God's will, we will not have joy in the midst of our problems.
One Minute Please
"To those who have been trained by [discipline], afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11).
God bless
:angel:
August 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? -Matthew 7:9
The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (see Matthew 5:45). Never say that it is not God's will to give you what you ask. Don't faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a "good child" in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, "I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings"? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a "good child."
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God's child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I "walk in the light" (1 John 1:7). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong- a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, "Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Matthew 7:8).
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Unless They Are Agreed
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3).
In order to walk with God, one must agree with Him. In order to experience the fulfillment of His promises in our lives, we must agree with what those promises say-whether we understand how they could ever come to pass or not.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would give birth to a son, she asked, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34).
A pretty fair question, don't you think? It seemed impossible to Mary. She could not get her mind around how Gabriel's announcement could ever come to pass.
I love the angel's response to her question, "The Holy Spirit..." (Luke 1:35). That is the answer to your impossibilities as well. When you can't understand how a promise from God could ever be fulfilled, the answer is "The Holy Spirit!"
At this point Mary could have said, "No way! This makes no sense to me. I don't accept it!" But she didn't. She said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word"(Luke 1:38).
Mary agreed with God's promise and accepted it. Then the miracle happened.
Whatever you are facing today, make the decision to agree with God and His promises. The Holy Spirit can bring His Word to pass!
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Marriage Is A Covenant
In His Presence: Genesis 2:18; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9
Marriage is a covenantal union designed to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out the plan of God in their lives. Whether your marriage has drifted off course or was never on course at all, God can redeem your marriage to make it satisfying and whole.
One way of beginning this process is by understanding that marriage is a covenant. Many of us in our day today have lost touch with this word - covenant. But if we do not know what a covenant is, then we do not know what we are supposed to have, develop, or protect over time. It's like trying to hit a bull's eye without a target.
According to God as He lays it out for us in the Scripture, a covenant is a spiritually binding relationship between God and His people inclusive of certain agreements, conditions, benefits and effects.
Whenever God wanted to formalize His relationship with His people, He would establish a covenant. Simply stated, it is a formal arrangement made within a legal capacity between God and His people. In order to enjoy a satisfying marital relationship, we must first begin by aligning our thinking with God's thinking on the matter. Without a divine frame of reference, we will stray from God's formula for a healthy, productive home.
God bless
August 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sacrifice and Friendship
I have called you friends . . . -John 15:15
We will never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we surrender in every detail of our lives. Yet self-surrender is the most difficult thing for us to do. We make it conditional by saying, "I'll surrender if . . . !" Or we approach it by saying, "I suppose I have to devote my life to God." We will never find the joy of self-sacrifice in either of these ways.
But as soon as we do totally surrender, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a taste of His joy. The ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is to lay down our lives for our Friend (see John 15:13-14). When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, our greatest desire is to lay down our lives for Jesus. Yet the thought of self-sacrifice never even crosses our minds, because sacrifice is the Holy Spirit's ultimate expression of love.
Our Lord is our example of a life of self-sacrifice, and He perfectly exemplified Psalm 40:8, "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . . ." He endured tremendous personal sacrifice, yet with overflowing joy. Have I ever yielded myself in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If He is not the One to whom I am looking for direction and guidance, then there is no benefit in my sacrifice. But when my sacrifice is made with my eyes focused on Him, slowly but surely His molding influence becomes evident in my life (see Hebrews 12:1-2).
Beware of letting your natural desires hinder your walk in love before God. One of the cruelest ways to kill natural love is through the rejection that results from having built the love on natural desires. But the one true desire of a saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not something sentimental or emotional- for a saint to love as God loves is the most practical thing imaginable.
"I have called you friends. . . ." Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created in us, which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God. It is a life that is completely humble, pure, and devoted to God.
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Grumbling and Complaining
One of the things I believe grieves the heart of God is when His children grumble and complain. In Jude 6 we find some interesting insight into this destructive behavior,
These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.
The word complainer is really two Greek words stuck together. The first word means to blame, and the second word means your fate or lot in life. The point is that complainers blame someone else for their lot in life.
Isn't it always amazing how someone can make wrong choices, and when they have to face the consequences of those choices, it is always somebody else's fault?
I have two pieces of advice for you on this. First, if you are a complainer and grumbler, stop. God is not honored, and you are only showing that you are "walkingaccording to your own lust," not according to God's Spirit.
Second, stay away from people like that or you will end up being like them. Proverbs 22:24-25 says,
Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.
Their attitudes and mindsets will bleed off on you.
Did you ever throw a pair of jeans in the washing machine with a red shirt? What happened to your blue jeans? They turned pink, didn't they? The red dye bled over into the blue jeans, and the blue jeans were no longer blue. They were pink.
If you hang around with people who grumble and complain, their attitudes will bleed over into your way of thinking. And the last thing you want to be is a grumbler and complainer.
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Marriage is God's House
In His Presence: Genesis 2: 19-24
If you were to come over to my house, I would welcome you inside but there would be a set of rules by which to abide. Just like I would need to abide by the rules for your house. For example, in my home, I don't allow smoking. So if you smoke, you would need to put out your cigarette before you came in my home.
I am able to make these rules and enforce them because it is my house. Marriage is God's house. He came up with the idea. And it can only run right when it is run by His rules.
What married couples often want to do, though, is to have God's institution of marriage, yet run it by their own rules. They want to get married in the church so that God will bless their marriage, but then they want to leave God standing at the altar. They want to make up their own rules for how a marriage should be run.
But let me tell you a secret. It is a very powerful secret. Pay attention: You don't get God's results without operating by God's rules. You don't get God's blessings in your marriage, and in your home, without following God's instructions. You don't enjoy God's provision, protection, and peace in your relationships without abiding by God's policies concerning the covenantal union of marriage.
God bless
:angel:
August 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you . . . -John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always "spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? ". . . My peace I give to you. . ."- a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:27).
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Prayer?
In Ephesians 6:17-18, the apostle Paul tells us,
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
Today I want you to take special note of that phrase, "Praying always with all prayer." In Goodspeed's translation, he puts it this way, Use every kind of prayer and entreaty; and at every opportunity, pray in the Spirit.
I believe Paul is pointing you and me to the fact that there are different kinds of prayer. Over the next few devotionals, I want to talk to you about those different types of prayer.
Now, I know you may be thinking, "Well, prayer is prayer. Let's not get so technical." There is a truth there because prayer in its simplest form is just talking to God, and that is something anyone can do.
But to say, "All prayer is prayer," is equivalent to saying, "All sports are sports." It is true in one sense, but you cannot play one kind of sport with the rules that govern a different kind of sport.
I remember when I was coaching Little League. A ground ball was hit into the outfield. When the outfielder got it, he threw it at the kid running to second base and hit him. Then the outfielder started screaming, "You're out! I got you!"
Well, that works in dodge ball, but it doesn't work in baseball. There are different kinds of prayer for different kinds of circumstances, which I look forward to helping you understand in the coming devotionals.
Be diligent to talk to God every day, but along with that commitment, make it your aim to learn the "rules" that govern different kinds of prayer.
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Why Did God Make Marriage?
In His Presence: Genesis 2:25
When we read in our passage for today that Adam and Eve were naked before each other, I want us to realize that the word used here means more than physical nakedness. It means they were transparent. They were open to one another. They had become best friends.
Is your wife or your husband your best friend? Is he or she the person you share your total being with? That's important, because the reason God created marriage was so that you and I could experience the Trinity.
What is the Trinity? Three coequal persons who are one. What is marriage? Three persons who become one - a man, a woman, and the Lord. That's marriage. It's a picture of a higher unity, a symbol on earth standing for the reality in heaven. The marriage relationship is the closest we'll get in this life to the oneness and unity of the Trinity.
Will you join me in praying that God will enable us to make our marriages everything He meant them to be ... and will you join me in committing yourself to this goal?
God bless
:angel:
August 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith
Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?' -John 11:40
Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, "It's all a lie"? When you are on the mountaintop, it's easy to say, "Oh yes, I believe God can do it," but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief (see Luke 9:28-42). Every time my theology becomes clear to my own mind, I encounter something that contradicts it. As soon as I say, "I believe 'God shall supply all [my] need,' " the testing of my faith begins (Philippians 4:19). When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat?
Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" Matthew 11:6). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. "We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . ." (Hebrews 3:14). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God- trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6).
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The Prayer of Agreement
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of agreement.
This prayer is found in Matthew 18:19, where Jesus says,
, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven."
When I pray with other people, nine times out of ten this is the prayer that I pray with them. And most of the time I will quote this verse to them.
I remember working for a ministry years ago and praying with the folks who called on the phone. When I prayed with someone, I would walk them through this verse before we prayed.
The steps I pointed out were simple:
There needs to be at least two of us praying.
We need to agree.
We need to be on earth (I usually got a laugh out of this one).
What we are asking God for needs to come under the category of "anything" (which their request always did).
God will do it.
The only part people ever got hung up on was the agreement. "What does it mean to agree?" they would ask. I would say, "Simple, to agree means to agree." Don't over-spiritualize it. If we decide to get lunch together at a certain time at a certain place, and you say, "Ok, see you there," we have just agreed.
To agree in prayer is no different.
Read this verse again. Look at it step by step, and follow it-in all its simplicity. If we do our part, God will do His.
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We All Have Expectations
In His Presence: Psalm 40:1-17
Life is filled with expectations. Look at our everyday lives. Some of us wake up expecting the best in our work day or with our family or in our health or in our finances. Others dread the day, or at best, never expect anything to change for the better.
Childhood dreams and hopes might be crushed by comments that discourage rather than encourage. Disillusionments or disappointments can stop any positive expectations.
What are you expecting in life? Whatever your expectations, there's a good chance you're going to get it. In other words, you get whatever you expect out of life.
Please know that God is still ABLE to deliver you from low expectations. Start believing for something better in your life. The Word tells us that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Expect it!
God bless
:angel:
August 30, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
AM I CONVINCED BY CHRIST?
"Notwithstanding in this rejoice not . . . , but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Luke 10:19, 20
Jesus Christ says, in effect, Don't rejoice in successful service, but rejoice because you are rightly related to Me. The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God has used you. You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with Him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is of His mercy that He does not let you know it. When once you are rightly related to God by salvation and sanctification, remember that wherever you are, you are put there by God; and by the reaction of your life on the circumstances around you, you will fulfil God's purpose, as long as you keep in the light as God is in the light.
The tendency to-day is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make usefulness their ground of appeal. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure that ever lived. The lodestar of the saint is God Himself, not estimated usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that Our Lord heeds in a man's life is the relationship of worth to His Father. Jesus is bringing many sons to glory.
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The Prayer of Personal Edification
Today's devotional brings us to the prayer of personal edification. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, Paul writes,
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
In verse 14, Paul says, If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Coupled together with his statement in verse 4, we can see that praying in tongues edifies our spirit.
Edifies is actually an old English word. It means to build an edifice or building higher and higher. The closest modern way to say that would be "charges himself with energy," just like you would recharge a battery.
When I pray in other tongues, I charge my spirit with energy. I build myself up. It is like my cell phone. It needs to be recharged, or before long it will cease to work.
Sometimes I keep my phone on and talk on it while it is recharging, but when I do that it takes a whole lot longer to recharge. If I turn it off and plug it in, the charging process happens much quicker.
Sometimes you just need to shut everything down, turn everything off, and go get away with God and pray. Build yourself up in the Holy Spirit, especially praying in other tongues.
Sometimes after a long day I will come home just drained, tired inside and out. Eating a good meal and getting some rest takes care of my physical tiredness, but in order to replenish my inner resources, I need to do something else.
For me, reading His Word is food for my spirit, and praying in tongues brings inward rest and rejuvenation.
Even as the Scripture declares in Isaiah 28:11-12, For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, "This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," and, "This is the refreshing."
Take the time to get away and recharge your spiritual batteries.
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Do You Need to Change Your Expectations?
In His Presence: Acts 3:1-9; 16
As a pastor, I witness people accepting their circumstances with a "crippling" mindset rather than believing God for something better in life.
They are like the lame man in Acts 3 who sat by the gate, Beautiful, begging for money. His only expectation was that a passerby will take pity on him and toss a coin his way. He never expected anything better. He was crippled in his body and his mind.
That's the mindset of those who don't expect things can change in their lives. We all face bad days, but we don't have to let them turn into a bad life.
Do you know anyone like that? Is that you? Jesus' disciples offered the lame man miraculous healing in both his body and his mind. You too can move forward no matter what you face in life.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
August 31, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"My Joy . . . Your Joy"
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full -John 15:11
What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father- the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do- ". . . who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross . . ." (Hebrews 12:2). "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . ." (Psalm 40:8). Jesus prayed that our joy might continue fulfilling itself until it becomes the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God's work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, ". . . the cares of this world, . . . choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" (Mark 4:19). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold- He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His "living water." Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live "your life . . . hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
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The Prayer of Supplication
Today I want to focus your attention on the prayer of supplication. Ephesians 6:18 tells us,
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints
When Paul says, Praying always with all prayer, the Greek word he uses for prayer is just a general term for prayer used throughout the New Testament.
But the word he uses translated supplication means prayer for definite, specific needs. Most generally, you will find that this is a prayer prayed for others, as is the case in this verse.
In Philippians 1:4, Paul uses this same word for supplication, when he says,
Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.
Both the words translated prayer and request are the Greek word for supplication that we just read in Ephesians 6:18. But here it is translated as prayer and request.
I want you to notice who he is saying to pray for, Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all. It is for someone else.
Recently, I had a pastor friend ask me to pray for his church and their finances. He said things were really tight. So several times I brought the issue before God and made specific requests about it...or supplications.
Now, I did not pray, "I believe I receive it." That is not my place. What I did do was pray for God to help them. I prayed that God would give them wisdom, that God would inspire the people in the church to give, that people would have a heart for souls, and a number of other specific requests over the following several days.
That is the prayer of supplication...praying specific requests for specific people
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God Wants to Amaze You
In His Presence: Luke 5:1-11
How do you respond when you get a tremendous blessing? We all want to be blessed. Do you accept with gratitude? Do you let the blessing absorb you?
In the gospels, at Jesus' direction Peter let down his net in the water, and the blessing was so huge that the abundance of fish tore holes in Peter's net. His boat was dangerously close to capsizing.
In Luke 5:8, it reads, When Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!"Peter saw beyond the blessing. Peter saw Jesus and recognized his own limitations and his need for the Savior.
Jesus amazed Peter with the overload of fish because He wanted Peter to follow Him and get to know Him better. God wants to amaze you so that you can better understand who He is and love Him even more.
God bless
:angel:
September 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Destined To Be Holy
. . it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy' -1 Peter 1:16
We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them. Many of them may be right, noble, and good, and may later be fulfilled, but in the meantime God must cause their importance to us to decrease. The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy. At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God.
Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? If through your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching. The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind- holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity- He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.
Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth, and every thought in your mind- placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.
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The Prayer of Intercession
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of intercession...the sixth and last of the kinds of prayer we have been covering over the last week of devotionals.
1 Timothy 2:1 points us to this type of prayer,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.
Intercession, as we find it here, is a technical term for approaching a king on behalf of another. In a general sense, related to prayer, intercession is seeking God on the behalf of others. But, more specifically, it is coming to God for one who has no standing with Him.
A number of years ago, I was ministering in Nigeria, speaking at a large conference in the city of Onitsha. While there, we were invited to go meet the king of Onitsha.
It was pretty exciting driving in a motorcade with little flags on all the cars. I felt like a big shot! But when we got to the palace, we had to have someone go on our behalf in order to meet with the king. I had no standing with the king, and neither did anyone else in our party.
The person who brought us to the king of Onitsha was an intercessor. And that is the idea of this word intercession. You are coming to the King of kings on the behalf of someone who presently has no standing with Him.
Do you remember when Abraham went before God for the city of Sodom-desiring that God would spare Sodom? What was Abraham doing? He was acting as an intercessor. He was coming between God and someone who had no standing with God.
We all should be praying prayers of intercession. You and I are to make intercession for the lost.
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Expect Great Things from a Great Name
In His Presence: Ephesians 3:14-20
If you want to rise up spiritually, you need to hang out with people who will inspire you to higher expectations and help you reach them. If you want a better job, you hang out with the experts in the field, not with unmotivated, unfocused people. If you want to see God move supernaturally in your life, you hang out with people who believe in God's power.
Too many Christians have put a lid on God, expecting little from Him because they don't know the power of His name. The apostles, Peter and John, gave the lame beggar at the gate, Beautiful, something more valuable than silver or gold.
The apostles offered the lame man the name above every other name with all authority: Jesus! There's power in that name, and you TOO can expect great things from that great name.
God bless
:angel:
September 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
A Life of Pure and Holy Sacrifice
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow . . . -John 7:38
Jesus did not say, "He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God," but, in essence, "He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him." Our Lord's teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person- His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God's purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us- and we cannot measure that at all.
When Mary of Bethany "broke the flask . . . of very costly oil . . . and poured it on [Jesus'] head," it was an act for which no one else saw any special occasion; in fact, ". . . there were some who . . . said, 'Why was this fragrant oil wasted?' " (Mark 14:3-4). But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said, ". . . wherever this gospel is preached . . . what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her" (Mark 14:9). Our Lord is filled with overflowing joy whenever He sees any of us doing what Mary did- not being bound by a particular set of rules, but being totally surrendered to Him. God poured out the life of His Son "that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17). Are we prepared to pour out our lives for Him?
"He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water"- and hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. Now is the time for us to break "the flask" of our lives, to stop seeking our own satisfaction, and to pour out our lives before Him. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?
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Regaining Your Cutting Edge
Over the next several devotionals, I want to focus your attention on something that affects every Christian at one time or another: Losing our spiritual edge.
God wants us to stay spiritually sharp. Consider Ecclesiastes 10:10,
If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but wisdom brings success.
God is using this analogy to illustrate a very important truth: If you lose your edge spiritually, you lose your effectiveness as well.
Maybe you feel that way today. Though you are exerting strenuous effort, you are making little progress in your spiritual life. God wants you to go forward. He wants you to progress and not become stagnant in your spiritual life.
I have a friend whose father was a logger many years ago. It was a time when they cut all the timber by hand with just an ax.
One day his father shared about the way he would operate. After he chopped down a tree, he would sit on the stump of the tree he had just chopped down, take out a file he kept on his belt, and he would sharpen the edge of the ax. He would sit there until the ax was very sharp again, then he would go after the next tree.
Each time he chopped down a tree he would do exactly the same thing. But he said most of the other guys didn't do that. They just wanted to keep going, never stopping to sharpen their axes.
Without fail, he said, he always got more done than they did, and he used a lot less effort. They had to exercise more strength, yet they got less done.
Over the next several days, we will look at what it takes to regain that spiritual edge.
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Marriage and Life Lessons
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:21-33
God designed marriage to be successful. He intended couples in covenant with Him and one another to have beautiful, fulfilling relationships, not disastrous, emotionally-draining ones. While marriage is at the heart of our culture, only when couples begin to properly live out covenant relationships in marriage will the fabric of our society be altered.
Adam and Eve, before they fell into sin, experienced the only perfect marriage in history. God commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. God instituted marriage for procreation, and both parents were to rear the children in fear and admonition of the Lord. Marriage and parenting are vital for the continued godly dominion over the earth.
Marriage also completes us as individuals. In marriage, God has deeper levels of maturity and much higher heights of potential planned for couples. Marriage is also an illustration of the divine. When Christian couples live their lives according to God's principles, the world sees what Jesus and His bride look like.
God bless
:angel:
September 6, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life
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He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water -John 7:38
A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, "rivers of living water" will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even "to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow- "This is the work of God, that you believe. . ." (John 6:29). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.
A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ- not emotion nor experience- nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.
Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.
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Be Watchful
2 Kings 6. In verses 4-5 we are told about the guy who loses his cutting edge,
...when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
Notice this guy is working hard, cutting down a tree. But, in the midst of this effort, he loses his cutting edge. His ax head falls into the water.
Now you might think, "Well, you wouldn't end up in a state like that, you wouldn't lose your edge, unless you were out of God's will."
But if you read yesterday's devotional, you will see these guys were in the will of God. They were moving by divine permission. The prophet not only said go, he went with them, showing just how much this was the right thing to do.
Or you might think, "Well, a spiritual man or a spiritual woman wouldn't have lost their edge." No, there is no indication that the guy who lost his cutting edge was unspiritual. Every indication tells us he was spiritually strong.
So what does this teach us? Be careful not to think we cannot lose our spiritual edge. It can happen to you, and it can happen to me. We all can lose our cutting edge if we are not careful.
My friend, it is vital to take care not to lose your spiritual edge. This is something you have to work at to maintain. Just because you have it today doesn't mean you will have it tomorrow.
The good news is that if you have lost your spiritual edge, you can regain it! Even better, be watchful to maintain your edge-staying sharp for God!
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Perfected by the Spirit
Scripture Reading: Psalm 146
In football, coaches are always concerned about turnovers. With each fumble or interception, the team goes from playing in the offensive mode to the defensive mode. Unfortunately, many Christians are playing in the spiritual defensive. Although they may have a clear profession of faith, they are no longer progressing but regressing.
When the church at Galatia began judging spiritual maturity by how well Christian duties were performed, Paul called them to task. Paul reminded them that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. At the point of salvation, the Holy Spirit indwells in every believer to empower us and produce fruit in our lives.
Christians must never lose sight of the power of the cross, which is also the abiding expression of God's provision. You have the Holy Spirit's powerful indwelling presence to help you accomplish God's powerful Kingdom agenda.
God bless
:angel:
September 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Fountains of Blessings
The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life -John 4:14
The picture our Lord described here is not that of a simple stream of water, but an overflowing fountain. Continue to "be filled" (Ephesians 5:18) and the sweetness of your vital relationship to Jesus will flow as generously out of you as it has been given to you. If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame- something is obstructing the flow. Was Jesus saying to stay focused on the Source so that you may be blessed personally? No, you are to focus on the Source so that out of you "will flow rivers of living water"- irrepressible life (John 7:38).
We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as "rivers of living water" in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you "will flow rivers of living water." It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.
Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, "But I don't see the rivers"? Through the history of God's work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
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Are You Just Swinging the Handle?
As you look at your life today in honesty and transparency, perhaps you would have to say that you have lost that edge, that excitement, that zeal, that spiritual passion you once had.
If indeed you have lost your edge, how can you get it back? Over the next seven days, I will help you understand how to regain your spiritual edge based on 2 Kings 6.
The first principle I want to focus on is based on the man who lost his ax head, as we learn in 2 Kings 6:4-5,
...when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water.
Now, it would have been senseless for him to have kept chopping with a wooden handle with no ax head on it, wouldn't it?! He would make no progress.
And yet that is what a lot of Christians do today. They have lost their cutting edge, and they are just going through the motions, making no progress at all.
They are chopping away with just a wooden handle!
They think, "Well, I know I'm supposed to go to church, so I will go. As long as I keep busy, maybe nobody's going to know the state of my heart." And they will do this not just for weeks or months, but some people have been doing this for years.
No progress, no growth. They are just swinging that handle without an ax head.
If this is you, do not just keep swinging the ax handle. If you are not making progress, admit it. Until you are willing to face up to the fact that you have not been growing, you can never regain your spiritual edge.
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Empowered by the Spirit
Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:1-11
Before His ascension to heaven, Jesus promised His followers that He would send a Helper who would be with the believers forever. Jesus instructed them to stay in Jerusalem until they had received the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit's job is to empower us Christians to progress in our spiritual lives. Far too many Christians find themselves on a spiritual treadmill. They're working up a sweat with religious activities, but still remain in the same place spiritually.
If your life seems powerless right now, you may have a connection problem between you and the Holy Spirit. The disciples were so in tuned to the Holy Spirit that they were able to write the New Testament three decades after Christ's death. The Holy Spirit - the Helper - empowered the apostles to remember.
When you have the Holy Spirit, you have all the power you need to live the Christian life.
God bless
:angel:
September 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do It Yourself (1)
. . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God's divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . ." (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier "against the knowledge of God" is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God's power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin- Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched- the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers "against the knowledge of God." We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).
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Looking to the Master
In 2 Kings 6:5, we read the second in our series of seven principles to regain our spiritual edge. It is the response of the man who lost his cutting edge,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
When this man lost his ax head and it fell into the water, he cried out and said, "Alas, master!" He went to the prophet.
The prophet was God's representative in that day. He was the mouthpiece of God. If you wanted to hear from God, you went to the prophet, and the prophet would give a word from God.
Today, thank goodness, we have direct access to God as individuals. We can go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Master. And that is the second principle to regaining your spiritual edge. You need to realize the only One who can restore your edge once it is lost, is the Lord Jesus Himself.
You need to get your eyes off of men and get your eyes on the Master. Some people make a great mistake because they have their eyes on men. You will always be disappointed if your eyes are on men instead of on the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is only One who can help you regain your spiritual edge, and that is Jesus Christ. No man or woman can take His place.
So today, put your eyes on the Master. Cry out to Him to help you regain your spiritual edge.
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How Should Christians Vote?
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 26:12; 29:20, 23; 1 John 3:3, 7
To answer the question of how should Christians vote, I must speak theologically and not politically. If you were to come to me for individual counseling, I would identify the causes of your personal dilemma, take my Bible and speak God's truth into your situation.
I would use the same Bible to prescribe biblical solutions to a family in shambles and a congregation in chaos. The Bible that can put together a person, a home and a church can put a country back together.
It's amazing that Christianity rarely comes up in the discussion about candidates, parties and party platforms. God is more involved in this election than you might think. The goal of government is to mirror the rule of God. The less the government lines up with God's Kingdom, the less the culture will receive from God. How should Christians vote? Christians should vote from God's Kingdom perspective.
God bless
:angel:
September 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do It Yourself (2)
. . . bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Discipline Other Things. This is another difficult aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul said, according to the Moffatt translation of this verse, ". . . I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ . . . ." So much Christian work today has never been disciplined, but has simply come into being by impulse! In our Lord's life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was never the slightest tendency to follow the impulse of His own will as distinct from His Father's will- "the Son can do nothing of Himself . . . " (John 5:19). Then compare this with what we do- we take "every thought" or project that comes to us by impulse and jump into action immediately, instead of imprisoning and disciplining ourselves to obey Christ.
Practical work for Christians is greatly overemphasized today, and the saints who are "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity" are criticized and told that they are not determined, and that they lack zeal for God or zeal for the souls of others. But true determination and zeal are found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that arises from our own undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity," but are simply doing work for God that has been instigated by their own human nature, and has not been made spiritual through determined discipline.
We have a tendency to forget that a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible, and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God, the world, and of sin and the devil. This means that each person must recognize the responsibility to "be transformed by the renewing of [his] mind. . . ." (Romans 12:2).
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Taking Responsibility
Today we are on the third key to regaining your cutting edge. The first was to admit you have lost your edge, and the second was to put your eyes on the Master. The third is to take responsibility if you have lost your spiritual edge.
I want to take you back to 2 Kings 6:5,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
It is important to understand that ax heads do not just fall off. They fall off because they are not properly maintained.
I have spent endless hours chopping wood, and I have owned a number of fine axes in my time. But in all the years I have chopped firewood, I have never had an ax head fly off.
The only reason an ax head would fly off is if the one using the ax has not been taking care of it. This must have been the case for the guy in 2 Kings 6 who lost the ax head. He was responsible to make sure the ax head would stay on.
The point is this: If you have lost your cutting edge, you need to take responsibility. If it is something that you did, or neglected to do, repent. Take responsibility and stop blaming other people.
As much as you might like to point the finger at the last church you went to, or your spouse, or your boss, or whatever it might be, no one can take your cutting edge away from you. Only you can cause it to be lost.
Stop blaming others, and take responsibility if you have lost your edge. It is a necessary step toward regaining your spiritual sharpness.
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Shine Your Light in the Darkness
Scripture Reading: Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:9
Some Christians get nervous about discussions on the Christians' responsibility to the culture. A major concern is that the Gospel will be obscured in favor of social concerns. Let me reassure your, when it comes to the lost, evangelism must come first. We must win people to Christ.
Without Christ, it doesn't matter how much money people have or how good their jobs are. If they die without Christ, they die without hope. We still have to live in this world until Jesus returns. We need to be salt and light in our culture just as Jesus commanded.
We are responsible to recapture our society for Jesus, point people to Him and promote His righteousness in society. Ask yourself, "Am I making anyone around me thirsty for Christ? Am I shining my light in the darkness?"
God bless
:angel:
September 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Going Through Spiritual Confusion
Jesus answered and said, 'You do not know what you ask' -Matthew 20:22
There are times in your spiritual life when there is confusion, and the way out of it is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you.
The Shrouding of His Friendship (see Luke 11:5-8). Jesus gave the illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember?He is not. The time will come when everything will be explained. There seems to be a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller fellowship and oneness. When God appears to be completely shrouded, will you hang on with confidence in Him?
The Shadow on His Fatherhood (see Luke 11:11-13). Jesus said that there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father?as if He were callous and indifferent- but remember, He is not. "Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Luke 11:10). If all you see is a shadow on the face of the Father right now, hang on to the fact that He will ultimately give you clear understanding and will fully justify Himself in everything that He has allowed into your life.
The Strangeness of His Faithfulness (see Luke 18:1-8). "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Will He find the kind of faith that counts on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand firm in faith, believing that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing. He has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you are asking of Him right now.
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A Miracle-Working God
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
I want you to look at the words,"And he made the iron float."
I don't know about you, but I have never seen an iron ax head float. Clearly this was a miracle. God worked a miracle when the man did his part, looking to the master, taking responsibility, and going to the place where the ax head was lost.
You do your part; God does His part. I like the King James Version as it says, ...the iron did swim. It was against that ax head's nature to swim, but God made it swim.
God brings the restoration. He brings the healing. He brings back that sensitivity and usefulness to Him. I pray that right now God is at work in your heart, and you are responding, making adjustments...regaining your cutting edge.
As you admit to those areas where you have lost your spiritual edge, God is going to restore it. God's part is to make that ax head float once you have admitted where you have failed!
He can restore what has been lost, even if it takes His miracle power to do it.
Perhaps you are wondering just what other principle for regaining your spiritual edge can come from this verse. Well, there is one more, and it is critical to understand because it points to God's part in the process of restoration.
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Shine Your Light in the Darkness
Scripture Reading: Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:9
Some Christians get nervous about discussions on the Christians' responsibility to the culture. A major concern is that the Gospel will be obscured in favor of social concerns. Let me reassure your, when it comes to the lost, evangelism must come first. We must win people to Christ.
Without Christ, it doesn't matter how much money people have or how good their jobs are. If they die without Christ, they die without hope. We still have to live in this world until Jesus returns. We need to be salt and light in our culture just as Jesus commanded.
We are responsible to recapture our society for Jesus, point people to Him and promote His righteousness in society. Ask yourself, "Am I making anyone around me thirsty for Christ? Am I shining my light in the darkness?"
God bless
:angel:
September 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
After Surrender- Then What?
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will- and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person's will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.
Surrender for Deliverance. "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will- "Come to Me." And it is a voluntary coming.
Surrender for Devotion. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . . " (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, "If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me." And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and (Philippians 4:19).
Surrender for Death. ". . . another will gird you . . ." (John 21:18 ; also see John21:19). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being "united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death" (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.
And after you surrender- then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.
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Take It!
The seventh and final key to regaining your cutting edge is found in verse 7 of 2 Kings 6, the passage we have been looking at over the last several days. Here is what that verse says,
Therefore he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.
The sixth key was something that only God could do, and that is to make the ax head float; that is, to restore your cutting edge.
Now we see what we must do in response. You and I must receive what God is offering. Unless you take hold of what God is offering, your spiritual edge will never be restored.
Perhaps over the last several days, as we have looked at how to restore your spiritual edge, God has been speaking to you. Maybe you have come to realize that you are not where you should be in your relationship with God.
Maybe you have lost that sensitivity. Maybe you have lost your cutting edge. I am telling you, you can reach out and take what God is doing to restore your cutting edge.
I want to challenge you to take some time today to search your heart. If you have lost your cutting edge, stop swinging an empty handle and just going through the motions.
Be honest and admit you have lost that edge, determine where it fell, look to the Master, listen to His voice, take responsibility, know that the cross of Christ is completely sufficient to restore you, and then take hold of what God is doing to restore your edge.
God can work that miracle in your life if you will only do your part!
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Transforming Our Culture
Scripture Reading: Romans 12:9-16
When Jesus Christ returns, we will no longer need to worry about transforming our culture because He will set up His Kingdom rule. But until that time, we need to reach the world for Him and for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
What is the role of Christians in our society? Jeremiah 29:4-11 illustrates this foundational principle: Society is transformed when God's people execute His strategy in history in a Christ-centered way.
The prophet Jeremiah challenged the Jews in Babylonian captivity to regain their spiritual clarity. The Babylonian pagans were not Israel's greatest problem to deal with. The Jews had become pagans themselves and had failed to remain God's distinct, unique people.
When the church fails to be God's unique people, the entire culture will suffer the effects of sin.
God bless
:angel:
September 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Arguments or Obedience
. . . the simplicity that is in Christ. -2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your "arguments and . . . every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (2 Corinthians 10:5). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God's will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
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The Cross is Enough
2 Kings 6:6,
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Why a stick? What does a piece of wood have to do with it?
Please remember that this story is in here for our benefit, and every part of it is significant. I believe this piece of wood is a type of, or points to, another piece of wood where something happened that is very significant to us.
I believe it points to the cross, that piece of wood where Christ was crucified for you and for me, and that God wants us to realize that Jesus' sacrifice at Calvary was enough to take care of all our problems, and restore us no matter our spiritual state.
It is enough to cleanse us and restore our spiritual edge. In fact, it is the only thing that has the power to do it.
If you have lost your zeal for God and you have become spiritually dull, repent and say, "Jesus, I believe that Your work on the cross was enough to restore me."
If you apply what He did on that piece of wood, it is enough to restore you, no matter how far you have fallen away from where you should be. He took your failure, and He nailed it to that cross. He rose from the dead victorious on the third day, and He offers that victory to you!
If you have lost your cutting edge, the cross of Christ and the blood shed upon that cross are enough to take care of everything.
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Who's the Real Enemy?
Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, 17-22
Our nation faces a crisis of social deterioration which would have been unimaginable a generation ago. Our society needs radical transformation. Yes, we're in a culture war, but we need to know who the real enemy is.
The real enemy, working behind the scenes, is Satan. Yet the number one reason Satan can influence the schools, the media and government is because Christians have abandoned our culture and handed it over.
Christian morality no longer permeates, and society has lost its best moral frame of reference. We need a whole new generation of people who know, revere and follow God. If we humble ourselves before the Father, He will give us the power to take our culture back.
God bless
:angel:
September 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What To Renounce
We have renounced the hidden things of shame . . . -2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you "renounced the hidden things of shame" in your life-the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind-renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don't necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
". . . not walking in craftiness. . ." (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way-the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way-the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God's blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others-God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest-your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God's perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted
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Keeping Your Focus
Luke 4:42-44 says,
Now when it was day, He departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; but He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent." And He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee. I want you to notice that statement of Jesus, "For this purpose I have been sent." Jesus knew His purpose. He said, "I must preach the kingdom." But notice the people tried to distract Him from that purpose.
I am sure the people meant well, but they were trying to divert Jesus from His purpose. But Jesus knew His purpose; therefore, He did not stay.
People will innocently divert you from doing what God has called you to do. It is only when you know your purpose that you will not be sidetracked, and you will not be distracted from what you are supposed to do.
The apostle Paul knew his purpose. In fact, he said this in 1 Corinthians 9:26, "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step" (The Living Bible). He was not about to get distracted from God's purpose for his life.
Our lives are not to be aimless, but they are to have purpose and direction, and we are to stay focused on that purpose, running straight at that goal. Keep focused on the purpose for which God has created you.
Be able to say like Paul, "I am running straight to the goal with purpose in every step."
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God Used Moses, "the Murderer"
Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:4-6
One mistake can change the course of our lives. One bad decision can cost us years. In Moses' case, the mistake was murder. In a fit of anger, he killed an Egyptian and then fled for his life. He went from living as a prince of Egypt to growing old with the sheep in the desert. He was certain that it was too late for anything good to come of his life.
Many of our lives have been forever changed by a single decision, and the consequences have left us feeling as though our existence has little significance. But it wasn't too late for Moses, and it's not too late for you.
When he was 80 - after 40 years of waiting - Moses' mistake brought him to the right place to meet with God, who used him to lead an entire nation out of slavery. Cry out to God, and He will meet you in His presence.
God bless
:angel:
September 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DEPRESSION
Arise and eat.
The angel did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told Elijah to do the most ordinary thing, viz., to get up and eat. If we were never depressed we should not be alive; it is the nature of a crystal never to be depressed. A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. There are things that are calculated to depress, things that are of the nature of death; and in taking an estimate of yourself, always take into account the capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes He does not give us visions, He tells us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God's creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple thing - the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there. The inspiration which comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and do it in the inspiration of God. If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the Spirit of God makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.
1 Kings 19:5
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Living with Passion
I want to focus your attention today on two passages. The first is Ecclesiastes 9:10,
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.
People are attracted to passion. They want to see someone who is burning with a fiery zeal for whatever they do!
In my opinion, the greatest example of a passionate person is Jesus. Remember the story when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple? That was a passionate act. In fact, the end of that passage says, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up."
Zeal is just another word for passion. "Passion for Your house has eaten Me up!" Have you ever tried to imagine Jesus doing that? I have a very clear image of what that must have been like.
He is whipping these guys and they are running, covering their heads. He is throwing over these big tables and the disciples are watching with their mouths wide open, when they remember the verse, "Zeal (passion) for Your house has eaten Me up."
Let me ask you a question: When is the last time you were eaten up with zeal for anything? When is the last time you were utterly passionate about anything?
Don't just sleepwalk through life. You need to decide you are going to live!
Do you see the common theme? God desires us to live our lives full out, with passion. Whether you are a preacher, a writer, a teacher, or a singer, whatever you do, you are to do it with passion. You are to throw yourself into it.The second passage is Colossians 3:23,
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All for God's Glory
Scripture Reading: Psalm 136:1-9
First Corinthians 10:31 tells us that even our eating and drinking should be done to the glory of God.
God's glory is like a pair of colored glasses that tint everything you see. Whatever you do should be done for His glory. About everything, you should ask, "How will this glorify God?"
The whole earth gives us a picture of the glory of God. Nature preaches us a sermon on His glory. Everything should point to His glory.
Revelation 21:23 says that when we get to heaven, there will be no need of the sun or moon because the glory of the Lord will illuminate everything. There will be no night there, for the place will be consumed with the glory of God. His glory is so awesome that it will light up our heavenly home!
God bless
:angel:
September 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials -Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? "From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ's honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on "outside the camp" (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow- but only the voice saying, "FollowMe" (Matthew 4:19)
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The Value of Play
I think we would all agree that the Christian life is one to be taken seriously. But in our desire to go all out for Christ, we can get to a place where we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained.
God does not intend for us to live our lives that way. In fact, in 1 Timothy 6:17, Paul tells us,
God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
It is so easy to live our lives believing that somehow it is more spiritual to be on the edge of exhaustion all the time. But God clearly tells us that we are to take time to rejuvenate and to enjoy the things He has put into our lives.
When I was a young minister, I had the chance to meet with a seasoned minister who had literally changed the world for Christ. I thought, "Man, this is my golden opportunity. I'm going to ask him some questions."
So I said to him, "Look, I'm a young man in ministry. You have had decades more experience than me. You have impacted the world. What is the best advice you could give me as a young minister?"
And he said, "Well, Bayless, you have a nice golf swing. My advice is that you get some lessons. And whatever it costs you, join a country club and play golf regularly." Then he looked at me and said, "Golf is the only thing that's kept me alive."
It was some of the best advice I had ever received.
You need to make sure you live a balanced life. Take time for rest and for play. Recharge your batteries. You are in this thing for the long haul
You and I need to take time to enjoy the things God gives us. In fact, Jesus said this to His disciples in Mark 6:31, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."
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You were Custom Made
Scripture Reading: Psalm 139:1-6
There's nothing quite like having a custom-made shirt. On one shirt that I had custom made - cut especially for me - I even had my initials embroidered on the cuff. When you get something custom-made, it is fitted to your uniqueness, crafted with you in mind, and you are proud of it.
Now think about this: YOU have been custom-made by Almighty God, and your days were ordained before time into being. When you read Psalm 139:15-16, I want you to pay close attention to how God has placed all the parts of your life in order. He's got your whole life in His hands. This means you can stop trying to be somebody else and be satisfied with the unique person God made you to be.
You are custom-made! When you live in that realization, you will shine brighter than ever. Walking in God's purpose for you will turn out to be the greatest adventure you've ever jumped into!
God bless
:angel:
September 20, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Divine Commandment of Life
. . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect -Matthew 5:48
Our Lord's exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections- some people we like and others we don't like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. ". . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are "perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God's interests in other people. Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian's life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
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Peace
One of the great truths of the Christian life is that you and I can know the peace of God in our lives because we have peace with God. As believers, we need not live our lives without God's peace.
Are you worried right now about anything? Finances? Kids? Marriage? Job security? Your health? What somebody said about you? How a situation is going to turn out?
If you are worried about anything, here are some instructions for you found in Philippians 4:6-7,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything [that means in every circumstance] by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Let me leave you with these words from Dr. Stanley Jones:
"I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil.... A Johns Hopkins University doctor says, 'We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than non-worriers, but that is a fact.' But I who am simple of mind think I know; We are inwardly constructed...for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality."
Talk to the Lord about your problems, offering thanks along with your requests. He promises to give you peace if you will.
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Oh Death, Where is Your Victory?
In 1 Corinthians 15:56, the Apostle Paul explains that the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. Jesus' death satisfied God's divine law to overcome the problem of sin and the condemnation of death.
All the sin of the world for all time was placed on the person of Jesus Christ at Calvary. In His resurrection, He rose victorious over sin and death. Death no longer has authority over us.
I encourage you to reflect on what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. He shares His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. This victory is a gift of grace: God forgives the sins of all who trust in Christ alone.
You don't have to be afraid of death because it has no power over you. For those who trust in Christ, death is not the end - it is only the beginning.
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
God bless
:angel:
September 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Predestined Purpose
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant . . . -Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances- we are turned solely into servants of God's own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God's purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God's great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in
John 3:16
- "For God so loved the world. . . ."
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God's creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God's servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God's purpose for your life
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The Prayer of Faith
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of faith. This kind of prayer is found in Mark 11:22-24,
So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
With the prayer of faith, at the moment you pray you are to believe that you receive what you pray for. Not when the circumstances look different, not at some point in the future, but when you pray. The Amplified Bible says, Believe that it is granted to you.
When you pray, believe that God hears you and that He has sent the answer, whether you feel differently or not. Before you ever get up off your knees, believe that heaven has sent the answer.
1 John 5:14-15 says it this way,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
The prayer of faith is prayed when you know and understand God's will. Friend, the Bible is a revelation of the will of God. Prayer will not reach beyond the will of God, and God's Word reveals His will to us.
So pray the prayer of faith according to His will, and you can be assured He hears you and heaven has sent the answer to your prayer.
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What is Your Legacy?
Whether it's a high school competition or the Olympics, audiences get excited watching athletes compete in a relay race. The key point of the relay is the passing of the baton. No matter how fast the runners are, if one of them drops the baton, the team loses the race.
Leaving a legacy to the people in your life is a lot like passing the baton. Legacy is about transfer, and what you leave behind can help someone else go further than you did. What kind of legacy are you leaving behind? Developing and passing on a true spiritual legacy doesn't just happen. Like Elijah passing on the prophet's mantle to Elisha, you can share a Christian legacy.
Think about the price Jesus paid to leave His legacy. Because of His death and resurrection, you and I have the privilege and duty to pass this legacy on to everyone around us.
Scripture Reading: Acts 20:16-24
God bless
:angel:
September 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Master and Teacher
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am . . . . I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master . . .-John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less- ". . . for One is your Teacher, the Christ . . ." (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
"You call Me Teacher and Lord . . ."- but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God's servant- He was His Son. ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience. . ." (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it-a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
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Clean and Committed
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
When God looks at us, the first thing He sees is the state of our heart. In the next few devotionals we are going to look at several different aspects of the heart-things that must be present in order to experience the richer blessings of God.
· A clean heart. Psalm 51:10 says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
Every once in a while I have to clean out the drains throughout our house. It is amazing how quickly they become clogged. If I do not clean them, before long, the sinks get stopped up and the water will not flow through anymore.
If we don't periodically take time before God to have our hearts purified and cleansed, pretty soon His blessings can no longer flow to us or through us.
· A committed heart. 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV) says, "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
I believe it is important to be committed to God before seeking His blessings.
God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may serve me." Most people want to be delivered from their captivity, but they are not so keen on the "serving God" part of the deal.
The Lord is looking for committed hearts. Does your heart belong fully to Him? If not, commit it to Him today!
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The Importance of Prayer
Most people are fascinated by magic tricks, which are simply fantastic illusions. What God is able to do and anything He purposes to accomplish in His Kingdom are never illusions. And how He answers our prayers is no illusion. When God's people commit to faithful prayer, the world will see God's power.
To pray powerfully and effectively, we must first deal with sin in our lives. We must turn and flee from sin, understanding that as God responds to our cries, people will give Him greater glory.
We must pray expectantly, knowing that God will ultimately change us. Isaiah 65:24 says, "... before [you] call, I will answer ..." God gave us prayer to connect us with His plan for our lives to make an impact on all creation!
Scripture Reading: Philippians 4:4-7; Colossians 4:2-6
God bless
:angel:
September 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Goal
He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . . ' -Luke 18:31
In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him?". . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:13), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.
In our Lord's life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go "up to Jerusalem."
"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master" (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our "Jerusalem." There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going "up to [our] Jerusalem."
". . . there they crucified Him . . ." (Luke 23:33). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord's grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, "I too go 'up to Jerusalem.'
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Search the Scriptures
After Paul preached the gospel to the Bereans, they did something that others had not done-they searched the Scriptures.
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so (Acts 17:11).
According to the next verse, the result of their search was that many of them believed.
Jesus said in John 5:39, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me."
I once heard a Jewish believer share his testimony. His daughter, who had become a Christian, challenged him to read through the New Testament.
He began in Matthew and was astonished to find so many Old Testament references to the Messiah being fulfilled by Jesus.
His initial reason for searching the Scriptures was to prove that his daughter was wrong, but instead, he ended up giving his heart to Christ. The Scriptures testified of Jesus!
Look for Him as you read the Holy Scriptures, and encourage others to do the same.
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A Lesson About Faith
Have you ever taken a stress test to evaluate your heart's health? One component of the stress test monitors your heart while you walk on a sloped treadmill at a fast pace. It's not easy, but you keep going to get an accurate reading of your heart's strengths and weaknesses.
God has stress tests. They're called trials, and through them God evaluates how well you've learned the lessons of life. The prophet Elijah passed the tests on several occasions. Once he had to help a widow and her son survive a famine. The next test was the boy's death. The widow's faith was shaken, but Elijah's faith remained firm.
Through that faith, God saved the boy. That day the widow and her son receive a valuable lesson: In your trials, remember God's truths. In spite of your circumstances, you can prevail!
God bless
:angel:
September 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Reconciliation
If you . . . remember that your brother has something against you . . . -Matthew 5:23
This verse says, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you . . . ." It is not saying, "If you search and find something because of your unbalanced sensitivity," but, "If you . . . remember . . . ." In other words, if something is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God- "First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:24). Never object to the intense sensitivity of the Spirit of God in you when He is instructing you down to the smallest detail.
"First be reconciled to your brother . . . ." Our Lord's directive is simple- "First be reconciled . . . ." He says, in effect, "Go back the way you came- the way indicated to you by the conviction given to you at the altar; have an attitude in your mind and soul toward the person who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing." Jesus does not mention the other person- He says for you to go. It is not a matter of your rights. The true mark of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
". . . and then come and offer your gift." The process of reconciliation is clearly marked. First we have the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden restraint by the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, and then we are stopped at the point of our conviction. This is followed by obedience to the Word of God, which builds an attitude or state of mind that places no blame on the one with whom you have been in the wrong. And finally there is the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
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The Sixth Commandment of Marriage:
Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle
Today we are going to look at the sixth commandment of marriage, based on the sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."
Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered...who are violent or have an explosive temper...destroy relationships.
If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.
Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.
Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold...using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.
If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.
While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!
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Blessed are the Spiritually Famished
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:6; Psalm 107:1-9
We've all seen the televised images of starving children in countries experiencing food and water shortages. Mothers, holding their babies with bellies bloated from severe malnutrition, desperately seek food and water. If they can't find what they seek, their children will die.
This kind of desperation is what Jesus was talking about when He told us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. He wants us to be as passionate about doing God's will as parents in developing countries are about getting food or clean water. Our bodies can't survive without food, and our souls can't live without righteousness.
So how do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? It is the passionate pursuit of God's righteousness in our own lives. His righteousness is living in God's will day in and day out.
When we passionately pursue His will, other things become less of a priority and we will remove any distractions that do not contribute to that pursuit.
God bless
:angel:
September 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Renunciation
. . . someone said to Him, 'Lord, I will follow You wherever You go' -Luke 9:57
Our Lord's attitude toward this man was one of severe discouragement, "for He knew what was in man" (John 2:25). We would have said, "I can't imagine why He lost the opportunity of winning that man! Imagine being so cold to him and turning him away so discouraged!" Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to be hurt or offended. Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God. Our Lord's answers were not based on some whim or impulsive thought, but on the knowledge of "what was in man." If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death.
Luke 9:58 . These words destroy the argument of serving Jesus Christ because it is a pleasant thing to do. And the strictness of the rejection that He demands of me allows for nothing to remain in my life but my Lord, myself, and a sense of desperate hope. He says that I must let everyone else come or go, and that I must be guided solely by my relationship to Him. And He says, ". . . the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
Luke 9:59 . This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor did he want to show a lack of respect for his father. We put our sense of loyalty to our relatives ahead of our loyalty to Jesus Christ, forcing Him to take last place. When your loyalties conflict, always obey Jesus Christ whatever the cost.
Luke 9:61 . The person who says, "Lord, I will follow You, but . . .," is the person who is intensely ready to go, but never goes. This man had reservations about going. The exacting call of Jesus has no room for good-byes; good-byes, as we often use them, are pagan, not Christian, because they divert us from the call. Once the call of God comes to you, start going and never stop.
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The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute
In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.
Love your husband only. Love your wife only. Do not look for fulfillment in some other relationship or in some other thing. Find your fulfillment in that relationship.
Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.
Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.
God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Do not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."
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Blessed are the Pure in Heart
Scripture Reading: Exodus 33:18-19; Matthew 5:8; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6,16; 7:1
Eating organic food is a big health craze right now. No one wants to eat the stuff that's been sprayed with pesticides or pumped full of steroids and preservatives. Why? Because it's a proven fact that the extra stuff will contaminate our bodies and make us sick. When we eat food that man has messed with, we keep our bodies from functioning as God intended.
The same principle applies to our hearts. When we feed our hearts what the world dishes out, we keep them from doing what they were meant to do.
But when we focus our hearts on God's Word and worship God with our thoughts and actions, He will keep our hearts pure. Only then will our hearts be capable of doing what they were meant to do - help us see God.
God bless
:angel:
September 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Unconditional Identification
Jesus . . . said to him, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor . . . and come, take up the cross, and follow Me' -Mark 10:21
The rich young ruler had the controlling passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never places anyone's personal holiness above everything else when He calls a disciple. Jesus' primary consideration is my absolute annihilation of my right to myself and my identification with Him, which means having a relationship with Him in which there are no other relationships. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but deals solely with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us truly know what is meant by the absolute "go" of unconditional identification with, and abandonment and surrender to, Jesus.
"Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . ." (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"One thing you lack . . . ." From Jesus Christ's perspective, oneness with Him, with nothing between, is the only good thing.
". . . sell whatever you have . . . ." I must humble myself until I am merely a living person. I must essentially renounce possessions of all kinds, not for salvation (for only one thing saves a person and that is absolute reliance in faith upon Jesus Christ), but to follow Jesus. ". . . come. . . and follow Me." And the road is the way He went.
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The Third Commandment of Marriage: Speak Well of Your Mate
Exodus 20:7 gives us our third commandment of marriage,
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
When we speak flippantly or lightly about someone, we erode our respect for that person. Some people are just far too casual in the way they speak of their spouse, and it erodes your respect for him or her.
In marriage, few things can affect the relationship like words. Words are containers. They can contain love; they can contain hate; they can contain joy; they can contain bitterness.
The book of James says that our tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It will send the ship of your marriage in whatever direction your words go. Some people are on the brink of divorce because they talk divorce. Just listen to the words they say. Are they negative or positive? Critical or encouraging?
One night I was out with a couple of friends diving for lobster. Some guys were out in one of those big, long speedboats drinking and zooming back and forth at 60 miles an hour. All of a sudden, BANG! The boat hit the rocks.
But it did not hit the rocks by itself. It was steered into the rocks. Just like the driver of that boat, some people are steering their marriage into the rocks of divorce, into the rocks of heartache, by the words they speak.
Think about what you say. Are you building up your partner? Learn to speak well of your mate. Build them up with your words. Be lavish with your praise. You will be pleased with where those words will take your relationship.
Many misunderstand the term, in vain. It means empty, meaningless, insincere, not showing due respect.
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Created for Eternity
Scripture Reading: Psalm 90:1-12
Many people live their entire lives not really understanding why they were put on earth. What a tragedy and grave state of existence. It's even possible to be successful, happy and popular but miss the point of living.
The moment we become the center of life is the moment we miss the true meaning and the reason that God created us. It's important for us to realize that God has created us for Him, not for our own benefit. God has created all of us for eternity. In fact, Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has placed eternity in our hearts.
When we begin seeing life through the lens of eternity, we will live differently. Our choices, decisions, values and priorities will line up with God's Word and His plan for our lives.
God bless
:angel:
September 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Awareness of the Call
. . . for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
We are inclined to forget the deeply spiritual and supernatural touch of God. If you are able to tell exactly where you were when you received the call of God and can explain all about it, I question whether you have truly been called. The call of God does not come like that; it is much more supernatural. The realization of the call in a person's life may come like a clap of thunder or it may dawn gradually. But however quickly or slowly this awareness comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural-something that is inexpressible and produces a "glow." At any moment the sudden awareness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising call that has taken hold of your life may break through-"I chose you . . ." (John 15:16). The call of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. You are not called to preach the gospel because you are sanctified; the call to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a compulsion that was placed upon him.
If you have ignored, and thereby removed, the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances. See where you have put your own ideas of service or your particular abilities ahead of the call of God. Paul said, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" He had become aware of the call of God, and his compulsion to "preach the gospel" was so strong that nothing else was any longer even a competitor for his strength.
If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn't matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for His purpose in the end. If you will agree with God's purpose, He will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.
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The Fourth Commandment of Marriage: Spend Exclusive Time Together
Over the last few devotionals, we have been working through the principles behind the Ten Commandments...and how they form the basis for a strong and vibrant marriage. Today we come to the fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20:8-11,
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Sabbath means an intermission. It means to put down your work and rest. Take a break. And holy means separate to the Lord. "If you want a long-term relationship with Me," God says, "We have to have time together. I want special time, exclusive time. I want a whole day."
In the same way, in order to have a healthy, growing marriage, husbands and wives need time together...special time, exclusive time, sometimes extravagant time. And I think we all know that if we do not schedule it, it will not happen.
My wife, Janet, once did a little research. She found that surveys showed the average couple spends 37 minutes or less in face-to-face conversation every week. I bet before you were married you spent a lot more time together in a week, didn't you?
If your marriage is to thrive, you need to spend exclusive time together. You can't build a relationship and not spend time together. It is just not possible.
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Living for the Right Purpose
Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:27-28; Philippians 3:8
Purpose is a popular topic that many of us find fascinating. We all want to be validated and know that we are here on earth for a specific reason. We may have never learned about our purpose while growing up and may still have a difficult time understanding it.
The good news is that God wants us to realize our purpose. He didn't create us to live with no direction, just wandering aimlessly through life. Too many times, we complicate God's plan for our lives. As believers, God's highest purpose is for us to walk in a close relationship with Him and to reach others with His love.
As we walk in obedience to these basic principles outlined in His Word, God begins to reveal to us a very specific purpose that matches our DNA. Acts 13:36 tells of David, who lived a purposeful life for the Lord in his generation. What a great legacy to leave behind!
God bless
:angel:
September 30, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Assigning of the Call
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . . -Colossians 1:24
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" (Isaiah 6:8).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed-you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
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The Fifth Commandment of Marriage:
Honor Your Spouse by Showing How Grateful You Are
The fifth commandment gives us our next principle for a healthy and vibrant marriage. It is found in Exodus 20:12,
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."
Among other things, God is saying we must be grateful. Generally, parents spend a lot of time, labor, and money...sometimes to the point of radical sacrifice...to give their kids an edge in life.
And it is a tragedy when a child is ungrateful or unthankful. William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It is very difficult to have a relationship with an ungrateful, selfish person.
"Thank you" are important words to your parents, and an incredibly important phrase in marriage. It is difficult to live with someone who takes you and all of your efforts for granted.
You may be thinking, "I don't say it, but I am grateful in my heart. I truly am!" Well, hooray for you. You are blessed because in your heart you know you are grateful. But it does your spouse no good if you do not vocalize it.
If you do not demonstrate your gratitude, I doubt if you are really grateful because Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If it is not being expressed, chances are it is not truly there.
Maybe you think you don't have a lot to be grateful for. But there must be something you can say "thank you" for. There is something you can praise your mate for. Look for those things, and accentuate the positive.
Take time today to express thanks to your spouse in some way...through an action, through a card, through words. That is how you honor your mate.
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God Never Makes Mistakes
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 32:4; Matthew 5:48
Everyone makes mistakes, right? Be assured that God, our Creator, has never made a mistake. Deuteronomy 32:4 says His work is perfect, and you and I are some of His greatest works. Believe me, there are no failures or flaws in His plan for you.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Those who believe that the Earth and everything on it evolved by chance or luck into what they are today are incorrect. God purposefully and supernaturally created each and every one of us and continues to sustain us.
There is no room for chance or luck if you believe God is the Creator and Sustainer. God's power allows all things to happen in our lives for His purpose. We are not the coming together of random forces in the universe. We are the creation of God's power and perfect work... never a mistake.
God bless
:angel:
October 3, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Ministry
He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting' -Mark 9:29
His disciples asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?' " (Mark 9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
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The Sixth Commandment of Marriage: Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle
Today we are going to look at the sixth commandment of marriage, based on the sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."
While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!
Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered...who are violent or have an explosive temper...destroy relationships.
If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.
Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.
Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold...using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.
If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.
In case you missed one of the "Commandments of Marage" series from last week, here are commandments 1-5 below.
The First Commandment of Marriage: Exclusivity
The first of the Ten Commandments is simply this, as found in Exodus 20:3,
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
And how appropriate in marriage as well. We are to have an exclusive relationship with our spouse.
It's been said that Henry Ford, on his golden wedding anniversary...50 years of marriage...was asked, "What's the secret of your success in marriage?" And he said, "The secret of my successful marriage is the same secret that I have in business: I stick to the same model."
In traditional wedding vows, the man and woman pledge their devotion until death parts them. For life. There is no competition.
My wife has no competition. I am not shopping for a new model. I do not want to trade in the old model. I will not be shopping in the future. One is all I need.
When God made man, He said it is good. But then He said, "It is not good that he is alone. I am going to make a helper suitable for him." And the Bible says God took one of Adam's ribs, and He formed a woman, Eve, and brought her to the man.
God did not take four or five ribs and say, "Okay, Adam, here is Eve, and here is Lois, and here is Samantha, and here is Rachel." No, it was just one. And to have a healthy marriage relationship, that is it.
I am committed for life. An exclusive relationship. I am not shopping, not even window-shopping. One God. One wife. That is enough.
The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.
Love your husband only. Love your wife only. Do not look for fulfillment in some other relationship or in some other thing. Find your fulfillment in that relationship.
Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.
Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.
God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Do not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,What is God saying in this commandment? That He wants to have an exclusive relationship with you. He wants to be your one and only. He will not settle for flavor of the month.
The Third Commandment of Marriage: Speak Well of Your Mate
Exodus 20:7 gives us our third commandment of marriage,
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
When we speak flippantly or lightly about someone, we erode our respect for that person. Some people are just far too casual in the way they speak of their spouse, and it erodes your respect for him or her.
In marriage, few things can affect the relationship like words. Words are containers. They can contain love; they can contain hate; they can contain joy; they can contain bitterness.
The book of James says that our tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It will send the ship of your marriage in whatever direction your words go. Some people are on the brink of divorce because they talk divorce. Just listen to the words they say. Are they negative or positive? Critical or encouraging?
One night I was out with a couple of friends diving for lobster. Some guys were out in one of those big, long speedboats drinking and zooming back and forth at 60 miles an hour. All of a sudden, BANG! The boat hit the rocks.
But it did not hit the rocks by itself. It was steered into the rocks. Just like the driver of that boat, some people are steering their marriage into the rocks of divorce, into the rocks of heartache, by the words they speak.
Think about what you say. Are you building up your partner? Learn to speak well of your mate. Build them up with your words. Be lavish with your praise. You will be pleased with where those words will take your relationship.
Many misunderstand the term, in vain. It means empty, meaningless, insincere, not showing due respect.
The Fourth Commandment of Marriage: Spend Exclusive Time Together
Over the last few devotionals, we have been working through the principles behind the Ten Commandments...and how they form the basis for a strong and vibrant marriage. Today we come to the fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20:8-11,
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Sabbath means an intermission. It means to put down your work and rest. Take a break. And holy means separate to the Lord. "If you want a long-term relationship with Me," God says, "We have to have time together. I want special time, exclusive time. I want a whole day."
In the same way, in order to have a healthy, growing marriage, husbands and wives need time together...special time, exclusive time, sometimes extravagant time. And I think we all know that if we do not schedule it, it will not happen.
My wife, Janet, once did a little research. She found that surveys showed the average couple spends 37 minutes or less in face-to-face conversation every week. I bet before you were married you spent a lot more time together in a week, didn't you?
If your marriage is to thrive, you need to spend exclusive time together. You can't build a relationship and not spend time together. It is just not possible.
The Fifth Commandment of Marriage: Honor Your Spouse by Showing How Grateful You Are
The fifth commandment gives us our next principle for a healthy and vibrant marriage. It is found in Exodus 20:12,
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."
Among other things, God is saying we must be grateful. Generally, parents spend a lot of time, labor, and money...sometimes to the point of radical sacrifice...to give their kids an edge in life.
And it is a tragedy when a child is ungrateful or unthankful. William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It is very difficult to have a relationship with an ungrateful, selfish person.
"Thank you" are important words to your parents, and an incredibly important phrase in marriage. It is difficult to live with someone who takes you and all of your efforts for granted.
You may be thinking, "I don't say it, but I am grateful in my heart. I truly am!" Well, hooray for you. You are blessed because in your heart you know you are grateful. But it does your spouse no good if you do not vocalize it.
If you do not demonstrate your gratitude, I doubt if you are really grateful because Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If it is not being expressed, chances are it is not truly there.
Maybe you think you don't have a lot to be grateful for. But there must be something you can say "thank you" for. There is something you can praise your mate for. Look for those things, and accentuate the positive.
Take time today to express thanks to your spouse in some way...through an action, through a card, through words. That is how you honor your mate.
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Blessed are the Pure in Heart
Scripture Reading: Exodus 33:18-19; Matthew 5:8; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6,16; 7:1
Eating organic food is a big health craze right now. No one wants to eat the stuff that's been sprayed with pesticides or pumped full of steroids and preservatives. Why? Because it's a proven fact that the extra stuff will contaminate our bodies and make us sick. When we eat food that man has messed with, we keep our bodies from functioning as God intended.
The same principle applies to our hearts. When we feed our hearts what the world dishes out, we keep them from doing what they were meant to do.
But when we focus our hearts on God's Word and worship God with our thoughts and actions, He will keep our hearts pure. Only then will our hearts be capable of doing what they were meant to do - help us see God.
God bless
:angel:
October 4, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Vision and The Reality
. . . to those who are . . . called to be saints . . . -1 Corinthians 1:2
Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.
There are times when we do know what God's purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.
Our little "I am" always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little "I am" be shriveled up in God's wrath and indignation-"I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn't it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.
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The Seventh Commandment of Marriage: Do Not Commit Adultery
The seventh commandment brings us to one of the most vital principles of having the marriage God intends. Exodus 20:14 simply says,
"You shall not commit adultery."
Again, Jesus expanded on this in Matthew 5, and I want you to read these words very carefully. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Having a lustful, exploitive disposition has no place in marriage. Love gives; lust takes. Love serves; lust demands. Love nourishes; lust chokes.
What a wonderful gift God has given us in this thing called sex. It was His idea. It is just as holy as when you lift your hands in church and worship Him. It is God's idea within the context and the confines of marriage. It should be enjoyed.
But lust has no place in marriage. It is a poison that will destroy the fabric of your relationship with your spouse.
Men, do not even entertain the thought of allowing pornography into your life. It can destroy your marriage. You are committing heart-adultery when you look at pornographic images and lust after another woman. Do not let the devil have that ground in your heart and life.
This is such a vital command, over the next few devotionals we are going to stay on this subject. I will share with you three ways to affair-proof your marriage.
In a marriage, you would be hard pressed to imagine anything more damaging than your spouse being unfaithful. But being faithful is not only being faithful in action, but also in thought.
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Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:1-12
Today when we hear that someone is "blessed," we often think of a comfortable lifestyle, good health and a successful job. But Jesus said that those who are "poor in spirit" are blessed. The New Testament word for poor means a beggar who is totally dependent upon another for survival. Therefore, to be "poor in spirit" is to be totally dependent upon another for spiritual well-being.
If we turn this around, we realize that the cursed are those who are rich in self-sufficiency. When we can take care of ourselves and control our situations, we're living in a different kingdom.
When God puts you in a situation that you have no power to fix, He's doing you a favor because He's making a way for His Kingdom to come in. If you find yourself in this place, you'll know you're poor in spirit as thanksgiving replaces your complaining.
God bless
:angel:
October 5, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Degeneration
Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . -Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away- an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, "I am my own god." This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis- my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).
Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch- only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "This is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light . . . " (John 3:19).
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Positive Affirmation
The first way to affair-proof your marriage is to season your marriage with affirming communication.
In Song of Solomon 7:1-6 we read of how Solomon affirmed his bride,
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your navel is a rounded goblet; it lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple; a king is held captive by your tresses. How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
Solomon knew it was vital for him to compliment his bride's body, because, as you read in chapter 1, it is evident that it was an area of insecurity for her.
This Shulamite was a country girl. She said, "Do not look on me for I am dark." She was tan from working out in the vineyards. And compared with the fair-skinned, pampered ladies of the court, she felt very insecure.
So Solomon very wisely builds her up in the area where she feels most insecure.
Speak affirming words to your mate rather than tear him or her down. If your spouse is starved for positive affirmation, and it does not come from you, it opens a door of temptation. The devil will send someone to give insincere compliments, and if a person is starved for it, they gravitate towards it.
Praise one another lavishly. It is an important thing to do.
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God Used Moses, "the Murderer"
Scripture Reading: Exodus 2:11-24
One mistake can change the course of our lives. One bad decision can cost us years. In Moses' case, the mistake was murder. In a fit of anger, he killed an Egyptian and then fled for his life. He went from living as a prince of Egypt to growing old with the sheep in the desert. He was certain that it was too late for anything good to come of his life.
Many of our lives have been forever changed by a single decision, and the consequences have left us feeling as though our existence has little significance. But it wasn't too late for Moses, and it's not too late for you.
When he was 80 - after 40 years of waiting - Moses' mistake brought him to the right place to meet with God, who used him to lead an entire nation out of slavery. Cry out to God, and He will meet you in His presence.
God bless
:angel:
October 6, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Regeneration
When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . -Galatians 1:15-16
If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this- I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature- His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God's verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.
The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God- ". . . until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.
Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Companionship
Back in Song of Solomon 7 we read this in verses 10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
If you have drifted apart, I suggest you each make a list of things you like to do, or things that you might like to try. It could be anything from antique hunting, going to garage sales, taking walks, bicycling, fishing, going to museums, watching football, shopping, gardening, snorkeling, reading, sky diving, cooking, hiking, puzzles, photography, whatever.
Once you have made your lists, compare them and see where things overlap. Then find two or three things, and endeavor to do those things together. Have fun together.
Set time apart to do at least one activity together every couple of weeks. If you have kids, get a babysitter so it is just the two of you. It will be the best gift you could give your children.
If you do not do things together, you will find yourselves drifting apart.
Notice that Solomon and his bride just hung out together. It was a vital part of their relationship. And so must it be for any thriving marriage. Today I want to give you the second way to affair-proof your marriage. And that is by being a companion to your spouse, spending time together just enjoying each other's company.
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God Used Rahab, "the Harlot"
Scripture Reading: Joshua 2
Rahab was a lady of the evening. She was known as "Rahab, the prostitute," yet her name is included both in the Gospel of Matthew's genealogy of Jesus and the book of Hebrew's "Hall of Faith." Her story demonstrates the power of faith to transform lives and overcome difficult circumstances.
Rahab lived at the wall of Jericho, and when the two Hebrew spies stayed at her house, she placed her trust in the protection of their God. She'd heard the stories of the God of Israel, and she chose to appeal to His goodness instead of giving in to the threats of Jericho's ruler. Because of her faith, she was adopted into the people of God and she became a symbol of remarkable faith.
Not only did Rahab's faith change her life, but it moved God to protect everyone in her family and household when Jericho was destroyed. One woman's faith changed an entire family's destiny.
God bless
:angel:
October 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Reconciliation
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him -2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship- it is not wrong doing, but wrong being- it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins- the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son "to be sin" that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . ." and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A man cannot redeem himself- redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person's life.
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy
In the last two devotionals, we have learned that we can affair-proof our marriages through positive affirmation and companionship. The third way to affair-proof your marriage is by making intimacy a priority.
Let me take you back to the Scripture we read yesterday, Song of Solomon 7:10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
These verses paint a beautiful picture of intimacy between a husband and wife. Couples need to have physical intimacy. In fact, the New Testament commands the husband and wife not to deprive one another except by mutual consent, and then only if they are going to fast and pray.
So how do you create an atmosphere of intimacy? It starts with affirming your spouse. Notice that Solomon has been affirming his wife, complimenting her, building her up.
Now guys, you need to understand that women are wired differently than you. In order for a woman to be intimate, she needs to speak and be spoken to. You have to create an atmosphere for intimacy.
For most husbands, they just catch a glimpse of their wife in the shower and they are ready to go. But for women, it starts differently than that. She is aroused by words, sincere words, and it usually starts around breakfast time.
Take time today to create an atmosphere of intimacy. If you do, you will be on your way to experiencing true intimacy, as we will see in tomorrow's devotional.
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God Used Jacob, "the Liar"
Scripture Reading: Genesis 25:26-34
The name "Jacob" means deceiver. Jacob was crafty, tricky and skilled in the ways of manipulation. He was the kind of person who had big dreams and ambitions and was always looking for an angle. He wanted a blessing.
The Bible's reference to "blessing" describes the transfer of divine favor and authority. To be blessed means that we receive from God something that we have no ability to generate on our own. However, the only way we can get that kind of blessing is through brokenness . . . the realization that our self-sufficiency, our willpower and our talents are not enough.
Jacob learned this the hard way. He got his blessing, but it was more than he bargained for. God blessed him by wrestling with him, shaping his character and changing his name from deceiver to Israel, which means "wrestles with God." Jacob realized that the blessing was about more than what he got; it was about passing this blessing on to the next generation. You'll be ready to receive the blessing of God when you realize it's about what you give to others, not just what God gives to you.
God bless
:angel:
October 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Will I Know?
Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes' -Matthew 11:25
We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step- we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin- "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God's revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don't say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy-Part 2
Friday we learned the first step in experiencing intimacy in marriage...by creating an atmosphere for that intimacy. Today, I want us to see the results of that deliberate effort.
As we mentioned yesterday, Solomon has been complimenting his wife and affirming her. Look at her response to that affirmation in Song of Solomon 7:10,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
She is digging it! She is saying, "He really loves me!" Solomon's affirmation of his bride has created this atmosphere of intimacy. And look what she says next in verse 11,
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.
She is grabbing Solomon's hand and saying, "Let's get a hotel room!" Then there are verses 12-13,
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Friend, catch what is going on. Solomon has affirmed his wife saying, "Honey, you are beautiful! I am so glad I married you. I married out of my league. You are wonderful. Your body is great. I am so happy!"
Her response? "Wow, he loves me. I'll tell you what, let's go away and have a little love vacation. Let's take a few days off." That is enough to get any husband inspired to rent a hotel room!
If you want to affair-proof your marriage, make intimacy a priority!
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God Used Samson, "the Player"
Scripture Reading: Judges 13
Samson was every woman's dream and every man's nightmare. He had supernatural strength, heroic bravery and the fighting spirit of a warrior. God gave him these gifts because his parents dedicated him to the Lord from his birth. In time, Samson's love for women caused him to compromise his call. When he lost his purity, he also lost the strength and power that God had given him. Chasing the pleasures of the world left him powerless, defeated and humiliated.
However, in his brokenness at the end of his life Samson rediscovered the call God had given him to liberate his people. When he used the blessings of God to serve others he changed history.
Don't chase the pleasures of the world but dedicate your life to serving God and others. No matter where you are, it's not too late. When you realize God's purpose for your life isn't just about you, He will use you in a mighty way.
God bless
:angel:
October 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Silence- Then What?
When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was -John 11:6
Has God trusted you with His silence- a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible- with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).
A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy- silence.
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The Eighth Commandment of Marriage: Be a Person of Integrity
Exodus 20:15 gives us the eighth commandment for marriage,
You shall not steal.
You may be wondering how stealing applies to marriage. Simple. Not to steal is to be a person of integrity.
If you are always cheating or cutting corners, it will be hard for your spouse to respect you. Your uprightness should make your marriage partner feel proud. Your spouse and your family ought to testify of your integrity. This is really one of the things at the heart of a good marriage.
If you are married to somebody, and you know they cheat their customers, it is just hard to respect that person. You cannot respect someone who does not have integrity.
This is a big issue that many people fly right by. But it is vital to a healthy and vibrant marriage because it is hard to fully give yourself to someone who does not have integrity.
If you find that your spouse is holding back, if you feel like he or she does not respect you, take a look inside and see if you are compromising with your integrity. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you tell that "little white lie" to protect yourself or gain an advantage?
Do you represent yourself one way, when in fact in your heart you believe something totally different? Are you like the man Solomon speaks of in Proverbs 23:7?
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
If this is an issue in your life, take it to God today. He will help you become the person of integrity He desires you to be. And when you do, you will find your spouse will come to respect you, and your marriage will be strengthened!
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The Authority of Christ over Circumstances
You may never have to feed 5,000 people like Jesus did in the story in Mark 6, but you may still experience seemingly impossible situations. Remember these seven keys as you trust in Christ to overcome the insurmountable circumstances in your life.
- Rest and prepare yourself for God's service.
- Make sure you have a compassionate attitude.
- Remember that God is interested in building His Kingdom through your situations.
- Live so that non-believers can see Jesus through for you.
- Always give thanks for what God has given you, so He can use you to bless others.
- Trust God during the impossible circumstances of life.
- Remember that He works through weak things to make miraculous things.
God bless
:angel:
October 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting into God's Stride
Enoch walked with God . . . -Genesis 5:24
The true test of a person's spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person's worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight (seeJohn 1:35-37 and John 3:30). It is painful work to get in step with God and to keep pace with Him- it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God, there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride, but once we have done so, the only characteristic that exhibits itself is the very life of God Himself. The individual person is merged into a personal oneness with God, and God's stride and His power alone are exhibited.
It is difficult to get into stride with God, because as soon as we start walking with Him we find that His pace has surpassed us before we have even taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus- "He will not fail nor be discouraged . . ." (Isaiah 42:4) because He never worked from His own individual standpoint, but always worked from the standpoint of His Father. And we must learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning. It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God's stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give up because the pain is intense right now- get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.
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The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful
The ninth commandment for marriage speaks to the heart of any marriage, trust. It is found in Exodus 20:16,
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Someone who would lie about their neighbor, for whatever reason, is not going to make a good marriage partner. Honesty and trust are at the heart of a good marriage.
If you take advantage of people for your own gain, speaking untruthfully to get ahead, you are not a person to be trusted. And you ultimately are the loser.
I am reminded of the guy who was in a fender bender, and he feigned an injury, pretended like he hurt his arm and his shoulder. As a result, the poor little lady who had run into his car was subjected to a truly horrible situation. She was grilled by attorneys, had to give depositions, and ended up in court.
But this guy continued trying to take her for all she was worth. He didn't care because he knew she had money. He didn't care if she had to give up her house. He was looking at an opportunity to get rich.
The attorney for the lady's insurance company put him on the stand and said, "I would like to know, since the accident, since you injured your arm and your shoulder, how far can you now raise your arm?"
With great pain etched on his face, he said, "Well...'bout here. That's it. Just to here." Then the attorney asked, "Well, how far could you lift it before the accident?" The guy responded, raising his arm with ease, "I could lift it up to here."
Needless to say, he lost.
Anyone who is not truthful will ultimately lose. And if your spouse will lie to someone else, he or she will lie to you.
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The Authority of Christ over Satan
Scripture Reading: 1 John 5:1-20
The Bible says that God tempts no man to sin (James 1:13). Whenever you sin, don't blame God. God never tempts us, but He does tests us. Do you understand the difference?
Testing is designed to validate your victory in Christ. Temptation is Satan's attempt to defeat you spiritually. Ironically, the test and the temptation can be the same event. God can use something - a circumstance, a situation, a problem - that is a test. Yet Satan is using it as a temptation.
Your response can be a testimony to God's power, so Satan works to discredit your testimony in an effort to dishonor God. Our heavenly Father wants to know whether your "amen" on Sunday works on Monday, and Satan wants you to leave the sermon at the church. Remember Christ has ALL authority over Satan, so you can win every time.
God bless
:angel:
October 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth
. . . when Moses was grown . . . he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens -Exodus 2:11
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, " '. . . bring My people . . . out of Egypt.' But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go . . . ?' " (Exodus 3:10-11). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses' forty years in the wilderness. It's as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, "Who am I that I should go . . . ?" We must learn that God's great stride is summed up in these words- "I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him- our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be "well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, "I know this is what God wants me to do." But we have not yet learned to get into God's stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead
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The Tenth Commandment of Marriage: Be Content with What You Have
Today we come to the final commandment for marriage. That commandment is based on the tenth commandment given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 20:17,
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
This command is very direct. Do not covet. Don't be discontent with what you have. Do not make what you don't have the focus of your life. Accentuate what you do have and what God has blessed you and your spouse with.
You do this by celebrating your husband's or wife's strengths and giftings rather than thinking, "Oh, I wish he was this way," or, "I wish she had that."
If Janet compared me to her brothers, I would be in big trouble. Her brothers are these "Mr. Fix-It" guys who can do anything mechanical. If you are with me and our car breaks down on a desolate road, we are going to be in some serious trouble. I can pray, but do not expect me to fix the car.
Her brothers are another story. One just built a house from the ground up; and if anything mechanical breaks down, he can fix it.
While I am not a Mr. Fix-It, there are other things I am good at. I am so grateful that Janet wants to pull those out of me and give wings to those gifts. And I want to do the same thing for her.
You will always get into trouble if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Just water your own grass. Because on the other side of the fence, it's just Astroturf anyway.
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Maturity is a Process
Scripture Reading: John 14:25-27; Luke 10:38-42
As we grow in our relationship with God, so does our spiritual maturity. Growing isn't always fun - in fact, it can be pretty painful - but during our trials and hard times, we must never forget a simple truth.
We can choose to learn from life's difficulties and hardships and mature into the man or woman God has created us to be, or we can choose to be upset and learn nothing.
James 1:2-4 tells us to consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (NIV).
The next time you face a trial or difficult situation, look to God for your joy and strength and know that He is using it to usher you into a new level.
God bless
:angel:
October 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work (1)
Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . .' -Matthew 28:18-19
The key to the missionary's work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don't go- He simply says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . ." He says, "Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me."
"Then the eleven disciples went . . . to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them" (Matthew 28:16). If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him myself. I must take time to worship the One whose name I bear. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . ."- that is the place to meet Jesus- "all you who labor and are heavy laden . . ." (Matthew 11:28)- and how many missionaries are! We completely dismiss these wonderful words of the universal Sovereign of the world, but they are the words of Jesus to His disciples meant for here and now.
"Go therefore . . . ." To "go" simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say in this verse, "Go into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria," but, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me in [all these places]." He takes upon Himself the work of sending us.
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you . . ." (John 15:7)- that is the way to keep going. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings.
"None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . ." (Acts 20:24). That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life
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God's Eyes
In Hebrews 4:13, there is a powerful statement concerning God,
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
In this verse, we are taught that God sees what we do, and He sees the intent of what we do. That leads to one thing: total accountability.
There is no getting out of giving an account for our lives before God. We will all stand before Him. And at that time, there will be no shifting; there will be no saying one thing and thinking something else inside. Everything will be laid bare.
God sees everything all the time. Everything is open and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. You just can't get away from God.
The Scripture says in Proverbs 15:3, The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
But God also sees the very intent of our heart. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint a new king over Israel, and he was at the house of Jesse, Jesse had his big strapping son pass by. As Samuel looked at this guy he thought, "Surely this is the Lord's anointed."
But God said, "I rejected this one. For the Lord does not see as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance. But the Lord looks upon the heart."
Our intent can be right, but we can really mess up. God looks on our heart, and if our intent is right, He judges us according to our intent, not according to the mistakes we may have made. But, if the intent of our heart was not pure, God judges us according to that.
Live today...and every day...knowing that the Lord looks on the heart.
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Transformed by Trials
Scripture Reading: John 14:25-27; Luke10:38-42
One of the primary means God uses to make you and me like Jesus Christ is by sending trouble our way. You see, reshaping us to the image of Christ is not minor surgery; it takes a major transformation.
Just like a sculptor takes a piece of marble slab and chips away at it in order to bring out an image, God uses troubles to reshape us.
We just need to remember, when we are going through trials, we must change what we are looking at. We have to come at it from the right perspective. "Lord, this is a rough time right now. I am not sure why you sent this to me, but I want to give you thanks and I rejoice at the fact that this is going to be a transforming event in my life. I am going to be more like Christ when we finish this one."
God bless
:angel:
October 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work (2)
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world -1 John 2:2
The key to the missionary's message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus- His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ's work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But- "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"- that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary's message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.
The real key to the missionary's message is the "remissionary" aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. ". . . repentance and remission of sins should be preached . . . to all nations . . ." (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins . . . ." The missionary's message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is "for the whole world." When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim "the Lamb of God." It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, "Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me," but, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel- "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
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The Power of Humility One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is spiritual arrogance.
When pride wells up in our heart, it can absolutely take our spiritual legs out from under us, and keep the strong arm of the Lord from being revealed in our lives.
In 1 Peter 5:6, we are given the antidote to pride. It says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. It is unfortunate, but there are some who emphasize the message of faith that at times do so with a touch of arrogance rather than humility. The result is that it has really turned some people off to the whole message of faith.
Our faith always needs to be coupled with humility.
There are only two people in the Bible Jesus said had great faith. One of them was the Roman centurion whom we find in Luke 7. When you study his story, you find that because of his good works, the elders of the Jews said he deserved Jesus' help. But the centurion had a far different view of himself. He said he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof.
The other person that Jesus said had great faith was the woman with the possessed daughter in Matthew 15. Two elements stand out about her as we read her story. She was persistent and she was humble.
Great faith cannot be divorced from great humility. Humility is a necessary ingredient for the soil of our heart, without which a healthy faith cannot grow.
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Just Like Jesus
Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:1-14
God's divine purpose for every believer is that each of us be conformed to the image of His Son. God wants us to reflect His character. But what does God look like? Although we can't see God or touch Him, we know His character because it's reflected in the Son. Jesus told His followers, when you look at Me, you are looking at My Father.
As Christians, we are committed to Jesus Christ. And as a result, God promises that He is going to take all the pieces of our lives - the good, the bad and the ugly - and work them all together for our maximum benefit.
You must make a decision to make conforming to His image your passionate pursuit in life. This is God's purpose for you.
God bless
:angel:
October 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Devotion
. . . they went forth for His name's sake . . . -3 John 7
Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:17). And then He said, "Feed My sheep." In effect, He said, "Identify yourself with My interests in other people," not, "Identify Me with your interests in other people." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love- it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.
Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit- "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.
The key to the missionary's devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.
The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
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The Face of God
The psalmist says in Psalm 30:7,
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.
One thing we should never want to experience is for God to hide His face, because the face of God represents His favor, friendship, and fellowship.
Now there is only one thing that causes God to hide His face from us. It is found in Isaiah 59:1-2,
Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Sin is the one thing that causes God's face to be hidden. The Bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, which means the sin of mankind had hidden God's face.
But that is not the end of the story, thank goodness! In Isaiah 50:6 we are told,
"I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting."
Because Jesus did not hide His face from shame and spitting, because He took your place and died for your sins, God's face can shine upon you.
He could have hidden His face; He could have avoided the whole crucifixion, but He didn't. He bore a shame that was not His as God the Father laid the sin of the world on Him.
Because Jesus did not hide His face, the face of God need not be hidden from any of us. The light of God's countenance can shine upon every one of us, and we can indeed be the friends of God.
Thank you, Jesus, for what you did!
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Saved Without a Doubt
Scripture Reading: John 3:34-36; 17:3
Every member of the human race has fallen into an abyss, and no matter how hard we try, we can't get out; the hole is just too deep. The good news is, we don't have to get ourselves out. The heart of the Gospel, Jesus' sacrifice, is strong enough to lift us from those pits. With His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus offered deliverance and assurance.
When Jesus confronted the Samaritan woman at the well, He offered her a drink of living water from a well that would never run dry. Jesus offers the gift of salvation to everyone who chooses to drink His Water.
Eternal life is living water. We take the first drink, and our Savior produces the well of living water that doesn't run dry. Place your confidence in Jesus and His finished work, and He will create an oasis in your soul that keeps producing living water.
God bless
:angel:
October 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unheeded Secret
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world -John 18:36
The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation . . . . For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person's life.
We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord's life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.
It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College- its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God's redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.
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Gaining the Victory
We live in a society of addictions, of bondage to so many things. Maybe you are in bondage to cigarettes, or alcohol, or pornography, or anger, or any number of other things.
Whatever the condition that has you in bondage today, God's hand and God's arm can lift you up and untangle you and set you free. In Psalm 98:1 we are told,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
We find repeatedly throughout the Old Testament how, through God's mighty hand and His outstretched arm, He redeemed His people out of slavery and out of bondage.
Now here is the question. Does it just sort of randomly happen? Do we have to wait and see if we are one of the lucky ones God will choose to extend His mighty arm to help? Or, is there anything that we can do to cooperate with God to see His arm extended in our behalf?
The answer is yes, we can, and we must cooperate with God.
In Isaiah 51:5 God tells us,
"My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust."
The way we cooperate with God is to trust in His arm; not in our own arm, but in His. If you want to see God's mighty arm move on your behalf, then trust Him alone! Do not trust your intelligence, your ingenuity, your education, your status in life, your wealth, or any other thing.
Trust in God alone. And you will have the victory.
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What is Discipleship?
Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:12-17
In the New Testament, Jesus' disciples were students, pupils or learners, and Jesus was their teacher or in the Hebrew, Rabbi. Jesus told His disciples that He wanted them to be just like Him, their teacher.
During their time with Christ, the disciples had to learn loads of information and how to practically apply what they learned so they could help others.
The goal of discipleship - for Christ's first disciples and for us today - is Christ-likeness. Jesus is just as much our teacher today as He was for the twelve who followed Him. The ultimate goal of discipleship is to develop the discipline of living a Christ-centered life and demonstrating and teaching that to others.
God bless
:angel:
October 20, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is God's Will My Will?
This is the will of God, your sanctification . . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
Sanctification is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me- is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me everything that has been made possible through the atonement of the Cross of Christ? Am I willing to let Jesus become sanctification to me, and to let His life be exhibited in my human flesh? (see 1 Corinthians 1:30). Beware of saying, "Oh, I am longing to be sanctified." No, you are not. Recognize your need, but stop longing and make it a matter of action. Receive Jesus Christ to become sanctification for you by absolute, unquestioning faith, and the great miracle of the atonement of Jesus will become real in you.
All that Jesus made possible becomes mine through the free and loving gift of God on the basis of what Christ accomplished on the cross. And my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound, humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness). It is a holiness based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing about Him (see Romans 5:8). He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification. No wonder Paul said that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is accomplished only through the magnificent atonement of Christ. Never confuse the effect with the cause. The effect in me is obedience, service, and prayer, and is the outcome of inexpressible thanks and adoration for the miraculous sanctification that has been brought about in me because of the atonement through the Cross of Christ
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The Blessing of God's Spiritual Influence
In the beginning of Isaiah 55, God invites His people to come to Him and fellowship with Him. In verses 3 and 6 God says,
"Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live.... Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near."
In verses 10-11, we are told what happens to those who respond to this invitation, to God's call to come and seek Him and listen to Him,
"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."
In the same way rain brings blessing when it waters the earth (causing it to bring a bountiful harvest and fruitfulness into the lives of the people), so God's spiritual influence brings refreshment and fruitfulness to our lives.
What is God's spiritual influence? It is the impact of His Word and His Spirit upon the hearts of His children.
When you come to God, when you respond to His call to seek Him and incline your ear, He will speak to you. And the effect His Word has when He speaks it into your life, into your heart, is the same effect that rain has on the earth.
His Word, as it penetrates your heart, will bring refreshment, enlightenment, and ultimately, fruitfulness. It will bring revival into your heart causing spiritual growth and progress.
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Assurance and Self-Examination
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:9-13
When you read 1 Corinthians 11:28-29, you must be careful not to misinterpret its meaning. One understanding of these verses is that as a believer you must examine yourself to be certain that you're a Christian. But that's not what this means. The misconstrued verse is one reminder of the importance of correctly interpreting the Scriptures.
Paul has presented the Corinthian church with his observation about communion, and in the second reference, he's writing to people who were already Christians. Paul was urging the church at Corinth to examine themselves regularly to avoid God's further judgment (1 Corinthians 11:32).
I don't want you to ever doubt or be confused about the authenticity of your salvation. But as many as received Him, to them he gave the right to become children of God... (John 1:12).
God bless
:angel:
October 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Impulsiveness or Discipleship?
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith . . . -Jude 20
There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God's nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman-an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he "followed Him at a distance" on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises-human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God-but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people-and this is not learned in five minutes.
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God's Plentiful Rain
Psalm 68:6-10 says,
God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. O God, when You went out before Your people, when You marched through the wilderness, the earth shook; the heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God; Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. You, O God, sent a plentiful rain, whereby You confirmed Your inheritance, when it was weary. Your congregation dwelt in it; You, O God, provided from Your goodness for the poor.
When you read various Bible commentators, you will find they agree that this refers to a tremendous rain. The language the psalmist uses refers back to the manna God provided for His children as they wandered in the wilderness.
God sustained them supernaturally. He gave them supernatural provision. He brought them out of bondage into prosperity, and He sent a plentiful rain symbolizing His extravagant blessing on their life.
God, out of His goodness, met the needs of those who previously had been poor. And in the same way, He pours blessings into our life. He sustains us, He takes care of us, and He meets our needs.
Take time today to praise Him for His provision and blessing in your life.
Now, if there is a drought in your life in any of these areas, there is a reason for it. In the next few devotionals, I want to talk to you about some potential causes for that drought, and suggest some things you can do to cause the drought to break and bring the rain of God's blessing to fall in your life once again.
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The Cost of Grace
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:9-13
Imagine it's your birthday. Your friend comes by and gives you a beautifully wrapped gift. When you open it, it's something you've always wanted! After the party, you walk your friend to the door and just before he leaves, he says, "Oh, by the way, here's the receipt. Your gift costs $500. I'll take cash or a check" Could you really call what you received a gift?
The same principle applies to salvation. You don't have to buy it. Salvation is a gift. It depends wholly on God's grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Jesus paid the costs in full for our salvation. Acts 4:12 says, ". . . there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven . . . by which we must be saved."
God bless
:angel:
October 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Proper Perspective
Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 2:14
The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God's perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Don't think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.
The proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose- to be captives marching in the procession of Christ's triumphs. We are not on display in God's showcase- we are here to exhibit only one thing- the "captivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, "I am standing all alone, battling for Jesus," or, "I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him." But Paul said, in essence, "I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn't matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph." Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul's secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive- and that became his purpose. It was Paul's joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." (Romans 8:37).
"We are to God the fragrance of Christ . . ." (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to Go
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Idolatry
The most predominant sin we find in the Bible that stopped the rain of God's blessing from falling was idolatry. Maybe you are thinking, "Well, that's great, but it doesn't really apply. I'm not tempted to go to the nearest pagan shrine and bow down and worship a carved image."
Hold on, though. As you read the New Testament you begin to realize it has a lot to say to us about idolatry. For example, 1 Corinthians 10:14 says, Flee from idolatry, and 1 John 5:21 says, Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Wycliffe in his commentary says, "An idol is anything which occupies the place due to God." An idol is anything in your life that competes with God.
Colossians 3:5 says, ...covetousness, which is idolatry. In other words, your stuff can become an idol. Greed can become an idol; money can become your idol. If anything becomes the main pursuit of your life, other than God, then that thing becomes an idol.
It can be your job, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your husband, your wife, or even a child. It can be a sport, a hobby, fame, anything that comes before God in your life.
I once saw an interview of one of my favorite golfers. He was a brilliant golfer who had won major tournaments. In the interview he said, "I've had a love affair with the game of golf. But I want to tell you, it cost me my marriage. It's cost me my relationship with my kids. Golf has been my god."
The interviewer asked him, "If you had all of it to do over again, what would you do differently?" He said, "Nothing. I'd do it all the same."
You will never experience God's blessing if there is an idol in your life. Is there?
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Make a Difference One by One
A father and son were walking along a beach after a powerful storm. In fact, the storm was so strong that as the waves crashed and the wind blew, hundreds of starfish were washed ashore and left far from the water they needed to survive.
As they walked, the father and son began a rescue mission, picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. When the boy looked at the hundreds of remaining starfish, he became discouraged. "Dad, there's too many. We can't save them all. We can't make a difference!"
The father looked at the starfish in his hand. The creature would have never made it back into the ocean on its own. As he threw the starfish back in the ocean, he told his son, "We're making a difference to this one."
You can make a difference too . . . even if it's only one by one. God has called each of us - not just the pastor or the missionary - to be a voice of encouragement to someone. Bless someone. Make a difference.
God bless
:angel:
October 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Submitting to God's Purpose
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some -1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God's man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, "If only I were somewhere else!" All of God's people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God's almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul's whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact- ". . . Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
"I chose you . . ." (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose- that He may be able to say, "This is My man, and this is My woman." We have to be in God's hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you "turn aside . . . to the right or the left . . ." (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
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Selfish?
Over the last several devotionals, we have been looking at the cause of spiritual drought. In today's devotional, I want to look at selfishness as a cause of spiritual drought.
Selfishness is where I am focused on my own interests rather than the needs of others or of furthering God's Kingdom.
In Haggai 1:4-6, 9-11, God says,
"Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes... You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands."
They were investing everything in themselves and their homes, but not a thought was given to God's house or God's Kingdom.
Friend, if you want the rain to fall, you need to think about God and His house first, others second, and yourself third. It is like the old saying, "If you want joy, j-o-y, it's Jesus, others, and then you."
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Oh Death, Where is Your Victory?
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
In 1 Corinthians 15:56, the Apostle Paul explains that the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. Jesus' death satisfied God's divine law to overcome the problem of sin and the condemnation of death.
All the sin of the world for all time was placed on the person of Jesus Christ at Calvary. In His resurrection, He rose victorious over sin and death. Death no longer has authority over us.
I encourage you to reflect on what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. He shares His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. This victory is a gift of grace: God forgives the sins of all who trust in Christ alone.
You don't have to be afraid of death because it has no power over you. For those who trust in Christ, death is not the end - it is only the beginning.
God bless
:angel:
October 26, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What is a Missionary?
Jesus said to them again, '. . . As the Father has sent Me, I also send you' -John 20:21
A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front- to sweep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him- to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God's call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ- "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . ." (Matthew 28:19).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, "What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!" But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were "foolish" enough to trust God's wisdom and His supernatural equipment.
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Rx for Depression
Isaiah 58:10-11 gives you and me a powerful prescription for depression. It says,
If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Take a moment to think about what God is saying. Think about the promise: If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, God will satisfy your soul in drought.
If you are a person who is given to depression and you feel like you have this big empty void in your life, I have a prescription for you based on this passage. Are you ready?
Go help somebody else. In fact, find a place in your church, local rescue mission, or The Salvation Army where you can minister to folks who are going through a rough patch. Donate a couple of days a week, and help other folks who are going through a rough time.
God promises that if you will draw out your soul to the hungry and if you will minister to the afflicted soul, He will satisfy your soul in drought.
Rather than being so inwardly focused..."my problems, and I'm so depressed, and why aren't things going right for me?", go help somebody else. Get things in perspective. There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you are, and you will find that God will bring the rain into your life when you change your focus.
If your soul is dry, the way to get it watered is to go help someone else. The sooner the better.
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What is Your Legacy?
Scripture Reading: Acts 20:16-24
Whether it's a high school competition or the Olympics, audiences get excited watching athletes compete in a relay race. The key point of the relay is the passing of the baton. No matter how fast the runners are, if one of them drops the baton, the team loses the race.
Leaving a legacy to the people in your life is a lot like passing the baton. Legacy is about transfer, and what you leave behind can help someone else go further than you did. What kind of legacy are you leaving behind? Developing and passing on a true spiritual legacy doesn't just happen. Like Elijah passing on the prophet's mantle to Elisha, you can share a Christian legacy.
Think about the price Jesus paid to leave His legacy. Because of His death and resurrection, you and I have the privilege and duty to pass this legacy on to everyone around us.
God bless
:angel:
October 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Method of Missions
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . -Matthew 28:19
Jesus Christ did not say, "Go and save souls" (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but He said, "Go . . . make disciples of all the nations . . . ." Yet you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples returned from their first mission, they were filled with joy because even the demons were subject to them. But Jesus said, in effect, "Don't rejoice in successful service- the great secret of joy is that you have the right relationship with Me" (see Luke 10:17-20). The missionary's great essential is remaining true to the call of God, and realizing that his one and only purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. Remember that there is a passion for souls that does not come from God, but from our desire to make converts to our point of view.
The challenge to the missionary does not come from the fact that people are difficult to bring to salvation, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, or that there is a barrier of callous indifference. No, the challenge comes from the perspective of the missionary's own personal relationship with Jesus Christ- "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" (Matthew 9:28). Our Lord unwaveringly asks us that question, and it confronts us in every individual situation we encounter. The one great challenge to us is- do I know my risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit? Am I wise enough in God's sight, but foolish enough according to the wisdom of the world, to trust in what Jesus Christ has said? Or am I abandoning the great supernatural position of limitless confidence in Christ Jesus, which is really God's only call for a missionary? If I follow any other method, I depart altogether from the methods prescribed by our Lord- "All authority has been given to Me . . . . Gotherefore. . ." (Matthew 28:18-19).
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The Blessing of God's Spiritual Influence
Let me point you to 2 Samuel 21:1-3,
Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, "It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. Therefore David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?"
But here is the point. It says, David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered him.
If there is a drought in your life, ask God why. God will talk to you. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice." If you in earnestness will seek God and ask Him why, God will speak to you.
Be willing to take responsibility for whatever He shows you. There just may be something in the past that needs to be corrected.
Just ask. Then act on what He reveals.
There was a famine in the land because there had been no rain for three years. So David inquired of the Lord, and God spoke to him. If you read to the end of the story, you see the rain finally did fall, the drought was broken, and the famine was over. Perhaps today you are honestly doing all you know to do, but it seems like you are in this season of drought. God's blessing has seemingly dried up in your life.
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The Importance of Prayer
Scripture Reading: Philippians 4:4-7; Colossians 4:2-6
Most people are fascinated by magic tricks, which are simply fantastic illusions. What God is able to do and anything He purposes to accomplish in His Kingdom are never illusions. And how He answers our prayers is no illusion. When God's people commit to faithful prayer, the world will see God's power.
To pray powerfully and effectively, we must first deal with sin in our lives. We must turn and flee from sin, understanding that as God responds to our cries, people will give Him greater glory.
We must pray expectantly, knowing that God will ultimately change us. Isaiah 65:24 says, "... before [you] call, I will answer ..." God gave us prayer to connect us with His plan for our lives to make an impact on all creation!
God bless
:angel:
October 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Justification by Faith
If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life -Romans 5:10
I am not saved by believing- I simply realize I am saved by believing. And it is not repentance that saves me- repentance is only the sign that I realize what God has done through Christ Jesus. The danger here is putting the emphasis on the effect, instead of on the cause. Is it my obedience, consecration, and dedication that make me right with God? It is never that! I am made right with God because, prior to all of that, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals, the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ instantly places me into a right relationship with God. And as a result of the supernatural miracle of God's grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, or because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The Spirit of God brings justification with a shattering, radiant light, and I know that I am saved, even though I don't know how it was accomplished.
The salvation that comes from God is not based on human logic, but on the sacrificial death of Jesus. We can be born again solely because of the atonement of our Lord. Sinful men and women can be changed into new creations, not through their repentance or their belief, but through the wonderful work of God in Christ Jesus which preceded all of our experience (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-19). The unconquerable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We do not have to accomplish these things ourselves- they have been accomplished through the atonement of the Cross of Christ. The supernatural becomes natural to us through the miracle of God, and there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done- "It is finished!" (John 19:30).
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Praying for the Rain
For the past week we have been seeking to understand what causes a spiritual drought, and then how we can break that drought if indeed we are in one.
Here is what I want you to understand. Even if you earnestly seek God and repent of sin in your life, or you shift your focus and say, "God, I'm putting Your house first, and I'm going to put other people before myself," or perhaps God leads you to do something of a personal nature, you still need to pray for the rain.
Do not just assume God's blessing will automatically fall. You still need to ask for it. Zechariah 10:1 teaches us this truth,
Ask the LORD for rain In the time of the latter rain. The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone.
I used to read that and wonder, "God, I don't understand. If it is the time of the latter rain, if it is rainy season, why ask for rain? Won't it just fall automatically?" If it is rainy season, why pray for rain?"
Because you cannot assume that it is automatically going to fall.
In James 5:17-18 there is a story about Elijah from 1 Kings 18. James gives us the very, very, very short version. But it tells us something significant,
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
What caused the rain to stop? His prayer. What caused the rain to fall again? His prayer.
Ask God today for the blessing of His rain in your life!
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A Lesson About Faith
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:7-11
Have you ever taken a stress test to evaluate your heart's health? One component of the stress test monitors your heart while you walk on a sloped treadmill at a fast pace. It's not easy, but you keep going to get an accurate reading of your heart's strengths and weaknesses.
God has stress tests. They're called trials, and through them God evaluates how well you've learned the lessons of life. The prophet Elijah passed the tests on several occasions. Once he had to help a widow and her son survive a famine. The next test was the boy's death. The widow's faith was shaken, but Elijah's faith remained firm.
Through that faith, God saved the boy. That day the widow and her son receive a valuable lesson: In your trials, remember God's truths. In spite of your circumstances, you can prevail!
God bless
:angel:
October 31, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Trial of Faith
If you have faith as a mustard seed . . . nothing will be impossible for you -Matthew 17:20
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith- faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is- "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).
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Obey and Honor
Over the next few devotionals, I want to focus on three areas I believe are critical for you and me to ensure we are obedient.
The first is found in Ephesians 6:1-3. This first category of obedience has to do with family, something God teaches very specifically in His Word. It says,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
As long as a child is under his parents' roof and under his parents' direct authority, he needs to obey. But throughout your entire life you need to honor your parents.
One time I had a dear lady come to me after a service when I preached on this command and say, "Pastor, I just have to tell you. I just felt I needed to make things right with my dad. I went home that night and called him and said, 'Dad, you need to forgive me because I've been bitter against you for all these years. I'm sorry, and I want you to know that I forgive you for all the past.'"
Then she said, "Pastor, you need to understand, I've had a migraine headache for 15 years, 24 hours a day. I take piles of medication. I go to bed with a migraine, and I wake up with one, but the morning after I made things right with my dad, I woke up, and I had no headache." And she started to cry.
I am telling you, this promise is full of power! It is better to obey and honor your parents!
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Stand Firm on the Word
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:15-17
When most people hear the word idolatry, they think of pagans worshiping statues and assume, "That's one subject that can't apply to me." Oh, yes it can.
You don't have to keep a carved, wooden tiki idol in your backyard to be an idolater. You don't have to visit a Buddhist shrine. Any time you worship the thing God created as a god, that's idolatry.
We can get so caught up in the things of this world - jobs, money, people, material things - that we forget our purpose here on earth. We should live in the world but not of the world. Spend some time analyzing your walk with the Lord. Are there things that you are placing above your relationship with God? Ask Him to reveal things in your life that are being placed above God.
God bless
:angel:
November 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"You Are Not Your Own"
Do you not know that . . . you are not your own? -1 Corinthians 6:19
There is no such thing as a private life, or a place to hide in this world, for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. God divides the private life of His saints and makes it a highway for the world on one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves. We are called into intimacy with the gospel, and things happen that appear to have nothing to do with us. But God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way. If you refuse, you will be of no value to God in His redemptive work in the world, but will be a hindrance and a stumbling block.
The first thing God does is get us grounded on strong reality and truth. He does this until our cares for ourselves individually have been brought into submission to His way for the purpose of His redemption. Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?
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Obedience in Marriage
Ephesians 5:22-24 gives an important area of obedience. While this is not popular in our society today, it is biblical, but is also often misunderstood.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. It is important to make clear that before God there is an absolute equality between men and women, between husbands and wives. In fact, this passage does not say, "Women submit to men." It is purely a domestic situation.
Even with that understanding, the Bible says that husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life. There is an equality before God between men and women and husband and wife.
What this passage teaches is that God has set up a system of authority in the home that needs to be followed, if it is going to be well with us. In fact, this is even a military term. To submit or to obey means to put yourself in rank under.
Friend, we are in a spiritual warfare, and there are spiritual forces that have been unleashed against homes and against marriages that would love to tear marriages apart.
God has designed a way for the home to function, and that is for the man to take the responsibility of leadership and for the wife to come under that authority. When a husband truly loves his wife, and cares for her like Christ does the church, and the wife respects her husband, things will be well in the home. That couple and that family will be magnets for the blessings of God.
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Make God Your Reference Point
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:28-33
God has assigned every believer a divine reason for being, including you. Your purpose is to fulfill God's purpose. And if you are not fulfilling His purpose, it's just another day gone by, filled with everything but real meaning. You will be floating around with no destination when you're disconnected from the purposes of God.
You cannot discover your purpose until God is your reference point.
I encourage you to pray, "Help me to grasp what it means to have a life of purpose, meaning and destiny and not to meander and waste another day on things that really don't matter."
God bless
:angel:
November 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Obedience or Independence?
If you love Me, keep My commandments -John 14:15
Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an "If," meaning, "You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so." "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . ." (Luke 9:23). In other words, "To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me." Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God's redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
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An Enemy to Your Enemies
Exodus 23:20-22 says,
"Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries."
Israel's success in possessing the promised land lay in their obedience. The same is true for us as we endeavor to possess the things promised to us by God.
I like the thought of God being an enemy to my enemies and an adversary to my adversaries, but that hinges on obedience as well.
The difficult thing about obeying God is that it always requires faith. He asks us to do things that sometimes make no sense. Other times He demands that we face seemingly impossible situations armed with nothing but His Word.
But He is faithful. He keeps His promises. And He can be absolutely trusted-in everything and with everything.
So today if you are desiring to enter some aspect of your "promised land", or if you are faced with difficult or seemingly insurmountable obstacles, listen for His voice, search His Word for instructions, and then obey.
He will be an enemy to your enemies, and you will possess the promises.
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Accomplish Your Life's Mission
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-3
"I have glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You have given Me to do" Jesus told His heavenly Father.
If you died tomorrow, could you say the same? Could you say, "I have glorified You on earth with the work You sent me here to do"?
You might say, "But that's Jesus talking." Remember, Paul said the same thing as Christ. Paul wrote that he had fought a good fight. He kept the faith and finished his course. Until this becomes your passion, you are wasting your life from an eternal perspective.
As the old saying goes, "Teach me, Lord, to number my days. Only one life will soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last." It is now time for you to accomplish the work that God sent you here to do.
God bless
:angel:
November 3, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
A Bondservant of Jesus
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . . -Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, ". . . for My sake" (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.
Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is- will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable- "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ."
The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God's call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?
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Obeying Civil Authority
In Romans 13:1-3, the apostle Paul gives us some clear instruction on how we are to relate to our civil authorities,
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
I remember the days before I was saved. If I saw a police car when looking in my rearview mirror, I was struck with instant paranoia. There was a good reason for my fear.
At that time in my life, I would have gotten in a lot of trouble if I had been pulled over. I was constantly high on drugs and alcohol, and there were rarely times I was completely sober.
Thank God I have been saved! Today if I look in my rearview mirror and I see a police car, I may slow down a little bit; but I am not gripped with this feeling of paranoia because I live within the parameters of the laws of the land. And if I do break a law, it is going to be out of ignorance and not out of willful rebellion.
If you live your life in fear of civil authority, it is time to check out why. If you search your heart and find that you are not subject to the laws of the land as you should be, I encourage you to make that change today.
You will be able to live your life without fear, and honor God in the process.
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Impacting the World for God
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 49:5-6
In business, companies talk frequently about market share. They all want a 100 percent share of the market. But how do they accomplish this? Competition is a major hurdle.
God has the same issue. A multitude of idols are competing with Him for a share of the market, and God wants a monopoly ... a 100 percent market share. He says, "Let all the people praise Me."
If everybody is praising the one true God, nobody else has any share of the market. That's what God is after for Himself, and that is why we are here. We are here to help God persuade the folks who are purchasing at the wrong market to go to the right market. We are here to help God meet His 100 percent.
God bless
:angel:
November 4, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you -James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual- you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood- work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God's almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. "Come to Me . . ." (Matthew 11:28). His word come means "to act." Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
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Pay Your Taxes!
Yesterday we learned from Romans 13:1-3 that we need to submit ourselves to the laws of the land if we want to live lives free from fear. I want to focus your attention today on the remainder of that passage, Romans 13:4-7,
For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
What I want to address today is the need to pay our taxes with honesty, not trying to dodge our responsibility. It is a critical part of obeying the laws of the land as we discussed yesterday.
While I do not like working hard and in the end sending a large portion of every dollar to support the government, it is the right thing to do. I am absolutely amazed when I learn of Christians who try to dodge their responsibility to pay taxes.
Friend, you must be honest and pay your taxes. Certainly take advantage of all that the law allows, and do not pay more than you need to, but don't hide anything. You need to make sure you do this because when you do, you are being obedient to God.
And there are always blessings tied to obedience-even if it is obeying God by paying your taxes!
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Take Your Ambassadorship Seriously
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
People can't refrain from talking about the things they are passionate about. Paul says that by knowing the fear of God - a healthy respect for who He is - we persuade men. He says the love of Christ controls us.
When we are passionate about Jesus and His love for us, we won't be able to stop ourselves from sharing that with others, and through our testimony, they will see God's glory. If we go day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, without representing God, we cannot be passionate about Him, we cannot "go unto all the world" as Christ commanded us.
God has called each one of His children to be ambassadors for His Kingdom with the goal of winning folks over. We must fuel our passion for Him, so we can effectively call people out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.
God bless
:angel:
November 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Undetected Sacredness Of Circumstances
All things work together for good to them that love God. - Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say - I am going to be my own providence here, I must watch this, and guard that. All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize the common-sense circumstances God puts you in, and the common-sense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God's throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them. In this way God is going to sweep the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being indefinite, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession, and the human side is the circumstances I am in and the people I am in contact with. I have to keep my conscious life as a shrine of the Holy Ghost, then as I bring the different ones before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, but the Holy Ghost makes intercession in our particular lives, without which intercession someone will be impoverished.
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Are You a "Convenient Christian"?
Some Christians are "convenient Christians." These are believers who seek to obey God, but only when it is convenient.
It is like the men and women of Israel who came to the prophet Jeremiah one day to see if it was God's desire for them to go to Egypt. You find their story in Jeremiah 42-43.
After they asked Jeremiah to ask God on their behalf, they said (Jeremiah 42:6),
"Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God."
Now that sounds pretty good. These folks seem like they have it together spiritually and truly desire to obey God.
But just a few verses later, when Jeremiah tells them, "This is the word of the Lord: Don't go into Egypt. Stay here," they respond this way (Jeremiah 43:2),
"You speak falsely! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.'"
Some people's posture is, "God, I'm going to do anything you say...as long as it agrees with my viewpoint." Some will say, "Lord, I'm going to be obedient and give an offering...but I'm not giving ten percent of my income. You can forget that because I just don't see it that way."
Or, "God, I'm going to do whatever You say, but I'm not going to forgive so-and-so because what they did to me is just unforgivable."
Friend, we can't pick and choose. It has to be, "God, I am going to do whatever You say. I'm going to do it whether it rubs the cat's fur the wrong way, whether it plows my field crossways...pleasing, displeasing, I'm going to obey."
Do not be a "convenient Christian."
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Reversing the Addiction Curse
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:1-8
A POW is a prisoner of war, someone who has been captured and held under an enemy's control. Many Christians are POWs - prisoners of a spiritual war. They're trapped by situations most commonly called "addictions," which the Bible refers to as "strongholds."
Drugs, alcohol, co-dependency, sexual promiscuity and other strongholds make a person feel trapped with seemingly no way out. But there is hope. In 2 Corinthians 10:1-6, Paul offers a formula for a breakthrough: Fix the fortress. Put "speculations, knowledge and thoughts" under God's domain. In other words, start with your mind.
Meditate on these Scriptures and feed your spirit with the truth of God's Word: You belong to God. Don't allow the enemy, the "father of lies," to hold you prisoner any longer. We are not our addictions or strongholds; we are blood-bought, totally forgiven children of the Living God!
God bless
:angel:
November 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered -Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don't often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
"He," the Holy Spirit in you, "makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . ." (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, ". . . He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple" (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer . . . . But you have made it a 'den of thieves' " (Mark 11:17).
Have we come to realize that our "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit"? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a "temple of the Holy Spirit." He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don't know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
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Opening the Door to Calamity
In 1 Kings 13:21-25, God provides us with quite an unusual story,
And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the LORD: 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the LORD said to you, "Eat no bread and drink no water," your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.'" So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back. When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse. And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse. Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
Notice that the lion did something very unnatural. The guy disobeyed, the lion killed him, but the lion didn't go after the donkey. The donkey didn't run away, but the lion didn't try to kill the donkey, nor did it drag the guy off to eat him.
And to top it all off, now people start to walk by. Look, people do not walk by wild lions! But here they are: the donkey, the lion, the dead guy, and people are walking by.
What is God up to here? He is giving a snapshot, something He wants indelibly burned into their understanding: Disobedience opens the door to calamity.
If you choose to disobey God, know you have opened your life to calamity!
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Reversing the Financial Curse
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 8:11-18
Do you ever feel that, despite all the work you are putting into your life, job, family and other relationships, you aren't experiencing the productivity that you should? You want God's blessings, yet you just don't seem able to get ahead.
God implores every believer to take the tithe challenge! Faithfully giving a tenth of your earnings to the church shows God you are a good steward of what He has entrusted into your care, that you are grateful for everything He has provided and finally that you trust Him.
Too many people are living in a sea of debt. God wants to reverse the financial curse in your life and bless you. But you must plant a seed first before God can rain down His blessings on it.
God bless
:angel:
November 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sacred Service
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . . -Colossians 1:24
The Christian worker has to be a sacred "go-between." He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual's personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker's life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.
When we say, "What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!" then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32).
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The Cost of Disobedience
In our last devotional, we read the story from 1 Kings 13 about the lion that killed the prophet for his disobedience. We learned how that story illustrates for us the importance of obedience, and how disobedience opens the door to calamity in our lives.
1 Peter 5:8 tells us,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
I believe God wants you to get a snapshot of that lion in 1 Kings 13 imprinted in your mind. He wants you to understand that if you willfully disobey God, your adversary, the devil, is not going to just be roaring at you. Like that lion, he is going to be putting a paw on you.
Frankly, I don't know about you, but I don't want his paw on my finances, on my family, on my health, or on anything else. I don't want him sinking his teeth into my marriage. But disobedience opens the door to that.
James 4:7 says,
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
You see, you have been given authority in your life over the devil. This verse makes it clear-you can resist him. But your authority in Christ as a believer only operates as you have submitted yourself to God's authority through obedience.
If you are disobedient in areas of your life, knowingly disobedient, your authority in Christ will not work.
So here is the question: Today are you being willfully disobedient to God in any area of your life? If so, confess and repent. Otherwise you can be sure the devil will get a paw on your life.
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Reversing the Physical Curse
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:32-43
We have all seen the effects of physical problems - diabetes, heart disease, sleeping disorders and cancer - in our lives or at least in the lives of those we love. We know that these things are not God's perfect will for our lives. In John 10:10 (NIV), Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Jesus wants us to enjoy a long, healthy life ... not just exist.
It's important to understand that physical problems can be tied to spiritual issues from past generations. These "issues" are called generational curses. The only real solution is to pray and then obey.
Just recognizing the problem and praying about it is not enough. We need to act on what God is telling us to do. Many times, He prompts us to do things that are different and maybe even strange. But it's not strange to Him. God wants to heal our bodies, but the results depend on our obedience to His voice and His Word.
God bless
:angel:
November 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Fellowship in the Gospel
. . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . -1 Thessalonians 3:2
After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God's interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.
I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, "Lord, this causes me such heartache." To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy "world within the world," and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being "frost-bitten."
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The Reward for Obedience
There are two verses I want to point you to in today's devotional. The first is Isaiah 1:19, where God says,
"If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land."
The second is Deuteronomy 28:1, which precedes a chapter of tremendous material blessings,
"Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth."
All of the incredible material blessings God promised in the following verses hinged on one thing...obedience.
God will bless you, if you will obey Him. Now, granted, God does not settle up the first and the fifteenth of every month. His blessings do not always arrive on our timetable, but they always arrive.
Sometimes obedience to God will cost you at first. It may cost you friends; it may cost you time; it may cost you embarrassment; but, in the long run, it is well worth it to obey.
Prior to being saved, I was renting a room above a bar in Oregon from a friend of mine. We smoked dope and drank a lot together. But when I was saved, I wouldn't drink or smoke dope any more.
Even though the temptation was there, I knew I needed to obey God. And I would not compromise.
One day my friend said, "You're no fun anymore. You're gone." And that was that. I was out on the street for quite awhile. It cost me. But I look back now and say, "God, You have more than made that up to me. It may have cost me initially, but I'm so glad I obeyed You."
God will reward you for your obedience to Him!
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Reversing the Generational Curse
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:32-43
Did you know that many problems people face are linked to choices their parents, grandparents and even "great-grandpa" made? This may be a new way of thinking for you, and it is certainly not about placing blame. Yet we need to know God's truth about generational curses and how to live free of their bondages.
A generational curse is passed down from one generation to another due to rebellion against God. If your family line is marked by divorce, incest, poverty, anger or other ungodly patterns, you're most likely under a generational curse. The Bible says that these curses are tied to choices.
Deuteronomy 30:19 says we can either choose life and blessing or death and cursing.
Freedom comes when we confess the ungodly patterns, ask God for forgiveness and then walk in obedience by consistently choosing His ways.
God bless
:angel:
November 11, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Supreme Climb
He said, 'Take now your son . . .' -Genesis 22:2
God's command is, "Take now," not later. It is incredible how we debate! We know something is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately. If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later- it must be done now. And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we actually perform it.
"So Abraham rose early in the morning . . . and went to the place of which God had told him" (Genesis 22:3). Oh, the wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not "confer with flesh and blood" (Galatians 1:16). Beware when you want to "confer with flesh and blood" or even your own thoughts, insights, or understandings- anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.
Abraham did not choose what the sacrifice would be. Always guard against self-chosen service for God. Self-sacrifice may be a disease that impairs your service. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it. But never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, "I will only go to there, but no farther." God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed. If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him. You must go through the trial before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because by going through the trial you learn to know God better. God is working in us to reach His highest goals until His purpose and our purpose become one.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Supremacy of Jesus
Hebrews 1:1-8 reads,
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"? But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God worship Him." And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire." But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom."
These eight verses tell us that Jesus is supreme, above any angel, because:
God speaks to us through His Son.
Jesus is the heir of all things.
God made all things through Jesus.
Jesus is the express image of God the Father.
He upholds all things with the word of His power.
He purged our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God, not a servant as are the angels.
He is worthy of our worship.
Jesus is God Himself.
That is the supremacy of Jesus!
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Faith And Our Feet
(Hebrews 11, Psalm 1)
Faith is not about how much you believe in what you believe. Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable. In fact, you can have all of the faith in the world that your SUV is going to take off and fly you to Canada cruising at 12,000 feet in the air. But that won't change the fact that you're still going to be stuck in traffic somewhere with all four wheels firmly on the ground.
Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable.
The way you find out if the one you believe in is believable is by knowing and experiencing Him.
It's like when a child climbs up on the back of her daddy for a piggyback ride. She doesn't get up there and start asking herself if he can hold her or if he is going to drop her. Instead, she immediately starts asking him, "Do you have me?" as she wiggles and adjusts her legs into place.
By asking her daddy, "Do you have me?" she is affirming in her mind that the one she is putting her faith in is faithful. Because if he says, "Yes, I have you," and she rests up there only to discover that he really does have her, then the next time she climbs on for a piggy-back ride, the questions become fewer.
But until she first climbs up onto the back of her daddy, she can say all day long that she believes that he can hold her. Saying it a thousand times won't reduce the hesitation she feels when the offer to get up there is first extended. She will never get to the point where she can experience the full pleasure of his presence until she takes that first climb of faith to discover that he is faithful.
Faith experienced is faith that is real. It is an easy thing to say that you believe. It is an easy thing to feel like you believe. But faith is not situated in our feelings. Faith is situated in our feet. That's why the Bible calls it "walking by faith" rather than "feeling by faith."
God bless
:angel:
November 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Discovering Divine Design
As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me . . . -Genesis 24:27
We should be so one with God that we don't need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child's life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God's will (see Romans 12:2). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God's appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.
Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, "I will never do this or that," in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.
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A Better Covenant
There are two verses for your reading today. Hebrews 7:22, which says,
By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
And Hebrews 8:6, which tells us,
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
We have a better covenant; we have better promises. And Jesus is the One who makes it sure. He is the guarantee. He has personally pledged Himself to make it good.
As far as I am concerned, that takes away all reason for doubt, all reason for stressing out. Jesus, Himself, is the pledge, the guarantee that this covenant we have called the New Testament will be good and will be fulfilled in our lives.
And He is not only the guarantee, He is the Mediator. He is the go-between to what is truly a better covenant, established upon better promises.
Let's say your employer came to you and said, "We're going to give you a better contract. While the old contract was good, we're going to give you one that's better. This better contract will increase your hours, decrease your pay, eliminate your health and dental benefits, you will no longer get reimbursed for your mileage and your auto expenses, and you're going to have a shorter lunch break and no more Christmas bonuses."
Let me ask you, is that better? No! That is not better! And I will never understand how people can say, "We know God healed people and worked miracles and intervened in people's lives under the Old Testament, but He doesn't anymore."
The covenant Christ bought and sealed in His blood is a better covenant, established upon better promises. Praise God!
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Holding God Accountable?
(Luke 18:1-8, Psalm 2)
One of the most important things that we can do as a Christian is to pray in line with our covenantal rights. But we often don't do this because we misunderstand what prayer is. Let me define prayer by first saying what prayer is not. Prayer is not simply talking to God. Prayer, rather, is asserting earthly permission for heavenly interference. Prayer is earth giving heaven authorization to intervene in the affairs of earth as heaven has previously stated that it would. That permission is granted based on your legal position and rights. That's why it is essential to study the Word of God and to know the rights that He has granted you through His Word.
If you are being held in bondage by an illegitimate force in your life, cry out to God. Pray to God for deliverance by appealing to Him based on your covenantal rights. There is a legal obligation that God has to respond to you based on the fact that you have a legitimate agreement with Him found in His Word. Go through the Scriptures and read everything that relates to your stronghold and pray it back to God. When you do that, prayer is no longer just a spiritual exercise or something to check off of your "Christian List of Things To Do."
Rather, prayer becomes a legal meeting where you and God get together in agreement on the same covenantal arrangement. Prayer becomes an act of holding God accountable, in the right sense of the word, to what He holds Himself accountable: His Word.
God bless
:angel:
November 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"What Is That to You?"
Peter . . . said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, '. . . what is that to you? You follow Me' -John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God's plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn't." You put your hand right in front of God's permissive will to stop it, and then God says, "What is that to you?" Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don't allow it to continue, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another- proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness- consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we're not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach- a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.
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God Leads from Within
In our last devotional, we talked about the new covenant being better than the old covenant. One reason is found in Hebrews 8:8-11 which says,
..."Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."
In the Old Testament, God had to lead His people externally. When fleeing Egypt, God led them by night with a pillar of fire and by day with a pillar of cloud. They did not intuitively know where God wanted them to go or what God wanted them to do.
But under the new covenant, God leads His people from within because He has now taken up residence within. I believe that is why on the Day of Pentecost God chose to manifest the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire that sat upon each person individually.
God was saying that while under the old covenant, He led His people by a pillar of fire, and now He is coming to dwell and lead from the inside of each believer!
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A Pocketful of Miracles
(Exodus 14, Psalm 3)
A lot of what God wants to do in your life won't be done until you do what He has already revealed to you.
What He asks you to do isn't always all that huge, just like Moses' move at the Red Sea wasn't all that huge. All God was asking Moses to do was to hold out his stick. That's not that huge. If Moses would just hold out his stick, then God said that He would handle the rest. He would do all of the big stuff. He would open the Red Sea, harden Pharaoh's heart, make him go in after them, and close the Red Sea back up.
But to reveal the faith within us, God often asks us to do our little thing first. Hold out our sticks. Take that step. Make the move. Have the conversation. Quit the job to stay at home. Accept the job that He has shown. Stop the habit. Curb the tongue. Go to church. Go overseas. Whatever it is that He is revealing to you, God will often wait to do His big thing until you have done what He has asked you to do.
He does this because He wants us to see Him in a way we've never seen Him before. He wants us to experience Him in a way that we've never experienced Him before. He wants us to see the connection between our act of faith and His deliverance. He wants to be more than just a Cosmic-Santa Claus with a pocketful of miracles to throw down. God wants a relationship with you. He wants you to see Him up close and personal so He puts you in a situation where He is your only solution. Where it can't be fixed if He doesn't fix it. Where it can't be reversed if He doesn't reverse it. Where it can't be solved if He doesn't solve it. Because, God says, I've let you use all of the natural options available to you, and you are still stuck. Well then, when that happens, know that you are stuck with a purpose. Look to God.
God bless
:angel:
November 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Still Human!
. . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It's one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, "What a wonderful man of prayer he is!" or, "What a great woman of devotion she is!" If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, "Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!" But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God's Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint's life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
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No More Remembrance
Today I want to point you to another reason the new covenant in Christ is better than the old covenant. Hebrews 10:1-3, 15-17 tells us,
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year... But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them," then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
Under the old covenant, God remembered the sin of Israel every year. This meant that each year the priest would have to go into the Holy of Holies and offer the blood of an animal to cover the people's sins.
Under the new covenant, God does not remember.
Boy, am I glad that when I accepted Christ, my past was erased on God's ledger. I had a pretty checkered past before I came to Christ. But if today you enter my name in God's computer up in heaven...Bayless...past...push enter...push print...God's big printer prints out nothing but blank sheets.
Why? He doesn't remember my sins anymore. In fact, if you and I talk to Him about our past before we were saved, He says, "Sorry, it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned."
That is truly good news!
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God's Wild Ride
(1 John 1:1-4, Psalm 4)
When my wife, Lois, and I started dating, I came up with a strategy to encourage her to fall more in love with me. She was a lot in love with me from the beginning, but I wanted to increase that.
What I decided to do was to take her to the amusement park. Once we had wandered around the amusement park for a while, and had enjoyed some of the games and food, I coolly asked her if she wanted to ride the Wild Mouse. Lois had never been on the Wild Mouse ride before. But I had. I knew how wild the Wild Mouse really was. She didn't have any idea because it looked like an innocent ride.
I knew Lois' personality and that going on the Wild Mouse would be a tough situation for her. But I hadn't told her that. I had only mentioned that we should go on a nice ride together.
So we got on the Wild Mouse. The thing began to shoot out making it seem like our small car was going to fly right off of the edge of the track. Lois screamed. Then she scooted closer to me. Our car veered to the right and then shot out again making it seem like we were going to zoom straight out into mid-air. Lois screamed again. Then she scooted even more closely to me this time. By the end of the ride, Lois wasn't sitting far away from me at all. She was sitting as close as possible. That had been my plan.
I had wanted Lois to sit closer all along. The Wild Mouse accomplished that.
Sometimes God puts us on a wild ride. Life seems to be out of our control. At times, God allows these situations because He knows they will move us closer to Him and when we get closer to Him, we will discover that He is more than we ever imagined Him to be.
God bless
:angel:
November 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Eternal Goal
By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . . -Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself . . .
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
"At any cost . . . by any road" means submitting to God's way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, "Come," I simply come; when He says, "Let go," I let go; when He says, "Trust God in this matter," I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God's revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God's character.
'Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, "In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee."
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. "All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . ." (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our "Yes" must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, "Amen," or, "So be it." That promise becomes ours.
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Removed, Not Just Covered
Today I want to give you another reason why the new covenant is better than the old covenant. I want you to read Hebrews 10:11 first, then Hebrews 9:25-26,
And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
And then talking about Jesus,
Not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another-He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Under the old covenant, sins were merely covered. In the new covenant, Jesus removes our sin. In fact, John the Baptist declared, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Jesus doesn't just cover it, He takes it away!
I want to tell you, friend, we are not just some patched up old sinners. We have been made new creations in Christ Jesus.
I know a horse trainer who trains beautiful thoroughbred horses. If I took a mule over to this guy and said, "Look, I want this mule to run with the thoroughbreds," he could feed it, brush its coat every day, and trim its tail and ears to look like a quarter horse. But when the gun fires and the gates go up and the horses start to run, it is just a mule. That is all it is!
Religion dresses up the mule, but God changes the mule into a thoroughbred. He takes away your sin and makes you a new creature in Christ Jesus when you embrace salvation.
Our sin is not just covered, it is gone, and we have been made into new people.
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The Spiritual Stress Test
(James 1:1-7, Psalm 5)
Every summer I go to the doctor's office for an annual exam. I sit in his office and he asks me, "Tony, how are you feeling?"
Assuming that it was a good year overall, I answer, "I'm feeling fine."
But that's not the end of my appointment. The doctor doesn't take my word for it. Instead, he attaches electronic probes all over my body. Then he sticks me on a treadmill. Next, he makes the treadmill go faster and faster up an incline because what he wants to know is the real condition of my heart.
My heart might feel fine to me but at the same time, it might not be fine. The doctor can only determine the strength of my heart when he measures it under stress. So what he does is create a stressful situation where I'm walking for a long period of time. He's testing my heart to see whether how I feel is how I really am. Because it's possible to have good feelings yet still have a bad heart.
Living the Christian life is no different. It's possible to come to church every week, sing worship songs, memorize Bible verses, serve on a variety of committees and assume that your heart, faith and soul is strong. It's even easy to say things like, "I love you God. God, you are so good. I'll follow you, God. I'll do whatever you say."
But God doesn't want to just take your word for it.
He tests you, and me, because He wants what is best for us. He tests us because He is getting ready to do something amazing in our lives. The way that He tests us is by putting us in a stressful scenario ... something we often call a trial. In a trial, God reveals how strong our faith really is.
God bless
:angel:
November 18, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Winning into Freedom
If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed -John 8:36
If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, "I can't surrender," or "I can't be free." But the spiritual part of our being never says "I can't"; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin- we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, "I can't do that." God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our "arguments . . . and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5)- we have to do it. Don't say, "Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts." Don't suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
"If the Son makes you free . . . ." Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. ". . . you shall be free indeed"- free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
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Not Guilty
The new covenant provides cleansing for a guilty conscience. In talking about the old covenant, read Hebrews 9:9,
It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience.
Then verse 14 about the new covenant,
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
At the point of conversion, not only is sin taken away, but the burden of guilt is lifted. The conscience is cleansed.
Even if you sin as a believer, thank God for 1 John 1:9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If you are still grappling with a guilty conscience after you have from your heart repented of sin and confessed it to God, then one of three things is happening:
1. The devil is accusing you. He is called the accuser of the brethren. He will run by your kitchen window with flash cards which say, "Remember when you did this? Remember when you did that!" Do not listen to the devil.
2. You have not forgiven yourself. You are forgiven by God, but you have not forgiven yourself. If God Almighty has forgiven you, you need to forgive yourself.
3. It may just be that you need to make restitution. That is something you will have to work out between you and God. Sometimes when you have injured a party through your sinful act, your conscience is going to bother you until you make things right with that person.
Under the new covenant there is cleansing from a guilty conscience, and it makes an awfully soft pillow at night.
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Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
(James 1:12, Psalm 6)
Much like the stress test my doctor puts me through every summer, God allows trials and tests in our lives in order to reveal where we are along our spiritual journey. He does this for the purpose of correcting whatever happens to be wrong, revealing whatever needs to be revealed, and strengthening whatever seems to be weak so that we might move on to what He has in store for us.
When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, you feel trapped, stuck, and tired of where you are. You either don't know what to do, or you don't know how to legitimately do what you feel you need to do. You are like Israel when they faced Pharaoh on one side and the Red Sea on the other and certain death was upon them.
Getting caught between a rock and a hard place is a lose-lose deal. If it were a clear win-lose deal, then you would know how to choose and where to turn. But what do you do when there are no clear choices? What option do you choose when both options are bad? Have you ever been in a situation where all of the ways that you turn to are problems, and you are just trying to find the least possible problem to choose as the solution?
I know I've been in situations like that and it's not fun. It's about as fun as huffing and puffing on that treadmill in my doctor's office. But one thing I've learned over the years is that God has a purpose for these times in our lives. Just like my doctor is not a mean man for putting my body through all of that stress, God is not a mean God when He decrees that we go through trials.
When God wants to reveal the real condition of your heart to empower you toward His plan for your future, He puts you in one of these kinds of trials.
God bless
:angel:
November 21, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . ." (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
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For All People
In today's devotional, I want to give you the seventh reason why the new covenant in Jesus is better than the old covenant. The old covenant was only for one nation-only one people-the Jews.
The new covenant is for the whole world. It is for every nation, every people...anyone who will accept the free gift of salvation, by placing their faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 7:25 tells us,
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Or, as one old preacher said, "He saves to the uttermost and to the guttermost."
That may sound crass, but it is true! Through Jesus Christ, God has made a way of salvation for every person, no matter your race, or what religion you were brought up in, or what you may have done in your life.
John 3:16 says,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That means no one has ever done anything so bad that it could make God stop loving them. I don't care where they have been, how dark their past has been, or how burdened down their conscience is today with guilt for the things they have done-no one will be cast out if they come to Him.
His blood has the power to wash anyone clean if they will come to God through Jesus. His sacrifice takes away the sin of the world, the burden of guilt, and the shame of sin. He can make anyone into a new person. Only the blood of Jesus can do that...only the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah!
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When God Allows Your Trial
(James 2:14-24, Psalm 7)
Have you ever gotten mail in your mailbox that isn't addressed to you? You take it out of your mailbox and read that the address doesn't have your name on it. It just says, "Occupant." You get that piece of mail by virtue of you being the "occupant" of that home. Trials are a lot like that. Just by virtue of being an "occupant" on this planet in a fallen world, we will face trials.
Of course, no one likes a trial. No one wakes up in the morning, stretches and says, "Ah, what a beautiful day for a trial! I think I'd like to have a trial today!" That would be an unusual person who would do something like that. Yet no matter how much we want to avoid trials in our lives, trials are inevitable.
Trials are adverse circumstances that God allows in our lives to both identify where we are spiritually as well as to prepare us for where He wants us to go. There is no escaping them. You are either in a trial now, you've just come out of a trial, or you are getting ready to go into a trial.
But even though we all have to experience them, I want to remind you to take comfort in knowing that trials must first pass through God's hands before reaching us. Nothing comes our way without first having received His Divine approval. And in order to get His Divine approval, there must be a Divine reason for Him to approve it. We need to trust that God has our best interest in mind when He allows us to experience a trial.
God bless
:angel:
November 22, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person- God became a baby.
To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all- the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." (Matthew 10:24).
We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.
Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
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The "Good Old Days"
Hebrews 11:13-16 contains a powerful truth, a perspective I want to encourage you to embrace. These verses are talking about the great heroes of the faith from the Old Testament,
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
These heroes of the faith sought a better homeland. In verse 15 it talks about calling to mind the countryfrom which they had come, but the word country is just added by the translators. It really has the intent of saying if they had constantly thought about from where they had come, there would have been a great temptation to return there.
As you read this passage, it is easy to see why some people struggle so much with past sins. As verse 15 says, Truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
The reason some people constantly struggle with returning to their old life, finding a multitude of opportunities to return, is because they keep calling it to mind. They keep rehearsing the "good old days." Perhaps you struggle with that as well.
If you do, seek to remember the "good old days" as they really were. Don't forget about all the pain. Don't forget about the way you struggled, the reason you came to Christ in the first place. Stop rehearsing the past. If the "good old days" were so good, you would not have gotten saved.
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Culd-e-Sac Christianity
(Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 8)
Sometimes I get the impression that when we ask God to bless us, we forget the full definition of a blessing. We forget that God doesn't want us to be culd-e-sac Christians where all of our blessings end with us. God wants us to be conduit Christians where all of our blessings extend through us to others.
For example, when God blessed Abraham in the Old Testament, we read that He said, "Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."
God said that He was not only going to bring His favor on Abraham but that His favor on Abraham would extend out to be a blessing on others as well. God never designs our blessings to stop with us, but our blessings should always extend to others
God bless
:angel:
November 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Distraction of Contempt
Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt -Psalm 123:3
What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. "Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously" (Malachi 2:16). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.
Beware of "the cares of this world . . ." (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by "the cares of this world."
Another thing that distracts us is our passion for vindication. St. Augustine prayed, "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself." Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul's faith in God. Don't say, "I must explain myself," or, "I must get people to understand." Our Lord never explained anything- He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.
When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.
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The Right Perspective
In today's devotional, I want to take you back to the Scripture we looked at yesterday, Hebrews 11:13-16,
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Yesterday we talked about how it is so easy to remember "the good old days," but with selective memory, not really remembering the pain and struggle.
Today, I want you to see an important perspective the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11 provide for us. What did they do? They looked to the future. These men and women of God walked as strangers and pilgrims on this earth because they looked for a better homeland, a better place, which God would prepare for them.
I'm telling you, there is a better homeland than our world today. There is a city called the New Jerusalem. There is a place that does not need the light of the sun nor the light of the moon because the Lamb-Jesus Christ-is its light.
In that city, every tear is wiped away. There is no more sin, no more sickness, no more pain, and no more suffering.
Like the heroes of old, I have my eye on that heavenly city. It is better than anything we have here! I pray that this will be your perspective today...and every day...as well.
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Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?
(John 11, Psalm 9)
How do you know when God is ready to break through your rock and a hard place situation? You know because He will invade your ordinary with something extraordinary. He will come to your normal with something abnormal. He will create a scenario that doesn't make sense.
When God creates a scenario that doesn't make sense, it is not supposed to make sense. Don't ignore God showing up in a way that you can't explain. The reason you can't explain it is because it is God showing up in it. The Bible is replete with examples of when God was getting ready to move in a rock and a hard place situation and the thing that He did was show up in a way that human understanding couldn't explain.
My best advice to you is that if you are in a wilderness, or if you are between a rock and a hard place and can't find a good way out of what seems like a never-ending situation, look for God to show up in a way that you can't explain. His ways are not your ways. His thoughts are not your thoughts. God is not like you or me. If God were living in the era of Soul Music, his favorite song would be, "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?" Didn't I show up in a way that you couldn't explain?
God bless
:angel:
November 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Direction of Focus
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters . . . , so our eyes look to the Lord our God . . . -Psalm 123:2
This verse is a description of total reliance on God. Just as the eyes of a servant are riveted on his master, our eyes should be directed to and focused on God. This is how knowledge of His countenance is gained and how God reveals Himself to us (seeIsaiah 53:1). Our spiritual strength begins to be drained when we stop lifting our eyes to Him. Our stamina is sapped, not so much through external troubles surrounding us but through problems in our thinking. We wrongfully think, "I suppose I've been stretching myself a little too much, standing too tall and trying to look like God instead of being an ordinary humble person." We have to realize that no effort can be too high.
For example, you came to a crisis in your life, took a stand for God, and even had the witness of the Spirit as a confirmation that what you did was right. But now, maybe weeks or years have gone by, and you are slowly coming to the conclusion- "Well, maybe what I did showed too much pride or was superficial. Was I taking a stand a bit too high for me?" Your "rational" friends come and say, "Don't be silly. We knew when you first talked about this spiritual awakening that it was a passing impulse, that you couldn't hold up under the strain. And anyway, God doesn't expect you to endure." You respond by saying, "Well, I suppose I was expecting too much." That sounds humble to say, but it means that your reliance on God is gone, and you are now relying on worldly opinion. The danger comes when, no longer relying on God, you neglect to focus your eyes on Him. Only when God brings you to a sudden stop will you realize that you have been the loser. Whenever there is a spiritual drain in your life, correct it immediately. Realize that something has been coming between you and God, and change or remove it at once.
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Mercy! Forgiveness! Acceptance! Pardon! Welcome!
In Hebrews 12:22-24, we are given a powerful word on how the blood of Jesus speaks such better things than the blood of Abel. This is a great insight, so bear with me,
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
You can read the story of Abel and his brother, Cain, in Genesis 4. What we learn is that Cain became jealous of Abel, and as a result, Cain rose up against Abel in the field and killed him.
God said, "Cain, the blood of your brother, Abel, cries out to Me from the ground." What did the blood of Abel say? "Vengeance! Judgment!"
The blood of Jesus cries better things. The blood that soaked the cross and made it red, the blood that soaked the ground below the cross at that place called Calvary, the blood that today is in the heavenly Holy of Holies, that blood cries out day and night into the ears of God.
The blood of Jesus today does not cry out, "Vengeance! Judgment!" Instead, it cries out, "Mercy! Forgiveness! Acceptance! Pardon! Welcome!"
The question is: How will you respond? Hebrews 12:25 issues a stern warning,
See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven.
If you have yet to accept Jesus as your Savior, do so today.
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Following Jesus Into the Storm
(Mark 6, Psalm 10)
In the book of Mark, chapter six, we read that the disciples got into a boat, at night, and took out across the sea. In their obedience to Jesus, the disciples ran directly into a storm. Their obedience literally took them into the nucleus of a disaster.
I wish I could tell you that following Jesus means you will never have to face any storms. I wish I could tell you that following Jesus means that the waters of life will always be calm. I wish I could tell you that following Jesus means life will be rosy and all of your days sweet. But I can't.
These disciples were following Jesus, and they ran right into rough-seas. The disciples discovered, as many of us have also discovered, that you can be both in the center of God's will, and still in a storm.
There is a lot of preaching today as well as many Christian books that tell you that if you follow Jesus, than you will never have to face any challenges in life. That wasn't true for Jesus, or for anyone else I know who has followed Him. Following Jesus doesn't offer immunity from troubles. What it does give is the opportunity to experience Him in the midst of the trouble.
Life comes with troubles, regardless of whether or not you follow Jesus. You get to choose if you want Him to join you in your troubles, or if you'd rather go through them alone.
God bless
:angel:
November 25, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Secret of Spiritual Consistency
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
When a person is newly born again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more concerned about being consistent externally. In the external expression of things, Paul lived in the basement, while his critics lived on the upper level. And these two levels do not begin to touch each other. But Paul's consistency was down deep in the fundamentals. The great basis of his consistency was the agony of God in the redemption of the world, namely, the Cross of Christ.
State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. ". . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).
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Where Have You Pitched Your Tent?
Genesis 13:12 (KJV) says,
Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
Notice that Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. Every day his attention was placed on that city. Here is what the Bible says about those that lived there.
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly (Genesis 13:13, KJV).
What we focus our attention on will influence us. It will try to draw us in like a magnet. The next time we read about Lot he is living in Sodom.
And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed (Genesis 14:12, KJV).
Next we find him even further entrenched among the people of Sodom. Genesis 19:1 declares that Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.
In Eastern cities, the "gate" was a place devoted to business transactions, the administration of justice, and the enjoyment of social discourse and amusement. Lot was right "in the thick of things"-but it happened by degrees. It was a process.
What you view and listen to, and the company you keep, will influence you-sometimes in very subtle ways-and will play a role in shaping your values and character.
So be careful where you pitch your tent!
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When God is Silent, He is Not Still
(Acts 17:24-31, Psalm 11)
We all know what it feels like to experience hopelessness to varying degrees. In fact, many people define hope as looking forward to something that they know that they will never get. Hopelessness is when you look out in front of you and you can't see any possibility for improvement or change. Many of us today are drowning in a sea of hopelessness surrounded by a land of emptiness where there seems to be no way out.
That reminds me of a story. In the summer of 2000, a Russian Oscar II Class Submarine, the Kursk, sank in the Barents Sea due to an internal explosion. Divers made several attempts to go down and assess the situation to determine if anyone had survived. When they were finally successful, they discovered a group of twenty-three men who had survived the explosion. These men had gone back as far as they could to the end of the submarine, and had gathered together in the last remaining pocket of air.
But the rescue team hadn't made it to them in time. All twenty-three men had died. On the inside wall of the submarine, they found this note that had been etched there by the Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikova. It said, "It's dark here to write, but I'll try by feel. It seems like there are no chances..."
The hopelessness we hear in Dmitri's words has been shared by many of us. We've all faced similar feelings at some time or another where there seems "like there are no chances." Hopelessness in the middle of life's storms is a human experience that is common to most of us.
It's one thing to be in the middle of a trial that has been brought on by yourself through a bad choice or action. But it's an entirely different thing to set your heart on serving God only to discover that it seems He has abandoned you in the middle of a storm. In times like those, remember that although God may be silent, He is not still. Wait on Him. He may just come walking to you on top of your storm.
God bless
:angel:
November 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Riches of the Destitute
. . . being justified freely by His grace . . . -Romans 3:24
The gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the truth that it reveals is not palatable or easy to swallow. There is a certain pride in people that causes them to give and give, but to come and accept a gift is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom; I will dedicate my life to service- I will do anything. But do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God through our own efforts. We must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest spiritual blessing we receive is when we come to the knowledge that we are destitute. Until we get there, our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us as long as we think we are sufficient in and of ourselves. We must enter into His kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are "rich," particularly in the area of pride or independence, God can do nothing for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit. The gift of the essential nature of God is placed and made effective in us by the Holy Spirit. He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, making us truly alive. He takes that which was "beyond" us and places it "within" us. And immediately, once "the beyond" has come "within," it rises up to "the above," and we are lifted into the kingdom where Jesus lives and reigns (see John 3:5).
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Cherishing the Presence of God
Psalm 84:10 gives us an important perspective of God's presence,
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
When the psalmist talks about "a day in Your courts," he is not talking about being in some building or admiring some bit of religious architecture. He is talking about enjoying the presence of God. As verse 2 of this psalm says,
My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
God is so good that just one day with Him is better than a thousand anywhere else. Just to be on the threshold, just to be on the doorstep, just to feel the slightest fringes, if you would, of the presence of God, is better than spending a thousand days anywhere else.
I think The Message Bible conveys the idea of verse 10,
One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.
Not long ago, I was walking through the neighborhood (I do this from time to time) just having a prayer walk. I walked for maybe 45 minutes and just prayed and worshiped God.
As I started thinking about all of the good things He has done for me, I began to sense His presence, and I started to cry. Now, I don't know what the neighbors thought if they happened to look out their window, but I didn't care, because I so appreciate His presence in my life.
I encourage you today to learn to cherish the presence of God!
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When You Want to Throw a Red Flag Out on God
(Romans 8:32, Psalm 12)
When a head coach on an NFL team perceives that the referee has made a wrong call, awarding a key play to the opposition, he throws out a red flag. This red flag signals that the referee needs to review the play again. Obviously the coach believes that the referee has made a mistake.
There are times in our lives, especially when we are caught between a rock and a hard place, when we want to throw a red flag out on God. We want to stop the game and throw down the red flag because it looks like God has made a wrong call. It looks like He has missed something. It looks like He didn't know what He was doing because if He did, He wouldn't have called things that way.
We think thoughts like - If God had known how this was going to affect me, He wouldn't have allowed that thing to happen. If He had really known the pain that I was going to have to go through in dealing with this, then He would have made a different decision.
We want to reach into our pocket and pull out our red flag and yell, "God, you missed this one! You blew it. Review it, because you're obviously wrong." It is during those times that we need to remember that God often does some of His best work in the dark. He is also often the nearest when He seems the furthest away. It is during those times that our faith needs to carry us through. Because it is in those times that God is often waiting to see what we are going to do.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
November 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
He will glorify Me . . . -John 16:14
The holiness movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them. There is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ. All that is required is a pious atmosphere, prayer, and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous. It did not cost the sufferings of God, nor is it stained with "the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 12:11). It is not marked or sealed by the Holy Spirit as being genuine, and it has no visual sign that causes people to exclaim with awe and wonder, "That is the work of God Almighty!" Yet the New Testament is about the work of God and nothing else.
The New Testament example of the Christian experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the Person of Jesus. There is no regeneration- no being born again into the kingdom in which Christ lives and reigns supreme. There is only the idea that He is our pattern. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Savior long before He is the pattern. Today He is being portrayed as the figurehead of a religion- a mere example. He is that, but He is infinitely more. He is salvation itself; He is the gospel of God!
Jesus said, ". . . when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, . . . He will glorify Me . . ." (John 16:13-14). When I commit myself to the revealed truth of the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit, who then begins interpreting to me what Jesus did. The Spirit of God does in me internally all that Jesus Christ did for me externally.
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Protecting The Children
Matthew 18:1-6 is our reading for today,
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
This is a powerful truth God desires you and me to understand. He takes very seriously the protection and nurture of children.
First, it is important to understand that the word sin in this verse means to entrap. It means to set a snare for someone. Jesus was talking about someone who purposely entices an innocent child to do wrong.
Second, the millstone He refers to was about five feet across and would take an ox or a donkey to turn it. Get the picture?! Better for that millstone to be tied around a person's neck and to drown in the depths of the deepest sea than to entice a child to do wrong.
The exploitation or abuse of children is not overlooked or taken lightly by God. We read in Scripture that some sins incur a worse judgment from the Almighty. Causing children to sin is one of the worst. Never take their exploitation lightly.
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GOD IS IN THE REMODELING BUSINESS
The process of remodeling transforms the inside of a house or business in order to update it, make it more modern and effective, and save the cost of buying something new. Remodeling takes what already exists and reconfigures it into something different. If any of you have remodeled your home, you know how disruptive it can be. Dust, dirt, and chaos seem to take over. But in order for the new to be made manifest, the old must be dismantled.
Many Christians are looking for a blessing but don't want to go through the remodeling process in their lives. Yet, brokenness is the key to your break-through - to your knowing God in a deeper, more glorious, more amazing way. God is not going to bless you if He can't remodel you. In order to remodel you, He has to tear old, sinful character qualities out and put new ones in.
Brokenness is not an emotional experience of an event. Brokenness is an act of the will - surrendering your will to God. To be broken means to say yes to what God wants despite what you want. To be broken is a decision to humble yourself and acknowledge your need for help. Brokenness occurs when God strips you of your self-sufficiency and gets rid of your pride so that the life of Christ can be made manifest in you.
Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 4:11, "We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh." We undergo problems, difficulties, and frustrations so that the life of Christ may be made known through us.
God bless
:angel:
November 30, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"By the Grace of God I Am What I Am"
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . -1 Corinthians 15:10
The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God's perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, "Oh, I shouldn't claim to be sanctified; I'm not a saint." But to say that before God means, "No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn't possible." That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.
Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, "Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified," is in God's eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.
There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.
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Dealing with Sin
Matthew 18:8-9 provides an important insight into how to deal with sin,
"If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire."
The eye represents the thought life, where sin is conceived. The hand represents that sin actually being carried out. And the foot is where it becomes a walk, a pattern, an entrenched habit of life, a sinful lifestyle.
When Jesus says, "Cut it off," He is speaking of ruthless self-judgment. And He didn't stop there. He said, "Cut it off and cast it from you." In other words, get as far away from the source of your sin as you can.
I remember one day I walked right into a spider web. As I did, I caught a glimpse of this huge orange-colored spider out of the corner of my eye. As I hit the web, I felt it get on my neck. I started doing a war dance, hitting myself and ripping my shirt off, trying to get that thing off me.
And you know what? The moment a sinful thought lands in your mind, you ought to do the same thing, go on the warpath! Start batting that thing away! Start quoting Scriptures.
Do whatever you can to keep it from sinking its teeth into your life. As Jesus said, it will be better for you if you do!
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GOD, WHO RAISES THE DEAD
God won't bless us if He can't change us. We can't stay the same. Some of us may be wondering why we haven't had a spiritual breakthrough. One reason could be that we've not yet been broken. God makes it very clear that He only relates to those who are humble and contrite in heart. Isaiah 57:15 says, "Thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy., 'I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'" The Most High God hangs out with the lowly and the humble. He cares for those who acknowledge their need for Him. God has to grind away at our pride until we realize we are not self-sufficient.
If you are facing tough circumstances right now, you are a prime candidate for a breakthrough because God is at work through your trials. Paul said, 'We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life." (2 Corinthians 1:80. Paul was burdened beyond his strength to bear it - it was such a deep, piercing, and exhausting struggle. But we know that even if we are in a bad place, it is a wonderful place for God to do an amazing work in our lives.
"Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope." (verses 9-10). When you are beyond all earthly help, you are better able to trust in God - the God who raises the dead and saves us from death. God lets us get so low that we understand that He is our only real option.
God bless
:angel:
December 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Law and the Gospel
Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all -James 2:10
The moral law does not consider our weaknesses as human beings; in fact, it does not take into account our heredity or infirmities. It simply demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never changes, either for the highest of society or for the weakest in the world. It is enduring and eternally the same. The moral law, ordained by God, does not make itself weak to the weak by excusing our shortcomings. It remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we are not aware of this, it is because we are less than alive. Once we do realize it, our life immediately becomes a fatal tragedy. "I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (Romans 7:9). The moment we realize this, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin. Until a person gets there and sees that there is no hope, the Cross of Christ remains absurd to him. Conviction of sin always brings a fearful, confining sense of the law. It makes a person hopeless- ". . . sold under sin" (Romans 7:14). I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God- it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience. Who of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!
We only begin to realize the power of the moral law once we see that it comes with a condition and a promise. But God never coerces us. Sometimes we wish He would make us be obedient, and at other times we wish He would leave us alone. Whenever God's will is in complete control, He removes all pressure. And when we deliberately choose to obey Him, He will reach to the remotest star and to the ends of the earth to assist us with all of His almighty power.
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Far Better!
In Philippians 1:21-23, the apostle Paul says this,
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
Wow! Did you see what Paul said? To live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I die, I am going to be with Christ. And that is not a little better. It is far better.
While the following is a somewhat silly example, I think it makes the point.
My wife and I recently visited some friends in Washington, and it rained virtually the whole time we were there. It was just a series of gray, drizzly, dreary, rainy days. My friend is an avid golfer, so I asked him, "How long has it been since you have been able to go golfing?" He said, "Four months." I thought, "Wow! That's a long time!"
Now, the day Janet and I got back to Southern California it was a stunning Southern California day, about 70 degrees out. My son said, "Dad, you want to go golfing?" I said, "Sure. Throw the gear in the car."
As we were driving to the golf course, it hit me...Southern California is a place that is far better for a golfer than Washington! It is gain to be absent from the gray and rain, and present in the sun!
To be absent from the body is gain, because it means to be present with the Lord in the brightness of His glory! Don't feel sorry for believers when they go to be with the Lord. For them it is gain that is far better!
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The Blessing of Brokenness
We've all seen restored furniture. Restoring furniture involves stripping away old varnish or paint with strong chemicals. This reveals all the nooks, crannies and original spots on the piece. The sanding takes place next - the wood is rubbed with coarse sandpaper in order to level out its imperfections. Then the furniture is ready to receive a new stain or paint color - it's ready for a new look. New glory can be given to old furniture. And God can do the same thing with us. He can put new glory inside an old life, but He must first strip away our old nature and sand away our sinful strongholds.
We shouldn't run from being broken. It's not pleasant or happy, but it will produce a better life. Brokenness is a blessing because it puts us on the road to a breakthrough. Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3) Those who are spiritually broken will be blessed because they will see God and experience His reality flowing through their lives.
Scripture promises that God remains with those who are broken and makes them stronger than before. Psalm 34:18 says, "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Isaiah 61:3 teaches that God would give those who mourn and are broken "a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."
God bless
:angel:
December 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Christian Perfection
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect . . . -Philippians 3:12
It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do- God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life's determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, "It could never be God's will for me to be sick"? If it was God's will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn't He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do. The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives may leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary- that through your own human effort and devotion you can attain God's standard for your life. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God's purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.
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No Regrets
In yesterday's devotional, we saw from Philippians 1:21-23 how it is far better to depart from this life and be with the Lord. Today I want to follow up with this question: Are you unable to abide thoughts of death?
If you answered "yes" to that question, chances are you are not ready to meet our Lord. But you need to be ready because everyone here is going to die. There are only two exceptions in all of history: Enoch and Elijah, and it is not likely you are going to be the third exception.
Death visits both kings and commoners. Its approach is sure. The Bible says in Psalm 89:48,
What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his life from the power of the grave? Selah.
That Hebrew word selah means to pause and calmly think about that, and that is the problem with some. They never think on it. They push every thought of their own mortality from their mind. But how can you prepare for eternity if you never think about it?
When the time comes and we have finished our course for God, let us face death like men. Let us look it in the eye. Let us not rebel against the cutting of the cords that loose us from the mooring of these earthly shores; but, rather, unfurl the sails and take that blessed journey to a better country!
As we read yesterday, To live is Christ; and to die is gain. To depart and be with Christ is far better.
Until then, squeeze every drop of life you can out of every single day. Live with all of your heart and all of your strength for God, and leave no regrets behind. Because life is a short day even at its longest. And when its sun has gone down, it leaves us in eternity.
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TWO WAYS FOR A SPIRITUAL BREAKTHROUGH
If we are in search of a spiritual breakthrough, we have two options. First, we can choose to be broken. We can say, "Lord, I want a blessing and a breakthrough. Please break me - strip me of my sinfulness and destructive independence. I'm scared, but I trust that You love me enough to know what I can handle."
The second option is that God will break us without our permission. This option takes a lot longer, and it usually hurts a lot deeper. This delays the blessing and the breakthrough, and it will ultimately be more painful. God did not redeem us to leave us alone and let us miss all of His blessings. He loves us too much for that. There is a new, wonderful life He placed inside of us - and He wants to sanctify us and make us more like His Son so that we may experience it to the fullest.
Many of us want to simply audit the Christian life - like a college course that a person sits in on but is not required to do work and is never graded. We don't want to do all the hard work that it requires. But if Christ is truly Lord of our lives, there will be work to show that we are serving Him. There will be evidence that we are taking the course He is teaching, and it's making an impact on our life. Brokennness is one of the lessons we must go through in order to gain greater spiritual maturity and in order for Christ to be made known in our lives.
It's important to remember that the God who breaks us is also our Father. He is our Lord. He loves us. There are a million ways He can teach us what we need to know. There are different ways that He will break us down and strip us of our pride in order to teach us that we can trust Him. God is God, and He has the right to strip us of everything in us that is not like Him so that He can transform us into His image. He wants to give us blessings, but He wants to change us in the process.
God bless
:angel:
December 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"The Temple of the Holy Spirit"
. . . only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you -Genesis 41:40
I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority. Paul said he did not "set aside the grace of God"- make it ineffective ( Galatians 2:21 ). The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever. I am not being saved- I am saved. Salvation is as eternal as God's throne, but I must put to work or use what God has placed within me. To "work out [my] own salvation" ( Philippians 2:12 ) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me. It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly. "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 9:27 ). Every Christian can have his body under absolute control for God. God has given us the responsibility to rule over all "the temple of the Holy Spirit," including our thoughts and desires ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). We are responsible for these, and we must never give way to improper ones. But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves. We make excuses for things in ourselves, while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.
Paul said, "I beseech you . . . that you present your bodies a living sacrifice . . ." ( Romans 12:1 ). What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple. Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth-my body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit."
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Under Control
1 Corinthians 7:7-9,
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
What I want to focus on is verse 9, especially the part about burning with passion. There are way too many young Christians who are out of control in their physical relationship with the opposite sex.
So, mom or dad, here is something you can share with your kids in connection with relating to the opposite sex. Be prepared, I am going to be blunt.
1. Any body part they have that you don't have, don't touch it. Any equipment they have that you don't have, it is hands off!
2. Do not put any part of your body into any part of their body.
3. Do not get horizontal. Don't even sit on the couch watching TV, and lay down in one another's arms. If you do, you know where that can lead.
4. If you are going to kiss, let it be short and meaningful. Don't allow yourselves to get into a wrestling match. Again, it is hard to find the switch to turn it off once you get going.
5. Finally, let things like holding hands or putting your arm around your boyfriend or girlfriend actually be meaningful.
If you are single, apply these rules, and they could save you a lot of grief!
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Broken for a Blessing
(2 Corinthians 1:6)
Remodeling is a way of transforming and updating a house or place of business in order to make it more appealing, efficient, or useful. Usually, it involves a redesign on the inside of a building, but it can also include the outside of the property.
Those who have been through the process of remodeling know how extensive and upsetting it can be. Even in the best of circumstances, workers will still create dust and chaos. Yet, in order to enjoy something old being made new, you have to go through the process of remodeling. The same is true when you view God's plan for your life.
There are times in the life of every believer when he or she will go through a time of remodeling. It is a time when God is updating our life by stripping away old thoughts and habits and replacing them with His truths and principles. Instead of calling it remodeling, we call the process brokenness.
Just like the beginning phases of a construction program, it may be hard to imagine a beautiful outcome - especially when things have been torn apart. Sheetrock is missing, and tools are scattered from one end of your home to the other. However, before we can do the same, we have to be willing to allow God to give us spiritual eyes to see life from His perspective. After all, He is the One who holds the blueprints to our lives. Paul knew that there were many glorious benefits to the times he faced suffering. The greatest was his testimony of faith in Jesus Christ. No matter what befell him, Paul continued to trust in the One who had saved him and was in charge of his life. Have you come to a time of brokenness? If so, let God remodel your life, and you will be amazed at the outcome.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
December 6, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"My Rainbow in the Cloud"
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth -Genesis 9:13
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn't God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn't God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is- will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won't do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God--a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don't believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, "Now I believe." There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." ( Isaiah 45:22 ).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement- no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
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Mistreated?
1 Peter 3:13-18 are verses that are a great encouragement,
And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. "And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled." But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
Jesus was not guilty. He suffered for things He did not do, and the result is that we came to God. What Peter wants us to understand is the importance of showing forgiveness and a Christlike spirit, even when we are being mistreated.
What it can do is reach the hearts of your persecutors for God. If you keep a Christlike spirit, your good conduct can make them ashamed, even though they are hassling you, and bring them to the place where they will ask you a question for the hope that is in you: Why are you the way you are? What's this deal going on in your life? Why do you react the way you react? And you can tell them about Christ.
But if you lash out, and if you dish out the same kind of abuse that you are receiving, God is not revealed at all.
Patiently endure whatever your mistreatment, and ask God to use it to reach those who need to know Him as Savior.
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A Picture of Brokenness
(2 Corinthians 1:8)
A picture of brokenness is that of a wild stallion wanting its independence but being ridden for the first time. It does not want to submit, and it does not want to do what it is told to do. It enjoys a cowboy feeding it, keeping its trough filled with fresh water, and allowing it to go out and nibble grass in the sunshine. The problem comes when the saddle is tossed on its back and the harness is placed over its head.
However, if you have watched a horse being broken, you know the cowboy has more sense than to take a new horse that has never been ridden and toss a saddle on its back. For days, the animal may be led around a pen as it adjusts to the pressure of wearing a harness and the conditions surrounding its changing lifestyle. Then the saddle coes out of the tack room and is placed on the horse's back - but without a rider. Finally, the cowboy puts a foot in one of the stirrups.
There are many steps in between these, but we can form a mental picture of the process used to break a horse and prepare it to be ridden. When the cowboy climbs into the saddle, the initial shock of having someone on its back is frightening and irritating. The animal begins to buck and rears its head before it begins to settle and trot around its pen. Some horses refuse to be broken and risk being sold. Others, in time and through proper care, are broken and begin the enjoyment of a lifetime of service to their owners.
When God begins to work in your life, He doesn't immediately toss a saddle on your back or seek to break you through the circumstances of life. Instead, He works with a plan and goal in mind. Bit-by-bit and inch-by-inch, He brings you to a place where He can train you to live a life that glorifies Him and is a blessing to others.
God bless
:angel:
December 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Repentance
Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation . . . -2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction of sin is best described in the words:
My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall.
Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8 ). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person's conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person's relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God- "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight . . ." ( Psalm 51:4 ). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, "I have sinned." The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes- a reflex action caused by self-disgust.
The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man's respectable "goodness." Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person's life (see Galatians 4:19 ). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses- repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant.
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Dealing with Sin
I want to follow up on yesterday's devotional by pointing you to 1 Peter 2:18-23,
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.
The Goodspeed translation says, "He committed His cause to Him who judges righteously." Now these verses are pretty clear: God is a righteous judge. And even if you are being mistreated for doing right, if you will commit things to God, He has a marvelous way of turning the tables in your favor.
You have to maintain three things if God is, indeed, going to use you in such a situation.
1. You have to maintain a right spirit. You have to keep a good attitude. You cannot get bitter. You have to stay kind.
2. You have to keep right speech. Do not dish out the same kind of abuse. Do not start saying things that are going to create division.
3. You have to maintain right service. Even if you are being mistreated, continue working hard for the Lord. Do not sabotage things.
If you will do these three things, just watch what God does through your difficulties!
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THE HOPE OF SURRENDER
(2 Corinthians 1:9)
Luke writes, "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." (Luke 2:52) We know very little about the years that Jesus spent growing into manhood. However, we can surmise that He grew emotionally, mentally, and physically. Like us, God's Son had to develop, and we can imagine that while He was sinless, He learned how to live through the circumstances of life.
There are many people today who are suffering - not because they have sinned or resisted God, but because the Lord has chosen to develop their lives through difficulty and hardship. In the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul does not gloss over the fact that he suffered. At one point, he believed there was a strong possibility that he would die. However, God spared his life, and Paul was able to write about the hardships he faced with such hope that many who read his letters also declared faith in Jesus Christ.
God cannot mold and shape our lives unless we are willing to surrender and to be transparent before Him. These are prerequisites to experiencing a breakthrough in our trials and sufferings. We have no idea of the difficulties that Christ faced as a young man - the Gospels do not record them. Yet, we know that as an adult, He suffered and died on the cross for our sins so that we might have eternal life. He was not ashamed of the calling that God had given Him. Now, all glory is His, and He is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding in prayer for us each day.
Stop looking at the trials of your life with thoughts of regret and horror. Learn to rest in God's care, and allow Him to work in your life to the fullest. When you do, you will discover that He has a tremendous blessing waiting for you. Not only will you grow to be like Him, you will be a testimony of His grace and hope to a troubled world.
God bless
:angel:
December 8, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Impartial Power of God
By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified -Hebrews 10:14
We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only reason for the forgiveness of our sins by God, and the infinite depth of His promise to forget them, is the death of Jesus Christ. Our repentance is merely the result of our personal realization of the atonement by the Cross of Christ, which He has provided for us. ". . . Christ Jesus . . . became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." ( 1 Corinthians 1:30 ). Once we realize that Christ has become all this for us, the limitless joy of God begins in us. And wherever the joy of God is not present, the death sentence is still in effect.
No matter who or what we are, God restores us to right standing with Himself only by means of the death of Jesus Christ. God does this, not because Jesus pleads with Him to do so but because He died. It cannot be earned, just accepted. All the pleading for salvation which deliberately ignores the Cross of Christ is useless. It is knocking at a door other than the one which Jesus has already opened. We protest by saying, "But I don't want to come that way. It is too humiliating to be received as a sinner." God's response, through Peter, is, ". . . there is no other name . . . by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12 ). What at first appears to be heartlessness on God's part is actually the true expression of His heart. There is unlimited entrance His way. "In Him we have redemption through His blood . . ." ( Ephesians 1:7 ). To identify with the death of Jesus Christ means that we must die to everything that was never a part of Him.
God is just in saving bad people only as He makes them good. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The atonement by the Cross of Christ is the propitiation God uses to make unholy people holy.
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What Do You Value?
Psalm 119:72 says,
The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
We understand "the law of Your mouth" to be God's Word. And what the psalmist is saying is, "Lord, Your word is better to me than a pile of silver or a pile of gold."
Let's say you are offered a position at a particular company-offered a great job, great increase of pay, and maybe the housing in that area is less. It is your dream job! But you investigate things, and you find out there is not a good spirit-filled Bible teaching church in that town where the job is. But you can make a lot more money! Do you go? It depends on how much you value God's Word.
One gentleman who was very involved in my church came to me one day and announced that he was moving. I asked him, "Did you find a church there?" He replied, "No, no. There's not a good church in the town at all. But I'm going to be making a lot more money. We can get a bigger house. It's going to be great."
A year later his teenage daughter was pregnant, his boy was in juvenile hall, he and his wife were getting a divorce, and he was back on drugs. But, hey! He was making a lot more money.
In our society, it is so easy to make decisions based solely on money. And sadly, it is the ruin of many a family and relationship. Value first God's Word. Value it more than anything our world can give you.
If you do, you will never be disappointed.
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TRUSTING GOD IN TIMES OF DARKNESS
(Habakkuk 3:17-18)
The people of Judah were on their way into captivity, and Habakkuk was just one of the prophets that God used to deliver His message of judgment and repentance. Judah's sin and disobedience had grown to such a proportion that God knew He had to do something to stop their downward spiral. The nation needed to turn back to the Lord and begin to worship Him as their only God. Therefore, He allowed them to face captivity in a foreign land. As promised, Judah was invaded, and most of the people were deported to Babylon. It was there that King Nebuchadnezzar ruled over them.
Like many of us, Habakkuk felt the weight of what was about to come, and he was not settled with the matter at all. In fact, he became anxious and cried out, "How long, O LORD, will I call for help, and You will not hear?" (1:2) As long as life runs along well, we rarely feel the need to ask God for help. However, the moment the skies of our lives turn dark and stormy, we immediately cry out to Him.
You may be a Christian who has worshipped the Lord most of your life. In fact, you consistently take time to be with Him in prayer and praise. However, difficulty has come, and you wonder what you will do. Not all suffering is the result of sin. It is true that Judah needed a course coreection or they would have totally abandoned their faith. This was not God's desire for the nation He loved. Nor was it on track with His promise to Abraham and David.
Other times, suffering comes in order to prepare us for an even greater blessing. While the storms of life may descend on us without warning, God always has a rainbow planned for those who turn their lives over to Him and trust Him even in the most difficult circumstances.
God bless
:angel:
December 9, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Opposition of the Natural
Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires -Galatians 5:24
The natural life itself is not sinful. But we must abandon sin, having nothing to do with it in any way whatsoever. Sin belongs to hell and to the devil. I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and to God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God's best. Once we come to understand that natural moral excellence opposes or counteracts surrender to God, we bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us would debate over what is filthy, evil, and wrong, but we do debate over what is good. It is the good that opposes the best. The higher up the scale of moral excellence a person goes, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ. "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh . . . ." The cost to your natural life is not just one or two things, but everything. Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. . ." ( Matthew 16:24 ). That is, he must deny his right to himself, and he must realize who Jesus Christ is before he will bring himself to do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.
The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. There is no high or easy road. Each of us has the means to accomplish it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying, but of sacrificing, and thereby performing His will.
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Do You Cherish God's Word?
Psalm 107:20 says,
He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
God has given us His Word for our benefit, and yet so many Christians ignore it to their hurt.
It is like the story of the woman a preacher went to visit one day. She lived in a dilapidated house. As long as he had known her, she had struggled with poverty. Twenty years earlier she had been the housekeeper for the wealthiest woman in town, but the wealthy woman had died. So this housekeeper moved into an old shack.
As the pastor was visiting her, he noticed a document framed on the wall. He said, "Do you mind if I borrow this for a few days?" She replied, "Well, you can borrow it, but please bring it back. Although I can't read, it is very important to me. It is the only thing that the lady left me when she died. It is very valuable to me. It reminds me of her. So make sure you bring it back."
He took it and had it investigated and authenticated. It was the will of the woman who had died, and in the will she left her housekeeper a fortune. The housekeeper could have had any house she wanted in the whole city and had servants of her own, but due to her ignorance, she lived in poverty and had a rough go of it all those years.
That woman reminds me of a lot of Christians. They don't read their Bible, but they admire it because it reminds them of God. They haven't taken time to find out the inheritance that belongs to them as believers.
God's Word is a light to our path. It is our guidebook for life. It is bread for our spirit. It is our strength. It is our refuge in troubled times.
Cherish God's Word.
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LEARNING TO WAIT GOD'S WAY
(Psalm 18:6)
David was the anointed king of Israel, but before he could enjoy the realization of God's promises, he had to go through a season of testing and waiting. During this time, he was forced to hide out in caves and literally run for his life. King Saul, who was bent on David's destruction, continually hunted for him. Perhaps the Lord has given you a promise through His Word. You are ready to see it unfold, but it hasn't happened yet. Though you have waited, it seems that there is no hope on the horizon. Remember, God's timing is perfect.
He knows what you need, when you need it. He knows that if we are going to learn how to walk with Him in the daylight or the good times, we must learn first to trust Him in times of darkness.
At some point, each of us has waited for God's promises to come. David may have wondered when the Lord would open the door to blessing. However, he never allowed his thoughts to turn to doubts. In fact, in Psalm 18:17, 19, he praises God for the victory he knew would be his one day. "(God) delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me ... He brought me forth also into a broad (or spacious) place, He rescued me, because He delighted in me."
When God delivers you from trial and trouble, you can be sure that He will bring you out into a spacious place of joy and delight - one that also will glorify Him and add encouragement to your life. Have you been pushing and shoving in an effort to move God on to the place where you think you should be? If so, stop and be determined to wait on God. The time you spend waiting in darkness will one day be rewarded by the Father of lights (James 1:17).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
December 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Personality
. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . -John 17:22
Personality is the unique, limitless part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. It is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island in the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island. We don't know the great depths of our being, therefore we cannot measure ourselves. We start out thinking we can, but soon realize that there is really only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator.
Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality is the characteristic of the outer, natural man. Our Lord can never be described in terms of individuality and independence, but only in terms of His total Person- "I and My Father are one" ( John 10:30 ). Personality merges, and you only reach your true identity once you are merged with another person. When love or the Spirit of God come upon a person, he is transformed. He will then no longer insist on maintaining his individuality. Our Lord never referred to a person's individuality or his isolated position, but spoke in terms of the total person- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . ." Once your rights to yourself are surrendered to God, your true personal nature begins responding to God immediately. Jesus Christ brings freedom to your total person, and even your individuality is transformed. The transformation is brought about by love- personal devotion to Jesus. Love is the overflowing result of one person in true fellowship with another.
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Key #1 to Effective Prayer - Being Specific
Over the next number of devotionals, I want to walk you through the keys to effective prayer. To start, I want to focus today's devotional on Mark 10:46-52 where we find a very intriguing story.
Now they came to Jericho. As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then many warned him to be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, "Be of good cheer. Rise, He is calling you." And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" The blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, that I may receive my sight." Then Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.
The question Jesus asked, "What do you want Me to do for you?", seemed obvious, didn't it? Everybody present knew Bartimaeus needed his eyes to be healed. Why would Jesus ask this question?
He wanted us to understand how important it is to be specific when we ask something of God. Bartimaeus' faith had to become specific before it made him well. It was after he said, "Lord, that I might receive my sight," that Jesus said, "Your faith has made you well."
Being specific in what you request of God is the first key to effective prayer.
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WORTH THE WAIT
(Habakkuk 3:18-19)
When the storms of life hit, we are often tempted to run for cover. When they continue indefinitely, we struggle to find encouragement. When the rain and the wind gather strength until they turn into what seems to be a hurricane, we find ourselves saying, "I can't do this any longer," The truth is this: we can't, but God can.
He is the only One who can help us victoriously fight through the battles of life. Nothing can provide the type of strength that He provides, especially when we feel overwhelmed and discouraged. He stands beside us, and He never retreats.
Daniel never worried about being cast into the lion's den. He knew that the Lord would provide the help and protection he needed to make it through the night. Some of the people who read these words are fighting a battle with a life-threatening disease. It is an unseen enemy from a human standpoint but not from God's. He knows exactly what we are facing and how it is affecting our lives. \
There is an incredible sense of peace that comes from learning how to rest in the Lord and allow Him to take care of your troubles. This does not mean that you abandon the fight and just give up trying. It means that you shift the focus of your effort from yourself to God. This is where the true victory is gained.
The apostle Paul faced many life-threatening situations. At one point, he debated whether it was better to ask God to allow him to go home to heaven where he would have unending peace and glory in the presence of Christ or to continue living the earthly life God had given him. Paul chose the latter. As much as he longed to see the Lord in heaven, he loved having the opportunity here to tell others about God's unending, unconditional love and forgiveness.
God bless
:angel:
December 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intercessory Prayer
. . . men always ought to pray and not lose heart -Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to "fill up . . . [with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" ( Colossians 1:24 ), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, "It is putting yourself in someone else's place." That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God's place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can't pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply "patched up." We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
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Key #2 to Effective Prayer - Being Connected
Yesterday we found that the first key to effective prayer is the need to be specific when we pray. Today, I want to show you the second key: The need to have a close relationship with God.
In John 15:5, Jesus says,
"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."
God wants every part of our life to be connected to Him. And He tells us that as that happens, as we have our lives connected with Him, we bear much fruit. A few verses later Jesus directly connected that fruit to prayer.
In John 15:16, Jesus goes on to say,
"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you."
If we are connected to God and we abide in Him, Jesus says we will bear much fruit-prayer fruit. Think about a fruit tree for a moment. The leaves come out because the branches are attached to the tree. In the spring the branch will blossom, and from those blossoms comes the fruit.
But if something happens and the branch is not solidly connected to the tree, it will probably not bear any fruit at all. There may be a few leaves, but the blossoms won't come and there won't be any fruit. The blossoms and healthy fruit will only come if the branch is fully connected.
God wants us connected to Him in every part of our lives. When that happens, our prayers will be in line with His desires, and we can be confident that He will answer.
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OVERCOMING SPIRITUAL DRYNESS
(Ezekiel 37:3)
Spiritual dryness comes when we overextend ourselves and become too involved with life to take time to be alone with the Lord. Sin is another reason we feel dry and distant from God. The nation of Judah struggled with both of these problems. They were too busy, and they began to worship pagan gods - knowing all along that the Lord had told them, "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Deuteronony 5:7) Yet they ignored His command and suffered for it.
Yielding to sin and being too busy to worship God quickly leads to a divided mind and heart. If we continue along this track, we will begin to spend more and more time doing other things and less time in prayer with the One who loves us the most and died for our sins. Before we know it, we will feel tired, drained of energy, and just plain worn out. This is when Satan's forces begin to tempt us with sin.
Even in a world of turmoil, God wants to spend time with you. Relationship is at the core of His very being, and He desires your fellowship. How long has it been since someone has told you that he or she wants to be with you - just to talk and listen to what you have to say? God wants to do this for you.
Like our nation today, the nation of Judah was in desperate need of a revival. However, in order for this to happen, the people must express their need for God and, most of all, their desire to know Him in a personal way.
Do you feel spiritually dry? Maybe you have tried unsuccessfully to revive yourself through a home Bible study or an occasional visit to church. Or perhaps you go to church every Sunday, yet you feel dry inside. If this is the case, know that you can experience a personal revival the moment you confess your need to the Lord. His care for you is unconditional. The instant you do this, He will turn on heaven's shower of refreshment and breathe new life into your heart and soul.
God bless
December 14, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Great Life
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled . . . -John 14:27
Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. But as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight to us. As long as we try to serve two masters, ourselves and God, there will be difficulties combined with doubt and confusion. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit for our own purposes.
God's mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace; not a natural peace, "as the world gives," but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, wait until it does, or seek to find out why it is not coming. If you are acting on your own impulse, or out of a sense of the heroic, to be seen by others, the peace of Jesus will not exhibit itself. This shows no unity with God or confidence in Him. The spirit of simplicity, clarity, and unity is born through the Holy Spirit, not through your decisions. God counters our self-willed decisions with an appeal for simplicity and unity.
My questions arise whenever I cease to obey. When I do obey God, problems come, not between me and God, but as a means to keep my mind examining with amazement the revealed truth of God. But any problem that comes between God and myself is the result of disobedience. Any problem that comes while I obey God (and there will be many), increases my overjoyed delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems.
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How to Stay Connected
Yesterday we discovered the second key to effective prayer is to stay connected to God. The critical question is: How do we do that?
While there are many things we can do, I want to focus on two things. First of all, if you want to have a close relationship with God, it is important to realize just how much He desires to have a close relationship with you.
This is an amazing truth when you stop to think about it. He is Almighty God, and yet He wants to have a close relationship with you.
Romans 5:11 in the New Living Translation says, Now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Through Jesus, God made us to be His friends! So connecting with God starts with remembering He desires to be your closest friend.
Second, you need to practice His presence. Right now God is with you. He is everywhere you go. He is at your job; He is at your home; He is with you wherever you might be, even in the hardest time of your life.
The last part of Hebrews 13:5 says, For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
There was a monk in the seventeenth century named Brother Lawrence who wrote a book called The Practice of the Presence of God. In the monastery there were chimes that rang every hour, and Brother Lawrence would use that as a reminder to connect with God.
If you have a PDA or a wristwatch or a cell phone, you might consider setting it to go off throughout the day to remind you that God is with you. Each time it goes off, spend a few moments communing with Him. Practice His presence. That will help you stay connected to God.
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A Breath Of Life
(Ezekiel 37:5)
A couple of years ago, the southern half of the United States went through a time of drought that led to a widespread crop damage. At the same time, the western part of the country was also experiencing an extensive drought, and wildfires threatened the lives and homes of countless people.
When dryness comes, it is easy to shrug our shoulders and think, "It will rain soon." However, after a few weeks with no sign of rain, we begin to wonder if we will ever see wet pavement again. The spiritual drought that hit Judah lasted for years. The people were spiritually dry and failing in their development to God. Yet they were the ones to blame because they had abandoned their devotion to the Lord.
God led Ezekiel to a valley where a mighty battle had taken place. Dry, sun-bleached bones littered the landscape, and the prophet felt hopeless at the sight. However, God reminded him that He had not abandoned His plan for the nation. Once again, He would breathe life into the nation, and even the bones in this valley would rise to new life.
When we open the door to sin, our lives become dry. When we ignore it, they become even dryer. When we refuse to heed God's warning by turning away from the very things that separate us from Him, we become dryer still.
Spiritual dryness leads to complacency and apathy. It brings a sense of deadness to our souls and turns us away from the things of God. Satan loves to entice us away from spending time alone with God in prayer and Bible study each day. He knows that if we fail to read God's Word, our lives will become dry, and we will lack the right kind of refreshment that brings life, hope, and joy to our souls.
If you feel dry and weary, turn back to God, and drink deeply from His pool of everlasting refreshment and life. Then you will be spiritually revived and renewed.
God bless
December 15, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Approved to God"
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth -2 Timothy 2:15
If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don't, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God's winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God's truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God's wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, "I'm not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I'll just borrow my words from someone else," then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.
Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn't know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.
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Key #3 to Effective Prayer - Praying From the Heart
Today we will look at the third key to effective prayer. This key is found in Romans 10:9-10 where it says,
If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Prayer must come from the heart. These verses in particular teach us that if a person is going to pray a prayer of salvation, the heart and the mouth must get together. It is not good enough to just have the words. Your heart and mouth must be in agreement.
I believe this truth applies to every kind of prayer. It is not good enough to just use eloquent words. There has to be heart behind them if you are going to realize results from your prayers.
I think only those things that burn brightly within our hearts truly touch the heart of God.
When I was young, I would go fishing with my cousins. At night, the bats would come out and my cousins would take a lure, and they would cast it up in the air. Every once in a great while one of the bats would hit the lure and get snagged.
I think when we pray, it is like casting lines up into the heavens. But it is only the prayers that come from our heart that ever hook onto anything in heaven.
Effective prayer comes from your heart.
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RELIEF FOR A WEARY SOUL
(Ezekiel 37:14)
How has our nation become so dry in its devotion to God? The answer is simple - we have gone to other things for refreshment. We have sought ways of encouraging ourselves without God. We have turned and walked in the opposite direction, thinking that we will try something new and it will satisfy our needs. We will the emptiness of our lives with people instead of God, and immediately they become like gods to us. Then, before we know it, they have done something to disappoint us, and we immediately feel betrayed and defeated.
In a nation that has the greatest material advantages, we want more and expect to get it. We're no longer satisfied with simple things - we have to have the latest flat-screen television. We have the newest computer that plays more songs and that does more that we will ever use, and still we cry out for more. We have flashier cars, larger homes, walk-in closets with shelves filled with clothing that we cannot even remember buying. We repaint rooms in our houses, purchase new furniture, and still feel empty, alone, and in debt.
Only God has the ability to satisfy the deepest longing in our hearts. Sure, it is fun to wear a new shirt and feel as though you are looking your best. God is not against this. In fact, He wants us to do well in this life. However, He wants us to love Him above all things. He gives good things to His children, but when the good things become objects of worship, we find that we are headed for trouble.
God will allow us to drift until we wake up and realize that our needs cannot be satisfied by anything or anyone other than God Himself. A new marriage or a new baby will not relieve the pressure. Many times it only makes it worse.
You can stop the dryness in your life by telling the Lord what you are facing and how you feel. He understands your needs, but He also knows that the only way you truly will find refreshment and hope that lasts is by living your life for Him.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
December 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Wrestling Before God
Take up the whole armor of God . . . praying always . . . -Ephesians 6:13,18
You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn't meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint (see Genesis 32:24-25 ). Don't become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." ( Romans 8:37 ). Wrestling before God makes an impact in His kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness- "take up the whole armor of God . . . ."
Always make a distinction between God's perfect will and His permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our lives. God's perfect will is unchangeable. It is with His permissive will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must wrestle before Him. It is our reaction to these things allowed by His permissive will that enables us to come to the point of seeing His perfect will for us. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . ." ( Romans 8:28 )- to those who remain true to God's perfect will- His calling in Christ Jesus. God's permissive will is the testing He uses to reveal His true sons and daughters. We should not be spineless and automatically say, "Yes, it is the Lord's will." We don't have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength.
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Key #4 to Effective Prayer - Consistent with God's Will
In order for your prayers to be effective, they need to be in line with God's Word and will. That is the fourth key to effective prayer.
This means you must have knowledge of God's Word. In John 15:7, Jesus says,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
If you abide in God and His words abide in you, your desires will line up with His will. How important it is for us to know the Word of God!
As Hebrews 4 reminds us, the Word of God is living and active and powerful. It is spirit; it is life. It's not just pages on a piece of paper. And as you are in the Word of God, I believe the Holy Spirit will paint heaven's pictures, heaven's thoughts, and heaven's ideas on the canvas of your heart and your mind.
As you read the Word of God, you will have confidence in your prayers because you will have God's heart. And when you have God's heart, He is going to answer your prayers because that is what He desires.
I also want to point you to 1 John 5:14 which says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
His will, of course, is His Word. So if you ask anything according to His Word, He will hear you. And if you know that He hears whatever you ask, you know you have the petitions you have asked of Him.
This means you and I need to know what the Bible says so that our prayers will be answered. Effective prayers are those that are in line with God's Word and will.
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REMEMBER GOD'S FAITHFULNESS
(Exodus 15:23)
A man attending a Bible study requested prayer because he had gotten a promotion at work. While he was ready to rejoice over his new position, he also felt apprehensive. A woman who had been with the firm much longer would not report to him. He said, "I know God has placed me in this position. However, this is going to be a bitter pill for this woman to swallow."
Most of us dislike taking medicine. If it is bitter, it is even worse. Many of us also have found ourselves in similar situations. We may have received a promotion and placed in charge of a group of people who have been with the company longer than we have. Or perhaps a new manager, whom we feel lacks ability, steps onto the scene.
Regardless of the scenario, remember that God has a plan for your life. He has chosen this point in time for you to shine and not to appear dark and gloomy. He may place you in a role of leadership where you are forced to make decisions you never thought you could or would make. Or He may have allowed you to be bypassed for a promotion you believed was yours.
At times, each one of us can view life from an unrealistic perspective. We see ourselves climbing social or corporate ladders without hitting a snag or facing many problems. In our dream, if we do come up on problem areas, we tell ourselves that we are equipped to handle each one. However, we can't, and God knows it. He allows us to face extreme difficulty in order to teach us that we need His help and strength.
A bitter person becomes critical and unwilling to work with others. A godly person accepts God's will, knowing that up ahead there will be another opportunity for him or her.
When God asks you to swallow a bitter pill, be willing to do it. In the end, this one act of surrender could turn into a tremendous source of blessing and hope.
God bless
:angel:
Today's Verse For Monday, December 19
'Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?' Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, 'Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . .' He said to the paralytic, 'I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.' He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!' | Mark 2:7-12 NIV
:angel:
Daily Devotional
December 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Where the Battle is Won or Lost
'If you will return, O Israel,' says the Lord . . . -Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, "I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I'll put God to the test." Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point- a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory.
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You Made it This Far!
Hebrews 10:32 sheds some additional light on what we can expect,
But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings.
When it says, after you were illuminated, it literally means, "After you came to the light." This verse is talking about when the light of the Gospel dawned on you, when you were saved.
And what does it say? You need to recall, to remember, that after you came to Christ, you endured. You went through some battles.
I think we need to remember that. In fact, let me just encourage you today. The fact that you are reading this devotional today says something about you. Did you know there are a lot of people who were saved at the same time you were, but they are not seeking God today?
You made it through the battle! You stood fast. You might feel like you are pretty rickety and ready to keel over, but you are still seeking God! If the devil could get you, he would have gotten you already.
By God's grace you made it this far. Now is no time to quit!
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ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT
In His Presence: Hear...your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching (Proverbs 1:8).
Another way people learn about the family is through the lives and advice of friends. We may have heard others talking about what they would or would not do. Sitting around with his buddies watching a football game, one guy declared that he did not do woman's work. Another chimed in with agreement. Both men proudly stated how their wives take care of the children while they bring home a paycheck.
Remember what we said earlier: One of the number one problems in our country today is absentee parents-men and women who have checked out of the lives of their children. However, children need both parents to be actively involved as they learn and grow. Yet far too often, dads are taking a backseat, while moms are left to single-handedly direct the show.
When this is the case, children receive a mixed message. Instead of feeling secure, they feel insecure and often see their fathers as being weak. God has created men to be the head of the family. Therefore, men have a responsibility to fulfill.
If you are unsure how to handle yhour situation, ask God to direct your steps. Also, set a goal to live according to His principles. Most importantly, be actively involved in the lives of your children. You will never have another opportunity to say: "I love you," with your life. Therefore, make the most of the time that God has given you.
One Minute Please:
When it comes to the ways of the family, God the Father knows exactly what is best.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
December 28, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Continuous Conversion
. . . unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 18:3
These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God's, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must "put on the new man . . ." (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule- God must rule in us.
To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, "I won't submit." We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.
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Attack at the Point of Spiritual Breakthrough
We have seen in previous devotionals how Satan will attack when a person comes to Christ, when they are a babe in their faith. I believe Scripture shows us that the devil will also attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough, or at a time of important transition. This is the second battle we must fight.
In Matthew 3, we find Jesus at an absolutely critical time of transition in His life. We have not heard from Him since He was 12 years old. There has been about 30 quiet, unnoticed years where He presumably was working in His father's carpentry shop.
That is when we read in Matthew 3:16-4:1,
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus is about to enter public ministry. The sick will be healed; the poor will have the gospel preached to them; miracles will be worked; the Father will be revealed. So from this point, the battle is on. And we are given a bird's-eye view of the conflict that occurs between Christ and the devil, which we will look at in more detail in the next several devotionals.
But I want to submit something to you today. If it seems that all hell has broken loose in your life, maybe, just maybe, it's because you are on the verge of a breakthrough in your life.
Maybe it's a time of very important transition where God wants to lift you into a place where there is going to be greater influence and greater impact through your life.
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LIVING WITH A SUBSTITUTE
In HIS Presence: The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Genesis 2:15).
We live in a world where substitutes are often accepted as being the real thing. Years ago, a leading soft drink company decided to change the way its soda tasted. The company created a new drink and rolled out an elaborate ad campaign calling the drink the "new" cola.
When the public realized this new product would replace the original, there was outrage. People vowed to boycott the company by refusing to drink any of its products. Immediately, company executives realized that they were in trouble and withdrew the new product line. They quickly adopted a new marketing slogan regarding the original cola: "It's the real thing!"
What potentially could have spelled disaster for the company became the basis of a marketing program that is still going today-"It's the real thing!" In other words, there are no substitutes or fakes. The original thing is the real thing.
When it comes to the subject of the family, we have cast aside the original plan God gave us in Genesis and adopted a "new" plan. Instead of turning to His Word for advice, we now switch on the television and tune in to the talk shows and our families are suffering. If this is all we hear and practice, then we will be headed for deep trouble. God has a plan in mind for the family. It is real and amazing, but first we must be willing to embrace it.
One Minute Please:
We live in a day of substitutes and in a time when the real thing looks cheap.
God bless
:angel:
December 29, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Deserter or Disciple?
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more -John 6:66
When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must "walk in the light" of that vision (1 John 1:7). Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don't "walk in the light" of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord. Mentally disobeying the "heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19) will make you a slave to ideas and views that are completely foreign to Jesus Christ. Don't look at someone else and say, "Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why can't I?" You have to "walk in the light" of the vision that has been given to you. Don't compare yourself with others or judge them- that is between God and them. When you find that one of your favorite and strongly held views clashes with the "heavenly vision," do not begin to debate it. If you do, a sense of property and personal right will emerge in you- things on which Jesus placed no value. He was against these things as being the root of everything foreign to Himself- ". . . for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:15). If we don't see and understand this, it is because we are ignoring the underlying principles of our Lord's teaching.
Our tendency is to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us. But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don't try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide. It means your conscience does not respond to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you as one who either continues on with even more devotion as a disciple of Jesus Christ, or as one who turns to go back as a deserter.
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The Devil's Seeds of Doubt
As we saw yesterday, Satan will seek to attack when we are on the verge of a major breakthrough. I believe there are three distinct areas of attack in this battle. Today I want to cover the first with you. It is found in Matthew 4:3-4,
Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
The devil's first area of attack will be to try to get you to doubt your calling.
Notice that just prior to this encounter the voice of God the Father said to Jesus, "This is My beloved Son!" And that is the first thing the devil challenges, "Well, if youare the Son of God...."
He will do the same thing to you.
What is it that God has spoken to you about that He wants you to do with your life? Has He told you that He wants to use you to funnel vast resources into the gospel? Or maybe God said you are to be a teacher, or that you are going to impact the entertainment industry, or that you are going to be a prayer warrior and tip the spiritual scales in critical times.
Whatever it is, the devil will saddle up next to you and say, "Who do you think you are? What God has told you is just a pipe dream. It's just your own head speaking to you." He will try and get you to doubt what God has said to you and to doubt what God has called you to do.
When that happens, you need to go back to that word that God has spoken to you in order to keep your focus and direction right.
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The Enemy's Deception
In HIS Presence; The serpent was more crafty [shrewd] than any beast of the field (Genesis 3:1).
We may mistakenly believe that we get to decide what our families do and don't do. However, God is the architect of the family. When we choose to bypass His principles, we set ourselves up for failure. Adam and Eve discovered this in a very painful way. They knew what God had commanded them to do. Yet they made a choice to do the opposite.
By yielding to Satan's wicked scheme, they lost everything-their home, the opportunity for a safe family environment, and, most importantly, the loving fellowship they once had with God. Suddenly, they felt emotions that they did not know existed-guilt, fear and isolation.
Under no circumstances is sin acceptable. For example, adultery is always wrong. Yet often, what we see portrayed in our society is the opposite of this. Why? The Enemy wants to trick us into believing that sin is just a normal part of life, and God is the one who is out of touch with reality.
The family is under Satan's full attack today. In fact, from that moment in the garden of Eden, the Enemy has been seeking to destroy what God created because he knows it is the very best and will lead to eternal joy and fulfillment.
If you have fallen prey to his attack, ask the Lord to forgive you. Turn back to God's principles, love your spouse and joy will return to your heart.
One Minute Please:
Satan must destroy the family in order for his plan to work.
God bless
:angel:
December 30, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"And Every Virtue We Possess"
. . . All my springs are in you -Psalm 87:7
Our Lord never "patches up" our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside- ". . . put on the new man . . ." (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ- a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.
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Where Satan Will Attack Second
Yesterday we saw the first area the devil will attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough or in a time of important transition. Today, I want to show you the second area, the area of pride.
We pick up the drama of Satan's attack of Christ in Matthew 4:6,
"If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"
I believe the devil was appealing to Jesus' pride at this point. He realized Jesus was solid in His own heart about who He was and what He was to do.
So the devil took Him to the most public of all places, and told Him, "Now, hey, You need to prove this to everybody else. If You cast Yourself down, You will have a soft landing because the angels will catch You, and everyone will know that You're the Son of God."
Pride will cause us to do things recklessly, and Satan was doing all he could to get Jesus to act recklessly. But Jesus answered perfectly, "You shall not tempt the LORD your God."
By the way, the verse Satan quoted to Jesus about the angels catching Him had an ending, which he failed to include. It says, "To keep you in all your ways." The Amplified Bible says, "In all your ways of obedience and service."
In other words, you can't do some reckless thing to prove a point to other people and expect God to save you. Don't let your pride get you out on a limb. Instead, resist Satan's attack in the area of pride. Realize it for what it is; it's his temptation to get you to fall!
If you are secure in who you are, you don't have to prove anything to anyone.
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BETTER READ THE INSTRUCTIONS
In HIS Presence: Make me understand the way of Your precepts (Psalm 119:27)
Have you ever found yourself in a mess and wondered why things have gone so wrong? Most of us have. We can remember times when we rushed and tried to put an item together quickly, instead of reading the instructions that came in the package. Suddenly, we discovered that they pieces didn't quite fit correctly or that something seemed to be missing.
One man was determined to do minor word on his small car. Every few thousand miles, he would drain the oil and then refill it. When the car needed a tune up, he did it. Over time, he began to notice that every time he put the car back together, a couple of bolts or screws were left over. The automobile always seemed to run fine, so he didn't worry about it. In fact, his leftover bolts became the source of much fun and laughter among his friends.
This continued until one day, while driving down the road, he heard a loud knocking noise. After taking a look at the engine, his mechanic told him, "Your engine is about to fall out of your car!"
Everything you need for a successful marriage can be found in God's Word, but your must take time to read His instructions. Leftover bolts and overlooked items-such as an unfaithful heart, bouts of anger, impatience, or a careless attitude-can lead to serious results where everything falls apart.
One Minute Please:
Be sure to read the fine print-for best results always follow the instructions!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
January 04, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Why Can I Not Follow You Now?
Peter said to Him, 'Lord, why can I not follow You now?' -John 13:37
There are times when you can't understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don't fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification- to be set apart from sin and made holy- or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt- wait.
At first you may see clearly what God's will is- the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is distinctly God's will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move.
Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. "I will lay down my life for Your sake." Peter's statement was honest but ignorant. "Jesus answered him, ' . . . the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times' " (John 13:38). This was said with a deeper knowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not follow Jesus because he did not know himself or his own capabilities well enough. Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His irresistible charm, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him.
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Living for Whom?
Today I want us to return to Luke 12, but focus on verses 16-19,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."'"
This guy is classic! While he was rich, he was only rich toward himself. He did not have any thoughts about being rich toward the Kingdom of God. He was totally self-centered.
In fact, in the few short verses where this man speaks, verses 17, 18, and 19, he uses six "I"s, five "my"s, and four "I will"s. He says, "My crops, my barns, my goods, my soul." Pretty self-centered!
Yes, his land brought forth an incredible harvest, but who provided the fertile soil? Who provided the rain? Who provided the sunshine? Who gave him his health? Who gave him the ability to think and plan? In fact, for that matter, who gave him his soul?
In Ezekiel 18:4 God says, "All souls are Mine."
This man totally left God out of his plans. Everything he did, he did for himself. And God said he was a fool. On the very same day he made his boast, his soul was required of him.
Instead of a barn, he had a burial; instead of living in the lap of luxury, he had to stand before God and give an account of his life.
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AN UNCOMPROMISING LOVE
In HIS Presence: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25).
Most of us have either read or heard a sermon preached on the Scripture quoted above. The apostle Paul was writing to believers in Ephesus-a city that was one of the most pagan at the time. These early believers were just beginning to understand what it meant to love others the way that Jesus loved people. So Paul added an important detail to his teaching-he instructed husbands to love their wives the way Christ loves the church.
When we talk about loving to this degree, we are talking about sacrifice and commitment. This is exactly what Jesus did for each one of us. He sacrificed His life and committed Himself to us. Wives need to know that their husbands are willing to do the same for them.
Jesus is our loving Savior. Likewise, there will be times when wives need to view their husbands as saviors-not taking the place of Christ, but listening to their daily struggles and providing the protection they need from harm.
If you have never opened your heart to Christ's love, then you will not know how to love the way He loved. In fact, a person can be saved and still not experience the depth of God's love. However, when you ask Him to teach you the right way to love, He will do it. No matter what your past contains, He will broaden your ability to love with His same love.
One Minute Please
Love is measured by sacrifice, not by enjoyment.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Life of Power to Follow
Jesus answered him, 'Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward' -John 13:36
"And when He had spoken this, He said to him, 'Follow Me' " (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, "Follow Me" (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first "Follow Me" was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).
Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. ". . . He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit' " (John 20:22). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.
All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to "receive the Holy Spirit." "Receive the Holy Spirit "- the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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God's Strength
I have a lifeguard friend who told me once,
"Bayless, if we've got someone who's drowning, we'll go out in the water. But if they won't calm down, we won't touch them. Because if we get out there and they're panicking, they'll grab us and drown us both. If we can get them to calm down, that's one thing. But if we can't, we wait until they exhaust themselves, and then we save them."
And you know, this is how we often act in our relationship with God!
A lot of the time, you and I come to the absolute end of our strength before we lay hold of God's strength. This is especially true when it comes to the subject of healing.
Maybe you would admit that you're there right now... that you feel like you are finished... that you can't go on. If so, take hold of God's strength.
When you are weak, His strength is made perfect. When you come to the end of your strength, that's where God's strength begins!
In my life as a pastor, I've found that many people have been misinformed when it comes to what God has to say about healing. They struggle and struggle, never going to God's Word to see what He says.
That's why I hope you will spend time reading the Bible and that you will find it a real blessing. I pray that it will help align your thinking about healing with God's thinking about healing!
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GOD'S LOVE IS ETERNAL
In HIS Presence: God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
God commands husbands to love their wives. However, He never instructs a wife to do the same. She is commanded, instead, to respect her mate. This may seem like an odd way to address the subject of love, but God is not saying that women should dismiss this commandment.
Rather, God is love, and His love lives within us. Therefore, we are commanded to love one another with the love of Christ. From God's perspective, a woman's love comes as a direct response to her husband's salvation and the fight of love he gives to her. It begins with the foundation of respect and flourishes.
If husbands are going to be biblical lovers, they also must become biblical saviors. Jesus Christ did not die for us because we were lovable. He died for us in order to make us lovable. His gift of salvation is the greatest form of love. When we were lost in sin, He died for you and me. It is his love that draws us to Himself. We are saved by love so that we can receive His love.
Many times, we think of love as being hot or cold-on or off-but God's love is eternal. It has no ending. In order to experience it, however, we must come to a point where we accept and respect the fact that He loves us. Once we do this, we discover the irresistible love of God for ourselves.
One Minute Please:
Husbands have a Deliverer in Christ, and wives need to have a deliverer in them.
God bless
:angel:
Worship
He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord -Genesis 12:8
Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.
Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time- there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life- worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God's idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.
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Power in His Name
When I was a young Christian, I moved to Mexico to help out with an evangelist who was preaching there. Thousands of people would show up for this guy's crusade meetings, and hundreds of people were getting saved and healed.
During one of our meetings, a demon-possessed guy showed up, and he started jumping up and down, throwing rocks and boards (some of them with nails protruding from them) into the crowd. He acted like a wild animal!
One of the guys working for the crusade came to me (I happened to be standing closest to him) and said, "Bayless, take care of that." I thought, "Excuse me? I'm just a new Christian!" But nevertheless, I walked over to the demon-possessed guy and said, "In the name of Jesus," and he became like a little puppy.
I said, "Sit down," and he sat down, and I laid my hands on him and commanded the evil spirit to go in Jesus' name, and he was fine. He actually spoke intelligibly after that, and we led him to Christ. It was an amazing thing!
I tell you this because I want you to know that there is authority and power in the name of Jesus-and you can exercise that authority. It doesn't matter if you're a new Christian or not. Jesus has delegated the authority in His name to every member of the body of Christ. There is power in Jesus' name to deliver you and to bring deliverance to others through you.
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Before Rushing Down the Aisle
Scripture Readings: Romans 5:1-3
I'm sure you've noticed how many single people really want to get married, and how most married couples are always trying to set up their single friends. And of course, I'm sure you've heard (especially at Christmas get togethers) grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents always asking the single relatives in the family, "Sooo . . . anyone special in your life?"
Yes, marriage is something very special, but it is never something to rush into. Too often people rush into marriage before they've been able to define themselves and become complete in God. Some people think getting married will make them happy and complete, but putting two incomplete people together does not equal a whole, but rather two unhappy people in an unhappy marriage.
We can't look to others to make us happy; we have to look to God. Those who are single should define themselves in God and find happiness in Him, and those matchmakers out there should help their single friends and family with this process-helping them become whole, before starting to try to find them the perfect person to marry.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Compromise
As we continue our consideration of prosperity, I want to turn your attention to Luke 12:31,
"But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
This is a simple but powerful principle for life: We have to put God's Kingdom first if we are to realize God's prosperity.
A lot of Christians get caught up in the drive for prosperity and forget that God's greatest desire is for us to pursue His Kingdom. In fact, I think some of God's children today are frustrated as they are endeavoring to prosper. They can see the promise of prosperity in the Word, yet they are coming up short, and they are asking, "God, what's up?"
I really think this is an issue of the heart. God is not prospering them because they may not be mature enough spiritually to handle the degree of prosperity they are seeking. It might do them harm.
This brings to mind a young coworker of mine from a number of years ago. He was a believer but was struggling financially. One night we were in a restaurant after work when he shared a difficult struggle he was going through.
We prayed that God would do something supernatural to help him in his time of need. Two days later, he got an unexpected inheritance. It was huge! And you know what? The next week he wasn't at work. Instead he was out partying. All of a sudden, his church life stopped and he walked away from his relationship with God. He didn't have the maturity to handle the success.
I think success has ruined more people than failure. It has been said that money is the most dangerous thing God can put into your trust.
Seek after God. And when He prospers you, keep seeking after Him!
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Inner-Searching
May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
"Your whole spirit . . . ." The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139 . The psalmist implies- "O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me."
Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus-no longer condemned in God's sight.
We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.
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Look for Opportunities to Encourage
Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11; Hebrews 10:24-25; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4; Isaiah 43:5
Are you one of them? They're out there right now. There are millions of them. In your city. In your neighborhood. In your church. Perhaps, even in your home. You may even be one of them . . . Who are they?
People in desperate need of encouragement.
Let's face it . . . life can be hard. The Christian walk is a narrow road that can be smooth one minute and bumpy the next, filled with twists and turns and trials and triumphs. All of us face moments when we feel like it takes everything we've got just to keep going.
In those moments, we need an encouraging word. We need someone who will speak the truth to us in love. We need the light of God's love to fill us with the hope, faith and strength we need to rise again.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, the Apostle Paul challenged Christians to encourage one another. As followers of Christ, we should ALWAYS be on the lookout for opportunities to encourage others! Are you?
God bless
:angel:
January 10, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Opened Sight
I now send you, to open their eyes . . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . -Acts 26:17-18
This verse is the greatest example of the true essence of the message of a disciple of Jesus Christ in all of the New Testament.
God's first sovereign work of grace is summed up in the words, ". . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . ." When a person fails in his personal Christian life, it is usually because he has never received anything. The only sign that a person is saved is that he has received something from Jesus Christ. Our job as workers for God is to open people's eyes so that they may turn themselves from darkness to light. But that is not salvation; it is conversion-only the effort of an awakened human being. I do not think it is too broad a statement to say that the majority of so-called Christians are like this. Their eyes are open, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration. This is a neglected fact in our preaching today. When a person is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision. People may make vows and promises, and may be determined to follow through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to the place where we are able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ, namely, forgiveness of sins.
This is followed by God's second mighty work of grace: ". . . an inheritance among those who are sanctified . . . ." In sanctification, the one who has been born again deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's ministry to others.
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The Secret to God's Provision
In Luke 12:31-32 Jesus tells us,
"But seek the kingdom of God...." (In Matthew 6:33, He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God...and all these things shall be added to you.") "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
The secret to receiving God's provision is to put God's Kingdom first, then everything else will be added to you. That includes all the things you worry about and strive after. God promises He will add them to you.
I know for some people it is just too simplistic. It is just a childish notion to be brushed aside. But, to do so is a grave mistake. Never underestimate the power of obedience. When we obey God and get our priorities in line, it unlocks and releases incredible blessings in our life.
When we put the spiritual above the material, when we put the cause and the mission of God's Kingdom before our own personal desires, it will cause things to be added to our lives.
I remember reading about J.L. Kraft. He began his business by selling cheese on the streets in Chicago, but failed miserably. One day a Christian friend told him, "J.L., you don't have God first in your life, or in your business. Put Him first in all things you do, and you will see a different outcome."
From that day on, he put God's Kingdom first in every way and he built the largest cheese empire in the world.
First things first. Jesus said, "Do not worry. Just get your priorities in line, and God will take care of you."
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Make a Difference One by One
A father and son were walking along a beach after a powerful storm. In fact, the storm was so strong that as the waves crashed and the wind blew, hundreds of starfish were washed ashore and left far from the water they needed to survive.
As they walked, the father and son began a rescue mission, picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. When the boy looked at the hundreds of remaining starfish, he became discouraged. "Dad, there's too many. We can't save them all. We can't make a difference!"
The father looked at the starfish in his hand. The creature would have never made it back into the ocean on its own. As he threw the starfish back in the ocean, he told his son, "We're making a difference to this one."
You can make a difference too . . . even if it's only one by one. God has called each of us - not just the pastor or the missionary - to be a voice of encouragement to someone. Bless someone. Make a difference.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What My Obedience to God Costs Other People
As they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon . . . , and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus -Luke 23:26
If we obey God, it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the pain begins. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything- it is a delight. But to those who do not love Him, our obedience does cost a great deal. If we obey God, it will mean that other people's plans are upset. They will ridicule us as if to say, "You call this Christianity?" We could prevent the suffering, but not if we are obedient to God. We must let the cost be paid.
When our obedience begins to cost others, our human pride entrenches itself and we say, "I will never accept anything from anyone." But we must, or disobey God. We have no right to think that the type of relationships we have with others should be any different from those the Lord Himself had (see Luke 8:1-3).
A lack of progress in our spiritual life results when we try to bear all the costs ourselves. And actually, we cannot. Because we are so involved in the universal purposes of God, others are immediately affected by our obedience to Him. Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent? Or will we do just the opposite and say, "I will not cause other people to suffer"? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but it will grieve our Lord. If, however, we obey God, He will care for those who have suffered the consequences of our obedience. We must simply obey and leave all the consequences with Him.
Beware of the inclination to dictate to God what consequences you would allow as a condition of your obedience to Him.
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What Has You?
In Mark 10:17-22, this is what we read,
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.'" And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
This is an interesting passage, isn't it?! I think verse 22 could probably be read as "great possessions had him," and we wouldn't do too much damage to the text. Possessions possessed him, and he went away from his conversation with Jesus sorrowful.
When Jesus met this guy, He was able to cut right to the heart issue, what controlled his life. Verse 21 could be paraphrased, "Okay, you really want it? Here's your roadblock, baby." It was the guy's attitude toward his stuff.
This man loved possessions, wealth, and the things of this life more than he loved Jesus.
Where are you today, my friend? Have you allowed our world to con you into believing that you should base your life on the stuff you accumulate? Or do you love God the most?
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Encouragement Always Speaks Truth in Love
Scripture Reading: Galatians 6:1-5; Romans 12:3; James 5:19-20; James 2:13
Most of us, at one time or another, have had someone in our lives who encouraged us. Perhaps it was a parent, teacher, coach or pastor. There are few things in life as meaningful as a timely word of encouragement that builds us up and helps us through hard times.
Over my years of ministry, I have found that a voice of encouragement can be life-affirming, while a voice of discouragement can wield a mortal blow. People must always choose which voice they'll be.
As we encourage, we should always speak truth. Discouragement is so often built on a lie, driven by the wrong information. When we encourage people with the truth, we show them we truly care.
God bless
:angel:
January 12, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (1)
When they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples -Mark 4:34
Our Solitude with Him. Jesus doesn't take us aside and explain things to us all the time; He explains things to us as we are able to understand them. The lives of others are examples for us, but God requires us to examine our own souls. It is slow work- so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose. We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it. But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage?
We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves. That is always the last bit of pride to go. The only One who understands us is God. The greatest curse in our spiritual life is pride. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we will never say, "Oh, I'm so unworthy." We will understand that this goes without saying. But as long as there is any doubt that we are unworthy, God will continue to close us in until He gets us alone. Whenever there is any element of pride or conceit remaining, Jesus can't teach us anything. He will allow us to experience heartbreak or the disappointment we feel when our intellectual pride is wounded. He will reveal numerous misplaced affections or desires- things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. Many things are shown to us, often without effect. But when God gets us alone over them, they will be clear.
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Giving When No One Sees
Matthew 6:1-4 gives some important insight into giving,
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."
Jesus points us to a truth that is vital to us as Christians: Giving is an issue of the heart.
God will not honor your giving if, when you give, your heart is saying, "I want everyone to know what I'm doing. I want to be noticed when I give. I want everyone to know just how generous and kind I am and what a benevolent heart I have."
We should give with a pure motive. When we give with the right motive, not to be seen by men but out of a right heart, God will reward us openly. That may not exactly translate into dollars and cents, but it will translate into tangible blessings, things that people can see.
If nobody else knows you kicked in the extra hundred bucks, don't worry about it. God sees, and He has a way of rewarding you openly. Everyone will recognize the hand of God is on you. God's blessings will come into your life.
So when you give, check your heart to make sure you are giving with the right motive.
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The Lesson of the Cross
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; 2 Corinthians 5:11-16; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
As Jesus hung on Calvary, He took on our sin debt to redeem us from the law. His death satisfied God's divine law to overcome the problem of sin and the condemnation of death. When God looks at us, He sees only the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.
All the sin of the world for all time - every millennium, every age - was placed on the person of Jesus Christ at Calvary. When Jesus rose from the dead, He was victorious over sin and death, destroying death's authority over us.
From the moment of resurrection, Jesus shares this victory with all who believe in Him. This victory is a gift of grace. God forgives the sins of everyone who accepts His Son as their Lord and Savior.
Every believer can live life in great anticipation of spending eternity in the presence of our Lord.
God bless
:angel:
January 13, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
When He was alone . . . the twelve asked Him about the parable -Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship- when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. Notice Jesus Christ's training of the Twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were confused. His disciples constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly explained things to them, but they didn't understand until after they received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person's struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (2)
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A Matter of the Heart
God cares deeply about the motivations of our hearts. Yesterday, we saw that the heart is what matters most in giving. In Matthew 6:6, 17-18, we are shown just how important the heart is to God.
First Jesus deals with our heart when we pray,
"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Next He deals with our heart when fasting,
"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Jesus wants you and me to pray with the right heart, not seeking the praise of others. And the same is true with fasting. When you fast, you are not supposed to let everybody know.
When you fast, if somebody says, "Hey, would you like to go to lunch today?" and you reply, "I can't. I'm fasting," they may think, "Wow, he's spiritual!" but that is all the reward you get, right there, so you better enjoy it.
What is Jesus' point? When we give to the poor, when we pray, when we fast, we do not do it to get the applause or recognition of men. We do it out of obedience to God, out of love for our fellow men, and just wanting to help somebody else who is trying to make it through the day on this planet.
That is why we should do it. That is the right motivation of the heart.
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Reversing the Curses in Your Life
Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-19
Everyday, people live under the curse of defeat, which takes on many different forms. It could be recurring disease, depression, one financial problem after another, family problems passed down from generation to generation.
For the Christian, there is always hope. Jesus came to reverse every curse and give us power to conquer anything that might hold us down. God specializes in making the impossible possible.
In 2 Kings 5:1-19 is the story of Naaman, a valiant warrior who led his country to victory. Cursed with leprosy, an incurable disease that left its victims sick and social isolated, Naaman sought help from the prophet, Elisha. After dipping seven times in the Jordan River at Elisha's command -- Naaman initially scoffed at - the Syrian warrior was healed. Naaman turned his heart to worship God of Israel, the reverser of the curse.
Like Naaman, commit to see your cleansing through. God will redeem what you thought was impossible to restore.
God bless
:angel:
January 16, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Voice of the Nature of God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' -Isaiah 6:8
When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God's voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person's opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
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When God Has Our Hearts
In Matthew 6:25-26, Jesus applies all we have covered over the last few days,
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Given the context of the preceding verses, Jesus is telling us that if God is first in our giving, then He indeed has our heart. If He has our hearts, He can guide us and meet our needs, and we have no need to worry about provision for our life.
He feeds the birds. He will take care of you. Do not worry. Obey Him, trust Him, and look to Him for your daily bread.
Matthew 6:33 says,
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
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Don't Set Yourself Up for Failure
Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-19 and Philippians 1:6
God can reverse every curse in your life - from the financial and physical to the generational and spiritual.The prophet Elisha would not accept payment from General Naaman for God's restoration of the warrior's health, but the prophet's servant Gehazi couldn't resist. He lied, took the payment and hid it. Elisha knew what Gehazi had done and rebuked him for jumping ahead of God's provision and blessing. Gehazi set himself up for failure, and his punishment was the curse of leprosy.
Seven years later because of God's divine arrangement, Gehazi was able to take and hide a load of riches from an abandoned Syrian camp. A changed man, Gehazi generously shared the loot with the children of Israel, and God restored his health and promoted him to the king's advisory board.
If you are wrestling with a curse, or have given in to its control, God wants to accomplish something in you greater than just getting rid of your problems.Put your trust in God and obey His Word, and you too, like Gehazi, can enjoy a comeback.
God bless
:angel:
January 17, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Call of the Natural Life
When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . -Galatians 1:15-16
The call of God is not a call to serve Him in any particular way. My contact with the nature of God will shape my understanding of His call and will help me realize what I truly desire to do for Him. The call of God is an expression of His nature; the service which results in my life is suited to me and is an expression of my nature. The call of the natural life was stated by the apostle Paul- "When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him [that is, purely and solemnly express Him] among the Gentiles . . . ."
Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God. Service becomes a natural part of my life. God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand His call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation of absolute love. Service to God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is an expression of my nature, and God's call is an expression of His nature. Therefore, when I receive His nature and hear His call, His divine voice resounds throughout His nature and mine and the two become one in service. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life.
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Go Fish
Over the next seven devotionals, I want to talk to you about the number one business of the Church: the business of winning souls. It is what I call "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning."
The first "C"-commission-is found in Mark 16:15. These are some of the last words Jesus spoke before He ascended into heaven,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Could it be any clearer? Jesus said, "Go." Dare we say, "No"? He said, "Go."
That is the opposite of "stay," isn't it? G G-O.
God wants you and me to take the Gospel to Others.
You and I need to get out into the world! Jesus was not crucified between two candles on a church altar. He was crucified out in the byways and highways of humanity, and that is where we must take the message.
Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." That is a promise. But you know what? You have to get to the water if you are going to catch fish. You have to get out of the four church walls, out to where hurting humanity is, and engage them with the gospel.
A while back, I went backpacking with my two sons in a very remote area. We found a pristine lake where just about every time we would put a line in the water, we would catch a fish.
We also had this incredible camp. But you know what? If we wanted to catch fish, we had to go down to the water. No one could catch a fish sitting in camp.
A lot of Christians just hang around the camp. They form fishing clubs and talk about how important it is to fish. But they don't fish.
God wants us to go fish!
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Don't Settle for Less
Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:21; Luke 17:19; John 10:10
In my teaching series, Reversing the Curses in Your Life, I go great deal into the reversal of fortune that Elisha's servant Gehazi experienced (Read 2 Kings 7:3-16; 8:4).
His story is an important one for all of us. His life after the curse was far better than it was before. No curse is irreversible . . . whether you inherited it or brought it on yourself, you don't have to settle for it.
When God committed to being our Father, He committed to maturing us completely. It may take trials, suffering, loss, even curses to conform us to Jesus' image, but God will settle for nothing less in our lives.
Here's a bit of advice when you need reverse of the curse: Keep the right perspective. Submit to God's plan. Humble yourself. Commit to do whatever God requires. Trust in the power of God. Have faith. Believe in Jesus' promises. Praise God for what He is able to do.
Pass your test. Don't settle for less.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It Is the Lord!"
Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' -John 20:28
Jesus said to her, 'Give Me a drink' " (John 4:7). How many of us are expecting Jesus Christ to quench our thirst when we should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). That means lives of pure, uncompromising, and unrestrained devotion to the Lord Jesus, which will be satisfying to Him wherever He may send us.
Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?
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Compassion for the Lost
Yesterday we started a series of devotionals I am calling "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning." Today I want to point you to the second "C"-compassion. In Mark 16:16 Jesus said,
"He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Now, condemned is a pretty soft word in the English language. I actually like the King James Version, where it says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
Condemned or damned, it means eternally separated from God with no opportunity of rescue or retrieval. Forever lost. Think about it!
Do you recall the story Jesus told of the rich man who died? It ought to send a shudder through the heart of even the most brazen sinner.
Jesus tells us that the rich man died and was in torment, in flame. Jesus goes on to say that the rich man lifted up his eyes, and begged for mercy. But no mercy came, even as it says in Revelation 14:11, "The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever."
I know it is not a popular subject in the Church to talk about hell, but Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven. It is a very real place. If we would consider just for a moment the end of the man or woman who rejects Christ, it ought to cause our hearts to be stirred with compassion.
When was the last time you and I shed a tear over lost humanity? When was the last time you and I were truly broken with the things that break the heart of God?
Our compassion for the lost ought to move us to do all we can to share Christ with them!
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Why We Need Revival
Scripture Readings: Psalm 85:1-13
David cries out in Psalm 85:6, "Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in You?" and as Christians we must echo that petition. How do we know if we need a revival? Historically, revivals are preceded by spiritual decline, such as divisiveness, anger, continuous crises, addictions and service without passion. Simply put, the need for revival is a result of sin in our lives.
Revival is the restoration of the spiritual life of God's people and a return to the abundant life God intended for His followers. When God revives us, we can expect real change!
If you have experienced a crisis in your life lately, examine whether God has a purpose behind it. Perhaps God has taken steps to get your attention, and the next step is yours.
First, you must identify the change that needs to take place in your own life for true revival. I encourage you to spend time asking God to let you see yourself from His perspective. Let Him tell you what needs to change!
God bless
:angel:
January 19, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vision and Darkness
When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him -Genesis 15:12
Whenever God gives a vision to a Christian, it is as if He puts him in "the shadow of His hand" (Isaiah 49:2). The saint's duty is to be still and listen. There is a "darkness" that comes from too much light-that is the time to listen. The story of Abram and Hagar in Genesis 16 is an excellent example of listening to so-called good advice during a time of darkness, rather than waiting for God to send the light. When God gives you a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will bring the vision He has given you to reality in your life if you will wait on His timing. Never try to help God fulfill His word. Abram went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all of his self-sufficiency was destroyed. He grew past the point of relying on his own common sense. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not a period of God's displeasure. There is never any need to pretend that your life is filled with joy and confidence; just wait upon God and be grounded in Him (see Isaiah 50:10-11).
Do I trust at all in the flesh? Or have I learned to go beyond all confidence in myself and other people of God? Do I trust in books and prayers or other joys in my life? Or have I placed my confidence in God Himself, not in His blessings? "I am Almighty God . . ."- El-Shaddai, the All-Powerful God (Genesis 17:1). The reason we are all being disciplined is that we will know God is real. As soon as God becomes real to us, people pale by comparison, becoming shadows of reality. Nothing that other saints do or say can ever upset the one who is built on God.
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Common Ground
The next "C" of "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning" is common ground. We need to endeavor to find common ground with people. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-24, Paul says,
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
In this passage, Paul is talking about the way he ran-the method he used-to reach people for Christ. Verse 22 in The Living Bible puts it this way, Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone so that I might bring them to Christ.
Paul didn't run aimlessly. And like Paul, you have to find a point to relate to people so that you can build a bridge over which the gospel can come.
I encourage you today to find a common area of interest, a common ground, to relate to people in order to share Christ with them.
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Requirements for True Revival
Scripture Readings: 2 Chronicles 6:34-42
When God's people are disobedient, we suffer His wrath because we have rejected His way. God desires a restored relationship with His people, but we, as believers, still have a responsibility in our own revival. That responsibility, outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14, calls for specific action:"If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray . . . " With these words, God reveals that revival is primarily focused on His people.
When believers come to God on His terms with humble hearts, we give God permission to take action. When we open the door for revival through prayer, God works on our sins and addresses how they affect our lives.
". . . and seek my face . . . " Seeking His face means seeking His presence, submitting to His authority, and approaching God on His terms.
". . . and turn from their wicked ways . . . " With these words, God is calling for spiritual and physical action as prerequisites to His intervention. We must rid ourselves of excuses and crutches, which are often disguised as addictions and issues.
Only when we seek God's will with humility, prayer and obedience will true revival occur.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Fresh for Everything?
Jesus answered and said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' -John 3:3
Sometimes we are fresh and eager to attend a prayer meeting, but do we feel that same freshness for such mundane tasks as polishing shoes?
Being born again by the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, and as surprising as God Himself. We don't know where it begins- it is hidden away in the depths of our soul. Being born again from above is an enduring, perpetual, and eternal beginning. It provides a freshness all the time in thinking, talking, and living- a continual surprise of the life of God. Staleness is an indication that something in our lives is out of step with God. We say to ourselves, "I have to do this thing or it will never get done." That is the first sign of staleness. Do we feel fresh this very moment or are we stale, frantically searching our minds for something to do? Freshness is not the result of obedience; it comes from the Holy Spirit. Obedience keeps us "in the light as He is in the light . . ." (1 John 1:7).
Jealously guard your relationship with God. Jesus prayed "that they may be one just as We are one"-with nothing in between (John 17:22). Keep your whole life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don't pretend to be open with Him. Are you drawing your life from any source other than God Himself? If you are depending on something else as your source of freshness and strength, you will not realize when His power is gone.
Being born of the Spirit means much more than we usually think. It gives us new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything through the never-ending supply of the life of God.
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Character Counts
So far we have learned about the first three "Cs" of soul winning in the last few devotionals. Today let me share the fourth "C"-character. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, particularly verse 27, tells us the importance of character in witnessing to others,
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
Paul said he was temperate in all things, that he disciplined his body. He would bring it into subjection, meaning he had problems keeping his body in subjection, just like you and I do.
Every one of us has a propensity toward certain sins. It is important, though, that we rein in our flesh and that we are temperate in all things because our lifestyle affects our message.
Take just a moment and do the following exercise. Imagine you are an employer. If you wanted to hire an efficient, competent, trustworthy employee, would you hire yourself at your present salary?
Or let's say that you were going to have to spend the rest of your life with someone just like you. Would you look forward to it as a great opportunity and privilege? Or not?
If your character is out of whack, people are going to have a hard time hearing what you have to say. Character counts!
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Revival in the Valley of Dry Bones
Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-10
Spiritual collapse places us in the "Valley of Dry Bones," a situation in which we experience hopelessness and helplessness. God, however, has provided a way out.
We must be willing to listen to the Word of God. When in a "dry place," a place of no hope and no apparent answer to life's dilemmas, we must accept God's Word that begins the process of deliverance from disorder.
We must be willing to respond in obedience to the Word of God. It is our willingness to act on what is spoken by God that continues this deliverance from our "dry bones" state of existence.
We must be sensitive to the movement of God's Spirit. God's Word gives us order, but the Spirit gives life. The Holy Spirit provides the power to bring the truth of God's Word to fruition.
When we hear of despairing situations in our nation, state, city and personal lives, are we listening to the prophetic Word of God, or do we have our own agendas?
Once we connect the Word of Truth with God's Spirit, we can be delivered out of our hopeless situation and experience revival.
God bless
:angel:
January 23, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Transformed by Beholding
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image . . . -2 Corinthians 3:18
The greatest characteristic a Christian can exhibit is this completely unveiled openness before God, which allows that person's life to become a mirror for others. When the Spirit fills us, we are transformed, and by beholding God we become mirrors. You can always tell when someone has been beholding the glory of the Lord, because your inner spirit senses that he mirrors the Lord's own character. Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you. It is almost always something good that will stain it- something good, but not what is best.
The most important rule for us is to concentrate on keeping our lives open to God. Let everything else including work, clothes, and food be set aside. The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God. We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through. Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticize us as they will; but never allow anything to obscure the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him. This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it. The most difficult lesson of the Christian life is learning how to continue "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord . . . ."
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Wise Counsel
It's important we learn to share the Word with people. Our testimony is powerful and should be shared. But even though that may move people and influence people, folks need to know they are anchoring their trust in the promises of God. Not just in a feeling they have gotten, not just because they feel influenced and moved-even if that is by the Holy Spirit.
Why? Because feelings change. Our feelings can go up and down like a rollercoaster. You may be feeling God today, and tomorrow feel like He is nowhere around. Ever felt that way?
I have had days when I have woken up and not felt God at all, even though I had experienced a good time with Him the night before. In those times, if I would have gone by my feelings, I would have said, "God, You have deserted me this morning."
But I know He hasn't because God's Word makes it clear that He never leaves us nor forsakes us. When a person is saved, they need to be anchoring their faith on the promises of God, not on their feelings.
Promises like Romans 10:9-10,
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
So when we witness to people, we need to give them the counsel, the promises of the Word of God.
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Do You Know That You ARE an Overcomer?
Scripture Readings: Ephesians 6:10-18
When Paul established the church at Ephesus, he wanted the believers to understand they had the power to withstand the attacks of the enemy, Satan. He wanted them to know that they could stand firm in their faith and refuse to yield to sin and thoughts of defeat. They had been given spiritual weapons more powerful and effective than the enemy's.
But first they needed to understand they were not strong enough on their own to resist Satan's temptations and tactics. God's power and strength empowered them to rebuke the wiles of the devil. Paul explained to the Ephesians that they needed use weapons of spiritual warfare on a daily basis. Yes, God protected them and protects us, but every believer must daily put on the full armor of God.
Paul further explained the importance of truly committing our lives to Jesus Christ. One day, our hour of sinful behavior is a sure setup for discouragement and defeat at hands of the enemy. The power that is alive within you and me is OVERCOMING power.
God bless
:angel:
January 24, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Overpowering Purpose
I have appeared to you for this purpose . . .-Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, "Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine." And the Lord also says to us, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . ." (John 15:16).
When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be "disobedient to the heavenly vision"-not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling ". . . to make you a minister and a witness . . . ." There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ's. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
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The Coming Reward
Today brings an end to our consideration of "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning." The final "C" is the coming reward. Let me quote to you from Daniel 12:3, which says,
"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever."
There is a coming reward for those who turn people to righteousness.
The dearest thing to God's heart is winning humanity and bringing them into His family. Nothing is more important to God. He bankrupted heaven and gave His only begotten Son to save humanity.
The Bible teaches us that there will be a reward, my friend: authority in heaven, a place in heaven, honor in heaven.
In addition to that, I want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Someday there is going to be a joy and a fullness in heaven, but there are some who will not experience that level of joy.
The story is told that Cyrus, the king of Persia who had defeated Babylon and set the captive Jews at liberty, was walking through his garden one day with a visitor. The visitor was looking at all of the beautiful trees and shrubs and exclaimed how much pleasure the garden was giving him.
Cyrus said, "Not nearly the pleasure it gives to me for, you see, I have planted every one of these trees myself."
I think there is going to be something about being in heaven and seeing your fingerprints on people who are there because you shared, because you gave, and because you prayed. I believe there is going to be a greater joy for some because they did more for heaven while on earth than others.
There is a coming reward!
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A Purposeless Life
In His Presence: God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:27-28).
We exist for God; He does not exist for us. God loves doing things for His people, but the reason we get up in the morning is to fulfill His purpose for our lives, not merely to ask Him to bless our purpose for our lives. God does not want to be our vending machine, where we put in a coin and He dispenses what we demand. Until we understand that we exist for Him, we will never know our purpose for being.
Purposelessness is everywhere. I would compare a purposeless existence with the life of a dog. Dogs bark a lot, and most of the time they are just making noise and not really telling you anything important. Purposeless people talk a lot just because they want to be heard.
Dogs also like to run in circles. They move, but they're not really going anywhere. When they finish running in circles, they are right back where they started. Purposeless people live like this, running around trying to find fulfillment in activities, only to find themselves not really moving toward anything.
Dogs also function on the level of the external. They like to be petted and rubbed, feeling good for the moment on the outside, but no real impact is felt on the inside. Purposeless people "put on the dog" by getting dressed up to look good and make themselves feel better. If this describes your purposeless wanderings, God's design and desire is to release you from that, but it must be on His terms.
One Minute Please
God has a plan for our lives that will bring Him glory and bring us the greatest good.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Leave Room For God
But when it pleased God. . . - Galatians 1:15
As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God - to give God "elbow room." We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never looked for Him to come? Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him. That is the way to make room for Him. Expect Him to come, but do not expect Him only in a certain way. However much we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute He may break in. We are apt to over look this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. All of a sudden God meets the life - "When it was the good pleasure of God. . ."
Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes.
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Worry About Work
In 2 Corinthians 11:28, the apostle Paul says something very interesting,
Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
You may be wondering, "Bayless, what does this have to do with my life?" Let me show you.
The phrase "deep concern" literally means anxiety and worry. And that phrase "to come upon"in the original language literally means "it conspires against me in order to overthrow me."
The apostle Paul's job was to oversee the churches that God had used him to establish, and in this verse he is confessing, "I daily have to battle with worry over these churches. How are they doing? Are they being misled by false prophets? Are they staying true to good doctrine?"
He was dealing with worry about those churches. Every day he grappled with that worry, and he had to throw it down.
It is easy for all of us to worry about our job. Some people, even though they are at home, never leave their job. They carry the burden around with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
They are always worrying about the job, even when they are home with their family. "How are things going at work? I wonder what they're saying. I wonder about the competition. What about sales? What about my job security? What's going to happen tomorrow?"
Consequently, when they get home from work, they are carrying this burden of work around with them, and they are robbing their family. Their own spiritual life is robbed, many times almost to the point of bankruptcy.
Do not let your family be robbed. Do not let your own personal and spiritual life be robbed because you carry the care of your job around with you. Instead, give it to God.
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No Mistakes
In His Presence: I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well (Psalm 139:14).
The God who created you for Himself has never made any mistakes. There have been no failures or flaws in His plan and program for you. Genesis 1:1 says: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Since this is true, there can be no such thing as an accident. In this first verse of the Bible, the theory of naturalism is proven incorrect. Naturalism states that the supernatural does not exist, and that by chance, the world and its inhabitants evolved into what they are today.
There is no room for chance if you believe God is Creator and Sustainer. People who believe the world came about by chance are simply saying that nobody and nothing existed, and yet somehow that produced everything! It's important that we see the flaws in this worldview because many of us live by a philosophy of luck or chance, when actually God sovereignly allows things to happen in our lives for His purpose. And when we don't connect with His purpose, the components of our lives have no meaning.
How does this all relate to the topic of living a purposeful life? If we know that God purposefully created and sustains us, we know we are not a mistake. We are not the coming together of random forces in the universe; rather we are the direct result of God's power and work.
Psalm 139:1, 13 says: "O Lord, You have searched me and known me . . . .You formed my inward parts." God formed you and determined your existence.
One Minute Please
The God of the Bible is perfect and makes no mistakes. He made you; therefore, you can't be a mistake!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Look Again And Consecrate
If God so clothe the grass of the field . . . shall He not much more clothe you? - Matthew 6:30
A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us if we are not simple. How are we going to be simple with the simplicity of Jesus? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, obeying Him as He brings the word of God, and life will become amazingly simple. "Consider," says Jesus, "how much more your Father Who clothes the grass of the field will clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him." Every time we have gone back in spiritual communion it has been because we have impertinently known better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed the cares of the world to come in, and have forgotten the "much more" of our Heavenly Father.
"Behold the fowls of the air" - their main aim is to obey the principle of life that is in them and God looks after them. Jesus says that if you are rightly related to Him and obey His Spirit that is in you, God will look after your 'feathers.'
"Consider the lilies of the field" - they grow where they are put. Many of us refuse to grow where we are put, consequently we take root nowhere. Jesus says that if we obey the life God has given us, He will look after all the other things. Has Jesus Christ told us a lie? If we are not experiencing the "much more," it is because we are not obeying the life God has given us, we are taken up with confusing considerations. How much time have we taken up worrying God with questions when we should have been absolutely free to concentrate on His work? Consecration means the continual separating of myself to one particular thing. We cannot consecrate once and for all. Am I continually separating myself to consider God every day of my life?
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An Original
1 Samuel 15:19 and 24 provide us with real insight into an area of anxiety for many people. One that may control your life today.
This is Samuel talking to Saul,
"Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"
Saul gives his answer in verse 24,
Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice."
Hmmm! "I feared the people and obeyed their voice." Saul confessed that he was worried about what other people thought of him and what other people would say about him. As a result, he made a horrible decision that was counter to what God wanted.
Too many people, even good Christians, are eaten up with worry over what other people think and say about them. Let me tell you, the worst place to have your peace is in somebody else's head. As Proverbs 29:25 says, The fear of man brings a snare.
Saul is a perfect example. He never fulfilled his destiny, he never fulfilled his purpose in life, because he was too worried about what people thought about him even though God chose him to be king.
Someone wisely said this:
"It is not what I think I am that molds me and drives me, and it is not what you think I am that molds me and drives me. It is what I think that you think I am that molds me and drives me."
Is that your concern today? If so, let me give you some advice: Be yourself. You were created by God as an original, and it would be a shame if you died a copy.
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Custom Made
In His Presence: The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does no dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things (Acts 17:24-25).
Psalm 139:15-16 says: "My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me." God has put all the parts of your life in order; He's got your whole life in His hands. This means you can stop trying to be somebody else and be satisfied with the unique person God made you to be. You are custom-made.
One of my shirts is custom-made, not off the rack like most shirts. It is made especially for me. And to make sure there is no question about it, my initials are embroidered on the cuff. When something is custom-made, it is fitted to your uniqueness. It was crafted with you in mind. Every man or woman reading this today has been custom-made by almighty God. Your days were ordained before any of them even came into being. Why is there chaos and calamity in the world today? Because we have a generation of people who want to live life their way and want God to adjust to their desires. But there is going to be discontinuity between you and God and a lack of purpose in your life unless you exist for Him.
God made the world and all things in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and He doesn't need us. But He wants our service and He deserves it.
One Minute Please
God gives life and breath to all things at their appointed times. He has the world under control.
God bless
:angel:
January 27, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Look Again And Think
Take no thought for your life. - Matthew 6:25
A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood.
"Take no thought for your life." "Be careful about one thing only," says our Lord - "your relationship to Me." Common sense shouts loud and says - "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying - Now what are you going to do next month - this summer? "Be anxious for nothing," Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father.
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The Power of a Word
Proverbs 12:18 gives us some valuable advice,
There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health.
Did you ever know someone who is good at making cutting remarks? They spoke like the piercings of a sword?
Over twenty years ago I was at the house of some friends. We were all just kind of hanging out and I made a comment to one of the brothers in the family. It was a clever little comment and was basically meant to take a jab at him.
A couple of the family members heard it and snickered and said, "Oh, way to go, Bayless! You got him!" But as soon as I said it, his countenance fell, and my heart just sank. While I looked for an opportunity to apologize to him that night, I didn't do it because he ended up leaving early.
I've regretted that comment ever since. I repented, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed me from that sin. But you know what? Those words were out, and I couldn't get them back.
Shortly after that night, he went feet first into a very destructive lifestyle involving his sexuality. I have to think that quite possibly my words pushed him away from God. It may have been that little jab of the sword that pushed him off the edge.
The New Testament says in Ephesians 4:29, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but only that which is good for edification or for building up that it may minister grace to the hearers.
Are your words ministering grace to those who hear them? Are they building up? Or are they tearing down?
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The Right Purpose
In His Presence: None of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions (Luke 14:33).
Are you living for the right purpose? If you experience an emptiness that never goes away, or an aimless meandering that dominates your life, these are indicators that you are not on task in pursuing God's purpose for your life. What is getting in the way of pursuing God's purpose for you? Satan fakes us out with the wrong purpose, distracting from the real purpose by influencing us to chase meaningless pursuits.
The apostle Paul said: "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12). God saved Paul for a reason, and Paul's goal is to live out that reason. This is true of all believers-we are saved for a reason. Satan doesn't want you to know that, so he uses distractions to keep us focused on our own pursuits.
What are the main distractions that keep us from realizing and experiencing God's purpose for our lives? One distraction is materialism, or being consumed by our possessions. Jesus made very clear that if we are to follow Him, we must give up our possessions. We can have a house, a car, or whatever, but we shouldn't make things of the physical world more important than things of the spiritual world. We shouldn't let the gifts of God become more important than the God who gave the gifts.
One Minute Please
King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, had more money than he could ever spend, but in the book of Ecclesiastes, he said the pursuit of money is empty.
God bless
:angel:
The Dilemma Of Obedience
And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision. - 1 Samuel 3:15
God never speaks to us in startling ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, "I wonder if that is God's voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spake to him "with a strong hand," that is, by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence?
Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord," and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say, "Speak, Lord"; make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, "Speak, Lord." Recall the time when God did speak to you. Have you forgotten what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it 1 Thess. 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and, like Jesus, we shall hear God all the time.
Shall I tell my "Eli" what God has shown to me? That is where the dilemma of obedience comes in. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences - I must shield "Eli," the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli; he had to decide that for himself. God's call to you may hurt your "Eli;" but if you try to prevent the suffering in another life, it will prove an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own peril that you prevent the cutting off of the right hand or the plucking out of the eye.
Never ask the advice of another about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will nearly always side with Satan. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."
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Guarding Your Ways
In Psalm 39:1, we are given an important warning,
I said, "I will guard my ways, Lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, While the wicked are before me."
The Hebrew word translated "ways" in this passage literally means a well-trodden path. It paints the picture of a pathway that has been walked down so many times that a groove has been worn in that path.
The psalmist is drawing our attention to something that has been repeated again and again, a response that has been so often repeated that it has become engrained in our behavior-a habit.
You have probably heard the saying, "He's set in his ways," meaning it is not likely you are going to change the way a person acts in certain instances. The "ways" are habits, attitudes, and responses that aren't likely to change without a very powerful motivation or without some sort of an encounter with God.
I think virtually every habit we have initially began with a thought. Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an action; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny. It all goes back to a thought that perhaps should have been dealt with, but wasn't.
Take some time today to consider your thoughts. Are you giving way to thoughts that will lead to ungodly habits? If so, give those thoughts to God and ask Him to help you think the thoughts that will lead to godly habits.
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Distracted from God's Purpose
In His Presence: Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ (Philippians 3:7).
Another distraction is position-everybody wants to be somebody. When you accepted Christ you became somebody, but if you are seeking position independently of God's purpose, you have been duped by the deceiver. Your name may be up in lights today, but years from now people won't remember your name. Remember the apostle Paul was quite a man in his day and age, but he said that his claim to fame was only that he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
People also become distracted from their purpose when they spend their lives living for other people. People are very important to God; we are to serve, love, and minister to people. But pleasing God is more important than pleasing men. God wants us to live for Him and His glory, and to do that we must sometimes go against what other people want. When it comes to fulfilling our calling, what matters is what God wants us to do.
Another distraction from moving forward in God's purpose is dealing with the past. Paul said: "I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I d forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). We all have regrets, but Paul said we are not to allow our yesterdays to determine our tomorrows. Instead of living with a rear-view mirror mentality, we should focus on the windshield and the big picture that is in front of us.
One Minute Please
Don't let yesterday mess up today, which will ruin tomorrow.
God bless
:angel:
January 31, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You See Your Calling?
Separated unto the Gospel. - Romans 1:1
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God. The one thing that is all important is that the Gospel of God should be realized as the abiding Reality. Reality is not human goodness, nor holiness, nor heaven, nor hell; but Redemption; and the need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker to-day. As workers we have to get used to the revelation that Redemption is the only Reality. Personal holiness is an effect, not a cause, and if we place our faith in human goodness, in the effect of Redemption, we shall go under when the test comes.
Paul did not say he separated himself, but - "when it pleased God who separated me. . ." Paul had not a hypersensitive interest in his own character. As long as our eyes are upon our own personal whiteness we shall never get near the reality of Redemption. Workers break down because their desire is for their own whiteness, and not for God. "Don't ask me to come into contact with the rugged reality of Redemption on behalf of the filth of human life as it is; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes." To talk in that way is a sign that the reality of the Gospel of God has not begun to touch me; there is no reckless abandon to God. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul is unconscious of himself, he is recklessly abandoned, separated by God for one purpose - to proclaim the Gospel of God (cf. Rom. 9:3.)
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Uniquely You
Each of us possesses strengths which God has given us. Psalm 18:32 says,
It is God who arms me with strength.
And in Philippians 4:13,
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And King David said this in 1 Chronicles 29:12,
...in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
God gives us all strength, yet I believe there are specific things He gives each of us that make you and me strong individually. The book of Psalms says in 33:14-15, From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually. In the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 12:27 it says, Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
We are collectively the body of Christ, but God has wired us each differently. God has formed our hearts individually. He has put certain deposits in one person that may not be in another person. He has given one person a certain kind of strength that may not be another person's strength.
Here is what I am getting at. I believe there is something uniquely you that gives you strength and character and presence, something that makes you a person to be reckoned with, something that God has put in you. It is a foundation, a seat of strength that He wants to move through in order to influence and to bless others.
Rather than coveting someone else's unique giftings and strength, discover and develop your own. Remember, God individually fashioned you. There is something wonderfully unique about you, through which God wants to bring blessing to others.
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The Only Worthwhile Purpose
In His Presence: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10).
Have you been duped when it comes to purpose? The only purpose worth living for is God's purpose. Paul said: "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). If you live with this goal in mind, God will change the way you live. You will stop just being alive and you will start to really live. You will live the abundant life through God's grace because you aren't just living for yourself anymore. You are not here for you, but for God.
You will have stability. You can get off the roller coaster of emotions that comes when you live according to your circumstances. Even when things are bad, you are good because God is good. When Jesus was asleep on the boat in the middle of the storm, His disciples asked, "How can He sleep at a time like this?" Jesus could sleep peacefully because He knew where He was going-He was going to the other side. One of the great blessings of living in purpose is that you can rest. You can rest because you know all things will be used for God's purpose, and you can rest because you know you are going toward God.
You will be provided for. God always supplies that which He has ordained. If you are outside of His purpose, you have to take care of yourself. But if you are walking in His purpose, He will meet all your needs.
One Minute Please
Following God's purpose may not change your place in life, but it will change the way you live your life.
God bless
:angel:
February 1, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Call Of God
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. - 1 Corinthians 1:17
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel; but remember what Paul means by "the gospel," viz., the reality of Redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are apt to make sanctification the end-all of our preaching. Paul alludes to personal experience by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are nowhere commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification; we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (John 12:32). It is a travesty to say that Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to redeem the whole world, and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God. The fact that Redemption can be experienced by us is an illustration of the power of the reality of Redemption, but that is not the end of Redemption. If God were human, how sick to the heart and weary He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation, for our sanctification. We tax His energies from morning till night for things for ourselves - some thing for me to be delivered from! When we touch the bedrock of the reality of the Gospel of God, we shall never bother God any further with little personal plaints.
The one passion of Paul's life was to proclaim the Gospel of God. He welcomed heart-breaks, disillusionments, tribulation, for one reason only, because these things kept him in unmoved devotion to the Gospel of God.
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Promises, Promises
God has given us His promises because He wants to fulfill them. Be they promises of peace, restoration, healing, or for material supply, we must keep in mind that the Lord would not have made the promise if He did not want to do it.
Here are four thoughts to help you when it comes to experiencing the benefit of God's promises:
1. Find a promise from the Bible that covers your need. Faith begins here.
2. Consider the promises.
Hebrews 10:23 says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
And Hebrews 11:11 says, By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
3. Act on the promise, fulfilling all necessary conditions. God is not a respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of conditions.
4. Start thanking God and exercising patience.
Hebrews 10:36 says, For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
And Hebrews 6:12 says, That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
If you will do these four things, you are on your way to experiencing the fulfillment of God's promises in your life.
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The Benefits of Purpose
In His Presence: Teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).
When you are living out God's purpose for your life, your attitude towards time will change. You will find that you no longer waste time. We are only given so much time on earth; the average lifespan today is 75 years. We are all running out of time. But if you are operating in your purpose, you are utilizing your time rather than just going through the motions. Your purpose clarifies your use of time. Ephesians 5:16 says: "[Make] the most of time, because the days are evil." We are to redeem, or buy back, our time. We can't reverse the clock, but we can purchase time back. How do we do this? You can change the speed in which you are operating; you can pick up the pace to buy up the time you lost.
When you live out your purpose, you will live with passion. One of the ways you can recognize your purpose is that it will enflame you, ignite you, and stir up your heart. God's purpose for you isn't some dull, empty thing that makes you dread getting up every morning. It is a fire within the soul.
When you are living out your purpose, you will live with direction. Paul said: "I box in such a way, as not beating the air" (1 Corinthians 9:26). In other words, he's not punching at nothing; his efforts are not just for show or out of obligation. Rather, he has direction, clarity, and focus that allow him to strike the target.
One Minute Please
Are you ready to kick your purposeful living into second gear to make up for lost time?
God bless
:angel:
February 2, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Force of the Call
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! -1 Corinthians 9:16
Beware of refusing to hear the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact of his salvation. That, however, is not the same as the call to preach, but is merely an illustration which can be used in preaching. In this verse, Paul was referring to the stinging pains produced in him by the compelling force of the call to preach the gospel. Never try to apply what Paul said regarding the call to preach to those souls who are being called to God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved, because it is solely God's sovereign work- "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." (Isaiah 45:22). Our Lord never requires the same conditions for discipleship that he requires for salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ. But discipleship has an option with it-"If anyone . . ." (Luke 14:26).
Paul's words have to do with our being made servants of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be "separated to the gospel" means being able to hear the call of God (Romans 1:1). Once someone begins to hear that call, a suffering worthy of the name of Christ is produced. Suddenly, every ambition, every desire of life, and every outlook is completely blotted out and extinguished. Only one thing remains- ". . . separated to the gospel. . . ." Woe be to the soul who tries to head in any other direction once that call has come to him. The Bible Training College exists so that each of you may know whether or not God has a man or woman here who truly cares about proclaiming His gospel and to see if God grips you for this purpose. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.
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Builder and Protector
Psalm 127:1-2 says,
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.
These verses have been favorites of mine for a long time.
If ever I am tempted to worry about the Church, I remember that it is His house and ultimately only He can build it. My efforts, by themselves, are in vain.
He is not only the builder of the Church, He is the protector of it as well. These truths take a lot of weight off of my shoulders and help me sleep well at night. And I believe that is the way God wants it.
Too many of God's children sit up late, worrying and eating the bread of sorrows. Whether you are a pastor or a business owner or a stay-at-home mom, learn the secret of casting your cares on God.
He is the builder and protector of your life, and He knows the battles you face. Trust Him today and sleep well tonight!
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Created for Eternity
In His Presence: He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
God created you for Himself, and He created you for eternity. You weren't created simply for time. God has placed eternity in our hearts, and there is something about us that wants to live forever. Second Corinthians 5:1-4 says: "If the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, . . . we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life." Our bodies are groaning and aching because we are looking for the eternal reality to take place.
If we have been made for eternity, yet we are limiting ourselves to thinking temporally, we are not fulfilling our potential. You see, 2 Corinthians 5:10 tells us that we must all appear before Christ's judgment seat, and this conveys that eternity exists on the other side of death. We will be held accountable; we must answer to God. This kind of thinking affects the way we live because if God is the center of our existence and eternity is our goal, this will change our choices, decisions, values, and priorities.
But many Christians have been deceived. We believe in eternity, but we're committed to time. We don't understand that what we do now should be affected by what is to come.
One Minute Please
God has given you a slice of time to prepare you for the reality of eternity.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Becoming the "Filth of the World"
We have been made as the filth of the world . . . -1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or "filth of the world." "Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." (Colossians 1:24) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration-being "separated to the gospel of God . . ." (Romans 1:1).
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you . . ." (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, "I won't submit; I won't bow or bend." And you don't have to- you can be saved by the "skin of your teeth" if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is "separated to the gospel . . . ." Or you can say, "I don't care if I am treated like 'the filth of the world' as long as the gospel is proclaimed." A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but "to reveal His Son in me. . ." (Galatians 1:16).
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God Can Build The Family
Earlier we have looked at Psalm 127:1-2 which says,
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.
The Hebrew word for house in verse one can actually be translated family. That is one reason why the next few verses (3-5) read like this,
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
If you have sat up late, worrying about your children or your family, you need to know that God can turn things around.
Trust Him to build and protect your family. Do your part, but look to Him for guidance and strength. And trust Him to do what you cannot do.
He can cause your "arrows" to be effective against the enemy instead of wounding your own heart.
May you be happy with your quiver of "arrows," and may God be glorified in your family.
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Living in Light of Eternity
In His Presence: It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart (Ecclesiastes 7:2).
Eternity is a long period of time! It's hard to grasp that eternity is never-ending. But let me give you a little illustration to help you understand. Imagine that we could empty the largest body of water in the world, the Pacific Ocean, and fill it up with sand as tall as the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Now imagine that a bird flies by and takes one grain of sand off that sand pile once every 100 billion years. How long will it take for that sand pile to disappear? We can consider that amount of time to be equal to one second in eternity.
We weren't just created for sixty or eighty years of life on earth. We were created for eternity. Every baby born on earth is headed toward its dying day; that's just reality. But we were made for more than that. We are meant to experience eternity in the fullness of life with the Father. Death is simply the doorway we must pass through to transfer into the realm of the eternal.
Paul understood this and said: "We also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body" (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). Paul said that because he was a creature of eternity, he would live his earthly life for God. He would live in time in a way that pleased God.
One Minute Please
If you're living in time and for time, you're wasting time.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering?
I am already being poured out as a drink offering . . . -2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don't deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
"Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar" (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents-burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose-the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don't eliminate it, God does. You "bind the sacrifice . . . to the horns of the altar" and see to it that you don't wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
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Robbing God-of What?
Malachi 3:8-9 gives us a sober warning,
"Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation."
Now if you think about this statement, you have to ask, "How do you rob God? I mean, really, what does that mean?"
There are two ways we rob God when we refuse to tithe:
1. We rob God of honor that is due Him. In Proverbs 3:9 it says to, Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase. By giving God the first part of our income, we are honoring Him as being first in our lives. We demonstrate faith in His promise to supply our needs as well-and God is honored by our faith.
2. We rob God of the opportunity to bless us. In Malachi 3:10, God promises to bless us if we bring Him the first tenth of our income (the tithe).
The promise in Proverbs is that our barns will be filled with plenty if we will honor the Lord with our firstfruits (Proverbs 3:9-10).
He can bless us. He desires to bless us. Let us not rob Him of the opportunity to do so, nor of the honor that is due Him.
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The Reality of Eternity
In His Presence: Abraham said, "Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony" (Luke 16:25).
At the end of time, we will all face the Lord and He will want to know how we used our time on earth to get ready for eternity. If we only live for earth, all we will receive is earth. But once we start living for heaven, earth is just a bonus to the eternal existence we will enjoy.
It is foolish to try to run from death. Instead, we must decide to be creatures of eternity. Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). If you are in Christ you have no reason to fear death because when you die, you will instantly be with God.
Since we were made for eternity, what are we doing in light of what we were made for? Paul set the example when he said: "Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2). Paul's mind was on heaven, but he was still functioning for the Lord here on earth. He was heavenly minded but still did earthly good. Because he lived in light of His eternal purpose, he made his life decisions in light of the reference point of eternity.
Everybody you know is headed toward eternity; nobody has any other choice. This life is not all there is, so we share Jesus Christ with our unsaved neighbors. We live for God's glory because this life is not all there is.
One Minute Please
"Lord, clarify our eternal perspective and help us to see Your purpose for our lives because we don't know when we will leave this world."
God bless
:angel:
February 7, 2011
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Dejection
We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened -Luke 24:21
Every fact that the disciples stated was right, but the conclusions they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that has even a hint of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If I am depressed or burdened, I am to blame, not God or anyone else. Dejection stems from one of two sources- I have either satisfied a lust or I have not had it satisfied. In either case, dejection is the result. Lust means "I must have it at once." Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Himself who gives the answer. What have I been hoping or trusting God would do? Is today "the third day" and He has still not done what I expected? Am I therefore justified in being dejected and in blaming God? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get ahold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected, because dejection is a sign of sickness. This is also true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.
We look for visions from heaven and for earth-shaking events to see God's power. Even the fact that we are dejected is proof that we do this. Yet we never realize that all the time God is at work in our everyday events and in the people around us. If we will only obey, and do the task that He has placed closest to us, we will see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes to us when we learn that it is in the everyday things of life that we realize the magnificent deity of Jesus Christ.
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What's Your Measure?
In Luke 6:38, Jesus said these words,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
That is a promise of Jesus that you can stake your life on. Give, and what happens? It will be given to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!
But notice that He also added this, "The same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." If you take a serving spoon, and that is what you measure out your giving with, you will get an overflowing serving spoon. It comes back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing from a serving spoon.
The measure you use is what is measured back to you. If you use a shovel, and that is what you measure it out with, that is how it comes back to you.
Wouldn't you rather have a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shovel as opposed to a serving spoon? The measure you use, Jesus said, that is what is used to measure back to you.
I believe many people are using a teaspoon and yet they are praying, "God bless me. I have big needs." I am sure God is saying, "I'm doing all I can. You know, I'm pressing it down as much as I can press it down. It is running over. But a running over teaspoon is just not that much."
Are you using a teaspoon or a shovel? Whatever you use is what comes back multiplied, but it is only according to the measure you use.
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Your Purpose and God's Glory
In His Presence: From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:36).
God is invisible, and the Bible says no man has seen God at any time. The word glory makes the invisible attributes of God visible to us. The air is thick with His presence. He is everywhere, but our eyes can't see Him. So He must make Himself visible, and that process is revealed to us as God's glory. The word glory comes from a root word meaning weighty or heavy. When God is called glorious, it is a reference to Him being the weightiest, heaviest, deepest being in the universe.
And God's glory is intrinsic. Whether you recognize it or not, He is glorious because that's just who He is. There are two created things that do not recognize God's glory: Satan and his angels, and mankind. Men tend to believe that life is all about them. But God speaks of "everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed" (Isaiah 43:7). God created us for His glory, not for our own.
Most of us are anthropomorphic, which means we are man-centered, rather than theocentric, which means God-centered. We tend to ask, "What's in it for me?" But that's God's question, not ours. God's glory is His own passion. He is seeking the highest glory for Himself, and rightly so because He is the greatest in every way. God's glory is the chief end of all things. You will know if someone has a heart for God based on whether or not they are seeking His glory.
One Minute Please
Your growth will always be demonstrated in an increased passion for His name, His glory, and His recognition.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God's point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God's purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." (John 17:19). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul's prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person's life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's work in us?
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Giving to Get?
Any time I give, I expect a blessing to return. It is a law that we find in Scripture. It is a promise of Jesus.
But you know what? That is not my main motivation for giving. And that should not be our heart for giving. Jesus says in Luke 6:32-38,
"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you."
What is the heart of this whole thing? Jesus said, "Don't love just to get love back; don't do good just so that good might be done back to you; don't lend just hoping to get something back."
He makes it clear that if you do those things for the right motivation, it will come back to you. Your reward will be great.
Do not give with the motivation of just getting something back. Non-Christians have that motivation! How does that set you apart from them? Give out of a higher motivation.
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All for God's Glory
In His Presence: Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity (2 Peter 3:18).
First Corinthians 10:31 tells us that even our eating and drinking should be done to the glory of God. God's glory is like a pair of colored glasses that tint everything you see. Whatever you do should be done for His glory. The question you must now ask about everything is, "How will this glorify God?"
God is intent on displaying who He is. Psalm 19:1 says: "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." The whole earth gives us a picture of the glory of the invisible God. Nature preaches us a sermon on His glory. Everything should point us to His glory, and if it doesn't, it's because we are too "me-centered" to look for His glory. And if we are centered on ourselves, we are in sin. Sin is simply falling short of glorifying God. Romans 3:23 says: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." You don't have to rob a bank to be a sinner. All you have to do is try to take the glory that belongs to Him alone. We are all cosmic thieves.
God's glory is everywhere. Revelation 21:23 says when we get to heaven there will be no need of the sun or moon because the glory of the Lord will illuminate everything. There will be no night there, for the place will be consumed with the glory of God. His glory is so awesome that it will light up our heavenly home.
One Minute Please
Our problem today is that we are not consumed with the glory of God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Exhausted Spiritually?
The everlasting God . . . fainteth not, neither is weary. - Isaiah 40:28
Exhaustion means that the vital forces are worn right out. Spiritual exhaustion never comes through sin but only through service, and whether or not you are exhausted will depend upon where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter - "Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing to feed them with. The process of being made broken bread and poured out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you to the dregs. Be careful that you get your supply, or before long you will be utterly exhausted. Before other souls learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus direct, they have to draw on it through you; you have to be literally "sucked," until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and His sheep as well as for Himself.
Has the way in which you have been serving God betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then rally your affections. Where did you start the service from? From your own sympathy or from the basis of the Redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually go back to the foundation of your affections and recollect where the source of power is. You have no right to say - "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you in order to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that your supply comes from Him. "All my fresh springs shall be in Thee."
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The Right Motivation
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how we should not give just to get. That should not be our sole motivation. So the question is, "What is the right motivation?"
All we need to do is look at what motivated God to give. It is found in John 3:16,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God so loved that He gave. And, yes, God certainly did reap a harvest when He gave His Son. He reaped a harvest of sons and daughters.
You should give out of love and devotion for God. Give because you do not want people to go into an eternity without God, because you love humanity, because you have mercy and compassion for broken, dying people.
That is the right motivation for giving. When you give with that motivation, your reward will be great. God will see that it comes back to you multiplied.
That is a far cry from what many emphasize when it comes to giving today. It appears to me that a lot of people, when they teach on giving, are just pushing people's greed buttons. It seems that the main motivation that some leaders are teaching for people to give is, "Hey, give because God will bless you." And there is no doubt that God blesses those who give. The scriptural promises are clear.
But what about the weightier matters? Remember how Jesus rebuked the Jewish leadership in Matthew 23:23 because they, "Neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith"?
God looks at the heart. Our hearts ought to be like that of our heavenly Father, who is merciful, kind, loving, and generous, even to the most thankless and evil among us. That is the right motivation.
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His Glory Won't Be Shared
In His Presence: We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).
God will share His glory with no man. If you are not passionately pursuing the glory of God, He is not hanging out with you because He won't share His glory. The reason He has saved you, the reason He elected you, the reason you are a child of God is to make you part of the community of people called the church, which exists for His glory alone.
We are dealing with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Creator of the universe, and we just give Him the leftovers in our lives. We are reluctant to adjust to what He wants. We won't redo our schedules or our plans because this is our life. But to ascribe glory to Him is to give Him recognition and authority in our lives. Jesus said in John 17:4: "I glorified You . . . having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do." Remember also that Jesus prayed before His death: "For this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name" (John 12:27-28). Christ died for the glory of God.
Can you say that in difficult times you will submit to the Lord's purpose and trust that He will be glorified? God uses all things for His glory. Once we look into the mirror of His glory, we will find that He can transform our hearts, and whatever He wants us to do, He takes responsibility for providing for it to be done.
One Minute Please
Whatever you do in word or deed, He wants you to wake up, and go to bed, with Him in mind. And if you do, He'll transform you.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is Your Ability to See God Blinded?
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things . . . -Isaiah 40:26
The people of God in Isaiah's time had blinded their minds' ability to see God by looking on the face of idols. But Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their power to think and to visualize correctly. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in nature and will realize that it is holy and sacred. We will see God reaching out to us in every wind that blows, every sunrise and sunset, every cloud in the sky, every flower that blooms, and every leaf that fades, if we will only begin to use our blinded thinking to visualize it.
The real test of spiritual focus is being able to bring your mind and thoughts under control. Is your mind focused on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Is it your work? Is it your idea of what a servant should be, or maybe your experience of salvation and sanctification? If so, then your ability to see God is blinded. You will be powerless when faced with difficulties and will be forced to endure in darkness. If your power to see has been blinded, don't look back on your own experiences, but look to God. It is God you need. Go beyond yourself and away from the faces of your idols and away from everything else that has been blinding your thinking. Wake up and accept the ridicule that Isaiah gave to his people, and deliberately turn your thoughts and your eyes to God.
One of the reasons for our sense of futility in prayer is that we have lost our power to visualize. We can no longer even imagine putting ourselves deliberately before God. It is actually more important to be broken bread and poured-out wine in the area of intercession than in our personal contact with others. The power of visualization is what God gives a saint so that he can go beyond himself and be firmly placed into relationships he never before experienced.
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Where's Your Heart?
I want to have you read and think about Mark 12:41-44 today,
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
That is quite a picture, isn't it? Jesus sitting opposite the treasury, watching what people put in and how they put it in. I believe Jesus still watches during offering time. He watches how we give, what we give, and why we give. He said, "Where your treasure is, that is where your heart is also."
Notice He calls His disciples over and says, "This poor widow has put in more than everyone else." Why? Because He wanted them to understand that God measures your gift based on what you have.
Some people could give $1,000, and there is really no sacrifice at all. It never touches their life, never causes any kind of change of priorities. While for other people, $10 or $15 is a great sacrifice.
I believe some of the rich people Jesus points to in this passage were giving out of their abundance, but from heaven's viewpoint, they were putting it in with a teaspoon. But this little widow, who put in less than a penny, walked up with a shovelful-everything she had. It got heaven's attention.
Where is your heart when it comes to giving?
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Stewardship and Ownership
In His Presence: God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth" (Genesis 1:26).
The subject of stewardship causes both confusion and consternation among Christians. The issue of money is really only a very small part of the stewardship. When rightly understood, stewardship can bring true joy to the life of a Christian, and it can transform the way we live. The word stewardship refers to an administration or an economy, a way of operating. We can also call it management.
Stewardship is not only misunderstood, it is also abused. In the name of stewardship, false doctrine has arisen and caused people to confine their perception of God to a box. A prosperity heresy has deceived people about what it means to be a good steward for the Lord.
The proper definition of stewardship is given by its author, God Himself. To understand stewardship, we must understand authorship. The Bible opens up with God creating, talking, and doing. He made the earth and mankind, and therefore He is the owner of all things. God created and then He gave responsibility to man to manage His creation. We don't own anything on earth; it's all God's property. The Bible is very clear about who owns the earth and who, we are serving. In Exodus 19:5, God says: "All the earth is Mine." In Psalm 89:11, the psalmist said to God: "The world and all it contains, You have founded them." We own nothing, and the ultimate proof for this is that when we leave the earth, we won't take anything with us. God is absolute owner because He is absolute sovereign and King of the universe.
One Minute Please
Everything you have can be traced back to God's absolute ownership.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Devotion Of Hearing
Speak; for Thy servant heareth. - 1 Samuel 3:10
Because I have listened definitely to one thing from God, it does not follow that I will listen to everything He says. The way in which I show God that I neither love nor respect Him is by the obtuseness of my heart and mind towards what He says. If I love my friend, I intuitively detect what he wants, and Jesus says, "Ye are My friends." Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord's this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not consciously have disobeyed it; but most of us show such disrespect to God that we do not even hear what He says, He might never have spoken.
The destiny of my spiritual life is such identification with Jesus Christ that I always hear God, and I know that God always hears me (John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God, by the devotion of hearing all the time. A lily, or a tree, or a servant of God, may convey God's message to me. What hinders me from hearing is that I am taken up with other things. It is not that I will not hear God, but I am not devoted in the right place. I am devoted to things, to service, to convictions, and God may say what He likes but I do not hear Him. The child attitude is always, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." If I have not cultivated this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God's voice at certain times; at other times I am taken up with things - things which I say I must do, and I become deaf to Him, I am not living the life of a child. Have I heard God's voice to-day?
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The Right Word at the Right Time
Proverbs 15:23 contains a powerful truth,
A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!
Notice that this verse talks about not just a word spoken, but a word spoken in due season-at the proper time. How good it is!
It is critical for words of encouragement, words of comfort, words of counsel, words of wisdom, and even words of correction to be spoken in due season. Timing is just as important as content.
I read once about a lady who invited family and friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. When they received the invitation, they let her know that they were going to come. In fact, they were looking forward to the day.
She really put on quite a spread. She baked pies and bread; she cooked a turkey with all of the trimmings-an incredible meal. When the time came for her guests to arrive, she lit candles and put the finishing touches on decorating the house.
The only problem was, no one showed up.
Then she remembered the calendar she had picked up from a local business. On that calendar it said that Thanksgiving was on the 21st rather than on the last Thursday of the month as it normally is every year. At the time she thought it was strange, but she figured that they must have moved the holiday.
She had prepared her sumptuous banquet a week early! The content was great but the timing was not so great.
So it is with our words. They can be just the right words, perfect for the need of the person, but if not delivered at the right time, they can fall short.
Be sensitive to pick the right time to speak as well as the right words to say.
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The Attitude of Stewardship
In His Presence: When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes (Deuteronomy 8:10-11).
Once you clarify who the author of all things is, it will clarify your attitude about stewardship. Genesis 1:28 defines our attitude when God said mankind should "subdue" and "rule over" the earth. The Hebrew words used here literally mean to trample underfoot and bring under control. God supplied it, and He put it under us to manage. We are to function as managers based on God's purpose for allowing us to have all that we have.
The attitude of the steward should reflect the belief that God put him where he is to rule what belongs to God. Man's stewardship is limited and delegated by God, and he must not forget the source of all he has. Job 23:13 tells us that God does what He pleases with what He owns.
The attitude of a steward should reflect thankfulness. One reason we go to church on Sunday is out of gratitude to God for sustaining us and keeping us through the week. We have many earthly blessings from the Lord, and we have eternal spiritual blessings as well. We should never cease to thank Him for all He has given and done for us. It is a privilege to manage His creation, and everything we have goes back to Him. The paper money in our wallets was made from trees He planted. The diamonds on our fingers came out of the earth that He created. It all points back to His provision, for which we should be thankful.
One Minute Please
You may think you don't have everything you want, but God expects you to be grateful for what you have.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops -Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."- pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood- darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart- a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
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A Word of Encouragement
I want you to look today at a passage of Scripture that helps guide us in what to say, who to say it to, and when and how to say it. Isaiah 50:4-5,
"The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away."
First, we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He will teach us how to speak a word in season to the person who is weary. As it says, He will awaken our ear.
Jesus made it very clear in Matthew, chapter 10 verses 19-20, that the Holy Spirit is quite able to give us the right words to say at the right time. In Isaiah 51:16, God says, "I have put My words in your mouth." In Isaiah 57:19, He says, "I create the fruit of the lips."
Chances are there is someone in your world today who needs to be given a word of encouragement. The key is being sensitive and available. Sometimes we are so embroiled in our own struggles that we don't even give a thought to the fact that there may be someone around us who needs encouragement...a coworker, a neighbor, your spouse, your child.
I personally think our children need to be given encouragement every day. Like the little boy said, "Daddy, let's play darts. I'll throw, and you say 'Wonderful!'" Children crave affirmation and encouragement.
There is someone who you either have contact with now, or you will have contact with, who needs encouragement. And you are God's messenger.
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The Authority of Stewardship
In His Presence: You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8:32).
How do you know if you are being a good steward? There is only one way to know-read God's Word. Deuteronomy 8:3 says: "Man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." We show our love for God by obeying Him, being a steward who manages things on His terms.
Human ownership must be governed by God. That's why when God made Adam, the first thing He did was give him instruction: "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). God gives instruction to protect us, and following His instruction provides His results.
When you first consider stewardship, you might think it has too many limitations. But let me assure you that the limitations of stewardship are always for the enjoyment of it. God doesn't give us commands to stifle our stewardship, but rather to expand it. We shouldn't think that God's ways are negative-we can't do this or that-because the negative exists to enhance the positive.
So many people think God's commands restrict their freedom. But freedom in the biblical sense never means just doing what you want. Freedom in the Bible is the power to do what you ought to do. How do we get that kind of freedom? Jesus told us the truth sets us free, and the absolute standard of truth is God's Word.
One Minute Please
The authority of stewardship is none other than the Word of God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I My Brother's Keeper?
None of us liveth to himself. - Romans 14:7.
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible for other souls spiritually before God? For instance, if I allow any private deflection from God in my life, everyone about me suffers. We "sit together in heavenly places." "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." When once you allow physical selfishness, mental slovenliness, moral obtuseness, spiritual density, everyone belonging to your crowd will suffer. "But," you say, "who is sufficient for these things if you erect a standard like that?" "Our sufficiency is of God," and of Him alone.
"Ye shall be My witnesses." How many of us are willing to spend every ounce of nervous energy, of mental, moral and spiritual energy we have for Jesus Christ? That is the meaning of a witness in God's sense of the word. It takes time, be patient with yourself. God has left us on the earth - what for? To be saved and sanctified? No, to be at it for Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured out wine for Him? To be spoilt for this age, for this life, to be spoilt from every standpoint but one - saving as I can disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life as a worker is the way I say "thank you" to God for His unspeakable salvation. Remember it is quite possible for any one of us to be flung out as reprobate silver - ". . . lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."
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For Just a Little While
Today's Scripture will start with the very last word of 1 Peter 1:4, just so you know who it is talking about, and go through verse 7,
...you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Notice in verse 6 it says, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. That phrase "a little while" literally means a season. The King James Version says, Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
I like the phrase "a little while". That tells me the season is going to end. It is not forever. Every season ends. Winter ends. Spring ends. Summer ends. Fall ends. Every season has a beginning, and every season has an end.
If you are in a trial right now and feeling the weight of it, you are grieved because of it, I have good news. It will not be forever. Things are going to change. It may not seem like it, but that season will come to an end.
Even if you are not experiencing a trial today, I am confident you have gone through such a season, and it is likely that you will probably experience such a season again.
When you do, or if you are today, be encouraged. God's Word wants you-and me-to remember it is for just a little while.
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The Adversary of Stewardship
In His Presence: Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
Satan came on the scene in Genesis 3 and questioned, "Has God said . . .?" Satan wanted to attack God's authority. He rebelled against God's ownership by refusing to be a steward of God's glory, and he was booted out of heaven because he wanted his own glory. He's been trying to get men and women to follow in his footsteps ever since. He told Adam and Eve to take the forbidden fruit for themselves, to set their own rules and stop being stewards of God.
Satan said: "God knows that in the day you eat from it . . . you will be like God" (v. 5). He was trying to convince Adam and Eve to take ownership of their surroundings, but as we see, whenever men fail to rule underneath God, abuse and lawlessness will result. The definition of sin is lawlessness in all respects of life (1 John 3:4).
Adam and Eve didn't want to be restricted from the one forbidden tree. God had given them permission to eat from all the other trees, but that wasn't good enough for them. They thought God was denying them property rights. Satan sold them the lie that they should have ownership. Satan is the adversary of stewardship because he wants men to rebel against God by seeking ownership for themselves. The devil encourages us to focus on what we don't have rather than what God has graciously given us, and he skews our perception so that we see God's commands as restrictive rather than protective.
One Minute Please
Satan wants you to focus on what God says "no" to so that you will refuse His authority.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Inspiration Of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead. - Ephesians 5:14
All initiative is not inspired. A man may say to you - "Buck up, take your disinclination by the throat, throw it overboard, and walk out into the thing!" That is ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes in and says, in effect, "Buck up," we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have any number of visions and ideals when we are young, but sooner or later we find that we have no power to make them real. We cannot do the things we long to do, and we are apt to settle down to the visions and ideals as dead, and God has to come and say - "Arise from the dead." When the inspiration of God does come, it comes with such miraculous power that we are able to arise from the dead and do the impossible thing. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life comes after we do the "bucking up." God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says - "Arise from the dead," we have to get up; God does not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand - "Stretch forth thy hand," and as soon as the man did so, his hand was healed, but he had to take the initiative. If we will do the overcoming, we shall find we are inspired of God because He gives life immediately.
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Keep Trusting
In the passage we looked at yesterday, Peter encouraged us to see the trials we face as temporary, something that only lasts for a while. I want you to read that passage again today, and then I want to point your attention to another truth that is vital to enduring through whatever trial you may be facing.
It says in 1 Peter 1:5-7,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
One of the critical things you and I need to do when faced with trials is continue to trust God in the midst of those trials.
No matter how difficult, do not unplug your faith, even when things get rough. Keep trusting God and His promises. Why? Well, look at what verse 5 says: We are "kept by the power of God through faith."
When you keep your faith plugged in, you are then kept by God's power.
That word keep means to preserve. It means to protect, to guard. It is used elsewhere in Scripture of a garrison of soldiers protecting something. When you are going through a trial, God will protect you through His power when you trust Him.
That word power is the same word in the Bible translated miracle. I take it to mean this: When you or I are in a season of trial, if God has to work a miracle to keep us and protect us, He will do it.
Whatever your trial...keep trusting.
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The Accountability of Stewardship
In His Presence: His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master" (Matthew 25:23).
God will always let us know who owns what and who is in charge. How do we know He was still in charge when Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden? Because He pronounced a curse upon the serpent. He told Adam and Eve the consequences of their sin: conflict in the home, pain in childbirth, sweat in toil, and banishment from the garden. Adam, Eve, and the serpent were all held accountable for their lack of stewardship. God let them know that He is the owner.
God is only going to hold you accountable for what He gave you, not what He has given someone else. Never get upset because somebody else has received more from God than you have. More will be expected from them, and their stewardship does not concern you. If we would spend more time using what He has given us correctly, we wouldn't have time to look at what He has given someone else. Why? Because we'll be focused on progressing in our own Christian life.
God expects you to take what He gives you and maximize its potential. We should be satisfied with what He has given in terms of our gratitude, but we should always take what He gives us and get more out of it. We put our money in the bank to make interest, or we invest it to create a profit. We maximize the potential of that money.
One Minute Please
The stewardship mentality says that we joyfully receive what God gives us and use it to the best of our ability, making the most out of it for His glory.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat-1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive-only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God's creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things-things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
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Keep Laughing
I want to head back to 1 Peter 1:5-7 again today. Something tells me we could all continue to use the encouragement of Peter's words, especially the advice I want you to focus on today.
1 Peter 1:5-7,
Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Regardless of what you may be going through today, you need to rejoice. Peter says in verse 6, In this you greatly rejoice, even if for a season you are experiencing various trials.
Friend, keep your sense of humor. It will help you outlast your trials.
I read a story once about a guy parachuting when the wind blew him onto a track where they were racing cars...not a good place to land in a parachute. He was trying to get his parachute off when another gust of wind came and started dragging him face first down the track.
He finally got the parachute off and stood up only to see a car racing towards him. He quickly jumped out of the way and said to himself, "Man, I'm glad that's over!" and turned to get off the track. As he did, he stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle.
That was just too much! Even in his pain, he just started laughing!
Keep your sense of humor. Even if you are going through the roughest patch you have ever been through.
Do not let your trials rob you of your joy.
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The First Sphere of Stewardship
In His Presence: Lord, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am (Psalm 39:4).
Basically, God has entrusted three things to our care. He has given us three spheres where we are to be His stewards. First, He has entrusted us with time. God is not limited by time. There is no time when He did not exist or when He will cease to be. He always has been and always will be. He is eternal. But time has a different meaning for us because we are limited by time. We have 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. We have a certain number of years to live, and we don't know how long that will be.
Ephesians 5:15-17 says: "Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." In this verse Paul told us to watch out for time. It is fleeting, and we are all running out of time.
Many people define time in terms of its linear course, from point A to point B. But that's not the full definition of time. In God's viewpoint, time is the boundary of opportunity. Time must be maximized, not trivialized. We should take advantage of it because we can never get it back.
To be a good steward of time, verse 17 tells us to understand what the will of the Lord is. To use your time to its utmost potential, you should use it to accomplish the will of God.
One Minute Please
If we are righteous stewards of God's time, He will give us joy in His time.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here -John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God's blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: "Don't sit or stand there, just go!"
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, "Come aside by yourselves . . ." then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don't sit and daydream about that person all the time- you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
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The Path to Maturity
1 Peter 5:10 provides a very critical principle for those times when we are going through trials, a principle that is easy to miss,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
You need to realize that even though God did not initiate your trouble, He can still use it to work something good in you. What the devil means for evil, God can turn into something good.
Even though the devil's purpose is to destroy you, if you will respond correctly, God can work good things. Notice the verse saysafter you have suffered a short season, God will perfect. It brings maturity to you.
While we might hate it, how we respond in times of trial makes us who we are-and it fits us to accomplish God's will. I hate some of the things I have gone through! But you know what? I would not be who I am had I not experienced those things. It has fitted me to do the will of God.
And while it may not seem like it, your present difficulty may be instrumental in your future success.
It reminds me of the guy who was shipwrecked on a deserted island. One day he decided to go across the island for food. When he got to the other side he looked back and saw a plume of smoke in the sky. He ran back only to find that his shack burnt to the ground!
It stung him to the core! Except the next morning a ship arrived and rescued him. When he asked the sailors, "How'd you know I was here?" they said, "We saw your smoke signal."
Your present trials just may be fitting you for something you would never expect!
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The Second Sphere of Stewardship
In His Presence: As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God (1 Peter 4:10).
Friday we looked at the First Sphere of Stewardship. Today let's look at the second sphere God has entrusted to us is talent. This area includes the skills that God has bestowed on us for His purpose. A more specific word for a Christian's talent would be giftedness. God doesn't give us talent just so we can benefit from it-it's meant to benefit others.
We live in the "me" generation. Everyone only wants to be served, not to serve. There is not an overflow of God's goodness coming out of the hearts of people. But Romans 12 describes how God has given us gifts for the purpose of serving others: "Through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another" (vv. 3-5).
In these verses, Paul said we shouldn't get the wrong idea about who we are and lose sight of God's grace. We are who we are by God's grace; therefore, we should be willing to serve Him with all He has given us. In this way, others will grow in their relationship with Him. If we are only recipients of God's gifts and not conduits of His grace, we are abusing the stewardship role.
One Minute Please
God expects that since He is good to you, you should be good to somebody else.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me -Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things- things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? "She has done a good work for Me."
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. ". . . but perfect love casts out fear . . ." once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
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Rich Blessings
Let me ask you a question. Do you believe God wants to bless you? You may say, "Yes," but in your heart do you really believe this to be true?
Take a moment to read Ezekiel 34:26,
"...I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."
I believe the Bible teaches us that just like there are seasons of trial, there are seasons of exceptional blessing that come from God. And those seasons of exceptional blessing should not be taken for granted. We should capitalize on them and seize the momentum when those seasons come.
Don't get me wrong, God is good all the time, and He is good to all. His tender mercies are over all His works. He causes His sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The fact of the matter is, God is good even to people who are not good because it is His nature.
However, there are richer, more frequent blessings that come from the hand of God. And they come to those who do a particular thing.
Tomorrow I want you to look with me in the book of Galatians. As we look at these verses, we will find that though God is good to all, the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. Together we will see what that thing is.
Today, I just want you to grasp the truth that God does want to bless your life in an extraordinary way.
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The Third Sphere of Stewardship
In His Presence: Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:20-21).
God has also given us stewardship over the area of our treasures, the "stuff" in our lives. God wants us to bring all of that under His lordship. One aspect of treasures is our relationships. In Luke 14:26, Jesus said: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." God should have priority over all our relationships.
God should also have priority over our personal goals. Jesus said: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple" (v. 27). We must be willing to trade in our own goals for His goals. Jesus also said: "None of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions" (v. 33). Being willing to give over all we have is a sign that we understand that God is in control, and stuff is just stuff.
The story of the legendary Titanic captures the meaning of stewardship. Everyone who boarded the Titanic operated on time, expecting to depart and arrive on a certain day. The ship's design reflected great talent, and the ship's designer even said it was "unsinkable." And the ship was filled with treasure, the finest of everything. But an iceberg punctured that ship and caused everything on it to become meaningless. As the ship sank, time was up, man's talent became a tomb in the sea, and the treasures of this world were fish food.
One Minute Please
We must answer to the Lord concerning the use of our time, talents, and treasures.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Spiritual Perseverance
Be still, and know that I am God . . . -Psalm 46:10
Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for- love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men- will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.
If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere . . ." (Revelation 3:10).
Continue to persevere spiritually.
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Sow Good...Reap Blessing
As I mentioned in yesterday's devotional, God wants to bless your life, and the richer, more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. We find that thing in Galatians 6:9-10,
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
The seasons of blessing come due more often to those who consistently sow, to those who seize opportunities that are afforded them to do good. Notice again in verse 9, Let us not grow weary while doing good. Verse 10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all.
This same truth is reinforced by verse 7, which states,
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
If we sow good, we will reap good. A season of blessing will come.
What many Christians tend to do is stand before a field in which they planted no seed, and pray, "God, give me a miracle harvest."
Now, God is God, and He certainly can do things out of the ordinary. But He also works according to laws and principles that He has set into motion. One of those laws is the law of sowing and reaping.
Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Therefore, do not grow weary while doing good. In due season, you will reap, if you do not faint. When you have opportunity, do good. Get some seed in the ground.
Because the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who sow good.
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The Investment of Stewardship
In His Presence: No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth (Luke 16:13).
In this parable, Jesus told the story of a steward who messed up. He shared this story with His disciples because He was concerned that they might develop the mindset of the Pharisees, "who were lovers of money . . . listening to all these things and . . . scoffing at Him" (v. 14). In this parable, a very rich man delegated responsibility for his assets to a steward. But this man squandered his boss's possessions, and the result was that he was about to lose his job. This is not a story about spending; it's a story about investing. And one day, God will call us to an accounting of what we have done with what He has given us. We will have to answer according to how we have squandered or invested the blessings He entrusted to us.
The steward came up with an idea. He went to every person who owed his master money and lowered their debts so that he would have something to give the master. The master then "praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly" (v. 8). Jesus' point was: "The sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light" (v. 8). In other words, sinners are often smarter than saints. This unbelieving, conniving servant was able to secure his future. He messed up his past, but he put things in motion to take care of the future and he was praised for it.
One Minute Please
Just as sinners act shrewdly to cover their bases for their future on earth, Christians had better act shrewdly to cover their future in terms of eternity.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Determination To Serve
The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. - Matthew 20:28
Paul's idea of service is the same as Our Lord's: "I am among you as He that serveth;" "ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." We have the idea that a man called to the ministry is called to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he is called to be the "door-mat" of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. "I know how to be abased," says Paul. This is Paul's idea of service - "I will spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it will make no difference." So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of Paul's service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men.
Paul's realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. "I was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person" - no matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.
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Real Treasure
Proverbs 15:6 says,
In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.
Notice that this verse does not just declare there is treasure in the house of the righteous. It says there is much treasure in the house of the righteous.
You can also find treasure in the house of the wicked, but Solomon says it is laced with trouble. The income of the wicked has a bunch of trouble with it.
But the same is not true for those who are right with God. When the treasure is found in their house, it does not have the same trouble that it does when it is found in the house of the wicked.
If you read on, the Lord shares two things that must accompany this treasure if it is going to be enjoyed. First, you must have a right relationship with God. Proverbs 15:16says, Better is a little with the fear of the LORD, than great treasure with trouble.
It is better to have almost nothing and have a right relationship with God than to have everything money can buy and not have a relationship with God. We must get our priorities right.
The second thing we need to have is a right relationship with people, lest the treasure become hollow and become a curse. Proverbs 15:17says, Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred.
Some people have more prosperity than they know what to do with, but all of their relationships fail. They do not have love. Consequently, there is a vacuum they can never fill with things, that they can never fill by accumulating more possessions.
Pursue your relationship with God, and a right relationship with people. Then you will enjoy the treasure God gives you!
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Investing in People
In His Presence: The day of the Lord will come like a thief . . . and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness (2 Peter 3:10-12).
In our economy today it is very important to start saving for retirement early. Those who are only present-day oriented will just spend money, but those who are future-oriented will invest. That's the difference between immaturity and maturity: the immature spend, and the mature save for tomorrow. Jesus' parable in Luke 16 demonstrates that the sons of darkness are often wiser than the children of light because they are future-oriented. If men are willing to do that in finite time, how much more should Christians "make friends for yourselves . . . [who] will receive you into the eternal dwellings" (v. 9)? God tells us to wisely use our stewardship in something that has eternal value: people.
When we stand before Christ, He is going to play a cosmic video, reviewing our life from salvation to death. We will see how responsibly we used the time, talents, and treasures God gave us, and how good or bad our stewardship was for Him. We will see the impact we had on other people and how much we invested in others for eternity.
In verse 9, Jesus told us to make friends. How do we do this? We make friends by sharing the Gospel so that those we know have an opportunity to hear it. We must see that people are important in God's economy. God measures our effect on people not by how many dollars we have in the bank, but by how we have used our time, talents, and treasures to invest in the eternal destiny of people.
One Minute Please
Either God will reign over your time, talents, and treasures, or you will make them your god.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Delight Of Sacrifice
I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; - 2 Corinthians 12:15
When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our relationship to Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause. Paul spent himself for one purpose only - that he might win men to Jesus Christ. Paul attracted to Jesus all the time, never to himself. "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men. Paul became a sacramental personality; wherever he went, Jesus Christ helped Himself to his life. Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve. Paul said he knew how to be a "door-mat" without resenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to Jesus. We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritually. That was not Paul's motive. "I could wish my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren" - wild, extravagant - is it? When a man is in love it is not an exaggeration to talk in that way, and Paul is in love with Jesus Christ.
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Overrated
We read in Proverbs 23:4,
Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!
First, I want you to notice that this verse does not say don't work. And it does not say don't work hard. It says don't overwork.
There are some people in God's family who are not led, they are driven. They are so focused on reaching their goals and achieving whatever level of success they are going after, that they are making a lot of sacrifices along the way.
But they are making the wrong sacrifices. They are sacrificing their marriage and they are sacrificing their relationship with their kids. Why? Because they overwork. And, friend, that is not healthy.
In fact, I would say that overworking is as unhealthy as not working. You miss out on the grand things in life, the important things in life. With some people, even their relationship with God gets squeezed out because they overwork.
You need to be motivated; you need to work hard; but you don't want to overdo it to the point that you don't have time for your children. You don't want to work so hard that you don't have time for your spouse. And you don't want to so overwork that you don't have time for your God.
You are missing life if you are just after possessions, and you are sacrificing the more important things along the way.
How does your work life measure up today? Are you overworking at the expense of your marriage, your family, and your relationship with God? If so, determine today to get your life back in balance.
Overworking is overrated!
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The Theft of Stewardship
In His Presence: The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
Communism teaches that the government owns everything. Capitalism teaches that the individual owns everything. Christianity teaches that God owns everything. At the heart of Christian stewardship is the assumption that the earth is the Lord's, the world and all who dwell in it. There is absolutely nothing that sits outside of the ownership of God.
The Bible is clear that men attempt to rob God-stewards attempt to rip off the Owner. Malachi 3:7-12 makes this point. At this time the Israelites held a very low view of God. He remained faithful, and even though they were disobedient, they were not consumed (v. 6), but they had turned from the God of their fathers. Oh, they were still showing up for church, but they did not treat God as the sovereign, omnipotent ruler that He is.
The Israelites were made to realize that they were thieves because they were oblivious to it on their own. They asked: "How shall we return [to the Lord]?" (v. 7). God answered: "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings" (v. 8). God used the example of how the Israelites were handling their offerings to demonstrate their spiritual poverty. It's hard to measure spiritual robbery, so this was a visible, tangible illustration of their theft of God. Like a thermometer registers a physical representation of an internal illness, God used the thermometer of tithes and offerings to register the Israelites' spiritual temperature.
One Minute Please
You can always tell how a person is doing on the inside by how they function on the outside.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus
Where then do You get that living water? -John 4:11
"The well is deep"- and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! (John 4:11). Think of the depths of human nature and human life; think of the depth of the "wells" in you. Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you have a deep "well" of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says to you, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1). Would your response be to shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even You can't draw up quietness and comfort out of it." Actually, that is correct. Jesus doesn't bring anything up from the wells of human nature- He brings them down from above. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering only what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and also by saying, "Of course, I cannot expect God to do this particular thing." The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do. We impoverish and weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. The impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from approaching Him as our Almighty God.
The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, "Of course, He can't do anything about this." We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, "It can't be done." You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.
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The Right Perspective
"Is wealth a bad thing?"
Let's go to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 for our answer,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I believe God makes it clear that if you are in a position where He has blessed you, you should enjoy it. And do it guilt-free. If you can take the whole family on a 30-day vacation to Europe, go for it.
Just make sure you pay your tithes first. Make sure you are generous to the work of God, but enjoy what God gives you. It is a gift of God to be able to enjoy the fruit of the work of your hands.
God is all for us enjoying whatever measure of prosperity we have. He just wants us to be generous in proportion to our prosperity. He wants us to be ready and willing to give big. To be sowing extravagantly into the gospel and thereby laying up treasure in heaven.
The point is this: Do not just live with your eye on this world. Rather, live with your eye on the world to come. If you do, you will truly be able to enjoy the wealth God gives you.
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Tithes and Offerings
In His Presence: You shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always (Deuteronomy 14:23).
God told the Israelites they were robbing Him in two ways: in their tithes and in their offerings. The word tithe means one-tenth, and it refers back to a time even before the nation of Israel existed, when God conveyed the expectation that man would recognize His sovereignty by giving a tithe.
In Genesis 14:17-24, Abraham offered Melchizedek, the king of Salem, a tithe because of the victory God had given him and the blessing that God had bestowed upon him. Abraham offered a tithe to Melchizedek, who was the forerunner to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is greater than Melchizedek (Hebrews 7). If Abraham had to offer a tithe to Melchizedek, and Jesus is the follower of Melchizedek, then how much more do we have a responsibility to honor the sovereignty of Christ who is the King of the world?
Leviticus 27:30 says that the tithe is "holy to the Lord." The tithe doesn't belong to us; it belongs to God. The tithe teaches that there is only one Creator and Sustainer, and it's not us.
While the tithe is mandatory, the offering is voluntary. We determine the amount of the offering, and it is from the heart. But an offering is never an offering until we have given the full tithe. We must first give what God expects, and then we can give over and above that expectation to reflect a heart of love, gratitude, and rejoicing. If we don't give to God out of obedience and gratitude, it shows that something is wrong with our hearts.
One Minute Please
The average Christian gives only 2.5 percent of his income to God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Do You Now Believe?"
'By this we believe . . . .' Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe?' -John 16:30-31
Now we believe. . . ." But Jesus asks, "Do you . . . ? Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you . . . will leave Me alone" (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.
We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to "walk in the light" of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to "walk in the light asHe is in the light. . ." (1 John 1:7). When we do something out of a sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation-just obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.
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It's All About Him
I want us to look again at the last two verses from our last devotional, 1 Timothy 6:18-19,
Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I think it is beautiful the way verse 19 ends, ...that they may lay hold on eternal life.Paul is writing to believers here, and he is not saying they must do this so that they can get saved.
Rather, I think he is saying that when they are rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, then they will lay hold on what eternal life is all about. It is not about the things you possess; it is not about the blessings God gives you. It is about a relationship with Him. Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
If you are blessed, realize the main thing is not your riches and wealth. They can be very transitory.
I have a friend who, years ago, migrated from a country in Central America that had experienced a military coop. Her family was quite well off, having property and wealth that had been passed down through several generations.
But after the coop, the new government seized all of the families properties and wealth. All was lost overnight.
This story could have turned out badly except that this woman is an exceptional Christian with a great attitude. She has built a successful life here in the U. S and has chosen not to be bitter or resentful over the past. She has kept her trust in God, realizing that no matter what happens if she still has Him she will be alright.
Friend, keep your eyes on God and keep your trust anchored in Him. He is what life-real life-eternal life is all about!
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The Restitution and Reversal of Theft
In His Presence: Give and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure-pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured you in return (Luke 6:38).
Malachi 3:10 says: " 'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,' says the Lord of hosts, 'if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.' " This verse isn't saying God will make us rich. Rather, it teaches us how life will be when we do not steal from God what already belongs to Him.
This verse tells us to bring the whole tithe. Failure to bring 100 percent will mean that heaven is closed. But if you bring the whole tithe, heaven will open wide and God will pour blessings out on you until they overflow.
The "storehouse" referred to in verse 10 is where temple food was kept for those in need-the priests, the poor, and the unsaved. The food would impact the community in the name of Yahweh. In our day, the storehouse represents the local church, where people are fed spiritually. The tithe goes to the church, and the offering can go there or to other ministries.
Remember that robbery of God reflects your spirit toward God, so if you aren't willing to give of your money, you're probably not willing to give your whole heart and life. God will not allow you to have a key to His house and to steal from Him at the same time. The issue is not whether we can afford to give tithes and offerings, but whether we can afford not to?
One Minute Please
You don't give to receive, but when you give with the right heart, you will receive.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What Do You Want The Lord to Do for You?
Is there something in your life that not only disturbs you, but makes you a disturbance to others? If so, it is always something you cannot handle yourself. "Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more . . ." (Luke 18:39). Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord Himself. Don't deify common sense. To sit calmly by, instead of creating a disturbance, serves only to deify our common sense. When Jesus asks what we want Him to do for us about the incredible problem that is confronting us, remember that He doesn't work in commonsense ways, but only in supernatural ways.
Look at how we limit the Lord by only remembering what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past. We say, "I always failed there, and I always will." Consequently, we don't ask for what we want. Instead, we think, "It is ridiculous to ask God to do this." If it is an impossibility, it is the very thing for which we have to ask. If it is not an impossible thing, it is not a real disturbance. And God will do what is absolutely impossible.
This man received his sight. But the most impossible thing for you is to be so closely identified with the Lord that there is literally nothing of your old life remaining. God will do it if you will ask Him. But you have to come to the point of believing Him to be almighty. We find faith by not only believing what Jesus says, but, even more, by trusting Jesus Himself. If we only look at what He says, we will never believe. Once we see Jesus, the impossible things He does in our lives become as natural as breathing. The agony we suffer is only the result of the deliberate shallowness of our own heart. We won't believe; we won't let go by severing the line that secures the boat to the shore- we prefer to worry.
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His Stuff
You have probably noticed that over the last few days of devotionals, we have been focusing on material blessings and how we should view those blessings.
1 Chronicles 29:14-16 is very helpful to see God's perspective,
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. "O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own."
In these verses, King David is actually talking to the Lord as an offering is being received, and resources are being collected for the building of the temple (something his son Solomon is going to achieve).
We see that David recognized that everything he had, everything the people had, literally belonged to God. They were just giving God back something that belonged to Him in the first place.
I am going to let you in on a little secret: You and I are just stewards, and one day the Owner will call us into account for how we handled His stuff. Every one of us will give an account for our stewardship of His possessions.
While He gives us richly all things to enjoy, He is going to ask you if you did what He told you to do with His stuff. It is not our stuff.
Material treasure is a stewardship, and we must do what the Owner wants with it. This means we have a responsibility to be listening for the Owner's voice and following His instructions with His goods.
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The Motivation of Stewardship
In His Presence: Mark 10:25
When churches aren't receiving tithes from their congregation, there is something drastically wrong in the hearts of those churchgoers. After all, stewardship is a matter of the heart. Jesus drove this point home in Mark 12, where He talked about the motivation behind our stewardship.
Money is an indicator of where our hearts really are. God isn't interested in our money; He doesn't need a dime. Our cars all have indicator lights to tell us when we are about to run out of gas or if the engine is overheating. Well, money is a good indicator light for the state of our inner selves.
In this particular account, Jesus went to church with His disciples, "He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury" (v. 41). Jesus' watch was very intimate as He sat down close to where the offering was being collected. The temple they were in was very ornate and plush, and the rich people were easy to spot because they "were putting in large sums" (v. 41). Jesus could see how much they were putting in because He was watching.
Someone else came along whom Jesus noticed-a widow who dropped in two small copper coins. Those two lepta equaled less than a penny; it was the smallest currency made in that day. In order for Jesus to see such a small offering, He must have been quite close to the scene. He was watching the giving intimately.
One Minute Please
The offering was important enough for Jesus to watch closely-remember its importance as you make your offering.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Piercing Question
Do you love Me? -John 21:17
Peter's response to this piercing question is considerably different from the bold defiance he exhibited only a few days before when he declared, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" (Matthew 26:35 ; also see Matthew 26:33-34). Our natural individuality, or our natural self, boldly speaks out and declares its feelings. But the true love within our inner spiritual self can be discovered only by experiencing the hurt of this question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way any natural man loves a good person. Yet that is nothing but emotional love. It may reach deeply into our natural self, but it never penetrates to the spirit of a person. True love never simply declares itself. Jesus said, "Whoever confesses Me before men [that is, confesses his love by everything he does, not merely by his words], him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God" (Luke 12:8).
Unless we are experiencing the hurt of facing every deception about ourselves, we have hindered the work of the Word of God in our lives. The Word of God inflicts hurt on us more than sin ever could, because sin dulls our senses. But this question of the Lord intensifies our sensitivities to the point that this hurt produced by Jesus is the most exquisite pain conceivable. It hurts not only on the natural level, but also on the deeper spiritual level. "For the Word of God is living and powerful . . . , piercing even to the division of soul and spirit . . ."- to the point that no deception can remain (Hebrews 4:12). When the Lord asks us this question, it is impossible to think and respond properly, because when the Lord speaks directly to us, the pain is too intense. It causes such a tremendous hurt that any part of our life which may be out of line with His will can feel the pain. There is never any mistaking the pain of the Lord's Word by His children, but the moment that pain is felt is the very moment at which God reveals His truth to us.
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Spiritual Treasure
In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul tells us,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
If you look at this chapter, Paul helps us understand that this treasure is ministry, the gospel, the Word of God, and the light and the glory of God, God's presence.
Paul wants us to understand that God has placed in us an incredible spiritual treasure...a treasure residing in these earthen vessels...our bodies. The treasure is in you and me!
But that treasure needs to be poured out.
I can't help but think that Paul was thinking of two particular earthen vessels that were used in his day. One was the vessel of mercy and the other the vessel of honor.
One place you would find the vessel of honor was around the home. People would use the water to wash their feet after traveling the dusty roads before they would enter your house, or they would use the water to quench their thirst. Like the vessel of honor, we are to wash the feet of our family, to humbly serve them and to help quench their thirst for more of God.
The vessel of mercy looked identical to the vessel of honor, but it was located in public places like the town square, so that any traveler coming through that arid land would be guaranteed to find a fresh drink of water. It was placed where the needs were. We need to take mercy where mercy is needed most-out onto the highways of humanity.
You are an earthen vessel filled with His spiritual treasure, so start pouring it out-in your home and out where the people are.
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How Do You Give?
In His Presence: Mark 8:36
Jesus not only closely watched people give their offerings, He watched them critically. He went beyond their visible actions and looked into their hearts. Jesus called His disciples over and said: "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury" (Mark 12:43). He didn't want them to miss seeing the heart of the widow, or to miss the lesson that her giving provided.
Most of us would miss watching the widow. Instead, we would be watching the bigwigs in the temple, the ones who made large offerings from their ample funds. We would be impressed by how much they gave. We might even suggest honoring them for their giving, maybe naming a building after the donor. But Jesus didn't call the disciples over to see the big givers. He called them over to notice a poor widow who gave less than a penny.
Why did Jesus fix His attention on the widow? Because she gave more. "She, out of her poverty, put in all she owned" (v. 44), while the rich men gave out of their surplus. The rich gave what they had left over. This woman didn't have anything extra; she gave everything she had. Jesus knew this, and He saw her heart. God measures our gift not by its amount, but by our motive. A godly steward will give with the motivation to honor God rather than just to tip Him with what he has left over after the bills are paid.
One Minute Please
God is not only interested in what you give; He also wants to know why you give it.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Felt the Pain Inflicted by the Lord?
He said to him the third time, '. . . do you love Me?' -John 21:17
Have you ever felt the pain, inflicted by the Lord, at the very center of your being, deep down in the most sensitive area of your life? The devil never inflicts pain there, and neither can sin nor human emotions. Nothing can cut through to that part of our being but the Word of God. "Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' " Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. And then he began to see what Jesus' patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest bit of doubt left in Peter's mind; he could never be deceived again. And there was no need for an impassioned response; no need for immediate action or an emotional display. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he simply said, "Lord, You know all things . . . ." Peter began to see how very much he did love Jesus, and there was no need to say, "Look at this or that as proof of my love." Peter was beginning to discover within himself just how much he really did love the Lord. He discovered that his eyes were so fixed on Jesus Christ that he saw no one else in heaven above or on the earth below. But he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord were asked. The Lord's questions always reveal the true me to myself.
Oh, the wonder of the patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the perfect time. Rarely, but probably once in each of our lives, He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with His piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say.
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You're Not Stuck
1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
The word temptation in this verse also means test or trial. With that in mind, here are a couple of thoughts to encourage you today.
1. Whatever test, trial, or temptation you are facing today, it is "common to man." That means that you are not the only one who has gone through whatever you are facing. It is comforting to know that others have faced similar problems before us and made it through!
2. God makes a way of escape with the trial or temptation. That means you're not stuck! Before your difficulty ever arose, God designed a way of escape. And that means of escape comes with the problem.
So if you find yourself embroiled in trials, tests, or temptations today, start looking for God's way of escape-it exists. Trust Him to guide you safely through and out of your difficulties!
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Giving Reflects the Spiritual
In His Presence: 1 Kings 17:1-16
Giving is a value issue, not simply a money issue. God wants your love for Him to be reflected in the way you give. When faced with the choice of using her two lepta for survival or giving them to God, the widow chose to trust God to provide and gave all her money to Him. She did it without the promise of any reward, simply because she knew she needed God above all else and wanted to give to Him. She made a spiritual decision which she reflected in her physical actions. She completely entrusted herself to God to meet her need. She was banking on God.
Our love for God is measured and tested by the hold we have on our wallets. If we simply give out of our surplus, Jesus said we are not grateful. Giving God the leftovers expresses the lack of value we place on Him. The poor widow not only gave all she had, she gave more than those rich men, not in portion, but in proportion. She gave 100 percent, while all they gave were leftovers.
Everything we have starts with God. He gives us the money we receive because of the jobs He provides for us. Everything is rooted in God's provision.
If your offering is insignificant to you, it is also insignificant to God. If we put God first in our lives, we will give Him the firstfruits, not the leftovers. Do we trust that if we put Him first, He will take care of us?
One Minute Please
If Jesus Himself passed you the offering plate with His nail-scarred hand, would it affect your giving?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is He Really My Lord?
. . . so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . . -Acts 20:24
Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced came from doing what the Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it- to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal Savior. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 - "I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."
"Do you love Me?" Then, "Feed My sheep" (John 21:17). He is not offering us a choice of how we can serve Him; He is asking for absolute loyalty to His commission, a faithfulness to what we discern when we are in the closest possible fellowship with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is not the same as the call- the need is the opportunity to exercise the call. The call is to be faithful to the ministry you received when you were in true fellowship with Him. This does not imply that there is a whole series of differing ministries marked out for you. It does mean that you must be sensitive to what God has called you to do, and this may sometimes require ignoring demands for service in other areas.
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The Road to Perfect and Complete
I want us to focus our attention today on James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What I want to look at today is how God seeks to bring us to maturity by building patience into our lives. If there is one thing I have learned in my Christian walk, it is that God is not in as much of a hurry as I am!
Now, what is patience? Patience is the long-lasting quality of your faith. If you let go of your patience, your faith falls to the floor.
The end result God is looking for is that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The word perfect here means mature. God is developing maturity in us by working on our patience.
I have a dear friend who has a great church. They endeavored to build another building on their property and it ended up being a major undertaking. In fact, it turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done. I mean, it took a strip out of his hide.
Eventually it got built, but you know what my friend says about it? He says, "You see that building? I didn't build that building. It built me."
Going through those trials, facing those difficulties, having his faith tested, having to trust God when it seemed like there was a lack of finances, having to hold onto God's Word when he was a laughing stock with some people, all of that built character in him as he stood the test.
I have a question for you: Has anything been building you lately? If so, rejoice, because God is working maturity in you!
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Giving Our Firstfruits
In His Presence: Matthew 22:37
The Bible calls the priorities of stewardship our "firstfruits." In the agricultural environment of the biblical times, people lived on the food they grew. Giving God their firstfruits would mean giving Him the best and the first of what they had to give.
Giving your firstfruits is a tangible, visible way of telling God that He is first in your life. God has always demanded that He be first because He is God. In Revelation 2:4, Jesus told the church: "You have left your first love." Jesus had slipped into second or third place. When God stops being first, we have a problem.
Colossians 1:18 tells us we should live in such a way "that [Jesus] Himself might come to have first place in everything." Jesus wants to be the focus of every aspect of your life all the time, without exception. Why? Because everything we have and ever will have is rooted in God. He deserves to be the focus because He is the Creator, Sustainer, Source, Savior, and King.
A passage from Haggai demonstrates where our priority as stewards should be: "You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; ... he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes" (Haggai 1:6). When God is not first, we can't possibly enjoy the stuff of life. Whenever the provisions of God become your god, you have replaced the true God with your own god.
One Minute Please
How dare we live for everything else and forget the Source.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Next Step
. . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses -2 Corinthians 6:4
When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.
Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17 .
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It Will All Work Out
Ephesians 1:11 is a powerful verse with a vital lesson,
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Over the 30 years of my Christian life, I have come to have great confidence in God's ability to work things out. No matter what is going on or how obscured my understanding of a situation is, I believe God is always working things according to His great sovereign plan.
It is as if there is this giant tapestry that God is weaving, and my life is a part of it. I sometimes get caught up with the temporal things and the stuff that is happening, but God reminds me, "Hey, nothing is taking Me by surprise. I'm weaving all of these things into this great pattern. Your mistakes, the stuff that happens to you, it is all going to turn out alright!"
Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God? The thing you are embroiled in right now did not take God by surprise. He did not look at your situation and say, "Oh no! I didn't figure on that! Gabriel, do you have any suggestions? What are we going to do?"
I know that sometimes in my microscopic view of things I have said, "Lord, such and such has got to happen." And God has replied, "Well, you don't have the big picture." Then, as time went on, God pulled the camera back, and I got the wide view, and I realized God was up to something very cool-totally apart from what I thought "had to happen."
Whatever your situation, you can rest assured that God has plans to work things out. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So relax! Even if your present circumstances have totally taken you by surprise, God saw it coming and made provision far ahead of time.
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Firstfruits Are the Best
In His Presence: Leviticus 22:17-25
Whenever you give God your firstfruits, you not only give Him the first, you give Him the best. In Malachi 1 the Israelites brought God the worst of their leftovers for their sacrifices-the sick, blind, and lame animals. Sometimes that is what we bring God-our leftover time, energy, and devotion. We come to God when we're not at our peak.
The story of Cain and Abel serves as a reminder that God is not pleased with those who do not offer firstfruits. "Abel, on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard" (Genesis 4:4-5). Cain wound up killing his brother over this incident. Abel brought God the best because he believed God desired and deserved the best. By his offering, Cain showed that he thought God only deserved something, not the best.
If we're not worshiping God by bringing Him our firstfruits, we are likely giving our firstfruits to something else. What gets your best time and your undivided attention? You give those to whatever is your priority.
Regarding money, "firstfruits" refers to the tithe, or the tenth. You must bring the whole tithe before you bring an offering. Deuteronomy 14:23 says we are to give the tithe "that [we] may learn to fear the Lord." Whenever we give the tenth first, we're honoring God as God.
One Minute Please
God wants the prime cut of your life; He doesn't want the leftovers.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Source of Abundant Joy
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us -Romans 8:37
Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.
Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let's apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against- tribulation, suffering, and persecution- are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. "We are more than conquerors through Him" "in all these things"; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4).
The undiminished radiance, which is the result of abundant joy, is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can change. And the experiences of life, whether they are everyday events or terrifying ones, are powerless to "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
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The Prayer of Personal Edification
Today's devotional brings us to the prayer of personal edification. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, Paul writes,
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
In verse 14, Paul says, If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Coupled together with his statement in verse 4, we can see that praying in tongues edifies our spirit.
Edifies is actually an old English word. It means to build an edifice or building higher and higher. The closest modern way to say that would be "charges himself with energy," just like you would recharge a battery.
When I pray in other tongues, I charge my spirit with energy. I build myself up. It is like my cell phone. It needs to be recharged, or before long it will cease to work.
Sometimes I keep my phone on and talk on it while it is recharging, but when I do that it takes a whole lot longer to recharge. If I turn it off and plug it in, the charging process happens much quicker.
Sometimes you just need to shut everything down, turn everything off, and go get away with God and pray. Build yourself up in the Holy Spirit, especially praying in other tongues.
Sometimes after a long day I will come home just drained, tired inside and out. Eating a good meal and getting some rest takes care of my physical tiredness, but in order to replenish my inner resources, I need to do something else.
For me, reading His Word is food for my spirit, and praying in tongues brings inward rest and rejuvenation.
Even as the Scripture declares in Isaiah 28:11-12, For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, "This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," and, "This is the refreshing."
Take the time to get away and recharge your spiritual batteries.
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Do You Need to Change Your Expectations?
As a pastor, I witness people accepting their circumstances with a "crippling" mindset rather than believing God for something better in life.
They are like the lame man in Acts 3 who sat by the gate, Beautiful, begging for money. His only expectation was that a passerby will take pity on him and toss a coin his way. He never expected anything better. He was crippled in his body and his mind.
That's the mindset of those who don't expect things can change in their lives. We all face bad days, but we don't have to let them turn into a bad life.
Do you know anyone like that? Is that you? Jesus' disciples offered the lame man miraculous healing in both his body and his mind. You too can move forward no matter what you face in life.
Scripture Reading: Acts 3:1-9; 16
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Surrendered Life
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.
If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you.
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The Remnant
Today, I want you to read Romans 11:2-5,
God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
When Elijah pleads with God, he is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Jezebel is after his head and he has run into the wilderness. He is sitting down under a tree, and he is crying to God, "I'm the only one. Nobody else is serving You."
But God says, "Hey, wait a minute, Tiger. I have seven thousand more who haven't bowed their knee to the false idol. You're not the only one."
God is saying, "I have a remnant." And then Paul brings it right into present day, and says, "Just like God had a remnant then, God has a remnant today."
A remnant is a small group that has remained. That is where the word remnant comes from. It comes from the root "to remain." God always has a remnant. A remnant that remains faithful, committed, on course, obedient to God. That does not get discouraged, quit, or give up because of life's many turns.
Life has its share of setbacks and unexpected turns, and many people give up because of those setbacks. But those who stay on course and remain faithful will experience God's richer blessings.
God blesses all of His children. But those who stay the course are rewarded for their faithfulness.
So stay on track, hold course, stay steady, and remain faithful. Be a part of the remnant.
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Reaping What You Sow
In His Presence: John 12:24-26
An axiom is a governing principle or rule of thumb. Examples of axioms include: birds fly; water is wet; fire is hot; what goes up must come down; and-the one relevant to our study of stewardship-a man reaps what he sows. That axiomatic statement is as real as any of the others, but it's not believed to the same degree. We reap what we sow in all of life, not just where money is concerned. What we plant determines what we harvest.
A little boy was told by his father to go outside and do some planting in the garden. The boy was lazy and didn't feel like doing all that work, so he dug one hole, dumped all the seeds in, and covered them up. He went back inside and told his dad the work was done, forgetting that what he planted would reveal itself-and his laziness-in time. He would one day reap what he sowed.
According to our axiom, if there is no sowing of seeds, there can be no expectation of harvest. There are many Christians who want a great harvest from God, but they have sown very few seeds for God. Second Corinthians 9:6 says: "He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." Your harvest depends on what you sow. If you plant potatoes, potatoes will grow. To plant the flesh means you will simply live to gratify yourself. But to plant the Spirit is to live for the glory of God.
One Minute Please
If we make no spiritual investment, we should not expect a spiritual return.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Turning Back or Walking with Jesus?
Do you also want to go away? -John 6:67
What a penetrating question! Our Lord's words often hit home for us when He speaks in the simplest way. In spite of the fact that we know who Jesus is, He asks, "Do you also want to go away?" We must continually maintain an adventurous attitude toward Him, despite any potential personal risk.
"From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. One thing God constantly requires of us is a oneness with Jesus Christ. After being set apart through sanctification, we should discipline our lives spiritually to maintain this intimate oneness. When God gives you a clear determination of His will for you, all your striving to maintain that relationship by some particular method is completely unnecessary. All that is required is to live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. Never try to live your life with God in any other way than His way. And His way means absolute devotion to Him. Showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus.
Peter saw in Jesus only someone who could minister salvation to him and to the world. But our Lord wants us to be fellow laborers with Him.
In John 6:70 Jesus lovingly reminded Peter that he was chosen to go with Him. And each of us must answer this question for ourselves and no one else: "Do you also want to go away?"
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Not There Yet
In Philippians 3:12-13, Paul gives us an important insight into becoming complete or mature in Christ,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected (or complete); but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
As believers, we must realize that we have a way to go. We have not arrived. There are still some things ahead. We still must press on.
But some people have the idea they have arrived. They don't need to grow anymore; they don't need to study anymore; they don't need to increase anymore.
It is like the true story of a young neighbor who was talking to Albert Einstein at a dinner party. She asked, "What is it exactly that you do as a profession?" Einstein looked at her and said, "I've devoted myself to the study of physics." And in shock she replied, "Studying physics at your age? I finished my studies a year ago!"
Unfortunately, that is the attitude many Christians have today about their spiritual growth. They think they have finished. Instead, our attitude should be like 95-year-old Pablo Casals, considered to be the greatest cellist that the world has ever known.
A young reporter asked him one day, "You're 95. The world considers you to be its greatest cellist; and still, at 95, you practice six hours a day. Why?" To which he responded, "Because I think I'm making progress."
Friend, you have not arrived. Set your goal to be making progress every day. That is how you will become mature in Christ.
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The Law of the Harvest
In His Presence: Mark 10:29-30
Scripture says that when you sow, you will reap a harvest, and the harvest depends on how much you sow. Once you determine what you want to harvest, you will know what you need to sow. If you want supernatural and spectacular things from God, you won't just sow ordinary seeds. "Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).
The harvest also depends on where you sow. The seeds must be planted in "good soil" (Matthew 13:8). When we invest in the kingdom of God, He returns our investment in abundance. We must plant our seeds in fertile ground, in ministries that are actually about ministry instead of money. Matthew 6:33 tells us that we can maintain the growth of our crop when we "seek first His kingdom and His righteousness."
The harvest also depends on when you sow-different crops demand different amounts of time to grow. If we plant in the spring, we won't see a crop in the spring. We must be patient and wait for God to bring the harvest in due time.
Finally, your harvest depends on why you sow. Is the motivation for seed-planting so that you can benefit from the prosperity of the harvest, or so that God will be glorified by a large harvest? Motivation is everything in stewardship, and if we trust God, we will sow great things and reap great things by His grace.
One Minute Please
Give and it will be given unto you because of the glory of God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Total Surrender
Peter began to say to Him, 'See, we have left all and followed You' -Mark 10:28
Our Lord replies to this statement of Peter by saying that this surrender is "for My sake and the gospel's" (10:29). It was not for the purpose of what the disciples themselves would get out of it. Beware of surrender that is motivated by personal benefits that may result. For example, "I'm going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy." Being delivered from sin and being made holy are the result of being right with God, but surrender resulting from this kind of thinking is certainly not the true nature of Christianity. Our motive for surrender should not be for any personal gain at all. We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want you; I want myself. But I do want You to clean me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I want to be on display in Your showcase so I can say, 'This is what God has done for me.' " Gaining heaven, being delivered from sin, and being made useful to God are things that should never even be a consideration in real surrender. Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.
Where does Jesus Christ figure in when we have a concern about our natural relationships? Most of us will desert Him with this excuse-"Yes, Lord, I heard you call me, but my family needs me and I have my own interests. I just can't go any further" (see Luke 9:57-62). "Then," Jesus says, "you 'cannot be My disciple' " (see Luke 14:26-33).
True surrender will always go beyond natural devotion. If we will only give up, God will surrender Himself to embrace all those around us and will meet their needs, which were created by our surrender. Beware of stopping anywhere short of total surrender to God. Most of us have only a vision of what this really means, but have never truly experienced it.
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God's GPS
Hebrews 13:20-21 are two verses that give me great encouragement,
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
These verses teach us that God is working in us all the time to bring us to maturity-our destiny in Christ.
A friend of mine shared a brilliant illustration of this one time. He likened God's guidance to that of the Global Positioning System (GPS), one of those systems they now have in cars that guides you to your destination.
A GPS system uses a satellite to give an aerial view, and its sole function is to get you to your destination, your "destiny."
As you travel to your destination, you have a map on the screen, and this little annoying voice talking to you through the whole trip, "Left turn a quarter mile ahead; left turn 150 feet ahead; left turn 50 feet ahead."
If you miss your turn, it immediately computes a new course for you so you can get back to where you are supposed to be. And if you mess up on those directions, it then computes another new course.
In the same way, God has a destiny for us to fulfill, something that fits into His great master plan. By His grace, He is guiding us all the way, even when we get off track. God just readjusts and says, "This is the next thing you need to do to get back into My plan."
Through His "GPS," He is always working to get us where we need to be. Praise God!
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Abuse of Stewardship
In His Presence: Matthew 19:23-25
We are living in a day of the commercialization of God, where people go to church to find out what God will do for them. Instead of focusing on the goodness of giving to God, some focus on receiving blessing from God. These people have betrayed God for a price, expecting Him to act like Santa Claus, dispensing blessing because of their giving. There are many names for this-prosperity theology, name-it-and-claim-it theology-but it's all the same in that people relate to God simply because of the goodies He provides.
In Acts 8:14-24, me meet possibly the first prosperity gospel preacher, Simon. According to verse 13, Simon believed and was baptized, so we know he was a believer. But he brought with him into the church the materialistic mentality of the culture. Through this passage, we can examine some of the problems of materialism that can infiltrate our church today.
First, Simon brought the crisis of materialism, which was idolatry. When Simon saw Christianity, he saw dollar signs. He worshiped the almighty dollar. "When Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money" (v. 18). Simon wanted the power, prestige, and income that could come from Christianity; he wanted to make his own profit from God's work.
At the heart of materialism is greed. There is nothing wrong with having or wanting things, but when those things take precedence in your life over invisible things, like your relationship with God, you have become greedy.
One Minute Please
If your financial life is going up and your spiritual life is going down, you are probably greedy.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Total Surrender to Us
For God so loved the world that He gave . . . -John 3:16
Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is actually part of the effect of His wonderful and total surrender to us.
If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. Beware of talking about surrender if you know nothing about it. In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us- totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.
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An Encouraging Word
A while back I ran into a woman who I hadn't seen in quite some time. Being my friendly self I said, "Hi!"
The moment I said that she replied, "Oh, Bayless!" and proceeded to open her purse and pull out a letter I had written to encourage her three years earlier. She said, "I take this with me everywhere I go."
I wanted to cry! I mean, I was touched. But then I thought, "Is there no one else who comforts you? Is there no one else who speaks encouraging words into your life?" And I wonder the same about you.
Are you needing some encouragement today? I don't know what you may be faced with, but I personally find comfort and encouragement in the following passage. It is 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11,
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
Think about this for a moment. As you look into eternity, which is what ultimately matters, you and I are not appointed to wrath! That is good news! That is great news! That is encouraging news! And that is great comfort!
God is storing up wrath against the ungodly. But, just like in ancient Egypt when the death angel passed over every home where the blood of the Lamb was, I thank God the wrath of God passes over us!
It is being stored up, but not for me or for you. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have escaped the wrath of God.
Thank you, Jesus!
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The Cure for Materialism
In His Presence: 3 John 2
When Simon offered money to the disciples, Peter responded: "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!" (Acts 8:20). Materialism carries with it a heavy curse. It began when Adam and Eve wanted to satisfy their own appetites, and the whole world fell under the curse of sin. Materialism causes people to forget about God, and where God is not the focus, life will be pointless. Matthew 13:22 says: "The worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."
The good news is that there is a cure for materialism. The cure is repentance. In Acts 8:22-23, the disciples told Simon: "Repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity."
God doesn't want money to bind you or chain you down. Deuteronomy 8:18 says: "It is [God] who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant." His blessings are meant to free us up to do more for Him. Giving of our blessings means that people are saved, the gospel is preached, and the poor are helped. God never blesses us to keep it for ourselves; He blesses us to share that blessing with others. Our financial prosperity and our spiritual prosperity are intertwined; they go hand in hand.
One Minute Please
If we repent and make God's glory our motivation, He will be honored in our stewardship.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Yielding
. . . you are that one's slaves whom you obey . . . -Romans 6:16
The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.
If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is- "I must have it now," whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. ". . . He has anointed Me . . . to proclaim liberty to the captives . . ." (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1).
When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you will know you can't. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person's life.
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Forever With Him
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 gives us powerful prophetic words,
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Jesus Christ will return, and the church will be caught away! We will meet the Lord in the clouds and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. From that moment on, we will always be with the Lord.
Maybe you are going through a rough patch right now. If so, let me remind you that this earthly life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. But we have eternity in store. Thank God we will ever be with the Lord!
If He tarries and we die before He returns, we get to go to heaven. But I have a feeling, with the way things are shaping up, that we will be the generation that sees His return.
Have you noticed how the eyes of the world are on the Middle East? This is all end times stuff. Also, one of the things that Jesus said would be a precursor to the end is that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to every nation, literally, to every language group.
And you know what? That will be completed in our generation.
So keep your eyes fixed on His return, and that day you will meet Him in the air and be with Him forever!
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The Purpose of Stewardship
In His Presence: Genesis 12:2-3
What is God's purpose for stewardship? We can sum it up in one verse, Deuteronomy 8:18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day." To put it simply, the reason God blesses us and the purpose of stewardship is the covenant.
The covenant is the program of God's kingdom. The principle of the covenant is that God expands His program of His kingdom rule in history through His servants. When God first made His covenant with Abraham, He promised to bless him, but not only that, He promised to bring blessingsthrough him.
We often hear Acts 20:35 quoted: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," but we don't really understand it. This verse means that if you are giving, it is only because God has given to you. If we receive blessings from God, we are obligated to be a blessing to someone else.
Deuteronomy 8:18 also emphasizes that it is God who gives us power to make wealth. God does not want us to forget the source of our blessings. It is He who allows us to work and be productive. Work has always been in God's plan for mankind, starting with Adam and Eve, who had the job of tending the garden and its inhabitants. There is no quick way to make a buck-true wealth is provided by God.
One Minute Please
When we give of our blessings, God will expand our roles as givers and allow us to keep on giving.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Dismay
As they followed they were afraid -Mark 10:32
At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar- "Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed" (Mark 10:32).
There is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple's heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set "like a flint" (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.
Jesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don't know Him. We don't recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don't know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.
The discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 1:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy.
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Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises
2 Peter 1:2-4 says,
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I want to draw your attention to verse 4 where the Scripture states that through the promises we partake of God's nature.
The promise is the connector, it is the pipeline through which God's nature flows to us.
"What is God's nature?" you might ask. It is the answer to everything you need! His nature is life, it is health, it is peace, it is wisdom, it is abundance. There is an answer in God's nature for every one of mankind's needs.
That is why the promises are called "exceedingly great and precious." Without a promise, there is no pipeline. Without a promise, we cannot partake.
But when you take a promise-an exceedingly great and precious promise-and act upon it in faith, God's nature is released into your situation.
Thank God for His promises!
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Covenant Blessings
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:17
We know that the covenant is central to God's purpose for stewardship. God uses His people to accomplish His purposes throughout history. In Old Testament times, God provided the tabernacle in the wilderness as the center of covenantal activity for the Israelites. The twelve tribes would situate themselves around the tabernacle where the cloud of glory was. When they went into the Promised Land, a temple was built, and this became the center of covenantal activity.
Today, the center of covenantal activity is the local church. This is the epicenter of God using the covenant to manage His kingdom. First Timothy 3:15 says the church is "the pillar and support of the truth." The local church holds God's Word, and His people are fed there by His Word. From that nourishment, the people should be engaged in dynamic ministry so that the impact of the kingdom spreads.
According to Deuteronomy 8:18, God gives His people the power to make wealth. God isn't against wealth, but He is against wasting it or letting it rule our lives. He wants to use what we have, and He wants to give us even more to use for the furthering of His kingdom. But the question is, can He trust us with more? Are we honoring Him with what we have right now? Ephesians 3:20-21 says: "To Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory." Your capacity will determine the level f your blessing.
One Minute Please
The role of God's people is to stand firm in His covenant.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Master Will Judge
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that we must all, preachers and other people alike, "appear before the judgment seat of Christ." But if you will learn here and now to live under the scrutiny of Christ's pure light, your final judgment will bring you only delight in seeing the work God has done in you. Live constantly reminding yourself of the judgment seat of Christ, and walk in the knowledge of the holiness He has given you. Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, "Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there." If you don't, your heart will become hardened through and through. One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. No power, except the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, can change or prevent the inherent consequences of sin.
"If we walk in the light as He is in the light. . ." (1 John 1:7). For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.
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Richer Blessings
Jeremiah 23:3-4 says,
"But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking," says the LORD.
As we discovered in one of our earlier devotionals, God gives richer blessings to these who remain faithful (the remnant). A good question to ask is, "What are the blessings for those who remain faithful?"
Jeremiah gives us a good clue,
They will have no fear.
They will lack for nothing.
They will be fruitful.
They will increase.
Are you interested in increasing? In fruitfulness? In not being afraid? God says those are things that happen to the remnant. These are the rich blessings you will receive if you stay faithful, committed, and obedient.
I once read a story about an old member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a pitcher named Harry Hartman. In 1918, he was called up from the minors to pitch against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was his dream come true! On his first pitch, the batter hit a single. No big deal.
The next batter hit a triple. Harry walked the next guy on four consecutive pitches. The next batter hit a single. Harry Hartman walked off the mound, went into the locker room, showered, put on his street clothes, went to a local naval recruiting office, and enlisted. The next day he was in uniform and was never seen again in professional baseball. He got discouraged and quit.
No matter what, do not give up! Remain faithful, because God promises great blessings to those who stay the course.
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Expecting God's Blessings
In His Presence: Luke 6:38
Sometimes people view working toward a reward as less than honorable. If your only reason for serving God is to get a reward, that's not right. But it's fine if the reward is only one reason for serving Him. God's Word shows us that He is vitally concerned about rewards. Jesus said: "There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms will for My sake . . . but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age . . . and in the age to come, eternal life" (Mark 10:29).
God honors those who honor Him, and God wants you to expect to be blessed. If you are a Christian, you've already been blessed "with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). And if God can trust you to be generous with the earthly treasures He's given you, He won't forget where it started, and it will come back around to you.
Giving is the way to receiving. Most Christians have it backwards; they say, "Lord, give to me and then I will give to You." But the fundamental difference between us and God is that we can trust God, but He can't trust us. Many times He gives to us and never sees it again. When we honor Him first, He promises to respond to us. When we trust in His provision, He will determine what and how much we will receive.
One Minute Please
Ephesians 6:8 says: "Whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord."
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Abraham's Life of Faith
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
In the Old Testament, a person's relationship with God was seen by the degree of separation in that person's life. This separation is exhibited in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and his family. When we think of separation today, we do not mean to be literally separated from those family members who do not have a personal relationship with God, but to be separated mentally and morally from their viewpoints. This is what Jesus Christ was referring to in Luke 14:26.
Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason-a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith-a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. "Abraham believed God. . ." (Romans 4:3).
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God's Priority
In Matthew 28:18-20, we have the top priority on God's list,
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Just imagine after the Resurrection that an angel comes up to Jesus and says, "Jesus, this is wonderful! You have paid the price for mankind's sin. What are You going to do to let the whole world know that they can be saved and they won't have to perish and spend an eternity without God? What is Your plan? How are You going to do it?"
And Jesus replies by saying, "Well, My few disciples are going to tell people, who in turn will tell other people, who are going to tell other people, who are going to tell other people."
Puzzled, the angel then asks, "Well, do You have a backup plan?" And Jesus says, "No." Still confused, the angel asks, "Well, no offense, Lord, but what if they fail?" Jesus replies by saying, "I have confidence in them."
My friend, there is no Plan B. God has no backup plan. You and I are it! We are Plan A! The problem is, too many Christians today do not have God's priority as their priority.
Over the next few devotionals, I am going to share with you what I call the five "P"s of evangelism. I pray they will encourage you to actively share the Good News of our risen Savior!
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Types of Blessings
In His Presence: Philippians 4:13-19
What blessings will God give those who are good stewards and honor Him? The definition of blessing is the enjoyment of God's divine favor. Blessing isn't just having stuff; it's being able to enjoy the stuff you have. So blessings aren't necessarily material things.
First, you can expect God to hear your prayers. David said: "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me" (Psalm 50:14-15). When prayer is mixed with proper stewardship, God will answer.
Second, you can also expect God to meet your needs. Second Corinthians 9:8 says: "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed." God knows all we need even before we do, and He has all the resources of the universe at His disposal.
When you are a proper steward, you may also enjoy reversal of fortune, where God changes your circumstances. "God turned the curse into a blessing" (Deuteronomy 23:5). "[God] will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten (Joel 2:25). We so often try to lead ourselves, but if we will only let Him lead He can reverse our scenarios and make good come from them.
Another blessing of stewardship is emotional well-being. If you are serving God and value Him above all else, you don't need to worry about money-God will take care of you.
One Minute Please
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Friendship with God
Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ? -Genesis 18:17
The Delights of His Friendship. Genesis 18 brings out the delight of true friendship with God, as compared with simply feeling His presence occasionally in prayer. This friendship means being so intimately in touch with God that you never even need to ask Him to show you His will. It is evidence of a level of intimacy which confirms that you are nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God's will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately.
The Difficulties of His Friendship. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He stopped because he still was lacking the level of intimacy in his relationship with God, which would enable him boldly to continue on with the Lord in prayer until his desire was granted. Whenever we stop short of our true desire in prayer and say, "Well, I don't know, maybe this is not God's will," then we still have another level to go. It shows that we are not as intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as Jesus would have us to be- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22). Think of the last thing you prayed about-were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? "For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
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The Prerequisite of Prayer
In yesterday's devotional, I shared that God's priority is to see people come to know Him. Today, I want to give you the first of the five "P"s of evangelism, which I hope will encourage you as you seek to share your faith.
The Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:1-6,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
I want you to notice verse 4 in particular: God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants them saved and discipled.
As Jesus said, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all nations." Those are our two main jobs. Proclaim the gospel to see people get saved, and then disciple them. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
But did you notice that verse 1 preceded verse 4? Verse 1 says, Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Verse 4 will not and cannot happen until verse 1 happens. First there is prayer, then comes sharing the plan of salvation.
We must first talk to God about men before we talk to men about God. We cannot be successful unless we talk to God about men first.
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Committed for Blessing
In His Presence: Matthew 6:24
God has a blessing for everyone. We will all face trials and tribulations, but in those times, the joy of the Lord will be your strength. In Genesis 14, God promised Abraham that He would bless him and make him a blessing. Shortly thereafter,"Melchizedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said, 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' [Abram] gave him a tenth of all. The king of Sodom said to Abram, 'Give the people to me and take the goods for yourself' " (vv. 18-21).
Sodom's king told Abraham he brought too much destruction, and said that if Abraham left, he would give him more money, power, and prestige. Look at Abraham's response: "I have sworn to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say 'I have made Abram rich' " (vv. 22-23).
Abraham refused to cut a deal just to get some more money in his pocket. He chose to trust God. When you are a good steward, you have options. You are no longer limited to earthly options; your trust is in God Most High. When you are a good steward, God is your option. You don't have to compromise what is right to get ahead.
One Minute Please
If you're not willing to plant your seed, you're not trusting Him to meet your need.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Identified or Simply Interested?
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow Him"-but-"I have been identified with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
". . . it is no longer I who live . . . ." My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.
". . . and the life which I now live in the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see, "I live by faith in the Son of God . . . ." This faith was not Paul's own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.
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Turning Desire into Prayer
I want to follow up yesterday's devotional by turning your attention to something I believe is very profound. It is Romans 10:1, where Paul states,
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
It is important to pray that people be saved. In fact, I want you to notice how Paul turned his desire into a prayer.
I think if I were to ask any believer, "Do you desire your family to be saved?" they would say yes. Or, "Do you desire your friends to be saved?" they would answer yes. Or, "Do you desire your coworkers to be saved?" they would reply yes.
Well, that is great. That is to be commended, but it is not enough. Your desire must be turned into a prayer. It is not enough just to have a desire that they be saved. That desire has to translate into prayer. Prayer that they may be saved.
It's all right to pray generally, but it is better to pray specifically. I encourage you to make a list of every unsaved person in your life. Start with the network of relationships that already exist in your life. Make a list of family members, friends, and associates who are not saved, and then do your best to pray for the people on that list every day.
Most Christians genuinely desire for folks to be saved, but not all Christians pray for the salvation of people that they love. And even fewer pray for the salvation of folks that they work with.
Turn your desire for the unsaved people in your life to be saved into prayer for their salvation. And start today.
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The Ministry of Stewardship
In His Presence: Acts 4:32-37
Understanding who we are as the people of God is critical for success as stewards of His kingdom. We are God's safety valve, the ones God has called to demonstrate what kingdom solutions look like. Ministry occurs when God's people serve others for eternal purposes. Ministry touches lives with eternity in mind.
Ministry takes place in God's house. In Old Testament times, this was the temple. In fact, Malachi 3:10, which talks about tithing, also refers to God's house: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house." Ephesians 2:19, 21-22 tells us that Christians are now God's temple: "You are . . . of God's household . . . the whole building, being fitted together, is growing unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." If our church is the dwelling place of God, we will know because the Word will be taught, the needs of the saints will be met, and the community will be impacted.
Ministry also comes at a price. All ministry should be done because God's people are investing in the eternal perspective. To support the ministry of God, we must not neglect the house of God because it is the center of godly life. Haggai 1:4-6 is convicting: "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Consider your ways! You have sown much, but harvest little.' "
One Minute Please
Godly stewards cannot look after their own houses and ignore God's house.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us . . . ? -Luke 24:32
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart- a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart- unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don't allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the "mount of transfiguration," basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
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How to Pray for the Unsaved
In the last two devotionals, I have stressed the importance of praying for the unsaved people in our lives to be saved. Today, I want to give you four ways you can pray for them:
1. Pray for openness and understanding. Acts 16:14 says the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to heed the things spoken by Paul. Paul was speaking the gospel. And if the Lord can open Lydia's heart, He can open your Aunt Mildred's heart.
2. Pray that God would send laborers to them. In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." I am confident that God will answer any prayer He has commanded us to pray, and this prayer is not a suggestion. Jesus commanded us to pray that God would send out laborers into the harvest.
3. Pray that God will visit them and reveal Himself to them. I do not know of a specific promise in the Bible where it says God is going to visit someone in a dream or give them a vision. But I do see in Scripture where God reveals Himself to people in such ways, like Saul of Tarsus, who, on the Damascus Road, had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved.
4. Pray for personal direction and for personal opportunities to share. Jesus, in Luke 10:2 said, "The harvest is great, laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest." In the next verse Jesus said, "Behold, I send you." You can become the answer to your own prayer!
So pray for the unsaved people in your life, and do not stop praying until they get saved.
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The People of Ministry
In His Presence: Ephesians 2:10
Some people believe Christianity is self-service only, but we can't just take in the gospel and not share it with others. God wants to empty us of ourselves so He can fill us with something new. Then we can give of what He has given us. This is accomplished through ministry, or as the Bible calls it, good works. A good work is always done to benefit someone else so that God publicly gets the glory. Matthew 5:16 says: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Our good works give the world a glimpse of God. Hebrews 10:24 says that the church should "stimulate one another to love and good deeds."
What constitutes a good deed? Jesus said that anyone who gives a cup of cold water in His name will not be forgotten (Matthew 10:42). We do good works in the name of Jesus to give Him the credit and the proper due.
Ministry is for the benefit of several groups of people. We are to minister to those who minister to us, our preachers and congregational leaders (Galatians 6:6). We are to minister to the poor. Deuteronomy 15:11 says: "Freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land." And we are to minister to the unsaved by sharing the gospel and fulfilling the Great Commission. Men can recover from earthly circumstances, but there is no eternal solution outside of Jesus.
One Minute Please
Our churches should be a place of ministry, not merely a place of gathering.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Carnally Minded?
Where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal . . . ? -1 Corinthians 3:3
The natural man, or unbeliever, knows nothing about carnality. The desires of the flesh warring against the Spirit, and the Spirit warring against the flesh, which began at rebirth, are what produce carnality and the awareness of it. But Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). In other words, carnality will disappear.
Are you quarrelsome and easily upset over small things? Do you think that no one who is a Christian is ever like that? Paul said they are, and he connected these attitudes with carnality. Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly awakens a spirit of malice or resentment in you? If so, that is proof that you are still carnal. If the process of sanctification is continuing in your life, there will be no trace of that kind of spirit remaining.
If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He doesn't ask you to make it right; He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right. A child of the light will confess sin instantly and stand completely open before God. But a child of the darkness will say, "Oh, I can explain that." When the light shines and the Spirit brings conviction of sin, be a child of the light. Confess your wrongdoing, and God will deal with it. If, however, you try to vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness.
What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone you will know it-it is the most real thing you can imagine. And God will see to it that you have a number of opportunities to prove to yourself the miracle of His grace. The proof is in a very practical test. You will find yourself saying, "If this had happened before, I would have had the spirit of resentment!" And you will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.
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The Power of Your Presence
Jesus said in Matthew 5:16,
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
The way you let your light shine is just being yourself around people. Witness everywhere you go through your life, and use words, if necessary.
You can sow seeds just by showing people that you are real. Some people call it friendship evangelism: being a genuine friend, touchable, genuinely caring for people, just letting your light shine.
Jesus also said you are a city set on a hill. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nobody lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. You and I are to live a life that brightly shines the gospel to the unsaved.
I read a story years ago about a guy who had his doorbell hooked up to a big buzzer in the back room. The buzzer was really loud. He wanted to change it and put a light there instead that would illuminate when somebody pushed the doorbell. So he rigged it up to do just that.
The problem was the light would barely illuminate. He could not figure out what was wrong, so he called an electrician friend. His friend looked at it and told him, "Oh, you don't understand. It takes more power to shine than it does to make noise."
That is very true. Jesus said, "Let your light shine." Without having to necessarily confront people, they will just notice something different about you. If you are walking with God, it is reflected in your attitude, your work ethic, and your countenance. It is a discernable difference that will lead some people to ask about your faith. You will be able to sow seeds just with your presence.
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The Reality of Debt
In His Presence: Proverbs 13:22
Financially speaking, there are three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots, and those who have not paid for what they have! Debt has become a way of life in the American landscape. The average American household spends at least 20 percent of their net income on consumer debt. We must understand that when debt rules, debt ruins. Proverbs 22:7 says: "The borrower becomes the lender's slave." Debt controls your life, so it puts you in a kind of slavery. There are several reasons for debt: ignorance, indulgence, poor planning, and emergencies. All these things can contribute to the snowball of debt.
But I believe that God provides a way for us to live without being controlled by our debt. Debt is owing something you cannot pay, and that kind of debt should be abnormal for the Christian because it is outside God's will. Debt is first and foremost a spiritual issue-we are in debt because we have refused to obey God.
Psalm 37:21 says:"The wicked borrows and does not pay back." Ecclesiastes 5:5 says: "It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay."But also: "TheLord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow" (Deuteronomy 28:12).
We can be set free from the tyranny of debt, and there are four steps that can help us: plant, plan, prioritize, and pray.
One Minute Please
Knowing the truth about debt is the first step toward financial freedom.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity (1)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God -Matthew 5:8
Purity is not innocence- it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character- it is "the pure in heart " who "see God."
God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished. Not only must our "inner sanctuary" be kept right with God, but also the "outer courts" must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding is immediately blurred when our "outer court" is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.
A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, "That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!"
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Power
In Acts 9:32-35, we are given the fifth and final "P" of evangelism, and that is power,
Now it came to pass, as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed." Then he arose immediately. So all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
Two entire cities turned to Christ because of one display of God's power! One man who had been paralyzed was healed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and two cities came to God.
We have the same gospel. It is the same Holy Spirit; we serve the same blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have to pray that God will, if necessary, do the miraculous to save people.
Paul, writing in the book of Romans, says he fully preached the gospel with miracles, signs, and wonders. People will respond today just like they did then. But we need to be bold, step out, and pray for things to happen.
When I was living in Oregon, there was an Indian girl who was very sick and actually at the point of death. The doctors told her she was going to die. She came to a small meeting one night and the evangelist prayed for her. She was healed and then gave her life to Christ. As a result, her dad, a famous rodeo rider, got saved, and her mom was saved also. Then a large group of people from her tribe came to Christ as well.
Evangelism through power. We need to trust God for the supernatural.
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Planting and Planning
In His Presence: Psalm 50:14-15, 23
To get out of debt God's way, we must first learn how to plant. Any financial counselor will tell you to invest in that which gives you the greatest chance of a good return. And God will always give us the greatest return on anything in life. God is our greatest investor, and if He is not being honored by all He has given to us, everything else is out of line. God should be our first financial priority-His is the first bill we pay. Jesus said: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17). We are to give God His due, and to give the governing authorities their due in the form of our taxes. We may believe that the current tax system is unrighteous or unfair, but God is greater than the IRS, and we answer to Him. God is our greatest resource, and we should plant our investments in Him.
The second thing we must do to get out of debt God's way is to plan. Proverbs 27:23 says: "Know well the condition of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds." Proverbs 28:20 says: "A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished." We must stop guessing about the state of our finances and make a purposeful plan to use our resources wisely. A budget gives the guidelines for how each dollar will be allocated.
One Minute Please
"The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty" (Proverbs 21:5).
God bless
:angel:
Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity (2)
Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place . . . -Revelation 4:1
A higher state of mind and spiritual vision can only be achieved through the higher practice of personal character. If you live up to the highest and best that you know in the outer level of your life, God will continually say to you, "Friend, come up even higher." There is also a continuing rule in temptation which calls you to go higher; but when you do, you only encounter other temptations and character traits. Both God and Satan use the strategy of elevation, but Satan uses it in temptation, and the effect is quite different. When the devil elevates you to a certain place, he causes you to fasten your idea of what holiness is far beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear or achieve. Your life becomes a spiritual acrobatic performance high atop a steeple. You cling to it, trying to maintain your balance and daring not to move. But when God elevates you by His grace into heavenly places, you find a vast plateau where you can move about with ease.
Compare this week in your spiritual life with the same week last year to see how God has called you to a higher level. We have all been brought to see from a higher viewpoint. Never allow God to show you a truth which you do not instantly begin to live up to, applying it to your life. Always work through it, staying in its light.
Your growth in grace is not measured by the fact that you haven't turned back, but that you have an insight and understanding into where you are spiritually. Have you heard God say, "Come up higher," not audibly on the outer level, but to the innermost part of your character?
"Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ?" (Genesis 18:17). God has to hide from us what He does, until, due to the growth of our personal character, we get to the level where He is then able to reveal it.
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The Snare of Fear
Proverbs 29:25 tells us,
The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.
A snare is a noose used for catching an animal. Fear will cause you to be snared or trapped, just like an animal.
I have a friend in the church who has a very large nut tree in his yard, which the squirrels regularly raid. He put this big net over the tree, but it did not seem to deter the squirrels at all. So he finally got a trap and set it up on the roof right next to the nut tree. To date, he has caught about 120 squirrels.
When the squirrel is in the trap, it is totally at his mercy. It can't go anywhere. He happens to be a fairly merciful gentleman, so he takes them over to a local park and lets them go.
When fear gets a hold of your life, you become like one of those trapped squirrels-you are not going anywhere. You are at its mercy. You will not progress spiritually. It keeps you bound. The fear of man can keep you from obeying God; it will keep you from pleasing God. It will keep you from the joy you would experience when you trust God.
In fact, there is a contrast in our verse today. The man or woman who is bound by the fear of man, will not be trusting God in some area of his life. Look at the two parts of the verse together: The fear of man brings a snare, but... in contrast ...whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
Do not allow the fear of man to control your life. Instead, trust in the Lord.
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Prioritizing and Praying
In His Presence: Proverbs 16:9
After you've planted and planned to use your resources in a way that glorifies God, you must prioritize. You will have to determine the difference between your needs, wants, and desires. The Bible says we have only three needs: food, clothes, and shelter. If all our needs are being met, we have plenty to praise the Lord for. Wants are based on the quality of our needs-we may need a house, but we want a big house. Desires are the things on our wish list that are covered by any surplus funds. Once the bills are paid, we might attend to our desires, but never before then.
Many of our debt problems come from trying to fill our desires with buying things. Proverbs 21:17 says: "He who loves pleasure will become a poor man." We must first prioritize those things we need, and if we don't have them, it might be necessary to sell some of the things we bought to meet our desires in order to meet our needs.
The fourth step in getting rid of debt really takes place while the other three are going on-it is prayer. Proverbs 16:3 says:"Commit your works to theLord and your plans will be established." When you mix prayer with planting, planning, and prioritizing, I guarantee that you will see God invade your circumstances and turn your debt around. I don't know what methods He will choose for you, but I know that He is able because He is all-powerful and all-knowing. He cares for you.
One Minute Please
God has a miracle waiting for you to get you out of debt and into freedom.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Isn't There Some Misunderstanding?
'Let us go to Judea again.' The disciples said to Him, '. . . are You going there again?' -John 11:7-8
Just because I don't understand what Jesus Christ says, I have no right to determine that He must be mistaken in what He says. That is a dangerous view, and it is never right to think that my obedience to God's directive will bring dishonor to Jesus. The only thing that will bring dishonor is not obeying Him. To put my view of His honor ahead of what He is plainly guiding me to do is never right, even though it may come from a real desire to prevent Him from being put to an open shame. I know when the instructions have come from God because of their quiet persistence. But when I begin to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate enter into my mind, I am bringing in an element that is not of God. This will only result in my concluding that His instructions to me were not right. Many of us are faithful to our ideas about Jesus Christ, but how many of us are faithful to Jesus Himself? Faithfulness to Jesus means that I must step out even when and where I can't see anything (see Matthew 14:29). But faithfulness to my own ideas means that I first clear the way mentally. Faith, however, is not intellectual understanding; faith is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can't see the way ahead.
Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked? Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy. When He tells you something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a misunderstanding of what honors Him and what doesn't. Are you faithful to Jesus, or faithful to your ideas about Him? Are you faithful to what He says, or are you trying to compromise His words with thoughts that never came from Him? "Whatever He says to you, do it " (John 2:5).
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Don't Lose Out
In 1 Samuel 15:18-19, 24-26, Samuel, the prophet, comes to King Saul, and this is what he says,
"Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"... Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel."
Saul disobeyed God and then lied about it, tried to cover it, and tried to shift the blame to the people. Did you notice that part? Why? Because he feared the people.
Because of the fear of man, Samuel said to him, "You have lost your place." Later on he says, "God has found a man better than you, a man after His own heart." And He chose David to replace Saul as the king of Israel.
I want you to think about this: God had promised Saul that his seed would sit on the throne, but it was a conditional promise God gave to him.
Saul lost out because of his disobedience caused by the fear of man, and so did his offspring! And David, a better man than Saul, ended up on the throne of Israel, through whom our Savior came.
If the fear of man can rob us of our destiny and affect our offspring, just think what faith in God can do!
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The Confidence of Stewardship
In His Presence: Mark 11:22
Being confident in stewardship is fundamentally an issue of faith. Faith relates to all of life. The definition of faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith accepts that what God has said is as good as done. Faith lays claim on and stakes its existence on the person and purposes of God. Faith functions in the present, based on what God has said about the future.
In Matthew 13:58, we see "He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief." And without faith, there is substance that God has for you in the invisible realm that you will never see in the visible realm. Faith is a way of living: "The righteous man shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17).
Faith is powerful. Jesus said that whoever had faith the size of a mustard seed could move a mountain into the sea. The power of faith is not based on you or how much faith you have, it is based simply upon who God is. Your faith is as big as the God you believe in. If we focus on Him as the object of our faith, our faith will grow. The power of faith is serious for a godly steward because he or she is confident in the power of God. Luke 16:11 tells us that if we are faithful in the use of money, God will entrust "true riches" to us, meaning spiritual riches that are worth far more than worldly goods.
One Minute Please
If God can't trust you with earthly money, why should He trust you with kingdom riches?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Our Lord's Surprise Visits
You also be ready . . . -Luke 12:40
A Christian worker's greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not facing our beliefs or doctrines, or even facing the question of whether or not we are of any use to Him, but the need is to face Him.
Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord's surprise visits. This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle-we must be spiritually real.
If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today's world, and instead are "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thoughts, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ.
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Not Ashamed
I have a question to ask you today. Has there ever been a time when you were afraid to confess the name of Jesus? In John 9:20-23, we have the example of the parents whose son had been born blind but was healed by Jesus.
Look at their response when asked who healed their son,
His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself." His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
How many Christians have held their tongue when they should have been giving praise to the name of Jesus? Praise for answered prayer, for the miracles He has done, but they were intimidated by unbelievers?
I was coming back from Africa when a Muslim man on the plane put a blanket on the floor, got down on his face and began to pray. This man was not ashamed at all about kneeling down on the plane in front of everyone.
I thought, "Oh, Jesus! How many times have Your people kept silent because they were afraid of what someone might think of them?"
Throw off the shackles of fear and timidity, and boldly take your stand for Christ!
Proverbs 28:1 says, The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
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Faith in Practice
In His Presence: Ecclesiastes 11:1-4
The question of faith as it relates to stewardship is, do we believe that if we invest in that which is eternal that God will honor and bless us in the way He sees fit? We must believe that kingdom investments are not lost.
In order for faith to work, it must be practiced. "Faith, if it has no works, is dead" (James 2:17). Faith is not just believing that God can do what He says; faith is entrusting yourself to Him so He can do His work through you! Proverbs 11:24 says: "There is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want."
We must persevere in faith. Scripture sets forth the principles we are to live by, and God can impress things on our hearts about how He wants us to serve Him as stewards. Don't let circumstances detour you from faith. Just because it looks like things might not work out, don't stop trusting God. Don't let doubt detour you. When doubt is holding you back, take it to Jesus, just like the man who told Jesus: "I do believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). And Jesus healed his son.
Don't let people detour you from faith in God. Others may try to discourage you and tell you that you need to give up on Him, but if you trust, God will keep walking with you. Don't let fear detour you from your faith. Don't be afraid to trust God's Word and obey it.
One Minute Please
God sowed the seed of salvation in our hearts, and we can sow seeds of faith in the world.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Holiness or Hardness Toward God?
He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor . . . -Isaiah 59:16
The reason many of us stop praying and become hard toward God is that we only have an emotional interest in prayer. It sounds good to say that we pray, and we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial- that our minds are quieted and our souls are uplifted when we pray. But Isaiah implied in this verse that God is amazed at such thoughts about prayer.
Worship and intercession must go together; one is impossible without the other. Intercession means raising ourselves up to the point of getting the mind of Christ regarding the person for whom we are praying (see Philippians 2:5). Instead of worshiping God, we recite speeches to God about how prayer is supposed to work. Are we worshiping God or disputing Him when we say, "But God, I just don't see how you are going to do this"? This is a sure sign that we are not worshiping. When we lose sight of God, we become hard and dogmatic. We throw our petitions at His throne and dictate to Him what we want Him to do. We don't worship God, nor do we seek to conform our minds to the mind of Christ. And if we are hard toward God, we will become hard toward other people.
Are we worshiping God in a way that will raise us up to where we can take hold of Him, having such intimate contact with Him that we know His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship with God, or have we become hard and dogmatic?
Do you find yourself thinking that there is no one interceding properly? Then be that person yourself. Be a person who worships God and lives in a holy relationship with Him. Get involved in the real work of intercession, remembering that it truly is work-work that demands all your energy, but work which has no hidden pitfalls. Preaching the gospel has its share of pitfalls, but intercessory prayer has none whatsoever.
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No Worries
I trust that these words from Isaiah will encourage you today. Read carefully what God has to say,
"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?... But I am the LORD your God, who divided the sea whose waves roared-the LORD of hosts is His name" (Isaiah 51:12-13 and 15).
God spans the heavens with the palm of His hand. The nations are as a drop in the bucket before Him. There is nothing too hard for Him, and nothing He cannot do.
A number of years ago, I had the chance to go elk hunting with a friend in Montana. We were lying outside under the stars, and I was unprepared for the glory I saw. I have never seen so many stars in my life! It took my breath away!
As we lay there, I said, "You know what? God spans the heavens with His hand, and you and I are worried about paying the rent!" It was just one of those moments. We both just cracked up at how ridiculous it was to worry when God was so big.
What are you worrying about today? Whatever it is, place it into God's hands. After all, His hand spans the entire universe!
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The Evaluation of Stewardship
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 3:11-15
Each Christian will one day come before the judgment seat of Christ and will be evaluated for their Christian walk. This is when God will look at our stewardship, at our use of time, talents, and treasures. He will evaluate us not to determine our entrance to heaven-that has already been given through Christ's finished work on the cross-but to determine our reward in heaven.
As we reconsider the parable of the three stewards in Matthew 25, let us first remember the issue of responsibility in stewardship. The three servants did not own the possessions they took care of; those things belonged to the master. None of the slaves could claim ownership of anything they had. In the same way, everything we have, are, or ever will be belongs to God.
We must also remember the issue of accountability. After time had passed, the master came back to see what the slaves had done with his money. We will all one day answer for the use of our resources. To the servants who invested wisely, the master gave public praise and more treasures (vv. 21, 23), but to the servant who buried his talent in the ground, he gave a tongue-lashing (v. 26). Each one got the reward he was due.
How can we prepare for the day when we will answer for the use of our time, talents, and treasures? Start rewriting our obituaries now! We can't change the past, but we can change tomorrow. Begin reorganizing your life to reflect your changed priorities.
One Minute Please
Live so that at His judgment seat, God will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
God bless
:angel:
The Glory That's Unsurpassed
. . . the Lord Jesus . . . has sent me that you may receive your sight . . . -Acts 9:17
When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ- "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul never again allowed anything to attract and hold the attention of his mind and soul except the face of Jesus Christ.
We must learn to maintain a strong degree of character in our lives, even to the level that has been revealed in our vision of Jesus Christ.
The lasting characteristic of a spiritual man is the ability to understand correctly the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, and the ability to explain the purposes of God to others. The overruling passion of his life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you see this quality in a person, you get the feeling that he is truly a man after God's own heart (see Acts 13:22).
Never allow anything to divert you from your insight into Jesus Christ. It is the true test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you. Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus, I've lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit's vision, Gazing on the Crucified.
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Life's Proper Focus
Read Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
This parable really helps us bring life into the right perspective. The rich man in this story failed to do three things.
He failed to realize that he was only a steward and not the owner of his goods.
He failed to have an eternal perspective.
He failed to consider how brief this earthly life can be.
How did he fail in these three areas? By not understanding just how short life is and where to place his focus.
He talked about building barns but instead he had a burial.
He said he had many years but God said "this night."
He thought he was wise, but God said he was a fool.
Let's learn from his mistakes and bring our life into proper focus.
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Like Christ
In His Presence: If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness (Romans 8:10).
God's goal for His people is Christlikeness, conforming them to the character of Christ. But many of us think, "I read the Bible, I pray, I go to church, but I'm not really transformed to be like Christ from the inside out. What's wrong with me?"
One Minute Please
We have a capacity problem-sin has killed our bodies, and we aren't capable of helping ourselves.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"If You Had Known!"
If you had known . . . in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes -Luke 19:42
Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there-the pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to "whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness" (Matthew 23:27).
What is it that blinds you to the peace of God "in this your day"? Do you have a strange god-not a disgusting monster but perhaps an unholy nature that controls your life? More than once God has brought me face to face with a strange god in my life, and I knew that I should have given it up, but I didn't do it. I got through the crisis "by the skin of my teeth," only to find myself still under the control of that strange god. I am blind to the very things that make for my own peace. It is a shocking thing that we can be in the exact place where the Spirit of God should be having His completely unhindered way with us, and yet we only make matters worse, increasing our blame in God's eyes.
"If you had known . . . ." God's words here cut directly to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind them. These words imply responsibility for our own faults. God holds us accountable for what we refuse to see or are unable to see because of our sin. And "now they are hidden from your eyes" because you have never completely yielded your nature to Him. Oh, the deep, unending sadness for what might have been! God never again opens the doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut-doors which had no need to be shut. Never be afraid when God brings back your past. Let your memory have its way with you. It is a minister of God bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you. God will turn what might have been into a wonderful lesson of growth for the future.
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Who Made the Sun Shine?
Look again at Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Take a look at the few words that this man spoke. In his short declaration, he uses the word I six times and the word my five times!
His perspective was a very selfish one.
Here are a few questions to ponder:
· Who gave the rain that made his crops grow?
· Who made the soil out of which his crops grew?
· Who made the seed he planted?
· Who caused the sun to shine?
· Who gave him the physical strength to work the field?
· Who gave him his soul?
The answer to all of those is God. Yet he makes no acknowledgement of God in his speech, planning, or giving. He should have been thanking God for all His blessings and asking the Lord what He wanted done with His things.
Be faithful to acknowledge God and to ask Him what to do with His resources over which you are a steward.
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The Nature of Christ
In His Presence: You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him (Romans 8:9).
As Christians, we are limited by our capacity as human beings. Even though Jesus has obtained the victory for us, we are still living in our broken, sinful bodies, and we cannot completely conform to the divine standard until we get to heaven.
One Minute Please
We all enter the world in the same state: dead in our sins. Only the power of Christ can give us life and change our hearts to look like His.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Permanent Faith
Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you will be scattered . . . -John 16:32
Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the perfect relationship with God, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our faith must be exercised in the realities of everyday life. We will be scattered, not into service but into the emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know what internal death to God's blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is certainly not of our own choosing, but God engineers our circumstances to take us there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings. But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is what is meant by faith being exercised in the realities of life.
". . . you . . . will leave Me alone." Have we been scattered and have we left Jesus alone by not seeing His providential care for us? Do we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord, we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God's blessings is fundamental
". . . be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need.
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It's All Mapped Out
One of the great truths revealed in Scripture is that the end is determined from the beginning. What I mean by that is God sees the end from the beginning. He already has a plan for you. He has already got the whole thing worked out.
Consider what God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."
Before Jeremiah was ever born, God had his destiny, a plan for his life, all worked out. That truth applies to you and me, and that helps me rest at night. It is great to know I do not have to figure this whole thing out. Sometimes we see through a glass darkly. But you know what? God sees everything perfectly.
This same truth is echoed in Ephesians 1:4,
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Did you know you were chosen before God laid the foundation for this world? That was a long time ago. God knew you before you ever existed. He knew you before the world was here. You were chosen in Him. You were not an accident. God knew you.
Again, this truth is affirmed in Ephesians 2:10,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The beforehand is before the foundation of the world. Just like God knew you, He prepared specific good works for you that you should walk in them long before you ever came into existence.
He has your life mapped out. What a great comfort!
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Christlikeness
In His Presence: If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
Christlikeness is the Spirit of God inspiring the ability to emulate the person of Christ in and through your life. How do you know if you are Christlike? Your conduct will be consistent with the character of the Savior. You constantly grow more into His image, becoming more like Him this year than you were last year, more like Him today than you were yesterday.
One Minute Please
The Spirit is so powerful, it liberates the dead body to enjoy the new life that Jesus provided by His death and resurrection.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . 'Stay here and watch with Me' -Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don't have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique- they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God- Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan's assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation- ". . . the devil . . . departed from Him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan's final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
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Let God Do His Job
Philippians 2:8-11 shows us how humility precedes honor,
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If God's good pleasure and His plan are to be worked out in our lives, we must walk in humility. It is a prerequisite for us to pass the test of humility. As we see here, because Jesus humbled Himself, God highly exalted Him. And at that point, no demon in hell could do a thing to prevent it.
When God promotes you, no person, no demon, no ungodly system can hold you back. God's exalting power is irresistible. It is undeniable, and it is undefeatable.
But a humble heart must come first. It has been said that no man stands taller than when he is on his knees before God. Let us humble ourselves and be obedient to God in every area of our lives. If we will lower ourselves, God will lift us. God's job is to exalt us, and our job is to humble ourselves. If we try to do God's job for Him, He will have to do our job for us.
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Extreme Makeover
In His Presence: The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6).
When the Spirit dwells in you, your mortal body is brought to life. You are changed, and you are redeemed from the grave. God wants us to realize that if we will make His purpose our own purpose and our passion, we will be in position for the miracle of resurrection. When we seek to be conformed to the image of Christ, we will be like Him not only in life, but also in death, rising victoriously over the grave just as He did. That is the good news of the Gospel!
One Minute Please
When others look at us, may they not even recognize our old sinful selves and only see the Savior reflected in our lives
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Collision of God and Sin
. . . who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . . -1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God's judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross- He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus- He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating "God was manifested in the flesh. . ." from ". . . He made Him. . . to be sin for us. . ." (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
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Humpty Dumpty?
Proverbs 27:2 gives us very wise words of advice,
Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth.
There are so many people, including Christians, who think God cannot get along without them. They think they are the reason they experience so much success.
It has been said that a man wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package.
When God grants you success and blesses you, you have to remain humble if you are going to retain your usefulness to God. The Scripture says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
There are plenty of men and women who at one time or another were on top, but today are on the bottom. I know examples inside and outside ministry. One story in particular comes to mind when I think of this principle.
There was a minister who once said, while making a plea for money, "No one is doing what we're doing throughout the world, and God needs us to carry on this work. The world cannot be reached without our ministry."
Granted, he was doing an incredible work in a lot of different countries. But the moment he said, "God can't get along without me," I thought of Humpty Dumpty. I just thought, "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!" I knew he was headed for a fall!
And you know what? That man is no longer in the position of prominence that he once was. And God seems to have gotten along fine without him.
Do not sing your own praises. Let others congratulate you if they will, but at the end of the day offer those praises to the One who really deserves it-the Lord.
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The Agent of Transformation
In His Presence: The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17).
God's method of transformation is conforming us to the image of Christ by the work of the Spirit within. The transformation you long for must come from the divine method He has prescribed.The spiritual transformation process is conducted by the agent God has ordained-the Holy Spirit. The Lord is the Spirit, of the same essence and one in deity. Before His death, Jesus told the disciples He would leave with them a Comforter, one who would be Christ living in them. Jesus is with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
One Minute Please
If we focus our minds on things of the Spirit instead of things of the flesh, our minds and hearts will be receptive to spiritual transformation.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Seen Jesus?
After that, He appeared in another form to two of them . . . -Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God's grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.
You should always recognize the difference between what you see Jesus to be and what He has done for you. If you see only what He has done for you, your God is not big enough. But if you have had a vision, seeing Jesus as He really is, experiences can come and go, yet you will endure "as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). The man who was blind from birth did not know who Jesus was until Christ appeared and revealed Himself to him (see John 9). Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something, but we cannot order or predict when He will come. He may appear suddenly, at any turn. Then you can exclaim, "Now I see Him!" (see John 9:25).
Jesus must appear to you and to your friend individually; no one can see Jesus with your eyes. And division takes place when one has seen Him and the other has not. You cannot bring your friend to the point of seeing; God must do it. Have you seen Jesus? If so, you will want others to see Him too. "And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either" (Mark 16:13). When you see Him, you must tell, even if they don't believe.
O could I tell, you surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can you receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?
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Three Relationships that Make Us Rich
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:13-15).
This man came to Jesus to get him to "sort his brother out" over the inheritance, not realizing that his brother was the real treasure in his life - not the things he might inherit.
Here are three relationships that make us rich:
1. Our relationship with God. To know God makes you rich, no matter what material resources you may or may not have.
Some of those that the world would call rich are actually bankrupt when it comes to the most important treasure of all.
2. Our relationship with others. People, not things, are the real treasures in life. I can honestly say that I am a rich man. I have family and friends that I love and that love me. Things lose their meaning, and serve as a very poor substitute for relationships with people.
3. Our relationship with our own heart. Commune with your own heart... declares the psalmist in Psalm 4:4 (KJV).
That means hold some serious communication with your heart-get acquainted with your heart. Don't let you and your own heart be strangers!
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The Instrument of Transformation
In His Presence: We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Verse 18 reveals that all Christians are being transformed into the image of Christ more and more, and that happens by beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. This mirror is so powerful that when we look into it, it changes us. This powerful mirror is the Word of God.
One Minute Please
The Holy Spirit put the Word of God in motion in your soul.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Complete and Effective Decision About Sin
. . . our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin -Romans 6:6
Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin-that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you-not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified-just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.
Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, "Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me." Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life- to see the very things that struggle against God's Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God's verdict on the nature of sin- that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot "reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin" (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.
Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . ." (Galatians 2:20).
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Faithful to Another
Jesus, in Luke 16:12, makes a very interesting statement...one that provides a perspective on faithfulness you would not expect,
"And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?"
Jesus makes it clear. You have to be faithful in something that is someone else's before He will fulfill your dream or open doors for you.
God gives each of us opportunities to help others. And He looks for us to faithfully help others before He blesses us. For example, Joseph had to help Pharaoh with his dream, before God allowed Joseph's dream to come to pass.
Maybe you have a dream to be super rich for the purpose of spreading the gospel. You would like to see the gospel go around the world. Or you would like to pay off the debt on your church's building. Or you would like to fund a certain missions organization.
I think the Kingdom could use a multitude of very wealthy people who have a heart for the lost and a desire to see God's work succeed and expand.
But first you need to be faithful working for that person who has hired you. You have to be faithful in that which is another man's. God is not going to open a door for you to fulfill the dream you have if you do not show up for work on time, or if you do not put in a full day's work. Why would God open the door for you to lead your own successful business if you have not been faithful working for someone else?
You must serve that other person with all of your heart, or that other company you are working for first, before God will prosper you. It is a Kingdom principle.
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Beholding God's Word
In His Presence: The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword . . . able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
If we want to be transformed by God's Word through the power of the Holy Spirit, we must behold it correctly. Second Corinthians 3:18 says we must behold with unveiled faces. When a woman gets married, she often walks down the aisle with a veil obscuring her face. Then the bridegroom removes the veil so that she is visibly exposed.
One Minute Please
The Bible doesn't exist just to give you good information about God. It exists to give you power and victory through Christ.
God bless
:angel:
April 11, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Complete and Effective Divinity
If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . -Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God- His complete and effective divinity- to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house- He invades all of it. And once I decide that my "old man" (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to "reckon" that I am actually "dead indeed to sin," because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness- the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.
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The Way Up May Be Down
It is not unusual for God's promotion to look like a demotion at first, to feel like you are going backward rather than forward.
There are a couple of great examples of this in the Bible. For instance, do you remember how Joseph in Genesis 37 dreamt he would one day rule over his brothers? That God was going to promote him to a place of prominence?
So what happened? His brothers threw him into a pit, he was sold to Midianite traders as a slave, and then he was put on the auction block and sold again in Egypt. On top of that, he ended up in prison on false charges and spent several years there, seemingly forgotten.
But without those experiences, Joseph would have never been ready to rule. Preparation comes before promotion. The way up may go down for awhile at first.
David is another example of how God will "demote" in order to promote. Do you remember in 1 Samuel 16:12-13 how David was anointed king while still just a shepherd?
Now he [David] was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!" Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
This is a pretty big promotion for a shepherd boy, don't you think? But for years, David lived a fugitive's life-moving from place to place, living in caves, being hunted. He was separated from everyone and all the things that he loved.
His promotion ended up looking more like a demotion, which is often the way God works. In the process of your promotion, He will take you through difficult times to prepare you for that promotion.
Just remember, the way up is often down
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Resigned to the Word
In His Presence: Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1:19-20).
Many Christians today are suffering from spiritual anorexia and starving to death spiritually. Even though they may have plenty of Bibles in their homes for spiritual nourishment, and even though the church-a spiritual supermarket-is right down the street, these Christians suffer from spiritual malnutrition. One primary reason for this is that they have not decided to make becoming like Christ their sole purpose. If He is not your passionate purpose, everything else you do will be wasted. God's purpose for us is to be conformed to the image of His Son, to be transformed by His glory, and to be made holy and righteous like Christ.
One Minute Please
We must make the Bible the first place we go to find truth, not the last. We must be quick to hear His truth.
:angel: :angel:
April 12, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Complete and Effective Dominion
Death no longer has dominion over Him. . . . the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God . . . -Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8)- not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life- ". . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to "let go." But any effort to "hang on" to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him
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Preparation for Promotion
It is easy for us to be impatient with God's timeline of blessing, or to wonder why God is not prospering us as we think we should be.
In 1 Samuel 22:1-2, we are given a snapshot of how God prepared David, a little shepherd boy, to be king,
David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him.
Just think how David must have felt. God tells Him, "David, you're going to be Israel's next king!" but Saul is chasing him across the countryside and the people who are following him are all the outcasts, the people with problems, the people who are unhappy, the people who don't have any money.
On top of that, the next few verses of this passage talk about how David had to move his family to a foreign country just to keep them safe. Some promotion!
But you know what? Through it all David was learning how to trust God and how to manage people. His character was being tested. He was being fitted by God to wear the garments of a king: the garment of mercy, fairness, and wisdom, the shoes of decisiveness, the belt of strength, covered with a robe of gentleness.
The fullness of his promotion came in due season, and so will yours. David was not ready to be king when he walked out of the field as a young shepherd boy, so do not be surprised if you also need to be prepared for your promotion!
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Slow to Speak
In His Presence: Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation (1 Peter 2:2).
In resigning ourselves to God's Word, we must also be "slow to speak." This means after we are quick to listen to what God says, we don't argue with it. Many of us are too busy listening to ourselves talk to hear what God is really saying to us, and when we do hear Him, we don't want to believe Him-we try to argue with Him!
One Minute Please
We must resign ourselves to the pure truth of God's Word without adding our own perspective.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
April 13, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What To Do When Your Burden Is Overwhelming
Cast your burden on the Lord . . . -Psalm 55:22
We must recognize the difference between burdens that are right for us to bear and burdens that are wrong. We should never bear the burdens of sin or doubt, but there are some burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off. God wants us to roll them back on Him- to literally "cast your burden," which He has given you, "on the Lord . . . ." If we set out to serve God and do His work but get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility we feel will be overwhelming and defeating. But if we will only roll back on God the burdens He has placed on us, He will take away that immense feeling of responsibility, replacing it with an awareness and understanding of Himself and His presence.
Many servants set out to serve God with great courage and with the right motives. But with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, they are soon defeated. They do not know what to do with their burden, and it produces weariness in their lives. Others will see this and say, "What a sad end to something that had such a great beginning!"
"Cast your burden on the Lord . . . ." You have been bearing it all, but you need to deliberately place one end on God's shoulder. ". . . the government will be upon His shoulder" (Isaiah 9:6). Commit to God whatever burden He has placed on you. Don't just cast it aside, but put it over onto Him and place yourself there with it. You will see that your burden is then lightened by the sense of companionship. But you should never try to separate yourself from your burden.
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At Just the Right Time
It is easy for us to get anxious when it seems like God is moving more slowly than we would like. But Scripture is clear, God's purposes have their appointed times. They are fulfilled in their season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
And there is 1 Peter 5:6-7, which says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Humility and God's exalting of you are two things that are tied together. Perhaps you are feeling pretty frazzled, wondering, "God, when's it going to happen?" Just continue to cast your cares on Him. He will promote you in due time. Do not worry about it.
In fact, the phrase that says, that He may exalt you in due time, literally means "at the set time" or "at the time prearranged by God."
When your character has been shaped and molded enough, and when other events are ready and in their proper place, then God will promote and exalt you.
Think about Moses who had it in his heart to be a deliverer and a judge, but when he first acted on it he failed miserably. He was 40 years early! (See Acts 7:23-34). The Israelites were not ready to be delivered yet. God had to work at the other end of the line.
Remember, God may have put some things in your heart, but the timing may not be quite right. There may be some work He needs to do in your life, or there may be some other factors God is working on. Until those things come together, God will not push you into that position.
So, focus on being faithful and let God worry about just the right time.
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Receive the Word
In His Presence: Putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves (James 1:21-22).
When we resign ourselves to the truth of God's Word, we must next receive the Word as God's message for our lives. We must put aside all our filthiness and sin, confessing, acknowledging, and agreeing with God about our sin. Sin blocks the working of God through the Word, so it must be dealt with properly.
One Minute Please
We must receive the Word in humility, which means we come under its authority. This shows our reverence for God's authority.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Can You Come Down From the Mountain?
While you have the light, believe in the light . . . -John 12:36
We all have moments when we feel better than ever before, and we say, "I feel fit for anything; if only I could always be like this!" We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to even when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for the everyday world when we are not on the mountaintop. Yet we must bring our everyday life up to the standard revealed to us on the mountaintop when we were there.
Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate. Don't place yourself on the shelf by thinking, "How great to be in such a wonderful state of mind!" Act immediately- do something, even if your only reason to act is that you would rather not. If, during a prayer meeting, God shows you something to do, don't say, "I'll do it"- just doit! Pick yourself up by the back of the neck and shake off your fleshly laziness. Laziness can always be seen in our cravings for a mountaintop experience; all we talk about is our planning for our time on the mountain. We must learn to live in the ordinary "gray" day according to what we saw on the mountain.
Don't give up because you have been blocked and confused once- go after it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by an act of your own will. Never change your decisions, but be sure to make your decisions in the light of what you saw and learned on the mountain.
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Sour, Angry, and Negative
We are looking at how we make the gospel unattractive. I believe one of the main ways this occurs is when Christians are sour, angry and negative.
Some people live right but they always look like they have spent the night in a bottle of lemon juice.
If you struggle in this area, you need to listen carefully. Your salvation should be the source of great joy, and that joy and happiness should be expressed in your life in a dynamic way.
For example, Jesus said this in John 15:11,
"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."
And in John 16:22, He said,
"Your joy no one will take from you."
In Romans 14:17, Paul said,
For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Finally, James 1:2 says,
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
Joy is one of the hallmarks of the Kingdom of God. Even when we are going through a rough patch, the Bible says we are to be full of joy.
Joy makes the gospel attractive. If you put on a sour face all the time and you have a negative disposition, you will scare people away from church. You make the gospel seem like something people would never want.
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Respond to the Word
In His Presence: If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was (James 1:23-24).
In a mirror you see what you really look like. A mirror shows who you are physically, and it gives you messages about yourself. James said that going to the Word of God is like looking in a mirror. But if you only go to the mirror with the intent of looking in and not doing anything about what you see, if you only go to the Word of God to hear and not do anything about what you hear, you are deceiving yourself.
One Minute Please
We may think we don't have the power to change, but we're not alone. The Holy Spirit will change us!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
All or Nothing?
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment . . . and plunged into the sea -John 21:7
Have you ever had a crisis in your life in which you deliberately, earnestly, and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of the will. You may come to that point many times externally, but it will amount to nothing. The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of only external things may actually be an indication of your being in total bondage.
Have you deliberately committed your will to Jesus Christ? It is a transaction of the will, not of emotion; any positive emotion that results is simply a superficial blessing arising out of the transaction. If you focus your attention on the emotion, you will never make the transaction. Do not ask God what the transaction is to be, but make the determination to surrender your will regarding whatever you see, whether it is in the shallow or the deep, profound places internally.
If you have heard Jesus Christ's voice on the waves of the sea, you can let your convictions and your consistency take care of themselves by concentrating on maintaining your intimate relationship to Him.
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Remember
Titus 3:1-7 says,
Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Paul tells us to remember where we have come from. Notice he said to show humility to all men and speak evil of no one. Why? Because we also used to be foolish and deceived and disobedient.
I thank God I am a new creation in Christ, but I still blush when I think about some of the stuff I got involved in before I was saved! Disobedient? Been there. Serving various lusts and pleasures? Up to my eyeballs! Plus all the other things Paul mentions in this passage and a few more!
It is amazing how people in the church forget what they were like before the grace of God came into their life. When that happens they tend to get very haughty and judgmental towards those still lost in their sin. A harsh, judgmental church that lacks humility while verbally lashing out at sinners is one of the ugliest garments you can dress the beautiful gospel in.
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A Relationship with the Word
In His Presence: One who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does (James 1:25).
The final step in being transformed into the image of Christ by the Word of God is maintaining a relationship with the Word. James said the one who looks into the mirror of Scripture intently will not only read what it says, he will do it.
One Minute Please
Carry the Bible everywhere; look intently into it, abide in it, and you will change.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Readiness
God called to him . . . . And he said, 'Here I am' -Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses' reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, "Here I am." Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing- it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God's plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself, we hear God's voice as our Lord heard His Father's voice, and we are ready for it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us just as His Father did with Him. He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father. ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready- he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.
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What's Your Motive?
The Bible says in James 4:3,
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James says that you ask, but you do not receive, because you ask amiss. The word amiss here comes from the Greek root word that means to harm or to injure. His point is: God will not grant you anything that is going to harm or injure your spiritual life, whether in the short term or in the long term.
When you pray, God is looking out for your best interests.
But then he also said, You ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. The word pleasures has the idea of sensuality, which means, if I am asking for something just to stroke my fleshly ego, then I short-circuit the prayer by my wrong motivation.
For example, it is great to pray for a car. I live in Southern California where we need a car to get around. And I think God will give you a car that you like. After all, the Bible says He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Jesus said, "Ask, that your joy might be full." So I think God wants us to be happy, and He generally has no problems granting your request for a car you would like.
Yet some people go a step beyond that, and their real motivation is, "Man, I want that car because I would look good in that car! If I came to work in that car, I would really show up so-and-so. People would think I'm pretty fine if I had that car. If I had that car, the chicks would dig me."
Be careful when you pray to not slip over into a motivation that is not really pure. Because you will short-circuit your faith and you will not receive an answer-except "no".
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Transformed by Trials
In His Presence: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials (James 1:2).
The television show "Extreme Makeover" puts people through all kinds of adverse circumstances so that they might look better than they did when they started the makeover process. They undergo surgical procedures, grueling workouts, and physical pain in order to be transformed into something beautiful.
One of the primary ways God makes us more like Christ is by allowing us to face trouble. To conform us into the image of Christ, we don't just need minor surgery--we require major transformation. In fact, God has to put a brand new nature inside us. Just as a sculptor chips away at a piece of marble to turn it into a beautiful sculpture, God uses trials to chip away at us, sculpting us to resemble the image of Christ.
One Minute Please
Like a photographer developing his film in a darkroom, God develops a beautiful photograph of Christlikeness in us when we go through dark times.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Beware of the Least Likely Temptation
Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom -1 Kings 2:28
Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11-13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.
We are apt to say, "It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world." Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials- now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.
". . . kept by the power of God . . ."- that is the only safety. (1 Peter 1:5).
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Overcoming Barrenness
I Samuel 1:10-11 says,
And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head."
These words are written about Hannah, who was barren. But God answered her prayer by giving her a son, and he became one of the most prominent figures in Biblical history-Samuel.
Perhaps there is a "barrenness" in some area of your life, and like Hannah, who was tormented by her adversary-so it is with you. Prayer can change things. It did in Hannah's life, and it can in yours. But there are several things about Hannah's prayer that we need to consider:
1. Hannah's prayer was not casual. It was heartfelt and deep. Too much of our praying is "skin deep." Only prayers that originate from deep within us get God's attention. James 5:16 declares that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
2. Hannah's prayer was specific. She asked for a male child. Too much of our praying is too general. Don't be afraid to be specific in your requests.
3. Hannah wanted the answer to her prayer to glorify God. Her boy would be dedicated to God's service. When our prayers take on the purpose of glorifying God, we have moved into a higher realm.
If you are experiencing a barrenness in any arena of life, pray. And let your prayers be heartfelt, specific, and for the glory of God.
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Count It as Joy
In His Presence: In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7).
How are we supposed to react to trials when they come our way? Trials are inevitable for the Christian; we must all face trials of some kind at some point in our lives. James told us the first thing we should do is to consider, or count in some versions, our trials as joy. The Greek word used for "count" is an accounting term meaning to add up. Why must we count trials as joy? Because sometimes when we are going through trials, they just don't add up. They don't make sense. It doesn't seem fair to have to face what we must deal with.
One Minute Please
We can't ignore the pain of a trial, but we must focus on the purpose.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Can a Saint Falsely Accuse God?
All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . . -2 Corinthians 1:20
Jesus' parable of the talents recorded in Matthew 25:14-30 was a warning that it is possible for us to misjudge our capacities. This parable has nothing to do with natural gifts and abilities, but relates to the gift of the Holy Spirit as He was first given at Pentecost. We must never measure our spiritual capacity on the basis of our education or our intellect; our capacity in spiritual things is measured on the basis of the promises of God. If we get less than God wants us to have, we will falsely accuse Him as the servant falsely accused his master when he said, "You expect more of me than you gave me the power to do. You demand too much of me, and I cannot stand true to you here where you have placed me." When it is a question of God's Almighty Spirit, never say, "I can't." Never allow the limitation of your own natural ability to enter into the matter. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be exhibited in us.
The servant justified himself, while condemning his lord on every point, as if to say, "Your demand on me is way out of proportion to what you gave to me." Have we been falsely accusing God by daring to worry after He has said, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you"? (Matthew 6:33). Worrying means exactly what this servant implied- "I know your intent is to leave me unprotected and vulnerable." A person who is lazy in the natural realm is always critical, saying, "I haven't had a decent chance," and someone who is lazy in the spiritual realm is critical of God. Lazy people always strike out at others in an independent way.
Never forget that our capacity and capability in spiritual matters is measured by, and based on, the promises of God. Is God able to fulfill His promises? Our answer depends on whether or not we have received the Holy Spirit.
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By Janet Conley
Power in Numbers
I believe the Bible teaches us that when we join together the impact is multiplied far beyond just the addition of those who join together. One plus one equals far more than two. Let me show you what I mean.
In Deuteronomy 32:30, it says,
How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had surrendered them?
While this verse deals with Israel's disobedience to God and subsequent retreat from their enemies, think of what might be possible when God's people obey Him! It says that one could chase a thousand, but two could put ten thousand to flight.
While one person can impact a thousand, two people can impact ten thousand. That is a ten-fold multiplied effect!
Leviticus 26:7-8, when God was giving promises to His people if they would walk in His ways, states this,
You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Notice God says five will chase a hundred, and a hundred will chase ten thousand. By increasing the number of people times 20, their effectiveness would increase times 100. Again, that is a multiplied effect.
You have probably heard of the Clydesdale horses, those big, strong workhorses that can pull a lot of weight. One horse by itself can pull two tons, but if you yoke two together they can pull 23 tons! That is incredible!
And that is how it works when we pray together with one another. When we join our forces in prayer and connect with heaven, that is what happens. There is a multiplied effect.
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Pray Through Your Trial
In His Presence: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him (James 1:5).
Wisdom can be defined as knowing how to apply truth to problematic situations. When we are going through trials, we must pray that God would give us wisdom to see how to apply the truth of His Word to what we are facing. Then and only then can He show us how to become more like His Son. We can ask God how to apply what is true about Him so that we can reap the maximum benefit from our situation.
One Minute Please
God promises He will answer every prayer without reproach when we are being conformed into the image of Christ.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You Worship The Work?
We are God's fellow workers . . . -1 Corinthians 3:9
Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God's blessing cannot rest on him.
But the opposite case is equally true-once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him. The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone. But be careful to remember that you have been freed for only one thing-to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.
We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might . . ." (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
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Real Goodness
Romans 2:4 declares,
The goodness of God leads you to repentance.
Ephesians 2:4-6 says,
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
God is not holding your sins against you. He sent His Son to pay a debt that had to be paid in order to liberate you from sin. God extends His mercy and forgiveness to you and me even when we do not deserve it.
It was His goodness that arrested my attention and that brought me to the foot of the cross, even when I was in my darkest sin, doing terrible things, abusing my body with drugs and alcohol, and doing things that should have put me in an early grave. In fact, a number of times I nearly died. But God loved me right in the middle of all of that.
I want to tell you, wherever you are right now, God loves you. You may be in the depths of the darkest sin you have ever been involved in, you just feel wretched, but God loves you right where you are.
He loves you so much He doesn't want to leave you there. His grace can reach you, change you and lift you out of any sin or situation if you will turn to Him with all of your heart.
There is no reason to fear or hesitate. Entrust yourself to the goodness of God and say yes to Him today.
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Praise God During Trials
In His Presence: The brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation . . . Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him (James 1:9-10, 12).
Since God uses trials for our benefit and He is always in control, we can praise Him for who He is no matter what we are going through. Scripture says we should give thanks in everything. In every situation, we can count it as joy that God has decided to use a trial in our life to make us more like His Son.
One Minute Please
You may be in the fire of a trial, but God is using it to refine and purify you to be more like His Son.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Warning Against Desiring Spiritual Success
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you . . . -Luke 10:20
Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go "outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Hebrews 13:13). In Luke 10:20 , Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view- we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God's grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others' lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God's testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an "if," never with the forceful or dogmatic statement- "You must." Discipleship carries with it an option.
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The First Step Toward Freedom
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:2-6).
Jesus asked this man a seemingly ridiculous question, "Do you want to be made well?" It's obvious isn't it? He is at the pool, isn't he? The only reason people went there was to be healed. What kind of a question is that to be asking? Of course, he wanted to be healed.
But Jesus was not convinced. This man had been stuck in his condition for a long time. He was not only lying down on the outside, he was lying down on the inside.
Sometimes people get used to living in their problems. While they may outwardly be going through the motions to get free (generally because they know that is what is expected of them), inwardly they have given up.
The first step toward getting free from your problems and that which binds and restricts your life is wanting it-really wanting it.
You have to stand up on the inside before you can ever stand up on the outside.
Let me be very bold and ask you: Do you want to be made well? Do you really want things to change? Or have you grown accustomed to living under the devil's heel?
If you are tired of defeat, mediocrity and bondage, then stand up on the inside and say, "Enough is enough!"
It is the first step toward freedom.
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Matured by Trials
In His Presence: You have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith . . . may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7).
Adverse circumstances are designed to help us develop spiritually. Every time we face a trial we have an opportunity to move to another level of spiritual growth. James 1:12 pronounces persevering through a trial as a blessing. To be blessed is to be spiritually satisfied with the results of something. A blessed man does not quit or throw in the towel during a tough time; rather he perseveres because he knows one day he will receive the crown of life.
One Minute Please
Temptations are circumstances designed to defeat you while trials are circumstances designed to develop you.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Ready in Season"
Be ready in season and out of season -2 Timothy 4:2
Many of us suffer from the unbalanced tendency to "be ready" only "out of season." The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. This verse says, "Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season." In other words, we should "be ready" whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. There are some people who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm. They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you tend to say, "Now that I've experienced this moment, I will always be like this for God." No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best for God, as during those exceptional times, you actually become an intolerable burden on Him. You will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously aware of His inspiration to you at all times. If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you.
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Stop Blaming and Rise Up
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me" (John 5:6-7).
This guy was basically saying, "It's not my fault. I'm in this condition because of what someone else won't do for me, and because of what someone else has done to me."
Think about it, "I have no man to put me in." Paraphrased that says, "I'm stuck because of what someone won't do for me." Or, "While I'm coming, another steps down before me," which paraphrased says, "I'm stuck because of what someone else has done to me." Either way, "It is not my fault."
After making up our minds that we want to be free, the next step is to stop shifting the blame to others.
A friend of mine migrated from Mexico to the U.S. many years ago. He didn't understand the culture or the language and seemed to be hopelessly locked into a dead end job.
His employer took advantage of him and it seemed like he had no way out. But instead of blaming others for his situation (which would have been easy for him to do), he decided to get unstuck and do something with his life.
It took several years, but today he has several businesses and is quite wealthy.
Do not get caught in the trap of blaming others. Instead, make the decision to rise up (something we will be talking about in our next devotional.)
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Transformed by Temptation
In His Presence: Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone (James 1:13).
Temptation can be defined as a solicitation to do evil. Remember, nothing can come your way without divine approval. Whether it's a test or a temptation, positive or negative, it has to flow through God's fingers first. He has to allow the devil to tempt us, and at the same time He is testing us. If a temptation comes to you, God had to allow it to come, but He is not the source of that temptation. We find this truth in the story of Job. Satan said the only reason Job was serving God was that God was so good to him, so God allowed the devil to tempt Job. So Satan solicited Job to curse God. This was a test that showed Job's faithfulness to God when he didn't give in to the temptation.
One Minute Please
God allows temptation for our development, not our destruction.
:angel:
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Supreme Climb
Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you -Genesis 22:2
A person's character determines how he interprets God's will (see Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this traditional belief behind through the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditional beliefs that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs which must be removed-for example, that God removes a child because his mother loves him too much. That is the devil's lie and a travesty on the true nature of God! If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of our wrong traditional beliefs about God, he will do so. But if we will stay true to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will serve to bring us into a better knowledge of Himself.
The great lesson to be learned from Abraham's faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter what contrary belief of his might be violated by his obedience. Abraham was not devoted to his own convictions or else he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was actually the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself. But you must always be willing to come to the point of giving up your own convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did that you are willing to do anything, even "to go . . . both to prison and to death" (Luke 22:33). Abraham did not make any such statement- he simply remained true to God, and God purified his faith.
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Obey and Get Unstuck
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk" (John 5:8).
These words were spoken to a man who had been sick for 38 years! His bed had been carrying him, and now Jesus was telling him to carry his bed!
We have discussed several keys to getting unstuck from your problems in our last devotions. First, we must genuinely want to be free, and second, we must stop shifting the blame for our problems to others.
The final key I want to share with you is found in the above verse. It is to obey what the Lord tells you. Whether it makes sense or not-obey!
To a man who had been carried by his bed for 38 years, rising up and carrying his bed must have seemed crazy! But the moment he began to obey, new life and strength began to flow into his previously paralyzed limbs.
Listen for the Lord's instructions in your heart. Search for them in His Word. There is no faith without action. There will be something that God will require you to do in order to release or express your faith.
It may make sense to you-or it may not. But to quote Mary, the mother of Jesus, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
After pastoring the same church for several decades, I have observed that many people remain stuck in their problems. Not because the Lord hasn't spoken to them, but because He has and they haven't obeyed.
If there is any unfilled obedience in your life, get busy and do what the Lord has told you to do. It is the only way to get unstuck.
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The Process of Temptation
In His Presence: Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren (James 1:14-16).
The key characteristic of temptation is that it is achieved by virtue of deception. Satan's job is to tempt you, to solicit you away from God. Paul said: "I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). Satan is a chameleon, taking on any shape or size necessary to take our attention away from Christ.
One Minute Please
Once you make the decision to act contrary to the will and Word of God you have sinned.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What Do You Want?
Do you seek great things for yourself? -Jeremiah 45:5
Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts- He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental; it comes and it goes. But God never gives us anything incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you.
If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You have become a Christian based on your own terms. You protest, saying, "I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn't give me the rest and the peace I expected." And instantly God puts His finger on the reason-you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7). Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. "Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him.
Are you seeking great things for yourself? Have you said, "Oh, Lord, completely fill me with your Holy Spirit"? If God does not, it is because you are not totally surrendered to Him; there is something you still refuse to do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He's continually working out His ultimate perfection for you- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
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Confounding the Wise
In 1 Corinthians 1:20, 27-29, the apostle Paul provides a very powerful word,
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
We are often enamored with what the world considers wise and mighty, but God isn't. In fact, He chooses things that are foolish and weak, things the world considers insignificant, and things the world even despises, to put to shame the things that people consider wise.
I really like the King James Version when it states that God does these things to confound the wise.
We need to understand that sometimes God turns human conventional wisdom on its head. And I believe Scripture shows us three ways in which He does that.
First, there are times that God turns conventional wisdom on its head with the people He chooses for His purposes. Second, He will confound human wisdom with the plans He unfolds. Whether they are for your deliverance, or plans to further His kingdom and expand His work.
And then, third, God will truly confound the wise of this world with the pardon that He provides.
Through people, plans, and pardon, God does confound the wise!
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Overcoming Temptation
In His Presence: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above (James 1:17).
When we sin, the consequence is separation from God. When we sin, we break fellowship with Him. Paul conveyed his struggle with sin in Romans 7:19: "The good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want." Paul wanted us to know that he understood our struggle against sin and temptation, and he too wanted the victory but would fall to sin time and again. And if it happened to Paul, it can happen to us. But there is a solution to the struggle with temptation. The way you get rid of sin is not simply dealing with or focusing on the sin. It's like being on a diet and deciding to focus on food all the time-it's not to your benefit. Instead, to deal with temptation we must shift our focus.
One Minute Please
"Count your blessings, name them one by one; count your many blessings see what God has done.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind . . . -1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated-it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul's description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, "Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe." No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don't deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it "has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." (Romans 5:5).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don't love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
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The Most Important Quality
In 1 Samuel 16:6-7, when Samuel came to Jesse's house to anoint the next king of Israel, we see the criteria God uses to choose people for service to Him,
So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him." But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
This is a fascinating story with a very strong lesson I want you to understand. Right after these verses, Jesse parades each of his sons before Samuel...except for David. Jesse knows why Samuel is there, but he doesn't even bother to get David.
David's own father had written him off. His own father didn't see enough potential in him to call him before Samuel.
But David was anointed king that day. Not based on what Jesse thought was important, but on what God thought was important...David's heart.
Maybe your own father has written you off. Maybe your parents said you would never amount to anything. Maybe your teacher said, "Look, you're not going to amount to much. You just better get yourself a minimum wage job."
Only God can see things in your heart that your father can't see, that your mother can't see, that your teachers didn't see, that your family doesn't see, that the people around you don't see.
It is not that God overlooks ability or talent or training. All of those things are important. But God looks first at the most important quality for service, and that is the heart.
Don't let someone else write your history before it happens.
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God's Faithfulness
In His Presence: No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able (1 Corinthians 10:13).
To overcome temptation, James also encouraged believers to focus on the faithfulness of God's character. In James chapter one, verse 17 tells us that good things are coming down from the Father of lights, so doesn't it make sense that we should be looking up at Him? That's why David can say: "Call upon [Him] in the day of trouble" (Psalm 50:15). We can know with confidence that He will be there for us.
One Minute Please
God allowed the Israelites to go through the wilderness to teach them to trust in Him; He allows us to wander in the wilderness for the same reason.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith- Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight -2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God's concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to "walk by faith." How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, "I cannot do anything else until God appears to me"? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, "Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!" Never live for those exceptional moments- they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life- our work is our standard.
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When God's Plan Doesn't Make Sense
In Joshua 6:1-5 we find one of the most bizarre battle plans, but one with an important lesson for you and me,
Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him."
When you and I read that today it is easy for us to think, "Oh, that must have been pretty normal and natural to Joshua." But it wasn't. It did not make any more sense to him than it would have to you and me.
Imagine God taking Joshua aside and telling him that all they need to do is march around the city one time for six days. Then on the seventh day march around seven times and shout. It made no sense. Naturally speaking, it was ridiculous!
All of us will face our Jerichos, and sometimes God's plans won't seem to make sense. Our part is to listen and obey-even when God's instructions don't make sense to our natural minds. He has had a lot more experience winning battles than we have!
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Focus on God's Word
In His Presence: In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth (James 1:18).
In addition to focusing on God's character, we must also focus on God's Word in order to resist temptation. Sometimes we don't understand the importance of the Word and the fact that it is alive and active. We view Scripture like the Queen of England: She holds the top position in the country, but she has absolutely no power. She can't pass any laws or enforce any decrees. Many of us hold God's Word in high esteem, but it has no power in our lives. The Bible wasn't meant to decorate your coffee table or be held under your arm at church. The Word of God was written because of what it can do in our lives. James 1:18 explains that we were brought forth by the word of truth; the Word brought us spiritual life.
The Word saved us, and it can also sanctify us. God's Word works in the spiritual realm. Temptation exists in the spiritual realm, and only God's words have power and authority in that arena. When the Devil tempted Christ in the wilderness, he told Christ to "command that these stones become bread" (Matthew 4:3). He offered a physical temptation to meet a physical desire for food. But Jesus resisted the temptation by calling on the Word of God. He said: "Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). This is a direct quote from Deuteronomy 8. Jesus knew the Scripture so well that He could employ it to resist the temptation the Devil was throwing at Him. He stood on the authority of God's Word to recognize that He would trust in God and God's Word.
One Minute Please
God's Word is our sure guide to weather the clouds of life, no matter what our senses or emotions tell us.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it . . . -Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God's true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. ". . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue- he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . . ." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, "What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . ." (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, "Now I've got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . ." (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
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Pursue Peace
In 1 Peter 3:10-11, Peter provides an important command in our relationships with other people,
For "He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it."
I want to focus your attention on the last part of verse 11, "Seek peace and pursue it." This means we are to pursue peace with people.
This command is reinforced by the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12:14,
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
I want you to take note of the first part of that verse, Pursue peace with.... How many people are we to pursue peace with? All people. Does that include your neighbor? How about your mom? How about your dad? How about your kids? Your boss? Your relatives? How about that individual who seems to have a gift for getting on your nerves? What about those who are rude and obnoxious?
We are told that we are to pursue peace with all people. That is not a suggestion. That is a command. And that command is clarified further in Romans 14:19, which says,
Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.
Things that edify (or build up) create peace. Things that tear down shatter peace. Keep that in mind next time you are having a heated discussion with your husband or wife. Ask yourself, "Are the things that I am sharing at this moment building up my partner? Or, are they tearing them down?"
Pursue peace with all people by choosing words and deeds that will build them up.
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Focus on God's Plan
In His Presence: . . . so we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures (James 1:18).
To overcome temptation, the final element we must focus on is God's plan. James 1:18 refers to believers as the "first fruits" among God's creatures. First fruits are things of utmost value. In the Old Testament, the first fruits refers to the tithe to bring to the Lord. The first ten percent of what was accumulated went to Him. Giving the first fruits to God shows that He is the priority because He receives the best portion. Here, God says in His Word that we are the first fruits of His creation. Nothing God ever made is more important to Him than His saints, His people.
God has mighty plans for us, and we shouldn't let the devil convince us otherwise. To believe the devil's lies is to live beneath what God has in store for us. If we want our behavior to change, we must believe the truth that we are special to God. That will impact the way we live and the choices we make. We will want to please and obey Him.
Dogs are trained using the tool of temptation. The dog's master will throw a piece of red meat in front of the dog. The first time the dog sees the meat, he goes after it because that's his nature. The master corrects the dog and says, "No, look at me." The master throws some more meat down, and the dog moves to get it, but the master says, "Stay! Look at me!" You know that the dog is trained when it stops looking at the meat and keeps his focus on the master. The dog can handle the presence of the meat because his focus is on the master.
One Minute Please
Christians can overcome temptation when their eyes are focused not on the temptation, but on God's character, Word, and plan.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . -Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God's interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, "I will not allow that thing to happen." And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own "sad and pitiful self." You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God's interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them
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Winning an Offended Brother
Proverbs 18:19 tells us,
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a castle.
When this verse refers to a "strong city," it means a fortified or a guarded city. You cannot just waltz up to the gate of a fortified city and say "give up." It takes strategic planning to take such a city. You have to think things through and have a plan.
It also means there is going to be strenuous effort involved. And, more than likely, you will be in a vulnerable position. In fact, you don't take a strong city without taking risks, without becoming vulnerable.
The same things come into play when a brother is offended. It takes thoughtful planning, it takes effort, and sometimes you have to become vulnerable when you do not want to be.
Perhaps you are struggling with a damaged relationship today, and you haven't pursued healing this relationship because you don't know how to do it. It always starts with prayer. You talk to God about them and about yourself, and then you need to go and talk to them.
When you do, I want you to listen carefully, it should not be with a view to prove that you are right. Being right is not the goal. Peace is. Most of the time it is more important to be kind than it is to be right.
If you try to work something out, but only with the intention of having them understand your point of view so that you can prove you are right, you may win the argument, but you will never make peace.
So when you are endeavoring to win an offended brother, listen carefully to them, and endeavor to understand where they are coming from. Seek to hear and not just be heard. Though it may be difficult, you can win peace and see a broken relationship restored.
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Maturity Is a Process
In His Presence: Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:13-14).
God's goal for all of us is Christlikeness, or spiritual maturity. When He saved you, He put everything necessary for this process inside you. But maturity takes time. Growing up and becoming a spiritual adult is a process, not a single event.
Spiritual adulthood is the process of God bringing us to the place where we are consistently living life from the perspective of the Spirit rather than the perspective of the flesh. Maturity in Christ means you normally look at and react to things from a spiritual perspective. God wants us to get to this place of maturity, to live as we were created to be. But many of us are not yet living the Christlike life, which means we are immature. If we are living like that, we are children, tossed here and there by every new fad that comes along.
Becoming a mature believer takes time. You don't become mature overnight. A baby doesn't hop, skip, and jump into adulthood. The Bible tells us that maturity is a process: "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). In a very real sense, this maturing process will go on for the rest of your natural life, but there is a point you can reach where you are consistently responding to things from a spiritual perspective.
One Minute Please
Rate multiplied by time equals distance. God has made maturity possible for every believer, but what you do with your time determines the rate of your progress in arriving at the destination of maturity.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vicarious Intercession
. . having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . -Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic "understanding" of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
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Listen... to Understand
In Proverbs 18:2, we are given an important word of warning,
A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart.
It is so easy to play the role of such a fool when we are dealing with a strained or broken relationship. Rather than seeking to understand the other person, we will often feel the need to make the other person understand our hurt.
Like me, you have probably said, "You need to hear me. You need to understand why I'm hurt. You need to understand why I reacted the way I reacted. You need to see that I'm right. I need to convince you that I'm justified in the things I've said and the things I've done."
When we say those things, we are not interested in understanding the other person's point of view to reach a mutual peace. We just want to express our opinions, our hurt, and our reasons.
The Bible says that is the way a fool behaves. I am going to stand at the front of the line and say, "I've been that fool more than once." But we must learn to listen and understand.
Once you have listened and understood, here is an important phrase to learn, "I see what you're saying, and I'm sorry." That does not mean, "I see what you're saying, and I'm sorry you're such an idiot." That means, "I've listened to you, I've heard you, and I'm sorry." Period. "Forgive me."
It is amazing how some people choke on those words. In fact, it is shocking to realize how few people know how to give a proper apology. They offer the rose of an apology by handing it thorn-end first.
Don't play the fool. Listen...to understand.
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Maturity Based on Relationship
In His Presence: We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).
Spiritual maturity is facilitated by spiritual relationship. Second Peter 3:17-18 discusses this factor in our growth: "You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity." Peter said we have two choices: to go forward or to go backward. But what we can't do is stand still. Often people will try to define their Christian life in terms of what they are not doing wrong. But the Christian life is more than that-it is also what we are doing right.
Spiritual growth, just like human growth, is not a mechanical process. People think if they follow a five-step or twelve-step program, they will get where they want to be spiritually. But nothing could be further from the truth. Spiritual development is a relational process, not a legal one. The law shows us our sin and has the power to condemn. Only the grace of Christ has the power to enable us to overcome sin. We grow into Christ by the knowledge of Him as a person, not by the fulfillment of a program. To do that, we must focus on what God is doing in the midst of what we are doing.
One Minute Please
We must connect what is happening in our lives with how God is using it to transform us into the image of His Son.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Building For Eternity
Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it . . . -Luke 14:28
Our Lord was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, the unfathomable agony He experienced in Gethsemane, and the assault upon Him at Calvary- the central point upon which all of time and eternity turn. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. In the final analysis, people are not going to laugh at Him and say, "This man began to build and was not able to finish" (Luke 14:30).
The conditions of discipleship given to us by our Lord in verses 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple " (Luke 14:26). This verse teaches us that the only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion- those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus? (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.
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Seeing God Through Nature
Hosea 6:3 gives us something we should pursue every day of our lives,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.
What a great pursuit! When you pursue the knowledge of God, He will come to you. He will refresh you like the rain, like the early and the latter rain.
These rains would cause the crops to ripen and bear fruit. Scripture is seeking to tell us that when you seek the knowledge of God, a personal knowledge of God, it will cause your life to become abundantly fruitful. It will cause your life to prosper. It will bring refreshment into your life because God will come to you.
The question is: How do you pursue the knowledge of God?
One way is through nature. Psalm 19:1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Creation screams, "There must be a Creator! I'm too perfect, I'm too intricate, I'm too glorious to have just happened. There must be a Master Sculptor. There must be a Master Painter. There must be a Creator behind it all."
The stars in the heavens and the moon literally declare God's glory. When you look at the sunset over the Pacific ocean, or look at the mountains, or you look at the grass in your backyard, they scream that there is a Creator.
Take some time to pursue the knowledge of God this week by just observing nature. When you do, you will come to a deeper knowledge of God as you see and understand the beauty and majesty of Him in a fresh, new way.
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Maturity Involves Development
In His Presence: According to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16).
When a baby matures, it also develops. The baby learns coordination, and its body parts develop, grow, and work together. Babies move from milk to solid food. Paul compared this development to that of a Christian: "Everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity" (Hebrews 5:13-6:1).
There is a developmental progression in Christian maturity, and one concept depends on understanding another. Elementary principles must be mastered before you can move on to deeper things, but we're not supposed to dwell on elementary things forever. Spiritual growth takes place on the playing field of life, not in the classroom. If you never make the connection between the things you learn in Scripture and the way you live your life, you will never mature into anything beyond a Sunday Christian. You are to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13).
Development is marked by change. If you give earthly excuses about why things are happening in your life, you are living as a natural man. But if your reaction to your situation is to focus on Christ at work in you, you are becoming a mature believer. When you are mature, you will react, think, and act like Christ because you are being conformed into His image.
One Minute Please
Do you consistently live life looking through the eyes of Christ or are you still a natural man or a natural woman?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith- Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight -2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God's concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to "walk by faith." How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, "I cannot do anything else until God appears to me"? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, "Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!" Never live for those exceptional moments- they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life- our work is our standard.
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Suppressing the Truth
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
A truth that is suppressed is a truth that has addressed itself to someone, but they do not want to be confronted by it. They do not want it to force them to change, so they keep it down and refuse to look at or deal with it.
What kind of a truth is it that men suppress? Romans 1:19 tells us,
Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
People are suppressing a knowledge or truth about God. Where did they learn that truth about God that they are suppressing? Verse 20 tells us,
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Creation speaks of a Creator. God is understood, it says, by the things that are made. There comes a point in every human's life as they observe nature, where a voice whispers to them, "This didn't just happen. There has to be a hand behind this."
At that point, each person has a choice: Whether or not to suppress that truth. If they do not suppress the truth, I believe God will move heaven and earth to get the knowledge of the gospel to that person.
This is so profound because even on Judgment Day no one is going to be able to stand and say, "Well, I never heard. I didn't have a chance." They will be without excuse, because God is going to take them right back to that experience where He spoke to them through nature.
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A Metaphor for America
In His Presence: Hebrews 1:1-2
A while ago, a crack appeared in the Evans' bedroom wall. We called in a professional who replaced the plaster around the crack and repainted the wall. But the crack reappeared not long after that. We called the painter back, he repaired the crack, and he repainted the wall again. Everything looked fine until about a couple months later when the crack came back. And this time it brought its aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews!
We called in another professional and he gave the verdict. The cracks in the wall were due to a much deeper problem. We were experiencing a shifting foundation. He told us that until we stabilized our foundation, we would forever be repairing cracks in the walls. What a perfect metaphor for the condition of American society today.
Until we stabilize the foundation, no number of programs, government grants, or elections will be able to repair the cracks in our cultural walls. There is no place where the foundation of America needs to be stabilized more than in the home. The breakdown of the family is the single greatest contributor to the deterioration of our country. Strong families hold the key to a strong society, while weak families lead to a weak society. This is true because every other institution in society depends on strong families. You can't have strong families without God as their foundation.
"No man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ"(1 Corinthians 3:11).
One Minute Please
Christians can strengthen America by stabilizing their own homes on the foundation of God's Word.
Source: Are Christians Destroying America? Pp. 139-141.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it . . . -Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God's true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. ". . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue- he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . . ." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, "What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . ." (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, "Now I've got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . ." (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
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Pursue Hospitality
Romans 12:9-14 says,
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
At the end of verse 13, Paul says we are to be "given to hospitality." The word given is the Greek word translated "pursue" everywhere else in the New Testament. This could be translated "pursuing hospitality."
Hospitality is actually a compound word in the Greek language. The first part of the word means to be fond of. The second part means guests. So hospitality means to be friendly to strangers, to open your heart and open your home to others.
The Scripture is very strong when it says we are to pursue hospitality. It is one of the greatest ways in all the world to demonstrate the love of God to people who are in need.
I remember like it was yesterday a time I was preaching at a church. It was over 20 years ago, when I was a newlywed. After the service was done, Janet and I were standing around not knowing what to do. No one was speaking to us and the church had made no provision for our lodging or meals.
Just then an elderly couple came up to us and invited us to their home for lunch, which we gratefully accepted.
And you know what? I don't remember what I preached that day, but to this day I remember eating roast in that couple's home. I remember their graciousness, their hospitable spirit, and how much they made us feel welcome.
Pursue hospitality!
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How to Save a Nation in Trouble
In His Presence: 2 Chronicles 7:11-22
"[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land"(2 Chronicles 7:14).
King Solomon reigned over Israel. In 2 Chronicles 6, Solomon had just finished building God's temple and had offered up a prayer of dedication. In this prayer, Solomon was basically saying that he wanted to lead this people as God wanted him to lead. After the prayer, God's glory came down to the temple and filled it. The people offered sacrifices and held a feast. Later that night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and told him that if the people ever rejected His ways and turned away from Him, the prayers of His people would be heeded.
God will deal with a nation that turns its back on Him. If a culture wants to be free of God, He will let it have that freedom. But freedom from God brings dire consequences. Pagans do not normally turn to God when things get rough. But this Scripture isn't addressing pagans; it is addressing "My people who are called by My name" (v. 14). The people who are supposed to pray for their nation are God's covenant people. In the Old Testament, His covenant people were the Jews. In the New Testament, the covenant people are the church-the body of true believers who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Sin-bearer and Redeemer.
One Minute Please
God will pay attention to our prayers when we come to Him humbly, seek His face, and turn from our ungodly behavior.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . -Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God's interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, "I will not allow that thing to happen." And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own "sad and pitiful self." You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God's interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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In the Balance
1 Thessalonians 5:15 is a powerful verse that speaks to everyone,
See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.
Notice the apostle Paul makes sure no one is excluded. That means you can't get out of this. You are either a "no one," or an "anyone" in this verse!
Paul's point about pursuing what is good for both yourselves and for all can be looked at two ways. First, he could be talking about the worshiping community as a whole. His point: Pursue what is good for the church, but also for all those outside the church. You need to think of the welfare of the church and the community in which you exist.
On a more personal level, Paul could be speaking to the need for you and I to weigh how our words, our actions, and our pursuit of that which is good for us affects others. I have to weigh that in the balance.
While a certain thing may be good for me, I need to think of how it is going to affect others. It is not just about pursuing what is good for me, even if it is something I deserve. I need to ask, "How it is going to affect others...my spouse, my kids, my friends, my church, my neighbor." I have to factor that in.
Many times people pursue something and they defend their position by saying, "Well, it's time for me to start thinking about myself. I deserve this. This is good for me."
Well, this verse allows for that. In fact, it admonishes you to pursue what is good for you, but it adds the proviso "and for all."
Eagerly pursue the things that are beneficial for you, but also that which is good for others.
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Penetrate the Culture
In His Presence: Colossians 3:17
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world . . . Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:13-14, 16).
When we look closely at a culture that is deteriorating, we will probably see the people of God withdrawn from that culture. For example, when Christians began abandoning inner city and urban neighborhoods, taking their skills, resources, and moral influence with them, those neighborhoods deteriorated. When Christians left the public school system, moral values were systematically erased until they became almost illegal to teach. When Christians vacated the media, a spiritual approach to defining everything we hold dear went with them. When Christians decided to get out of politics, righteous political decisions left with them.
God's people have been called to penetrate society. Of course, evangelism is always first because without forgiveness of sins, anything else we give a person is temporary. We have been called first and foremost to win people to Christ. But after a person receives Christ for eternity, he must represent Christ in history. Christians must give out hope; no earthly institution offers real hope for the world.
One Minute Please
The absence of righteousness in our culture has everything to do with the absence of God's people penetrating the culture. When there is no yeast, the bread stays flat.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vicarious Intercession
. . having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . -Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic "understanding" of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
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A More Excellent Way
In 1 Corinthians 14:1, we are given a foundational truth,
Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
Notice that this verse leads off with a very direct command. We are to pursue love.
It is interesting that this command is given in the context of Paul's teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14 deal with the gifts of the Spirit: the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, the discerning of spirits, the gift of faith, the working of miracles, the gifts of healing, the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, and the gift of prophecy.
Chapter 12 gives us the definition of those gifts, chapter 13 teaches us the spirit that should characterize their use, and chapter 14 gives us guidelines for their functioning within the context of the local church.
When it comes to the operation of the gifts of the Spirit, Paul is very clear. He tells us, "Desire the gifts. Seek to have these things operating in your life and operating in the life of the local church, but they need to be practiced in love."
It is with that thought in mind that Paul writes 1 Corinthians 12:31. Here is what he says,
But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.
As we read the following verses we are told that the more excellent way is love. Again, Paul is giving us the spirit that should characterize the use of the gifts of the Spirit as they function within the context of the local church.
Desire the gifts. Earnestly covet them. But let them operate through a spirit of love.
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Social Gospel?
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Instead of writing off our culture as hopelessly secular and doomed, God wants His people to have a redeeming and transforming impact on American society. But what is the relationship of the Gospel to social action? What is the Christian's responsibility in matters of social ills-injustice, poverty, and hunger?
In many evangelical circles, the terms "social action" and "social gospel" have negative connotations. But the question remains: what does the gospel of Jesus Christ have to say to the poor and the oppressed? This is an important question all Christians need to deal with.
The message of the Gospel is narrow, not broad. The issue of social action is not part of the gospel message. Whenever social action is made part of the Gospel, two problems arise: Social action obscures what the Gospel really is, and no one knows how much emphasis to give to the social aspect of the message.
Those who want to make social action a part of the Gospel's content make the same mistake repeatedly in biblical interpretation. They apply the non-technical use of the word Gospel as it is used in the first four books of the New Testament rather than applying its more specific use in the epistles, where the word has a much more limited meaning.
One Minute Please
When Paul spoke of the Gospel, he limited it to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sin (see today's reading). In Matthew 4, Jesus used the term to refer to the good news of the kingdom. "Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom" (v. 23).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Enjoying Adversity
. . . that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body -2 Corinthians 4:10
We have to develop godly habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not just a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved so that "the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." And it is adversity that makes us exhibit His life in our mortal flesh. Is my life exhibiting the essence of the sweetness of the Son of God, or just the basic irritation of "myself" that I would have apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy adversity is the acute sense of eagerness of allowing the life of the Son of God to evidence itself in me. No matter how difficult something may be, I must say, "Lord, I am delighted to obey You in this." Instantly, the Son of God will move to the forefront of my life, and will manifest in my body that which glorifies Him.
You must not debate. The moment you obey the light of God, His Son shines through you in that very adversity; but if you debate with God, you grieve His Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30). You must keep yourself in the proper condition to allow the life of the Son of God to be manifested in you, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God's sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to "supply all your need" (Philippians 4:19).
Keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on your memories of past experiences, but let the Word of God always be living and active in you.
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Choose to Love
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust'" (Matthew 5:43-45).
These are not suggestions to be considered, they are commands to be obeyed. "A pretty tall order," you say. Perhaps, but definitely within the realm of possibility.
Jesus would never tell us to do something we could not do. That would be unjust. We can bless, we can do good, we can pray for and forgive those who have wronged us.
When people say, "I can't forgive," that generally means, "I won't forgive." The ability to love, bless and forgive is within us-because God is within us. Learn to let His nature of love dominate you. Choose to love. Let what God has put on the inside come out.
The world needs to see real love-the kind of unconditional love that brought us into God's family. And they need to see it in us. If we really are the children of God, then His nature should be displayed in us and through us. The most outstanding feature of God's nature is love. God is love.
One last thing. When you choose to love and forgive those who have wronged you, you set a prisoner free. The prisoner is you.
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Taking Back American Culture
In His Presence: Jeremiah 29:4-14
"[He] is able to establish you according to [the] gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested . . . leading to obedience of faith" (Romans 16:25-26, emphasis added).
One major problem in America is that Christians often separate the personal message of salvation from its practical implications. As the Gospel-the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ-is proclaimed, a concern for human needs should flow naturally out of its effect on people and the community. Unfortunately, a trait of our individualistic age is that people care very little about the deterioration of our society.
When the Gospel has permeated a group of people, there should be a shift from social inertia to social sensitivity. This increases the importance of Jesus' statement: "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Our testimony is enhanced by the social interactions that take place between Christians and the world. It is unbiblical to believe that our faith in Jesus Christ has no bearing on the needs of this world.
American culture will be reclaimed when Christians regain spiritual clarity. When the Jews were sent into exile, they ended up living within Babylonian culture-a clearly pagan culture. They had to work hard to establish themselves again as a set-apart, unique people.
One Minute Please
"Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce . . . seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile"(Jeremiah 29:5,7).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Rising to the Occasion
. . . that you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . -Ephesians 1:18
Remember that you have been saved so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in your body (see 2 Corinthians 4:10). Direct the total energy of your powers so that you may achieve everything your election as a child of God provides; rise every time to whatever occasion may come your way.
You did not do anything to achieve your salvation, but you must do something to exhibit it. You must "work out your own salvation" which God has worked in you already (Philippians 2:12). Are your speech, your thinking, and your emotions evidence that you are working it "out"? If you are still the same miserable, grouchy person, set on having your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.
God is the Master Designer, and He allows adversities into your life to see if you can jump over them properly-"By my God I can leap over a wall" (Psalm 18:29). God will never shield you from the requirements of being His son or daughter. First Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you . . . ." Rise to the occasion-do what the trial demands of you. It does not matter how much it hurts as long as it gives God the opportunity to manifest the life of Jesus in your body.
May God not find complaints in us anymore, but spiritual vitality-a readiness to face anything He brings our way. The only proper goal of life is that we manifest the Son of God; and when this occurs, all of our dictating of our demands to God disappears. Our Lord never dictated demands to His Father, and neither are we to make demands on God. We are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. Once we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine with which to feed and nourish others.
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The Qualities of Love
For the last number of devotionals, we have focused our attention on how love is such a vital quality to the Christian life. We have seen that unless we love, any of the spiritual gifts are meaningless.
We have also seen that God has deposited His love in us already, and as a result, it is our responsibility to choose to express that love. It is not something we can put on God's shoulders. We must take on that obligation.
So what do those qualities of love really look like? I want to share with you 1 Corinthians 13 from theAmplified Bible, but I want to do it with a twist. I want to make it personal and show how, if we choose to love as God has asked us to love, it will look.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 from the Amplified Bible...personalized (read it out loud),
I endure long, and I am patient and kind. I am never envious or boil over with jealousy. I am not boastful or vainglorious. I do not display myself haughtily. I am not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride. I am not rude or unmannerly. I do not act unbecomingly. God's love in me does not insist on its own rights or its own way for I am not self-seeking. I am not touchy or fretful or resentful. I take no account of the evil done to me. I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail. I bear up under anything and everything that comes, and I am ever ready to believe the best of every person. My hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and I endure everything without weakening. God's love in me never fails.
I challenge you to read this out loud to yourself every day for a month, and see if it does not change your life!
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Satan the Deceiver
In His Presence: 1 Peter 5:8
In several places in the Bible, we are told who Satan is. He is called "the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). We know what his future will be. "[The angel] laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed: after these things he must be released for a short time" (Revelation 20:2-3).
Before God created man, He created angels. Chief among the angels was one named Lucifer. His name meant "the shining one." Some of his story is told in Ezekiel 28:12-19. "You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you" (Ezekiel 28:14-15).
Some of Lucifer's story is also told in Isaiah 14:11-16. "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations" (v. 12). Lucifer desired to be equal with God, though God was his Creator. Since then, he has been the Deceiver on earth.
One Minute Please
One of Satan's first deceptions was to convince us that he doesn't exist or that he is inconsequential.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Recognizing God's Provision
. . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . -2 Peter 1:4
We are made "partakers of the divine nature," receiving and sharing God's own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God's provision for us. We say, however, "Oh, I can't afford it." One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, "Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle." And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him. Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn't they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges- always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.
Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, "All my springs are in You" (Psalm 87:7). If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . ." (2 Corinthians 9:8)- then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself. Be marked and identified with God's nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.
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Spiritual Metamorphosis
Romans 12:1-2 says this,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
First, notice that it is your responsibility to present your body to God. God will not do it for you. You have to do it. But Scripture doesn't leave us there. We are shown how we are to do that in verse 2 above.
First, when it says, Do not be conformed, that word conform means to be pressed into a mold by outward pressures. Instead of being conformed we are told to be transformed. That is actually the Greek word from which we get our English word metamorphosis. It means to let what is on the inside come to the outside.
One day many years ago, my kids came home from school with some silk worms. We were supposed to put them in a box and feed them mulberry leaves. I couldn't believe how many leaves these worms ate! They ate leaves until they turned a translucent green!
Then they wove cocoons and went through a metamorphosis. They went from being these ugly ol' fat green transparent worms, to the most beautiful fuzzy huge white moths. It was amazing to see!
My friend, you renew your mind by feeding on God's Word, the same way that those silk worms fed on the mulberry leaves. As you are filled with His truth, it causes a metamorphosis to take place. It brings what is on the inside-God's nature-to the outside.
So feed on God's Word and watch your life be transformed.
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Satan Poses the Question
In His Presence: Genesis 3:1-7
Since God placed man on this planet, Satan has been determined to deceive man about the nature of God and God's words to us. In the Garden of Eden, Satan began his plan by talking to Eve. "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1). Satan raised a question about God's command. Notice that he used the word "not." He skipped over the first part of God's statement and focused on the restriction. He didn't want Eve to be thinking about God's goodness. He wanted God to appear harsh and restrictive.
What God actually said was: "TheLord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die' " (Genesis 2:16-17). The first thing God told Adam was what he could do. All the fruit was good for the picking, and Adam could eat freely of the trees. He could eat whatever he wanted to eat whenever he wanted to eat. Of all the trees in the garden, and there were probably hundreds of trees, he was only restricted from one tree.
Especially for those of us who live in the United States, we have so much that is good. As much as we are able, we are free to pursue a good life and liberty. We can go after what makes us happy.
One Minute Please
In spite of what Satan wants, we should be thinking about God's goodness.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Ascension and Our Access
It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven -Luke 24:51
We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord's life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward- Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection- everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.
The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.
The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God- He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
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The Love of Money
In 1 Timothy 6:9-11, Paul gives us a critical insight,
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
I want you to notice: Before Paul tells us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness, he says we must first flee the love of money. You have to be willing to flee the wrong things before you can pursue the right things, because you cannot go in two directions at once.
If you are pursuing riches, and the gaining of wealth and the achievement of success have become your number one priorities, pushing everything else, including God, to the side, then you are pursuing the wrong thing.
You may be thinking, "Well, that's great for some people, but that doesn't apply to me." You need to understand that you can be eaten up with the love of money and not have a dime in your pocket. All of us are subject to such a temptation and such a trap.
It's fascinating that Paul uses the word "drown" here. I live by the Pacific Ocean, and generally people who drown do so because, (a) they overestimate their own abilities as a swimmer; or (b) they underestimate the power of the ocean.
If you overestimate your ability to be free from this type of a temptation, or you underestimate the power of this type of a temptation, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
Flee the wrong and pursue the right. Stay on course with God.
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What Are We Thinking About?
In His Presence: 1 Chronicles 16:8
Why did God put a limitation on the tree in the Garden of Eden? Why do we have limitations at all? In order to enjoy freedom, there must be sufficient restriction so that we can maximize what freedom is. A baseball player isn't free to play baseball if there are no foul lines. A football player is not free to play football if there are no sidelines. God placed the restriction in the Garden of Eden to give us the ability to choose. In that way, freedom is better understood.
Another reason why God put a restriction in the Garden of Eden was to remind man that he is a created being. Restrictions make it clear who is in charge. God wanted it to be clear that there is a major difference between created man and the Creator God. God is transcendent. He is infinite and omniscient. We are not.
Satan used the presence of these restrictions to trick Eve into focusing on the negative. The apostle Paul said: "I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). Satan led her thinking away from the goodness of God to focus on the restrictions of God. In doing that, Eve lost sight of the freedom God had given her.
One Minute Please
Adam and Eve lived in a home they didn't build and ate food they didn't have to grow. They lived in a perfect environment that had only one restriction. Does your mind focus only on the restrictions in your life?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Living Simply- Yet Focused
Look at the birds of the air . . . . Consider the lilies of the field . . . -Matthew 6:26, 28
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin"- they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars, and the moon- all of these simply are as well- yet what a ministry and service they render on our behalf! So often we impair God's designed influence, which He desires to exhibit through us, because of our own conscious efforts to be consistent and useful. Jesus said there is only one way to develop and grow spiritually, and that is through focusing and concentrating on God. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me." In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). We cannot discover the source of our natural life through common sense and reasoning, and Jesus is teaching here that growth in our spiritual life comes not from focusing directly on it, but from concentrating on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows our circumstances, and if we will stay focused on Him, instead of our circumstances, we will grow spiritually- just as "the lilies of the field."
The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and "the lilies of the field"- simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.
If you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him, and He will make use of you every minute you live- yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of Him.
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The Main Pursuit
Ezekiel 33:30-32 provides some pretty direct and challenging words from God,
"As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, 'Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them."
I think, for some people, church is almost like going to a concert, especially if the preacher is flashy and the music is great. They are not listening with a view to imbibe God's truth and then put it into practice in their lives.
What is the reason for this disconnect? People are pursuing something else in their hearts. Sure, they are showing up at church, they are listening, they are even saying "amen" at the right time, but they are not applying God's truth to their lives. Why? Because they are pursuing something else in their heart.
This is the same thing that Paul talked to Timothy about in yesterday's devotional. Remember? Like Ezekiel, he said, Their hearts pursue their own gain.
It is very simple: If your focus is on the pursuit of things, your focus will never be on the One who has created all things. It really boils down to this one question: What is the main pursuit of your life?
If it is not God, then your life is going in the wrong direction!
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Trees of Analogy
In His Presence: John 8:12
Have you ever thought about the restricted tree in the Garden of Eden? It was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Was this a bad tree? No, there was nothing wrong with the tree itself. Good things could be learned from it. It would teach the difference between good and evil. Another tree in the Garden was the Tree of Life, but it had no restrictions. These two types of trees make a good analogy for today's Christians.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents lists of good and bad things. We are to do the good things and not do the bad things. We could think of this as the Tree of the Law. This tree offered Adam and Eve death. The other tree, the Tree of Life, offered Adam and Eve intimate fellowship and relationship with God. It offered them life.
God wanted Adam and Eve and their descendents to live their lives based on a relationship with Him. He didn't want them to live by a list. The Tree of Life pictured Jesus Christ, who is life. It represents the abiding relationship we have with Him through which the grace of God flows into our lives. We enjoy walking with God in an intimate relationship. The problem with eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was that life had to be lived based on a set of rules, not on a relationship. The New Testament would call that the difference between Law and grace.
One Minute Please
Eating from the Tree of Life meant that there was no need for the Tree of Knowledge.
God bless
:angel:
Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Having God's "Unreasonable" Faith
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you -Matthew 6:33
When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ". . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . ." Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, "But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.
". . . do not worry about your life. . ." (Matthew 6:25). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed- no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Don't make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God." Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.
It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
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Strengthening Your Faith
Romans 10:17 is the verse I would like for you to read today. It says,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
To fully understand this verse, you need to know that if you are saved, faith has already been deposited in your heart. It is part of your spiritual DNA. Romans 12:3 says that, God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Faith is something He has already given.
It is up to you to develop that faith. It is up to you to do something with it. How do you develop it? You develop it first by hearing the Word of God.
The Bible-God's Word-is the food. As you feed upon it, your faith will be strengthened.
You know those body builders, men and women who are constantly pumping weights? Well, if you talk to any serious body builder, one of the first things they will refer to is diet. You have to eat the right kind of diet if you are going to build muscle mass. Usually, their diet is protein-rich.
They faithfully drink their protein shakes and eat their tuna fish sandwiches, which, when they are consumed and digested, become the raw materials that build muscle mass.
As you feed upon and digest God's Word, that truth becomes the raw material that will build faith. It is faith food.
Most people who struggle with their faith are feeding on the wrong things. Faith comes unconsciously when you feed upon God's Word.
So today, if you feel like you are struggling in your faith, then change your diet. Start feeding more on God's Word!
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Relationship vs. Rules
In His Presence: John 10:14-15
"My brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God . . . What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law''(Romans 7:4, 7).
Romans 7 tells us that the Law is good. But the problem with the Law is that it can't help us deal with sin. While it can show us what is wrong, it can't empower us to improve. Only a relationship abiding in the presence of Jesus Christ can transform our lives. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was irrelevant to Adam and Eve. They had abundant life already. "I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). It was a life based on a relationship with God.
So how do we combat what Satan wants us to believe-that restrictions and "do's" and "don'ts" are unfair? We should focus on the goodness of God. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith" (Romans 3:23-25). This demonstration of grace is what the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was all about.
One Minute Please
"From any tree of the garden you may eat freely"(Genesis 2:16).
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Explanation For Our Difficulties
. . . that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us . . . -John 17:21
If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17 . It will explain exactly why you are where you are- because Jesus has prayed that you "may be one" with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn't ask, "Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?" No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, "Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God's purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him- because Jesus prayed, ". . . that they all may be one . . . ."
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Exercising the Muscle of Faith
Yesterday we looked at the importance of God's Word to strengthen our faith. Yet there is something more we need to do to see our faith grow. We must use it.
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says this about faith,
Fight the good fight of faith.
Faith is made for conflict. It does not grow without conflict. It does not grow without pressure. You need to use it.
Remember our illustration of the body builders and how a proper diet is essential to building muscle mass? Well, they will also tell you that it is not enough to drink protein shakes and eat tuna fish, you have to work those muscles if they are going to grow. They work those weights every day in order to build their muscles.
The same thing is true when it comes to faith. Faith is a muscle that you have to use. It is not enough just to listen to your Bible teaching CDs all day long. Hearing alone is not enough to develop faith. You must use your faith muscle.
That is what the fight of faith is all about. You exercise your faith when you are standing in the midst of your storm, and you are assailed by temptations and every kind of trial that tells you you're not going to make it, that you are going down with the ship.
As you stand in the midst of your storm, and the wind is howling around you, and the lightning is flashing, and the waves are breaking over the bow of your little ship, stand up and say, "I believe God, that it is going to be just as it was told me." That is where the fight of faith comes in.
No matter what you may be going through today, exercise that muscle of faith. Trust God to do just as He has promised.
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Cultivating the Gratitude Mindset
In His Presence: Romans 9:14-24
"Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called . . . Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy"(1 Timothy 6:11-12, 17).
Cultivating a godly perspective of our spiritual state and our physical circumstances does not happen naturally. To fight against overlooking God's grace and lovingkindnesses toward us instead of complaining about our losses takes a great deal of energy and persistence. We need to develop a mindset that looks for God's graciousness at all times.
An attitude of thanksgiving should dominate the life of the believer. Ingratitude is the mark of the devil. Satan whispers in our ears to make us think about what God has taken away from us. God wants us to look at what He has freely given to us. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). We have so much to be thankful for!
When the nation of Israel moved out of Egypt en masse into the wilderness of Sinai, the first thing they did was complain. They complained about the conditions, the lack of water and meat, and their vulnerability to the Egyptians. God had set them free from slavery, but already they had forgotten.
One Minute Please
When we set our eyes on our misfortunes, we soon forget to express gratitude.
God bless
:angel:
Our Careful Unbelief
. . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on -Matthew 6:25
Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, "Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?" And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
". . . do not worry about your life . . . ." Don't take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No- "the cares of this world" (MatthewMatthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, "I will not trust when I cannot see"- and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.
The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.
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Understanding Faith
In the last two devotionals, we have been talking about faith and the importance of both the proper diet of God's Word, and exercising our faith if we are to see it grow.
The natural question is, "What is faith?" Most Christians probably know the technical definition for faith from Hebrews 11:1,
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The New International Version says, Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That is pretty clear. But it becomes even more clear when you plug that definition into 1 Timothy 6:12,
Fight the good fight of [the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Fight the good fight of being sure of what you hope for and being convinced of what you do not see.]
When the answer to your prayers is not on the horizon, when you don't feel differently, you need to fight the good fight and say, "You know what? God's Word says it and that's all the evidence I need. It is the evidence of things not seen, and I'm going to stand on that truth. I don't care what the world says, I don't care what circumstances say, I am going to fight the good fight of the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what I do not see."
And you stay with it until, as they say, "Faith turns to sight."
What are you struggling with today? What challenge is testing your faith? Stand firm on the truth of God's Word. Trust Him, no matter what others may say.
Real faith is standing firm in the midst of the storm. So stand firm!
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Living in Gratitude
In His Presence: Acts 16:16-34
"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6).
In even the worst situations there's always a reason to give thanks. There was a man who needed his dress pants ironed. While his wife was ironing them she burned them. The man began to get angry, but then he paused a moment to think about it. He realized he could thank the Lord that his leg wasn't in that pair of pants when they were burned!
The apostles Paul and Silas were falsely accused, arrested, and put into jail. They were beaten with rods and thrown into the inner prison, their feet placed in stocks. "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25). Even in pain, they were singing and praising God. Later, because of their testimony the jailor was saved.
Job was a righteous man. He prayed and offered sacrifices not only for himself but also for his children. One day, disaster struck his family and possessions, and he lost everything. Job grieved and mourned, but he also fell down in worship of God and said these words: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).
One Minute Please
"The Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalms 84:11). How diligent are you in giving thanks to God?
God bless
:angel:
May 24, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Delight of Despair
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead -Revelation 1:17
It may be that, like the apostle John, you know Jesus Christ intimately. Yet when He suddenly appears to you with totally unfamiliar characteristics, the only thing you can do is fall "at His feet as dead." There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awesomeness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair. You experience this joy in hopelessness, realizing that if you are ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God.
"He laid His right hand on me . . ." (Revelation 1:17). In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27), full of support, provision, comfort, and strength. And once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory, the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, saying, "Do not be afraid" (Revelation 1:17). His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells . . ." (Romans 7:18). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.
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Your Professional Trainer
As we continue to look at faith, I want you to read Hebrews 12:1-2,
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
What this passage teaches about faith is vital for you to understand if you are to progress in your faith. That truth is simply this: Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He not only authors it, He is the One who is the developer of our faith.
Remember the analogy of the body builder from the last two devotionals? Well, if your faith is like a body builder, Jesus is your weight trainer. Many of the people who are seriously into body building have a professional trainer who will work with them to be more effective in building muscle mass and sculpting their body.
Just like the professional weight trainer for a body builder, Jesus is your professional faith trainer. No one knows more about faith than Jesus. If you want to learn about faith, you need to listen to Jesus. You need to follow His guidance on how to build your faith.
Over the next few devotionals, I will show you three levels of faith Jesus talks about. Through that process, I pray you will discover where you are at, and see where you need to go and what you need to pursue in order for your faith to grow.
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Satan's Lies
In His Presence: John 17:17
Satan convinced Eve that he was harmless, not a creature to fear or be wary of. Today, he wants us to believe that we don't need to fear him and to think that he may not even exist. Second, Satan convinced Eve that God was holding out on her. Satan wants us to focus on our misfortunes.
"The woman said to the serpent, 'From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die." ' The serpent said to the woman, 'You surely will not die!' ''(Genesis 3:2-3). He was saying that God's word could not be trusted.
Satan discovered that Eve had lost sight of what God actually said. First, she minimized God's goodness by leaving out the word "freely" in God's command to Adam. He had said: "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely" (Genesis 2:16). Second, she made God look stricter than He was by saying they could not touch the fruit of the restricted tree. God had not said anything about touching it. Third, she lessened God's judgment by saying "lest you die." She was implying an uncertainty. Instead, God had said: "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17).
One Minute Please
When Eve distorted God's word, she was receptive to Satan's lie that God's word could not be trusted.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Good or The Best?
If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left -Genesis 13:9
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, ". . . walk before Me. . ." (Genesis 17:1).
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God Does Care
In yesterday's devotional, I told you about the three levels of faith Jesus talks about. The first of these levels is found in Mark 4:37-40,
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?" Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?"
The first level of faith that Jesus speaks about is no faith. No faith believes God does not care. It is typified by the disciples who woke Jesus in the midst of the storm and said, "Lord, don't You care that we're perishing?"
Perhaps you are in a storm today; and, to you, it seems like God is asleep and that He doesn't even care. That He is aloof, disinterested, and disconnected from you. That you are going through hell and He doesn't care.
Do not believe that lie. If you buy into the lie that God does not care, it robs you of faith. And you cannot get any lower than that.
Do not believe the lie that God is detached and unconcerned. Don't think, "If God cares about me, why would this have happened? Why am I going through this storm? Why is this happening in my life? God doesn't care about me. He doesn't even know my name."
My friend, God does care. He is not going to let you perish. He is interested in even the smallest details of your life.
1 Peter 5:7 says, He cares for you!
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The Father of Lies
In His Presence: Ephesians 6:10-17
"If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God . . . He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies"(John 8:42-44).
Satan came to the Garden of Eden to challenge mankind at the bottom line. Can we believe what God says? Satan had the audacity to call God a liar in the very first conversation he had with a human. How could he do that? God created him, gave him the highest position in all of heaven, discovered his rebellion, judged him, and sentenced him by making him leave heaven and live on earth. Satan knew God created for him the eternal fire. And yet he got up in God's face and called him a liar. This is Satan's nature. He has no conscience.
The strategy he applied to Eve is the strategy he applies to us. He got Eve to disregard God's word. Eve had never experienced death before. Why should she believe God regarding something she'd never seen? Satan got Eve away from the word of God, because that's the only way to fight a lie.
One Minute Please
We can counteract Satan's lies with the truth of God's Word.
God bless
:angel:
May 29, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Untroubled Relationship
In that day you will ask in My name . . . for the Father Himself loves you . . . -John 16:26-27
In that day you will ask in My name . . . ," that is, in My nature. Not "You will use My name as some magic word," but-"You will be so intimate with Me that you will be one with Me." "That day" is not a day in the next life, but a day meant for here and now. ". . . for the Father Himself loves you . . ."- the Father's love is evidence that our union with Jesus is complete and absolute. Our Lord does not mean that our lives will be free from external difficulties and uncertainties, but that just as He knew the Father's heart and mind, we too can be lifted by Him into heavenly places through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that He can reveal the teachings of God to us.
". . . whatever you ask the Father in My name . . ." (John 16:23). "That day" is a day of peace and an untroubled relationship between God and His saint. Just as Jesus stood unblemished and pure in the presence of His Father, we too by the mighty power and effectiveness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit can be lifted into that relationship-". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
". . . He will give you" (John 16:23). Jesus said that because of His name God will recognize and respond to our prayers. What a great challenge and invitation-to pray in His name! Through the resurrection and ascension power of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit He has sent, we can be lifted into such a relationship. Once in that wonderful position, having been placed there by Jesus Christ, we can pray to God in Jesus' name-in His nature. This is a gift granted to us through the Holy Spirit, and Jesus said, ". . . whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." The sovereign character of Jesus Christ is tested and proved by His own statements.
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The Place of Blessing
In Genesis 12:1-3 we read,
Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Notice how God says to Abram, "Abram, I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." But here is what I want you to see: Abram's being a blessing was tied to being in God's purpose. He could only become a great blessing if he followed God's calling.
You will never be the blessing God intends for you to be if you are not flowing in your purpose.
Was there risk involved for Abram? You bet! He had to leave everything that was familiar to him, all of his security, everything that was comfortable and familiar.
He left Ur of the Chaldeans, which history tells us was one of the most highly developed cities of the ancient world. They had cobblestone streets, an underground sewage system, and it was a place of world trade.
Abram left all of that and went out on an adventure by faith, pursuing the purpose that God had for his life. And in pursuing that purpose, God blessed him, and he became a blessing.
But think about this. What if he had stayed back? What if he had said, "I'm secure here; I have it made; I have a nice house and everything I need. I think I will stay put." We would not even know his name.
Pursue your purpose. That is the place of God's blessing.
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Demonstrating Our Faith
In His Presence: Psalm 100:4-5
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"(Hebrews 11:1-2).
Biblical faith is not amorphous. We don't believe in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy-they have no substance or reality to them. Faith believes in the character and the promises of a very real God. We demonstrate our faith by acting on His Word.
Have you ever turned on your radio to listen to the traffic reports? We believe these reports because someone is up in a helicopter and can see much more from the air than we can from the ground. They have a different perspective than we have. We demonstrate our trust in their word by taking a different route to our destination.
Doppler radar makes weather patterns visible, enabling scientists to see something that is invisible to the eye. Doppler radar provides a measure of safety, especially at airports where wind shears could make the ride pretty rough for planes about to take off or land. Occasionally, a burst of invisible wind could drive a commercial airliner to the ground like a toy.
In the spiritual realm, we are limited in our perspective. We cannot see what is happening in that realm unless we believe God, who gives us the details. Fire is hot; the sky is blue; water is wet; and God tells the truth. "If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar" (Romans 3:3-4).
One Minute Please
Faith has substance because God has substance.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Yes- But . . .!"
Lord, I will follow You, but . . . -Luke 9:61
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, "Yes, but- suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?" Or we say, "Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn't go against my common sense, but don't ask me to take a step in the dark."
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis- only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
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The Signpost of a Provoked Heart
Without a doubt, God has plans for you. Your life is no accident. You have a purpose. In today's devotional, we will discover an important key to help you understand your calling.
Let's look first at Acts 17:16-17,
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
The word provoked literally means that his spirit was deeply troubled, his spirit was grieved within him.
That gives us the first step in understanding your purpose. What grieves your heart? Paul was grieved about this city wholly given over to idols. And the next verse begins with the word therefore. He did something about it.
Generally, the things that grieve you in your heart are things that God has gifted you to change. They point you to your purpose.
For instance, in Job 30:25, Job said, "Has not my soul grieved for the poor?" If you read Job's story, a big part of his ministry had to do with helping the poor. It was tied to what caused his heart to grieve.
Then there was David who was grieved and provoked as Goliath was taunting the Israelites. Why? David was called to be a leader and a warrior in Israel. It was a signpost pointing to his calling.
What is it that provokes you in your heart? Whatever it is, do something about it.
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God Said So
In His Presence: Matthew 4:1-11
"The tempter came and said to [Jesus], 'If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.' But He answered and said, 'It is written, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" ' ''(Matthew 4:3-4).
What should we do when we face Satan's lies, especially the lie that God's Word cannot be true? Jesus was faced with a legitimate need-the need to eat to sustain Himself. His need wasn't wrong. Jesus had the power to do what was suggested, but to do it at the demand of Satan would have been satisfying Himself apart from God.
What proceeds out of God's mouth must be our foundation for everything. It must be the foundation for counseling, for work, for our families, and for our finances. God has given us His definitive Word, and His Word addresses everything that is relevant to us today. Christians who do not believe His Word and obey it do not see His power demonstrated today. God does not want us to pay homage to Him; He wants us to believe Him and act on faith. Faith believes God in the absence of empirical evidence.
In the Garden of Eden, Eve stumbled over this type of faith. She failed the test because she did not believe something she had never seen-death. When it's difficult to believe God but we place our faith in Him anyway, that's faith.
One Minute Please
Faith is believing something is so, even when it is not visibly so, that it might be so simply because God said so.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Put God First
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . .for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Put Trust in God First. Our Lord never put His trust in any person. Yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, and never lost hope for anyone, because He put His trust in God first. He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for others. If I put my trust in human beings first, the end result will be my despair and hopelessness toward everyone. I will become bitter because I have insisted that people be what no person can ever be- absolutely perfect and right. Never trust anything in yourself or in anyone else, except the grace of God.
Put God's Will First. "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:9).
A person's obedience is to what he sees to be a need- our Lord's obedience was to the will of His Father. The rallying cry today is, "We must get to work! The heathen are dying without God. We must go and tell them about Him." But we must first make sure that God's "needs" and His will in us personally are being met. Jesus said, ". . . tarry . . . until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). The purpose of our Christian training is to get us into the right relationship to the "needs" of God and His will. Once God's "needs" in us have been met, He will open the way for us to accomplish His will, meeting His "needs" elsewhere.
Put God's Son First. "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me" (Matthew 18:5).
God came as a baby, giving and entrusting Himself to me. He expects my personal life to be a "Bethlehem." Am I allowing my natural life to be slowly transformed by the indwelling life of the Son of God? God's ultimate purpose is that His Son might be exhibited in me.
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Intimacy with God
Paul, in Philippians 3:10-12, gives us the other principle for discovering your purpose,
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul said, "I am pursuing my purpose," but it was a purpose based on knowing God. Look at what he said in verse 10, That I may know Him.
The understanding of his purpose came out of that primary desire and pursuit of knowing God Himself and living in intimacy with Him.
Perhaps the most important thing you could do in your life right now is to just lock yourself away, grab your Bible, and go sit at the beach. Find that place of communion with God. As you get to know Him, you will also discover your own heart and the dreams and desires that God put within you.
They are there. They may be covered with debris, they may be covered with dust, but they are there. You can find out what they are if you will develop that intimate relationship with God.
It is in closeness with God that His breath blows the dust off of undiscerned and unrecognized purposes and dreams.
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Know God's Written Word
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 1:4-5
"The devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, "He will command His angels concerning You"; and "On their hands they will bear You up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." ' Jesus said to him, 'On the other hand, it is written, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" ' ''(Matthew 4:5-7).
We can be certain that Satan knows the Bible. He knows what it says and how to twist it into half-truths when it serves his purposes. Satan pulled a portion of Scripture out of context to serve his purposes. It isn't enough for us to know the words in the Bible; we need to know the context. We need to understand the basic principle that the Word of God never violates: God does not contradict Himself.
"Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Go, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." ' Then the devil left Him"(vv. 8-11).
One Minute Please
If the Living Word, who wrote the written Word, needed to use the written Word to get Satan off His back, then think how much more we need to use the written Word of God to fend off the devil!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Staggering Question
He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' -Ezekiel 37:3
Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer- "O Lord God, You know" (Ezekiel 37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done."
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.
"Behold, O My people, I will open your graves . . ." (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My "grave" has been opened by God and "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells" (Romans 7:18). God's Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.
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Weeping
In 1 Samuel 30:1-4 we read,
Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
David experienced the sudden loss of his family and it tore his heart out. Notice that David and his men lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
Feeling sorrow and anguish and expressing it is not wrong. In fact, it is normal, especially when you have experienced a sudden and personal loss.
Perhaps, like David, you have lost family members. Or maybe you have wayward children. They were brought up in the way of the Lord, but they are living a lifestyle that is diametrically opposed to the ways of God right now, and your heart is broken when you think about it.
Maybe you have experienced some other loss in your life, something of value, something that is important to you, something that has meaning to you. If so, it is okay to grieve!
God has wired us to be emotional beings. We are not robots. It is right for loss to affect us on a personal, emotional level. As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:4, there is a time to weep.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).
Sorrow has its place and its time, but there is also a time for it to end and to be replaced with something else.
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Does Sin Have Consequences?
In His Presence: 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
"From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die"(Genesis 2:17).
When Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden that she would not die from eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he emphasized his lie: "You surely will not die!" (Genesis 3:4). By telling her this, he was implying two things: God's Word could not be trusted, and there would be no consequences to her disobedience to God. Satan's fourth lie in this passage was that you can rebel against God and get away with it.
Sin is a violation of the law of God. Just like "No trespassing" signs say we are subject to prosecution if we violate the trespassing laws, God said to Adam and Eve and the rest of the world that when we have violated His law we will suffer the consequences. God's law is a reflection of His character. He doesn't make rules just to make rules. His guidelines and regulations reflect what He is like.
One of the chief definitions of sin is that which is contrary to the holiness of God. At the root of the word holy is the word separate. At the root of the word separate is the concept that God and sin cannot inhabit the same environment. He is wholly separate.
One Minute Please
Because of God's purity and holiness, God never gets used to filth. We may get used to it, but according to His nature, God cannot.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Never-forsaking God
He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you' -Hebrews 13:5
What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I have heard what He says? "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?' " (Hebrews 13:5-6).
"I will never leave you . . ."- not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
"I will never . . . forsake you." Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful- just the everyday activities of life- do I hear God's assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing- that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God's assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
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Inquire of the Lord
1 Samuel 30:8 tells us what David did next as He sought to deal with the troubles that besieged him. After grieving and strengthening himself in the Lord, here is what he did,
So David inquired of the LORD, saying, "Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?" And He answered him, "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all."
David inquired of the Lord.
There is a story in the book of Joshua that shows the importance of inquiring of God, of seeking His guidance, no matter how things may seem.
The nation of Israel had entered the Promised Land and they were gaining great victories. One day a group of Gibeonites showed up. They had bags full of old moldy bread, their sandals were worn out, their water skins were cracked and old, and their clothing was old and worn.
They told Joshua and the leaders that they had come from a country far, far away. They went on to tell them they had heard about the great things God was doing through Israel, and they wanted to make sure they would not be attacked. So they had traveled from afar to make a covenant so that when Israel eventually reached them in the future, they wouldn't attack the Gibeonites.
The Bible says specifically that Joshua and the men did not inquire of the Lord. Rather, they looked at the people's provisions...the moldy bread, the old sandals, the old water skins...and they made a covenant with them.
It turns out they were the next door neighbors and Israel had been deceived. And it caused huge problems in Israel's future.
I am telling you, things are not always as they appear. It pays to inquire of the Lord when you are going through difficult times. He will lead you.
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Running From God
In His Presence: 1 Peter 2:15-16
"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden"(Genesis 3:8).
God told Adam and Eve that the day they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. Obviously their physical bodies didn't die, as they lived for centuries (see Genesis 5:5) after the moment of their disobedience to God. In the Bible the word death means separation. God told Adam and Eve they would be separated from Him. A barrier came between God and His creation.
Before the day they disobeyed, Adam and Eve walked with God in close fellowship: "The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). After they ate the fruit, they began running from God. Adam said: "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself" (3:10).
When someone hides from his Creator rather than enjoying Him, a spiritual death has taken place. Adam and Eve were suddenly full of guilt, shame, and fear. They hid from God and were frightened of Him. We can call that emotional death. They were suffering the consequences of death. When they were not alienated from sharing a life with God, there was peace in their minds about themselves and their world.
One Minute Please
Today, we are separated from God by our inherited death sentence. Only God's grace sets us free.
God bless
:angel:
God's Assurance
He Himself has said . . . . So we may boldly say . . . -Hebrews 13:5-6
My assurance is to be built upon God's assurance to me. God says, "I will never leave you," so that then I "may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear' " (Hebrews 13:5-6). In other words, I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean that I will not be tempted to fear, but I will remember God's words of assurance. I will be full of courage, like a child who strives to reach the standard his father has set for him. The faith of many people begins to falter when apprehensions enter their thinking, and they forget the meaning of God's assurance- they forget to take a deep spiritual breath. The only way to remove the fear from our lives is to listen to God's assurance to us.
What are you fearing? Whatever it may be, you are not a coward about it- you are determined to face it, yet you still have a feeling of fear. When it seems that there is nothing and no one to help you, say to yourself, "But 'The Lord is my helper' this very moment, even in my present circumstance." Are you learning to listen to God before you speak, or are you saying things and then trying to make God's Word fit what you have said? Take hold of the Father's assurance, and then say with strong courage, "I will not fear." It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in our way, because "He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you . . . .' "
Human frailty is another thing that gets between God's words of assurance and our own words and thoughts. When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God seems to be nonexistent. But remember God's assurance to us- "I will never. . . forsake you." Have we learned to sing after hearing God's keynote? Are we continually filled with enough courage to say, "The Lord is my helper," or are we yielding to fear?
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Global Harvest
In Mark 16:15 Jesus said,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
In Matthew 13:38 He said,
"The field is the world..."
We need to lift up our eyes upon the harvest field "of the world."
It may sound crazy, but God is expecting us to do something about the salvation of the whole world!
In James chapter five, we are told that God is like a farmer waiting patiently for the precious fruit "of the earth." The implication there is that the Lord is coming, but there is a great global harvest coming first.
Here are some things you can do to be a part of reaching the world for Christ:
· Pray - Matthew 9:37-38 says, Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
· Give - Generously support ministries that are reaching the lost. Make the mission outreaches of your own church a priority.
· Go - Jesus' command to go is to all believers. At the very least, take a short term missions trip to share the Good News with others.
Remember, the only things we will take to heaven with us are the precious souls we have brought to Christ.
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The Death of the Family
In His Presence: Colossians 1:9
"I will put enmity between [the serpent] and the woman"(Genesis 3:15).
When Satan wanted to instigate mankind's rebellion against God, he went to the woman to undermine the man's God-given authority. He approached Eve rather than Adam at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to discuss what God said about the tree.
Eve responded to Satan's prompts by taking up the position of the spiritual guide for her family. Eve made the decision about the direction the family would move. Adam became the follower. Eve ate the fruit and gave it to her husband. We know that Adam was with her; he heard the conversation Eve had with the serpent and did not interpose God's viewpoint. Eve became the initiator and Adam became the responder. Their roles were reversed.
When a man gives up the biblical headship of his family, especially in the spiritual realm, there is a death in the relationship. Satan has become an expert in getting men to forsake their biblical roles because he knows if he can get the man out of his leadership role, the family will be weakened. We think conflict in the family is about differing personalities, or about finances, or how to rear our children. But the underlying cause is the death of the spiritual state in the home. The roles have been reversed, and man has forsaken the spiritual mantle God gave to all men.
One Minute Please
When the husband and/or wife have rebelled against God in some way, death takes hold of family relationships.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Work Out" What God "Works in" You
. . . work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you . . . -Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, "But I don't know if my will is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say "I will not obey" is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God's creation of human beings- sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. ". . . for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." With focused attention and great care, you have to "work out" what God "works in" you- not work to accomplish or earn "your own salvation," but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God's will- God's will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God's will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with "dynamite," and the "dynamite" is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
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Two Voices that Cry Out
Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (James 5:3-4).
These words are written to believers, to Christians who are hoarding up wealth rather than giving to support the spread of the gospel.
The reapers in verse 4 are those preaching and working out in the harvest fields of the world. Notice it says that the Lord has heard their cry. But if you read carefully, you will find that another cry has entered the Lord's ears as well.
"The wages" of the laborers cry out to God as well! The tithes and offerings that have been withheld cry out. Monies that should have been sown into the cause of Christ are raising their voices in a mighty chorus to heaven!
Large amounts of undesignated and unused funds that sit in bank vaults cry out. Funds God has graciously given to His people that have been withheld from their purpose-to bring a living Jesus to a dying world-cry out and cry out and cry out!
Are you sitting on a talking wallet today? Is your purse crying out to God? If you could hear their voice, what would they cry? "China! Europe! Africa! The Middle East!"??
Are you generously supporting the work of your own local church? Do not let your money testify against you! Give where, when, and how much God directs- consistently-into the work of His Kingdom.
If the precious fruit of the earth is going to be reaped, we have to support those who labor in the field.
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Respect for God's Laws
In His Presence: Hebrews 12:1-2
"To Adam [God] said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat from it," cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to the dust you shall return' ''(Genesis 3:17-19).
There are definitely consequences to sin. Sometimes we don't connect the problem with the cause. In this case, when Adam sinned, he affected the world of work. Even the ground was cursed. Though Satan denied that there would be death upon eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a lot of the dying wasn't immediately evident. Economy was affected. Adam and Eve's family felt the results of death in the discord within. Their bodies began to die. Ultimately, they died physically as well.
We can cut a flower from its stem. It dies right away because it is separated from the source of life, but it doesn't appear dead immediately. The longer it is unattached, the more evident death becomes. One thing we must realize about sin and consequences is that we can choose the sin, but we cannot choose the consequences.
One Minute Please
We must respect God's laws.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . -John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point- the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? "If you abide in Me . . . "- that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point- "you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these- what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
"Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . ." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God's foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
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A Chain Reaction
Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus (John 1:35-37).
When John opened his mouth about Jesus, two people who heard him speak followed the Lord. We must open our mouths about the Lamb of God if we want people to follow Him.
Look what happens next in John 1:40-42,
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
We have a chain reaction happening here. John says, "Behold the Lamb of God," and two men follow Jesus. One of the men, Andrew, goes straight to his brother and brings him to Jesus. It is interesting to note that it says he "first" found his own brother-indicating that Simon was not the only one that Andrew found and brought to the Lord.
The remainder of this chapter in John tells us how Philip told Nathaniel about Jesus and was able to persuade him to meet the Lord with the words "come and see."
These stories from the first chapter of John reveal to us what we should be doing once we meet Jesus. We need to bring our friends and loved ones to the Lord. We should be inviting them to "come and see."
Take a moment right now and ask God to show you someone who you should talk to about Jesus. Then get busy and do it. You just may see a chain reaction of salvations.
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The Cure
In His Presence: 1 John 1:9
"The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel"(Mark 1:15).
Sin is more than just a problem in our lives. Many of our troubles are the consequences of sin. Sin always carries a consequence. Some of us may be suffering consequences for many years. Aren't you tired of living with these consequences? God has a cure-repentance.
Repentance is God's way of restoring harmony and removing the impregnable wall that goes up when we've lost our close fellowship with Him. Repentance is the decision to turn from sin in order for God to bring an end to the judgment He has wrought on us. Repentance repairs relationships.
The Greek word metanoia means a change of mind. It is often translated as repentance. It involves a change of heart, a new way of looking at life. Only one aspect of metanoia is repentance. It is much more like a rebirth. Metanoia involves a realization or new way of looking at ourselves. Like David who said: "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13), we need to wake up to the fact that we have sinned against God and God alone. We have offended God.
True repentance involves regret. We should feel sorrow over our sin, not just sorrow over the fact that we got caught. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom" (James 4:8-9). We need to be broken-hearted before God about our sins.
One Minute Please
Have you gotten sick over your sins yet?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What's Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them -John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself- begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice . . ." (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).
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Through Kindness and Love
In Romans 12:20 we read a startling truth,
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head."
Our natural inclination is to hate our enemies, isn't it? But the Bible gives us a very different perspective and direction. We are to care for and love our enemies. In fact, some of the greatest antagonists to the gospel have been won through love.
We once had a neighbor next to our church building who was very set against us and very vocal against the church. He would voice his opinion in meetings at the city hall and, on occasion, he would even accost people as they were walking to church. He would shout things at them and harass them a bit from his front yard.
Well, we had one of our pastors go out of his way to show this guy love. He would compliment this man on how well he took care of his lawn, and he began to build a relationship with him. Then one day he actually led the man to Christ!
That same man who would yell at the church members as they walked by his house came into our auditorium and repented before me with tears in his eyes and apologized. He said he had lashed out because he was afraid. But now he had come to Christ, and he had been saved.
It is a glorious thing. He was won to the Lord through kindness and through love.
Think about God. I am so glad that He did not judge us and let the hammer fall on us because of our sins. Instead He extended kindness and mercy to us.
Win your enemy to Christ by showing him kindness and loving him today!
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God Is Unique
In His Presence: Nehemiah 9:6
"Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; yes, let him recount it to Me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place' ''(Isaiah 44:6-7).
There are no other beings like God. He is entirely unique. Anyone trying to equate themselves to the status of deity is practicing idolatry. God establishes His uniqueness in so many ways. " 'You are my witnesses,' declares theLord, 'and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me' '' (Isaiah 43:10).
When God placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden and placed a limitation on the man He had created, He was saying that He is God, the Creator, and Adam was man, the created. He lay down a clearly marked line that Adam and Eve were not to cross over.
"I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God"(Isaiah 45:5). Satan, in the Garden of Eden, held out to Adam and Eve the idea that they could cross over the line and become like God.
One Minute Please
God is so spectacular that it will take all of eternity for us to get to know Him.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting There (1)
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words- "Come to Me." Our Lord's words are not, "Do this, or don't do that," but- "Come to me." If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing- "Come to Me." If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord- "Come to Me," and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be "foolish" enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
". . . and I will give you rest"- that is, "I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm." He is not saying, "I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep." But, in essence, He is saying, "I will get you out of bed- out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity." Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about "suffering" the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
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The Nature of Faith
In our last devotional, we talked about how important faith is to pleasing God. It is not just important, it's essential, because without it, you and I cannot please God.
The natural question is, "What is faith?"
In Hebrews 11:1, the writer gives us the technical definition of biblical faith,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith deals with unseen reality. In fact, Weymouth's translation says, "Faith is a conviction of the reality of things we do not see."
You might think, "That's a nice definition, but what does that really mean?" That is a good question. And it is answered by the examples given in Hebrews 11, which show different ways people expressed their faith in God, because there is not just one way to demonstrate faith in God:
Abel shows us that faith is giving our best to God. He deserves our first and our best.
Enoch shows us that faith is walking with God. It is living a life in constant connection with God, even when you can't sense or feel Him.
Noah shows us that faith is making preparations as though Christ is coming back today, even when there is seemingly no evidence.
Abraham shows us that faith is obeying God, even though you may not know where He is leading you.
Sarah shows us that faith is receiving God's promise, even when public opinion says, "No way!"
Moses shows us that faith is living life in light of eternity, and allowing that focus to affect all of life's decisions.
Commit today to live this life of faith. If you do, you will truly please God!
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Knowledge vs. Power
In His Presence: Proverbs 3:19-20
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host"(Isaiah 45:12).
God wants a Creator/creature distinction between us. We can still relate with each other, talk, and have fun. But we must not forget there is a difference. We have limitations while God does not. A good illustration of this type of relationship is the teen/parent relationship. Teenagers often question why there should be a distinction in the relationship. Depending upon whom they listen to, they may feel that their parents are withholding things that will make life better. They don't understand why they can't enjoy the same privileges as their parents.
Why would Satan tell Eve that eating the fruit would open her eyes and make her like God? Does this reasoning sound familiar?
Satan basically said, "God wants to keep us ignorant so He can control us. If He can control us, He can always tell us what to do and be our boss. But if we eat of the tree we won't be ignorant anymore. We will know what He knows and be able to do what He does."
In using the word know, Satan was implying that information equaled power-the power to determine our own future, our own fate.
One Minute Please
Using our illustration of the teen/parent relationship, Satan was encouraging Adam and Eve to think like the teen who wants his parents to pay the bills, but does not want to submit to their authority.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting There (2)
They said to Him, 'Rabbi . . . where are You staying?' He said to them, 'Come and see' -John 1:38-39
Where our self-interest sleeps and the real interest is awakened. "They . . . remained with Him that day . . . ." That is about all some of us ever do. We stay with Him a short time, only to wake up to our own realities of life. Our self-interest rises up and our abiding with Him is past. Yet there is no circumstance of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
"You are Simon . . . . You shall be called Cephas" (John 1:42). God writes our new name only on those places in our lives where He has erased our pride, self-sufficiency, and self-interest. Some of us have our new name written only in certain spots, like spiritual measles. And in those areas of our lives we look all right. When we are in our best spiritual mood, you would think we were the highest quality saints. But don't dare look at us when we are not in that mood. A true disciple is one who has his new name written all over him- self-interest, pride, and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.
Pride is the sin of making "self" our god. And some of us today do this, not like the Pharisee, but like the tax collector (see Luke 18:9-14). For you to say, "Oh, I'm no saint," is acceptable by human standards of pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. You defy God to make you a saint, as if to say, "I am too weak and hopeless and outside the reach of the atonement by the Cross of Christ." Why aren't you a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe that God can make you into one. You say it would be all right if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is exactly what He will do! And not only do we make our home with Him, but Jesus said of His Father and Himself, ". . . We will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:23). Put no conditions on your life- let Jesus be everything to you, and He will take you home with Him not only for a day, but for eternity.
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Standing in the Gap
Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him (Isaiah 59:14-16).
God is not pleased at injustice nor when truth and righteousness do not prevail. hen He sees those who turn from evil becoming a prey, He is not happy.
I remember a young man who an had lived a particularly sordid life. He heard the gospel and had an amazing conversion experience. Within a month or so of accepting Christ, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
What happened? He departed from evil and became a prey! God was not responsible for his situation, nor was He pleased.
Why did it happen? At least part of the answer is found in verse 16. There was no man serving as an intercessor. No one was keeping a hedge of protection around that young man through prayer.
Before and after people turn from evil we need to intercede to God on their behalf.
I challenge you today to be one of those who stands in the gap and makes up the hedge for new babes in Christ. May God find pleasure in you and me as we take our position as intercessors.
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Another Lie
In His Presence: 1 John 2:15-16
"He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist"(Acts 17:26-28).
Satan understood that he could not get rid of God. Before man was created, He tried to elevate himself to God's level. That way, he could do what he wanted to do, and God could do what He wanted to do. Satan did not want to be reminded that God created him.
In the Garden of Eden, God established a boundary. He limited Adam and Eve's access to one tree. The boundaries created dependency. As mentioned in the above verse, God desires that we should seek Him. The limitations are meant to guide our search for Him.
When Satan approached Eve at the restricted tree, he told her: "God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). Satan's fifth lie in this third chapter of Genesis was that we could be equal with God. Satan was offering Eve an impossibility. He was telling her that she could become like God by eating the fruit. However, we can never be like God. He is unique. Satan encouraged Eve to rebel against her creatureliness as he had done earlier.
One Minute Please
God creates boundaries to establish the Creator/creature distinction.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
. . . do you love Me? . . . Tend My sheep -John 21:16
Jesus did not say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. We consider what we do in the way of Christian work as service, yet Jesus Christ calls service to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . , he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26). In this verse, there is no argument and no pressure from Jesus to follow Him; He is simply saying, in effect, "If you want to be My disciple, you must be devoted solely to Me." A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, "Now I see who Jesus is!"- that is the source of devotion.
Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way. Our Lord's primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of people- the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even though people may treat me like a "doormat." The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that "falls into the ground and dies"- it will spring up and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).
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Rejoicing in God's Mercy
We all are familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son. After he had wasted his inheritance, he came to his senses and returned home, hoping he could just be a servant to his father.
His father wouldn't even consider it. He put the best robe on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and then had the fatted calf killed for a party. The father delighted in showing mercy to his son!
But what about the older brother? He stood outside the party and wouldn't come in to celebrate. He was so angry! He had never messed up and yet his father had never thrown him a party!
Sometimes, if we are not careful, we can have the attitude of that older son. We can look at the lives of others and think, "That is not fair. I know he's been messing up, and God is blessing him. What's up with that? I haven't been as bad as him!"
We need to remember that God delights in showing mercy to the guilty when, from a sincere heart, they seek that mercy. He delights when you and I ask for His mercy when we have blown it.
Micah 6:7-8 says,
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
God delights in showing mercy. So be a person of mercy, and rejoice when God shows mercy to someone who needs it.
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The Priority of Worship
In His Presence "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory" - (Isaiah 6:3).
Imagine what it would be like to step inside your church sanctuary on Sunday morning and witness the vision that Isaiah saw. He writes, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings . . . One called out to another and said, 'Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke" (Isaiah 6:1-4).
This had to be a glorious sight! But it also was one that conflicted Isaiah's heart because he knew that he was guilty of sin. Immediately, a godly sense of fear swept over him, and he cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). When we become aware of God's holy presence, we won't be able to stop ourselves from worshiping Him and seeking His cleansing for our sins.
However, if we become so entangled with sin and the pleasures of this world, we will fail to sense the need to worship God. In fact, our spirits will be dead to any true praise. Instead, we will yawn and check our watches to see if the preacher is preaching longer than he should.
Isaiah realized there was a problem in his life-it was one that needed to be addressed immediately, so he could do what God had called him to do. Many times, we miss God's best for our lives because we become too busy for worship. When we take time to worship God for who He is-righteous, loving, and infinite in power-our hearts will be lifted, and our lives will be changed. We will cry out, "Holy are You Lord and worthy to be praised!"
One Minute Please
True worship begins with a heart that is totally turned toward God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Come to "When" Yet?
The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends -Job 42:10
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, "Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer- I will walk rightly before You if You will help me." But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.
If you are not now receiving the "hundredfold" which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29), and not getting insight into God's Word, then start praying for your friends- enter into the ministry of the inner life. "The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends." As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.
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Becoming a Person of Mercy
Luke 6:38 tells us,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
It is not unusual to hear this verse used in connection with giving money to the Lord's work. And while there is a principle concerning money embedded in this verse, Jesus was not talking about giving an offering when He made this statement. That was not the subject under discussion.
In order to understand what He was really talking about, you need to read verses 35-37,
"But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Jesus wanted to impress on us this truth: If you give forgiveness, and you give love, and you give mercy, they come back to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together.
He wanted us to understand that by the same measure you and I give these things, it will come back to us. But if you and I measure out judgment and condemnation, guess what gets measured back to us?
Make a commitment today to become a person of mercy, not seeking anything in return. Become known as someone who reflects our God of mercy to a broken and needy world.
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A Notetaker's Journal
In His Presence "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord" (Exodus 24:4).
One of the most exciting things you can do in your Christian walk with the Lord is to keep a journal of all that He is teaching you. Exodus 24:4 says, "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord." In other words, he did not want to miss or forget anything. He took notes! If he were attending church with you, you could expect him to pull out a notebook and start jotting things down. Why? God directed Moses to do this because he was the one who would communicate what God said to the nation of Israel.
Today, godly men and women teach God's truth, and we would be wise to pick up the habit of taking notes, as God taught Moses to do. Actually, the human mind has to hear or record a fact at least three times before it is committed to memory. Sometimes, it can take hearing a fact up to fourteen times before it is actually stored in our knowledge base.
This is why when you walk up to your pastor at the end of the worship service and commend him on his sermon, you pray that he does not ask you to repeat his main points back to him. It also is the reason you can gather over lunch with family and friends and exclaim how much you learned at church, but when you are asked to tell what you thought was the highlight, your mind goes blank.
Learn to take notes. Record your thoughts, and then, when you are alone with the Lord, ask Him to affirm what you have heard in and through His Word. Godly messages never conflict with what God has written in the Bible-it is the infallible Word of God. This means that it is God's Word to us, and nothing about it can be changed or taken away.
We live in a devious world because Satan is constantly enticing us away from God's truth. As you worship the Lord, ask Him to make you aware of the Enemy's subtle and dangerous scheme. There is only one way to worship God, and that is with the entirety of our hearts and minds.
One Minute Please
Worship is not a place or an event. It's a way of life.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Ministry of the Inner Life
You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . -1 Peter 2:9
By what right have we become "a royal priesthood"? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our "hanging on by the skin of our teeth," although we say, "What a wonderful victory I have!" Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don't worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, "Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men." Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: "Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now."
How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.
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Obedience and Respect
I am sure most Christian parents, at one time or another, have pointed their children to Colossians 3:20,
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Or to Ephesians 6:1-3,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
These two character qualities of obeying and honoring parents are vital to pleasing God. But it is important to understand that obedience has to do with an outward act, while honoring has to do with an inward attitude of the heart.
As parents, we all can remember those times when our children may have been outwardly obedient but were being inwardly disrespectful. You may have gotten them to sit down in the corner, but while they sat there, they were thinking, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"
If you are a parent, it is critical for you to deal just as swiftly with a disrespectful attitude as it is with a disobedient act. It is part of your God-given role of teaching your children obedience and respect for authority.
As your children learn how to obey and respect, you will not only bring them peace, they will experience God's blessing in their lives.
So as you work to raise your children to be the people God desires them to be, make a priority of teaching your children the qualities of respect for authority and obedience. Someday they will bless you for it!
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Tapping into His Power
In His Presence: "Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God" (Acts 12:5).
There was a lady who lived out in the country and never had electricity. Finally, her family made arrangements so a line could be run out to her house. However, after six months, she had only used one unit. Company officials decided to drive out to her house to make sure nothing was wrong. When everything checked out fine, they asked her if she was enjoying having electricity. "Oh my, yes," she replied.
Then one of the representatives said, "Well, tell us how you are using it." The old woman paused for a moment, and then, with a gleam in her eyes, she explained. Each evening, as the sun was setting, she turned the lights on long enough to light her kerosene lamps-and then turned them off! She was still living a kerosene existence when she could have been enjoying the comforts of having electricity.
God has given us tremendous power through the presence of His Spirit. Yet many times, we fail to use it. Instead, we settle for much less by relying solely on our human ability. There are certain things God never meant for us to handle on our own. We may be fine when it comes to choosing which shirt to wear in the morning, but when life becomes stormy and the winds begin to blow hard against us, we need an omnipotent Savior.
In Acts 12, we learn that Peter was arrested and that no amount of human effort could free him. However, the supernatural power of God did. The Bible tells us that the church was praying fervently. This means they were praying without ceasing, knowing that God had the power they lacked to release the one they loved.
What are you wrestling with today? Have you rolled it over onto the Lord through prayer, or have you lit a room full of kerosene lamps? Stop struggling on your own and turn on God's power through prayer and faith. Allow Him to be your strength and your everlasting peace.
One Minute Please
God wants to use the problems we face to demonstrate His awesome power and ability. Are you willing to allow Him to do this?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unchanging Law of Judgment
With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you -Matthew 7:2
This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution- "with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God's throne down to us (see Psalm 18:25-26).
Romans 2:1 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts. To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts. The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, "Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge."
Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). He went on to say, in effect, "If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way." Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, "My God, judge me as I have judged others"? We have judged others as sinners- if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Embracing the Blessings of God
Ephesians 1:3 is a verse that is often misunderstood. It tells us,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
I used to read that and wonder what in the world a spiritual blessing in a heavenly place in Christ really was! I truly believed that I had been blessed with it, but I didn't have a clue what it meant.
Then one day as I studied, I found out that the word spiritual literally means Holy Spirit-conferred. The Amplified Bible helps clarify the meaning when it says, He has blessed us with every Holy Spirit-given blessing.
What it means, literally, is that the blessings you and I enjoy as believers in Jesus Christ come from heaven's vast resources. And they have already been conferred on us. Isn't that awesome?!
But there is something more. These Holy Spirit-conferred blessings include any blessing and benefit we get from God, be it material, physical, emotional, or spiritual.
So, when God heals you, it is a blessing being conferred through the agency of His Spirit. When God brings peace to your troubled heart, that is a blessing from the Holy Spirit. And when God supernaturally supplies material needs, that is the Holy Spirit at work blessing you from the vast resources of heaven!
But here is what I really want you to grasp. Based on this verse, all those blessings have already been given. They have been issued. On God's side of the ledger, they are a done deal. He has already signed them and sent them.
So praise God for...and embrace...His blessings in your life!
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Jailed but Not Bound
In His Presence "Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison" (Acts 12:6).
Has there ever been a time when you felt so bound by your circumstances that you thought you would never be released? Without a doubt, Peter's situation, from a human standpoint, seemed impossible. However, from God's perspective nothing was further from the truth. It was an opportunity for Him to display His awesome power through Peter's life.
While the church was praying for his release, Peter was resting. In fact, he was asleep! Most of us would have been awake, anxiously watching the door and wondering what was going to happen next. But not Peter. He was in the center of God's loving will. Life is not void of trouble and heartache. Sometimes His plan for us includes difficulty.
When trouble strikes and you feel as though your world is falling apart, do you have this same type of faith? Many of us don't. We may start out thinking, "Now Lord, You know my needs. Please help me." However, when time drags on and the door to freedom remains closed, we begin to wonder what has happened to God. Has He left the scene? The answer is no. He is right where He always is-beside you, with you, and living His life out through you.
Peter was not worried about tomorrow because his eyes were set on Christ. Being handcuffed to him was probably similar to being chained to the apostle Paul. We can imagine that at every opportunity, those who were guarding him had the opportunity to hear about the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.
"The Lord is not slow about fulfilling His promises" (2 Peter 3:9). What may seem like forever to you is not even a moment to God who is infinite and eternal. Peter's amazing release came at just the right time-the middle of the night. When life appears the darkest, the light of God's hope will find you. Your Savior is working on your behalf, and He will answer your prayer.
One Minute Please
If Satan has hemmed you in on all sides, if he has handcuffed you and you see no way out, then you are a good candidate for a miracle!
God bless
:angel: :angel:
June 25, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
. . . what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 'Father, glorify Your name' -John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
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Blessed to Be a Blessing
Our capitalistic society is geared toward one purpose...people accumulating wealth. While there is nothing wrong with material abundance, many Christians today have lost sight of why God has blessed them with prosperity.
They believe it is for their own good and benefit, but God's perspective is quite different. For example, here is what the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 13:16,
But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Now the phrase "to share" means to share with others. One translation says, Share what you have. Another version translates this, Be generous. Another says, Contribute to the needy.
You see, God blesses us to make us a blessing! That ought to be the main motivation for desiring and praying for God's blessing in our lives. God told Abraham, "I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." God says the fringe benefit is that, "I will give you richly all things to enjoy." But the main flow of God's purpose in blessing us is so we can help other people.
It is also the reason we should desire the inheritance that Christ has given to us, all of those Holy Spirit-conferred blessings, which we discussed on day 14. Why? Because we can't give what we don't have. You can't bless someone if you don't have anything to bless them with!
God is well pleased to see us walk in our inheritance as sons, but He is also well pleased to see us share what He has blessed us with.
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Worship the Lord with Your Life
In His Presence: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy" (Jude 24).
Faith is at the heart of worship. In Streams in the Desert, Mrs. Charles E. Cowman records a story that focuses on giving God praise. The story is of a woman who had very little. She made a "precarious living by hard daily labor; but [she] was a joyous, triumphant Christian." One day, a gloomy friend said to her, "Ah, it is well enough to be happy now, but I should think the thought of your future would sober you. Only suppose, for instance, you should have a spell of sickness and are unable to work. Or suppose your present employer moves away and no one else gives you anything to do. Suppose . . ."
Nancy knew where the conversation was going and raised her hand to interrupt her friend. "Stop! I never use the word suppose. The Lord is my Shepherd, and I know that I shall not want. And, Honey, it is all your 'supposing' that is making you so miserable. You had better give them up and just trust the Lord."
We worship God with our lives. Not just with the songs we sing on Sunday morning, but with the way we live each day-including the way we greet others and talk about what God is doing in us. Some people may have an abundance of money while others appear to have very little. It does not matter. If they know the Savior, they have a wealth that this world cannot understand.
Fame and riches mean nothing to God. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are also the loneliest. However, if you have a personal relationship with the Savior, you are never alone. Instead of thinking about what could happen, enjoy the goodness of this day, and worship Him for His faithfulness. He stands watch over your life and gives you promises that will hold true for eternity. Therefore, worship the Lord, and He will bless you in ways that are far greater than you can imagine.
One Minute Please
It takes faith to worship God and faith to grow in His love each day.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Drawing on the Grace of God- Now
We . . . plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain -2 Corinthians 6:1
The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. ". . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses"- that is where our patience is tested (2 Corinthians 6:4). Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, "Oh well, I won't count this time"? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you- it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.
". . . in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors . . ." (2 Corinthians 6:5)- in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.
". . . having nothing . . . ." Never hold anything in reserve. Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you. ". . . and yet possessing all things"- this is poverty triumphant (2 Corinthians 6:10).
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You Can't Out-Give God
Tucked away in the pages of the New Testament is a very powerful promise to those who are generous givers. It is found in Philippians 4:18-19,
Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The Philippian church had made the financial support of the apostle Paul a priority. In these verses Paul acknowledges their generosity and also states a vital principle for every believer to grasp...you can't out-give God!
Not too long ago I came across a letter from a lady who had sacrificially given to the work of God. Here is what she said in her letter:
"My husband and I were in dire straits. He is a Vietnam War veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange. Due to his benefit claims being denied and his being unemployed for three years, we lost nearly everything. We had to put our home up for sale, but nothing was happening. During this time, I gave every penny I could get my hands on and always prayed. So one miracle after another began to take place. First, we were able to move into my husband's deceased mother's home. Then we signed papers for the sale of our former home. Next, my husband's claim for benefits was approved and awarded, and the award was backdated three years. Then he found a job! Our income has tripled, and God continues to do miraculous things for us."
My friend, become a generous giver today. Because you can't out-give God!
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Acceptable to God
In His Presence: "Abel . . . brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard" (Genesis 4:4-5).
As consumers, we have little interest in leftovers. We don't like to spend our money on flawed products. When we pay for an item or a service, we feel that it should be the best that company has to offer. This is true of God, but to an even greater extent.
Adam and Eve taught their sons Cain and Abel how to worship God in an acceptable manner. Yet when it came time to do this, the quality of Cain's offering was not pleasing, and it was not given with the same passion as Abel's. God does not have favorites. He did not choose one over the other because He liked one brother better than the next.
Abel simply understood the principle of worship and offered God the very best that he had. Cain, on the other hand, offered what he could gather quickly-an apple from here, a pear from there, and a clump of grapes. It is also interesting to note that Cain's life is one that was filled with a desire and passion for what God had cursed in the garden at the fall of mankind-the land. Abel offered God the very best of His flocks-the fattest lambs-because he understood that worship came from a heart of love and devotion.
This concept is not just about giving money to the Lord on Sunday. He established guidelines for our giving in order for us to remember that He is the One who enables us to make a living. More importantly, it is about how we live our lives. Are we totally committed to the Savior? Do we love Him and want to worship Him on a regular basis? Or do we just pray when we have a need of Him and go to His house when it is convenient? Those who worship out of convenience have hearts that contain a character flaw-a bent toward Cain's nature.
This does not have to be true of your life. Ask God to show you any area where you are not fully devoted to Him. Remember, worship is something we do with our entire life.
One Minute Please
A character flaw always leads to a content flaw.
God bless
:angel:
June 27, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Overshadowing of God's Personal Deliverance
. . . I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord -Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally- ". . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . ." (Jeremiah 39:18). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God's personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly." Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, "Why should I be treated like this?" If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, "Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance." Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard- we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God's name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
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The Priority of Purity
We live in a highly sexualized society. It is amazing the number of people, even pastors, who fall to sexual temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 we are told straight out,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
God expects for you and me to live in sexual purity. You need to know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor; otherwise your body will possess you.
God has created a strong sexual drive that is an awesome blessing in marriage! But, you know, it is so strong that sometimes it just wants to flow out of the banks and go somewhere it shouldn't go.
We must learn how to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, and live morally pure lives that bring pleasure to God. Here are three practical ways:
Avoid temptation. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, Flee youthful lusts. Avoid the very scenes of temptation. Stay away when you know you might get in trouble.
Feed your spirit, not your flesh. In Romans, we are told of the great war every Christian experiences, the war between our spirit and our flesh. Whatever you feed is going to be stronger, so make sure to feed your spirit.
Rely on the Holy Spirit and His power. If you will acknowledge Him and look to Him for strength, you will find He is a very present help in your time of need.
Make a commitment today to practice these three principles for purity. If you do, you will live in the sexual purity God desires.
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The Lifestyle of Worship
In His Presence: "You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel" (Psalm 22:3).
Worship is not simply an event or a place. It is an orientation. It is a way of life. It is the result of a decision that we make-one that exalts God above everything else. It is also a way of thinking. We come to a point where we realize and acknowledge that God is truly great and worthy of all praise.
One of the major benefits of worship is that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. This is why worship is crucial to the life of a believer. If we do not worship God on a regular basis, we will not sense His closeness and will not know which way to go when trouble comes. We will not experience the joy of living free lives because we will not be in tune with His Spirit. Instead, we must learn how to walk each day in the light of His grace and unconditional love.
Israel learned the importance of worship in the desert, where they were prepared by God to enter the Promised Land. They carried the altar of God with them. When they stopped to make camp, the first thing they did was to set up the altar and the surrounding tent. They didn't say anything about needing to wait until the Sabbath to worship. They realized the importance of worshiping the One who held their lives fast within His hands.
Do you have this same attitude toward worship? Do you go to church on Sunday with a grateful heart, longing to sing and praise God for His goodness? Or are you one of the missing who rarely shows up to worship the Lord?
Sadly, while God longs for our fellowship, the one that loses out in this case is the person who fails to enter His gates with thanksgiving. He does not need us, but we definitely need Him.
The one place where you can learn the most about God's infinite love and care for you is through times of worship. You don't have to put on your finest clothes in order to worship Him. He just wants you to come and worship with a heart that sincerely wants to be with Him.
One Minute Please
Make worship to God your heart's passion, and He will renew your faith.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me -Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you "turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has "laid hold of" us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, "Well, I'm really not suited for this." What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you- your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are- you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do. . . I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).
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Perfect and Complete
Your faith in God has incredible potential to make your life complete. To take you from the place of deficiency, to the place of being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James puts it this way in James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Faith in God can make you complete, but your faith will be contested. It will be opposed, even as we read here. Your faith will go through the fire of trial.
If you lack spiritually in your life, you can get to the place of holiness. If you are lacking materially, you can get to a place where your needs are met. Whatever your lack, your faith in God has the potential to take you from where you are, and where you are lacking, to this place that the Bible speaks of...being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
But, the path to that completeness is one of trial. Your faith will not get you there until it first goes through testing. You do have an adversary. You will be opposed. The Bible says, Your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
The devil knows what is at stake, and he will do all he can to keep you from trusting God. So as your faith encounters the turbulence of trials, do what James says, and count it all joy. You are on your way to becoming perfect and complete in Christ.
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Worship That Comes From the Heart
In His Presence: "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8).
Usually, there will come a time when God will test the depth of your devotion to Him. In Genesis 22, He tested Abraham's faith beyond anything imaginable. The Lord instructed Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice.
For a moment, draw this parallel in your mind: God sent His own Son to earth and willingly offered Him as a sacrifice for our sins. Was God's request of Abraham a foreshadowing of what would come? Perhaps. However, the one thing we want to focus on here is that Abraham was willing to obey God. He did not talk back, make excuses, or turn away from God. He just obeyed-knowing in his heart that the Lord would provide the right sacrifice.
When they had reached their destination, Abraham spoke with words of faith as he told his servants, "I and the lad will . . . worship and return to you" (v.5). When it came to the actual moment of sacrifice, God stopped him. "Abraham! . . . Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me" (vv. 11-12). God did not want Abraham to harm his son. He was just checking Abraham's devotion.
How often have you faced a difficult situation and thought, "Lord, You can have anything, but please, just don't take ______." You can fill in the blank for yourself. In this situation, Abraham would have written in the name of his son Isaac-the answer to the promise God had given him years earlier.
Is there something that you are withholding from God? Could it be a relationship, dream, idea, or pursuit? Worship begins in the heart. Therefore, always be willing to obey the Lord by letting go of anything you deem more valuable than your relationship with Him. When you do, His goodness and mercy will be poured out in abundance for you.
One Minute Please
God never sends a test our way just because He's in a testing mood. He has a specific purpose in mind. Usually, it is to draw us closer to Himself.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Strictest Discipline
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell -Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that "if your right hand causes you to sin" in your walk with Him, then it is better to "cut it off." There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then "cut it off." The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do- things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, "What's so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!" There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God's sight than to appear lovely to man's eyes but lame to God's. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don't use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in Matthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life- "You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
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Passing the Test of Your Faith
In yesterday's devotional, we saw how God desires for us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing; but the road to that is the testing of our faith.
The natural question is, "What does it take to succeed when the test comes?" There are two cooperating forces which must be at work. James 1:4-5 shows us what those two forces are,
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
The first force is patience. James' point is, "Don't quit before the answer comes. Let patience have full play, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
Hebrews 10:36, says it this way,
For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
You and I may actually have done the will of God, done what God wants us to do, but if we don't exercise endurance, we won't receive the promise. That is the importance of patience.
The second cooperating force at work to pass the test of your faith is wisdom. If you lack wisdom, if you can't see the forest for the trees in the midst of your trial, you can ask God and He will give it...liberally and without reproach.
God delights when you ask for wisdom. And He won't belittle you or find fault with you for asking.
So if you find your faith on trial, if you are being sorely tested, ask God for wisdom and patiently endure. Without these two forces, you will never know victory!
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A Call of Devotion
In His Presence: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife . . . and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
God calls us to a total commitment-nothing less will do. He called Abraham to complete devotion, and the same was true for Moses, David, all of the disciples, and the apostle Paul. We can't be halfhearted in our love for the Lord and expect to fully experience His joy and peace in our lives. In fact, until we make a full, uncompromising commitment to Him, there will always be distracting factors at work in our lives. We'll constantly be tempted to step away from His very best for us.
In order to be His disciple, you must be willing to deny-not only yourself and your personal desires and passions-but also your love for anyone or anything that could possibly take His place in your heart. Nothing can be more important than Him.
For many people, this concept is hard to accept. They want to say, "Lord, surely You don't want me to give up my only dream for the future?" Or, "Lord, I really want to marry this person. I love her. I know she's not a believer, but I need her. Besides, if I walked away, who would help her know You? Isn't my love for her a testimony about Your love for us?"
To make her point clear, a Christian counselor climbed up on a chair and asked her client to pull her down. The object lesson? It is easy to pull someone down but next to impossible to pull another up-especially if that person resists the truth. God wants you to be solely devoted to Him so that He can bless you with His very best.
The Enemy of your soul, however, wants you to settle for much less. In fact, his goal is for you to step out of God's will through disobedience. He knows if you do, you will not only miss a blessing, but your life will become shrouded with feelings of guilt and disappointment. When that happens you become ineffective as a witness for Christ. God has a great plan in mind for you. When you dedicate yourself fully to Him, you will see it unfold.
One Minute Please
True worship always gives God the nearest, dearest, and most treasured thing in our lives.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Conditions of Discipleship
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also . . . . And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me . . . . So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple -Luke 14:26-27, 33
If the closest relationships of a disciple's life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person- our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause- He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has "poured out in our hearts" the very "love of God" (Romans 5:5). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.
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True Faith
James 2:14-20 tells us the substance of true faith,
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
My favorite translation of this last verse is, "Faith without actions that correspond is dead." Faith must have actions that correspond with it.
You can talk about catching fish, about what lures you are going to use, and how you are going to cook them after you catch them, but if you never throw a line in the water, you are not going to catch a fish.
Or it's like the golfer who comes to a 3-par hole with a lake right in front of the green and says, "No problem, I can hit that green with my six iron." Then he digs out an old ratty golf ball. If he truly believes he can hit the green, he will hit his brand new $3 golf ball!
For faith to be genuine, it has to have corresponding actions.
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The Reach of Love
In His Presence: "I who speak to you am He" (John 4:26).
Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He decided to pass through Samaria. He was returning to Jerusalem and the disciples could not believe He wanted to travel into the region. Even though it was the shorter route home, the Samaritans were considered to be unclean by most Jews. Therefore, the area was generally avoided. But not by Jesus. He had an appointment with a woman at a well. Only, He did not let His disciples in on His plans.
As He stopped to rest beside the well, they urged Him to keep moving. Finally, He sent them into the city to buy food. When a woman showed up to draw water, Jesus asked her for a drink. He violated a long list of Jewish rules by talking with this woman-a person whose life was far from pure. Only women who lived sinful lifestyles came to the well at midday. Yet, this was exactly when and where she met the Savior.
The bottom line of their discussion was focused on God's unconditional love. He is willing to go anywhere to meet us, and Jesus proves this by traveling into Samaria. Until we come to know and experience His personal love for us, we will never understand how to worship Him.
Perhaps, like this woman, you have found yourself living in a situation that is rooted deeply in sin. Guilt and fear are wrapped around your heart and are now weighing your life down-causing you to wonder if God could ever love you. The answer is yes. Not only does He love you with an unconditional love, He wants you to be free of anything and everything that would prevent you from truly loving and worshiping Him.
This woman became a believer, and her joy and faith were so powerful that those who heard her speak couldn't wait to meet the Savior. You are never outside the reach of God's love. When you turn to Him, He turns toward You with hope and restoration.
One Minute Please
There is more to worship than finding the right location. It has to do with a heart that is repentant and turned toward the Savior.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Concentration of Personal Sin
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips . . . -Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, "Oh yes, I know I am a sinner," but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind's attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone's life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, "I don't know where I've gone wrong," but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah's vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was "a man of unclean lips." "He touched my mouth with it, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged' " (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
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The Motive of Faith
When speaking of faith, it is critical to talk about the motive of our faith. James 4:2-3 tells us what a wrong motive is,
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
God is very concerned about the "why" behind our prayers of faith. He is very interested in the state of our hearts. And I think it is good to check our motives from time to time.
Why do we want what we want? Is it ego driven? Am I asking for it because I want to impress someone? Are my motives right?
Now, you don't have to overdo it. You can overanalyze things to the point that you become spiritually frozen and don't do anything. I think if you will get honest and lay your heart out before God, He will very quickly put the spotlight on the things that should not be there.
Our dog always stands at the back door and scratches on the glass like he really loves us and wants to come in and be with us. But the moment you open the door he runs right by you into the kitchen looking for food.
Why do you want the thing you want? What is the purpose behind asking? Is it for the glory of God? Is it to help people? Is there a pure motive there?
When your motive is right, God will not be long in answering. But if your motive is not right, God won't answer until it gets right.
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In His Presence: "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me" (John 14:11).
One day, as Abraham Lincoln's son was walking in a park near the White House, he saw a young soldier sitting on a bench crying. The man was greatly distressed, and the young Lincoln stopped to ask what was wrong.
Looking up through his tears, the soldier explained that his brother had been placed in jail for something he did not do. He had been told that the only person who could help was the President of the United States. The problem, of course, was that he could not get a message to the president because no one in the White House would listen to him.
Lincoln's son thought for a moment and then asked, "Mister, will you go with me?" Even though he did not know the younger Lincoln's identity, he agreed. The two walked across the street and through the White House gate. They passed the guards and Lincoln's personal secretary. In fact, they didn't stop walking until they crossed the threshold of Lincoln's office where his son finally spoke up and said, "Hello, Dad. This soldier needs to talk with you."
The president looked up from what he was doing and smiled. Then he listened as the solider explained his situation. This story certainly proves that when you have the right relationship, you can go a lot further, a lot faster.
The same is true of our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is God's Son, and He has direct access to His heavenly Father. We don't have to spend time praying to others, hoping that we tapped into the right source. When you pray to Jesus, you have all the access you need. No one can prevent you from coming into His presence, and nothing can stop Him from answering your prayers.
You can take your heartaches, sorrows, and disappointments to God in prayer. Whatever concerns you also concerns Him. He is your heavenly Father, and He has full control over the entire universe.
One Minute Please
When you come to worship, you are worshiping the God of the universe who is also your Daddy.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
One of God's Great "Don'ts"
Do not fret- it only causes harm -Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves "out of joint" mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, "Do not fret," but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It's easy to say, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to "rest in the Lord" then? If this "Do not" doesn't work there, then it will not work anywhere. This "Do not" must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God's plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and "abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.
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The Prayer of Faith
Over the last few devotionals, we have looked at faith-what true faith looks like, and the motive behind the faith that pleases God.
In James 5:15 we are told,
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Clearly, James wants us to know that when we pray a prayer of faith, God will answer it. In this passage, we are told that through that prayer God will indeed heal those who are sick, and raise them up.
So what is it that makes up the prayer of faith? There are three components, all of which we have touched on in the last few days.
The prayer of faith is a prayer that:
Does not waver. It doesn't vacillate, moving back and forth. It is anchored on the promise of God.
Is followed by corresponding actions.
Is prayed from right motives.
The example James cites of someone who prayed a prayer of faith is Elijah. I encourage you to read his story in 1 Kings 17. There you find that, through the prayer of faith, God shut up the heavens and there was no rain. And then, by another prayer of faith, the heavens were opened and rain came down.
Elijah expressed his faith when he said he heard the sound of abundance of rain. He made that statement before there was a cloud in the sky or before a drop of rain ever fell!
When you and I don't waver in our faith, when we show our faith by corresponding action, and when we pray with right motives, God will act. As surely as Elijah heard that rain by faith, you can hear the rain...whatever that represents in your life. That is the prayer of faith.
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On Holy Ground
In His Presence "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple" (Isaiah 6:1).
Isaiah probably felt as though he had been hit by a hurricane. King Uzziah had died. With his death came the end of a great era for Israel, which had become a mighty nation under his rule. Now that the king was dead, the people were in an emotional upheaval. Their security was compromised because it was in a man rather than in God.
What is your King Uzziah? Many people place their trust in savings accounts, jobs, and relationships. Shortsightedly, they mistakenly believe that if they have money and good health today, they will be fine tomorrow. While we don't need to live our lives in fear, we do need to develop a strong, unshakeable faith in the One who will never fail us-the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, when life does take a downward turn, we will rest secure in His loving care.
How do you handle a crisis-when you receive the news that your income will be cut in half or that the relationship you believed would lead to marriage falls apart? What do you do when your Uzziah dies and your dreams fall apart? If the focus of your devotion is set on the things of this world, then when trouble comes, you will be shaken. However, if it is on God, you will remain steadfast and sure.
Our greatest vision and understanding of God often comes in times of crisis. Isaiah stepped out of a national whirlwind into the security of the temple where God's presence appeared before him in full glory. Suddenly, the hurricane that had been ripping at his heart vanished, and he fell on his face and worshiped the Lord.
Are the winds of adversity blowing hard against your life? If so, turn your sense of worry into worship because you are standing on holy ground. F. B. Meyer writes, "A storm is only the outskirts of His robe-the symptom of His advent and the environment of His presence."
One Minute Please
Ask God to help you to see your situation from His perspective. When you do, you will understand that He has a perfect plan and that it involves His goodness poured out in abundance for you.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Don't Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass -Psalm 37:5
Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him- that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our "spiritual face" before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don't plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? "Love . . . thinks no evil" (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don't plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command- "Let not. . . ." To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
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The Importance of Revival
Psalm 85:6 asks a powerful question,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
Notice that the psalmist says, "again." This tells me that the nation of Israel was once in a state of revival, but that had waned, it had declined, and they had come again to the place where they needed to be revived.
Perhaps today you are in a place where you need to be revived.
Revival has been described as the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. That is a good definition. Something needs to be revived when it is dying or when it has lost its strength or momentum.
Revival brings new life. It brings fresh vigor. It brings renewed momentum to that which is in a weakened or dying state.
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy, Stir up the gift of God which is in you. The word for stir up literally means to rekindle. In other words, a fire was there at one time, but it has begun to burn low. And now it needs to be refueled and tended to.
The Amplified Bible says, Rekindle the embers, fan the flame and keep burning the gracious gift of God, the inner fire.
Maybe you have felt spiritually flat lately. Maybe the fire that once burned white hot for God is now just a glowing ember. If so, it is time to rekindle those embers and fan to flame what He has put within you.
As God goes to work in your life, you will find that once again your life will be filled with purpose, and you will once again rejoice in God.
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Out of a Whirlwind
In His Presence: "When Elijah heard [a gentle whisper of wind], he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave" (1 Kings 19:13).
Huddled in a cave and miles away from his home, Elijah tried to warm himself and remember how he got to this place. The memory of Queen Jezebel and her violent threats against him came rushing back to his mind. By then, he had almost forgotten the miracle God had done on Mount Carmel and the spiritual victory that had been gained there. Instead, he hid out in fear (1 Kings 19).
At some point, many of us have done the same thing. God breaks into our lives through answered prayer, and we are left speechless. Then, some little sign of trouble appears on the horizon, and we begin to break down emotionally. Instead of sleeping soundly at night, we wake up, toss and turn, and wonder if God will help us. Of course, He always does.
Elijah's first mistake was to believe that he was the only one left in Israel who had a pure heart before God. Pride always leads to feelings of fear, loneliness, and discouragement. As Elijah waited in the cave, God began to demonstrate His mighty ability to His prophet. First, He did so through a strong wind that tore at the mountain, then through an earthquake, and finally, through a mighty fire. God's presence, however, was not in any of these. Then the prophet heard a gentle wind blowing around him, and he knew that he was standing in the presence of God.
God doesn't have to lift a finger in order to deal with the problems you face each day. He spoke the world into existence, and at His command, the storms surrounding your life will cease. Perhaps as He did with Elijah, He will gain your full attention by allowing the storm to blow a little longer. If this is the case, let the earthquake, fire, and wind come, knowing that you have a loving heavenly Father whose only desire is to draw you nearer to Himself. Take time to worship Him and tell Him that you are listening for His voice.
One Minute Please
When thoughts of fear surround your life, remember, God is still on the throne.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Visions Become Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool . . . -Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor's hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
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The Vital Sign of Joy
In yesterday's devotional, I challenged you to consider whether God needs to do a work in your life to revive you spiritually. Perhaps you feel it, but you just don't know what it is.
Over the next few days, I want to point you to the vital signs that may indicate the need for spiritual revival in your life. The first one we find in Psalm 85. It is lack of joy. Look at the language in verse 6,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
When a person is sullen and depressed spiritually, cheerless and despondent, it is a sure sign that they need revival.
You might say, "Well, you know, if my circumstances would just change, then I would rejoice." No. Joy is not dependent upon your circumstances. In fact, let me give you a great example.
2 Corinthians 8:1-2 states,
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.
Notice this language. The Macedonians were not in a little trial. They were in a "great trial of affliction." They were experiencing deep poverty, tremendous lack in their life, and yet they had abundant joy.
What was their secret? Living in the grace of God.
More than anything else, joy is dependent upon understanding the grace of God, knowing that God's grace is at work even in your affliction.
If you are joyless today, ask the Spirit of God to fill your heart. If you do, there will be a joy regardless of what you are facing.
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His Plan for Your Life
In His Presence: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling" (Psalm 73:1).
There will be days when you find that you just don't feel like worshiping God. Perhaps the temptation to compare yourself to someone else has caused you to feel down and even depressed. Driving home from work on Friday, you tell yourself you are glad the week is over because it has been a rough one. As you lament over how tired you feel, Satan blindsides you with the thought that your friends and coworkers do not really appreciate you.
By the time you open the front door of your home, your eyes have narrowed and your forehead has tightened. You are frustrated and ready to give up. Still, you do not pray and ask God for His perspective. You just keep repeatedly thinking through the day and rehearsing your negative feelings. Saturday morning you get up feeling haunted by the same emotions. By Sunday you force yourself to drive to church, but you certainly don't feel like singing or praising God.
Asaph, the author of Psalm 73, would understand your plight. He allowed discouragement to grow in his life to the point where he was deeply disturbed.
Whenever we take our eyes off of God and His faithfulness, and begin to compare our lives with those around us, we either end up feeling defeated or prideful. God has created each one of us for a unique purpose, which includes worshiping Him.
Psalm 73 is a rambling account of what Asaph was feeling, but by the end, he realizes the truth and puts an end to his negativity. "As for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works" (v. 28).
The closer you are to God, the less likely the Enemy will have a shot at your emotions. Stay focused on what God has for you to do. You are His beloved child, and He has an amazing plan for your life. Will you praise Him for this?
One Minute Please
Sometimes God seems so far away that you can't talk to anyone else but Him-because nobody else will understand what in the world you are talking about.
God bless
:angel:
Will You Examine Yourself?
Joshua said to the people, 'You cannot serve the Lord . . .' -Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, "I cannot live a holy life," but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. "You cannot serve the Lord . . ."- but you can place yourself in the proper position where God's almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
"The people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve the Lord!" (Joshua 24:21). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, "But God could never have called me to this. I'm too unworthy. It can't mean me." It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, "I will serve the Lord."
We say, "Oh, if only I really could believe!" The question is, "Will I believe?" No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
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The Vital Sign of Passion to Reach the Lost
One of the major signs that someone needs to be revived is a lack of concern for the lost. In David's psalm of repentance, Psalm 51:10-13, he says,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When David says, Renew a steadfast spirit in me...Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, he is saying, "God, revive me, restore me, renew me." One of the fruits we find in a heart that has been revived is a desire to see others converted. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When a person's spiritual life wanes, there is very little thought and very little action aimed at reaching the lost. Yet, someone who has been revived and is spiritually healthy will be actively engaged in the evangelization of the lost.
Read carefully these words from Elton Trueblood, a Quaker scholar. He said, "Evangelism occurs when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out."
When you are spiritually revived, you will think about the spiritual state of the people that you rub shoulders with every day. It is inevitable that when your heart is revived and close to God, you will have a concern for the lost.
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A Heart of Gratitude
In His Presence: "In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
The little boy looked up at his father and grinned from ear to ear. He said, "Thanks, Dad!" as he gently rubbed his hand over the new baseball glove and then, with a balled fist, pounded it into the glove's center. He had wanted a new glove for weeks, but he didn't know how to ask for one. How did his dad know what he needed?
"Wow, this is great!" An endless line of happy comments came tumbling out of his mouth as he proudly displayed the glove to his mom. "I'll be able to catch Bobby's infield throws now! How did you know, Dad? Wanna play some catch?"
Who could resist such a request? Certainly not this father. He was overwhelmed by his son's gratitude and appreciation.
When was the last time you thanked your heavenly Father for something that He gave to you? Maybe you are thinking that it doesn't seem like you have received much lately. It is time to look deeper.
This young boy didn't ask for a new glove because he knew his family was having financial trouble. Instead of lamenting over the difficulty, he became determined to keep using the glove he had. His father, however, had noticed his son's need and turned to God in prayer. He didn't know how the Lord would answer, but he believed God would. So, he also began to thank God every morning for hearing his prayer and answering this simple request. A few days later, he wasn't surprised when a friend called, telling him that there was extra work that needed to be done at his office. The father jumped at the opportunity, and when he was handed a paycheck, he headed to the nearest sporting goods store. God always meets our needs, and we need to say "Thank You, Lord."
Your heavenly Father has a solution for your situation. Whenever you express gratitude to Him, His heart is filled with great pleasure because He knows that you have learned how to be thankful in all things.
One Minute Please
Thanksgiving is the recognition of God's goodness with a grateful heart. It is simply gratitude expressed to God for His faithful, loving care.
God bless
:angel:
The Spiritually Lazy Saint
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . -Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative- our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.
"Yes, I think it is right," Peter said, ". . . to stir you up by reminding you . . ." (2 Peter 1:13). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up- someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up- all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement- He says, "Go and tell My brethren . . ." (Matthew 28:10).
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The Vital Sign of Spiritual Insight
In the Old Testament, we find the story of Ezra and a large group of Israelites who returned to Jerusalem to reestablish the temple and the worship of God. In the midst of this incredible effort, Ezra prays a powerful prayer, as recorded in Ezra 9:8,
"And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage."
Ezra prays that their eyes would be enlightened spiritually. It is reminiscent of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1, when he prayed that the eyes of the Ephesians would be enlightened, spiritually opened.
One vital sign of the need for revival is when we are spiritually dull and insensitive to God's promptings, and the Holy Spirit's direction and creativity.
Perhaps you can remember something creative that once operated in your life, but sadly, it has waned. It has declined. It has gone dormant.
It shouldn't be that way! The Holy Spirit wants to prompt you and guide you and give you knowledge and creativity. But when you are living in a spiritual fog, and you have become accustomed to living in that fog, you can be assured you have become spiritually dull.
That is when you need to be revived. And when you are, there is an enlightening of the eyes. There is a renewed sense and an awareness of the prompting, and the wooing, and the guiding of God's Spirit. That is what comes with revival.
When you are spiritually revived, you will be sensitive to God's Spirit, and you will gain from Him supernatural insight and enlightenment.
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Walk by the Light of His Love
In His Presence: "Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand" (Psalm 73:23).
Harriet Tubman was a small wisp of a woman, yet God used her to do a mighty work. Maybe, as you read these words, you are wondering how God could possibly use you. You feel defeated and want to quit. Don't. Instead, keep reading.
While the Civil War threatened to tear our country apart, there were key players behind the scenes that not only worked to preserve life but also defended liberty, hope, and the belief that there is another life worth living. Harriet was one of these people. Without a thought about her own safety, she led hundreds to safe houses along the Underground Railroad and became a legend as she crossed back and forth over lines of battle.
She made the journey countless times, and many wondered how she could continue traveling such long distances-along roadways that were carved out of thick and unruly landscapes. But she did. Even though the threat of death shadowed her, she refused to stop. How did she do it?
The answer is simple: She had a fixed focus on her goal and nothing was going to turn her. Her faith in God's unconditional love gave her the strength she needed to continue her treks to freedom.
Perhaps you long to travel your own road to freedom. You look up at night into the heavens and wonder how you will continue-especially when your heart feels weary and burdened by life's pressures. You can continue on but only when your faith is in Someone much greater than yourself.
The psalmist writes, "Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day" (Psalm 139:12). Each night, Harriet Tubman walked straight through the darkness and on to freedom. In fact, nighttime was the safest time for her to travel, and she did not walk in fear. Perhaps it was because she carried a light of hope with her-the light given to her by an eternal God.
You too can worship the Lord because He does great things, and His loving hands encompass your life.
One Minute Please
Satan spends a lot of effort bricking up your view of God's victory and grace. Therefore, keep walking and keep holding up God's light of hope and grace.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
. . . that I may know Him . . . -Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing- even eating, drinking, or washing disciples' feet- we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. "Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." (John 13:3-5).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is "that I may know Him . . ." Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.
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The Vital Sign of Pride
Pride and self-sufficiency are unmistakable signs of a heart that is in desperate need of reviving. Isaiah 57:15 tells us,
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
To have a contrite heart literally means you break easily. Even at the thought of grieving God's Spirit you break and repent very quickly. It means you walk softly in your heart before God.
God says He will revive those with a humble spirit and a contrite heart. But one of the great dangers among Christians today-especially for those living in the western world with all of its abundance-is a belief that we don't need anything.
More than ever we need to read the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:17,
"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
How can you be miserable and naked and not know it? It's obvious that Jesus is speaking of their inward, spiritual condition. Apparently, their outward wealth blinded them to their inward poverty. They fell into the trap of pride, which is one of the inherent dangers that comes with prosperity. As Christians living in a very prosperous western world, we need to heed this word!
At Disneyland there is a ride with cool little cars. I remember once seeing a little boy on the ride with his dad, and his feet didn't even reach the pedals! But Junior thought he was driving, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was actually driving the car and making it go.
We need to remember that our feet don't even reach the pedals, and that Daddy, our God, is the One who makes this thing go. We need to maintain a humble heart.
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No Shifting Shadows
In His Presence: "Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude" (1 Timothy 4:4).
What looks like a closed door to you is God's pathway to blessing. What appears to be a nightmare can become His dream for your life. And what may seem like the worst news you could possibly receive can actually be the point of a new beginning. This is because no matter what God allows to touch your life, He has a plan for your future through it.
It is easy to think of God's goodness in a lighthearted way when it seems that we have everything going for us-a good job, health, a growing family, two new cars in the garage, and a house with several bedrooms. Life seems rich and full. But if we never learn to say "thank you" to the Lord, then we have not learned the truth of James 1:17. "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."
There are two extremes that can prevent us from living with grateful hearts. One is a sense of pride. We become prideful and believe that we have earned all that we have. When we have this attitude, we can expect to run headlong into trouble (Proverbs 16:18).
The second extreme comes as a result of feeling sorry for ourselves. While the temptation to be sorrowful-and even depressed-may pull at our hearts at times, we need to refuse it by turning our eyes heavenward. With a grateful heart we should say, "Thank You, Lord. I'm hurting, and I know You understand. I don't know how You will use this heartache that I am feeling, but I trust You to do just that-use it for Your glory and for my blessing."
God loves to hear our words of worship and praise. When we thank Him-even in times of difficulty-for His constant care over our lives, we are expressing our faith and trust in an omnipotent God who watches over every aspect of our lives.
One Minute Please
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Therefore, be grateful that the light of His love covers you.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . -Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose- that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ- ". . . that I may know Him. . ." (Philippians 3:10). To fulfill God's perfect design for me requires my total surrender- complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
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View from the Top
I sometimes think Jesus views the Church much differently than we view the Church. In fact, there is a really alarming verse that points to this. It is Revelation 3:1,
"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, 'These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead."
WOW! That was written to a church that on the outside looked like they had it all together!
They had a reputation of being a living, vibrant church! People who saw them went to seminars to find out how they were doing it, and people applauded them for their success. But Jesus says, "You're dead!"
The Knox Bible puts it this way, How thou dost pass for a living man and all the while art a corpse. The Living Bible says, I know your reputation as a live and active church, but you're dead.
You see, activity is not synonymous with life. Sometimes people and churches that are decaying spiritually cover it up with activity. They are still "going through the motions," but there is really a spiritual decay eating away inside.
People think they are doing great, but Jesus sees right to the heart of the matter, both in our individual lives and in the Church.
May God keep you and me from being so mislead. May we look to Him always for our daily bread, recognizing and acknowledging that every blessing we possess, every stride of progress we make, is the result of His goodness and His grace alone.
He is the One whose view really matters!
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Your Heart, God's Home
In His Presence: "I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it" (Acts 15:16).
What makes the place where you live merely a house? What transforms it into a home? Many people purchase houses that never become their home while others live in an apartment they do not own, but they consider it home. The thing that makes a house a home is not a deed or piece of paper. Rather, it is the relationships that are shared by those who live within its walls. If there is a lack of love and respect, then you simply have a meaningless building framed with brick and mortar. However, if the relationships are firm and loving, even a small apartment can be a lovely place to live.
God has a favorite home. In Acts 15:16 He tells us that one day He will rebuild the tabernacle of David. It always helps to understand what God does not say. He doesn't say that He is going to rebuild the tabernacle of Moses or the grand temple of Solomon. Instead, He says, "I am going to rebuild the tabernacle of David."
What is so special about the place that David built? The answer is in Acts 13:22, "[God] said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.'" It was David's character that drew God to his home. And it was through that kind of devotion that the Messiah would reign. Therefore, the tabernacle to be rebuilt was the spirit of David's kingdom.
The Lord loved to be with David because David loved being with Him. He passionately sought the Lord's presence. Therefore, David's tabernacle was unlike that of Solomon's because it was more about God's kingdom than a place to practice rituals. Though grand, Solomon's temple had veils within that separated the people from God. But David's kingdom was an example of love and obedience to God. David was always ready to worship; he was always in the presence of God.
This is what the Lord desires for us. He wants our hearts to be His home-His place of worship where He can meet with us and know that He is welcomed. Is your heart a heart of worship and one that seeks the God of love and truth?
One Minute Please
The passion of any house of worship must be Jesus Christ. Then it will be God's home.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . -Isaiah 6:1
Our soul's personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally- when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord," there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God's surgical procedure- His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
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The Slippery Spiritual Slope
The slippery slope to spiritual decline is one that is almost imperceptible. One day you are on fire for God, and then before you know it, you are dull and lethargic.
How does spiritual decline happen? I think there are at least four ways:
Through neglect. If you neglect a garden, the weeds grow. If you don't water the garden, it will eventually dry up. Sometimes we get into a state where we need to be revived due to neglect.
Through the storms of life. Life can sometimes beat you up. Some people have been so beaten up that they are just worn down; and when you couple that with neglect, it is a recipe for spiritual disaster.
Through the influence of wrong company or wrong relationships. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. ." And the very next word is awake. Awake to righteousness, and do not sin. Do not be deceived. Evil company, bad company, corrupts good habits.
Through willful disobedience. I don't know anyone who hasn't been guilty at one time or another of willful disobedience. And when that is not repented of, when it is not taken care of, it brings us into a state of spiritual decline that can be very dangerous.
So what do you do if you find yourself in spiritual decline? Let me leave you with this verse, Hosea 6:1,
Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
The same Spirit that convicts also comforts. If you are convicted, repent. Repentance is an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. Return to the Lord and let Him heal you and bind you up.
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Worship the King
In His Presence: "Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).
As you open up a hymnal on Sunday and sing along with the choir, remember, God is not listening to the tone of your voice or the words you sing. He is listening to your heart. Is it turned to Him in worship and praise and adoration? Or is tuned to the distractions of the world? Are you thinking about His goodness or about the person you promised to meet at the mall later in the afternoon?
When life suddenly falls apart, people begin to search for answers. At times, it seems as if they are willing to search anywhere but in the presence of God. Recently, an actor was on television telling why the cult he was involved with was the only one that could actually help people get in touch with themselves. However, his approach was very vain, empty, and naïve-and totally devoid of God.
Unless we have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we can't know our true identity. This is because our identity is in Christ. Each one of us was created in the image of God-not by a human philosophy or culture. We were shaped for His worship-to stand in the presence of God's holiness and not in the drafty, dark, and lonely halls of sin and fear.
The songs of our lives need to reflect our love and faith in the Savior who died so that we might have eternal life. Praise hymns are wonderful to sing, but much of our deep Spiritual truth and theology can be found in the hymns of old. One of these is "O Worship the King" by Robert Grant.
O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise. . . .
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
One Minute Please
When it comes to worship, sometimes we spend so much time on the appetizers that we forget to enjoy the main course.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Concept of Divine Control
. . . how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! -Matthew 7:11
Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct in this passage for those people who have His Spirit. He urges us to keep our minds filled with the concept of God's control over everything, which means that a disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.
Fill your mind with the thought that God is there. And once your mind is truly filled with that thought, when you experience difficulties it will be as easy as breathing for you to remember, "My heavenly Father knows all about this!" This will be no effort at all, but will be a natural thing for you when difficulties and uncertainties arise. Before you formed this concept of divine control so powerfully in your mind, you used to go from person to person seeking help, but now you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those people who have His Spirit, and it works on the following principle: God is my Father, He loves me, and I will never think of anything that He will forget, so why should I worry?
Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God's will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but is an attitude of the mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7).
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Waiting on God
To get out of a pit, it's really not complicated. Psalm 40:1-2 tells us the first step,
I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.
The first step in getting out of the pit of despair is to cry out to God. He will hear your cry, and He will bring you up and out.
But His answer is not always instant. Notice David said, I waited patiently for the Lord. The answer to his cry wasn't apparent for a while. If you've spent a long time getting yourself into a mess, it may take some time for your deliverance.
A number of years back I went hunting with a friend. I was to fly on a little plane into a meadow about 20 miles into the wilderness where he was going to meet me.
For a variety of reasons, I ended up being six hours late to the drop-off point. My friend wasn't there, so for 20 minutes the pilot of that little plane tried to convince me not to stay. He said there were mountain lions, grizzly bears, packs of wolves...I would get eaten alive!
He finally left, and at about two in the morning I heard a noise. It wasn't a grizzly bear; it was my friend with the horses!
I think the devil is like that airplane pilot. He is always trying to talk us into quitting and giving up. But we can miss the greatest blessings in our lives when we are not patient.
Cry out to God, He will answer you. Period! But be prepared to exercise patience.
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A Pattern for Worship
In His Presence "Even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary" (Hebrews 9:1).
Many of us can remember watching our mothers make dresses when we were children. Patiently, they would cut out a pattern, pin it to the fabric, and then carefully cut out the pieces so they could be sewn together. The pattern was a guideline for something greater-a dress, skirt, pair of slacks, or blouse.
When we plan the construction of a building, we begin with a blueprint as well. It becomes the pattern we follow in building the structure. In fact, anyone who has ever undertaken a building project knows the importance of architectural drawings. The goal in using these is to achieve a greater result.
If you are going to do anything well in this life, you must begin with a design. The same is true of worship. God outlined a precise pattern for Israel to follow in their worship of Him. The nation had witnessed His miraculous deliverance and their release from Egyptian bondage. However, over time they forgot His goodness and waned in their devotion to Him. The pattern He had given them was meant to lead them to a greater, closer relationship with the God of the universe. But they did not understand this principle and strayed.
The same is true for us today. God loves us with an everlasting love and has provided a pattern for our worship. It is one that, if we use it, will guide us into a close, personal relationship with the Savior. We find His pattern for worship in His Word and through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told His followers, "When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). The Spirit of God is the one who lays a pattern for us to follow in worship and praise. Ask God to develop within you a heart of devotion to Him. Then you will experience not only the fullness of His blessings but also the outpouring of His delight in your life.
One Minute Please
Worship requires a basic design, but it produces a glorious result-one that leads us straight into the throne room of God
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Miracle of Belief
My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom . . . -1 Corinthians 2:4
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the highest degree; he was not speaking here out of a deep sense of humility, but was saying that when he preached the gospel, he would veil the power of God if he impressed people with the excellency of his speech. Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the effectiveness of redemption, not by impressive speech, nor by wooing and persuading, but only by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of redemption comes through the preaching of the gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher.
Real and effective fasting by a preacher is not fasting from food, but fasting from eloquence, from impressive diction, and from everything else that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God- ". . . as though God were pleading through us . . ." (2 Corinthians 5:20). He is there to present the gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get close to Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the gospel will result in making me a traitor to Jesus, and I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work.
"And I, if I am lifted up. . . , will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32).
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Have You Dug a Pit for Others?
In order to get out of the pits, you need to make sure you haven't dug any pits for others. Psalm 7:14-16 tells us,
Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
Then there is Psalm 9:15-16,
The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The LORD is known by the judgment He executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
Finally, Psalm 57:6,
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me; into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.
When people dig a pit for somebody else, they end up falling into it themselves. In fact, Proverbs 26:27 says it most directly,
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.
Pretty plain, isn't it? If you are asking God to get you out of a pit, you need to take time to consider if it is a pit of your own construction. If you have done something to get someone else in trouble-even if you think you are justified in doing it because that person has hurt you-you need to repent. Until there is repentance, God will not intervene.
God is not going to get you out of your pit while you have a shovel in your hand
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The Privilege of Being in God's Presence
In His Presence: "The Lord has blessed the house of Obededom and all that belongs to him, on account of the ark of God" (2 Samuel 6:12).
In 2 Samuel, we read how David decided to bring the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. However, he did not move it the way God commanded that it should be transported in Exodus 25. The Levities were commissioned by God to be the ones to carry this important part of Israel's worship. Instead of following what he knew was right, David decided the ark, which represented the very presence of God, would be more secure on a new cart with the Levities walking in front of it. He ignored God's instructions!
Whenever we sidestep what we know is right before the Lord, we end up getting into serious trouble. This situation was no different. David had also ordered an elaborate display for the ark's arrival-all of Israel was to be on hand for the event. However, as the procession crested a small hill, the oxen became upset and the ark started to slide.
Without thinking, Uzzah reached out and touched the ark, and the anger of the Lord burned against him. God struck him down because of his irreverent attitude, and suddenly the celebration came to a halt (2 Samuel 6:7). David was stunned. His plans had failed. So he took God's ark from the threshing floor of Nacon to the house of Obed-edom. It wasn't until three months later that God allowed the ark to be moved to Jerusalem. This time, David got it right and sent the Levities to personally move the ark to its new home.
When it comes to worship, God does not kid around. We may laugh and sway to the music being played in our worship services, but God wants our hearts to reflect the purity and holiness that His Word commands.
As the ark entered Jerusalem, David danced "before the Lord with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14). This time He knew that he had done what was right from God's perspective rather than his own. Do you limit your worship of God to Sundays or other religious events? If so, you could be moving dangerously toward touching something that God has said for you to keep holy.
One Minute Please
How you handle the things of God goes a long way in determining the character of your worship and whether you will be blessed or cursed.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Mystery of Believing
He said, "Who are You, Lord? -Acts 9:5
Through the miracle of redemption, Saul of Tarsus was instantly changed from a strong-willed and forceful Pharisee into a humble and devoted bondservant of the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing miraculous or mysterious about the things we can explain. We control what we are able to explain, consequently it is only natural to seek an explanation for everything. It is not natural to obey, yet it is not necessarily sinful to disobey. There can be no real disobedience, nor any moral virtue in obedience, unless a person recognizes the higher authority of the one giving the orders. If this recognition does not exist, even the one giving the orders may view the other person's disobedience as freedom. If one rules another by saying, "You must do this," and, "You will do that," he breaks the human spirit, making it unfit for God. A person is simply a slave for obeying, unless behind his obedience is the recognition of a holy God.
Many people begin coming to God once they stop being religious, because there is only one master of the human heart- Jesus Christ, not religion. But "Woe is me" if after seeing Him I still will not obey (Isaiah 6:5 , also see Isaiah 6:1). Jesus will never insist that I obey, but if I don't,I have already begun to sign the death certificate of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say, "I will not obey," He will never insist. But when I do this, I am backing away from the recreating power of His redemption. It makes no difference to God's grace what an abomination I am, if I will only come to the light. But "Woe is me" if I refuse the light (seeJohn 3:19-21)
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Are You Rebelling Against Authority?
If you are in the pits, you need to make sure you are not in rebellion against God's established authority, or aligned with those who are.
In Numbers 16 there is an instructive story of Korah and his followers. They openly confronted Moses and Aaron, and challenged whether they were really God's ordained leaders.
Moses and Aaron were flawed and fallible just like every one of us, but Korah wanted to usurp authority that did not belong to him.
God had placed Moses and Aaron in their position of authority, but Korah tried to undermine that authority and lead people against them.
Look at the result of Korah's rebellion. Moses is speaking in verses 30 and 31,
"But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods.
Notice that it was not just Korah who was destroyed. All those who were aligned with him also went into the pit.
I don't think the ground is going to open up under you if you rebel against the authority that God has set up. But you may find yourself in an emotional, physical, or financial pit that you cannot get out of until you get the rebellion out of you.
If you are in a pit today, check your heart and make sure you are not in rebellion against God's ordained authority.
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The Light of Worship
In His Presence: "If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship" (1 John 1:7).
In his classic book, The Pursuit of God, pastor and author A. W. Tozer writes:
When we sing, "Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord," we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.
Why do some persons "find" God in a way that others do not? . . . Of course, the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.
In Old Testament times, there was a spiritual distance between the people and God. Before entering His presence, the priests were required to wash ceremonially and offer a sacrifice for their sins. Only after doing this could they enter the temple. Women could only worship in a certain area of the temple. Their husbands could travel a little further toward the altar of God, but the priests were the ones who offered sacrifices for the people. This is not so today.
The coming of Jesus Christ ended this rigid form of worship and tore away the veil that separated God from His people. Today, we are never outside of His presence. Therefore, it is even more important to be sensitive to His holiness and our need for purity.
The Israelites ritually washed in order to be clean before God. However, after Christ's resurrection, they did not understand that the gift of God's grace could live with them and cleanse them completely. Today, we can bow our heads in prayer, ask God to forgive our sins, and be completely assured that He does. We are cleansed-not because we are special but because His Spirit lives within us. Isn't this enough to stir your heart to worship and praise?
One Minute Please
The Word of God cleans you and prepares you for worship, even when you do not know it is at work in your life.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Submission of the Believer
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am -John 13:13
Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, "You will submit to me." No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose- so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done; and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination, in which I acknowledge that "You are worthy, O Lord . . ." (Revelation 4:11). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don't recognize his worthiness, nor obey his instructions for me, it is a sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.
If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other; like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, "I and My Father are one" (John 10:30). ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" (Hebrews 5:8). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because He was the Son, not in order to become God's Son.
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Are You Obeying God's Warnings?
The third thing you should check in your life, if indeed you are in the pits, is to make sure you have obeyed God's warnings.
God does warn us, but we must listen to those warnings. As Job 33:14-18 says,
For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
God always tries to warn us to keep us out of the pits and to keep our lives from danger. And He speaks in many different ways. Sometimes, as we read here, God will speak to us even through a dream.
As I look at my own life, I can see that I have fallen into pits at various times because I did not listen to God's warnings. There have been times I have been too busy to perceive the fact that God was talking to me. It wasn't that God wasn't warning me. He was. I just had a bunch of other things going on in my life and was not taking time to listen to Him.
He is always faithful to warn us. It's just that we are not always faithful to listen. So if you find yourself in a pit today because you did not heed God's warning, just say, "God, I'm sorry." Repent. God will forgive you. And you will be in the position to receive His deliverance.
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A Love That Will Not Let You Go
In His Presence: "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 13:15).
When he was eighteen years old, author and theologian George Matheson went blind. Yet, he continued his studies and entered college where he became an outstanding student. Later, he was ordained as a preacher in the Church of Scotland. Throughout his early years, his sister remained at his side, helping him to study and learn Greek and Hebrew-which added spiritual depth to his writings.
He was, however, destined to suffer an even greater loss. His sister married and he was forced to confront his impending loneliness. A broken marriage engagement in his own life left him questioning God's personal love and divine care.
It was during this period of his life that he wrote a well-known hymn proclaiming the one thing that he believed was still true. God's love for us will never let us go. He writes:
"O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be."
Some believe that Matheson wrote these words on the day that his sister was married. He confessed, "Something happened to me on that day, which was known only to myself and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. This hymn was the fruit of that suffering."
Perhaps you have suffered a great loss, and you don't know how you will ever worship God again. Your dreams are shattered and your heart is broken. Worship does not always come as a result of overflowing joy. It also can pour out of a heart that is hurting. After all, it was Job who wrote, "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 15:13). God understands, and you can still worship Him because He will never let you go.
One Minute Please
Worship is simply our response to a loving God who refuses to let go of us.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Dependent on God's Presence
Those who wait on the Lord . . . shall walk and not faint -Isaiah 40:31
There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities. To "walk and not faint" is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person- ". . . John . . . looking at Jesus as He walked. . . said, 'Behold the Lamb of God!' " (John 1:35-36). There is nothing abstract or obscure in the Bible; everything is vivid and real. God does not say, "Be spiritual," but He says, "Walk before Me. . ." (Genesis 17:1).
When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.
Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of- "We will not fear, even though . . ." (Psalm 46:2)- will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God's presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, "He has been here all the time!" At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that." Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.
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The Pit of Immorality
In the last several devotionals, we have discovered a variety of ways to get out of the pits. Today, I want you to focus on something that is an increasing problem in the Church today. Immorality.
Solomon tells us in Proverbs 22:14,
The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred by the LORD will fall there.
And he says in Proverbs 23:27,
For a harlot is a deep pit, and a seductress is a narrow well.
Immorality is a deep pit. A pit that is difficult to get out of once you have gotten yourself into it. Not only do you get physically involved with another, there is an emotional entanglement that is not that easy to get out of.
Solomon also says immorality is a narrow well. It is binding, restrictive, and it suffocates your spiritual life. If you are seeking God for deliverance while continuing to engage in immoral behavior, your effort is fruitless.
If you are in the pits today because of an immoral relationship, you must cut off that relationship before seeking God's deliverance. If you will ask God for help after you have repented and cut off that relationship, He will help you beyond anything you could imagine.
God is a merciful God. And He has the ability to work something for good even in a situation like this. If you are truly repentant and broken, God can do something good.
God is the only One who can break something and make it more valuable. I break things, and they lose their value. But when God breaks something, it becomes more valuable.
If you are in an immoral relationship, stop it, repent, and He will forgive you, and bring you out of your pit.
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Are You Shouting?
In His Presence: "Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones" (Psalm 33:1).
Shirley Caesar sings a song entitled "Hold My Mule." Itis a song about a man who was called Shouting John because he loved to worship God. The problem was that he ended up going to a city church whose members did not appreciate his form of worship. However, this did not stop John. When he felt the Spirit move, he shouted all over the church.
It wasn't long before he had irritated some of the members, and the deacons decided they needed to have a talk with Shouting John. Standing in one of John's fields-where the old man had been plowing with his mule-they explained why he could not continue his antics. "We're a quiet church," one of the men said, "and you can't be doing all this."
Shouting John listened for a moment, and then he said, "Just a minute. Look out there." He pointed to his fields. "You see all that land? I'm a [former] slave; I'm not supposed to have anything. Yet, I got all this land. Whenever I see that land or think about it, Shouting John gotta shout!"
He paused a moment and then continued, "Look at my chillen. All my chillen are alive. All my chillen are saved. All my chillen are doing fine. Whenever Shouting John thinks about the goodness of God to his chillen, Shouting John gotta shout!"
Then he said, "I get up every morning when the rooster crows and Shouting John get on the back of this mule, and it pulls that plow so Shouting John will have food all year long. When I think about God giving Shouting John a mule and the strength to plow when he is 85 years old, Shouting John gotta shout!" It was then that Shouting John turned to one of the deacons and said, "Hold my mule, I feel a shout coming on."
When we realize where God has brought us from and the plans He has for our future, we will want to shout and never stop!
One Minute Please
The thing that determines whether or not a person is a true worshiper of Jesus Christ is the gratitude that overflows from his or her heart.
God bless
:angel:
July 23, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sanctification
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . . -1 Corinthians 1:30
The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He "became for [me] . . . sanctification . . . ." Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.
The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is "Christ in you . . ." (Colossians 1:27). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification- imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?
Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy- it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness- ". . . kept by the power of God . . ." (1 Peter 1:5).
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Falling into Crisis
In 1 Kings we have the story of the prophet Elijah. In chapter 18, we see a great victory over the priests of Baal, an incredible victory that demonstrated the power of the one true God for all to see.
In the next chapter, we see Elijah on the run (1 Kings 19:1-3),
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
How could Elijah, a prophet of God who had been used in such a powerful way, now be on the run? (He eventually even became suicidal.) While there are a number of things we could look at, I want to give you one truth today to consider.
After any great spiritual victory, it is always wise to keep your armor on. Over and over, there are examples of tremendous trials and temptations after great victories.
King David, after God had supernaturally spoken to him, fell morally, and committed adultery with Bathsheba. Or there is Samson who, after God used him to bring great deliverance, got messed up with Delilah. Then there is Jesus who, after being with the Father on the mount of transfiguration, came to the bottom of the mountain and was met by a demon-possessed boy.
Sometimes we are the most vulnerable after the highest and brightest times we have with God. So today, let me encourage you to always keep your armor on (see Ephesians 6:11).
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At the Savior's Feet
In His Presence "I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but [this woman] has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair" (Luke 7:44).
It was customary for the master of the house to provide water at the door so that those who entered could wash their dusty feet. Simon, a Pharisee, had obviously overlooked this important detail. However, the Savior used this oversight as a point to teach His disciples an important lesson about God's forgiveness, grace, and personal worship.
A woman who was a prostitute had been waiting for the right moment to express her devotion to God. We are not told how she got into Simon's house, only that she suddenly began to worship at the feet of the Savior, and every man in the room was aware of it. Without hesitation, she bowed before the Lord and broke the seal on a priceless bottle of perfumed oil. Obviously, she had heard Him teach at some point in the past and had repented of her sin. Nothing is so sweet to the Savior as the fragrance of our repentance.
This was her opportunity to say thank you to God for what He had done in her life. The perfumed oil she poured over His feet was very costly. Yet, Jesus did not stop her from worshiping Him or question where she had gotten the money to buy such an expensive gift. He knew her actions where motivated by pure devotion to God. He also realized that it was a steep sacrifice and something that she would remember for the rest of her life.
Though she did not know it, she was anointing the Savior for his burial. Simon, however, did not even offer a simple pan of water so Jesus could wash His feet. Instead, the Pharisee acted in a typically legalistic fashion. He questioned why Jesus would allow such a display of affection to happen, especially knowing that this woman was a sinner.
God is not ashamed to be with us. This woman fell at Christ's feet knowing that He had forgiven her many sins. She was there to worship Him. And today is the day that you can do the same.
One Minute Please
When you realize the grace of God that has been given to you, you will bow down before Him.
July 24, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Nature and Our Motives
. . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, "If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind." Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations- He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature- He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well
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The Power of Zero
Perhaps you are in a very stressful time in your life right now, and you feel you can't go on. I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact, some of the greatest men and women of God have gone through what you are going through right now.
One of those individuals is the prophet Elijah whom I mentioned in yesterday's devotional. After a great spiritual victory over the priests of Baal, we find him on the run, wondering whether life is even worth it.
We catch the story in 1 Kings 19:4-6,
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Elijah had reached that "zero" place in his life. There was nothing left. He had given it all and the tank was empty.
Maybe that describes you right now, you are on the verge of quitting. You figure, "I've had enough. I'm done. Enough pressures, enough hassles, I cannot ride this thing out anymore. My strength is gone!"
Well, did you notice that when Elijah was at the end of his strength, that was when God intervened? Being out of strength, being at zero, is not a bad place to be. If you will look to God, He is prepared to meet you in your moment of need.
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Let the Waters Flow
In His Presence: Psalm 19:14
"Jesus stood and cried out, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." ' But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"(John 7:37-39).
We know God wants Christians to grow. Spiritual growth takes place deep down inside us. It comes from the Holy Spirit, whose job is to make the "waters flow." However, most Christians have a home improvement mentality, where we depend on ourselves to produce the development we know we ought to have. But if we could do it ourselves, we wouldn't need the Holy Spirit. The assumption of the work of the Holy Spirit is that we can't do it ourselves. Just as air enables a horn to make a sound, or wind enables a sailboat to move, the Holy Spirit enables the spiritual life to work.
Many Christians do not realize what they have within them. If we were riding on a bus and it broke down, we would all look pretty foolish if we got out to push the bus while Clark Kent was sitting inside it. Christians tend to want to row themselves to spiritual progress. We row and row until we are so tired that we want to give up. But God wants us to use the speedboat with the motor, and He provides it for us.
One Minute Please
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, there would be no spiritual progress.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are . . . -Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the "dynamite" of the Holy Spirit. And they "explode" when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, "What a startling statement that is!" Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child's play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations- it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
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Your Weakness, God's Power
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a powerful reminder of God's provision for you and me when we reach the end of our strength.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
When Paul wrote these words, he was being harassed everywhere he went by an evil spirit that he referred to as "a thorn in the flesh." It was a messenger sent from Satan to buffet him, to constantly harass him.
The constant harassment of this spirit finally got to him, and he begged God three times to take it away. Paul was clearly at the end of his rope.
But, even though Paul prayed for God's intervention three times, the spirit did not depart. And God's response to Paul was the verse we read above. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
What does perfect mean? It means that His power comes to full maturity...it blossoms...it is fully expressed in our weakness.
What was Paul's response? He went on to say in verses 9-10 of that same chapter,
Therefore most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
It seems that sometimes we have to get to the end of ourselves before we will look fully to God. But when we do, we find that He is more than enough. If you are there today or close to that point, take hold of God's strength.
Put your trust in Him. He will bring you to the place of your breakthrough, and you will find the strength and direction you need.
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The Person of the Holy Spirit
In His Presence: John 14:16-29
Our God is a triune Being, three Persons in One. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. They are distinct from one another in Their personhood, but They are one in their essence. They are like pretzels, which have three holes but are all tied together by the same dough. The Three are distinct in their functions, but They are essentially one God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Purity
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart . . . . For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . . -Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, "But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart." We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own "innocent ignorance"? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own "innocence," I am living in a fool's paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
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Lightening the Load
When we get into the storms of life, it is often difficult to know what to do. It can feel like the noise of our troubles drowns out everything else.
In Acts 27 we find the apostle Paul caught in the midst of a horrible storm. The ship was being tossed all over the place, and the situation was becoming quite serious.
Embedded in this story is a spiritual truth that can guide you and me when we get caught in the storms of life. It is found in verses 18-19,
And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
Notice that when the storm got bad and threatened to capsize the ship, they lightened the load.
Sometimes in a storm you need to throw some things overboard. In fact, it is a great time to evaluate any baggage that you are carrying in your life. There are some things that may not be a sin to you, but they are a weight to you.
One of the things you need to carefully evaluate is your relationships. There are some relationships you need to cut loose because they are hanging you up, holding you back, and they are hindering you from getting to where God wants you to go.
Or maybe it's something as simple as too much TV. Watching TV may not be a sin, but it can sure be a weight! It can sure be a hindrance to you hearing from God, especially when you are in a time of crisis.
If you really want to hear from God and get yourself unstuck, lighten your ship.
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Filled with the Holy Spirit
In His Presence: Psalm 63:1
"Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord"(Ephesians 5:18-19).
Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit "abides with you and will be in you" (John 14:17). But how do we engage this personal Helper? How does His power become real for us? We are to become filled with the Spirit; another way to express this is to be full of Him. When a person drinks too much liquor, they become intoxicated. When a person is drunk, they are under the influence of the drink. The alcohol dictates the agenda. They don't get drunk by looking at the liquor or talking about it. They drink it. The more they drink, the more drunk they get.
God tells us that it is like that with the Holy Spirit. To see the Helper develop us, He must have control. We must come under the influence of the Holy Spirit. We must become full of Him. So how do we drink the Holy Spirit? Remember, the Holy Spirit is a spirit, not a being we can see. He functions in the spiritual world, so that's what we drink-spiritual worship. The Holy Spirit fills up the environment that is filled with worship-songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with our hearts to the Lord.
One Minute Please
Worship fuels us with the Holy Spirit's presence, operating in us to engage the new nature.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Knowledge
If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine . . . -John 7:17
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:23-24). He is saying, in essence, "Don't say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right." The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don't try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, "First . . . go . . .." Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.
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Rest
In the last several devotionals, we have looked at how we respond to the storms of life. Today and tomorrow we will look at two more principles for handling life when the storms hit.
Today, I want to go back to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. In verses 5-6 we read,
Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Notice that in the midst of his crisis, Elijah rested and ate. He took care of his body.
Some of the crises you experience come because you are sleep deprived and you don't eat right. And you know what? Your body, your soul, and your spirit are all tied together. What you do to one affects the other two. It affects the whole.
We are intricately woven together. And the wisest thing you can do when you get into a crisis is just give your body a rest, because it affects every other part of your life.
When you are exhausted and physically weak, it is easy for everything to be blown out of proportion. When you are tired, it can look like your whole world is falling apart when it really is not. It is like Mark Twain said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
You and I do need to rest. If you are in the midst of a storm today, make sure not to neglect the rest you need.
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Keep Your Tank Full
In His Presence: Psalm 27:14
"Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand" - (Psalm 95:6-7).
Most Christians view worship as an event instead of a lifestyle. But our day of worship is not supposed to replace our weekday and weekend worship. Sunday is supposed to launch us into our week of worship. Worship is meant to be a lifestyle, not an event.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit and with a heart full of worship for our great God and King, we must be like a car pulling up to a filling station to receive a full tank of gasoline. Once we are filled up, do we park our vehicle and sit there the rest of the week? No, we go to a filling station to get what we need to leave the station. We have a destination and need full tanks to get there.
A problem occurs when we leave the station. As soon as we walk out of our Sunday worship, people begin to burn up that fuel inside them. Our mates, children, and work burn it up. When we leave our church, we are full of God's presence and glory from our time in corporate worship. But Satan's job is to burn up that fuel. The worst thing we can do is to wait until next Sunday to worship. We need to drink continually to stay filled.
One Minute Please
What we do on Sunday must become a way of life to remain filled with the Holy Spirit.
God bless
:angel:
The Teaching of Disillusionment
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . . , for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens- if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God, and in what God's grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.
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PRAISE: The First Step in Effective Prayer
Praying consistently will change your life. In fact, many of the blessings God wants you to enjoy will never be realized unless you pray.
I think all Christians know they are supposed to pray, and all Christians want to pray. But many of God's people, if they are completely frank and transparent about the issue, would have to admit their prayer life is somewhere between mediocre and non-existent.
Over the next few devotionals, I want to share with you four simple points which I have put into an acronym: P-R-A-Y. If you can spell the word pray, hopefully you will be able to remember how to make your prayer life more effective, and you will be inspired to pray more consistently.
Psalm 100 helps us understand the first letter, "P", in the word P-R-A-Y, which stands for praise. Psalm 100:1-4 states it well,
Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
Verse 2 tells us, Come before His presence with singing. And in verse 4 notice the words "enter into." In other words, praise is how you are to enter God's presence. It is the best way to begin your prayer.
When you want to come to God, you start with thanksgiving. You start with singing. You start with praise. Or, as The Message says, Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Today, and every day, make praise the starting point of every conversation with God!
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Walking in the Spirit
In His Presence: Proverbs 9:10
"We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us"(1 John 3:24).
Since we all live in the flesh, we will struggle with the desires of the flesh until we get to heaven. But we can bring these desires under the Holy Spirit's influence. "I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). Notice that the apostle Paul doesn't say we won't have the desires of the flesh when we walk in the Spirit, but that we won't carry out those desires.
Walking in the Spirit is similar to the concept of being filled with the Holy Spirit. To walk implies that the Spirit is going somewhere-there's a destination. He always goes to the same place, to that which brings God glory. In contrast, the flesh is always moving to that which will please itself. Walking is continuous, so not only do we have to pay attention to our destination, but our walking also involves dedication. Like the filling of the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit is ongoing. A third aspect of walking includes dependency. The act of walking is taking one step after another.
The key to walking in the Spirit is to look to Him to give us the ability to do what we know we can't do on our own. The moment we try to do it on our own, we reject the work of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn't need our help; we need His.
One Minute Please
When we walk in the Spirit, the flesh will lose its ability to have the last word.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Becoming Entirely His
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing -James 1:4
Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.
Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.
We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God's redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. "Let patience have its perfect work . . . ." The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, "Now let your patience become a finished product." Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, "Oh, that will have to do for now." Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His
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REPENT: The Second Step in Effective Prayer
Yesterday we began to look at what makes for effective prayer by using the acronym P-R-A-Y. The first step is praise. Today, I want to focus on the second letter of our acronym, "R", which stands for repent.
By repentance in prayer, I mean taking the time before God to search your heart and repent of anything that has come between you and Him. Psalm 19:12-13 expresses it well,
Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Verse 12 begins with the question, "Who can understand his errors?" The psalmist is telling us, "You will not always know when you do something wrong. You will not always know when you get into an area that is not right."
What David is pointing to are the secret faults and presumptuous sins which can still have dominion over you-even though you may not be aware that what you did was wrong.
For example, sometimes we can allow attitudes to get into our hearts that we don't realize are inconsistent with God's character. Or sometimes we can do and say things that are detrimental, not only to us, but to others, and not really understand the damage we have done.
How do you deal with these sins? You come before God and say, "God, put the spotlight on anything in my life that has raised a barrier between You and me, and I will repent of it."
So when you pray, ask God to reveal any sin in your life you may be overlooking. God will honor your heart of repentance.
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Remarkable Fruit
In His Presence: Matthew 11:29
"[God] made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Corinthians 3:6).
The Holy Spirit within us makes life real; life comes alive. When we have accepted Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, life is no longer theology. It's all right to have theology in our heads, just as long as it becomes real in our lives when we grow closer to God through the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit takes over, we begin to grow. The Holy Spirit becomes our power source behind this growth so that eventually it will become evident. "The deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:19-23).
The Holy Spirit is the divine enabler who produces growth in us. Every time we try to grow independently of God, we are working against Him. Many of us spend much of our time shutting God out. We are trying to produce those fruits on our own. However, God does not need our help to grow us.
One Minute Please
When the Holy Spirit takes over our spiritual growth, He will produce remarkable fruit in us.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Learning About His Ways
When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities -Matthew 11:1
He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, "I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here," it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. "Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . ." (Luke 9:33).
Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God's role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.
He works where He sends us to wait. ". . . tarry . . . until . . ." (Luke 24:49). "Wait on the Lord" and He will work (Psalm 37:34). But don't wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can't see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to "wait patiently for Him"? (Psalm 37:7). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.
These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.
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ASK: The Third Step in Effective Prayer
So far we have discovered that praise and repentance are the first two steps to effective prayer. Today I want to show you the very important third step of asking.
Yesterday we talked about how repentance is searching your own heart and asking God to put the spotlight on it, and then repenting of anything that He shows you. When your heart is clean, you can have confidence before God when you ask. As 1 John 3:21-22 says,
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus tells us,
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
Pretty clear, isn't it? God loves you and wants the very best for you. Be careful not to water down the words of Jesus, or somehow try and explain them away or complicate them. He meant just what He said.
But there are some conditions. And tomorrow we will look at those conditions for receiving what you ask God for.
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The Raging Battle
In His Presence: Psalm 37:4
"I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please"(Galatians 5:16-17).
The very Spirit of God has taken up residence in our lives if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. God wants to express His mind, His thoughts, His desires, and His will through our mortal bodies. But for us to see this happen, we need to be under the Holy Spirit's control. While this is taking place, we are going to experience conflict within ourselves. This is one way we can know we are Christians. If we have no battles raging within, we are probably not saved. There is no opposition within us. God says the flesh and the Spirit are total opposites; they are not going to get along with each other at all.
How do we know the difference between the flesh and the Holy Spirit within us? The Spirit will want to please God, and the flesh will want to please ourselves. That's why the war going on inside of us is good, not bad. Most of us feel guilty about having such a battle. Of course, we may not like the feeling, but the two laws operating in our bodies should give us occasion to praise God.
One Minute Please
If a battle is being waged within you, that's a good thing because it indicates that the Spirit is active.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Teaching of Adversity
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world -John 16:33
The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . ." (Psalm 91:1,10)- the place where you are at one with God.
If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He is saying, "There is nothing for you to fear." The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.
God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment- "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life . . ." (Revelation 2:7). If you completely give of yourself physically, you become exhausted. But when you give of yourself spiritually, you get more strength. God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment. Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense. But a saint can "be of good cheer" even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God.
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The Conditions for Answered Prayer
Yesterday we talked about the "A" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, which is our way of understanding the steps in effective prayer. That "A" stands for ask, and I have come to believe that too many Christians don't believe that God wants them to ask.
God wants you to ask. He really does. But there are some conditions He gives in order to answer your requests. In John chapters 14-16 we find a number of these conditions.
We need to remember that these are Jesus' last hours with the disciples; and He wants them to understand how prayer really works. Over and over He emphasizes the need to ask, but His answers will be based on three conditions.
First, in John 14:13, Jesus says your request must glorify God,
"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."
Second, in John 15:7, He says your request must be consistent and in harmony with His Word,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
And finally, in John 16:23-24, Jesus sets the condition that your request bring you joy,
"And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
Over and over, Jesus commands you to ask. But when you ask, make sure your request will glorify God, that it is consistent with His Word, and that it will bring you joy.
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What Are Carnal Christians?
In His Presence: 1 Timothy 2:1-4
What is a carnal Christian? Carnality is that spiritual state where a born-again Christian knowingly and persistently lives to please and serve self rather than Christ. Carnality is an issue with Christians only, because a carnal Christian is a genuine Christian. These people have placed their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone, and have been born again a second time. It is possible for Christians to be on our way to heaven but be of no good to God on earth.
Christians are experiencing a crisis of carnality. Many men, women, and young people are only half-stepping with Christ. God has too many children who are not sure whose family we really want to be a part of. This indecision has led to untold agony, unanswered prayers, emotional weakness, physical weakness, loss of peace, loss of joy, and lack of stability. This does not mean that every time a Christian experiences a problem it implies that he or she is carnal. However, far too many of us are experiencing too many failures because we are, in fact, carnal and only half-stepping with the Gospel.
The apostle Paul addressed this issue with the church in Corinth: "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly" (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
One Minute Please
Do you want to be part of God's family or the world's family?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Purpose of God
He . . . said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . -Luke 18:31
Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord, represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will. Jesus said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 5:30). Seeking to do "the will of the Father" was the one dominating concern throughout our Lord's life. And whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, success or failure, He was never deterred from that purpose. ". . . He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem . . ." (Luke 9:51).
The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God's purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. "You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . ." (John 15:16).
We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God's purpose- we are taken into God's purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God's goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God's aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God's purpose is. We say, "God means for me to go over there," and, "God has called me to do this special work." We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan. "He took the twelve aside . . ." (Luke 18:31). God takes us aside all the time. We have not yet understood all there is to know of the compelling purpose of God
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YIELD: The Fourth Step in Effective Prayer
Psalm 37:4 provides us the "Y" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, the four elements to effective prayer we have been discussing over the last few devotionals.
Here is what Psalm 37:4 says,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Now the Hebrew word for delight in this verse literally means to become soft or pliable. This means that "delighting" in the Lord is assuming a yielded posture before God.
So the "Y" in P-R-A-Y stands for yield. The question is: How do you practice yielding to God when you pray? Yielding is when you stop talking, and you wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.
In my own practice of prayer, I will often bow before God and ask Him, "God, is there anything You want to say to me? Do You have any instructions for me? Is there anything You want me to change?"
Then I silently wait for Him to speak to me.
As you assume this posture of being yielded and waiting quietly before Him, you will be surprised at some of the things that come to your attention: "You need to spend more time with your daughter," "Take your wife out on a date," "Bake your neighbor a pie and build a bridge over which the gospel can travel," "Spend more time praising Me," "Show your gratitude and appreciation for those who have been helping you in your life."
You will indeed hear from God if you ask Him to speak into your heart, and wait silently before Him.
That is the last element of effective prayer: praise, repent, ask, yield. Your prayers can indeed be effective if you commit to these four principles. That is how to P-R-A-Y.
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Biblical Saints Living in Carnality
In His Presence: Proverbs 24:14
It is possible to be a genuine Christian and be carnal. The Bible gives us several examples of such men and women. One of these examples is Saul, son of Kish, the first king of Israel. We know that he was redeemed because the Bible says: "God changed his heart" (1 Samuel 10:9). Yet here was a man who, because of his rebellion against God, eventually sought the counsel of witches and committed suicide.
King Solomon is another example of a king who was redeemed by God but turned away from Him. At first, he was a tremendous king. The Lord appeared to him in a dream one night and said to Solomon: "Ask what you wish me to give you" (1 Kings 3:5). King Solomon replied: "Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child . . . Give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil" (vv. 7-9). Yet later in the same book it says: "King Solomon loved many foreign women" (1 Kings 11:1). When King Solomon entered the life of carnality, he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, which is about the emptiness of life.
The sons of Jacob lived in carnality for 11 years after they sold Joseph into slavery. King David lived in a state of carnality when he committed adultery and murder. When David tried to hide his sin, he covered it up until Nathan the prophet confronted him.
One Minute Please
God gives us new life. It is up to us to make it meaningful.
God bless
:angel:
Special or Complicit?
Preface:
I want to go on the record and say I am not qualified to preach! I am a singer-songwriter who loves to inspire people with rhythm and rhyme. Yet still, many of you e-mail or stop me after a concert and say, "When are you doing another devotional?" So, can I stipulate this one time for all the rest of the times that these are just my thoughts and I could be wrong? Ok, thanks! I appreciate you letting me share things with you that have been on my heart. They may inspire, and they may sting, too. Let me start letter this with a key verse that hit me hard the other day. It's from The Message version of the Bible:
Key Verse
Romans 3:20 (Paul speaking to the Jewish people of that day)
"Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin."
I love to people watch. I always have. My favorite thing to do is to find someone, turn to whomever I'm sitting with, point that person out and say "Hey, there goes____ !" (Inserting the name of a person they look like that we both know.) It usually gets a good laugh or at least a smile. I mean no harm. It's just funny. I even do it to myself. Whenever I see a person with a long, pointy chin or someone running with their knees all bandaged up I'll say, "Run Ernie, run." Or, as my football coach used to scream at me, "Run Thunder-foot, RUN!" I really am SLOW!
But there are those times; I find myself starting to size people up and pass judgment when I have no idea what they are walking thru or anything about their plight.
That, my friend, is just wrong! Why do we do this? Self-righteousness?
I love this quote from CS Lewis:
"A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute."
So, here is the newsflash that comes across my mind when I read Paul's words:
WE ARE NOT SPECIAL JUST BECAUSE WE ASKED JESUS IN OUR HEARTS!
I know that is a hard statement, but let me explain.
In our calling to promote and build the Kingdom of God, we forget that we are basically benefactors of living in grace. And that grace-filled enlightenment doesn't make us any better than someone who is still finding out that their grace-less life is a Dead End Street.
The Apostle Paul said of himself that he was the "chief of sinners." (1 Timothy 1:15) It doesn't sound like Paul thought he was special for writing over half of the New Testament and bringing the Gospel to the rest of the non-Jewish world.
And look at the Jewish nation. God used them to bring the Law to mankind and to make known to everyone that a relationship with God's Holy heart was possible. That's really living in revelation! Being a part of something that big would make anyone feel special. However, Paul told them "This does not make you right with God." (Romans 3:20)
It's all about "attitude" and our feelings about our relationship towards people Jesus died for. Remember the prayer of the self-righteous Pharisee as he looked at the tax collector in Luke 18:11 – 'The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don't cheat, I don't sin, and I don't commit adultery. I'm certainly not like that tax collector!' Jesus abhorred this attitude!
Living forgiven doesn't mean we forget that we are all sinners who were "complicit" in the death of Jesus.
So where does that leave us today? Plain and simple, I believe it puts us in the same place Jesus was in when He came seeking the lost. It leaves us with the challenge to be in the world but not of it. Being light in darkness. Living a separated life does not mean we are to live insulated lives filled with pride because we are spiritual. What good are we at that point?
So, I challenge us all to get to know and spend time with someone who is out there, I mean REALLY out there. In calm assurance of who you are in Christ, hang out with them. Eat their food, drink their wine and listen to their anger at life and at God. Listen and don't try to fix them. Earn the right to speak truth to them. And be honest. Just because you don't know the answer does not make God less real. When you don't know the answers just say, "I don't know. Life is a mystery and so is God. This is not science, this is Spirit."
Hey, one more thing, don't be afraid to show them your scars. Tell them about past mistakes and how God's grace can bring healing. Yes, the scars remain, but remind them scars also show healing. Even Jesus has scars that will never go away and because of them we can be healed.
And, one last warning, be ready to hear the talk from the so-called brethren. "Look at them, they are hanging out and fellowshipping with sinners." Yep, they said the same thing about Jesus and aren't you glad He did it anyway? Otherwise, we would not be having this discussion today. Bottom line: it's time to be real. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus made us all special by becoming sin for everyone. Praise God that He came down to our level. Now is the time to do the same. Follow our Master's attitude and example for Heaven's sake.
Oh What A Savior!
Ernie
:angel:
August 7, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's House
. . . they found Him in the temple . . . . And He said to them, '. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' -Luke 2:46, 49
Our Lord's childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood- His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father's house? Is the Son of God living in His Father's house within me?
The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong- when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. ". . . I must be about My Father's business"- and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father's house.
Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord's life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father's house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.
The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.
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Forgetting the Past
The key word I want to have you focus on today is forgetting. I want you to understand the importance of forgetting the past so you can move forward.
Some people-perhaps you-cannot reach forward because they are continually looking backwards. Their focus is on their past sins, their past mistakes, their past failures, their past hurts.
God does not want you to live in the past, but rather focus on the future.
A while back I was visiting a friend who had a great impact on my life as a young believer. As I was sitting at a meal with him and his wife, he began to share with me a great personal failure.
About ten years earlier, when he was pioneering a church, he fell into an adulterous relationship. It rocked the foundation of his marriage; but he repented, got out of the relationship, and over time, God healed his marriage. But he has not been in ministry since.
As he told me, tears began to stream down his face. He got up from the table, went to the bathroom, and his wife looked at me and said, "Bayless, if you can help him, please do. My husband has lived a holy life for the last ten years. God has forgiven him, I have forgiven him, but he hasn't forgiven himself."
This man chained himself to this one past failure, and he can't get on with what God had called him to do.
Bury your past so you can uncover your future.
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Carnality by Choice
In His Presence: Galatians 6:2
"Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"(Hebrews 3:12-13).
When God saved us, He saved us to serve Christ. Occasional lapses into sin do not imply carnality. Everyone sins. Carnality is the state where the person has the mindset of seeking to gratify themselves rather than please Christ.
No Christian has to be carnal. Being carnal is a decision of the will. Carnal Christians have grown up physically and should be able to feed themselves. But they can't. That is because a carnal Christian is a person who has developed a mindset of disobedience. They willfully live in sin, controlled by the old person they used to be. They are saved and the Holy Spirit is in them, but they are not allowing the Holy Spirit to grow them.
There is a difference between a baby Christian and a carnal Christian. Baby Christians are young in the Lord and do not yet have the capacity to eat on their own. Someone else has to feed them-to give them the Word. A young Christian desires the milk of the Word of God. "Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" (1 Peter 2:2).
God bless
:angel:
:angel:
August 8
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's House
If the Son of God is born into my mortal flesh, is His holy innocence and simplicity and oneness with the Father getting a chance to manifest itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the historic introduction of God's Son into this earth is true in every saint. The Son of God is born into me by the direct act of God; then I as a child of God have to exercise the right of a child, the right of being always face to face with my Father. Am I continually saying with amazement to my common-sense life - why do you want to turn me off here? Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business? Whatever the circumstances may be, that Holy Innocent Eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.
Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He getting his wonderful way in me? Is God realizing that His Son is formed in me, or have I carefully put Him on one side? Oh, the clamour of these days! Everyone is clamouring - for what? For the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for the Son of God just now, no room for quiet holy communion with the Father.
Is the Son of God praying in me or am I dictating to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the days of His flesh? Is the Son of God in me going through His passion for His own purposes? The more one knows of the inner life of God's ripest saints, the more one sees what God's purpose is - "filling up that which is behind of the affliction of Christ." There is always something to be done in the sense of "filling up."
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Running Inside the Lines
In Philippians 3:14, Paul provides a powerful insight into his passion. Here is what he says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul clearly had a goal in mind, a sense of his destiny. And he was undaunted in seeking to reach it.
In fact, the phrase "I press toward the goal" could literally be translated from the Greek text this way, "I run within the lines." It paints the picture of a runner, running down a track, staying in his lane.
He is not overreaching his bounds, running in someone else's lane. Rather, as he goes for the goal, he is running within the lines with the goal in mind.
In a little mission in Medford, Oregon, many years ago, there was a young man with a terrible drug and alcohol problem. One night God got a hold of his life. It was a truly dramatic conversion.
I was that young man. And for several decades now, I have been seeking to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me. I knew that night that God had a destiny for my life. And that is the goal I strive and press forward to achieve.
God has a destiny for your life, too. God laid hold of your life just like He did mine, for a purpose. If you have not already done so, you must understand and press forward to fulfill the destiny God has for your life.
If you don't know what that might be, then start asking God to reveal that to you. Ask Him to show you the lane you are to run in.
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Carnality by Choice
In His Presence: Galatians 6:2
"Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"(Hebrews 3:12-13).
When God saved us, He saved us to serve Christ. Occasional lapses into sin do not imply carnality. Everyone sins. Carnality is the state where the person has the mindset of seeking to gratify themselves rather than please Christ.
No Christian has to be carnal. Being carnal is a decision of the will. Carnal Christians have grown up physically and should be able to feed themselves. But they can't. That is because a carnal Christian is a person who has developed a mindset of disobedience. They willfully live in sin, controlled by the old person they used to be. They are saved and the Holy Spirit is in them, but they are not allowing the Holy Spirit to grow them.
There is a difference between a baby Christian and a carnal Christian. Baby Christians are young in the Lord and do not yet have the capacity to eat on their own. Someone else has to feed them-to give them the Word. A young Christian desires the milk of the Word of God. "Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" (1 Peter 2:2).
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer in the Father's Hearing
Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me' -John 11:41
When the Son of God prays, He is mindful and consciously aware of only His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19) the Father will always hear my prayers. But I must see to it that the Son of God is exhibited in my human flesh. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . . " (1 Corinthians 6:19), that is, your body is the Bethlehem of God's Son. Is the Son of God being given His opportunity to work in me? Is the direct simplicity of His life being worked out in me exactly as it was worked out in His life while here on earth? When I come into contact with the everyday occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of God's eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? Jesus says, "In that day you will ask in My name . . ." (John 16:26). What day does He mean? He is referring to the day when the Holy Spirit has come to me and made me one with my Lord.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied by your life, or are you exhibiting a walk of spiritual pride before Him? Never let your common sense become so prominent and forceful that it pushes the Son of God to one side. Common sense is a gift that God gave to our human nature- but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son, and we should never put our common sense on the throne. The Son always recognizes and identifies with the Father, but common sense has never yet done so and never will. Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God. We must make sure that our human flesh is kept in perfect submission to Him, allowing Him to work through it moment by moment. Are we living at such a level of human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being exhibited moment by moment in us?
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The Natural Man
In His Presence: 2 Timothy 3:16-17
"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised"(1 Corinthians 2:14).
It's important to understand that when the apostle Paul talks about the natural man he is referring to an unbeliever. The non-Christian does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They seem like foolishness to him. He cannot understand it. A Christian is supposed to be supernatural man, because the Spirit of God is living within him. Non-Christians can pretend to be Christians, but can only carry spiritual things so far. They do not want spiritual things controlling their lives.
The natural man can be moral, kind-hearted, filled with good intentions and good works. Yet the non-believer does not accept spiritual things as part of his everyday life. He doesn't know what to do with them. Spiritual truth is not very important to this person. He wants to talk about everything but spiritual things. The mindset of the unbeliever is that everyone else is doing it so it must be all right. The Bible uses the word sensual to describe him.
If we could draw an analogy of the natural man and the Christian, we could compare the natural man to a surround-sound entertainment center that is not hooked up to cable or satellite. While the entertainment center is expensive and of good quality, without a signal it won't do very much. In the same way, the natural man will not get the same signals as the Christian.
One Minute Please
The natural man is not a carnal Christian even though they may appear to be similar.
:angel:
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The Natural Man
In His Presence: 2 Timothy 3:16-17
"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised"(1 Corinthians 2:14).
It's important to understand that when the apostle Paul talks about the natural man he is referring to an unbeliever. The non-Christian does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They seem like foolishness to him. He cannot understand it. A Christian is supposed to be supernatural man, because the Spirit of God is living within him. Non-Christians can pretend to be Christians, but can only carry spiritual things so far. They do not want spiritual things controlling their lives.
The natural man can be moral, kind-hearted, filled with good intentions and good works. Yet the non-believer does not accept spiritual things as part of his everyday life. He doesn't know what to do with them. Spiritual truth is not very important to this person. He wants to talk about everything but spiritual things. The mindset of the unbeliever is that everyone else is doing it so it must be all right. The Bible uses the word sensual to describe him.
If we could draw an analogy of the natural man and the Christian, we could compare the natural man to a surround-sound entertainment center that is not hooked up to cable or satellite. While the entertainment center is expensive and of good quality, without a signal it won't do very much. In the same way, the natural man will not get the same signals as the Christian.
One Minute Please
The natural man is not a carnal Christian even though they may appear to be similar.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
August 10, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Holy Suffering of the Saint
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good . . . -1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will- even if it means you will suffer- is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, "God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God's reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10).
Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
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The Prize
If you have read the last couple of days' devotionals, you know we have been focusing on Philippians 3:12-14. Today I want to give you one final truth from this passage of Scripture.
It is found in verse 14 where Paul says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
What I want to focus our thoughts on today is the prize. According to this passage, there is a reward for finishing, a reward that will be given openly to all those who are faithful.
In fact, the Greek word translated prize literally means a reward that is given publicly. This is not something that is given in private.
In 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Paul says,
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
This crown of righteousness is synonymous with the "prize." Paul said, "It will be given to me on that Day." Not the day Paul died, but rather on a day that has yet to arrive, when we are gathered before God's throne.
On that day, everyone will be there. King David, Samuel the prophet, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Moses, the apostle Paul, Peter...every saint who has lived for God in every generation since the Resurrection.
On that day, we are going to be standing before God giving an account of our lives. We are going to be rewarded publicly if we have fulfilled our job description and run within the lines of our calling while on this earth.
I urge you to prepare for that day!
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The Spiritual Man
In His Presence: Hebrews 4:12
"He who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ"(1 Corinthians 2:15-16).
The one thing that sets apart spiritual men and women-Christians-is that they have learned to think as Christ thinks because they have the mind of Christ. A spiritual person examines life from God's perspective. To "appraise" in the verse above means to examine.
What the brain is to our body, the mind is to our soul. A spiritual person has developed spiritual perception. In our planning and decision making, do we ask ourselves what God would think about this? A spiritual person should consistently take God's viewpoint into consideration in all they do. Of course, we're not expecting perfection, but there should be a pattern in our lives that includes God in all areas. The spiritual man connects present decisions with future consequences because he or she is mature.
Immature people often do not connect present decisions with future consequences. They want gratification now. Their thought is for the moment. Children are like that. How often do we encounter a child who talks about saving money? However, we do hear them talk a lot about spending money. Because of their maturity level, they can see only short-term consequences. Their view of the future is limited.
The spiritual person has learned to perceive things from a divine vantage point. He has the ability to discern.
One Minute Please
Are you a spiritual man, a natural man, or a carnal Christian?
God bless
† :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Do Not Quench the Spirit"
Do not quench the Spirit -1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze- so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, "Once, a number of years ago, I was saved." If you have put your "hand to the plow" and are walking in the light, there is no "looking back"- the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to "walk in the light" by recalling your past experiences when you did "walk in the light" (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.
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The Entrance of Error
Jude 4 gives us an ominous warning,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude is giving us an idea of how the devil brings error into a church. The key phrase is men have crept in unnoticed. That phrase literally means to come alongside by stealth. It pictures someone creeping in and coming alongside, like coming in through a side door.
The folks Jude is talking about look like everyone else, they talk like everyone else, but they are not like everyone else.
That is the way the devil brings error and false doctrine into the Church. It looks like the truth, sounds good, seems like the truth, and it may even be partially true. But there is enough poison in it to kill you.
It's like the guy who wanted to break into a used car lot to steal a bunch of auto parts. The only problem was the two guard dogs. So for the next week he showed up every night with some pieces of meat.
At first the dogs would bark like crazy, but after the man left, they would eat the meat. By the end of the week, they didn't bark at all, they just wanted the meat. So, having become familiar with the dogs, knowing that they wouldn't "sound the alarm," he approached them one last time-with poisoned meat. The dogs ate, and he was able to get into the lot and steal all he wanted.
That is the way the devil does it a lot of times. He sends someone among the believers in order to distract and detour them from the truth. But it is calculated and happens by degrees. Do not let your "inner alarm system" go silent through familiarity.
Beware of those who would move you away, even subtly, from the clearly revealed truth of God's Word.
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Crisis in Our Culture
In His Presence: Psalm 40:8
"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse"(Malachi 4:5-6).
Men, when we look at the state of our culture and our country today, we find that we are in a crisis situation. How can we not be when 40 percent of our children go to sleep at night with no dad at home? Among the minority populations, that statistic goes up to 63 percent, and in the innermost inner cities, it rises to 83 percent. There is no respect or dignity among men anymore. They are fathering children but not taking the responsibility to help rear them. Men have become like the fabled abominable snowman, whose footprints are everywhere, but he cannot be found.
In the Bible, whenever Satan wanted to destroy a nation, he went after the male children. While the children of Israel lived in Egypt, eventually one of the pharaohs ordered the death of all male babies born in the land. In Jesus' time, King Herod ordered all the male children under the age of two to be killed in Bethlehem in his efforts to stifle the prophecy of a king born to the Jews. Satan understands that if he can immobilize the men, he can hijack the culture.
One Minute Please
To get a sense of what a real man is, we must turn to the Bible for examples and principles of manhood.
†
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of the Lord
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him -Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, "Oh, that must be from the devil."
"Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, "Don't be blind on this point anymore- you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I'm revealing it to you right now." When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
". . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him." We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, "Oh well, I can't help it. I prayed and things didn't turn out right anyway. So I'm simply going to give up on everything." Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me- sanctification is God's idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
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The True Grace of God
Yesterday we read Jude 4 which states,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we move away from this verse, I want to point out a phrase that I believe is very dangerous ground for the Church in America today. It is the phrase, "Ungodlymen, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness."
Lewdness literally means unrestrained lust, wickedness, and immorality. These people believed that once you were saved, you could live however you wanted.
There are people in the Church today with this type of thinking. They believe that if you are saved by grace, and good works do not merit salvation, then you can do whatever you want.
You can sleep around, commit adultery, get drunk, the sky's the limit. It's grace, baby! Your works don't have anything to do with it. You can live however you want!
One of the things that I have heard throughout the years is, "Hey, it doesn't matter. It's grace. God will forgive me, so I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway."
You do not want to live that way. Believe me, something begins to break down inside of you, and you will pay the piper eventually.
If you are turning the grace of God into lewdness through immorality, or any other sin, I challenge you to stop today. Confess your sin to God, turn from whatever it is that you have been doing, and ask God to help you live for Him. If you do, you will experience the true grace of God, which teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).
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Newborn Christians
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:20
"I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ"(1 Corinthians 3:1).
There are people who are Christians but are not mature. They are neither carnal Christians nor unbelievers. These are people who are brand-new to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. They have not been saved long enough to become spiritual. A baby Christian cannot be mature. They can be Spirit-controlled, but they cannot be mature because maturity requires time.
When Paul addresses Christians about their infancy, he is referring to weak, brand-new Christians. We cannot condemn a person because he or she is a baby. Neither does the apostle Paul condemn new Christians because they are immature. New Christians should not get frustrated because they are not mature. They should allow the Holy Spirit control over what they have, and He will make it increase with time. When a baby Christian desires to become mature, we should rejoice that they have listened to the Holy Spirit's voice and have developed a desire for a deeper and more satisfying relationship with God.
"I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it"(v. 2). New Christians grow by feeding on the basics of Christianity. They learn who God is and how much He loves us. They learn who Jesus Christ is, and why it was necessary for Him to become the Lamb of God.
One Minute Please
A baby Christian learns to love God with all his heart, mind, and soul.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again -John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus' question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
"But as many as received Him. . ." (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
". . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God " (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God's kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God's control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
"Whoever has been born of God does not sin. . ." (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, "Should a Christian sin?" The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin- it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin
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Six Times We Should Seek God
But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).
In today's devotional, I want to show you the first three of six times we should seek the Lord:
1. When we have sinned.
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
If you sin, do not run from God, run to Him. Do not allow shame to keep you away.
2. When we are feeling dry spiritually.
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).
When you sense a distance between you and God, or if you feel dry spiritually, do not delay! Seek Him early.
When my potted plants feel dry, I water them. I do not wait until they turn brown and are almost dead. If the soil is dry and the leaves begin to droop, they are in need of water right then, and so it is when you are feeling spiritually dry.
One of the keys to keeping potted plants-and our spiritual lives-healthy is to tend to them early.
3. When we are fearful.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).
When you are fearful or anxious, it is time to seek the Lord. When you seek Him you can expect to be delivered from all of your fears!
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God Has a Purpose for Us
In His Presence: Jeremiah 29:11
"David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers"(Acts 13:36).
Men, the worst thing in the world is to live out our 75 or so years of life not knowing why we were put here in the first place. When God placed Adam in this world, He told him to fill the earth and tame it. He was to create a culture out of the wild. Adam knew he had a purpose for his life. The tragedy today is that men have settled for the mundane and become satisfied by emptiness. They haven't gotten around to exploring God's reason for their existence. If we don't know why we have a life to live, then anyone who whispers in our ear can distract us from our divinely ordained reason for being.
God has a purpose for each of us; we need to pursue God's special future. But if we just settle for the definition of manhood given us by society, the entertainment industry, the sports industry, and our buddies, then we will never discover the purpose God has for us. Real living is when we are completing the work that God has called us to do.
Satan is seeking to overrun this world with evil. But God is ready to partner with us when we take up the mantle of manhood. Through the Holy Spirit, He will work in and through us, but it requires taking a risk.
One Minute Please
Are you going to settle for the ordinary, or are you going to be God's man doing God's business?
God bless
:angel:
Does He Know Me . . . ?
He calls his own . . . by name . . . -John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person's soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. ". . . she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. . . . Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' " (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. "She turned and said to Him, 'Rabboni!' " (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus- maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord" (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, "Unless I see . . . I will not believe" (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. "Thomas . . . said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' " (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, "Lord . . . You know that I love You" (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him- a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake
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Six Times We Should Seek God (Part Two)
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at three times we should seek God. Today we will look at three more:
4. When we are in trouble.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:2).
In Hosea 5:15 the Lord says, "...in their affliction they will earnestly seek me."
I don't like to admit it, but the truth is that at times I have sought God more earnestly when I have been in trouble. Problems have a way of getting us on our knees. If you are in trouble today - seek Him!
5. When all is well.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore! (Psalm 105:4).
If you will carefully read the preceding verses of this psalm, you will find that the context is one of blessing and not trouble.
This may be the most important time of all to seek Him. May we never become smug and think that we do not need God when all is well.
6. Continually.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!
(1 Chronicles 16:11).
The word evermore in this verse means continually or at all times.
When you have sinned, when you are dry, when you are afraid, when you are in trouble, when all is well, and in any other situation - you need to seek God!
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Man Must Lead
In His Presence: Ecclesiastes 3:9-12
"I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ"(1 Corinthians 11:3).
God has created a systematic chain of command by which He operates. He expects this chain of command to become part of our lives as well. Even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, comes under the authority of God the Father. A man is to place himself under the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is not a statement of equality, but of function. God ordained this order at creation. Further, a woman comes under the authority of her husband as a statement of submission to God.
What happens when we break the chain of command? Satan began his plan of attack on man right in the Garden of Eden. He got Eve and Adam to switch roles. Eve took the lead and Adam became the follower. It was a disastrous experience. Sin was introduced to the world along with its companions, death and disobedience.
God has stitched women in such a way that they are built to be responders. When the man leads the home by placing himself under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the woman will follow. But for a follower to be a good follower, they must have someone worth following. If the man refuses to recognize the authority of Jesus in his life, then the woman will step into the leadership role.
One Minute Please
The biblical definition of real manhood is a man who leads his family in the worship of God by submitting to his Lord.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
. . . Jesus . . . said to him, 'You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.' But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich -Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven't, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, "Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me." Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him- He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened- not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain- He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
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True Satisfaction
Isaiah 14:12-15 records the fall of Satan. Created as God's archangel, we read about the dissatisfaction that got him in trouble,
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit."
Clearly his problem was pride. "I will, I will, I will...I am going to be like God." He wasn't satisfied with being the archangel that God had created him to be. He wanted to take God's place.
The root of Satan's pride was his discontent with the post and station that the supreme Monarch of the universe had assigned and allotted him. He thought he deserved better.
We all have our sphere of influence, and we all have our gifting from God. Your sphere of influence and gifting are different than mine, and mine are different than yours. It is unwise to desire something that someone else has rather than exploring what God has given you and developing that to its highest potential.
When you look over the fence, it looks like the grass is greener on the other side, but when you hop over, you find out it is spray-painted!
You will only be satisfied if you will develop what God has put inside of you and take that to its highest level possible. That is what you will be rewarded for.
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Carnality in Action
In His Presence: Proverbs 21:21
The apostle Paul had spent several years teaching and preaching at the church in Corinth. He was concerned because there was division among the members. "I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren . . . that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, 'I am of Paul,' and 'I of Apollos,' and 'I of Cephas,' and 'I of Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?" (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).
The Corinthians had time to mature, but they were distracted and began to argue among themselves. Instead of growing, they were regressing. "You are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not mere men?" (1 Corinthians 3:3-4).
Have you ever said, "I'm only human"? That's non-Christian talk-talking like "mere men." Paul was saying that these Christians were acting like everyone else around them. And Corinth was known to be a wicked city. Paul was not complimenting these Christians. Instead of acting like the new man or woman they had become, they were rebellious believers.
One Minute Please
Behaving like "mere men" is an act of the will. Carnality is perpetuated by the will.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Christ-Awareness
. . . and I will give you rest -Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don't allow yourself to say, "Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I'm sure I must have this cleared up with them already." Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, "Lord, what is your will?" A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest," that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest- the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself
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God in Nature
God has made Himself known to mankind in a powerful way people often ignore...His creation. Romans 1:18-20 tells us,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God speaks to people through nature...through His creation. I am confident that there is a point in every person's life where there comes an awareness of God. Whether it is looking at a shooting star, or at a sunset, or at a blade of grass, the thought occurs to them, "This didn't just get here. This didn't just happen. There must be a God."
Creation speaks to us of the Godhead. It is a revelation of God. The book of Psalms says, Night unto night shows forth knowledge. And it says the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. Creation speaks to us of God.
But notice what this passage says. This revelation of God has come to men, but some have wanted to suppress it. They came to that point and thought, "You know what? If I find out about this, then I'm going to become responsible. So I don't think I want to know."
The natural bent of men and women is to suppress the truth, but God is speaking loudly and clearly of His greatness and reality through His creation. Praise Him today for revealing His beauty and power through nature, and use it to point people to Him.
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Apostasy
In His Presence: Deuteronomy 13:4
The carnal Christian is also characterized by rejection of the Christian faith. If the carnal Christian stays on the road to carnality long enough, he will apostatize-fall away from the life of faith. He or she may deny Christianity. Can a Christian go so far as to become a rank sinner in his actions? Yes, "for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
God will intervene on behalf of the carnal Christian, but He will also judge. Even the blood of Jesus will not save him from God's wrath. This does not mean that salvation will be lost, but God will judge that person. There will be emotional consequences. It may even mean an end to his life. The price tag for apostasy is staggering. "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (vv. 28-29).
One Minute Please
A person is not beyond help if he is disinterested in the things of God, if his insensitivity to sin becomes normal, or if he withdraws from fellowship. But when he goes down the road of rejecting faith, he is close to the point of no return.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This literally means, "Blessed are the paupers." Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person's strength of will or the beauty of his character- things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, "Make a decision for Jesus Christ," places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him- something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, "Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom." I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness- I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. "He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
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No Unbelievers in Hell
In Luke Chapter 16, Jesus tells a very sobering story,
"The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom... Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment'" (Luke 16:22b-23 and 27-28).
Everyone in hell believes in evangelism. They are crying out lest their loved ones end up with them.
Two thousand years have passed and this rich man has had no relief. A billion years from now he will just be getting started in his torment and pain. Listen to his cry, "My brothers! Send someone to my family!"
Hell is for unbelievers but there are no unbelievers in hell!
Several years ago a man came weeping to the altar of our church. A message had been preached that night from these very Scriptures. After giving his heart to Christ (and after a long time of almost uncontrollable weeping), he told us this story:
He said, "I died twice on the operating table during heart surgery. Each time I died, I left my body and went to hell. It was so horrifying that I tried to put it out of my mind. As the message was preached tonight, all the details of my experience came flooding back into my mind."
He did not need to be convinced that hell was real. That night he accepted Christ and was liberated from the fear of returning to that place of torment.
Jesus alone can rescue us from the terrors of hell and bring us safely to heaven. Shouldn't we be telling people there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? Shouldn't we be warning them and encouraging them to accept Christ-while there is still time?!
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Consequences of Neglect
In His Presence: Psalm 103:12
Husbands often take their wives for granted; wives often take their husbands for granted. In much the same way, Christians often take "so great a salvation" for granted (Hebrews 2:3). It is a salvation that cost God His Son. It is a salvation that has given us eternal life. Our salvation has provided us with the enablement of the Holy Spirit. This salvation has given to us the authority of God's Word. It has provided us a home in heaven. This is a salvation that's replete with eternal rewards. It calms the most hurting heart and restores the broken life. How can people neglect that kind of salvation?
Nothing and no one can compare with this salvation. How can we pass over this? We will not escape; there is a price. "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives' . . . But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons" (Hebrews 12:4-8).
The natural product of being a Christian is to be disciplined as a son. But neglecting our great salvation comes with further discipline, because the discipline must turn us away from our wandering.
One Minute Please
When we don't remember what we have, we take it for granted.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"I Indeed . . . But He"
I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire -Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, "I indeed . . . but He . . ."? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more- butHe begins right there- He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin- it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. "He will baptize you . . . ." The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
"I indeed" was this in the past, "but He" came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
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Inwardly Compelled
It was love that motivated the Father to send His Son Jesus to redeem mankind. That same love has been poured out into the heart of every believer.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
God's love in us calls and compels us to do something about the plight of lost people. Even as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14 , For the love of Christ compels us.
A few years ago, late at night I would hear what seemed to be a very faint chime or bell. Several times I got out of bed to try and find the source of the sound, but it always stopped before I could discover it.
Finally, one evening, I found out what it was. It was an old watch I had, tucked away in a drawer under some junk. Every evening, the alarm would go off at the same time.
The call of God's love in your heart can be like that. Sounding regularly but seldom heard. Buried under personal ambitions, cares and problems, daily routines and the general busyness of life. But it is unmistakably there!
The same love that moved Jesus to heal the sick and minister God's life to broken people is in you! Listen to it. Get in touch with it and express it to someone in need.
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Hardened Hearts
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:20-21
"Just as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the days of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me . . . I was angry with this generation, and said, "They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways"; As I swore in My wrath, "They shall not enter My rest" ' ''(Hebrews 3:7-11).
For many years the sons of Israel lived in the land of Egypt. Eventually the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites and forced them to make buildings of bricks. They suffered terribly until finally God raised up a leader to guide them back to the Promised Land, where God had taken Abraham hundreds of years before. Moses led them out of Egypt and into the wilderness of Sinai. There they began to complain bitterly about the lack of food and water and tried God's patience. God said their hearts were hardened.
The Hebrews' hearts were hardened because they were tricked by sin. Sin leads us to stop believing God. We believe the sin instead. One of the reasons why many of us are in our present dilemma is because we have stopped believing God. We have developed hearts of unbelief.
How do we know that we have been taken in by the deceitfulness of sin? Does the sin bother us less often? When evil doesn't anger and upset us-when we have gotten used to it-our hearts have been hardened.
One Minute Please
Sin provides short-term gratification leading to long-term disaster.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayer- Battle in "The Secret Place"
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly -Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, "Dream about your Father who is in the secret place," but He said, ". . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . ." Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, "This needs to be done, and I have to do that today." Jesus says to "shut your door." Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from "the secret place"- He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in "the secret place," it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into "the secret place," and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and "pray to your Father who is in the secret place," every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
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"Come Over and Help Us"
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:9-10).
The world is in need and they are calling! I can hear Africa, Asia, voices from South America and Europe calling out. China and Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines...voices from around the globe crying out, "Come over and help us!"
The call may be coming from down your street or from the next aisle in the grocery store. "Help me! I'm lost. I want to find God. I have problems I can't cope with. I have an aching void in my heart that I don't know how to fill. Is there anyone out there with answers?!"
Who will go to them if not you and me?
To say, "I don't feel called to go to them," is equivalent to a strong swimmer standing on the shore of a lake saying he doesn't feel called to save the man drowning before his eyes.
Ask God today to direct you to someone whose heart has cried out for answers and help. Chances are you won't have to go too far to find them.
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Dullness of Hearing
In His Presence: 2 Corinthians 5:20
Carnal Christians are characterized by a willful refusal to grow. The writer of Hebrews says that they "have become dull of hearing. For though by this time [they] ought to be teachers, [they] have need again for someone to teach [them] the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and [yet they] have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the world of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:11-14).
The writer here says they had become dull of hearing. Notice that he says they have become dull of hearing, not that they are dull of hearing. This implies that they used to be good listeners at one time, but that changed. They had become willfully rebellious against God. They started by being neglectful and disinterested, and then they became insensitive to sin.
The Greek term used here to mean "dull of hearing" has to do with slowness of perception due to moral laxness. It was the word used as an epitaph for a mule! So the writer was telling his readers that they had become like mules. Now mules are not the greatest thinkers; they are used for manual labor. The mule-minded Christians had regressed so much that they were of little value to God-not because God had made them that way, but because they had become that way.
One Minute Please
People become dull of hearing as a result of choices they have made.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? -Matthew 7:9
The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (see Matthew 5:45). Never say that it is not God's will to give you what you ask. Don't faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a "good child" in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, "I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings"? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a "good child."
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God's child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I "walk in the light" (1 John 1:7). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong- a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, "Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Matthew 7:8).
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Resist the Devil
In Jude 9 we are told how Michael the archangel dealt with Satan.
Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
My concern is that some people have tried to use this Scripture to say that we do not have authority over the devil. They believe we have no recourse other than to pray that the Lord will do something about him.
But that is not the point he is making here at all. Jude was referencing the previous verse where some would "speak evil of dignitaries." He used Michael's conversation with the devil to show that this was wrong. To say that we do not have the right to resist the devil and cast him out on the basis of this Scripture is ridiculous. Here are five things to think about:
1. This event between Michael and Lucifer (Satan) happened before New Testament times-before Jesus defeated the devil and broke his power.
2. James 4:7 tells us, Resist the devil and he will flee from you. It does not say, "Pray that God will resist the devil for you."
3. Jesus, in the Great Commission, told us to cast out devils (or demons). Jesus wouldn't tell us that if He hadn't given us the authority.
4. In Luke 10:19 Jesus said, "I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
5. In the book of Acts, as the Church carried out their mission, they commanded demons to come out, and they came out in Jesus' name.
My friend, Jesus has broken the authority of the devil in your life. Resist him and he will flee!
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A Simple Test
In His Presence: Psalm 25:14-15
The writer of Hebrews included a simple test to determine who is a "milk" Christian-a carnal Christian-and who is a "meat" Christian-a mature Christian. "By this time you ought to be teachers" (Hebrews 5:12). We should be able to sit down with our children and explain simple Bible truths. Husbands should be able to sit down with their wives and answer their questions. By this time, if we are meaty, mature Christians, we should be able to sit down with the Bible and help someone else know the Truth. We should be able to lead an unbeliever to the Lord.
"Everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness . . . But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil"(Hebrews 5:13-14). If we willfully refuse to go deeper into the things of God, we will not use the Word because we won't know the Word. The old saying goes, "If you don't use it, you lose it." We can't lose our salvation, but we can forget how to walk in the Word and how to be His representatives.
If we are mature Christians we use God's Word every day. We practice His Word in our everyday life. The phrase "senses trained" comes from the Greek root word for gymnasium, like a training ground. We are trained in discernment of good and evil.
One Minute Please
Moving from milk to meat is learning God's Word and practicing it until it becomes a habit, a natural way of thinking, and a normal way of perceiving things.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Living Your Theology
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . . . -John 12:35
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.
The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.
Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, ". . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
In yesterday's devotional we began looking at different conditions of the heart-conditions that are necessary in order to experience the richer blessings of God. Today we will continue looking at those conditions.
· A grateful heart. Deuteronomy 28:45-47 (Amplified) says,
All these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. They shall be upon you for a sign [of warning to other nations] and for a wonder, and upon your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness of [mind and] heart [in gratitude] for the abundance of all [with which He had blessed you].
William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Do you express gratitude to God for all the things He has blessed you with, or do you take His blessings for granted?
Many years ago, when I was serving in a small church, one of my duties was to take groceries to families in need. I was shocked at the ingratitude of some that received the gift of food delivered to their homes. While some were truly grateful, others acted as if it was somehow owed to them-even complaining because their favorite foods were not included!
Hopefully you have taken time recently to thank God for the blessings He has bestowed on your life. If not, take time today to express your gratitude to Him who is the source of every good thing you enjoy.
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Neglectful Christians
In His Presence: Psalm 62:8
A person does not fall into carnality overnight. He does not lapse into carnality because he or she did one thing wrong. There is a pattern that takes time to establish. The carnal Christian is characterized by the neglect of spiritual matters.
"If the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:2-3). The author of Hebrews was writing to a group of Jewish Christians who had turned their backs on faith. They were genuine Christians, but had demonstrated the neglect that is one of the first signs of carnality. To neglect simply means to show disinterest. It's not that the Christian is doing a lot of wrong things, but it is evident that they are doing very little that's right. Neglect is an act of passive disobedience rather than active disobedience. This Christian is not doing the things that are necessary to catapult us down the road to spiritual growth and maturity.
Passive, benign neglect opens the door to failure. Some marriages end in divorce not because there was an adultery committed, but because the husband sat in front of the TV too much. Some of us are going down the road to carnality not because we have committed gross sins, but because Satan has done just enough to keep us out of the Word of God and off our knees.
One Minute Please
The road to carnality starts with neglect-failure to do the things that are necessary for us to mature in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Purpose of Prayer
. . . one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray . . .' -Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person's life will suffer if he doesn't pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Ask, and you will receive . . ." (John 16:24). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits' end. When a person is at his wits' end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems- the very things that have brought you to your wits' end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
To say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature.
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Listening and Believing
For the last several devotionals we have been looking at heart attitudes that are conducive to receiving God's blessings. Today we will discuss a few more.
· A listening heart. Luke 5:15 says, However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.
The people came to hear and then be healed. Some did not want to take the time to listen, they just wanted the blessing so they could be on their way.
Listen to what the apostle Paul said to some people in Acts 28:27, For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.
We must have listening, receptive hearts if we are going to experience healing or any other of God's blessings.
· A believing heart. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.
Many years ago I was hiking up a canyon with one of my sons. He was about eight years old at the time. We reached a place where he could only get up by trusting me.
I dropped him a rope and pulled him up to where I was. He needed to believe that I would not let go. Because he did, and put actions with his belief, my strength was made available to him and he reached a place he could not have gotten to on his own.
God's strength is made available to the believing heart, and as we believe He brings us to places we could never reach on our own.
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Apostasy
In His Presence: Deuteronomy 13:4
The carnal Christian is also characterized by rejection of the Christian faith. If the carnal Christian stays on the road to carnality long enough, he will apostatize-fall away from the life of faith. He or she may deny Christianity. Can a Christian go so far as to become a rank sinner in his actions? Yes, "for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
God will intervene on behalf of the carnal Christian, but He will also judge. Even the blood of Jesus will not save him from God's wrath. This does not mean that salvation will be lost, but God will judge that person. There will be emotional consequences. It may even mean an end to his life. The price tag for apostasy is staggering. "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (vv. 28-29).
One Minute Please
A person is not beyond help if he is disinterested
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith
Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?' -John 11:40
Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, "It's all a lie"? When you are on the mountaintop, it's easy to say, "Oh yes, I believe God can do it," but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief (see Luke 9:28-42). Every time my theology becomes clear to my own mind, I encounter something that contradicts it. As soon as I say, "I believe 'God shall supply all [my] need,' " the testing of my faith begins (Philippians 4:19). When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat?
Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" Matthew 11:6). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. "We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . ." (Hebrews 3:14). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God- trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6).
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Unless They Are Agreed
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3).
In order to walk with God, one must agree with Him. In order to experience the fulfillment of His promises in our lives, we must agree with what those promises say-whether we understand how they could ever come to pass or not.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would give birth to a son, she asked, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34).
A pretty fair question, don't you think? It seemed impossible to Mary. She could not get her mind around how Gabriel's announcement could ever come to pass.
I love the angel's response to her question, "The Holy Spirit..." (Luke 1:35). That is the answer to your impossibilities as well. When you can't understand how a promise from God could ever be fulfilled, the answer is "The Holy Spirit!"
At this point Mary could have said, "No way! This makes no sense to me. I don't accept it!" But she didn't. She said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).
Mary agreed with God's promise and accepted it. Then the miracle happened.
Whatever you are facing today, make the decision to agree with God and His promises. The Holy Spirit can bring His Word to pass!
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Spiritual Discipline
In His Presence: James 1:2-2
When a person's carnality reaches the point of rejecting the Christian faith, many things can happen. Financial, emotional, social, and mental difficulties are just a few things that could catch up with them. If they live in persistent rebellion against God, God is going to discipline them. "We had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplines us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness" (Hebrews 12:9-10).
The purpose of God's discipline is to bring us back to Him in reconciliation. He does not discipline in vengeance or because He is angry. Our parents disciplined us the best they could, but God disciplines perfectly every time. He knows everything. He knows what the carnal Christian has done, so God is never caught by surprise.
"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful" (v. 11). A person living in carnality is going to experience discipline that will hurt. What is the difference between a Christian in the will of God going through trials, and a person out of the will of God going through discipline? If we are in the will of God, we can "consider it all joy" (James 1:2). If we are out of God's will, we will not have joy in the midst of our problems.
One Minute Please
"To those who have been trained by [discipline], afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Usefulness or Relationship?
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven -Luke 10:20
Jesus Christ is saying here, "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service- rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour "rivers of living water" through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7).
Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone's usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint's usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person's life is that person's relationship with God- something of great value to His Father. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory . . ." (Hebrews 2:10).
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Grumbling and Complaining
One of the things I believe grieves the heart of God is when His children grumble and complain. In Jude 6 we find some interesting insight into this destructive behavior,
These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.
The word complainer is really two Greek words stuck together. The first word means to blame, and the second word means your fate or lot in life. The point is that complainers blame someone else for their lot in life.
Isn't it always amazing how someone can make wrong choices, and when they have to face the consequences of those choices, it is always somebody else's fault?
I have two pieces of advice for you on this. First, if you are a complainer and grumbler, stop. God is not honored, and you are only showing that you are "walkingaccording to your own lust," not according to God's Spirit.
Second, stay away from people like that or you will end up being like them. Proverbs 22:24-25 says,
Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.
Their attitudes and mindsets will bleed off on you.
Did you ever throw a pair of jeans in the washing machine with a red shirt? What happened to your blue jeans? They turned pink, didn't they? The red dye bled over into the blue jeans, and the blue jeans were no longer blue. They were pink.
If you hang around with people who grumble and complain, their attitudes will bleed over into your way of thinking. And the last thing you want to be is a grumbler and complainer.
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Marriage Is A Covenant
In His Presence: Genesis 2:18; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9
Marriage is a covenantal union designed to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out the plan of God in their lives. Whether your marriage has drifted off course or was never on course at all, God can redeem your marriage to make it satisfying and whole.
One way of beginning this process is by understanding that marriage is a covenant. Many of us in our day today have lost touch with this word - covenant. But if we do not know what a covenant is, then we do not know what we are supposed to have, develop, or protect over time. It's like trying to hit a bull's eye without a target.
According to God as He lays it out for us in the Scripture, a covenant is a spiritually binding relationship between God and His people inclusive of certain agreements, conditions, benefits and effects.
Whenever God wanted to formalize His relationship with His people, He would establish a covenant. Simply stated, it is a formal arrangement made within a legal capacity between God and His people. In order to enjoy a satisfying marital relationship, we must first begin by aligning our thinking with God's thinking on the matter. Without a divine frame of reference, we will stray from God's formula for a healthy, productive home.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"My Joy . . . Your Joy"
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full -John 15:11
What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father- the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do- ". . . who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross . . ." (Hebrews 12:2). "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . ." (Psalm 40:8). Jesus prayed that our joy might continue fulfilling itself until it becomes the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God's work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, ". . . the cares of this world, . . . choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" (Mark 4:19). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold- He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His "living water." Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live "your life . . . hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
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The Prayer of Dedication
Yesterday we began a journey to understand the different kinds of prayer for the different circumstances we face in life. The first kind of prayer I want to point you to is the prayer of dedication.
Mark 14:32, 35-36 helps us understand this type of prayer,
Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, "Sit here while I pray."...He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will."
Here we find Jesus dedicating and consecrating Himself to the will of the Father. He is in agony; He is in distress. This is the eve of His crucifixion. And Jesus is saying, "Lord, if we can redeem humanity some other way, God, please! But Your will is what is important. So I am consecrating Myself to Your will, Father."
This prayer of dedication and consecration is one that believers should pray. In fact, I believe every Christian should pray this prayer in a general sense after they get saved. Just like the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, "Lord, what would You haveme to do?"
Also, when you come to specific crossroads as you follow God, if you are unsure of God's will, or you feel He may be leading you into a specific area that will require sacrifice, reestablish that consecration and dedication to God through this kind of prayer.
Christ was dedicated to do the will of the Father, and yet He reaffirmed that dedication as He prayed, "I am willing to submit Myself to You."
Pray it. Vocalize it. Submit yourself to His will as He reveals it.
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Marriage is God's House
In His Presence: Genesis 2: 19-24
If you were to come over to my house, I would welcome you inside but there would be a set of rules by which to abide. Just like I would need to abide by the rules for your house. For example, in my home, I don't allow smoking. So if you smoke, you would need to put out your cigarette before you came in my home.
I am able to make these rules and enforce them because it is my house. Marriage is God's house. He came up with the idea. And it can only run right when it is run by His rules.
What married couples often want to do, though, is to have God's institution of marriage, yet run it by their own rules. They want to get married in the church so that God will bless their marriage, but then they want to leave God standing at the altar. They want to make up their own rules for how a marriage should be run.
But let me tell you a secret. It is a very powerful secret. Pay attention: You don't get God's results without operating by God's rules. You don't get God's blessings in your marriage, and in your home, without following God's instructions. You don't enjoy God's provision, protection, and peace in your relationships without abiding by God's policies concerning the covenantal union of marriage.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His!
They were Yours, You gave them to Me . . . -John 17:6
A missionary is someone in whom the Holy Spirit has brought about this realization: "You are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19). To say, "I am not my own," is to have reached a high point in my spiritual stature. The true nature of that life in actual everyday confusion is evidenced by the deliberate giving up of myself to another Person through a sovereign decision, and that Person is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit interprets and explains the nature of Jesus to me to make me one with my Lord, not that I might simply become a trophy for His showcase. Our Lord never sent any of His disciples out on the basis of what He had done for them. It was not until after the resurrection, when the disciples had perceived through the power of the Holy Spirit who Jesus really was, that He said, "Go" (Matthew 28:19; also see Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8).
"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26). He was not saying that this person cannot be good and upright, but that he cannot be someone over whom Jesus can write the word Mine. Any one of the relationships our Lord mentions in this verse can compete with our relationship with Him. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself, but if that is the case, then, Jesus said, "[You] cannot be My disciple." This does not mean that I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be entirely His.
Our Lord makes His disciple His very own possession, becoming responsible for him. ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). The desire that comes into a disciple is not one of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a perfect delight to Him. The missionary's secret is truly being able to say, "I am His, and He is accomplishing His work and His purposes through me."
Be entirely His!
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The Prayer of Personal Edification
Today's devotional brings us to the prayer of personal edification. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, Paul writes,
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
In verse 14, Paul says, If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Coupled together with his statement in verse 4, we can see that praying in tongues edifies our spirit.
Edifies is actually an old English word. It means to build an edifice or building higher and higher. The closest modern way to say that would be "charges himself with energy," just like you would recharge a battery.
When I pray in other tongues, I charge my spirit with energy. I build myself up. It is like my cell phone. It needs to be recharged, or before long it will cease to work.
Sometimes I keep my phone on and talk on it while it is recharging, but when I do that it takes a whole lot longer to recharge. If I turn it off and plug it in, the charging process happens much quicker.
Sometimes you just need to shut everything down, turn everything off, and go get away with God and pray. Build yourself up in the Holy Spirit, especially praying in other tongues.
Sometimes after a long day I will come home just drained, tired inside and out. Eating a good meal and getting some rest takes care of my physical tiredness, but in order to replenish my inner resources, I need to do something else.
For me, reading His Word is food for my spirit, and praying in tongues brings inward rest and rejuvenation.
Even as the Scripture declares in Isaiah 28:11-12, For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, "This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," and, "This is the refreshing."
Take the time to get away and recharge your spiritual batteries.
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All Have Expectations
In His Presence: Psalm 40:1-17
Life is filled with expectations. Look at our everyday lives. Some of us wake up expecting the best in our work day or with our family or in our health or in our finances. Others dread the day, or at best, never expect anything to change for the better.
Childhood dreams and hopes might be crushed by comments that discourage rather than encourage. Disillusionments or disappointments can stop any positive expectations.
What are you expecting in life? Whatever your expectations, there's a good chance you're going to get it. In other words, you get whatever you expect out of life.
Please know that God is still ABLE to deliver you from low expectations. Start believing for something better in your life. The Word tells us that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Expect it!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Watching With Jesus
Stay here and watch with Me -Matthew 26:38
Watch with Me." Jesus was saying, in effect, "Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me." In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular "Gethsemane" experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, "No, Lord, I can't see the meaning of this, and besides, it's very painful." And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don't even know why He is suffering? We don't know how to watch with Him- we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.
The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they "all . . . forsook Him and fled" (Matthew 26:56).
"They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . ." (Acts 2:4). "They" refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events- our Lord's death, resurrection, and ascension- and the disciples have now been invaded and "filled with the Holy Spirit." Our Lord had said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.
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The Prayer of Supplication
Today I want to focus your attention on the prayer of supplication. Ephesians 6:18 tells us,
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints
When Paul says, Praying always with all prayer, the Greek word he uses for prayer is just a general term for prayer used throughout the New Testament.
But the word he uses translated supplication means prayer for definite, specific needs. Most generally, you will find that this is a prayer prayed for others, as is the case in this verse.
In Philippians 1:4, Paul uses this same word for supplication, when he says,
Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.
Both the words translated prayer and request are the Greek word for supplication that we just read in Ephesians 6:18. But here it is translated as prayer and request.
I want you to notice who he is saying to pray for, Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all. It is for someone else.
Recently, I had a pastor friend ask me to pray for his church and their finances. He said things were really tight. So several times I brought the issue before God and made specific requests about it...or supplications.
Now, I did not pray, "I believe I receive it." That is not my place. What I did do was pray for God to help them. I prayed that God would give them wisdom, that God would inspire the people in the church to give, that people would have a heart for souls, and a number of other specific requests over the following several days.
That is the prayer of supplication...praying specific requests for specific people.
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Do You Need to Change Your Expectations?
In His Presence: Acts 3:1-9; 16
As a pastor, I witness people accepting their circumstances with a "crippling" mindset rather than believing God for something better in life.
They are like the lame man in Acts 3 who sat by the gate, Beautiful, begging for money. His only expectation was that a passerby will take pity on him and toss a coin his way. He never expected anything better. He was crippled in his body and his mind.
That's the mindset of those who don't expect things can change in their lives. We all face bad days, but we don't have to let them turn into a bad life.
Do you know anyone like that? Is that you? Jesus' disciples offered the lame man miraculous healing in both his body and his mind. You too can move forward no matter what you face in life.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water -John 7:38
A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, "rivers of living water" will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even "to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow- "This is the work of God, that you believe. . ." (John 6:29). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.
A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ- not emotion nor experience- nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.
Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.
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The Prayer of Intercession
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of intercession...the sixth and last of the kinds of prayer we have been covering over the last week of devotionals.
1 Timothy 2:1 points us to this type of prayer,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.
Intercession, as we find it here, is a technical term for approaching a king on behalf of another. In a general sense, related to prayer, intercession is seeking God on the behalf of others. But, more specifically, it is coming to God for one who has no standing with Him.
A number of years ago, I was ministering in Nigeria, speaking at a large conference in the city of Onitsha. While there, we were invited to go meet the king of Onitsha.
It was pretty exciting driving in a motorcade with little flags on all the cars. I felt like a big shot! But when we got to the palace, we had to have someone go on our behalf in order to meet with the king. I had no standing with the king, and neither did anyone else in our party.
The person who brought us to the king of Onitsha was an intercessor. And that is the idea of this word intercession. You are coming to the King of kings on the behalf of someone who presently has no standing with Him.
Do you remember when Abraham went before God for the city of Sodom-desiring that God would spare Sodom? What was Abraham doing? He was acting as an intercessor. He was coming between God and someone who had no standing with God.
We all should be praying prayers of intercession. You and I are to make intercession for the lost.
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God Wants to Amaze You
In His Presence: Luke 5:1-11
How do you respond when you get a tremendous blessing? We all want to be blessed. Do you accept with gratitude? Do you let the blessing absorb you?
In the gospels, at Jesus' direction Peter let down his net in the water, and the blessing was so huge that the abundance of fish tore holes in Peter's net. His boat was dangerously close to capsizing.
In Luke 5:8, it reads, When Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!"Peter saw beyond the blessing. Peter saw Jesus and recognized his own limitations and his need for the Savior.
Jesus amazed Peter with the overload of fish because He wanted Peter to follow Him and get to know Him better. God wants to amaze you so that you can better understand who He is and love Him even more!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Fountains of Blessings
The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life -John 4:14
The picture our Lord described here is not that of a simple stream of water, but an overflowing fountain. Continue to "be filled" (Ephesians 5:18) and the sweetness of your vital relationship to Jesus will flow as generously out of you as it has been given to you. If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame- something is obstructing the flow. Was Jesus saying to stay focused on the Source so that you may be blessed personally? No, you are to focus on the Source so that out of you "will flow rivers of living water"- irrepressible life (John 7:38).
We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as "rivers of living water" in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you "will flow rivers of living water." It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.
Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, "But I don't see the rivers"? Through the history of God's work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
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Regaining Your Cutting Edge
Over the next several devotionals, I want to focus your attention on something that affects every Christian at one time or another: Losing our spiritual edge.
God wants us to stay spiritually sharp. Consider Ecclesiastes 10:10,
If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but wisdom brings success.
God is using this analogy to illustrate a very important truth: If you lose your edge spiritually, you lose your effectiveness as well.
Maybe you feel that way today. Though you are exerting strenuous effort, you are making little progress in your spiritual life. God wants you to go forward. He wants you to progress and not become stagnant in your spiritual life.
I have a friend whose father was a logger many years ago. It was a time when they cut all the timber by hand with just an ax.
One day his father shared about the way he would operate. After he chopped down a tree, he would sit on the stump of the tree he had just chopped down, take out a file he kept on his belt, and he would sharpen the edge of the ax. He would sit there until the ax was very sharp again, then he would go after the next tree.
Each time he chopped down a tree he would do exactly the same thing. But he said most of the other guys didt do that. They just wanted to keep going, never stopping to sharpen their axes.
Without fail, he said, he always got more done than they did, and he used a lot less effort. They had to exercise more strength, yet they got less done.
Over the next several days, we will look at what it takes to regain that spiritual edge.
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Expect Great Things from a Great Name
In His Presence: Ephesians 3:14-20
If you want to rise up spiritually, you need to hang out with people who will inspire you to higher expectations and help you reach them. If you want a better job, you hang out with the experts in the field, not with unmotivated, unfocused people. If you want to see God move supernaturally in your life, you hang out with people who believe in God's power.
Too many Christians have put a lid on God, expecting little from Him because they don't know the power of His name. The apostles, Peter and John, gave the lame beggar at the gate, Beautiful, something more valuable than silver or gold.
The apostles offered the lame man the name above every other name with all authority: Jesus! There's power in that name, and you TOO can expect great things from that great name.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is There Good in Temptation?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man . . . -1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person's inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal- it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don't know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else-what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations-He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16).
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A Miracle-Working God
Once again I want to take us back to 2 Kings 6:6, which provides for us the sixth key to regaining your cutting edge.
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Perhaps you are wondering just what other principle for regaining your spiritual edge can come from this verse. Well, there is one more, and it is critical to understand because it points to God's part in the process of restoration.
I want you to look at the words,"And he made the iron float."
I don't know about you, but I have never seen an iron ax head float. Clearly this was a miracle. God worked a miracle when the man did his part, looking to the master, taking responsibility, and going to the place where the ax head was lost.
You do your part; God does His part. I like the King James Version as it says, ...the iron did swim. It was against that ax head's nature to swim, but God made it swim.
God brings the restoration. He brings the healing. He brings back that sensitivity and usefulness to Him. I pray that right now God is at work in your heart, and you are responding, making adjustments...regaining your cutting edge.
As you admit to those areas where you have lost your spiritual edge, God is going to restore it. God's part is to make that ax head float once you have admitted where you have failed!
He can restore what has been lost, even if it takes His miracle power to do it.
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Transforming Our Culture
Scripture Reading: Romans 12:9-16
When Jesus Christ returns, we will no longer need to worry about transforming our culture because He will set up His Kingdom rule. But until that time, we need to reach the world for Him and for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
What is the role of Christians in our society? Jeremiah 29:4-11 illustrates this foundational principle: Society is transformed when God's people execute His strategy in history in a Christ-centered way.
The prophet Jeremiah challenged the Jews in Babylonian captivity to regain their spiritual clarity. The Babylonian pagans were not Israel's greatest problem to deal with. The Jews had become pagans themselves and had failed to remain God's distinct, unique people.
When the church fails to be God's unique people, the entire culture will suffer the effects of sin.
God bless
:angel:
September 18, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin -Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord's temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things- he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus' baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One "who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) He "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness" (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation "without sin," and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
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Take It!
The seventh and final key to regaining your cutting edge is found in verse 7 of 2 Kings 6, the passage we have been looking at over the last several days. Here is what that verse says,
Therefore he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.
The sixth key was something that only God could do, and that is to make the ax head float; that is, to restore your cutting edge.
Now we see what we must do in response. You and I must receive what God is offering. Unless you take hold of what God is offering, your spiritual edge will never be restored.
Perhaps over the last several days, as we have looked at how to restore your spiritual edge, God has been speaking to you. Maybe you have come to realize that you are not where you should be in your relationship with God.
Maybe you have lost that sensitivity. Maybe you have lost your cutting edge. I am telling you, you can reach out and take what God is doing to restore your cutting edge.
I want to challenge you to take some time today to search your heart. If you have lost your cutting edge, stop swinging an empty handle and just going through the motions.
Be honest and admit you have lost that edge, determine where it fell, look to the Master, listen to His voice, take responsibility, know that the cross of Christ is completely sufficient to restore you, and then take hold of what God is doing to restore your edge.
God can work that miracle in your life if you will only do your part!
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Don't Depend on Pharaoh
Scripture Reading: Exodus 35:30-33; Proverbs 22:29
Believe it or not, God's strategy to transform society includes the development of economic stability. What does economics have to do with transforming a culture?
In Deuteronomy 28:12, God told Israel that if they would obey Him, they would be a lender to other nations and never a borrower. When God's people disobeyed, they became debtors and were plunged into poverty. They had to depend on pagans, on Pharaoh, for their livelihood.
This economic strategy remains a good one for today. Pagans will not finance God's program. With economic independence via hard work and skills, God's people can continue to make an impact for Christ. We can do His business His way because we're using His resources.
As long as you are working for and dependent upon Pharaoh, he will never let you go.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials -Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? "From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ's honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on "outside the camp" (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow- but only the voice saying, "FollowMe" (Matthew 4:19)
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Created for a Purpose
Many Christians today are not living the successful life God intends because they have missed the purpose for which they were born.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
If you are going to live successfully, you have to know what you are all about. Any tool that is used for something other than what it was created for will not be effective. And it is liable to get damaged.
At times I have needed a hammer to pound in a nail, but I have been too lazy to go out in the garage to get one (don't get too self-righteous, you've done it too!). So I have ended up using whatever I had handy, like a wrench.
Well, you can get the nail in, but you are not going to be very effective. You are liable to dent the wall, and you are liable to damage the wrench.
Too many Christians today are not functioning or flowing in the thing they were created for, and consequently, they are not effective. And sometimes they get hurt and damaged.
You do have a purpose. In fact, the word in Ephesians 2:10 translated workmanship literally means you are handcrafted by God. The Greek word is the same word we derive our English word poem from.
In other words, your life is not to be without order or symmetry or rhyme or reason. God has some specific things mapped out for your life. You are not an accident. You are not excess baggage. You have a purpose.
Ask God today to show you that purpose, and then develop the gifts God has given you to fulfill that purpose.
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Shine Your Light in the Darkness
Scripture Reading: Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:9
Some Christians get nervous about discussions on the Christians' responsibility to the culture. A major concern is that the Gospel will be obscured in favor of social concerns. Let me reassure your, when it comes to the lost, evangelism must come first. We must win people to Christ.
Without Christ, it doesn't matter how much money people have or how good their jobs are. If they die without Christ, they die without hope. We still have to live in this world until Jesus returns. We need to be salt and light in our culture just as Jesus commanded.
We are responsible to recapture our society for Jesus, point people to Him and promote His righteousness in society. Ask yourself, "Am I making anyone around me thirsty for Christ? Am I shining my light in the darkness?"
God bless
:angel:
Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Divine Commandment of Life
. . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect -Matthew 5:48
Our Lord's exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections- some people we like and others we don't like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. ". . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are "perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God's interests in other people. Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian's life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
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Keeping Your Focus
Yesterday we discovered that God does have a purpose for each of our lives. Yet even once we discover our purpose, we must remain focused. Luke 4:42-44 says,
Now when it was day, He departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; but He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent." And He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.
I want you to notice that statement of Jesus, "For this purpose I have been sent." Jesus knew His purpose. He said, "I must preach the kingdom." But notice the people tried to distract Him from that purpose.
I am sure the people meant well, but they were trying to divert Jesus from His purpose. But Jesus knew His purpose; therefore, He did not stay.
People will innocently divert you from doing what God has called you to do. It is only when you know your purpose that you will not be sidetracked, and you will not be distracted from what you are supposed to do.
The apostle Paul knew his purpose. In fact, he said this in 1 Corinthians 9:26, "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step" (The Living Bible). He was not about to get distracted from God's purpose for his life.
Our lives are not to be aimless, but they are to have purpose and direction, and we are to stay focused on that purpose, running straight at that goal. Keep focused on the purpose for which God has created you.
Be able to say like Paul, "I am running straight to the goal with purpose in every step."
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Who's the Real Enemy?
Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, 17-22
Our nation faces a crisis of social deterioration which would have been unimaginable a generation ago. Our society needs radical transformation. Yes, we're in a culture war, but we need to know who the real enemy is.
The real enemy, working behind the scenes, is Satan. Yet the number one reason Satan can influence the schools, the media and government is because Christians have abandoned our culture and handed it over.
Christian morality no longer permeates, and society has lost its best moral frame of reference. We need a whole new generation of people who know, revere and follow God. If we humble ourselves before the Father, He will give us the power to take our culture back.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Missionary's Predestined Purpose
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant . . . -Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances- we are turned solely into servants of God's own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God's purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God's great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in
John 3:16
- "For God so loved the world. . . ."
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God's creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God's servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God's purpose for your life
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Living with Passion
I want to focus your attention today on two passages. The first is Ecclesiastes 9:10,
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
The second passage is Colossians 3:23,
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.
Do you see the common theme? God desires us to live our lives full out, with passion. Whether you are a preacher, a writer, a teacher, or a singer, whatever you do, you are to do it with passion. You are to throw yourself into it.
People are attracted to passion. They want to see someone who is burning with a fiery zeal for whatever they do!
In my opinion, the greatest example of a passionate person is Jesus. Remember the story when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple? That was a passionate act. In fact, the end of that passage says, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up."
Zeal is just another word for passion. "Passion for Your house has eaten Me up!" Have you ever tried to imagine Jesus doing that? I have a very clear image of what that must have been like.
He is whipping these guys and they are running, covering their heads. He is throwing over these big tables and the disciples are watching with their mouths wide open, when they remember the verse, "Zeal (passion) for Your house has eaten Me up."
Let me ask you a question: When is the last time you were eaten up with zeal for anything? When is the last time you were utterly passionate about anything?
Don't just sleepwalk through life. You need to decide you are going to live!
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God Used Moses, "the Murderer"
Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:4-6
One mistake can change the course of our lives. One bad decision can cost us years. In Moses' case, the mistake was murder. In a fit of anger, he killed an Egyptian and then fled for his life. He went from living as a prince of Egypt to growing old with the sheep in the desert. He was certain that it was too late for anything good to come of his life.
Many of our lives have been forever changed by a single decision, and the consequences have left us feeling as though our existence has little significance. But it wasn't too late for Moses, and it's not too late for you.
When he was 80 - after 40 years of waiting - Moses' mistake brought him to the right place to meet with God, who used him to lead an entire nation out of slavery. Cry out to God, and He will meet you in His presence.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Preparation
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift-Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord's words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. ". . . go your way. First be reconciled to your brother. . . ." The "go" of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don't just admit it- confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, "I will not give up my right to myself"- the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
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The Value of Play
I think we would all agree that the Christian life is one to be taken seriously. But in our desire to go all out for Christ, we can get to a place where we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained.
God does not intend for us to live our lives that way. In fact, in 1 Timothy 6:17, Paul tells us,
God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
You and I need to take time to enjoy the things God gives us. In fact, Jesus said this to His disciples in Mark 6:31, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."
It is so easy to live our lives believing that somehow it is more spiritual to be on the edge of exhaustion all the time. But God clearly tells us that we are to take time to rejuvenate and to enjoy the things He has put into our lives.
When I was a young minister, I had the chance to meet with a seasoned minister who had literally changed the world for Christ. I thought, "Man, this is my golden opportunity. I'm going to ask him some questions."
So I said to him, "Look, I'm a young man in ministry. You have had decades more experience than me. You have impacted the world. What is the best advice you could give me as a young minister?"
And he said, "Well, Bayless, you have a nice golf swing. My advice is that you get some lessons. And whatever it costs you, join a country club and play golf regularly." Then he looked at me and said, "Golf is the only thing that's kept me alive."
It was some of the best advice I had ever received.
You need to make sure you live a balanced life. Take time for rest and for play. Recharge your batteries. You are in this thing for the long haul.
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All for God's Glory
Scripture Reading: Psalm 136:1-9
First Corinthians 10:31 tells us that even our eating and drinking should be done to the glory of God.
God's glory is like a pair of colored glasses that tint everything you see. Whatever you do should be done for His glory. About everything, you should ask, "How will this glorify God?"
The whole earth gives us a picture of the glory of God. Nature preaches us a sermon on His glory. Everything should point to His glory.
Revelation 21:23 says that when we get to heaven, there will be no need of the sun or moon because the glory of the Lord will illuminate everything. There will be no night there, for the place will be consumed with the glory of God. His glory is so awesome that it will light up our heavenly home!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Relationship
Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two-Matthew 5:41
Our Lord's teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a super-natural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice. No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself- a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, "I am here for God to send me where He will." Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally. And as long as we consciously maintain the determined purpose to be His disciples, we can be sure that we are not disciples. Jesus says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you. . ." (John 15:16). That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we can never escape; we can disobey it, but we can never start it or produce it ourselves. We are drawn to God by a work of His supernatural grace, and we can never trace back to find where the work began. Our Lord's making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us- He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace, and that is where the cross we must bear will always come.
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The Prayer of Personal Edification
Today's devotional brings us to the prayer of personal edification. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, Paul writes,
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
In verse 14, Paul says, If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Coupled together with his statement in verse 4, we can see that praying in tongues edifies our spirit.
Edifies is actually an old English word. It means to build an edifice or building higher and higher. The closest modern way to say that would be "charges himself with energy," just like you would recharge a battery.
When I pray in other tongues, I charge my spirit with energy. I build myself up. It is like my cell phone. It needs to be recharged, or before long it will cease to work.
Sometimes I keep my phone on and talk on it while it is recharging, but when I do that it takes a whole lot longer to recharge. If I turn it off and plug it in, the charging process happens much quicker.
Sometimes you just need to shut everything down, turn everything off, and go get away with God and pray. Build yourself up in the Holy Spirit, especially praying in other tongues.
Sometimes after a long day I will come home just drained, tired inside and out. Eating a good meal and getting some rest takes care of my physical tiredness, but in order to replenish my inner resources, I need to do something else.
For me, reading His Word is food for my spirit, and praying in tongues brings inward rest and rejuvenation.
Even as the Scripture declares in Isaiah 28:11-12, For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, "This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," and, "This is the refreshing."
Take the time to get away and recharge your spiritual batteries.
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You were Custom Made
Scripture Reading: Psalm 139:1-6
There's nothing quite like having a custom-made shirt. On one shirt that I had custom made - cut especially for me - I even had my initials embroidered on the cuff. When you get something custom-made, it is fitted to your uniqueness, crafted with you in mind, and you are proud of it.
Now think about this: YOU have been custom-made by Almighty God, and your days were ordained before time into being. When you read Psalm 139:15-16, I want you to pay close attention to how God has placed all the parts of your life in order. He's got your whole life in His hands. This means you can stop trying to be somebody else and be satisfied with the unique person God made you to be.
You are custom-made! When you live in that realization, you will shine brighter than ever. Walking in God's purpose for you will turn out to be the greatest adventure you've ever jumped into!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Reconciliation
If you . . . remember that your brother has something against you . . . -Matthew 5:23
This verse says, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you . . . ." It is not saying, "If you search and find something because of your unbalanced sensitivity," but, "If you . . . remember . . . ." In other words, if something is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God- "First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:24). Never object to the intense sensitivity of the Spirit of God in you when He is instructing you down to the smallest detail.
"First be reconciled to your brother . . . ." Our Lord's directive is simple- "First be reconciled . . . ." He says, in effect, "Go back the way you came- the way indicated to you by the conviction given to you at the altar; have an attitude in your mind and soul toward the person who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing." Jesus does not mention the other person- He says for you to go. It is not a matter of your rights. The true mark of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
". . . and then come and offer your gift." The process of reconciliation is clearly marked. First we have the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden restraint by the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, and then we are stopped at the point of our conviction. This is followed by obedience to the Word of God, which builds an attitude or state of mind that places no blame on the one with whom you have been in the wrong. And finally there is the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
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The Ten Commandments of Marriage
Good marriages don't just happen. It is not just because you married the right person and got lucky. Good marriages are built on more than passion. They are built on principle.
In the Scriptures, we find the best guidelines and principles for a healthy marriage. God's words and God's principles are never ever outdated...never! They are just as applicable today as they were to ancient Jews living in Israel.
What I want to do over the next couple of weeks of devotionals is point us to principles God has given us in a place you might not think was intended for marriage. That place is the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20.
Today, let me give you those Ten Commandments. What I would like you to do is spend time reading these carefully, and then take time to pray over each one. Ask God to begin to open your heart to see how these commands could be looked at as principles for marriage. I had a friend who challenged me to do the same, and I was amazed at what I discovered.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image...
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain...
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
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Created for Eternity
Scripture Reading: Psalm 90:1-12
Many people live their entire lives not really understanding why they were put on earth. What a tragedy and grave state of existence. It's even possible to be successful, happy and popular but miss the point of living.
The moment we become the center of life is the moment we miss the true meaning and the reason that God created us. It's important for us to realize that God has created us for Him, not for our own benefit. God has created all of us for eternity. In fact, Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has placed eternity in our hearts.
When we begin seeing life through the lens of eternity, we will live differently. Our choices, decisions, values and priorities will line up with God's Word and His plan for our lives.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Reconciliation
If you . . . remember that your brother has something against you . . . -Matthew 5:23
This verse says, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you . . . ." It is not saying, "If you search and find something because of your unbalanced sensitivity," but, "If you . . . remember . . . ." In other words, if something is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God- "First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:24). Never object to the intense sensitivity of the Spirit of God in you when He is instructing you down to the smallest detail.
"First be reconciled to your brother . . . ." Our Lord's directive is simple- "First be reconciled . . . ." He says, in effect, "Go back the way you came- the way indicated to you by the conviction given to you at the altar; have an attitude in your mind and soul toward the person who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing." Jesus does not mention the other person- He says for you to go. It is not a matter of your rights. The true mark of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
". . . and then come and offer your gift." The process of reconciliation is clearly marked. First we have the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden restraint by the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, and then we are stopped at the point of our conviction. This is followed by obedience to the Word of God, which builds an attitude or state of mind that places no blame on the one with whom you have been in the wrong. And finally there is the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
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The First Commandment of Marriage: Exclusivity
The first of the Ten Commandments is simply this, as found in Exodus 20:3,
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
What is God saying in this commandment? That He wants to have an exclusive relationship with you. He wants to be your one and only. He will not settle for flavor of the month.
And how appropriate in marriage as well. We are to have an exclusive relationship with our spouse.
It's been said that Henry Ford, on his golden wedding anniversary...50 years of marriage...was asked, "What's the secret of your success in marriage?" And he said, "The secret of my successful marriage is the same secret that I have in business: I stick to the same model."
In traditional wedding vows, the man and woman pledge their devotion until death parts them. For life. There is no competition.
My wife has no competition. I am not shopping for a new model. I do not want to trade in the old model. I will not be shopping in the future. One is all I need.
When God made man, He said it is good. But then He said, "It is not good that he is alone. I am going to make a helper suitable for him." And the Bible says God took one of Adam's ribs, and He formed a woman, Eve, and brought her to the man.
God did not take four or five ribs and say, "Okay, Adam, here is Eve, and here is Lois, and here is Samantha, and here is Rachel." No, it was just one. And to have a healthy marriage relationship, that is it.
I am committed for life. An exclusive relationship. I am not shopping, not even window-shopping. One God. One wife. That is enough.
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Living for the Right Purpose
Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:27-28; Philippians 3:8
Purpose is a popular topic that many of us find fascinating. We all want to be validated and know that we are here on earth for a specific reason. We may have never learned about our purpose while growing up and may still have a difficult time understanding it.
The good news is that God wants us to realize our purpose. He didn't create us to live with no direction, just wandering aimlessly through life. Too many times, we complicate God's plan for our lives. As believers, God's highest purpose is for us to walk in a close relationship with Him and to reach others with His love.
As we walk in obedience to these basic principles outlined in His Word, God begins to reveal to us a very specific purpose that matches our DNA. Acts 13:36 tells of David, who lived a purposeful life for the Lord in his generation. What a great legacy to leave behind!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The "Go" of Unconditional Identification
Jesus . . . said to him, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor . . . and come, take up the cross, and follow Me' -Mark 10:21
The rich young ruler had the controlling passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never places anyone's personal holiness above everything else when He calls a disciple. Jesus' primary consideration is my absolute annihilation of my right to myself and my identification with Him, which means having a relationship with Him in which there are no other relationships. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but deals solely with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us truly know what is meant by the absolute "go" of unconditional identification with, and abandonment and surrender to, Jesus.
"Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . ." (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"One thing you lack . . . ." From Jesus Christ's perspective, oneness with Him, with nothing between, is the only good thing.
". . . sell whatever you have . . . ." I must humble myself until I am merely a living person. I must essentially renounce possessions of all kinds, not for salvation (for only one thing saves a person and that is absolute reliance in faith upon Jesus Christ), but to follow Jesus. ". . . come. . . and follow Me." And the road is the way He went.
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The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute
In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Don not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."
Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.
Love your husband only. Love your wife only. Do not look for fulfillment in some other relationship or in some other thing. Find your fulfillment in that relationship.
Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.
Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.
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God Never Makes Mistakes
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 32:4; Matthew 5:48
Everyone makes mistakes, right? Be assured that God, our Creator, has never made a mistake. Deuteronomy 32:4 says His work is perfect, and you and I are some of His greatest works. Believe me, there are no failures or flaws in His plan for you.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Those who believe that the Earth and everything on it evolved by chance or luck into what they are today are incorrect. God purposefully and supernaturally created each and every one of us and continues to sustain us.
There is no room for chance or luck if you believe God is the Creator and Sustainer. God's power allows all things to happen in our lives for His purpose. We are not the coming together of random forces in the universe. We are the creation of God's power and perfect work... never a mistake.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Exaltation
. . . Jesus took . . . them up on a high mountain apart by themselves . . . -Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God's perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14-18). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life- those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, "What's the use of this experience?" We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose.
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The Fifth Commandment of Marriage:
Honor Your Spouse by Showing How Grateful You Are
The fifth commandment gives us our next principle for a healthy and vibrant marriage. It is found in Exodus 20:12,
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."
Among other things, God is saying we must be grateful. Generally, parents spend a lot of time, labor, and money...sometimes to the point of radical sacrifice...to give their kids an edge in life.
And it is a tragedy when a child is ungrateful or unthankful. William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It is very difficult to have a relationship with an ungrateful, selfish person.
"Thank you" are important words to your parents, and an incredibly important phrase in marriage. It is difficult to live with someone who takes you and all of your efforts for granted.
You may be thinking, "I don't say it, but I am grateful in my heart. I truly am!" Well, hooray for you. You are blessed because in your heart you know you are grateful. But it does your spouse no good if you do not vocalize it.
If you do not demonstrate your gratitude, I doubt if you are really grateful because Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If it is not being expressed, chances are it is not truly there.
Maybe you think you don't have a lot to be grateful for. But there must be something you can say "thank you" for. There is something you can praise your mate for. Look for those things, and accentuate the positive.
Take time today to express thanks to your spouse in some way...through an action, through a card, through words. That is how you honor your mate.
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Blessed are the Merciful
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:1-12
All of us have had to carry heavy circumstances that weigh us down, and we needed something to lift the burden off our shoulders. We need mercy. Mercy reduces, removes or relieves someone's distress. It is simply compassion in action.
The Bible says in Ephesians 2:4, God is rich in mercy. In other words, God is rich in blessing us with divine favor and compassion, releasing us from distress, discouragement, brokenness, pain and problems. Mercy is in fact God's reaction to our misery.
Mercy is asking God to not let us bear the full weight of our burdens. Everyone needs mercy. Lamentations 3 states that God's mercies are new every morning. Every day you wake up, you wake up to mercy. You got up today with new life, and guess what? New life means new opportunities. That's another day and a new opportunity to praise Him.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Humiliation
If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us -Mark 9:22
After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God- that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see Mark 9:5-6 , Mark 14-23).
"If you can do anything . . . ." It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus- will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation?
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The Sixth Commandment of Marriage:
Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle
Today we are going to look at the sixth commandment of marriage, based on the sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."
While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!
Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered...who are violent or have an explosive temper...destroy relationships.
If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.
Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.
Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold...using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.
If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.
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Blessed are the Spiritually Famished
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:6; Psalm 107:1-9
We've all seen the televised images of starving children in countries experiencing food and water shortages. Mothers, holding their babies with bellies bloated from severe malnutrition, desperately seek food and water. If they can't find what they seek, their children will die.
This kind of desperation is what Jesus was talking about when He told us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. He wants us to be as passionate about doing God's will as parents in developing countries are about getting food or clean water. Our bodies can't survive without food, and our souls can't live without righteousness.
So how do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? It is the passionate pursuit of God's righteousness in our own lives. His righteousness is living in God's will day in and day out.
When we passionately pursue His will, other things become less of a priority and we will remove any distractions that do not contribute to that pursuit.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Ministry
He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting' -Mark 9:29
His disciples asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?' " (Mark 9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
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The Seventh Commandment of Marriage:
Do Not Commit Adultery
The seventh commandment brings us to one of the most vital principles of having the marriage God intends. Exodus 20:14 simply says,
"You shall not commit adultery."
In a marriage, you would be hard pressed to imagine anything more damaging than your spouse being unfaithful. But being faithful is not only being faithful in action, but also in thought.
Again, Jesus expanded on this in Matthew 5, and I want you to read these words very carefully. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Having a lustful, exploitive disposition has no place in marriage. Love gives; lust takes. Love serves; lust demands. Love nourishes; lust chokes.
What a wonderful gift God has given us in this thing called sex. It was His idea. It is just as holy as when you lift your hands in church and worship Him. It is God's idea within the context and the confines of marriage. It should be enjoyed.
But lust has no place in marriage. It is a poison that will destroy the fabric of your relationship with your spouse.
Men, do not even entertain the thought of allowing pornography into your life. It can destroy your marriage. You are committing heart-adultery when you look at pornographic images and lust after another woman. Do not let the devil have that ground in your heart and life.
This is such a vital command, over the next few devotionals we are going to stay on this subject. I will share with you three ways to affair-proof your marriage.
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Blessed are the Spiritually Famished
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:6; Psalm 107:1-9
We've all seen the televised images of starving children in countries experiencing food and water shortages. Mothers, holding their babies with bellies bloated from severe malnutrition, desperately seek food and water. If they can't find what they seek, their children will die.
This kind of desperation is what Jesus was talking about when He told us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. He wants us to be as passionate about doing God's will as parents in developing countries are about getting food or clean water. Our bodies can't survive without food, and our souls can't live without righteousness.
So how do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? It is the passionate pursuit of God's righteousness in our own lives. His righteousness is living in God's will day in and day out.
When we passionately pursue His will, other things become less of a priority and we will remove any distractions that do not contribute to that pursuit.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Vision and The Reality
. . . to those who are . . . called to be saints . . . -1 Corinthians 1:2
Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.
There are times when we do know what God's purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.
Our little "I am" always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little "I am" be shriveled up in God's wrath and indignation-"I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn't it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.
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-Proof Your Marriage with Positive Affirmation
The first way to affair-proof your marriage is to season your marriage with affirming communication.
In Song of Solomon 7:1-6 we read of how Solomon affirmed his bride,
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your navel is a rounded goblet; it lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple; a king is held captive by your tresses. How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
Solomon knew it was vital for him to compliment his bride's body, because, as you read in chapter 1, it is evident that it was an area of insecurity for her.
This Shulamite was a country girl. She said, "Do not look on me for I am dark." She was tan from working out in the vineyards. And compared with the fair-skinned, pampered ladies of the court, she felt very insecure.
So Solomon very wisely builds her up in the area where she feels most insecure.
Speak affirming words to your mate rather than tear him or her down. If your spouse is starved for positive affirmation, and it does not come from you, it opens a door of temptation. The devil will send someone to give insincere compliments, and if a person is starved for it, they gravitate towards it.
Praise one another lavishly. It is an important thing to do
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Blessed are the Pure in Heart
Scripture Reading: Exodus 33:18-19; Matthew 5:8; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6,16; 7:1
Eating organic food is a big health craze right now. No one wants to eat the stuff that's been sprayed with pesticides or pumped full of steroids and preservatives. Why? Because it's a proven fact that the extra stuff will contaminate our bodies and make us sick. When we eat food that man has messed with, we keep our bodies from functioning as God intended.
The same principle applies to our hearts. When we feed our hearts what the world dishes out, we keep them from doing what they were meant to do.
But when we focus our hearts on God's Word and worship God with our thoughts and actions, He will keep our hearts pure. Only then will our hearts be capable of doing what they were meant to do - help us see God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Coming to Jesus
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Isn't it humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things about which we will not come to Jesus Christ. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words- "Come to Me . . . ." In every dimension in which you are not real, you will argue or evade the issue altogether rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; and you will do anything rather than come the last lap of the race of seemingly unspeakable foolishness and say, "Just as I am, I come." As long as you have even the least bit of spiritual disrespect, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do something very big, and yet all He is telling you to do is to "Come . . . ."
"Come to Me . . . ." When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, and it will involve anything that will uproot whatever is preventing you from getting through to Jesus. And you will never get any further until you are willing to do that very thing. The Holy Spirit will search out that one immovable stronghold within you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him do so.
How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away thinking, "I've really received what I wanted this time!" And yet you go away with nothing, while all the time God has stood with His hands outstretched not only to take you but also for you to take Him. Just think of the invincible, unconquerable, and untiring patience of Jesus, who lovingly says, "Come to Me. . . ."
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy
In the last two devotionals, we have learned that we can affair-proof our marriages through positive affirmation and companionship. The third way to affair-proof your marriage is by making intimacy a priority.
Let me take you back to the Scripture we read yesterday, Song of Solomon 7:10-13,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
These verses paint a beautiful picture of intimacy between a husband and wife. Couples need to have physical intimacy. In fact, the New Testament commands the husband and wife not to deprive one another except by mutual consent, and then only if they are going to fast and pray.
So how do you create an atmosphere of intimacy? It starts with affirming your spouse. Notice that Solomon has been affirming his wife, complimenting her, building her up.
Now guys, you need to understand that women are wired differently than you. In order for a woman to be intimate, she needs to speak and be spoken to. You have to create an atmosphere for intimacy.
For most husbands, they just catch a glimpse of their wife in the shower and they are ready to go. But for women, it starts differently than that. She is aroused by words, sincere words, and it usually starts around breakfast time.
Take time today to create an atmosphere of intimacy. If you do, you will be on your way to experiencing true intimacy, as we will see in tomorrow's devotional.
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God Used Rahab, "the Harlot"
Scripture Reading: Joshua 2
Rahab was a lady of the evening. She was known as "Rahab, the prostitute," yet her name is included both in the Gospel of Matthew's genealogy of Jesus and the book of Hebrew's "Hall of Faith." Her story demonstrates the power of faith to transform lives and overcome difficult circumstances.
Rahab lived at the wall of Jericho, and when the two Hebrew spies stayed at her house, she placed her trust in the protection of their God. She'd heard the stories of the God of Israel, and she chose to appeal to His goodness instead of giving in to the threats of Jericho's ruler. Because of her faith, she was adopted into the people of God and she became a symbol of remarkable faith.
Not only did Rahab's faith change her life, but it moved God to protect everyone in her family and household when Jericho was destroyed. One woman's faith changed an entire family's destiny.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Building on the Atonement
. . . present . . . your members as instruments of righteousness to God -Romans 6:13
I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it. If I construct my faith on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life- an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation- it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every kind of experience you have by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
The atonement of Jesus must be exhibited in practical, unassuming ways in my life. Every time I obey, the absolute deity of God is on my side, so that the grace of God and my natural obedience are in perfect agreement. Obedience means that I have completely placed my trust in the atonement, and my obedience is immediately met by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.
Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life- it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the trial or test of the atonement and ask, "Where is the discernment of the atonement in this, and in that?"
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy-Part 2
Yesterday we learned the first step in experiencing intimacy in marriage...by creating an atmosphere for that intimacy. Today, I want us to see the results of that deliberate effort.
As we mentioned yesterday, Solomon has been complimenting his wife and affirming her. Look at her response to that affirmation in Song of Solomon 7:10,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
She is digging it! She is saying, "He really loves me!" Solomon's affirmation of his bride has created this atmosphere of intimacy. And look what she says next in verse 11,
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.
She is grabbing Solomon's hand and saying, "Let's get a hotel room!" Then there are verses 12-13,
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Friend, catch what is going on. Solomon has affirmed his wife saying, "Honey, you are beautiful! I am so glad I married you. I married out of my league. You are wonderful. Your body is great. I am so happy!"
Her response? "Wow, he loves me. I'll tell you what, let's go away and have a little love vacation. Let's take a few days off." That is enough to get any husband inspired to rent a hotel room!
If you want to affair-proof your marriage, make intimacy a priority!
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God Used Jacob, "the Liar"
Scripture Reading: Genesis 25:26-34
The name "Jacob" means deceiver. Jacob was crafty, tricky and skilled in the ways of manipulation. He was the kind of person who had big dreams and ambitions and was always looking for an angle. He wanted a blessing.
The Bible's reference to "blessing" describes the transfer of divine favor and authority. To be blessed means that we receive from God something that we have no ability to generate on our own. However, the only way we can get that kind of blessing is through brokenness . . . the realization that our self-sufficiency, our willpower and our talents are not enough.
Jacob learned this the hard way. He got his blessing, but it was more than he bargained for. God blessed him by wrestling with him, shaping his character and changing his name from deceiver to Israel, which means "wrestles with God." Jacob realized that the blessing was about more than what he got; it was about passing this blessing on to the next generation. You'll be ready to receive the blessing of God when you realize it's about what you give to others, not just what God gives to you
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Will I Know?
Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes' -Matthew 11:25
We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step- we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin- "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God's revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don't say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).
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The Eighth Commandment of Marriage: Be a Person of Integrity
Exodus 20:15 gives us the eighth commandment for marriage,
You shall not steal.
You may be wondering how stealing applies to marriage. Simple. Not to steal is to be a person of integrity.
If you are always cheating or cutting corners, it will be hard for your spouse to respect you. Your uprightness should make your marriage partner feel proud. Your spouse and your family ought to testify of your integrity. This is really one of the things at the heart of a good marriage.
If you are married to somebody, and you know they cheat their customers, it is just hard to respect that person. You cannot respect someone who does not have integrity.
This is a big issue that many people fly right by. But it is vital to a healthy and vibrant marriage because it is hard to fully give yourself to someone who does not have integrity.
If you find that your spouse is holding back, if you feel like he or she does not respect you, take a look inside and see if you are compromising with your integrity. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you tell that "little white lie" to protect yourself or gain an advantage?
Do you represent yourself one way, when in fact in your heart you believe something totally different? Are you like the man Solomon speaks of in Proverbs 23:7?
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
If this is an issue in your life, take it to God today. He will help you become the person of integrity He desires you to be. And when you do, you will find your spouse will come to respect you, and your marriage will be strengthened!
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God Used Samson, "the Player"
Scripture Reading: Judges 13
Samson was every woman's dream and every man's nightmare. He had supernatural strength, heroic bravery and the fighting spirit of a warrior. God gave him these gifts because his parents dedicated him to the Lord from his birth. In time, Samson's love for women caused him to compromise his call. When he lost his purity, he also lost the strength and power that God had given him. Chasing the pleasures of the world left him powerless, defeated and humiliated.
However, in his brokenness at the end of his life Samson rediscovered the call God had given him to liberate his people. When he used the blessings of God to serve others he changed history.
Don't chase the pleasures of the world but dedicate your life to serving God and others. No matter where you are, it's not too late. When you realize God's purpose for your life isn't just about you, He will use you in a mighty way.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Silence- Then What?
When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was -John 11:6
Has God trusted you with His silence- a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible- with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).
A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy- silence.
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The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful
The ninth commandment for marriage speaks to the heart of any marriage, trust. It is found in Exodus 20:16,
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Someone who would lie about their neighbor, for whatever reason, is not going to make a good marriage partner. Honesty and trust are at the heart of a good marriage.
If you take advantage of people for your own gain, speaking untruthfully to get ahead, you are not a person to be trusted. And you ultimately are the loser.
I am reminded of the guy who was in a fender bender, and he feigned an injury, pretended like he hurt his arm and his shoulder. As a result, the poor little lady who had run into his car was subjected to a truly horrible situation. She was grilled by attorneys, had to give depositions, and ended up in court.
But this guy continued trying to take her for all she was worth. He didn't care because he knew she had money. He didn't care if she had to give up her house. He was looking at an opportunity to get rich.
The attorney for the lady's insurance company put him on the stand and said, "I would like to know, since the accident, since you injured your arm and your shoulder, how far can you now raise your arm?"
With great pain etched on his face, he said, "Well...'bout here. That's it. Just to here." Then the attorney asked, "Well, how far could you lift it before the accident?" The guy responded, raising his arm with ease, "I could lift it up to here."
Needless to say, he lost.
Anyone who is not truthful will ultimately lose. And if your spouse will lie to someone else, he or she will lie to you.
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The Authority of Christ over Circumstances
You may never have to feed 5,000 people like Jesus did in the story in Mark 6, but you may still experience seemingly impossible situations. Remember these seven keys as you trust in Christ to overcome the insurmountable circumstances in your life.
- Rest and prepare yourself for God's service.
- Make sure you have a compassionate attitude.
- Remember that God is interested in building His Kingdom through your situations.
- Live so that non-believers can see Jesus through for you.
- Always give thanks for what God has given you, so He can use you to bless others.
- Trust God during the impossible circumstances of life.
- Remember that He works through weak things to make miraculous things.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Getting into God's Stride
Enoch walked with God . . . -Genesis 5:24
The true test of a person's spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person's worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight (seeJohn 1:35-37 and John 3:30). It is painful work to get in step with God and to keep pace with Him- it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God, there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride, but once we have done so, the only characteristic that exhibits itself is the very life of God Himself. The individual person is merged into a personal oneness with God, and God's stride and His power alone are exhibited.
It is difficult to get into stride with God, because as soon as we start walking with Him we find that His pace has surpassed us before we have even taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus- "He will not fail nor be discouraged . . ." (Isaiah 42:4) because He never worked from His own individual standpoint, but always worked from the standpoint of His Father. And we must learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning. It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God's stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give up because the pain is intense right now- get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.
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The Tenth Commandment of Marriage: Be Content with What You Have
Today we come to the final commandment for marriage. That commandment is based on the tenth commandment given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 20:17,
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
This command is very direct. Do not covet. Don't be discontent with what you have. Do not make what you don't have the focus of your life. Accentuate what you do have and what God has blessed you and your spouse with.
You do this by celebrating your husband's or wife's strengths and giftings rather than thinking, "Oh, I wish he was this way," or, "I wish she had that."
If Janet compared me to her brothers, I would be in big trouble. Her brothers are these "Mr. Fix-It" guys who can do anything mechanical. If you are with me and our car breaks down on a desolate road, we are going to be in some serious trouble. I can pray, but do not expect me to fix the car.
Her brothers are another story. One just built a house from the ground up; and if anything mechanical breaks down, he can fix it.
While I am not a Mr. Fix-It, there are other things I am good at. I am so grateful that Janet wants to pull those out of me and give wings to those gifts. And I want to do the same thing for her.
You will always get into trouble if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Just water your own grass. Because on the other side of the fence, it's just Astroturf anyway.
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The Authority of Christ over Satan
Scripture Reading: 1 John 5:1-20
The Bible says that God tempts no man to sin (James 1:13). Whenever you sin, don't blame God. God never tempts us, but He does tests us. Do you understand the difference?
Testing is designed to validate your victory in Christ. Temptation is Satan's attempt to defeat you spiritually. Ironically, the test and the temptation can be the same event. God can use something - a circumstance, a situation, a problem - that is a test. Yet Satan is using it as a temptation.
Your response can be a testimony to God's power, so Satan works to discredit your testimony in an effort to dishonor God. Our heavenly Father wants to know whether your "amen" on Sunday works on Monday, and Satan wants you to leave the sermon at the church. Remember Christ has ALL authority over Satan, so you can win every time.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world -1 John 2:2
The key to the missionary's message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus- His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ's work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But- "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"- that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary's message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.
The real key to the missionary's message is the "remissionary" aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. ". . . repentance and remission of sins should be preached . . . to all nations . . ." (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins . . . ." The missionary's message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is "for the whole world." When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim "the Lamb of God." It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, "Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me," but, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel- "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
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Gaining the Victory
We live in a society of addictions, of bondage to so many things. Maybe you are in bondage to cigarettes, or alcohol, or pornography, or anger, or any number of other things.
Whatever the condition that has you in bondage today, God's hand and God's arm can lift you up and untangle you and set you free. In Psalm 98:1 we are told,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
We find repeatedly throughout the Old Testament how, through God's mighty hand and His outstretched arm, He redeemed His people out of slavery and out of bondage.
Now here is the question. Does it just sort of randomly happen? Do we have to wait and see if we are one of the lucky ones God will choose to extend His mighty arm to help? Or, is there anything that we can do to cooperate with God to see His arm extended in our behalf?
The answer is yes, we can, and we must cooperate with God.
In Isaiah 51:5 God tells us,
"My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust."
The way we cooperate with God is to trust in His arm; not in our own arm, but in His. If you want to see God's mighty arm move on your behalf, then trust Him alone! Do not trust your intelligence, your ingenuity, your education, your status in life, your wealth, or any other thing.
Trust in God alone. And you will have the victory.
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Maturity is a Process
Scripture Reading: John 14:25-27; Luke 10:38-42
As we grow in our relationship with God, so does our spiritual maturity. Growing isn't always fun - in fact, it can be pretty painful - but during our trials and hard times, we must never forget a simple truth.
We can choose to learn from life's difficulties and hardships and mature into the man or woman God has created us to be, or we can choose to be upset and learn nothing.
James 1:2-4 tells us to consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (NIV).
The next time you face a trial or difficult situation, look to God for your joy and strength and know that He is using it to usher you into a new level.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Master's Orders
Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest -Matthew 9:38
The key to the missionary's difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work- that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary's difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master's orders- the key is prayer. "Pray the Lord of the harvest . . . ." In the natural realm, prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the commonsense point of view.
From Jesus Christ's perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person- Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father's or your brother's life- are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, "a servant [who] is not greater than his master" (John 13:16), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work- He calls us to Himself. "Pray the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.
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T-R-U-S-T
In our last devotional, we talked about the need to trust God. You may wonder, what does trust really mean? Let me help you understand by using the word T-R-U-S-T as an acronym.
"T" stands for trust...which means that if you are going to trust Him, you have to take Him at His word. Even if it seems like it is not true, you take Him at His word. If we will take Him at His word, He will guide us through the course of life and bring us across the finish line safely.
"R" stands for rest. The Bible tells us to rest in the Lord. 1 Peter 5:7 says, Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Do not worry. Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but you don't get anywhere.
"U" stands for understanding. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. Sometimes things just won't make sense to your understanding.
"S" stands for speech.
The final "T" stands for thanksgiving. We offer thanks to God in advance. Philippians 4:6 says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. When we offer thanks to God, it is an expression of our faith.
That's T-R-U-S-T!
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Transformed by Trials
Scripture Reading: John 14:25-27; Luke10:38-42
One of the primary means God uses to make you and me like Jesus Christ is by sending trouble our way. You see, reshaping us to the image of Christ is not minor surgery; it takes a major transformation.
Just like a sculptor takes a piece of marble slab and chips away at it in order to bring out an image, God uses troubles to reshape us.
We just need to remember, when we are going through trials, we must change what we are looking at. We have to come at it from the right perspective. "Lord, this is a rough time right now. I am not sure why you sent this to me, but I want to give you thanks and I rejoice at the fact that this is going to be a transforming event in my life. I am going to be more like Christ when we finish this one.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key of the Greater Work
. . . I say to you, he who believes in Me, . . . greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father -John 14:12
Prayer does not equip us for greater works- prayer is the greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God's work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God. The way fruit remains firm is through prayer, but remember that it is prayer based on the agony of Christ in redemption, not on my own agony. We must go to God as His child, because only a child gets his prayers answered; a "wise" man does not (see Matthew 11:25).
Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are. However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray. Never allow yourself this thought, "I am of no use where I am," because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him. And He promises, "Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . ." (John 14:13). Yet we refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. We must learn to work according to God's direction, and He says to pray. "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matthew 9:38).
There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God's perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.
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The Power of Humility
One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is spiritual arrogance.
When pride wells up in our heart, it can absolutely take our spiritual legs out from under us, and keep the strong arm of the Lord from being revealed in our lives.
In 1 Peter 5:6, we are given the antidote to pride. It says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
It is unfortunate, but there are some who emphasize the message of faith that at times do so with a touch of arrogance rather than humility. The result is that it has really turned some people off to the whole message of faith.
Our faith always needs to be coupled with humility.
There are only two people in the Bible Jesus said had great faith. One of them was the Roman centurion whom we find in Luke 7. When you study his story, you find that because of his good works, the elders of the Jews said he deserved Jesus' help. But the centurion had a far different view of himself. He said he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof.
The other person that Jesus said had great faith was the woman with the possessed daughter in Matthew 15. Two elements stand out about her as we read her story. She was persistent and she was humble.
Great faith cannot be divorced from great humility. Humility is a necessary ingredient for the soil of our heart, without which a healthy faith cannot grow.
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Just Like Jesus
Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:1-14
God's divine purpose for every believer is that each of us be conformed to the image of His Son. God wants us to reflect His character. But what does God look like? Although we can't see God or touch Him, we know His character because it's reflected in the Son. Jesus told His followers, when you look at Me, you are looking at My Father.
As Christians, we are committed to Jesus Christ. And as a result, God promises that He is going to take all the pieces of our lives - the good, the bad and the ugly - and work them all together for our maximum benefit.
You must make a decision to make conforming to His image your passionate pursuit in life. This is God's purpose for you.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Devotion
. . . they went forth for His name's sake . . . -3 John 7
Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:17). And then He said, "Feed My sheep." In effect, He said, "Identify yourself with My interests in other people," not, "Identify Me with your interests in other people." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love- it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.
Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit- "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.
The key to the missionary's devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.
The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
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The Face of God
The psalmist says in Psalm 30:7,
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.
One thing we should never want to experience is for God to hide His face, because the face of God represents His favor, friendship, and fellowship.
Now there is only one thing that causes God to hide His face from us. It is found in Isaiah 59:1-2,
Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Sin is the one thing that causes God's face to be hidden. The Bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, which means the sin of mankind had hidden God's face.
But that is not the end of the story, thank goodness! In Isaiah 50:6 we are told,
"I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting."
Because Jesus did not hide His face from shame and spitting, because He took your place and died for your sins, God's face can shine upon you.
He could have hidden His face; He could have avoided the whole crucifixion, but He didn't. He bore a shame that was not His as God the Father laid the sin of the world on Him.
Because Jesus did not hide His face, the face of God need not be hidden from any of us. The light of God's countenance can shine upon every one of us, and we can indeed be the friends of God.
Thank you, Jesus, for what you did!
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Saved Without a Doubt
Scripture Reading: John 3:34-36; 17:3
Every member of the human race has fallen into an abyss, and no matter how hard we try, we can't get out; the hole is just too deep. The good news is, we don't have to get ourselves out. The heart of the Gospel, Jesus' sacrifice, is strong enough to lift us from those pits. With His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus offered deliverance and assurance.
When Jesus confronted the Samaritan woman at the well, He offered her a drink of living water from a well that would never run dry. Jesus offers the gift of salvation to everyone who chooses to drink His Water.
Eternal life is living water. We take the first drink, and our Savior produces the well of living water that doesn't run dry. Place your confidence in Jesus and His finished work, and He will create an oasis in your soul that keeps producing living water.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unheeded Secret
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world -John 18:36
The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation . . . . For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person's life.
We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord's life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.
It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College- its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God's redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.
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Showers of Blessings
In Ezekiel 34:26, God is speaking, and He says,
"I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."
In this passage, God is certainly speaking of natural rain when He talks about the showers He will send. Those are rains He promised to Israel which would water the land and cause it to increase and be fruitful and bring an abundant harvest.
But, more than that, when God says there will be showers of blessing, He is talking about bringing blessings into the lives of His people. The rain is symbolic of more than just the rain that falls to the earth. It symbolizes the good things that God wants to bring into the lives of those who serve Him.
God wants to bring showers of blessings into your life. Not just a blessing or two, but showers of blessings. An abundance of blessings.
You may feel like you are in a season of drought rather than experiencing showers of blessings. So over the next few devotionals, I will help you understand:
The three ways God brings blessing into the lives of people
The things that can cause a spiritual drought
How you can break such a drought in your life
For today, what I want you to begin to see is God's desire to rain blessings into your life. If you are feeling a spiritual drought, I pray God will use the coming devotionals to help you break that drought, and experience the refreshing rains of His blessing.
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What is Discipleship?
Scripture Reading: Colossians 3:12-17
In the New Testament, Jesus' disciples were students, pupils or learners, and Jesus was their teacher or in the Hebrew, Rabbi. Jesus told His disciples that He wanted them to be just like Him, their teacher.
During their time with Christ, the disciples had to learn loads of information and how to practically apply what they learned so they could help others.
The goal of discipleship - for Christ's first disciples and for us today - is Christ-likeness. Jesus is just as much our teacher today as He was for the twelve who followed Him. The ultimate goal of discipleship is to develop the discipline of living a Christ-centered life and demonstrating and teaching that to others.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Witness of the Spirit
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit . . . -Romans 8:16
We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him-we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.
Why doesn't God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won't abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself-He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28 , "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . . ." Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).
The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.
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The Number One Cause for Spiritual Drought
By far the Scriptures teach that the number one cause for spiritual drought is sin. And the number one cure for drought, according to the Scriptures, is repentance.
In 2 Chronicles 6:26-27, King Solomon is clear in this prayer,
When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.
Notice that the heavens were shut up, there was no rain, because of sin. But when the people confessed God's name and turned and repented, Solomon prayed, "God, hear and open the heavens once again and send rain."
This prayer is particularly significant because Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple. Scripture declares to us in 2 Corinthians 6:16, You are the temple of the living God.
The Old Testament temple was just a type and a shadow pointing to better things-to the era in which God would no longer dwell in buildings made with mortar and stone, but take up residence in human hearts.
That's you and me! As 1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are not our own. We have been bought with a price, and God's expectation is that we glorify Him in our bodies. You and I are God's temple.
If there is sin in your life, turn from it and turn to God, so that you can experience the refreshing rain of God's blessing in your life.
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Assurance and Self-Examination
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:9-13
When you read 1 Corinthians 11:28-29, you must be careful not to misinterpret its meaning. One understanding of these verses is that as a believer you must examine yourself to be certain that you're a Christian. But that's not what this means. The misconstrued verse is one reminder of the importance of correctly interpreting the Scriptures.
Paul has presented the Corinthian church with his observation about communion, and in the second reference, he's writing to people who were already Christians. Paul was urging the church at Corinth to examine themselves regularly to avoid God's further judgment (1 Corinthians 11:32).
I don't want you to ever doubt or be confused about the authenticity of your salvation. But as many as received Him, to them he gave the right to become children of God... (John 1:12).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Nothing of the Old Life!
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
Our Lord never tolerates our prejudices- He is directly opposed to them and puts them to death. We tend to think that God has some special interest in our particular prejudices, and are very sure that He will never deal with us as He has to deal with others. We even say to ourselves, "God has to deal with other people in a very strict way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right." But we must learn that God accepts nothing of the old life! Instead of being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately removing them from us. It is part of our moral education to see our prejudices put to death by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.
When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is nothing remaining of the old life. Our old gloomy outlook disappears, as does our old attitude toward things, and "all things are of God" (2 Corinthians 5:18). How are we going to get a life that has no lust, no self-interest, and is not sensitive to the ridicule of others? How will we have the type of love that "is kind . . . is not provoked, [and] thinks no evil"? (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). The only way is by allowing nothing of the old life to remain, and by having only simple, perfect trust in God- such a trust that we no longer want God's blessings, but only want God Himself. Have we come to the point where God can withdraw His blessings from us without our trust in Him being affected? Once we truly see God at work, we will never be concerned again about the things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in heaven, whom the world cannot see.
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The Cure for the Drought Brought by Sin
In our last devotional, we talked about sin being the number one cause for spiritual drought. The natural question is, "What is the cure, how do I end that drought?"
One word: repentance.
In addition to the passage we read yesterday, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is clear and instructive,
"When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
True repentance literally means an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. If there is no outward change of direction, then it is not true repentance.
There is no real repentance even if you are feeling emotional and weeping over your sin. That is not repentance. Feeling sorry is not repentance.
Repentance is the change of heart that results in a change of lifestyle, a change of direction, a turning. So I have a word for you: If there is known sin in your life, repent.
King David gives us a great example in Psalm 32:4-5 when he said,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD...."
If, because of sin, you are in a drought spiritually, repent. If you do, your drought can be broken and you can experience the blessings of God.
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The Cost of Grace
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:9-13
Imagine it's your birthday. Your friend comes by and gives you a beautifully wrapped gift. When you open it, it's something you've always wanted! After the party, you walk your friend to the door and just before he leaves, he says, "Oh, by the way, here's the receipt. Your gift costs $500. I'll take cash or a check" Could you really call what you received a gift?
The same principle applies to salvation. You don't have to buy it. Salvation is a gift. It depends wholly on God's grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Jesus paid the costs in full for our salvation. Acts 4:12 says, ". . . there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven . . . by which we must be saved."
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Proper Perspective
Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 2:14
The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God's perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Don't think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.
The proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose- to be captives marching in the procession of Christ's triumphs. We are not on display in God's showcase- we are here to exhibit only one thing- the "captivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, "I am standing all alone, battling for Jesus," or, "I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him." But Paul said, in essence, "I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn't matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph." Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul's secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive- and that became his purpose. It was Paul's joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." (Romans 8:37).
"We are to God the fragrance of Christ . . ." (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.
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Idolatry
The most predominant sin we find in the Bible that stopped the rain of God's blessing from falling was idolatry. Maybe you are thinking, "Well, that's great, but it doesn't really apply. I'm not tempted to go to the nearest pagan shrine and bow down and worship a carved image."
Hold on, though. As you read the New Testament you begin to realize it has a lot to say to us about idolatry. For example, 1 Corinthians 10:14 says, Flee from idolatry, and 1 John 5:21 says, Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Wycliffe in his commentary says, "An idol is anything which occupies the place due to God." An idol is anything in your life that competes with God.
Colossians 3:5 says, ...covetousness, which is idolatry. In other words, your stuff can become an idol. Greed can become an idol; money can become your idol. If anything becomes the main pursuit of your life, other than God, then that thing becomes an idol.
It can be your job, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your husband, your wife, or even a child. It can be a sport, a hobby, fame, anything that comes before God in your life.
I once saw an interview of one of my favorite golfers. He was a brilliant golfer who had won major tournaments. In the interview he said, "I've had a love affair with the game of golf. But I want to tell you, it cost me my marriage. It's cost me my relationship with my kids. Golf has been my god."
The interviewer asked him, "If you had all of it to do over again, what would you do differently?" He said, "Nothing. I'd do it all the same."
You will never experience God's blessing if there is an idol in your life. Is there?
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Make a Difference One by One
A father and son were walking along a beach after a powerful storm. In fact, the storm was so strong that as the waves crashed and the wind blew, hundreds of starfish were washed ashore and left far from the water they needed to survive.
As they walked, the father and son began a rescue mission, picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. When the boy looked at the hundreds of remaining starfish, he became discouraged. "Dad, there's too many. We can't save them all. We can't make a difference!"
The father looked at the starfish in his hand. The creature would have never made it back into the ocean on its own. As he threw the starfish back in the ocean, he told his son, "We're making a difference to this one."
You can make a difference too . . . even if it's only one by one. God has called each of us - not just the pastor or the missionary - to be a voice of encouragement to someone. Bless someone. Make a difference.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Submitting to God's Purpose
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some -1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God's man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, "If only I were somewhere else!" All of God's people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God's almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul's whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact- ". . . Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
"I chose you . . ." (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose- that He may be able to say, "This is My man, and this is My woman." We have to be in God's hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you "turn aside . . . to the right or the left . . ." (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
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Selfish?
Over the last several devotionals, we have been looking at the cause of spiritual drought. In today's devotional, I want to look at selfishness as a cause of spiritual drought.
Selfishness is where I am focused on my own interests rather than the needs of others or of furthering God's Kingdom.
In Haggai 1:4-6, 9-11, God says,
"Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes... You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands."
They were investing everything in themselves and their homes, but not a thought was given to God's house or God's Kingdom.
Friend, if you want the rain to fall, you need to think about God and His house first, others second, and yourself third. It is like the old saying, "If you want joy, j-o-y, it's Jesus, others, and then you."
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Oh Death, Where is Your Victory?
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
In 1 Corinthians 15:56, the Apostle Paul explains that the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. Jesus' death satisfied God's divine law to overcome the problem of sin and the condemnation of death.
All the sin of the world for all time was placed on the person of Jesus Christ at Calvary. In His resurrection, He rose victorious over sin and death. Death no longer has authority over us.
I encourage you to reflect on what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. He shares His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. This victory is a gift of grace: God forgives the sins of all who trust in Christ alone.
You don't have to be afraid of death because it has no power over you. For those who trust in Christ, death is not the end - it is only the beginning.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What is a Missionary?
Jesus said to them again, '. . . As the Father has sent Me, I also send you' -John 20:21
A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front- to sweep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him- to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God's call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ- "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . ." (Matthew 28:19).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, "What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!" But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were "foolish" enough to trust God's wisdom and His supernatural equipment.
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Rx for Depression
Isaiah 58:10-11 gives you and me a powerful prescription for depression. It says,
If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Take a moment to think about what God is saying. Think about the promise: If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, God will satisfy your soul in drought.
If you are a person who is given to depression and you feel like you have this big empty void in your life, I have a prescription for you based on this passage. Are you ready?
Go help somebody else. In fact, find a place in your church, local rescue mission, or The Salvation Army where you can minister to folks who are going through a rough patch. Donate a couple of days a week, and help other folks who are going through a rough time.
God promises that if you will draw out your soul to the hungry and if you will minister to the afflicted soul, He will satisfy your soul in drought.
Rather than being so inwardly focused..."my problems, and I'm so depressed, and why aren't things going right for me?", go help somebody else. Get things in perspective. There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you are, and you will find that God will bring the rain into your life when you change your focus.
If your soul is dry, the way to get it watered is to go help someone else. The sooner the better.
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What is Your Legacy?
Scripture Reading: Acts 20:16-24
Whether it's a high school competition or the Olympics, audiences get excited watching athletes compete in a relay race. The key point of the relay is the passing of the baton. No matter how fast the runners are, if one of them drops the baton, the team loses the race.
Leaving a legacy to the people in your life is a lot like passing the baton. Legacy is about transfer, and what you leave behind can help someone else go further than you did. What kind of legacy are you leaving behind? Developing and passing on a true spiritual legacy doesn't just happen. Like Elijah passing on the prophet's mantle to Elisha, you can share a Christian legacy.
Think about the price Jesus paid to leave His legacy. Because of His death and resurrection, you and I have the privilege and duty to pass this legacy on to everyone around us.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Substitution
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him -2 Corinthians 5:21
The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy for us. Yet the New Testament view is that He took our sin on Himself not because of sympathy, but because of His identification with us. He was "made. . . to be sin. . . ." Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the only explanation for His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy for us. We are acceptable to God not because we have obeyed, nor because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and for no other reason. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the fatherhood and the lovingkindness of God, but the New Testament says that He came to take "away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). And the revealing of the fatherhood of God is only to those to whom Jesus has been introduced as Savior. In speaking to the world, Jesus Christ never referred to Himself as One who revealed the Father, but He spoke instead of being a stumbling block (see John 15:22-24). John 14:9 , where Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," was spoken to His disciples.
That Christ died for me, and therefore I am completely free from penalty, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that "He died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:15)- not, "He died my death"- and that through identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have His very righteousness imparted as a gift to me. The substitution which is taught in the New Testament is twofold- "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." The teaching is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me (seeGalatians 4:19).
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It's Never Too Late
As we wrap up our series of devotionals on how to break a spiritual drought, I want to focus our attention on Psalm 72:6. This verse contains a very powerful truth that I want to leave with you. It says,
He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass. (KJV)
I remember when I was first saved and read this passage, I would picture somebody out there with a lawnmower. But of course, they didn't have lawnmowers back then!
This verse refers to a field that has been eaten over by locusts, a plague of locusts that has come through and just devoured a field. And God gives a wonderful promise: He will come down like the rain on the mown grass, to revive and to restore that which the locusts have eaten.
Today, as you read this devotional, you may feel like a swarm of locusts has come over your life and eaten your blessing. I think if you seek God and earnestly pray and ask Him to send the rain, you will have an encounter with God beyond anything you could have imagined.
He can restore what the enemy has stolen in your life. You can indeed experience the freshness and revival and fruitfulness in your life again. It is never too late to pray for God's blessing.
No matter the situation, seek God today. Ask, and He will send the rain down on whatever part of your life has been mowed over by the locusts. And you will experience the blessing God desires for you.
Remember, it is never too late.
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A Lesson About Faith
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:7-11
Have you ever taken a stress test to evaluate your heart's health? One component of the stress test monitors your heart while you walk on a sloped treadmill at a fast pace. It's not easy, but you keep going to get an accurate reading of your heart's strengths and weaknesses.
God has stress tests. They're called trials, and through them God evaluates how well you've learned the lessons of life. The prophet Elijah passed the tests on several occasions. Once he had to help a widow and her son survive a famine. The next test was the boy's death. The widow's faith was shaken, but Elijah's faith remained firm.
Through that faith, God saved the boy. That day the widow and her son receive a valuable lesson: In your trials, remember God's truths. In spite of your circumstances, you can prevail!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith
Without faith it is impossible to please Him . . . -Hebrews 11:6
Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. "We know that all things work together for good . . ." (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God's providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children.
For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, "Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I'm going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word" (for example, see Matthew 6:33). Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us. Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can't have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
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Obedience
To God, obedience is a big deal. And one of the best ways to see just how importantly He regards it is to learn from those who disobeyed.
One of those is King Saul. When he was told by God to make an end of the Amalekites and to destroy all of their property, he did not do it.
Instead of obeying God, he saved the oxen and the sheep, along with some other things, and then claimed he had obeyed God. But when Samuel heard the oxen and the sheep, Saul knew he had been caught. So he changed his story. He said, "Well, these things are just a sacrifice to God."
In response to this act of disobedience, this is what Samuel, the prophet, said. We find it in 1 Samuel 15:22,
So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."
God does not want religious lip service. He wants obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice. One reason for that is because you cannot make up by sacrifice what you lose through disobedience.
Another reason why obedience is better than sacrifice is because it is preventative. In Saul's day, sacrifices were made to cover sin, but if he had obeyed, there would have been no need for sacrifice. Obedience would have prevented his sin.
So do what God desires. Obey what He commands. It is always better.
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The Importance of Prayer
Scripture Reading: Philippians 4:4-7; Colossians 4:2-6
Most people are fascinated by magic tricks, which are simply fantastic illusions. What God is able to do and anything He purposes to accomplish in His Kingdom are never illusions. And how He answers our prayers is no illusion. When God's people commit to faithful prayer, the world will see God's power.
To pray powerfully and effectively, we must first deal with sin in our lives. We must turn and flee from sin, understanding that as God responds to our cries, people will give Him greater glory.
We must pray expectantly, knowing that God will ultimately change us. Isaiah 65:24 says, "... before [you] call, I will answer ..." God gave us prayer to connect us with His plan for our lives to make an impact on all creation!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Trial of Faith
If you have faith as a mustard seed . . . nothing will be impossible for you -Matthew 17:20
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith- faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is- "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).
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Obey and Honor
Yesterday's devotional helped us understand the importance of obedience. Over the next few devotionals, I want to focus on three areas I believe are critical for you and me to ensure we are obedient.
The first is found in Ephesians 6:1-3 This first category of obedience has to do with family, something God teaches very specifically in His Word. It says,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
As long as a child is under his parents' roof and under his parents' direct authority, he needs to obey. But throughout your entire life you need to honor your parents.
One time I had a dear lady come to me after a service when I preached on this command and say, "Pastor, I just have to tell you. I just felt I needed to make things right with my dad. I went home that night and called him and said, 'Dad, you need to forgive me because I've been bitter against you for all these years. I'm sorry, and I want you to know that I forgive you for all the past.'"
Then she said, "Pastor, you need to understand, I've had a migraine headache for 15 years, 24 hours a day. I take piles of medication. I go to bed with a migraine, and I wake up with one, but the morning after I made things right with my dad, I woke up, and I had no headache." And she started to cry.
I am telling you, this promise is full of power! It is better to obey and honor your parents!
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Stand Firm on the Word
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:15-17
When most people hear the word idolatry, they think of pagans worshiping statues and assume, "That's one subject that can't apply to me." Oh, yes it can.
You don't have to keep a carved, wooden tiki idol in your backyard to be an idolater. You don't have to visit a Buddhist shrine. Any time you worship the thing God created as a god, that's idolatry.
We can get so caught up in the things of this world - jobs, money, people, material things - that we forget our purpose here on earth. We should live in the world but not of the world. Spend some time analyzing your walk with the Lord. Are there things that you are placing above your relationship with God? Ask Him to reveal things in your life that are being placed above God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"You Are Not Your Own"
Do you not know that . . . you are not your own? -1 Corinthians 6:19
There is no such thing as a private life, or a place to hide in this world, for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. God divides the private life of His saints and makes it a highway for the world on one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves. We are called into intimacy with the gospel, and things happen that appear to have nothing to do with us. But God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way. If you refuse, you will be of no value to God in His redemptive work in the world, but will be a hindrance and a stumbling block.
The first thing God does is get us grounded on strong reality and truth. He does this until our cares for ourselves individually have been brought into submission to His way for the purpose of His redemption. Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?
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Obedience in Marriage
Ephesians 5:22-24 gives an important area of obedience. While this is not popular in our society today, it is biblical, but is also often misunderstood.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
It is important to make clear that before God there is an absolute equality between men and women, between husbands and wives. In fact, this passage does not say, "Women submit to men." It is purely a domestic situation.
Even with that understanding, the Bible says that husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life. There is an equality before God between men and women and husband and wife.
What this passage teaches is that God has set up a system of authority in the home that needs to be followed, if it is going to be well with us. In fact, this is even a military term. To submit or to obey means to put yourself in rank under.
Friend, we are in a spiritual warfare, and there are spiritual forces that have been unleashed against homes and against marriages that would love to tear marriages apart.
God has designed a way for the home to function, and that is for the man to take the responsibility of leadership and for the wife to come under that authority. When a husband truly loves his wife, and cares for her like Christ does the church, and the wife respects her husband, things will be well in the home. That couple and that family will be magnets for the blessings of God.
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Make God Your Reference Point
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:28-33
God has assigned every believer a divine reason for being, including you. Your purpose is to fulfill God's purpose. And if you are not fulfilling His purpose, it's just another day gone by, filled with everything but real meaning. You will be floating around with no destination when you're disconnected from the purposes of God.
You cannot discover your purpose until God is your reference point.
I encourage you to pray, "Help me to grasp what it means to have a life of purpose, meaning and destiny and not to meander and waste another day on things that really don't matter."
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Obedience or Independence?
If you love Me, keep My commandments -John 14:15
Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an "If," meaning, "You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so." "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . ." (Luke 9:23). In other words, "To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me." Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God's redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God
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An Enemy to Your Enemies
Exodus 23:20-22 says,
"Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries."
Israel's success in possessing the promised land lay in their obedience. The same is true for us as we endeavor to possess the things promised to us by God.
I like the thought of God being an enemy to my enemies and an adversary to my adversaries, but that hinges on obedience as well.
The difficult thing about obeying God is that it always requires faith. He asks us to do things that sometimes make no sense. Other times He demands that we face seemingly impossible situations armed with nothing but His Word.
But He is faithful. He keeps His promises. And He can be absolutely trusted-in everything and with everything.
So today if you are desiring to enter some aspect of your "promised land", or if you are faced with difficult or seemingly insurmountable obstacles, listen for His voice, search His Word for instructions, and then obey.
He will be an enemy to your enemies, and you will possess the promises.
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Accomplish Your Life's Mission
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-3
"I have glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You have given Me to do" Jesus told His heavenly Father.
If you died tomorrow, could you say the same? Could you say, "I have glorified You on earth with the work You sent me here to do"?
You might say, "But that's Jesus talking." Remember, Paul said the same thing as Christ. Paul wrote that he had fought a good fight. He kept the faith and finished his course. Until this becomes your passion, you are wasting your life from an eternal perspective.
As the old saying goes, "Teach me, Lord, to number my days. Only one life will soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last." It is now time for you to accomplish the work that God sent you here to do.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Partakers of His Suffering
. . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings . . . -1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, "Oh, I can't deal with that person." Why can't you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.
The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered "according to the will of God" (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God's purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God's orders through a shortcut of their own. God's way is always the way of suffering- the way of the "long road home."
Are we partakers of Christ's sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through- we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize- "God has strengthened me and I didn't even know it!"
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Respecting Your Boss
In Titus 2:9-10, Paul writes a very interesting and important command,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
In our society, it is important to understand that this passage is giving us instructions as employers and employees. And simply stated, as an employee, you are to be obedient to your boss.
One of the ways you do that is by not answering back. It might be hard at times to hold your tongue, but you must. It's not okay when you get to the water cooler to talk to the other employees like, "This idiot that we work for doesn't have a clue what's going on here." I think that comes under the category of answering back.
And pilfering means stealing items of small value. I remember this guy I knew in Oregon who did not like the place he worked. In fact, he had a government job, and he would come home quite often with something he had stolen from his office.
Nearly every day he would rip off some small office supply like a stapler, or pens, or a hole punch. While they were always things of small value, he would just keep stealing things.
The Bible says don't do that. And you shouldn't steal time from your employer either by making personal phone calls during office hours. Your employer is not paying you to take care of your business at the office. That is stealing.
I believe that, as Christians, we ought to be the best employees in the world. We should work so hard and bring such a good attitude into the workplace that we set the example to everyone with whom we work.
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Take Your Ambassadorship Seriously
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
People can't refrain from talking about the things they are passionate about. Paul says that by knowing the fear of God - a healthy respect for who He is - we persuade men. He says the love of Christ controls us.
When we are passionate about Jesus and His love for us, we won't be able to stop ourselves from sharing that with others, and through our testimony, they will see God's glory. If we go day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, without representing God, we cannot be passionate about Him, we cannot "go unto all the world" as Christ commanded us.
God has called each one of His children to be ambassadors for His Kingdom with the goal of winning folks over. We must fuel our passion for Him, so we can effectively call people out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can't understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, "I'm going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that." All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession- utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, ". . . but the Spirit Himself makes intercession" in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
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Are You a "Convenient Christian"?
Some Christians are "convenient Christians." These are believers who seek to obey God, but only when it is convenient.
It is like the men and women of Israel who came to the prophet Jeremiah one day to see if it was God's desire for them to go to Egypt. You find their story in Jeremiah 42-43.
After they asked Jeremiah to ask God on their behalf, they said (Jeremiah 42:6),
"Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God."
Now that sounds pretty good. These folks seem like they have it together spiritually and truly desire to obey God.
But just a few verses later, when Jeremiah tells them, "This is the word of the Lord: Don't go into Egypt. Stay here," they respond this way (Jeremiah 43:2),
"You speak falsely! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.'"
Some people's posture is, "God, I'm going to do anything you say...as long as it agrees with my viewpoint." Some will say, "Lord, I'm going to be obedient and give an offering...but I'm not giving ten percent of my income. You can forget that because I just don't see it that way."
Or, "God, I'm going to do whatever You say, but I'm not going to forgive so-and-so because what they did to me is just unforgivable."
Friend, we can't pick and choose. It has to be, "God, I am going to do whatever You say. I'm going to do it whether it rubs the cat's fur the wrong way, whether it plows my field crossways...pleasing, displeasing, I'm going to obey."
Do not be a "convenient Christian."
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Reversing the Addiction Curse
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:1-8
A POW is a prisoner of war, someone who has been captured and held under an enemy's control. Many Christians are POWs - prisoners of a spiritual war. They're trapped by situations most commonly called "addictions," which the Bible refers to as "strongholds."
Drugs, alcohol, co-dependency, sexual promiscuity and other strongholds make a person feel trapped with seemingly no way out. But there is hope. In 2 Corinthians 10:1-6, Paul offers a formula for a breakthrough: Fix the fortress. Put "speculations, knowledge and thoughts" under God's domain. In other words, start with your mind.
Meditate on these Scriptures and feed your spirit with the truth of God's Word: You belong to God. Don't allow the enemy, the "father of lies," to hold you prisoner any longer. We are not our addictions or strongholds; we are blood-bought, totally forgiven children of the Living God!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered -Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don't often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
"He," the Holy Spirit in you, "makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . ." (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, ". . . He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple" (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer . . . . But you have made it a 'den of thieves' " (Mark 11:17).
Have we come to realize that our "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit"? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a "temple of the Holy Spirit." He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don't know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
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Opening the Door to Calamity
In 1 Kings 13:21-25, God provides us with quite an unusual story,
And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the LORD: 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the LORD said to you, "Eat no bread and drink no water," your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.'" So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back. When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse. And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse. Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
Notice that the lion did something very unnatural. The guy disobeyed, the lion killed him, but the lion didn't go after the donkey. The donkey didn't run away, but the lion didn't try to kill the donkey, nor did it drag the guy off to eat him.
And to top it all off, now people start to walk by. Look, people do not walk by wild lions! But here they are: the donkey, the lion, the dead guy, and people are walking by.
What is God up to here? He is giving a snapshot, something He wants indelibly burned into their understanding: Disobedience opens the door to calamity.
If you choose to disobey God, know you have opened your life to calamity!
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Reversing the Financial Curse
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 8:11-18
Do you ever feel that, despite all the work you are putting into your life, job, family and other relationships, you aren't experiencing the productivity that you should? You want God's blessings, yet you just don't seem able to get ahead.
God implores every believer to take the tithe challenge! Faithfully giving a tenth of your earnings to the church shows God you are a good steward of what He has entrusted into your care, that you are grateful for everything He has provided and finally that you trust Him.
Too many people are living in a sea of debt. God wants to reverse the financial curse in your life and bless you. But you must plant a seed first before God can rain down His blessings on it.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Sacred Service
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . . -Colossians 1:24
The Christian worker has to be a sacred "go-between." He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual's personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker's life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.
When we say, "What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!" then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32).
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The Cost of Disobedience
In our last devotional, we read the story from 1 Kings 13 about the lion that killed the prophet for his disobedience. We learned how that story illustrates for us the importance of obedience, and how disobedience opens the door to calamity in our lives.
1 Peter 5:8 tells us,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
I believe God wants you to get a snapshot of that lion in 1 Kings 13 imprinted in your mind. He wants you to understand that if you willfully disobey God, your adversary, the devil, is not going to just be roaring at you. Like that lion, he is going to be putting a paw on you.
Frankly, I don't know about you, but I don't want his paw on my finances, on my family, on my health, or on anything else. I don't want him sinking his teeth into my marriage. But disobedience opens the door to that.
James 4:7 says,
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
You see, you have been given authority in your life over the devil. This verse makes it clear-you can resist him. But your authority in Christ as a believer only operates as you have submitted yourself to God's authority through obedience.
If you are disobedient in areas of your life, knowingly disobedient, your authority in Christ will not work.
So here is the question: Today are you being willfully disobedient to God in any area of your life? If so, confess and repent. Otherwise you can be sure the devil will get a paw on your life.
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Reversing the Physical Curse
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:32-43
We have all seen the effects of physical problems - diabetes, heart disease, sleeping disorders and cancer - in our lives or at least in the lives of those we love. We know that these things are not God's perfect will for our lives. In John 10:10 (NIV), Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Jesus wants us to enjoy a long, healthy life ... not just exist.
It's important to understand that physical problems can be tied to spiritual issues from past generations. These "issues" are called generational curses. The only real solution is to pray and then obey.
Just recognizing the problem and praying about it is not enough. We need to act on what God is telling us to do. Many times, He prompts us to do things that are different and maybe even strange. But it's not strange to Him. God wants to heal our bodies, but the results depend on our obedience to His voice and His Word.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Changed Life
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is- has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above- you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
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Hebrews 1:1-8 reads,
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"? But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God worship Him." And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire." But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom."
These eight verses tell us that Jesus is supreme, above any angel, because:
God speaks to us through His Son.
Jesus is the heir of all things.
God made all things through Jesus.
Jesus is the express image of God the Father.
He upholds all things with the word of His power.
He purged our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God, not a servant as are the angels.
He is worthy of our worship.
Jesus is God Himself.
That is the supremacy of Jesus!
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Reversing the Generational Curse
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:32-43
Did you know that many problems people face are linked to choices their parents, grandparents and even "great-grandpa" made? This may be a new way of thinking for you, and it is certainly not about placing blame. Yet we need to know God's truth about generational curses and how to live free of their bondages.
A generational curse is passed down from one generation to another due to rebellion against God. If your family line is marked by divorce, incest, poverty, anger or other ungodly patterns, you're most likely under a generational curse. The Bible says that these curses are tied to choices.
Deuteronomy 30:19 says we can either choose life and blessing or death and cursing.
Freedom comes when we confess the ungodly patterns, ask God for forgiveness and then walk in obedience by consistently choosing His ways.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith or Experience?
. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me -Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, "I haven't had this experience or that experience"! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides- He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith "in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God- and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:30). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ- not a "prayer meeting" Jesus Christ, or a "book" Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.
It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.
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The Rightful Place of Angels
In our day, angels have become a pretty big thing. In fact, there are some fairly well-known personalities today talking about having their personal angel and needing to "contact your angel."
I believe in angels because the Bible clearly talks about them, but angels have a rightful place, which Paul addresses in Colossians 2:18-19,
Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
Paul is telling us, "If you become so preoccupied with angels that you let go of the head, Jesus Christ, you are off the rails!" In fact, if you are preoccupied with angels in such a way that it takes you away from Jesus Christ, I'm telling you, you are in error. The body grows; the body is nourished; we get our life and direction from the head, Jesus Christ.
If God wants to have an angel intervene in my life, that is wonderful. But I don't need to contact my angel because I have constant communion with the Son of God, who, as we learned yesterday, is superior to angels!
Jesus is the One who created the universe! He is our Lord and our Savior. He is the Vine, we are the branch. We have communion with Him. Why would we want to contact an angel when we can contact the Son of God whom angels fall down and worship!
Angels are under the lordship of Jesus. That is their rightful place.
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Faith And Our Feet
(Hebrews 11, Psalm 1)
Faith is not about how much you believe in what you believe. Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable. In fact, you can have all of the faith in the world that your SUV is going to take off and fly you to Canada cruising at 12,000 feet in the air. But that won't change the fact that you're still going to be stuck in traffic somewhere with all four wheels firmly on the ground.
Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable.
The way you find out if the one you believe in is believable is by knowing and experiencing Him.
It's like when a child climbs up on the back of her daddy for a piggyback ride. She doesn't get up there and start asking herself if he can hold her or if he is going to drop her. Instead, she immediately starts asking him, "Do you have me?" as she wiggles and adjusts her legs into place.
By asking her daddy, "Do you have me?" she is affirming in her mind that the one she is putting her faith in is faithful. Because if he says, "Yes, I have you," and she rests up there only to discover that he really does have her, then the next time she climbs on for a piggy-back ride, the questions become fewer.
But until she first climbs up onto the back of her daddy, she can say all day long that she believes that he can hold her. Saying it a thousand times won't reduce the hesitation she feels when the offer to get up there is first extended. She will never get to the point where she can experience the full pleasure of his presence until she takes that first climb of faith to discover that he is faithful.
Faith experienced is faith that is real. It is an easy thing to say that you believe. It is an easy thing to feel like you believe. But faith is not situated in our feelings. Faith is situated in our feet. That's why the Bible calls it "walking by faith" rather than "feeling by faith."
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Discovering Divine Design
As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me . . . -Genesis 24:27
We should be so one with God that we don't need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child's life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God's will (see Romans 12:2). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God's appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.
Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, "I will never do this or that," in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.
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A Better Covenant
There are two verses for your reading today. Hebrews 7:22, which says,
By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
And Hebrews 8:6, which tells us,
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
We have a better covenant; we have better promises. And Jesus is the One who makes it sure. He is the guarantee. He has personally pledged Himself to make it good.
As far as I am concerned, that takes away all reason for doubt, all reason for stressing out. Jesus, Himself, is the pledge, the guarantee that this covenant we have called the New Testament will be good and will be fulfilled in our lives.
And He is not only the guarantee, He is the Mediator. He is the go-between to what is truly a better covenant, established upon better promises.
Let's say your employer came to you and said, "We're going to give you a better contract. While the old contract was good, we're going to give you one that's better. This better contract will increase your hours, decrease your pay, eliminate your health and dental benefits, you will no longer get reimbursed for your mileage and your auto expenses, and you're going to have a shorter lunch break and no more Christmas bonuses."
Let me ask you, is that better? No! That is not better! And I will never understand how people can say, "We know God healed people and worked miracles and intervened in people's lives under the Old Testament, but He doesn't anymore."
The covenant Christ bought and sealed in His blood is a better covenant, established upon better promises. Praise God!
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Luke 18:1-8, Psalm 2
One of the most important things that we can do as a Christian is to pray in line with our covenantal rights. But we often don't do this because we misunderstand what
prayer
is. Let me define prayer by first saying what prayer is not. Prayer is not simply talking to God. Prayer, rather, is asserting earthly permission for heavenly interference. Prayer is earth giving heaven authorization to intervene in the affairs of earth as heaven has previously stated that it would. That permission is granted based on your legal position and rights. That's why it is essential to study the Word of God and to know the rights that He has granted you through His Word.
If you are being held in bondage by an illegitimate force in your life, cry out to God. Pray to God for deliverance by appealing to Him based on your covenantal rights. There is a legal obligation that God has to respond to you based on the fact that you have a legitimate agreement with Him found in His Word. Go through the Scriptures and read everything that relates to your stronghold and pray it back to God. When you do that, prayer is no longer just a spiritual exercise or something to check off of your "Christian List of Things To Do."
Rather, prayer becomes a legal meeting where you and God get together in agreement on the same covenantal arrangement. Prayer becomes an act of holding God accountable, in the right sense of the word, to what He holds Himself accountable: His Word.
)(
Holding God Accountable?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"What Is That to You?"
Peter . . . said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, '. . . what is that to you? You follow Me' -John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God's plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn't." You put your hand right in front of God's permissive will to stop it, and then God says, "What is that to you?" Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don't allow it to continue, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another- proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness- consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we're not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach- a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.
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God Leads from Within
In our last devotional, we talked about the new covenant being better than the old covenant. One reason is found in Hebrews 8:8-11 which says,
..."Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."
In the Old Testament, God had to lead His people externally. When fleeing Egypt, God led them by night with a pillar of fire and by day with a pillar of cloud. They did not intuitively know where God wanted them to go or what God wanted them to do.
But under the new covenant, God leads His people from within because He has now taken up residence within. I believe that is why on the Day of Pentecost God chose to manifest the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire that sat upon each person individually.
God was saying that while under the old covenant, He led His people by a pillar of fire, and now He is coming to dwell and lead from the inside of each believer!
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A Pocketful of Miracles
(Exodus 14, Psalm 3)
A lot of what God wants to do in your life won't be done until you do what He has already revealed to you.
What He asks you to do isn't always all that huge, just like Moses' move at the Red Sea wasn't all that huge. All God was asking Moses to do was to hold out his stick. That's not that huge. If Moses would just hold out his stick, then God said that He would handle the rest. He would do all of the big stuff. He would open the Red Sea, harden Pharaoh's heart, make him go in after them, and close the Red Sea back up.
But to reveal the faith within us, God often asks us to do our little thing first. Hold out our sticks. Take that step. Make the move. Have the conversation. Quit the job to stay at home. Accept the job that He has shown. Stop the habit. Curb the tongue. Go to church. Go overseas. Whatever it is that He is revealing to you, God will often wait to do His big thing until you have done what He has asked you to do.
He does this because He wants us to see Him in a way we've never seen Him before. He wants us to experience Him in a way that we've never experienced Him before. He wants us to see the connection between our act of faith and His deliverance. He wants to be more than just a Cosmic-Santa Claus with a pocketful of miracles to throw down. God wants a relationship with you. He wants you to see Him up close and personal so He puts you in a situation where He is your only solution. Where it can't be fixed if He doesn't fix it. Where it can't be reversed if He doesn't reverse it. Where it can't be solved if He doesn't solve it. Because, God says, I've let you use all of the natural options available to you, and you are still stuck. Well then, when that happens, know that you are stuck with a purpose. Look to God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Still Human!
. . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It's one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, "What a wonderful man of prayer he is!" or, "What a great woman of devotion she is!" If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, "Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!" But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God's Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint's life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
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No More Remembrance
Today I want to point you to another reason the new covenant in Christ is better than the old covenant. Hebrews 10:1-3, 15-17 tells us,
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year... But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them," then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
Under the old covenant, God remembered the sin of Israel every year. This meant that each year the priest would have to go into the Holy of Holies and offer the blood of an animal to cover the people's sins.
Under the new covenant, God does not remember.
Boy, am I glad that when I accepted Christ, my past was erased on God's ledger. I had a pretty checkered past before I came to Christ. But if today you enter my name in God's computer up in heaven...Bayless...past...push enter...push print...God's big printer prints out nothing but blank sheets.
Why? He doesn't remember my sins anymore. In fact, if you and I talk to Him about our past before we were saved, He says, "Sorry, it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned."
That is truly good news!
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God's Wild Ride
(1 John 1:1-4, Psalm 4)
When my wife, Lois, and I started dating, I came up with a strategy to encourage her to fall more in love with me. She was a lot in love with me from the beginning, but I wanted to increase that.
What I decided to do was to take her to the amusement park. Once we had wandered around the amusement park for a while, and had enjoyed some of the games and food, I coolly asked her if she wanted to ride the Wild Mouse. Lois had never been on the Wild Mouse ride before. But I had. I knew how wild the Wild Mouse really was. She didn't have any idea because it looked like an innocent ride.
I knew Lois' personality and that going on the Wild Mouse would be a tough situation for her. But I hadn't told her that. I had only mentioned that we should go on a nice ride together.
So we got on the Wild Mouse. The thing began to shoot out making it seem like our small car was going to fly right off of the edge of the track. Lois screamed. Then she scooted closer to me. Our car veered to the right and then shot out again making it seem like we were going to zoom straight out into mid-air. Lois screamed again. Then she scooted even more closely to me this time. By the end of the ride, Lois wasn't sitting far away from me at all. She was sitting as close as possible. That had been my plan.
I had wanted Lois to sit closer all along. The Wild Mouse accomplished that.
Sometimes God puts us on a wild ride. Life seems to be out of our control. At times, God allows these situations because He knows they will move us closer to Him and when we get closer to Him, we will discover that He is more than we ever imagined Him to be.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"When He Has Come"
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . . -John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one- "Against You, You only, have I sinned . . ." (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary- nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn't merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
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Access
In talking about the Holy of Holies...that second part of the tabernacle behind the veil where the presence of God dwelt under the old covenant...Hebrews 9:7 says,
But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance.
Only the high priest could go into this part of the tabernacle, into God's presence. And he could go only one time each year to offer the blood of an animal to cover the sins of the people.
But look with me at Hebrews 10:17-19,
Then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.
You have access into the very presence of God. In fact, Hebrews 4:16 says, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
You do not have to go through a priest. You do not have to go through Pastor Bayless. You have immediate, constant access. In fact, God not only welcomes you, He desires you to come into His presence.
You know, my kids just barge into my office all the time. I can be in there having a meeting when the door just opens, "Hi, Dad! Got anything in your refrigerator?" They just come in like they belong there...and they do. I'm their father.
Your heavenly Father is the same way. He is not going to put you off and say, "You know what? You have to come through an angel. I'm sorry, but you cannot talk directly to Me."
Nope. You have direct access!
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The Spiritual Stress Test
(James 1:1-7, Psalm 5)
Every summer I go to the doctor's office for an annual exam. I sit in his office and he asks me, "Tony, how are you feeling?"
Assuming that it was a good year overall, I answer, "I'm feeling fine."
But that's not the end of my appointment. The doctor doesn't take my word for it. Instead, he attaches electronic probes all over my body. Then he sticks me on a treadmill. Next, he makes the treadmill go faster and faster up an incline because what he wants to know is the real condition of my heart.
My heart might feel fine to me but at the same time, it might not be fine. The doctor can only determine the strength of my heart when he measures it under stress. So what he does is create a stressful situation where I'm walking for a long period of time. He's testing my heart to see whether how I feel is how I really am. Because it's possible to have good feelings yet still have a bad heart.
Living the Christian life is no different. It's possible to come to church every week, sing worship songs, memorize Bible verses, serve on a variety of committees and assume that your heart, faith and soul is strong. It's even easy to say things like, "I love you God. God, you are so good. I'll follow you, God. I'll do whatever you say."
But God doesn't want to just take your word for it.
He tests you, and me, because He wants what is best for us. He tests us because He is getting ready to do something amazing in our lives. The way that He tests us is by putting us in a stressful scenario ... something we often call a trial. In a trial, God reveals how strong our faith really is.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Forgiveness of God
In Him we have . . . the forgiveness of sins . . . -Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive- He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God's forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.
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Once for All!
As we have been learning in the last few devotionals, the new covenant is better than the old covenant. Hebrews 9:18-24 shows us another way it is better,
Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you." Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
The old covenant was based on the blood of animal sacrifices; but under the new covenant, we are cleansed by the blood of Christ and His sacrifice.
Jesus went into that heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood. And the Father declared that the blood of Jesus satisfied the payment for sin for all eternity.
Oh, thank you, Jesus! That is why the Scripture declares we are accepted in the Beloved. When God accepted that blood sacrifice in heaven, He accepted all of us who believe, because Jesus went as our representative.
Praise God today for the provision of the sacrifice of Jesus...once for all!
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Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
(James 1:12, Psalm 6)
Much like the stress test my doctor puts me through every summer, God allows trials and tests in our lives in order to reveal where we are along our spiritual journey. He does this for the purpose of correcting whatever happens to be wrong, revealing whatever needs to be revealed, and strengthening whatever seems to be weak so that we might move on to what He has in store for us.
When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, you feel trapped, stuck, and tired of where you are. You either don't know what to do, or you don't know how to legitimately do what you feel you need to do. You are like Israel when they faced Pharaoh on one side and the Red Sea on the other and certain death was upon them.
Getting caught between a rock and a hard place is a lose-lose deal. If it were a clear win-lose deal, then you would know how to choose and where to turn. But what do you do when there are no clear choices? What option do you choose when both options are bad? Have you ever been in a situation where all of the ways that you turn to are problems, and you are just trying to find the least possible problem to choose as the solution?
I know I've been in situations like that and it's not fun. It's about as fun as huffing and puffing on that treadmill in my doctor's office. But one thing I've learned over the years is that God has a purpose for these times in our lives. Just like my doctor is not a mean man for putting my body through all of that stress, God is not a mean God when He decrees that we go through trials.
When God wants to reveal the real condition of your heart to empower you toward His plan for your future, He puts you in one of these kinds of trials.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . ." (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
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For All People
In today's devotional, I want to give you the seventh reason why the new covenant in Jesus is better than the old covenant. The old covenant was only for one nation-only one people-the Jews.
The new covenant is for the whole world. It is for every nation, every people...anyone who will accept the free gift of salvation, by placing their faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 7:25 tells us,
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Or, as one old preacher said, "He saves to the uttermost and to the guttermost."
That may sound crass, but it is true! Through Jesus Christ, God has made a way of salvation for every person, no matter your race, or what religion you were brought up in, or what you may have done in your life.
John 3:16 says,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That means no one has ever done anything so bad that it could make God stop loving them. I don't care where they have been, how dark their past has been, or how burdened down their conscience is today with guilt for the things they have done-no one will be cast out if they come to Him.
His blood has the power to wash anyone clean if they will come to God through Jesus. His sacrifice takes away the sin of the world, the burden of guilt, and the shame of sin. He can make anyone into a new person. Only the blood of Jesus can do that...only the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah!
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When God Allows Your Trial
(James 2:14-24, Psalm 7)
Have you ever gotten mail in your mailbox that isn't addressed to you? You take it out of your mailbox and read that the address doesn't have your name on it. It just says, "Occupant." You get that piece of mail by virtue of you being the "occupant" of that home. Trials are a lot like that. Just by virtue of being an "occupant" on this planet in a fallen world, we will face trials.
Of course, no one likes a trial. No one wakes up in the morning, stretches and says, "Ah, what a beautiful day for a trial! I think I'd like to have a trial today!" That would be an unusual person who would do something like that. Yet no matter how much we want to avoid trials in our lives, trials are inevitable.
Trials are adverse circumstances that God allows in our lives to both identify where we are spiritually as well as to prepare us for where He wants us to go. There is no escaping them. You are either in a trial now, you've just come out of a trial, or you are getting ready to go into a trial.
But even though we all have to experience them, I want to remind you to take comfort in knowing that trials must first pass through God's hands before reaching us. Nothing comes our way without first having received His Divine approval. And in order to get His Divine approval, there must be a Divine reason for Him to approve it. We need to trust that God has our best interest in mind when He allows us to experience a trial.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Consecration of Spiritual Power
. . . by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world -Galatians 6:14
If I dwell on the Cross of Christ, I do not simply become inwardly devout and solely interested in my own holiness- I become strongly focused on Jesus Christ's interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor a fanatical holy man practicing self-denial. He did not physically cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. In fact, He was so much in the common everyday world that the religious people of His day accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual power.
It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives- no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it- to be separated internally, not externally (seeJohn 17:16).
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God's service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God's part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, "Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?"
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A Picture of God's Lovingkindness
Yesterday we learned about God's merciful and unfailing love. 2 Samuel 9:3-7 provides us with a picture of that love,
Then the king said, "Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?" And Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet." So the king said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the king, "Indeed he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar." Then King David sent and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar. Now when Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face and prostrated himself. Then David said, "Mephibosheth?" And he answered, "Here is your servant!" So David said to him, "Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually."
David made a blood covenant with Jonathan to show Jonathan's offspring the lovingkindness of God. After Jonathan died, Mephibosheth was the only offspring who remained, and he hid in the wilderness in fear of David. But David found him and elevated him to be one of his own sons, set him at his table, and restored everything he lost.
This is such a beautiful picture of the covenant God made with His Son Jesus, a covenant sealed by the blood of Christ. Because of what Jesus did, God shows us His lovingkindness, elevating us to the position of sons or daughters, and inviting us to break bread with Him at His own table.
That is the lovingkindness of God
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When God is Silent, He is Not Still
(Acts 17:24-31, Psalm 11)
We all know what it feels like to experience hopelessness to varying degrees. In fact, many people define hope as looking forward to something that they know that they will never get. Hopelessness is when you look out in front of you and you can't see any possibility for improvement or change. Many of us today are drowning in a sea of hopelessness surrounded by a land of emptiness where there seems to be no way out.
That reminds me of a story. In the summer of 2000, a Russian Oscar II Class Submarine, the Kursk, sank in the Barents Sea due to an internal explosion. Divers made several attempts to go down and assess the situation to determine if anyone had survived. When they were finally successful, they discovered a group of twenty-three men who had survived the explosion. These men had gone back as far as they could to the end of the submarine, and had gathered together in the last remaining pocket of air.
But the rescue team hadn't made it to them in time. All twenty-three men had died. On the inside wall of the submarine, they found this note that had been etched there by the Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikova. It said, "It's dark here to write, but I'll try by feel. It seems like there are no chances..."
The hopelessness we hear in Dmitri's words has been shared by many of us. We've all faced similar feelings at some time or another where there seems "like there are no chances." Hopelessness in the middle of life's storms is a human experience that is common to most of us.
It's one thing to be in the middle of a trial that has been brought on by yourself through a bad choice or action. But it's an entirely different thing to set your heart on serving God only to discover that it seems He has abandoned you in the middle of a storm. In times like those, remember that although God may be silent, He is not still. Wait on Him. He may just come walking to you on top of your storm.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Riches of the Destitute
. . . being justified freely by His grace . . . -Romans 3:24
The gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the truth that it reveals is not palatable or easy to swallow. There is a certain pride in people that causes them to give and give, but to come and accept a gift is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom; I will dedicate my life to service- I will do anything. But do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God through our own efforts. We must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest spiritual blessing we receive is when we come to the knowledge that we are destitute. Until we get there, our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us as long as we think we are sufficient in and of ourselves. We must enter into His kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are "rich," particularly in the area of pride or independence, God can do nothing for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit. The gift of the essential nature of God is placed and made effective in us by the Holy Spirit. He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, making us truly alive. He takes that which was "beyond" us and places it "within" us. And immediately, once "the beyond" has come "within," it rises up to "the above," and we are lifted into the kingdom where Jesus lives and reigns (see John 3:5).
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Cherishing the Presence of God
Psalm 84:10 gives us an important perspective of God's presence,
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
When the psalmist talks about "a day in Your courts," he is not talking about being in some building or admiring some bit of religious architecture. He is talking about enjoying the presence of God. As verse 2 of this psalm says,
My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
God is so good that just one day with Him is better than a thousand anywhere else. Just to be on the threshold, just to be on the doorstep, just to feel the slightest fringes, if you would, of the presence of God, is better than spending a thousand days anywhere else.
I think The Message Bible conveys the idea of verse 10,
One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.
Not long ago, I was walking through the neighborhood (I do this from time to time) just having a prayer walk. I walked for maybe 45 minutes and just prayed and worshiped God.
As I started thinking about all of the good things He has done for me, I began to sense His presence, and I started to cry. Now, I don't know what the neighbors thought if they happened to look out their window, but I didn't care, because I so appreciate His presence in my life.
I encourage you today to learn to cherish the presence of God!
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When You Want to Throw a Red Flag Out on God
(Romans 8:32, Psalm 12)
When a head coach on an NFL team perceives that the referee has made a wrong call, awarding a key play to the opposition, he throws out a red flag. This red flag signals that the referee needs to review the play again. Obviously the coach believes that the referee has made a mistake.
There are times in our lives, especially when we are caught between a rock and a hard place, when we want to throw a red flag out on God. We want to stop the game and throw down the red flag because it looks like God has made a wrong call. It looks like He has missed something. It looks like He didn't know what He was doing because if He did, He wouldn't have called things that way.
We think thoughts like - If God had known how this was going to affect me, He wouldn't have allowed that thing to happen. If He had really known the pain that I was going to have to go through in dealing with this, then He would have made a different decision.
We want to reach into our pocket and pull out our red flag and yell, "God, you missed this one! You blew it. Review it, because you're obviously wrong." It is during those times that we need to remember that God often does some of His best work in the dark. He is also often the nearest when He seems the furthest away. It is during those times that our faith needs to carry us through. Because it is in those times that God is often waiting to see what we are going to do
God bless
:angel:
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
He will glorify Me . . . -John 16:14
The holiness movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them. There is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ. All that is required is a pious atmosphere, prayer, and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous. It did not cost the sufferings of God, nor is it stained with "the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 12:11). It is not marked or sealed by the Holy Spirit as being genuine, and it has no visual sign that causes people to exclaim with awe and wonder, "That is the work of God Almighty!" Yet the New Testament is about the work of God and nothing else.
The New Testament example of the Christian experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the Person of Jesus. There is no regeneration- no being born again into the kingdom in which Christ lives and reigns supreme. There is only the idea that He is our pattern. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Savior long before He is the pattern. Today He is being portrayed as the figurehead of a religion- a mere example. He is that, but He is infinitely more. He is salvation itself; He is the gospel of God!
Jesus said, ". . . when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, . . . He will glorify Me . . ." (John 16:13-14). When I commit myself to the revealed truth of the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit, who then begins interpreting to me what Jesus did. The Spirit of God does in me internally all that Jesus Christ did for me externally.
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Protecting The Children
Matthew 18:1-6 is our reading for today,
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
This is a powerful truth God desires you and me to understand. He takes very seriously the protection and nurture of children.
First, it is important to understand that the word sin in this verse means to entrap. It means to set a snare for someone. Jesus was talking about someone who purposely entices an innocent child to do wrong.
Second, the millstone He refers to was about five feet across and would take an ox or a donkey to turn it. Get the picture?! Better for that millstone to be tied around a person's neck and to drown in the depths of the deepest sea than to entice a child to do wrong.
The exploitation or abuse of children is not overlooked or taken lightly by God. We read in Scripture that some sins incur a worse judgment from the Almighty. Causing children to sin is one of the worst. Never take their exploitation lightly.
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GOD IS IN THE REMODELING BUSINESS
The process of remodeling transforms the inside of a house or business in order to update it, make it more modern and effective, and save the cost of buying something new. Remodeling takes what already exists and reconfigures it into something different. If any of you have remodeled your home, you know how disruptive it can be. Dust, dirt, and chaos seem to take over. But in order for the new to be made manifest, the old must be dismantled.
Many Christians are looking for a blessing but don't want to go through the remodeling process in their lives. Yet, brokenness is the key to your break-through - to your knowing God in a deeper, more glorious, more amazing way. God is not going to bless you if He can't remodel you. In order to remodel you, He has to tear old, sinful character qualities out and put new ones in.
Brokenness is not an emotional experience of an event. Brokenness is an act of the will - surrendering your will to God. To be broken means to say yes to what God wants despite what you want. To be broken is a decision to humble yourself and acknowledge your need for help. Brokenness occurs when God strips you of your self-sufficiency and gets rid of your pride so that the life of Christ can be made manifest in you.
Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 4:11, "We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh." We undergo problems, difficulties, and frustrations so that the life of Christ may be made known through us.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"By the Grace of God I Am What I Am"
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . -1 Corinthians 15:10
The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God's perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, "Oh, I shouldn't claim to be sanctified; I'm not a saint." But to say that before God means, "No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn't possible." That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.
Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, "Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified," is in God's eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.
There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.
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Dealing with Sin
Matthew 18:8-9 provides an important insight into how to deal with sin,
"If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire."
The eye represents the thought life, where sin is conceived. The hand represents that sin actually being carried out. And the foot is where it becomes a walk, a pattern, an entrenched habit of life, a sinful lifestyle.
When Jesus says, "Cut it off," He is speaking of ruthless self-judgment. And He didn't stop there. He said, "Cut it off and cast it from you." In other words, get as far away from the source of your sin as you can.
I remember one day I walked right into a spider web. As I did, I caught a glimpse of this huge orange-colored spider out of the corner of my eye. As I hit the web, I felt it get on my neck. I started doing a war dance, hitting myself and ripping my shirt off, trying to get that thing off me.
And you know what? The moment a sinful thought lands in your mind, you ought to do the same thing, go on the warpath! Start batting that thing away! Start quoting Scriptures.
Do whatever you can to keep it from sinking its teeth into your life. As Jesus said, it will be better for you if you do!
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GOD, WHO RAISES THE DEAD
God won't bless us if He can't change us. We can't stay the same. Some of us may be wondering why we haven't had a spiritual breakthrough. One reason could be that we've not yet been broken. God makes it very clear that He only relates to those who are humble and contrite in heart. Isaiah 57:15 says, "Thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy., 'I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'" The Most High God hangs out with the lowly and the humble. He cares for those who acknowledge their need for Him. God has to grind away at our pride until we realize we are not self-sufficient.
If you are facing tough circumstances right now, you are a prime candidate for a breakthrough because God is at work through your trials. Paul said, 'We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life." (2 Corinthians 1:80. Paul was burdened beyond his strength to bear it - it was such a deep, piercing, and exhausting struggle. But we know that even if we are in a bad place, it is a wonderful place for God to do an amazing work in our lives.
"Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope." (verses 9-10). When you are beyond all earthly help, you are better able to trust in God - the God who raises the dead and saves us from death. God lets us get so low that we understand that He is our only real option
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Christian Perfection
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect . . . -Philippians 3:12
It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do- God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life's determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, "It could never be God's will for me to be sick"? If it was God's will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn't He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do. The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives may leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary- that through your own human effort and devotion you can attain God's standard for your life. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God's purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.
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The Best Safeguard Against Adultery
It grieves my heart, as I look across the country, at the number of Christian marriages being destroyed by adultery. It should not be that way!
In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, the apostle Paul gives us a safeguard against adultery. He says,
Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Now, if these verses are saying anything, they are telling us that married couples should enjoy sexual intimacy. In fact, the more they enjoy it, the better safeguard it is against immorality.
Notice Paul even goes so far as to say the wife does not have authority over her own body; and the husband does not have authority over his body. As husband and wife, you belong to one another. It says do not deprive one another unless you are going to be fasting and praying, and then only with consent.
I want to challenge you to make sexual intimacy a priority in your marriage. Don't consider it as unimportant, or leave it to your spouse. Take the responsibility to light the fire of sexual intimacy, and close the door to Satan's temptation.
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The Blessing of Brokenness
We've all seen restored furniture. Restoring furniture involves stripping away old varnish or paint with strong chemicals. This reveals all the nooks, crannies and original spots on the piece. The sanding takes place next - the wood is rubbed with coarse sandpaper in order to level out its imperfections. Then the furniture is ready to receive a new stain or paint color - it's ready for a new look. New glory can be given to old furniture. And God can do the same thing with us. He can put new glory inside an old life, but He must first strip away our old nature and sand away our sinful strongholds.
We shouldn't run from being broken. It's not pleasant or happy, but it will produce a better life. Brokenness is a blessing because it puts us on the road to a breakthrough. Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3) Those who are spiritually broken will be blessed because they will see God and experience His reality flowing through their lives.
Scripture promises that God remains with those who are broken and makes them stronger than before. Psalm 34:18 says, "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Isaiah 61:3 teaches that God would give those who mourn and are broken "a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Law of Opposition
To him who overcomes . . . -Revelation 2:7
Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.
Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me. To maintain good health I must have sufficient internal strength to fight off the things that are external. Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead. If I have enough inner strength to fight, I help to produce the balance needed for health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.
Morally it is the same. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.
And spiritually it is also the same. Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation . . ." (John 16:33). This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, ". . . but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I must learn to fight against and overcome the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness. Then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.
Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.
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Single?
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 and a word to married couples on the importance of sexual intimacy. Today I want to continue in that passage with verses 7-9 and speak to singles,
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
If you are single, and you long for physical intimacy, and you sometimes struggle with your sexuality, and you want to be married, it is God's will for you to be married. In fact, I can tell you that you do not have the gift to be single that Paul talks about.
On the other hand, you may be single and completely content, with no desire to be married. You need to know that does not mean there is something wrong with you. You just may be operating with a gift God has given you. In fact, Paul says it is better. You can serve the Lord undistracted that way.
If you do not have that gift, I believe it is God's plan for you to get married. If you are tortured with unsatisfied desire, it is better to marry.
That does not mean to go out and marry the first person you would like to have sex with. You have to take this into the context of all of God's counsel. You need to realize marriage should be the highest form of agreement between two people. No marriage should be entered into lightly or just based on physical attraction.
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TWO WAYS FOR A SPIRITUAL BREAKTHROUGH
If we are in search of a spiritual breakthrough, we have two options. First, we can choose to be broken. We can say, "Lord, I want a blessing and a breakthrough. Please break me - strip me of my sinfulness and destructive independence. I'm scared, but I trust that You love me enough to know what I can handle."
The second option is that God will break us without our permission. This option takes a lot longer, and it usually hurts a lot deeper. This delays the blessing and the breakthrough, and it will ultimately be more painful. God did not redeem us to leave us alone and let us miss all of His blessings. He loves us too much for that. There is a new, wonderful life He placed inside of us - and He wants to sanctify us and make us more like His Son so that we may experience it to the fullest.
Many of us want to simply audit the Christian life - like a college course that a person sits in on but is not required to do work and is never graded. We don't want to do all the hard work that it requires. But if Christ is truly Lord of our lives, there will be work to show that we are serving Him. There will be evidence that we are taking the course He is teaching, and it's making an impact on our life. Brokennness is one of the lessons we must go through in order to gain greater spiritual maturity and in order for Christ to be made known in our lives.
It's important to remember that the God who breaks us is also our Father. He is our Lord. He loves us. There are a million ways He can teach us what we need to know. There are different ways that He will break us down and strip us of our pride in order to teach us that we can trust Him. God is God, and He has the right to strip us of everything in us that is not like Him so that He can transform us into His image. He wants to give us blessings, but He wants to change us in the process.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"The Temple of the Holy Spirit"
. . . only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you -Genesis 41:40
I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority. Paul said he did not "set aside the grace of God"- make it ineffective (Galatians 2:21). The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever. I am not being saved- I am saved. Salvation is as eternal as God's throne, but I must put to work or use what God has placed within me. To "work out [my] own salvation" (Philippians 2:12) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me. It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly. "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection . . ." (1 Corinthians 9:27). Every Christian can have his body under absolute control for God. God has given us the responsibility to rule over all "the temple of the Holy Spirit," including our thoughts and desires (1 Corinthians 6:19). We are responsible for these, and we must never give way to improper ones. But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves. We make excuses for things in ourselves, while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.
Paul said, "I beseech you . . . that you present your bodies a living sacrifice . . ." (Romans 12:1). What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple. Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth-my body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit."
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Under Control
In today's devotional I want to follow up on the passage we looked at yesterday, 1 Corinthians 7:7-9,
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
What I want to focus on is verse 9, especially the part about burning with passion. There are way too many young Christians who are out of control in their physical relationship with the opposite sex.
So, mom or dad, here is something you can share with your kids in connection with relating to the opposite sex. Be prepared, I am going to be blunt.
1. Any body part they have that you don't have, don't touch it. Any equipment they have that you don't have, it is hands off!
2. Do not put any part of your body into any part of their body.
3. Do not get horizontal. Don't even sit on the couch watching TV, and lay down in one another's arms. If you do, you know where that can lead.
4. If you are going to kiss, let it be short and meaningful. Don't allow yourselves to get into a wrestling match. Again, it is hard to find the switch to turn it off once you get going.
5. Finally, let things like holding hands or putting your arm around your boyfriend or girlfriend actually be meaningful.
If you are single, apply these rules, and they could save you a lot of grief!
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Broken for a Blessing
(2 Corinthians 1:6)
Remodeling is a way of transforming and updating a house or place of business in order to make it more appealing, efficient, or useful. Usually, it involves a redesign on the inside of a building, but it can also include the outside of the property.
Those who have been through the process of remodeling know how extensive and upsetting it can be. Even in the best of circumstances, workers will still create dust and chaos. Yet, in order to enjoy something old being made new, you have to go through the process of remodeling. The same is true when you view God's plan for your life.
There are times in the life of every believer when he or she will go through a time of remodeling. It is a time when God is updating our life by stripping away old thoughts and habits and replacing them with His truths and principles. Instead of calling it remodeling, we call the process brokenness.
Just like the beginning phases of a construction program, it may be hard to imagine a beautiful outcome - especially when things have been torn apart. Sheetrock is missing, and tools are scattered from one end of your home to the other. However, before we can do the same, we have to be willing to allow God to give us spiritual eyes to see life from His perspective. After all, He is the One who holds the blueprints to our lives. Paul knew that there were many glorious benefits to the times he faced suffering. The greatest was his testimony of faith in Jesus Christ. No matter what befell him, Paul continued to trust in the One who had saved him and was in charge of his life. Have you come to a time of brokenness? If so, let God remodel your life, and you will be amazed at the outcome.
God bless
:angel:
December 6, 2012
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"My Rainbow in the Cloud"
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth -Genesis 9:13
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn't God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn't God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is- will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won't do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God-a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don't believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, "Now I believe." There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . ." (Isaiah 45:22).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement- no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
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Mistreated?
1 Peter 3:13-18 are verses that are a great encouragement,
And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. "And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled." But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
Jesus was not guilty. He suffered for things He did not do, and the result is that we came to God. What Peter wants us to understand is the importance of showing forgiveness and a Christlike spirit, even when we are being mistreated.
What it can do is reach the hearts of your persecutors for God. If you keep a Christlike spirit, your good conduct can make them ashamed, even though they are hassling you, and bring them to the place where they will ask you a question for the hope that is in you: Why are you the way you are? What's this deal going on in your life? Why do you react the way you react? And you can tell them about Christ.
But if you lash out, and if you dish out the same kind of abuse that you are receiving, God is not revealed at all.
Patiently endure whatever your mistreatment, and ask God to use it to reach those who need to know Him as Savior
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A Picture of Brokenness
(2 Corinthians 1:8)
A picture of brokenness is that of a wild stallion wanting its independence but being ridden for the first time. It does not want to submit, and it does not want to do what it is told to do. It enjoys a cowboy feeding it, keeping its trough filled with fresh water, and allowing it to go out and nibble grass in the sunshine. The problem comes when the saddle is tossed on its back and the harness is placed over its head.
However, if you have watched a horse being broken, you know the cowboy has more sense than to take a new horse that has never been ridden and toss a saddle on its back. For days, the animal may be led around a pen as it adjusts to the pressure of wearing a harness and the conditions surrounding its changing lifestyle. Then the saddle coes out of the tack room and is placed on the horse's back - but without a rider. Finally, the cowboy puts a foot in one of the stirrups.
There are many steps in between these, but we can form a mental picture of the process used to break a horse and prepare it to be ridden. When the cowboy climbs into the saddle, the initial shock of having someone on its back is frightening and irritating. The animal begins to buck and rears its head before it begins to settle and trot around its pen. Some horses refuse to be broken and risk being sold. Others, in time and through proper care, are broken and begin the enjoyment of a lifetime of service to their owners.
When God begins to work in your life, He doesn't immediately toss a saddle on your back or seek to break you through the circumstances of life. Instead, He works with a plan and goal in mind. Bit-by-bit and inch-by-inch, He brings you to a place where He can train you to live a life that glorifies Him and is a blessing to others.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Repentance
Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation . . . -2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction of sin is best described in the words:
My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall.
Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person's conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person's relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God- "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight . . ." (Psalm 51:4). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, "I have sinned." The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes- a reflex action caused by self-disgust.
The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man's respectable "goodness." Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person's life (see Galatians 4:19). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses- repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant.
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Dealing with Sin
I want to follow up on yesterday's devotional by pointing you to 1 Peter 2:18-23,
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.
The Goodspeed translation says, "He committed His cause to Him who judges righteously." Now these verses are pretty clear: God is a righteous judge. And even if you are being mistreated for doing right, if you will commit things to God, He has a marvelous way of turning the tables in your favor.
You have to maintain three things if God is, indeed, going to use you in such a situation.
1. You have to maintain a right spirit. You have to keep a good attitude. You cannot get bitter. You have to stay kind.
2. You have to keep right speech. Do not dish out the same kind of abuse. Do not start saying things that are going to create division.
3. You have to maintain right service. Even if you are being mistreated, continue working hard for the Lord. Do not sabotage things.
If you will do these three things, just watch what God does through your difficulties!
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THE HOPE OF SURRENDER
(2 Corinthians 1:9)
Luke writes, "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." (Luke 2:52) We know very little about the years that Jesus spent growing into manhood. However, we can surmise that He grew emotionally, mentally, and physically. Like us, God's Son had to develop, and we can imagine that while He was sinless, He learned how to live through the circumstances of life.
There are many people today who are suffering - not because they have sinned or resisted God, but because the Lord has chosen to develop their lives through difficulty and hardship. In the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul does not gloss over the fact that he suffered. At one point, he believed there was a strong possibility that he would die. However, God spared his life, and Paul was able to write about the hardships he faced with such hope that many who read his letters also declared faith in Jesus Christ.
God cannot mold and shape our lives unless we are willing to surrender and to be transparent before Him. These are prerequisites to experiencing a breakthrough in our trials and sufferings. We have no idea of the difficulties that Christ faced as a young man - the Gospels do not record them. Yet, we know that as an adult, He suffered and died on the cross for our sins so that we might have eternal life. He was not ashamed of the calling that God had given Him. Now, all glory is His, and He is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding in prayer for us each day.
Stop looking at the trials of your life with thoughts of regret and horror. Learn to rest in God's care, and allow Him to work in your life to the fullest. When you do, you will discover that He has a tremendous blessing waiting for you. Not only will you grow to be like Him, you will be a testimony of His grace and hope to a troubled world.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Offering of the Natural
It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman -Galatians 4:22
Paul was not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural can be turned into the spiritual only through sacrifice. Without this a person will lead a divided life. Why did God demand that the natural must be sacrificed? God did not demand it. It is not God's perfect will, but His permissive will. God's perfect will was for the natural to be changed into the spiritual through obedience. Sin is what made it necessary for the natural to be sacrificed.
Abraham had to offer up Ishmael before he offered up Isaac (see Genesis 21:8-14). Some of us are trying to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God before we have sacrificed the natural. The only way we can offer a spiritual sacrifice to God is to "present [our] bodies a living sacrifice . . ." (Romans 12:1). Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost.
If we do not sacrifice the natural to the spiritual, the natural life will resist and defy the life of the Son of God in us and will produce continual turmoil. This is always the result of an undisciplined spiritual nature. We go wrong because we stubbornly refuse to discipline ourselves physically, morally, or mentally. We excuse ourselves by saying, "Well, I wasn't taught to be disciplined when I was a child." Then discipline yourself now! If you don't, you will ruin your entire personal life for God.
God is not actively involved with our natural life as long as we continue to pamper and gratify it. But once we are willing to put it out in the desert and are determined to keep it under control, God will be with it. He will then provide wells and oases and fulfill all His promises for the natural (see Genesis 21:15-19).
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Whom Do You Trust?
In Psalm 118:8-9, we are told this,
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
There are a lot of applications to this passage, but let me talk to you about just one. And that is this: You do not want to trust the state of your eternal soul to any man.
Ma'am, maybe your husband prays. Maybe he has a "real deal" relationship with God. Do not expect that to gain you any merit or to somehow get you to heaven. You have to have a relationship with the Lord yourself.
Sir, perhaps you have a praying wife. She is on fire for God. Do not expect that to get you a seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb. You must be born again. You have to be trusting in the Lord yourself. You have to have your own living, breathing, walking, talking, relationship with the Savior, or you will not get in!
When I was in my early twenties, there was a plethora of gurus and eastern mystics people were following. Some of my friends gave up all of their earthly possessions and became disciples of certain "holy" men.
But you know what? If you follow a man, when he perishes, you will perish just like him. Psalm 146:3-4 says,
Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish.
If you put your trust in men, you will perish just like they do. But if you put your trust in God through His Son, Jesus Christ, you will gain eternal life.
Put your trust in God alone!
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TRUSTING GOD IN TIMES OF DARKNESS
(Habakkuk 3:17-18)
The people of Judah were on their way into captivity, and Habakkuk was just one of the prophets that God used to deliver His message of judgment and repentance. Judah's sin and disobedience had grown to such a proportion that God knew He had to do something to stop their downward spiral. The nation needed to turn back to the Lord and begin to worship Him as their only God. Therefore, He allowed them to face captivity in a foreign land. As promised, Judah was invaded, and most of the people were deported to Babylon. It was there that King Nebuchadnezzar ruled over them.
Like many of us, Habakkuk felt the weight of what was about to come, and he was not settled with the matter at all. In fact, he became anxious and cried out, "How long, O LORD, will I call for help, and You will not hear?" (1:2) As long as life runs along well, we rarely feel the need to ask God for help. However, the moment the skies of our lives turn dark and stormy, we immediately cry out to Him.
You may be a Christian who has worshipped the Lord most of your life. In fact, you consistently take time to be with Him in prayer and praise. However, difficulty has come, and you wonder what you will do. Not all suffering is the result of sin. It is true that Judah needed a course coreection or they would have totally abandoned their faith. This was not God's desire for the nation He loved. Nor was it on track with His promise to Abraham and David.
Other times, suffering comes in order to prepare us for an even greater blessing. While the storms of life may descend on us without warning, God always has a rainbow planned for those who turn their lives over to Him and trust Him even in the most difficult circumstances.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Individuality
Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . .' -Matthew 16:24
Individuality is the hard outer layer surrounding the inner spiritual life. Individuality shoves others aside, separating and isolating people. We see it as the primary characteristic of a child, and rightly so. When we confuse individuality with the spiritual life, we remain isolated. This shell of individuality is God's created natural covering designed to protect the spiritual life. But our individuality must be yielded to God so that our spiritual life may be brought forth into fellowship with Him. Individuality counterfeits spirituality, just as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself, but individuality corrupts that human nature for its own purposes.
The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-will. We hinder our spiritual growth more than any other way by continually asserting our individuality. If you say, "I can't believe," it is because your individuality is blocking the way; individuality can never believe. But our spirit cannot help believing. Watch yourself closely when the Spirit of God is at work in you. He pushes you to the limits of your individuality where a choice must be made. The choice is either to say, "I will not surrender," or to surrender, breaking the hard shell of individuality, which allows the spiritual life to emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing (see Matthew 5:23-24). It is your individuality that refuses to "be reconciled to your brother" (Matthew 5:24). God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself, He cannot. ". . . let him deny himself . . ."- deny his independent right to himself. Then the real life-the spiritual life-is allowed the opportunity to grow.
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Key #1 to Effective Prayer - Being Specific
Over the next number of devotionals, I want to walk you through the keys to effective prayer. To start, I want to focus today's devotional on Mark 10:46-52 where we find a very intriguing story.
Now they came to Jericho. As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then many warned him to be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, "Be of good cheer. Rise, He is calling you." And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" The blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, that I may receive my sight." Then Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.
The question Jesus asked, "What do you want Me to do for you?", seemed obvious, didn't it? Everybody present knew Bartimaeus needed his eyes to be healed. Why would Jesus ask this question?
He wanted us to understand how important it is to be specific when we ask something of God. Bartimaeus' faith had to become specific before it made him well. It was after he said, "Lord, that I might receive my sight," that Jesus said, "Your faith has made you well."
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LEARNING TO WAIT GOD'S WAY
(Psalm 18:6)
David was the anointed king of Israel, but before he could enjoy the realization of God's promises, he had to go through a season of testing and waiting. During this time, he was forced to hide out in caves and literally run for his life. King Saul, who was bent on David's destruction, continually hunted for him. Perhaps the Lord has given you a promise through His Word. You are ready to see it unfold, but it hasn't happened yet. Though you have waited, it seems that there is no hope on the horizon. Remember, God's timing is perfect.
He knows what you need, when you need it. He knows that if we are going to learn how to walk with Him in the daylight or the good times, we must learn first to trust Him in times of darkness.
At some point, each of us has waited for God's promises to come. David may have wondered when the Lord would open the door to blessing. However, he never allowed his thoughts to turn to doubts. In fact, in Psalm 18:17, 19, he praises God for the victory he knew would be his one day. "(God) delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me ... He brought me forth also into a broad (or spacious) place, He rescued me, because He delighted in me."
When God delivers you from trial and trouble, you can be sure that He will bring you out into a spacious place of joy and delight - one that also will glorify Him and add encouragement to your life. Have you been pushing and shoving in an effort to move God on to the place where you think you should be? If so, stop and be determined to wait on God. The time you spend waiting in darkness will one day be rewarded by the Father of lights (James 1:17).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intercessory Prayer
. . . men always ought to pray and not lose heart -Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to "fill up . . . [with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Colossians 1:24), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, "It is putting yourself in someone else's place." That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God's place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can't pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply "patched up." We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
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How to Stay Connected
Yesterday we discovered the second key to effective prayer is to stay connected to God. The critical question is: How do we do that?
While there are many things we can do, I want to focus on two things. First of all, if you want to have a close relationship with God, it is important to realize just how much He desires to have a close relationship with you.
This is an amazing truth when you stop to think about it. He is Almighty God, and yet He wants to have a close relationship with you.
Romans 5:11 in the New Living Translation says, Now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Through Jesus, God made us to be His friends! So connecting with God starts with remembering He desires to be your closest friend.
Second, you need to practice His presence. Right now God is with you. He is everywhere you go. He is at your job; He is at your home; He is with you wherever you might be, even in the hardest time of your life.
The last part of Hebrews 13:5 says, For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
There was a monk in the seventeenth century named Brother Lawrence who wrote a book called The Practice of the Presence of God. In the monastery there were chimes that rang every hour, and Brother Lawrence would use that as a reminder to connect with God.
If you have a PDA or a wristwatch or a cell phone, you might consider setting it to go off throughout the day to remind you that God is with you. Each time it goes off, spend a few moments communing with Him. Practice His presence. That will help you stay connected to God.
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OVERCOMING SPIRITUAL DRYNESS
(Ezekiel 37:3)
Spiritual dryness comes when we overextend ourselves and become too involved with life to take time to be alone with the Lord. Sin is another reason we feel dry and distant from God. The nation of Judah struggled with both of these problems. They were too busy, and they began to worship pagan gods - knowing all along that the Lord had told them, "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Deuteronony 5:7) Yet they ignored His command and suffered for it.
Yielding to sin and being too busy to worship God quickly leads to a divided mind and heart. If we continue along this track, we will begin to spend more and more time doing other things and less time in prayer with the One who loves us the most and died for our sins. Before we know it, we will feel tired, drained of energy, and just plain worn out. This is when Satan's forces begin to tempt us with sin.
Even in a world of turmoil, God wants to spend time with you. Relationship is at the core of His very being, and He desires your fellowship. How long has it been since someone has told you that he or she wants to be with you - just to talk and listen to what you have to say? God wants to do this for you.
Like our nation today, the nation of Judah was in desperate need of a revival. However, in order for this to happen, the people must express their need for God and, most of all, their desire to know Him in a personal way.
Do you feel spiritually dry? Maybe you have tried unsuccessfully to revive yourself through a home Bible study or an occasional visit to church. Or perhaps you go to church every Sunday, yet you feel dry inside. If this is the case, know that you can experience a personal revival the moment you confess your need to the Lord. His care for you is unconditional. The instant you do this, He will turn on heaven's shower of refreshment and breathe new life into your heart and soul.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Great Life
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled . . . -John 14:27
Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. But as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight to us. As long as we try to serve two masters, ourselves and God, there will be difficulties combined with doubt and confusion. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit for our own purposes.
God's mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace; not a natural peace, "as the world gives," but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, wait until it does, or seek to find out why it is not coming. If you are acting on your own impulse, or out of a sense of the heroic, to be seen by others, the peace of Jesus will not exhibit itself. This shows no unity with God or confidence in Him. The spirit of simplicity, clarity, and unity is born through the Holy Spirit, not through your decisions. God counters our self-willed decisions with an appeal for simplicity and unity.
My questions arise whenever I cease to obey. When I do obey God, problems come, not between me and God, but as a means to keep my mind examining with amazement the revealed truth of God. But any problem that comes between God and myself is the result of disobedience. Any problem that comes while I obey God (and there will be many), increases my overjoyed delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems
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Key #3 to Effective Prayer - Praying From the Heart
Today we will look at the third key to effective prayer. This key is found in Romans 10:9-10 where it says,
If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Prayer must come from the heart. These verses in particular teach us that if a person is going to pray a prayer of salvation, the heart and the mouth must get together. It is not good enough to just have the words. Your heart and mouth must be in agreement.
I believe this truth applies to every kind of prayer. It is not good enough to just use eloquent words. There has to be heart behind them if you are going to realize results from your prayers.
I think only those things that burn brightly within our hearts truly touch the heart of God.
When I was young, I would go fishing with my cousins. At night, the bats would come out and my cousins would take a lure, and they would cast it up in the air. Every once in a great while one of the bats would hit the lure and get snagged.
I think when we pray, it is like casting lines up into the heavens. But it is only the prayers that come from our heart that ever hook onto anything in heaven.
Effective prayer comes from your heart.
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A Breath Of Life
(Ezekiel 37:5)
A couple of years ago, the southern half of the United States went through a time of drought that led to a widespread crop damage. At the same time, the western part of the country was also experiencing an extensive drought, and wildfires threatened the lives and homes of countless people.
When dryness comes, it is easy to shrug our shoulders and think, "It will rain soon." However, after a few weeks with no sign of rain, we begin to wonder if we will ever see wet pavement again. The spiritual drought that hit Judah lasted for years. The people were spiritually dry and failing in their development to God. Yet they were the ones to blame because they had abandoned their devotion to the Lord.
God led Ezekiel to a valley where a mighty battle had taken place. Dry, sun-bleached bones littered the landscape, and the prophet felt hopeless at the sight. However, God reminded him that He had not abandoned His plan for the nation. Once again, He would breathe life into the nation, and even the bones in this valley would rise to new life.
When we open the door to sin, our lives become dry. When we ignore it, they become even dryer. When we refuse to heed God's warning by turning away from the very things that separate us from Him, we become dryer still.
Spiritual dryness leads to complacency and apathy. It brings a sense of deadness to our souls and turns us away from the things of God. Satan loves to entice us away from spending time alone with God in prayer and Bible study each day. He knows that if we fail to read God's Word, our lives will become dry, and we will lack the right kind of refreshment that brings life, hope, and joy to our souls
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Redemption- Creating the Need it Satisfies
The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him . . . -1 Corinthians 2:14
The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel. Is the gospel hidden to those who are servants already? No, Paul said, "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe . . ." (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). The majority of people think of themselves as being completely moral, and have no sense of need for the gospel. It is God who creates this sense of need in a human being, but that person remains totally unaware of his need until God makes Himself evident. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7). But God cannot give until a man asks. It is not that He wants to withhold something from us, but that is the plan He has established for the way of redemption. Through our asking, God puts His process in motion, creating something in us that was nonexistent until we asked. The inner reality of redemption is that it creates all the time. And as redemption creates the life of God in us, it also creates the things which belong to that life. The only thing that can possibly satisfy the need is what created the need. This is the meaning of redemption- it creates and it satisfies.
Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32). When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it awakens no real sense of need. But once Jesus Christ is "lifted up," the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him. The creative power of the redemption of God works in the souls of men only through the preaching of the gospel. It is never the sharing of personal experiences that saves people, but the truth of redemption. "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).
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Key #4 to Effective Prayer - Consistent with God's Will
In order for your prayers to be effective, they need to be in line with God's Word and will. That is the fourth key to effective prayer.
This means you must have knowledge of God's Word. In John 15:7, Jesus says,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
If you abide in God and His words abide in you, your desires will line up with His will. How important it is for us to know the Word of God!
As Hebrews 4 reminds us, the Word of God is living and active and powerful. It is spirit; it is life. It's not just pages on a piece of paper. And as you are in the Word of God, I believe the Holy Spirit will paint heaven's pictures, heaven's thoughts, and heaven's ideas on the canvas of your heart and your mind.
As you read the Word of God, you will have confidence in your prayers because you will have God's heart. And when you have God's heart, He is going to answer your prayers because that is what He desires.
I also want to point you to 1 John 5:14 which says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
His will, of course, is His Word. So if you ask anything according to His Word, He will hear you. And if you know that He hears whatever you ask, you know you have the petitions you have asked of Him.
This means you and I need to know what the Bible says so that our prayers will be answered. Effective prayers are those that are in line with God's Word and will.
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RELIEF FOR A WEARY SOUL
(Ezekiel 37:14)
How has our nation become so dry in its devotion to God? The answer is simple - we have gone to other things for refreshment. We have sought ways of encouraging ourselves without God. We have turned and walked in the opposite direction, thinking that we will try something new and it will satisfy our needs. We will the emptiness of our lives with people instead of God, and immediately they become like gods to us. Then, before we know it, they have done something to disappoint us, and we immediately feel betrayed and defeated.
In a nation that has the greatest material advantages, we want more and expect to get it. We're no longer satisfied with simple things - we have to have the latest flat-screen television. We have the newest computer that plays more songs and that does more that we will ever use, and still we cry out for more. We have flashier cars, larger homes, walk-in closets with shelves filled with clothing that we cannot even remember buying. We repaint rooms in our houses, purchase new furniture, and still feel empty, alone, and in debt.
Only God has the ability to satisfy the deepest longing in our hearts. Sure, it is fun to wear a new shirt and feel as though you are looking your best. God is not against this. In fact, He wants us to do well in this life. However, He wants us to love Him above all things. He gives good things to His children, but when the good things become objects of worship, we find that we are headed for trouble.
God will allow us to drift until we wake up and realize that our needs cannot be satisfied by anything or anyone other than God Himself. A new marriage or a new baby will not relieve the pressure. Many times it only makes it worse.
You can stop the dryness in your life by telling the Lord what you are facing and how you feel. He understands your needs, but He also knows that the only way you truly will find refreshment and hope that lasts is by living your life for Him.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Test of Faithfulness
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28
It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith- the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.
Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don't ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.
The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son
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Key #5 to Effective Prayer-Endurance
The next key to effective prayer is the need to be patient. You need to be willing to endure.
Hebrews 6:11-15 says,
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you." And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Do you realize that once God gave Abraham and Sarah the promise of having a child, it was 25 years before Isaac was born? There was some patient enduring that took place before they obtained the reality of God's promise in their lives. And so it must be with us.
Perhaps you have been praying for things in your life, and you are getting discouraged. You must remember that God does not always work things on our timetable. He works according to His.
I just want to encourage you today: Be patient. Patience is that long-lasting quality of your faith.
A number of years ago I heard one person say that faith is like your hand and patience is like your arm. When you exercise faith, it is like holding up your hand against the problem, and as you do, things are being worked out. But if you take your patience down, your faith comes down with it.
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REMEMBER GOD'S FAITHFULNESS
(Exodus 15:23)
A man attending a Bible study requested prayer because he had gotten a promotion at work. While he was ready to rejoice over his new position, he also felt apprehensive. A woman who had been with the firm much longer would not report to him. He said, "I know God has placed me in this position. However, this is going to be a bitter pill for this woman to swallow."
Most of us dislike taking medicine. If it is bitter, it is even worse. Many of us also have found ourselves in similar situations. We may have received a promotion and placed in charge of a group of people who have been with the company longer than we have. Or perhaps a new manager, whom we feel lacks ability, steps onto the scene.
Regardless of the scenario, remember that God has a plan for your life. He has chosen this point in time for you to shine and not to appear dark and gloomy. He may place you in a role of leadership where you are forced to make decisions you never thought you could or would make. Or He may have allowed you to be bypassed for a promotion you believed was yours.
At times, each one of us can view life from an unrealistic perspective. We see ourselves climbing social or corporate ladders without hitting a snag or facing many problems. In our dream, if we do come up on problem areas, we tell ourselves that we are equipped to handle each one. However, we can't, and God knows it. He allows us to face extreme difficulty in order to teach us that we need His help and strength.
A bitter person becomes critical and unwilling to work with others. A godly person accepts God's will, knowing that up ahead there will be another opportunity for him or her.
When God asks you to swallow a bitter pill, be willing to do it. In the end, this one act of surrender could turn into a tremendous source of blessing and hope.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Focus Of Our Message
I did not come to bring peace but a sword -Matthew 10:34
Never be sympathetic with a person whose situation causes you to conclude that God is dealing harshly with him. God can be more tender than we can conceive, and every once in a while He gives us the opportunity to deal firmly with someone so that He may be viewed as the tender One. If a person cannot go to God, it is because he has something secret which he does not intend to give up- he may admit his sin, but would no more give up that thing than he could fly under his own power. It is impossible to deal sympathetically with people like that. We must reach down deep in their lives to the root of the problem, which will cause hostility and resentment toward the message. People want the blessing of God, but they can't stand something that pierces right through to the heart of the matter.
If you are sensitive to God's way, your message as His servant will be merciless and insistent, cutting to the very root. Otherwise, there will be no healing. We must drive the message home so forcefully that a person cannot possibly hide, but must apply its truth. Deal with people where they are, until they begin to realize their true need. Then hold high the standard of Jesus for their lives. Their response may be, "We can never be that." Then drive it home with, "Jesus Christ says you must." "But how can we be?" "You can't, unless you have a new Spirit" (see Luke 11:13).
There must be a sense of need created before your message is of any use. Thousands of people in this world profess to be happy without God. But if we could be truly happy and moral without Jesus, then why did He come? He came because that kind of happiness and peace is only superficial. Jesus Christ came to "bring . . . a sword" through every kind of peace that is not based on a personal relationship with Himself.
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Key #6 to Effective Prayer-Humility
Humility is a very important key to effective prayer. In 1 Peter 5:5-6 we read this,
Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble." Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble.
Humility, more than anything else, is an attitude of the heart that says, "I recognize I am not self-sufficient. I am open, I am teachable, I am thankful. God, I am willing to bow my heart before You and confess that I am in utter need of Your assistance."
Contrary to what some people say and think, humility is not to be equated with lack of courage. In fact, it takes great courage for a person to admit they have need. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is a sign of strength.
King David said in Psalm 18:35, Your gentleness (or Your meekness) has made me great. Moses was called the meekest or the humblest man on the face of the earth, and yet we don't think of him as a weak person. He is one of the greatest leaders to ever step out of the pages of the Bible, and very few people in history have had power with God in the place of prayer like Moses did.
Jesus, our Savior, said, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart" (KJV). Friend, that ought to be one of the hallmark qualities of our lives- especially when we are praying. It is a key to effective prayer.
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REMEMBER GOD'S FAITHFULNESS
(Exodus 15:23)
A man attending a Bible study requested prayer because he had gotten a promotion at work. While he was ready to rejoice over his new position, he also felt apprehensive. A woman who had been with the firm much longer would not report to him. He said, "I know God has placed me in this position. However, this is going to be a bitter pill for this woman to swallow."
Most of us dislike taking medicine. If it is bitter, it is even worse. Many of us also have found ourselves in similar situations. We may have received a promotion and placed in charge of a group of people who have been with the company longer than we have. Or perhaps a new manager, whom we feel lacks ability, steps onto the scene.
Regardless of the scenario, remember that God has a plan for your life. He has chosen this point in time for you to shine and not to appear dark and gloomy. He may place you in a role of leadership where you are forced to make decisions you never thought you could or would make. Or He may have allowed you to be bypassed for a promotion you believed was yours.
At times, each one of us can view life from an unrealistic perspective. We see ourselves climbing social or corporate ladders without hitting a snag or facing many problems. In our dream, if we do come up on problem areas, we tell ourselves that we are equipped to handle each one. However, we can't, and God knows it. He allows us to face extreme difficulty in order to teach us that we need His help and strength.
A bitter person becomes critical and unwilling to work with others. A godly person accepts God's will, knowing that up ahead there will be another opportunity for him or her.
When God asks you to swallow a bitter pill, be willing to do it. In the end, this one act of surrender could turn into a tremendous source of blessing and hope.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Right Kind of Help
And I, if I am lifted up . . . will draw all peoples to Myself -John 12:32
Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but major surgery.
When you find yourself face to face with a person who is spiritually lost, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the cross. If that person can get to God in any other way, then the Cross of Christ is unnecessary. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way- not in a human way that ignores God. The theme of the world's religion today is to serve in a pleasant, non-confrontational manner.
But our only priority must be to present Jesus Christ crucified- to lift Him up all the time (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). Every belief that is not firmly rooted in the Cross of Christ will lead people astray. If the worker himself believes in Jesus Christ and is trusting in the reality of redemption, his words will be compelling to others. What is extremely important is for the worker's simple relationship with Jesus Christ to be strong and growing. His usefulness to God depends on that, and that alone.
The calling of a New Testament worker is to expose sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Savior. Consequently, he cannot always be charming and friendly, but must be willing to be stern to accomplish major surgery. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful speeches. We must be willing to examine others as deeply as God has examined us. We must also be sharply intent on sensing those Scripture passages that will drive the truth home, and then not be afraid to apply them.
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Key #7 to Effective Prayer - The Holy Spirit's Help
Today I want to talk to you about another key to effective prayer, and that is the help of the Holy Spirit. I am so glad we have the Holy Spirit to help us, aren't you?
In John 16, Jesus is talking to His disciples, and He is trying to prepare them and let them know that He is going away. In John 16:7 He tells them,
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."
Do you know who the Helper is? It is the Holy Spirit. Earlier in John 14:26 he had told His disciples this,
"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."
The Helper, the Holy Spirit, has been sent to come alongside and teach us all things. He will teach you how to pray; He will teach you things about prayer. The Holy Spirit will help you in that way.
Then He said, "[He will] bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." The Holy Spirit will help us remember the promises. The things that God has taught us He will bring to our remembrance, so we can pray effectively.
The Holy Spirit is like having a personal assistant. A personal assistant will help you remember your appointments or show you something you do not know. Every moment of every day He is there for us.
Take time to praise God today for His provision of the Holy Spirit. And remember He is there to help you in prayer.
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Why We Need Revival
Scripture Readings: Psalm 85:1-13
David cries out in Psalm 85:6, "Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in You?" and as Christians we must echo that petition. How do we know if we need a revival? Historically, revivals are preceded by spiritual decline, such as divisiveness, anger, continuous crises, addictions and service without passion. Simply put, the need for revival is a result of sin in our lives.
Revival is the restoration of the spiritual life of God's people and a return to the abundant life God intended for His followers. When God revives us, we can expect real change!
If you have experienced a crisis in your life lately, examine whether God has a purpose behind it. Perhaps God has taken steps to get your attention, and the next step is yours.
First, you must identify the change that needs to take place in your own life for true revival. I encourage you to spend time asking God to let you see yourself from His perspective. Let Him tell you what needs to change!
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Experience or God's Revealed Truth?
We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God -1 Corinthians 2:12
My experience is not what makes redemption real- redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth- Jesus Christ.
If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, "I do not care what I experience- I am sure of Him!"
Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God's revealed truth is the only faith there is.
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Key #8 to Effective Prayer-Forgiveness
An important key to effective prayer is your relationship with others. In Mark 11:24-26 Jesus says,
"Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."
Pretty strong, isn't it? Jesus cited unforgiveness as the number one reason for unanswered prayer. If my prayers were not being answered, this would be the first place I would look-into my own heart, to see whether I had allowed bitterness toward another human being to reside there. Whether I was harboring a grudge or had strife in my heart toward anyone else.
Jesus said if you have anything against anyone, anything-big or small, new or old-or anyone-yourself, your husband, your wife, a family member, a loved one, a neighbor, a co-worker, a relative, an enemy-if you have anything against anyone, it will lead to unanswered prayer.
Sometimes people hold things against themselves. They do not forgive themselves, even after God has forgiven them and after others have forgiven them. They just want to whip themselves for their stupidity for falling into the same stupid sin again, or for whatever they have done, and they don't release themselves!
There are others too, including those closest to us, whom we must forgive. If your prayers are not being answered, then look there.
Perhaps you have searched the Scriptures, filled your heart with the Word, you are praying from the bottom of your heart, and you are expectant of answers; but before you can partake of the fruit of your prayers, you must forgive if you have anything against anyone!
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Portrait of a Christian Family
In His Presence: The Lord bless you... may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life (Psalm 128:5)
Statistics tell us that over half of the couples that get married today will also get divorced. For the African-American community, this figure is even more sobering. Over 70 percent of our children will grow up in broken homes, and chances are they will grow up without a father.
We quickly see why the subject of the family is so important. God created us to be a part of a family. We are His children-members of His family-and our home is not broken. You and I are loved unconditionally. God's love for us is eternal. It does not change and will not fade.
It doesn't matter if you are married, single, divorced or widowed, God is your heavenly Father and he has promised never to leave you. This truth should add a tremendous amount of security to your life, especially when you live devoted to Him and not to yourself.
Sadly, when couples put their own interests ahead of their vows to God and their love for one another, something is bound to give, and it usually is their marriage. It falls apart, leaving deep feelings of resentment and sorrow.
When people do not feel loved, a deep sorrow can fill their hearts that often leads to anger and acts of violence. How can you help? It all begins with unconditional love-God's love within you, poured out to those around you.
One Minute Please
Preservation of the family is critical to our welfare---individually and as a nation.
God bless
:angel: :angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Where the Battle is Won or Lost
'If you will return, O Israel,' says the Lord . . . -Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, "I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I'll put God to the test." Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point- a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory
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You Made it This Far!
In the last couple of devotionals, we saw how the devil will attack a new babe in Christ. Hebrews 10:32 sheds some additional light on what we can expect,
But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings.
When it says, after you were illuminated, it literally means, "After you came to the light." This verse is talking about when the light of the Gospel dawned on you, when you were saved.
And what does it say? You need to recall, to remember, that after you came to Christ, you endured. You went through some battles.
I think we need to remember that. In fact, let me just encourage you today. The fact that you are reading this devotional today says something about you. Did you know there are a lot of people who were saved at the same time you were, but they are not seeking God today?
You made it through the battle! You stood fast. You might feel like you are pretty rickety and ready to keel over, but you are still seeking God! If the devil could get you, he would have gotten you already.
By God's grace you made it this far. Now is no time to quit!
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ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT
In His Presence: Hear...your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching (Proverbs 1:8).
Another way people learn about the family is through the lives and advice of friends. We may have heard others talking about what they would or would not do. Sitting around with his buddies watching a football game, one guy declared that he did not do woman's work. Another chimed in with agreement. Both men proudly stated how their wives take care of the children while they bring home a paycheck.
Remember what we said earlier: One of the number one problems in our country today is absentee parents-men and women who have checked out of the lives of their children. However, children need both parents to be actively involved as they learn and grow. Yet far too often, dads are taking a backseat, while moms are left to single-handedly direct the show.
When this is the case, children receive a mixed message. Instead of feeling secure, they feel insecure and often see their fathers as being weak. God has created men to be the head of the family. Therefore, men have a responsibility to fulfill.
If you are unsure how to handle yhour situation, ask God to direct your steps. Also, set a goal to live according to His principles. Most importantly, be actively involved in the lives of your children. You will never have another opportunity to say: "I love you," with your life. Therefore, make the most of the time that God has given you.
One Minute Please:
When it comes to the ways of the family, God the Father knows exactly what is best.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Continuous Conversion
. . . unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 18:3
These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God's, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must "put on the new man . . ." (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule- God must rule in us.
To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, "I won't submit." We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.
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Attack at the Point of Spiritual Breakthrough
We have seen in previous devotionals how Satan will attack when a person comes to Christ, when they are a babe in their faith. I believe Scripture shows us that the devil will also attack when you are on the verge of a breakthrough, or at a time of important transition. This is the second battle we must fight.
In Matthew 3, we find Jesus at an absolutely critical time of transition in His life. We have not heard from Him since He was 12 years old. There has been about 30 quiet, unnoticed years where He presumably was working in His father's carpentry shop.
That is when we read in Matthew 3:16-4:1,
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus is about to enter public ministry. The sick will be healed; the poor will have the gospel preached to them; miracles will be worked; the Father will be revealed. So from this point, the battle is on. And we are given a bird's-eye view of the conflict that occurs between Christ and the devil, which we will look at in more detail in the next several devotionals.
But I want to submit something to you today. If it seems that all hell has broken loose in your life, maybe, just maybe, it's because you are on the verge of a breakthrough in your life.
Maybe it's a time of very important transition where God wants to lift you into a place where there is going to be greater influence and greater impact through your life.
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LIVING WITH A SUBSTITUTE
In HIS Presence: The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Genesis 2:15).
We live in a world where substitutes are often accepted as being the real thing. Years ago, a leading soft drink company decided to change the way its soda tasted. The company created a new drink and rolled out an elaborate ad campaign calling the drink the "new" cola.
When the public realized this new product would replace the original, there was outrage. People vowed to boycott the company by refusing to drink any of its products. Immediately, company executives realized that they were in trouble and withdrew the new product line. They quickly adopted a new marketing slogan regarding the original cola: "It's the real thing!"
What potentially could have spelled disaster for the company became the basis of a marketing program that is still going today-"It's the real thing!" In other words, there are no substitutes or fakes. The original thing is the real thing.
When it comes to the subject of the family, we have cast aside the original plan God gave us in Genesis and adopted a "new" plan. Instead of turning to His Word for advice, we now switch on the television and tune in to the talk shows and our families are suffering. If this is all we hear and practice, then we will be headed for deep trouble. God has a plan in mind for the family. It is real and amazing, but first we must be willing to embrace it.
One Minute Please:
We live in a day of substitutes and in a time when the real thing looks cheap.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will You Go Out Without Knowing?
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
Have you ever "gone out" in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, "What do you expect to do?"You don't know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to "go out" in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, because you don't know what God is going to do next. Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to "go out," building your confidence in God. ". . . do not worry about your life . . . nor about the body . . ." (Luke 12:22). In other words, don't worry about the things that concerned you before you did "go out."
Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do- He reveals to you who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you "go out" in complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?
Believe God is always the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him. Then think how unnecessary and disrespectful worry is! Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to "go out" in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus. You must learn to "go out" through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God.
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The Impact of Sacrifice
Jesus calls us to sacrifice, and the devil will do all he can to keep us from that. Read Jesus' words,
"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 16:24-25).
The devil will fight to keep you from sacrifice because he knows several things.
1. He understands that sacrifice brings the presence of God. Throughout the Old and New Testaments you will find that whenever men and women sacrificed, God's presence came. The devil doesn't want more of the presence of God in your life. He would love for you to live a mediocre, half-hearted life. But to follow Jesus means self-denial. When Jesus leads you to sacrifice, it will always bring a greater measure of His life and His presence into your life. And the devil understands that.
2. He understands that sacrifice opens a great channel of blessing that otherwise we will not experience. Paul wrote to the Philippians, "I've received your gift. It is a sacrifice, a sweet-smelling aroma to God, and my God will supply all of your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." That promise of needs being met according to a heavenly standard was directly linked to sacrificial giving.
3. He understands that those who have changed the world were always men and women who sacrificed. You will not find anyone who has changed the world for good that has not been a person of great sacrifice. The devil knows that is true!
Don't let Satan keep you from the sacrifice God is calling you to make.
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MARCHING TO THE WORLD'S DRUMBEAT
In HIS Presence: God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female (Genesis 1:27).
It's amazing to listen to what people are saying about marriage and the family. Many do not expect to be in either type of relationship very long. Therefore, they treat their family commitments as if they were temporary-something that is here today and gone tomorrow.
It's like the cartoon character preparing for his wedding. He says to a friend, "Man I'm getting married today and I'm nervous."
His friend answers, "Yeah, you need to think very seriously about something that will occupy the next five years of your life."
People no longer expect marriages to last. In fact, they expect them to fail.
The reason many marriages do fall apart is because people trade in God's idea of marriage for their own. They take His plan and adjust it to theirs, making a horrible mess.
Husbands and fathers seem to be more interested in following the crowd than God. Many women no longer seek to be what God called them to be-godly wives and mothers who put the interests of their family above their own.
Most of us would not consider buying a complicated product without knowing how to work it. Yet, we enter marriage and never pick up the owner's manual-God's Word. Obviously, the Manufacturer knew what He was doing when He packaged the product.
One Minute Please:
The problem is not the family; it is with us-the ones who refuse to read God's instructions.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Clouds and Darkness
Clouds and darkness surround Him . . . -Psalm 97:2
A person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when he is baptized by the Holy Spirit, he finds that "clouds and darkness surround Him . . . ." When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first realization of this. The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet- getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God- it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. Only after the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable "darkness" of realizing who He is.
Jesus said, "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Once, the Bible was just so many words to us - "clouds and darkness"- then, suddenly, the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us when our circumstances make the words new. That is the way God speaks to us; not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to God, it is by the most simple way- words.
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Samson and Jesus-Part 1
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS... And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:31 & 35).
There are some striking similarities between Samson the Nazarite and Jesus the Nazarine. Here are a few of them.
· Both the birth of Samson and the birth of Christ were announced through angelic messengers.
· Samson's father said, "Let your words come to pass." Mary, the mother of Jesus, said, "Let it be unto me according to your word."
· Samson was born to deliver the Israelites who were in bondage to and oppressed by the Philistines. Jesus was born to deliver the world that was in bondage to and oppressed by Satan.
· The Spirit moved upon Samson. The Spirit descended upon and anointed Jesus.
· Samson was a thorn in the Philistines' side, going about destroying their yoke over Israel. Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil and thereby destroying Satan's yoke of bondage.
· Samson's own people rejected him and turned him over to the Philistines. Jesus' own people (the Jews) rejected Him and turned Him over to the Romans.
These similarities between Samson and Jesus are not coincidental. Samson's story is meant to point the way to Jesus. God wants people to know about the blessed Savior. You can point the way to Him as well. Tell someone today about Jesus!
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The Tragedy
In HIS Presence: God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female (Genesis 1:27).
There are no counterfeits in the kingdom of God. However, in Satan's evil realm, there are only faulty imitations of what the Lord created to be good. The Enemy is determined to destroy God's work, and he always begins by seeking to tear the family apart. He tempts us into compromising and doing exactly what we know is wrong. In times of sin, we may think so one will get hurt but ourselves. However, we are wrong. The ripple effect of sin goes on and on.
God promises to deal with every deed done in secret and darkness. We will have to bear the consequences of our actions. Usually, once sin begins, it does not stop until something tragic takes place. Sadly, our children often are the ones who suffer the most as they wonder why Daddy is not home or why Mommy left so quickly.
God's plan for marriage has an instruction guide that is easy to follow. It begins like this, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:;37).
When you obey His principles, life becomes bright and full of joy. There may be some touch issues that you will have to tackle along the way. However, because you have obeyed Him, He will give you the strength and wisdom you need to get through every difficulty.
One Moment Please:
God wants men and women to partner together to fulfill his plan for the family.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Why Can I Not Follow You Now?
Peter said to Him, 'Lord, why can I not follow You now?' -John 13:37
There are times when you can't understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don't fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification- to be set apart from sin and made holy- or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt- wait.
At first you may see clearly what God's will is- the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is distinctly God's will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move.
Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. "I will lay down my life for Your sake." Peter's statement was honest but ignorant. "Jesus answered him, ' . . . the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times' " (John 13:38). This was said with a deeper knowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not follow Jesus because he did not know himself or his own capabilities well enough. Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His irresistible charm, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him.
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Samson and Jesus-Part 2
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS (Luke 1:31).
In yesterday's devotional we examined some amazing similarities between Samson and Jesus. Here are a few more parallels to ponder:
· Samson was betrayed by Delilah. Jesus was betrayed by Judas.
· Samson was taken prisoner and tortured by the Philistines. Jesus was taken prisoner and tortured by the Romans.
· Samson, while being mocked in Dagon's temple, wrought his greatest victory and gave the Philistines their worst defeat-the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life. Jesus, while being mocked on the cross by his persecutors, wrought His greatest victory and handed hell its ultimate defeat. And He did it through His death.
It is said that Samson "began to deliver Israel," indicating that his work was to be carried on by others. Jesus has left the work of evangelism to us. Though He paid the price, we are to carry the good news of His victory to the ends of the earth.
As you think about these similarities, I want you to especially consider the last one I presented. Once we receive the gospel, we are then to be carriers of the gospel. Tell someone about Jesus and what He has done for them-today!
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AN UNCOMPROMISING LOVE
In HIS Presence: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25).
Most of us have either read or heard a sermon preached on the Scripture quoted above. The apostle Paul was writing to believers in Ephesus-a city that was one of the most pagan at the time. These early believers were just beginning to understand what it meant to love others the way that Jesus loved people. So Paul added an important detail to his teaching-he instructed husbands to love their wives the way Christ loves the church.
When we talk about loving to this degree, we are talking about sacrifice and commitment. This is exactly what Jesus did for each one of us. He sacrificed His life and committed Himself to us. Wives need to know that their husbands are willing to do the same for them.
Jesus is our loving Savior. Likewise, there will be times when wives need to view their husbands as saviors-not taking the place of Christ, but listening to their daily struggles and providing the protection they need from harm.
If you have never opened your heart to Christ's love, then you will not know how to love the way He loved. In fact, a person can be saved and still not experience the depth of God's love. However, when you ask Him to teach you the right way to love, He will do it. No matter what your past contains, He will broaden your ability to love with His same love.
One Minute Please
Love is measured by sacrifice, not by enjoyment.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intimate With Jesus
Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?' -John 14:9
These words were not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus was encouraging Philip to draw closer. Yet the last person we get intimate with is Jesus. Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jesus as the One who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see Luke 10:18-20). It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to come: ". . . I have called you friends . . ." (John 15:15). True friendship is rare on earth. It means identifying with someone in thought, heart, and spirit. The whole experience of life is designed to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ. We receive His blessings and know His Word, but do we really know Him?
Jesus said, "It is to your advantage that I go away . . ." (John 16:7). He left that relationship to lead them even closer. It is a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in Scripture to be the visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (see John 15:1-4).
Once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely and we never lack for understanding or compassion. We can continually pour out our hearts to Him without being perceived as overly emotional or pitiful. The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control. This is the outcome of allowing Jesus to satisfy every area of life to its depth. The picture resulting from such a life is that of the strong, calm balance that our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.
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Living for Whom?
Today I want us to return to Luke 12, but focus on verses 16-19,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."'"
This guy is classic! While he was rich, he was only rich toward himself. He did not have any thoughts about being rich toward the Kingdom of God. He was totally self-centered.
In fact, in the few short verses where this man speaks, verses 17, 18, and 19, he uses six "I"s, five "my"s, and four "I will"s. He says, "My crops, my barns, my goods, my soul." Pretty self-centered!
Yes, his land brought forth an incredible harvest, but who provided the fertile soil? Who provided the rain? Who provided the sunshine? Who gave him his health? Who gave him the ability to think and plan? In fact, for that matter, who gave him his soul?
In Ezekiel 18:4 God says, "All souls are Mine."
This man totally left God out of his plans. Everything he did, he did for himself. And God said he was a fool. On the very same day he made his boast, his soul was required of him.
Instead of a barn, he had a burial; instead of living in the lap of luxury, he had to stand before God and give an account of his life.
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GOD'S LOVE IS ETERNAL
In HIS Presence: God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
God commands husbands to love their wives. However, He never instructs a wife to do the same. She is commanded, instead, to respect her mate. This may seem like an odd way to address the subject of love, but God is not saying that women should dismiss this commandment.
Rather, God is love, and His love lives within us. Therefore, we are commanded to love one another with the love of Christ. From God's perspective, a woman's love comes as a direct response to her husband's salvation and the fight of love he gives to her. It begins with the foundation of respect and flourishes.
If husbands are going to be biblical lovers, they also must become biblical saviors. Jesus Christ did not die for us because we were lovable. He died for us in order to make us lovable. His gift of salvation is the greatest form of love. When we were lost in sin, He died for you and me. It is his love that draws us to Himself. We are saved by love so that we can receive His love.
Many times, we think of love as being hot or cold-on or off-but God's love is eternal. It has no ending. In order to experience it, however, we must come to a point where we accept and respect the fact that He loves us. Once we do this, we discover the irresistible love of God for ourselves.
One Minute Please:
Husbands have a Deliverer in Christ, and wives need to have a deliverer in them.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is My Sacrifice Living?
Abraham built an altar . . . ; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar . . . -Genesis 22:9
This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not- "Lord, I am ready to go with You . . . to death" (Luke 22:33). But- "I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God."
We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him.
It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a "living sacrifice"- to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12:1). This is what is acceptable to God.
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Compromise
As we continue our consideration of prosperity, I want to turn your attention to Luke 12:31,
"But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
This is a simple but powerful principle for life: We have to put God's Kingdom first if we are to realize God's prosperity.
A lot of Christians get caught up in the drive for prosperity and forget that God's greatest desire is for us to pursue His Kingdom. In fact, I think some of God's children today are frustrated as they are endeavoring to prosper. They can see the promise of prosperity in the Word, yet they are coming up short, and they are asking, "God, what's up?"
I really think this is an issue of the heart. God is not prospering them because they may not be mature enough spiritually to handle the degree of prosperity they are seeking. It might do them harm.
This brings to mind a young coworker of mine from a number of years ago. He was a believer but was struggling financially. One night we were in a restaurant after work when he shared a difficult struggle he was going through.
We prayed that God would do something supernatural to help him in his time of need. Two days later, he got an unexpected inheritance. It was huge! And you know what? The next week he wasn't at work. Instead he was out partying. All of a sudden, his church life stopped and he walked away from his relationship with God. He didn't have the maturity to handle the success.
I think success has ruined more people than failure. It has been said that money is the most dangerous thing God can put into your trust.
Seek after God. And when He prospers you, keep seeking after Him!
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Before Rushing Down the Aisle
Scripture Readings: Romans 5:1-3
I'm sure you've noticed how many single people really want to get married, and how most married couples are always trying to set up their single friends. And of course, I'm sure you've heard (especially at Christmas get togethers) grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents always asking the single relatives in the family, "Sooo . . . anyone special in your life?"
Yes, marriage is something very special, but it is never something to rush into. Too often people rush into marriage before they've been able to define themselves and become complete in God. Some people think getting married will make them happy and complete, but putting two incomplete people together does not equal a whole, but rather two unhappy people in an unhappy marriage.
We can't look to others to make us happy; we have to look to God. Those who are single should define themselves in God and find happiness in Him, and those matchmakers out there should help their single friends and family with this process-helping them become whole, before starting to try to find them the perfect person to marry.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Prayerful Inner-Searching
May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
"Your whole spirit . . . ." The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139 . The psalmist implies- "O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me."
Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? ". . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus-no longer condemned in God's sight.
We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.
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The Secret to God's Provision
In Luke 12:31-32 Jesus tells us,
"But seek the kingdom of God...." (In Matthew 6:33, He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God...and all these things shall be added to you.") "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
The secret to receiving God's provision is to put God's Kingdom first, then everything else will be added to you. That includes all the things you worry about and strive after. God promises He will add them to you.
I know for some people it is just too simplistic. It is just a childish notion to be brushed aside. But, to do so is a grave mistake. Never underestimate the power of obedience. When we obey God and get our priorities in line, it unlocks and releases incredible blessings in our life.
When we put the spiritual above the material, when we put the cause and the mission of God's Kingdom before our own personal desires, it will cause things to be added to our lives.
I remember reading about J.L. Kraft. He began his business by selling cheese on the streets in Chicago, but failed miserably. One day a Christian friend told him, "J.L., you don't have God first in your life, or in your business. Put Him first in all things you do, and you will see a different outcome."
From that day on, he put God's Kingdom first in every way and he built the largest cheese empire in the world.
First things first. Jesus said, "Do not worry. Just get your priorities in line, and God will take care of you."
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Look for Opportunities to Encourage
Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11; Hebrews 10:24-25; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4; Isaiah 43:5
Are you one of them? They're out there right now. There are millions of them. In your city. In your neighborhood. In your church. Perhaps, even in your home. You may even be one of them . . . Who are they?
People in desperate need of encouragement.
Let's face it . . . life can be hard. The Christian walk is a narrow road that can be smooth one minute and bumpy the next, filled with twists and turns and trials and triumphs. All of us face moments when we feel like it takes everything we've got just to keep going.
In those moments, we need an encouraging word. We need someone who will speak the truth to us in love. We need the light of God's love to fill us with the hope, faith and strength we need to rise again.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, the Apostle Paul challenged Christians to encourage one another. As followers of Christ, we should ALWAYS be on the lookout for opportunities to encourage others! Are you?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Opened Sight
I now send you, to open their eyes . . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . -Acts 26:17-18
This verse is the greatest example of the true essence of the message of a disciple of Jesus Christ in all of the New Testament.
God's first sovereign work of grace is summed up in the words, ". . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins . . . ." When a person fails in his personal Christian life, it is usually because he has never received anything. The only sign that a person is saved is that he has received something from Jesus Christ. Our job as workers for God is to open people's eyes so that they may turn themselves from darkness to light. But that is not salvation; it is conversion-only the effort of an awakened human being. I do not think it is too broad a statement to say that the majority of so-called Christians are like this. Their eyes are open, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration. This is a neglected fact in our preaching today. When a person is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision. People may make vows and promises, and may be determined to follow through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to the place where we are able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ, namely, forgiveness of sins.
This is followed by God's second mighty work of grace: ". . . an inheritance among those who are sanctified . . . ." In sanctification, the one who has been born again deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's ministry to others.
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What Has You?
In Mark 10:17-22, this is what we read,
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.'" And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
This is an interesting passage, isn't it?! I think verse 22 could probably be read as "great possessions had him," and we wouldn't do too much damage to the text. Possessions possessed him, and he went away from his conversation with Jesus sorrowful.
When Jesus met this guy, He was able to cut right to the heart issue, what controlled his life. Verse 21 could be paraphrased, "Okay, you really want it? Here's your roadblock, baby." It was the guy's attitude toward his stuff.
This man loved possessions, wealth, and the things of this life more than he loved Jesus.
Where are you today, my friend? Have you allowed our world to con you into believing that you should base your life on the stuff you accumulate? Or do you love God the most?
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Make a Difference One by One
A father and son were walking along a beach after a powerful storm. In fact, the storm was so strong that as the waves crashed and the wind blew, hundreds of starfish were washed ashore and left far from the water they needed to survive.
As they walked, the father and son began a rescue mission, picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. When the boy looked at the hundreds of remaining starfish, he became discouraged. "Dad, there's too many. We can't save them all. We can't make a difference!"
The father looked at the starfish in his hand. The creature would have never made it back into the ocean on its own. As he threw the starfish back in the ocean, he told his son, "We're making a difference to this one."
You can make a difference too . . . even if it's only one by one. God has called each of us - not just the pastor or the missionary - to be a voice of encouragement to someone. Bless someone. Make a difference.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
What My Obedience to God Costs Other People
As they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon . . . , and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus -Luke 23:26
If we obey God, it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the pain begins. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything- it is a delight. But to those who do not love Him, our obedience does cost a great deal. If we obey God, it will mean that other people's plans are upset. They will ridicule us as if to say, "You call this Christianity?" We could prevent the suffering, but not if we are obedient to God. We must let the cost be paid.
When our obedience begins to cost others, our human pride entrenches itself and we say, "I will never accept anything from anyone." But we must, or disobey God. We have no right to think that the type of relationships we have with others should be any different from those the Lord Himself had (see Luke 8:1-3).
A lack of progress in our spiritual life results when we try to bear all the costs ourselves. And actually, we cannot. Because we are so involved in the universal purposes of God, others are immediately affected by our obedience to Him. Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent? Or will we do just the opposite and say, "I will not cause other people to suffer"? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but it will grieve our Lord. If, however, we obey God, He will care for those who have suffered the consequences of our obedience. We must simply obey and leave all the consequences with Him.
Beware of the inclination to dictate to God what consequences you would allow as a condition of your obedience to Him.
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Giving When No One Sees
Matthew 6:1-4 gives some important insight into giving,
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."
Jesus points us to a truth that is vital to us as Christians: Giving is an issue of the heart.
God will not honor your giving if, when you give, your heart is saying, "I want everyone to know what I'm doing. I want to be noticed when I give. I want everyone to know just how generous and kind I am and what a benevolent heart I have."
We should give with a pure motive. When we give with the right motive, not to be seen by men but out of a right heart, God will reward us openly. That may not exactly translate into dollars and cents, but it will translate into tangible blessings, things that people can see.
If nobody else knows you kicked in the extra hundred bucks, don't worry about it. God sees, and He has a way of rewarding you openly. Everyone will recognize the hand of God is on you. God's blessings will come into your life.
So when you give, check your heart to make sure you are giving with the right motive.
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Encouragement Always Speaks Truth in Love
Scripture Reading: Galatians 6:1-5; Romans 12:3; James 5:19-20; James 2:13
Most of us, at one time or another, have had someone in our lives who encouraged us. Perhaps it was a parent, teacher, coach or pastor. There are few things in life as meaningful as a timely word of encouragement that builds us up and helps us through hard times.
Over my years of ministry, I have found that a voice of encouragement can be life-affirming, while a voice of discouragement can wield a mortal blow. People must always choose which voice they'll be.
As we encourage, we should always speak truth. Discouragement is so often built on a lie, driven by the wrong information. When we encourage people with the truth, we show them we truly care.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Called By God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me' -Isaiah 6:8
God did not direct His call to Isaiah- Isaiah overheard God saying, ". . . who will go for Us?" The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God's call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). That is, few prove that they are the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have had their spiritual condition changed and their ears opened. Then they hear "the voice of the Lord" continually asking, ". . . who will go for Us?" However, God doesn't single out someone and say, "Now, you go." He did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call. His response, performed in complete freedom, could only be to say, "Here am I! Send me."
Remove the thought from your mind of expecting God to come to force you or to plead with you. When our Lord called His disciples, He did it without irresistible pressure from the outside. The quiet, yet passionate, insistence of His "Follow Me" was spoken to men whose every sense was receptive (Matthew 4:19). If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard-"the voice of the Lord." In perfect freedom we too will say, "Here am I! Send me."
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The Heart of the Issue
Over the last few devotionals, we have learned just how important our heart motivation is in giving, praying, and fasting. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus continues to deal with matters of the heart,
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
How do you lay up treasures in heaven? Jesus told the rich young ruler, "Sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." So giving to help people, giving to the poor, giving to ministry, giving to God's work instead of hoarding it up, giving to God-that is the way you lay treasure up in heaven.
But notice that Jesus goes on to say, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus hasn't really changed the subject. The heart of the issue is the heart. That is the theme of Jesus' teaching.
A right heart attitude-a proper heart motive-is what God cares about most. That is true whether you are giving, you are praying, or you are fasting. He wants you to do these things for the right reasons.
Those right reasons include your desire to help people. Your desire to express your love for God and His Kingdom. Those are the right reasons.
Jesus said, when you are motivated by the right reasons, you are laying up treasure in heaven. He says, "Where your treasure is (in heaven with God), there your heart will be also."
His point? The heart of the issue is your heart.
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The Lesson of the Cross
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; 2 Corinthians 5:11-16; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
As Jesus hung on Calvary, He took on our sin debt to redeem us from the law. His death satisfied God's divine law to overcome the problem of sin and the condemnation of death. When God looks at us, He sees only the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.
All the sin of the world for all time - every millennium, every age - was placed on the person of Jesus Christ at Calvary. When Jesus rose from the dead, He was victorious over sin and death, destroying death's authority over us.
From the moment of resurrection, Jesus shares this victory with all who believe in Him. This victory is a gift of grace. God forgives the sins of everyone who accepts His Son as their Lord and Savior.
Every believer can live life in great anticipation of spending eternity in the presence of our Lord.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You Walk In White?
We were buried with Him . . . that just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . even so we also should walk in newness of life -Romans 6:4
No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a "white funeral"-the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a "white funeral," a death with only one resurrection-a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can defeat a life like this. It has oneness with God for only one purpose- to be a witness for Him.
Have you really come to your last days? You have often come to them in your mind, but have you really experienced them? You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement. Death means you stop being. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death. It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death. It is dying- being "baptized into His death" (Romans 6:3).
Have you had your "white funeral," or are you piously deceiving your own soul? Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, "Yes, it was then, at my 'white funeral,' that I made an agreement with God."
"This is the will of God, your sanctification . . ." (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Once you truly realize this is God's will, you will enter into the process of sanctification as a natural response. Are you willing to experience that "white funeral" now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you.
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God's Guidance System
In Matthew 6:22-24, Jesus tells us the impact when God has our whole heart,
"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
While it may not seem like it, Jesus is talking about the heart.
As we learned in our previous devotionals, if you give to God, and give for the right reasons, God has your heart. Your heart belongs to Him. When God has your heart, He can lead you; because that is how God leads, He leads through your heart.
That's really what this illustration is about. That is what He means by, "The lamp of the body is the eye."
Think about the difference light makes when trying to walk on a narrow, craggy path. When light comes into your eye, you can see your way. Your eyes, when the light is able to come in, are a built-in guidance system, aren't they?
Well, you know what? You have a guidance system God uses to lead you. That guidance system is called your heart. If God has your treasure, He has your heart. But God can't lead you through your heart if He doesn't have your heart.
If God has your heart, then He can begin to lead you. You can go anywhere He tells you to go. And interestingly enough, the loyalty of our heart is expressed through our giving. Giving and guidance tied together? According to Jesus... definitely!
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Reversing the Curses in Your Life
Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-19
Everyday, people live under the curse of defeat, which takes on many different forms. It could be recurring disease, depression, one financial problem after another, family problems passed down from generation to generation.
For the Christian, there is always hope. Jesus came to reverse every curse and give us power to conquer anything that might hold us down. God specializes in making the impossible possible.
In 2 Kings 5:1-19 is the story of Naaman, a valiant warrior who led his country to victory. Cursed with leprosy, an incurable disease that left its victims sick and social isolated, Naaman sought help from the prophet, Elisha. After dipping seven times in the Jordan River at Elisha's command -- Naaman initially scoffed at - the Syrian warrior was healed. Naaman turned his heart to worship God of Israel, the reverser of the curse.
Like Naaman, commit to see your cleansing through. God will redeem what you thought was impossible to restore.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Voice of the Nature of God
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' -Isaiah 6:8
When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God's voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person's opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
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When God Has Our Hearts
In Matthew 6:25-26, Jesus applies all we have covered over the last few days,
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Given the context of the preceding verses, Jesus is telling us that if God is first in our giving, then He indeed has our heart. If He has our hearts, He can guide us and meet our needs, and we have no need to worry about provision for our life.
He feeds the birds. He will take care of you. Do not worry. Obey Him, trust Him, and look to Him for your daily bread.
Matthew 6:33 says,
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
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Don't Set Yourself Up for Failure
Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-19 and Philippians 1:6
God can reverse every curse in your life - from the financial and physical to the generational and spiritual. The prophet Elisha would not accept payment from General Naaman for God's restoration of the warrior's health, but the prophet's servant Gehazi couldn't resist. He lied, took the payment and hid it. Elisha knew what Gehazi had done and rebuked him for jumping ahead of God's provision and blessing. Gehazi set himself up for failure, and his punishment was the curse of leprosy.
Seven years later because of God's divine arrangement, Gehazi was able to take and hide a load of riches from an abandoned Syrian camp. A changed man, Gehazi generously shared the loot with the children of Israel, and God restored his health and promoted him to the king's advisory board.
If you are wrestling with a curse, or have given in to its control, God wants to accomplish something in you greater than just getting rid of your problems. Put your trust in God and obey His Word, and you too, like Gehazi, can enjoy a comeback.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Call of the Natural Life
When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . -Galatians 1:15-16
The call of God is not a call to serve Him in any particular way. My contact with the nature of God will shape my understanding of His call and will help me realize what I truly desire to do for Him. The call of God is an expression of His nature; the service which results in my life is suited to me and is an expression of my nature. The call of the natural life was stated by the apostle Paul- "When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him [that is, purely and solemnly express Him] among the Gentiles . . . ."
Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God. Service becomes a natural part of my life. God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand His call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation of absolute love. Service to God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is an expression of my nature, and God's call is an expression of His nature. Therefore, when I receive His nature and hear His call, His divine voice resounds throughout His nature and mine and the two become one in service. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life.
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Go Fish
Over the next seven devotionals, I want to talk to you about the number one business of the Church: the business of winning souls. It is what I call "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning."
The first "C"-commission-is found in Mark 16:15. These are some of the last words Jesus spoke before He ascended into heaven,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Could it be any clearer? Jesus said, "Go." Dare we say, "No"? He said, "Go."
That is the opposite of "stay," isn't it? G G-O.
God wants you and me to take the Gospel to Others.
You and I need to get out into the world! Jesus was not crucified between two candles on a church altar. He was crucified out in the byways and highways of humanity, and that is where we must take the message.
Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." That is a promise. But you know what? You have to get to the water if you are going to catch fish. You have to get out of the four church walls, out to where hurting humanity is, and engage them with the gospel.
A while back, I went backpacking with my two sons in a very remote area. We found a pristine lake where just about every time we would put a line in the water, we would catch a fish.
We also had this incredible camp. But you know what? If we wanted to catch fish, we had to go down to the water. No one could catch a fish sitting in camp.
A lot of Christians just hang around the camp. They form fishing clubs and talk about how important it is to fish. But they don't fish.
God wants us to go fish!
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Don't Settle for Less
Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:21; Luke 17:19; John 10:10
In my teaching series, Reversing the Curses in Your Life, I go great deal into the reversal of fortune that Elisha's servant Gehazi experienced (Read 2 Kings 7:3-16; 8:4).
His story is an important one for all of us. His life after the curse was far better than it was before. No curse is irreversible . . . whether you inherited it or brought it on yourself, you don't have to settle for it.
When God committed to being our Father, He committed to maturing us completely. It may take trials, suffering, loss, even curses to conform us to Jesus' image, but God will settle for nothing less in our lives.
Here's a bit of advice when you need reverse of the curse: Keep the right perspective. Submit to God's plan. Humble yourself. Commit to do whatever God requires. Trust in the power of God. Have faith. Believe in Jesus' promises. Praise God for what He is able to do.
Pass your test. Don't settle for less.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It Is the Lord!"
Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' -John 20:28
Jesus said to her, 'Give Me a drink' " (John 4:7). How many of us are expecting Jesus Christ to quench our thirst when we should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). That means lives of pure, uncompromising, and unrestrained devotion to the Lord Jesus, which will be satisfying to Him wherever He may send us.
Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?
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Compassion for the Lost
Yesterday we started a series of devotionals I am calling "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning." Today I want to point you to the second "C"-compassion. In Mark 16:16 Jesus said,
"He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Now, condemned is a pretty soft word in the English language. I actually like the King James Version, where it says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
Condemned or damned, it means eternally separated from God with no opportunity of rescue or retrieval. Forever lost. Think about it!
Do you recall the story Jesus told of the rich man who died? It ought to send a shudder through the heart of even the most brazen sinner.
Jesus tells us that the rich man died and was in torment, in flame. Jesus goes on to say that the rich man lifted up his eyes, and begged for mercy. But no mercy came, even as it says in Revelation 14:11, "The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever."
I know it is not a popular subject in the Church to talk about hell, but Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven. It is a very real place. If we would consider just for a moment the end of the man or woman who rejects Christ, it ought to cause our hearts to be stirred with compassion.
When was the last time you and I shed a tear over lost humanity? When was the last time you and I were truly broken with the things that break the heart of God?
Our compassion for the lost ought to move us to do all we can to share Christ with them!
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Why We Need Revival
Scripture Readings: Psalm 85:1-13
David cries out in Psalm 85:6, "Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in You?" and as Christians we must echo that petition. How do we know if we need a revival? Historically, revivals are preceded by spiritual decline, such as divisiveness, anger, continuous crises, addictions and service without passion. Simply put, the need for revival is a result of sin in our lives.
Revival is the restoration of the spiritual life of God's people and a return to the abundant life God intended for His followers. When God revives us, we can expect real change!
If you have experienced a crisis in your life lately, examine whether God has a purpose behind it. Perhaps God has taken steps to get your attention, and the next step is yours.
First, you must identify the change that needs to take place in your own life for true revival. I encourage you to spend time asking God to let you see yourself from His perspective. Let Him tell you what needs to change!
God bless
:angel:
January 20
Romans 10:9
. . .if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Talk to Jesus. Seriously, He is waiting to listen to you and help you in your struggle to lose weight. Sometimes we wrestle with the urge to cheat on our diets until we are emotional wrecks. This happens most often when we are alone, with no one to talk to. Don't forget, Christ is always with you, and He is as close as prayer. Tell Him how difficult it is. Let Him know your struggle, and He will indeed comfort you. There is never a time in our lives when Jesus is not interested in everything that is happening to us. Call upon Him, confess Him as Lord, and you will be saved!
Today's thought: Jesus is as close as a prayer!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Recall What God Remembers
Thus says the Lord: 'I remember . . . the kindness of your youth . . .' -Jeremiah 2:2
Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Does everything in my life fill His heart with gladness, or do I constantly complain because things don't seem to be going my way? A person who has forgotten what God treasures will not be filled with joy. It is wonderful to remember that Jesus Christ has needs which we can meet- "Give Me a drink" (John 4:7). How much kindness have I shown Him in the past week? Has my life been a good reflection on His reputation?
God is saying to His people, "You are not in love with Me now, but I remember a time when you were." He says, "I remember . . . the love of your betrothal . . ." (Jeremiah 2:2). Am I as filled to overflowing with love for Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He ever find me pondering the time when I cared only for Him? Is that where I am now, or have I chosen man's wisdom over true love for Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no thought for where He might lead me? Or am I watching to see how much respect I get as I measure how much service I should give Him?
As I recall what God remembers about me, I may also begin to realize that He is not what He used to be to me. When this happens, I should allow the shame and humiliation it creates in my life, because it will bring godly sorrow, and "godly sorrow produces repentance . . ." (2 Corinthians 7:10).
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The Comforter
Today we are going to look at the fifth "C" of soul winning, and that is the Comforter. Many times when Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit, He referred to Him as the Comforter.
In Acts 1:4-5, after the resurrection, Jesus said something to the disciples that was very intriguing,
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
He had already told them to go into all the world, but then He said, "Hey, you need to wait for something. There's some equipment you need before you go. Don't go start a Bible study, don't go pass out a tract, don't do anything. You need something first. You need to be baptized with the Spirit."
Then look at what He said in verse 8,
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
The Holy Spirit gives us power to be a witness. There is something beyond even living a life of integrity. There is a supernatural, captivating element when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit that makes the witness of the gospel even more inescapable.
Jesus was so strong on it He said, "Look, don't leave Jerusalem without it." God has given us His Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to empower us to reach our generation for Christ.
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Requirements for True Revival
Scripture Readings: 2 Chronicles 6:34-42
When God's people are disobedient, we suffer His wrath because we have rejected His way. God desires a restored relationship with His people, but we, as believers, still have a responsibility in our own revival. That responsibility, outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14, calls for specific action:"If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray . . . " With these words, God reveals that revival is primarily focused on His people.
When believers come to God on His terms with humble hearts, we give God permission to take action. When we open the door for revival through prayer, God works on our sins and addresses how they affect our lives.
". . . and seek my face . . . " Seeking His face means seeking His presence, submitting to His authority, and approaching God on His terms.
". . . and turn from their wicked ways . . . " With these words, God is calling for spiritual and physical action as prerequisites to His intervention. We must rid ourselves of excuses and crutches, which are often disguised as addictions and issues.
Only when we seek God's will with humility, prayer and obedience will true revival occur.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Am I Looking To God?
Look to Me, and be saved . . . -Isaiah 45:22
Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us? He says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ." The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult. Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere. The basic lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is to narrow all your interests until your mind, heart, and body are focused on Jesus Christ. "Look to Me . . . ."
Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians' lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God. This is not salvation- it is not simple enough. He says, in effect, "Look to Me and you are saved," not "You will be saved someday." We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ." Our difficulties, our trials, and our worries about tomorrow all vanish when we look to God.
Wake yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter how many things seem to be pressing in on you, be determined to push them aside and look to Him. "Look to Me . . . ." Salvation is yours the moment you look.
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Convicting and Convincing
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about the fifth "C" of soul winning-the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is such an important part in witnessing I want to take you to another passage today to help you understand His role more clearly.
The passage is John 16:7-9. Here Jesus is talking to the disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me."
Jesus is not telling us that we need to pray, "Holy Spirit, go convict this person." Rather, the foundation from which He is speaking is found in John 14. In that passage He says, "When the Holy Spirit comes, He will no longer just be with you, but He will be in you."
In the following verses, He then talks about all the things the Holy Spirit does within us. And here, when He talks about the Holy Spirit convicting people of sin (and, as the Amplified Bible says, convicting and convincing the world of sin), He does that work when we engage them with the gospel.
When we talk to people about Christ, the Holy Spirit then goes to work.
I think about that little boy who told me about Jesus-a Spirit-filled 12-year-old. I had never heard the gospel in my life, yet there was something so captivating, so arresting about him, I could not get him out of my mind.
It was the power of the Holy Spirit working through him. And He wants to work through you as well.
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Revival in the Valley of Dry Bones
Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-10
Spiritual collapse places us in the "Valley of Dry Bones," a situation in which we experience hopelessness and helplessness. God, however, has provided a way out.
We must be willing to listen to the Word of God. When in a "dry place," a place of no hope and no apparent answer to life's dilemmas, we must accept God's Word that begins the process of deliverance from disorder.
We must be willing to respond in obedience to the Word of God. It is our willingness to act on what is spoken by God that continues this deliverance from our "dry bones" state of existence.
We must be sensitive to the movement of God's Spirit. God's Word gives us order, but the Spirit gives life. The Holy Spirit provides the power to bring the truth of God's Word to fruition.
When we hear of despairing situations in our nation, state, city and personal lives, are we listening to the prophetic Word of God, or do we have our own agendas?
Once we connect the Word of Truth with God's Spirit, we can be delivered out of our hopeless situation and experience revival.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Transformed by Beholding
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image . . . -2 Corinthians 3:18
The greatest characteristic a Christian can exhibit is this completely unveiled openness before God, which allows that person's life to become a mirror for others. When the Spirit fills us, we are transformed, and by beholding God we become mirrors. You can always tell when someone has been beholding the glory of the Lord, because your inner spirit senses that he mirrors the Lord's own character. Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you. It is almost always something good that will stain it- something good, but not what is best.
The most important rule for us is to concentrate on keeping our lives open to God. Let everything else including work, clothes, and food be set aside. The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God. We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through. Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticize us as they will; but never allow anything to obscure the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him. This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it. The most difficult lesson of the Christian life is learning how to continue "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord . . . ."
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Wise Counsel
The sixth "C" of "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning" is counsel-the counsel of God. By that I mean the Word of God. It's important we learn to share the Word with people.
Our testimony is powerful and should be shared. But even though that may move people and influence people, folks need to know they are anchoring their trust in the promises of God. Not just in a feeling they have gotten, not just because they feel influenced and moved-even if that is by the Holy Spirit.
Why? Because feelings change. Our feelings can go up and down like a rollercoaster. You may be feeling God today, and tomorrow feel like He is nowhere around. Ever felt that way?
I have had days when I have woken up and not felt God at all, even though I had experienced a good time with Him the night before. In those times, if I would have gone by my feelings, I would have said, "God, You have deserted me this morning."
But I know He hasn't because God's Word makes it clear that He never leaves us nor forsakes us. When a person is saved, they need to be anchoring their faith on the promises of God, not on their feelings.
Promises like Romans 10:9-10,
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
So when we witness to people, we need to give them the counsel, the promises of the Word of God.
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Do You Know That You ARE an Overcomer?
Scripture Readings: Ephesians 6:10-18
When Paul established the church at Ephesus, he wanted the believers to understand they had the power to withstand the attacks of the enemy, Satan. He wanted them to know that they could stand firm in their faith and refuse to yield to sin and thoughts of defeat. They had been given spiritual weapons more powerful and effective than the enemy's.
But first they needed to understand they were not strong enough on their own to resist Satan's temptations and tactics. God's power and strength empowered them to rebuke the wiles of the devil. Paul explained to the Ephesians that they needed use weapons of spiritual warfare on a daily basis. Yes, God protected them and protects us, but every believer must daily put on the full armor of God.
Paul further explained the importance of truly committing our lives to Jesus Christ. One day, our hour of sinful behavior is a sure setup for discouragement and defeat at hands of the enemy. The power that is alive within you and me is OVERCOMING power.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Overpowering Purpose
I have appeared to you for this purpose . . .-Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, "Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine." And the Lord also says to us, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . ." (John 15:16).
When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be "disobedient to the heavenly vision"-not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling ". . . to make you a minister and a witness . . . ." There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ's. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
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The Coming Reward
Today brings an end to our consideration of "The Seven Cs of Soul Winning." The final "C" is the coming reward. Let me quote to you from Daniel 12:3, which says,
"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever."
There is a coming reward for those who turn people to righteousness.
The dearest thing to God's heart is winning humanity and bringing them into His family. Nothing is more important to God. He bankrupted heaven and gave His only begotten Son to save humanity.
The Bible teaches us that there will be a reward, my friend: authority in heaven, a place in heaven, honor in heaven.
In addition to that, I want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Someday there is going to be a joy and a fullness in heaven, but there are some who will not experience that level of joy.
The story is told that Cyrus, the king of Persia who had defeated Babylon and set the captive Jews at liberty, was walking through his garden one day with a visitor. The visitor was looking at all of the beautiful trees and shrubs and exclaimed how much pleasure the garden was giving him.
Cyrus said, "Not nearly the pleasure it gives to me for, you see, I have planted every one of these trees myself."
I think there is going to be something about being in heaven and seeing your fingerprints on people who are there because you shared, because you gave, and because you prayed. I believe there is going to be a greater joy for some because they did more for heaven while on earth than others.
There is a coming reward!
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A Purposeless Life
In His Presence: God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:27-28).
We exist for God; He does not exist for us. God loves doing things for His people, but the reason we get up in the morning is to fulfill His purpose for our lives, not merely to ask Him to bless our purpose for our lives. God does not want to be our vending machine, where we put in a coin and He dispenses what we demand. Until we understand that we exist for Him, we will never know our purpose for being.
Purposelessness is everywhere. I would compare a purposeless existence with the life of a dog. Dogs bark a lot, and most of the time they are just making noise and not really telling you anything important. Purposeless people talk a lot just because they want to be heard.
Dogs also like to run in circles. They move, but they're not really going anywhere. When they finish running in circles, they are right back where they started. Purposeless people live like this, running around trying to find fulfillment in activities, only to find themselves not really moving toward anything.
Dogs also function on the level of the external. They like to be petted and rubbed, feeling good for the moment on the outside, but no real impact is felt on the inside. Purposeless people "put on the dog" by getting dressed up to look good and make themselves feel better. If this describes your purposeless wanderings, God's design and desire is to release you from that, but it must be on His terms.
One Minute Please
God has a plan for our lives that will bring Him glory and bring us the greatest good.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Leave Room for God
When it pleased God . . . -Galatians 1:15
As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him-to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly-God meets our life ". . . when it pleased God . . . ."
Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides
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Worry About Work
In 2 Corinthians 11:28, the apostle Paul says something very interesting,
Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
You may be wondering, "Bayless, what does this have to do with my life?" Let me show you.
The phrase "deep concern" literally means anxiety and worry. And that phrase "to come upon" in the original language literally means "it conspires against me in order to overthrow me."
The apostle Paul's job was to oversee the churches that God had used him to establish, and in this verse he is confessing, "I daily have to battle with worry over these churches. How are they doing? Are they being misled by false prophets? Are they staying true to good doctrine?"
He was dealing with worry about those churches. Every day he grappled with that worry, and he had to throw it down.
It is easy for all of us to worry about our job. Some people, even though they are at home, never leave their job. They carry the burden around with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
They are always worrying about the job, even when they are home with their family. "How are things going at work? I wonder what they're saying. I wonder about the competition. What about sales? What about my job security? What's going to happen tomorrow?"
Consequently, when they get home from work, they are carrying this burden of work around with them, and they are robbing their family. Their own spiritual life is robbed, many times almost to the point of bankruptcy.
Do not let your family be robbed. Do not let your own personal and spiritual life be robbed because you carry the care of your job around with you. Instead, give it to God.
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No Mistakes
In His Presence: I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well - (Psalm 139:14).
The God who created you for Himself has never made any mistakes. There have been no failures or flaws in His plan and program for you. Genesis 1:1 says: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Since this is true, there can be no such thing as an accident. In this first verse of the Bible, the theory of naturalism is proven incorrect. Naturalism states that the supernatural does not exist, and that by chance, the world and its inhabitants evolved into what they are today.
There is no room for chance if you believe God is Creator and Sustainer. People who believe the world came about by chance are simply saying that nobody and nothing existed, and yet somehow that produced everything! It's important that we see the flaws in this worldview because many of us live by a philosophy of luck or chance, when actually God sovereignly allows things to happen in our lives for His purpose. And when we don't connect with His purpose, the components of our lives have no meaning.
How does this all relate to the topic of living a purposeful life? If we know that God purposefully created and sustains us, we know we are not a mistake. We are not the coming together of random forces in the universe; rather we are the direct result of God's power and work.
Psalm 139:1, 13 says: "O Lord, You have searched me and known me . . . .You formed my inward parts." God formed you and determined your existence.
One Minute Please
The God of the Bible is perfect and makes no mistakes. He made you; therefore, you can't be a mistake!
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Could Someone So Persecute Jesus!
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? -Acts 26:14
Are you determined to have your own way in living for God? We will never be free from this trap until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of "the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3:11). Stubbornness and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set on our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our own rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Him. Whenever we rely on self-respect, we systematically disturb and grieve His Spirit. And when we finally understand that it is Jesus we have been persecuting all this time, it is the most crushing revelation ever.
Is the Word of God tremendously penetrating and sharp in me as I hand it on to you, or does my life betray the things I profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of Satan, the very spirit that persecutes Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of only one thing- a perfect oneness with the Father. And He tells us, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29). All I do should be based on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that others may use me, go around me, or completely ignore me, but if I will submit to it for His sake, I will prevent Jesus Christ from being persecuted.
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No Fear
People tend to worry in these days about world events. In Matthew 24:6-7, Jesus tells us this,
"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places."
Jesus said, "When these things happen, don't be troubled. Don't worry. They must come to pass." Think about some of those things.
Earthquakes in various places. I have been told that around the world earthquakes are increasing both in frequency and in size. They are happening more and more, and they are getting worse and worse. It is a sign, my friend.
Jesus mentions pestilences-diseases without cures. Ring any bells? There are certain nations where it is reported that 50 percent of the population is infected with AIDS. It is rampant in many countries of the world. It is an incredible problem even in our own country.
Jesus points to famines. There is drought, which is causing famines, which is causing starvation around the world.
Then Jesus talks about wars, rumors of wars, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. You can't turn on the news without hearing about some terrorist attack. There are countries today aggressively pursuing nuclear capabilities. Nations are poised against one another.
The leaders of our nation and other nations make decisions that affect literally the whole world. It seems like the world is on fire! Things are hanging in the balance.
Our response? It should not be fear, but rather recognition that these things must come to pass before Christ returns!
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The Right Purpose
In His Presence: None of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions (Luke 14:33).
Are you living for the right purpose? If you experience an emptiness that never goes away, or an aimless meandering that dominates your life, these are indicators that you are not on task in pursuing God's purpose for your life. What is getting in the way of pursuing God's purpose for you? Satan fakes us out with the wrong purpose, distracting from the real purpose by influencing us to chase meaningless pursuits.
The apostle Paul said: "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12). God saved Paul for a reason, and Paul's goal is to live out that reason. This is true of all believers-we are saved for a reason. Satan doesn't want you to know that, so he uses distractions to keep us focused on our own pursuits.
What are the main distractions that keep us from realizing and experiencing God's purpose for our lives? One distraction is materialism, or being consumed by our possessions. Jesus made very clear that if we are to follow Him, we must give up our possessions. We can have a house, a car, or whatever, but we shouldn't make things of the physical world more important than things of the spiritual world. We shouldn't let the gifts of God become more important than the God who gave the gifts.
One Minute Please
King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, had more money than he could ever spend, but in the book of Ecclesiastes, he said the pursuit of money is empty.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Could Someone Be So Ignorant!
Who are You, Lord? -Acts 26:15
"The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand . . ." (Isaiah 8:11). There is no escape when our Lord speaks. He always comes using His authority and taking hold of our understanding. Has the voice of God come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you. God speaks in the language you know best- not through your ears, but through your circumstances.
God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. We say, "I know that this is what I should do"-and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We show our ignorance of Him in the very way we decide to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, and hurt Him by our defense of Him. We push His claims in the spirit of the devil; our words sound all right, but the spirit is that of an enemy. "He . . . rebuked them, and said, 'You do not know what manner of spirit you are of' " (Luke 9:55). The spirit of our Lord in His followers is described in 1 Corinthians 13 .
Have I been persecuting Jesus by an eager determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty, yet have hurt Him in the process, I can be sure that this was not my duty. My way will not be to foster a meek and quiet spirit, only the spirit of self-satisfaction. We presume that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord- "I delight to do Your will, O my God . . ." (Psalm 40:8).
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Could it be Today?
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at Matthew 24 and some of the things people worry about today that are going on in our world-earthquakes, famine, pestilence, war, and rumors of war.
Now, it is easy to be concerned about these things, but earlier in that passage-in verse 3-we find out why we should not worry,
Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
Jesus was answering the question about the signs of His return, and what will point to the end of the age. That is why He said, "When you see these things begin to come to pass, it is not time to start worrying."
It is time to lift up your head because He is coming soon! Hallelujah!
Think about it. When you open up the paper today and read about the things happening in the Middle East, it seems like Bible prophecy is being fulfilled almost on a weekly basis. What a time we are living in!
Beloved, Christ is going to return, and from the way things are shaping up, it is not far off at all. I want to live like He is coming back today, and I want to plan and work like He won't be back for a hundred years.
But it could be any day.
Jesus is coming soon. Are you ready to meet Him? Think about it. Are you living in a way that you know when Jesus Christ comes, you won't be ashamed at His coming? I pray you will be able to look up with a joyful face and heart and say, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
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Custom Made
In His Presence: The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does no dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things (Acts 17:24-25).
Psalm 139:15-16 says: "My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me." God has put all the parts of your life in order; He's got your whole life in His hands. This means you can stop trying to be somebody else and be satisfied with the unique person God made you to be. You are custom-made.
One of my shirts is custom-made, not off the rack like most shirts. It is made especially for me. And to make sure there is no question about it, my initials are embroidered on the cuff. When something is custom-made, it is fitted to your uniqueness. It was crafted with you in mind. Every man or woman reading this today has been custom-made by almighty God. Your days were ordained before any of them even came into being. Why is there chaos and calamity in the world today? Because we have a generation of people who want to live life their way and want God to adjust to their desires. But there is going to be discontinuity between you and God and a lack of purpose in your life unless you exist for Him.
God made the world and all things in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and He doesn't need us. But He wants our service and He deserves it.
One Minute Please
God gives life and breath to all things at their appointed times. He has the world under control.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Dilemma of Obedience
January 30, 2013
Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision -1 Samuel 3:15
God never speaks to us in dramatic ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand. Then we say, "I wonder if that is God's voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spoke to him "with a strong hand," that is, by the pressure of his circumstances (Isaiah 8:11). Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?
Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord," and life will become a romance (1 Samuel 3:9). Every time circumstances press in on you, say, "Speak, Lord," and make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline- it is meant to bring me to the point of saying, "Speak, Lord." Think back to a time when God spoke to you. Do you remember what He said? Was it Luke 11:13 , or was it 1 Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ears become more sensitive, and like Jesus, we will hear God all the time.
Should I tell my "Eli" what God has shown to me? This is where the dilemma of obedience hits us. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences and thinking, "I must shield 'Eli,' " who represents the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli- he had to decide that for himself. God's message to you may hurt your "Eli," but trying to prevent suffering in another's life will prove to be an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own risk that you prevent someone's right hand being cut off or right eye being plucked out (see Matthew 5:29-30).
Never ask another person's advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. ". . . I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood . . ." (Galatians 1:16).
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Guarding Your Ways
In Psalm 39:1, we are given an important warning,
I said, "I will guard my ways, Lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, While the wicked are before me."
The Hebrew word translated "ways" in this passage literally means a well-trodden path. It paints the picture of a pathway that has been walked down so many times that a groove has been worn in that path.
The psalmist is drawing our attention to something that has been repeated again and again, a response that has been so often repeated that it has become engrained in our behavior-a habit.
You have probably heard the saying, "He's set in his ways," meaning it is not likely you are going to change the way a person acts in certain instances. The "ways" are habits, attitudes, and responses that aren't likely to change without a very powerful motivation or without some sort of an encounter with God.
I think virtually every habit we have initially began with a thought. Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an action; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny. It all goes back to a thought that perhaps should have been dealt with, but wasn't.
Take some time today to consider your thoughts. Are you giving way to thoughts that will lead to ungodly habits? If so, give those thoughts to God and ask Him to help you think the thoughts that will lead to godly habits.
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Distracted from God's Purpose
In His Presence: Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ (Philippians 3:7).
Position is a distraction-everybody wants to be somebody. When you accepted Christ you became somebody, but if you are seeking position independently of God's purpose, you have been duped by the deceiver. Your name may be up in lights today, but years from now people won't remember your name. Remember the apostle Paul was quite a man in his day and age, but he said that his claim to fame was only that he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
People also become distracted from their purpose when they spend their lives living for other people. People are very important to God; we are to serve, love, and minister to people. But pleasing God is more important than pleasing men. God wants us to live for Him and His glory, and to do that we must sometimes go against what other people want. When it comes to fulfilling our calling, what matters is what God wants us to do.
Another distraction from moving forward in God's purpose is dealing with the past. Paul said: "I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I d forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). We all have regrets, but Paul said we are not to allow our yesterdays to determine our tomorrows. Instead of living with a rear-view mirror mentality, we should focus on the windshield and the big picture that is in front of us.
One Minute Please
Don't let yesterday mess up today, which will ruin tomorrow.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Do You See Your Calling?
. . . separated to the gospel of God. . . -Romans 1:1
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell- it is redemption. The need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.
Paul did not say that he separated himself, but "when it pleased God, who separated me . . ." (Galatians 1:15). Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. "Don't ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes." To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose- to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).
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Uniquely You
Each of us possesses strengths which God has given us. Psalm 18:32 says,
It is God who arms me with strength.
And in Philippians 4:13,
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And King David said this in 1 Chronicles 29:12,
...in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
God gives us all strength, yet I believe there are specific things He gives each of us that make you and me strong individually. The book of Psalms says in 33:14-15, From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually. In the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 12:27 it says, Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
We are collectively the body of Christ, but God has wired us each differently. God has formed our hearts individually. He has put certain deposits in one person that may not be in another person. He has given one person a certain kind of strength that may not be another person's strength.
Here is what I am getting at. I believe there is something uniquely you that gives you strength and character and presence, something that makes you a person to be reckoned with, something that God has put in you. It is a foundation, a seat of strength that He wants to move through in order to influence and to bless others.
Rather than coveting someone else's unique giftings and strength, discover and develop your own. Remember, God individually fashioned you. There is something wonderfully unique about you, through which God wants to bring blessing to others.
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In His Presence: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10).
Have you been duped when it comes to purpose? The only purpose worth living for is God's purpose. Paul said: "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). If you live with this goal in mind, God will change the way you live. You will stop just being alive and you will start to really live. You will live the abundant life through God's grace because you aren't just living for yourself anymore. You are not here for you, but for God.
You will have stability. You can get off the roller coaster of emotions that comes when you live according to your circumstances. Even when things are bad, you are good because God is good. When Jesus was asleep on the boat in the middle of the storm, His disciples asked, "How can He sleep at a time like this?" Jesus could sleep peacefully because He knew where He was going-He was going to the other side. One of the great blessings of living in purpose is that you can rest. You can rest because you know all things will be used for God's purpose, and you can rest because you know you are going toward God.
You will be provided for. God always supplies that which He has ordained. If you are outside of His purpose, you have to take care of yourself. But if you are walking in His purpose, He will meet all your needs.
One Minute Please
Following God's purpose may not change your place in life, but it will change the way you live your life.
The Only Worthwhile Purpose
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Call of God
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel . . . -1 Corinthians 1:17
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "the gospel," namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification- we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32). It is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God. The fact that we can experience redemption illustrates the power of its reality, but that experience is a byproduct and not the goal of redemption. If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden His energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.
The one passion of Paul's life was to proclaim the gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for only one reason- these things kept him unmovable in his devotion to the gospel of God.
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Promises, Promises
God has given us His promises because He wants to fulfill them. Be they promises of peace, restoration, healing, or for material supply, we must keep in mind that the Lord would not have made the promise if He did not want to do it.
Here are four thoughts to help you when it comes to experiencing the benefit of God's promises:
1. Find a promise from the Bible that covers your need. Faith begins here.
2. Consider the promises.
Hebrews 10:23 says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
And Hebrews 11:11 says, By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
3. Act on the promise, fulfilling all necessary conditions. God is not a respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of conditions.
4. Start thanking God and exercising patience.
Hebrews 10:36 says, For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
And Hebrews 6:12 says, That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
If you will do these four things, you are on your way to experiencing the fulfillment of God's promises in your life.
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The Benefits of Purpose
In His Presence: Teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).
When you are living out God's purpose for your life, your attitude towards time will change. You will find that you no longer waste time. We are only given so much time on earth; the average lifespan today is 75 years. We are all running out of time. But if you are operating in your purpose, you are utilizing your time rather than just going through the motions. Your purpose clarifies your use of time. Ephesians 5:16 says: "[Make] the most of time, because the days are evil." We are to redeem, or buy back, our time. We can't reverse the clock, but we can purchase time back. How do we do this? You can change the speed in which you are operating; you can pick up the pace to buy up the time you lost.
When you live out your purpose, you will live with passion. One of the ways you can recognize your purpose is that it will enflame you, ignite you, and stir up your heart. God's purpose for you isn't some dull, empty thing that makes you dread getting up every morning. It is a fire within the soul.
When you are living out your purpose, you will live with direction. Paul said: "I box in such a way, as not beating the air" (1 Corinthians 9:26). In other words, he's not punching at nothing; his efforts are not just for show or out of obligation. Rather, he has direction, clarity, and focus that allow him to strike the target.
One Minute Please
Are you ready to kick your purposeful living into second gear to make up for lost time?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Compelling Majesty of His Power
The love of Christ compels us . . . -2 Corinthians 5:14
Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by "the love of Christ." Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. "The love of Christ compels us . . . ." When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person's life.
When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you "receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . . ." Not witnesses to what Jesus can do- that is basic and understood- but "witnesses to Me . . . ." We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it's the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane-he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for- to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of "the love of Christ." This total surrender to "the love of Christ" is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God's holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.
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Tithing
In Matthew 23:23, Jesus speaks about the issue of tithing in this way,
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone."
Jesus tells us, "These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone." Yes, they should tithe, but the things He lists are the most important issues.
While we will touch on these issues in later devotionals, I want to point out the fact that Jesus does say we should tithe.
The Living Bible paraphrase of this verse is helpful, "For you tithe down to the last mint leaf in your garden, and ignore the important things-justice and mercy and faith. Yes, you should tithe, but you shouldn't leave the more important things undone."
You should tithe. The first ten percent of your income, or the first ten percent of the increase that God brings to you, is called a tithe. The Bible says in the last chapter of Leviticus that the tithe is holy, and it belongs to the Lord.
So you should tithe. That is very important. In fact, I believe it is the first step in getting God involved in your finances, and an important step in you getting control of your finances.
If you are not tithing, I want to encourage you to open your heart to God's Word in this area and consider the possibilities that He sets before you.
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Living in Light of Eternity
In His Presence: It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart (Ecclesiastes 7:2).
Eternity is a long period of time! It's hard to grasp that eternity is never-ending. But let me give you a little illustration to help you understand. Imagine that we could empty the largest body of water in the world, the Pacific Ocean, and fill it up with sand as tall as the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Now imagine that a bird flies by and takes one grain of sand off that sand pile once every 100 billion years. How long will it take for that sand pile to disappear? We can consider that amount of time to be equal to one second in eternity.
We weren't just created for sixty or eighty years of life on earth. We were created for eternity. Every baby born on earth is headed toward its dying day; that's just reality. But we were made for more than that. We are meant to experience eternity in the fullness of life with the Father. Death is simply the doorway we must pass through to transfer into the realm of the eternal.
Paul understood this and said: "We also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body" (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). Paul said that because he was a creature of eternity, he would live his earthly life for God. He would live in time in a way that pleased God.
One Minute Please
If you're living in time and for time, you're wasting time.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)
If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all-Philippians 2:17
Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer-to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, "I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don't want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, 'Well done.' "
It is one thing to follow God's way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a "doormat" under other people's feet. God's purpose may be to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased . . ." (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket-to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted-not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
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Tithing Today?
In Malachi 3:10-11, God says,
"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," says the LORD of hosts.
Those are pretty amazing promises! God says when we bring the first tenth to Him, He will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing we cannot contain. He even invites us to test Him in this area! (As far as I know there is no other place in the Bible where God does that.)
Notice, too, that He says He will rebuke the devourer. While this was written to an agrarian society whose prosperity was measured in vineyards, crops, and their livestock, you can transpose this principle right into the era in which we live. God will still bless us, and He will still rebuke the devourer for our sakes.
Years ago, in a small church in Mexico, a friend of mine was teaching on tithing. A poor man in the church got angry and stormed out. Later that day, he read the verses from Malachi again and decided to put God to the test. "Could God fulfill His promise-even in my circumstance?" he thought.
That poor villager later testified-interrupting a service and demanding that tithing needed to be taught again-"because these people need it!" He told how he had been blessed like never before since he started giving one-tenth of his earnings to the church.
God is not limited by the circumstances that surround us. He can bless us no matter where we are if we will "try Him" and bring all the tithe into His storehouse.
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Created for Eternity
In His Presence: He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
God created you for Himself, and He created you for eternity. You weren't created simply for time. God has placed eternity in our hearts, and there is something about us that wants to live forever. Second Corinthians 5:1-4 says: "If the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, . . . we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life." Our bodies are groaning and aching because we are looking for the eternal reality to take place.
If we have been made for eternity, yet we are limiting ourselves to thinking temporally, we are not fulfilling our potential. You see, 2 Corinthians 5:10 tells us that we must all appear before Christ's judgment seat, and this conveys that eternity exists on the other side of death. We will be held accountable; we must answer to God. This kind of thinking affects the way we live because if God is the center of our existence and eternity is our goal, this will change our choices, decisions, values, and priorities.
But many Christians have been deceived. We believe in eternity, but we're committed to time. We don't understand that what we do now should be affected by what is to come.
One Minute Please
God has given you a slice of time to prepare you for the reality of eternity.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering . . . -2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don't deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
"Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar" (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents-burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose-the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don't eliminate it, God does. You "bind the sacrifice . . . to the horns of the altar" and see to it that you don't wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
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Robbing God-of What?
Malachi 3:8-9 gives us a sober warning,
"Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation."
Now if you think about this statement, you have to ask, "How do you rob God? I mean, really, what does that mean?"
There are two ways we rob God when we refuse to tithe:
1. We rob God of honor that is due Him. In Proverbs 3:9 it says to, Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase. By giving God the first part of our income, we are honoring Him as being first in our lives. We demonstrate faith in His promise to supply our needs as well-and God is honored by our faith.
2. We rob God of the opportunity to bless us. In Malachi 3:10, God promises to bless us if we bring Him the first tenth of our income (the tithe).
The promise in Proverbs is that our barns will be filled with plenty if we will honor the Lord with our firstfruits (Proverbs 3:9-10).
He can bless us. He desires to bless us. Let us not rob Him of the opportunity to do so, nor of the honor that is due Him.
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The Reality of Eternity
In His Presence: Abraham said, "Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony" (Luke 16:25).
At the end of time, we will all face the Lord and He will want to know how we used our time on earth to get ready for eternity. If we only live for earth, all we will receive is earth. But once we start living for heaven, earth is just a bonus to the eternal existence we will enjoy.
It is foolish to try to run from death. Instead, we must decide to be creatures of eternity. Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). If you are in Christ you have no reason to fear death because when you die, you will instantly be with God.
Since we were made for eternity, what are we doing in light of what we were made for? Paul set the example when he said: "Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2). Paul's mind was on heaven, but he was still functioning for the Lord here on earth. He was heavenly minded but still did earthly good. Because he lived in light of His eternal purpose, he made his life decisions in light of the reference point of eternity.
Everybody you know is headed toward eternity; nobody has any other choice. This life is not all there is, so we share Jesus Christ with our unsaved neighbors. We live for God's glory because this life is not all there is.
One Minute Please
"Lord, clarify our eternal perspective and help us to see Your purpose for our lives because we don't know when we will leave this world."
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Dejection
We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened -Luke 24:21
Every fact that the disciples stated was right, but the conclusions they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that has even a hint of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If I am depressed or burdened, I am to blame, not God or anyone else. Dejection stems from one of two sources- I have either satisfied a lust or I have not had it satisfied. In either case, dejection is the result. Lust means "I must have it at once." Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Himself who gives the answer. What have I been hoping or trusting God would do? Is today "the third day" and He has still not done what I expected? Am I therefore justified in being dejected and in blaming God? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get ahold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected, because dejection is a sign of sickness. This is also true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.
We look for visions from heaven and for earth-shaking events to see God's power. Even the fact that we are dejected is proof that we do this. Yet we never realize that all the time God is at work in our everyday events and in the people around us. If we will only obey, and do the task that He has placed closest to us, we will see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes to us when we learn that it is in the everyday things of life that we realize the magnificent deity of Jesus Christ.
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What's Your Measure?
In Luke 6:38, Jesus said these words,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
That is a promise of Jesus that you can stake your life on. Give, and what happens? It will be given to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!
But notice that He also added this, "The same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." If you take a serving spoon, and that is what you measure out your giving with, you will get an overflowing serving spoon. It comes back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing from a serving spoon.
The measure you use is what is measured back to you. If you use a shovel, and that is what you measure it out with, that is how it comes back to you.
Wouldn't you rather have a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shovel as opposed to a serving spoon? The measure you use, Jesus said, that is what is used to measure back to you.
I believe many people are using a teaspoon and yet they are praying, "God bless me. I have big needs." I am sure God is saying, "I'm doing all I can. You know, I'm pressing it down as much as I can press it down. It is running over. But a running over teaspoon is just not that much."
Are you using a teaspoon or a shovel? Whatever you use is what comes back multiplied, but it is only according to the measure you use.
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Your Purpose and God's Glory
In His Presence: From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:36).
God is invisible, and the Bible says no man has seen God at any time. The word glory makes the invisible attributes of God visible to us. The air is thick with His presence. He is everywhere, but our eyes can't see Him. So He must make Himself visible, and that process is revealed to us as God's glory. The word glory comes from a root word meaning weighty or heavy. When God is called glorious, it is a reference to Him being the weightiest, heaviest, deepest being in the universe.
And God's glory is intrinsic. Whether you recognize it or not, He is glorious because that's just who He is. There are two created things that do not recognize God's glory: Satan and his angels, and mankind. Men tend to believe that life is all about them. But God speaks of "everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed" (Isaiah 43:7). God created us for His glory, not for our own.
Most of us are anthropomorphic, which means we are man-centered, rather than theocentric, which means God-centered. We tend to ask, "What's in it for me?" But that's God's question, not ours. God's glory is His own passion. He is seeking the highest glory for Himself, and rightly so because He is the greatest in every way. God's glory is the chief end of all things. You will know if someone has a heart for God based on whether or not they are seeking His glory.
One Minute Please
Your growth will always be demonstrated in an increased passion for His name, His glory, and His recognition.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . . -1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God's point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God's purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." (John 17:19). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul's prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person's life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's work in us?
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Giving to Get?
Any time I give, I expect a blessing to return. It is a law that we find in Scripture. It is a promise of Jesus.
But you know what? That is not my main motivation for giving. And that should not be our heart for giving. Jesus says in Luke 6:32-38,
"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you."
What is the heart of this whole thing? Jesus said, "Don't love just to get love back; don't do good just so that good might be done back to you; don't lend just hoping to get something back."
He makes it clear that if you do those things for the right motivation, it will come back to you. Your reward will be great.
Do not give with the motivation of just getting something back. Non-Christians have that motivation! How does that set you apart from them? Give out of a higher motivation.
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All for God's Glory
In His Presence: Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity (2 Peter 3:18).
First Corinthians 10:31 tells us that even our eating and drinking should be done to the glory of God. God's glory is like a pair of colored glasses that tint everything you see. Whatever you do should be done for His glory. The question you must now ask about everything is, "How will this glorify God?"
God is intent on displaying who He is. Psalm 19:1 says: "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." The whole earth gives us a picture of the glory of the invisible God. Nature preaches us a sermon on His glory. Everything should point us to His glory, and if it doesn't, it's because we are too "me-centered" to look for His glory. And if we are centered on ourselves, we are in sin. Sin is simply falling short of glorifying God. Romans 3:23 says: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." You don't have to rob a bank to be a sinner. All you have to do is try to take the glory that belongs to Him alone. We are all cosmic thieves.
God's glory is everywhere. Revelation 21:23 says when we get to heaven there will be no need of the sun or moon because the glory of the Lord will illuminate everything. There will be no night there, for the place will be consumed with the glory of God. His glory is so awesome that it will light up our heavenly home.
One Minute Please
Our problem today is that we are not consumed with the glory of God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is Your Mind Stayed on God?
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You -Isaiah 26:3
Is your mind stayed on God or is it starved? Starvation of the mind, caused by neglect, is one of the chief sources of exhaustion and weakness in a servant's life. If you have never used your mind to place yourself before God, begin to do it now. There is no reason to wait for God to come to you. You must turn your thoughts and your eyes away from the face of idols and look to Him and be saved (see Isaiah 45:22).
Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. You should seek to be "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . ." (2 Corinthians 10:5). This will be one of the greatest assets of your faith when a time of trial comes, because then your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. When you have thoughts and ideas that are worthy of credit to God, learn to compare and associate them with all that happens in nature-the rising and the setting of the sun, the shining of the moon and the stars, and the changing of the seasons. You will begin to see that your thoughts are from God as well, and your mind will no longer be at the mercy of your impulsive thinking, but will always be used in service to God.
"We have sinned with our fathers . . . [and] . . . did not remember . . ." (Psalm 106:6-7). Then prod your memory and wake up immediately. Don't say to yourself, "But God is not talking to me right now." He ought to be. Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Encourage yourself to remember, and your affection for God will increase tenfold. Your mind will no longer be starved, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.
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Rich or Poor
It is interesting that Jesus, in our devotional yesterday, did not try to keep the widow from giving all she had. It is especially interesting considering what He said a little earlier in Mark 12:38-40,
Then He said to them in His teaching, "Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."
You can hear the protection of God for widows in the voice of Jesus. You can hear His concern, and you can hear the judgment of God on those who manipulate, abuse, and take advantage of defenseless people and widows.
Yet, right on the heels of saying that, this widow gave all she had, which means she probably didn't even have anything left to buy food for a meal that night. With her gift of less than one penny, she had nothing left. And yet, Jesus said she gave more than everybody else.
Jesus did not give the slightest indication that she shouldn't have given an offering. He didn't run after her and say, "Now wait a minute, Ma'am! You shouldn't be doing this. You're a widow. God doesn't want this." On the contrary, it seems that He commended her for it, even calling her gift to the attention of the disciples.
Why do you suppose this lady would have given like that-all she had? I reckon because of her love for God and her love for the work of God.
Which is what Jesus looks for when we give, whether we are rich or poor.
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His Glory Won't Be Shared
In His Presence: We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).
God will share His glory with no man. If you are not passionately pursuing the glory of God, He is not hanging out with you because He won't share His glory. The reason He has saved you, the reason He elected you, the reason you are a child of God is to make you part of the community of people called the church, which exists for His glory alone.
We are dealing with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Creator of the universe, and we just give Him the leftovers in our lives. We are reluctant to adjust to what He wants. We won't redo our schedules or our plans because this is our life. But to ascribe glory to Him is to give Him recognition and authority in our lives. Jesus said in John 17:4: "I glorified You . . . having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do." Remember also that Jesus prayed before His death: "For this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name" (John 12:27-28). Christ died for the glory of God.
Can you say that in difficult times you will submit to the Lord's purpose and trust that He will be glorified? God uses all things for His glory. Once we look into the mirror of His glory, we will find that He can transform our hearts, and whatever He wants us to do, He takes responsibility for providing for it to be done.
One Minute Please
Whatever you do in word or deed, He wants you to wake up, and go to bed, with Him in mind. And if you do, He'll transform you.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Are You Listening to God?
They said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die' `-Exodus 20:19
We don't consciously and deliberately disobey God- we simply don't listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them- not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.
"You speak with us, . . . but let not God speak with us . . . ." We show how little love we have for God by preferring to listen to His servants rather than to Him. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we don't want God Himself to speak to us. Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us? It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey. But if it is simply one of God's servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative. We respond by saying, "Well, that's only your own idea, even though I don't deny that what you said is probably God's truth."
Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child? Once I finally do hear Him, the humiliation I have heaped on Him returns to me. My response then becomes, "Lord, why was I so insensitive and obstinate?" This is always the result once we hear God. But our real delight in finally hearing Him is tempered with the shame we feel for having taken so long to do so.
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Core Motivation for Giving
I want to return one last time to Mark 12:41-44 and have you consider one final thought about giving,
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
In Phillips' translation of these verses, it says that Jesus sat opposite the temple alms box. In other words, where people gave their gifts for the poor. This courtyard area, referred to as the treasury, actually contained thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles for giving. Some of them were for specifically designated purposes, and one of them was for giving alms to the poor.
If the Phillips translation is right, it makes the story all the more amazing. This poor widow, with less than a penny, put it in to help the poor.
She gave it to touch the life of another. Which is why I hope you will give.
Heaven is too real, hell is too hot, eternity is too long, people are too lost, and life is just too short for us not to be actively engaged-through our giving as well as other means-in reaching people. The only thing we take to heaven with us are the precious souls we reach for Christ.
That ought to be the core motivation for us to give to God's work.
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Stewardship and Ownership
In His Presence: God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth" (Genesis 1:26).
The subject of stewardship causes both confusion and consternation among Christians. The issue of money is really only a very small part of the stewardship. When rightly understood, stewardship can bring true joy to the life of a Christian, and it can transform the way we live. The word stewardship refers to an administration or an economy, a way of operating. We can also call it management.
Stewardship is not only misunderstood, it is also abused. In the name of stewardship, false doctrine has arisen and caused people to confine their perception of God to a box. A prosperity heresy has deceived people about what it means to be a good steward for the Lord.
The proper definition of stewardship is given by its author, God Himself. To understand stewardship, we must understand authorship. The Bible opens up with God creating, talking, and doing. He made the earth and mankind, and therefore He is the owner of all things. God created and then He gave responsibility to man to manage His creation. We don't own anything on earth; it's all God's property. The Bible is very clear about who owns the earth and who, we are serving. In Exodus 19:5, God says: "All the earth is Mine." In Psalm 89:11, the psalmist said to God: "The world and all it contains, You have founded them." We own nothing, and the ultimate proof for this is that when we leave the earth, we won't take anything with us. God is absolute owner because He is absolute sovereign and King of the universe.
One Minute Please
Everything you have can be traced back to God's absolute ownership.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Devotion of Hearing
Samuel answered, 'Speak, for Your servant hears' -1 Samuel 3:10
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, "You are My friends . . ." (John 15:14). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord's this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don't even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God's message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don't want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don't hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, "Speak, for Your servant hears." If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God's voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things- things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God's voice today?
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The Right Word at the Right Time
Proverbs 15:23 contains a powerful truth,
A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!
Notice that this verse talks about not just a word spoken, but a word spoken in due season-at the proper time. How good it is!
It is critical for words of encouragement, words of comfort, words of counsel, words of wisdom, and even words of correction to be spoken in due season. Timing is just as important as content.
I read once about a lady who invited family and friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. When they received the invitation, they let her know that they were going to come. In fact, they were looking forward to the day.
She really put on quite a spread. She baked pies and bread; she cooked a turkey with all of the trimmings-an incredible meal. When the time came for her guests to arrive, she lit candles and put the finishing touches on decorating the house.
The only problem was, no one showed up.
Then she remembered the calendar she had picked up from a local business. On that calendar it said that Thanksgiving was on the 21st rather than on the last Thursday of the month as it normally is every year. At the time she thought it was strange, but she figured that they must have moved the holiday.
She had prepared her sumptuous banquet a week early! The content was great but the timing was not so great.
So it is with our words. They can be just the right words, perfect for the need of the person, but if not delivered at the right time, they can fall short.
Be sensitive to pick the right time to speak as well as the right words to say.
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The Attitude of Stewardship
In His Presence: When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes (Deuteronomy 8:10-11).
Once you clarify who the author of all things is, it will clarify your attitude about stewardship. Genesis 1:28 defines our attitude when God said mankind should "subdue" and "rule over" the earth. The Hebrew words used here literally mean to trample underfoot and bring under control. God supplied it, and He put it under us to manage. We are to function as managers based on God's purpose for allowing us to have all that we have.
The attitude of the steward should reflect the belief that God put him where he is to rule what belongs to God. Man's stewardship is limited and delegated by God, and he must not forget the source of all he has. Job 23:13 tells us that God does what He pleases with what He owns.
The attitude of a steward should reflect thankfulness. One reason we go to church on Sunday is out of gratitude to God for sustaining us and keeping us through the week. We have many earthly blessings from the Lord, and we have eternal spiritual blessings as well. We should never cease to thank Him for all He has given and done for us. It is a privilege to manage His creation, and everything we have goes back to Him. The paper money in our wallets was made from trees He planted. The diamonds on our fingers came out of the earth that He created. It all points back to His provision, for which we should be thankful.
One Minute Please
You may think you don't have everything you want, but God expects you to be grateful for what you have.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops -Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."- pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood- darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart- a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
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A Word of Encouragement
I want you to look today at a passage of Scripture that helps guide us in what to say, who to say it to, and when and how to say it. Isaiah 50:4-5,
"The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away."
First, we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He will teach us how to speak a word in season to the person who is weary. As it says, He will awaken our ear.
Jesus made it very clear in Matthew, chapter 10 verses 19-20, that the Holy Spirit is quite able to give us the right words to say at the right time. In Isaiah 51:16, God says, "I have put My words in your mouth." In Isaiah 57:19, He says, "I create the fruit of the lips."
Chances are there is someone in your world today who needs to be given a word of encouragement. The key is being sensitive and available. Sometimes we are so embroiled in our own struggles that we don't even give a thought to the fact that there may be someone around us who needs encouragement...a coworker, a neighbor, your spouse, your child.
I personally think our children need to be given encouragement every day. Like the little boy said, "Daddy, let's play darts. I'll throw, and you say 'Wonderful!'" Children crave affirmation and encouragement.
There is someone who you either have contact with now, or you will have contact with, who needs encouragement. And you are God's messenger.
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In His Presence: You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8:32).
How do you know if you are being a good steward? There is only one way to know-read God's Word. Deuteronomy 8:3 says: "Man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." We show our love for God by obeying Him, being a steward who manages things on His terms.
Human ownership must be governed by God. That's why when God made Adam, the first thing He did was give him instruction: "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). God gives instruction to protect us, and following His instruction provides His results.
When you first consider stewardship, you might think it has too many limitations. But let me assure you that the limitations of stewardship are always for the enjoyment of it. God doesn't give us commands to stifle our stewardship, but rather to expand it. We shouldn't think that God's ways are negative-we can't do this or that-because the negative exists to enhance the positive.
So many people think God's commands restrict their freedom. But freedom in the biblical sense never means just doing what you want. Freedom in the Bible is the power to do what you ought to do. How do we get that kind of freedom? Jesus told us the truth sets us free, and the absolute standard of truth is God's Word.
One Minute Please
The authority of stewardship is none other than the Word of God.
The Authority of Stewardship
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"
None of us lives to himself . . . -Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We "sit together in the heavenly places . . ." (Ephesians 2:6). "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it . . ." (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, "Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?" "Our sufficiency is from God . . ." and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).
"You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone- to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say "thank you" to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him- ". . . lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27).
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For Just a Little While
Today's Scripture will start with the very last word of 1 Peter 1:4, just so you know who it is talking about, and go through verse 7,
...you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Notice in verse 6 it says, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. That phrase "a little while" literally means a season. The King James Version says, Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
I like the phrase "a little while". That tells me the season is going to end. It is not forever. Every season ends. Winter ends. Spring ends. Summer ends. Fall ends. Every season has a beginning, and every season has an end.
If you are in a trial right now and feeling the weight of it, you are grieved because of it, I have good news. It will not be forever. Things are going to change. It may not seem like it, but that season will come to an end.
Even if you are not experiencing a trial today, I am confident you have gone through such a season, and it is likely that you will probably experience such a season again.
When you do, or if you are today, be encouraged. God's Word wants you-and me-to remember it is for just a little while.
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God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going -Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, "Well, it's all over and ruined now; what's the point in trying anymore." If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, "Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can't change that. But get up, and let's go on to the next thing." In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing- they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, "Get up, and do the next thing." If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
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Stop the Worry
Over the last few devotionals, we have been talking about trials and how we should respond. Today I have a simple but important word for you directly from God's Word: Don't worry.
1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Jesus said, "Don't take an anxious thought for tomorrow. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." When we worry about tomorrow, we pull tomorrow's clouds over today's sunshine.
I have shared many times in my ministry about the incredible truth of Jesus' command, "Do not worry about tomorrow." It is like we have this 24-hour fuse. We are wired up to deal with the stresses of life one day at a time.
If you worry about tomorrow today, you are putting a 48-hour load on a 24-hour fuse, and something is going to give somewhere.
Some people don't just worry about tomorrow, they worry about next week and next month. No wonder the fuse is blowing!
You see, what the mind cannot contain, it will impose upon the body. If your health is breaking down, worry may just be the problem. The Bible says to cast all of your care, the whole of your care, all your anxieties, on Him, once and for all.
Roll your burden on the Lord. The Bible says be anxious for nothing. And that means nothing. Do not worry about your children, do not worry about your money, do not worry about your future, do not worry about anything.
Your Heavenly Father does care for you, and it is His good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
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The Accountability of Stewardship
In His Presence: His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master" (Matthew 25:23).
God will always let us know who owns what and who is in charge. How do we know He was still in charge when Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden? Because He pronounced a curse upon the serpent. He told Adam and Eve the consequences of their sin: conflict in the home, pain in childbirth, sweat in toil, and banishment from the garden. Adam, Eve, and the serpent were all held accountable for their lack of stewardship. God let them know that He is the owner.
God is only going to hold you accountable for what He gave you, not what He has given someone else. Never get upset because somebody else has received more from God than you have. More will be expected from them, and their stewardship does not concern you. If we would spend more time using what He has given us correctly, we wouldn't have time to look at what He has given someone else. Why? Because we'll be focused on progressing in our own Christian life.
God expects you to take what He gives you and maximize its potential. We should be satisfied with what He has given in terms of our gratitude, but we should always take what He gives us and get more out of it. We put our money in the bank to make interest, or we invest it to create a profit. We maximize the potential of that money.
One Minute Please
The stewardship mentality says that we joyfully receive what God gives us and use it to the best of our ability, making the most out of it for His glory.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine . . . -Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us- He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue- a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery- washing fishermen's feet. He then says to them, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer's body has become "the temple of the Holy Spirit"
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Your Real Adversary
As we continue to think about the reality of trials in our lives, and the challenge it is to handle those trials, I want to point you to another important teaching about trials in today's devotional.
You need to realize who your adversary is. It is not God; it is the devil. Look at 1 Peter 5:8-9,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Some of the trials and sufferings that we experience are the direct result of the adversary's work.
Some people want to blame God for everything, but the Bible says it is the thief- the devil-who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came to give us life and more abundantly.
Peter makes this even clearer in verse 10,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Our God is the God of grace. The devil is seeking to devour.
Frankly, I hate the middle part of this verse, After you have suffered for a while.... Clearly, God wants us to understand that suffering is going to happen. Trials are going to happen. No matter how much you may say, "I don't receive it!", it is still there! You are going to go through difficult times. It is part of the human experience.
But when you go through that time of trial, remember not to blame God. It is the devil who is your adversary!
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The First Sphere of Stewardship
In His Presence: Lord, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am (Psalm 39:4).
Basically, God has entrusted three things to our care. He has given us three spheres where we are to be His stewards. First, He has entrusted us with time. God is not limited by time. There is no time when He did not exist or when He will cease to be. He always has been and always will be. He is eternal. But time has a different meaning for us because we are limited by time. We have 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. We have a certain number of years to live, and we don't know how long that will be.
Ephesians 5:15-17 says: "Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." In this verse Paul told us to watch out for time. It is fleeting, and we are all running out of time.
Many people define time in terms of its linear course, from point A to point B. But that's not the full definition of time. In God's viewpoint, time is the boundary of opportunity. Time must be maximized, not trivialized. We should take advantage of it because we can never get it back.
To be a good steward of time, verse 17 tells us to understand what the will of the Lord is. To use your time to its utmost potential, you should use it to accomplish the will of God.
One Minute Please
If we are righteous stewards of God's time, He will give us joy in His time.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here -John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God's blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: "Don't sit or stand there, just go!"
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, "Come aside by yourselves . . ." then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don't sit and daydream about that person all the time- you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
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The Path to Maturity
1 Peter 5:10 provides a very critical principle for those times when we are going through trials, a principle that is easy to miss,
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
You need to realize that even though God did not initiate your trouble, He can still use it to work something good in you. What the devil means for evil, God can turn into something good.
Even though the devil's purpose is to destroy you, if you will respond correctly, God can work good things. Notice the verse says after you have suffered a short season, God will perfect. It brings maturity to you.
While we might hate it, how we respond in times of trial makes us who we are-and it fits us to accomplish God's will. I hate some of the things I have gone through! But you know what? I would not be who I am had I not experienced those things. It has fitted me to do the will of God.
And while it may not seem like it, your present difficulty may be instrumental in your future success.
It reminds me of the guy who was shipwrecked on a deserted island. One day he decided to go across the island for food. When he got to the other side he looked back and saw a plume of smoke in the sky. He ran back only to find that his shack burnt to the ground!
It stung him to the core! Except the next morning a ship arrived and rescued him. When he asked the sailors, "How'd you know I was here?" they said, "We saw your smoke signal."
Your present trials just may be fitting you for something you would never expect!
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The Second Sphere of Stewardship
In His Presence: As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God (1 Peter 4:10).
The second sphere God has entrusted to us is talent. This area includes the skills that God has bestowed on us for His purpose. A more specific word for a Christian's talent would be giftedness. God doesn't give us talent just so we can benefit from it-it's meant to benefit others.
We live in the "me" generation. Everyone only wants to be served, not to serve. There is not an overflow of God's goodness coming out of the hearts of people. But Romans 12 describes how God has given us gifts for the purpose of serving others: "Through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another" (vv. 3-5).
In these verses, Paul said we shouldn't get the wrong idea about who we are and lose sight of God's grace. We are who we are by God's grace; therefore, we should be willing to serve Him with all He has given us. In this way, others will grow in their relationship with Him. If we are only recipients of God's gifts and not conduits of His grace, we are abusing the stewardship role.
One Minute Please
God expects that since He is good to you, you should be good to somebody else.
God bless
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Spiritual Perseverance
Be still, and know that I am God . . . -Psalm 46:10
Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for- love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men- will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.
If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere . . ." (Revelation 3:10).
Continue to persevere spiritually
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Sow Good...Reap Blessing
As I mentioned in yesterday's devotional, God wants to bless your life, and the richer, more frequent blessings come to those who do a particular thing. We find that thing in Galatians 6:9-10,
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
The seasons of blessing come due more often to those who consistently sow, to those who seize opportunities that are afforded them to do good. Notice again in verse 9, Let us not grow weary while doing good. Verse 10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all.
This same truth is reinforced by verse 7, which states,
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
If we sow good, we will reap good. A season of blessing will come.
What many Christians tend to do is stand before a field in which they planted no seed, and pray, "God, give me a miracle harvest."
Now, God is God, and He certainly can do things out of the ordinary. But He also works according to laws and principles that He has set into motion. One of those laws is the law of sowing and reaping.
Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Therefore, do not grow weary while doing good. In due season, you will reap, if you do not faint. When you have opportunity, do good. Get some seed in the ground.
Because the richer and more frequent blessings come to those who sow good.
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The Investment of Stewardship
In His Presence: No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth (Luke 16:13).
In this parable, Jesus told the story of a steward who messed up. He shared this story with His disciples because He was concerned that they might develop the mindset of the Pharisees, "who were lovers of money... listening to all these things and... scoffing at Him" (v. 14). In this parable, a very rich man delegated responsibility for his assets to a steward. But this man squandered his boss's possessions, and the result was that he was about to lose his job. This is not a story about spending; it's a story about investing. And one day, God will call us to an accounting of what we have done with what He has given us. We will have to answer according to how we have squandered or invested the blessings He entrusted to us.
The steward came up with an idea. He went to every person who owed his master money and lowered their debts so that he would have something to give the master. The master then "praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly" (v. 8). Jesus' point was: "The sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light" (v. 8). In other words, sinners are often smarter than saints. This unbelieving, conniving servant was able to secure his future. He messed up his past, but he put things in motion to take care of the future and he was praised for it.
One Minute Please
Just as sinners act shrewdly to cover their bases for their future on earth, Christians had better act shrewdly to cover their future in terms of eternity.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Destitution of Service
. . . though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved -2 Corinthians 12:15
Natural human love expects something in return. But Paul is saying, "It doesn't really matter to me whether you love me or not. I am willing to be completely destitute anyway; willing to be poverty-stricken, not just for your sakes, but also that I may be able to get you to God." "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor . . ." (2 Corinthians 8:9). And Paul's idea of service was the same as our Lord's. He did not care how high the cost was to himself- he would gladly pay it. It was a joyful thing to Paul.
The institutional church's idea of a servant of God is not at all like Jesus Christ's idea. His idea is that we serve Him by being the servants of others. Jesus Christ actually "out-socialized" the socialists. He said that in His kingdom the greatest one would be the servant of all (see Matthew 23:11). The real test of a saint is not one's willingness to preach the gospel, but one's willingness to do something like washing the disciples' feet- that is, being willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God. It was Paul's delight to spend his life for God's interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. But before we will serve, we stop to ponder our personal and financial concerns- "What if God wants me to go over there? And what about my salary? What is the climate like there? Who will take care of me? A person must consider all these things." All that is an indication that we have reservations about serving God. But the apostle Paul had no conditions or reservations. Paul focused his life on Jesus Christ's idea of a New Testament saint; that is, not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others.
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Only Temporary
In our last devotional, we looked at Proverbs 23:4. Today I want us to look at the next verse. I will bet you can relate to it. Verse 5 says,
Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Does it ever seem to you that your money has wings? That it just flies off more quickly than you would have ever imagined?!
Money can be very temporary, very transitory in nature. Proverbs 27:24 reinforces that truth when it tells us,
For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
You need to understand that wealth is temporary just like our time here is temporary. What are the implications for how we live our lives? As believers, it is so important for us to have a pilgrim mindset and realize that we are just passing through.
This world is not our home. This life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. If you begin to think that somehow things are permanent, and you plan as if it is all permanent, you are going to get off course in your life with God.
Moses is a great example of someone who made a choice to live life with the right priorities. You can read about it in Hebrews 11. In that chapter, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy all the riches of Egypt.
Moses had everything at his fingertips, but he made the right choice. He said, "You know what? There are more important things. My priorities are different than this." And his lifestyle changed pretty radically in a hurry.
But looking back, it's obvious that Moses made the right choice isn't it? He changed the world and right now he is in heaven enjoying the presence of God.
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Investing in People
In His Presence: The day of the Lord will come like a thief . . . and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness (2 Peter 3:10-12).
In our economy today it is very important to start saving for retirement early. Those who are only present-day oriented will just spend money, but those who are future-oriented will invest. That's the difference between immaturity and maturity: the immature spend, and the mature save for tomorrow. Jesus' parable in Luke 16 demonstrates that the sons of darkness are often wiser than the children of light because they are future-oriented. If men are willing to do that in finite time, how much more should Christians "make friends for yourselves . . . [who] will receive you into the eternal dwellings" (v. 9)? God tells us to wisely use our stewardship in something that has eternal value: people.
When we stand before Christ, He is going to play a cosmic video, reviewing our life from salvation to death. We will see how responsibly we used the time, talents, and treasures God gave us, and how good or bad our stewardship was for Him. We will see the impact we had on other people and how much we invested in others for eternity.
In verse 9, Jesus told us to make friends. How do we do this? We make friends by sharing the Gospel so that those we know have an opportunity to hear it. We must see that people are important in God's economy. God measures our effect on people not by how many dollars we have in the bank, but by how we have used our time, talents, and treasures to invest in the eternal destiny of people.
One Minute Please
Either God will reign over your time, talents, and treasures, or you will make them your god.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Our Misgivings About Jesus
The woman said to Him, 'Sir, You have nothing to draw [water] with, and the well is deep' -John 4:11
Have you ever said to yourself, "I am impressed with the wonderful truths of God's Word, but He can't really expect me to live up to that and work all those details into my life!" When it comes to confronting Jesus Christ on the basis of His qualities and abilities, our attitudes reflect religious superiority. We think His ideals are lofty and they impress us, but we believe He is not in touch with reality- that what He says cannot actually be done. Each of us thinks this about Jesus in one area of our life or another. These doubts or misgivings about Jesus begin as we consider questions that divert our focus away from God. While we talk of our dealings with Him, others ask us, "Where are you going to get enough money to live? How will you live and who will take care of you?" Or our misgivings begin within ourselves when we tell Jesus that our circumstances are just a little too difficult for Him. We say, "It's easy to say, 'Trust in the Lord,' but a person has to live; and besides, Jesus has nothing with which to draw water- no means to be able to give us these things." And beware of exhibiting religious deceit by saying, "Oh, I have no misgivings about Jesus, only misgivings about myself." If we are honest, we will admit that we never have misgivings or doubts about ourselves, because we know exactly what we are capable or incapable of doing. But we do have misgivings about Jesus. And our pride is hurt even at the thought that He can do what we can't.
My misgivings arise from the fact that I search within to find how He will do what He says. My doubts spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, I should bring them into the light and confess them openly- "Lord, I have had misgivings about You. I have not believed in Your abilities, but only my own. And I have not believed in Your almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it.
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Untrustworthy
Proverbs 11:28 uncovers a powerful truth,
He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage.
Solomon is giving us an important warning: He who trusts in his riches will fall. Why does he tell us this? Because it is our natural tendency, when prosperity comes, to trust in that prosperity and to have that become our source of security.
As Psalm 62:10 says, If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them. There is a tendency in every human heart to do just that, and that is why God warns us. If the blessing comes, if prosperity comes, if you achieve a degree of success, do not set your heart on the wealth.
Instead, make sure your trust remains in God because riches are not trustworthy. In fact, if you trust in your wealth, you will fall!
The New Testament echoes this same truth in 1 Timothy 6:17. In this passage, Paul is writing to his son in the faith, Timothy. He is giving him some instructions to pass along to other believers,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Like Solomon, Paul is warning us that riches are uncertain. Do not put your trust in them. Instead, make sure your trust is in God. If riches increase, do not set your heart on them. And I like the last part. He said to put your trust in God, Who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Where is your trust today? Are you trusting in your money and wealth? Or is the object of your trust God? I hope you will answer honestly. If you find yourself trusting in riches, just remember, they are untrustworthy!
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The Theft of Stewardship
In His Presence: The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
Communism teaches that the government owns everything. Capitalism teaches that the individual owns everything. Christianity teaches that God owns everything. At the heart of Christian stewardship is the assumption that the earth is the Lord's, the world and all who dwell in it. There is absolutely nothing that sits outside of the ownership of God.
The Bible is clear that men attempt to rob God-stewards attempt to rip off the Owner. Malachi 3:7-12 makes this point. At this time the Israelites held a very low view of God. He remained faithful, and even though they were disobedient, they were not consumed (v. 6), but they had turned from the God of their fathers. Oh, they were still showing up for church, but they did not treat God as the sovereign, omnipotent ruler that He is.
The Israelites were made to realize that they were thieves because they were oblivious to it on their own. They asked: "How shall we return [to the Lord]?" (v. 7). God answered: "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings" (v. 8). God used the example of how the Israelites were handling their offerings to demonstrate their spiritual poverty. It's hard to measure spiritual robbery, so this was a visible, tangible illustration of their theft of God. Like a thermometer registers a physical representation of an internal illness, God used the thermometer of tithes and offerings to register the Israelites' spiritual temperature.
One Minute Please
You can always tell how a person is doing on the inside by how they function on the outside.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus
Where then do You get that living water? -John 4:11
"The well is deep"- and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! (John 4:11). Think of the depths of human nature and human life; think of the depth of the "wells" in you. Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you have a deep "well" of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says to you, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1). Would your response be to shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even You can't draw up quietness and comfort out of it." Actually, that is correct. Jesus doesn't bring anything up from the wells of human nature- He brings them down from above. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering only what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and also by saying, "Of course, I cannot expect God to do this particular thing." The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do. We impoverish and weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. The impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from approaching Him as our Almighty God.
The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, "Of course, He can't do anything about this." We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, "It can't be done." You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.
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The Right Perspective
Yesterday's devotional showed us how money, riches, and wealth are untrustworthy. So the natural question is, "Is wealth a bad thing?"
Let's go back to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 for our answer,
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I believe God makes it clear that if you are in a position where He has blessed you, you should enjoy it. And do it guilt-free. If you can take the whole family on a 30-day vacation to Europe, go for it.
Just make sure you pay your tithes first. Make sure you are generous to the work of God, but enjoy what God gives you. It is a gift of God to be able to enjoy the fruit of the work of your hands.
God is all for us enjoying whatever measure of prosperity we have. He just wants us to be generous in proportion to our prosperity. He wants us to be ready and willing to give big. To be sowing extravagantly into the gospel and thereby laying up treasure in heaven.
The point is this: Do not just live with your eye on this world. Rather, live with your eye on the world to come. If you do, you will truly be able to enjoy the wealth God gives you.
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Tithes and Offerings
In His Presence: You shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always (Deuteronomy 14:23).
God told the Israelites they were robbing Him in two ways: in their tithes and in their offerings. The word tithe means one-tenth, and it refers back to a time even before the nation of Israel existed, when God conveyed the expectation that man would recognize His sovereignty by giving a tithe.
In Genesis 14:17-24, Abraham offered Melchizedek, the king of Salem, a tithe because of the victory God had given him and the blessing that God had bestowed upon him. Abraham offered a tithe to Melchizedek, who was the forerunner to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is greater than Melchizedek (Hebrews 7). If Abraham had to offer a tithe to Melchizedek, and Jesus is the follower of Melchizedek, then how much more do we have a responsibility to honor the sovereignty of Christ who is the King of the world?
Leviticus 27:30 says that the tithe is "holy to the Lord." The tithe doesn't belong to us; it belongs to God. The tithe teaches that there is only one Creator and Sustainer, and it's not us.
While the tithe is mandatory, the offering is voluntary. We determine the amount of the offering, and it is from the heart. But an offering is never an offering until we have given the full tithe. We must first give what God expects, and then we can give over and above that expectation to reflect a heart of love, gratitude, and rejoicing. If we don't give to God out of obedience and gratitude, it shows that something is wrong with our hearts.
One Minute Please
The average Christian gives only 2.5 percent of his income to God.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Do You Now Believe?"
'By this we believe . . . .' Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe?' -John 16:30-31
Now we believe. . . ." But Jesus asks, "Do you . . . ? Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you . . . will leave Me alone" (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.
We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to "walk in the light" of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to "walk in the light as He is in the light. . ." (1 John 1:7). When we do something out of a sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation-just obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.
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It's All About Him
I want us to look again at the last two verses from our last devotional, 1 Timothy 6:18-19,
Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I think it is beautiful the way verse 19 ends, ...that they may lay hold on eternal life. Paul is writing to believers here, and he is not saying they must do this so that they can get saved.
Rather, I think he is saying that when they are rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, then they will lay hold on what eternal life is all about. It is not about the things you possess; it is not about the blessings God gives you. It is about a relationship with Him. Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
If you are blessed, realize the main thing is not your riches and wealth. They can be very transitory.
I have a friend who, years ago, migrated from a country in Central America that had experienced a military coup. Her family was quite well off, having property and wealth that had been passed down through several generations.
But after the coop, the new government seized all of the families properties and wealth. All was lost overnight.
This story could have turned out badly except that this woman is an exceptional Christian with a great attitude. She has built a successful life here in the U. S and has chosen not to be bitter or resentful over the past. She has kept her trust in God, realizing that no matter what happens if she still has Him she will be alright.
Friend, keep your eyes on God and keep your trust anchored in Him. He is what life-real life-eternal life is all about!
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The Restitution and Reversal of Theft
In His Presence: Give and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure-pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured you in return (Luke 6:38).
Malachi 3:10 says: " 'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,' says the Lord of hosts, 'if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.' " This verse isn't saying God will make us rich. Rather, it teaches us how life will be when we do not steal from God what already belongs to Him.
This verse tells us to bring the whole tithe. Failure to bring 100 percent will mean that heaven is closed. But if you bring the whole tithe, heaven will open wide and God will pour blessings out on you until they overflow.
The "storehouse" referred to in verse 10 is where temple food was kept for those in need-the priests, the poor, and the unsaved. The food would impact the community in the name of Yahweh. In our day, the storehouse represents the local church, where people are fed spiritually. The tithe goes to the church, and the offering can go there or to other ministries.
Remember that robbery of God reflects your spirit toward God, so if you aren't willing to give of your money, you're probably not willing to give your whole heart and life. God will not allow you to have a key to His house and to steal from Him at the same time. The issue is not whether we can afford to give tithes and offerings, but whether we can afford not to?
One Minute Please
You don't give to receive, but when you give with the right heart, you will receive.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Piercing Question
Do you love Me? -John 21:17
Peter's response to this piercing question is considerably different from the bold defiance he exhibited only a few days before when he declared, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" (Matthew 26:35 ; also see Matthew 26:33-34). Our natural individuality, or our natural self, boldly speaks out and declares its feelings. But the true love within our inner spiritual self can be discovered only by experiencing the hurt of this question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way any natural man loves a good person. Yet that is nothing but emotional love. It may reach deeply into our natural self, but it never penetrates to the spirit of a person. True love never simply declares itself. Jesus said, "Whoever confesses Me before men [that is, confesses his love by everything he does, not merely by his words], him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God" (Luke 12:8).
Unless we are experiencing the hurt of facing every deception about ourselves, we have hindered the work of the Word of God in our lives. The Word of God inflicts hurt on us more than sin ever could, because sin dulls our senses. But this question of the Lord intensifies our sensitivities to the point that this hurt produced by Jesus is the most exquisite pain conceivable. It hurts not only on the natural level, but also on the deeper spiritual level. "For the Word of God is living and powerful . . . , piercing even to the division of soul and spirit . . ."- to the point that no deception can remain (Hebrews 4:12). When the Lord asks us this question, it is impossible to think and respond properly, because when the Lord speaks directly to us, the pain is too intense. It causes such a tremendous hurt that any part of our life which may be out of line with His will can feel the pain. There is never any mistaking the pain of the Lord's Word by His children, but the moment that pain is felt is the very moment at which God reveals His truth to us.
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His Stuff
You have probably noticed that over the last few days of devotionals, we have been focusing on material blessings and how we should view those blessings.
1 Chronicles 29:14-16 is very helpful to see God's perspective,
But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. "O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own."
In these verses, King David is actually talking to the Lord as an offering is being received, and resources are being collected for the building of the temple (something his son Solomon is going to achieve).
We see that David recognized that everything he had, everything the people had, literally belonged to God. They were just giving God back something that belonged to Him in the first place.
I am going to let you in on a little secret: You and I are just stewards, and one day the Owner will call us into account for how we handled His stuff. Every one of us will give an account for our stewardship of His possessions.
While He gives us richly all things to enjoy, He is going to ask you if you did what He told you to do with His stuff. It is not our stuff.
Material treasure is a stewardship, and we must do what the Owner wants with it. This means we have a responsibility to be listening for the Owner's voice and following His instructions with His goods.
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The Motivation of Stewardship
In His Presence: Mark 10:25
When churches aren't receiving tithes from their congregation, there is something drastically wrong in the hearts of those churchgoers. After all, stewardship is a matter of the heart. Jesus drove this point home in Mark 12, where He talked about the motivation behind our stewardship.
Money is an indicator of where our hearts really are. God isn't interested in our money; He doesn't need a dime. Our cars all have indicator lights to tell us when we are about to run out of gas or if the engine is overheating. Well, money is a good indicator light for the state of our inner selves.
In this particular account, Jesus went to church with His disciples, "He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury" (v. 41). Jesus' watch was very intimate as He sat down close to where the offering was being collected. The temple they were in was very ornate and plush, and the rich people were easy to spot because they "were putting in large sums" (v. 41). Jesus could see how much they were putting in because He was watching.
Someone else came along whom Jesus noticed-a widow who dropped in two small copper coins. Those two lepta equaled less than a penny; it was the smallest currency made in that day. In order for Jesus to see such a small offering, He must have been quite close to the scene. He was watching the giving intimately.
One Minute Please
The offering was important enough for Jesus to watch closely-remember its importance as you make your offering.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotional
March 4, 2013
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This email encouragement is unlike most I send out. The simple fact is that God has laid this message on my heart, and I can't get away from it. It is like a burning in my bones. You may not like what I have to say. You may not feel it is encouraging. Fair enough. But I believe it is necessary for such a time as this.
Jeff Schreve
Pastor
Open Season
"... and you will be hated by all on account of My name". Luke 21:17
Years ago, I heard a sermon by Adrian Rogers in which he said, "Do you know who is going to be the whipping boy in the last days? The Bible-believing Christian." How true and how evident in the days in which we live. Perhaps you have been following the story about Tim Tebow's scheduled speaking engagement at First Baptist Dallas where Dr. Robert Jeffress is Pastor. Tebow has been called "a terrible person" for accepting this speaking invitation (on Thursday he cancelled, however). Why? What could possibly be so bad about Jeffress and FBC Dallas, a flagship church of biblical conservatism for 100+ years? In preaching the truths of the Bible, Dr. Jeffress has made some politically incorrect statements regarding Muslims, Mormonism, and homosexuality. And rather than checking to see if his statements were biblically sound or not, many have vehemently castigated him, labeling him an idiot, a narrow-minded bigot, a homophobe, and a hater. One writer spoke openly of his hatred for Jeffress ... because he deemed him a hater. How ironic. Robert Jeffress is not a hater, nor an idiot, nor a homophobe, nor a narrow-minded bigot. He is someone who is trying to hold up the truths of the Word of God in a day and age of increasing apostasy - a falling away from the true faith. No doubt Jeffress could have said the things he said in a different way, but if you delve into the crux of his politically incorrect statements, you will find they are rooted in biblical truth.
1. No one goes to heaven apart from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6). Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other world religions do not claim Jesus as Savior and Lord. They proclaim another way of salvation apart from Christ. Anyone who believes the Bible to be true would have to agree that these world religions are wrong. But, Jeff, they are sincere. Yes they are. But sincerity is not the test of truth. People can certainly be sincerely wrong. John F. Kennedy Jr. was sincere when he thought he was piloting his airplane up and not down. Tragically, he was sincerely wrong.
2. Not everyone who claims to be a Christian really is a Christian. Judas claimed to be a Christ-follower, but he wasn't. In fact, Jesus called him a devil. In Corinth, there were those who preached "another Jesus" who was not the Jesus of the Bible. Like Lite Beer from Miller, this "other Jesus" tastes great and is less filling ... the only problem is he can't save from sin and death.
To be sure, false cults are not the same thing as false world religions. Whereas a false world religion never claims to be Christian, a false cult does. But the false cult presents "another Jesus whom we have not preached" (2 Cor. 11:4). Mark it down: The only Jesus who can save is the Jesus of the Bible ... and that Jesus is Creator God in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity. In Mormon theology, Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. Jesus is NOT Creator God, and He is NOT co-equal with God the Father. Is that a small discrepancy? NO! Jesus Himself said, "Unless you believe that I am He, you will all die in your sins" (John 8:24). The "He" is not in the original Greek. It was added by the NASB translators for readability. In this key statement, Jesus was claiming to be the Great I AM, the holy and sacred name for God in the Old Testament. When He said it again in John 8:58 - "Before Abraham was born, I am" - they picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy, for claiming to be God. Here is the point: Unless you understand and believe in the true Jesus who is God in the flesh, you can never be saved. Just because a school backpack can be made to look a lot like a parachute, doesn't mean it can save you at 30,000 feet.
3. Homosexuality is clearly defined as sin in the Bible. However one may try to make the Bible say homosexuality is good, fine, right, and wholesome, it just can't be done. Old and New Testament passages make it crystal clear that homosexuality is sexually immoral. And sexually immoral people - whether fornicators, adulterers, or homosexuals - who refuse to repent of their sins "shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (see 1 Cor. 6:9-11). God doesn't want that for anyone. I don't want that either, nor does Robert Jeffress. No true preacher wants that ... so we cry out for men and women to repent of sin and receive the love, grace, and forgiveness freely offered by God through the sacrificial death of His Son on the cross.
Are Christians haters for calling sin sin? Is your doctor a hater if he examines you, finds a tumor, and lovingly tells you that you have cancer and need to make radical changes or else? Is it really hatred to speak the truth in love (what we are commanded to do)? Is it really hatred to call people to repent of their sin and put their faith in Christ? Jesus said, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3). There is no salvation apart from repentance ... and there is no repentance when clearly defined sin is no longer deemed sinful. It is indeed open season on Bible-believing Christians. The hatred, insults, and persecutions will continue to intensify until the Lord returns. The big question is this: Will you stay faithful to the Lord and His Word, regardless of the consequences ... or will you back down in shame of Him and His words because of the fear of man? May God help His children stand up for Jesus!
Love,
Pastor Jeff Schreve
From His Heart Ministries
Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 9:9-11)
:angel: :angel:
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is This True of Me?
None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself . . . -Acts 20:24
It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because then you are not bothered by what He requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion, becomes your guide. You may be more prosperous and successful from the world's perspective, and will have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do His will. You will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.
What do I count in my life as "dear to myself"? If I have not been seized by Jesus Christ and have not surrendered myself to Him, I will consider the time I decide to give God and my own ideas of service as dear. I will also consider my own life as "dear to myself." But Paul said he considered his life dear so that he might fulfill the ministry he had received, and he refused to use his energy on anything else. This verse shows an almost noble annoyance by Paul at being asked to consider himself. He was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him. Our reasonable work is based on the following argument which we say to ourselves, "Remember how useful you are here, and think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude chooses our own judgment, instead of Jesus Christ, to be our guide as to where we should go and where we could be used the most. Never consider whether or not you are of use- but always consider that "you are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19). You are His.
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Agreeing With God's Word
When the twelve spies returned from searching the promised land, they said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we" (Numbers 13:31).
That was the report they brought back-at least ten of them that is. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, had this to say,
"Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them" (Numbers 14:9).
They all saw the same things in the land of Canaan, but only Joshua and Caleb chose to agree with God. The Lord had previously told them that He would give them victory and that they would be able to drive out the inhabitants of the land.
The ten spies (along with all Israel) died without ever possessing what God had promised. Only two men from that generation entered into Canaan and possessed the land. I think you can guess who they were-Joshua and Caleb. The only two who agreed with the declarations of God.
Check out what you have been saying. Do your words agree with God or not?
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How Do You Give?
In His Presence: Mark 8:36
Jesus not only closely watched people give their offerings, He watched them critically. He went beyond their visible actions and looked into their hearts. Jesus called His disciples over and said: "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury" (Mark 12:43). He didn't want them to miss seeing the heart of the widow, or to miss the lesson that her giving provided.
Most of us would miss watching the widow. Instead, we would be watching the bigwigs in the temple, the ones who made large offerings from their ample funds. We would be impressed by how much they gave. We might even suggest honoring them for their giving, maybe naming a building after the donor. But Jesus didn't call the disciples over to see the big givers. He called them over to notice a poor widow who gave less than a penny.
Why did Jesus fix His attention on the widow? Because she gave more. "She, out of her poverty, put in all she owned" (v. 44), while the rich men gave out of their surplus. The rich gave what they had left over. This woman didn't have anything extra; she gave everything she had. Jesus knew this, and He saw her heart. God measures our gift not by its amount, but by our motive. A godly steward will give with the motivation to honor God rather than just to tip Him with what he has left over after the bills are paid.
One Minute Please
God is not only interested in what you give; He also wants to know why you give it.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Is He Really My Lord?
. . . so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . . -Acts 20:24
Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced came from doing what the Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it- to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal Savior. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 - "I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."
"Do you love Me?" Then, "Feed My sheep" (John 21:17). He is not offering us a choice of how we can serve Him; He is asking for absolute loyalty to His commission, a faithfulness to what we discern when we are in the closest possible fellowship with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is not the same as the call- the need is the opportunity to exercise the call. The call is to be faithful to the ministry you received when you were in true fellowship with Him. This does not imply that there is a whole series of differing ministries marked out for you. It does mean that you must be sensitive to what God has called you to do, and this may sometimes require ignoring demands for service in other areas.
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Unlikely Vessels
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 says,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
God delights in calling and using those the world passes by and counts as nothing. One old preacher said, "God isn't looking for golden vessels, God isn't looking for silver vessels, God is looking for yielded vessels." I think that is true.
It is amazing what God can do through someone's life who doesn't have to have the credit.
You may feel like you do not have much to offer. If that is the case, then you are perfect! When God does great things through you, then He will get the credit. People will know it was Him and not you!
God is looking for yielded vessels that He can use in a dynamic, community-altering way.
Why not say today, "Here I am Lord, use me;" and after praying that simple prayer, get ready. God may bring some amazing opportunities your way to step out and be used for His glory.
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Giving Reflects the Spiritual
In His Presence: 1 Kings 17:1-16
Giving is a value issue, not simply a money issue. God wants your love for Him to be reflected in the way you give. When faced with the choice of using her two lepta for survival or giving them to God, the widow chose to trust God to provide and gave all her money to Him. She did it without the promise of any reward, simply because she knew she needed God above all else and wanted to give to Him. She made a spiritual decision which she reflected in her physical actions. She completely entrusted herself to God to meet her need. She was banking on God.
Our love for God is measured and tested by the hold we have on our wallets. If we simply give out of our surplus, Jesus said we are not grateful. Giving God the leftovers expresses the lack of value we place on Him. The poor widow not only gave all she had, she gave more than those rich men, not in portion, but in proportion. She gave 100 percent, while all they gave were leftovers.
Everything we have starts with God. He gives us the money we receive because of the jobs He provides for us. Everything is rooted in God's provision.
If your offering is insignificant to you, it is also insignificant to God. If we put God first in our lives, we will give Him the firstfruits, not the leftovers. Do we trust that if we put Him first, He will take care of us?
One Minute Please
If Jesus Himself passed you the offering plate with His nail-scarred hand, would it affect your giving?
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking the Next Step
. . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses -2 Corinthians 6:4
When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.
Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17 .
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The Road to Perfect and Complete
I want us to focus our attention today on James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What I want to look at today is how God seeks to bring us to maturity by building patience into our lives. If there is one thing I have learned in my Christian walk, it is that God is not in as much of a hurry as I am!
Now, what is patience? Patience is the long-lasting quality of your faith. If you let go of your patience, your faith falls to the floor.
The end result God is looking for is that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The word perfect here means mature. God is developing maturity in us by working on our patience.
I have a dear friend who has a great church. They endeavored to build another building on their property and it ended up being a major undertaking. In fact, it turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done. I mean, it took a strip out of his hide.
Eventually it got built, but you know what my friend says about it? He says, "You see that building? I didn't build that building. It built me."
Going through those trials, facing those difficulties, having his faith tested, having to trust God when it seemed like there was a lack of finances, having to hold onto God's Word when he was a laughing stock with some people, all of that built character in him as he stood the test.
I have a question for you: Has anything been building you lately? If so, rejoice, because God is working maturity in you!
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Our Firstfruits
In His Presence: Matthew 22:37
The Bible calls the priorities of stewardship our "firstfruits." In the agricultural environment of the biblical times, people lived on the food they grew. Giving God their firstfruits would mean giving Him the best and the first of what they had to give.
Giving your firstfruits is a tangible, visible way of telling God that He is first in your life. God has always demanded that He be first because He is God. In Revelation 2:4, Jesus told the church: "You have left your first love." Jesus had slipped into second or third place. When God stops being first, we have a problem.
Colossians 1:18 tells us we should live in such a way "that [Jesus] Himself might come to have first place in everything." Jesus wants to be the focus of every aspect of your life all the time, without exception. Why? Because everything we have and ever will have is rooted in God. He deserves to be the focus because He is the Creator, Sustainer, Source, Savior, and King.
A passage from Haggai demonstrates where our priority as stewards should be: "You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; ... he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes" (Haggai 1:6). When God is not first, we can't possibly enjoy the stuff of life. Whenever the provisions of God become your god, you have replaced the true God with your own god.
One Minute Please
How dare we live for everything else and forget the Source.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Source of Abundant Joy
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us -Romans 8:37
Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.
Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let's apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against- tribulation, suffering, and persecution- are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. "We are more than conquerors through Him" "in all these things"; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn't know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4).
The undiminished radiance, which is the result of abundant joy, is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can change. And the experiences of life, whether they are everyday events or terrifying ones, are powerless to "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
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It Will All Work Out
Ephesians 1:11 is a powerful verse with a vital lesson,
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Over the 30 years of my Christian life, I have come to have great confidence in God's ability to work things out. No matter what is going on or how obscured my understanding of a situation is, I believe God is always working things according to His great sovereign plan.
It is as if there is this giant tapestry that God is weaving, and my life is a part of it. I sometimes get caught up with the temporal things and the stuff that is happening, but God reminds me, "Hey, nothing is taking Me by surprise. I'm weaving all of these things into this great pattern. Your mistakes, the stuff that happens to you, it is all going to turn out alright!"
Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God? The thing you are embroiled in right now did not take God by surprise. He did not look at your situation and say, "Oh no! I didn't figure on that! Gabriel, do you have any suggestions? What are we going to do?"
I know that sometimes in my microscopic view of things I have said, "Lord, such and such has got to happen." And God has replied, "Well, you don't have the big picture." Then, as time went on, God pulled the camera back, and I got the wide view, and I realized God was up to something very cool-totally apart from what I thought "had to happen."
Whatever your situation, you can rest assured that God has plans to work things out. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will. So relax! Even if your present circumstances have totally taken you by surprise, God saw it coming and made provision far ahead of time.
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Are the Best
In His Presence: Leviticus 22:17-25
Whenever you give God your firstfruits, you not only give Him the first, you give Him the best. In Malachi 1 the Israelites brought God the worst of their leftovers for their sacrifices-the sick, blind, and lame animals. Sometimes that is what we bring God-our leftover time, energy, and devotion. We come to God when we're not at our peak.
The story of Cain and Abel serves as a reminder that God is not pleased with those who do not offer firstfruits. "Abel, on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard" (Genesis 4:4-5). Cain wound up killing his brother over this incident. Abel brought God the best because he believed God desired and deserved the best. By his offering, Cain showed that he thought God only deserved something, not the best.
If we're not worshiping God by bringing Him our firstfruits, we are likely giving our firstfruits to something else. What gets your best time and your undivided attention? You give those to whatever is your priority.
Regarding money, "firstfruits" refers to the tithe, or the tenth. You must bring the whole tithe before you bring an offering. Deuteronomy 14:23 says we are to give the tithe "that [we] may learn to fear the Lord." Whenever we give the tenth first, we're honoring God as God.
One Minute Please
God wants the prime cut of your life; He doesn't want the leftovers.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Surrendered Life
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.
If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you
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The Remnant
Today, I want you to read Romans 11:2-5,
God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
When Elijah pleads with God, he is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Jezebel is after his head and he has run into the wilderness. He is sitting down under a tree, and he is crying to God, "I'm the only one. Nobody else is serving You."
But God says, "Hey, wait a minute, Tiger. I have seven thousand more who haven't bowed their knee to the false idol. You're not the only one."
God is saying, "I have a remnant." And then Paul brings it right into present day, and says, "Just like God had a remnant then, God has a remnant today."
A remnant is a small group that has remained. That is where the word remnant comes from. It comes from the root "to remain." God always has a remnant. A remnant that remains faithful, committed, on course, obedient to God. That does not get discouraged, quit, or give up because of life's many turns.
Life has its share of setbacks and unexpected turns, and many people give up because of those setbacks. But those who stay on course and remain faithful will experience God's richer blessings.
God blesses all of His children. But those who stay the course are rewarded for their faithfulness.
So stay on track, hold course, stay steady, and remain faithful. Be a part of the remnant.
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Reaping What You Sow
In His Presence: John 12:24-26
An axiom is a governing principle or rule of thumb. Examples of axioms include: birds fly; water is wet; fire is hot; what goes up must come down; and-the one relevant to our study of stewardship-a man reaps what he sows. That axiomatic statement is as real as any of the others, but it's not believed to the same degree. We reap what we sow in all of life, not just where money is concerned. What we plant determines what we harvest.
A little boy was told by his father to go outside and do some planting in the garden. The boy was lazy and didn't feel like doing all that work, so he dug one hole, dumped all the seeds in, and covered them up. He went back inside and told his dad the work was done, forgetting that what he planted would reveal itself-and his laziness-in time. He would one day reap what he sowed.
According to our axiom, if there is no sowing of seeds, there can be no expectation of harvest. There are many Christians who want a great harvest from God, but they have sown very few seeds for God. Second Corinthians 9:6 says: "He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." Your harvest depends on what you sow. If you plant potatoes, potatoes will grow. To plant the flesh means you will simply live to gratify yourself. But to plant the Spirit is to live for the glory of God.
One Minute Please
If we make no spiritual investment, we should not expect a spiritual return.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Obedience to the "Heavenly Vision"
I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision -Acts 26:19
If we lose "the heavenly vision" God has given us, we alone are responsible- not God. We lose the vision because of our own lack of spiritual growth. If we do not apply our beliefs about God to the issues of everyday life, the vision God has given us will never be fulfilled. The only way to be obedient to "the heavenly vision" is to give our utmost for His highest- our best for His glory. This can be accomplished only when we make a determination to continually remember God's vision. But the acid test is obedience to the vision in the details of our everyday life- sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour, not just during times of personal prayer or public meetings.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . ." (Habakkuk 2:3). We cannot bring the vision to fulfillment through our own efforts, but must live under its inspiration until it fulfills itself. We try to be so practical that we forget the vision. At the very beginning we saw the vision but did not wait for it. We rushed off to do our practical work, and once the vision was fulfilled we could no longer even see it. Waiting for a vision that "tarries" is the true test of our faithfulness to God. It is at the risk of our own soul's welfare that we get caught up in practical busy-work, only to miss the fulfillment of the vision.
Watch for the storms of God. The only way God plants His saints is through the whirlwind of His storms. Will you be proven to be an empty pod with no seed inside? That will depend on whether or not you are actually living in the light of the vision you have seen. Let God send you out through His storm, and don't go until He does. If you select your own spot to be planted, you will prove yourself to be an unproductive, empty pod. However, if you allow God to plant you, you will "bear much fruit" (John 15:8).
It is essential that we live and "walk in the light" of God's vision for us (1 John 1:7).
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Bearing One Another's Burdens
In Galatians 6:1-2, Paul admonishes us,
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
We need to bear one another's burdens. Paul, in this passage, gives us some keen insight into what that looks like.
First, the word overtaken means to be taken by surprise, to suddenly fall into. In other words, the sin Paul is referring to is not a premeditated sin, but rather a temptation that suddenly came up, the person stumbled in, and now they are having trouble getting out.
Notice Paul also says, "If you're spiritual, restore that one." The word restore actually brings with it the thought of setting a dislocated limb. The role of the spiritually mature person is to skillfully and gently relocate the "limb" that has been knocked out of its socket.
I think this happens most often to baby Christians. They are suddenly invaded, they give in to some temptation, and they feel awful. Then the devil goes to work on them, "Some Christian you are! You hypocrite! You better never go back to church again! You're so wicked. You're probably not even saved."
They do not know how to pull themselves out, and you and I need to help them get back in right relationship with God and the Church.
I had a friend who dislocated a shoulder one time. It took him 45 minutes to work it back in by himself. It would have been easier to have someone help him.
And, that is true for us as Christians. We need to be there to help restore that brother or sister whose spiritual life has been dislocated.
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The Law of the Harvest
In His Presence: Mark 10:29-30
Scripture says that when you sow, you will reap a harvest, and the harvest depends on how much you sow. Once you determine what you want to harvest, you will know what you need to sow. If you want supernatural and spectacular things from God, you won't just sow ordinary seeds. "Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).
The harvest also depends on where you sow. The seeds must be planted in "good soil" (Matthew 13:8). When we invest in the kingdom of God, He returns our investment in abundance. We must plant our seeds in fertile ground, in ministries that are actually about ministry instead of money. Matthew 6:33 tells us that we can maintain the growth of our crop when we "seek first His kingdom and His righteousness."
The harvest also depends on when you sow-different crops demand different amounts of time to grow. If we plant in the spring, we won't see a crop in the spring. We must be patient and wait for God to bring the harvest in due time.
Finally, your harvest depends on why you sow. Is the motivation for seed-planting so that you can benefit from the prosperity of the harvest, or so that God will be glorified by a large harvest? Motivation is everything in stewardship, and if we trust God, we will sow great things and reap great things by His grace.
One Minute Please
Give and it will be given unto you because of the glory of God.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Total Surrender
Peter began to say to Him, 'See, we have left all and followed You' -Mark 10:28
Our Lord replies to this statement of Peter by saying that this surrender is "for My sake and the gospel's" (10:29). It was not for the purpose of what the disciples themselves would get out of it. Beware of surrender that is motivated by personal benefits that may result. For example, "I'm going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy." Being delivered from sin and being made holy are the result of being right with God, but surrender resulting from this kind of thinking is certainly not the true nature of Christianity. Our motive for surrender should not be for any personal gain at all. We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want you; I want myself. But I do want You to clean me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I want to be on display in Your showcase so I can say, 'This is what God has done for me.' " Gaining heaven, being delivered from sin, and being made useful to God are things that should never even be a consideration in real surrender. Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.
Where does Jesus Christ figure in when we have a concern about our natural relationships? Most of us will desert Him with this excuse-"Yes, Lord, I heard you call me, but my family needs me and I have my own interests. I just can't go any further" (see Luke 9:57-62). "Then," Jesus says, "you 'cannot be My disciple' " (see Luke 14:26-33).
True surrender will always go beyond natural devotion. If we will only give up, God will surrender Himself to embrace all those around us and will meet their needs, which were created by our surrender. Beware of stopping anywhere short of total surrender to God. Most of us have only a vision of what this really means, but have never truly experienced it.
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God's GPS
Hebrews 13:20-21 are two verses that give me great encouragement,
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
These verses teach us that God is working in us all the time to bring us to maturity-our destiny in Christ.
A friend of mine shared a brilliant illustration of this one time. He likened God's guidance to that of the Global Positioning System (GPS), one of those systems in cars and phones that guides you to your destination.
A GPS system uses a satellite to give an aerial view, and its sole function is to get you to your destination, your "destiny."
As you travel to your destination, you have a map on the screen, and this little annoying voice talking to you through the whole trip, "Left turn a quarter mile ahead; left turn 150 feet ahead; left turn 50 feet ahead."
If you miss your turn, it immediately computes a new course for you so you can get back to where you are supposed to be. And if you mess up on those directions, it then computes another new course.
In the same way, God has a destiny for us to fulfill, something that fits into His great master plan. By His grace, He is guiding us all the way, even when we get off track. God just readjusts and says, "This is the next thing you need to do to get back into My plan."
Through His "GPS," He is always working to get us where we need to be. Praise God!
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Abuse of Stewardship
In His Presence: Matthew 19:23-25
We are living in a day of the commercialization of God, where people go to church to find out what God will do for them. Instead of focusing on the goodness of giving to God, some focus on receiving blessing from God. These people have betrayed God for a price, expecting Him to act like Santa Claus, dispensing blessing because of their giving. There are many names for this-prosperity theology, name-it-and-claim-it theology-but it's all the same in that people relate to God simply because of the goodies He provides.
In Acts 8:14-24, me meet possibly the first prosperity gospel preacher, Simon. According to verse 13, Simon believed and was baptized, so we know he was a believer. But he brought with him into the church the materialistic mentality of the culture. Through this passage, we can examine some of the problems of materialism that can infiltrate our church today.
First, Simon brought the crisis of materialism, which was idolatry. When Simon saw Christianity, he saw dollar signs. He worshiped the almighty dollar. "When Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money" (v. 18). Simon wanted the power, prestige, and income that could come from Christianity; he wanted to make his own profit from God's work.
At the heart of materialism is greed. There is nothing wrong with having or wanting things, but when those things take precedence in your life over invisible things, like your relationship with God, you have become greedy.
One Minute Please
If your financial life is going up and your spiritual life is going down, you are probably greedy.
God bless
:angel: :angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Total Surrender to Us
For God so loved the world that He gave . . . -John 3:16
Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is actually part of the effect of His wonderful and total surrender to us.
If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. Beware of talking about surrender if you know nothing about it. In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us- totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.
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An Encouraging Word
A while back I ran into a woman who I hadn't seen in quite some time. Being my friendly self I said, "Hi!"
The moment I said that she replied, "Oh, Bayless!" and proceeded to open her purse and pull out a letter I had written to encourage her three years earlier. She said, "I take this with me everywhere I go."
I wanted to cry! I mean, I was touched. But then I thought, "Is there no one else who comforts you? Is there no one else who speaks encouraging words into your life?" And I wonder the same about you.
Are you needing some encouragement today? I don't know what you may be faced with, but I personally find comfort and encouragement in the following passage. It is 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11,
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
Think about this for a moment. As you look into eternity, which is what ultimately matters, you and I are not appointed to wrath! That is good news! That is great news! That is encouraging news! And that is great comfort!
God is storing up wrath against the ungodly. But, just like in ancient Egypt when the death angel passed over every home where the blood of the Lamb was, I thank God the wrath of God passes over us!
It is being stored up, but not for me or for you. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have escaped the wrath of God.
Thank you, Jesus!
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The Cure for Materialism
In His Presence: 3 John 2
When Simon offered money to the disciples, Peter responded: "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!" (Acts 8:20). Materialism carries with it a heavy curse. It began when Adam and Eve wanted to satisfy their own appetites, and the whole world fell under the curse of sin. Materialism causes people to forget about God, and where God is not the focus, life will be pointless. Matthew 13:22 says: "The worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."
The good news is that there is a cure for materialism. The cure is repentance. In Acts 8:22-23, the disciples told Simon: "Repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity."
God doesn't want money to bind you or chain you down. Deuteronomy 8:18 says: "It is [God] who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant." His blessings are meant to free us up to do more for Him. Giving of our blessings means that people are saved, the gospel is preached, and the poor are helped. God never blesses us to keep it for ourselves; He blesses us to share that blessing with others. Our financial prosperity and our spiritual prosperity are intertwined; they go hand in hand.
One Minute Please
If we repent and make God's glory our motivation, He will be honored in our stewardship.
:angel:
God bless
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Yielding
. . . you are that one's slaves whom you obey . . . -Romans 6:16
The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.
If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is- "I must have it now," whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. ". . . He has anointed Me . . . to proclaim liberty to the captives . . ." (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1).
When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you will know you can't. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person's life
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Forever With Him
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 gives us powerful prophetic words,
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Jesus Christ will return, and the church will be caught away! We will meet the Lord in the clouds and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. From that moment on, we will always be with the Lord.
Maybe you are going through a rough patch right now. If so, let me remind you that this earthly life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. But we have eternity in store. Thank God we will ever be with the Lord!
If He tarries and we die before He returns, we get to go to heaven. But I have a feeling, with the way things are shaping up, that we will be the generation that sees His return.
Have you noticed how the eyes of the world are on the Middle East? This is all end times stuff. Also, one of the things that Jesus said would be a precursor to the end is that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to every nation, literally, to every language group.
And you know what? That will be completed in our generation.
So keep your eyes fixed on His return, and that day you will meet Him in the air and be with Him forever!
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The Purpose of Stewardship
In His Presence: Genesis 12:2-3
What is God's purpose for stewardship? We can sum it up in one verse, Deuteronomy 8:18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day." To put it simply, the reason God blesses us and the purpose of stewardship is the covenant.
The covenant is the program of God's kingdom. The principle of the covenant is that God expands His program of His kingdom rule in history through His servants. When God first made His covenant with Abraham, He promised to bless him, but not only that, He promised to bring blessingsthrough him.
We often hear Acts 20:35 quoted: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," but we don't really understand it. This verse means that if you are giving, it is only because God has given to you. If we receive blessings from God, we are obligated to be a blessing to someone else.
Deuteronomy 8:18 also emphasizes that it is God who gives us power to make wealth. God does not want us to forget the source of our blessings. It is He who allows us to work and be productive. Work has always been in God's plan for mankind, starting with Adam and Eve, who had the job of tending the garden and its inhabitants. There is no quick way to make a buck-true wealth is provided by God.
One Minute Please
When we give of our blessings, God will expand our roles as givers and allow us to keep on giving.
God bless
:angel: :angel:
March 15, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Discipline of Dismay
As they followed they were afraid -Mark 10:32
At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar- "Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed" (Mark 10:32).
There is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple's heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set "like a flint" (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.
Jesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don't know Him. We don't recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don't know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.
The discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 1:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy.
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Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises
2 Peter 1:2-4 says,
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I want to draw your attention to verse 4 where the Scripture states that through the promises we partake of God's nature.
The promise is the connector, it is the pipeline through which God's nature flows to us.
"What is God's nature?" you might ask. It is the answer to everything you need! His nature is life, it is health, it is peace, it is wisdom, it is abundance. There is an answer in God's nature for every one of mankind's needs.
That is why the promises are called "exceedingly great and precious." Without a promise, there is no pipeline. Without a promise, we cannot partake.
But when you take a promise-an exceedingly great and precious promise-and act upon it in faith, God's nature is released into your situation.
Thank God for His promises!
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Covenant Blessings
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:17
We know that the covenant is central to God's purpose for stewardship. God uses His people to accomplish His purposes throughout history. In Old Testament times, God provided the tabernacle in the wilderness as the center of covenantal activity for the Israelites. The twelve tribes would situate themselves around the tabernacle where the cloud of glory was. When they went into the Promised Land, a temple was built, and this became the center of covenantal activity.
Today, the center of covenantal activity is the local church. This is the epicenter of God using the covenant to manage His kingdom. First Timothy 3:15 says the church is "the pillar and support of the truth." The local church holds God's Word, and His people are fed there by His Word. From that nourishment, the people should be engaged in dynamic ministry so that the impact of the kingdom spreads.
According to Deuteronomy 8:18, God gives His people the power to make wealth. God isn't against wealth, but He is against wasting it or letting it rule our lives. He wants to use what we have, and He wants to give us even more to use for the furthering of His kingdom. But the question is, can He trust us with more? Are we honoring Him with what we have right now? Ephesians 3:20-21 says: "To Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory." Your capacity will determine the level f your blessing.
One Minute Please
The role of God's people is to stand firm in His covenant.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Will I Bring Myself Up to This Level?
. . . perfecting holiness in the fear of God -2 Corinthians 7:1
Therefore, having these promises. . . ." I claim God's promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God's perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my "body is the temple of the Holy Spirit," or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not "confer with flesh and blood," but cleanse yourself from it at once (Galatians 1:16). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.
I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived-a level of perfect submission to His Father's will- where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?
Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life.
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Amazed
1 Corinthians 8:2 is a short verse, but one that has come to have real meaning in my life,
And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
Here is what this verse has come to mean to me: The more I realize of God, the more I realize how little I know of God.
It is almost as if God is represented by this enormous mountain, and it is shrouded in fog. As the fog retreats, I can see how vast this mountain is and how little I have really seen, how little I have explored, how little I have experienced. I am in awe as I look at this enormous mountain.
I once thought, "I'm really mature in God. I've learned so much. Look at these gems I've dug out! And I've experienced this, and I've climbed here, and I've looked from the heights." Then the fog began to roll away, and I realized I hadn't even gotten out of the foothills yet.
God just really amazes me.
Think about God. He merely spoke and created the universe. I read an article not too long ago where scientists now think that perhaps there is not just a "universe" but there is really a "multiverse," or multiple universes.
Whether it is one that spans millions of light years, or multiple universes spanning even greater distances, God made it all just by saying something.
And that is what I mean. The more I learn of God, the more I am amazed at just how little I really know of Him. I hope you too will be amazed, and let that wonder and amazement bring you into the worship of our great and awesome God!
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Expecting God's Blessings
In His Presence: Luke 6:38
Sometimes people view working toward a reward as less than honorable. If your only reason for serving God is to get a reward, that's not right. But it's fine if the reward is only one reason for serving Him. God's Word shows us that He is vitally concerned about rewards. Jesus said: "There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms will for My sake . . . but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age . . . and in the age to come, eternal life" (Mark 10:29).
God honors those who honor Him, and God wants you to expect to be blessed. If you are a Christian, you've already been blessed "with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). And if God can trust you to be generous with the earthly treasures He's given you, He won't forget where it started, and it will come back around to you.
Giving is the way to receiving. Most Christians have it backwards; they say, "Lord, give to me and then I will give to You." But the fundamental difference between us and God is that we can trust God, but He can't trust us. Many times He gives to us and never sees it again. When we honor Him first, He promises to respond to us. When we trust in His provision, He will determine what and how much we will receive.
One Minute Please
Ephesians 6:8 says: "Whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord."
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Abraham's Life of Faith
He went out, not knowing where he was going -Hebrews 11:8
In the Old Testament, a person's relationship with God was seen by the degree of separation in that person's life. This separation is exhibited in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and his family. When we think of separation today, we do not mean to be literally separated from those family members who do not have a personal relationship with God, but to be separated mentally and morally from their viewpoints. This is what Jesus Christ was referring to in Luke 14:26.
Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason-a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith-a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. "Abraham believed God. . ." (Romans 4:3).
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God's Priority
In Matthew 28:18-20, we have the top priority on God's list,
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Just imagine after the Resurrection that an angel comes up to Jesus and says, "Jesus, this is wonderful! You have paid the price for mankind's sin. What are You going to do to let the whole world know that they can be saved and they won't have to perish and spend an eternity without God? What is Your plan? How are You going to do it?"
And Jesus replies by saying, "Well, My few disciples are going to tell people, who in turn will tell other people, who are going to tell other people, who are going to tell other people."
Puzzled, the angel then asks, "Well, do You have a backup plan?" And Jesus says, "No." Still confused, the angel asks, "Well, no offense, Lord, but what if they fail?" Jesus replies by saying, "I have confidence in them."
My friend, there is no Plan B. God has no backup plan. You and I are it! We are Plan A! The problem is, too many Christians today do not have God's priority as their priority.
Over the next few devotionals, I am going to share with you what I call the five "P"s of evangelism. I pray they will encourage you to actively share the Good News of our risen Savior!
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Types of Blessings
In His Presence: Philippians 4:13-19
What blessings will God give those who are good stewards and honor Him? The definition of blessing is the enjoyment of God's divine favor. Blessing isn't just having stuff; it's being able to enjoy the stuff you have. So blessings aren't necessarily material things.
First, you can expect God to hear your prayers. David said: "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me" (Psalm 50:14-15). When prayer is mixed with proper stewardship, God will answer.
Second, you can also expect God to meet your needs. Second Corinthians 9:8 says: "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed." God knows all we need even before we do, and He has all the resources of the universe at His disposal.
When you are a proper steward, you may also enjoy reversal of fortune, where God changes your circumstances. "God turned the curse into a blessing" (Deuteronomy 23:5). "[God] will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten (Joel 2:25). We so often try to lead ourselves, but if we will only let Him lead He can reverse our scenarios and make good come from them.
Another blessing of stewardship is emotional well-being. If you are serving God and value Him above all else, you don't need to worry about money-God will take care of you.
One Minute Please
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21).
God bless
:angel:
Friendship with God
Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ? -Genesis 18:17
The Delights of His Friendship. Genesis 18 brings out the delight of true friendship with God, as compared with simply feeling His presence occasionally in prayer. This friendship means being so intimately in touch with God that you never even need to ask Him to show you His will. It is evidence of a level of intimacy which confirms that you are nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God's will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately.
The Difficulties of His Friendship. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He stopped because he still was lacking the level of intimacy in his relationship with God, which would enable him boldly to continue on with the Lord in prayer until his desire was granted. Whenever we stop short of our true desire in prayer and say, "Well, I don't know, maybe this is not God's will," then we still have another level to go. It shows that we are not as intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as Jesus would have us to be- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22). Think of the last thing you prayed about-were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? "For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
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The Prerequisite of Prayer
In yesterday's devotional, I shared that God's priority is to see people come to know Him. Today, I want to give you the first of the five "P"s of evangelism, which I hope will encourage you as you seek to share your faith.
The Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:1-6,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
I want you to notice verse 4 in particular: God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants them saved and discipled.
As Jesus said, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all nations." Those are our two main jobs. Proclaim the gospel to see people get saved, and then disciple them. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
But did you notice that verse 1 preceded verse 4? Verse 1 says, Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Verse 4 will not and cannot happen until verse 1 happens. First there is prayer, then comes sharing the plan of salvation.
We must first talk to God about men before we talk to men about God. We cannot be successful unless we talk to God about men first.
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Committed for Blessing
In His Presence: Matthew 6:24
God has a blessing for everyone. We will all face trials and tribulations, but in those times, the joy of the Lord will be your strength. In Genesis 14, God promised Abraham that He would bless him and make him a blessing. Shortly thereafter,"Melchizedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said, 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' [Abram] gave him a tenth of all. The king of Sodom said to Abram, 'Give the people to me and take the goods for yourself' " (vv. 18-21).
Sodom's king told Abraham he brought too much destruction, and said that if Abraham left, he would give him more money, power, and prestige. Look at Abraham's response: "I have sworn to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say 'I have made Abram rich' " (vv. 22-23).
Abraham refused to cut a deal just to get some more money in his pocket. He chose to trust God. When you are a good steward, you have options. You are no longer limited to earthly options; your trust is in God Most High. When you are a good steward, God is your option. You don't have to compromise what is right to get ahead.
One Minute Please
If you're not willing to plant your seed, you're not trusting Him to meet your need.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Identified or Simply Interested?
I have been crucified with Christ . . . -Galatians 2:20
The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow Him"-but-"I have been identified with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
". . . it is no longer I who live . . . ." My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.
". . . and the life which I now live in the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see, "I live by faith in the Son of God . . . ." This faith was not Paul's own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.
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Turning Desire into Prayer
I want to follow up yesterday's devotional by turning your attention to something I believe is very profound. It is Romans 10:1, where Paul states,
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
It is important to pray that people be saved. In fact, I want you to notice how Paul turned his desire into a prayer.
I think if I were to ask any believer, "Do you desire your family to be saved?" they would say yes. Or, "Do you desire your friends to be saved?" they would answer yes. Or, "Do you desire your coworkers to be saved?" they would reply yes.
Well, that is great. That is to be commended, but it is not enough. Your desire must be turned into a prayer. It is not enough just to have a desire that they be saved. That desire has to translate into prayer. Prayer that they may be saved.
It's all right to pray generally, but it is better to pray specifically. I encourage you to make a list of every unsaved person in your life. Start with the network of relationships that already exist in your life. Make a list of family members, friends, and associates who are not saved, and then do your best to pray for the people on that list every day.
Most Christians genuinely desire for folks to be saved, but not all Christians pray for the salvation of people that they love. And even fewer pray for the salvation of folks that they work with.
Turn your desire for the unsaved people in your life to be saved into prayer for their salvation. And start today.
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The Ministry of Stewardship
In His Presence: Acts 4:32-37
Understanding who we are as the people of God is critical for success as stewards of His kingdom. We are God's safety valve, the ones God has called to demonstrate what kingdom solutions look like. Ministry occurs when God's people serve others for eternal purposes. Ministry touches lives with eternity in mind.
Ministry takes place in God's house. In Old Testament times, this was the temple. In fact, Malachi 3:10, which talks about tithing, also refers to God's house: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house." Ephesians 2:19, 21-22 tells us that Christians are now God's temple: "You are . . . of God's household . . . the whole building, being fitted together, is growing unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." If our church is the dwelling place of God, we will know because the Word will be taught, the needs of the saints will be met, and the community will be impacted.
Ministry also comes at a price. All ministry should be done because God's people are investing in the eternal perspective. To support the ministry of God, we must not neglect the house of God because it is the center of godly life. Haggai 1:4-6 is convicting: "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Consider your ways! You have sown much, but harvest little.' "
One Minute Please
Godly stewards cannot look after their own houses and ignore God's house.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us . . . ? -Luke 24:32
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart- a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart- unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don't allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the "mount of transfiguration," basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
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How to Pray for the Unsaved
In the last two devotionals, I have stressed the importance of praying for the unsaved people in our lives to be saved. Today, I want to give you four ways you can pray for them:
1. Pray for openness and understanding. Acts 16:14 says the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to heed the things spoken by Paul. Paul was speaking the gospel. And if the Lord can open Lydia's heart, He can open your Aunt Mildred's heart.
2. Pray that God would send laborers to them. In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." I am confident that God will answer any prayer He has commanded us to pray, and this prayer is not a suggestion. Jesus commanded us to pray that God would send out laborers into the harvest.
3. Pray that God will visit them and reveal Himself to them. I do not know of a specific promise in the Bible where it says God is going to visit someone in a dream or give them a vision. But I do see in Scripture where God reveals Himself to people in such ways, like Saul of Tarsus, who, on the Damascus Road, had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved.
4. Pray for personal direction and for personal opportunities to share. Jesus, in Luke 10:2 said, "The harvest is great, laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest." In the next verse Jesus said, "Behold, I send you." You can become the answer to your own prayer!
So pray for the unsaved people in your life, and do not stop praying until they get saved.
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The People of Ministry
In His Presence: Ephesians 2:10
Some people believe Christianity is self-service only, but we can't just take in the gospel and not share it with others. God wants to empty us of ourselves so He can fill us with something new. Then we can give of what He has given us. This is accomplished through ministry, or as the Bible calls it, good works. A good work is always done to benefit someone else so that God publicly gets the glory. Matthew 5:16 says: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Our good works give the world a glimpse of God. Hebrews 10:24 says that the church should "stimulate one another to love and good deeds."
What constitutes a good deed? Jesus said that anyone who gives a cup of cold water in His name will not be forgotten (Matthew 10:42). We do good works in the name of Jesus to give Him the credit and the proper due.
Ministry is for the benefit of several groups of people. We are to minister to those who minister to us, our preachers and congregational leaders (Galatians 6:6). We are to minister to the poor. Deuteronomy 15:11 says: "Freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land." And we are to minister to the unsaved by sharing the gospel and fulfilling the Great Commission. Men can recover from earthly circumstances, but there is no eternal solution outside of Jesus.
One Minute Please
Our churches should be a place of ministry, not merely a place of gathering.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Maintaining the Proper Relationship
. . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . -John 3:29
Goodness and purity should never be traits that draw attention to themselves, but should simply be magnets that draw people to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing others to Him, it is not the right kind of holiness; it is only an influence which awakens undue emotions and evil desires in people and diverts them from heading in the right direction. A person who is a beautiful saint can be a hindrance in leading people to the Lord by presenting only what Christ has done for him, instead of presenting Jesus Christ Himself. Others will be left with this thought- "What a fine person that man is!" That is not being a true "friend of the bridegroom"- I am increasing all the time; He is not.
To maintain this friendship and faithfulness to the Bridegroom, we have to be more careful to have the moral and vital relationship to Him above everything else, including obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey and our only task is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ, seeing that nothing interferes with it. Only occasionally is it a matter of obedience. At those times when a crisis arises, we have to find out what God's will is. Yet most of our life is not spent in trying to be consciously obedient, but in maintaining this relationship- being the "friend of the bridegroom." Christian work can actually be a means of diverting a person's focus away from Jesus Christ. Instead of being friends "of the bridegroom," we may become amateur providences of God to someone else, working against Him while we use His weapons.
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Persuasion
Acts 28:23-24 provides us a great example of the next "P" of evangelism,
So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening. And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved.
Some people are going to need to be persuaded, they are going to need more than proclamation, because they are honestly grappling with questions that need to be dealt with. Those questions are like roadblocks in front of them that will need to be removed so they can advance and embrace the gospel.
They may have questions like, "Well, why can't other religions save? Why does Jesus have to be the only way?" Or, "What's this deal about the Jews? Why did the Savior have to come from the Jews?" Or it may be, "What about people who don't hear? How could it be fair that they would perish?"
When people have questions like these, they are genuinely seeking answers, so give them Biblical reasons. If you don't have an answer, tell them you don't know. Say, "You know what? That's a good question, and I don't know the answer. But I'm going to find one for you." Then go study your Bible and find the answer.
Or go to the Bible bookstore and find a book that deals with that subject. Or ask a Christian friend who knows more than you do and find an answer. Then go back to the person and give them an answer.
You will find that when you give people legitimate Scriptural answers, they will respond and often be saved.
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The Reality of Debt
In His Presence: Proverbs 13:22
Financially speaking, there are three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots, and those who have not paid for what they have! Debt has become a way of life in the American landscape. The average American household spends at least 20 percent of their net income on consumer debt. We must understand that when debt rules, debt ruins. Proverbs 22:7 says: "The borrower becomes the lender's slave." Debt controls your life, so it puts you in a kind of slavery. There are several reasons for debt: ignorance, indulgence, poor planning, and emergencies. All these things can contribute to the snowball of debt.
But I believe that God provides a way for us to live without being controlled by our debt. Debt is owing something you cannot pay, and that kind of debt should be abnormal for the Christian because it is outside God's will. Debt is first and foremost a spiritual issue-we are in debt because we have refused to obey God.
Psalm 37:21 says:"The wicked borrows and does not pay back." Ecclesiastes 5:5 says: "It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay."But also: "TheLord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow" (Deuteronomy 28:12).
We can be set free from the tyranny of debt, and there are four steps that can help us: plant, plan, prioritize, and pray.
One Minute Please
Knowing the truth about debt is the first step toward financial freedom.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity (1)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God -Matthew 5:8
Purity is not innocence- it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character- it is "the pure in heart " who "see God."
God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished. Not only must our "inner sanctuary" be kept right with God, but also the "outer courts" must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding is immediately blurred when our "outer court" is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.
A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, "That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!"
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Power
In Acts 9:32-35, we are given the fifth and final "P" of evangelism, and that is power,
Now it came to pass, as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed." Then he arose immediately. So all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
Two entire cities turned to Christ because of one display of God's power! One man who had been paralyzed was healed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and two cities came to God.
We have the same gospel. It is the same Holy Spirit; we serve the same blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have to pray that God will, if necessary, do the miraculous to save people.
Paul, writing in the book of Romans, says he fully preached the gospel with miracles, signs, and wonders. People will respond today just like they did then. But we need to be bold, step out, and pray for things to happen.
When I was living in Oregon, there was an Indian girl who was very sick and actually at the point of death. The doctors told her she was going to die. She came to a small meeting one night and the evangelist prayed for her. She was healed and then gave her life to Christ. As a result, her dad, a famous rodeo rider, got saved, and her mom was saved also. Then a large group of people from her tribe came to Christ as well.
Evangelism through power. We need to trust God for the supernatural.
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Planting and Planning
In His Presence: Psalm 50:14-15, 23
To get out of debt God's way, we must first learn how to plant. Any financial counselor will tell you to invest in that which gives you the greatest chance of a good return. And God will always give us the greatest return on anything in life. God is our greatest investor, and if He is not being honored by all He has given to us, everything else is out of line. God should be our first financial priority-His is the first bill we pay. Jesus said: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17). We are to give God His due, and to give the governing authorities their due in the form of our taxes. We may believe that the current tax system is unrighteous or unfair, but God is greater than the IRS, and we answer to Him. God is our greatest resource, and we should plant our investments in Him.
The second thing we must do to get out of debt God's way is to plan. Proverbs 27:23 says: "Know well the condition of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds." Proverbs 28:20 says: "A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished." We must stop guessing about the state of our finances and make a purposeful plan to use our resources wisely. A budget gives the guidelines for how each dollar will be allocated.
One Minute Please
"The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty" (Proverbs 21:5).
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity (2)
Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place . . . -Revelation 4:1
A higher state of mind and spiritual vision can only be achieved through the higher practice of personal character. If you live up to the highest and best that you know in the outer level of your life, God will continually say to you, "Friend, come up even higher." There is also a continuing rule in temptation which calls you to go higher; but when you do, you only encounter other temptations and character traits. Both God and Satan use the strategy of elevation, but Satan uses it in temptation, and the effect is quite different. When the devil elevates you to a certain place, he causes you to fasten your idea of what holiness is far beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear or achieve. Your life becomes a spiritual acrobatic performance high atop a steeple. You cling to it, trying to maintain your balance and daring not to move. But when God elevates you by His grace into heavenly places, you find a vast plateau where you can move about with ease.
Compare this week in your spiritual life with the same week last year to see how God has called you to a higher level. We have all been brought to see from a higher viewpoint. Never allow God to show you a truth which you do not instantly begin to live up to, applying it to your life. Always work through it, staying in its light.
Your growth in grace is not measured by the fact that you haven't turned back, but that you have an insight and understanding into where you are spiritually. Have you heard God say, "Come up higher," not audibly on the outer level, but to the innermost part of your character?
"Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing . . . ?" (Genesis 18:17). God has to hide from us what He does, until, due to the growth of our personal character, we get to the level where He is then able to reveal it.
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The Snare of Fear
Proverbs 29:25 tells us,
The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.
A snare is a noose used for catching an animal. Fear will cause you to be snared or trapped, just like an animal.
I have a friend in the church who has a very large nut tree in his yard, which the squirrels regularly raid. He put this big net over the tree, but it did not seem to deter the squirrels at all. So he finally got a trap and set it up on the roof right next to the nut tree. To date, he has caught about 120 squirrels.
When the squirrel is in the trap, it is totally at his mercy. It can't go anywhere. He happens to be a fairly merciful gentleman, so he takes them over to a local park and lets them go.
When fear gets a hold of your life, you become like one of those trapped squirrels-you are not going anywhere. You are at its mercy. You will not progress spiritually. It keeps you bound. The fear of man can keep you from obeying God; it will keep you from pleasing God. It will keep you from the joy you would experience when you trust God.
In fact, there is a contrast in our verse today. The man or woman who is bound by the fear of man, will not be trusting God in some area of his life. Look at the two parts of the verse together: The fear of man brings a snare, but... in contrast ...whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
Do not allow the fear of man to control your life. Instead, trust in the Lord.
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Prioritizing and Praying
In His Presence: Proverbs 16:9
After you've planted and planned to use your resources in a way that glorifies God, you must prioritize. You will have to determine the difference between your needs, wants, and desires. The Bible says we have only three needs: food, clothes, and shelter. If all our needs are being met, we have plenty to praise the Lord for. Wants are based on the quality of our needs-we may need a house, but we want a big house. Desires are the things on our wish list that are covered by any surplus funds. Once the bills are paid, we might attend to our desires, but never before then.
Many of our debt problems come from trying to fill our desires with buying things. Proverbs 21:17 says: "He who loves pleasure will become a poor man." We must first prioritize those things we need, and if we don't have them, it might be necessary to sell some of the things we bought to meet our desires in order to meet our needs.
The fourth step in getting rid of debt really takes place while the other three are going on-it is prayer. Proverbs 16:3 says:"Commit your works to theLord and your plans will be established." When you mix prayer with planting, planning, and prioritizing, I guarantee that you will see God invade your circumstances and turn your debt around. I don't know what methods He will choose for you, but I know that He is able because He is all-powerful and all-knowing. He cares for you.
One Minute Please
God has a miracle waiting for you to get you out of debt and into freedom.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Helpful or Heartless Toward Others?
It is Christ . . . who also makes intercession for us. . . . the Spirit . . . makes intercession for the saints . . . -Romans 8:34, 27
Do we need any more arguments than these to become intercessors-that Christ "always lives to make intercession" (Hebrews 7:25), and that the Holy Spirit "makes intercession for the saints"? Are we living in such a relationship with others that we do the work of intercession as a result of being the children of God who are taught by His Spirit? We should take a look at our current circumstances. Do crises which affect us or others in our home, business, country, or elsewhere, seem to be crushing in on us? Are we being pushed out of the presence of God and left with no time for worship? If so, we must put a stop to such distractions and get into such a living relationship with God that our relationship with others is maintained through the work of intercession, where God works His miracles.
Beware of getting ahead of God by your very desire to do His will. We run ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don't worship God, and we fail to intercede. If a burden and its resulting pressure come upon us while we are not in an attitude of worship, it will only produce a hardness toward God and despair in our own souls. God continually introduces us to people in whom we have no interest, and unless we are worshiping God the natural tendency is to be heartless toward them. We give them a quick verse of Scripture, like jabbing them with a spear, or leave them with a hurried, uncaring word of counsel before we go. A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord.
Are our lives in the proper place so that we may participate in the intercession of our Lord and the Holy Spirit?
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He Has Said, So We May Say
In our last few devotionals, we have been talking about fear, and how to be free from it. Today, I want to give you a final thought to consider on fear. It is based on Hebrews 13:5-6,
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we may boldly say: "The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
I want you to notice what the Bible says, He Himself has said...So we may boldly say. God says something, so you can say something.
What does God say? He says He will never leave you. He says He will never forsake you. As a result you can say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
When you understand that God will never leave you or forsake you, you can live without fear. And that freedom from fear will be reflected in both your actions and in your speech.
What are you facing today? Would you be afraid if God was standing beside you saying, "It's alright. I am here"? Well He is with you! He said He would never leave you or abandon you! You may not see or feel Him, but He is with you-now and always.
It is time to start acting and speaking like you believe it.
Boldly say, "The Lord is helping me! I will not fear!"
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The Evaluation of Stewardship
1 Corinthians 3:11-15
Each Christian will one day come before the judgment seat of Christ and will be evaluated for their Christian walk. This is when God will look at our stewardship, at our use of time, talents, and treasures. He will evaluate us not to determine our entrance to heaven-that has already been given through Christ's finished work on the cross-but to determine our reward in heaven.
As we reconsider the parable of the three stewards in Matthew 25, let us first remember the issue of responsibility in stewardship. The three servants did not own the possessions they took care of; those things belonged to the master. None of the slaves could claim ownership of anything they had. In the same way, everything we have, are, or ever will be belongs to God.
We must also remember the issue of accountability. After time had passed, the master came back to see what the slaves had done with his money. We will all one day answer for the use of our resources. To the servants who invested wisely, the master gave public praise and more treasures (vv. 21, 23), but to the servant who buried his talent in the ground, he gave a tongue-lashing (v. 26). Each one got the reward he was due.
How can we prepare for the day when we will answer for the use of our time, talents, and treasures? Start rewriting our obituaries now! We can't change the past, but we can change tomorrow. Begin reorganizing your life to reflect your changed priorities.
One Minute Please
Live so that at His judgment seat, God will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
In His Presence:
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"If You Had Known!"
If you had known . . . in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes -Luke 19:42
Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there-the pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to "whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness" (Matthew 23:27).
What is it that blinds you to the peace of God "in this your day"? Do you have a strange god-not a disgusting monster but perhaps an unholy nature that controls your life? More than once God has brought me face to face with a strange god in my life, and I knew that I should have given it up, but I didn't do it. I got through the crisis "by the skin of my teeth," only to find myself still under the control of that strange god. I am blind to the very things that make for my own peace. It is a shocking thing that we can be in the exact place where the Spirit of God should be having His completely unhindered way with us, and yet we only make matters worse, increasing our blame in God's eyes.
"If you had known . . . ." God's words here cut directly to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind them. These words imply responsibility for our own faults. God holds us accountable for what we refuse to see or are unable to see because of our sin. And "now they are hidden from your eyes" because you have never completely yielded your nature to Him. Oh, the deep, unending sadness for what might have been! God never again opens the doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut-doors which had no need to be shut. Never be afraid when God brings back your past. Let your memory have its way with you. It is a minister of God bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you. God will turn what might have been into a wonderful lesson of growth for the future.
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Who Made the Sun Shine?
Look again at Luke 12:16-21,
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Take a look at the few words that this man spoke. In his short declaration, he uses the word I six times and the word my five times!
His perspective was a very selfish one.
Here are a few questions to ponder:
· Who gave the rain that made his crops grow?
· Who made the soil out of which his crops grew?
· Who made the seed he planted?
· Who caused the sun to shine?
· Who gave him the physical strength to work the field?
· Who gave him his soul?
The answer to all of those is God. Yet he makes no acknowledgement of God in his speech, planning, or giving. He should have been thanking God for all His blessings and asking the Lord what He wanted done with His things.
Be faithful to acknowledge God and to ask Him what to do with His resources over which you are a steward.
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The Nature of Christ
In His Presence: You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. Romans 8:9
As Christians, we are limited by our capacity as human beings. Even though Jesus has obtained the victory for us, we are still living in our broken, sinful bodies, and we cannot completely conform to the divine standard until we get to heaven.
One Minute Please
We all enter the world in the same state: dead in our sins. Only the power of Christ can give us life and change our hearts to look like His.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Way to Permanent Faith
Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you will be scattered . . . -John 16:32
Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the perfect relationship with God, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our faith must be exercised in the realities of everyday life. We will be scattered, not into service but into the emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know what internal death to God's blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is certainly not of our own choosing, but God engineers our circumstances to take us there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings. But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is what is meant by faith being exercised in the realities of life.
". . . you . . . will leave Me alone." Have we been scattered and have we left Jesus alone by not seeing His providential care for us? Do we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord, we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God's blessings is fundamental
". . . be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need.
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It's All Mapped Out
One of the great truths revealed in Scripture is that the end is determined from the beginning. What I mean by that is God sees the end from the beginning. He already has a plan for you. He has already got the whole thing worked out.
Consider what God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."
Before Jeremiah was ever born, God had his destiny, a plan for his life, all worked out. That truth applies to you and me, and that helps me rest at night. It is great to know I do not have to figure this whole thing out. Sometimes we see through a glass darkly. But you know what? God sees everything perfectly.
This same truth is echoed in Ephesians 1:4,
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Did you know you were chosen before God laid the foundation for this world? That was a long time ago. God knew you before you ever existed. He knew you before the world was here. You were chosen in Him. You were not an accident. God knew you.
Again, this truth is affirmed in Ephesians 2:10,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The beforehand is before the foundation of the world. Just like God knew you, He prepared specific good works for you that you should walk in them long before you ever came into existence.
He has your life mapped out. What a great comfort!
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Christlikeness
In His Presence: If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
Christlikeness is the Spirit of God inspiring the ability to emulate the person of Christ in and through your life. How do you know if you are Christlike? Your conduct will be consistent with the character of the Savior. You constantly grow more into His image, becoming more like Him this year than you were last year, more like Him today than you were yesterday.
One Minute Please
The Spirit is so powerful, it liberates the dead body to enjoy the new life that Jesus provided by His death and resurrection.
God bless
:angel:
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . 'Stay here and watch with Me' -Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don't have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique- they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God- Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan's assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation- ". . . the devil . . . departed from Him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan's final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
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Let God Do His Job
Philippians 2:8-11 shows us how humility precedes honor,
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If God's good pleasure and His plan are to be worked out in our lives, we must walk in humility. It is a prerequisite for us to pass the test of humility. As we see here, because Jesus humbled Himself, God highly exalted Him. And at that point, no demon in hell could do a thing to prevent it.
When God promotes you, no person, no demon, no ungodly system can hold you back. God's exalting power is irresistible. It is undeniable, and it is undefeatable.
But a humble heart must come first. It has been said that no man stands taller than when he is on his knees before God. Let us humble ourselves and be obedient to God in every area of our lives. If we will lower ourselves, God will lift us. God's job is to exalt us, and our job is to humble ourselves. If we try to do God's job for Him, He will have to do our job for us.
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Extreme Makeover
In His Presence: The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6).
When the Spirit dwells in you, your mortal body is brought to life. You are changed, and you are redeemed from the grave. God wants us to realize that if we will make His purpose our own purpose and our passion, we will be in position for the miracle of resurrection. When we seek to be conformed to the image of Christ, we will be like Him not only in life, but also in death, rising victoriously over the grave just as He did. That is the good news of the Gospel!
One Minute Please
When others look at us, may they not even recognize our old sinful selves and only see the Savior reflected in our lives.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Have You Seen Jesus?
After that, He appeared in another form to two of them . . . -Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God's grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.
You should always recognize the difference between what you see Jesus to be and what He has done for you. If you see only what He has done for you, your God is not big enough. But if you have had a vision, seeing Jesus as He really is, experiences can come and go, yet you will endure "as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). The man who was blind from birth did not know who Jesus was until Christ appeared and revealed Himself to him (see John 9). Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something, but we cannot order or predict when He will come. He may appear suddenly, at any turn. Then you can exclaim, "Now I see Him!" (see John 9:25).
Jesus must appear to you and to your friend individually; no one can see Jesus with your eyes. And division takes place when one has seen Him and the other has not. You cannot bring your friend to the point of seeing; God must do it. Have you seen Jesus? If so, you will want others to see Him too. "And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either" (Mark 16:13). When you see Him, you must tell, even if they don't believe.
O could I tell, you surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can you receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?
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Three Relationships that Make Us Rich
Then one from the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:13-15).
This man came to Jesus to get him to "sort his brother out" over the inheritance, not realizing that his brother was the real treasure in his life - not the things he might inherit.
Here are three relationships that make us rich:
1. Our relationship with God. To know God makes you rich, no matter what material resources you may or may not have.
Some of those that the world would call rich are actually bankrupt when it comes to the most important treasure of all.
2. Our relationship with others. People, not things, are the real treasures in life. I can honestly say that I am a rich man. I have family and friends that I love and that love me. Things lose their meaning, and serve as a very poor substitute for relationships with people.
3. Our relationship with our own heart. Commune with your own heart... declares the psalmist in Psalm 4:4 (KJV).
That means hold some serious communication with your heart-get acquainted with your heart. Don't let you and your own heart be strangers!
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The Agent of Transformation
In His Presence: The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty
(2 Corinthians 3:17 ).
God's method of transformation is conforming us to the image of Christ by the work of the Spirit within. The transformation you long for must come from the divine method He has prescribed. The spiritual transformation process is conducted by the agent God has ordained-the Holy Spirit. The Lord is the Spirit, of the same essence and one in deity. Before His death, Jesus told the disciples He would leave with them a Comforter, one who would be Christ living in them. Jesus is with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
One Minute Please
If we focus our minds on things of the Spirit instead of things of the flesh, our minds and hearts will be receptive to spiritual transformation.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Complete and Effective Decision About Sin
. . . our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin -Romans 6:6
Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin-that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you-not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified-just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.
Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, "Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me." Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life- to see the very things that struggle against God's Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God's verdict on the nature of sin- that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot "reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin" (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.
Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . ." (Galatians 2:20).
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Faithful to Another
Jesus, in Luke 16:12, makes a very interesting statement...one that provides a perspective on faithfulness you would not expect,
"And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?"
Jesus makes it clear. You have to be faithful in something that is someone else's before He will fulfill your dream or open doors for you.
God gives each of us opportunities to help others. And He looks for us to faithfully help others before He blesses us. For example, Joseph had to help Pharaoh with his dream, before God allowed Joseph's dream to come to pass.
Maybe you have a dream to be super rich for the purpose of spreading the gospel. You would like to see the gospel go around the world. Or you would like to pay off the debt on your church's building. Or you would like to fund a certain missions organization.
I think the Kingdom could use a multitude of very wealthy people who have a heart for the lost and a desire to see God's work succeed and expand.
But first you need to be faithful working for that person who has hired you. You have to be faithful in that which is another man's. God is not going to open a door for you to fulfill the dream you have if you do not show up for work on time, or if you do not put in a full day's work. Why would God open the door for you to lead your own successful business if you have not been faithful working for someone else?
You must serve that other person with all of your heart, or that other company you are working for first, before God will prosper you. It is a Kingdom principle.
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Beholding God's Word
In His Presence: The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword . . . able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12
If we want to be transformed by God's Word through the power of the Holy Spirit, we must behold it correctly. Second Corinthians 3:18 says we must behold with unveiled faces. When a woman gets married, she often walks down the aisle with a veil obscuring her face. Then the bridegroom removes the veil so that she is visibly exposed.
One Minute Please
The Bible doesn't exist just to give you good information about God. It exists to give you power and victory through Christ.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Complete and Effective Divinity
If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . -Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God- His complete and effective divinity- to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house- He invades all of it. And once I decide that my "old man" (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to "reckon" that I am actually "dead indeed to sin," because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness- the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.
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The Way Up May Be Down
It is not unusual for God's promotion to look like a demotion at first, to feel like you are going backward rather than forward.
There are a couple of great examples of this in the Bible. For instance, do you remember how Joseph in Genesis 37 dreamt he would one day rule over his brothers? That God was going to promote him to a place of prominence?
So what happened? His brothers threw him into a pit, he was sold to Midianite traders as a slave, and then he was put on the auction block and sold again in Egypt. On top of that, he ended up in prison on false charges and spent several years there, seemingly forgotten.
But without those experiences, Joseph would have never been ready to rule. Preparation comes before promotion. The way up may go down for awhile at first.
David is another example of how God will "demote" in order to promote. Do you remember in 1 Samuel 16:12-13 how David was anointed king while still just a shepherd?
Now he [David] was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!" Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
This is a pretty big promotion for a shepherd boy, don't you think? But for years, David lived a fugitive's life-moving from place to place, living in caves, being hunted. He was separated from everyone and all the things that he loved.
His promotion ended up looking more like a demotion, which is often the way God works. In the process of your promotion, He will take you through difficult times to prepare you for that promotion.
Just remember, the way up is often down.
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Resigned to the Word
In His Presence: Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1:19-20 ).
Many Christians today are suffering from spiritual anorexia and starving to death spiritually. Even though they may have plenty of Bibles in their homes for spiritual nourishment, and even though the church-a spiritual supermarket-is right down the street, these Christians suffer from spiritual malnutrition. One primary reason for this is that they have not decided to make becoming like Christ their sole purpose. If He is not your passionate purpose, everything else you do will be wasted. God's purpose for us is to be conformed to the image of His Son, to be transformed by His glory, and to be made holy and righteous like Christ.
One Minute Please
We must make the Bible the first place we go to find truth, not the last. We must be quick to hear His truth.
God bless
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Complete and Effective Dominion
Death no longer has dominion over Him. . . . the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God . . . -Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8)- not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life- ". . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to "let go." But any effort to "hang on" to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.
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At Just the Right Time
It is easy for us to get anxious when it seems like God is moving more slowly than we would like. But Scripture is clear, God's purposes have their appointed times. They are fulfilled in their season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
And there is 1 Peter 5:6-7, which says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Humility and God's exalting of you are two things that are tied together. Perhaps you are feeling pretty frazzled, wondering, "God, when's it going to happen?" Just continue to cast your cares on Him. He will promote you in due time. Do not worry about it.
In fact, the phrase that says, that He may exalt you in due time, literally means "at the set time" or "at the time prearranged by God."
When your character has been shaped and molded enough, and when other events are ready and in their proper place, then God will promote and exalt you.
Think about Moses who had it in his heart to be a deliverer and a judge, but when he first acted on it he failed miserably. He was 40 years early! (See Acts 7:23-34). The Israelites were not ready to be delivered yet. God had to work at the other end of the line.
Remember, God may have put some things in your heart, but the timing may not be quite right. There may be some work He needs to do in your life, or there may be some other factors God is working on. Until those things come together, God will not push you into that position.
So, focus on being faithful and let God worry about just the right time.
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Slow to Speak
In His Presence: Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation (1 Peter 2:2 ).
In resigning ourselves to God's Word, we must also be "slow to speak." This means after we are quick to listen to what God says, we don't argue with it. Many of us are too busy listening to ourselves talk to hear what God is really saying to us, and when we do hear Him, we don't want to believe Him-we try to argue with Him!
One Minute Please
We must resign ourselves to the pure truth of God's Word without adding our own perspective
God bless
:angel:
April 15, 2013
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
The Failure To Pay Close Attention
The high places were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was loyal all his days -2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa was not completely obedient in the outward, visible areas of his life. He was obedient in what he considered the most important areas, but he was not entirely right. Beware of ever thinking, "Oh, that thing in my life doesn't matter much." The fact that it doesn't matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God. Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God. How much longer are we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing? But He keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience. You say, "I know I am right with God"- yet the "high places" still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience. Do you protest that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life He causes you to doubt? Whenever God causes a doubt about something, stop it immediately, no matter what it may be. Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.
Are there some things regarding your physical or intellectual life to which you have been paying no attention at all? If so, you may think you are all correct in the important areas, but you are careless- you are failing to concentrate or to focus properly. You no more need a day off from spiritual concentration on matters in your life than your heart needs a day off from beating. As you cannot take a day off morally and remain moral, neither can you take a day off spiritually and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely His, and it requires paying close attention to keep yourself fit. It also takes a tremendous amount of time. Yet some of us expect to rise above all of our problems, going from one mountaintop experience to another, with only a few minutes' effort.
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Sour, Angry, and Negative
We are looking at how we make the gospel unattractive. I believe one of the main ways this occurs is when Christians are sour, angry and negative.
Some people live right but they always look like they have spent the night in a bottle of lemon juice.
If you struggle in this area, you need to listen carefully. Your salvation should be the source of great joy, and that joy and happiness should be expressed in your life in a dynamic way.
For example, Jesus said this in John 15:11,
"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."
And in John 16:22, He said,
"Your joy no one will take from you."
In Romans 14:17, Paul said,
For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Finally, James 1:2 says,
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
Joy is one of the hallmarks of the Kingdom of God. Even when we are going through a rough patch, the Bible says we are to be full of joy.
Joy makes the gospel attractive. If you put on a sour face all the time and you have a negative disposition, you will scare people away from church. You make the gospel seem like something people would never want.
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Receive the Word
In His Presence: Putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves
(James 1:21-22 ).
When we resign ourselves to the truth of God's Word, we must next receive the Word as God's message for our lives. We must put aside all our filthiness and sin, confessing, acknowledging, and agreeing with God about our sin. Sin blocks the working of God through the Word, so it must be dealt with properly.
One Minute Please
We must receive the Word in humility, which means we come under its authority. This shows our reverence for God's authority.
God Bless
:angel:
April 16, 2013
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Can You Come Down From the Mountain?
While you have the light, believe in the light . . . -John 12:36
We all have moments when we feel better than ever before, and we say, "I feel fit for anything; if only I could always be like this!" We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to even when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for the everyday world when we are not on the mountaintop. Yet we must bring our everyday life up to the standard revealed to us on the mountaintop when we were there.
Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate. Don't place yourself on the shelf by thinking, "How great to be in such a wonderful state of mind!" Act immediately- do something, even if your only reason to act is that you would rather not. If, during a prayer meeting, God shows you something to do, don't say, "I'll do it"- just doit! Pick yourself up by the back of the neck and shake off your fleshly laziness. Laziness can always be seen in our cravings for a mountaintop experience; all we talk about is our planning for our time on the mountain. We must learn to live in the ordinary "gray" day according to what we saw on the mountain.
Don't give up because you have been blocked and confused once- go after it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by an act of your own will. Never change your decisions, but be sure to make your decisions in the light of what you saw and learned on the mountain.
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Remember
Titus 3:1-7 says,
Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Paul tells us to remember where we have come from. Notice he said to show humility to all men and speak evil of no one. Why? Because we also used to be foolish and deceived and disobedient.
I thank God I am a new creation in Christ, but I still blush when I think about some of the stuff I got involved in before I was saved! Disobedient? Been there. Serving various lusts and pleasures? Up to my eyeballs! Plus all the other things Paul mentions in this passage and a few more!
It is amazing how people in the church forget what they were like before the grace of God came into their life. When that happens they tend to get very haughty and judgmental towards those still lost in their sin. A harsh, judgmental church that lacks humility while verbally lashing out at sinners is one of the ugliest garments you can dress the beautiful gospel in.
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Respond to the Word
If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was (James 1:23-24 ).
In a mirror you see what you really look like. A mirror shows who you are physically, and it gives you messages about yourself. James said that going to the Word of God is like looking in a mirror. But if you only go to the mirror with the intent of looking in and not doing anything about what you see, if you only go to the Word of God to hear and not do anything about what you hear, you are deceiving yourself.
One Minute Please
We may think we don't have the power to change, but we're not alone. The Holy Spirit will change us!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
All or Nothing?
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment . . . and plunged into the sea -John 21:7
Have you ever had a crisis in your life in which you deliberately, earnestly, and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of the will. You may come to that point many times externally, but it will amount to nothing. The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of only external things may actually be an indication of your being in total bondage.
Have you deliberately committed your will to Jesus Christ? It is a transaction of the will, not of emotion; any positive emotion that results is simply a superficial blessing arising out of the transaction. If you focus your attention on the emotion, you will never make the transaction. Do not ask God what the transaction is to be, but make the determination to surrender your will regarding whatever you see, whether it is in the shallow or the deep, profound places internally.
If you have heard Jesus Christ's voice on the waves of the sea, you can let your convictions and your consistency take care of themselves by concentrating on maintaining your intimate relationship to Him.
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What's Your Motive?
The Bible says in James 4:3,
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James says that you ask, but you do not receive, because you ask amiss. The word amiss here comes from the Greek root word that means to harm or to injure. His point is: God will not grant you anything that is going to harm or injure your spiritual life, whether in the short term or in the long term.
When you pray, God is looking out for your best interests.
But then he also said, You ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. The word pleasures has the idea of sensuality, which means, if I am asking for something just to stroke my fleshly ego, then I short-circuit the prayer by my wrong motivation.
For example, it is great to pray for a car. I live in Southern California where we need a car to get around. And I think God will give you a car that you like. After all, the Bible says He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Jesus said, "Ask, that your joy might be full." So I think God wants us to be happy, and He generally has no problems granting your request for a car you would like.
Yet some people go a step beyond that, and their real motivation is, "Man, I want that car because I would look good in that car! If I came to work in that car, I would really show up so-and-so. People would think I'm pretty fine if I had that car. If I had that car, the chicks would dig me."
Be careful when you pray to not slip over into a motivation that is not really pure. Because you will short-circuit your faith and you will not receive an answer-except "no".
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A Relationship with the Word
In His Presence: One who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does (James 1:25 ).
The final step in being transformed into the image of Christ by the Word of God is maintaining a relationship with the Word. James said the one who looks into the mirror of Scripture intently will not only read what it says, he will do it.
One Minute Please
Carry the Bible everywhere; look intently into it, abide in it, and you will change.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Readiness
God called to him . . . . And he said, 'Here I am' -Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses' reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, "Here I am." Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing- it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God's plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself, we hear God's voice as our Lord heard His Father's voice, and we are ready for it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us just as His Father did with Him. He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father. ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready- he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.
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Overcoming Barrenness
I Samuel 1:10-11 says,
And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head."
These words are written about Hannah, who was barren. But God answered her prayer by giving her a son, and he became one of the most prominent figures in Biblical history-Samuel.
Perhaps there is a "barrenness" in some area of your life, and like Hannah, who was tormented by her adversary-so it is with you. Prayer can change things. It did in Hannah's life, and it can in yours. But there are several things about Hannah's prayer that we need to consider:
1. Hannah's prayer was not casual. It was heartfelt and deep. Too much of our praying is "skin deep." Only prayers that originate from deep within us get God's attention. James 5:16 declares that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
2. Hannah's prayer was specific. She asked for a male child. Too much of our praying is too general. Don't be afraid to be specific in your requests.
3. Hannah wanted the answer to her prayer to glorify God. Her boy would be dedicated to God's service. When our prayers take on the purpose of glorifying God, we have moved into a higher realm.
If you are experiencing a barrenness in any arena of life, pray. And let your prayers be heartfelt, specific, and for the glory of God.
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Transformed by Trials
In His Presence: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials (James 1:2 ).
The television show "Extreme Makeover" puts people through all kinds of adverse circumstances so that they might look better than they did when they started the makeover process. They undergo surgical procedures, grueling workouts, and physical pain in order to be transformed into something beautiful.
One of the primary ways God makes us more like Christ is by allowing us to face trouble. To conform us into the image of Christ, we don't just need minor surgery--we require major transformation. In fact, God has to put a brand new nature inside us. Just as a sculptor chips away at a piece of marble to turn it into a beautiful sculpture, God uses trials to chip away at us, sculpting us to resemble the image of Christ.
One Minute Please
Like a photographer developing his film in a darkroom, God develops a beautiful photograph of Christlikeness in us when we go through dark times.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Beware of the Least Likely Temptation
Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom -1 Kings 2:28
Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11-13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.
We are apt to say, "It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world." Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials- now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.
". . . kept by the power of God . . ."- that is the only safety. (1 Peter 1:5).
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Power in Numbers
I believe the Bible teaches us that when we join together the impact is multiplied far beyond just the addition of those who join together. One plus one equals far more than two. Let me show you what I mean.
In Deuteronomy 32:30, it says,
How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had surrendered them?
While this verse deals with Israel's disobedience to God and subsequent retreat from their enemies, think of what might be possible when God's people obey Him! It says that one could chase a thousand, but two could put ten thousand to flight.
While one person can impact a thousand, two people can impact ten thousand. That is a ten-fold multiplied effect!
Leviticus 26:7-8, when God was giving promises to His people if they would walk in His ways, states this,
You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Notice God says five will chase a hundred, and a hundred will chase ten thousand. By increasing the number of people times 20, their effectiveness would increase times 100. Again, that is a multiplied effect.
You have probably heard of the Clydesdale horses, those big, strong workhorses that can pull a lot of weight. One horse by itself can pull two tons, but if you yoke two together they can pull 23 tons! That is incredible!
And that is how it works when we pray together with one another. When we join our forces in prayer and connect with heaven, that is what happens. There is a multiplied effect.
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Count It as Joy
In His Presence: In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your ( 1 Peter 1:6-7 ).
How are we supposed to react to trials when they come our way? Trials are inevitable for the Christian; we must all face trials of some kind at some point in our lives. James told us the first thing we should do is to consider, or count in some versions, our trials as joy. The Greek word used for "count" is an accounting term meaning to add up. Why must we count trials as joy? Because sometimes when we are going through trials, they just don't add up. They don't make sense. It doesn't seem fair to have to face what we must deal with.
One Minute Please
We can't ignore the pain of a trial, but we must focus on the purpose.
:angel:
April 22, 2013
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
The Light That Never Fails
We all, with unveiled face, beholding . . . the glory of the Lord . . . -2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so very much alone that he never realizes he is alone. In the early stages of the Christian life, disappointments will come- people who used to be lights will flicker out, and those who used to stand with us will turn away. We have to get so used to it that we will not even realize we are standing alone. Paul said, ". . . no one stood with me, but all forsook me . . . . But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me . . ." (2 Timothy 4:16-17). We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails. When "important" individuals go away we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, so that only one thing is left for us to do- to look into the face of God for ourselves.
Allow nothing to keep you from looking with strong determination into the face of God regarding yourself and your doctrine. And every time you preach make sure you look God in the face about the message first, then the glory will remain through all of it. A Christian servant is one who perpetually looks into the face of God and then goes forth to talk to others. The ministry of Christ is characterized by an abiding glory of which the servant is totally unaware- ". . . Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him" (Exodus 34:29).
We are never called on to display our doubts openly or to express the hidden joys and delights of our life with God. The secret of the servant's life is that he stays in tune with God all the time.
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God promises He will answer every
Pray Through Your Trial
In His Presence: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him (James 1:5).
Wisdom can be defined as knowing how to apply truth to problematic situations. When we are going through trials, we must pray that God would give us wisdom to see how to apply the truth of His Word to what we are facing. Then and only then can He show us how to become more like His Son. We can ask God how to apply what is true about Him so that we can reap the maximum benefit from our situation.
One Minute Please
prayer without reproach when we are being conformed into the image of Christ.
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Do You Worship The Work?
We are God's fellow workers . . . -1 Corinthians 3:9
Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God's blessing cannot rest on him.
But the opposite case is equally true-once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him. The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone. But be careful to remember that you have been freed for only one thing-to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.
We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might . . ." (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
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Real Goodness
Romans 2:4 declares,
The goodness of God leads you to repentance.
Ephesians 2:4-6 says,
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
God is not holding your sins against you. He sent His Son to pay a debt that had to be paid in order to liberate you from sin. God extends His mercy and forgiveness to you and me even when we do not deserve it.
It was His goodness that arrested my attention and that brought me to the foot of the cross, even when I was in my darkest sin, doing terrible things, abusing my body with drugs and alcohol, and doing things that should have put me in an early grave. In fact, a number of times I nearly died. But God loved me right in the middle of all of that.
I want to tell you, wherever you are right now, God loves you. You may be in the depths of the darkest sin you have ever been involved in, you just feel wretched, but God loves you right where you are.
He loves you so much He doesn't want to leave you there. His grace can reach you, change you and lift you out of any sin or situation if you will turn to Him with all of your heart.
There is no reason to fear or hesitate. Entrust yourself to the goodness of God and say yes to Him today.
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Praise God During Trials
In His Presence: The brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation . . . Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him - (James 1:9-10, 12
).
Since God uses trials for our benefit and He is always in control, we can praise Him for who He is no matter what we are going through. Scripture says we should give thanks in everything. In every situation, we can count it as joy that God has decided to use a trial in our life to make us more like His Son.
One Minute Please
You may be in the fire of a trial, but God is using it to refine and purify you to be more like His Son.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
The Warning Against Desiring Spiritual Success
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you . . . -Luke 10:20
Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go "outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Hebrews 13:13). In Luke 10:20 , Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view- we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God's grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others' lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, 4and those lives will be God's testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an "if," never with the forceful or dogmatic statement- "You must." Discipleship carries with it an option.
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The First Step Toward Freedom
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:2-6).
Jesus asked this man a seemingly ridiculous question, "Do you want to be made well?" It's obvious isn't it? He is at the ool, isn't he? The only reason people went there was to be healed. What kind of a question is that to be asking? Of course, he wanted to be healed.
But Jesus was not convinced. This man had been stuck in his condition for a long time. He was not only lying down on the outside, he was lying down on the inside.
Sometimes people get used to living in their problems. While they may outwardly be going through the motions to get free (generally because they know that is what is expected of them), inwardly they have given up.
The first step toward getting free from your problems and that which binds and restricts your life is wanting it-really wanting it.
You have to stand up on the inside before you can ever stand up on the outside.
Let me be very bold and ask you: Do you want to be made well? Do you really want things to change? Or have you grown accustomed to living under the devil's heel?
If you are tired of defeat, mediocrity and bondage, then stand up on the inside and say, "Enough is enough!"
It is the first step toward freedom.
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Matured by Trials
In His Presence: You have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith . . . may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7
).
Adverse circumstances are designed to help us develop spiritually. Every time we face a trial we have an opportunity to move to another level of spiritual growth. James 1:12 pronounces persevering through a trial as a blessing. To be blessed is to be spiritually satisfied with the results of something. A blessed man does not quit or throw in the towel during a tough time; rather he perseveres because he knows one day he will receive the crown of life.
One Minute Please
Temptations are circumstances designed to defeat you while trials are circumstances designed to develop you.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
"Ready in Season"
Be ready in season and out of season -2 Timothy 4:2
Many of us suffer from the unbalanced tendency to "be ready" only "out of season." The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. This verse says, "Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season." In other words, we should "be ready" whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. There are some people who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm. They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you tend to say, "Now that I've experienced this moment, I will always be like this for God." No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best for God, as during those exceptional times, you actually become an intolerable burden on Him. You will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously aware of His inspiration to you at all times. If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you.
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Stop Blaming and Rise Up
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me" (John 5:6-7).
This guy was basically saying, "It's not my fault. I'm in this condition because of what someone else won't do for me, and because of what someone else has done to me."
Think about it, "I have no man to put me in." Paraphrased that says, "I'm stuck because of what someone won't do for me." Or, "While I'm coming, another steps down before me," which paraphrased says, "I'm stuck because of what someone else has done to me." Either way, "It is not my fault."
After making up our minds that we want to be free, the next step is to stop shifting the blame to others.
A friend of mine migrated from Mexico to the U.S. many years ago. He didn't understand the culture or the language and seemed to be hopelessly locked into a dead end job.
His employer took advantage of him and it seemed like he had no way out. But instead of blaming others for his situation (which would have been easy for him to do), he decided to get unstuck and do something with his life.
It took several years, but today he has several businesses and is quite wealthy.
Do not get caught in the trap of blaming others. Instead, make the decision to rise up (something we will be talking about in our next devotional.)
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Transformed by Temptation
In His Presence: Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone (
Temptation can be defined as a solicitation to do evil. Remember, nothing can come your way without divine approval. Whether it's a test or a temptation, positive or negative, it has to flow through God's fingers first. He has to allow the devil to tempt us, and at the same time He is testing us. If a temptation comes to you, God had to allow it to come, but He is not the source of that temptation. We find this truth in the story of Job. Satan said the only reason Job was serving God was that God was so good to him, so God allowed the devil to tempt Job. So Satan solicited Job to curse God. This was a test that showed Job's faithfulness to God when he didn't give in to the temptation.
One Minute Please
God allows temptation for our development, not our destruction.
James 1:13).
:angel: :angel:
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
The Supreme Climb
Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you -Genesis 22:2
A person's character determines how he interprets God's will (see Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this traditional belief behind through the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditional beliefs that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs which must be removed-for example, that God removes a child because his mother loves him too much. That is the devil's lie and a travesty on the true nature of God! If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of our wrong traditional beliefs about God, he will do so. But if we will stay true to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will serve to bring us into a better knowledge of Himself.
The great lesson to be learned from Abraham's faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter what contrary belief of his might be violated by his obedience. Abraham was not devoted to his own convictions or else he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was actually the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself. But you must always be willing to come to the point of giving up your own convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did that you are willing to do anything, even "to go . . . both to prison and to death" (Luke 22:33). Abraham did not make any such statement- he simply remained true to God, and God purified his faith.
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Obey and Get Unstuck
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk" (John 5:8).
These words were spoken to a man who had been sick for 38 years! His bed had been carrying him, and now Jesus was telling him to carry his bed!
We have discussed several keys to getting unstuck from your problems in our last devotions. First, we must genuinely want to be free, and second, we must stop shifting the blame for our problems to others.
The final key I want to share with you is found in the above verse. It is to obey what the Lord tells you. Whether it makes sense or not-obey!
To a man who had been carried by his bed for 38 years, rising up and carrying his bed must have seemed crazy! But the moment he began to obey, new life and strength began to flow into his previously paralyzed limbs.
Listen for the Lord's instructions in your heart. Search for them in His Word. There is no faith without action. There will be something that God will require you to do in order to release or express your faith.
It may make sense to you-or it may not. But to quote Mary, the mother of Jesus, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
After pastoring the same church for several decades, I have observed that many people remain stuck in their problems. Not because the Lord hasn't spoken to them, but because He has and they haven't obeyed.
If there is any unfilled obedience in your life, get busy and do what the Lord has told you to do. It is the only way to get unstuck.
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The Process of Temptation
In His Presence:
James 1:14-16 ).
The key characteristic of temptation is that it is achieved by virtue of deception. Satan's job is to tempt you, to solicit you away from God. Paul said: "I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). Satan is a chameleon, taking on any shape or size necessary to take our attention away from Christ.
One Minute Please
Once you make the decision to act contrary to the will and Word of God you have sinned.
Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren (
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chamber
Gracious Uncertainty
. . . it has not yet been revealed what we shall be . . . -1 John 3:2
Our natural inclination is to be so precise-trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next-that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we do not put down roots. Our common sense says, "Well, what if I were in that circumstance?" We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which we have never been.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God-it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." (Matthew 18:3). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, ". . . believe also in Me" (John 14:1), not, "Believe certain things about Me". Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in-but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.
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A Seedbed of Faith
In Judges 6:11-15, we read this about Gideon,
Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!" Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
We often think of Gideon as a great champion for Israel, and he was. But when he was chosen, we found him cowering in the winepress. He was hiding, he was fearful, he was negative, he was doubtful, and he was questioning.
While we might be critical of Gideon, I have found that the only people who never question are those who have been indoctrinated. Sometimes you need to doubt. Sometimes you need to question. In fact, a lot of times uncertainty is the seedbed from which faith grows.
If you are struggling with doubt today, if you have genuine questions, don't panic. If you are sincerely looking for answers, God will meet you, and faith will spring from the answers you find.
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Overcoming Temptation
In His Presence: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above (James 1:17).
When we sin, the consequence is separation from God. When we sin, we break fellowship with Him. Paul conveyed his struggle with sin in Romans 7:19: "The good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want." Paul wanted us to know that he understood our struggle against sin and temptation, and he too wanted the victory but would fall to sin time and again. And if it happened to Paul, it can happen to us. But there is a solution to the struggle with temptation. The way you get rid of sin is not simply dealing with or focusing on the sin. It's like being on a diet and deciding to focus on food all the time-it's not to your benefit. Instead, to deal with temptation we must shift our focus.
One Minute Please
"Count your blessings, name them one by one; count your many blessings see what God has done."
:angel:
April 30, 2013
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind . . . -1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated-it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul's description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, "Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe." No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don't deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it "has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." (Romans 5:5).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don't love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
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The Most Important Quality
In 1 Samuel 16:6-7, when Samuel came to Jesse's house to anoint the next king of Israel, we see the criteria God uses to choose people for service to Him,
So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him." But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
This is a fascinating story with a very strong lesson I want you to understand. Right after these verses, Jesse parades each of his sons before Samuel...except for David. Jesse knows why Samuel is there, but he doesn't even bother to get David.
David's own father had written him off. His own father didn't see enough potential in him to call him before Samuel.
But David was anointed king that day. Not based on what Jesse thought was important, but on what God thought was important...David's heart.
Maybe your own father has written you off. Maybe your parents said you would never amount to anything. Maybe your teacher said, "Look, you're not going to amount to much. You just better get yourself a minimum wage job."
Only God can see things in your heart that your father can't see, that your mother can't see, that your teachers didn't see, that your family doesn't see, that the people around you don't see.
It is not that God overlooks ability or talent or training. All of those things are important. But God looks first at the most important quality for service, and that is the heart.
Don't let someone else write your history before it happens.
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God's Faithfulness
In His Presence: No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able - (1 Corinthians 10:13).
To overcome temptation, James also encouraged believers to focus on the faithfulness of God's character. In James chapter one, verse 17 tells us that good things are coming down from the Father of lights, so doesn't it make sense that we should be looking up at Him? That's why David can say: "Call upon [Him] in the day of trouble" (Psalm 50:15). We can know with confidence that He will be there for us.
One Minute Please
God allowed the Israelites to go through the wilderness to teach them to trust in Him; He allows us to wander in the wilderness for the same reason.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith- Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight -2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God's concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to "walk by faith." How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, "I cannot do anything else until God appears to me"? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, "Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!" Never live for those exceptional moments- they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life- our work is our standard.
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When God's Plan Doesn't Make Sense
In Joshua 6:1-5 we find one of the most bizarre battle plans, but one with an important lesson for you and me,
Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him."
When you and I read that today it is easy for us to think, "Oh, that must have been pretty normal and natural to Joshua." But it wasn't. It did not make any more sense to him than it would have to you and me.
Imagine God taking Joshua aside and telling him that all they need to do is march around the city one time for six days. Then on the seventh day march around seven times and shout. It made no sense. Naturally speaking, it was ridiculous!
All of us will face our Jerichos, and sometimes God's plans won't seem to make sense. Our part is to listen and obey-even when God's instructions don't make sense to our natural minds. He has had a lot more experience winning battles than we have!
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Focus on God's Word
In His Presence: In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth (James 1:18).
In addition to focusing on God's character, we must also focus on God's Word in order to resist temptation. Sometimes we don't understand the importance of the Word and the fact that it is alive and active. We view Scripture like the Queen of England: She holds the top position in the country, but she has absolutely no power. She can't pass any laws or enforce any decrees. Many of us hold God's Word in high esteem, but it has no power in our lives. The Bible wasn't meant to decorate your coffee table or be held under your arm at church. The Word of God was written because of what it can do in our lives. James 1:18 explains that we were brought forth by the word of truth; the Word brought us spiritual life.
The Word saved us, and it can also sanctify us. God's Word works in the spiritual realm. Temptation exists in the spiritual realm, and only God's words have power and authority in that arena. When the Devil tempted Christ in the wilderness, he told Christ to "command that these stones become bread" (Matthew 4:3). He offered a physical temptation to meet a physical desire for food. But Jesus resisted the temptation by calling on the Word of God. He said: "Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). This is a direct quote from Deuteronomy 8. Jesus knew the Scripture so well that He could employ it to resist the temptation the Devil was throwing at Him. He stood on the authority of God's Word to recognize that He would trust in God and God's Word.
One Minute Please
God's Word is our sure guide to weather the clouds of life, no matter what our senses or emotions tell us.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it . . . -Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God's true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. ". . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue- he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
"Though it tarries, wait for it . . . ." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, "What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . ." (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, "Now I've got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . ." (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
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Pursue Peace
In 1 Peter 3:10-11, Peter provides an important command in our relationships with other people,
For "He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it."
I want to focus your attention on the last part of verse 11, "Seek peace and pursue it." This means we are to pursue peace with people.
This command is reinforced by the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12:14,
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
I want you to take note of the first part of that verse, Pursue peace with.... How many people are we to pursue peace with? All people. Does that include your neighbor? How about your mom? How about your dad? How about your kids? Your boss? Your relatives? How about that individual who seems to have a gift for getting on your nerves? What about those who are rude and obnoxious?
We are told that we are to pursue peace with all people. That is not a suggestion. That is a command. And that command is clarified further in Romans 14:19, which says,
Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.
Things that edify (or build up) create peace. Things that tear down shatter peace. Keep that in mind next time you are having a heated discussion with your husband or wife. Ask yourself, "Are the things that I am sharing at this moment building up my partner? Or, are they tearing them down?"
Pursue peace with all people by choosing words and deeds that will build them up.
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Focus on God's Plan
In His Presence: . . . so we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures (James 1:18).
To overcome temptation, the final element we must focus on is God's plan. James 1:18 refers to believers as the "first fruits" among God's creatures. First fruits are things of utmost value. In the Old Testament, the first fruits refers to the tithe to bring to the Lord. The first ten percent of what was accumulated went to Him. Giving the first fruits to God shows that He is the priority because He receives the best portion. Here, God says in His Word that we are the first fruits of His creation. Nothing God ever made is more important to Him than His saints, His people.
God has mighty plans for us, and we shouldn't let the devil convince us otherwise. To believe the devil's lies is to live beneath what God has in store for us. If we want our behavior to change, we must believe the truth that we are special to God. That will impact the way we live and the choices we make. We will want to please and obey Him.
Dogs are trained using the tool of temptation. The dog's master will throw a piece of red meat in front of the dog. The first time the dog sees the meat, he goes after it because that's his nature. The master corrects the dog and says, "No, look at me." The master throws some more meat down, and the dog moves to get it, but the master says, "Stay! Look at me!" You know that the dog is trained when it stops looking at the meat and keeps his focus on the master. The dog can handle the presence of the meat because his focus is on the master.
One Minute Please
Christians can overcome temptation when their eyes are focused not on the temptation, but on God's character, Word, and plan.
:angel:
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . -Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God's interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, "I will not allow that thing to happen." And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own "sad and pitiful self." You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God's interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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Winning an Offended Brother
Proverbs 18:19 tells us,
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a castle.
When this verse refers to a "strong city," it means a fortified or a guarded city. You cannot just waltz up to the gate of a fortified city and say "give up." It takes strategic planning to take such a city. You have to think things through and have a plan.
It also means there is going to be strenuous effort involved. And, more than likely, you will be in a vulnerable position. In fact, you don't take a strong city without taking risks, without becoming vulnerable.
The same things come into play when a brother is offended. It takes thoughtful planning, it takes effort, and sometimes you have to become vulnerable when you do not want to be.
Perhaps you are struggling with a damaged relationship today, and you haven't pursued healing this relationship because you don't know how to do it. It always starts with prayer. You talk to God about them and about yourself, and then you need to go and talk to them.
When you do, I want you to listen carefully, it should not be with a view to prove that you are right. Being right is not the goal. Peace is. Most of the time it is more important to be kind than it is to be right.
If you try to work something out, but only with the intention of having them understand your point of view so that you can prove you are right, you may win the argument, but you will never make peace.
So when you are endeavoring to win an offended brother, listen carefully to them, and endeavor to understand where they are coming from. Seek to hear and not just be heard. Though it may be difficult, you can win peace and see a broken relationship restored.
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Maturity Is a Process
In His Presence: Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:13-14).
God's goal for all of us is Christlikeness, or spiritual maturity. When He saved you, He put everything necessary for this process inside you. But maturity takes time. Growing up and becoming a spiritual adult is a process, not a single event.
Spiritual adulthood is the process of God bringing us to the place where we are consistently living life from the perspective of the Spirit rather than the perspective of the flesh. Maturity in Christ means you normally look at and react to things from a spiritual perspective. God wants us to get to this place of maturity, to live as we were created to be. But many of us are not yet living the Christlike life, which means we are immature. If we are living like that, we are children, tossed here and there by every new fad that comes along.
Becoming a mature believer takes time. You don't become mature overnight. A baby doesn't hop, skip, and jump into adulthood. The Bible tells us that maturity is a process: "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). In a very real sense, this maturing process will go on for the rest of your natural life, but there is a point you can reach where you are consistently responding to things from a spiritual perspective.
One Minute Please
Rate multiplied by time equals distance. God has made maturity possible for every believer, but what you do with your time determines the rate of your progress in arriving at the destination of maturity.
:angel:
Daily Devotional
May 6, 2013
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free . . . -Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand-"Believe this and that"; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty- the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one true liberty- the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don't get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you- with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go . . . and make disciples. . ." (Matthew 28:19), not, "Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions."
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When Peace Isn't Possible
Romans 12:18 says,
If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
By implication, this verse is telling us that it is not possible to live peaceably with some people because they refuse to make peace. They take the posture of being an enemy, being an antagonist, and they refuse to shift from that position no matter what you do.
But as much as it depends on you, you must pursue the things that make for peace. You need to pray, you need to communicate, and if God leads you, you need to give a gift. And certainly with your actions, you need to express the fact that you want peace.
Sometimes somebody may not yield. They may not yield to the influence of God's Spirit; they may not yield to your endeavors. But once you have done all you can do, all you can do has been done.
Does that give you a license to be rude to them or to treat them unpleasantly? No. The next few verses address that. Look at Romans 12:19-21,
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Continue to extend the olive branch. If they never respond, at least you will have a clean conscience. God will deal with the things that you cannot deal with. Do not take matters into your own hands. "Vengeance is Mine," says the Lord.
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Maturity Based on Relationship
In His Presence: We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).
Spiritual maturity is facilitated by spiritual relationship. Second Peter 3:17-18 discusses this factor in our growth: "You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity." Peter said we have two choices: to go forward or to go backward. But what we can't do is stand still. Often people will try to define their Christian life in terms of what they are not doing wrong. But the Christian life is more than that-it is also what we are doing right.
Spiritual growth, just like human growth, is not a mechanical process. People think if they follow a five-step or twelve-step program, they will get where they want to be spiritually. But nothing could be further from the truth. Spiritual development is a relational process, not a legal one. The law shows us our sin and has the power to condemn. Only the grace of Christ has the power to enable us to overcome sin. We grow into Christ by the knowledge of Him as a person, not by the fulfillment of a program. To do that, we must focus on what God is doing in the midst of what we are doing.
One Minute Please
We must connect what is happening in our lives with how God is using it to transform us into the image of His Son.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Building For Eternity
Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it . . . -Luke 14:28
Our Lord was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, the unfathomable agony He experienced in Gethsemane, and the assault upon Him at Calvary- the central point upon which all of time and eternity turn. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. In the final analysis, people are not going to laugh at Him and say, "This man began to build and was not able to finish" (Luke 14:30).
The conditions of discipleship given to us by our Lord in verses 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple " (Luke 14:26). This verse teaches us that the only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion- those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus? (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.
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Seeing God Through Nature
Hosea 6:3 gives us something we should pursue every day of our lives,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.
What a great pursuit! When you pursue the knowledge of God, He will come to you. He will refresh you like the rain, like the early and the latter rain.
These rains would cause the crops to ripen and bear fruit. Scripture is seeking to tell us that when you seek the knowledge of God, a personal knowledge of God, it will cause your life to become abundantly fruitful. It will cause your life to prosper. It will bring refreshment into your life because God will come to you.
The question is: How do you pursue the knowledge of God?
One way is through nature. Psalm 19:1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Creation screams, "There must be a Creator! I'm too perfect, I'm too intricate, I'm too glorious to have just happened. There must be a Master Sculptor. There must be a Master Painter. There must be a Creator behind it all."
The stars in the heavens and the moon literally declare God's glory. When you look at the sunset over the Pacific ocean, or look at the mountains, or you look at the grass in your backyard, they scream that there is a Creator.
Take some time to pursue the knowledge of God this week by just observing nature. When you do, you will come to a deeper knowledge of God as you see and understand the beauty and majesty of Him in a fresh, new way.
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Maturity Involves Development
In His Presence: According to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16).
When a baby matures, it also develops. The baby learns coordination, and its body parts develop, grow, and work together. Babies move from milk to solid food. Paul compared this development to that of a Christian: "Everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity" (Hebrews 5:13-6:1).
There is a developmental progression in Christian maturity, and one concept depends on understanding another. Elementary principles must be mastered before you can move on to deeper things, but we're not supposed to dwell on elementary things forever. Spiritual growth takes place on the playing field of life, not in the classroom. If you never make the connection between the things you learn in Scripture and the way you live your life, you will never mature into anything beyond a Sunday Christian. You are to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13).
Development is marked by change. If you give earthly excuses about why things are happening in your life, you are living as a natural man. But if your reaction to your situation is to focus on Christ at work in you, you are becoming a mature believer. When you are mature, you will react, think, and act like Christ because you are being conformed into His image.
One Minute Please
Do you consistently live life looking through the eyes of Christ or are you still a natural man or a natural woman?
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Faith to Persevere
Because you have kept My command to persevere . . . -Revelation 3:10
Perseverance means more than endurance- more than simply holding on until the end. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, "I can't take any more." Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God's hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).
Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life- throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.
God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet- places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ's life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, "This is eternal life, that they may know You . . ." (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance- a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.
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Suppressing the Truth
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
A truth that is suppressed is a truth that has addressed itself to someone, but they do not want to be confronted by it. They do not want it to force them to change, so they keep it down and refuse to look at or deal with it.
What kind of a truth is it that men suppress? Romans 1:19 tells us,
Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
People are suppressing a knowledge or truth about God. Where did they learn that truth about God that they are suppressing? Verse 20 tells us,
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Creation speaks of a Creator. God is understood, it says, by the things that are made. There comes a point in every human's life as they observe nature, where a voice whispers to them, "This didn't just happen. There has to be a hand behind this."
At that point, each person has a choice: Whether or not to suppress that truth. If they do not suppress the truth, I believe God will move heaven and earth to get the knowledge of the gospel to that person.
This is so profound because even on Judgment Day no one is going to be able to stand and say, "Well, I never heard. I didn't have a chance." They will be without excuse, because God is going to take them right back to that experience where He spoke to them through nature.
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A Metaphor for America
In His Presence: Hebrews 1:1-2
A while ago, a crack appeared in the Evans' bedroom wall. We called in a professional who replaced the plaster around the crack and repainted the wall. But the crack reappeared not long after that. We called the painter back, he repaired the crack, and he repainted the wall again. Everything looked fine until about a couple months later when the crack came back. And this time it brought its aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews!
We called in another professional and he gave the verdict. The cracks in the wall were due to a much deeper problem. We were experiencing a shifting foundation. He told us that until we stabilized our foundation, we would forever be repairing cracks in the walls. What a perfect metaphor for the condition of American society today.
Until we stabilize the foundation, no number of programs, government grants, or elections will be able to repair the cracks in our cultural walls. There is no place where the foundation of America needs to be stabilized more than in the home. The breakdown of the family is the single greatest contributor to the deterioration of our country. Strong families hold the key to a strong society, while weak families lead to a weak society. This is true because every other institution in society depends on strong families. You can't have strong families without God as their foundation.
"No man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ"(1 Corinthians 3:11).
One Minute Please
Christians can strengthen America by stabilizing their own homes on the foundation of God's Word.
Source: Are Christians Destroying America? Pp. 139-141.
:angel:
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Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Reaching Beyond Our Grasp
Where there is no revelation [or prophetic vision], the people cast off restraint . . . -Proverbs 29:18
There is a difference between holding on to a principle and having a vision. A principle does not come from moral inspiration, but a vision does. People who are totally consumed with idealistic principles rarely do anything. A person's own idea of God and His attributes may actually be used to justify and rationalize his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah tried to excuse his disobedience by saying to God, ". . . I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" (Jonah 4:2). I too may have the right idea of God and His attributes, but that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of honesty and integrity, because the vision gives me the moral incentive.
Our own idealistic principles may actually lull us into ruin. Examine yourself spiritually to see if you have vision, or only principles.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
"Where there is no revelation [or prophetic vision]. . . ." Once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless. We cast off certain restraints from activities we know are wrong. We set prayer aside as well and cease having God's vision in the little things of life. We simply begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating only out of our own hand, and doing things solely on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on a downward path. We have lost the vision. Is our attitude today an attitude that flows from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done before? Is there a freshness and a vitality in our spiritual outlook?
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Pursue Hospitality
Romans 12:9-14 says,
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
At the end of verse 13, Paul says we are to be "given to hospitality." The word given is the Greek word translated "pursue" everywhere else in the New Testament. This could be translated "pursuing hospitality."
Hospitality is actually a compound word in the Greek language. The first part of the word means to be fond of. The second part means guests. So hospitality means to be friendly to strangers, to open your heart and open your home to others.
The Scripture is very strong when it says we are to pursue hospitality. It is one of the greatest ways in all the world to demonstrate the love of God to people who are in need.
I remember like it was yesterday a time I was preaching at a church. It was over 20 years ago, when I was a newlywed. After the service was done, Janet and I were standing around not knowing what to do. No one was speaking to us and the church had made no provision for our lodging or meals.
Just then an elderly couple came up to us and invited us to their home for lunch, which we gratefully accepted.
And you know what? I don't remember what I preached that day, but to this day I remember eating roast in that couple's home. I remember their graciousness, their hospitable spirit, and how much they made us feel welcome.
Pursue hospitality!
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How to Save a Nation in Trouble
In His Presence: 2 Chronicles 7:11-22
"[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land"(2 Chronicles 7:14).
King Solomon reigned over Israel. In 2 Chronicles 6, Solomon had just finished building God's temple and had offered up a prayer of dedication. In this prayer, Solomon was basically saying that he wanted to lead this people as God wanted him to lead. After the prayer, God's glory came down to the temple and filled it. The people offered sacrifices and held a feast. Later that night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and told him that if the people ever rejected His ways and turned away from Him, the prayers of His people would be heeded.
God will deal with a nation that turns its back on Him. If a culture wants to be free of God, He will let it have that freedom. But freedom from God brings dire consequences. Pagans do not normally turn to God when things get rough. But this Scripture isn't addressing pagans; it is addressing "My people who are called by My name" (v. 14). The people who are supposed to pray for their nation are God's covenant people. In the Old Testament, His covenant people were the Jews. In the New Testament, the covenant people are the church-the body of true believers who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Sin-bearer and Redeemer.
One Minute Please
God will pay attention to our prayers when we come to Him humbly, seek His face, and turn from our ungodly behavior.
:angel:
May 10, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Take the Initiative
. . . add to your faith virtue . . . -2 Peter 1:5
Add means that we have to do something. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves- God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We must "work out" our "own salvation" which God has worked in us (Philippians 2:12). Add means that we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning- to instruct yourself in the way you must go.
Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative- stop hesitating- take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you stand. Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, "I will write that letter," or "I will pay that debt"; and then do it! Make it irrevocable.
We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we have not yet been.
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In the Balance
1 Thessalonians 5:15 is a powerful verse that speaks to everyone,
See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.
Notice the apostle Paul makes sure no one is excluded. That means you can't get out of this. You are either a "no one," or an "anyone" in this verse!
Paul's point about pursuing what is good for both yourselves and for all can be looked at two ways. First, he could be talking about the worshiping community as a whole. His point: Pursue what is good for the church, but also for all those outside the church. You need to think of the welfare of the church and the community in which you exist.
On a more personal level, Paul could be speaking to the need for you and I to weigh how our words, our actions, and our pursuit of that which is good for us affects others. I have to weigh that in the balance.
While a certain thing may be good for me, I need to think of how it is going to affect others. It is not just about pursuing what is good for me, even if it is something I deserve. I need to ask, "How it is going to affect others...my spouse, my kids, my friends, my church, my neighbor." I have to factor that in.
Many times people pursue something and they defend their position by saying, "Well, it's time for me to start thinking about myself. I deserve this. This is good for me."
Well, this verse allows for that. In fact, it admonishes you to pursue what is good for you, but it adds the proviso "and for all."
Eagerly pursue the things that are beneficial for you, but also that which is good for others.
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Penetrate the Culture
In His Presence: Colossians 3:17
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world . . . Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:13-14, 16).
When we look closely at a culture that is deteriorating, we will probably see the people of God withdrawn from that culture. For example, when Christians began abandoning inner city and urban neighborhoods, taking their skills, resources, and moral influence with them, those neighborhoods deteriorated. When Christians left the public school system, moral values were systematically erased until they became almost illegal to teach. When Christians vacated the media, a spiritual approach to defining everything we hold dear went with them. When Christians decided to get out of politics, righteous political decisions left with them.
God's people have been called to penetrate society. Of course, evangelism is always first because without forgiveness of sins, anything else we give a person is temporary. We have been called first and foremost to win people to Christ. But after a person receives Christ for eternity, he must represent Christ in history. Christians must give out hope; no earthly institution offers real hope for the world.
One Minute Please
The absence of righteousness in our culture has everything to do with the absence of God's people penetrating the culture. When there is no yeast, the bread stays flat.
:angel:
May 13, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Keeping a Clear Conscience
. . . strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men -Acts 24:16
God's commands to us are actually given to the life of His Son in us. Consequently, to our human nature in which God's Son has been formed (see Galatians 4:19), His commands are difficult. But they become divinely easy once we obey.
Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God's standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God's Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23).
God always instructs us down to the last detail. Is my ear sensitive enough to hear even the softest whisper of the Spirit, so that I know what I should do? "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God . . ." (Ephesians 4:30). He does not speak with a voice like thunder- His voice is so gentle that it is easy for us to ignore. And the only thing that keeps our conscience sensitive to Him is the habit of being open to God on the inside. When you begin to debate, stop immediately. Don't ask, "Why can't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There is no debating possible once your conscience speaks. Whatever it is- drop it, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.
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Releasing God's Love
We have been talking about pursuing love in the last couple of devotionals. Today I want to go to a passage where Scripture gives us a snapshot of what God's love looks like. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8,
Love suffers long and is kind (a lot of people suffer long, but they are not very kind while they do it); love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own; is not provoked (it is not touchy or fretful or resentful); thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
What you just read about the love of God is already inside of you if you are a Christian. It is not something outside of you that you need to seek. It is something that is in you that needs to be released.
Romans 5:5 tells us,
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
God's love has already been poured into your heart! The ability to do everything in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is already in you. You have the ability to not be touchy, or fretful, or resentful, or seek your own or insist on your own rights; to suffer long and to be kind; to believe the best of every person.
The Bible is not talking about pursuing love as though it is something that is vacant from your life. Rather, you are to pursue the expression of that love purposely and let it work its way into your words and actions.
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Social Gospel?
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Instead of writing off our culture as hopelessly secular and doomed, God wants His people to have a redeeming and transforming impact on American society. But what is the relationship of the Gospel to social action? What is the Christian's responsibility in matters of social ills-injustice, poverty, and hunger?
In many evangelical circles, the terms "social action" and "social gospel" have negative connotations. But the question remains: what does the gospel of Jesus Christ have to say to the poor and the oppressed? This is an important question all Christians need to deal with.
The message of the Gospel is narrow, not broad. The issue of social action is not part of the gospel message. Whenever social action is made part of the Gospel, two problems arise: Social action obscures what the Gospel really is, and no one knows how much emphasis to give to the social aspect of the message.
Those who want to make social action a part of the Gospel's content make the same mistake repeatedly in biblical interpretation. They apply the non-technical use of the word Gospel as it is used in the first four books of the New Testament rather than applying its more specific use in the epistles, where the word has a much more limited meaning.
One Minute Please
When Paul spoke of the Gospel, he limited it to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sin (see today's reading). In Matthew 4, Jesus used the term to refer to the good news of the kingdom. "Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom" (v. 23).
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Enjoying Adversity
. . . that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body -2 Corinthians 4:10
We have to develop godly habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not just a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved so that "the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." And it is adversity that makes us exhibit His life in our mortal flesh. Is my life exhibiting the essence of the sweetness of the Son of God, or just the basic irritation of "myself" that I would have apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy adversity is the acute sense of eagerness of allowing the life of the Son of God to evidence itself in me. No matter how difficult something may be, I must say, "Lord, I am delighted to obey You in this." Instantly, the Son of God will move to the forefront of my life, and will manifest in my body that which glorifies Him.
You must not debate. The moment you obey the light of God, His Son shines through you in that very adversity; but if you debate with God, you grieve His Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30). You must keep yourself in the proper condition to allow the life of the Son of God to be manifested in you, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God's sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to "supply all your need" (Philippians 4:19).
Keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on your memories of past experiences, but let the Word of God always be living and active in you.
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Choose to Love
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust'" (Matthew 5:43-45).
These are not suggestions to be considered, they are commands to be obeyed. "A pretty tall order," you say. Perhaps, but definitely within the realm of possibility.
Jesus would never tell us to do something we could not do. That would be unjust. We can bless, we can do good, we can pray for and forgive those who have wronged us.
When people say, "I can't forgive," that generally means, "I won't forgive." The ability to love, bless and forgive is within us-because God is within us. Learn to let His nature of love dominate you. Choose to love. Let what God has put on the inside come out.
The world needs to see real love-the kind of unconditional love that brought us into God's family. And they need to see it in us. If we really are the children of God, then His nature should be displayed in us and through us. The most outstanding feature of God's nature is love. God is love.
One last thing. When you choose to love and forgive those who have wronged you, you set a prisoner free. The prisoner is you.
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Taking Back American Culture
In His Presence: Jeremiah 29:4-14
"[He] is able to establish you according to [the] gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested . . . leading to obedience of faith" (Romans 16:25-26, emphasis added).
One major problem in America is that Christians often separate the personal message of salvation from its practical implications. As the Gospel-the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ-is proclaimed, a concern for human needs should flow naturally out of its effect on people and the community. Unfortunately, a trait of our individualistic age is that people care very little about the deterioration of our society.
When the Gospel has permeated a group of people, there should be a shift from social inertia to social sensitivity. This increases the importance of Jesus' statement: "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Our testimony is enhanced by the social interactions that take place between Christians and the world. It is unbiblical to believe that our faith in Jesus Christ has no bearing on the needs of this world.
American culture will be reclaimed when Christians regain spiritual clarity. When the Jews were sent into exile, they ended up living within Babylonian culture-a clearly pagan culture. They had to work hard to establish themselves again as a set-apart, unique people.
One Minute Please
"Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce . . . seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile"(Jeremiah 29:5,7).
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Rising to the Occasion
. . . that you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . -Ephesians 1:18
Remember that you have been saved so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in your body (see 2 Corinthians 4:10). Direct the total energy of your powers so that you may achieve everything your election as a child of God provides; rise every time to whatever occasion may come your way.
You did not do anything to achieve your salvation, but you must do something to exhibit it. You must "work out your own salvation" which God has worked in you already (Philippians 2:12). Are your speech, your thinking, and your emotions evidence that you are working it "out"? If you are still the same miserable, grouchy person, set on having your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.
God is the Master Designer, and He allows adversities into your life to see if you can jump over them properly-"By my God I can leap over a wall" (Psalm 18:29). God will never shield you from the requirements of being His son or daughter. First Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you . . . ." Rise to the occasion-do what the trial demands of you. It does not matter how much it hurts as long as it gives God the opportunity to manifest the life of Jesus in your body.
May God not find complaints in us anymore, but spiritual vitality-a readiness to face anything He brings our way. The only proper goal of life is that we manifest the Son of God; and when this occurs, all of our dictating of our demands to God disappears. Our Lord never dictated demands to His Father, and neither are we to make demands on God. We are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. Once we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine with which to feed and nourish others.
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The Qualities of Love
For the last number of devotionals, we have focused our attention on how love is such a vital quality to the Christian life. We have seen that unless we love, any of the spiritual gifts are meaningless.
We have also seen that God has deposited His love in us already, and as a result, it is our responsibility to choose to express that love. It is not something we can put on God's shoulders. We must take on that obligation.
So what do those qualities of love really look like? I want to share with you 1 Corinthians 13 from the Amplified Bible, but I want to do it with a twist. I want to make it personal and show how, if we choose to love as God has asked us to love, it will look.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 from the Amplified Bible...personalized (read it out loud),
I endure long, and I am patient and kind. I am never envious or boil over with jealousy. I am not boastful or vainglorious. I do not display myself haughtily. I am not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride. I am not rude or unmannerly. I do not act unbecomingly. God's love in me does not insist on its own rights or its own way for I am not self-seeking. I am not touchy or fretful or resentful. I take no account of the evil done to me. I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail. I bear up under anything and everything that comes, and I am ever ready to believe the best of every person. My hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and I endure everything without weakening. God's love in me never fails.
I challenge you to read this out loud to yourself every day for a month, and see if it does not change your life!
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Satan the Deceiver
In His Presence: 1 Peter 5:8
In several places in the Bible, we are told who Satan is. He is called "the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). We know what his future will be. "[The angel] laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed: after these things he must be released for a short time" (Revelation 20:2-3).
Before God created man, He created angels. Chief among the angels was one named Lucifer. His name meant "the shining one." Some of his story is told in Ezekiel 28:12-19. "You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you" (Ezekiel 28:14-15).
Some of Lucifer's story is also told in Isaiah 14:11-16. "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations" (v. 12). Lucifer desired to be equal with God, though God was his Creator. Since then, he has been the Deceiver on earth.
One Minute Please
One of Satan's first deceptions was to convince us that he doesn't exist or that he is inconsequential.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Habit of Recognizing God's Provision
. . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . -2 Peter 1:4
We are made "partakers of the divine nature," receiving and sharing God's own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God's provision for us. We say, however, "Oh, I can't afford it." One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, "Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle." And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him. Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn't they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges- always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.
Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, "All my springs are in You" (Psalm 87:7). If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . ." (2 Corinthians 9:8)- then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself. Be marked and identified with God's nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.
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Spiritual Metamorphosis
Romans 12:1-2 says this,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
First, notice that it is your responsibility to present your body to God. God will not do it for you. You have to do it. But Scripture doesn't leave us there. We are shown how we are to do that in verse 2 above.
First, when it says, Do not be conformed, that word conform means to be pressed into a mold by outward pressures. Instead of being conformed we are told to be transformed. That is actually the Greek word from which we get our English word metamorphosis. It means to let what is on the inside come to the outside.
One day many years ago, my kids came home from school with some silk worms. We were supposed to put them in a box and feed them mulberry leaves. I couldn't believe how many leaves these worms ate! They ate leaves until they turned a translucent green!
Then they wove cocoons and went through a metamorphosis. They went from being these ugly ol' fat green transparent worms, to the most beautiful fuzzy huge white moths. It was amazing to see!
My friend, you renew your mind by feeding on God's Word, the same way that those silk worms fed on the mulberry leaves. As you are filled with His truth, it causes a metamorphosis to take place. It brings what is on the inside-God's nature-to the outside.
So feed on God's Word and watch your life be transformed.
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Satan Poses the Question
In His Presence: Genesis 3:1-7
Since God placed man on this planet, Satan has been determined to deceive man about the nature of God and God's words to us. In the Garden of Eden, Satan began his plan by talking to Eve. "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1). Satan raised a question about God's command. Notice that he used the word "not." He skipped over the first part of God's statement and focused on the restriction. He didn't want Eve to be thinking about God's goodness. He wanted God to appear harsh and restrictive.
What God actually said was: "TheLord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die' " (Genesis 2:16-17). The first thing God told Adam was what he could do. All the fruit was good for the picking, and Adam could eat freely of the trees. He could eat whatever he wanted to eat whenever he wanted to eat. Of all the trees in the garden, and there were probably hundreds of trees, he was only restricted from one tree.
Especially for those of us who live in the United States, we have so much that is good. As much as we are able, we are free to pursue a good life and liberty. We can go after what makes us happy.
One Minute Please
In spite of what Satan wants, we should be thinking about God's goodness.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
His Ascension and Our Access
It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven -Luke 24:51
We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord's life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward- Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection- everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.
The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.
The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God- He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
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The Love of Money
In 1 Timothy 6:9-11, Paul gives us a critical insight,
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
I want you to notice: Before Paul tells us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness, he says we must first flee the love of money. You have to be willing to flee the wrong things before you can pursue the right things, because you cannot go in two directions at once.
If you are pursuing riches, and the gaining of wealth and the achievement of success have become your number one priorities, pushing everything else, including God, to the side, then you are pursuing the wrong thing.
You may be thinking, "Well, that's great for some people, but that doesn't apply to me." You need to understand that you can be eaten up with the love of money and not have a dime in your pocket. All of us are subject to such a temptation and such a trap.
It's fascinating that Paul uses the word "drown" here. I live by the Pacific Ocean, and generally people who drown do so because, (a) they overestimate their own abilities as a swimmer; or (b) they underestimate the power of the ocean.
If you overestimate your ability to be free from this type of a temptation, or you underestimate the power of this type of a temptation, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
Flee the wrong and pursue the right. Stay on course with God.
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What Are We Thinking About?
In His Presence: 1 Chronicles 16:8
Why did God put a limitation on the tree in the Garden of Eden? Why do we have limitations at all? In order to enjoy freedom, there must be sufficient restriction so that we can maximize what freedom is. A baseball player isn't free to play baseball if there are no foul lines. A football player is not free to play football if there are no sidelines. God placed the restriction in the Garden of Eden to give us the ability to choose. In that way, freedom is better understood.
Another reason why God put a restriction in the Garden of Eden was to remind man that he is a created being. Restrictions make it clear who is in charge. God wanted it to be clear that there is a major difference between created man and the Creator God. God is transcendent. He is infinite and omniscient. We are not.
Satan used the presence of these restrictions to trick Eve into focusing on the negative. The apostle Paul said: "I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). Satan led her thinking away from the goodness of God to focus on the restrictions of God. In doing that, Eve lost sight of the freedom God had given her.
One Minute Please
Adam and Eve lived in a home they didn't build and ate food they didn't have to grow. They lived in a perfect environment that had only one restriction. Does your mind focus only on the restrictions in your life?
:angel:
May 20, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Taking Possession of Our Own Soul
By your patience possess your souls -Luke 21:19
When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!
There are certain things in life that we need not pray about- moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won't. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh
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The Reward of Godliness
In today's devotional, I want to draw your attention to the importance of the pursuit of godliness. Let's look at 1 Timothy 6:6,
Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
What an incredible truth. Godliness coupled with contentment is great gain. Not just gain, GREAT gain!
Over and over in Scripture, God highlights the importance and reward of godliness. For instance, it says in Psalm 4:3, That the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly. 2 Peter says the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Those are great rewards!
But there is more. Look at 1 Timothy 4:7-8,
But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
It could not be more clear! There is profit in godliness, and that profit is not only in this life, but in the life that is to come. Godliness is going to pay off in both this life and into eternity!
So it makes sense to make this pursuit of godliness a priority! Even if people want to kick you every time you do something that is right, you need to stay with it.
Determine today to make godliness an everyday pursuit. If you do, you will reap the rewards of godliness, great gain and profit, not just in this life, but for eternity.
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Satan's Lies
In His Presence: John 17:17
Satan convinced Eve that he was harmless, not a creature to fear or be wary of. Today, he wants us to believe that we don't need to fear him and to think that he may not even exist. Second, Satan convinced Eve that God was holding out on her. Satan wants us to focus on our misfortunes.
"The woman said to the serpent, 'From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die." ' The serpent said to the woman, 'You surely will not die!' ''(Genesis 3:2-3). He was saying that God's word could not be trusted.
Satan discovered that Eve had lost sight of what God actually said. First, she minimized God's goodness by leaving out the word "freely" in God's command to Adam. He had said: "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely" (Genesis 2:16). Second, she made God look stricter than He was by saying they could not touch the fruit of the restricted tree. God had not said anything about touching it. Third, she lessened God's judgment by saying "lest you die." She was implying an uncertainty. Instead, God had said: "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17).
One Minute Please
When Eve distorted God's word, she was receptive to Satan's lie that God's word could not be trusted.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Having God's "Unreasonable" Faith
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you -Matthew 6:33
When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ". . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . ." Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, "But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.
". . . do not worry about your life. . ." (Matthew 6:25). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed- no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Don't make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God." Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.
It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
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Strengthening Your Faith
Romans 10:17 is the verse I would like for you to read today. It says,
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
To fully understand this verse, you need to know that if you are saved, faith has already been deposited in your heart. It is part of your spiritual DNA. Romans 12:3 says that, God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Faith is something He has already given.
It is up to you to develop that faith. It is up to you to do something with it. How do you develop it? You develop it first by hearing the Word of God.
The Bible-God's Word-is the food. As you feed upon it, your faith will be strengthened.
You know those body builders, men and women who are constantly pumping weights? Well, if you talk to any serious body builder, one of the first things they will refer to is diet. You have to eat the right kind of diet if you are going to build muscle mass. Usually, their diet is protein-rich.
They faithfully drink their protein shakes and eat their tuna fish sandwiches, which, when they are consumed and digested, become the raw materials that build muscle mass.
As you feed upon and digest God's Word, that truth becomes the raw material that will build faith. It is faith food.
Most people who struggle with their faith are feeding on the wrong things. Faith comes unconsciously when you feed upon God's Word.
So today, if you feel like you are struggling in your faith, then change your diet. Start feeding more on God's Word!
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Relationship vs. Rules
In His Presence: John 10:14-15
"My brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God . . . What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law''(Romans 7:4, 7).
Romans 7 tells us that the Law is good. But the problem with the Law is that it can't help us deal with sin. While it can show us what is wrong, it can't empower us to improve. Only a relationship abiding in the presence of Jesus Christ can transform our lives. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was irrelevant to Adam and Eve. They had abundant life already. "I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). It was a life based on a relationship with God.
So how do we combat what Satan wants us to believe-that restrictions and "do's" and "don'ts" are unfair? We should focus on the goodness of God. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith" (Romans 3:23-25). This demonstration of grace is what the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was all about.
One Minute Please
"From any tree of the garden you may eat freely"(Genesis 2:16).
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
The Explanation For Our Difficulties
. . . that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us . . . -John 17:21
If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17 . It will explain exactly why you are where you are- because Jesus has prayed that you "may be one" with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus- ". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn't ask, "Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?" No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, "Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God's purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him- because Jesus prayed, ". . . that they all may be one . . . ."
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Exercising the Muscle of Faith
Yesterday we looked at the importance of God's Word to strengthen our faith. Yet there is something more we need to do to see our faith grow. We must use it.
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says this about faith,
Fight the good fight of faith.
Faith is made for conflict. It does not grow without conflict. It does not grow without pressure. You need to use it.
Remember our illustration of the body builders and how a proper diet is essential to building muscle mass? Well, they will also tell you that it is not enough to drink protein shakes and eat tuna fish, you have to work those muscles if they are going to grow. They work those weights every day in order to build their muscles.
The same thing is true when it comes to faith. Faith is a muscle that you have to use. It is not enough just to listen to your Bible teaching CDs all day long. Hearing alone is not enough to develop faith. You must use your faith muscle.
That is what the fight of faith is all about. You exercise your faith when you are standing in the midst of your storm, and you are assailed by temptations and every kind of trial that tells you you're not going to make it, that you are going down with the ship.
As you stand in the midst of your storm, and the wind is howling around you, and the lightning is flashing, and the waves are breaking over the bow of your little ship, stand up and say, "I believe God, that it is going to be just as it was told me." That is where the fight of faith comes in.
No matter what you may be going through today, exercise that muscle of faith. Trust God to do just as He has promised.
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Cultivating the Gratitude Mindset
In His Presence: Romans 9:14-24
"Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called . . . Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy"(1 Timothy 6:11-12, 17).
Cultivating a godly perspective of our spiritual state and our physical circumstances does not happen naturally. To fight against overlooking God's grace and lovingkindnesses toward us instead of complaining about our losses takes a great deal of energy and persistence. We need to develop a mindset that looks for God's graciousness at all times.
An attitude of thanksgiving should dominate the life of the believer. Ingratitude is the mark of the devil. Satan whispers in our ears to make us think about what God has taken away from us. God wants us to look at what He has freely given to us. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). We have so much to be thankful for!
When the nation of Israel moved out of Egypt en masse into the wilderness of Sinai, the first thing they did was complain. They complained about the conditions, the lack of water and meat, and their vulnerability to the Egyptians. God had set them free from slavery, but already they had forgotten.
One Minute Please
When we set our eyes on our misfortunes, we soon forget to express gratitude.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Our Careful Unbelief
. . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on -Matthew 6:25
Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, "Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?" And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
". . . do not worry about your life . . . ." Don't take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No- "the cares of this world" (MatthewMatthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, "I will not trust when I cannot see"- and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.
The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.
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Understanding Faith
In the last two devotionals, we have been talking about faith and the importance of both the proper diet of God's Word, and exercising our faith if we are to see it grow.
The natural question is, "What is faith?" Most Christians probably know the technical definition for faith from Hebrews 11:1,
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The New International Version says, Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That is pretty clear. But it becomes even more clear when you plug that definition into 1 Timothy 6:12,
Fight the good fight of [the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Fight the good fight of being sure of what you hope for and being convinced of what you do not see.]
When the answer to your prayers is not on the horizon, when you don't feel differently, you need to fight the good fight and say, "You know what? God's Word says it and that's all the evidence I need. It is the evidence of things not seen, and I'm going to stand on that truth. I don't care what the world says, I don't care what circumstances say, I am going to fight the good fight of the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what I do not see."
And you stay with it until, as they say, "Faith turns to sight."
What are you struggling with today? What challenge is testing your faith? Stand firm on the truth of God's Word. Trust Him, no matter what others may say.
Real faith is standing firm in the midst of the storm. So stand firm!
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Living in Gratitude
In His Presence: Acts 16:16-34
"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6).
In even the worst situations there's always a reason to give thanks. There was a man who needed his dress pants ironed. While his wife was ironing them she burned them. The man began to get angry, but then he paused a moment to think about it. He realized he could thank the Lord that his leg wasn't in that pair of pants when they were burned!
The apostles Paul and Silas were falsely accused, arrested, and put into jail. They were beaten with rods and thrown into the inner prison, their feet placed in stocks. "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25). Even in pain, they were singing and praising God. Later, because of their testimony the jailor was saved.
Job was a righteous man. He prayed and offered sacrifices not only for himself but also for his children. One day, disaster struck his family and possessions, and he lost everything. Job grieved and mourned, but he also fell down in worship of God and said these words: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).
One Minute Please
"The Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalms 84:11). How diligent are you in giving thanks to God?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
The Delight of Despair
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead -Revelation 1:17
It may be that, like the apostle John, you know Jesus Christ intimately. Yet when He suddenly appears to you with totally unfamiliar characteristics, the only thing you can do is fall "at His feet as dead." There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awesomeness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair. You experience this joy in hopelessness, realizing that if you are ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God.
"He laid His right hand on me . . ." (Revelation 1:17). In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27), full of support, provision, comfort, and strength. And once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory, the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, saying, "Do not be afraid" (Revelation 1:17). His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells . . ." (Romans 7:18). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.
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Your Professional Trainer
As we continue to look at faith, I want you to read Hebrews 12:1-2,
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
What this passage teaches about faith is vital for you to understand if you are to progress in your faith. That truth is simply this: Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He not only authors it, He is the One who is the developer of our faith.
Remember the analogy of the body builder from the last two devotionals? Well, if your faith is like a body builder, Jesus is your weight trainer. Many of the people who are seriously into body building have a professional trainer who will work with them to be more effective in building muscle mass and sculpting their body.
Just like the professional weight trainer for a body builder, Jesus is your professional faith trainer. No one knows more about faith than Jesus. If you want to learn about faith, you need to listen to Jesus. You need to follow His guidance on how to build your faith.
Over the next few devotionals, I will show you three levels of faith Jesus talks about. Through that process, I pray you will discover where you are at, and see where you need to go and what you need to pursue in order for your faith to grow.
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Satan's Lies
In His Presence: John 17:17
Satan convinced Eve that he was harmless, not a creature to fear or be wary of. Today, he wants us to believe that we don't need to fear him and to think that he may not even exist. Second, Satan convinced Eve that God was holding out on her. Satan wants us to focus on our misfortunes.
"The woman said to the serpent, 'From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die." ' The serpent said to the woman, 'You surely will not die!' ''(Genesis 3:2-3). He was saying that God's word could not be trusted.
Satan discovered that Eve had lost sight of what God actually said. First, she minimized God's goodness by leaving out the word "freely" in God's command to Adam. He had said: "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely" (Genesis 2:16). Second, she made God look stricter than He was by saying they could not touch the fruit of the restricted tree. God had not said anything about touching it. Third, she lessened God's judgment by saying "lest you die." She was implying an uncertainty. Instead, God had said: "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17).
One Minute Please
When Eve distorted God's word, she was receptive to Satan's lie that God's word could not be trusted.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Unquestion Revelation
In that day you will ask Me nothing -John 16:23
When is "that day"? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. "In that day" you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, "In that day you will ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone- you don't seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren't you?
"In that day" there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. "In that day you will ask Me nothing"- you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature- that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. "In that day you will ask Me nothing."
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Your Purpose
Today I want to speak to you about your destiny and purpose. First, read Ephesians 2:10,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The word beforehand refers to before the foundation of the world. What the apostle Paul is saying in this verse is that before we were ever born, God prepared good works for us to walk in them. God decided that we would be doing certain things.
Listen to that same verse from the Knox Translation, We are His design. God has created us in Christ Jesus, pledged to such good actions as He has prepared beforehand to be the employment of our lives. I like that.
Paraphrased, "You were designed with a unique purpose, and that is what you should be doing with your life."
In Philippians 3:12, Paul also states,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
The phrase "I press on" literally means "I pursue." What is it that Paul states he is pursuing? He is pursuing his purpose.
On that Damascus road, Jesus laid hold of Saul of Tarsus, and He did it for a reason. There was a purpose involved. From the day that Jesus Christ laid hold of him, Paul's life became a progressive search to lay hold of the answer to the question, "God, why have You laid hold of me? What is my purpose?"
My point? You have a God-designed purpose in life! There is something that you are wired up to do as the employment of your life.
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Do You Believe God's Word?
In his Presence: Psalm 1:1-2
"Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior"(Titus 1:1-3).
Satan calls into question the integrity of God. But as we see in the above verse, it is impossible for God to lie-it's against His nature. While it is impossible for God to tell a lie, it is nearly impossible for Satan to tell the truth. In the Garden of Eden, he pulled Eve away from God using a lie that looked good to her.
This is every Christian's battle. Satan starts by introducing a little lie and casting doubt. The reason we believe the Bible is the Word of God is because Jesus said it was the Word of God. If Jesus was wrong about that, then He was not Jesus. Jesus would be in error, so He could not be the Son of God. We know Jesus could not be in error and be God as well. So then the Bible is the Word of God.
Satan wants us to doubt God's Word. Whether we'll admit it or not, we've all failed to act on His Word. We often turn to other sources of assistance in dealing with money, family, life, priorities, and choices.
One Minute Please
Which of your decisions indicate that you don't believe God's Word?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Untroubled Relationship
In that day you will ask in My name . . . for the Father Himself loves you . . . -John 16:26-27
In that day you will ask in My name . . . ," that is, in My nature. Not "You will use My name as some magic word," but-"You will be so intimate with Me that you will be one with Me." "That day" is not a day in the next life, but a day meant for here and now. ". . . for the Father Himself loves you . . ."- the Father's love is evidence that our union with Jesus is complete and absolute. Our Lord does not mean that our lives will be free from external difficulties and uncertainties, but that just as He knew the Father's heart and mind, we too can be lifted by Him into heavenly places through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that He can reveal the teachings of God to us.
". . . whatever you ask the Father in My name . . ." (John 16:23). "That day" is a day of peace and an untroubled relationship between God and His saint. Just as Jesus stood unblemished and pure in the presence of His Father, we too by the mighty power and effectiveness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit can be lifted into that relationship-". . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." (John 17:22).
". . . He will give you" (John 16:23). Jesus said that because of His name God will recognize and respond to our prayers. What a great challenge and invitation-to pray in His name! Through the resurrection and ascension power of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit He has sent, we can be lifted into such a relationship. Once in that wonderful position, having been placed there by Jesus Christ, we can pray to God in Jesus' name-in His nature. This is a gift granted to us through the Holy Spirit, and Jesus said, ". . . whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." The sovereign character of Jesus Christ is tested and proved by His own statements
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The Place of Blessing
In Genesis 12:1-3 we read,
Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Notice how God says to Abram, "Abram, I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." But here is what I want you to see: Abram's being a blessing was tied to being in God's purpose. He could only become a great blessing if he followed God's calling.
You will never be the blessing God intends for you to be if you are not flowing in your purpose.
Was there risk involved for Abram? You bet! He had to leave everything that was familiar to him, all of his security, everything that was comfortable and familiar.
He left Ur of the Chaldeans, which history tells us was one of the most highly developed cities of the ancient world. They had cobblestone streets, an underground sewage system, and it was a place of world trade.
Abram left all of that and went out on an adventure by faith, pursuing the purpose that God had for his life. And in pursuing that purpose, God blessed him, and he became a blessing.
But think about this. What if he had stayed back? What if he had said, "I'm secure here; I have it made; I have a nice house and everything I need. I think I will stay put." We would not even know his name.
Pursue your purpose. That is the place of God's blessing.
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Demonstrating Our Faith
In His Presence: Psalm 100:4-5
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1-2).
Biblical faith is not amorphous. We don't believe in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy-they have no substance or reality to them. Faith believes in the character and the promises of a very real God. We demonstrate our faith by acting on His Word.
Have you ever turned on your radio to listen to the traffic reports? We believe these reports because someone is up in a helicopter and can see much more from the air than we can from the ground. They have a different perspective than we have. We demonstrate our trust in their word by taking a different route to our destination.
Doppler radar makes weather patterns visible, enabling scientists to see something that is invisible to the eye. Doppler radar provides a measure of safety, especially at airports where wind shears could make the ride pretty rough for planes about to take off or land. Occasionally, a burst of invisible wind could drive a commercial airliner to the ground like a toy.
In the spiritual realm, we are limited in our perspective. We cannot see what is happening in that realm unless we believe God, who gives us the details. Fire is hot; the sky is blue; water is wet; and God tells the truth. "If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar" (Romans 3:3-4).
One Minute Please
Faith has substance because God has substance.
:angel:
May 30 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
"Yes- But . . .!"
Lord, I will follow You, but . . . -Luke 9:61
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, "Yes, but- suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?" Or we say, "Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn't go against my common sense, but don't ask me to take a step in the dark."
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis- only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
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The Signpost of a Provoked Heart
Without a doubt, God has plans for you. Your life is no accident. You have a purpose. In today's devotional, we will discover an important key to help you understand your calling.
Let's look first at Acts 17:16-17,
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
The word provoked literally means that his spirit was deeply troubled, his spirit was grieved within him.
That gives us the first step in understanding your purpose. What grieves your heart? Paul was grieved about this city wholly given over to idols. And the next verse begins with the word therefore. He did something about it.
Generally, the things that grieve you in your heart are things that God has gifted you to change. They point you to your purpose.
For instance, in Job 30:25, Job said, "Has not my soul grieved for the poor?" If you read Job's story, a big part of his ministry had to do with helping the poor. It was tied to what caused his heart to grieve.
Then there was David who was grieved and provoked as Goliath was taunting the Israelites. Why? David was called to be a leader and a warrior in Israel. It was a signpost pointing to his calling.
What is it that provokes you in your heart? Whatever it is, do something about it.
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God Said So
In His Presence: Matthew 4:1-11
"The tempter came and said to [Jesus], 'If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.' But He answered and said, 'It is written, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" ' ''(Matthew 4:3-4).
What should we do when we face Satan's lies, especially the lie that God's Word cannot be true? Jesus was faced with a legitimate need-the need to eat to sustain Himself. His need wasn't wrong. Jesus had the power to do what was suggested, but to do it at the demand of Satan would have been satisfying Himself apart from God.
What proceeds out of God's mouth must be our foundation for everything. It must be the foundation for counseling, for work, for our families, and for our finances. God has given us His definitive Word, and His Word addresses everything that is relevant to us today. Christians who do not believe His Word and obey it do not see His power demonstrated today. God does not want us to pay homage to Him; He wants us to believe Him and act on faith. Faith believes God in the absence of empirical evidence.
In the Garden of Eden, Eve stumbled over this type of faith. She failed the test because she did not believe something she had never seen-death. When it's difficult to believe God but we place our faith in Him anyway, that's faith.
One Minute Please
Faith is believing something is so, even when it is not visibly so, that it might be so simply because God said so.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Put God First
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . .for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Put Trust in God First. Our Lord never put His trust in any person. Yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, and never lost hope for anyone, because He put His trust in God first. He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for others. If I put my trust in human beings first, the end result will be my despair and hopelessness toward everyone. I will become bitter because I have insisted that people be what no person can ever be- absolutely perfect and right. Never trust anything in yourself or in anyone else, except the grace of God.
Put God's Will First. "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:9).
A person's obedience is to what he sees to be a need- our Lord's obedience was to the will of His Father. The rallying cry today is, "We must get to work! The heathen are dying without God. We must go and tell them about Him." But we must first make sure that God's "needs" and His will in us personally are being met. Jesus said, ". . . tarry . . . until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). The purpose of our Christian training is to get us into the right relationship to the "needs" of God and His will. Once God's "needs" in us have been met, He will open the way for us to accomplish His will, meeting His "needs" elsewhere.
Put God's Son First. "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me" (Matthew 18:5).
God came as a baby, giving and entrusting Himself to me. He expects my personal life to be a "Bethlehem." Am I allowing my natural life to be slowly transformed by the indwelling life of the Son of God? God's ultimate purpose is that His Son might be exhibited in me.
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Intimacy with God
Paul, in Philippians 3:10-12, gives us the other principle for discovering your purpose,
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul said, "I am pursuing my purpose," but it was a purpose based on knowing God. Look at what he said in verse 10, That I may know Him.
The understanding of his purpose came out of that primary desire and pursuit of knowing God Himself and living in intimacy with Him.
Perhaps the most important thing you could do in your life right now is to just lock yourself away, grab your Bible, and go sit at the beach. Find that place of communion with God. As you get to know Him, you will also discover your own heart and the dreams and desires that God put within you.
They are there. They may be covered with debris, they may be covered with dust, but they are there. You can find out what they are if you will develop that intimate relationship with God.
It is in closeness with God that His breath blows the dust off of undiscerned and unrecognized purposes and dreams.
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Know God's Written Word
In His Presence: 1 Corinthians 1:4-5
"The devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, "He will command His angels concerning You"; and "On their hands they will bear You up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." ' Jesus said to him, 'On the other hand, it is written, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" ' ''(Matthew 4:5-7).
We can be certain that Satan knows the Bible. He knows what it says and how to twist it into half-truths when it serves his purposes. Satan pulled a portion of Scripture out of context to serve his purposes. It isn't enough for us to know the words in the Bible; we need to know the context. We need to understand the basic principle that the Word of God never violates: God does not contradict Himself.
"Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Go, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." ' Then the devil left Him"(vv. 8-11).
One Minute Please
If the Living Word, who wrote the written Word, needed to use the written Word to get Satan off His back, then think how much more we need to use the written Word of God to fend off the devil!
:angel: :angel:
June 3, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
"The Secret of the Lord"
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him . . . -Psalm 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving Him no time to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God. But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself- to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so intimately united to Jesus Christ's idea of prayer- "Your will be done" (Matthew 6:10)- that we catch the secrets of God? What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us- He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.
"Him shall He teach in the way He chooses" (Psalm 25:12). At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God. But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never try to reason it out, saying, "I wonder why I shouldn't do this?" God instructs us in what we choose; that is, He actually guides our common sense. And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, "Now, Lord, what is Your will?
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Strengthen Yourself
For today's devotional, I would like you to read 1 Samuel 30:6 again as it contains another truth I want you to see,
Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
Notice that this verse begins by saying, David was greatly distressed, but it ends this way, But David strengthened himself in the Lord.
It is all right to weep, but when you are done, you need to strengthen yourself. It is all right to grieve, it is all right to express those emotions, but when you are done, you need to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
You need to connect with God in whatever way you find is best for you. If it is lifting your hands and worshiping Him, then that is what you should do.
If it is getting into His Word (which I would suggest for everyone) and spending time feeding your spirit, then do that. If it is reminding yourself about how God has helped you in the past, you need to do that.
Personally I believe that is what David was doing when the Bible says he "strengthened himself in the Lord." I think David was reminding himself about:
· How God delivered him from the lion and the bear;
· How God delivered Goliath into his hands; and
· How God delivered him when Saul tried to kill him.
I am confident David was thinking, "You know, God hasn't delivered me so miraculously in my past to get to this point and to let go of my hand and abandon me. I know He is going to help me now."
David was strengthening himself in the Lord, and you need to learn to do the same thing.
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Does Sin Have Consequences?
In His Presence: 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
"From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die"(Genesis 2:17).
When Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden that she would not die from eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he emphasized his lie: "You surely will not die!" (Genesis 3:4). By telling her this, he was implying two things: God's Word could not be trusted, and there would be no consequences to her disobedience to God. Satan's fourth lie in this passage was that you can rebel against God and get away with it.
Sin is a violation of the law of God. Just like "No trespassing" signs say we are subject to prosecution if we violate the trespassing laws, God said to Adam and Eve and the rest of the world that when we have violated His law we will suffer the consequences. God's law is a reflection of His character. He doesn't make rules just to make rules. His guidelines and regulations reflect what He is like.
One of the chief definitions of sin is that which is contrary to the holiness of God. At the root of the word holy is the word separate. At the root of the word separate is the concept that God and sin cannot inhabit the same environment. He is wholly separate.
One Minute Please
Because of God's purity and holiness, God never gets used to filth. We may get used to it, but according to His nature, God cannot.
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
The Never-forsaking God
He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you' -Hebrews 13:5
What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I have heard what He says? "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?' " (Hebrews 13:5-6).
"I will never leave you . . ."- not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
"I will never . . . forsake you." Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful- just the everyday activities of life- do I hear God's assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing- that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God's assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
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Inquire of the Lord
1 Samuel 30:8 tells us what David did next as He sought to deal with the troubles that besieged him. After grieving and strengthening himself in the Lord, here is what he did,
So David inquired of the LORD, saying, "Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?" And He answered him, "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all."
David inquired of the Lord.
There is a story in the book of Joshua that shows the importance of inquiring of God, of seeking His guidance, no matter how things may seem.
The nation of Israel had entered the Promised Land and they were gaining great victories. One day a group of Gibeonites showed up. They had bags full of old moldy bread, their sandals were worn out, their water skins were cracked and old, and their clothing was old and worn.
They told Joshua and the leaders that they had come from a country far, far away. They went on to tell them they had heard about the great things God was doing through Israel, and they wanted to make sure they would not be attacked. So they had traveled from afar to make a covenant so that when Israel eventually reached them in the future, they wouldn't attack the Gibeonites.
The Bible says specifically that Joshua and the men did not inquire of the Lord. Rather, they looked at the people's provisions...the moldy bread, the old sandals, the old water skins...and they made a covenant with them.
It turns out they were the next door neighbors and Israel had been deceived. And it caused huge problems in Israel's future.
I am telling you, things are not always as they appear. It pays to inquire of the Lord when you are going through difficult times. He will lead you.
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Running From God
In His Presence: 1 Peter 2:15-16
"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden"(Genesis 3:8).
God told Adam and Eve that the day they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. Obviously their physical bodies didn't die, as they lived for centuries (see Genesis 5:5) after the moment of their disobedience to God. In the Bible the word death means separation. God told Adam and Eve they would be separated from Him. A barrier came between God and His creation.
Before the day they disobeyed, Adam and Eve walked with God in close fellowship: "The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). After they ate the fruit, they began running from God. Adam said: "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself" (3:10).
When someone hides from his Creator rather than enjoying Him, a spiritual death has taken place. Adam and Eve were suddenly full of guilt, shame, and fear. They hid from God and were frightened of Him. We can call that emotional death. They were suffering the consequences of death. When they were not alienated from sharing a life with God, there was peace in their minds about themselves and their world.
One Minute Please
Today, we are separated from God by our inherited death sentence. Only God's grace sets us free.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
God's Assurance
He Himself has said . . . . So we may boldly say . . . -Hebrews 13:5-6
My assurance is to be built upon God's assurance to me. God says, "I will never leave you," so that then I "may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear' " (Hebrews 13:5-6). In other words, I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean that I will not be tempted to fear, but I will remember God's words of assurance. I will be full of courage, like a child who strives to reach the standard his father has set for him. The faith of many people begins to falter when apprehensions enter their thinking, and they forget the meaning of God's assurance- they forget to take a deep spiritual breath. The only way to remove the fear from our lives is to listen to God's assurance to us.
What are you fearing? Whatever it may be, you are not a coward about it- you are determined to face it, yet you still have a feeling of fear. When it seems that there is nothing and no one to help you, say to yourself, "But 'The Lord is my helper' this very moment, even in my present circumstance." Are you learning to listen to God before you speak, or are you saying things and then trying to make God's Word fit what you have said? Take hold of the Father's assurance, and then say with strong courage, "I will not fear." It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in our way, because "He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you . . . .' "
Human frailty is another thing that gets between God's words of assurance and our own words and thoughts. When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God seems to be nonexistent. But remember God's assurance to us- "I will never. . . forsake you." Have we learned to sing after hearing God's keynote? Are we continually filled with enough courage to say, "The Lord is my helper," or are we yielding to fear?
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Global Harvest
In Mark 16:15 Jesus said,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
In Matthew 13:38 He said,
"The field is the world..."
We need to lift up our eyes upon the harvest field "of the world."
It may sound crazy, but God is expecting us to do something about the salvation of the whole world!
In James chapter five, we are told that God is like a farmer waiting patiently for the precious fruit "of the earth." The implication there is that the Lord is coming, but there is a great global harvest coming first.
Here are some things you can do to be a part of reaching the world for Christ:
Pray - Matthew 9:37-38 says, Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
Give - Generously support ministries that are reaching the lost. Make the mission outreaches of your own church a priority.
Go - Jesus' command to go is to all believers. At the very least, take a short term missions trip to share the Good News with others.
Remember, the only things we will take to heaven with us are the precious souls we have brought to Christ.
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The Death of the Family
In His Presence: Colossians 1:9
"I will put enmity between [the serpent] and the woman"(Genesis 3:15).
When Satan wanted to instigate mankind's rebellion against God, he went to the woman to undermine the man's God-given authority. He approached Eve rather than Adam at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to discuss what God said about the tree.
Eve responded to Satan's prompts by taking up the position of the spiritual guide for her family. Eve made the decision about the direction the family would move. Adam became the follower. Eve ate the fruit and gave it to her husband. We know that Adam was with her; he heard the conversation Eve had with the serpent and did not interpose God's viewpoint. Eve became the initiator and Adam became the responder. Their roles were reversed.
When a man gives up the biblical headship of his family, especially in the spiritual realm, there is a death in the relationship. Satan has become an expert in getting men to forsake their biblical roles because he knows if he can get the man out of his leadership role, the family will be weakened. We think conflict in the family is about differing personalities, or about finances, or how to rear our children. But the underlying cause is the death of the spiritual state in the home. The roles have been reversed, and man has forsaken the spiritual mantle God gave to all men.
One Minute Please
When the husband and/or wife have rebelled against God in some way, death takes hold of family relationships.
:angel:
Devotion by Oswald Chambers
"Work Out" What God "Works in" You
. . . work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you . . . -Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, "But I don't know if my will is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say "I will not obey" is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God's creation of human beings- sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. ". . . for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." With focused attention and great care, you have to "work out" what God "works in" you- not work to accomplish or earn "your own salvation," but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God's will- God's will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God's will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with "dynamite," and the "dynamite" is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
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Two Voices that Cry Out
Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (James 5:3-4).
These words are written to believers, to Christians who are hoarding up wealth rather than giving to support the spread of the gospel.
The reapers in verse 4 are those preaching and working out in the harvest fields of the world. Notice it says that the Lord has heard their cry. But if you read carefully, you will find that another cry has entered the Lord's ears as well.
"The wages" of the laborers cry out to God as well! The tithes and offerings that have been withheld cry out. Monies that should have been sown into the cause of Christ are raising their voices in a mighty chorus to heaven!
Large amounts of undesignated and unused funds that sit in bank vaults cry out. Funds God has graciously given to His people that have been withheld from their purpose-to bring a living Jesus to a dying world-cry out and cry out and cry out!
Are you sitting on a talking wallet today? Is your purse crying out to God? If you could hear their voice, what would they cry? "China! Europe! Africa! The Middle East!"??
Are you generously supporting the work of your own local church? Do not let your money testify against you! Give where, when, and how much God directs- consistently-into the work of His Kingdom.
If the precious fruit of the earth is going to be reaped, we have to support those who labor in the field.
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Respect for God's Laws
In His Presence: Hebrews 12:1-12
"To Adam [God] said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat from it," cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to the dust you shall return' ''(Genesis 3:17-19).
There are definitely consequences to sin. Sometimes we don't connect the problem with the cause. In this case, when Adam sinned, he affected the world of work. Even the ground was cursed. Though Satan denied that there would be death upon eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a lot of the dying wasn't immediately evident. Economy was affected. Adam and Eve's family felt the results of death in the discord within. Their bodies began to die. Ultimately, they died physically as well.
We can cut a flower from its stem. It dies right away because it is separated from the source of life, but it doesn't appear dead immediately. The longer it is unattached, the more evident death becomes. One thing we must realize about sin and consequences is that we can choose the sin, but we cannot choose the consequences.
One Minute Please
We must respect God's laws.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . -John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point- the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? "If you abide in Me . . . "- that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point- "you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these- what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
"Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . . ." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God's foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
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A Chain Reaction
Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus (John 1:35-37).
When John opened his mouth about Jesus, two people who heard him speak followed the Lord. We must open our mouths about the Lamb of God if we want people to follow Him.
Look what happens next in John 1:40-42,
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
We have a chain reaction happening here. John says, "Behold the Lamb of God," and two men follow Jesus. One of the men, Andrew, goes straight to his brother and brings him to Jesus. It is interesting to note that it says he "first" found his own brother-indicating that Simon was not the only one that Andrew found and brought to the Lord.
The remainder of this chapter in John tells us how Philip told Nathaniel about Jesus and was able to persuade him to meet the Lord with the words "come and see."
These stories from the first chapter of John reveal to us what we should be doing once we meet Jesus. We need to bring our friends and loved ones to the Lord. We should be inviting them to "come and see."
Take a moment right now and ask God to show you someone who you should talk to about Jesus. Then get busy and do it. You just may see a chain reaction of salvations.
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The Cure
In His Presence: 1 John 1:9
"The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel"(Mark 1:15).
Sin is more than just a problem in our lives. Many of our troubles are the consequences of sin. Sin always carries a consequence. Some of us may be suffering consequences for many years. Aren't you tired of living with these consequences? God has a cure-repentance.
Repentance is God's way of restoring harmony and removing the impregnable wall that goes up when we've lost our close fellowship with Him. Repentance is the decision to turn from sin in order for God to bring an end to the judgment He has wrought on us. Repentance repairs relationships.
The Greek word metanoia means a change of mind. It is often translated as repentance. It involves a change of heart, a new way of looking at life. Only one aspect of metanoia is repentance. It is much more like a rebirth. Metanoia involves a realization or new way of looking at ourselves. Like David who said: "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13), we need to wake up to the fact that we have sinned against God and God alone. We have offended God.
True repentance involves regret. We should feel sorrow over our sin, not just sorrow over the fact that we got caught. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom" (James 4:8-9). We need to be broken-hearted before God about our sins.
One Minute Please
Have you gotten sick over your sins yet?
:angel:
June 10, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
And After That What's Next To Do?
. . . seek, and you will find . . . -Luke 11:9
Seek if you have not found. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss . . ." (James 4:3). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, "you ask amiss"; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God. ". . . seek, and you will find . . . ." Get to work- narrow your focus and interests to this one thing. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? ". . . seek, [focus,] and you will find . . . ."
"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. . ." (Isaiah 55:1). Are you thirsty, or complacent and indifferent- so satisfied with your own experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a doorway, not a final goal. Beware of building your faith on experience, or your life will not ring true and will only sound the note of a critical spirit. Remember that you can never give another person what you have found, but you can cause him to have a desire for it.
". . . knock, and it will be opened to you" (Luke 11:9). "Draw near to God . . ." (James 4:8). Knock- the door is closed, and your heartbeat races as you knock. "Cleanse your hands . . ." (James 4:8). Knock a bit louder- you begin to find that you are dirty. ". . . purify your hearts . . ." (James 4:8). It is becoming even more personal- you are desperate and serious now- you will do anything. "Lament . . . " (James 4:9). Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are. "Humble yourselves . . . " (James 4:10). It is a humbling experience to knock at God's door- you have to knock with the crucified thief. ". . . to him who knocks it will be opened" (Luke 11:10).
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Making a Priority of Faith
When we talk about what pleases God, I think we must put faith at the top of the list. Very simply, faith pleases God.
Hebrews 11-often called the faith chapter-makes it very clear how vital faith is to pleasing God. In fact, Hebrews 11:6 tells us,
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Notice it doesn't say, "Without faith it is very difficult to please Him." No, it is impossible to please God without faith. You and I must learn to trust God if we are to bring a smile to the face of God.
Some people say, "Well, there is just too much teaching on faith." I disagree. Why? Because it takes faith to please God. Without it, we have no chance at all of pleasing Him. In fact, Hebrews 10:38 states,
Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
That is pretty black and white, isn't it? If you desire to please God, it starts with faith, trusting God completely.
I challenge you today to ask yourself, "Do I really trust God with every part of my life? Do I place my faith in Him moment by moment? Or do I refuse to trust Him as I should?"
If this is an area of struggle for you, determine today to spend time in the Word of God. For the Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Ask God to speak to you through His Word. Your faith and trust in Him will grow. Our great God is worthy of your trust.
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God Is Unique
In His Presence: Nehemiah 9:6
"Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; yes, let him recount it to Me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place' ''(Isaiah 44:6-7).
There are no other beings like God. He is entirely unique. Anyone trying to equate themselves to the status of deity is practicing idolatry. God establishes His uniqueness in so many ways. " 'You are my witnesses,' declares theLord, 'and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me' '' (Isaiah 43:10).
When God placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden and placed a limitation on the man He had created, He was saying that He is God, the Creator, and Adam was man, the created. He lay down a clearly marked line that Adam and Eve were not to cross over.
"I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God"(Isaiah 45:5). Satan, in the Garden of Eden, held out to Adam and Eve the idea that they could cross over the line and become like God.
One Minute Please
God is so spectacular that it will take all of eternity for us to get to know Him.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Getting There (1)
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words- "Come to Me." Our Lord's words are not, "Do this, or don't do that," but- "Come to me." If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing- "Come to Me." If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord- "Come to Me," and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be "foolish" enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
". . . and I will give you rest"- that is, "I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm." He is not saying, "I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep." But, in essence, He is saying, "I will get you out of bed- out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity." Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about "suffering" the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
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The Nature of Faith
In our last devotional, we talked about how important faith is to pleasing God. It is not just important, it's essential, because without it, you and I cannot please God.
The natural question is, "What is faith?"
In Hebrews 11:1, the writer gives us the technical definition of biblical faith,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith deals with unseen reality. In fact, Weymouth's translation says, "Faith is a conviction of the reality of things we do not see."
You might think, "That's a nice definition, but what does that really mean?" That is a good question. And it is answered by the examples given in Hebrews 11 which show different ways people expressed their faith in God, because there is not just one way to demonstrate faith in God:
Abel shows us that faith is giving our best to God. He deserves our first and our best.
Enoch shows us that faith is walking with God. It is living a life in constant connection with God, even when you can't sense or feel Him.
Noah shows us that faith is making preparations as though Christ is coming back today, even when there is seemingly no evidence.
Abraham shows us that faith is obeying God, even though you may not know where He is leading you.
Sarah shows us that faith is receiving God's promise, even when public opinion says, "No way!"
Moses shows us that faith is living life in light of eternity, and allowing that focus to affect all of life's decisions.
Commit today to live this life of faith. If you do, you will truly please God!
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Knowledge vs. Power
In His Presence: Proverbs 3:19-20
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host" - (Isaiah 45:12).
God wants a Creator/creature distinction between us. We can still relate with each other, talk, and have fun. But we must not forget there is a difference. We have limitations while God does not. A good illustration of this type of relationship is the teen/parent relationship. Teenagers often question why there should be a distinction in the relationship. Depending upon whom they listen to, they may feel that their parents are withholding things that will make life better. They don't understand why they can't enjoy the same privileges as their parents.
Why would Satan tell Eve that eating the fruit would open her eyes and make her like God? Does this reasoning sound familiar?
Satan basically said, "God wants to keep us ignorant so He can control us. If He can control us, He can always tell us what to do and be our boss. But if we eat of the tree we won't be ignorant anymore. We will know what He knows and be able to do what He does."
In using the word know, Satan was implying that information equaled power-the power to determine our own future, our own fate.
One Minute Please
Using our illustration of the teen/parent relationship, Satan was encouraging Adam and Eve to think like the teen who wants his parents to pay the bills, but does not want to submit to their authority.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Getting There (3)
. . . come, follow Me -Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you- and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, "Come," then He will continue to say, "Come," through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ's "Come." That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now
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God's Pleasure...Your Blessing
In Psalm 35:27 we are told,
Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, "Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant."
This Psalm says it clearly-God is pleased when you are blessed. The Revised Standard Version translates this verse this way, God delights in the welfare of His servant.
In Luke 12, when talking about God meeting our practical, physical, and material needs, Jesus says, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
You do not need to somehow convince God to meet your needs. In fact, God desires to bless you.
It is like the son who felt his father had not provided for him when his dad passed away. His father left one sibling some property, another one some valuable stock, and all the son got was a box of what looked to him like junk.
One day, because of financial trouble, the son had to move out of his apartment. As he cleaned things out, he found the box of junk he had thrown in the back of a closet. Noticing there were some stamps and trading cards in the box, he decided to see if they were worth anything.
It turned out the trading card collection was filled with rare baseball cards in mint condition. And every one of the stamps was very rare-very valuable. The combined appraisal of the two collections was over $450,000!
His father had provided for him, but the son had lived far below those privileges because he didn't believe his father had blessed him!
Our heavenly Father delights in, He takes pleasure in, the prosperity of His servant. And that means you!
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Who Will Be Our God?
In His Presence: 1 Peter 3:15
"If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"(Exodus 19:5-6).
When Satan tried to get Eve to take the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he put forth arguments that sounded convincing in her ears. He told her God was holding out on them. He said if they ate the fruit, they would be like God. He said God's Word couldn't really be trusted anyway.
There was something that Satan didn't tell the first married couple. In disobeying God, they would be obeying Satan, making him their master. He knew that whomever we obey is our god. So the devil was not just offering Adam and Eve a bit of knowledge independently of God, he was offering himself as their new god. That is what he originally wanted as Lucifer, the angel of light. He wanted to be like God. We're right back to the issue that caused the problems in the first place.
Moses said: "If you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 28:1-3).
One Minute Please
The issue today for us is whom are we going to obey? Who is the authority in our lives?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Get Moving! (1)
Abide in Me . . . -John 15:4
In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus- I have to do it myself. I have to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). "Abide in Me"- in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord's inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father's plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord's life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).
Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, "Yes, Lord, just a minute- I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then." Get moving- begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.
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A Prosperous Attitude
In our previous devotional, we learned that God is pleased to bless us. But that prosperity must be accompanied by a special attitude...an attitude that is captured in 1 Kings 3.
This passage records God's appearance to Solomon in a dream at Gibeon. In the dream God said to Solomon, "Ask! What shall I give you?"
What an incredible statement, and question! Equally incredible is Solomon's response, which revealed the attitude of his heart, the attitude which must accompany our prosperity. That response is captured in verses 7-10,
"Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?" The speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.
God is pleased when, in our hearts, we put others before ourselves. God delights in prospering us when prosperity is not our chief aim. When we get it right, and in our hearts we do place others before ourselves, God can bless us beyond our wildest dreams.
God will give you everything you need to fulfill His plan for your life. He will give you richly all things to enjoy, as long as you have a prosperous attitude that puts His plans and His people first.
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Knowledge vs. Power
In His Presence: Proverbs 3:19-20
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host"(Isaiah 45:12).
God wants a Creator/creature distinction between us. We can still relate with each other, talk, and have fun. But we must not forget there is a difference. We have limitations while God does not. A good illustration of this type of relationship is the teen/parent relationship. Teenagers often question why there should be a distinction in the relationship. Depending upon whom they listen to, they may feel that their parents are withholding things that will make life better. They don't understand why they can't enjoy the same privileges as their parents.
Why would Satan tell Eve that eating the fruit would open her eyes and make her like God? Does this reasoning sound familiar?
Satan basically said, "God wants to keep us ignorant so He can control us. If He can control us, He can always tell us what to do and be our boss. But if we eat of the tree we won't be ignorant anymore. We will know what He knows and be able to do what He does."
In using the word know, Satan was implying that information equaled power-the power to determine our own future, our own fate.
One Minute Please
Using our illustration of the teen/parent relationship, Satan was encouraging Adam and Eve to think like the teen who wants his parents to pay the bills, but does not want to submit to their authority.
:angel:
June 17, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
The Uncritical Temper
Judge not, that ye be not judged. - Matthew 7:1
Jesus says regarding judging - Don't. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized; the Holy Ghost is the only One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple cultivate the uncritical temper. It is not done once and for all. Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person's place.
There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-20). Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
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Fearing God
In Psalm 147:10-11, David gives us insight into two things that please God-two things that may seem disconnected from each other.
He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
First, God delights in those who fear Him, those who have a reverential respect and awe for Him. Second, God is pleased with those who hope in His mercy.
In today's devotional, I want to focus on what it means to truly fear God. And, in tomorrow's devotional, we will look at what it means to hope in mercy, and how these two are connected.
Scripture constantly admonishes us to fear God. But how do you do that? I believe the Bible gives us at least four ways:
Through a hatred of evil. Proverbs 8:13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.
Through radical obedience. To fear the Lord means to radically obey Him, as Abraham did in Genesis 22 when he was willing to sacrifice his son.
With an awareness that God is always watching you. Scripture makes it clear there is nowhere you can go that God does not see.
With the knowledge that one day you will have to stand before God as your Judge. Jesus even tells us that one day, when we stand before Him, we will have to give an account of every idle word we have spoken.
Pray today that God will help you live your life by these four principles. Because God delights in those who fear Him.
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Who Will Be Our God?
In His Presence: 1 Peter 3:15
"If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"(Exodus 19:5-6).
When Satan tried to get Eve to take the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he put forth arguments that sounded convincing in her ears. He told her God was holding out on them. He said if they ate the fruit, they would be like God. He said God's Word couldn't really be trusted anyway.
There was something that Satan didn't tell the first married couple. In disobeying God, they would be obeying Satan, making him their master. He knew that whomever we obey is our god. So the devil was not just offering Adam and Eve a bit of knowledge independently of God, he was offering himself as their new god. That is what he originally wanted as Lucifer, the angel of light. He wanted to be like God. We're right back to the issue that caused the problems in the first place.
Moses said: "If you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 28:1-3).
One Minute Please
The issue today for us is whom are we going to obey? Who is the authority in our lives?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
Keep Recognizing Jesus
. . . Peter . . . walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid . . . -Matthew 14:29-30
The wind really was boisterous and the waves really were high, but Peter didn't see them at first. He didn't consider them at all; he simply recognized his Lord, stepped out in recognition of Him, and "walked on the water." Then he began to take those things around him into account, and instantly, down he went. Why couldn't our Lord have enabled him to walk at the bottom of the waves, as well as on top of them? He could have, yet neither could be done without Peter's continuing recognition of the Lord Jesus.
We step right out with recognition of God in some things, then self-consideration enters our lives and down we go. If you are truly recognizing your Lord, you have no business being concerned about how and where He engineers your circumstances. The things surrounding you are real, but when you look at them you are immediately overwhelmed, and even unable to recognize Jesus. Then comes His rebuke, ". . . why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31). Let your actual circumstances be what they may, but keep recognizing Jesus, maintaining complete reliance upon Him.
If you debate for even one second when God has spoken, it is all over for you. Never start to say, "Well, I wonder if He really did speak to me?" Be reckless immediately- totally unrestrained and willing to risk everything- by casting your all upon Him. You do not know when His voice will come to you, but whenever the realization of God comes, even in the faintest way imaginable, be determined to recklessly abandon yourself, surrendering everything to Him. It is only through abandonment of yourself and your circumstances that you will recognize Him. You will only recognize His voice more clearly through recklessness- being willing to risk your all.
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Hoping in God's Mercy
In our last devotional, Psalm 147:10-11 showed us how important fearing God is to pleasing Him.
He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.
In today's devotional, I want to look at the second thing that pleases God, according to this psalm, those who hope in God's mercy.
You have to wonder why the Lord put those two things together, the fear of Him and hoping in His mercy. At first blush, they do not seem to go together, but they do.
They show how God truly understands our nature. That even those who reverence Him, and truly fear Him, and try to live for Him, sometimes fall short. And in those moments of failure, they need the mercy of God.
In fact, we are told in the Book of Proverbs that the righteous man falls seven times, but gets up again.
You know, I love God, and I do my best to serve Him and walk with Him. But I'm super grateful for His mercy! Thank God He is a merciful God! Because there are times when I so desperately need it, And I am sure you do, too!
My friend, if you have stumbled and today feel like you are a million miles away from God, do not despair. God finds pleasure in those who hope in His mercy. He is delighted when you ask for His mercy. He will not be angry.
Remember, only the guilty need mercy. And God finds pleasure when in your guilt you call out to Him, and hope in His mercy.
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True Worship
In His Presence "An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:23).
Many years ago, Robert Grant wrote the words to "O Worship the King,"
O worship the King, all glorious above
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, Whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the winds of a storm.
These two verses introduce us to the glory of God and the opportunity that we have to worship Him. However, a growing concern for many pastors is that many in their congregations attend church on Sunday because it is the right thing to do-not to worship the Lord. In other words, the act of coming together and fellowshipping has become more important than being in God's presence where we worship Him through praise and prayer.
It is like the couple who had their baby christened at church, and then, after the service, had a party to celebrate the event. Aunts and uncles began arriving along with grandparents, nieces, nephews, and friends. Everyone began talking and eating. Finally someone spoke up and asked, "Where's the baby?" The parents had taken the child to his bedroom and placed it in the crib to take a nap. Everyone was so busy enjoying one another that they had forgotten why they were there.
Worship is essential to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. In the Scripture above, the Lord explains to a woman who had committed many sins that a time was coming-and really, had come-when true believers would worship in spirit and truth. The Messiah was standing right before her, and in His presence she found forgiveness for all that she had done and salvation for her soul.
It was then that she realized the freedom of heart and mind that God was extending to her. And she began to worship the Lord by telling others of His marvelous grace and love.
One Minute Please
Worship has to do with real people who have real needs. When we understand the gift the Father has given us, we will want to worship Him without ceasing.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
. . . do you love Me? . . . Tend My sheep -John 21:16
Jesus did not say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. We consider what we do in the way of Christian work as service, yet Jesus Christ calls service to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine. "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . , he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26). In this verse, there is no argument and no pressure from Jesus to follow Him; He is simply saying, in effect, "If you want to be My disciple, you must be devoted solely to Me." A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, "Now I see who Jesus is!"- that is the source of devotion.
Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way. Our Lord's primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of people- the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even though people may treat me like a "doormat." The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that "falls into the ground and dies"- it will spring up and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).
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Rejoicing in God's Mercy
We all are familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son. After he had wasted his inheritance, he came to his senses and returned home, hoping he could just be a servant to his father.
His father wouldn't even consider it. He put the best robe on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and then had the fatted calf killed for a party. The father delighted in showing mercy to his son!
But what about the older brother? He stood outside the party and wouldn't come in to celebrate. He was so angry! He had never messed up and yet his father had never thrown him a party!
Sometimes, if we are not careful, we can have the attitude of that older son. We can look at the lives of others and think, "That is not fair. I know he's been messing up, and God is blessing him. What's up with that? I haven't been as bad as him!"
We need to remember that God delights in showing mercy to the guilty when, from a sincere heart, they seek that mercy. He delights when you and I ask for His mercy when we have blown it.
Micah 6:7-8 says,
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
God delights in showing mercy. So be a person of mercy, and rejoice when God shows mercy to someone who needs it.
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The Priority of Worship
In His Presence "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory" - (Isaiah 6:3).
Imagine what it would be like to step inside your church sanctuary on Sunday morning and witness the vision that Isaiah saw. He writes, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings . . . One called out to another and said, 'Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke" (Isaiah 6:1-4).
This had to be a glorious sight! But it also was one that conflicted Isaiah's heart because he knew that he was guilty of sin. Immediately, a godly sense of fear swept over him, and he cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). When we become aware of God's holy presence, we won't be able to stop ourselves from worshiping Him and seeking His cleansing for our sins.
However, if we become so entangled with sin and the pleasures of this world, we will fail to sense the need to worship God. In fact, our spirits will be dead to any true praise. Instead, we will yawn and check our watches to see if the preacher is preaching longer than he should.
Isaiah realized there was a problem in his life-it was one that needed to be addressed immediately, so he could do what God had called him to do. Many times, we miss God's best for our lives because we become too busy for worship. When we take time to worship God for who He is-righteous, loving, and infinite in power-our hearts will be lifted, and our lives will be changed. We will cry out, "Holy are You Lord and worthy to be praised!"
One Minute Please
True worship begins with a heart that is totally turned toward God.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Have You Come to "When" Yet?
The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends -Job 42:10
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, "Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer- I will walk rightly before You if You will help me." But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.
If you are not now receiving the "hundredfold" which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29), and not getting insight into God's Word, then start praying for your friends- enter into the ministry of the inner life. "The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends." As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.
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Becoming a Person of Mercy
Luke 6:38 tells us,
"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
It is not unusual to hear this verse used in connection with giving money to the Lord's work. And while there is a principle concerning money embedded in this verse, Jesus was not talking about giving an offering when He made this statement. That was not the subject under discussion.
In order to understand what He was really talking about, you need to read verses 35-37,
"But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Jesus wanted to impress on us this truth: If you give forgiveness, and you give love, and you give mercy, they come back to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together.
He wanted us to understand that by the same measure you and I give these things, it will come back to us. But if you and I measure out judgment and condemnation, guess what gets measured back to us?
Make a commitment today to become a person of mercy, not seeking anything in return. Become known as someone who reflects our God of mercy to a broken and needy world.
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A Notetaker's Journal
In His Presence "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord" (Exodus 24:4).
One of the most exciting things you can do in your Christian walk with the Lord is to keep a journal of all that He is teaching you. Exodus 24:4 says, "Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord." In other words, he did not want to miss or forget anything. He took notes! If he were attending church with you, you could expect him to pull out a notebook and start jotting things down. Why? God directed Moses to do this because he was the one who would communicate what God said to the nation of Israel.
Today, godly men and women teach God's truth, and we would be wise to pick up the habit of taking notes, as God taught Moses to do. Actually, the human mind has to hear or record a fact at least three times before it is committed to memory. Sometimes, it can take hearing a fact up to fourteen times before it is actually stored in our knowledge base.
This is why when you walk up to your pastor at the end of the worship service and commend him on his sermon, you pray that he does not ask you to repeat his main points back to him. It also is the reason you can gather over lunch with family and friends and exclaim how much you learned at church, but when you are asked to tell what you thought was the highlight, your mind goes blank.
Learn to take notes. Record your thoughts, and then, when you are alone with the Lord, ask Him to affirm what you have heard in and through His Word. Godly messages never conflict with what God has written in the Bible-it is the infallible Word of God. This means that it is God's Word to us, and nothing about it can be changed or taken away.
We live in a devious world because Satan is constantly enticing us away from God's truth. As you worship the Lord, ask Him to make you aware of the Enemy's subtle and dangerous scheme. There is only one way to worship God, and that is with the entirety of our hearts and minds.
One Minute Please
Worship is not a place or an event. It's a way of life.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Ministry of the Inner Life
You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . -1 Peter 2:9
By what right have we become "a royal priesthood"? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our "hanging on by the skin of our teeth," although we say, "What a wonderful victory I have!" Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don't worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, "Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men." Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: "Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now."
How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.
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Obedience and Respect
I am sure most Christian parents, at one time or another, have pointed their children to Colossians 3:20,
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Or to Ephesians 6:1-3,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
These two character qualities of obeying and honoring parents are vital to pleasing God. But it is important to understand that obedience has to do with an outward act, while honoring has to do with an inward attitude of the heart.
As parents, we all can remember those times when our children may have been outwardly obedient but were being inwardly disrespectful. You may have gotten them to sit down in the corner, but while they sat there, they were thinking, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"
If you are a parent, it is critical for you to deal just as swiftly with a disrespectful attitude as it is with a disobedient act. It is part of your God-given role of teaching your children obedience and respect for authority.
As your children learn how to obey and respect, you will not only bring them peace, they will experience God's blessing in their lives.
So as you work to raise your children to be the people God desires them to be, make a priority of teaching your children the qualities of respect for authority and obedience. Someday they will bless you for it!
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Tapping into His Power
In His Presence: "Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God" (Acts 12:5).
There was a lady who lived out in the country and never had electricity. Finally, her family made arrangements so a line could be run out to her house. However, after six months, she had only used one unit. Company officials decided to drive out to her house to make sure nothing was wrong. When everything checked out fine, they asked her if she was enjoying having electricity. "Oh my, yes," she replied.
Then one of the representatives said, "Well, tell us how you are using it." The old woman paused for a moment, and then, with a gleam in her eyes, she explained. Each evening, as the sun was setting, she turned the lights on long enough to light her kerosene lamps-and then turned them off! She was still living a kerosene existence when she could have been enjoying the comforts of having electricity.
God has given us tremendous power through the presence of His Spirit. Yet many times, we fail to use it. Instead, we settle for much less by relying solely on our human ability. There are certain things God never meant for us to handle on our own. We may be fine when it comes to choosing which shirt to wear in the morning, but when life becomes stormy and the winds begin to blow hard against us, we need an omnipotent Savior.
In Acts 12, we learn that Peter was arrested and that no amount of human effort could free him. However, the supernatural power of God did. The Bible tells us that the church was praying fervently. This means they were praying without ceasing, knowing that God had the power they lacked to release the one they loved.
What are you wrestling with today? Have you rolled it over onto the Lord through prayer, or have you lit a room full of kerosene lamps? Stop struggling on your own and turn on God's power through prayer and faith. Allow Him to be your strength and your everlasting peace.
One Minute Please
God wants to use the problems we face to demonstrate His awesome power and ability. Are you willing to allow Him to do this?
:angel:
June 24, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
This is your hour, and the power of darkness -Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact of sin- not recognizing it and refusing to deal with it- produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this "hour, and the power of darkness" into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, "Yes, I see what this sin would mean." The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship- it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous. Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.
Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin.
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Delivered!
Do you realize that the devil has absolutely no authority over you?
In Colossians 1:12-13, the apostle Paul tells us,
Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
You and I have been delivered from the power of darkness. We are out from under the authority of the devil.
That was a happy day for me when I realized this truth. After I was saved, I was afraid of the devil because I had been so deeply involved in the occult. I literally had a fear that hung upon me and followed me everywhere I went. So I just prayed over and over, "God, please make me so I'm not afraid of the devil."
I started to constantly read the New Testament. As I did, I realized what Christ had done for me, and I was set free.
As I thought about this truth, I was reminded of being in elementary school. We had this kid who terrorized a lot of other kids. I was so afraid of him. One day, he just pushed one of my buttons. All of a sudden I was on top of him holding his arms down, and I was thinking, "Why in the world was I ever afraid of this kid?" He was absolutely helpless!
Just like that bully, the devil is a defeated foe. And part of your inheritance is authority over all the power of the enemy. It is a happy day when you realize it.
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Jailed but Not Bound
In His Presence "Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison" (Acts 12:6).
Has there ever been a time when you felt so bound by your circumstances that you thought you would never be released? Without a doubt, Peter's situation, from a human standpoint, seemed impossible. However, from God's perspective nothing was further from the truth. It was an opportunity for Him to display His awesome power through Peter's life.
While the church was praying for his release, Peter was resting. In fact, he was asleep! Most of us would have been awake, anxiously watching the door and wondering what was going to happen next. But not Peter. He was in the center of God's loving will. Life is not void of trouble and heartache. Sometimes His plan for us includes difficulty.
When trouble strikes and you feel as though your world is falling apart, do you have this same type of faith? Many of us don't. We may start out thinking, "Now Lord, You know my needs. Please help me." However, when time drags on and the door to freedom remains closed, we begin to wonder what has happened to God. Has He left the scene? The answer is no. He is right where He always is-beside you, with you, and living His life out through you.
Peter was not worried about tomorrow because his eyes were set on Christ. Being handcuffed to him was probably similar to being chained to the apostle Paul. We can imagine that at every opportunity, those who were guarding him had the opportunity to hear about the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.
"The Lord is not slow about fulfilling His promises" (2 Peter 3:9). What may seem like forever to you is not even a moment to God who is infinite and eternal. Peter's amazing release came at just the right time-the middle of the night. When life appears the darkest, the light of God's hope will find you. Your Savior is working on your behalf, and He will answer your prayer.
One Minute Please
If Satan has hemmed you in on all sides, if he has handcuffed you and you see no way out, then you are a good candidate for a miracle!
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
. . . what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 'Father, glorify Your name' -John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people
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Blessed to Be a Blessing
Our capitalistic society is geared toward one purpose...people accumulating wealth. While there is nothing wrong with material abundance, many Christians today have lost sight of why God has blessed them with prosperity.
They believe it is for their own good and benefit, but God's perspective is quite different. For example, here is what the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 13:16,
But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Now the phrase "to share" means to share with others. One translation says, Share what you have. Another version translates this, Be generous. Another says, Contribute to the needy.
You see, God blesses us to make us a blessing! That ought to be the main motivation for desiring and praying for God's blessing in our lives. God told Abraham, "I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing." God says the fringe benefit is that, "I will give you richly all things to enjoy." But the main flow of God's purpose in blessing us is so we can help other people.
It is also the reason we should desire the inheritance that Christ has given to us, all of those Holy Spirit-conferred blessings, which we discussed on day 14. Why? Because we can't give what we don't have. You can't bless someone if you don't have anything to bless them with!
God is well pleased to see us walk in our inheritance as sons, but He is also well pleased to see us share what He has blessed us with.
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Worship the Lord with Your Life
In His Presence: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy" - (Jude 24).
Faith is at the heart of worship. In Streams in the Desert, Mrs. Charles E. Cowman records a story that focuses on giving God praise. The story is of a woman who had very little. She made a "precarious living by hard daily labor; but [she] was a joyous, triumphant Christian." One day, a gloomy friend said to her, "Ah, it is well enough to be happy now, but I should think the thought of your future would sober you. Only suppose, for instance, you should have a spell of sickness and are unable to work. Or suppose your present employer moves away and no one else gives you anything to do. Suppose . . ."
Nancy knew where the conversation was going and raised her hand to interrupt her friend. "Stop! I never use the word suppose. The Lord is my Shepherd, and I know that I shall not want. And, Honey, it is all your 'supposing' that is making you so miserable. You had better give them up and just trust the Lord."
We worship God with our lives. Not just with the songs we sing on Sunday morning, but with the way we live each day-including the way we greet others and talk about what God is doing in us. Some people may have an abundance of money while others appear to have very little. It does not matter. If they know the Savior, they have a wealth that this world cannot understand.
Fame and riches mean nothing to God. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are also the loneliest. However, if you have a personal relationship with the Savior, you are never alone. Instead of thinking about what could happen, enjoy the goodness of this day, and worship Him for His faithfulness. He stands watch over your life and gives you promises that will hold true for eternity. Therefore, worship the Lord, and He will bless you in ways that are far greater than you can imagine.
One Minute Please
It takes faith to worship God and faith to grow in His love each day.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Always Now
We . . . beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. - 2 Corinthians 6:1
The grace you had yesterday will not do for to-day. Grace is the overflowing favour of God; you can always reckon it is there to draw upon. "In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses" - that is where the test for patience comes. Are you failing the grace of God there? Are you saying - Oh, well, I won't count this time? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you; it is taking the grace of God now. We make prayer the preparation for work, it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say - I will endure this until I can get away and pray. Pray now; draw on the grace of God in the moment of need. Prayer is the most practical thing, it is not the reflex action of devotion. Prayer is the last thing in which we learn to draw on God's grace.
"In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours" - in all these things manifest a drawing upon the grace of God that will make you a marvel to yourself and to others. Draw now, not presently. The one word in the spiritual vocabulary is Now. Let circumstances bring you where they will, keep drawing on the grace of God in every conceivable condition you may be in. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but His grace.
"Having nothing . . ." Never reserve anything. Pour out the best you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful about the treasure God gives. This is poverty triumphant.
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You Can't Out-Give God
Tucked away in the pages of the New Testament is a very powerful promise to those who are generous givers. It is found in Philippians 4:18-19,
Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The Philippian church had made the financial support of the apostle Paul a priority. In these verses Paul acknowledges their generosity and also states a vital principle for every believer to grasp...you can't out-give God!
Not too long ago I came across a letter from a lady who had sacrificially given to the work of God. Here is what she said in her letter:
"My husband and I were in dire straits. He is a Vietnam War veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange. Due to his benefit claims being denied and his being unemployed for three years, we lost nearly everything. We had to put our home up for sale, but nothing was happening. During this time, I gave every penny I could get my hands on and always prayed. So one miracle after another began to take place. First, we were able to move into my husband's deceased mother's home. Then we signed papers for the sale of our former home. Next, my husband's claim for benefits was approved and awarded, and the award was backdated three years. Then he found a job! Our income has tripled, and God continues to do miraculous things for us."
My friend, become a generous giver today. Because you can't out-give God!
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Acceptable to God
In His Presence: "Abel . . . brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard" (Genesis 4:4-5).
As consumers, we have little interest in leftovers. We don't like to spend our money on flawed products. When we pay for an item or a service, we feel that it should be the best that company has to offer. This is true of God, but to an even greater extent.
Adam and Eve taught their sons Cain and Abel how to worship God in an acceptable manner. Yet when it came time to do this, the quality of Cain's offering was not pleasing, and it was not given with the same passion as Abel's. God does not have favorites. He did not choose one over the other because He liked one brother better than the next.
Abel simply understood the principle of worship and offered God the very best that he had. Cain, on the other hand, offered what he could gather quickly-an apple from here, a pear from there, and a clump of grapes. It is also interesting to note that Cain's life is one that was filled with a desire and passion for what God had cursed in the garden at the fall of mankind-the land. Abel offered God the very best of His flocks-the fattest lambs-because he understood that worship came from a heart of love and devotion.
This concept is not just about giving money to the Lord on Sunday. He established guidelines for our giving in order for us to remember that He is the One who enables us to make a living. More importantly, it is about how we live our lives. Are we totally committed to the Savior? Do we love Him and want to worship Him on a regular basis? Or do we just pray when we have a need of Him and go to His house when it is convenient? Those who worship out of convenience have hearts that contain a character flaw-a bent toward Cain's nature.
This does not have to be true of your life. Ask God to show you any area where you are not fully devoted to Him. Remember, worship is something we do with our entire life.
One Minute Please
A character flaw always leads to a content flaw.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Overshadowing of God's Personal Deliverance
. . . I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord -Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally- ". . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . ." (Jeremiah 39:18). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God's personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly." Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, "Why should I be treated like this?" If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, "Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance." Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard- we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God's name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
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The Priority of Purity
We live in a highly sexualized society. It is amazing the number of people, even pastors, who fall to sexual temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 we are told straight out,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
God expects for you and me to live in sexual purity. You need to know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor; otherwise your body will possess you.
God has created a strong sexual drive that is an awesome blessing in marriage! But, you know, it is so strong that sometimes it just wants to flow out of the banks and go somewhere it shouldn't go.
We must learn how to possess our bodies in sanctification and honor, and live morally pure lives that bring pleasure to God. Here are three practical ways:
Avoid temptation. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, Flee youthful lusts. Avoid the very scenes of temptation. Stay away when you know you might get in trouble.
Feed your spirit, not your flesh. In Romans, we are told of the great war every Christian experiences, the war between our spirit and our flesh. Whatever you feed is going to be stronger, so make sure to feed your spirit.
Rely on the Holy Spirit and His power. If you will acknowledge Him and look to Him for strength, you will find He is a very present help in your time of need.
Make a commitment today to practice these three principles for purity. If you do, you will live in the sexual purity God desires.
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The Lifestyle of Worship
In His Presence: "You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel" (Psalm 22:3).
Worship is not simply an event or a place. It is an orientation. It is a way of life. It is the result of a decision that we make-one that exalts God above everything else. It is also a way of thinking. We come to a point where we realize and acknowledge that God is truly great and worthy of all praise.
One of the major benefits of worship is that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. This is why worship is crucial to the life of a believer. If we do not worship God on a regular basis, we will not sense His closeness and will not know which way to go when trouble comes. We will not experience the joy of living free lives because we will not be in tune with His Spirit. Instead, we must learn how to walk each day in the light of His grace and unconditional love.
Israel learned the importance of worship in the desert, where they were prepared by God to enter the Promised Land. They carried the altar of God with them. When they stopped to make camp, the first thing they did was to set up the altar and the surrounding tent. They didn't say anything about needing to wait until the Sabbath to worship. They realized the importance of worshiping the One who held their lives fast within His hands.
Do you have this same attitude toward worship? Do you go to church on Sunday with a grateful heart, longing to sing and praise God for His goodness? Or are you one of the missing who rarely shows up to worship the Lord?
Sadly, while God longs for our fellowship, the one that loses out in this case is the person who fails to enter His gates with thanksgiving. He does not need us, but we definitely need Him.
The one place where you can learn the most about God's infinite love and care for you is through times of worship. You don't have to put on your finest clothes in order to worship Him. He just wants you to come and worship with a heart that sincerely wants to be with Him.
One Minute Please
Make worship to God your heart's passion, and He will renew your faith.
:angel: :angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me -Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you "turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has "laid hold of" us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, "Well, I'm really not suited for this." What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you- your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are- you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do. . . I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14)
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Perfect and Complete
Your faith in God has incredible potential to make your life complete. To take you from the place of deficiency, to the place of being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James puts it this way in James 1:2-4,
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Faith in God can make you complete, but your faith will be contested. It will be opposed, even as we read here. Your faith will go through the fire of trial.
If you lack spiritually in your life, you can get to the place of holiness. If you are lacking materially, you can get to a place where your needs are met. Whatever your lack, your faith in God has the potential to take you from where you are, and where you are lacking, to this place that the Bible speaks of...being perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
But, the path to that completeness is one of trial. Your faith will not get you there until it first goes through testing. You do have an adversary. You will be opposed. The Bible says, Your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
The devil knows what is at stake, and he will do all he can to keep you from trusting God. So as your faith encounters the turbulence of trials, do what James says, and count it all joy. You are on your way to becoming perfect and complete in Christ.
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Worship That Comes From the Heart
In His Presence: "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8).
Usually, there will come a time when God will test the depth of your devotion to Him. In Genesis 22, He tested Abraham's faith beyond anything imaginable. The Lord instructed Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice.
For a moment, draw this parallel in your mind: God sent His own Son to earth and willingly offered Him as a sacrifice for our sins. Was God's request of Abraham a foreshadowing of what would come? Perhaps. However, the one thing we want to focus on here is that Abraham was willing to obey God. He did not talk back, make excuses, or turn away from God. He just obeyed-knowing in his heart that the Lord would provide the right sacrifice.
When they had reached their destination, Abraham spoke with words of faith as he told his servants, "I and the lad will . . . worship and return to you" (v.5). When it came to the actual moment of sacrifice, God stopped him. "Abraham! . . . Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me" (vv. 11-12). God did not want Abraham to harm his son. He was just checking Abraham's devotion.
How often have you faced a difficult situation and thought, "Lord, You can have anything, but please, just don't take ______." You can fill in the blank for yourself. In this situation, Abraham would have written in the name of his son Isaac-the answer to the promise God had given him years earlier.
Is there something that you are withholding from God? Could it be a relationship, dream, idea, or pursuit? Worship begins in the heart. Therefore, always be willing to obey the Lord by letting go of anything you deem more valuable than your relationship with Him. When you do, His goodness and mercy will be poured out in abundance for you.
One Minute Please
God never sends a test our way just because He's in a testing mood. He has a specific purpose in mind. Usually, it is to draw us closer to Himself.
:angel:
July 1, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Inevitable Penalty
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the uttermost farthing. - Matthew 5:26
There is no heaven with a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure and holy and right; He will not allow you to escape for one moment from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. He urged you to come to judgment right away when He convicted you, but you did not; the inevitable process began to work and now you are in prison, and you will only get out when you have paid the uttermost farthing. "Is this a God of mercy, and of love?" you say. Seen from God's side, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure and spotless and undefiled; but He wants you to recognize the disposition you were showing - the disposition of your right to yourself. The moment you are willing that God should alter your disposition, His recreating forces will begin to work. The moment you realize God's purpose, which is to get you rightly related to Himself and then to your fellow men, He will tax the last limit of the universe to help you take the right road. Decide it now - "Yes, Lord, I will write that letter to-night"; "I will be reconciled to that man now."
These messages of Jesus Christ are for the will and the conscience, not for the head. If you dispute the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you will blunt the appeal to your heart.
"I wonder why I don't go on with God?" Are you paying your debts from God's standpoint? Do now what you will have to do some day. Every moral call has an "ought" behind it.
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The Requirement for Receiving God's Wisdom
In yesterday's devotional, we talked about how, when you ask for God's wisdom, He reveals it in your spirit...that hidden place. But there is a critical requirement for God to reveal that wisdom to you. You have to ask for it in faith.
James 1:6-8 tells us,
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
You can't vacillate between two opinions. If you don't anchor yourself on God's promise that He will give you His wisdom, you will be blown about by the opinions of others, by your feelings, by the way the circumstances look, and you won't receive anything from God.
Not too long ago I went with some friends in a small boat to Catalina (an island 26 miles off the coast of Southern California). Just as we were arriving at about eight in the evening, the engine seized. We paddled in to a depth where we could drop the anchor.
After calling Vessel Assist, a storm came up and the wind began to blow and the rain began to fall. We had to wait a couple of hours before help arrived.
You know what? If we hadn't dropped anchor, the wind would have blown us somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
My friend, you have to drop your anchor. You have to ask in faith. You can't vacillate. You can't be double-minded if you are going to receive the wisdom of God.
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A Call of Devotion
In His Presence: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife . . . and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
God calls us to a total commitment-nothing less will do. He called Abraham to complete devotion, and the same was true for Moses, David, all of the disciples, and the apostle Paul. We can't be halfhearted in our love for the Lord and expect to fully experience His joy and peace in our lives. In fact, until we make a full, uncompromising commitment to Him, there will always be distracting factors at work in our lives. We'll constantly be tempted to step away from His very best for us.
In order to be His disciple, you must be willing to deny-not only yourself and your personal desires and passions-but also your love for anyone or anything that could possibly take His place in your heart. Nothing can be more important than Him.
For many people, this concept is hard to accept. They want to say, "Lord, surely You don't want me to give up my only dream for the future?" Or, "Lord, I really want to marry this person. I love her. I know she's not a believer, but I need her. Besides, if I walked away, who would help her know You? Isn't my love for her a testimony about Your love for us?"
To make her point clear, a Christian counselor climbed up on a chair and asked her client to pull her down. The object lesson? It is easy to pull someone down but next to impossible to pull another up-especially if that person resists the truth. God wants you to be solely devoted to Him so that He can bless you with His very best.
The Enemy of your soul, however, wants you to settle for much less. In fact, his goal is for you to step out of God's will through disobedience. He knows if you do, you will not only miss a blessing, but your life will become shrouded with feelings of guilt and disappointment. When that happens you become ineffective as a witness for Christ. God has a great plan in mind for you. When you dedicate yourself fully to Him, you will see it unfold.
One Minute Please
True worship always gives God the nearest, dearest, and most treasured thing in our lives.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Conditions of Discipleship
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also . . . . And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me . . . . So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple -Luke 14:26-27, 33
If the closest relationships of a disciple's life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person- our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause- He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has "poured out in our hearts" the very "love of God" (Romans 5:5). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ
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True Faith
James 2:14-20 tells us the substance of true faith,
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
My favorite translation of this last verse is, "Faith without actions that correspond is dead." Faith must have actions that correspond with it.
You can talk about catching fish, about what lures you are going to use, and how you are going to cook them after you catch them, but if you never throw a line in the water, you are not going to catch a fish.
Or it's like the golfer who comes to a 3-par hole with a lake right in front of the green and says, "No problem, I can hit that green with my six iron." Then he digs out an old ratty golf ball. If he truly believes he can hit the green, he will hit his brand new $3 golf ball!
For faith to be genuine, it has to have corresponding actions.
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The Reach of Love
In His Presence: "I who speak to you am He" (John 4:26).
Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He decided to pass through Samaria. He was returning to Jerusalem and the disciples could not believe He wanted to travel into the region. Even though it was the shorter route home, the Samaritans were considered to be unclean by most Jews. Therefore, the area was generally avoided. But not by Jesus. He had an appointment with a woman at a well. Only, He did not let His disciples in on His plans.
As He stopped to rest beside the well, they urged Him to keep moving. Finally, He sent them into the city to buy food. When a woman showed up to draw water, Jesus asked her for a drink. He violated a long list of Jewish rules by talking with this woman-a person whose life was far from pure. Only women who lived sinful lifestyles came to the well at midday. Yet, this was exactly when and where she met the Savior.
The bottom line of their discussion was focused on God's unconditional love. He is willing to go anywhere to meet us, and Jesus proves this by traveling into Samaria. Until we come to know and experience His personal love for us, we will never understand how to worship Him.
Perhaps, like this woman, you have found yourself living in a situation that is rooted deeply in sin. Guilt and fear are wrapped around your heart and are now weighing your life down-causing you to wonder if God could ever love you. The answer is yes. Not only does He love you with an unconditional love, He wants you to be free of anything and everything that would prevent you from truly loving and worshiping Him.
This woman became a believer, and her joy and faith were so powerful that those who heard her speak couldn't wait to meet the Savior. You are never outside the reach of God's love. When you turn to Him, He turns toward You with hope and restoration.
One Minute Please
There is more to worship than finding the right location. It has to do with a heart that is repentant and turned toward the Savior.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Concentration of Personal Sin
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips . . . -Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, "Oh yes, I know I am a sinner," but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind's attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone's life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, "I don't know where I've gone wrong," but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah's vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was "a man of unclean lips." "He touched my mouth with it, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged' " (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
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The Motive of Faith
When speaking of faith, it is critical to talk about the motive of our faith. James 4:2-3 tells us what a wrong motive is,
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
God is very concerned about the "why" behind our prayers of faith. He is very interested in the state of our hearts. And I think it is good to check our motives from time to time.
Why do we want what we want? Is it ego driven? Am I asking for it because I want to impress someone? Are my motives right?
Now, you don't have to overdo it. You can overanalyze things to the point that you become spiritually frozen and don't do anything. I think if you will get honest and lay your heart out before God, He will very quickly put the spotlight on the things that should not be there.
Our dog always stands at the back door and scratches on the glass like he really loves us and wants to come in and be with us. But the moment you open the door he runs right by you into the kitchen looking for food.
Why do you want the thing you want? What is the purpose behind asking? Is it for the glory of God? Is it to help people? Is there a pure motive there?
When your motive is right, God will not be long in answering. But if your motive is not right, God won't answer until it gets right.
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In Your Father's Presence
In His Presence: "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me" (John 14:11).
One day, as Abraham Lincoln's son was walking in a park near the White House, he saw a young soldier sitting on a bench crying. The man was greatly distressed, and the young Lincoln stopped to ask what was wrong.
Looking up through his tears, the soldier explained that his brother had been placed in jail for something he did not do. He had been told that the only person who could help was the President of the United States. The problem, of course, was that he could not get a message to the president because no one in the White House would listen to him.
Lincoln's son thought for a moment and then asked, "Mister, will you go with me?" Even though he did not know the younger Lincoln's identity, he agreed. The two walked across the street and through the White House gate. They passed the guards and Lincoln's personal secretary. In fact, they didn't stop walking until they crossed the threshold of Lincoln's office where his son finally spoke up and said, "Hello, Dad. This soldier needs to talk with you."
The president looked up from what he was doing and smiled. Then he listened as the solider explained his situation. This story certainly proves that when you have the right relationship, you can go a lot further, a lot faster.
The same is true of our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is God's Son, and He has direct access to His heavenly Father. We don't have to spend time praying to others, hoping that we tapped into the right source. When you pray to Jesus, you have all the access you need. No one can prevent you from coming into His presence, and nothing can stop Him from answering your prayers.
You can take your heartaches, sorrows, and disappointments to God in prayer. Whatever concerns you also concerns Him. He is your heavenly Father, and He has full control over the entire universe.
One Minute Please
When you come to worship, you are worshiping the God of the universe who is also your Daddy.
:angel:
July 4, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
One of God's Great "Don'ts"
Do not fret- it only causes harm -Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves "out of joint" mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, "Do not fret," but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It's easy to say, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to "rest in the Lord" then? If this "Do not" doesn't work there, then it will not work anywhere. This "Do not" must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God's plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and "abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.
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The Prayer of Faith
Over the last few devotionals, we have looked at faith-what true faith looks like, and the motive behind the faith that pleases God.
In James 5:15 we are told,
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Clearly, James wants us to know that when we pray a prayer of faith, God will answer it. In this passage, we are told that through that prayer God will indeed heal those who are sick, and raise them up.
So what is it that makes up the prayer of faith? There are three components, all of which we have touched on in the last few days.
The prayer of faith is a prayer that:
Does not waver. It doesn't vacillate, moving back and forth. It is anchored on the promise of God.
Is followed by corresponding actions.
Is prayed from right motives.
The example James cites of someone who prayed a prayer of faith is Elijah. I encourage you to read his story in 1 Kings 17. There you find that, through the prayer of faith, God shut up the heavens and there was no rain. And then, by another prayer of faith, the heavens were opened and rain came down.
Elijah expressed his faith when he said he heard the sound of abundance of rain. He made that statement before there was a cloud in the sky or before a drop of rain ever fell!
When you and I don't waver in our faith, when we show our faith by corresponding action, and when we pray with right motives, God will act. As surely as Elijah heard that rain by faith, you can hear the rain...whatever that represents in your life. That is the prayer of faith.
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On Holy Ground
In His Presence "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple" (Isaiah 6:1).
Isaiah probably felt as though he had been hit by a hurricane. King Uzziah had died. With his death came the end of a great era for Israel, which had become a mighty nation under his rule. Now that the king was dead, the people were in an emotional upheaval. Their security was compromised because it was in a man rather than in God.
What is your King Uzziah? Many people place their trust in savings accounts, jobs, and relationships. Shortsightedly, they mistakenly believe that if they have money and good health today, they will be fine tomorrow. While we don't need to live our lives in fear, we do need to develop a strong, unshakeable faith in the One who will never fail us-the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, when life does take a downward turn, we will rest secure in His loving care.
How do you handle a crisis-when you receive the news that your income will be cut in half or that the relationship you believed would lead to marriage falls apart? What do you do when your Uzziah dies and your dreams fall apart? If the focus of your devotion is set on the things of this world, then when trouble comes, you will be shaken. However, if it is on God, you will remain steadfast and sure.
Our greatest vision and understanding of God often comes in times of crisis. Isaiah stepped out of a national whirlwind into the security of the temple where God's presence appeared before him in full glory. Suddenly, the hurricane that had been ripping at his heart vanished, and he fell on his face and worshiped the Lord.
Are the winds of adversity blowing hard against your life? If so, turn your sense of worry into worship because you are standing on holy ground. F. B. Meyer writes, "A storm is only the outskirts of His robe-the symptom of His advent and the environment of His presence."
One Minute Please
Ask God to help you to see your situation from His perspective. When you do, you will understand that He has a perfect plan and that it involves His goodness poured out in abundance for you.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Don't Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass -Psalm 37:5
Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him- that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our "spiritual face" before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don't plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? "Love . . . thinks no evil" (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don't plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command- "Let not. . . ." To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
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The Importance of Revival
Psalm 85:6 asks a powerful question,
Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
Notice that the psalmist says, "again." This tells me that the nation of Israel was once in a state of revival, but that had waned, it had declined, and they had come again to the place where they needed to be revived.
Perhaps today you are in a place where you need to be revived.
Revival has been described as the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. That is a good definition. Something needs to be revived when it is dying or when it has lost its strength or momentum.
Revival brings new life. It brings fresh vigor. It brings renewed momentum to that which is in a weakened or dying state.
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy, Stir up the gift of God which is in you. The word for stir up literally means to rekindle. In other words, a fire was there at one time, but it has begun to burn low. And now it needs to be refueled and tended to.
The Amplified Bible says, Rekindle the embers, fan the flame and keep burning the gracious gift of God, the inner fire.
Maybe you have felt spiritually flat lately. Maybe the fire that once burned white hot for God is now just a glowing ember. If so, it is time to rekindle those embers and fan to flame what He has put within you.
As God goes to work in your life, you will find that once again your life will be filled with purpose, and you will once again rejoice in God.
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Out of a Whirlwind
In His Presence: "When Elijah heard [a gentle whisper of wind], he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave" (1 Kings 19:13).
Huddled in a cave and miles away from his home, Elijah tried to warm himself and remember how he got to this place. The memory of Queen Jezebel and her violent threats against him came rushing back to his mind. By then, he had almost forgotten the miracle God had done on Mount Carmel and the spiritual victory that had been gained there. Instead, he hid out in fear (1 Kings 19).
At some point, many of us have done the same thing. God breaks into our lives through answered prayer, and we are left speechless. Then, some little sign of trouble appears on the horizon, and we begin to break down emotionally. Instead of sleeping soundly at night, we wake up, toss and turn, and wonder if God will help us. Of course, He always does.
Elijah's first mistake was to believe that he was the only one left in Israel who had a pure heart before God. Pride always leads to feelings of fear, loneliness, and discouragement. As Elijah waited in the cave, God began to demonstrate His mighty ability to His prophet. First, He did so through a strong wind that tore at the mountain, then through an earthquake, and finally, through a mighty fire. God's presence, however, was not in any of these. Then the prophet heard a gentle wind blowing around him, and he knew that he was standing in the presence of God.
God doesn't have to lift a finger in order to deal with the problems you face each day. He spoke the world into existence, and at His command, the storms surrounding your life will cease. Perhaps as He did with Elijah, He will gain your full attention by allowing the storm to blow a little longer. If this is the case, let the earthquake, fire, and wind come, knowing that you have a loving heavenly Father whose only desire is to draw you nearer to Himself. Take time to worship Him and tell Him that you are listening for His voice.
One Minute Please
When thoughts of fear surround your life, remember, God is still on the throne.
:angel:
July 8, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . -Joshua 24:15
A person's will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will- I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God's Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
". . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . ." Your choice must be a deliberate determination- it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God- do not "confer with flesh and blood" about it (Galatians 1:16). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading- the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, "I will be faithful." But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, "You are witnesses against yourselves . . ." (Joshua 24:22). Don't consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, "I will serve You." Will to be faithful- and give other people credit for being faithful too
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The Vital Sign of Hunger for God's Word
It is not unusual for someone who becomes physically sick to lose their appetite. In fact, when a person is deathly ill, the doctor will often pull loved ones aside and say, "Try to get them to eat something. If they're going to recover, they have to eat."
The same is true when someone is sick spiritually. They lose their appetite for spiritual things. They lose their appetite for the Word of God. In fact, when you see a believer who has lost his or her hunger for God's Word, it is a sure sign that person needs to be revived.
At least three times in Psalm 119, the psalmist tells us that one of the ways God will revive you when you are spiritually weak is through His Word.
In verse 25 he says,
My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your word.
In verse 107 he says,
I am afflicted very much; revive me, O LORD, according to Your word.
And then in verse 154 he says it again,
Plead my cause and redeem me; revive me according to Your word.
If you are going to be revived, it will be in large part according to or through the Word of God. In fact, what the psalmist is literally saying is, "Give me life. Revive me through Your Word." The more you feed on God's Word, the more you hunger for it.
So a critical vital sign of the spiritual life is a hunger, an appetite, for God's Word. There is a renewed hunger for spiritual truth when you are revived. As you feed upon His Word, it will give you more life, it will give you more strength, and it will give you spiritual vitality.
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His Plan for Your Life
In His Presence: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling" (Psalm 73:1).
There will be days when you find that you just don't feel like worshiping God. Perhaps the temptation to compare yourself to someone else has caused you to feel down and even depressed. Driving home from work on Friday, you tell yourself you are glad the week is over because it has been a rough one. As you lament over how tired you feel, Satan blindsides you with the thought that your friends and coworkers do not really appreciate you.
By the time you open the front door of your home, your eyes have narrowed and your forehead has tightened. You are frustrated and ready to give up. Still, you do not pray and ask God for His perspective. You just keep repeatedly thinking through the day and rehearsing your negative feelings. Saturday morning you get up feeling haunted by the same emotions. By Sunday you force yourself to drive to church, but you certainly don't feel like singing or praising God.
Asaph, the author of Psalm 73, would understand your plight. He allowed discouragement to grow in his life to the point where he was deeply disturbed.
Whenever we take our eyes off of God and His faithfulness, and begin to compare our lives with those around us, we either end up feeling defeated or prideful. God has created each one of us for a unique purpose, which includes worshiping Him.
Psalm 73 is a rambling account of what Asaph was feeling, but by the end, he realizes the truth and puts an end to his negativity. "As for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works" (v. 28).
The closer you are to God, the less likely the Enemy will have a shot at your emotions. Stay focused on what God has for you to do. You are His beloved child, and He has an amazing plan for your life. Will you praise Him for this?
One Minute Please
Sometimes God seems so far away that you can't talk to anyone else but Him-because nobody else will understand what in the world you are talking about.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Will You Examine Yourself?
Joshua said to the people, 'You cannot serve the Lord . . .' -Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, "I cannot live a holy life," but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. "You cannot serve the Lord . . ."- but you can place yourself in the proper position where God's almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
"The people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve the Lord!" (Joshua 24:21). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, "But God could never have called me to this. I'm too unworthy. It can't mean me." It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, "I will serve the Lord."
We say, "Oh, if only I really could believe!" The question is, "Will I believe?" No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
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The Vital Sign of Passion to Reach the Lost
One of the major signs that someone needs to be revived is a lack of concern for the lost. In David's psalm of repentance, Psalm 51:10-13, he says,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When David says, Renew a steadfast spirit in me...Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, he is saying, "God, revive me, restore me, renew me." One of the fruits we find in a heart that has been revived is a desire to see others converted. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
When a person's spiritual life wanes, there is very little thought and very little action aimed at reaching the lost. Yet, someone who has been revived and is spiritually healthy will be actively engaged in the evangelization of the lost.
Read carefully these words from Elton Trueblood, a Quaker scholar. He said, "Evangelism occurs when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out."
When you are spiritually revived, you will think about the spiritual state of the people that you rub shoulders with every day. It is inevitable that when your heart is revived and close to God, you will have a concern for the lost.
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A Heart of Gratitude
In His Presence: "In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
The little boy looked up at his father and grinned from ear to ear. He said, "Thanks, Dad!" as he gently rubbed his hand over the new baseball glove and then, with a balled fist, pounded it into the glove's center. He had wanted a new glove for weeks, but he didn't know how to ask for one. How did his dad know what he needed?
"Wow, this is great!" An endless line of happy comments came tumbling out of his mouth as he proudly displayed the glove to his mom. "I'll be able to catch Bobby's infield throws now! How did you know, Dad? Wanna play some catch?"
Who could resist such a request? Certainly not this father. He was overwhelmed by his son's gratitude and appreciation.
When was the last time you thanked your heavenly Father for something that He gave to you? Maybe you are thinking that it doesn't seem like you have received much lately. It is time to look deeper.
This young boy didn't ask for a new glove because he knew his family was having financial trouble. Instead of lamenting over the difficulty, he became determined to keep using the glove he had. His father, however, had noticed his son's need and turned to God in prayer. He didn't know how the Lord would answer, but he believed God would. So, he also began to thank God every morning for hearing his prayer and answering this simple request. A few days later, he wasn't surprised when a friend called, telling him that there was extra work that needed to be done at his office. The father jumped at the opportunity, and when he was handed a paycheck, he headed to the nearest sporting goods store. God always meets our needs, and we need to say "Thank You, Lord."
Your heavenly Father has a solution for your situation. Whenever you express gratitude to Him, His heart is filled with great pleasure because He knows that you have learned how to be thankful in all things.
One Minute Please
Thanksgiving is the recognition of God's goodness with a grateful heart. It is simply gratitude expressed to God for His faithful, loving care.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Spiritually Lazy Saint
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . -Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative- our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.
"Yes, I think it is right," Peter said, ". . . to stir you up by reminding you . . ." (2 Peter 1:13). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up- someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up- all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement- He says, "Go and tell My brethren . . ." (Matthew 28:10).
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The Vital Sign of Spiritual Insight
In the Old Testament, we find the story of Ezra and a large group of Israelites who returned to Jerusalem to reestablish the temple and the worship of God. In the midst of this incredible effort, Ezra prays a powerful prayer, as recorded in Ezra 9:8,
"And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage."
Ezra prays that their eyes would be enlightened spiritually. It is reminiscent of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1, when he prayed that the eyes of the Ephesians would be enlightened, spiritually opened.
One vital sign of the need for revival is when we are spiritually dull and insensitive to God's promptings, and the Holy Spirit's direction and creativity.
Perhaps you can remember something creative that once operated in your life, but sadly, it has waned. It has declined. It has gone dormant.
It shouldn't be that way! The Holy Spirit wants to prompt you and guide you and give you knowledge and creativity. But when you are living in a spiritual fog, and you have become accustomed to living in that fog, you can be assured you have become spiritually dull.
That is when you need to be revived. And when you are, there is an enlightening of the eyes. There is a renewed sense and an awareness of the prompting, and the wooing, and the guiding of God's Spirit. That is what comes with revival.
When you are spiritually revived, you will be sensitive to God's Spirit, and you will gain from Him supernatural insight and enlightenment.
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Walk by the Light of His Love
In His Presence: "Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand" (Psalms 73:23).
Harriet Tubman was a small wisp of a woman, yet God used her to do a mighty work. Maybe, as you read these words, you are wondering how God could possibly use you. You feel defeated and want to quit. Don't. Instead, keep reading.
While the Civil War threatened to tear our country apart, there were key players behind the scenes that not only worked to preserve life but also defended liberty, hope, and the belief that there is another life worth living. Harriet was one of these people. Without a thought about her own safety, she led hundreds to safe houses along the Underground Railroad and became a legend as she crossed back and forth over lines of battle.
She made the journey countless times, and many wondered how she could continue traveling such long distances-along roadways that were carved out of thick and unruly landscapes. But she did. Even though the threat of death shadowed her, she refused to stop. How did she do it?
The answer is simple: She had a fixed focus on her goal and nothing was going to turn her. Her faith in God's unconditional love gave her the strength she needed to continue her treks to freedom.
Perhaps you long to travel your own road to freedom. You look up at night into the heavens and wonder how you will continue-especially when your heart feels weary and burdened by life's pressures. You can continue on but only when your faith is in Someone much greater than yourself.
The psalmist writes, "Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day" (Psalm 139:12). Each night, Harriet Tubman walked straight through the darkness and on to freedom. In fact, nighttime was the safest time for her to travel, and she did not walk in fear. Perhaps it was because she carried a light of hope with her-the light given to her by an eternal God.
You too can worship the Lord because He does great things, and His loving hands encompass your life.
One Minute Please
Satan spends a lot of effort bricking up your view of God's victory and grace. Therefore, keep walking and keep holding up God's light of hope and grace.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
. . . that I may know Him . . . -Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing- even eating, drinking, or washing disciples' feet- we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. "Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet . . ." (John 13:3-5).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is "that I may know Him . . ." Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances
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The Vital Sign of Pride
Pride and self-sufficiency are unmistakable signs of a heart that is in desperate need of reviving. Isaiah 57:15 tells us,
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
To have a contrite heart literally means you break easily. Even at the thought of grieving God's Spirit you break and repent very quickly. It means you walk softly in your heart before God.
God says He will revive those with a humble spirit and a contrite heart. But one of the great dangers among Christians today-especially for those living in the western world with all of its abundance-is a belief that we don't need anything.
More than ever we need to read the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:17,
"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'-and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
How can you be miserable and naked and not know it? It's obvious that Jesus is speaking of their inward, spiritual condition. Apparently, their outward wealth blinded them to their inward poverty. They fell into the trap of pride, which is one of the inherent dangers that comes with prosperity. As Christians living in a very prosperous western world, we need to heed this word!
At Disneyland there is a ride with cool little cars. I remember once seeing a little boy on the ride with his dad, and his feet didn't even reach the pedals! But Junior thought he was driving, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was actually driving the car and making it go.
We need to remember that our feet don't even reach the pedals, and that Daddy, our God, is the One who makes this thing go. We need to maintain a humble heart.
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No Shifting Shadows
In His Presence: "Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude" (1 Timothy 4:4).
What looks like a closed door to you is God's pathway to blessing. What appears to be a nightmare can become His dream for your life. And what may seem like the worst news you could possibly receive can actually be the point of a new beginning. This is because no matter what God allows to touch your life, He has a plan for your future through it.
It is easy to think of God's goodness in a lighthearted way when it seems that we have everything going for us-a good job, health, a growing family, two new cars in the garage, and a house with several bedrooms. Life seems rich and full. But if we never learn to say "thank you" to the Lord, then we have not learned the truth of James 1:17. "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."
There are two extremes that can prevent us from living with grateful hearts. One is a sense of pride. We become prideful and believe that we have earned all that we have. When we have this attitude, we can expect to run headlong into trouble (Proverbs 16:18).
The second extreme comes as a result of feeling sorry for ourselves. While the temptation to be sorrowful-and even depressed-may pull at our hearts at times, we need to refuse it by turning our eyes heavenward. With a grateful heart we should say, "Thank You, Lord. I'm hurting, and I know You understand. I don't know how You will use this heartache that I am feeling, but I trust You to do just that-use it for Your glory and for my blessing."
God loves to hear our words of worship and praise. When we thank Him-even in times of difficulty-for His constant care over our lives, we are expressing our faith and trust in an omnipotent God who watches over every aspect of our lives.
One Minute Please
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Therefore, be grateful that the light of His love covers you.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . -Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose- that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ- ". . . that I may know Him. . ." (Philippians 3:10). To fulfill God's perfect design for me requires my total surrender- complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
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View from the Top
I sometimes think Jesus views the Church much differently than we view the Church. In fact, there is a really alarming verse that points to this. It is Revelation 3:1,
"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, 'These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead."
WOW! That was written to a church that on the outside looked like they had it all together!
They had a reputation of being a living, vibrant church! People who saw them went to seminars to find out how they were doing it, and people applauded them for their success. But Jesus says, "You're dead!"
The Knox Bible puts it this way, How thou dost pass for a living man and all the while art a corpse. The Living Bible says, I know your reputation as a live and active church, but you're dead.
You see, activity is not synonymous with life. Sometimes people and churches that are decaying spiritually cover it up with activity. They are still "going through the motions," but there is really a spiritual decay eating away inside.
People think they are doing great, but Jesus sees right to the heart of the matter, both in our individual lives and in the Church.
May God keep you and me from being so mislead. May we look to Him always for our daily bread, recognizing and acknowledging that every blessing we possess, every stride of progress we make, is the result of His goodness and His grace alone.
He is the One whose view really matters!
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Your Heart, God's Home
In His Presence: "I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it" (Acts 15:16).
What makes the place where you live merely a house? What transforms it into a home? Many people purchase houses that never become their home while others live in an apartment they do not own, but they consider it home. The thing that makes a house a home is not a deed or piece of paper. Rather, it is the relationships that are shared by those who live within its walls. If there is a lack of love and respect, then you simply have a meaningless building framed with brick and mortar. However, if the relationships are firm and loving, even a small apartment can be a lovely place to live.
God has a favorite home. In Acts 15:16 He tells us that one day He will rebuild the tabernacle of David. It always helps to understand what God does not say. He doesn't say that He is going to rebuild the tabernacle of Moses or the grand temple of Solomon. Instead, He says, "I am going to rebuild the tabernacle of David."
What is so special about the place that David built? The answer is in Acts 13:22, "[God] said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.'" It was David's character that drew God to his home. And it was through that kind of devotion that the Messiah would reign. Therefore, the tabernacle to be rebuilt was the spirit of David's kingdom.
The Lord loved to be with David because David loved being with Him. He passionately sought the Lord's presence. Therefore, David's tabernacle was unlike that of Solomon's because it was more about God's kingdom than a place to practice rituals. Though grand, Solomon's temple had veils within that separated the people from God. But David's kingdom was an example of love and obedience to God. David was always ready to worship; he was always in the presence of God.
This is what the Lord desires for us. He wants our hearts to be His home-His place of worship where He can meet with us and know that He is welcomed. Is your heart a heart of worship and one that seeks the God of love and truth?
One Minute Please
The passion of any house of worship must be Jesus Christ. Then it will be God's home.
:angel:
Daily Devotional
July 15, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
My Life's Spiritual Honor and Duty
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians . . . -Romans 1:14
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent his life to express it. The greatest inspiration in Paul's life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that same sense of indebtedness to Christ regarding every unsaved soul? As a saint, my life's spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to these lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? I will only be able to do this as the Spirit of God works into me this sense of indebtedness.
I am not a superior person among other people- I am a bondservant of the Lord Jesus. Paul said, ". . . you are not your own . . . you were bought at a price . . ." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ and he said, in effect, "I am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus; I am free only that I may be an absolute bondservant of His." That is the characteristic of a Christian's life once this level of spiritual honor and duty becomes real. Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. That is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wine in real life
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In the Pits?
There are times when each of us are in the pits, when life just seems to be upside down and nothing seems to be going right.
As you read the Psalms, you realize King David often felt this way. Take Psalm 88 for example. In verses 2-6 he says,
Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to the grave. I am counted with those who go down to the pit; I am like a man who has no strength, adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and who are cut off from Your hand. You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths.
Pretty descriptive of how you and I can sometimes feel, when our soul is full of troubles...like one who has no strength...adrift among the dead...whom You [God] remember no more.
When you are in the pits, it can often seem like there is no way out. Your soul is full of trouble, you are despondent, you are overwhelmed by the problems of life, you can almost feel like something has died inside of you, and you might feel totally cut off from God, like He has somehow forgotten you.
What I want you to see in today's Scripture is that you are not alone. Every one of us has gone through these difficult days. Even King David!
God knows your struggles. Like David, take time today to share with God all that is on your heart, and in the next few days, I will show you how you can get out of the pits!
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Worship the King
In His Presence: "Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).
As you open up a hymnal on Sunday and sing along with the choir, remember, God is not listening to the tone of your voice or the words you sing. He is listening to your heart. Is it turned to Him in worship and praise and adoration? Or is tuned to the distractions of the world? Are you thinking about His goodness or about the person you promised to meet at the mall later in the afternoon?
When life suddenly falls apart, people begin to search for answers. At times, it seems as if they are willing to search anywhere but in the presence of God. Recently, an actor was on television telling why the cult he was involved with was the only one that could actually help people get in touch with themselves. However, his approach was very vain, empty, and naïve-and totally devoid of God.
Unless we have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we can't know our true identity. This is because our identity is in Christ. Each one of us was created in the image of God-not by a human philosophy or culture. We were shaped for His worship-to stand in the presence of God's holiness and not in the drafty, dark, and lonely halls of sin and fear.
The songs of our lives need to reflect our love and faith in the Savior who died so that we might have eternal life. Praise hymns are wonderful to sing, but much of our deep Spiritual truth and theology can be found in the hymns of old. One of these is "O Worship the King" by Robert Grant.
O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise. . . .
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
One Minute Please
When it comes to worship, sometimes we spend so much time on the appetizers that we forget to enjoy the main course.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Concept of Divine Control
. . . how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! -Matthew 7:11
Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct in this passage for those people who have His Spirit. He urges us to keep our minds filled with the concept of God's control over everything, which means that a disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.
Fill your mind with the thought that God is there. And once your mind is truly filled with that thought, when you experience difficulties it will be as easy as breathing for you to remember, "My heavenly Father knows all about this!" This will be no effort at all, but will be a natural thing for you when difficulties and uncertainties arise. Before you formed this concept of divine control so powerfully in your mind, you used to go from person to person seeking help, but now you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those people who have His Spirit, and it works on the following principle: God is my Father, He loves me, and I will never think of anything that He will forget, so why should I worry?
Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God's will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but is an attitude of the mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7).
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Waiting on God
To get out of a pit, it's really not complicated. Psalm 40:1-2 tells us the first step,
I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.
The first step in getting out of the pit of despair is to cry out to God. He will hear your cry, and He will bring you up and out.
But His answer is not always instant. Notice David said, I waited patiently for the Lord. The answer to his cry wasn't apparent for a while. If you've spent a long time getting yourself into a mess, it may take some time for your deliverance.
A number of years back I went hunting with a friend. I was to fly on a little plane into a meadow about 20 miles into the wilderness where he was going to meet me.
For a variety of reasons, I ended up being six hours late to the drop-off point. My friend wasn't there, so for 20 minutes the pilot of that little plane tried to convince me not to stay. He said there were mountain lions, grizzly bears, packs of wolves...I would get eaten alive!
He finally left, and at about two in the morning I heard a noise. It wasn't a grizzly bear; it was my friend with the horses!
I think the devil is like that airplane pilot. He is always trying to talk us into quitting and giving up. But we can miss the greatest blessings in our lives when we are not patient.
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A Pattern for Worship
In His Presence "Even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary" (Hebrews 9:1).
Many of us can remember watching our mothers make dresses when we were children. Patiently, they would cut out a pattern, pin it to the fabric, and then carefully cut out the pieces so they could be sewn together. The pattern was a guideline for something greater-a dress, skirt, pair of slacks, or blouse.
When we plan the construction of a building, we begin with a blueprint as well. It becomes the pattern we follow in building the structure. In fact, anyone who has ever undertaken a building project knows the importance of architectural drawings. The goal in using these is to achieve a greater result.
If you are going to do anything well in this life, you must begin with a design. The same is true of worship. God outlined a precise pattern for Israel to follow in their worship of Him. The nation had witnessed His miraculous deliverance and their release from Egyptian bondage. However, over time they forgot His goodness and waned in their devotion to Him. The pattern He had given them was meant to lead them to a greater, closer relationship with the God of the universe. But they did not understand this principle and strayed.
The same is true for us today. God loves us with an everlasting love and has provided a pattern for our worship. It is one that, if we use it, will guide us into a close, personal relationship with the Savior. We find His pattern for worship in His Word and through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told His followers, "When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). The Spirit of God is the one who lays a pattern for us to follow in worship and praise. Ask God to develop within you a heart of devotion to Him. Then you will experience not only the fullness of His blessings but also the outpouring of His delight in your life.
One Minute Please
Worship requires a basic design, but it produces a glorious result-one that leads us straight into the throne room of God.
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Miracle of Belief
My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom . . . -1 Corinthians 2:4
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the highest degree; he was not speaking here out of a deep sense of humility, but was saying that when he preached the gospel, he would veil the power of God if he impressed people with the excellency of his speech. Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the effectiveness of redemption, not by impressive speech, nor by wooing and persuading, but only by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of redemption comes through the preaching of the gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher.
Real and effective fasting by a preacher is not fasting from food, but fasting from eloquence, from impressive diction, and from everything else that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God- ". . . as though God were pleading through us . . ." (2 Corinthians 5:20). He is there to present the gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get close to Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the gospel will result in making me a traitor to Jesus, and I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work.
"And I, if I am lifted up. . . , will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32).
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Have You Dug a Pit for Others?
In order to get out of the pits, you need to make sure you haven't dug any pits for others. Psalms 7:14-16 tells us,
Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
Then there is Psalm 9:15-16,
The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The LORD is known by the judgment He executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
Finally, Psalm 57:6,
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me; into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.
When people dig a pit for somebody else, they end up falling into it themselves. In fact, Proverbs 26:27 says it most directly,
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.
Pretty plain, isn't it? If you are asking God to get you out of a pit, you need to take time to consider if it is a pit of your own construction. If you have done something to get someone else in trouble-even if you think you are justified in doing it because that person has hurt you-you need to repent. Until there is repentance, God will not intervene.
God is not going to get you out of your pit while you have a shovel in your hand.
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The Privilege of Being in God's Presence
In His Presence: "The Lord has blessed the house of Obededom and all that belongs to him, on account of the ark of God" (2 Samuel 6:12).
In 2 Samuel, we read how David decided to bring the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. However, he did not move it the way God commanded that it should be transported in Exodus 25. The Levities were commissioned by God to be the ones to carry this important part of Israel's worship. Instead of following what he knew was right, David decided the ark, which represented the very presence of God, would be more secure on a new cart with the Levities walking in front of it. He ignored God's instructions!
Whenever we sidestep what we know is right before the Lord, we end up getting into serious trouble. This situation was no different. David had also ordered an elaborate display for the ark's arrival-all of Israel was to be on hand for the event. However, as the procession crested a small hill, the oxen became upset and the ark started to slide.
Without thinking, Uzzah reached out and touched the ark, and the anger of the Lord burned against him. God struck him down because of his irreverent attitude, and suddenly the celebration came to a halt (2 Samuel 6:7). David was stunned. His plans had failed. So he took God's ark from the threshing floor of Nacon to the house of Obed-edom. It wasn't until three months later that God allowed the ark to be moved to Jerusalem. This time, David got it right and sent the Levities to personally move the ark to its new home.
When it comes to worship, God does not kid around. We may laugh and sway to the music being played in our worship services, but God wants our hearts to reflect the purity and holiness that His Word commands.
As the ark entered Jerusalem, David danced "before the Lord with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14). This time He knew that he had done what was right from God's perspective rather than his own. Do you limit your worship of God to Sundays or other religious events? If so, you could be moving dangerously toward touching something that God has said for you to keep holy.
One Minute Please
How you handle the things of God goes a long way in determining the character of your worship and whether you will be blessed or cursed.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Mystery of Believing
He said, "Who are You, Lord? -Acts 9:5
Through the miracle of redemption, Saul of Tarsus was instantly changed from a strong-willed and forceful Pharisee into a humble and devoted bondservant of the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing miraculous or mysterious about the things we can explain. We control what we are able to explain, consequently it is only natural to seek an explanation for everything. It is not natural to obey, yet it is not necessarily sinful to disobey. There can be no real disobedience, nor any moral virtue in obedience, unless a person recognizes the higher authority of the one giving the orders. If this recognition does not exist, even the one giving the orders may view the other person's disobedience as freedom. If one rules another by saying, "You must do this," and, "You will do that," he breaks the human spirit, making it unfit for God. A person is simply a slave for obeying, unless behind his obedience is the recognition of a holy God.
Many people begin coming to God once they stop being religious, because there is only one master of the human heart- Jesus Christ, not religion. But "Woe is me" if after seeing Him I still will not obey (Isaiah 6:5 , also see Isaiah 6:1). Jesus will never insist that I obey, but if I don't,I have already begun to sign the death certificate of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say, "I will not obey," He will never insist. But when I do this, I am backing away from the recreating power of His redemption. It makes no difference to God's grace what an abomination I am, if I will only come to the light. But "Woe is me" if I refuse the light (seeJohn 3:19-21).
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Are You Rebelling Against Authority?
If you are in the pits, you need to make sure you are not in rebellion against God's established authority, or aligned with those who are.
In Numbers 16 there is an instructive story of Korah and his followers. They openly confronted Moses and Aaron, and challenged whether they were really God's ordained leaders.
Moses and Aaron were flawed and fallible just like every one of us, but Korah wanted to usurp authority that did not belong to him.
God had placed Moses and Aaron in their position of authority, but Korah tried to undermine that authority and lead people against them.
Look at the result of Korah's rebellion. Moses is speaking in verses 30 and 31,
"But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods.
Notice that it was not just Korah who was destroyed. All those who were aligned with him also went into the pit.
I don't think the ground is going to open up under you if you rebel against the authority that God has set up. But you may find yourself in an emotional, physical, or financial pit that you cannot get out of until you get the rebellion out of you.
If you are in a pit today, check your heart and make sure you are not in rebellion against God's ordained authority.
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The Light of Worship
In His Presence: "If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship" (1 John 1:7).
In his classic book, The Pursuit of God, pastor and author A. W. Tozer writes:
When we sing, "Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord," we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.
Why do some persons "find" God in a way that others do not? . . . Of course, the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.
In Old Testament times, there was a spiritual distance between the people and God. Before entering His presence, the priests were required to wash ceremonially and offer a sacrifice for their sins. Only after doing this could they enter the temple. Women could only worship in a certain area of the temple. Their husbands could travel a little further toward the altar of God, but the priests were the ones who offered sacrifices for the people. This is not so today.
The coming of Jesus Christ ended this rigid form of worship and tore away the veil that separated God from His people. Today, we are never outside of His presence. Therefore, it is even more important to be sensitive to His holiness and our need for purity.
The Israelites ritually washed in order to be clean before God. However, after Christ's resurrection, they did not understand that the gift of God's grace could live with them and cleanse them completely. Today, we can bow our heads in prayer, ask God to forgive our sins, and be completely assured that He does. We are cleansed-not because we are special but because His Spirit lives within us. Isn't this enough to stir your heart to worship and praise?
One Minute Please
The Word of God cleans you and prepares you for worship, even when you do not know it is at work in your life.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Submission of the Believer
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am -John 13:13
Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, "You will submit to me." No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose- so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done; and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination, in which I acknowledge that "You are worthy, O Lord . . ." (Revelation 4:11). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don't recognize his worthiness, nor obey his instructions for me, it is a sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.
If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other; like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, "I and My Father are one" (John 10:30). ". . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered" (Hebrews 5:8). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because He was the Son, not in order to become God's Son.
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Are You Obeying God's Warnings?
The third thing you should check in your life, if indeed you are in the pits, is to make sure you have obeyed God's warnings.
God does warn us, but we must listen to those warnings. As Job 33:14-18 says,
For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
God always tries to warn us to keep us out of the pits and to keep our lives from danger. And He speaks in many different ways. Sometimes, as we read here, God will speak to us even through a dream.
As I look at my own life, I can see that I have fallen into pits at various times because I did not listen to God's warnings. There have been times I have been too busy to perceive the fact that God was talking to me. It wasn't that God wasn't warning me. He was. I just had a bunch of other things going on in my life and was not taking time to listen to Him.
He is always faithful to warn us. It's just that we are not always faithful to listen. So if you find yourself in a pit today because you did not heed God's warning, just say, "God, I'm sorry." Repent. God will forgive you. And you will be in the position to receive His deliverance.
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A Love That Will Not Let You Go
In His Presence: "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 13:15).
When he was eighteen years old, author and theologian George Matheson went blind. Yet, he continued his studies and entered college where he became an outstanding student. Later, he was ordained as a preacher in the Church of Scotland. Throughout his early years, his sister remained at his side, helping him to study and learn Greek and Hebrew-which added spiritual depth to his writings.
He was, however, destined to suffer an even greater loss. His sister married and he was forced to confront his impending loneliness. A broken marriage engagement in his own life left him questioning God's personal love and divine care.
It was during this period of his life that he wrote a well-known hymn proclaiming the one thing that he believed was still true. God's love for us will never let us go. He writes:
"O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be."
Some believe that Matheson wrote these words on the day that his sister was married. He confessed, "Something happened to me on that day, which was known only to myself and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. This hymn was the fruit of that suffering."
Perhaps you have suffered a great loss, and you don't know how you will ever worship God again. Your dreams are shattered and your heart is broken. Worship does not always come as a result of overflowing joy. It also can pour out of a heart that is hurting. After all, it was Job who wrote, "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 15:13). God understands, and you can still worship Him because He will never let you go.
One Minute Please
Worship is simply our response to a loving God who refuses to let go of us.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Sanctification (1)
This is the will of God, your sanctification. . . -1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Sanctification requires our coming to the place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid. There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is realized- something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate . . . his own life . . . he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest- simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, "But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me." Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.
Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply "me"? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
When I pray, "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me- it is Himself in me (see 1 Corinthians 1:30).
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Avoiding the Pit
Over the last few days, we have looked at what it takes to get out of the pits-what to do when life seems to be turned upside down.
There is one pit, though, that every person is headed for except for the grace and provision of God. Some of the most marvelous verses of Scripture are found in Psalm 49:6-9. These verses point us to the one and only way to avoid the pit for eternity.
Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him-for the redemption of their souls is costly, and it shall cease forever-that he should continue to live eternally, and not see the Pit.
These are powerful words for our day and age. It is so easy for many to believe that their wealth, their power, and their goodness will someday be enough to save them.
But the only way to have eternal life and not see the pit of eternal destruction is to realize that you can do nothing and pay no amount to redeem your own soul. Why? Because the price of your soul is very costly-more than you could ever pay.
The purchase price was the shed blood of the Son of God upon Calvary's cross. Only through embracing His sacrifice can your soul be ransomed. No good works can do it. No personal sacrifice can do it. The price has been paid.
I trust you have accepted God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. If so, praise Him today for rescuing you from the pit of hell and for paying that high price for you.
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Are You Shouting?
In His Presence: "Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones" (Psalm 33:1).
Shirley Caesar sings a song entitled "Hold My Mule." Itis a song about a man who was called Shouting John because he loved to worship God. The problem was that he ended up going to a city church whose members did not appreciate his form of worship. However, this did not stop John. When he felt the Spirit move, he shouted all over the church.
It wasn't long before he had irritated some of the members, and the deacons decided they needed to have a talk with Shouting John. Standing in one of John's fields-where the old man had been plowing with his mule-they explained why he could not continue his antics. "We're a quiet church," one of the men said, "and you can't be doing all this."
Shouting John listened for a moment, and then he said, "Just a minute. Look out there." He pointed to his fields. "You see all that land? I'm a [former] slave; I'm not supposed to have anything. Yet, I got all this land. Whenever I see that land or think about it, Shouting John gotta shout!"
He paused a moment and then continued, "Look at my chillen. All my chillen are alive. All my chillen are saved. All my chillen are doing fine. Whenever Shouting John thinks about the goodness of God to his chillen, Shouting John gotta shout!"
Then he said, "I get up every morning when the rooster crows and Shouting John get on the back of this mule, and it pulls that plow so Shouting John will have food all year long. When I think about God giving Shouting John a mule and the strength to plow when he is 85 years old, Shouting John gotta shout!" It was then that Shouting John turned to one of the deacons and said, "Hold my mule, I feel a shout coming on."
When we realize where God has brought us from and the plans He has for our future, we will want to shout and never stop!
One Minute Please
The thing that determines whether or not a person is a true worshiper of Jesus Christ is the gratitude that overflows from his or her heart.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Sanctification (2)
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . . -1 Corinthians 1:30
The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He "became for [me] . . . sanctification . . . ." Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.
The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is "Christ in you . . ." (Colossians 1:27). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification- imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?
Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy- it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness- ". . . kept by the power of God . . ." (1 Peter 1:5).
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Falling into Crisis
In 1 Kings we have the story of the prophet Elijah. In chapter 18, we see a great victory over the priests of Baal, an incredible victory that demonstrated the power of the one true God for all to see.
In the next chapter, we see Elijah on the run (1 Kings 19:1-3),
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
How could Elijah, a prophet of God who had been used in such a powerful way, now be on the run? (He eventually even became suicidal.) While there are a number of things we could look at, I want to give you one truth today to consider.
After any great spiritual victory, it is always wise to keep your armor on. Over and over, there are examples of tremendous trials and temptations after great victories.
King David, after God had supernaturally spoken to him, fell morally, and committed adultery with Bathsheba. Or there is Samson who, after God used him to bring great deliverance, got messed up with Delilah. Then there is Jesus who, after being with the Father on the mount of transfiguration, came to the bottom of the mountain and was met by a demon-possessed boy.
Sometimes we are the most vulnerable after the highest and brightest times we have with God. So today, let me encourage you to always keep your armor on (see Ephesians 6:11).
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At the Savior's Feet
In His Presence "I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but [this woman] has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair" (Luke 7:44).
It was customary for the master of the house to provide water at the door so that those who entered could wash their dusty feet. Simon, a Pharisee, had obviously overlooked this important detail. However, the Savior used this oversight as a point to teach His disciples an important lesson about God's forgiveness, grace, and personal worship.
A woman who was a prostitute had been waiting for the right moment to express her devotion to God. We are not told how she got into Simon's house, only that she suddenly began to worship at the feet of the Savior, and every man in the room was aware of it. Without hesitation, she bowed before the Lord and broke the seal on a priceless bottle of perfumed oil. Obviously, she had heard Him teach at some point in the past and had repented of her sin. Nothing is so sweet to the Savior as the fragrance of our repentance.
This was her opportunity to say thank you to God for what He had done in her life. The perfumed oil she poured over His feet was very costly. Yet, Jesus did not stop her from worshiping Him or question where she had gotten the money to buy such an expensive gift. He knew her actions where motivated by pure devotion to God. He also realized that it was a steep sacrifice and something that she would remember for the rest of her life.
Though she did not know it, she was anointing the Savior for his burial. Simon, however, did not even offer a simple pan of water so Jesus could wash His feet. Instead, the Pharisee acted in a typically legalistic fashion. He questioned why Jesus would allow such a display of affection to happen, especially knowing that this woman was a sinner.
God is not ashamed to be with us. This woman fell at Christ's feet knowing that He had forgiven her many sins. She was there to worship Him. And today is the day that you can do the same.
One Minute Please
When you realize the grace of God that has been given to you, you will bow down before Him.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Disposition And Deeds
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the super-natural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says - If you are My disciple you must be right not only in your living, but in your motives, in your dreams, in the recesses of your mind. You must be so pure in your motives that God Almighty can see nothing to censure. Who can stand in the Eternal Light of God and have nothing for God to censure? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that by His Redemption He can put into any man His own disposition, and make him as unsullied and as simple as a child. The purity which God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is what Jesus has undertaken to do by His Redemption.
No man can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations; His teachings are truths that can only be interpreted by the disposition He puts in. The great marvel of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring.
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The Power of Zero
Perhaps you are in a very stressful time in your life right now, and you feel you can't go on. I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact, some of the greatest men and women of God have gone through what you are going through right now.
One of those individuals is the prophet Elijah whom I mentioned in yesterday's devotional. After a great spiritual victory over the priests of Baal, we find him on the run, wondering whether life is even worth it.
We catch the story in 1 Kings 19:4-6,
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, "Arise and eat." Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Elijah had reached that "zero" place in his life. There was nothing left. He had given it all and the tank was empty.
Maybe that describes you right now, you are on the verge of quitting. You figure, "I've had enough. I'm done. Enough pressures, enough hassles, I cannot ride this thing out anymore. My strength is gone!"
Well, did you notice that when Elijah was at the end of his strength, that was when God intervened? Being out of strength, being at zero, is not a bad place to be. If you will look to God, He is prepared to meet you in your moment of need.
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Let the Waters Flow
In His Presence: Psalms 19:14
"Jesus stood and cried out, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." ' But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"(John 7:37-39).
We know God wants Christians to grow. Spiritual growth takes place deep down inside us. It comes from the Holy Spirit, whose job is to make the "waters flow." However, most Christians have a home improvement mentality, where we depend on ourselves to produce the development we know we ought to have. But if we could do it ourselves, we wouldn't need the Holy Spirit. The assumption of the work of the Holy Spirit is that we can't do it ourselves. Just as air enables a horn to make a sound, or wind enables a sailboat to move, the Holy Spirit enables the spiritual life to work.
Many Christians do not realize what they have within them. If we were riding on a bus and it broke down, we would all look pretty foolish if we got out to push the bus while Clark Kent was sitting inside it. Christians tend to want to row themselves to spiritual progress. We row and row until we are so tired that we want to give up. But God wants us to use the speedboat with the motor, and He provides it for us.
One Minute Please
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, there would be no spiritual progress.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are . . . -Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the "dynamite" of the Holy Spirit. And they "explode" when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, "What a startling statement that is!" Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child's play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations- it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
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Your Weakness, God's Power
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a powerful reminder of God's provision for you and me when we reach the end of our strength.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
When Paul wrote these words, he was being harassed everywhere he went by an evil spirit that he referred to as "a thorn in the flesh." It was a messenger sent from Satan to buffet him, to constantly harass him.
The constant harassment of this spirit finally got to him, and he begged God three times to take it away. Paul was clearly at the end of his rope.
But, even though Paul prayed for God's intervention three times, the spirit did not depart. And God's response to Paul was the verse we read above. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
What does perfect mean? It means that His power comes to full maturity...it blossoms...it is fully expressed in our weakness.
What was Paul's response? He went on to say in verses 9-10 of that same chapter,
Therefore most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
It seems that sometimes we have to get to the end of ourselves before we will look fully to God. But when we do, we find that He is more than enough. If you are there today or close to that point, take hold of God's strength.
Put your trust in Him. He will bring you to the place of your breakthrough, and you will find the strength and direction you need--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Person of the Holy Spirit
In His Presence: John 14:16-29
Our God is a triune Being, three Persons in One. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. They are distinct from one another in Their personhood, but They are one in their essence. They are like pretzels, which have three holes but are all tied together by the same dough. The Three are distinct in their functions, but They are essentially one God.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Account With Purity
Out of the heart proceed . . . - Matthew 15:18-20
We begin by trusting our ignorance and calling it innocence, by trusting our innocence and calling it purity; and when we hear these rugged statements of Our Lord's, we shrink and say - But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart. We resent what Jesus Christ reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme Authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust His penetration, or do I prefer to trust my innocent ignorance? If I make conscious innocence the test, I am likely to come to a place where I find with a shuddering awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I shall be appalled at the possibility of evil and wrong in me. As long as I remain under the refuge of innocence I am living in a fool's paradise. If I have never been a blackguard, the reason is a mixture of cowardice and the protection of civilized life; but when I am undressed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis.
The only thing that safeguards is the Redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will hand myself over to Him, I need never experience the terrible possibilities that are in my heart. Purity is too deep down for me to get to naturally: but when the Holy Spirit comes in, He brings into the centre of my personal life the very Spirit that was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ, viz., Holy Spirit, which is unsullied purity.
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Lightening the Load
When we get into the storms of life, it is often difficult to know what to do. It can feel like the noise of our troubles drowns out everything else.
In Acts 27 we find the apostle Paul caught in the midst of a horrible storm. The ship was being tossed all over the place, and the situation was becoming quite serious.
Embedded in this story is a spiritual truth that can guide you and me when we get caught in the storms of life. It is found in verses 18-19,
And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
Notice that when the storm got bad and threatened to capsize the ship, they lightened the load.
Sometimes in a storm you need to throw some things overboard. In fact, it is a great time to evaluate any baggage that you are carrying in your life. There are some things that may not be a sin to you, but they are a weight to you.
One of the things you need to carefully evaluate is your relationships. There are some relationships you need to cut loose because they are hanging you up, holding you back, and they are hindering you from getting to where God wants you to go.
Or maybe it's something as simple as too much TV. Watching TV may not be a sin, but it can sure be a weight! It can sure be a hindrance to you hearing from God, especially when you are in a time of crisis.
If you really want to hear from God and get yourself unstuck, lighten your ship.
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Filled with the Holy Spirit
In His Presence: Psalms 63:1
"Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord"(Ephesians 5:18-19).
Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit "abides with you and will be in you" (John 14:17). But how do we engage this personal Helper? How does His power become real for us? We are to become filled with the Spirit; another way to express this is to be full of Him. When a person drinks too much liquor, they become intoxicated. When a person is drunk, they are under the influence of the drink. The alcohol dictates the agenda. They don't get drunk by looking at the liquor or talking about it. They drink it. The more they drink, the more drunk they get.
God tells us that it is like that with the Holy Spirit. To see the Helper develop us, He must have control. We must come under the influence of the Holy Spirit. We must become full of Him. So how do we drink the Holy Spirit? Remember, the Holy Spirit is a spirit, not a being we can see. He functions in the spiritual world, so that's what we drink-spiritual worship. The Holy Spirit fills up the environment that is filled with worship-songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with our hearts to the Lord.
One Minute Please
Worship fuels us with the Holy Spirit's presence, operating in us to engage the new nature.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
Behold, He is coming with clouds . . . -Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds- He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child- a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God's character, we do not yet know Him.
". . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud" (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is "no one anymore, but only Jesus . . ." (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2-7)
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PRAISE: The First Step in Effective Prayer
Praying consistently will change your life. In fact, many of the blessings God wants you to enjoy will never be realized unless you pray.
I think all Christians know they are supposed to pray, and all Christians want to pray. But many of God's people, if they are completely frank and transparent about the issue, would have to admit their prayer life is somewhere between mediocre and non-existent.
Over the next few devotionals, I want to share with you four simple points which I have put into an acronym: P-R-A-Y. If you can spell the word pray, hopefully you will be able to remember how to make your prayer life more effective, and you will be inspired to pray more consistently.
Psalm 100 helps us understand the first letter, "P", in the word P-R-A-Y, which stands for praise. Psalm 100:1-4 states it well,
Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
Verse 2 tells us, Come before His presence with singing. And in verse 4 notice the words "enter into." In other words, praise is how you are to enter God's presence. It is the best way to begin your prayer.
When you want to come to God, you start with thanksgiving. You start with singing. You start with praise. Or, as The Message says, Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Today, and every day, make praise the starting point of every conversation with God!
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Keep Your Tank Full
In His Presence: Psalms 27:14
"Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand" - (Psalm 95:6-7).
Most Christians view worship as an event instead of a lifestyle. But our day of worship is not supposed to replace our weekday and weekend worship. Sunday is supposed to launch us into our week of worship. Worship is meant to be a lifestyle, not an event.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit and with a heart full of worship for our great God and King, we must be like a car pulling up to a filling station to receive a full tank of gasoline. Once we are filled up, do we park our vehicle and sit there the rest of the week? No, we go to a filling station to get what we need to leave the station. We have a destination and need full tanks to get there.
A problem occurs when we leave the station. As soon as we walk out of our Sunday worship, people begin to burn up that fuel inside them. Our mates, children, and work burn it up. When we leave our church, we are full of God's presence and glory from our time in corporate worship. But Satan's job is to burn up that fuel. The worst thing we can do is to wait until next Sunday to worship. We need to drink continually to stay filled.
One Minute Please
What we do on Sunday must become a way of life to remain filled with the Holy Spirit.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Teaching of Disillusionment
Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . . , for He knew what was in man -John 2:24-25
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens- if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God, and in what God's grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.
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REPENT: The Second Step in Effective Prayer
Yesterday we began to look at what makes for effective prayer by using the acronym P-R-A-Y. The first step is praise. Today, I want to focus on the second letter of our acronym, "R", which stands for repent.
By repentance in prayer, I mean taking the time before God to search your heart and repent of anything that has come between you and Him. Psalm 19:12-13 expresses it well,
Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Verse 12 begins with the question, "Who can understand his errors?" The psalmist is telling us, "You will not always know when you do something wrong. You will not always know when you get into an area that is not right."
What David is pointing to are the secret faults and presumptuous sins which can still have dominion over you-even though you may not be aware that what you did was wrong.
For example, sometimes we can allow attitudes to get into our hearts that we don't realize are inconsistent with God's character. Or sometimes we can do and say things that are detrimental, not only to us, but to others, and not really understand the damage we have done.
How do you deal with these sins? You come before God and say, "God, put the spotlight on anything in my life that has raised a barrier between You and me, and I will repent of it."
So when you pray, ask God to reveal any sin in your life you may be overlooking. God will honor your heart of repentance.
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Walking in the Spirit
In His Presence: Proverbs 9:10
"We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us"(1 John 3:24).
Since we all live in the flesh, we will struggle with the desires of the flesh until we get to heaven. But we can bring these desires under the Holy Spirit's influence. "I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). Notice that the apostle Paul doesn't say we won't have the desires of the flesh when we walk in the Spirit, but that we won't carry out those desires.
Walking in the Spirit is similar to the concept of being filled with the Holy Spirit. To walk implies that the Spirit is going somewhere-there's a destination. He always goes to the same place, to that which brings God glory. In contrast, the flesh is always moving to that which will please itself. Walking is continuous, so not only do we have to pay attention to our destination, but our walking also involves dedication. Like the filling of the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit is ongoing. A third aspect of walking includes dependency. The act of walking is taking one step after another.
The key to walking in the Spirit is to look to Him to give us the ability to do what we know we can't do on our own. The moment we try to do it on our own, we reject the work of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn't need our help; we need His.
One Minute Please
When we walk in the Spirit, the flesh will lose its ability to have the last word.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Becoming Entirely His
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing -James 1:4
Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.
Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.
We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God's redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. "Let patience have its perfect work . . . ." The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, "Now let your patience become a finished product." Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, "Oh, that will have to do for now." Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.
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ASK: The Third Step in Effective Prayer
So far we have discovered that praise and repentance are the first two steps to effective prayer. Today I want to show you the very important third step of asking.
Yesterday we talked about how repentance is searching your own heart and asking God to put the spotlight on it, and then repenting of anything that He shows you. When your heart is clean, you can have confidence before God when you ask. As 1 John 3:21-22 says,
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus tells us,
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
Pretty clear, isn't it? God loves you and wants the very best for you. Be careful not to water down the words of Jesus, or somehow try and explain them away or complicate them. He meant just what He said.
But there are some conditions. And tomorrow we will look at those conditions for receiving what you ask God for.
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Remarkable Fruit
In His Presence: Matthew 11:29
"[God] made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Corinthians 3:6).
The Holy Spirit within us makes life real; life comes alive. When we have accepted Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, life is no longer theology. It's all right to have theology in our heads, just as long as it becomes real in our lives when we grow closer to God through the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit takes over, we begin to grow. The Holy Spirit becomes our power source behind this growth so that eventually it will become evident. "The deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:19-23).
The Holy Spirit is the divine enabler who produces growth in us. Every time we try to grow independently of God, we are working against Him. Many of us spend much of our time shutting God out. We are trying to produce those fruits on our own. However, God does not need our help to grow us.
One Minute Please
When the Holy Spirit takes over our spiritual growth, He will produce remarkable fruit in us.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Learning About His Ways
When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities -Matthew 11:1
He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, "I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here," it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. "Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . ." (Luke 9:33).
Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God's role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.
He works where He sends us to wait. ". . . tarry . . . until . . ." (Luke 24:49). "Wait on the Lord" and He will work (Psalm 37:34). But don't wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can't see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to "wait patiently for Him"? (Psalm 37:7). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.
These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.
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The Conditions for Answered Prayer
Yesterday we talked about the "A" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, which is our way of understanding the steps in effective prayer. That "A" stands for ask, and I have come to believe that too many Christians don't believe that God wants them to ask.
God wants you to ask. He really does. But there are some conditions He gives in order to answer your requests. In John chapters 14-16 we find a number of these conditions.
We need to remember that these are Jesus' last hours with the disciples; and He wants them to understand how prayer really works. Over and over He emphasizes the need to ask, but His answers will be based on three conditions.
First, in John 14:13, Jesus says your request must glorify God,
"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."
Second, in John 15:7, He says your request must be consistent and in harmony with His Word,
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
And finally, in John 16:23-24, Jesus sets the condition that your request bring you joy,
"And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
Over and over, Jesus commands you to ask. But when you ask, make sure your request will glorify God, that it is consistent with His Word, and that it will bring you joy.
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The Raging Battle
In His Presence: Psalms 37:4
"I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please"(Galatians 5:16-17).
The very Spirit of God has taken up residence in our lives if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. God wants to express His mind, His thoughts, His desires, and His will through our mortal bodies. But for us to see this happen, we need to be under the Holy Spirit's control. While this is taking place, we are going to experience conflict within ourselves. This is one way we can know we are Christians. If we have no battles raging within, we are probably not saved. There is no opposition within us. God says the flesh and the Spirit are total opposites; they are not going to get along with each other at all.
How do we know the difference between the flesh and the Holy Spirit within us? The Spirit will want to please God, and the flesh will want to please ourselves. That's why the war going on inside of us is good, not bad. Most of us feel guilty about having such a battle. Of course, we may not like the feeling, but the two laws operating in our bodies should give us occasion to praise God.
One Minute Please
If a battle is being waged within you, that's a good thing because it indicates that the Spirit is active.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Teaching of Adversity
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world -John 16:33
The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . ." (Psalm 91:1,10)- the place where you are at one with God.
If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He is saying, "There is nothing for you to fear." The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.
God does not give us overcoming life- He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment- "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life . . ." (Revelation 2:7). If you completely give of yourself physically, you become exhausted. But when you give of yourself spiritually, you get more strength. God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment. Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense. But a saint can "be of good cheer" even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God.
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YIELD: The Fourth Step in Effective Prayer
Psalms 37:4 provides us the "Y" in the acronym P-R-A-Y, the four elements to effective prayer we have been discussing over the last few devotionals.
Here is what Psalm 37:4 says,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Now the Hebrew word for delight in this verse literally means to become soft or pliable. This means that "delighting" in the Lord is assuming a yielded posture before God.
So the "Y" in P-R-A-Y stands for yield. The question is: How do you practice yielding to God when you pray? Yielding is when you stop talking, and you wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.
In my own practice of prayer, I will often bow before God and ask Him, "God, is there anything You want to say to me? Do You have any instructions for me? Is there anything You want me to change?"
Then I silently wait for Him to speak to me.
As you assume this posture of being yielded and waiting quietly before Him, you will be surprised at some of the things that come to your attention: "You need to spend more time with your daughter," "Take your wife out on a date," "Bake your neighbor a pie and build a bridge over which the gospel can travel," "Spend more time praising Me," "Show your gratitude and appreciation for those who have been helping you in your life."
You will indeed hear from God if you ask Him to speak into your heart, and wait silently before Him.
That is the last element of effective prayer: praise, repent, ask, yield. Your prayers can indeed be effective if you commit to these four principles. That is how to P-R-A-Y.
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What Are Carnal Christians?
In His Presence: 1 Timothy 2:1-4
What is a carnal Christian? Carnality is that spiritual state where a born-again Christian knowingly and persistently lives to please and serve self rather than Christ. Carnality is an issue with Christians only, because a carnal Christian is a genuine Christian. These people have placed their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone, and have been born again a second time. It is possible for Christians to be on our way to heaven but be of no good to God on earth.
Christians are experiencing a crisis of carnality. Many men, women, and young people are only half-stepping with Christ. God has too many children who are not sure whose family we really want to be a part of. This indecision has led to untold agony, unanswered prayers, emotional weakness, physical weakness, loss of peace, loss of joy, and lack of stability. This does not mean that every time a Christian experiences a problem it implies that he or she is carnal. However, far too many of us are experiencing too many failures because we are, in fact, carnal and only half-stepping with the Gospel.
The apostle Paul addressed this issue with the church in Corinth: "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly" (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
One Minute Please
Do you want to be part of God's family or the world's family?
:angel:
August 5, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Bewildering Call of God
'. . . and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.' . . . But they understood none of these things . . . -Luke 18:31, 34
God called Jesus Christ to what seemed absolute disaster. And Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death, leading every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. His life was an absolute failure from every standpoint except God's. But what seemed to be failure from man's standpoint was a triumph from God's standpoint, because God's purpose is never the same as man's purpose.
This bewildering call of God comes into our lives as well. The call of God can never be understood absolutely or explained externally; it is a call that can only be perceived and understood internally by our true inner-nature. The call of God is like the call of the sea- no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him. What God calls us to cannot be definitely stated, because His call is simply to be His friend to accomplish His own purposes. Our real test is in truly believing that God knows what He desires. The things that happen do not happen by chance- they happen entirely by the decree of God. God is sovereignly working out His own purposes.
If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, "I wonder why God allowed this or that?" And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God.
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Growing Up
1. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 teach us that we should grow in our love for others. I would hate to think that I have plumbed the depths of love for my wife, for my children, for my friends, or for God.
2. Ephesians 2:21 speaks to us of growing in unity. You and I ought to grow better and better at getting along with other believers, especially those in our church.
3. Luke 2:52 speaks of growing in wisdom. God is so anxious to provide you and me with His wisdom, but it is something we need to seek. Are you growing in wisdom?
4. Luke 2:52 also speaks of growing in favor. Are you obnoxious and hard to get along with? Do you find it difficult to get along with others? I challenge you, if that is true, to consider the model of Jesus for our lives. He grew in favor with both God and men.
5. 2 Peter 3:18 says that we can grow in grace. I don't know about you, but I am deeply grateful for God's grace in my life. And for those who extend me grace when I blow it. Is grace a hallmark of your life?
According to Scripture, these ten areas-the five from yesterday and the five today-are vital areas in which you and I are to grow. I challenge you to read each Scripture and take each area before the Lord and ask Him to reveal where you need to grow.
You will be amazed at the change for good that will come about in your life
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Biblical Saints Living in Carnality
In His Presence: Proverbs 24:14
It is possible to be a genuine Christian and be carnal. The Bible gives us several examples of such men and women. One of these examples is Saul, son of Kish, the first king of Israel. We know that he was redeemed because the Bible says: "God changed his heart" (1 Samuel 10:9). Yet here was a man who, because of his rebellion against God, eventually sought the counsel of witches and committed suicide.
King Solomon is another example of a king who was redeemed by God but turned away from Him. At first, he was a tremendous king. The Lord appeared to him in a dream one night and said to Solomon: "Ask what you wish me to give you" (1 Kings 3:5). King Solomon replied: "Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child . . . Give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil" (vv. 7-9). Yet later in the same book it says: "King Solomon loved many foreign women" (1 Kings 11:1). When King Solomon entered the life of carnality, he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, which is about the emptiness of life.
The sons of Jacob lived in carnality for 11 years after they sold Joseph into slavery. King David lived in a state of carnality when he committed adultery and murder. When David tried to hide his sin, he covered it up until Nathan the prophet confronted him.
One Minute Please
God gives us new life. It is up to us to make it meaningful.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Cross In Prayer
At that day ye shall ask in My name. - John 16:26
We are too much given to thinking of the Cross as something we have to get through; we get through it only in order to get into it. The Cross stands for one thing only for us - a complete and entire and absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing in which this identification is realized more than in prayer.
"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him." Then why ask? The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete oneness with God. If we pray because we want answers, we will get huffed with God. The answers come every time, but not always in the way we expect, and our spiritual huff shows a refusal to identify ourselves with Our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove God answers prayer; we are here to be living monuments of God's grace.
"I say not that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you." Have you reached such an intimacy with God that the Lord Jesus Christ's life of prayer is the only explanation of your life of prayer? Has Our Lord's vicarious life become your vital life? "At that day" you will be so identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.
When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to fix the blame on someone else. That is always a snare of Satan. You will find there is a reason which is a deep instruction to you, not to anyone else.
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Focus
In Philippians 3:13, Paul says,
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The phrase I want to direct you to today is Paul's statement, One thing I do. These are echoes of words King David spoke when he said, "One thing I desire," and Jesus, who said to the rich young ruler, "There is one thing you lack."
Then there is the blind man, who had been blind from birth, whom Jesus healed. When he was questioned, he said, "There is one thing I know: I was blind, now I see." One thing I do; one thing I desire; one thing you lack; one thing I know.
Each of these statements points to a vital thing needed if you are to grow in your spiritual life: FOCUS.
The problem with many people is they are far too scattered. They are trying to do everything and be everything. They try to be a jack-of-all-trades and end up being a master of none.
If that describes you today, let me ask you a question: What is the one main thing that should be the focus of your life?
I have a very gifted friend who drives me crazy. We can spend an hour in the car; and, in that hour, he has shared 21 new ideas with me. He is trying to be so many things and do so many things that he is not as effective as he could be at anything!
My question to you is this: If you died and stood before God today, what is the one thing He is going to ask you about? Paul said, "One thing I do." What is that one thing for you?
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Stagnant Christians
In His Presence: Colossians 4:2
The carnal Christian is a stagnant Christian. The apostle Paul told the church in Corinth: "Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly" (1 Corinthians 3:2-3). Even though a carnal Christian is saved, he has had little or no development over time. It is dismaying as a pastor to watch Christians who come to church week after week, month after month, year after year, making no progress even though they may be performing. They commit the same old sins the same way. They are not overcoming these sins that in time they should be mature enough to overcome. They refuse to think biblically.
What marks a stagnant Christian is their persistence in the milk of the word. We can call them the "A B C" Christians. "A B C" Christians are still learning how to read, while their peers are graduating from high school. The difference between the stagnant and growing Christian is that the stagnant Christian does not use the time since salvation to grow spiritually.
A carnal Christian is like a vehicle that has stalled because it has run out of gasoline. We are stalled if we still measure success in our spiritual lives purely by how much we were entertained in church. The Holy Spirit is there to provide the power, but your spiritual life needs gas. There's nothing wrong with the engine, but the gasoline needed for this car to run is our commitment to grow. It needs our persistence.
One Minute Please
We have to make a decision on our own to move from the milk of the Word to solid food.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Prayer in the Father's House
. . . they found Him in the temple . . . . And He said to them, '. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' -Luke 2:46, 49
Our Lord's childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood- His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father's house? Is the Son of God living in His Father's house within me?
The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong- when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. ". . . I must be about My Father's business"- and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father's house.
Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord's life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father's house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.
The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.
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Forgetting the Past
Yesterday we looked at Philippians 3:13. I want to draw our attention to this verse again today, but for another reason.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
The key word I want to have you focus on today is forgetting. I want you to understand the importance of forgetting the past so you can move forward.
Some people-perhaps you-cannot reach forward because they are continually looking backwards. Their focus is on their past sins, their past mistakes, their past failures, their past hurts.
God does not want you to live in the past, but rather focus on the future.
A while back I was visiting a friend who had a great impact on my life as a young believer. As I was sitting at a meal with him and his wife, he began to share with me a great personal failure.
About ten years earlier, when he was pioneering a church, he fell into an adulterous relationship. It rocked the foundation of his marriage; but he repented, got out of the relationship, and over time, God healed his marriage. But he has not been in ministry since.
As he told me, tears began to stream down his face. He got up from the table, went to the bathroom, and his wife looked at me and said, "Bayless, if you can help him, please do. My husband has lived a holy life for the last ten years. God has forgiven him, I have forgiven him, but he hasn't forgiven himself."
This man chained himself to this one past failure, and he can't get on with what God had called him to do.
Bury your past so you can uncover your future.
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Carnality by Choice
In His Presence: Galatians 6:2
"Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"(Hebrews 3:12-13).
When God saved us, He saved us to serve Christ. Occasional lapses into sin do not imply carnality. Everyone sins. Carnality is the state where the person has the mindset of seeking to gratify themselves rather than please Christ.
No Christian has to be carnal. Being carnal is a decision of the will. Carnal Christians have grown up physically and should be able to feed themselves. But they can't. That is because a carnal Christian is a person who has developed a mindset of disobedience. They willfully live in sin, controlled by the old person they used to be. They are saved and the Holy Spirit is in them, but they are not allowing the Holy Spirit to grow them.
There is a difference between a baby Christian and a carnal Christian. Baby Christians are young in the Lord and do not yet have the capacity to eat on their own. Someone else has to feed them-to give them the Word. A young Christian desires the milk of the Word of God. "Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" (1 Peter 2:2).
One Minute Please
Have you become hardened to sin in your life? Are you a carnal Christian?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Prayer in the Father's Honor
. . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God -Luke 1:35
If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God's birth on earth is true of every saint. God's Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise the right of a child- the right of always being face to face with my Father through prayer. Do I find myself continually saying in amazement to the commonsense part of my life, "Why did you want me to turn here or to go over there? 'Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' " (Luke 2:49). Whatever our circumstances may be, that holy, innocent, and eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.
Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He having His wonderful way with me? Is God's will being fulfilled in that His Son has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19), or have I carefully pushed Him to one side? Oh, the noisy outcry of today! Why does everyone seem to be crying out so loudly? People today are crying out for the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for God's Son right now- no room for quiet, holy fellowship and oneness with the Father.
Is the Son of God praying in me, bringing honor to the Father, or am I dictating my demands to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the time of His manhood here on earth? Is God's Son in me going through His passion, suffering so that His own purposes might be fulfilled? The more a person knows of the inner life of God's most mature saints, the more he sees what God's purpose really is: to ". . . fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." (Colossians 1:24). And when we think of what it takes to "fill up," there is always something yet to be done.
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Running Inside the Lines
In Philippians 3:14, Paul provides a powerful insight into his passion. Here is what he says,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul clearly had a goal in mind, a sense of his destiny. And he was undaunted in seeking to reach it.
In fact, the phrase "I press toward the goal" could literally be translated from the Greek text this way, "I run within the lines." It paints the picture of a runner, running down a track, staying in his lane.
He is not overreaching his bounds, running in someone else's lane. Rather, as he goes for the goal, he is running within the lines with the goal in mind.
In a little mission in Medford, Oregon, many years ago, there was a young man with a terrible drug and alcohol problem. One night God got a hold of his life. It was a truly dramatic conversion.
I was that young man. And for several decades now, I have been seeking to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me. I knew that night that God had a destiny for my life. And that is the goal I strive and press forward to achieve.
God has a destiny for your life, too. God laid hold of your life just like He did mine, for a purpose. If you have not already done so, you must understand and press forward to fulfill the destiny God has for your life.
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God Wants to Amaze You
In His Presence: Luke 5
How do you respond when you get a tremendous blessing? We all want to be blessed. Do you accept with gratitude? Do you let the blessing absorb you?
In the gospels, at Jesus' direction Peter let down his net in the water, and the blessing was so huge that the abundance of fish tore holes in Peter's net. His boat was dangerously close to capsizing.
In Luke 5:8, it reads, When Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!"Peter saw beyond the blessing. Peter saw Jesus and recognized his own limitations and his need for the Savior.
Jesus amazed Peter with the overload of fish because He wanted Peter to follow Him and get to know Him better. God wants to amaze you so that you can better understand who He is and love Him even more.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Prayer in the Father's Hearing
Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me' -John 11:41
When the Son of God prays, He is mindful and consciously aware of only His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19) the Father will always hear my prayers. But I must see to it that the Son of God is exhibited in my human flesh. ". . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . . " (1 Corinthians 6:19), that is, your body is the Bethlehem of God's Son. Is the Son of God being given His opportunity to work in me? Is the direct simplicity of His life being worked out in me exactly as it was worked out in His life while here on earth? When I come into contact with the everyday occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of God's eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? Jesus says, "In that day you will ask in My name . . ." (John 16:26). What day does He mean? He is referring to the day when the Holy Spirit has come to me and made me one with my Lord.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied by your life, or are you exhibiting a walk of spiritual pride before Him? Never let your common sense become so prominent and forceful that it pushes the Son of God to one side. Common sense is a gift that God gave to our human nature- but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son, and we should never put our common sense on the throne. The Son always recognizes and identifies with the Father, but common sense has never yet done so and never will. Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God. We must make sure that our human flesh is kept in perfect submission to Him, allowing Him to work through it moment by moment. Are we living at such a level of human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being exhibited moment by moment in us?
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Your Lane
Yesterday we discovered that God has given each of us a call...a destiny designed by God for His glory.
In Philippians 3:12, Paul gives us some additional insight into that call,
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul-when he was still an unbeliever and on the road to Damascus-had an encounter with Jesus. Our Lord laid hold of him and Paul realized God had not only put a call on his life, but that the call was unique.
He was driven to fulfill that call. He states it this way, "Since that day, I have been trying to lay hold of the reason for which He laid hold of me."
You also have a unique call. And whatever it is, you need to stop comparing yourself to others and competing with others. That is a terrible way to live. Find out what your lane is, what your gifting is, your calling, and run in that lane.
You are unique! God has not called anyone else to do exactly what you do. Find out who you are and forget about what anybody else thinks. God is not comparing you to another person. You do not have to compete with anyone or be compared to anyone. Just do what He has asked you to do.
That is running in your lane. Do not run in somebody else's lane. Now you can certainly learn from others, but you don't want to copy them. You were born an original; you don't want to die a copy.
Determine God's unique design for your life and run in the lane of that design. That is when you will know satisfaction, blessing, and contentment.
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The Natural Man
In His Presence: 2 Timothy 3:16-17
"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised"(1 Corinthians 2:14).
It's important to understand that when the apostle Paul talks about the natural man he is referring to an unbeliever. The non-Christian does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They seem like foolishness to him. He cannot understand it. A Christian is supposed to be supernatural man, because the Spirit of God is living within him. Non-Christians can pretend to be Christians, but can only carry spiritual things so far. They do not want spiritual things controlling their lives.
The natural man can be moral, kind-hearted, filled with good intentions and good works. Yet the non-believer does not accept spiritual things as part of his everyday life. He doesn't know what to do with them. Spiritual truth is not very important to this person. He wants to talk about everything but spiritual things. The mindset of the unbeliever is that everyone else is doing it so it must be all right. The Bible uses the word sensual to describe him.
If we could draw an analogy of the natural man and the Christian, we could compare the natural man to a surround-sound entertainment center that is not hooked up to cable or satellite. While the entertainment center is expensive and of good quality, without a signal it won't do very much. In the same way, the natural man will not get the same signals as the Christian.
One Minute Please
The natural man is not a carnal Christian even though they may appear to be similar.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Discipline of the Lord
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him -Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, "Oh, that must be from the devil."
"Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, "Don't be blind on this point anymore- you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I'm revealing it to you right now." When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
". . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him." We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, "Oh well, I can't help it. I prayed and things didn't turn out right anyway. So I'm simply going to give up on everything." Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me- sanctification is God's idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)
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The True Grace of God
Yesterday we read Jude 1:4 which states,
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we move away from this verse, I want to point out a phrase that I believe is very dangerous ground for the Church in America today. It is the phrase, "Ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness."
Lewdness literally means unrestrained lust, wickedness, and immorality. These people believed that once you were saved, you could live however you wanted.
There are people in the Church today with this type of thinking. They believe that if you are saved by grace, and good works do not merit salvation, then you can do whatever you want.
You can sleep around, commit adultery, get drunk, the sky's the limit. It's grace, baby! Your works don't have anything to do with it. You can live however you want!
One of the things that I have heard throughout the years is, "Hey, it doesn't matter. It's grace. God will forgive me, so I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway."
You do not want to live that way. Believe me, something begins to break down inside of you, and you will pay the piper eventually.
If you are turning the grace of God into lewdness through immorality, or any other sin, I challenge you to stop today. Confess your sin to God, turn from whatever it is that you have been doing, and ask God to help you live for Him. If you do, you will experience the true grace of God, which teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).
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Newborn Christians
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:20
"I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ"(1 Corinthians 3:1).
There are people who are Christians but are not mature. They are neither carnal Christians nor unbelievers. These are people who are brand-new to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. They have not been saved long enough to become spiritual. A baby Christian cannot be mature. They can be Spirit-controlled, but they cannot be mature because maturity requires time.
When Paul addresses Christians about their infancy, he is referring to weak, brand-new Christians. We cannot condemn a person because he or she is a baby. Neither does the apostle Paul condemn new Christians because they are immature. New Christians should not get frustrated because they are not mature. They should allow the Holy Spirit control over what they have, and He will make it increase with time. When a baby Christian desires to become mature, we should rejoice that they have listened to the Holy Spirit's voice and have developed a desire for a deeper and more satisfying relationship with God.
"I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it"(v. 2). New Christians grow by feeding on the basics of Christianity. They learn who God is and how much He loves us. They learn who Jesus Christ is, and why it was necessary for Him to become the Lamb of God.
One Minute Please
A baby Christian learns to love God with all his heart, mind, and soul.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again -John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus' question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
"But as many as received Him. . ." (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
". . . unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God " (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God's kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God's control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
"Whoever has been born of God does not sin. . ." (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, "Should a Christian sin?" The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin- it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
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Six Times We Should Seek God
But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).
In today's devotional, I want to show you the first three of six times we should seek the Lord:
1. When we have sinned.
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
If you sin, do not run from God, run to Him. Do not allow shame to keep you away.
2. When we are feeling dry spiritually.
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).
When you sense a distance between you and God, or if you feel dry spiritually, do not delay! Seek Him early.
When my potted plants feel dry, I water them. I do not wait until they turn brown and are almost dead. If the soil is dry and the leaves begin to droop, they are in need of water right then, and so it is when you are feeling spiritually dry.
One of the keys to keeping potted plants-and our spiritual lives-healthy is to tend to them early.
3. When we are fearful.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).
When you are fearful or anxious, it is time to seek the Lord. When you seek Him you can expect to be delivered from all of your fears!
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God Has a Purpose for Us
In His Presence: Jeremiah 29:11
"David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers"(Acts 13:36).
Men, the worst thing in the world is to live out our 75 or so years of life not knowing why we were put here in the first place. When God placed Adam in this world, He told him to fill the earth and tame it. He was to create a culture out of the wild. Adam knew he had a purpose for his life. The tragedy today is that men have settled for the mundane and become satisfied by emptiness. They haven't gotten around to exploring God's reason for their existence. If we don't know why we have a life to live, then anyone who whispers in our ear can distract us from our divinely ordained reason for being.
God has a purpose for each of us; we need to pursue God's special future. But if we just settle for the definition of manhood given us by society, the entertainment industry, the sports industry, and our buddies, then we will never discover the purpose God has for us. Real living is when we are completing the work that God has called us to do.
Satan is seeking to overrun this world with evil. But God is ready to partner with us when we take up the mantle of manhood. Through the Holy Spirit, He will work in and through us, but it requires taking a risk.
One Minute Please
Are you going to settle for the ordinary, or are you going to be God's man doing God's business?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Does He Know Me . . . ?
He calls his own . . . by name . . . -John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person's soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. ". . . she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. . . . Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' " (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. "She turned and said to Him, 'Rabboni!' " (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus- maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord" (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, "Unless I see . . . I will not believe" (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. "Thomas . . . said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' " (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, "Lord . . . You know that I love You" (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him- a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
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Six Times We Should Seek God (Part Two)
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at three times we should seek God. Today we will look at three more:
4. When we are in trouble.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:2).
In Hosea 5:15 the Lord says, "...in their affliction they will earnestly seek me."
I don't like to admit it, but the truth is that at times I have sought God more earnestly when I have been in trouble. Problems have a way of getting us on our knees. If you are in trouble today - seek Him!
5. When all is well.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore! (Psalm 105:4).
If you will carefully read the preceding verses of this psalm, you will find that the context is one of blessing and not trouble.
This may be the most important time of all to seek Him. May we never become smug and think that we do not need God when all is well.
6. Continually.
Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!
(1 Chronicles 16:11).
The word evermore in this verse means continually or at all times.
When you have sinned, when you are dry, when you are afraid, when you are in trouble, when all is well, and in any other situation - you need to seek God!
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Man Must Lead
In His Presence: Ecclesiastes 3:9-12
"I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ"(1 Corinthians 11:3).
God has created a systematic chain of command by which He operates. He expects this chain of command to become part of our lives as well. Even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, comes under the authority of God the Father. A man is to place himself under the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is not a statement of equality, but of function. God ordained this order at creation. Further, a woman comes under the authority of her husband as a statement of submission to God.
What happens when we break the chain of command? Satan began his plan of attack on man right in the Garden of Eden. He got Eve and Adam to switch roles. Eve took the lead and Adam became the follower. It was a disastrous experience. Sin was introduced to the world along with its companions, death and disobedience.
God has stitched women in such a way that they are built to be responders. When the man leads the home by placing himself under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the woman will follow. But for a follower to be a good follower, they must have someone worth following. If the man refuses to recognize the authority of Jesus in his life, then the woman will step into the leadership role.
One Minute Please
The biblical definition of real manhood is a man who leads his family in the worship of God by submitting to his Lord.
:angel:
August 19
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Self-Awareness
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one- "Come to Me . . . ." The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
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Search the Scriptures
After Paul preached the gospel to the Bereans, they did something that others had not done-they searched the Scriptures.
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so (Acts 17:11).
According to the next verse, the result of their search was that many of them believed.
Jesus said in John 5:39, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me."
I once heard a Jewish believer share his testimony. His daughter, who had become a Christian, challenged him to read through the New Testament.
He began in Matthew and was astonished to find so many Old Testament references to the Messiah being fulfilled by Jesus.
His initial reason for searching the Scriptures was to prove that his daughter was wrong, but instead, he ended up giving his heart to Christ. The Scriptures testified of Jesus!
Look for Him as you read the Holy Scriptures, and encourage others to do the same.
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Carnality in Action
In His Presence: Proverbs 21:21
The apostle Paul had spent several years teaching and preaching at the church in Corinth. He was concerned because there was division among the members. "I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren . . . that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, 'I am of Paul,' and 'I of Apollos,' and 'I of Cephas,' and 'I of Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?" (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).
The Corinthians had time to mature, but they were distracted and began to argue among themselves. Instead of growing, they were regressing. "You are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not mere men?" (1 Corinthians 3:3-4).
Have you ever said, "I'm only human"? That's non-Christian talk-talking like "mere men." Paul was saying that these Christians were acting like everyone else around them. And Corinth was known to be a wicked city. Paul was not complimenting these Christians. Instead of acting like the new man or woman they had become, they were rebellious believers.
One Minute Please
Behaving like "mere men" is an act of the will. Carnality is perpetuated by the will.
:) :angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Christ-Awareness
. . . and I will give you rest -Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don't allow yourself to say, "Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I'm sure I must have this cleared up with them already." Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, "Lord, what is your will?" A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest," that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest- the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
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God in Nature
God has made Himself known to mankind in a powerful way people often ignore...His creation. Romans 1:18-20 tells us,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God speaks to people through nature...through His creation. I am confident that there is a point in every person's life where there comes an awareness of God. Whether it is looking at a shooting star, or at a sunset, or at a blade of grass, the thought occurs to them, "This didn't just get here. This didn't just happen. There must be a God."
Creation speaks to us of the Godhead. It is a revelation of God. The book of Psalms says, Night unto night shows forth knowledge. And it says the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. Creation speaks to us of God.
But notice what this passage says. This revelation of God has come to men, but some have wanted to suppress it. They came to that point and thought, "You know what? If I find out about this, then I'm going to become responsible. So I don't think I want to know."
The natural bent of men and women is to suppress the truth, but God is speaking loudly and clearly of His greatness and reality through His creation. Praise Him today for revealing His beauty and power through nature, and use it to point people to Him.
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Apostasy
In His Presence: Deuteronomy 13:4
The carnal Christian is also characterized by rejection of the Christian faith. If the carnal Christian stays on the road to carnality long enough, he will apostatize-fall away from the life of faith. He or she may deny Christianity. Can a Christian go so far as to become a rank sinner in his actions? Yes, "for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
God will intervene on behalf of the carnal Christian, but He will also judge. Even the blood of Jesus will not save him from God's wrath. This does not mean that salvation will be lost, but God will judge that person. There will be emotional consequences. It may even mean an end to his life. The price tag for apostasy is staggering. "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (vv. 28-29).
One Minute Please
A person is not beyond help if he is disinterested in the things of God, if his insensitivity to sin becomes normal, or if he withdraws from fellowship. But when he goes down the road of rejecting faith, he is close to the point of no return.
:angel:
August 21, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . -Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This literally means, "Blessed are the paupers." Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person's strength of will or the beauty of his character- things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, "Make a decision for Jesus Christ," places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him- something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, "Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom." I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness- I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. "He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
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No Unbelievers in Hell
In Luke Chapter 16, Jesus tells a very sobering story,
"The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom... Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment'" (Luke 16:22b-23 and 27-28).
Everyone in hell believes in evangelism. They are crying out lest their loved ones end up with them.
Two thousand years have passed and this rich man has had no relief. A billion years from now he will just be getting started in his torment and pain. Listen to his cry, "My brothers! Send someone to my family!"
Hell is for unbelievers but there are no unbelievers in hell!
Several years ago a man came weeping to the altar of our church. A message had been preached that night from these very Scriptures. After giving his heart to Christ (and after a long time of almost uncontrollable weeping), he told us this story:
He said, "I died twice on the operating table during heart surgery. Each time I died, I left my body and went to hell. It was so horrifying that I tried to put it out of my mind. As the message was preached tonight, all the details of my experience came flooding back into my mind."
He did not need to be convinced that hell was real. That night he accepted Christ and was liberated from the fear of returning to that place of torment.
Jesus alone can rescue us from the terrors of hell and bring us safely to heaven. Shouldn't we be telling people there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? Shouldn't we be warning them and encouraging them to accept Christ-while there is still time?!
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Consequences of Neglect
In His Presence: Psalms 103:12
Husbands often take their wives for granted; wives often take their husbands for granted. In much the same way, Christians often take "so great a salvation" for granted (Hebrews 2:3). It is a salvation that cost God His Son. It is a salvation that has given us eternal life. Our salvation has provided us with the enablement of the Holy Spirit. This salvation has given to us the authority of God's Word. It has provided us a home in heaven. This is a salvation that's replete with eternal rewards. It calms the most hurting heart and restores the broken life. How can people neglect that kind of salvation?
Nothing and no one can compare with this salvation. How can we pass over this? We will not escape; there is a price. "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives' . . . But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons" (Hebrews 12:4-8).
The natural product of being a Christian is to be disciplined as a son. But neglecting our great salvation comes with further discipline, because the discipline must turn us away from our wandering.
One Minute Please
When we don't remember what we have, we take it for granted.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
"I Indeed . . . But He"
I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire -Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, "I indeed . . . but He . . ."? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more- butHe begins right there- He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin- it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. "He will baptize you . . . ." The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
"I indeed" was this in the past, "but He" came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
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Inwardly Compelled
It was love that motivated the Father to send His Son Jesus to redeem mankind. That same love has been poured out into the heart of every believer.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
God's love in us calls and compels us to do something about the plight of lost people. Even as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14 , For the love of Christ compels us.
A few years ago, late at night I would hear what seemed to be a very faint chime or bell. Several times I got out of bed to try and find the source of the sound, but it always stopped before I could discover it.
Finally, one evening, I found out what it was. It was an old watch I had, tucked away in a drawer under some junk. Every evening, the alarm would go off at the same time.
The call of God's love in your heart can be like that. Sounding regularly but seldom heard. Buried under personal ambitions, cares and problems, daily routines and the general busyness of life. But it is unmistakably there!
The same love that moved Jesus to heal the sick and minister God's life to broken people is in you! Listen to it. Get in touch with it and express it to someone in need.
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Hardened Hearts
In His Presence: Proverbs 19:20-21
"Just as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the days of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me . . . I was angry with this generation, and said, "They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways"; As I swore in My wrath, "They shall not enter My rest" ' ''(Hebrews 3:7-11).
For many years the sons of Israel lived in the land of Egypt. Eventually the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites and forced them to make buildings of bricks. They suffered terribly until finally God raised up a leader to guide them back to the Promised Land, where God had taken Abraham hundreds of years before. Moses led them out of Egypt and into the wilderness of Sinai. There they began to complain bitterly about the lack of food and water and tried God's patience. God said their hearts were hardened.
The Hebrews' hearts were hardened because they were tricked by sin. Sin leads us to stop believing God. We believe the sin instead. One of the reasons why many of us are in our present dilemma is because we have stopped believing God. We have developed hearts of unbelief.
How do we know that we have been taken in by the deceitfulness of sin? Does the sin bother us less often? When evil doesn't anger and upset us-when we have gotten used to it-our hearts have been hardened.
One Minute Please
Sin provides short-term gratification leading to long-term disaster.
:angel:
Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Prayer- Battle in "The Secret Place"
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly -Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, "Dream about your Father who is in the secret place," but He said, ". . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . ." Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, "This needs to be done, and I have to do that today." Jesus says to "shut your door." Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from "the secret place"- He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in "the secret place," it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into "the secret place," and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and "pray to your Father who is in the secret place," every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
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"Come Over and Help Us"
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:9-10).
The world is in need and they are calling! I can hear Africa, Asia, voices from South America and Europe calling out. China and Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines...voices from around the globe crying out, "Come over and help us!"
The call may be coming from down your street or from the next aisle in the grocery store. "Help me! I'm lost. I want to find God. I have problems I can't cope with. I have an aching void in my heart that I don't know how to fill. Is there anyone out there with answers?!"
Who will go to them if not you and me?
To say, "I don't feel called to go to them," is equivalent to a strong swimmer standing on the shore of a lake saying he doesn't feel called to save the man drowning before his eyes.
Ask God today to direct you to someone whose heart has cried out for answers and help. Chances are you won't have to go too far to find them.
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Dullness of Hearing
In His Presence: 2 Corinthians 5:20
Carnal Christians are characterized by a willful refusal to grow. The writer of Hebrews says that they "have become dull of hearing. For though by this time [they] ought to be teachers, [they] have need again for someone to teach [them] the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and [yet they] have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the world of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:11-14).
The writer here says they had become dull of hearing. Notice that he says they havebecome dull of hearing, not that theyare dull of hearing. This implies that they used to be good listeners at one time, but that changed. They had become willfully rebellious against God. They started by being neglectful and disinterested, and then they became insensitive to sin.
The Greek term used here to mean "dull of hearing" has to do with slowness of perception due to moral laxness. It was the word used as an epitaph for a mule! So the writer was telling his readers that they had become like mules. Now mules are not the greatest thinkers; they are used for manual labor. The mule-minded Christians had regressed so much that they were of little value to God-not because God had made them that way, but because they had become that way.
One Minute Please
People become dull of hearing as a result of choices they have made.
:angel:
August 26, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you . . . -John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always "spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? ". . . My peace I give to you. . ."- a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." (John 14:27).
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Clean and Committed
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
When God looks at us, the first thing He sees is the state of our heart. In the next few devotionals we are going to look at several different aspects of the heart-things that must be present in order to experience the richer blessings of God.
· A clean heart. Psalm 51:10 says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
Every once in a while I have to clean out the drains throughout our house. It is amazing how quickly they become clogged. If I do not clean them, before long, the sinks get stopped up and the water will not flow through anymore.
If we don't periodically take time before God to have our hearts purified and cleansed, pretty soon His blessings can no longer flow to us or through us.
· A committed heart. 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV) says, "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
I believe it is important to be committed to God before seeking His blessings.
God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may serve me." Most people want to be delivered from their captivity, but they are not so keen on the "serving God" part of the deal.
The Lord is looking for committed hearts. Does your heart belong fully to Him? If not, commit it to Him today!
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A Simple Test
In His Presence: Psalms 25:14-15
The writer of Hebrews included a simple test to determine who is a "milk" Christian-a carnal Christian-and who is a "meat" Christian-a mature Christian. "By this time you ought to be teachers" (Hebrews 5:12). We should be able to sit down with our children and explain simple Bible truths. Husbands should be able to sit down with their wives and answer their questions. By this time, if we are meaty, mature Christians, we should be able to sit down with the Bible and help someone else know the Truth. We should be able to lead an unbeliever to the Lord.
"Everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness . . . But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil"(Hebrews 5:13-14). If we willfully refuse to go deeper into the things of God, we will not use the Word because we won't know the Word. The old saying goes, "If you don't use it, you lose it." We can't lose our salvation, but we can forget how to walk in the Word and how to be His representatives.
If we are mature Christians we use God's Word every day. We practice His Word in our everyday life. The phrase "senses trained" comes from the Greek root word forgymnasium, like a training ground. We are trained in discernment of good and evil.
One Minute Please
Moving from milk to meat is learning God's Word and practicing it until it becomes a habit, a natural way of thinking, and a normal way of perceiving things.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Living Your Theology
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . . . -John 12:35
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.
The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.
Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, ". . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
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Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
In yesterday's devotional we began looking at different conditions of the heart-conditions that are necessary in order to experience the richer blessings of God. Today we will continue looking at those conditions.
· A grateful heart. Deuteronomy 28:45-47 (Amplified) says,
All these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. They shall be upon you for a sign [of warning to other nations] and for a wonder, and upon your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness of [mind and] heart [in gratitude] for the abundance of all [with which He had blessed you].
William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Do you express gratitude to God for all the things He has blessed you with, or do you take His blessings for granted?
Many years ago, when I was serving in a small church, one of my duties was to take groceries to families in need. I was shocked at the ingratitude of some that received the gift of food delivered to their homes. While some were truly grateful, others acted as if it was somehow owed to them-even complaining because their favorite foods were not included!
Hopefully you have taken time recently to thank God for the blessings He has bestowed on your life. If not, take time today to express your gratitude to Him who is the source of every good thing you enjoy.
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Neglectful Christians
In His Presence: Psalms 62:8
A person does not fall into carnality overnight. He does not lapse into carnality because he or she did one thing wrong. There is a pattern that takes time to establish. The carnal Christian is characterized by the neglect of spiritual matters.
"If the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:2-3). The author of Hebrews was writing to a group of Jewish Christians who had turned their backs on faith. They were genuine Christians, but had demonstrated the neglect that is one of the first signs of carnality. To neglect simply means to show disinterest. It's not that the Christian is doing a lot of wrong things, but it is evident that they are doing very little that's right. Neglect is an act of passive disobedience rather than active disobedience. This Christian is not doing the things that are necessary to catapult us down the road to spiritual growth and maturity.
Passive, benign neglect opens the door to failure. Some marriages end in divorce not because there was an adultery committed, but because the husband sat in front of the TV too much. Some of us are going down the road to carnality not because we have committed gross sins, but because Satan has done just enough to keep us out of the Word of God and off our knees.
One Minute Please
The road to carnality starts with neglect-failure to do the things that are necessary for us to mature in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Purpose of Prayer
. . . one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray . . .' -Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person's life will suffer if he doesn't pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Ask, and you will receive . . ." (John 16:24). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, ". . . unless you . . . become as little children . . ." (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits' end. When a person is at his wits' end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems- the very things that have brought you to your wits' end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
To say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature.
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Listening and Believing
For the last several devotionals we have been looking at heart attitudes that are conducive to receiving God's blessings. Today we will discuss a few more.
· A listening heart. Luke 5:15 says, However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.
The people came to hear and then be healed. Some did not want to take the time to listen, they just wanted the blessing so they could be on their way.
Listen to what the apostle Paul said to some people in Acts 28:27, For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.
We must have listening, receptive hearts if we are going to experience healing or any other of God's blessings.
· A believing heart. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.
Many years ago I was hiking up a canyon with one of my sons. He was about eight years old at the time. We reached a place where he could only get up by trusting me.
I dropped him a rope and pulled him up to where I was. He needed to believe that I would not let go. Because he did, and put actions with his belief, my strength was made available to him and he reached a place he could not have gotten to on his own.
God's strength is made available to the believing heart, and as we believe He brings us to places we could never reach on our own.
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Apostasy
In His Presence: Deuteronomy 13:4
The carnal Christian is also characterized by rejection of the Christian faith. If the carnal Christian stays on the road to carnality long enough, he will apostatize-fall away from the life of faith. He or she may deny Christianity. Can a Christian go so far as to become a rank sinner in his actions? Yes, "for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
God will intervene on behalf of the carnal Christian, but He will also judge. Even the blood of Jesus will not save him from God's wrath. This does not mean that salvation will be lost, but God will judge that person. There will be emotional consequences. It may even mean an end to his life. The price tag for apostasy is staggering. "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (vv. 28-29).
One Minute Please
A person is not beyond help if he is disinterested
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith
Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?' -John 11:40
Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, "It's all a lie"? When you are on the mountaintop, it's easy to say, "Oh yes, I believe God can do it," but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief (see Luke 9:28-42). Every time my theology becomes clear to my own mind, I encounter something that contradicts it. As soon as I say, "I believe 'God shall supply all [my] need,' " the testing of my faith begins (Philippians 4:19). When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat?
Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" Matthew 11:6). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. "We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . ." (Hebrews 3:14). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God- trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6).
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Unless They Are Agreed
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3).
In order to walk with God, one must agree with Him. In order to experience the fulfillment of His promises in our lives, we must agree with what those promises say-whether we understand how they could ever come to pass or not.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would give birth to a son, she asked, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34).
A pretty fair question, don't you think? It seemed impossible to Mary. She could not get her mind around how Gabriel's announcement could ever come to pass.
I love the angel's response to her question, "The Holy Spirit..." (Luke 1:35). That is the answer to your impossibilities as well. When you can't understand how a promise from God could ever be fulfilled, the answer is "The Holy Spirit!"
At this point Mary could have said, "No way! This makes no sense to me. I don't accept it!" But she didn't. She said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).
Mary agreed with God's promise and accepted it. Then the miracle happened.
Whatever you are facing today, make the decision to agree with God and His promises. The Holy Spirit can bring His Word to pass!
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Spiritual Discipline
In His Presence: James 1:2
When a person's carnality reaches the point of rejecting the Christian faith, many things can happen. Financial, emotional, social, and mental difficulties are just a few things that could catch up with them. If they live in persistent rebellion against God, God is going to discipline them. "We had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplines us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness" (Hebrews 12:9-10).
The purpose of God's discipline is to bring us back to Him in reconciliation. He does not discipline in vengeance or because He is angry. Our parents disciplined us the best they could, but God disciplines perfectly every time. He knows everything. He knows what the carnal Christian has done, so God is never caught by surprise.
"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful" (v. 11). A person living in carnality is going to experience discipline that will hurt. What is the difference between a Christian in the will of God going through trials, and a person out of the will of God going through discipline? If we are in the will of God, we can "consider it all joy" (James 1:2). If we are out of God's will, we will not have joy in the midst of our problems.
One Minute Please
"To those who have been trained by [discipline], afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11).
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Usefulness or Relationship?
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven -Luke 10:20
Jesus Christ is saying here, "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service- rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you do not have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour "rivers of living water" through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7).
Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone's usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint's usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person's life is that person's relationship with God- something of great value to His Father. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory . . ." (Hebrews 2:10).
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Grumbling and Complaining
One of the things I believe grieves the heart of God is when His children grumble and complain. In Jude 6 we find some interesting insight into this destructive behavior,
These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.
The word complainer is really two Greek words stuck together. The first word means to blame, and the second word means your fate or lot in life. The point is that complainers blame someone else for their lot in life.
Isn't it always amazing how someone can make wrong choices, and when they have to face the consequences of those choices, it is always somebody else's fault?
I have two pieces of advice for you on this. First, if you are a complainer and grumbler, stop. God is not honored, and you are only showing that you are "walking according to your own lust," not according to God's Spirit.
Second, stay away from people like that or you will end up being like them. Proverbs 22:24-25 says,
Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.
Their attitudes and mindsets will bleed off on you.
Did you ever throw a pair of jeans in the washing machine with a red shirt? What happened to your blue jeans? They turned pink, didn't they? The red dye bled over into the blue jeans, and the blue jeans were no longer blue. They were pink.
If you hang around with people who grumble and complain, their attitudes will bleed over into your way of thinking. And the last thing you want to be is a grumbler and complainer.
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Marriage Is A Covenant
In His Presence: Genesis 2:18; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9
Marriage is a covenantal union designed to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out the plan of God in their lives. Whether your marriage has drifted off course or was never on course at all, God can redeem your marriage to make it satisfying and whole.
One way of beginning this process is by understanding that marriage is a covenant. Many of us in our day today have lost touch with this word - covenant. But if we do not know what a covenant is, then we do not know what we are supposed to have, develop, or protect over time. It's like trying to hit a bull's eye without a target.
According to God as He lays it out for us in the Scripture, a covenant is a spiritually binding relationship between God and His people inclusive of certain agreements, conditions, benefits and effects.
Whenever God wanted to formalize His relationship with His people, He would establish a covenant. Simply stated, it is a formal arrangement made within a legal capacity between God and His people. In order to enjoy a satisfying marital relationship, we must first begin by aligning our thinking with God's thinking on the matter. Without a divine frame of reference, we will stray from God's formula for a healthy, productive home.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
A Life of Pure and Holy Sacrifice
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow . . . -John 7:38
Jesus did not say, "He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God," but, in essence, "He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him." Our Lord's teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person- His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God's purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us- and we cannot measure that at all.
When Mary of Bethany "broke the flask . . . of very costly oil . . . and poured it on [Jesus'] head," it was an act for which no one else saw any special occasion; in fact, ". . . there were some who . . . said, 'Why was this fragrant oil wasted?' " (Mark 14:3-4). But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said, ". . . wherever this gospel is preached . . . what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her" (Mark 14:9). Our Lord is filled with overflowing joy whenever He sees any of us doing what Mary did- not being bound by a particular set of rules, but being totally surrendered to Him. God poured out the life of His Son "that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17). Are we prepared to pour out our lives for Him?
"He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water"- and hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. Now is the time for us to break "the flask" of our lives, to stop seeking our own satisfaction, and to pour out our lives before Him. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?
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The Prayer of Faith
Yesterday we learned about the prayer of dedication. Today I want to help you understand the prayer of faith. This kind of prayer is found in Mark 11:22-24,
So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
With the prayer of faith, at the moment you pray you are to believe that you receive what you pray for. Not when the circumstances look different, not at some point in the future, but when you pray. The Amplified Bible says, Believe that it is granted to you.
When you pray, believe that God hears you and that He has sent the answer, whether you feel differently or not. Before you ever get up off your knees, believe that heaven has sent the answer.
1 John 5:14-15 says it this way,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
The prayer of faith is prayed when you know and understand God's will. Friend, the Bible is a revelation of the will of God. Prayer will not reach beyond the will of God, and God's Word reveals His will to us.
So pray the prayer of faith according to His will, and you can be assured He hears you and heaven has sent the answer to your prayer.
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In His Presence:
Marriage is God's House
Genesis 2:19-24
If you were to come over to my house, I would welcome you inside but there would be a set of rules by which to abide. Just like I would need to abide by the rules for your house. For example, in my home, I don't allow smoking. So if you smoke, you would need to put out your cigarette before you came in my home.
I am able to make these rules and enforce them because it is my house. Marriage is God's house. He came up with the idea. And it can only run right when it is run by His rules.
What married couples often want to do, though, is to have God's institution of marriage, yet run it by their own rules. They want to get married in the church so that God will bless their marriage, but then they want to leave God standing at the altar. They want to make up their own rules for how a marriage should be run.
But let me tell you a secret. It is a very powerful secret. Pay attention: You don't get God's results without operating by God's rules. You don't get God's blessings in your marriage, and in your home, without following God's instructions. You don't enjoy God's provision, protection, and peace in your relationships without abiding by God's policies concerning the covenantal union of marriage.
:angel:
Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Pouring Out the Water of Satisfaction
He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord -2 Samuel 23:16
What has been like "water from the well of Bethlehem" to you recently- love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing ( 2 Samuel 23:16 )? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out "to the Lord." You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God- something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.
How can I pour out "to the Lord" natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way- I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out "to the Lord." Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as "rivers of living water" all around me (John 7:38). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out "to the Lord."
If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything "to the Lord," other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.
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The Prayer of Agreement
In the last two devotionals, we have learned about the prayer of dedication and the prayer of faith. Today I want to help you understand the prayer of agreement.
This prayer is found in Matthew 18:19, where Jesus says,
, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven."
When I pray with other people, nine times out of ten this is the prayer that I pray with them. And most of the time I will quote this verse to them.
I remember working for a ministry years ago and praying with the folks who called on the phone. When I prayed with someone, I would walk them through this verse before we prayed.
The steps I pointed out were simple:
There needs to be at least two of us praying.
We need to agree.
We need to be on earth (I usually got a laugh out of this one).
What we are asking God for needs to come under the category of "anything" (which their request always did).
God will do it.
The only part people ever got hung up on was the agreement. "What does it mean to agree?" they would ask. I would say, "Simple, to agree means to agree." Don't over-spiritualize it. If we decide to get lunch together at a certain time at a certain place, and you say, "Ok, see you there," we have just agreed.
To agree in prayer is no different.
Read this verse again. Look at it step by step, and follow it-in all its simplicity. If we do our part, God will do His.
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In His Presence:
Why Did God Make Marriage?
In His Presence:
Genesis 2:25
When we read in our passage for today that Adam and Eve were naked before each other, I want us to realize that the word used here means more than physical nakedness. It means they were transparent. They were open to one another. They had become best friends.
Is your wife or your husband your best friend? Is he or she the person you share your total being with? That's important, because the reason God created marriage was so that you and I could experience the Trinity.
What is the Trinity? Three coequal persons who are one. What is marriage? Three persons who become one - a man, a woman, and the Lord. That's marriage. It's a picture of a higher unity, a symbol on earth standing for the reality in heaven. The marriage relationship is the closest we'll get in this life to the oneness and unity of the Trinity.
Will you join me in praying that God will enable us to make our marriages everything He meant them to be ... and will you join me in committing yourself to this goal?
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Watching With Jesus
Stay here and watch with Me -Matthew 26:38
Watch with Me." Jesus was saying, in effect, "Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me." In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular "Gethsemane" experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, "No, Lord, I can't see the meaning of this, and besides, it's very painful." And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don't even know why He is suffering? We don't know how to watch with Him- we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.
The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they "all . . . forsook Him and fled" (Matthew 26:56).
"They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . ." (Acts 2:4). "They" refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events- our Lord's death, resurrection, and ascension- and the disciples have now been invaded and "filled with the Holy Spirit." Our Lord had said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.
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The Prayer of Supplication
Today I want to focus your attention on the prayer of supplication. Ephesians 6:18 tells us,
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints
When Paul says, Praying always with all prayer, the Greek word he uses for prayer is just a general term for prayer used throughout the New Testament.
But the word he uses translated supplication means prayer for definite, specific needs. Most generally, you will find that this is a prayer prayed for others, as is the case in this verse.
In Philippians 1:4, Paul uses this same word for supplication, when he says,
Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.
Both the words translated prayer and request are the Greek word for supplication that we just read in Ephesians 6:18. But here it is translated as prayer and request.
I want you to notice who he is saying to pray for, Always in every prayer of mine making request for you all. It is for someone else.
Recently, I had a pastor friend ask me to pray for his church and their finances. He said things were really tight. So several times I brought the issue before God and made specific requests about it...or supplications.
Now, I did not pray, "I believe I receive it." That is not my place. What I did do was pray for God to help them. I prayed that God would give them wisdom, that God would inspire the people in the church to give, that people would have a heart for souls, and a number of other specific requests over the following several days.
That is the prayer of supplication...praying specific requests for specific people.
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In His Presence:
Do You Need to Change Your Expectations?
Acts 3
As a pastor, I witness people accepting their circumstances with a "crippling" mindset rather than believing God for something better in life.
They are like the lame man in Acts 3 who sat by the gate, Beautiful, begging for money. His only expectation was that a passerby will take pity on him and toss a coin his way. He never expected anything better. He was crippled in his body and his mind.
That's the mindset of those who don't expect things can change in their lives. We all face bad days, but we don't have to let them turn into a bad life.
Do you know anyone like that? Is that you? Jesus' disciples offered the lame man miraculous healing in both his body and his mind. You too can move forward no matter what you face in life.
In His Presence:
:angel:
September 6, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water -John 7:38
A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, "rivers of living water" will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even "to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow- "This is the work of God, that you believe. . ." (John 6:29). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.
A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ- not emotion nor experience- nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.
Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.
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The Prayer of Intercession
Today I want to help you understand the prayer of intercession...the sixth and last of the kinds of prayer we have been covering over the last week of devotionals.
1 Timothy 2:1 points us to this type of prayer,
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.
Intercession, as we find it here, is a technical term for approaching a king on behalf of another. In a general sense, related to prayer, intercession is seeking God on the behalf of others. But, more specifically, it is coming to God for one who has no standing with Him.
A number of years ago, I was ministering in Nigeria, speaking at a large conference in the city of Onitsha. While there, we were invited to go meet the king of Onitsha.
It was pretty exciting driving in a motorcade with little flags on all the cars. I felt like a big shot! But when we got to the palace, we had to have someone go on our behalf in order to meet with the king. I had no standing with the king, and neither did anyone else in our party.
The person who brought us to the king of Onitsha was an intercessor. And that is the idea of this word intercession. You are coming to the King of kings on the behalf of someone who presently has no standing with Him.
Do you remember when Abraham went before God for the city of Sodom-desiring that God would spare Sodom? What was Abraham doing? He was acting as an intercessor. He was coming between God and someone who had no standing with God.
We all should be praying prayers of intercession. You and I are to make intercession for the lost.
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In His Presence:
God Wants to Amaze You
Luke 5
How do you respond when you get a tremendous blessing? We all want to be blessed. Do you accept with gratitude? Do you let the blessing absorb you?
In the gospels, at Jesus' direction Peter let down his net in the water, and the blessing was so huge that the abundance of fish tore holes in Peter's net. His boat was dangerously close to capsizing.
In Luke 5:8, it reads, When Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!"Peter saw beyond the blessing. Peter saw Jesus and recognized his own limitations and his need for the Savior.
Jesus amazed Peter with the overload of fish because He wanted Peter to follow Him and get to know Him better. God wants to amaze you so that you can better understand who He is and love Him even more.
In His Presence:
:angel:
September 9, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Do It Yourself (2)
. . . bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . . -2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Discipline Other Things. This is another difficult aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul said, according to the Moffatt translation of this verse, ". . . I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ . . . ." So much Christian work today has never been disciplined, but has simply come into being by impulse! In our Lord's life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was never the slightest tendency to follow the impulse of His own will as distinct from His Father's will- "the Son can do nothing of Himself . . . " (John 5:19). Then compare this with what we do- we take "every thought" or project that comes to us by impulse and jump into action immediately, instead of imprisoning and disciplining ourselves to obey Christ.
Practical work for Christians is greatly overemphasized today, and the saints who are "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity" are criticized and told that they are not determined, and that they lack zeal for God or zeal for the souls of others. But true determination and zeal are found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that arises from our own undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity," but are simply doing work for God that has been instigated by their own human nature, and has not been made spiritual through determined discipline.
We have a tendency to forget that a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible, and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God, the world, and of sin and the devil. This means that each person must recognize the responsibility to "be transformed by the renewing of [his] mind. . . ." (Romans 12:2).
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Instruments in the Hands of God
Yesterday we saw that the first sign a person has lost their spiritual edge is that he or she no longer recognizes the voice of the Holy Spirit and His leading.
The second characteristic of someone who has lost their edge spiritually is they lose their usefulness as an instrument in the hands of God.
Revelation 14:14-16 tells us,
Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
The One sitting on the cloud with a crown on His head is the Lord Jesus Christ. The harvest on the earth is the salvation of lost humanity, men and women who do not yet have a relationship with God.
Then what is the sharp sickle? It is the Church. It is you. It is me. If God is going to reap the harvest of lost humanity, it is going to be through His people.
You and I are to be a sharp sickle in God's hand in His great plan of mankind's redemption. That means the housewife, the doctor, the businessman, the student, the truck driver...every one of us. We are to be setting our hand to whatever practical work we have been gifted to do to see people being saved and being discipled.
Let us determine to be an effective instrument-a sharp sickle-in the hand of our God.
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Empowered by the Spirit
Colossians 3
Before His ascension to heaven, Jesus promised His followers that He would send a Helper who would be with the believers forever. Jesus instructed them to stay in Jerusalem until they had received the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit's job is to empower us Christians to progress in our spiritual lives. Far too many Christians find themselves on a spiritual treadmill. They're working up a sweat with religious activities, but still remain in the same place spiritually.
If your life seems powerless right now, you may have a connection problem between you and the Holy Spirit. The disciples were so in tuned to the Holy Spirit that they were able to write the New Testament three decades after Christ's death. The Holy Spirit - the Helper - empowered the apostles to remember.
When you have the Holy Spirit, you have all the power you need to live the Christian life.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Missionary Weapons (1)
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you -John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us- it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, "If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion"? Yet you won't rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God's training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person's true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private "fig-tree" life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, "But I can't be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn't come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready"? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God's work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
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No Exemption
2 Kings 6:1-7 gives us some important insight into how to regain our spiritual edge,
And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, "See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. Please, let us go to the Jordan, and let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell." So he answered, "Go." Then one said, "Please consent to go with your servants." And he answered, "I will go." So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed." So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float. Therefore he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.
There are a number of principles I want to draw from this story.
Although we will be focusing on the one man who experienced the loss of his ax head, for today's devotion I want to draw your attention to the majority.
As we see from this Scripture, this school for the prophets was needing to expand, to build a bigger building. And notice that everyone had a part to play in what God was doing. It says "Let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell."
In God's Kingdom plan, being spiritually sharp is not for just a few people. We all have a responsibility to grow. There is no exemption.
God has a role for you to play. You have not been given an exemption from being a part of God's kingdom plan. He has a part for you to play in His great plan to reach the world!
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Marriage
Scripture Reading: and Life Lessons
Ephesians 5:21-33
God designed marriage to be successful. He intended couples in covenant with Him and one another to have beautiful, fulfilling relationships, not disastrous, emotionally-draining ones. While marriage is at the heart of our culture, only when couples begin to properly live out covenant relationships in marriage will the fabric of our society be altered.
Adam and Eve, before they fell into sin, experienced the only perfect marriage in history. God commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. God instituted marriage for procreation, and both parents were to rear the children in fear and admonition of the Lord. Marriage and
parenting
are vital for the continued godly dominion over the earth.
Marriage also completes us as individuals. In marriage, God has deeper levels of maturity and much higher heights of potential planned for couples. Marriage is also an illustration of the divine. When Christian couples live their lives according to God's principles, the world sees what Jesus and His bride look like.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Ministering as opportunity surrounds us. This does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectly God's in any haphazard surroundings which He engineers for us. The characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings.
The things that Jesus did were of the most menial and commonplace order, and this is an indication that it takes all God's power in me to do the most commonplace things in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary sordid things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty as it ought to be done.
"I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you." Watch the kind of people God brings around you, and you will be humiliated to find that this is His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now, He says, exhibit to that one exactly what I have shown to you.
"Oh," you say, "I will do all that when I get out into the foreign field." To talk in this way is like trying to produce the munitions of war in the trenches - you will be killed while you are doing it.
We have to go the "second mile" with God. Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say - "I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis." If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis.
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Be Watchful
We started in yesterday's devotional to look at the lessons we can learn about regaining our spiritual edge from the story in 2 Kings 6. In verses 4-5 we are told about the guy who loses his cutting edge,
...when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
Notice this guy is working hard, cutting down a tree. But, in the midst of this effort, he loses his cutting edge. His ax head falls into the water.
Now you might think, "Well, you wouldn't end up in a state like that, you wouldn't lose your edge, unless you were out of God's will."
But if you read yesterday's devotional, you will see these guys were in the will of God. They were moving by divine permission. The prophet not only said go, he went with them, showing just how much this was the right thing to do.
Or you might think, "Well, a spiritual man or a spiritual woman wouldn't have lost their edge." No, there is no indication that the guy who lost his cutting edge was unspiritual. Every indication tells us he was spiritually strong.
So what does this teach us? Be careful not to think we cannot lose our spiritual edge. It can happen to you, and it can happen to me. We all can lose our cutting edge if we are not careful.
My friend, it is vital to take care not to lose your spiritual edge. This is something you have to work at to maintain. Just because you have it today doesn't mean you will have it tomorrow.
The good news is that if you have lost your spiritual edge, you can regain it! Even better, be watchful to maintain your edge-staying sharp for God!
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The Context of Giving Thanks
Ephesians 5:21-33
First Thessalonians 5:18 commands us to be thankful in everything; it doesn't say be thankful for everything. There is a distinct difference. When things go wrong, we are to give thanks to God in the midst of the trouble.
Although all your worldly efforts and pursuits may fail and you're in the worse season of life, you must still praise God for all He has done. You may not be able to praise God for your circumstances, but you can praise God that He is with you in those circumstances.
Job praised God even at the lowest point of his life. King Jehoshaphat was terrified of the approaching enemy. Yet he commanded the people to praise God. God saved Israel. When you give thanks, you are in God's will. He puts everything together in His time and His will. Let's give Him thanks everyday for the way He works in our lives.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Going Through Spiritual Confusion
Jesus answered and said, 'You do not know what you ask' -Matthew 20:22
There are times in your spiritual life when there is confusion, and the way out of it is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you.
The Shrouding of His Friendship (see Luke 11:5-8). Jesus gave the illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember?He is not. The time will come when everything will be explained. There seems to be a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller fellowship and oneness. When God appears to be completely shrouded, will you hang on with confidence in Him?
The Shadow on His Fatherhood (see Luke 11:11-13). Jesus said that there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father?as if He were callous and indifferent- but remember, He is not. "Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Luke 11:10). If all you see is a shadow on the face of the Father right now, hang on to the fact that He will ultimately give you clear understanding and will fully justify Himself in everything that He has allowed into your life.
The Strangeness of His Faithfulness (see Luke 18:1-8). "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Will He find the kind of faith that counts on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand firm in faith, believing that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing. He has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you are asking of Him right now.
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Are You Just Swinging the Handle?
As you look at your life today in honesty and transparency, perhaps you would have to say that you have lost that edge, that excitement, that zeal, that spiritual passion you once had.
If indeed you have lost your edge, how can you get it back? Over the next seven days, I will help you understand how to regain your spiritual edge based on 2 Kings 6.
The first principle I want to focus on is based on the man who lost his ax head, as we learn in 2 Kings 6:4-5,
...when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water.
Now, it would have been senseless for him to have kept chopping with a wooden handle with no ax head on it, wouldn't it?! He would make no progress.
And yet that is what a lot of Christians do today. They have lost their cutting edge, and they are just going through the motions, making no progress at all.
They are chopping away with just a wooden handle!
They think, "Well, I know I'm supposed to go to church, so I will go. As long as I keep busy, maybe nobody's going to know the state of my heart." And they will do this not just for weeks or months, but some people have been doing this for years.
No progress, no growth. They are just swinging that handle without an ax head.
If this is you, do not just keep swinging the ax handle. If you are not making progress, admit it. Until you are willing to face up to the fact that you have not been growing, you can never regain your spiritual edge.
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Apostasy
Deuteronomy 13:4
The carnal Christian is also characterized by rejection of the Christian
faith
. If the carnal Christian stays on the road to carnality long enough, he will apostatize-fall away from the life of faith. He or she may deny Christianity. Can a Christian go so far as to become a rank sinner in his actions? Yes, "for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
God will intervene on behalf of the carnal Christian, but He will also judge. Even the blood of Jesus will not save him from God's wrath. This does not mean that salvation will be lost, but God will judge that person. There will be emotional consequences. It may even mean an end to his life. The price tag for apostasy is staggering. "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (vv. 28-29).
One Minute Please
A person is not beyond help if he is disinterested in the things of God, if his insensitivity to sin becomes normal, or if he withdraws from fellowship. But when he goes down the road of rejecting faith, he is close to the point of no return.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
After Surrender- Then What?
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will- and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person's will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.
Surrender for Deliverance. "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will- "Come to Me." And it is a voluntary coming.
Surrender for Devotion. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . . " (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, "If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me." And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and (Philippians 4:19).
Surrender for Death. ". . . another will gird you . . ." (John 21:18 ; also see John21:19). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being "united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death" (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.
And after you surrender- then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.
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Looking to the Master
In 2 Kings 6:5, we read the second in our series of seven principles to regain our spiritual edge. It is the response of the man who lost his cutting edge,
But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."
When this man lost his ax head and it fell into the water, he cried out and said, "Alas, master!" He went to the prophet.
The prophet was God's representative in that day. He was the mouthpiece of God. If you wanted to hear from God, you went to the prophet, and the prophet would give a word from God.
Today, thank goodness, we have direct access to God as individuals. We can go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Master. And that is the second principle to regaining your spiritual edge. You need to realize the only One who can restore your edge once it is lost, is the Lord Jesus Himself.
You need to get your eyes off of men and get your eyes on the Master. Some people make a great mistake because they have their eyes on men. You will always be disappointed if your eyes are on men instead of on the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is only One who can help you regain your spiritual edge, and that is Jesus Christ. No man or woman can take His place.
So today, put your eyes on the Master. Cry out to Him to help you regain your spiritual edge.
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Spiritual Discipline
In His Presence:
James 1:2
When a person's carnality reaches the point of rejecting the Christian
faith
, many things can happen. Financial, emotional, social, and mental difficulties are just a few things that could catch up with them. If they live in persistent rebellion against God, God is going to discipline them. "We had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplines us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness" (Hebrews 12:9-10).
The purpose of God's discipline is to bring us back to Him in reconciliation. He does not discipline in vengeance or because He is angry. Our parents disciplined us the best they could, but God disciplines perfectly every time. He knows everything. He knows what the carnal Christian has done, so God is never caught by surprise.
"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful" (v. 11). A person living in carnality is going to experience discipline that will hurt. What is the difference between a Christian in the will of God going through trials, and a person out of the will of God going through discipline? If we are in the will of God, we can "consider it all joy" (James 1:2). If we are out of God's will, we will not have joy in the midst of our problems.
One Minute Please
"To those who have been trained by [discipline], afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11).
:angel:
September 16, 2013
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Praying to God in Secret
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place . . . -Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is- keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
"When you pray, do not use vain repetitions . . ." (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly- He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God- that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
"Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer- but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, ". . . you will ask what you desire. . ." (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, "Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask." But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
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The Cross is Enough
Key number five to regaining your spiritual edge is also found in 2 Kings 6:6,
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Why a stick? What does a piece of wood have to do with it?
Please remember that this story is in here for our benefit, and every part of it is significant. I believe this piece of wood is a type of, or points to, another piece of wood where something happened that is very significant to us.
I believe it points to the cross, that piece of wood where Christ was crucified for you and for me, and that God wants us to realize that Jesus' sacrifice at Calvary was enough to take care of all our problems, and restore us no matter our spiritual state.
It is enough to cleanse us and restore our spiritual edge. In fact, it is the only thing that has the power to do it.
If you have lost your zeal for God and you have become spiritually dull, repent and say, "Jesus, I believe that Your work on the cross was enough to restore me."
If you apply what He did on that piece of wood, it is enough to restore you, no matter how far you have fallen away from where you should be. He took your failure, and He nailed it to that cross. He rose from the dead victorious on the third day, and He offers that victory to you!
If you have lost your cutting edge, the cross of Christ and the blood shed upon that cross are enough to take care of everything.
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How Should Christians Vote?
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 26:12; 1 John 3:3-7
To answer the question of how should Christians vote, I must speak theologically and not politically. If you were to come to me for individual counseling, I would identify the causes of your personal dilemma, take my Bible and speak God's truth into your situation.
I would use the same Bible to prescribe biblical solutions to a family in shambles and a congregation in chaos. The Bible that can put together a person, a home and a church can put a country back together.
It's amazing that Christianity rarely comes up in the discussion about candidates, parties and party platforms. God is more involved in this election than you might think. The goal of government is to mirror the rule of God. The less the government lines up with God's Kingdom, the less the culture will receive from God. How should Christians vote? Christians should vote from God's Kingdom perspective.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Is There Good in Temptation?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man . . . -1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person's inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal- it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don't know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else-what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations-He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16).
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A Miracle-Working God
Once again I want to take us back to 2 Kings 6:6, which provides for us the sixth key to regaining your cutting edge.
So the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
Perhaps you are wondering just what other principle for regaining your spiritual edge can come from this verse. Well, there is one more, and it is critical to understand because it points to God's part in the process of restoration.
I want you to look at the words, "And he made the iron float."
I don't know about you, but I have never seen an iron ax head float. Clearly this was a miracle. God worked a miracle when the man did his part, looking to the master, taking responsibility, and going to the place where the ax head was lost.
You do your part; God does His part. I like the King James Version as it says, ...the iron did swim. It was against that ax head's nature to swim, but God made it swim.
God brings the restoration. He brings the healing. He brings back that sensitivity and usefulness to Him. I pray that right now God is at work in your heart, and you are responding, making adjustments...regaining your cutting edge.
As you admit to those areas where you have lost your spiritual edge, God is going to restore it. God's part is to make that ax head float once you have admitted where you have failed!
He can restore what has been lost, even if it takes His miracle power to do it.
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Transforming Our Culture
Scripture Reading: Romans 12:9-16
When Jesus Christ returns, we will no longer need to worry about transforming our culture because He will set up His Kingdom rule. But until that time, we need to reach the world for Him and for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
What is the role of Christians in our society? Jeremiah 29:4-11 illustrates this foundational principle: Society is transformed when God's people execute His strategy in history in a Christ-centered way.
The prophet Jeremiah challenged the Jews in Babylonian captivity to regain their spiritual clarity. The Babylonian pagans were not Israel's greatest problem to deal with. The Jews had become pagans themselves and had failed to remain God's distinct, unique people.
When the church fails to be God's unique people, the entire culture will suffer the effects of sin.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin -Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord's temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things- he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus' baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One "who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) He "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness" (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation "without sin," and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
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Take It!
The seventh and final key to regaining your cutting edge is found in verse 7 of 2 Kings 6, the passage we have been looking at over the last several days. Here is what that verse says,
Therefore he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.
The sixth key was something that only God could do, and that is to make the ax head float; that is, to restore your cutting edge.
Now we see what we must do in response. You and I must receive what God is offering. Unless you take hold of what God is offering, your spiritual edge will never be restored.
Perhaps over the last several days, as we have looked at how to restore your spiritual edge, God has been speaking to you. Maybe you have come to realize that you are not where you should be in your relationship with God.
Maybe you have lost that sensitivity. Maybe you have lost your cutting edge. I am telling you, you can reach out and take what God is doing to restore your cutting edge.
I want to challenge you to take some time today to search your heart. If you have lost your cutting edge, stop swinging an empty handle and just going through the motions.
Be honest and admit you have lost that edge, determine where it fell, look to the Master, listen to His voice, take responsibility, know that the cross of Christ is completely sufficient to restore you, and then take hold of what God is doing to restore your edge.
God can work that miracle in your life if you will only do your part!
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Don't Depend on Pharaoh
Scripture Reading: Exodus 35:30-33; Proverbs 22:29
Believe it or not, God's strategy to transform society includes the development of economic stability. What does economics have to do with transforming a culture?
In Deuteronomy 28:12, God told Israel that if they would obey Him, they would be a lender to other nations and never a borrower. When God's people disobeyed, they became debtors and were plunged into poverty. They had to depend on pagans, on Pharaoh, for their livelihood.
This economic strategy remains a good one for today. Pagans will not finance God's program. With economic independence via hard work and skills, God's people can continue to make an impact for Christ. We can do His business His way because we're using His resources.
As long as you are working for and dependent upon Pharaoh, he will never let you go.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials -Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? "From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ's honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on "outside the camp" (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow- but only the voice saying, "FollowMe" (Matthew 4:19)
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Created for a Purpose
Many Christians today are not living the successful life God intends because they have missed the purpose for which they were born.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us,
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
If you are going to live successfully, you have to know what you are all about. Any tool that is used for something other than what it was created for will not be effective. And it is liable to get damaged.
At times I have needed a hammer to pound in a nail, but I have been too lazy to go out in the garage to get one (don't get too self-righteous, you've done it too!). So I have ended up using whatever I had handy, like a wrench.
Well, you can get the nail in, but you are not going to be very effective. You are liable to dent the wall, and you are liable to damage the wrench.
Too many Christians today are not functioning or flowing in the thing they were created for, and consequently, they are not effective. And sometimes they get hurt and damaged.
You do have a purpose. In fact, the word in Ephesians 2:10 translated workmanship literally means you are handcrafted by God. The Greek word is the same word we derive our English word poem from.
In other words, your life is not to be without order or symmetry or rhyme or reason. God has some specific things mapped out for your life. You are not an accident. You are not excess baggage. You have a purpose.
Ask God today to show you that purpose, and then develop the gifts God has given you to fulfill that purpose.
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Shine Your Light in the Darkness
Scripture Reading: Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:9
Some Christians get nervous about discussions on the Christians' responsibility to the culture. A major concern is that the Gospel will be obscured in favor of social concerns. Let me reassure your, when it comes to the lost, evangelism must come first. We must win people to Christ.
Without Christ, it doesn't matter how much money people have or how good their jobs are. If they die without Christ, they die without hope. We still have to live in this world until Jesus returns. We need to be salt and light in our culture just as Jesus commanded.
We are responsible to recapture our society for Jesus, point people to Him and promote His righteousness in society. Ask yourself, "Am I making anyone around me thirsty for Christ? Am I shining my light in the darkness?"
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Divine Commandment of Life
. . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect -Matthew 5:48
Our Lord's exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections- some people we like and others we don't like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. ". . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are "perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God's interests in other people. Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian's life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
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Keeping Your Focus
Yesterday we discovered that God does have a purpose for each of our lives. Yet even once we discover our purpose, we must remain focused. Luke 4:42-44 says,
Now when it was day, He departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; but He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent." And He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.
I want you to notice that statement of Jesus, "For this purpose I have been sent." Jesus knew His purpose. He said, "I must preach the kingdom." But notice the people tried to distract Him from that purpose.
I am sure the people meant well, but they were trying to divert Jesus from His purpose. But Jesus knew His purpose; therefore, He did not stay.
People will innocently divert you from doing what God has called you to do. It is only when you know your purpose that you will not be sidetracked, and you will not be distracted from what you are supposed to do.
The apostle Paul knew his purpose. In fact, he said this in 1 Corinthians 9:26, "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step" (The Living Bible). He was not about to get distracted from God's purpose for his life.
Our lives are not to be aimless, but they are to have purpose and direction, and we are to stay focused on that purpose, running straight at that goal. Keep focused on the purpose for which God has created you.
Be able to say like Paul, "I am running straight to the goal with purpose in every step."
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Who's the Real Enemy?
Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 7:13-14
Our nation faces a crisis of social deterioration which would have been unimaginable a generation ago. Our society needs radical transformation. Yes, we're in a culture war, but we need to know who the real enemy is.
The real enemy, working behind the scenes, is Satan. Yet the number one reason Satan can influence the schools, the media and government is because Christians have abandoned our culture and handed it over.
Christian morality no longer permeates, and society has lost its best moral frame of reference. We need a whole new generation of people who know, revere and follow God. If we humble ourselves before the Father, He will give us the power to take our culture back.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The "Go" of Preparation
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift-Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord's words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. ". . . go your way. First be reconciled to your brother. . . ." The "go" of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don't just admit it- confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, "I will not give up my right to myself"- the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
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The Value of Play
I think we would all agree that the Christian life is one to be taken seriously. But in our desire to go all out for Christ, we can get to a place where we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained.
God does not intend for us to live our lives that way. In fact, in 1 Timothy 6:17, Paul tells us,
God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
You and I need to take time to enjoy the things God gives us. In fact, Jesus said this to His disciples in Mark 6:31, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."
It is so easy to live our lives believing that somehow it is more spiritual to be on the edge of exhaustion all the time. But God clearly tells us that we are to take time to rejuvenate and to enjoy the things He has put into our lives.
When I was a young minister, I had the chance to meet with a seasoned minister who had literally changed the world for Christ. I thought, "Man, this is my golden opportunity. I'm going to ask him some questions."
So I said to him, "Look, I'm a young man in ministry. You have had decades more experience than me. You have impacted the world. What is the best advice you could give me as a young minister?"
And he said, "Well, Bayless, you have a nice golf swing. My advice is that you get some lessons. And whatever it costs you, join a country club and play golf regularly." Then he looked at me and said, "Golf is the only thing that's kept me alive."
It was some of the best advice I had ever received.
You need to make sure you live a balanced life. Take time for rest and for play. Recharge your batteries. You are in this thing for the long haul.
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All for God's Glory
Scripture Reading: Psalms 136
First Corinthians 10:31 tells us that even our eating and drinking should be done to the glory of God.
God's glory is like a pair of colored glasses that tint everything you see. Whatever you do should be done for His glory. About everything, you should ask, "How will this glorify God?"
The whole earth gives us a picture of the glory of God. Nature preaches us a sermon on His glory. Everything should point to His glory.
Revelation 21:23 says that when we get to heaven, there will be no need of the sun or moon because the glory of the Lord will illuminate everything. There will be no night there, for the place will be consumed with the glory of God. His glory is so awesome that it will light up our heavenly home!
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The "Go" of Relationship
Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two-Matthew 5:41
Our Lord's teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a super-natural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice. No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself- a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, "I am here for God to send me where He will." Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally. And as long as we consciously maintain the determined purpose to be His disciples, we can be sure that we are not disciples. Jesus says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you. . ." (John 15:16). That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we can never escape; we can disobey it, but we can never start it or produce it ourselves. We are drawn to God by a work of His supernatural grace, and we can never trace back to find where the work began. Our Lord's making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us- He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace, and that is where the cross we must bear will always come.
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The Prayer of Personal Edification
Today's devotional brings us to the prayer of personal edification. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, Paul writes,
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
In verse 14, Paul says, If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays. Coupled together with his statement in verse 4, we can see that praying in tongues edifies our spirit.
Edifies is actually an old English word. It means to build an edifice or building higher and higher. The closest modern way to say that would be "charges himself with energy," just like you would recharge a battery.
When I pray in other tongues, I charge my spirit with energy. I build myself up. It is like my cell phone. It needs to be recharged, or before long it will cease to work.
Sometimes I keep my phone on and talk on it while it is recharging, but when I do that it takes a whole lot longer to recharge. If I turn it off and plug it in, the charging process happens much quicker.
Sometimes you just need to shut everything down, turn everything off, and go get away with God and pray. Build yourself up in the Holy Spirit, especially praying in other tongues.
Sometimes after a long day I will come home just drained, tired inside and out. Eating a good meal and getting some rest takes care of my physical tiredness, but in order to replenish my inner resources, I need to do something else.
For me, reading His Word is food for my spirit, and praying in tongues brings inward rest and rejuvenation.
Even as the Scripture declares in Isaiah 28:11-12, For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, "This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," and, "This is the refreshing."
Take the time to get away and recharge your spiritual batteries.
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You were Custom Made
Scripture Reading: Psalms 139
There's nothing quite like having a custom-made shirt. On one shirt that I had custom made - cut especially for me - I even had my initials embroidered on the cuff. When you get something custom-made, it is fitted to your uniqueness, crafted with you in mind, and you are proud of it.
Now think about this: YOU have been custom-made by Almighty God, and your days were ordained before time into being. When you read Psalm 139:15-16, I want you to pay close attention to how God has placed all the parts of your life in order. He's got your whole life in His hands. This means you can stop trying to be somebody else and be satisfied with the unique person God made you to be.
You are custom-made! When you live in that realization, you will shine brighter than ever. Walking in God's purpose for you will turn out to be the greatest adventure you've ever jumped into!
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Unblameable Attitude
If . . thou rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee. . . . - Matthew 5:23
If when you come to the altar, there you remember that your brother has anything against you, not - If you rake up something by a morbid sensitiveness, but - "If thou rememberest," that is, if it is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God: "first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Never object to the intense sensitiveness of the Spirit of God in you when He is educating you down to the scruple.
"First be reconciled to thy brother . . ." Our Lord's direction is simple, "first be reconciled." Go back the way you came, go the way indicated to you by the conviction given at the altar; have an attitude of mind and a temper of soul to the one who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing. Jesus does not mention the other person, He says - you go. There is no question of your rights. The stamp of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
"And then come and offer thy gift." The process is clearly marked. First, the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden checking by the sensitiveness of the Holy Spirit, and the stoppage at the point of conviction, then the way of obedience to the word of God, constructing an unblameable attitude of mind and temper to the one with whom you have been in the wrong; then the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
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The Ten Commandments of Marriage
Good marriages don't just happen. It is not just because you married the right person and got lucky. Good marriages are built on more than passion. They are built on principle.
In the Scriptures, we find the best guidelines and principles for a healthy marriage. God's words and God's principles are never ever outdated...never! They are just as applicable today as they were to ancient Jews living in Israel.
What I want to do over the next couple of weeks of devotionals is point us to principles God has given us in a place you might not think was intended for marriage. That place is the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20.
Today, let me give you those Ten Commandments. What I would like you to do is spend time reading these carefully, and then take time to pray over each one. Ask God to begin to open your heart to see how these commands could be looked at as principles for marriage. I had a friend who challenged me to do the same, and I was amazed at what I discovered.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image...
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain...
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
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Created for Eternity
Scripture Reading: Psalms 90
Many people live their entire lives not really understanding why they were put on earth. What a tragedy and grave state of existence. It's even possible to be successful, happy and popular but miss the point of living.
The moment we become the center of life is the moment we miss the true meaning and the reason that God created us. It's important for us to realize that God has created us for Him, not for our own benefit. God has created all of us for eternity. In fact, Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has placed eternity in our hearts.
When we begin seeing life through the lens of eternity, we will live differently. Our choices, decisions, values and priorities will line up with God's Word and His plan for our lives.
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The "Go" Of Renunciation
Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. - Luke 9:57
Our Lord's attitude to this man is one of severe discouragement because He knew what was in man. We would have said - "Fancy losing the opportunity of winning that man!" Fancy bringing about him a north wind that froze him and "turned him away discouraged!" Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to hurt or offend. Jesus Christ has no tenderness whatever toward anything that is ultimately going to ruin a man in the service of God. Our Lord's answers are based not on caprice, but on a knowledge of what is in man. If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt to death.
V. 58. These words knock the heart out of serving Jesus Christ because it is pleasing to me. The rigour of rejection leaves nothing but my Lord, and myself, and a forlorn hope. "Let the hundredfold come or go, your lodestar must be your relationship to Me, and I have nowhere to lay My head."
v. 59. This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor to hurt his father. We put sensitive loyalty to relatives in place of loyalty to Jesus Christ and Jesus has to take the last place. In a conflict of loyalty, obey Jesus Christ at all costs.
V. 61. The one who says - "Yes, Lord, but . . ." is the one who is fiercely ready, but never goes. This man had one or two reservations. The exacting call of Jesus Christ has no margin of good-byes, because good-bye, as it is often used, is pagan, not Christian. When once the call of God comes, begin to go and never stop going.
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The First Commandment of Marriage: Exclusivity
The first of the Ten Commandments is simply this, as found in Exodus 20:3,
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
What is God saying in this commandment? That He wants to have an exclusive relationship with you. He wants to be your one and only. He will not settle for flavor of the month.
And how appropriate in marriage as well. We are to have an exclusive relationship with our spouse.
It's been said that Henry Ford, on his golden wedding anniversary...50 years of marriage...was asked, "What's the secret of your success in marriage?" And he said, "The secret of my successful marriage is the same secret that I have in business: I stick to the same model."
In traditional wedding vows, the man and woman pledge their devotion until death parts them. For life. There is no competition.
My wife has no competition. I am not shopping for a new model. I do not want to trade in the old model. I will not be shopping in the future. One is all I need.
When God made man, He said it is good. But then He said, "It is not good that he is alone. I am going to make a helper suitable for him." And the Bible says God took one of Adam's ribs, and He formed a woman, Eve, and brought her to the man.
God did not take four or five ribs and say, "Okay, Adam, here is Eve, and here is Lois, and here is Samantha, and here is Rachel." No, it was just one. And to have a healthy marriage relationship, that is it.
I am committed for life. An exclusive relationship. I am not shopping, not even window-shopping. One God. One wife. That is enough.
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Living for the Right Purpose
Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:27-28; Philippians 3:8
Purpose is a popular topic that many of us find fascinating. We all want to be validated and know that we are here on earth for a specific reason. We may have never learned about our purpose while growing up and may still have a difficult time understanding it.
The good news is that God wants us to realize our purpose. He didn't create us to live with no direction, just wandering aimlessly through life. Too many times, we complicate God's plan for our lives. As believers, God's highest purpose is for us to walk in a close relationship with Him and to reach others with His love.
As we walk in obedience to these basic principles outlined in His Word, God begins to reveal to us a very specific purpose that matches our DNA. Acts 13:36 tells of David, who lived a purposeful life for the Lord in his generation. What a great legacy to leave behind!
:angel:
Daily Devotion by Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
The Assigning of the Call
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . . -Colossians 1:24
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" (Isaiah 6:8).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed-you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children
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The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute
In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Don not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."
Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.
Love your husband only. Love your wife only. Do not look for fulfillment in some other relationship or in some other thing. Find your fulfillment in that relationship.
Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.
Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.
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God Never Makes Mistakes
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 32:4; Matthew 5:48
Everyone makes mistakes, right? Be assured that God, our Creator, has never made a mistake. Deuteronomy 32:4 says His work is perfect, and you and I are some of His greatest works. Believe me, there are no failures or flaws in His plan for you.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Those who believe that the Earth and everything on it evolved by chance or luck into what they are today are incorrect. God purposefully and supernaturally created each and every one of us and continues to sustain us.
There is no room for chance or luck if you believe God is the Creator and Sustainer. God's power allows all things to happen in our lives for His purpose. We are not the coming together of random forces in the universe. We are the creation of God's power and perfect work... never a mistake.
:angel:
October 1, 2013
The Utmost for His Highest
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Exaltation
. . . Jesus took . . . them up on a high mountain apart by themselves . . . -Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God's perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14-18). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life- those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, "What's the use of this experience?" We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose.
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The Third Commandment of Marriage: Speak Well of Your Mate
Exodus 20:7 gives us our third commandment of marriage,
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
Many misunderstand the term, in vain. It means empty, meaningless, insincere, not showing due respect.
When we speak flippantly or lightly about someone, we erode our respect for that person. Some people are just far too casual in the way they speak of their spouse, and it erodes your respect for him or her.
In marriage, few things can affect the relationship like words. Words are containers. They can contain love; they can contain hate; they can contain joy; they can contain bitterness.
The book of James says that our tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It will send the ship of your marriage in whatever direction your words go. Some people are on the brink of divorce because they talk divorce. Just listen to the words they say. Are they negative or positive? Critical or encouraging?
One night I was out with a couple of friends diving for lobster. Some guys were out in one of those big, long speedboats drinking and zooming back and forth at 60 miles an hour. All of a sudden, BANG! The boat hit the rocks.
But it did not hit the rocks by itself. It was steered into the rocks. Just like the driver of that boat, some people are steering their marriage into the rocks of divorce, into the rocks of heartache, by the words they speak.
Think about what you say. Are you building up your partner? Learn to speak well of your mate. Build them up with your words. Be lavish with your praise. You will be pleased with where those words will take your relationship.
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Blessed are the Merciful
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5
All of us have had to carry heavy circumstances that weigh us down, and we needed something to lift the burden off our shoulders. We need mercy. Mercy reduces, removes or relieves someone's distress. It is simply compassion in action.
The Bible says in Ephesians 2:4, God is rich in mercy. In other words, God is rich in blessing us with divine favor and compassion, releasing us from distress, discouragement, brokenness, pain and problems. Mercy is in fact God's reaction to our misery.
Mercy is asking God to not let us bear the full weight of our burdens. Everyone needs mercy. Lamentations 3 states that God's mercies are new every morning. Every day you wake up, you wake up to mercy. You got up today with new life, and guess what? New life means new opportunities. That's another day and a new opportunity to praise Him.
:angel:
My Utmost for His HighestDaily Devotionals By Oswald ChambersThe Place of Humiliation
If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us -Mark 9:22
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" (Isaiah 6:8).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed-you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage with Positive Affirmation
The first way to affair-proof your marriage is to season your marriage with affirming communication.
In Song of Solomon 7:1-6 we read of how Solomon affirmed his bride,
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your navel is a rounded goblet; it lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple; a king is held captive by your tresses. How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
Solomon knew it was vital for him to compliment his bride's body, because, as you read in chapter 1, it is evident that it was an area of insecurity for her.
This Shulamite was a country girl. She said, "Do not look on me for I am dark." She was tan from working out in the vineyards. And compared with the fair-skinned, pampered ladies of the court, she felt very insecure.
So Solomon very wisely builds her up in the area where she feels most insecure.
Speak affirming words to your mate rather than tear him or her down. If your spouse is starved for positive affirmation, and it does not come from you, it opens a door of temptation. The devil will send someone to give insincere compliments, and if a person is starved for it, they gravitate towards it.
Praise one another lavishly. It is an important thing to do.
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Blessed are the Merciful
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5
All of us have had to carry heavy circumstances that weigh us down, and we needed something to lift the burden off our shoulders. We need mercy. Mercy reduces, removes or relieves someone's distress. It is simply compassion in action.
The Bible says in Ephesians 2:4, God is rich in mercy. In other words, God is rich in blessing us with divine favor and compassion, releasing us from distress, discouragement, brokenness, pain and problems. Mercy is in fact God's reaction to our misery.
Mercy is asking God to not let us bear the full weight of our burdens. Everyone needs mercy. Lamentations 3 states that God's mercies are new every morning. Every day you wake up, you wake up to mercy. You got up today with new life, and guess what? New life means new opportunities. That's another day and a new opportunity to praise Him.
:angel:
My Utmost for His HighestDaily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Place of Ministry
He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting' -Mark 9:29
His disciples asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?' " (Mark 9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy-Part 2
Yesterday we learned the first step in experiencing intimacy in marriage...by creating an atmosphere for that intimacy. Today, I want us to see the results of that deliberate effort.
As we mentioned yesterday, Solomon has been complimenting his wife and affirming her. Look at her response to that affirmation in Song of Solomon 7:10,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
She is digging it! She is saying, "He really loves me!" Solomon's affirmation of his bride has created this atmosphere of intimacy. And look what she says next in verse 11,
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.
She is grabbing Solomon's hand and saying, "Let's get a hotel room!" Then there are verses 12-13,
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Friend, catch what is going on. Solomon has affirmed his wife saying, "Honey, you are beautiful! I am so glad I married you. I married out of my league. You are wonderful. Your body is great. I am so happy!"
Her response? "Wow, he loves me. I'll tell you what, let's go away and have a little love vacation. Let's take a few days off." That is enough to get any husband inspired to rent a hotel room!
If you want to affair-proof your marriage, make intimacy a priority!
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Blessed are the Spiritually Famished
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:6; Psalms 107
We've all seen the televised images of starving children in countries experiencing food and water shortages. Mothers, holding their babies with bellies bloated from severe malnutrition, desperately seek food and water. If they can't find what they seek, their children will die.
This kind of desperation is what Jesus was talking about when He told us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. He wants us to be as passionate about doing God's will as parents in developing countries are about getting food or clean water. Our bodies can't survive without food, and our souls can't live without righteousness.
So how do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? It is the passionate pursuit of God's righteousness in our own lives. His righteousness is living in God's will day in and day out.
When we passionately pursue His will, other things become less of a priority and we will remove any distractions that do not contribute to that pursuit.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Nature of Reconciliation
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him -2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship- it is not wrong doing, but wrong being- it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins- the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son "to be sin" that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . ." and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A man cannot redeem himself- redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person's life.
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Affair-Proof Your Marriage Through Intimacy-Part 2
Yesterday we learned the first step in experiencing intimacy in marriage...by creating an atmosphere for that intimacy. Today, I want us to see the results of that deliberate effort.
As we mentioned yesterday, Solomon has been complimenting his wife and affirming her. Look at her response to that affirmation in Song of Solomon 7:10,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
She is digging it! She is saying, "He really loves me!" Solomon's affirmation of his bride has created this atmosphere of intimacy. And look what she says next in verse 11,
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.
She is grabbing Solomon's hand and saying, "Let's get a hotel room!" Then there are verses 12-13,
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give off a fragrance, and at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved.
Friend, catch what is going on. Solomon has affirmed his wife saying, "Honey, you are beautiful! I am so glad I married you. I married out of my league. You are wonderful. Your body is great. I am so happy!"
Her response? "Wow, he loves me. I'll tell you what, let's go away and have a little love vacation. Let's take a few days off." That is enough to get any husband inspired to rent a hotel room!
If you want to affair-proof your marriage, make intimacy a priority!
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God Used Moses, "the Murderer"
Scripture Reading: Exodus 2:11-24
One mistake can change the course of our lives. One bad decision can cost us years. In Moses' case, the mistake was murder. In a fit of anger, he killed an Egyptian and then fled for his life. He went from living as a prince of Egypt to growing old with the sheep in the desert. He was certain that it was too late for anything good to come of his life.
Many of our lives have been forever changed by a single decision, and the consequences have left us feeling as though our existence has little significance. But it wasn't too late for Moses, and it's not too late for you.
When he was 80 - after 40 years of waiting - Moses' mistake brought him to the right place to meet with God, who used him to lead an entire nation out of slavery. Cry out to God, and He will meet you in His presence.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Coming to Jesus
Come to Me . . . -Matthew 11:28
Isn't it humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things about which we will not come to Jesus Christ. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words- "Come to Me . . . ." In every dimension in which you are not real, you will argue or evade the issue altogether rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; and you will do anything rather than come the last lap of the race of seemingly unspeakable foolishness and say, "Just as I am, I come." As long as you have even the least bit of spiritual disrespect, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do something very big, and yet all He is telling you to do is to "Come . . . ."
"Come to Me . . . ." When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, and it will involve anything that will uproot whatever is preventing you from getting through to Jesus. And you will never get any further until you are willing to do that very thing. The Holy Spirit will search out that one immovable stronghold within you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him do so.
How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away thinking, "I've really received what I wanted this time!" And yet you go away with nothing, while all the time God has stood with His hands outstretched not only to take you but also for you to take Him. Just think of the invincible, unconquerable, and untiring patience of Jesus, who lovingly says, "Come to Me. . . ."
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The Eighth Commandment of Marriage: Be a Person of Integrity
Exodus 20:15 gives us the eighth commandment for marriage,
You shall not steal.
You may be wondering how stealing applies to marriage. Simple. Not to steal is to be a person of integrity.
If you are always cheating or cutting corners, it will be hard for your spouse to respect you. Your uprightness should make your marriage partner feel proud. Your spouse and your family ought to testify of your integrity. This is really one of the things at the heart of a good marriage.
If you are married to somebody, and you know they cheat their customers, it is just hard to respect that person. You cannot respect someone who does not have integrity.
This is a big issue that many people fly right by. But it is vital to a healthy and vibrant marriage because it is hard to fully give yourself to someone who does not have integrity.
If you find that your spouse is holding back, if you feel like he or she does not respect you, take a look inside and see if you are compromising with your integrity. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you tell that "little white lie" to protect yourself or gain an advantage?
Do you represent yourself one way, when in fact in your heart you believe something totally different? Are you like the man Solomon speaks of in Proverbs 23:7?
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
If this is an issue in your life, take it to God today. He will help you become the person of integrity He desires you to be. And when you do, you will find your spouse will come to respect you, and your marriage will be strengthened!
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God Used Rahab, "the Harlot"
Scripture Reading: Joshua 2
Rahab was a lady of the evening. She was known as "Rahab, the prostitute," yet her name is included both in the Gospel of Matthew's genealogy of Jesus and the book of Hebrew's "Hall of Faith." Her story demonstrates the power of faith to transform lives and overcome difficult circumstances.
Rahab lived at the wall of Jericho, and when the two Hebrew spies stayed at her house, she placed her trust in the protection of their God. She'd heard the stories of the God of Israel, and she chose to appeal to His goodness instead of giving in to the threats of Jericho's ruler. Because of her faith, she was adopted into the people of God and she became a symbol of remarkable faith.
Not only did Rahab's faith change her life, but it moved God to protect everyone in her family and household when Jericho was destroyed. One woman's faith changed an entire family's destiny.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Building on the Atonement
. . . present . . . your members as instruments of righteousness to God -Romans 6:13
I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it. If I construct my faith on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life- an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation- it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every kind of experience you have by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
The atonement of Jesus must be exhibited in practical, unassuming ways in my life. Every time I obey, the absolute deity of God is on my side, so that the grace of God and my natural obedience are in perfect agreement. Obedience means that I have completely placed my trust in the atonement, and my obedience is immediately met by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.
Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life- it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the trial or test of the atonement and ask, "Where is the discernment of the atonement in this, and in that?
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The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful
The ninth commandment for marriage speaks to the heart of any marriage, trust. It is found in Exodus 20:16,
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Someone who would lie about their neighbor, for whatever reason, is not going to make a good marriage partner. Honesty and trust are at the heart of a good marriage.
If you take advantage of people for your own gain, speaking untruthfully to get ahead, you are not a person to be trusted. And you ultimately are the loser.
I am reminded of the guy who was in a fender bender, and he feigned an injury, pretended like he hurt his arm and his shoulder. As a result, the poor little lady who had run into his car was subjected to a truly horrible situation. She was grilled by attorneys, had to give depositions, and ended up in court.
But this guy continued trying to take her for all she was worth. He didn't care because he knew she had money. He didn't care if she had to give up her house. He was looking at an opportunity to get rich.
The attorney for the lady's insurance company put him on the stand and said, "I would like to know, since the accident, since you injured your arm and your shoulder, how far can you now raise your arm?"
With great pain etched on his face, he said, "Well...'bout here. That's it. Just to here." Then the attorney asked, "Well, how far could you lift it before the accident?" The guy responded, raising his arm with ease, "I could lift it up to here."
Needless to say, he lost.
Anyone who is not truthful will ultimately lose. And if your spouse will lie to someone else, he or she will lie to you.
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God Used Jacob, "the Liar"
Scripture Reading: Genesis 25:26-34
The name "Jacob" means deceiver. Jacob was crafty, tricky and skilled in the ways of manipulation. He was the kind of person who had big dreams and ambitions and was always looking for an angle. He wanted a blessing.
The Bible's reference to "blessing" describes the transfer of divine favor and authority. To be blessed means that we receive from God something that we have no ability to generate on our own. However, the only way we can get that kind of blessing is through brokenness . . . the realization that our self-sufficiency, our willpower and our talents are not enough.
Jacob learned this the hard way. He got his blessing, but it was more than he bargained for. God blessed him by wrestling with him, shaping his character and changing his name from deceiver to Israel, which means "wrestles with God." Jacob realized that the blessing was about more than what he got; it was about passing this blessing on to the next generation. You'll be ready to receive the blessing of God when you realize it's about what you give to others, not just what God gives to you.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
How Will I Know?
Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes' -Matthew 11:25
We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step- we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin- "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God's revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don't say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).
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The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful
The Tenth Commandment of Marriage: Be Content with What You Have
Today we come to the final commandment for marriage. That commandment is based on the tenth commandment given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 20:17,
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
This command is very direct. Do not covet. Don't be discontent with what you have. Do not make what you don't have the focus of your life. Accentuate what you do have and what God has blessed you and your spouse with.
You do this by celebrating your husband's or wife's strengths and giftings rather than thinking, "Oh, I wish he was this way," or, "I wish she had that."
If Janet compared me to her brothers, I would be in big trouble. Her brothers are these "Mr. Fix-It" guys who can do anything mechanical. If you are with me and our car breaks down on a desolate road, we are going to be in some serious trouble. I can pray, but do not expect me to fix the car.
Her brothers are another story. One just built a house from the ground up; and if anything mechanical breaks down, he can fix it.
While I am not a Mr. Fix-It, there are other things I am good at. I am so grateful that Janet wants to pull those out of me and give wings to those gifts. And I want to do the same thing for her.
You will always get into trouble if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Just water your own grass. Because on the other side of the fence, it's just Astroturf anyway.
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God Used Samson, "the Player"
Scripture Reading: Judges 13
Samson was every woman's dream and every man's nightmare. He had supernatural strength, heroic bravery and the fighting spirit of a warrior. God gave him these gifts because his parents dedicated him to the Lord from his birth. In time, Samson's love for women caused him to compromise his call. When he lost his purity, he also lost the strength and power that God had given him. Chasing the pleasures of the world left him powerless, defeated and humiliated.
However, in his brokenness at the end of his life Samson rediscovered the call God had given him to liberate his people. When he used the blessings of God to serve others he changed history.
Don't chase the pleasures of the world but dedicate your life to serving God and others. No matter where you are, it's not too late. When you realize God's purpose for your life isn't just about you, He will use you in a mighty way.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
God's Silence- Then What?
When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was -John 11:6
Has God trusted you with His silence- a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible- with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).
A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy- silence.
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God's Eyes
In Hebrews 4:13, there is a powerful statement concerning God,
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
In this verse, we are taught that God sees what we do, and He sees the intent of what we do. That leads to one thing: total accountability.
There is no getting out of giving an account for our lives before God. We will all stand before Him. And at that time, there will be no shifting; there will be no saying one thing and thinking something else inside. Everything will be laid bare.
God sees everything all the time. Everything is open and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. You just can't get away from God.
The Scripture says in Proverbs 15:3, The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
But God also sees the very intent of our heart. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint a new king over Israel, and he was at the house of Jesse, Jesse had his big strapping son pass by. As Samuel looked at this guy he thought, "Surely this is the Lord's anointed."
But God said, "I rejected this one. For the Lord does not see as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance. But the Lord looks upon the heart."
Our intent can be right, but we can really mess up. God looks on our heart, and if our intent is right, He judges us according to our intent, not according to the mistakes we may have made. But, if the intent of our heart was not pure, God judges us according to that.
Live today...and every day...knowing that the Lord looks on the heart.
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The Authority of Christ over Circumstances
You may never have to feed 5,000 people like Jesus did in the story in Mark 6, but you may still experience seemingly impossible situations. Remember these seven keys as you trust in Christ to overcome the insurmountable circumstances in your life.
- Rest and prepare yourself for God's service.
- Make sure you have a compassionate attitude.
- Remember that God is interested in building His Kingdom through your situations.
- Live so that non-believers can see Jesus through for you.
- Always give thanks for what God has given you, so He can use you to bless others.
- Trust God during the impossible circumstances of life.
- Remember that He works through weak things to make miraculous things.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work (1)
Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . .' -Matthew 28:18-19
The key to the missionary's work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don't go- He simply says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . ." He says, "Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me."
"Then the eleven disciples went . . . to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them" (Matthew 28:16). If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him myself. I must take time to worship the One whose name I bear. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . ."- that is the place to meet Jesus- "all you who labor and are heavy laden . . ." (Matthew 11:28)- and how many missionaries are! We completely dismiss these wonderful words of the universal Sovereign of the world, but they are the words of Jesus to His disciples meant for here and now.
"Go therefore . . . ." To "go" simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say in this verse, "Go into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria," but, ". . . you shall be witnesses to Me in [all these places]." He takes upon Himself the work of sending us.
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you . . ." (John 15:7)- that is the way to keep going. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings.
"None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . ." (Acts 20:24). That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life.
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The Source of Your Success
There is no question we live in one of the most prosperous of ages. And many Christians today live in tremendous prosperity.
It is pretty easy to look at all we have accomplished, and the wealth we have accumulated, and feel pretty good about ourselves.
Today, I want you to read Psalm 44:1-3. It contains a powerful truth and reminder,
We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, the deeds You did in their days, in days of old: You drove out the nations with Your hand, but them You planted; You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out. For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them; but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, because You favored them.
Any good thing that you and I possess is the result of God's hand and nothing less. It is not because we are something special or because we are so intelligent.
When everything is said and done, we are not going to be able to point to our own arm or our own intelligence or our own ability. We will only be able to stand back and say, "Look what the Lord has done."
If you are prosperous today, I want you to know that it is the result of God's hand and God's arm working on your behalf.
As you look to the future, if you are going to experience the fullness of what He has for you, it will indeed be the result of the power of His Spirit working in your life. Not your ingenuity, not your human striving, not the power of your flesh, but the power of His Spirit
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The Authority of Christ over Satan
Scripture Reading: 1 John 5
The Bible says that God tempts no man to sin (James 1:13). Whenever you sin, don't blame God. God never tempts us, but He does tests us. Do you understand the difference?
Testing is designed to validate your victory in Christ. Temptation is Satan's attempt to defeat you spiritually. Ironically, the test and the temptation can be the same event. God can use something - a circumstance, a situation, a problem - that is a test. Yet Satan is using it as a temptation.
Your response can be a testimony to God's power, so Satan works to discredit your testimony in an effort to dishonor God. Our heavenly Father wants to know whether your "amen" on Sunday works on Monday, and Satan wants you to leave the sermon at the church. Remember Christ has ALL authority over Satan, so you can win every time.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Work (2)
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world -1 John 2:2
The key to the missionary's message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus- His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ's work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But- "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"- that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary's message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.
The real key to the missionary's message is the "remissionary" aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. ". . . repentance and remission of sins should be preached . . . to all nations . . ." (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins . . . ." The missionary's message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is "for the whole world." When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim "the Lamb of God." It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, "Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me," but, ". . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel- "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
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Gaining the Victory
We live in a society of addictions, of bondage to so many things. Maybe you are in bondage to cigarettes, or alcohol, or pornography, or anger, or any number of other things.
Whatever the condition that has you in bondage today, God's hand and God's arm can lift you up and untangle you and set you free. In Psalm 98:1 we are told,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
We find repeatedly throughout the Old Testament how, through God's mighty hand and His outstretched arm, He redeemed His people out of slavery and out of bondage.
Now here is the question. Does it just sort of randomly happen? Do we have to wait and see if we are one of the lucky ones God will choose to extend His mighty arm to help? Or, is there anything that we can do to cooperate with God to see His arm extended in our behalf?
The answer is yes, we can, and we must cooperate with God.
In Isaiah 51:5 God tells us,
"My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust."
The way we cooperate with God is to trust in His arm; not in our own arm, but in His. If you want to see God's mighty arm move on your behalf, then trust Him alone! Do not trust your intelligence, your ingenuity, your education, your status in life, your wealth, or any other thing.
Trust in God alone. And you will have the victory.
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Maturity is a Process
Scripture Reading: John 14:25-27; Luke 10:38-42
As we grow in our relationship with God, so does our spiritual maturity. Growing isn't always fun - in fact, it can be pretty painful - but during our trials and hard times, we must never forget a simple truth.
We can choose to learn from life's difficulties and hardships and mature into the man or woman God has created us to be, or we can choose to be upset and learn nothing.
James 1:2-4 tells us to consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (NIV).
The next time you face a trial or difficult situation, look to God for your joy and strength and know that He is using it to usher you into a new level.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Master's Orders
Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest -Matthew 9:38
The key to the missionary's difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work- that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary's difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master's orders- the key is prayer. "Pray the Lord of the harvest . . . ." In the natural realm, prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the commonsense point of view.
From Jesus Christ's perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person- Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father's or your brother's life- are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, "a servant [who] is not greater than his master" (John 13:16), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work- He calls us to Himself. "Pray the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.
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T-R-U-S-T
In our last devotional, we talked about the need to trust God. You may wonder, what does trust really mean? Let me help you understand by using the word T-R-U-S-T as an acronym.
"T" stands for trust...which means that if you are going to trust Him, you have to take Him at His word. Even if it seems like it is not true, you take Him at His word. If we will take Him at His word, He will guide us through the course of life and bring us across the finish line safely.
"R" stands for rest. The Bible tells us to rest in the Lord. 1 Peter 5:7 says, Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Do not worry. Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but you don't get anywhere.
"U" stands for understanding. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. Sometimes things just won't make sense to your understanding.
"S" stands for speech.
The final "T" stands for thanksgiving. We offer thanks to God in advance. Philippians 4:6 says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. When we offer thanks to God, it is an expression of our faith.
That's T-R-U-S-T!
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Transformed by Trials
Scripture Reading: John 14:25-27; Luke 10:38-42
One of the primary means God uses to make you and me like Jesus Christ is by sending trouble our way. You see, reshaping us to the image of Christ is not minor surgery; it takes a major transformation.
Just like a sculptor takes a piece of marble slab and chips away at it in order to bring out an image, God uses troubles to reshape us.
We just need to remember, when we are going through trials, we must change what we are looking at. We have to come at it from the right perspective. "Lord, this is a rough time right now. I am not sure why you sent this to me, but I want to give you thanks and I rejoice at the fact that this is going to be a transforming event in my life. I am going to be more like Christ when we finish this one."
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key of the Greater Work
. . . I say to you, he who believes in Me, . . . greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father -John 14:12
Prayer does not equip us for greater works- prayer is the greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God's work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God. The way fruit remains firm is through prayer, but remember that it is prayer based on the agony of Christ in redemption, not on my own agony. We must go to God as His child, because only a child gets his prayers answered; a "wise" man does not (see Matthew 11:25).
Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are. However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray. Never allow yourself this thought, "I am of no use where I am," because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him. And He promises, "Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do . . ." (John 14:13). Yet we refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. We must learn to work according to God's direction, and He says to pray. "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matthew 9:38).
There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God's perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.
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The Power of Humility
One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is spiritual arrogance.
When pride wells up in our heart, it can absolutely take our spiritual legs out from under us, and keep the strong arm of the Lord from being revealed in our lives.
In 1 Peter 5:6, we are given the antidote to pride. It says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
It is unfortunate, but there are some who emphasize the message of faith that at times do so with a touch of arrogance rather than humility. The result is that it has really turned some people off to the whole message of faith.
Our faith always needs to be coupled with humility.
There are only two people in the Bible Jesus said had great faith. One of them was the Roman centurion whom we find in Luke 7. When you study his story, you find that because of his good works, the elders of the Jews said he deserved Jesus' help. But the centurion had a far different view of himself. He said he was not worthy for Jesus to enter under his roof.
The other person that Jesus said had great faith was the woman with the possessed daughter in Matthew 15. Two elements stand out about her as we read her story. She was persistent and she was humble.
Great faith cannot be divorced from great humility. Humility is a necessary ingredient for the soil of our heart, without which a healthy faith cannot grow.
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Just Like Jesus
Scripture Reading: Colossians 3
God's divine purpose for every believer is that each of us be conformed to the image of His Son. God wants us to reflect His character. But what does God look like? Although we can't see God or touch Him, we know His character because it's reflected in the Son. Jesus told His followers, when you look at Me, you are looking at My Father.
As Christians, we are committed to Jesus Christ. And as a result, God promises that He is going to take all the pieces of our lives - the good, the bad and the ugly - and work them all together for our maximum benefit.
You must make a decision to make conforming to His image your passionate pursuit in life. This is God's purpose for you.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary's Devotion
. . . they went forth for His name's sake . . . -3 John 7
Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:17). And then He said, "Feed My sheep." In effect, He said, "Identify yourself with My interests in other people," not, "Identify Me with your interests in other people." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love- it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.
Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit- "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . ." (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.
The key to the missionary's devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.
The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
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The Face of God
The psalmist says in Psalms 30:7,
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.
One thing we should never want to experience is for God to hide His face, because the face of God represents His favor, friendship, and fellowship.
Now there is only one thing that causes God to hide His face from us. It is found in Isaiah 59:1-2,
Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Sin is the one thing that causes God's face to be hidden. The Bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, which means the sin of mankind had hidden God's face.
But that is not the end of the story, thank goodness! In Isaiah 50:6 we are told,
"I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting."
Because Jesus did not hide His face from shame and spitting, because He took your place and died for your sins, God's face can shine upon you.
He could have hidden His face; He could have avoided the whole crucifixion, but He didn't. He bore a shame that was not His as God the Father laid the sin of the world on Him.
Because Jesus did not hide His face, the face of God need not be hidden from any of us. The light of God's countenance can shine upon every one of us, and we can indeed be the friends of God.
Thank you, Jesus, for what you did!
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Saved Without a Doubt
Scripture Reading: John 3:34-36; John 17:3
Every member of the human race has fallen into an abyss, and no matter how hard we try, we can't get out; the hole is just too deep. The good news is, we don't have to get ourselves out. The heart of the Gospel, Jesus' sacrifice, is strong enough to lift us from those pits. With His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus offered deliverance and assurance.
When Jesus confronted the Samaritan woman at the well, He offered her a drink of living water from a well that would never run dry. Jesus offers the gift of salvation to everyone who chooses to drink His Water.
Eternal life is living water. We take the first drink, and our Savior produces the well of living water that doesn't run dry. Place your confidence in Jesus and His finished work, and He will create an oasis in your soul that keeps producing living water.
:angel:
October 22, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Witness of the Spirit
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit . . . -Romans 8:16
We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him-we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.
Why doesn't God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won't abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself-He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28 , "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . . ." Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).
The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.
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The Number One Cause for Spiritual Drought
By far the Scriptures teach that the number one cause for spiritual drought is sin. And the number one cure for drought, according to the Scriptures, is repentance.
In 2 Chronicles 6:26-27, King Solomon is clear in this prayer,
When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.
Notice that the heavens were shut up, there was no rain, because of sin. But when the people confessed God's name and turned and repented, Solomon prayed, "God, hear and open the heavens once again and send rain."
This prayer is particularly significant because Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple. Scripture declares to us in 2 Corinthians 6:16, You are the temple of the living God.
The Old Testament temple was just a type and a shadow pointing to better things-to the era in which God would no longer dwell in buildings made with mortar and stone, but take up residence in human hearts.
That's you and me! As 1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are not our own. We have been bought with a price, and God's expectation is that we glorify Him in our bodies. You and I are God's temple.
If there is sin in your life, turn from it and turn to God, so that you can experience the refreshing rain of God's blessing in your life.
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Assurance and Self-Examination
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:9-13
When you read 1 Corinthians 11:28-29, you must be careful not to misinterpret its meaning. One understanding of these verses is that as a believer you must examine yourself to be certain that you're a Christian. But that's not what this means. The misconstrued verse is one reminder of the importance of correctly interpreting the Scriptures.
Paul has presented the Corinthian church with his observation about communion, and in the second reference, he's writing to people who were already Christians. Paul was urging the church at Corinth to examine themselves regularly to avoid God's further judgment (1 Corinthians 11:32).
I don't want you to ever doubt or be confused about the authenticity of your salvation. But as many as received Him, to them he gave the right to become children of God... (John 1:12).
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Nothing of the Old Life!
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
Our Lord never tolerates our prejudices- He is directly opposed to them and puts them to death. We tend to think that God has some special interest in our particular prejudices, and are very sure that He will never deal with us as He has to deal with others. We even say to ourselves, "God has to deal with other people in a very strict way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right." But we must learn that God accepts nothing of the old life! Instead of being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately removing them from us. It is part of our moral education to see our prejudices put to death by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.
When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is nothing remaining of the old life. Our old gloomy outlook disappears, as does our old attitude toward things, and "all things are of God" (2 Corinthians 5:18). How are we going to get a life that has no lust, no self-interest, and is not sensitive to the ridicule of others? How will we have the type of love that "is kind . . . is not provoked, [and] thinks no evil"? (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). The only way is by allowing nothing of the old life to remain, and by having only simple, perfect trust in God- such a trust that we no longer want God's blessings, but only want God Himself. Have we come to the point where God can withdraw His blessings from us without our trust in Him being affected? Once we truly see God at work, we will never be concerned again about the things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in heaven, whom the world cannot see
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The Cure for the Drought Brought by Sin
In our last devotional, we talked about sin being the number one cause for spiritual drought. The natural question is, "What is the cure, how do I end that drought?"
One word: repentance.
In addition to the passage we read yesterday, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is clear and instructive,
"When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
True repentance literally means an inward change of heart resulting in an outward change of direction. If there is no outward change of direction, then it is not true repentance.
There is no real repentance even if you are feeling emotional and weeping over your sin. That is not repentance. Feeling sorry is not repentance.
Repentance is the change of heart that results in a change of lifestyle, a change of direction, a turning. So I have a word for you: If there is known sin in your life, repent.
King David gives us a great example in Psalm 32:4-5 when he said,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD...."
If, because of sin, you are in a drought spiritually, repent. If you do, your drought can be broken and you can experience the blessings of God.
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The Cost of Grace
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:9-13
Imagine it's your birthday. Your friend comes by and gives you a beautifully wrapped gift. When you open it, it's something you've always wanted! After the party, you walk your friend to the door and just before he leaves, he says, "Oh, by the way, here's the receipt. Your gift costs $500. I'll take cash or a check" Could you really call what you received a gift?
The same principle applies to salvation. You don't have to buy it. Salvation is a gift. It depends wholly on God's grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Jesus paid the costs in full for our salvation. Acts 4:12 says, ". . . there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven . . . by which we must be saved."
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Justification by Faith
If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life -Romans 5:10
I am not saved by believing- I simply realize I am saved by believing. And it is not repentance that saves me- repentance is only the sign that I realize what God has done through Christ Jesus. The danger here is putting the emphasis on the effect, instead of on the cause. Is it my obedience, consecration, and dedication that make me right with God? It is never that! I am made right with God because, prior to all of that, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals, the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ instantly places me into a right relationship with God. And as a result of the supernatural miracle of God's grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, or because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The Spirit of God brings justification with a shattering, radiant light, and I know that I am saved, even though I don't know how it was accomplished.
The salvation that comes from God is not based on human logic, but on the sacrificial death of Jesus. We can be born again solely because of the atonement of our Lord. Sinful men and women can be changed into new creations, not through their repentance or their belief, but through the wonderful work of God in Christ Jesus which preceded all of our experience (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-19). The unconquerable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We do not have to accomplish these things ourselves- they have been accomplished through the atonement of the Cross of Christ. The supernatural becomes natural to us through the miracle of God, and there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done- "It is finished!" (John 19:30).
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Praying for the Rain
For the past week we have been seeking to understand what causes a spiritual drought, and then how we can break that drought if indeed we are in one.
Here is what I want you to understand. Even if you earnestly seek God and repent of sin in your life, or you shift your focus and say, "God, I'm putting Your house first, and I'm going to put other people before myself," or perhaps God leads you to do something of a personal nature, you still need to pray for the rain.
Do not just assume God's blessing will automatically fall. You still need to ask for it. Zechariah 10:1 teaches us this truth,
Ask the LORD for rain In the time of the latter rain. The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone.
I used to read that and wonder, "God, I don't understand. If it is the time of the latter rain, if it is rainy season, why ask for rain? Won't it just fall automatically?" If it is rainy season, why pray for rain?"
Because you cannot assume that it is automatically going to fall.
In James 5:17-18 there is a story about Elijah from 1 Kings 18. James gives us the very, very, very short version. But it tells us something significant,
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
What caused the rain to stop? His prayer. What caused the rain to fall again? His prayer.
Ask God today for the blessing of His rain in your life!
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What is Your Legacy?
Scripture Reading: Acts 20:16-24
Whether it's a high school competition or the Olympics, audiences get excited watching athletes compete in a relay race. The key point of the relay is the passing of the baton. No matter how fast the runners are, if one of them drops the baton, the team loses the race.
Leaving a legacy to the people in your life is a lot like passing the baton. Legacy is about transfer, and what you leave behind can help someone else go further than you did. What kind of legacy are you leaving behind? Developing and passing on a true spiritual legacy doesn't just happen. Like Elijah passing on the prophet's mantle to Elisha, you can share a Christian legacy.
Think about the price Jesus paid to leave His legacy. Because of His death and resurrection, you and I have the privilege and duty to pass this legacy on to everyone around us.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Substitution
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him -2 Corinthians 5:21
The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy for us. Yet the New Testament view is that He took our sin on Himself not because of sympathy, but because of His identification with us. He was "made. . . to be sin. . . ." Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the only explanation for His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy for us. We are acceptable to God not because we have obeyed, nor because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and for no other reason. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the fatherhood and the lovingkindness of God, but the New Testament says that He came to take "away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). And the revealing of the fatherhood of God is only to those to whom Jesus has been introduced as Savior. In speaking to the world, Jesus Christ never referred to Himself as One who revealed the Father, but He spoke instead of being a stumbling block (see John 15:22-24). John 14:9 , where Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," was spoken to His disciples.
That Christ died for me, and therefore I am completely free from penalty, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that "He died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:15)- not, "He died my death"- and that through identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have His very righteousness imparted as a gift to me. The substitution which is taught in the New Testament is twofold- "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." The teaching is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me (see Galatians 4:19).
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It's Never Too Late
As we wrap up our series of devotionals on how to break a spiritual drought, I want to focus our attention on Psalm 72:6 This verse contains a very powerful truth that I want to leave with you. It says,
He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass. (KJV)
I remember when I was first saved and read this passage, I would picture somebody out there with a lawnmower. But of course, they didn't have lawnmowers back then!
This verse refers to a field that has been eaten over by locusts, a plague of locusts that has come through and just devoured a field. And God gives a wonderful promise: He will come down like the rain on the mown grass, to revive and to restore that which the locusts have eaten.
Today, as you read this devotional, you may feel like a swarm of locusts has come over your life and eaten your blessing. I think if you seek God and earnestly pray and ask Him to send the rain, you will have an encounter with God beyond anything you could have imagined.
He can restore what the enemy has stolen in your life. You can indeed experience the freshness and revival and fruitfulness in your life again. It is never too late to pray for God's blessing.
No matter the situation, seek God today. Ask, and He will send the rain down on whatever part of your life has been mowed over by the locusts. And you will experience the blessing God desires for you.
Remember, it is never too late.
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A Lesson About Faith
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:7-11
Have you ever taken a stress test to evaluate your heart's health? One component of the stress test monitors your heart while you walk on a sloped treadmill at a fast pace. It's not easy, but you keep going to get an accurate reading of your heart's strengths and weaknesses.
God has stress tests. They're called trials, and through them God evaluates how well you've learned the lessons of life. The prophet Elijah passed the tests on several occasions. Once he had to help a widow and her son survive a famine. The next test was the boy's death. The widow's faith was shaken, but Elijah's faith remained firm.
Through that faith, God saved the boy. That day the widow and her son receive a valuable lesson: In your trials, remember God's truths. In spite of your circumstances, you can prevail!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith
Without faith it is impossible to please Him . . . -Hebrews 11:6
Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. "We know that all things work together for good . . ." (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God's providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children.
For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, "Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I'm going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word" (for example, see Matthew 6:33). Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us. Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can't have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
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Obedience
To God, obedience is a big deal. And one of the best ways to see just how importantly He regards it is to learn from those who disobeyed.
One of those is King Saul. When he was told by God to make an end of the Amalekites and to destroy all of their property, he did not do it.
Instead of obeying God, he saved the oxen and the sheep, along with some other things, and then claimed he had obeyed God. But when Samuel heard the oxen and the sheep, Saul knew he had been caught. So he changed his story. He said, "Well, these things are just a sacrifice to God."
In response to this act of disobedience, this is what Samuel, the prophet, said. We find it in 1 Samuel 15:22,
So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."
God does not want religious lip service. He wants obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice. One reason for that is because you cannot make up by sacrifice what you lose through disobedience.
Another reason why obedience is better than sacrifice is because it is preventative. In Saul's day, sacrifices were made to cover sin, but if he had obeyed, there would have been no need for sacrifice. Obedience would have prevented his sin.
So do what God desires. Obey what He commands. It is always better.
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The Importance of Prayer
Scripture Reading: Philippians 4:4-7; Colossians 4:2-6
Most people are fascinated by magic tricks, which are simply fantastic illusions. What God is able to do and anything He purposes to accomplish in His Kingdom are never illusions. And how He answers our prayers is no illusion. When God's people commit to faithful prayer, the world will see God's power.
To pray powerfully and effectively, we must first deal with sin in our lives. We must turn and flee from sin, understanding that as God responds to our cries, people will give Him greater glory.
We must pray expectantly, knowing that God will ultimately change us. Isaiah 65:24 says, "... before [you] call, I will answer ..." God gave us prayer to connect us with His plan for our lives to make an impact on all creation!
:angel:
October 31, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Trial of Faith
If you have faith as a mustard seed . . . nothing will be impossible for you -Matthew 17:20
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith- faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is- "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15)
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Obey and Honor
Yesterday's devotional helped us understand the importance of obedience. Over the next few devotionals, I want to focus on three areas I believe are critical for you and me to ensure we are obedient.
The first is found in Ephesians 6:1-3 This first category of obedience has to do with family, something God teaches very specifically in His Word. It says,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."
As long as a child is under his parents' roof and under his parents' direct authority, he needs to obey. But throughout your entire life you need to honor your parents.
One time I had a dear lady come to me after a service when I preached on this command and say, "Pastor, I just have to tell you. I just felt I needed to make things right with my dad. I went home that night and called him and said, 'Dad, you need to forgive me because I've been bitter against you for all these years. I'm sorry, and I want you to know that I forgive you for all the past.'"
Then she said, "Pastor, you need to understand, I've had a migraine headache for 15 years, 24 hours a day. I take piles of medication. I go to bed with a migraine, and I wake up with one, but the morning after I made things right with my dad, I woke up, and I had no headache." And she started to cry.
I am telling you, this promise is full of power! It is better to obey and honor your parents!
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Stand Firm on the Word
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:15-17
When most people hear the word idolatry, they think of pagans worshiping statues and assume, "That's one subject that can't apply to me." Oh, yes it can.
You don't have to keep a carved, wooden tiki idol in your backyard to be an idolater. You don't have to visit a Buddhist shrine. Any time you worship the thing God created as a god, that's idolatry.
We can get so caught up in the things of this world - jobs, money, people, material things - that we forget our purpose here on earth. We should live in the world but not of the world. Spend some time analyzing your walk with the Lord. Are there things that you are placing above your relationship with God? Ask Him to reveal things in your life that are being placed above God.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"You Are Not Your Own"
Do you not know that . . . you are not your own? -1 Corinthians 6:19
There is no such thing as a private life, or a place to hide in this world, for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. God divides the private life of His saints and makes it a highway for the world on one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves. We are called into intimacy with the gospel, and things happen that appear to have nothing to do with us. But God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way. If you refuse, you will be of no value to God in His redemptive work in the world, but will be a hindrance and a stumbling block.
The first thing God does is get us grounded on strong reality and truth. He does this until our cares for ourselves individually have been brought into submission to His way for the purpose of His redemption. Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?
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Obedience in Marriage
Ephesians 5:22-24 gives an important area of obedience. While this is not popular in our society today, it is biblical, but is also often misunderstood.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
It is important to make clear that before God there is an absolute equality between men and women, between husbands and wives. In fact, this passage does not say, "Women submit to men." It is purely a domestic situation.
Even with that understanding, the Bible says that husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life. There is an equality before God between men and women and husband and wife.
What this passage teaches is that God has set up a system of authority in the home that needs to be followed, if it is going to be well with us. In fact, this is even a military term. To submit or to obey means to put yourself in rank under.
Friend, we are in a spiritual warfare, and there are spiritual forces that have been unleashed against homes and against marriages that would love to tear marriages apart.
God has designed a way for the home to function, and that is for the man to take the responsibility of leadership and for the wife to come under that authority. When a husband truly loves his wife, and cares for her like Christ does the church, and the wife respects her husband, things will be well in the home. That couple and that family will be magnets for the blessings of God.
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Make God Your Reference Point
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:28-33
God has assigned every believer a divine reason for being, including you. Your purpose is to fulfill God's purpose. And if you are not fulfilling His purpose, it's just another day gone by, filled with everything but real meaning. You will be floating around with no destination when you're disconnected from the purposes of God.
You cannot discover your purpose until God is your reference point.
I encourage you to pray, "Help me to grasp what it means to have a life of purpose, meaning and destiny and not to meander and waste another day on things that really don't matter."
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you -James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual- you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood- work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God's almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. "Come to Me . . ." (Matthew 11:28). His word come means "to act." Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
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Pay Your Taxes!
Yesterday we learned from Romans 13:1-3 that we need to submit ourselves to the laws of the land if we want to live lives free from fear. I want to focus your attention today on the remainder of that passage, Romans 13:4-7,
For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
What I want to address today is the need to pay our taxes with honesty, not trying to dodge our responsibility. It is a critical part of obeying the laws of the land as we discussed yesterday.
While I do not like working hard and in the end sending a large portion of every dollar to support the government, it is the right thing to do. I am absolutely amazed when I learn of Christians who try to dodge their responsibility to pay taxes.
Friend, you must be honest and pay your taxes. Certainly take advantage of all that the law allows, and do not pay more than you need to, but don't hide anything. You need to make sure you do this because when you do, you are being obedient to God.
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Accomplish Your Life's Mission
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12
"I have glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You have given Me to do" Jesus told His heavenly Father.
If you died tomorrow, could you say the same? Could you say, "I have glorified You on earth with the work You sent me here to do"?
You might say, "But that's Jesus talking." Remember, Paul said the same thing as Christ. Paul wrote that he had fought a good fight. He kept the faith and finished his course. Until this becomes your passion, you are wasting your life from an eternal perspective.
As the old saying goes, "Teach me, Lord, to number my days. Only one life will soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last." It is now time for you to accomplish the work that God sent you here to do.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Partakers of His Suffering
. . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings . . . -1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, "Oh, I can't deal with that person." Why can't you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.
The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered "according to the will of God" (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God's purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God's orders through a shortcut of their own. God's way is always the way of suffering- the way of the "long road home."
Are we partakers of Christ's sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through- we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize- "God has strengthened me and I didn't even know it!"
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Respecting Your Boss
In Titus 2:9-10, Paul writes a very interesting and important command,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
In our society, it is important to understand that this passage is giving us instructions as employers and employees. And simply stated, as an employee, you are to be obedient to your boss.
One of the ways you do that is by not answering back. It might be hard at times to hold your tongue, but you must. It's not okay when you get to the water cooler to talk to the other employees like, "This idiot that we work for doesn't have a clue what's going on here." I think that comes under the category of answering back.
And pilfering means stealing items of small value. I remember this guy I knew in Oregon who did not like the place he worked. In fact, he had a government job, and he would come home quite often with something he had stolen from his office.
Nearly every day he would rip off some small office supply like a stapler, or pens, or a hole punch. While they were always things of small value, he would just keep stealing things.
The Bible says don't do that. And you shouldn't steal time from your employer either by making personal phone calls during office hours. Your employer is not paying you to take care of your business at the office. That is stealing.
I believe that, as Christians, we ought to be the best employees in the world. We should work so hard and bring such a good attitude into the workplace that we set the example to everyone with whom we work.
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Take Your Ambassadorship Seriously
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
People can't refrain from talking about the things they are passionate about. Paul says that by knowing the fear of God - a healthy respect for who He is - we persuade men. He says the love of Christ controls us.
When we are passionate about Jesus and His love for us, we won't be able to stop ourselves from sharing that with others, and through our testimony, they will see God's glory. If we go day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, without representing God, we cannot be passionate about Him, we cannot "go unto all the world" as Christ commanded us.
God has called each one of His children to be ambassadors for His Kingdom with the goal of winning folks over. We must fuel our passion for Him, so we can effectively call people out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Intimate Theology
Do you believe this? -John 11:26
Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But- she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha's theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance- "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ . . ." (John 11:27).
Is the Lord dealing with you in the same way? Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal intimacy with Himself? Allow Him to drive His question home to you- "Do you believe this?" Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a personal problem brings the awareness of our personal need.
To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone.
Then, when I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me, "Do you believe this?" I find that faith is as natural as breathing. And I am staggered when I think how foolish I have been in not trusting Him earlier
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When It Is Right to Disobey
Over the last few devotionals, we have learned the importance God places on obedience to various authorities. And an appropriate question is whether there is ever a time when we draw the line when it comes to obeying men.
In the Book of Acts, Peter and John got in trouble for preaching Christ. In Acts 5:29, when they were told not to preach anymore, Peter answered and said this,
"We ought to obey God rather than men."
That is where you draw the line. If you are ever asked to do something that would cause you to be disobedient to God or that would cause you to violate your conscience (not your preference, but your conscience), that is where you draw the line.
Paul made a statement that he lived in good conscience before God and before men. Your conscience deals with things you truly believe in your heart are morally right and wrong. If you go against your conscience in one of those things, then that is sin.
Stand your ground when it comes to conscience and obedience to God. If people ask you to do something that violates either of these two things-then it is time to take a stand for what you know is right.
For example, in many nations of the world, it is illegal to share your faith. It is illegal to win people to Christ. But Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." We have an allegiance to a higher authority. And when the authorities are telling us to do something that would cause us to disobey God, we obey God, not men.
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Impacting the World for God
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 49:5-6
In business, companies talk frequently about market share. They all want a 100 percent share of the market. But how do they accomplish this? Competition is a major hurdle.
God has the same issue. A multitude of idols are competing with Him for a share of the market, and God wants a monopoly ... a 100 percent market share. He says, "Let all the people praise Me."
If everybody is praising the one true God, nobody else has any share of the market. That's what God is after for Himself, and that is why we are here. We are here to help God persuade the folks who are purchasing at the wrong market to go to the right market. We are here to help God meet His 100 percent.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can't understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, "I'm going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that." All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession- utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, ". . . but the Spirit Himself makes intercession" in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
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Are You a "Convenient Christian"?
Some Christians are "convenient Christians." These are believers who seek to obey God, but only when it is convenient.
It is like the men and women of Israel who came to the prophet Jeremiah one day to see if it was God's desire for them to go to Egypt. You find their story in Jeremiah 42-43.
After they asked Jeremiah to ask God on their behalf, they said (Jeremiah 42:6),
"Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God."
Now that sounds pretty good. These folks seem like they have it together spiritually and truly desire to obey God.
But just a few verses later, when Jeremiah tells them, "This is the word of the Lord: Don't go into Egypt. Stay here," they respond this way (Jeremiah 43:2),
"You speak falsely! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.'"
Some people's posture is, "God, I'm going to do anything you say...as long as it agrees with my viewpoint." Some will say, "Lord, I'm going to be obedient and give an offering...but I'm not giving ten percent of my income. You can forget that because I just don't see it that way."
Or, "God, I'm going to do whatever You say, but I'm not going to forgive so-and-so because what they did to me is just unforgivable."
Friend, we can't pick and choose. It has to be, "God, I am going to do whatever You say. I'm going to do it whether it rubs the cat's fur the wrong way, whether it plows my field crossways...pleasing, displeasing, I'm going to obey."
Do not be a "convenient Christian."
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Reversing the Addiction Curse
Scripture Reading: Romans 8
A POW is a prisoner of war, someone who has been captured and held under an enemy's control. Many Christians are POWs - prisoners of a spiritual war. They're trapped by situations most commonly called "addictions," which the Bible refers to as "strongholds."
Drugs, alcohol, co-dependency, sexual promiscuity and other strongholds make a person feel trapped with seemingly no way out. But there is hope. In 2 Corinthians 10:1-6, Paul offers a formula for a breakthrough: Fix the fortress. Put "speculations, knowledge and thoughts" under God's domain. In other words, start with your mind.
Meditate on these Scriptures and feed your spirit with the truth of God's Word: You belong to God. Don't allow the enemy, the "father of lies," to hold you prisoner any longer. We are not our addictions or strongholds; we are blood-bought, totally forgiven children of the Living God!
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; we know what it is to pray in the Spirit; but we do not so often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us prayers which we cannot utter. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
"He," the Spirit in you, "maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God," and God searches your heart not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what is the prayer of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God needs the nature of the believer as a shrine in which to offer His intercession. "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, He "would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple." The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and said - "My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."
Have we recognized that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, though it is only a tiny bit of our personality, is to be regarded by us as a shrine of the Holy Ghost. He will look after the unconscious part that we know nothing of; but we must see that we guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
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Opening the Door to Calamity
In 1 Kings 13:21-25, God provides us with quite an unusual story,
And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the LORD: 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the LORD said to you, "Eat no bread and drink no water," your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.'" So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back. When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse. And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse. Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
Notice that the lion did something very unnatural. The guy disobeyed, the lion killed him, but the lion didn't go after the donkey. The donkey didn't run away, but the lion didn't try to kill the donkey, nor did it drag the guy off to eat him.
And to top it all off, now people start to walk by. Look, people do not walk by wild lions! But here they are: the donkey, the lion, the dead guy, and people are walking by.
What is God up to here? He is giving a snapshot, something He wants indelibly burned into their understanding: Disobedience opens the door to calamity.
If you choose to disobey God, know you have opened your life to calamity!
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Reversing the Financial Curse
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 8:11-18
Do you ever feel that, despite all the work you are putting into your life, job, family and other relationships, you aren't experiencing the productivity that you should? You want God's blessings, yet you just don't seem able to get ahead.
God implores every believer to take the tithe challenge! Faithfully giving a tenth of your earnings to the church shows God you are a good steward of what He has entrusted into your care, that you are grateful for everything He has provided and finally that you trust Him.
Too many people are living in a sea of debt. God wants to reverse the financial curse in your life and bless you. But you must plant a seed first before God can rain down His blessings on it.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Changed Life
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is- has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above- you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
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The Supremacy of Jesus
Hebrews 1:1-8 reads,
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"? But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God worship Him." And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire." But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom."
These eight verses tell us that Jesus is supreme, above any angel, because:
God speaks to us through His Son.
Jesus is the heir of all things.
God made all things through Jesus.
Jesus is the express image of God the Father.
He upholds all things with the word of His power.
He purged our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God, not a servant as are the angels.
He is worthy of our worship.
Jesus is God Himself.
That is the supremacy of Jesus!
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Reversing the Generational Curse
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:32-43
Did you know that many problems people face are linked to choices their parents, grandparents and even "great-grandpa" made? This may be a new way of thinking for you, and it is certainly not about placing blame. Yet we need to know God's truth about generational curses and how to live free of their bondages.
A generational curse is passed down from one generation to another due to rebellion against God. If your family line is marked by divorce, incest, poverty, anger or other ungodly patterns, you're most likely under a generational curse. The Bible says that these curses are tied to choices.
Deuteronomy 30:19 says we can either choose life and blessing or death and cursing.
Freedom comes when we confess the ungodly patterns, ask God for forgiveness and then walk in obedience by consistently choosing His ways.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Faith or Experience?
. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me -Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, "I haven't had this experience or that experience"! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides- He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith "in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God- and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:30). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ- not a "prayer meeting" Jesus Christ, or a "book" Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.
It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.
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The Rightful Place of Angels
In our day, angels have become a pretty big thing. In fact, there are some fairly well-known personalities today talking about having their personal angel and needing to "contact your angel."
I believe in angels because the Bible clearly talks about them, but angels have a rightful place, which Paul addresses in Colossians 2:18-19,
Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
Paul is telling us, "If you become so preoccupied with angels that you let go of the head, Jesus Christ, you are off the rails!" In fact, if you are preoccupied with angels in such a way that it takes you away from Jesus Christ, I'm telling you, you are in error. The body grows; the body is nourished; we get our life and direction from the head, Jesus Christ.
If God wants to have an angel intervene in my life, that is wonderful. But I don't need to contact my angel because I have constant communion with the Son of God, who, as we learned yesterday, is superior to angels!
Jesus is the One who created the universe! He is our Lord and our Savior. He is the Vine, we are the branch. We have communion with Him. Why would we want to contact an angel when we can contact the Son of God whom angels fall down and worship!
Angels are under the lordship of Jesus. That is their rightful place.
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Faith And Our Feet
(Hebrews 11, Psalms 1)
Faith is not about how much you believe in what you believe. Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable. In fact, you can have all of the faith in the world that your SUV is going to take off and fly you to Canada cruising at 12,000 feet in the air. But that won't change the fact that you're still going to be stuck in traffic somewhere with all four wheels firmly on the ground.
Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable.
The way you find out if the one you believe in is believable is by knowing and experiencing Him.
It's like when a child climbs up on the back of her daddy for a piggyback ride. She doesn't get up there and start asking herself if he can hold her or if he is going to drop her. Instead, she immediately starts asking him, "Do you have me?" as she wiggles and adjusts her legs into place.
By asking her daddy, "Do you have me?" she is affirming in her mind that the one she is putting her faith in is faithful. Because if he says, "Yes, I have you," and she rests up there only to discover that he really does have her, then the next time she climbs on for a piggy-back ride, the questions become fewer.
But until she first climbs up onto the back of her daddy, she can say all day long that she believes that he can hold her. Saying it a thousand times won't reduce the hesitation she feels when the offer to get up there is first extended. She will never get to the point where she can experience the full pleasure of his presence until she takes that first climb of faith to discover that he is faithful.
Faith experienced is faith that is real. It is an easy thing to say that you believe. It is an easy thing to feel like you believe. But faith is not situated in our feelings. Faith is situated in our feet. That's why the Bible calls it "walking by faith" rather than "feeling by faith."
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Discovering Divine Design
As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me . . . -Genesis 24:27
We should be so one with God that we don't need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child's life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God's will (see Romans 12:2). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God's appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.
Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, "I will never do this or that," in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.
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A Better Covenant
There are two verses for your reading today. Hebrews 7:22, which says,
By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
And Hebrews 8:6, which tells us,
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
We have a better covenant; we have better promises. And Jesus is the One who makes it sure. He is the guarantee. He has personally pledged Himself to make it good.
As far as I am concerned, that takes away all reason for doubt, all reason for stressing out. Jesus, Himself, is the pledge, the guarantee that this covenant we have called the New Testament will be good and will be fulfilled in our lives.
And He is not only the guarantee, He is the Mediator. He is the go-between to what is truly a better covenant, established upon better promises.
Let's say your employer came to you and said, "We're going to give you a better contract. While the old contract was good, we're going to give you one that's better. This better contract will increase your hours, decrease your pay, eliminate your health and dental benefits, you will no longer get reimbursed for your mileage and your auto expenses, and you're going to have a shorter lunch break and no more Christmas bonuses."
Let me ask you, is that better? No! That is not better! And I will never understand how people can say, "We know God healed people and worked miracles and intervened in people's lives under the Old Testament, but He doesn't anymore."
The covenant Christ bought and sealed in His blood is a better covenant, established upon better promises. Praise God!
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Holding God Accountable?
(Luke 18, Psalms 2)
One of the most important things that we can do as a Christian is to pray in line with our covenantal rights. But we often don't do this because we misunderstand what prayer
is. Let me define prayer by first saying what prayer is not. Prayer is not simply talking to God. Prayer, rather, is asserting earthly permission for heavenly interference. Prayer is earth giving heaven authorization to intervene in the affairs of earth as heaven has previously stated that it would. That permission is granted based on your legal position and rights. That's why it is essential to study the Word of God and to know the rights that He has granted you through His Word.
If you are being held in bondage by an illegitimate force in your life, cry out to God. Pray to God for deliverance by appealing to Him based on your covenantal rights. There is a legal obligation that God has to respond to you based on the fact that you have a legitimate agreement with Him found in His Word. Go through the Scriptures and read everything that relates to your stronghold and pray it back to God. When you do that, prayer is no longer just a spiritual exercise or something to check off of your "Christian List of Things To Do."
Rather, prayer becomes a legal meeting where you and God get together in agreement on the same covenantal arrangement. Prayer becomes an act of holding God accountable, in the right sense of the word, to what He holds Himself accountable: His Word.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"What Is That to You?"
Peter . . . said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, '. . . what is that to you? You follow Me' -John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God's plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn't." You put your hand right in front of God's permissive will to stop it, and then God says, "What is that to you?" Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don't allow it to continue, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another- proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness- consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we're not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach- a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.
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God Leads from Within
In our last devotional, we talked about the new covenant being better than the old covenant. One reason is found in Hebrews 8:8-11 which says,
..."Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."
In the Old Testament, God had to lead His people externally. When fleeing Egypt, God led them by night with a pillar of fire and by day with a pillar of cloud. They did not intuitively know where God wanted them to go or what God wanted them to do.
But under the new covenant, God leads His people from within because He has now taken up residence within. I believe that is why on the Day of Pentecost God chose to manifest the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire that sat upon each person individually.
God was saying that while under the old covenant, He led His people by a pillar of fire, and now He is coming to dwell and lead from the inside of each believer!
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A Pocketful of Miracles
Exodus 14, Psalms 3
A lot of what God wants to do in your life won't be done until you do what He has already revealed to you.
What He asks you to do isn't always all that huge, just like Moses' move at the Red Sea wasn't all that huge. All God was asking Moses to do was to hold out his stick. That's not that huge. If Moses would just hold out his stick, then God said that He would handle the rest. He would do all of the big stuff. He would open the Red Sea, harden Pharaoh's heart, make him go in after them, and close the Red Sea back up.
But to reveal the )
faith
within us, God often asks us to do our little thing first. Hold out our sticks. Take that step. Make the move. Have the conversation. Quit the job to stay at home. Accept the job that He has shown. Stop the habit. Curb the tongue. Go to church. Go overseas. Whatever it is that He is revealing to you, God will often wait to do His big thing until you have done what He has asked you to do.
He does this because He wants us to see Him in a way we've never seen Him before. He wants us to experience Him in a way that we've never experienced Him before. He wants us to see the connection between our act of faith and His deliverance. He wants to be more than just a Cosmic-Santa Claus with a pocketful of miracles to throw down. God wants a relationship with you. He wants you to see Him up close and personal so He puts you in a situation where He is your only solution. Where it can't be fixed if He doesn't fix it. Where it can't be reversed if He doesn't reverse it. Where it can't be solved if He doesn't solve it. Because, God says, I've let you use all of the natural options available to you, and you are still stuck. Well then, when that happens, know that you are stuck with a purpose. Look to God.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"When He Has Come"
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . . -John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one- "Against You, You only, have I sinned . . ." (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary- nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn't merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
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Access
In talking about the Holy of Holies...that second part of the tabernacle behind the veil where the presence of God dwelt under the old covenant... Hebrews 9:7 says,
But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance.
Only the high priest could go into this part of the tabernacle, into God's presence. And he could go only one time each year to offer the blood of an animal to cover the sins of the people.
But look with me at Hebrews 10:17-19,
Then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.
You have access into the very presence of God. In fact, Hebrews 4:16 says, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
You do not have to go through a priest. You do not have to go through Pastor Bayless. You have immediate, constant access. In fact, God not only welcomes you, He desires you to come into His presence.
You know, my kids just barge into my office all the time. I can be in there having a meeting when the door just opens, "Hi, Dad! Got anything in your refrigerator?" They just come in like they belong there...and they do. I'm their father.
Your heavenly Father is the same way. He is not going to put you off and say, "You know what? You have to come through an angel. I'm sorry, but you cannot talk directly to Me."
Nope. You have direct access!
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The Spiritual Stress Test
(James 1, Psalms 5)
Every summer I go to the doctor's office for an annual exam. I sit in his office and he asks me, "Tony, how are you feeling?"
Assuming that it was a good year overall, I answer, "I'm feeling fine."
But that's not the end of my appointment. The doctor doesn't take my word for it. Instead, he attaches electronic probes all over my body. Then he sticks me on a treadmill. Next, he makes the treadmill go faster and faster up an incline because what he wants to know is the real condition of my heart.
My heart might feel fine to me but at the same time, it might not be fine. The doctor can only determine the strength of my heart when he measures it under stress. So what he does is create a stressful situation where I'm walking for a long period of time. He's testing my heart to see whether how I feel is how I really am. Because it's possible to have good feelings yet still have a bad heart.
Living the Christian life is no different. It's possible to come to church every week, sing worship songs, memorize Bible verses, serve on a variety of committees and assume that your heart, faith and soul is strong. It's even easy to say things like, "I love you God. God, you are so good. I'll follow you, God. I'll do whatever you say."
But God doesn't want to just take your word for it.
He tests you, and me, because He wants what is best for us. He tests us because He is getting ready to do something amazing in our lives. The way that He tests us is by putting us in a stressful scenario ... something we often call a trial. In a trial, God reveals how strong our faith really is.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Forgiveness Of God
In whom we have . . . the forgiveness of sins. - Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God - God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favour is through the Cross of Christ, and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God. Never accept a view of the Fatherhood of God if it blots out the Atonement. The revelation of God is that He cannot forgive; He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God by the Atonement. God's forgiveness is only natural in the supernatural domain.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is slight. Sanctification is simply the marvellous expression of the forgiveness of sins in a human life, but the thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin. Paul never got away from this. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.
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Once for All!
As we have been learning in the last few devotionals, the new covenant is better than the old covenant. Hebrews 9:18-24 shows us another way it is better,
Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you." Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
The old covenant was based on the blood of animal sacrifices; but under the new covenant, we are cleansed by the blood of Christ and His sacrifice.
Jesus went into that heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood. And the Father declared that the blood of Jesus satisfied the payment for sin for all eternity.
Oh, thank you, Jesus! That is why the Scripture declares we are accepted in the Beloved. When God accepted that blood sacrifice in heaven, He accepted all of us who believe, because Jesus went as our representative.
Praise God today for the provision of the sacrifice of Jesus...once for all!
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Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Much like the stress test my doctor puts me through every summer, God allows trials and tests in our lives in order to reveal where we are along our spiritual journey. He does this for the purpose of correcting whatever happens to be wrong, revealing whatever needs to be revealed, and strengthening whatever seems to be weak so that we might move on to what He has in store for us.
When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, you feel trapped, stuck, and tired of where you are. You either don't know what to do, or you don't know how to legitimately do what you feel you need to do. You are like Israel when they faced Pharaoh on one side and the Red Sea on the other and certain death was upon them.
Getting caught between a rock and a hard place is a lose-lose deal. If it were a clear win-lose deal, then you would know how to choose and where to turn. But what do you do when there are no clear choices? What option do you choose when both options are bad? Have you ever been in a situation where all of the ways that you turn to are problems, and you are just trying to find the least possible problem to choose as the solution?
I know I've been in situations like that and it's not fun. It's about as fun as huffing and puffing on that treadmill in my doctor's office. But one thing I've learned over the years is that God has a purpose for these times in our lives. Just like my doctor is not a mean man for putting my body through all of that stress, God is not a mean God when He decrees that we go through trials.
When God wants to reveal the real condition of your heart to empower you toward His plan for your future, He puts you in one of these kinds of trials.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . ." (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
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For All People
In today's devotional, I want to give you the seventh reason why the new covenant in Jesus is better than the old covenant. The old covenant was only for one nation-only one people-the Jews.
The new covenant is for the whole world. It is for every nation, every people...anyone who will accept the free gift of salvation, by placing their faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 7:25 tells us,
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Or, as one old preacher said, "He saves to the uttermost and to the guttermost."
That may sound crass, but it is true! Through Jesus Christ, God has made a way of salvation for every person, no matter your race, or what religion you were brought up in, or what you may have done in your life.
John 3:16 says,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That means no one has ever done anything so bad that it could make God stop loving them. I don't care where they have been, how dark their past has been, or how burdened down their conscience is today with guilt for the things they have done-no one will be cast out if they come to Him.
His blood has the power to wash anyone clean if they will come to God through Jesus. His sacrifice takes away the sin of the world, the burden of guilt, and the shame of sin. He can make anyone into a new person. Only the blood of Jesus can do that...only the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah!
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When God Allows Your Trial
(James 2:14-24, Psalms 7)
Have you ever gotten mail in your mailbox that isn't addressed to you? You take it out of your mailbox and read that the address doesn't have your name on it. It just says, "Occupant." You get that piece of mail by virtue of you being the "occupant" of that home. Trials are a lot like that. Just by virtue of being an "occupant" on this planet in a fallen world, we will face trials.
Of course, no one likes a trial. No one wakes up in the morning, stretches and says, "Ah, what a beautiful day for a trial! I think I'd like to have a trial today!" That would be an unusual person who would do something like that. Yet no matter how much we want to avoid trials in our lives, trials are inevitable.
Trials are adverse circumstances that God allows in our lives to both identify where we are spiritually as well as to prepare us for where He wants us to go. There is no escaping them. You are either in a trial now, you've just come out of a trial, or you are getting ready to go into a trial.
But even though we all have to experience them, I want to remind you to take comfort in knowing that trials must first pass through God's hands before reaching us. Nothing comes our way without first having received His Divine approval. And in order to get His Divine approval, there must be a Divine reason for Him to approve it. We need to trust that God has our best interest in mind when He allows us to experience a trial.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person- God became a baby.
To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all- the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." (Matthew 10:24).
We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.
Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
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The "Good Old Days"
Hebrews 11:13-16 contains a powerful truth, a perspective I want to encourage you to embrace. These verses are talking about the great heroes of the faith from the Old Testament,
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
These heroes of the faith sought a better homeland. In verse 15 it talks about calling to mind the country from which they had come, but the word country is just added by the translators. It really has the intent of saying if they had constantly thought about from where they had come, there would have been a great temptation to return there.
As you read this passage, it is easy to see why some people struggle so much with past sins. As verse 15 says, Truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
The reason some people constantly struggle with returning to their old life, finding a multitude of opportunities to return, is because they keep calling it to mind. They keep rehearsing the "good old days." Perhaps you struggle with that as well.
If you do, seek to remember the "good old days" as they really were. Don't forget about all the pain. Don't forget about the way you struggled, the reason you came to Christ in the first place. Stop rehearsing the past. If the "good old days" were so good, you would not have gotten saved.
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Culd-e-Sac Christianity
(Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalms 8)
Sometimes I get the impression that when we ask God to bless us, we forget the full definition of a blessing. We forget that God doesn't want us to be culd-e-sac Christians where all of our blessings end with us. God wants us to be conduit Christians where all of our blessings extend through us to others.
For example, when God blessed Abraham in the Old Testament, we read that He said, "Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."
God said that He was not only going to bring His favor on Abraham but that His favor on Abraham would extend out to be a blessing on others as well. God never designs our blessings to stop with us, but our blessings should always extend to others.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Secret of Spiritual Consistency
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
When a person is newly born again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more concerned about being consistent externally. In the external expression of things, Paul lived in the basement, while his critics lived on the upper level. And these two levels do not begin to touch each other. But Paul's consistency was down deep in the fundamentals. The great basis of his consistency was the agony of God in the redemption of the world, namely, the Cross of Christ.
State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. ". . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).
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Where Have You Pitched Your Tent?
Genesis 13:12 (KJV) says,
Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
Notice that Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. Every day his attention was placed on that city. Here is what the Bible says about those that lived there.
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly (Genesis 13:13, KJV).
What we focus our attention on will influence us. It will try to draw us in like a magnet. The next time we read about Lot he is living in Sodom.
And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed (Genesis 14:12, KJV).
Next we find him even further entrenched among the people of Sodom. Genesis 19:1 declares that Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.
In Eastern cities, the "gate" was a place devoted to business transactions, the administration of justice, and the enjoyment of social discourse and amusement. Lot was right "in the thick of things"-but it happened by degrees. It was a process.
What you view and listen to, and the company you keep, will influence you-sometimes in very subtle ways-and will play a role in shaping your values and character.
So be careful where you pitch your tent!
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Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?
(John 11, Psalms 9)
How do you know when God is ready to break through your rock and a hard place situation? You know because He will invade your ordinary with something extraordinary. He will come to your normal with something abnormal. He will create a scenario that doesn't make sense.
When God creates a scenario that doesn't make sense, it is not supposed to make sense. Don't ignore God showing up in a way that you can't explain. The reason you can't explain it is because it is God showing up in it. The Bible is replete with examples of when God was getting ready to move in a rock and a hard place situation and the thing that He did was show up in a way that human understanding couldn't explain.
My best advice to you is that if you are in a wilderness, or if you are between a rock and a hard place and can't find a good way out of what seems like a never-ending situation, look for God to show up in a way that you can't explain. His ways are not your ways. His thoughts are not your thoughts. God is not like you or me. If God were living in the era of Soul Music, his favorite song would be, "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?" Didn't I show up in a way that you couldn't explain?
That's what God does. Look for Him.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Focal Point of Spiritual Power
. . . except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . -Galatians 6:14
If you want to know the power of God (that is, the resurrection life of Jesus) in your human flesh, you must dwell on the tragedy of God. Break away from your personal concern over your own spiritual condition, and with a completely open spirit consider the tragedy of God. Instantly the power of God will be in you. "Look to Me. . ." (Isaiah 45:22). Pay attention to the external Source and the internal power will be there. We lose power because we don't focus on the right thing. The effect of the Cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these. We are to preach "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work. Concentrate on God's focal point in your preaching, and even if your listeners seem to pay it no attention, they will never be the same again. If I share my own words, they are of no more importance than your words are to me. But if we share the truth of God with one another, we will encounter it again and again. We have to focus on the great point of spiritual power- the Cross. If we stay in contact with that center of power, its energy is released in our lives. In holiness movements and spiritual experience meetings, the focus tends to be put not on the Cross of Christ but on the effects of the Cross.
The feebleness of the church is being criticized today, and the criticism is justified. One reason for the feebleness is that there has not been this focus on the true center of spiritual power. We have not dwelt enough on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption
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Better Than Life
In Psalms 63, the psalmist makes an incredible statement,
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
What does the psalmist mean when he says that God's lovingkindness is better than life? Let me try and explain.
First, lovingkindness literally means merciful love. It is God's unfailing, merciful love.
And this is the love the psalmist says is "better than life." This merciful and unfailing love of God is better than life at its best without that love.
When I think of my life without Christ, I can remember many high times, laughter I shared with people, and great relationships. But the least of God's mercies far outweighs the best of those times.
My life before coming to know Christ was chasing shadows. It was doing the best with a counterfeit because I had never experienced the reality. It was eating freeze-dried food when the Master Chef had prepared this sumptuous feast with the finest ingredients.
His lovingkindness is indeed better than the best of life without it. The natural response to such merciful love, to such an abundant life, is praise. Which means that every day, until your dying day, should be a thanksgiving day.
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Following Jesus Into the Storm
(Mark 6, Psalms 10)
In the book of Mark, chapter six, we read that the disciples got into a boat, at night, and took out across the sea. In their obedience to Jesus, the disciples ran directly into a storm. Their obedience literally took them into the nucleus of a disaster.
I wish I could tell you that following Jesus means you will never have to face any storms. I wish I could tell you that following Jesus means that the waters of life will always be calm. I wish I could tell you that following Jesus means life will be rosy and all of your days sweet. But I can't.
These disciples were following Jesus, and they ran right into rough-seas. The disciples discovered, as many of us have also discovered, that you can be both in the center of God's will, and still in a storm.
There is a lot of preaching today as well as many Christian books that tell you that if you follow Jesus, than you will never have to face any challenges in life. That wasn't true for Jesus, or for anyone else I know who has followed Him. Following Jesus doesn't offer immunity from troubles. What it does give is the opportunity to experience Him in the midst of the trouble.
Life comes with troubles, regardless of whether or not you follow Jesus. You get to choose if you want Him to join you in your troubles, or if you'd rather go through them alone.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Consecration of Spiritual Power
. . . by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world -Galatians 6:14
If I dwell on the Cross of Christ, I do not simply become inwardly devout and solely interested in my own holiness- I become strongly focused on Jesus Christ's interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor a fanatical holy man practicing self-denial. He did not physically cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. In fact, He was so much in the common everyday world that the religious people of His day accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual power.
It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives- no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it- to be separated internally, not externally (seeJohn 17:16).
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God's service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God's part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, "Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?"
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A Picture of God's Lovingkindness
Yesterday we learned about God's merciful and unfailing love. 2 Samuel 9:3-7 provides us with a picture of that love,
Then the king said, "Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?" And Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet." So the king said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the king, "Indeed he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar." Then King David sent and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar. Now when Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face and prostrated himself. Then David said, "Mephibosheth?" And he answered, "Here is your servant!" So David said to him, "Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually."
David made a blood covenant with Jonathan to show Jonathan's offspring the lovingkindness of God. After Jonathan died, Mephibosheth was the only offspring who remained, and he hid in the wilderness in fear of David. But David found him and elevated him to be one of his own sons, set him at his table, and restored everything he lost.
This is such a beautiful picture of the covenant God made with His Son Jesus, a covenant sealed by the blood of Christ. Because of what Jesus did, God shows us His lovingkindness, elevating us to the position of sons or daughters, and inviting us to break bread with Him at His own table.
That is the lovingkindness of God!
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When God is Silent, He is Not Still
(Acts 17:24-31, Psalms 11)
We all know what it feels like to experience hopelessness to varying degrees. In fact, many people define hope as looking forward to something that they know that they will never get. Hopelessness is when you look out in front of you and you can't see any possibility for improvement or change. Many of us today are drowning in a sea of hopelessness surrounded by a land of emptiness where there seems to be no way out.
That reminds me of a story. In the summer of 2000, a Russian Oscar II Class Submarine, the Kursk, sank in the Barents Sea due to an internal explosion. Divers made several attempts to go down and assess the situation to determine if anyone had survived. When they were finally successful, they discovered a group of twenty-three men who had survived the explosion. These men had gone back as far as they could to the end of the submarine, and had gathered together in the last remaining pocket of air.
But the rescue team hadn't made it to them in time. All twenty-three men had died. On the inside wall of the submarine, they found this note that had been etched there by the Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikova. It said, "It's dark here to write, but I'll try by feel. It seems like there are no chances..."
The hopelessness we hear in Dmitri's words has been shared by many of us. We've all faced similar feelings at some time or another where there seems "like there are no chances." Hopelessness in the middle of life's storms is a human experience that is common to most of us.
It's one thing to be in the middle of a trial that has been brought on by yourself through a bad choice or action. But it's an entirely different thing to set your heart on serving God only to discover that it seems He has abandoned you in the middle of a storm. In times like those, remember that although God may be silent, He is not still. Wait on Him. He may just come walking to you on top of your storm.
:angel:
December 2, 2013
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
Christian Perfection
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect . . . -Philippians 3:12
It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do- God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life's determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, "It could never be God's will for me to be sick"? If it was God's will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn't He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do. The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives may leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary- that through your own human effort and devotion you can attain God's standard for your life. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God's purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.
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No Regrets
In yesterday's devotional, we saw from Philippians 1:21-23 how it is far better to depart from this life and be with the Lord. Today I want to follow up with this question: Are you unable to abide thoughts of death?
If you answered "yes" to that question, chances are you are not ready to meet our Lord. But you need to be ready because everyone here is going to die. There are only two exceptions in all of history: Enoch and Elijah, and it is not likely you are going to be the third exception.
Death visits both kings and commoners. Its approach is sure. The Bible says in Psalm 89:48,
What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his life from the power of the grave? Selah.
That Hebrew word selah means to pause and calmly think about that, and that is the problem with some. They never think on it. They push every thought of their own mortality from their mind. But how can you prepare for eternity if you never think about it?
When the time comes and we have finished our course for God, let us face death like men. Let us look it in the eye. Let us not rebel against the cutting of the cords that loose us from the mooring of these earthly shores; but, rather, unfurl the sails and take that blessed journey to a better country!
As we read yesterday, To live is Christ; and to die is gain. To depart and be with Christ is far better.
Until then, squeeze every drop of life you can out of every single day. Live with all of your heart and all of your strength for God, and leave no regrets behind. Because life is a short day even at its longest. And when its sun has gone down, it leaves us in eternity.
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GOD, WHO RAISES THE DEAD
God won't bless us if He can't change us. We can't stay the same. Some of us may be wondering why we haven't had a spiritual breakthrough. One reason could be that we've not yet been broken. God makes it very clear that He only relates to those who are humble and contrite in heart. Isaiah 57:15 says, "Thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy., 'I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'" The Most High God hangs out with the lowly and the humble. He cares for those who acknowledge their need for Him. God has to grind away at our pride until we realize we are not self-sufficient.
If you are facing tough circumstances right now, you are a prime candidate for a breakthrough because God is at work through your trials. Paul said, 'We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life." (2 Corinthians 1:80. Paul was burdened beyond his strength to bear it - it was such a deep, piercing, and exhausting struggle. But we know that even if we are in a bad place, it is a wonderful place for God to do an amazing work in our lives.
"Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope." (verses 9-10). When you are beyond all earthly help, you are better able to trust in God - the God who raises the dead and saves us from death. God lets us get so low that we understand that He is our only real option.
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
"Not by Might nor by Power"
My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power . . . -1 Corinthians 2:4
If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality. Take care to see while you proclaim your knowledge of the way of salvation, that you yourself are rooted and grounded by faith in God. Never rely on the clearness of your presentation, but as you give your explanation make sure that you are relying on the Holy Spirit. Rely on the certainty of God's redemptive power, and He will create His own life in people.
Once you are rooted in reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith. But nothing can ever change God or the reality of redemption. Base your faith on that, and you are as eternally secure as God Himself. Once you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. That is the meaning of sanctification. God disapproves of our human efforts to cling to the concept that sanctification is merely an experience, while forgetting that even our sanctification must also be sanctified (see John 17:19). I must deliberately give my sanctified life to God for His service, so that He can use me as His hands and His feet.
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The Best Safeguard Against Adultery
It grieves my heart, as I look across the country, at the number of Christian marriages being destroyed by adultery. It should not be that way!
In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, the apostle Paul gives us a safeguard against adultery. He says,
Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Now, if these verses are saying anything, they are telling us that married couples should enjoy sexual intimacy. In fact, the more they enjoy it, the better safeguard it is against immorality.
Notice Paul even goes so far as to say the wife does not have authority over her own body; and the husband does not have authority over his body. As husband and wife, you belong to one another. It says do not deprive one another unless you are going to be fasting and praying, and then only with consent.
I want to challenge you to make sexual intimacy a priority in your marriage. Don't consider it as unimportant, or leave it to your spouse. Take the responsibility to light the fire of sexual intimacy, and close the door to Satan's temptation.
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The Blessing of Brokenness
We've all seen restored furniture. Restoring furniture involves stripping away old varnish or paint with strong chemicals. This reveals all the nooks, crannies and original spots on the piece. The sanding takes place next - the wood is rubbed with coarse sandpaper in order to level out its imperfections. Then the furniture is ready to receive a new stain or paint color - it's ready for a new look. New glory can be given to old furniture. And God can do the same thing with us. He can put new glory inside an old life, but He must first strip away our old nature and sand away our sinful strongholds.
We shouldn't run from being broken. It's not pleasant or happy, but it will produce a better life. Brokenness is a blessing because it puts us on the road to a breakthrough. Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3) Those who are spiritually broken will be blessed because they will see God and experience His reality flowing through their lives.
Scripture promises that God remains with those who are broken and makes them stronger than before. Psalm 34:18 says, "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Isaiah 61:3 teaches that God would give those who mourn and are broken "a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."
:angel:
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
The Law of Opposition
To him who overcomes . . . -Revelation 2:7
Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.
Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me. To maintain good health I must have sufficient internal strength to fight off the things that are external. Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead. If I have enough inner strength to fight, I help to produce the balance needed for health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.
Morally it is the same. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.
And spiritually it is also the same. Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation . . ." (John 16:33). This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, ". . . but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I must learn to fight against and overcome the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness. Then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.
Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.
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Single?
In yesterday's devotional, we looked at 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 and a word to married couples on the importance of sexual intimacy. Today I want to continue in that passage with verses 7-9 and speak to singles,
For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
If you are single, and you long for physical intimacy, and you sometimes struggle with your sexuality, and you want to be married, it is God's will for you to be married. In fact, I can tell you that you do not have the gift to be single that Paul talks about.
On the other hand, you may be single and completely content, with no desire to be married. You need to know that does not mean there is something wrong with you. You just may be operating with a gift God has given you. In fact, Paul says it is better. You can serve the Lord undistracted that way.
If you do not have that gift, I believe it is God's plan for you to get married. If you are tortured with unsatisfied desire, it is better to marry.
That does not mean to go out and marry the first person you would like to have sex with. You have to take this into the context of all of God's counsel. You need to realize marriage should be the highest form of agreement between two people. No marriage should be entered into lightly or just based on physical attraction.
But if you are single and desiring to be married, I believe God does have someone for you.
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TWO WAYS FOR A SPIRITUAL BREAKTHROUGH
If we are in search of a spiritual breakthrough, we have two options. First, we can choose to be broken. We can say, "Lord, I want a blessing and a breakthrough. Please break me - strip me of my sinfulness and destructive independence. I'm scared, but I trust that You love me enough to know what I can handle."
The second option is that God will break us without our permission. This option takes a lot longer, and it usually hurts a lot deeper. This delays the blessing and the breakthrough, and it will ultimately be more painful. God did not redeem us to leave us alone and let us miss all of His blessings. He loves us too much for that. There is a new, wonderful life He placed inside of us - and He wants to sanctify us and make us more like His Son so that we may experience it to the fullest.
Many of us want to simply audit the Christian life - like a college course that a person sits in on but is not required to do work and is never graded. We don't want to do all the hard work that it requires. But if Christ is truly Lord of our lives, there will be work to show that we are serving Him. There will be evidence that we are taking the course He is teaching, and it's making an impact on our life. Brokennness is one of the lessons we must go through in order to gain greater spiritual maturity and in order for Christ to be made known in our lives.
It's important to remember that the God who breaks us is also our Father. He is our Lord. He loves us. There are a million ways He can teach us what we need to know. There are different ways that He will break us down and strip us of our pride in order to teach us that we can trust Him. God is God, and He has the right to strip us of everything in us that is not like Him so that He can transform us into His image. He wants to give us blessings, but He wants to change us in the process.
:angel: